Unexpectedly pregnant!

Having discovered her night with surgeon Sam Ryder had unexpected consequences, Kate Ashton is left reeling when he walks into her emergency department. Now she’ll have to tell this “emotionally broken” man she’s been belatedly warned about that she’s pregnant!

Sam’s feelings might be frozen, but he wants to be a dad. When Kate reveals she’s afraid of becoming a mom, her heartrending story opens Sam’s heart. He must convince Kate to give them a chance. This baby was meant to be—perhaps their love is, too...

Dear Reader,

When Kate first appeared on the page in Risk of a Lifetime I knew she was a troubled and complicated person with a lot of love to give, but damaged by her past. I had no idea what that past might be, or who the man would be who could save her from her self-destructing course.

Enter Sam, equally damaged, equally in need of healing, but for very different reasons, and also with a lot of love to give. Getting them together was easy, but how to keep them together when all either of them wanted was to run away?

Gradually, page by page, they revealed themselves to me as I unwrapped the layers of their heartbreaking pasts and found the good and decent people underneath. I just had to help them find that in each other, but it wasn’t easy. I hope as you read on and learn about them for yourself you come to love them both as much as I did.

Love,

Caroline

Their Meant-to-Be Baby

Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Books by Caroline Anderson

Mills & Boon Medical Romance

From Christmas to Eternity

The Secret in His Heart

Risk of a Lifetime

Mills & Boon Cherish

The Valtieri Baby

Snowed in with the Billionaire

Best Friend to Wife and Mother?

Visit the Author Profile page at

www.millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

Huge thanks to Sheila, my long-suffering editor, whose patience and faith in me go above and beyond the course of duty, and to my equally long-suffering husband, John, who took himself off countless times to let me wrestle with Kate and Sam, and was there for me at the end of the day with a smile and a G&T to ask how I’d got on. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Praise for Caroline Anderson

‘When it comes to writing emotional, engrossing and irresistible contemporary romances that tug at the heartstrings, Caroline Anderson simply cannot be beaten. This outstanding storyteller has once again penned a compelling tale that is as hard to put down as it is to forget!’

—Goodreads on

Risk of a Lifetime

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Dear Reader

Title Page

Booklist

Dedication

Praise

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘SOMEONE BAIL ON YOU?’

The low voice sent a quiver through her, making every nerve-ending tingle. She knew whose it was. He’d been sitting at the other end of the bar and he’d been watching her since she walked in.

She’d noticed him straight away—hard not to, with those killer looks and a body to die for—but she wasn’t looking for that kind of trouble so she’d ignored him, even though she’d been aware of him in every cell of her body. She slid her phone into the back pocket of her jeans and tilted her head back to meet his eyes.

Close to, she could see they were blue—a pale, ice blue, strangely piercing and unsettling.

There were crow’s feet at the corners that might have been from laughter, or spending a lot of time outdoors squinting into the sun. Both, maybe. He had that healthy outdoor look about him, a sort of raw masculinity that sent another shiver through her body, and she lowered her eyes a little and focused instead on a mouth that was just made for kissing...

No! No way. She pulled herself together sharply. She was done with that—with all of it. She went back to the unsettling eyes.

‘Is that your best shot? I’ve had better chat-up lines from a ten-year-old.’

Her voice sounded more brittle than she’d meant it to, but he just laughed, a soft huff of wry humour which reeled her in just a teensy bit, and those lips tilted into a smile that creased the corners of his eyes and made them suddenly less threatening.

‘Sorry. I wasn’t trying to hit on you. I just read the expression on your face when you answered your phone. Sort of “so what do I do now?” which is pretty much what I was trying to work out myself.’

Unlikely. Why would anyone that gorgeous have any difficulty working out what to do on a Saturday night? Not that she was interested, or cared at all about this total stranger, but that sinful mouth quirked again and something inside her lurched.

‘I take it your other half’s busy tonight, then,’ she said, telling herself it was utterly irrelevant since this was going nowhere, but his mouth firmed and for a moment she didn’t think he was going to answer. Then it twitched in a rueful smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

‘No other half,’ he said quietly, and his voice had a tinge of sadness which made her believe him. ‘The friends I’ve been staying with had something else on tonight, and I’ve got to hang on till tomorrow so I’m just killing time in a strange town, really. How about you?’

It begged an answer, and not even she was that churlish. ‘I was meeting a friend,’ she offered reluctantly, ‘but she’s been called into work.’

‘Ah. My friends are having way more fun than that. They’ve gone to a party, so I was well and truly trumped.’

He smiled again, a wry, easy grin this time, and hitched his lean frame onto the bar stool beside her and caught the barman’s eye. ‘So, can I get you a drink? Since we both seem to have time on our hands?’

She did, but she didn’t want to spend it with a man, and particularly not a man with trouble written all over him. She was sworn off that type for life—and probably every other type, since she was such a lousy judge of character. And gorgeous though he was, it wasn’t enough to weaken her resolve. Out of the frying pan and all that. But she had to give him full marks for persistence, and at least he was single. That was an improvement.

He was still waiting for her answer, the barman poised in suspense, and she gave a tiny shrug. She could have one drink. What harm could it do? Especially if she kept her head for a change. And it wasn’t as if she had anything else to do apart from tackling the mountain of laundry in her bedroom.

She let herself meet his eyes again, those curious pale eyes that locked with hers, beautiful but unnerving, holding hers against her will. They made her feel vulnerable—raw and exposed, as if they could see things about her that no one was meant to see.

Which makes having a drink with him a really bad idea.

She mentally deleted the name of the lethal cocktail she might have shared with Petra and switched to something sensible. Something safe.

‘I’ll have sparkling water, please.’

One eyebrow quirked, but he nodded to the barman and asked for two. So he wasn’t drinking, either.

‘I’m Sam, by the way,’ he said, offering his hand.

‘I’m Kate,’ she replied, and, because he hadn’t really left her any choice, she put her hand in his and felt it engulfed in something warm and nameless that brought her whole body to life. Their eyes clashed again, and after a breathless second he released his grip and she eased away and shifted on the bar stool, resisting the urge to scrub her hand against her thigh to wipe the tingle off her palm.

‘So, Kate, how come you’re living in Yoxburgh?’

‘What makes you think I’m not passing through like you?’

His mouth twitched. ‘On the way to where? It’s stuck out on a limb. And anyway, the barman knows you. He greeted you like an old friend when you walked in.’

His smile was irresistible, and she felt her lips shift without permission. ‘Hardly an old friend, but fair cop. I do live here. Why is that so hard to believe?’

He shrugged, his eyes still crinkled at the corners. ‘Because you’re young, you’re—’ he glanced at her ring finger pointedly ‘—apparently single, and it’s just a sleepy little backwater on the edge of nowhere?’

It wasn’t, not really, but it had a safeness about it which was why she’d chosen it, exactly because it felt like a quiet backwater and she’d thought it might keep her heart out of trouble. Except it hadn’t worked.

She ignored the comment about her being single and focused on Yoxburgh. ‘Actually, it’s a great place, not nearly as quiet as you’d think, and anyway I love being by the sea.’

‘Yeah, me, too. It’s been great staying up here for the last couple of days. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed the sea.’

‘So how long are you here for?’ she asked, forgetting that she wasn’t supposed to be showing an interest.

‘Only till tomorrow morning. I spotted a boat for sale just as I was leaving this afternoon, and the guy can’t see me till the morning, so I’m staying over to see if I can strike a deal.’

‘What kind of a boat?’ she asked, telling herself she was just being polite and wasn’t really interested in the boat or anything else about him, like where he was staying or how he was going to pass the next twelve hours—

‘An old sailing boat. A wooden Peter Duck ketch—’ He broke off with a grin. ‘I’ve lost you, haven’t I?’

‘Yup.’ She had to laugh at his wry chuckle. ‘Go on.’

‘Nah, I won’t bore you. If you don’t know anything about Swallows and Amazons it won’t mean a thing. Anyway, it needs work, but that’s fine. It’ll help pass the time, and I’m not afraid of hard physical work.’

She just stopped herself from scanning his body for tell-tale muscles.

‘So what do you do when you’re not rescuing old sailing boats?’ she asked, against her better judgement. Not that she had a better judgement. Her entire life was a testament to that and she was still hurting from the last time she’d crashed and burned, but her tongue obviously hadn’t learned that lesson yet.

He gave a lazy shrug, which distracted her attention from his kissable mouth to those broad, solid shoulders just made for resting her head against.

‘Nothing exciting. I spend most of my life trapped indoors governed by unmeetable targets, and I sail whenever I get a chance, which isn’t nearly often enough. Hence the boat. Your turn.’

‘Me?’ She let out a slightly strangled laugh and shifted on the bar stool. For some reason, she didn’t want to tell him the truth. Maybe because she was sick of men running their latest symptoms by her or fantasising about her in uniform the second they knew she was a nurse, or maybe something to do with her latest mistake who’d moved on to someone brainless and overtly sexy when she’d found out he was married and dumped him? Whatever, she opened her mouth and said the first thing that came into her head.

‘I’m a glamour model,’ she lied, and his eyebrows twitched ever so slightly in surprise.

‘Well, that’s a first,’ he murmured, and to his credit he didn’t let his eyes drop and scan her body the way she’d wanted to scan his. ‘Do you enjoy it?’

No. She’d hated it, for the massively short time she’d done it all those years ago, when she’d landed in the real world with a bump. Another mistake, but one forced on her by hunger and desperation.

‘It pays the bills,’ she said. Or it had, way back then.

He didn’t bother to control his eyebrows this time. ‘Lots of things pay the bills.’

‘You disapprove?’

‘It’s not my place to disapprove. It’s none of my business. I just can’t imagine why someone with a brain would want to do it.’

‘Maybe I don’t have one?’

He snorted softly and picked up his glass. ‘I don’t think that’s quite true.’ He sat back, propping his elbow on the bar and slouching back against it. ‘So, when you’re not cavorting around in not a lot, what do you do for fun?’

She shrugged. ‘Meet up with friends, read, go for walks, bake cakes and take them into work—’

‘Cakes? You take cakes to the studio?’

Oh, hell, she was such a hopeless liar. ‘Why not?’ she flannelled airily. ‘Everyone likes cake.’

‘I thought models starved themselves.’

Ah. ‘That’s fashion models,’ she said, ad-libbing like crazy. ‘One reason why I could never do it. Glamour models are expected to have...’

She dwindled to a halt, kicking herself for engineering such a ridiculous conversation, and he finished the sentence for her.

‘Curves?’ he murmured, his voice lingering on the word and making her body flush slowly from the toes up.

‘Exactly.’

His eyes did drop this time, and she felt the urge to suck in her stomach. She had no idea why. He wasn’t looking at her stomach. He was way too busy studying her cleavage.

His eyes flicked away, and he drained his glass and set it down with a little clunk. ‘Have you eaten? All this talk of cake has reminded me I’m starving.’

She was all set to lie again, but she was ravenous and if she didn’t eat soon she was going to fall off the bar stool. Not a good look.

‘No, I haven’t eaten. Why?’

‘Because I was debating getting something off the bar menu here, or going to a restaurant on my own, which frankly doesn’t appeal. So what’s it to be? Solitary scampi and chips here, or shall we go somewhere rather nicer and work on your curves? It would be a shame to let them fade away.’

No contest. She was starving and her fridge was utterly empty. ‘Just dinner, no subtext,’ she warned, just to be on the safe side after his comment about her curves, and he gave a strangled laugh.

‘Sheesh, I don’t work that fast,’ he said with a grin. ‘So, any suggestions for somewhere nice?’

Nice? Only one really great place sprang to mind, and judging by the cashmere jumper under the battered but undoubtedly expensive leather jacket he could afford it, but James and Connie were at Zacharelli’s, and the last thing she needed was her boss asking questions on Monday morning. And anyway, they didn’t stand a chance without a reservation and they were like gold dust.

His phone beeped and he pulled it out with a murmured apology and scrolled around for a moment. It gave her time to study him, to notice little things that she hadn’t registered before, like the strength in his hands, the fact that he took care of them, the nails clipped and scrupulously clean. His hair was short, but not too short, and his jaw was stubbled, making her hand itch to feel the bristles rasp against her skin, right before she threaded her fingers through that dark, glossy hair and drew his head down to kiss his delectably decadent mouth...

‘Sorry. I’ve turned it off now,’ he told her, shifting his hips so he could slide the phone back into the pocket of his jeans. The movement drew her attention down, and she felt her mouth dry. ‘So, any suggestions?’ he asked.

Her body was screaming with suggestions, but she drowned it out. ‘There’s a nice Chinese restaurant on the front? In fact there are a few good eateries of one sort or another down there, so we should find somewhere with a table.’

‘Well, let’s go and check them out, then.’ He stood up, held a hand out to her to help her off the stool and she took it, struck first by the old-fashioned courtesy of the gesture and then, as their skin met for the second time, by the lightning bolt of heat that slammed through her body at the brief contact.

She all but snatched her hand away, and then a moment later she felt a light touch over the small of her back as he ushered her through the crowd towards the door. She fastened her short jacket but his hand was just below it, the warmth spreading out to the furthest reaches of her body until there wasn’t a single cell that wasn’t tingling.

Oh, why hadn’t she said no? This was such a mistake!

‘Walk or drive? My car’s just round the corner at the hotel if we need it.’

‘Oh—walk. I know it’s cold, but it’s a nice evening for January, and it’s not far.’ And the confines of a car would be way too intimate and dangerous.

‘OK. You’ll have to lead the way. I’m in your hands.’

I wish...

She hauled in a breath and set off towards the seafront, and he fell in beside her, matching the length of his stride to hers as they strolled down through the town centre, their breath frosting on the cold night air.

‘So what’s Yoxburgh like to live in?’ he asked casually, peering through the shop windows as if he could find the answer in their unlit depths.

‘OK. Quiet, mostly, but there’s a lot going on even so and there’s an interesting vibe. I like it. It suits me.’

He turned back to eye her searchingly. ‘You wouldn’t rather be in London?’

No way. She’d lived in London all her life, worked there while she was training, and hated every second of it. ‘No. You?’

‘Oh, no, I hate it. I’ve been working there for a while now and I can’t get away quick enough. I need a seaside town with good sailing like the one I grew up in.’

‘You’d love it here, then. Lots of yachting types.’

He shot her a grin. ‘I don’t know that I’d call myself a “yachting” type, exactly. I just like messing about in boats. I was reared on Swallows and Amazons. Free spirits and all that. I guess I’m just trying to recapture my misspent youth.’

She laughed and shook her head. ‘I bet you were a holy terror growing up.’

His mouth twitched. ‘My parents would have an opinion on that but they didn’t know the half of it. The most important lesson I learned in childhood was that you can break any rule you like, just so long as you don’t get caught. What about you?’

What about her? She’d broken every rule going during her own disastrous childhood, but she wasn’t going into all that with him, and certainly not on a first date. She forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘I had my ups and downs.’

‘Didn’t we all?’ he said with an easy laugh. ‘I got sent to boarding school when I was ten.’

Which just underlined the differences between them, she thought. Not that it changed anything, because as soon as they’d finished dinner she’d make her excuses and leave, and that would be it.

She stopped outside the restaurant. ‘Here we are, but it looks pretty busy.’

‘The town’s buzzing,’ he said, sounding surprised.

‘Saturday night, though. It’s quieter midweek. There’s the café next door if they don’t have a table here—they do great pastries and really good coffee, so we could give it a try—Oh, hang on, those people are getting up. We could be in luck.’

He opened the restaurant door for her, and they were shown to the window table that had been vacated by the couple.

‘That was good timing,’ he said. ‘I’m seriously starving and it smells amazing in here. So what would you recommend?’ he asked, flicking the menu open.

‘They do a good set meal for two, but it’s quite a lot of food. We often stretch it to three. Here.’

She reached over and pointed it out, and he scanned it and nodded. ‘Looks good. Let’s go for that. I’m sure we can manage to do it justice. Do you fancy sharing a bottle of wine as we’re not driving?’

Did she? Could she trust herself not to lose her common sense and do something rash?

‘That would be lovely, but I’ll only have one glass,’ she said, and ignored the little voice that told her it was the thin end of the wedge.

* * *

‘That was gorgeous. Thank you. I’ve eaten way too much.’

‘Nah, you need to maintain your curves,’ he said lightly, and looked down at her, at the wide grey eyes that wanted to be wary and didn’t manage it, the slight tilt of her smile, her lips soft and moist and dangerously kissable.

Who was she?

Not a glamour model, of that he was damn sure, but beyond that he knew nothing. Did it matter? He hadn’t been exactly forthcoming to her, either, but hey.

He leant over and kissed her cheek, brushing his lips against the soft, delicate skin, breathing in a lingering trace of scent that teased his senses and made him want more.

Much more.

‘Thank you for joining me. I hate eating alone.’

‘I’m used to it,’ she said. ‘My flatmate’s moved out and it’s eat alone or starve.’

They fell silent, in that awkward moment when they should have said goodbye and gone their separate ways, but he realised he didn’t want to. Didn’t want to say goodbye, didn’t want to let her go, knowing he’d never see her again.

‘Fancy a stroll along the seafront?’

There was a slight hesitation, and then she smiled. ‘Why not?’ she said, as if she’d answered her own question. ‘I love the sound of the sea at night.’

‘Me, too.’

They fell into step, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to put his arm around her shoulders and draw her up against his side, but he could hear the click of her red stiletto boots against the prom with every step, and it was driving him crazy.

Red shoes, no pants...

The saying echoed in his head, taunting his imagination, and he tried to haul it back into order. They weren’t really shoes anyway, he told himself sternly, more ankle boots, and her underwear was none of his business, but her hip nudged his with every step and it was all he could think about.

They’d walked past the cluster of restaurants and cafés and holiday flats to where the amusements started, but being out of season everything was shut and it was deserted, with nothing and no one to distract him from the click of her red stilettos.

The lights there were dim and spaced far apart, and between them there was a section of the prom that was hardly lit at all, only enough to make out her features as he drew her to a halt.

‘Listen,’ he said, and she tilted her head and listened with him to the soft suck of the waves on the shingle, rhythmic and soothing. In the distance someone laughed, and music blared momentarily as a car passed them and turned the corner, the silence wrapping itself around them again as the music receded.

‘The sea’s quiet tonight,’ she said softly. ‘Sometimes it’s really stormy. I love it then. Wild and dangerous and free.’

‘Mmm.’ He stared down into her eyes, lifting a hand to stroke a stray wisp of hair away from her face. Her skin was soft, cool under his fingertips, and he let them drift down her cheek, settling under her chin and tilting it up towards him as he lowered his head slowly and touched his lips to hers.

She moaned softly and opened her mouth to him, giving him access to the touch of her tongue, the sharp, clean edge of her teeth, the sweet freshness and bitter chocolate of the after-dinner mint teasing his tastebuds as he shifted his head slightly and plundered the depth and heat of her mouth.

His body was already primed by the time he’d spent with her as they’d lingered laughing over their meal, tortured further by the nudge of her hip and the tap-tap-tap of those incredibly sexy little boots on the prom as they’d walked, and now it roared to life.

He drew away, lifting his head from hers, searching her face for clues as his heart pounded and his chest rose and fell with every ragged breath, but it was too dark to read her eyes. He could hear the hitch of her breath, though, feel the quiver in it as she exhaled and her breath drifted over his skin in tiny pulses.

‘Stay with me tonight,’ he said on impulse, and she hesitated for so long he felt the sinking disappointment in his gut; but then she smiled, a wry, sad smile as she lost some internal battle and nodded.

‘Your place or mine?’ she murmured, and his body gave itself a high five.

* * *

They went to his hotel.

Neutral territory? Tidier than her flat, for sure, and she wasn’t ready yet to give that much of herself away. Her body was one thing. Her home—that was another. So she’d told him it was further away than it really was, which made the decision easy.

The hotel was one of those anonymous places that could have been anywhere in the world, featureless but functional, scrupulously clean, the room dominated by the bed with its white striped bedding tucked tautly round the mattress.

It was hardly romantic, but it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was them, alone together and driven by a need that had come out of nowhere and wouldn’t be denied.

Their clothes hit the floor—jackets, her scarf, his sweater dragged off over his head so that his chest was right in front of her eyes and jammed her breath to a halt in her throat.

She reached out to touch it, her fingertips tracing the outline of taut, firm muscles that jerked at her touch. His hand caught her chin, gentle fingers tilting her face up to his, and he stared down into her eyes for a long moment before he stepped back out of reach.

‘Undress for me.’

His voice was gruff, a muscle twitching in his jaw, and his eyes held hers, fire and ice dancing in their depths. Her heart was trying to climb out of her chest, jamming her breath, but she sucked air in somehow, coming out of her trance as the oxygen reached her brain and reality hit.

He thought she was a glamour model. How could she do this? Undress for him as if she had all the confidence of a woman who earned her living with her body? She couldn’t even remember what underwear she’d flung on after her shower!

Matching? Probably not. The bra was hot pink, she knew that, because the lace was scratchy, and if she had that bra on, it was because she was getting to the bottom of her underwear drawer. Which didn’t bode well for the knickers.

She peeled off her top, and his breath hissed in between his teeth. His hand moved as if to reach for her, and then stopped, hauled back into his pocket beside a tell-tale bulge that made her body weep and her legs turn to mush.

She sat down on the bed and unzipped her boots, tugging them off and then standing up again to slide down the zip on her jeans and wiggle them over her hips, catching a reassuring glimpse of her knickers. Navy lace shorts edged with pink ribbon, so sort of matching. It could have been a lot worse.

Easing her breath out slowly on a silent sigh of relief, she slid the jeans down, but they clung to her legs and there was no sexy way to get them off.

‘Here. Let me.’

He crouched in front of her, the fabric bunched in his hands as he pushed the jeans down her legs, lifting her feet in turn to strip them away. His breath was hot, drifting over her legs, the tender skin of her thighs, seeping through the lace fabric just a hand’s breadth from his mouth. His hands slid round and cupped her bottom, holding her still as he closed the gap, breathing out, the hot rush going straight to her core.

‘There goes that fantasy,’ he murmured, and her ego quailed.

‘What fantasy?’ she asked, just so she could flagellate herself with it in the future, but he laughed softly.

‘Red shoes—’

‘—no pants,’ she finished, and felt her breath ease out in a sigh of relief.

‘I’m sure we can fix that,’ he said, his voice a low rasp, but she put her hand out to stop him as he reached for them.

‘Your turn,’ she said, stalling for time, and he smiled wickedly and dumped his wallet and keys and phone on the bedside table before he kicked off his shoes, peeled off his socks and shucked his jeans, kicking them away to land in a heap with hers.

There was nothing unusual or remarkable about his snug jersey shorts, but the contents...

‘Keep going,’ she ordered, and he quirked a brow and peeled them slowly down, letting them drop to the floor as he stood there bold and unselfconscious and gloriously naked.

How wonderful to be so sure of yourself, she thought as he pushed her down onto the bed and tipped her back, reaching out his hands to draw the dark blue lace with its pink ribbons slowly down over her hips, her legs, her feet...

‘Now that’s more like it,’ he said, and the searing flame of his eyes stroked her with fire.

She whimpered, clenching her knees together to stop the blaze from burning her up, but he reached out a hand, pressing her knees apart, his wicked, clever fingers replacing the stroke of his eyes as his hand slid up her thigh and found its target unerringly.

The intimacy shocked and yet excited her, the tension winding tighter and tighter in her body with every touch, and then suddenly he was gone, leaving her lying there exposed and aching, screaming for release.

‘Sam—?’

‘Two seconds.’

She heard a slight rustle, a faint tearing sound, and then he was back. A condom, she realised. Thank God one of them was thinking straight, although he didn’t need it because she was on the Pill, but she knew nothing about him—

‘Shove up,’ he muttered, and she wriggled into the middle of the bed as he followed her, peeling away her bra, his mouth taking its place, fastening over one breast and suckling hard as a hand found the other and cradled it in his warm palm.

His knee nudged hers apart and she yielded to him, her body aching for his, arching into him as she begged incoherently, her hesitation forgotten, pleading for something out of reach, something special, and so elusive.

‘Easy,’ he murmured, and then he was there, filling her, her face cradled gently in his hands as he kissed her. His mouth was hot and sweet and coaxing, his body taut and so, so clever, and the feeling inside her escalated wildly. She felt the pressure building, tried to squirm away, to stall it because suddenly to give him so much of herself seemed too great a step, making her too vulnerable to this stranger who could play her body like a violin.

He held her, though, his body claiming hers, refusing to free it, to let her escape the thing she’d yearned for and now dreaded because it would tear down her defences and leave her wide open to hurt.

‘Look at me, Kate,’ he demanded softly, and his eyes captured hers and held them, steady and sure, the flame burning bright as he drove her over the edge and crumbled all her defences into dust.

Then, and only then, did he close his eyes, drop his head against her shoulder and let himself go.

CHAPTER TWO

SAM PROPPED HIMSELF on one elbow and watched Kate sleeping, her rich toffee-coloured hair an unruly tangle, her limbs sprawled in exhaustion.

He knew how that felt.

Their mutual thirst was finally slaked, but on the way there he’d wrung every last gasp out of her, taken both of them to the limit of their endurance over and over again. It had been amazing, astonishing. Compelling beyond anything he’d ever felt before.

Guilt plagued him at that, but he pushed it away. It was only sex, nothing more. It wasn’t disloyal, because this wasn’t a relationship, just a crazy night out of nowhere. Surely to God he was allowed to have fun sometimes, to forget, just for a few hours?

A curl lay across her cheek, and he lifted it away, careful not to disturb her. Not that he thought he would. She was sleeping like the dead—

He swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was only six thirty, but the man who owned the boat was going out on the tide before nine so they’d arranged to meet at seven, but then he should be done. He could be back in town by eight, nine at the latest. Maybe she could meet him then?

Her jeans were in a heap on the floor, and her phone was lying beside them. He picked it up, and his own, went into the bathroom and called himself from her phone to get the number, then sent her a text.

Meet me for breakfast? Café by the restaurant at nine? S

He put the phones down, showered and towelled himself roughly dry, cleaned his teeth and then on the spur of the moment reloaded the new emergency toothbrush he’d found her before he pulled on his clothes and packed. He tried hard not to disturb her, but he could have slammed the door and she wouldn’t have heard she was so heavily asleep. He’d ask Reception to give her a call at eight. That would give her an hour to get ready for breakfast.

He hesitated a moment, then bent, breathing in the scent of warm skin and sex as he touched his lips to her flushed, sleep-creased cheek.

She didn’t move. Just as well. He was out of time.

He picked up his things, put her phone where she’d see it and let himself quietly out of the room.

* * *

A phone was ringing.

Kate struggled up out of the depths of sleep and registered her surroundings as she groped for the room phone. ‘Hello?’

The recorded, electronic voice was horribly cheerful. ‘This is your alarm call. The time is eight a.m.’

Alarm call? Why...?

Sam, she realised, looking round at the empty room. All his stuff was gone. He must have left for his meeting, but why hadn’t he said goodbye? After all they’d shared, he’d just left without a word?

Her brain slowly coming to, she dropped the receiver back on the cradle and slumped against the pillows.

Dammit, would she never learn?

She stumbled out of bed and opened the bottle of spring water on the hospitality tray, dragged on her clothes and shoved her phone in her pocket. She was so bone tired. She was going home for a shower and then she’d fall into bed—

Her mobile rang, and she pulled it out of her pocket and stared at it in dismay. Her ward manager, which could only mean one thing. Her finger hovered over the phone, then she gave in to the inevitable guilt and answered it reluctantly.

‘Hi, Jill.’

‘Kate, I’m so sorry, I hate to do this to you on your day off but is there any way you can come in?’

Again? Her heart sank and she plopped down onto the bed in despair. ‘Can’t you get an agency nurse? I’ve just done seven days straight—’

‘I’ve tried. Please, Kate? Jane’s called in—she’s got norovirus, too, and we’re so short-staffed we’re going to have to close the Emergency Department if we can’t get more nursing cover. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.’

She gave in. The winter vomiting bug had swept through Yoxburgh Park Hospital in the last few weeks, which was why Petra had been called in last night, and there was no point fighting the inevitable. ‘OK, I’m on my way. I just need time to shower and grab some breakfast—’

‘Quick shower. I’ll make you some toast when you get here. We really need you now.’

Oh, dammit. ‘OK, OK, I’m coming. Give me ten minutes.’

Which meant she didn’t even have time to go home and change. It could have been worse. At least she hadn’t gone out last night in a tiny dress and six-inch stilettos or she’d be doing the walk of shame.

Not that it would be the first time, she thought with a sigh, but she always kept a pair of work shoes at the hospital since the first time it had happened, and she could wear scrubs. She stripped and went back into the bathroom, and realised Sam had at least had the decency to leave her a blob of toothpaste on the new brush he’d produced for her last night out of the depths of his overnight bag. In case he ever forget to take one with him, he’d explained, proving he was way more organised than she’d ever be, but that wasn’t difficult.

She cleaned her teeth with it, grateful for the burst of freshness it offered if not for his sneaky exit, then showered fast without washing her hair, wiped away the smudge of mascara under her eyes, grabbed the biscuits and water off the hospitality tray and left.

* * *

She didn’t show.

He almost rang her, but stopped himself in time. She was bound to have seen the text. Maybe she just wasn’t interested? Although she’d seemed pretty interested last night.

He waited until ten, dragging out his third coffee to give her time, then admitted the obvious and gave up.

It was probably just as well, he told himself, and crushed the ludicrous feeling of disappointment. He got into his car and checked his phone again. Maybe she just hadn’t seen the text? But still there was nothing.

Telling himself not to be a fool, he deleted the call history and the text, threw down the phone and drove home, disappointment and regret taunting him with every mile.

* * *

It was eight that night before she finally climbed the stairs to her flat, and one glance at it made her glad they’d gone to his hotel.

Today was the day she’d set aside for cleaning it and blitzing the laundry, but that had turned out to be an epic fail. Tough. She wasn’t doing it now, she was exhausted, and it would keep. She stripped, trying not to think of the way she’d undressed for Sam last night, trying not to think of all the things he’d done to her, the things she’d done to him, the way he’d made her feel.

She’d never had a night like it in her life, and it hadn’t just been about the sex, although that had been amazing. It was him, Sam, warm and funny and gentle and clever. He’d made her feel special. He’d made her feel wanted.

Until she realised he’d just been using her.

And she couldn’t really have fallen for him. Not in—what? Nine hours?

Was that all? Just nine hours? She’d wanted it to go on for ever, but it hadn’t. Like all good things, it had come to an end all too soon, and he hadn’t even had the decency to tell her.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket to put it on charge and saw she had a message from an unknown number.

Meet me for breakfast? Café by the restaurant at nine? S

‘No-o!’ She flopped back on the bed and shut her eyes, stifling a scream of frustration. How could she not have seen it?

Because she hadn’t had time, was how. She literally hadn’t stopped, and when she had, for twenty minutes that afternoon, she’d fallen asleep in the staffroom. She should have rung him—sent him a text, at least, to let him know she’d had to work, but she hadn’t even known he’d messaged her, never mind how he’d got her number.

By ringing himself from her phone, she realised, scanning her call log.

Damn. So he hadn’t just left without trace. And all day, she’d been hating him for his cowardice.

But maybe it was as well. He didn’t live here, he’d only been visiting friends, so nothing would have come of it. She didn’t need to fall any further for a man she’d never see again. She would just have tortured herself that bit longer.

And anyway, she was sworn off men for life, remember? No more. Never again. Even if he hadn’t just done a runner.

She hesitated, then deleted the text and the call history.

There. Sorted.

Except it didn’t feel sorted. It felt wrong, leaving a hollow ache inside, but it would pass. She knew that from long and bitter experience.

Too tired to fret over it any longer, she crawled into bed and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

An hour later she woke to a wave of nausea, a raging headache and stomach cramps, and the depressing realisation that she had the bug that had swept through the department...

* * *

It was five days before she went back to work—days in which she lost weight, grew to hate the sight of her flat and finally tackled the laundry as she waited the statutory forty-eight hours after symptoms subsided before she was allowed to return to work.

She was straight back in at the deep end, as one by one the team were hit by the virus, but after a few challenging weeks the worst of the crisis seemed to be over. It was just as well, as she hadn’t really recovered her appetite and kept feeling light-headed and queasy. She staved off the light-headedness by eating endless chocolate, but she couldn’t do anything about her dreams.

Too much chocolate? It had never given her any problems before, but now Sam was haunting her every night.

At first she’d been too ill to think about him, and then too busy, but it clearly wasn’t as easy as all that to put him out of her mind. He was there every time she got into bed, reminding her of those few short hours she’d spent with him, making her ache with regret because she hadn’t phoned him to apologise and explain.

But she hadn’t, and she’d ditched his number, so regret was pointless and she was grateful when they were so busy that she was too tired even to dream about him.

And then, at the beginning of April, just over two months after her night with Sam, she went into Resus to restock and found Annie Shackleton slumped over the desk with her head in her hands.

She and the consultant often worked closely together on trauma cases and they’d become good friends, so right from the beginning she’d been privy to the blow-by-blow development of Annie’s pregnancy. Because of her husband Ed’s inherited Huntington’s gene she’d had IVF, so Kate had been one of the first to know the wonderful news that both embryos had taken, then that both of them were boys.

But this morning Annie had gone for a routine antenatal check, and now Kate knew something was wrong.

‘Hey, what’s up?’ she asked softly, and Annie looked at her, her eyes red-rimmed and tight with strain.

‘I’ve got pre-eclampsia,’ she said, her voice uneven, and Kate tutted softly and crouched down beside her.

‘Oh, Annie, I’m so sorry, that’s such tough luck. What are they doing about it?’

‘I’ve got to stop work. Like—now.’

‘Well, of course you have, but you’ll be fine! You just need to rest. Are they going to admit you?’

‘Not immediately, but it’s going to be so hard to take it easy. Who’s going to look after the girls? I can’t expect my poor mother to do any more, she’s been helping me since the girls were born because I was on my own, but I only work three days a week. This’ll be all day, every day, because it’s the Easter holidays—and because it’s the holidays Ed can’t take any time off, either, because of the staff with their own children to think about. The timing just couldn’t be worse—’

Her voice cracked, and Kate reached out and hugged her.

‘Annie, your mum will be fine with it. She’s lovely, she adores the girls and they’re no trouble. They’ll be falling over themselves to look after you, and Ed’ll be around to get them up and put them to bed, and you know he thinks of them as his own and they love him to bits. It’ll be OK, Annie. Really. You and the babies have to come first and the rest will sort itself out.’

Annie nodded slowly. ‘I know that, I know it’ll be fine, but it’s not just Mum and the girls I’m worried about. I’ll be leaving the department in the lurch. Andy Gallagher’s on holiday next week with his kids, and I have no idea how they’re going to get a consultant-grade locum at such short notice—I was going to work till I was thirty-six weeks, and I’m only thirty-two.’

‘So? They’ll find someone. It’s not your problem, Annie. It’s James Slater’s problem. He’s the clinical lead, let him sort it out, and you look after yourself and the babies. Have you told him yet?’

She pushed herself to her feet. ‘No, but I have to. You’re right, the locum’s not my problem—and even if it was, I don’t have a choice. I’ll go and tell him.’

‘You do that. And go straight home, OK? I’ll sort your locker out.’ Kate straightened up, hugged her again and then watched her go, a lump in her throat. She loved working with Annie, and she’d miss her warmth and gentle humour. Not that the other doctors were difficult to work with, but—well, Annie had been a good friend to her, and it wouldn’t feel the same without her, and she had a horrible feeling she wouldn’t be coming back.

And she was being selfish. It wasn’t about her.

She’d just finished restocking the drugs cupboard when James put his head round the corner. ‘Annie’s going home.’

‘I know. She’s worried about leaving you in the lurch.’

‘Tough. She hasn’t got a choice, and we’ll cope. I’ll cover it if necessary. She said something about you clearing out her locker for her. Can you put the things in my office, please, and I’ll drop them off at their house on my way past tonight.’

‘Will you be able to get a locum?’

He shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Maybe. Connie’s got a friend who seems to be kicking his heels at the moment, so he might agree. I’ll get her to ring him and twist his arm. It might also mean he gets his blasted boat off our drive while he’s here. Why he bought it I can’t imagine, but hey. Who am I to judge? I just want it gone so we can get the house sold before the new baby comes.’

But Kate had stopped listening at the word ‘boat’. Coincidence? Sam had gone to look at a boat. And his friends had gone to a party, on the same night that James and Connie had been at Zacharelli’s for a fortieth. The same party?

But Sam wasn’t a doctor—was he? He hadn’t exactly said what he did for a living, apart from mentioning unmeetable targets—and they were the bane of most doctors’ lives...

‘How long’s it been there?’ she asked casually, her heart pounding.

‘Oh, I don’t know, a couple of months? It seems like for ever. Right, got to get on. Don’t forget Annie’s locker.’

‘I’ll do it now.’

Two months? That fitted. So was Sam a doctor? And if so, how would he feel about working alongside her?

Her heart gave a little kick of excitement as she headed for the staffroom and emptied Annie’s possessions into a cardboard box.

Would they pick up where they’d left off?

She tapped on James’s door and he beckoned her in, pointing to the phone in his hand and mouthing, ‘Thank you.’ She put the box on his desk as he ended the call and spun the chair towards her, grinning cheerfully.

‘Job done. My sweet-talking wife just strong-armed him, and we have an amazingly well-qualified consultant trauma surgeon starting on Monday.’ He tipped his head on one side and studied her thoughtfully. ‘Just a word of warning, though, Kate. He’s emotionally broken, so don’t let his charisma reel you in. You’ll just be setting yourself up for a fall.’

The word ‘again’ hung unspoken in the air between them, and she stifled the sigh. ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ she said with a forced smile, and just hoped to goodness it wasn’t Sam because if it was, the warning might have come too late to save her.

* * *

She was off the next day, and she popped round to Ed and Annie’s house on the cliff to see how Annie was doing.

‘She’s fine, before you ask,’ Ed told her with a smile as he let her in. ‘I’m pampering her to death. She hates it.’

‘I bet she doesn’t really. I brought her flowers to cheer her up.’

‘Thank you. She’ll love them. She’s out in the garden with the girls because it’s such a gorgeous day. Go on out. I was just making us coffee. How do you like it?’

‘Can I have tea?’ she said. ‘White, no sugar?’

‘Sure. We’ve got cake as well. I’ll bring it out.’

She found Annie on a lushly padded swing seat under a canopy, her feet up and the girls chasing each other round the garden. Annie waved at her, and she went over and gave her a hug and handed her the flowers.

‘Oh, how gorgeous, you sweetheart! They’re so pretty. Thank you. I’ll get Ed to put them in water. It’ll give him something to do apart from clucking round me like a mother hen.’

She pulled her legs up out of the way to make room, and Kate sat down and settled Annie’s swollen feet onto her lap.

‘So, how are you? You look the picture of contentment.’

Annie smiled. ‘I feel it. It’s wonderful—and even better now I know James has found a locum who can actually do the job properly. Ed’s driving me slightly nuts, but the girls have been as good as gold, and if the babies would both stop kicking me to bits I could really relax! Feel them—it’s like a football team warming up. I can tell they’re boys.’

Kate laughed and laid her hand over Annie’s bump. ‘Good grief. They’re having a rare old shuffle, aren’t they?’

‘It gets a bit crowded in there with twins. It was the same with the girls, but I think these two are bigger. Is Ed bringing you a coffee?’

‘Yes—well, tea. I can’t drink coffee since I had the bug.’

‘That’s months ago! You’re not pregnant, are you?’ she teased.

She laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. How could I be pregnant? I’ve sworn off men—and anyway, I’m on the Pill and it’s only coffee I don’t like. I think I’ve just had too much of it.’

Annie laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘That hasn’t put you off chocolate!’

‘Or cake,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘No, it’s just the bug.’

But when Ed brought the tray out then and put it down right next to her, the smell of coffee drifting towards her on the warm spring air made her gag.

Could Annie possibly be right? How likely was it that she’d still be feeling ill two months later? Not at all...

But she couldn’t be pregnant. There was no way. It could only have been Sam, and anyway, she’d done a pregnancy test. Unless...

‘Cake?’ Ed asked, cutting into her thoughts. ‘My grandmother made it. It’s her trademark lemon drizzle and I know you’d prefer chocolate but I’ve never known you turn down cake of any denomination.’

‘Thanks. It sounds lovely,’ she said, not really paying him attention because her mind was tumbling.

Because she was on the Pill they’d thought it was OK when his condoms ran out, and it would have been, without the bug, but it had dragged on for days, too long for the morning-after pill to work, so she’d done a test and it had been negative. She hadn’t given it another thought at the time, but now...

The girls went back to their playhouse and Ed took the tray inside, but she hardly noticed until Annie shook her shoulder.

‘Kate? Are you OK? You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.’

Or realised that her worst nightmare might actually have come true...

Annie’s eyes widened as she stared at her, and she could see the moment her friend’s thoughts caught up with her own. ‘Oh, no. You’re not, are you?’

She started to shake her head in denial, and then shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’d put it down to the bug, but it’s possible...’

‘Oh, Kate. Do you want to do a pregnancy test? I’ve got a spare one upstairs in our en suite.’

‘I’ve already done one, ages ago, and it was negative—and anyway, I can’t just go up there to your bedroom!’

‘It’s fine, I’ll take you up. I need to put the flowers in water and if Ed asks I’m showing you the nursery.’

So they went, dumping the flowers in a vase on the way, and she took the test Annie handed her, closed the bathroom door and bit her lip. Did she want to do this? Yes! Heavens, yes, she wanted to; she needed to know, and as fast as possible, just to put herself out of her misery.

And there it was, in black and white. Well, blue, really, she thought inconsequentially, staring at the wand as she dried her hands on autopilot.

Pregnant. It didn’t tell her how pregnant, and her mind tried to sort it out. It was the beginning of April, and she’d met Sam at the end of January. So...nearly nine weeks ago, which made her eleven weeks pregnant, maybe? Her other test must have been too soon...

‘Kate? Kate, are you OK?’

She opened the door, her hands shaking as she held out the wand to Annie. ‘You were right,’ she said, her voice sounding hollow and far away. ‘Oh, God, Annie, what on earth am I going to do?’

She felt arms come round her, the firm jut of Annie’s pregnant abdomen pressing against her. She could feel the babies kicking, and with a shock she realised that if she did nothing, then in a few more weeks this would be her, her body swollen by the child growing inside it.

And then what? How could she be a mother? She had no idea what a mother even was. Not a real mother.

Her teeth started to chatter, and Annie tutted and sat her down on the bed, putting her arm around her and rocking her. She could remember her foster mother doing that when she was sixteen, trying to soothe her when her world had been turned upside down and all feeling had drained away.

It felt the same now, the same numbness, the same emptiness and what now?-ness that she’d felt then.

‘I can’t do it, Annie. I can’t do it on my own—’

‘Do you know who the father is?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, of course I know. Hell, Annie, I’m not that reckless, but I can’t contact him. I don’t have his number any more, but he won’t want to know, it was just one night. Oh, God, I’ve been so stupid! Why...?’

‘Hush, hush,’ Annie crooned, rocking her gently. ‘It’ll be all right. You can do it. I did it on my own.’

‘No, you didn’t, you had your mum, and I don’t have a mum—’

‘But you have me. I’ll help you. You won’t be alone, Kate. And you can do this, if you decide you want to. You’ll be all right.’

And if she didn’t want to?

If Sam really was the locum, she’d have to tell him, and then he’d have an opinion, want a say. He might want her to go through with the pregnancy even if she decided that she couldn’t. And if the locum wasn’t Sam, she’d deleted all trace of him from her phone, so she wouldn’t be able to tell him, however much she might decide she wanted to.

Which meant if she kept it she would be all on her own to deal with it, bar a little help from Annie.

But that was fine. She’d been on her own most of her life, and she liked it like that. She’d had enough of being bullied and manipulated and lied to.

Not that Sam would necessarily do any of those things, but she wasn’t inclined to give him the chance.

Even assuming Sam was the locum.

* * *

He was.

She knew that the moment she walked into the department two days later, at seven on Monday morning. She heard his laugh over the background noise, heard James saying something and then another laugh, and it drew closer as she turned the corner.

She ground to a halt, too late to turn and walk away, too shocked to keep on moving past because she hadn’t really believed it would be him. And then he saw her and his eyes widened in surprise.

She searched his face, fell in love with it all over again and then remembered all the reasons she had to regret that she’d ever met him. One in particular...

‘Ah, Kate. Let me introduce you to Sam Ryder, our locum consultant. Sam, this is Kate Ashton, one of our best senior nurses.’

‘Hello, Kate,’ Sam said softly, but speech had deserted her and the ground refused to swallow her up. ‘Do you two know each other?’ James asked after an uncomfortable silence.

‘Yes—’

‘No!’

They spoke in unison, and James did a mild double-take and looked from her to Sam and back again. ‘Well, which is it?’

Sam just stood there, and after a second she found her voice. ‘We’ve met,’ she qualified. ‘Just once.’

Just long enough to make a baby...

A muscled clenched in his jaw, but otherwise Sam’s face didn’t move. No smile, no frown—nothing. Just those accusing eyes.

She felt sick. Nothing unusual. She was getting so used to it, it was the new normal.

The silence hung in the air between them, broken only by the sound of a pager bleeping. James pulled it out of his pocket and scanned the message.

‘Sorry, I need to go. Sam, why don’t I put you in Kate’s hands for now and let her show you round? She’s worked a lot with Annie so she’s the expert on her role, really. I’ll see you later. Come and find me when you’re done with HR.’

James clapped him on the shoulder and walked off, and Sam’s eyes tracked him down the corridor and then switched back to Kate. She’d forgotten how piercing they could be.

‘You didn’t tell me you were a nurse.’

‘You didn’t tell me you were a doctor.’

‘At least I didn’t lie.’

She felt colour tease her cheeks. ‘Only by omission. That’s no better.’

‘There are degrees. And I didn’t deny that I know you.’

‘I didn’t think our...’

‘Fling? Liaison? One-night stand? Random—’

‘Our private life was any of his business. And anyway, you don’t know me. Only in the biblical sense.’

Something flickered in those flat, ice-blue eyes, something wild and untamed and a little scary. And then he looked away.

‘Apparently so.’

She sucked in a breath and straightened her shoulders. At some point she’d have to tell him she was pregnant, but not here, not now, not like this, and if they were going to have this baby, at some point they would need to get to know each other. But, again, not now. Now she had a job to do, and she was going to have to put her feelings on the back burner and resist the urge to run away.

She pulled herself together with effort and straightened her shoulders. ‘So, shall we get on with your guided tour? What have you seen?’

‘His office. Nothing else, really.’

‘Right. Let’s start at Reception and work through the route the patients take, and then you can go up to HR. I’ll give you a map of the hospital.’

And with any luck her legs wouldn’t give way and dump her on the floor before they were done...

* * *

‘We need to talk.’

There was a lull in the chaos that had been the day so far, and they were alone at the desk, filling in paperwork on the last case. He paused, his pen hovering over the notes.

‘We do?’

He was still stinging a little from her rejection back in January, not to mention her denial to James that she knew him, and he’d spent the whole morning so far trying to quell his traitorous body, which seemed to be delighted at her sudden reappearance in his life. In fact she’d been at least half of the reason he’d taken this locum job, on the off-chance that he might run into her again, but now he had it seemed like a profoundly lousy idea, especially since they were going to be working together.

He made himself look at her, forced himself to meet her eyes instead of avoiding them as he had been.

‘I wouldn’t have thought we had anything to say.’

She flinched a little, but held her ground.

‘There’s a lot to say.’

‘Like why you didn’t answer my text?’

He saw her throat bob as she swallowed. ‘I didn’t get it—not until much later.’

‘That’s a lie. I saw it on your phone when I sent it so I know it arrived.’

‘But I didn’t see it on my phone. I didn’t have time to check until I got home—I was called in to work that morning.’

‘Sure you were.’

‘Why do you have to think the worst of me? I’m not lying, and it’s on record.’ She bit her lip, but her eyes looked troubled, and she gave a frustrated little sigh. ‘Look, Sam, I don’t want to do this here. Can we meet up later? Please?’

He propped himself against the desk, hands rammed in the pockets of his scrubs so he didn’t reach out to her, and studied her, trying and failing to read her expression. ‘OK,’ he conceded finally, massively against his better judgement—although where Kate was concerned he didn’t seem to have any judgement. ‘What time do you finish?’

‘Three. You?’

‘Technically five, but maybe later. We could go to a pub, I suppose,’ he offered grudgingly, but she shook her head.

‘No, not a pub. Where are you staying?’

‘With James and Connie, but there’s no way you’re going there.’

She frowned. ‘No, definitely not.’

‘Where, then?’

She bit her lip again and he felt almost sorry for it. ‘My flat?’ she offered, sounding as reluctant as him. ‘You could come round when you finish. Six o’clock-ish?’

He nodded, relieved that they were going somewhere private. ‘OK. Give me the address. Oh, and you’d better give me your phone number again in case I’m held up.’

She nodded, and he couldn’t help noticing that she looked wary. Almost—hunted?

‘Kate, I get that it was a one-night stand,’ he muttered, relenting a little. ‘I’m cool with that, and I didn’t want any more. I don’t,’ he added, feeling a twinge of guilt at the lie. ‘But you could have answered my text.’

‘And said what? Thanks for a great night, sorry I missed the chance to say goodbye when you sneaked out of the hotel room?’

‘I hardly sneaked—’

‘You could have woken me up. You could have just asked me—’ She broke off and gave another impatient little sigh and pulled the phone out of her pocket. ‘Tell me your number.’

She keyed it in, and his phone vibrated in his pocket. ‘OK, I’ve got it,’ he said, and put it into his contacts. ‘I’ll call you when I finish, give you a head’s up.’

‘I’ll text you my address. It’s the top-floor flat. Number three.’

She hesitated a moment, then turned away, leaving him puzzled and a tiny bit intrigued.

She probably wanted to set the ground rules for their relationship, he decided.

Well, that was easy. Hands off. He could do that.

He went back to work.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE STOOD AT the bedroom window and watched a car pull up outside the house right on the dot of six, and she ran downstairs and opened the front door.

‘You found me OK, then?’ she said, stating the obvious, but he just gave her a quizzical smile.

‘It’s hardly rocket science. I’ve got a satnav.’

Of course he had. Her stomach in knots, she turned away without another word and led him up the narrow, winding staircase that rose to the top floor of the big Victorian townhouse. Once upon a time it had been elegant. Now it had a run-down feel to it, as if it had been a long time since anyone had truly loved it, and she wondered what Sam with his privileged upbringing would think of it. Not that it mattered.

She’d left the door at the top standing open, and he followed her in, past the cramped kitchen into the sitting room that seemed suddenly much smaller with him in it. It was shabby without the chic, but thanks to the last two hours of frantic activity it was at least clean and tidy, apart from the shelves in the alcoves, which were overflowing with books.

‘Drink?’ she asked, stalling for time, and he nodded.

‘Yeah, thanks—I could murder a coffee.’

No chance. She waved at the sofa. ‘Make yourself at home. The kettle’s hot, I won’t be a moment.’

She closed the kitchen door, sucked in a deep breath and tried to steady herself, to slow the heart that was lodged in her throat.

‘You can do this,’ she whispered, but she didn’t know how, didn’t know if she would ever be ready to say the words that would change their lives for ever.

* * *

He looked around, trying to get a handle on her character, but there was nothing to give her away.

No ornaments or photos, the tired furniture showing evidence of a long, hard life, but at least it was clean.

He studied the books, but all they proved was that she had eclectic taste.

Biographies, travel guides, romance, crime, historical sagas, a collection of cookery books—and a small children’s book, dog-eared and tatty but presumably much loved.

What did she want to talk about?

He heard her come back in and turned, searching her face and finding no clues. She set the tray down and handed him a mug.

He glanced at it, then sniffed it experimentally. ‘Is this tea?’

‘Sorry, I ran out of coffee. Anyway, you’ve been drinking it all day and tea’s better for you.’

That made him blink. ‘Are you trying to mother me?’ he asked, mildly astonished because she hadn’t seemed like the sort of woman who’d hold back on anything if she wanted it, far less advise anyone else to, but he must have hit a sore spot because she sucked in her breath and looked away.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I do that?’

‘Search me. Kate, what did you want to talk about?’

She met his eyes, looked away briefly and seemed to brace herself before she spoke again.

‘OK. I do have coffee, but I can’t cope with the smell of it at the moment.’ Her eyes locked with his, defiant and yet fearful, and her next words took the wind right out of his sails.

‘I’m pregnant.’

* * *

There. She’d said it.

And from the look on his face, it was the last thing Sam had been expecting to hear.

He turned away, put the mug down on the mantelpiece and gripped the shelf so hard his knuckles turned white.

‘How?’

His voice was harsh, brittle, as if he was holding himself together by sheer willpower. She could understand that. She’d been doing it ever since she’d found out, and she felt as if she hadn’t breathed properly for days.

‘We ran out of condoms, remember? That last time.’ The time she’d assured him it was safe. The irony of it wasn’t lost on her.

She saw him frown in the mirror. ‘But you told me it was OK. You said you were on the Pill—or is that another lie?’

‘No! I am on it—or I was. But I went down with norovirus right after work and I couldn’t even keep water down for days.’

‘You’re sure? You’re not just...’

‘I’m quite sure. And trust me, I’m no more thrilled about it than you are.’

‘You know nothing about me or my feelings,’ he growled, lifting his head and meeting her eyes in the mirror. ‘Nothing.’

‘I know you don’t mind breaking rules so long as you don’t get caught.’

He held her eyes for a moment, then looked away. ‘Not that one. I never, ever break that one. I’m fanatical about contraception.’

‘Apparently not fanatical enough.’

She sighed and reached out a hand to him, then dropped it in defeat. ‘Sam, we can’t fight. This isn’t going to go away just because we don’t like it.’

He rammed a hand through his hair and turned to face her. ‘Are you absolutely sure it’s mine?’

She felt her skin blanch. ‘Of course I’m sure—’

‘Really? Because you fell into bed with me readily enough and you were already apparently on the Pill.’

‘Which makes me just as much of a slut as you. If I remember rightly, you had condoms in your wallet just in case.’

He winced, and she nodded. ‘There. Not nice, is it? But it’s the truth. Neither of us knew anything about the other, and everything we thought we knew was lies. But we’ve made a baby, Sam,’ she said, her voice starting to crack. ‘I’m eleven weeks pregnant and we have to make a decision—’

His head jerked back as if she’d slapped him, and she saw him swallow. ‘You want to get rid of it?’

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