No. She would say what she had come to say and watch him fall back in horror. Better that than to be lulled into a false sense of security that would be snatched away the minute she broke her news.
‘Just listen to me and stop…confusing me.’
Nick had the cold feeling that he had left things too late. The horse had bolted and, not only had he failed to realise what a treasure he possessed, but he had closed the stable door and returned to the house whistling a merry tune. He deserved to have her walk out on him and never look back. His punishment would be to spend the rest of his life living with his mistake.
‘I…’ Now it was her turn to stammer. She took a deep breath and said in one quick rush, closing her eyes to block him out, ‘I’m pregnant. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it has. You don’t have to feel responsible. You don’t have to feel anything. I came here because I felt you ought to know, not because I wanted anything from you. You’re telling me now about mistakes, but I know you for who you are. I don’t want money from you; I don’t want time from you. I just thought…you should know…’
In a minute she would do the brave thing and open her eyes. The silence lengthened around them and into it she read an assortment of reactions. Eventually, though, she peeped at him and then opened her eyes fully when she realised that he hadn’t drawn back in horror.
‘You’re pregnant?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rose whispered.
‘You’re pregnant.’
‘I realise this is the last thing you want…’
‘I don’t believe it.’ Nick shook his head in wonderment. It had never occurred to him. How naïve was he? He had lurched from thinking that she had returned because she wanted him, to imagining the worst, that she was ill, perhaps fatally so. But she was carrying his child and he was overwhelmed with a sudden feeling of elation.
He looked at her and grinned.
‘You’re…not upset?’ she asked cautiously.
‘You’re having my baby…’ He wanted to sweep her off her feet and swing her around. ‘I love you, Rose. I love you, I can’t live without you and now you’ve given me the best news I could ever have hoped for. Lord, when you walked through that door, with that serious expression, white like a ghost, I thought…I don’t know what I thought…that you were going to tell me that you were ill…that I had lost my chance to show you how much you mean to me…’
Rose’s brain had registered his declaration of love and had stuck there.
‘If you loved me, why didn’t you say something sooner?’
‘Because I didn’t understand myself.’ Nick smiled wryly at her. ‘You crept up on me and took over my soul and, like an idiot, I still thought that I was in control. When I heard that you had come here, my world fell into place again.’
‘And what if I hadn’t come here?’ Rose was not going to allow hope to push her headlong over the precipice. ‘Would you have let me disappear?’
‘I could never have done that.’ Nick thought about it, thought about his pride, realised that it would have lasted so long and then he would have woken up to the fact that he couldn’t live without her. And he wasn’t too proud, now, to tell her that and to delight in seeing her wariness finally melt away.
‘And now I’m going to be a father…’ God, he felt choked up. ‘Let’s get out of here. I want to celebrate and then I want us to get married.’
‘What, today?’ Rose laughed.
‘By the end of the week,’ Nick growled. ‘You need looking after and the sooner I get started, the better…’
BARBARA HANNAY
Blind Date with the Boss
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
SALLY FINCH stood before the mirror in the pretty terrace house she had recently inherited and knew she’d made a huge mistake.
So much depended on today’s job interview. If she didn’t start earning soon, she wouldn’t be able to stay in this gorgeous old house that she’d loved since she was six years old. She couldn’t start her new life as an independent woman in the city. Bottom line, she couldn’t eat!
But as Sally studied the results of this morning’s careful grooming, she was swamped by doubts—niggling at first, but growing stronger with every twist and turn in front of the mirror.