MICHEALI thought Lucia would be home alone, so to see her with her friend took a bit of wind out of my sails. But it doesn’t stop me from openly staring at Jade. She still looks gorgeous, wearing leggings and a soft-looking green sweater that fits her curves. Her hair is loose about her shoulders, making me remember how soft it was when I ran my fingers through it. She does look tired, though, and I feel the urge to pull her into my arms and hold her.What is wrong with me? I need to control myself better, especially if we’re not alone.Both women stare at me, and I realize I haven’t said anything. I manage to find my voice, although I’m now stumbling over my words.“I…well…” I cough and try again. “I was just in the area and thought I’d come by and see how you were doing.”“Oh.” Lucia’s voice is faint, her expression confused. “I see. Right.”We stare at each other until I hear her friend clearing her throat loudly. Then I remember that I’m on Lucia's doorstep, covered in snow and d
I watch as Lucia lets out a shuddering breath and runs her hands through her hair. She’s in profile to me, but I can see that she looks close to tears. Shrugging out of my coat, I hang it up with my scarf and approach her.“What was that all about?”“It…it’s nothing.”“It didn’t look like nothing.”glares at me. Then her shoulders slump.“It’s just my ex. He won’t stop harassing me.”That guy again? I’m confused.“Didn’t he get the message back at the resort? I thought anyone would get the point after being smacked.”Lucia glares at me. Then her shoulders slump.“It’s just my ex. He won’t stop harassing me.”That guy again? I’m confused.“Didn’t he get the message back at the resort? I thought anyone would get the point after being smacked.”“Well, he still seems to think that pestering me will make me go back to him, even if it’s to shut him up.” Lucia swallows her jaw tight. “God, I have no idea how I went out with him and thought he was a good catch. He’s a horrible human being.”“
“What did you and your friend do before I got here?” Micheal asks, gesturing towards the table. “Looks like you’re studying something intensely.”“You could say that.” I sip at my coffee, trying not to burn my lips but needing to do something other than drool over him. “We were trying to get the books in order. I’ve got to go and see my landlord in a few days. Well, demand to see the landlord would be a better way to describe it.”“Oh?” Micheal raises his eyebrows. “You’re going to discuss your rent or something?”“You could say that. I have to confront the man when the rent is raised to a market price way above what I can afford. He shouldn’t have done it without warning me about it first, for a start.” I scowl. “I can’t believe he would do that without making me aware. I thought tenants were supposed to be told in advance. That has to be illegal.” YouMicheal shrugs.“I guess it’s not. Sometimes, landlords don’t need to warn their tenants.”“Or they should, and they don’t care bec
he said quietly. “But I have lost something I love so suddenly. Or, rather, someone.”That is when I remember. He is talking about Regin’s mom. Now I feel horrible having ranted at him about losing something when Micheal lost the woman he loved.“I’m sorry. I didn’t…”“It’s fine. I know where you’re coming from.” Even then, Micheal doesn’t look convincing. “I’ve made my peace with her death. Of course, it still hurts, but I’ve made my peace. No amount of mourning and wishing she was here is going to bring her back.”“Not in real life, anyway,” I murmur.He glances up at me, and I see a flicker of understanding. He does know where I’m coming from, and I feel bad for snapping at him.My phone buzzes again, and I reach for it as a reflex. It’s from Nathan again, and I can see the message on my screen.Do you want company tonight? I can come over and keep you warm in this storm. I know you must be scared.“For fuck’s sake,” I growl as I toss my phone onto the table. “Do you men know how t
Micheal that I can’t read. Then he gives me a smile that makes my gut clench and heat pool between my legs.“No. We’re not. We’re actually behaving like decent human beings.”“And if we didn’t like each other, we wouldn’t have ended up having sex, would we?”“I don’t know about that. Desire and hate is a very fine line.” Heat flares in Micheal’s eyes as he looks over me. “I have wondered which side I’m on, but then I give up. Especially when I know what you’ve got.”How am I supposed to answer that? Especially when he’s looking at me like he wants to take my clothes off? I didn’t allow him to come in for sex, really.So why do I want to strip down right then and there?“We’re going to be here for a while. And while I can cope sitting on that couch, I don’t think it’s comfortable enough to sleep on.” Micheal shifts closer to me and brushes his hand against my waist. “How about I keep you warm tonight? I’m pretty good at that.”“Who have you been cuddling at night to get that review?”“
spinning stops and I get my breath back. Lucia is also panting, her arms shaking as she lowers herself to her elbows, resting her head on her hands.“Holy fuck!” she gasps. “Now that was fast!”“It’s been a while since I touched you.” I press kisses to her back, moving down her spine as I slowly ease my cock out of her body. “I’m making up for lost time.”“Oh, really?” Lucia giggles as she turns onto her back. “I hope that’s not all you’ve got for me. Because if it is, this will be a very long night.”She does like to tease me. I push her legs apart and shift in close.“Trust me. I’m not done with you yet.” My thumb brushes over her clit, leaving Lucia moaning. “And don’t forget it’s not just my cock that needs to make you come for me.”Lucia arches towards me, and I see her smile.“I’ll hold you to that.”Two Days Later“Alright.Are you ready for this?” Helen asks. I look at myself in the mirror. My outfit looks good enough to go into an office building, and it’s smart enough for me
“I’m here. I’m here.” I bat her hand away. “Would you stop doing that?”“Well, if you will get distracted…”“I’m fine.” I take a deep breath and pick up my bag from the bed, slinging it over my shoulder. “Okay, let’s go. I want to get this over with, and I’m going to be late if we don’t get a move on.”“At least the snow’s melted enough so we can travel.” Helen leads the way to the door, shrugging on her coat and slinging her scarf around her neck. “And that you don’t need to go far. It would be tough if you made that appointment and couldn’t get there unless you started walking yesterday.”“With tennis rackets strapped to my feet as well,” I grunt, putting my bag down long enough to put my thick duffel coat on. It’s not exactly professional attire, but in this weather, I don’t give a damn. “I just hope he doesn’t dismiss me almost immediately.”“Of course, he’s not going to do that.”“You sound very sure of yourself.”Helen smiles as she opens the door.“Someone’s got to be optimist
Oh, God. Micheal. He’s my landlord.How did I not figure this out sooner? How did I miss this?I should be barging into the office and demanding an explanation, but I’m frozen. I can’t move, staring in shock at Finn as he crosses to the door and opens it."Lucia?”My heart pounds in my chest as I stare at him, the man I gave myself to just a couple of nights ago. My landlord.Shit, how did I manage to sleep with my landlord?“You…you are…”“I think you’d better come in,” Lucia says as he reaches for me, but I slap his hand away.“Don’t touch me!”“Lucia…”“No, you lied to me. You knew I was your tenant, didn’t you?” I push him in the chest, causing him to stumble back. “Were you teasing me when you were doing what you did? Did you know the whole time?”Lucia hesitates, looking unsure. Then Kenny clears his throat.“I think…I’d better go back to my office.”“Kenny…” Lucia starts.“No, you clearly need to be alone.” Kenny steps around Micheal and gives Lucia a sheepish nod. “I’ll give y
It would be so easy to reach out and take the comfort and warmth and pleasure of being with him again. He’d wrap her in his arms and stroke her back and kiss her hair, and she’d feel his body stir with desire for her and…She’d missed him so much. But if she gave in to the need aching through her now,Micheal would be encouraged to stick around, and the inevitable consequences would be worse than her current sense of deprivation.Better to remain independent.“I don’t need your help, Micheal,” she said flatly.“That’s not how it looks to me,Lucia.” He reached out and took her left hand, fondling it warmly, persuasively pressing a link between them as he added, “I think we should get married as soon as possible.”“No!” She snatched her hand away, feeling as though he’d burned her. Her eyes blazed fierce conviction. “I won’t marry you, Micheal.”“Why not? It’s the most sensible, practical thing to do.”“I will not subject my baby to a father who doesn’t want her.”“If you’re worried about
She was tempted to hurl it in Micheal ’s face. It might sober him up. Whatever impulsive and stupid ardour had driven him into this room needed dampening down. He wasn’t thinking straight, any more than she’d been seeing straight. But she could see straight through him! Having figured out what she was doing in a maternity ward, he had a hot case of guilt.“You need looking after, Lucia,” he said gruffly. “And I’m the man to do it. Drink up now.”She sipped, just to moisten her throat. Then she glared her outrage at him. “Don’t you tell me what to do, Micheal. You have no right.”He returned a determined look. “I contributed to this situation and—”“You did not.” She cut him off with more belligerent determination. “You trusted me to get the contraception right, and I messed up. It’s all my fault.”“Accidents happen,” he said grimly.“Well, you don’t have to pay for this one. I take full responsibility.”“Sure! And you’re doing a fine job of it, letting yourself get so run down you alm
Maurice’s question broke through the glaze of horror in his mind. They were looking quizzically at him. Had he missed something? Apart from a nine-month pregnancy?“Sorry.” He sucked in a deep breath and swallowed hard. “I was just thinking how great the three of you look together.”Ingrid laughed. “Time you found yourself a wife and started a family, Micheal.”Join the club. They all said that. Once they were caught in the family trap, it was as though anyone who was free of it was an offensive reminder of what they’d given up. The hell of it was he might very well have a child somewhere on this ward, a child whose mother had decided was better off fatherless than having Micheal in their lives.“Aren’t you thirty-something?” Ingrid persisted.“Darling, I’m forty,” Maurice reminded her. “Age has nothing to do with it. If I hadn’t met you, I’d still be a freewheeling bachelor like Micheal.”Micheal didn’t want to be a freewheeling bachelor. He wanteded Lucia. He didn’t care if she came
“He’s got my ears, poor little blighter.”Micheal smiled. “Well, one can always resort to plastic surgery.”Maurice laughed indulgently. “They’re not that bad. He’ll grow into them.”“Bound to,” Micheal agreed, his face aching with smiling.Micheal obediently performed the comparison, studying the straight, aristocratic nose of Maurice’s buxom blonde wife and the longer, slightly bumpy one of his friend. He forced another smile. “Yes. Much the better nose.”Why was it obligatory to divide a baby’s features between the parents? It was inevitably done, like a ritual, perhaps affirming true heritage, or an assurance that a little replica would fulfil its parents’ expectations. Not only was it a deadly boring exercise to Micheal,, it almost drove him to snap, “Let the kid be himself, for God’s sake!”But that wasn’t the done thing.He wondered whom Lucia had been visiting on this floor. Not that it mattered. No point in trying to find some contact point with her. From the attitude she ha
Her hair was cropped short, but he couldn’t mistake that face, those eyes as she stared straight at him. Recognition, shock, disbelief, fear, anger…each expression pulsed briefly at him from a stillness that shrieked with tension. Then she whirled past him, jabbed a finger at the control panel inside the elevator and hugged herself against the back wall, glaring a fierce rejection of him until the doors closed.The message burned into his brain. She didn’t want him. She didn’t want anything to do with him. He quelled the raging instinct to chase after her, find her, make her listen to him. Useless. She’d made her decision to shut him out. It hadn’t changed. It wasn’t about to change. She’d just done it again.He forced himself to walk away, to check the room numbers he passed along the corridor. He’d come here to oblige a friend. Never mind that he had no heart for it. It gave him something purposeful to do. He had to forget Lucia.But why had there been fear in her eyes? He’d never g
Micheal darkly reflected, undermined every normal, congenial intercourse between intelligent adults. They infiltrated people’s lives even before they entered the world, then took over like tyrannical dictators. Nothing was safe from them.Micheal brooded over these truths as he drove through the tunnel under Sydney Harbour, taking the shortest route to Paddington and the Royal Hospital for Women. He wished Maurice had been satisfied with hearty congratulations on the birth of his son. It was totally unreasonable of him to insist Jack actually come and view the new pride and joy. Paternal enthusiasm run rampant. Micheal wondered how long it would last.One by one his friends had succumbed to the lure of fatherhood, only to find themselves knocked off their happy perches of being the main focus of attention in their households. They’d groaned out their misery and their complaints to him, envying his freedom from the chaos they had brought upon themselves.“Good sex is impossible.”“You
“I think we can sort something out there. You don’t have to worry about that.” I tuck her hair behind her ear. “There's no doubt we’ve got a few issues to iron out, but I want to be with you. The fact that you’re pregnant with my baby is not the driving force, either. It just ends up being a bonus, that’s all.”“Does that mean…?”“That I want to raise the baby with you? Yes, I do.” I tilt her face up and kiss her softly. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m just asking you to be my girlfriend. Because I want to be with you—would you agree to that?”“Do you think I can say otherwise when I’m in your arms, and you’re kissing me like this?”“Okay.” I release her and step back. “How about now? Can you give me an answer?”“Micheal!”“What? You said you struggled to give me a proper answer when I was holding you.”“That’s not…” Lucia groans. “God, you’re an asshole.”“There is a teenager nearby, Lucia.”“I’m sure she’s said worse than that.” Lucia regards me thoughtfully. “You really mean i
“Could you put the kettle on and see if you can make Lucia a cup of tea? Then give us some space.”“Sure, Dad.” Regina hesitates. “Is it going to be okay?”I hope so. I send her a smile as I urge Regina to sit down.“I’ll be fine. Off you go.”Regina disappears, and Lucia frowns up at me.“You remember that I prefer tea to coffee?”“Of course I do. How can I not know when you’ve got teabags all over your apartment.”“Hey! No, I don’t!”“Close enough. I do pay attention to these things.”I sit beside her, and I have no idea what to say for a moment. How do I start this? Maybe with what I heard when I arrived. That would be a good starting point.“So…” God, I sound like a fool starting this. “You’re pregnant.”Lucia looks nervous, shifting a little away from me.“I am,” she mumbles.“And it’s my baby?”She doesn’t verbally respond. She nods, and I see the tears in her eyes. I’m about to ask why she’s about to cry when Lucia suddenly starts speaking so fast she’s almost tripping over her
Michael “There’s her dad’s house,” Katie says as she points. “Helen said it had some rose bushes in the garden with a red front door.”“And it looks like she’s already got a visitor,” I grumble as I pull up behind a black sedan. I can see Nathan and Lucia arguing on the sidewalk with a man I’m guessing is Lucia’s dad standing on the lawn with his arms folded and a garden hose in his hand. He looks ready for a fight. I can only hope he doesn’t turn that hose onto me.“Wait here, Regina.” I undo my seatbelt. “I don’t want you getting in the middle of this.”“Why?”“Just…do as you’re told, will you?”Regina sighs and sits back with her arms folded.“Okay, fine.”Grateful that my daughter is listening, I get out just as I hear Lucia shouting at Nathan.What are you talking about? No, of course not! Why would I waste my time and get back with a cheater?“Because I love you.”Well, I don’t love you!” Lucia snaps. She looks like she doesn’t know whether to lose her temper or burst into tear