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He heard the strangled note in her voice but of far more concern was the sudden blanching of her skin and the way her eyes had widened. Because there was no welcome in their amber depths and no smile on her soft lips. And her next words compounded his thumping fears.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
‘Isn’t it obvious? I’ve come here to see you.’
‘And now you have. See? And I’m fine.’
She went to push the door shut again but he held up the palm of his hand.
‘Tara.’ His voice softened. ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’
Her face had lost none of its suspicion. ‘You didn’t warn me you were coming.’
‘I thought unannounced was better.’
‘Better? Better for who? Yourself, of course—because that’s the only person you ever think about, isn’t it?’ Her voice rose. ‘Are you crazy, Lucas? Didn’t you think it mightn’t be suitable for you to just come barging in like this? I might have been cooking lunch for Mr and Mrs Doyle.’
He didn’t feel it prudent to point out that he’d had one of his assistants find out when her bosses were attending a conference on marine science in Sweden, and had timed his flight to Ireland accordingly. ‘And are you allowed no life of your own?’ he questioned archly.
The corners of her unsmiling mouth lifted but not with a smile—more like a rueful acknowledgement of some grim fact. ‘You’re probably better qualified than anyone to answer that question, Lucas. But that’s beside the point. Why are you here?’ She sucked in a deep breath, her hand leaning on the door jamb. ‘Why are you here when you told me that you’d be back in time for the birth and that’s still sixteen weeks away, by Dr Foley’s reckoning.’
For the first time Lucas allowed his gaze to move from her face to her body and he was unprepared for the savage jolting of his heart. She looked...
His throat grew dry. He’d never really understood the description ‘blooming’ when applied to a pregnant woman, mainly because such a field was outside his area of interest. But he understood it now. She was wearing an apron covering a woollen dress of apple-green, and he could see that her slender frame had filled out. There was more flesh on her bones and her cheeks were fuller and, if he ignored the faint hostility in her gaze—which wasn’t easy—he could see a radiance about her which seemed to make her glow from within. But it was the curve of her belly which made his heart begin to race.
Hesitation was something unfamiliar to him but he could sense he needed to be careful about what he said next—more careful than he’d ever been in his life—because she was still prickling with hostility. ‘I’m here because I need to speak to you. To tell you things that perhaps you need to hear.’
Tara flinched, trying to put a lid on the rush of emotion which was flowing through her body. Because this wasn’t fair. He’d told her he would see her for the birth, which was months away—precious months when she was supposed to be practising immunity when it came to looking into his beautiful face, that shadowed jaw and those emerald-bright eyes.
But she couldn’t tell him that, could she? If she hinted that she couldn’t cope with an unexpected visit from him, then wouldn’t that make her appear weak?
She had no idea what he was about to say since she hadn’t heard very much from him since she’d left America. For all she knew he might be about to announce that he’d finally met the love of his life, despite having vowed that he didn’t do love. But stranger things had happened and some gorgeous New Yorker might have possessed just the right combination of beauty and dynamism to capture the billionaire’s elusive heart.
And if that were the case, then wasn’t it better to get it over with?
‘You’d better come in,’ she said grudgingly.
She was achingly aware of his presence as he followed her into the hallway, wishing her thoughts didn’t keep going back to that first night, when it had all started. If only you could rewrite the past. If, say, she hadn’t let Charlotte in that day, then none of this might ever have happened. But you couldn’t rewrite the past and, anyway, would she really want to go back to the Tara she’d been back then? The unfulfilled misfit of a woman who’d never known real pleasure? And yes, the flip side to pleasure was emotional pain—unbearable pain for quite a while now—but you learnt through such experiences, didn’t you? You learnt to cope and you became stronger—strong enough to handle an unscheduled visit from the man whose child you carried.
‘Would you like coffee?’ she questioned, expecting him to say no.
But Lucas never did what you expected him to do.
‘Actually, I would. I’ve missed your coffee, Tara.’
‘I don’t want any of your old flannel.’
>
His gaze was cool and unabashed. ‘It isn’t flannel. I’m merely stating a fact. Though they brew some pretty amazing stuff in Argentina.’
She blinked. ‘Argentina?’
‘Why don’t you make the coffee first?’ he said gently. ‘And then we’ll talk.’
Her instinctive fury at his reversion to the dominant role was supplanted by a natural curiosity but, grateful for the chance to get away from the distraction of that piercing green gaze, Tara hurried from the room. She returned minutes later, hating herself for having first checked her appearance in the kitchen mirror, because it wasn’t as if she wanted to impress him, was it?
He was standing with his back to her, looking down over the sweeping emerald lawn and, beyond that, the darker green of the trees, through which you could see the silver glimmer of the lake and, fringing those, the gentle hills of Ireland. Something poignant shafted at Tara’s heart but she forced herself to suppress it, because she needed to keep calm.
