He must have stayed the night—only surely men like César Zayas didn’t kip on chairs in people’s living rooms.
And then she smelled the coffee.
Standing up, she walked into the kitchen. Her coffee pot sat on the counter. She didn’t need to touch it to know it was hot. Steam was still drifting out of the spout.
And there on the back doorstep, a cup in his hand, was César.
She almost turned and ran. Last night she might have been brave or stupid enough to share her fears, but this morning she simply wasn’t up to facing him. Particularly as she had turned his world upside down over what must surely be a mistake.
She couldn’t be pregnant.
Last night had been the emotional equivalent of a ride at the funfair. Bumping into him like that, that kiss on the dance floor... She hadn’t been thinking straight, and in the cloakroom she’d panicked and put two and two together and come up with a pregnancy. Surely though, there was some other, less dramatic reason for her symptoms. One that she could best identify on her own, in private.
But before she had a chance to move he turned, and her legs unhelpfully stopped working. For a moment he stared at her in silence, and then he straightened up. He was standing on the bottom step, so that his brilliant green eyes were level with hers, and it took every shred of willpower not to look away.
Even though the clean lines of his face were slightly smudged by sleep, the shock of his beauty made her head spin. Her heart was beating so hard that she could feel her ribs vibrating. She knew she had to say something, but her brain seemed to have shut down in sympathy with her legs.
‘How do you feel?’ he said quietly.
His gaze drifted down over her body and then slowly back up to her face, and she remembered that she was still wearing her clothes from the night before.
But then so was he.
He’d lost the tie, but he was still wearing his shirt and suit trousers, and the crumpled state of the shirt together with the stubble darkening his jawline was the final piece of evidence confirming what she already knew.
‘I’m okay. So, you stayed the night?’ She paused. ‘Did you sleep in the chair?’
He nodded. ‘It was fine.’ He held up his cup. ‘I hope you don’t mind—I made myself a coffee.’
She shook her head. ‘No, of course not.’
It felt strange. Not awkward, just astonishing that this man might be connected to her by more than that brief but blinding solar flare of passion.
‘Would you like a cup?’
She shook her head again. ‘No, thank you. I don’t really like the taste at the moment.’
A breeze stirred the air between them, loosening her hair, and she tucked it behind her ear, grateful for something to do as his eyes rested on her face.
‘We need to talk,’ he said finally. ‘Shall we go inside?’
She nodded.
He followed her into the kitchen. ‘First things first, you need to take a test.’ He met her eyes, blank-faced.
She stared at him dazedly. Everything was moving so fast. Her brain kept jumping back and forth—to the past, to England and Jimmy, then back to the present. Too fast.
In all honesty, she wasn’t absolutely ready to know the truth yet—but then she could hardly drop a grenade in his lap, as she had last night, and expect him to sit there and hold the pin indefinitely.
‘Yes, I do.’ She frowned. ‘Do I need to go to a doctor? Or can I get one at a pharmacy?’
‘You don’t have to worry about that. Here.’ He reached past her and picked up a nondescript brown envelope from the counter.
‘I had one of my people get a test for you. Don’t worry, he’s very discreet. He understands this is a personal matter.’
She nodded mutely, unsure whether she was more shocked by the cool-headed speed and efficiency of his behaviour or the fact that this man might be the father of her unborn child.
Her hand trembled slightly as she took the envelope. Despite his dishevelled appearance—or probably because of it—he looked incredibly sexy. Even rumpled, the formality of his clothes seemed to accentuate the raw masculinity of the body beneath, and his hair looked as it had after they’d made love. Although it was obviously him and not her who had run hands through it one too many times on this occasion—and not in passion but through worry.