Part-Time Father (Harlequin Presents)

by Sharon Kendrick

  But of course she worried.

  ‘I’ve seen you look better yourself,’ she answered him tartly.

  ‘Have you? When was that? When you left me, naked and wanting you, creeping out like a thief in the middle of the night? Had your conscience got the better of you, Kimberley? Did it sicken you to remember what we had done?

  Lies, glorious lies. Her salvation lay in lies. Behind them she could hide her hurt. She shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘Let’s just put it this way—it happened, and it’s best forgotten, wouldn’t you agree?’

  He smiled a cynical smile. ‘And if I don’t?’

  Ignoring that, she stared down at him, hating the way that her heart lurched at the sight of him in her house, his long legs sprawled out with careless elegance. ‘Do you want some coffee?’ she said pointedly. ‘Before you go?’

  ‘No, I don’t want any coffee. You know what I want. You!’ he said deliberately, and his eyes narrowed and darkened with all the physical manifestations of sexual promise.

  Her body responded as if she was on automatic pilot, her face flushing as her veins began to be flooded with the fierce heat of wanting him.

  Did he see her weakening? Was that why he took the opportunity to reach up and pull her down on to the sofa beside him? For a minute she reacted on that same automatic pilot, her body softening and burgeoning as it came into contact with the hard sinews and magnificent muscular strength of him.

  ‘I can’t stop wanting you, Kimberley, do you know that? No matter what I do, the wanting won’t go away—is it the same for you? Is it?’

  As he spoke his mouth was kissing softly at her neck, his hands moving to brush lazily over the firm swell of her breasts and she felt them grow heavy with desire. She found that her body was pliantsoft and welcoming—as he pushed her back against the scatter-cushions, kissing her with the fervour and the hunger of a man who had never kissed before.

  She went under like a drowning woman, the elemental fire of his desire transmuting into a white-hot and incandescent passion as she let him kiss her. She felt flooded, exhilarated, all reason leaving her as his mouth continued its deliciously rapacious plundering. Her hands were on his shoulders, pushing distractedly at his jacket, her palms flattening out over his chest. His small sigh of pleasure against her mouth was like pouring paraffin on to a blaze already nearly out of control, and Kimberley let her hand fall on to his lap, revelling in the hard throb as her fingers lightly brushed his arousal.

  He said something shockingly profound beneath his breath and he moved his hand beneath her sweatshirt to stroke his way slowly up her bare midriff towards her breasts, and Kimberley froze.

  They’d only spent one night together, and yet she knew that Harrison was better acquainted with her body after one night than another man would have been after thirty years. Every curve, every crevice, every centimetre he had explored with his hands and his mouth and the tensile length of his arousal. Some time during that long, wonderful night Kimberley had suspected that if he had had the means to do so he would have lain her heart and her soul and her body bare, too—such had seemed his desire to possess her totally and completely.

  True, at almost five months a slight swell of the belly would have been normal, especially in a woman as slim as Kimberley, but her loss of weight meant that in fact she barely showed at all. But the difference was noticeable to her eye, and would be, she suspected, to Harrison’s, too. And, quite apart from anything else, she had gone up a bra size since she’d become pregnant—at times she even had to go to bed wearing a bra, her breasts were so aching and swollen. He would surely be able to detect that?

  She sat upright, and pushed him away. She had to get him out of here. And quickly.

  He gave her a quizzical look, a satirical dark eyebrow raised. ‘So what happened to make you change your mind?’ he enquired, as if it didn’t matter one iota to him. But she could see from the sharp lines of tension on his face that it was as painful as hell for him to stop now. And for her, too. But it was imperative that reason take precedence over the desire of a man who cared nothing for her.

  ‘Changed my mind? You arrogant bastard! I hadn’t made it up in the first place!’

  ‘No? That’s not the message I was getting.’

  ‘Whatever message I send out you only ignore it and then damn well interpret it the way that you want to!’ she accused him, knowing that it was unfair—and untrue.

  ‘Oh, come, come, Kimberley,’ he chided. ‘That intelligence of yours does not marry very well with crass hypocrisy.’

  She averted her eyes from the darkly handsome and mobile features. ‘I’d like you to go now. Please.’ She tacked the nicety on to the end, thinking that it might appeal to some deeply buried chivalrous streak in his nature.

  It didn’t.

  ‘I’m not leaving until I’ve said what I came here to say.’

  ‘I can hardly wait.’ She stood up, wanting to put distance between them, going to stand by the window. The daylight had almost gone now, the white of the cherry blossom looking unnaturally bright in the gathering gloom of the dusk.

  His eyes were watchful. ‘I have a proposition to put to you.’

  ‘Another proposition?’ she enquired icily, remembering when he’d used those words on another occasion. ‘Not more money, surely?’

  ‘No,’ he said heavily. ‘Not more money.’

  ‘Go on—I’m listening.’

  ‘I want to see you,’ he said huskily.

  Violins threatened to start playing, but she put them on hold. ‘See me?’ Then, stupidly, or perhaps not so stupidly, because she needed to know just what he was suggesting, she asked him, ‘What for?’

  He gave his cool imitation of a smile. ‘Whatever you like. Theatre. Dinner. Picnics at weekends. You know—the things which men and women usually do together.’

  ‘And bed, presumably? You’re forgetting bed.’

  His eyes darkened in a predatory and feral gleam. ‘Oh, no, Kimberley,’ he said softly. ‘I’m certainly not forgetting bed.’

  For the first time she became fiercely grateful that she was pregnant, because the baby was protecting her from her own foolishness, in a way. For could she honestly put her hand on her heart and say that if she hadn’t been pregnant she wouldn’t have been tempted to go along with his cold-blooded request? And have her pride trampled into the ground and end up with a heart even more broken?

  ‘Sorry,’ she said indifferently, ‘I’m not interested.’

  There was a momentary bleakness which hardened his autocratic features, and it affected her far more than it should have done; he obviously wasn’t used to having his propositions turned down. She would never know whether he would have tried to kiss her again in order to change her mindprobably not, she decided—because the doorbell rang.

  He stood there, unmoving and cold, as if he’d been hewn from purest marble, and Kimberley went to answer the door, wondering who it was, and how she was going to get rid of Harrison before she broke down in front of him and gave it all away.

  It was James. Carrying roses. Red roses. He

  grinned. ‘Just saw these and——’ He stopped when

  he saw the warning look in Kimberley’s eye, and in a brainwave she knew how she could get Harrison out of her life for good.

  ‘Oh, darling!’ she cried expansively, and she took the roses from James’s arms and planted a kiss on the side of his surprised face as she linked her arm through his. ‘They’re absolutely beautiful! But you shouldn’t have done—you spoil me!’

  She heard a soft footfall behind her and then, blinking a little, she turned, as if she’d completely forgotten all about the dark, towering man with the set face who stood in the doorway of the sitting-room, watching them. ‘Come and meet an old friend of mine. Harrison—this is James Britton, my boss. James—I’d like you to meet Harrison Nash.’

  The atmosphere was as brittle as peanut-crunch. Harrison gave something masquerading as a smile and took James’s hand, giving him
a terse nod. ‘A short acquaintanceship, I’m afraid. I was just leaving.’ He gave Kimberley a strange, fleeting look. ‘Goodbye.’

  He said it as though he meant it, and although this had been what she’d wanted, Kimberley suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of blind panic. ‘I’ll see you out,’ she said desperately.

  She followed him out to the front door, alarmed by the forbidding set of his shoulders, tempted— unbearably tempted—to tell him the truth. But, when he turned around, the disdain and scorn which were clearly etched on his face stopped her.

  ‘Your boss?’ he queried sardonically. ‘You’re sure as hell doing a great job for industrial relations!’ His mouth twisted in distaste. ‘Tell me, does dear James know that you were touching me up minutes before his arrival? He must either be exceptionally trusting or exceptionally stupid. Or both.’

  The accusation stung her, hurt her more than words could express. ‘How dare you?’ she said between gritted teeth. ‘I won’t have James insulted!’

  ‘It’s you I’m insulting. Sweetheart.’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m going.’ And he dropped his mouth to hers, briefly and brutally, that one kiss openly displaying all the contempt he felt for her. ‘Thanks for the memory,’ he said bitterly, and walked out.

  James came to find her and said nothing for a moment as he took in her trembling lips, the tears which were spilling from her blue eyes like water from a dam whose floodgates had finally been opened. He put an arm around her, warm and comforting, and turned her face into his shoulder, letting her cry and cry until there were no tears left.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he told her. ‘It’s all right.’

  She raised her tearstained face to his and shook her head distractedly. ‘No, it isn’t,’ she whispered. ‘It’s never going to be all right.’

  ‘He’s the father, isn’t he?’

  There seemed no point in denying it, and she didn’t think she had the strength to deny it—besides which she’d uttered enough hes that afternoon to last a lifetime. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you even knew Harrison Nash,’ said James drily. ‘Are there any other bosses of multi-national companies you’re keeping under your hat?’

  ‘I—oh, James!’ Kimberley gripped her abdomen, her eyes filling with tears again.

  ‘For God’s sake—what? Is everything all right?’

  But in spite of the tears she was now smiling— a smile which threatened to split her face in two as she stared at James.

  ‘What is it?’ he repeated.

  ‘I felt it!’

  James frowned. ‘Felt what?’

  ‘The baby,’ she said, on a note of wonder. ‘James, the baby just moved!’

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE doorbell rang and Kimberley waddled to answer it, feeling like a whale—beached or otherwise! Only four weeks to go—four weeks which seem to stretch ahead of her like an eternity. She felt enormous. She was enormous!

  After her early weight-loss she’d gone from strength to strength, and now had a bulge which her doctor joked would have made him bet on twins if he hadn’t seen her scan for himself!

  She peered through the peephole which James had insisted she have installed, blinking her eyelids in a mixture of horror and disbelief when she saw Harrison standing there.

  She sagged back against the wall, biting her lip as she wondered what on earth he was doing herebut that didn’t actually matter. What was important was that he left her alone. And what was vital was that he didn’t see her.

  The doorbell rang again—a sharp, impatient sound. Kimberley decided to ignore it, until she heard his deep drawl.

  ‘It’s all right, Kimberley—I know you’re in. Your car is parked outside and your neighbour informed me somewhat peculiarly that you usually have a “rest” in the afternoon. I don’t know whether that was her euphemism for describing what you and James Britton get up to, and frankly I don’t care. But whether he’s in there or not, I’m not going anywhere until I’ve seen you.’

  ‘You’re the Last person in the world I want to see! Go and take your horrible grubby mind and your nasty insinuations somewhere else!’

  ‘Are you going to let me in?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then I may have to break this very attractive little door down. Pity about that.’

  ‘Just try!’ shouted Kimberley, bordering on hysteria now. ‘And I’ll have the law down here so fast——’

  ‘Your mother sent me.’

  This completely took the wind out of Kimberley’s sails. ‘My mother? Why would my mother send you?’

  ‘She’s worried about you.’

  ‘But there’s nothing for her to worry about!’ Kimberley shut her eyes in horror, ashamed of her own deception, and yet there had seemed no other alternative at the time. She had rung her mother regularly, and written. But she had not been down to stay since the pregnancy had become impossible to disguise, even with the baggy and layered clothes she wore. She had told her mother that she was having to go to Paris some weekends. She had blamed pressure of work. And she hated living the lie. ‘Why’s she so worried?’ Kimberley asked brightly. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Could the fact that she hasn’t seen you for nearly four months have something to do with it?’ he grated. ‘Now, are you going to let me in or not?’

  ‘No! I’ll ring her tonight.’

  His voice was impatient. ‘I promised her I’d deliver a package to you in person.’

  ‘Package?’

  ‘It’s your birthday present. From her. And there’s a letter with it.’

  ‘Can’t you just leave it on the doorstep?’ asked Kimberley desperately. ‘I honestly don’t want to see you, Harrison. Surely you can understand that?’

  There was a short silence. ‘Yes,’ he said, in an odd and harsh-sounding voice. ‘I can understand that. OK—I’ll do as you ask and leave the package on the doorstep. But I gave her my word I’d speak to you, so promise me you’ll go and see her?’

  ‘I promise.’ Now go, she thought. Please go.

  Leaning back against the wall, her hands drawn protectively over the baby, she waited. And when she looked out through the peephole there was no sign of him.

  Slowly and cautiously she opened the door, breathing quickly as she gingerly bent down to retrieve the brown paper package, since such movements were extremely uncomfortable in this late stage of pregnancy. She picked the package up and straightened herself, rubbing the small of her back with a weary hand, and found herself staring into a pair of disbelieving grey eyes as Harrison emerged from behind one of the cherry trees, now bloomless and covered with leaves.

  She tried to make a dash for it, but she was too large and too cumbersome and he caught her wrist—not hard—but so firmly that she couldn’t break free.

  ‘Dear God,’ he whispered in a strained voice. ‘So this is why. This—is—why,’ he repeated slowly, then seemed to come to his senses, like a man coming round after an accident. ‘Dear God,’ he said again.

  Kimberley swayed and might have fallen had he not caught her by the waist. She saw her neighbour staring over at them curiously, thought what a peculiar sight they must make.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Harrison grated.

  ‘I want to go inside,’ she said shakily as, blindly, she pushed the door open, hardly realising where she was going, hearing his footsteps behind her and the sound of his quickened breathing.

  In that short walk into the sitting-room she’d managed to compose herself, to have ready the answers to the questions she knew he’d start to fire at her, when all at once a hot dart of fire squeezed at her womb. Breathless with the impact, Kimberley clung on to the back of the nearest chair. Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead.

  Harrison’s eyes narrowed; he was by her side in an instant. ‘What’s happening?’

  Another iron band constricted her; she panted the way she’d been taught. The sensation dominated her entire world, so that she was scarce
ly aware of the man who stood before her, his face creased with concern.

  ‘I think—I think it’s the baby,’ she managed to get out. But it couldn’t be! She couldn’t be having the baby now—she couldn’t. Not when she still had four weeks to go. She wrapped her hands tightly around her abdomen, glancing at her wristwatch as she did so. Time them, she remembered. Time the contractions.

  He was really the last person in the world she should have wanted there, and yet, in reality, the sight of his broad, strong body made her feel ridiculously safe, and she could have wept, because his strength and dependability were nothing but an illusion.

  He was staring at her very hard as he took in her pale, clammy face. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he fired out briskly.

  ‘Ring the midwife. The number’s on the pad. I need——Oh!’ she gasped. Another. And stronger this time. And only two minutes after the last.

  For a moment he hesitated, moved over to take her by the shoulders, grey eyes searching her face, and then he said, ‘Sit down,’ and helped her gently down on to the sofa before going to telephone.

  Harrison stood by the telephone, listening intently to the midwife. He glanced at his own wristwatch. ‘Two minutes,’ he said briefly into the mouthpiece. ‘And they’re regular.’

  So he’d been timing them too, thought Kimberley, and then another wave hit her and she shifted restlessly on the sofa, the sweat now drying icily on her face.

  Harrison was replacing the receiver. ‘The ambulance is on its way. Tell me where your overnight bag is!’

  ‘In the bedroom.’ She closed her eyes as another hot, dark stab clutched at her.

  Harrison returned moments later. His face was guarded as he crouched down beside her. ‘Do you want me to call anyone for you?’