He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he demurred. ‘You can’t just arrive on my doorstep like the good fairy, impart a momentous piece of news like that, then take off again.’
‘You can’t stop me!’
‘No, I can’t stop you. But you still haven’t told me why you came here today.’
‘I would have thought that was pretty obvious.’
‘Not really. You could have phoned me. Or written me a letter.’ The blue eyes challenged her. ‘So why didn’t you?’
What was the point of hiding anything now? If she hadn’t kept her job secret then he probably wouldn’t have given her his card, and she wouldn’t have gone to see him, and then this would never…
But she shook her head. What was the point of wasting time by thinking of what might have been? Or what might not have been, in this case.
‘I wasn’t sure that you’d believe me.’
‘You thought that seeing me in person would convince me?’ He frowned. ‘But why? You don’t look pregnant—’ With that she opened the buttons of her coat and stared at him defiantly. He stilled.
For there, giving a smooth contour to her slim body, was the curve of pregnancy, and Finn stared at it, utterly speechless.
‘I just knew I had to tell you face to face, and show you that it’s real, it’s happening,’ she said, meeting that shocked stare. ‘Besides, it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to write, is it?’
He forced himself to remember that she had betrayed him. ‘Even for a journalist?’ he questioned sarcastically.
‘Even for a journalist,’ she echoed, but she felt the prick of tears at the back of her eyes and bit her lip again, knowing that whatever happened he had to hear this truth, too. He might not believe her, but she had to tell him.
‘Finn, my editor did send me to Dublin when she found out we’d met—and she did try to get a story on you. But I said no.’
‘So the story was just a figment of my imagination?’ he queried sarcastically.
‘No, but I didn’t write that piece about you, and neither did I receive any money.’
‘Oh?’ he queried cynically. ‘So they just happened to guess what the inside of my apartment is like, did they? And the fact that you obviously rate me in bed?’
‘I was upset, and I blurted a few things out to my editor, not expecting her to use them.’
‘What very naive behaviour for a journalist,’ he said coldly, but his heart had begun to beat very fast. If she had been tricked into giving a confidence, then didn’t that put an entirely different complexion on matters? And didn’t that, by default, make his subsequent behaviour absolutely intolerable?
‘Oh, what’s the point in all this?’ she sighed. ‘Don’t worry about it, Finn. I’m not asking you to have anything to do with this baby.’
‘But it’s not just down to you, is it?’ he asked quietly.
A cloud of apprehension cast its shadow. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that I want to,’ he said grimly. ‘This is my baby, too, you know, Catherine. By choosing to tell me you have irrevocably involved me—and believe me, sweetheart, I intend to be involved!
Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
CATHERINE stared at Finn in shock and alarm.
‘Well, what did you expect?’ he demanded. ‘That I would say, Okay—fine—you’re having my baby? Here’s a cheque and goodbye?’
‘I told you—I did not come here asking you for money!’ she said furiously.
‘No? But you still haven’t told me why you did come here.’
Catherine stared down at her lap, then looked back up at him, her eyes bright. ‘Because I didn’t know my own father.’