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‘Two bags of shopping is hardly what I’d call heavy. Women in rural Ireland have been shifting far more than that for centuries.’
‘But we aren’t in rural Ireland!’ he exploded. ‘We’re in the centre of Manhattan and there are plenty of services which will have stuff delivered right to your door. So why don’t you use one of them?’
‘What, and never go outside to see the day?’ she retorted. ‘Cooped up on the seventy-seventh floor of some high-rise apartment block so that I might as well be living on Mars?’
‘This happens to be one of the best addresses in all of New York City!’ he defended, through gritted teeth.
‘I’m not disputing that, Lucas, and I’m not denying that it’s very nice—but if I’m not careful I’ll never get to see anyone and that’s not how I like to live. I’ve discovered an old-fashioned Italian supermarket which isn’t too many blocks away. And I like going there—I’ve become very friendly with the owner’s wife and she’s offered to teach me how to make real pasta.’
Remembering the Polish restaurant she’d taken him to in Dublin what now seemed like light years ago, Lucas silently counted to ten as Tara began putting away the groceries.
‘At least you seem to be settling in okay,’ he observed, watching her sweater ride up to show a narrow white strip of skin as she reached up to put some coffee beans in the cupboard.
‘Indeed I am, though it’s certainly very different from life in Ballykenna. Or Dublin, for that matter. But it’s not so bad.’ She pushed tubs of olives and fresh juice into the refrigerator and bent to pick up a speck of something from the granite floor. ‘And the people are the same as people everywhere.’
There was a pause as he watched her tuck an errant wave of hair behind her ear, which somehow seemed only to emphasise its habitual untidiness.
‘You know, you’re really going to have to do something about your appearance,’ he said.
Her shoulders stiffened and, when she turned round, her amber eyes were hooded. ‘Why?’ she demanded suspiciously. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
He made a dismissive movement towards her outfit—a gesture provoked by frustration as well as disbelief that his life had been so comprehensively turned upside down by one annoyingly stubborn woman. He still couldn’t get his head round the fact that she was pregnant, and not just because it was such an alien concept to a man who had never wanted a child of his own. It was compounded by the fact that she didn’t look pregnant yet—and her body was as slim as it had ever been. Not that he’d seen any of it, he thought moodily. Not since that first morning, when they’d very nearly had sex on the dining-room table, before she’d had second thoughts and pushed him away.
What woman had ever refused him?
None, he thought grimly. Tara Fitzpatrick was the first.
The painful jerk at his groin punished him for the erotic nature of his thoughts, yet for once he seemed powerless to halt them. They’d been living in close proximity for almost three weeks yet not once had she wavered in her determination to keep their relationship platonic. He shook his head.
Not once.
At first, he’d thought her stand-off might be motivated by pride, or a resolve to get some kind of commitment from him before agreeing to have sex again, despite her defiant words about not wanting marriage. He’d thought the undoubted sizzle of chemistry which erupted whenever they were together would be powerful enough to wear down her defences. To make her think: what the hell? And then give into what they both wanted.
But she hadn’t. And hadn’t he felt a grudging kind of respect for her resilience, even if it was making him ache so badly every night?
Perhaps it was that frustration which had made him go out and find this apartment. Tara had been complaining that with fleets of chambermaids and receptionists and waiters, there was nothing much for her to do at the hotel—so he had ordered Brandy to come up with some more rental places for him to look at. Eventually she had found a penthouse condominium on West Fifty-Third Street, a place which had caused even his jaded palate to flicker with interest as Brandy had shown him and Tara through each large and echoing room. Eight hundred feet above the ground, the vast condo had oversized windows which commanded amazing views over park, river, city and skyline. There was a library, a wine room, a well-equipped gym in the basement and a huge pool surrounded by a vertical garden. Most women would have been blown away by the undeniable opulence and upmarket address.
But Tara wasn’t like most women, he was rapidly coming to realise. She had been uncharacteristically quiet when he’d given her an initial tour of the building. He’d watched her suspiciously eying Brandy and she had then proceeded to exclaim that he couldn’t possibly be planning to live in a place that size. He remembered the shock on Brandy’s face—probably worried she was about to lose her commission. But that was exactly what he was planning to do, he had explained. In New York you needed to display the trappings of success in order to be taken seriously, and luxury was the best way in which to go about it.
‘Wealth inspires confidence,’ he’d told her sternly afterwards, but she had shrugged as if she didn’t care and he thought she probably didn’t.
‘You still haven’t told me what’s wrong with my appearance!’ Her soft Irish brogue voice broke into his thoughts as she closed the door of the refrigerator and, plucking her navy-blue overall from a hook on the back of the door, began to shrug it on.
He stared at her. Where did he begin? Aware of the volatility of her mood—something he guessed had to do with fluctuating hormones—Lucas strove to find the right words. ‘In Ireland you used to cook dinner whenever I had people over, and I’d like to be able to entertain here, too. In fact, I’ve arranged to hold a small dinner next week.’ He jerked his head towards the impressive vista of skyscrapers. ‘Show off the view.’
‘It sounds as if there’s a “but” coming,’ she observed as she did up the last button of her uniform.
Lucas sighed. Maybe there was no easy way to say this. ‘That...that thing you insist on wearing,’ he said, his gaze sweeping over the offending item and noticing for the first time that her breasts seemed a little bigger than before and that the material was straining very slightly across the bust. A pulse hammered at his temple. ‘It’s not really very suitable for serving guests.’
‘But you never complained when I wore it in Dublin!’
‘In Dublin, you came over as someone mildly eccentric—while here you’re in danger of being classified as some kind of screwball.’
‘Some kind of screwball,’ she repeated, in a hollow voice. ‘Is that what you think?’
He wasn’t surprised to see her face whiten but he was surprised how uncomfortable it made him feel. ‘No, it’s not what I think and it wasn’t meant to be an insult, Tara,’ he amended hastily. ‘Anyway, there’s a simple solution.’
‘Oh, really?’ she said moodily.
