‘It was a lovely dinner, Zoe. And a most enjoyable swim, James. But I really must be going now,’ she rattled out, giving them both what felt like a glassy smile.
Surprise stamped on both their faces.
‘If you’ll excuse me…’
‘Of course, dear, if you must,’ Zoe graciously supplied.
‘There’s work tomorrow,’ Lucy babbled and headed straight for the coat-stand where her hand-bag had been hung again on her return upstairs.
There was a scrape of chairs behind her, making her nerves leap in wild agitation.
‘I’ll see you out to your car,’ James stated, and his firm tone brooked no opposition.
He said nothing more, not inside the house, nor on the climb up the flight of steps outside, but Lucy felt his dark brooding presence encompassing her, tugging on the sexual promise that was still wreaking its inner havoc, and her heart pounded with fearful uncertainties. Was she breaking something she should have stayed with?
She fumbled in her bag for the car-keys. It was too late to change her mind about going. Besides, she didn’t want to. It didn’t feel right with his mother there. And she wanted more than sex with James.
‘Why are you running away?’ came the harsh demand behind her.
‘I’m not. I’ll be at the office tomorrow,’ she argued, reaching the driver’s side of her car and almost flinging herself into the seat, anxious not to be stopped, not to be drawn into an embrace that could change her mind.
He closed the door for her and stood there, still gripping it. ‘Then don’t be late for work, Lucy,’ he warned, an underlying threat of retribution in his tone.
She inserted the ignition key and looked up at him. His eyes were narrowed slits but she felt the force of the will behind them, fiercely probing and determined on a resolution that went his way.
‘I’ll be there…on time,’ Lucy promised, then gunned the engine.
James nodded and stepped away.
She backed out of the parking slot and drove off, tremulously aware of her conflicting needs and James at the centre of them.
Tomorrow, she kept repeating to herself. Tomorrow she would have more answers to where she was heading with James Hancock. Nothing was predictable. Nothing was safe or sensible, either. Which probably meant she’d completely lost her mind.
Everything depended on him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FOUR weeks…the four most wonderful, exhilarating, sensational, worth living for weeks she’d ever lived, Lucy reflected, even if there was a lifetime price to pay for it. Though she shouldn’t think like that. Not yet. There was no sign at this point that James was getting the least bit bored with her, which left a possibility that their relationship might wear what she had to tell him.
The sex between them was still red-hot, invariably igniting an urgency that drove them to take wild chances, and even when they were concentrating on work, their desire for each other simmered around the edge of it, waiting to be satisfied again…and again…and again. In fact, Lucy didn’t feel she belonged to herself any more. Everything she did, thought and felt was linked to James.
Which made today’s decision not to fly to Melbourne with him a wrenching one, but she couldn’t think about the future when they were together, and they were together so constantly, it was all too easy just to let herself be immersed in the excitement and pleasure of being with him, and put off dealing with what really did have to be faced.
A massive pile of washing and ironing to do, she’d pleaded to James. Which was true enough, Lucy thought ironically, as she trudged up the stairs to her apartment. But it was the shocking and frightening knowledge of her pregnancy that she couldn’t keep pushing aside. How it had happened, given she had not once missed taking her contraceptive pill, she had no idea, but a missed period and a pregnancy test had wiped out any doubt about it.
Maybe James was just so potent, he’d worn out her protection. She wished now that he’d kept on his practice of always using condoms. Though there was no point in thinking about how or if only. It was a done deed.
Her first impulse—after the shock of finding out—was to hide the fact from James and hang onto what she had with him for as long as she could. It felt as though she’d waited all her life for this one man, and still wanting him so much, she kept shying away from presenting him with the knowledge they’d made a baby.
It would change everything—whether for better or worse she didn’t know and was too scared to lay it on the line.
Nevertheless, as much as she longed to hide her pregnancy and pretend nothing was different, a deeply rooted core of common sense insisted she couldn’t keep holding such a huge secret from James, not when their relationship was so very intimate. Besides, the deception would inevitably play on her mind, spoiling things anyway. Somehow she had to decide what to do.
Sighing heavily, Lucy pushed open the door that led from the stairwell to her floor. As usual it banged shut behind her. Ahead of her she noticed the door to Josh’s apartment standing half-open, and wondered if it was an invitation to drop in. Being in no mood to talk to anyone, she went no further than her own apartment, feeling slightly guilty at the little contact they’d had since Josh had helped re-vamp her image.
‘Ah! Caught you!’ his voice rang out, halting her as she was about to insert her key in the lock. ‘The intrepid sleuth strikes again!’ he declared triumphantly.
It teased a smile from her as she turned to return a greeting. ‘Hi to you, too.’
He leaned against his door-jamb and surveyed her, his eyebrows waggling above wickedly dancing eyes. ‘A little tired from constant romping with James?’
‘A house-keeping night,’ she dryly replied, letting him know it was not for socialising.
‘But it is going well with him?’
‘You could say that.’ She was not about to dump her current problem on Josh before thinking it through herself.
‘Your mother called,’ he announced with more waggling of eyebrows. ‘You’ve neglected her dreadfully. In fact, you’re in the dog-house. She has called and called and you are never home. She had to ring me to find out if you were still alive.’
‘Oh, hell!’ Lucy muttered, sagging against the wall.
‘Bad, bad girl!’ Josh mockingly chided. ‘Nor have you been up to visit her for six weeks. Any minute now you’re going to wear the label of the prodigal daughter.’
She grimaced, mentally hearing her mother rolling out these complaints to Josh. ‘It’s true,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve been totally selfish the past few weeks. And I didn’t want to lie to her about what I’ve been doing so I just plain avoided it.’