It seemed like for ever before finally he heard the lock being released and the door opened slowly. All her colour was gone, her features suddenly pale and tight.
‘So you’re pregnant,’ he snarled, hoping for a denial, fearing there would be none.
She flicked her eyes up at him, the fight in them long gone before she flattened herself against the wall, and she slid unsteadily past him in the direction of the living room. ‘I was going to tell you that today as well.’
‘Of course you were. I can hear it now. “Happy Christmas, Maverick. Hey, guess what? I’ve been impersonating your PA for two months. Oh, and, by the way, I’m pregnant”.’
‘Yeah, well, it always promised to be a big day.’ She looked around but the living room was empty. Morgan had obviously taken refuge in her room and wouldn’t have to be party to the revelations and fallout, part two. Smart move.
He grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her around to face him. ‘You think this is funny? Because I sure as hell don’t.’
‘And I thought it was such a scream. Or maybe it’s just throwing up that puts me in such a fun mood.’ She glared down at the hand circling her arm. ‘And now, if you’d kindly unhand me?’
He let her go with a snort, wheeling away and striding around the living room, shrinking it to a fraction of its size and filling the space with his dark-thundercloud presence.
She rubbed the place he’d held her as she watched him pace. He hadn’t hurt her, but that old familiar burn was there, like he’d branded her skin with just his touch and left it heated and craving still more. Then he jerked to a stop in that gunslinger stance she’d come to know so well, pointing his finger at her like he was set to fire off a gun.
‘What the hell led you to believe you’d get away with this?’
She hugged both arms and shook her head. There was no point wanting him now. No point craving his touch.
Because she’d lied to him.
Because she was pregnant.
And he’d found out about both in the worst possible way.
She was damned.
Would he understand if she tried to explain? She hardly understood it herself. But the least he deserved was an explanation.
‘It wasn’t about getting away with it. Rather, just a case of trying to get through it with the least possible damage to everyone. And I was going to tell you today. After lunch with Nell. I’ve actually tried to tell you a few times now, but every time I’ve tried something else has happened to get in the way.’
‘How convenient!’
‘Frustrating, more like it.’
He shot her a glance that told her he didn’t believe a word she said. ‘I bet.’
‘Okay, if it makes you feel better, I found a way to justify any delay in telling you every time. I convinced myself that I was doing the right thing, and maybe I wasn’t. But do you think I enjoyed lying to everyone—having everyone believing I was my sister? No. It was supposed to be for one week, when you wouldn’t even be there. Instead it’s turned into my own personal hell. But, damn it, I did try to tell you, and every single time something happened that meant that I couldn’t.’
‘Like when?’
‘Like the Monday morning, just after that first time…’ She lifted her eyes, caught the spasm in his jaw. ‘I’d left you Saturday to go and pick up Morgan from the airport, hoping she might somehow forgive me for sleeping with her boss, and no doubt ruining the job she’d asked me to babysit—only to find a message that she’d been involved in an accident and wouldn’t be back for weeks. I knew it was wrong to keep pretending. And I couldn’t do it, especially not after what had happened between us. So when I went into the office that next Monday I was intending to tell you the truth.’
‘But you said nothing!’
‘I started to! But then you sprang the news that Phil Rogerson wanted me as part of the design team, and before I knew it we were headed out to his office and he told me that he felt I was someone he could trust. How do you think I felt? How could I say anything then? All I could do was make sure I did the best job I could.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘No. Then you talked me into an affair that was going to burn out in two weeks. Two weeks!’ She laughed, the idea so crazy in retrospect. ‘And I was so tempted. Because I knew I could do the job—you believed I was Morgan, and she wouldn’t be back until long after our “two-week fling” was over. So I convinced myself it could work.’ She paused, and held out her hands.
‘But it didn’t burn out, and instead I let myself get more deeply involved, with the work and with you.’ She swallowed, hoping she was making sense as Maverick’s stone-cold gaze flicked over her, his silence every bit as damning as his harsh words of earlier.