She shook her head, her jaw taking on a stubborn tilt. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re pale and weak.’
‘I’m in shock,’ she defended. ‘I haven’t known about this for much longer than you have. And I have a bit of morning sickness, that’s all.’
He sat down beside her. ‘Your mother died in childbirth.’ He delivered the words as gently as he could, but still her face drained of what little colour it possessed. Ramon himself wasn’t unaffected by the statement. The thought of Emily dying evoked a dark, volatile emotion that tore through his chest.
Her hand rose to her throat and he saw her fingers tremble as they closed around the pearl. When her gaze met his, the naked appeal in her eyes reached into his gut like a fist and squeezed. ‘Can we just slow this down?’ she implored him. ‘Take one day at a time? Please?’
He inhaled a deep breath. ‘Slow’ wasn’t how he preferred to do things but he knew that pushing Emily too hard in her current state would be counterproductive. Which meant a change of tack was required. He expelled his breath, making a swift decision. ‘Of course,’ he said, then got to his feet and pulled out his phone.
She frowned. ‘Who are you calling?’
‘Someone who’ll arrange to have my things packed and brought over.’
Her eyes rounded. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘If you stay,’ he said, ‘then so do I.’
She stared at him and then she flopped against the sofa and slapped her hand over her forehead. ‘Oh, my God.’ Her laugh held a touch of hysteria. ‘You’re really not leaving.’
Calmly, he hit the number for the concierge at Citrine and put the phone to his ear.
Emily glowered at him.
He glowered back. ‘Drink your tea, Emily.’
* * *
Emily awoke with a violent shiver. She felt cold. She lifted her head and saw she’d thrown the duvet and sheets off some time during the night. She’d had a hot flush, she suddenly remembered. Was that a symptom of early pregnancy? Or was it more to do with the man who was sleeping in the spare room across the hall?
She squinted at her clock. Four a.m.
Sighing, she dragged the duvet over her and stared at the ceiling. None of this felt real. The pregnancy. Ramon being in her home. A future looming that was nothing like the one she’d envisaged.
Not that she’d ever devoted much time to pondering her future beyond running The Royce. Marriage and children weren’t things she’d allowed herself to dwell upon. Doing so had filled her with an unsettling yearning. A feeling of emptiness she could only banish by burying herself in work.
And there was nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with being a career woman. Not every girl got to marry the perfect man and have the perfect family, the perfect life. Look at her mother—she’d married a charming, handsome man who’d turned out to be a philandering pleasure-seeker and then died having his child.
A metallic taste surged in her mouth.
Oh, no. Was she going to be sick?
She tossed the covers off, sat up and waited for a moment to see if the nausea would pass. She should grab her robe or a sweatshirt, she thought. She and Ramon were sharing her only bathroom and she was wearing only knickers and a cotton...
She clapped her hand over her mouth, ran from her room and reached the toilet just in time.
Ugh. She hated this. Hated it.
She retched again and, as she tried to scrape her hair away from her face, felt a warm, firm hand touch her back.
Ramon didn’t say a word. He just knelt behind her, relieved her hands of her hair and waited for her to finish.
‘I’m done,’ she croaked a long, humiliating minute later, and he helped her to her feet and gave her space to clean herself up at the basin.
When he scooped her up she acquiesced with a shameful lack of protest and, despite her mental exhaustion, she was acutely conscious of everything as he carried her back to her room. His strong, muscular arms. His clean, soapy scent. His hard, tee-shirt-covered chest under one of her hands.
She shouldn’t have liked any of it.
She liked all of it.
He sat her on the edge of her bed and pressed a glass of water into her hand. ‘Drink.’
‘You’re very bossy,’ she muttered.
He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘And you’re very mouthy for someone who’s just been hugging the toilet bowl.’
It was difficult to find a dignified response to that, so she sipped her water instead. Her throat hurt. And so did her head. Although she figured that wasn’t from throwing up so much as it was a side-effect of the relentless racing of her mind over the past forty-eight hours.
She put the glass on the nightstand. Her hand trembled, but it was nothing compared to the uncontrollable shaking inside her. ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ she said, fear and uncertainty crashing in like a fast-moving tidal wave she couldn’t outrun.
He dropped to his haunches. ‘Do what?’
‘Have a baby,’ she whispered.
His shoulders tensed, a stark expression descending over his features, and her heart clenched as she realised he’d misinterpreted her words. ‘No,’ she said hurriedly, cursing herself silently. ‘I don’t mean that. I don’t want to get rid of this baby, Ramon.’
How could she have forgotten what he’d told her? That he had lost a child? The revelation not only shocked her but cast him in a different light. It was easy to look at Ramon and see only the confidence and charm. But he had suffered something devastating. That kind of loss had to leave a scar. She inhaled a deep breath. ‘I mean... I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I feel...’
‘What?’
She shrugged, reluctant to articulate such a weak emotion. ‘Scared,’ she admitted, and glanced away.
Slipping a finger under her chin, he returned her gaze to his. ‘I think you can do anything you set your mind to, Emily Royce.’
His tone was firm, his vote of confidence unexpected, and a burst of warmth blossomed in her chest.
But was he right?
She knew nothing about motherhood. Nothing about the bond between mother and child. She’d never had her own mother to bond with. No aunts or grandmothers or female role models. Just her strict teachers at boarding school and her grandfather’s housekeeper, the humourless Mrs Thorne. Emily didn’t doubt she would love her child—and she would do so fiercely—but would her child love her?
As a daughter she was hardly worth loving; her father had demonstrated that time and again through his rejection of any close bond with her. Who was to say she’d prove any more lovable as a parent?
And then, as if her insecurities weren’t enough to unsettle her, there was her mother’s death to consider. The frightening reminder of life’s utter fragility.
What if childbirth put Emily at a similar risk?
She felt the prick of tears and mentally rolled her eyes. Great. Another symptom of pregnancy. She wondered if she could also blame her newly discovered condition for the heavy, achy sensation in her breasts or, like the hot flush, did that have more to do with the man hunkered beside the bed and the desire that flooded her body every time she looked at him?
‘I’m tired,’ she said, lowering her gaze before her eyes betrayed her. The man had just held her hair as she hurled up the last contents of her stomach. He was unlikely to find her attractive right now. ‘Thanks for checking on me.’ She curled onto her side and pulled the duvet up to her chin. ‘I’m going to try to get some more sleep.’
Ramon stood up and she closed her eyes, listening for the tell-tale sounds of him leaving her room and going back to his. But the absolute silence told her he hadn’t moved. Her heart thudded in her ears, and then she felt his hand brush gently over her hair. Felt his lips press a soft, feather-light kiss on her temple. ‘We’ll do this together, Emily,’ he said, his breath fanning warmth across her cheek. ‘You’re not alone now.’ And then he padded out of the room.
As the door closed Emily
’s chin wobbled dangerously and she tucked her face into the pillow. Yesterday, walking into her empty flat after visiting her doctor, she’d felt very alone but had told herself it didn’t matter.
She was used to being alone.
You’re not alone now.
She drifted off to sleep, that last conscious thought wrapping around her like a warm, comforting cocoon.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ON THURSDAY EMILY returned to work even though Ramon had wanted her to stay home and rest for the remainder of the week—a preference he’d expressed for the umpteenth time in her kitchen last night. She’d been preparing a simple meal for them and he’d not long been back from a meeting in the city. He’d loosened his tie and collar, rolled his shirt sleeves up his bronzed, muscular forearms and planted his palms on the kitchen island as arguments and counter-arguments had bandied back and forth.
For a brief time Emily had felt as if they were an ordinary couple in the midst of a minor domestic dispute. The thought had left her feeling slightly breathless and flustered, not because it was outlandish or repellent, but rather because it’d sent a flare of unfamiliar warmth through her chest.
No one had ever cared about her enough to argue with her over her choices before.
He cares about the baby. Not you.
The insidious thought elbowed its way into her head and she frowned at her computer screen.
Of course he cared about the baby. And that was all that mattered, she assured herself. He was accepting responsibility for the child they’d conceived and Emily wasn’t hoping for anything more. Certainly not marriage or any long-term commitment beyond his being a loving, supportive father to their child. If her grandfather had been alive he would have demanded that she wed, but the eccentric, formidable Gordon Royce was no longer here, and not even the outrageous financial incentive laid out in his will could persuade Emily to consider a hasty, loveless marriage. No. She and Ramon would take a sensible, modern-day approach and work out some kind of shared custody arrangement. Ultimately they would lead separate lives while keeping things amicable for the sake of their child.
She clicked her mouse and opened a file on her computer. Work. That, if nothing else, would give her a sense of normality, of being in control. And, given that her home and her independence were being seriously encroached upon, she needed to feel in control. Right now she was humouring Ramon, allowing him to assert his dominance because she suspected that underneath all that machismo he, too, was afraid. Who wouldn’t be after experiencing the devastating loss of an unborn child? It was why she was willing to tolerate his over-the-top concerns for her safety and wellbeing—for now.
But he couldn’t camp in her spare room for the next seven and a half months. It wasn’t practical for either of them. He had an office and a home in New York. Clubs and resorts around the world. A jet-setting lifestyle she couldn’t imagine him curtailing for long. And she needed her space. Her equilibrium restored. She could barely think straight with all of that potent, simmering testosterone floating about her home.
Which was why she’d been so desperate to return to work. She needed some distance. Some perspective.
A knock sounded on her office door.
‘Come in,’ she called, glancing up with a twinge of guilt. A closed door sent a message to her staff that she was unavailable. In fact, it was only closed because she’d been making a list of gynaecologists to consider and hadn’t got round to re-opening it.
She pasted on a smile that slid off her face the moment the door opened and Ramon stepped in. Exasperated, she glared at him.
He closed the door. ‘If I didn’t know you were secretly thrilled to see me, querida, I’d take offence at that scowl on your face.’
The endearment combined with his dry wit made her heart skip a beat. She sat back in her chair. ‘I thought you had meetings all day at Citrine?’ She eyed him in his dark pinstriped suit and wondered how many female mouths he’d left watering in his wake that morning. ‘Don’t you have other places to be besides checking up on me?’
One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know... New York? Paris? The Arctic Circle?’
He sauntered over and lowered his big frame into a chair in front of her desk. ‘You know, you’re cute when you’re not throwing up.’
She sent him a withering look. ‘That’s not funny.’
The twitch of his lips suggested he thought otherwise. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Fine. As fine as I was feeling an hour ago when you called and asked the same question.’
‘Nausea?’
‘Better.’
‘No more vomiting?’
‘Not since this morning.’ When yet again he’d knelt on the bathroom floor and held her hair as she’d wretched into the toilet, then carried her back to bed before returning to the spare room. The fact she’d almost grabbed onto him at the last second and implored him to stay in her bed with her was something she’d deliberately avoided dwelling on today. ‘Honestly,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’
He frowned. ‘“Fine” is not a term I would apply to someone who is throwing up several times a day.’
‘It’s just morning sickness. It won’t kill me.’ She thought of her mother and ruthlessly quashed the inevitable surge of fear.
‘Or it could be hyperemesis gravidarum.’
She blinked. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Severe morning sickness,’ he said. ‘Which could be harmful to both you and the baby.’
She stared at him. ‘How do you even know that term?’
‘It’s in one of the booklets on your coffee table. The ones you said your doctor gave to you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You have read them, haven’t you?’
She shifted in her chair. ‘I’m working my way through them.’ It was close to the truth. She’d made a start and then given up when she’d felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. She’d educated herself on the basics—what she should and shouldn’t eat, which supplements to take—and that was all she could cope with for now.
‘Good.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s go.’
She frowned. ‘Where?’
‘To lunch.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You have to eat, Emily.’ His tone grew stern. ‘For you and for the baby.’
The knowledge that he was right—she couldn’t live entirely on crackers and herbal tea—grated against an instinctive urge to rail against the web of control he was slowly weaving around her. She wasn’t accustomed to having her decisions made for her...and yet she understood that he had the best interests of their baby at heart.
And that, she reminded herself once again, was all that mattered right now.
Her baby.
Their baby.
She retrieved her handbag from a drawer and stood. ‘Very well,’ she said, the prospect of trying something other than crackers for lunch not as unappealing as she’d made out. She missed food. Missed her ordinarily healthy appetite.
Before Ramon opened the door, she placed her hand on his forearm. ‘I haven’t told anyone yet,’ she said. ‘Not even Marsha. I’d prefer we keep the pregnancy a secret until I’ve passed the first trimester.’
‘Of course.’
She felt the muscles in his arm tense under her hand and quickly let go. ‘You haven’t told anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Not even your family?’
His mouth tightened fractionally. ‘No one, Emily.’
Sensing she’d ventured into sensitive territory, she left the subject alone, yet as they exited the club through a discreet side entrance she couldn’t help wondering about his family. She’d assumed he would want to tell them almost straight away about the pregnancy but clearly that wasn’t the case. For a moment she thought that was strange and then it occurred to her that she was the last person qualified to make that kind of determination.
What did she know about family?
Sadly, not a lot.
>
* * *
On Saturday morning Ramon flew to Paris to meet with a team of engineers at Saphir. Apparently there was some structural issue with the enormous swimming pool in the recreation centre and a dispute with the original installation company that was sufficiently serious for him to involve himself.
He’d urged Emily to go with him, but she’d refused. Returning to Paris, to the same place where they’d shared their one night of incredible, mind-blowing sex, would do neither of them any favours. Sharing her home with him, sleeping in separate rooms while every night she yearned for his touch, was challenging enough without stirring up memories safer left buried. Reluctant to leave her alone even for a single night, Ramon had argued, and their heated exchange had acted like lighter fluid on an already blazing fire, ramping up the sexual tension that’d simmered below the surface of their every interaction in the last five days.
Tired and irritable by the week’s end, Emily had told herself she was looking forward to his absence.
Now, after twenty-four hours without his overwhelming, charismatic presence in her home, she had to admit the truth.
She missed him.
Which was lunacy. How could you miss someone who’d been a fixture in your life for less than a week?
She frowned into the bowl of brownie batter she was mixing by hand with a solid wooden spoon. Allowing herself to grow dependent on Ramon would be a mistake. Whatever form their relationship eventually took, he would be there for their child, not for her. And that suited Emily just fine. She needed him to step up and be a father—a better one, hopefully, than Maxwell had been to her—but she didn’t need him to be anything else. Not in the long term.
A Night, A Consequence, A Vow Page 11