‘No, I don’t think so.’ She grimaced.
‘Why the hell not?’ Sin frowned darkly. ‘What?’ he prompted with a scowl as Luccy looked across at him expectantly.
She shrugged. ‘I was waiting for you to add, “You certainly wanted another contract with them badly enough two months ago to sleep with me”!’
Sin sat back in his chair, his face partly in shadow. ‘I said no tricks and no accusations, remember?’
Of course Luccy remembered, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t expected the odd insult from him. ‘Okay.’ She nodded. ‘Then, no, I don’t want to work for PAN Cosmetics once my current contract is at an end.’
‘Because I own it?’
‘Partly,’ Luccy confirmed ruefully. ‘But mainly because it’s too big a commitment to make when I’ll have a baby to look after—’
‘You don’t have to take care of the baby yourself,’ Sin interjected.
‘What if I want to?’
‘Do you?’
‘As it happens—yes!’ she told him slightly indignantly. ‘I’m sure that in your world children are brought up by nannies, but not in mine! Any work that I do in future will have to be fitted in around the baby’s needs.’
Sin was getting much more than he had bargained for when he’d opened this conversation! He had expected Luccy to want to go home to England. He had even known, if it was left to her, that he would play no part in what happened after that. What he hadn’t expected was that she would sacrifice her commitment to her career in order to care for the baby herself…
‘Don’t worry, Sin, I wouldn’t expect you to keep me or the baby in luxury or otherwise!’ she added scornfully. ‘I would try to keep enough work going for us to be able to survive without that.’
To survive.
He didn’t want Luccy or his child to just survive!
‘And how do you think our son or daughter would feel about that when they were old enough to realise that their father could have made life so much easier for you both?’
Her chin rose challengingly. ‘I hope that they will have learnt to respect me enough to know that I did what I thought was right.’
To Sin it was like having the blinkers he had worn for the last two months, since Luccy had left the hotel so abruptly that night and he had listened to what Paul Bridger had had to say about her a couple of days later, suddenly fall from his eyes.#p#分页标题#e#
Given a choice, Luccy was determined to do what was right for the baby as well as her.
And she obviously didn’t believe having Sin in their lives was right for either of them…
Who could blame her?
Certainly not Sin.
He had accused her of blackmail. Not just over that night at the hotel, but about the baby too. God, no wonder she hated the very sight of him!
He didn’t like himself very much at that moment, either…
‘What if a contract with PAN could be worked out to fit in around your work schedule?’
‘Sin, you’re talking about this as if it really were a possibility rather than just hypothetical.’ She frowned her confusion.
‘Maybe it is.’
Luccy looked at him searchingly. Did he really mean it? After all that had happened, after all the things Sin had said, was he going to let her go after all?
If so, where was the elation, the feeling of freedom she had expected to feel?
Because Luccy didn’t feel either of those things. What she felt was a deep sense of let-down, an even greater heaviness at the possibility of not having Sin as part of her life.
She had realised last night that she was actually in love with Sin, had even begun to hope, she also now realised, in a secret corner of her heart, that if they did marry each other one day he might come to return that love.
Was he now telling her that she could go, that he didn’t want her or their baby?
‘You said it yourself last night, Luccy, this isn’t going to work,’ he said abruptly, throwing his napkin down onto the table top as he stood up.
‘It isn’t?’
‘No,’ he rasped. ‘I’ve decided I don’t want to spend the next few decades married to a woman who hates me.’
‘But—’
‘First thing in the morning I’ll make the arrangements for you to fly back to England on the first available flight.’
‘I’m more than capable of making my own arrangements.’
‘I know you’re more than capable of doing anything you set your mind to, Luccy,’ Sin bit out, his eyes glacial. ‘I want to do it, okay?’
So that he could be absolutely sure she had gone? Luccy wondered numbly.