Confessions Of A Pregnant Cinderella. ABBY GREEN
still feel his affect on her. As if a million nerve-endings were firing to life. Her whole body humming with awareness. Liquid electricity running through her veins.
When she’d met him in the bar of that Dublin hotel after he’d issued her an invitation to join him, she’d said, ‘I don’t do this sort of thing…meet random men in bars. And I haven’t come here for something…anything…’ She’d blushed profusely, feeling as gauche as a sixteen-year-old.
He’d just smiled sexily and pulled out a chair for her. ‘Let’s just have a drink, hmm?’
That felt like a very long time ago now.
She swallowed. ‘I’m sorry…about downstairs. I wouldn’t have done it like that if I’d been able to contact you through normal channels. I did try calling your offices—several of them, in fact—but no one would pass on a message. Not when I said it was personal.’
‘Not good enough.’ He folded his arms.
Skye flushed. ‘When I read the news about your engagement announcement, I thought it would be the best opportunity to get close enough to tell you.’
He arched a brow. ‘How convenient that this opportunity also maximised your impact by ensuring you’d be splashed all over the tabloids.’
Skye frowned. ‘Tabloids?’
Lazaro’s mouth thinned. ‘Don’t pretend ignorance now, after that stunt. You knew damn well the press would be there.’
Her conscience pricked when she thought of the look of horror and shock on his fiancée’s face. ‘I thought… I made a judgement that the only way I’d get your attention would be to do…what I did.’
Lazaro was grim. ‘Well, you have my attention. You assured me after our night together that you understood “how these things go”. Were you lying?’
‘No.’ Skye choked out, but her conscience pricked.
She could recall how tempted she’d been to indulge the fantasy and stay a little longer the following morning. But the memory of her mother falling in and out of lust and love had come back to haunt her, and Skye had been too terrified to give in to the urge to linger, when everyone knew one-night stands never went anywhere.
‘I meant what I said that morning. Obviously I wasn’t aware that…that something had happened.’
Namely, a baby.
Now he sounded accusing. ‘I asked if you were protected and you said, “It’s fine”. You lied.’
Skye bit her lip. All she could remember was the desperation she’d felt in that moment for him to join their bodies. For him not to stop. She’d never been so desperate for anything in her life. But, even so, she hadn’t completely lost her mind.
She shook her head. ‘I really did think it would be okay. I thought I was at a safe place in my cycle.’
He made a dismissive noise. ‘How do I even know you’re pregnant? You don’t look pregnant.’
Skye didn’t know whether to be flattered or dismayed that her growing belly wasn’t obvious. She put her free hand there. ‘I am pregnant. I had my three-month scan last week, to confirm that everything was okay. That’s why I waited till now… Sometimes things happen…’
There was a heavy silence as he digested that, and then he said, ‘How can you be certain I’m the father?’
Skye was immediately indignant. ‘I’ve had sex once—with you. No one else.’
They’d had sex twice that night, actually. But Lazaro wasn’t about to issue that reminder, because those X-rated memories were far too vivid and recent as it was.
He saw a dull flush rise up under her pale skin and felt a corresponding jump in his pulse. His blood was running hot, but he told himself it was anger, not lust.
He looked at the small pale hand that rested over her still flat belly. It was almost impossible to accept the revelation that she was pregnant. With his child.
As someone who had been abandoned at birth by his own parents, and who had been thrown around the foster care system most of his young life, he had a jaundiced view of the bond between parents and children to say the least. And yet the thought of her having that scan without him made him feel disturbingly conflicted. As if he’d missed out on something.
He’d always vowed that if he did have children he would do his best by them and not abandon them. He would give them a better life than he had known. But he certainly hadn’t expected to have to think about it yet.
Even with Leonora he would have expected at least a few years to elapse before they talked about children.
He was still reeling from what had happened. The sudden and swift fall from grace.
Ha! sneered an inner voice. He’d come close to grace—that was all. Maybe it was something that would elude him for ever. Like the ultimate acceptance he craved.
He’d gone after Leonora but she’d disappeared, and he’d known it would be futile anyway. She’d told him it was over, and in her world that kind of public humiliation couldn’t be forgiven. It really was over. And so he’d come up here. To try and deal with the situation. With her.
Skye put her bag and coat down at her feet. She straightened up and her expression was contrite. Before he could stop himself Lazaro was struck again by her natural beauty. The scattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Innocent.
She said, ‘Look, I promise I didn’t intend to tell you like this. I really believed it was the only way. I didn’t mean to upset your fiancée.’
Lazaro didn’t believe this faux sincerity for a second. ‘She’s not my fiancée any more. The engagement is over.’
Skye seemed to go even paler. ‘If she loves you then maybe you can work this out—’
Lazaro emitted an involuntary laugh and held up a hand, stopping her words. ‘Love? There is no such thing as love. We weren’t marrying for love. That’s not how this works.’
Skye looked genuinely perplexed. ‘Then what were you marrying for?’
He shrugged minutely, this line of questioning making him uncomfortable. ‘Because it made sense. Because she would have helped me to get where I need to be and I would have helped her.’
‘That sounds so…cold.’
‘I would have said efficient, myself. Marriages based on such nebulous notions as love rarely last.’
Hesitantly she asked, ‘Were you together when we…met?’
‘No. It happened…just afterwards.’
Lazaro felt even more uncomfortable when he recalled how the intensity of his experience with Skye had left him feeling hungry for more, but also very wary. He was not looking for grand passion in his life. He was looking for acceptance and respect. And he needed a woman who would help him achieve it. A woman from his father’s world and the right side of it.
Leonora Flores de la Vega had already been on his radar—he’d seen her at a few events and had always been intrigued by her aloof manner. The way she always seemed slightly apart from the crowd. It had resonated with something inside him—perhaps the part that was still ostracised despite his success.
But he had to concede now that meeting Skye had spurred him on to ask Leonora out. As if that night with Skye had spooked him. Made him realise that he had a voracious hunger inside him that he’d never acknowledged before. He’d wanted to forget that he’d acted totally out of character for a moment. Put their extraordinary chemistry down to a fluke happenstance.
But it hadn’t been a fluke because he could