Page 29 of His Secretary's Nine-Month Notice
He sat forward so suddenly that she started back and stared at him. There was simmering outrage on his face. Gone was the lazy, teasing guy and gone was the urbane, clever raconteur. Gone was the sexy man who could enthral her with his conversation and his wit. This man with the harsh, flat eyes was deadly serious, and she returned his flinty stare uneasily.
‘I won’t be stuffing some money into an account now and again to ease a guilty conscience. Nor will I be haggling over when I get to see my child. No, Violet, that’s not how it’s going to work at all. Here’s the thing—I may not have bargained on being a father but, now that it’s staring me in the face, then I intend to accept responsibility fully and without compromise. Full-time fatherhood. One hundred percent involvement. I won’t be conveniently disappearing, leaving you to carry on and do your own thing. I happen to place a great deal of worth on the importance of being an engaged parent!’
Violet knew that her mouth was hanging open. She’d never heard him talk like this before, not in this tone, not with this urgency or searing honesty. His eyes were blazing and angry. Although, she really had no idea what, exactly, he was trying to say. Did he want to sort out visiting rights here and now? Maybe get her to sign something? Or worse...
‘I’m not going to hand my baby over to you, Matt...’ She blanched, sick at the thought that this might end up as a fight through the courts with an innocent baby as the end prize.
‘Did you hear me ask you to?’
‘Then I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.’
‘Marriage, Violet. A ring on your finger and a walk up the aisle. That’s where I’m going with this.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Her head was swimming. He’d asked her how she’d thought this conversation would go. The answer was...not like this.In what world had she ever seen him as the sort of guy who might want a hands-on relationship with a child he hadn’t asked for? There was commitment, and then there wascommitment,and this definitely belonged to category number two. The sort of bone-deep commitment you took on board for life—no goodbye flowers, no divorce, noit’s been nice knowing you.How the hell was she supposed to have assumed that he would want to dive head first into waters he had never been called upon to sample?
‘And sooner rather than later. In fact, as soon as possible would work for me. Where does your father stand on this? Have you told him that you’re pregnant?’
‘Yes, just before I left, but...’
‘He’ll have to move over here. At least, if he wants to be with you.’
‘Matt, you’re not listening to what I’m trying to say!’
‘Oh, I know exactly what you’re trying to say, Violet. I’m just choosing to ignore it because we’re both in the same position. Neither of us asked for this, but it’s happened, and both of us are going to step up to the plate and accept responsibility—because to let a child pay the price of starting life in a tug of war between two parents would be unconscionable.’
‘I have no intention of marrying someone for the sake of a baby! That’s not how it’s done these days, Matt!’ Of course, in an ideal world, two parents were always going to be better than one—but twolovingparents, voluntarily sharing the responsibility for the child they had created. She’d benefitted from having two parents, if only for a brief moment in time. Her dad had adored her mother. She assumed, although she didn’t know for sure, that Matt likewise was the product of a happily married couple as volatile, charismatic and energised as he was. Which was why he would place so much store on them staying together for the sake of the baby she was carrying.
But, she thought, what about her? And was that the sort of forced relationship that would benefit a child, anyway?
‘In all the times I thought about marriage,’ she said, ‘it was never with a reluctant partner who was dragged into it, kicking and screaming, because I’d accidentally ended up pregnant. And you, Matt—you must surely feel the same as I do? You must have wanted something more than to find yourself having to propose marriage to a woman you would never normally be with...’ She lowered her eyes and balled her small hands into fists.
‘Don’t underestimate the power of your sex appeal,’ he muttered roughly. ‘And, just for the record, I never pictured myself being married at all, so, no. No romantic fantasies swirling in my head that are now being put to rest because of this situation.’
He vaulted upright and restlessly paced the room, as though in the grip of a power surge he couldn’t resist. He paused eventually but remained standing over her. ‘It must have been a shock for you,’ he said gruffly. He thought of her realising that she was pregnant, alone and doubtless afraid, and he was swamped by a feeling of confusing tenderness that had nothing to do with the baby.
Violet looked up at him. This was what he did so well. Alongside that forceful, driving personality was an ability to empathise that reminded you just how complex and three-dimensional a man he was.
‘Of course,’ she muttered. ‘I never expected anything like this. I’m not like you. Ididpicture myself being married one day, having kids. I just never...’
‘Imagined that it would be with someone like me, Violet?’
Violet looked away. Her heart was beating inside her like a drum. Someone like him? If only he knew! She might have idly dreamt of being with Mr Ordinary, who would have been such an antidote to the nomadic life she had endured growing up, but reality had decided to take her down a somewhat different route.
He wanted to marry her, and for a moment she took time out to think about what a life with that might look like. Lazy Sunday mornings lying in bed, laughing at those silly jokes of his... Cooking together... Making love whenever and wherever... And then, when the baby came, parenthood with all its ups and downs, but parenthood as a couple...
It was seductive, but Violet knew that it was the stuff of fantasy. The reality was that she would be hitching her wagon to a guy who had never planned marriage and basically found it impossible to sustain a relationship with any woman for longer than five seconds. He couldn’t do that with women he was genuinely attracted to, so what wereherchances? How long would it take for him to get bored of her, baby or no baby? And then what? Would he fool around behind her back? Or would he become a long-suffering partner, eventually resentful and bitter for having been forced into a marriage he hadn’t banked on? Both prospects appalled her because to become dependent on someone only for them to let you down... There could be nothing worse. Her father had let her down. Yes, she had coped, because she adored him, but he had let her down. She wasn’t going to be let down again.
‘Yes.’ She took the plunge, killing rosy dreams of what would never be. ‘You can say what you like, Matt, but it wouldn’t be fair on a child for us to be harnessed together, always thinking that we could have been happier with other partners if I hadn’t fallen pregnant.’
‘Oh, but, Violet...’ His voice thickened and she shivered as their eyes tangled. ‘You make a union between us sound like such a catastrophe in the making, but we both know that it wouldn’t be all bad...’
CHAPTER SEVEN
HECAMECLOSE. He touched her. Just a light, fleeting touch, the brush of his finger on her cheek, but it was enough to make her breath hitch in her throat. Her eyelids fluttered and she inhaled on a sigh, quite unable to control her response.
‘See what I mean?’ he murmured persuasively. ‘One minute you’re giving rousing speeches about our unsuitability, and the next minute you’re quivering for me.’
‘I amnotquivering for you!’ She was alarmed at the undercurrent of weakness she could detect in that protest.
