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It wasn’t a particularly surprising discovery that he should be in the pool, but when she stepped onto the timber deck she stopped walking abruptly and could only stare.
Antonio was doing laps, and he wore only a skimpy pair of black briefs. As his legs kicked and his arms pulled him through the water, she stared at him, her eyes chasing his movements, her body hot all over.
He turned underwater and when he came up for breath, midway through another length, his eyes met hers and he stopped, standing in the pool water. The look he sent her was a more powerful aphrodisiac than even the image of him pulling through the water.
It was a look of absolute speculation, and something more. Something else altogether, like fierce masculine possession. Her fingers knotted in front of her, echoing the knots in her stomach. ‘I thought I was going to have to wake you,’ he said after a moment. ‘It is almost midday.’
She nodded, moving closer to the pool and dipping her toe in. The water was delightfully cool. ‘I know. I can’t believe it. I guess that’s pregnancy.’
He was watchful, his intelligent eyes moving analytically over her face. ‘The books I read all say exhaustion is a symptom.’
‘You’ve read pregnancy books?’
He frowned then shrugged, so water droplets ran over his shoulders and her eyes dropped to his smooth caramel flesh. ‘Of course.’
He swam across the pool, coming to the coping right beside Amelia’s feet. ‘Have there been any other symptoms?’ he asked, looking directly up at her.
She sat down, dropping her legs into the water and kicking them forward. The relief was heaven against her warm skin. ‘A bit of nausea.’ She shrugged. ‘A headache, from time to time. Nothing remarkable.’
‘How did you discover you were pregnant?’
‘I went to the doctor,’ she said simply.
‘But why? Were you ill?’
‘Oh, no. I just...the dates.’ She shook her head, remembering that surreal moment. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’
‘Did you think about keeping it from me?’
She looked away from him, swallowing. ‘Not for even a second,’ she said honestly.
She didn’t see the way his lips pulled downwards at the corner. ‘That surprises me.’
‘Why?’
‘You hardly know me, as you pointed out. And our family situation...’
She shook her head. ‘I think what’s surprising is that any woman would keep a baby from its father. A child isn’t solely a mother’s or a father’s. To deprive someone of being a parent, for whatever reason...it seems wrong.’
‘I agree,’ he said, steel in the words. ‘From the moment you told me I was a father my world changed. I cannot imagine how I would feel if you had elected to keep this to yourself.’
She swallowed past a lump in her throat as memories of her own childhood taunted her. ‘To raise our baby to think either that their father didn’t want them, or wondering at who and why... I wouldn’t do that.’
Perhaps the words were laced with her own pain because, beneath the water, one of his hands wrapped gently around her ankle and he stroked it, so that heat flared in her skin. ‘You weren’t close to your own father, growing up.’
They both knew the truth of that statement.
But Amelia sighed heavily, regarding him with eyes that were unknowingly wary. ‘No.’ She bit down on her lip and focused on the small patterns formed in the water’s reflection. ‘I didn’t even know who he was until my mother died.’
‘You mean you’d never met him?’ he enquired with obvious disbelief, moving to stand in front of her now, transferring his grip so he had a hand clamped around each of her ankles.
‘I mean I’d never met him, and I didn’t even know his name.’ Her eyes dropped to the water. ‘My mother never told me about him.’
‘But he knew of you?’
‘No.’
‘No?’ The word was bitten out with shock.
