Page 196 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

‘Ah, I see. You think that I’ve been sleeping with someone else and now I’m trying to palm their child off as yours so that I can... I don’t know...force you into parting with your precious cash for a baby that isn’t yours?’

‘These things happen,’ Mateo muttered, but as their eyes tangled he could see the senselessness of that misplaced caution. She wouldn’t do that. He might be primed to distrust, but to distrustherwould be downright offensive...

He was going to be a father!

There was no point harking back to those dark days when impending fatherhood had forced him down a path he wouldn’t have taken, and when gut-wrenching disappointment at Bianca’s miscarriage had cut so deeply. This was the here and now and positioning himself on the opposite side of the fence to her was not a good way to start.

He unconsciously glanced at her stomach, wondering what it would feel like to see it expanding with his child. He refused to succumb to the thrill of anticipation. He remembered what that had felt like, the vulnerability that had come with it and the anguish when things had collapsed. He had withdrawn behind his barriers then, but he’d always known that he’d taken it a damn sight harder than Bianca had.

‘I don’t understand how this happened,’ he said in low, calm voice. ‘Precautions were taken. I’m a very careful man.’

‘Notall the time,’ Alice reminded him uncomfortably. ‘Once or twice things got a little out of hand... One morning, very early, we were both half-asleep... You reached out and...’

‘I remember.’ He flushed darkly. He’d never felt passion like he had for those few days when he’d been marooned with her in his lodge...and, yes, once or twice contraception had been an afterthought.

‘Or maybe it was just a genuine accident...a tear in a condom. It happens.’

‘Look, we’ll be at my club in a few minutes. Let’s park the details until we get there. How...how have you been?’

‘Wonderful.’

‘And your parents? Were they worried when you told them about your little adventure?’

‘I thought it best not to mention anything although, now that I’m having a baby, I suppose I’ll have to confess to what happened.’

‘You haven’t told them yet?’

‘It was only right, as the father of this baby, that you were the first to know and I only found out about the pregnancy myself a couple of days ago.’

‘It must have been a shock.’ He could only admire her calmness. She had done what she thought was the right thing to do and hadn’t showed up at his office with accusations, blame or demands for money. ‘All right, look, there will be no tests to determine paternity. Of course I believe you. It was the shock talking. What we have to do now is decide what the way forward is going to be.’ He glanced past her. ‘We’re here. We can talk about this once we’re inside. This is as private as it gets.’

The cab had slowed in front of a door in a wall. Alice frowned, confused, because this wasn’t what she’d been expecting.

‘Your club?’

‘Probably the most private place in London and numbers are strictly limited. This is where the world is run.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Only slightly.’

She fell back as he pulled out an old-fashioned metal key and let them in, standing back so that she could precede him. Inside, the corridor was dark, cool and silent, a space of flagstone tiles and panelling that ran halfway up. The lighting was subdued and, when she began to wonder where the heck they were, they turned left into an open space guarded by a weathered guy behind a desk who nodded at Mateo without moving.

‘Sir.’

‘Fornby. Doing well?’

‘As well as can be expected, given the times we live in.’

‘All a man can ask for.’

They’d left the madness of London behind and somehow entered a different place in a different era. This, Alice thought, trying hard not to gape, was what extreme wealth bought: perfect privacy. Somewhere where a person could be a direct descendent of Zeus and no one would glance in their direction.

It was tough not looking around at the clusters of deep sofas and tables discreetly set apart. Some were occupied. A glance at one of the occupants relaxing with a newspaper revealed a personality who had been in the news for the past fortnight, a man in charge of fractious talks with certain nations in the Middle East. Two showbiz personalities were talking and eating food, and there was a small group of two women and a man, all besuited, poring over a bank of documents with a bottle of wine on the table between them.

No one looked at Alice and Mateo as they settled into two deep chairs with a circular table in front of them. A man appeared from nowhere with a bottle of sparkling mineral water. Mateo ordered a carafe of ‘red wine’: obviously the kind of red he liked had long been noted, presumably with no deviation unless told otherwise.

She murmured something about the water being fine. ‘Wow,’ she whispered. ‘I never knew places like this existed.’

---