His Pregnancy Bargain (7 page)

The distinguished, silver-haired Frenchman smiled at Megan. ‘You look very lovely tonight, Megan,' he said with smooth Gallic charm.

Her uncle was less smooth but also complimentary. ‘Megan, my dear girl, you do look well,' he told his stricken-faced niece before his glance moved past her to the tall figure who stood with one hand lightly touching her shoulder. His smile was replaced by a look of puzzlement.

‘I didn't believe it when Laura said my most famous client had turned up on her doorstep,' Malcolm remarked, shaking his head.

Megan, feeling physically sick, interposed herself between the two men in an instinctively protective gesture. She couldn't let Luc take the blame, not when this had been her idea. Two bright patches of colour appeared on her cheeks.

‘I can explain…' She paused, hoping for some inspired explanation, one that would let her emerge
not
looking like a duplicitous idiot who had to bribe someone to pretend to be her boyfriend.

There was no inspiration.

‘It was my idea…'

‘To show me the art workshops,' Luc completed smoothly for her. Hands thrust casually in his pockets, he stepped forward.

At a time like this I can admire his bottom…I've clearly become a candidate for intensive therapy, she decided despairingly.

‘The flu turned out to be just a head cold, Mal. I popped a bit of vitamin C and here I am. I've been made to feel every bit as welcome as you said I would be. All that was missing was you.'

To Luc's amusement Malcolm shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, looking more like a guilty
schoolboy than head of one of the most successful publishing houses in the country.

‘Sorry, I was…urgently, called away…business…only got back this morning. Naturally when I heard you were here…' He leaned towards the younger man and murmured, ‘What the hell are you up to, Luc?'

‘A very good question, Mal.' His attention drifted momentarily towards Megan. He didn't elaborate.

Megan looked from one man to the other, she pressed her fingers to her temples to relieve the growing pressure. This didn't make sense.

‘You know one another…?' she said blankly.

‘Of course they know one another,' said her mother, who was standing a little apart from them. She scanned her daughter's pale face with a frown. ‘Are you feeling all right? Heavens you've not caught this wretched cold bug, have you?'

Megan wasn't feeling
all right
. She doubted she had ever felt less all right in her life! She lifted her gaze to Luc. ‘So you are Lucas Patrick, the writer…?'

He nodded.

‘Who else would he be?' Laura asked.

The man I just made love to?

‘A man who needs warming up,' responded Hilary huskily. Her hungry eyes announced to everyone that it was a task she was only too willing to take on! ‘You look frozen, Luc!' she purred.

Megan watched in seething silence as the voluptuous woman trailed her scarlet-painted fingers slowly down Luc's chest. She felt sick.

‘You feel cold too, darling.'

Luc looked directly at Megan over the redhead's glossy head. The expression in his deep-set eyes said,
Save me!
Megan smiled back heartlessly. Save him! Hilary could eat him alive as far as she was concerned!

In the distance Megan was vaguely conscious of her
mother asking if she had had a knock on the head. Someone else suggested that what she needed was a good stiff drink to warm her up.

Good idea, Megan thought, reaching for the decanter of brandy on the bureau. In one smooth motion she filled her glass to the brim and lifted it to her lips.

When the fiery liquid was pooling in her empty stomach, she became aware that nobody was talking. They were all looking at her.

‘You know, I feel better already,' she said, angling a hard, accusing glance towards the silent figure who stood just to her right.

It had all been a mistake; she felt the anger like a tight fist in her chest. He has done this to me, she thought hating him as much as she had wanted him earlier.

‘No, actually I do feel a bit hot and headachey now I think about it.'

A maternal hand was immediately clamped to her forehead. ‘I don't think you have a temperature, but you can't be too careful.' Laura watched with a fixed smile as her daughter refilled her glass. ‘Perhaps you should go and lie down…?'

‘You know, I think I might.' Megan drained the glass and set it down with elaborate care on the table. ‘Lovely to see you, Jean Paul. Catch up later, Uncle Mal,' she called out cheerily. She kissed her mother's cheek. ‘I'm sure I'll feel better after a quick nap.'

She didn't say anything to Luc. She knew if she did that all the fury seething inside her would explode.

M
EGAN
didn't close the curtains. The moon had appeared and the leaded window was open. The soft breeze blowing through ruffled the heavy brocade curtains and cooled the warm, sticky night air.

She had slept in this room most of her life and she knew every creak and groan the ancient building could make. So when she heard a soft creak, Megan knew immediately that someone had stepped on the uneven floorboard just outside her door. That creaky floorboard had saved her from being caught reading under the covers on more than one occasion.

Mum, come to check up on me.

Sometimes, Megan decided, hiding your head under the bedclothes really was the only sensible thing to do. Before she did exactly that she twitched one of the drapes on her half-tester bed closed.

Lying there, eyes tightly closed she heard the door open. Though she strained her ears Megan couldn't hear footsteps on the polished oak floor. Pretending to be asleep when you knew someone was in the room watching you had seemed a lot easier when she was ten, she reflected as she did her best to keep her breathing even and relaxed.

The silent presence she sensed seemed to stand beside the bed for a very long time. It seemed as if hours had passed before she heard the door latch softly click closed. She exhaled a gusty sigh of relief.

‘Thank goodness for that!' she breathed, rolling onto her back. With a soft grunt she pulled herself to her knees and drew back the curtain. It was as she pushed wayward strands of hair from her sticky, too-warm face with her forearm that Megan realised she wasn't alone.

Her midnight visitor was still there.

For a split second she just froze at the sight of the tall intruder standing with his broad shoulders set against the panelled oak door. The paralysis only lasted a fraction of a second before a massive rush of adrenaline was released into her bloodstream. Megan was out of the bed and standing there her body ramrod stiff.

Luc didn't think he had ever seen anyone radiate loathing quite so effectively as Megan did at that moment. So maybe convincing her he had always intended to come clean might not be easy…?

Easy? She's going to call you a lying bastard!

My God, had he messed up! It wasn't that he had
intended
for things to go that far before he told her the truth; not doing so had been one of the stupidest things he had ever done and he was totally prepared to admit it. The fact was, for the first time in his life he had let sexual hunger overrule common sense.

Megan watched as he lifted a hand to his forehead in a languid mocking salute. The colour seeped out of her skin, only emphasizing the sapphire shimmer of her eyes.

This was all a joke to him. God, but she had been such a fool! She had knocked back God knew how many decent men who liked her for a man who hadn't stopped lying to her from the moment they had met!

First Brian, now Luc—am I doomed to go through life being attracted to lowlife scumbags—? It was a deeply depressing thought, though, if she was honest, nothing she had felt for Brian in or out of bed resembled the passion that this man was capable of wakening in her. She had never hated Brian, or for that matter loved him. Whereas she hated Luc and…

‘You lying, conniving rat!' she blasted.

I will not love him…I will not.

She stood there hating him, and hating even more the hot,
liquid tightening low in her pelvis and the inner knowledge that if he touched her she would be lost.

Her eyes slid of their own volition over his lean, muscular body. He was perfect, but it wasn't simply his physical perfection and startling male beauty that had her hooked, but the aura of raw sexuality that hung about him. She shivered. Everything he did, the slightest gesture, the way he turned his head, fascinated her.

‘A touch hypocritical coming from someone who was pretending, very badly, to be asleep.'

He levered himself casually from the door frame.

‘I thought you were my mother.'

‘That makes it all right, then.'

She ground her teeth, knowing that if she opened her mouth without counting to twenty she would be shrieking like a fishwife in two seconds flat. She didn't want to risk getting incoherent or, worse, start bawling her head off. Megan wanted to tell him exactly what she thought of him.

‘I'm assuming you're a little annoyed with me because I didn't tell you who I was—?'

‘You're incredibly perceptive for a lying rat.'

‘Do you think we could keep the rat references to the minimum? Can't stand the things.' ‘He rubbed his forearm vigorously as he admitted with a grimace, ‘They make my skin crawl.'

‘
You
make my skin crawl,' she retorted childishly.

‘No, I don't.'

The rippling sensation as all the muscles in her abdomen tightened wrenched a tiny grunt from her dry throat. His voice had a tactile quality that was like a caress.

Megan had never believed that violence solved anything, but as he stood there radiating total confidence she wondered if on this occasion it might not be the way to go. Even if it didn't solve anything, wiping that arrogant smirk off his face might make her feel better.

She took a deep, calming breath and told herself to rise above the provocation. Don't sink to his level.

‘You like my skin, Megan.'

She started to shake her head until her eyes connected with Luc's. A slow, guilty flush spread over her face.

‘Not the man inside it, I don't.' The skin, however, the smooth skin with its incredibly satiny texture, still, to her immense shame, exerted a strong tug to her senses.

His face tautened with anger.

‘It wasn't my inner beauty you were interested in earlier.'

The awful thing was his mortifying observation could be equally true now. A fact hard to miss when no matter how hard she tried she couldn't stop her gaze straying to the point where the material of his shirt gaped, allowing a tormenting glimpse of flat brown belly.

He had been wearing the same shirt earlier. Megan had a horrible suspicion that she might have had something to do with that missing button.

Luc's jaw clenched as he bit back the oath that rose to his lips. ‘If you stop sniping for thirty seconds I might be able to explain. I was going to tell you who I was, but—'

‘But you thought it was a shame to waste the opportunity of a few more make-a-fool-of-Megan moments,' she inserted bitterly.

‘I didn't want to make a fool of you, but you've got to admit you were phenomenally patronising when you rolled up at my place…'

‘I was not patronising!' How could you be patronising when you were faced with a man who was, not only intimidatingly perfect and off-the-scale sexy, but quite obviously capable of delivering killer put-downs in his sleep?

‘You wrote me off as the hired help, nice body but not much between the ears, the moment I walked in.'

‘Your body isn't that good,' she lied. ‘And I never thought you were stupid.' The intelligence in his eyes had
been the first, well, maybe not
first
thing, but it had definitely been one of the first things she had noticed about him.

‘Admit it,' he challenged. ‘You're an intellectual snob of the worst kind.'

Her face got hot with anger at this totally unjust assessment. ‘And you decided to teach me a lesson? That's why you came here pretending to be someone you're not.'

‘Can you deny you needed a lesson? And I came here pretending to be me…'

‘Being pedantic doesn't make you any less a total sleaze. Tell me, because I'm curious, what part of my lesson involved having sordid sex with me?'

‘You seemed to enjoy sordid at the time,' he rebutted with brutal accuracy.

Megan flushed bright pink. ‘Carry on thinking that if it makes you happy.' Without taking her eyes off his face, she reached for the bedside lamp; the lamp toppled and fell to the floor with a loud crash.

Megan didn't try and retrieve it. It wasn't as if the room wasn't bright enough—the moonlight streaming in through the window made the room as bright as day. The moon was so bright that she could see things she'd have been happier not seeing. Things like the shadow of body hair through his shirt…something that she was trying very hard
not
to see.

Besides that, this wasn't an occasion when moonlight was appropriate. Moonlight suggested romance and lovers.

‘Are you going to pick that up?'

‘No!' she snapped as he bent down. His head lifted. ‘Leave it,' she snarled. ‘You've got a cheek, I'll give you that. How dare you creep into my room? Get the hell out before I call for someone!'

Luc effected innocence. ‘I thought we had a date?'

Her hands balled into fists. ‘You must be joking!' she hissed. ‘What you did was sick.'

‘Stupid maybe,' came Luc's grim-faced admission.

Suddenly Megan wanted to cry. ‘You're a cold, callous
bastard, and I'm so glad I entertained you.' Her feathery brows twitched. ‘Do you generally have to pretend to be someone else to get a woman to sleep with you?'

Luc was starting to look exasperated. ‘Look, I really regret what happened tonight.'

‘Why—was I that bad?' In case he thought she was seeking reassurance, she added belligerently, ‘You should know that I happen to know I was great.'

‘You were great and then,' he drawled, ‘you opened your mouth.' Even as he spoke an image flashed into his head of those soft, moist lips running over his naked skin. His eyes half closed, Luc's respiration started to come significantly faster as his body responded with painful urgency to the steamy image of Megan kneeling in front of him. It was so real that his long fingers flexed as he imagined himself winding them into the silky honey tresses as she knelt before him.

He touched the back of his hand to the beads of sweat along his upper lip and struggled to regain some control of his imagination.

Dear God, Luc, he told himself, you're acting like a teenager with his first rush of hormones!

‘You seemed to think I was great too. In fact I seem to recall you saying you thought you were falling in love with me…?'

Megan froze.
‘I did not!'

‘I could say
did too
, but not being five any more I won't. I'm prepared to give the benefit of the doubt…'

This man was quite simply unbelievable!

‘The fact is I'm not happy with unquestioning adoration. I hate clingy women.'

‘Do I look like I'm suffering from a case of adoration?'

‘For crying out loud, woman!' he grated, an expression of seething frustration on his lean, strong-boned face. ‘I came here to apologise but you make me so damned mad.'
His heavy-lidded glance slid downwards from the twin beacons of her blazing blue eyes.

At about the same moment Megan awakened to the uncomfortable fact she was standing there in a skimpy, short nightie. Her discomfort would have been ten times worse had she realised that the moonlight had rendered the fabric virtually transparent.

Luc was not similarly unaware and hadn't been since she had leapt from her bed. He was painfully aware of the outline of her slim, supple body. As much as he tried not to let them, his eyes were continually drawn to the gentle upward tilt of her rosy-tipped breasts and the strategic darker shadow at the apex of her long legs.

Megan resisted the urge to tug down the hem, and endured his scrutiny impassively. It isn't what you wear, it's the way you wear it—isn't that what Mum always says? Of course her mother, who bought sexy silk pyjamas half a dozen at a time from her favourite designer, would never have been caught wearing a cheap chain-store nightdress.

‘Was it all a joke to you?' Megan asked.

His smoky gaze returned to her face; his manner was uncharacteristically distracted. ‘Of course it wasn't a joke…I didn't expect tonight to go the way it did.'

‘Well, I don't believe you,' she countered furiously. ‘I think you planned everything. I think you're a cold, callous, manipulative snake.'

‘Right, then, I don't suppose there's anything more to say.'

He's going now…say something. ‘Fine, you know where the door is.'

Face like stone, Luc turned. ‘See you around, Megan.'

‘Not if I see you first,' she hissed.

The moment the door closed she crumbled.