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When in a matter of weeks she would learn of the demise of her father’s business and that Damon was the man responsible...
Damon glanced at the clock hanging above the door in the doctor’s office. He’d slept fitfully, tossing from one side of the king-sized bed to the other. When he hadn’t been tortured by carnal dreams of Carrie’s perfect form rising up and covering his body, he’d been tormented by more dark thoughts of what would happen to his relationship with Carrie and the baby when his revenge on her father was complete.
As a result his mood was black, and waiting for their appointment to start in this airless room where his every breath was infused with the scent of Carrie was making it blacker. With his chest uncomfortably tight and his heart pumping as if he was running a marathon, he felt more on edge than ever, and was willing the appointment to start just so it could end and he could return to Los Angeles and be free of the constant temptation of Carrie Miller.
Finally, the door of the screening room swung open and a tall woman in her mid to late forties with fluffy blonde hair and a confident air walked in, aiming a smile first at Carrie and then at Damon. It went unreturned.
‘Sorry to be a few moments late. I’m Elizabeth, your sonographer. You must be Carrie...’ As she spoke she took a seat on the stool at the foot of the bed Carrie was reclined upon. ‘And you must be the father?’ She looked expectantly up at him.
‘Damon Meyer,’ he introduced himself tersely, speaking through the lurch of his stomach that had accompanied the word ‘father.’
‘Good to meet you. Do either of you have any questions before we start?’ she enquired pleasantly.
They both shook their heads and with a glance between them she smiled, a knowingness shining in her expression. ‘First baby?’ When they nodded, she smiled again. ‘Let’s not keep you in suspense any longer, then. Just watch the screen.’
She pushed up the sheet draped over Carrie’s mid-section, baring her still-flat stomach, and Damon gritted his teeth together on a hiss of breath as the exposed curve of her waist prompted bursts of tantalising memory. His lips had kissed that dip as he’d mapped her body with his mouth. His hands had shaped that very curve as she had sat astride him.
As the throb in his groin was reignited, he blanked the heady images from his mind and watched as gel was squeezed onto Carrie’s stomach and then spread across her skin with a wand.
The screen filled with a surprisingly clear black and white image, and with her finger Elizabeth pointed to a small peanut shape in the lower left corner of the image.‘This is your baby.’
‘It’s so tiny...’ Carrie breathed.
‘Just for now!’ Elizabeth laughed. ‘Would you like to hear the heartbeat?’
Delight lit Carrie’s face, and as she nodded eagerly Elizabeth twisted one of the dials on the machine beneath the screen.
And that was when it happened. The steady, rhythmic pound of a tiny beating heart filled the room and everything in Damon shifted upright in recognition.
That was the sound ofhischild. His child’s beating heart.
‘Oh, wow.’ Carrie pressed a hand to her mouth, an abundance of love shining in her eyes. ‘That’s incredible. Don’t you think that’s amazing?’ She beamed at him, angling her face to where he stood.
Unable to move, and with his amazed eyes fixed on the screen, Damon could only nod. Because as he looked at this first image of his child, and listened to its strong and steady heartbeat, it was not the roiling dread that he had expected to feel churning in his gut, nor that old familiar fear of love and loss, but something entirely different. Something brilliantly warm and wondrous. Something that lifted him up and made his chest feel like an inflated balloon, suffused with so much joy he feared it might explode.
And the longer he looked and listened, the more incredible he felt. Because there, in the middle of the darkness of the screen, was a tiny spot of bright white light, like a star in a storm, beckoning him on and guiding him home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CARRIEHADJUSTheard her baby’s heart beating and it had been the most extraordinary moment, wiping clear all the sadness that had settled in her bones after the previous evening’s dinner with Damon and filling her with more love than she’d ever felt before.
She was still marvelling at the life that was growing inside her, so she didn’t register the ringing of her phone until Damon prompted her.
‘It’s probably just my mom, wanting to know that everything with the baby is okay.’ She lifted the device to her ear, wiping away the moisture beneath her eyes. ‘Hi, Mom. Guess what I just heard?’
‘Sweetheart, don’t panic, okay?’
Don’t panic.Were there any words more likely to cause panic?
The joy she had been revelling in was numbed by a rush of foreboding. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
Across the room, she saw Damon lift his eyes, alerted by her tone.
‘It seems that a picture of you and Damon in Paris has emerged from somewhere. There are photographers outside my house right now, and outside your house and the bakery.’
Oh, God.
Panic closed its hands around her throat and set her heart racing like a runaway train.
