and she couldn’t help thinking that if he’d been going for maximum impact, maximum intimidation, he’d nailed it.
Swallowing down the nerves tangling in her throat, Kate started walking towards him, her hand tightening on the strap of her cross-body bag that she wore like a shield. His gaze was on her as she approached, his expression unreadable. He didn’t move a muscle. His jaw was set and he exuded chilly distance, which didn’t bode well for what was to come, but then nor did the heat suddenly shooting along her veins and the desire surging through her body. That kind of head-scrambling reaction she could do without. She didn’t need to remember how he’d made her feel when he’d held her, kissed her, been inside her. She needed to focus.
‘Hi,’ she said as she drew closer, his irresistible magnetism tugging her forwards even as she wanted to flee.
‘What are you doing here?’
The ice-cold tone of his voice stopped her in her tracks a couple of feet away, obliterating the heat, and she inwardly flinched. So that was the way this was going to go. No ‘How are you? Let me take your jacket. Would you like a drink?’ He wasn’t pleased to see her. He wasn’t pleased at all.
Okay.
‘We need to talk,’ she said, beginning to regret her decision to deliver this information in person. With hindsight, maybe an email would have sufficed.
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘I’m afraid there is.’
His dark brows snapped together. ‘Your sister?’
‘She’s fine,’ she said. ‘Thank you for what you did for her.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Did you get my note?’ Shortly after he’d fixed her finances she’d sent him a letter of thanks. It had seemed the least she could do. She hadn’t had a response.
He gave a brief nod. ‘Yes.’
‘She loves the flowers.’
‘Good.’
‘It was thoughtful.’
‘It was nothing.’
Right. Beneath the force of his unwavering gaze and impenetrable demeanour Kate quailed for a moment and was summoning up the courage to continue when he spoke.
‘Are you in trouble?’ he asked sharply.
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
‘What?’
‘Sorry, bad joke,’ she said with a weak laugh although there was nothing remotely funny about any of this.
‘Get to the point, Kate,’ he snapped. ‘I’m busy.’
Right. Yes. Good plan. She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. ‘There’s no easy way to say this, Theo,’ she said, sounding far calmer than she felt, ‘so here goes. There’s been a...consequence...to our...evening together.’
A muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘What kind of consequence?’
‘The nine-month kind.’
There was a moment of thundering silence, during which Kate’s heart hammered while Theo seemed to freeze and pale. ‘What exactly are you saying?’ he said, his voice tight and low and utterly devoid of expression.
‘I’m pregnant.’
The words hung there, oddly loud and blatantly unequivocal, charging the space between them with electrifying tension, and Kate wished there’d been a less impactful way of saying it because something that looked a lot like terror flared briefly in the black depths of Theo’s eyes, and it made her shiver from head to toe.