Page 195 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

‘SIT.’SHEPOINTEDto one of the chairs ringed round a small square table, the surface of which was scuffed with the markings of pens over the years. He dwarfed the room and oozed the sort of expensive sophistication that emphasised the shabbiness of his surroundings: bare green walls in need of repainting, a couple of posters with inspirational quotes from well-known books and a weathered low-shelving system that was stuffed with various educational books and leaflets.

Alice looked at him and felt that familiar lurch in her stomach, a purely visceral awareness of him as a man, as someone who had made love to her, a guy who appealed on the most basic level—whatever her head had to say about it.

‘You had no right to come here.’

‘I had every right to come here. You detonated a bomb in my life. This isn’t the place to have this sort of conversation. Have you had lunch? I can take you somewhere a little less...confined...and we can at least relax and discuss this situation in a bit of comfort.’

‘I thought you’d already made yourself perfectly clear on where you stood withthis situation.’

‘I apologise. I...may have overreacted but it wasn’t something I was expecting. Alice, let’s get out of here. Someone is going to barge in at any minute, and neither of us is going to be able to give what has to be discussed the attention it deserves if we’re listening out for someone pushing that door open.’

‘I haven’t finished for the day.’

‘Then finish.’

‘Don’t think you can come here and tell me what to do!’

Mateo didn’t answer. He stood up and began heading towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To the staff room. I have a good idea where it is. The teacher who showed me to your classroom helpfully gave me a little tour of the school. I may have mentioned that I was interested in making a financial contribution.’

‘You can’t go to the staff room!’

‘I can when you consider that I’m going to explain the situation to your fellow colleagues. I’m sure they’ll understand why we may want a little privacy to discuss this development.’

He looked at her and she returned his calm, level gaze with biting frustration.

‘You’re...impossible!’

‘That’s what I call a massive overstatement, all things considered,’ Mateo returned coolly. ‘So, what are you going to do?’

‘Wait for me by the front doors.’ Alice gritted her teeth. ‘I’ll join you in ten minutes.’

She rushed to the staff room, said something about a personal situation arising out of the blue and made it to the front doors of the school before her time was up.

Mateo was staring through the glass doors and she stopped abruptly and took a few seconds to look at him. Her heart was beating like a sledgehammer. He’d hunted her down and she could feel some of the heavy weight of uncertainty lift from her shoulders.

Whatever the state of their affairs, it could only be a good thing for him to acknowledge his child. Good for him, but mostly good for this baby they had accidentally created. As a teacher, Alice had seen many times the effect on children of broken homes, absent parents and just mothers or fathers unwilling or unable to provide the security their offspring needed.

She had seen it all. It was one thing if a parent had died, or even if a couple had loved and tried but lost the battle and divorced. It was another thing completely if one parent had just decided to walk away from their own flesh and blood and not look back. That was the sort of thing that always came out eventually and could cause lasting damage.

He might have reacted forcefully and negatively to what she had sprung on him, but Mateo wasn’t running away, and she felt as though some of her faith in him had been restored. She grudgingly conceded that, if he had gone into instant denial mode at what she had thrown at him, then it was only to be expected. He was a guy who controlled every aspect of his life. Of course he wasn’t going to embrace the least controlled event ever to have happened to him with open arms and a warm, trusting smile.

She powered herself towards him as he turned to look at her.

‘I’ve ordered a cab to take us somewhere a little more private.’

‘I know this is a shock, Mateo, but I couldn’t think of any other way to do it.’

‘You realise I’ll be taking nothing on trust. I’ll want you to have a full medical examination so that I have all the facts at my disposal.’

‘What sort of facts? Are you still going with the theory that I showed up at your office pretending to be having your baby?’

They walked to the black cab waiting by the kerb and she slid into the back seat, making space for him next to her. Every nerve in her body was stretched taut with anxiety and tension...and a dark, feverish excitement she couldn’t shake.

‘I’m not going with that theory,’ Mateo said seriously. He angled his body against the car door so that he could look at her levelly.

---