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Tara shook her head. ‘Not really. Have you?’
‘Finish your breakfast first.’
But Tara’s mouth felt dry with nerves and it was difficult to force anything else down, especially under that seeking green gaze—and she noticed he hadn’t touched anything himself except two cups of inky coffee. ‘I’ve finished,’ she said, dabbing at her lips with a heavy-duty linen napkin.
He placed the palms of his hands on the table in front of him, looking like a man who meant business. ‘So,’ he said, his emotionless gaze still fixed on her. ‘It seems there are several options available to us. We just have to work out which is the most acceptable, to both of us.’
Tara nodded. ‘Go ahead,’ she said cautiously. ‘I’m all ears.’
He nodded. ‘Obviously I will provide for you and the baby, financially.’
‘Do you want me to do a dance of joy around the room just because you’re accepting responsibility?’
His frown deepened. ‘It’s not like you to be quite so...irascible, Tara.’
Tara didn’t know what irascible meant but she could guess. Should she tell him her crankiness stemmed from fear about the future, despite his offer of financial support? Surely even Lucas could work that out for himself. She studied the obdurate set of his jaw. Maybe that was hoping for too much. He was probably thinking about his own needs, not hers. And suddenly she realised that she couldn’t afford to be vulnerable and neither could she keep second-guessing him. She was responsible for the life she carried and she needed to be strong.
‘Why don’t we just stick to the matter in hand?’ she questioned coolly. ‘Tell me what you have in mind.’
Was he surprised by her sudden air of composure? Was that why he subjected her to a look of rapid assessment? It was a look Tara recognised all too well. It was his negotiating look.
‘You have no family and...neither do I,’ he said slowly. ‘And since I’d already made plans to stay in New York for the next few months, I see no reason to change those plans, despite the fact that you’re pregnant.’
She thought how cleverly he had defined the situation, making it sound as if the baby had nothing to do with him. But perhaps that was exactly how he saw it, and Tara certainly wasn’t going to push him for answers. She was never going to beg him, not for anything. Nor push him into a corner. ‘Go on,’ she said calmly.
‘You could stay here and return to Ireland in time for the birth,’ he continued. ‘That would free you from unwanted scrutiny—or the questions which would undoubtedly spring up if you went back home.’
And now the surreal sense of calm she’d been experiencing suddenly deserted her. Tara could feel colour flooding into her cheeks as she pushed back her chair and sprang to her feet, her hair falling untidily around her face. ‘I see!’ she said, her voice shaking with emotion as she pushed a thick wave over her shoulder. ‘You’re trying to hide me away in a country where nobody knows me! You’re ashamed of me—is that it?’
‘If there’s any shame to be doled out, then it’s me who should bear it,’ he retorted, though he seemed mesmerised by her impatient attentions as she brushed away her unruly hair with a fisted hand. ‘I was the one who took your virginity!’
Was it her pregnancy which made Tara feel so volatile? Which made her determined to redefine his view of what had happened that fateful night, because didn’t his jaundiced summary of events downgrade it? Or was it simply that she had carried the burden of shame around for a whole lifetime and suddenly the weight was just too much to bear? ‘I wasn’t some innocent victim who just fell into the arms of an experienced philanderer,’ she declared.
‘Thanks for the uplifting character reference,’ he said drily.
‘That wasn’t how it happened,’ she continued doggedly. ‘That night we were just...’
‘Just what, Tara?’ he prompted silkily.
She stared down at her bare feet for a moment before lifting her heavy-lidded gaze to his. ‘We were just a man and woman who wanted each other and status didn’t come into it—not yours, nor mine,’ she whispered. ‘Surely you’re not going to deny that, Lucas?’
Lucas was taken aback by her candour and surprised by his response to it, because an emotional statement like that would usually have made him run for the hills. Maybe it was the naïve way she expressed herself which touched something deep inside him—something which unfurled the edges of the cold emptiness which had always seemed such an integral part of him. For a moment he felt almost...exposed—as if she were threatening to peel back a layer of his skin to see what lay beneath. And no way did he wish her to see the blackness of his soul.
So that when his groin grew rocky it felt almost like a reprieve, because wasn’t it simpler to allow desire to flood him? To let lust quieten all those nebulous feelings he hadn’t addressed since leaving the lawyer’s office and which had been compounded by the bombshell Tara had dropped in his lap soon afterwards? He looked at the wild spill of her hair and her sleepy amber eyes. The towelling bathrobe she had pulled on was swamping her slender body in a way which should have been unflattering, but it only seemed to emphasise her fragility and suddenly he knew he wanted her again and he didn’t care if it was wrong. Because the worst had already happened, hadn’t it—what else could possibly eclipse the prospect of unwanted fatherhood?
Slowly yet purposefully, he walked across the dining room towards her and now her cat-like eyes weren’t quite so sleepy. Their pupils had dilated so they looked night-dark against her pale skin.
‘Lucas?’ she questioned faintly. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Oh, come on, Tara.’ His voice dipped. ‘You’re a clever woman. Surely you’ve got some idea.’
He saw her touch her tongue to her mouth. Heard the sigh which escaped from her lips and a heavy beat of satisfaction squeezed his heart as he met her hungry gaze. He reached out and pulled her into his arms and instantly she melted against him, the quick tilt of her face silently urging him to kiss her.
So he did.
He kissed her for a long time—long enough for her to start wriggling distractedly, in a way which only stoked his growing desire. He covered her lips in kisses, then turned his mouth to her throat, loving the way her head fell back to give him access to her neck and revelling in the way her thick hair brushed so sensually against his hand. He undid the robe and bent his head to kiss her tiny breasts, flicking his tongue hungrily over her thrusting nipples. And when her hips circled in wordless plea against his aching groin, he inched his fingers up her thigh. Up over the silken surface of her skin he stroked her until at last he found her tight little nub and began to play with her and she was begging him not to stop. Until she was letting him back her up against the dining-room table and he was seriously thinking about sweeping all the crystal and silver and breakfast remains to the floor—and to hell with the mess—when he drew back and looked down into her dazed face.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ he growled, his hands on her shoulders now.
