Page 196 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

A shaft of ice pierced him and he took a step closer to the edge of the pool before he could stop himself. ‘Get out,’ he ordered.

People always did what he told them when he used that tone of voice, and this woman was no different. Her eyes widened and she’d already half risen out of the pool before she realised what she was doing, brown eyes flashing with anger as she sat again.

But it had been enough for Dominic.

Enough to see the water glistening on the bare skin of her belly, revealing the small, rounded bump of early pregnancy.

Dominic met her gaze, every inch of him suddenly burning with a fury he hadn’t thought was possible for him to feel these days.

‘Get out of the water,’ he said coldly. ‘Get out of the waternow.’

CHAPTER FOUR

MAUDEEYEDHIMWARILY, her heart beating far too fast and far too hard.

He stood by the edge of the pool, his arms crossed over his broad chest, every line of his tall, powerful figure drawn tight with anger. It burned in eyes dark as the night too, turned his beautiful mouth hard, and made a muscle leap in his strong jaw.

He was dressed casually, in faded jeans that sat low on his hips and did wonderful things to his thighs, and a simple black T-shirt that clung to his muscled chest. The clothes should have made him less intimidating, but somehow they only highlighted it.

Dominic Lancaster. Her boss. Her god of the forest.

The father of her baby.

A baby she’d thought he’d never know about...at least until now.

The moment she’d locked eyes with him as she’d floated in the pool, she’d known she wasn’t going to get out of this with her secret intact. Not given how the tension that had been there that night in the forest had suddenly leapt between them again, electric and resonant.

She’d tried to stay beneath the water as he’d strolled to the edge of the pool, but his dark gaze had seen too much. She should have pretended she was a lost tourist and not given away the truth that she was his employee, but he’d surprised her. She’d been surprised too by her own reaction to him. It had been months since that night in the woods, yet the moment she’d made eye contact with him, she’d felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

She knew she shouldn’t have got angry with him. She knew she shouldn’t have called him a bastard. Her grandmother had instilled in her the importance of being polite to people and calling him a bastard wasn’t at all polite. But, God, the way he looked at her made her skin feel so tight she wanted to crawl right out of it.

And that wasn’t even counting the secret she was trying to hide from him. The secret curled up in her belly that she desperately hoped he hadn’t noticed.

Clearly she’d hoped in vain. He must have seen her stomach when she’d half stood in instinctive obedience to his command, and had made the right assumption. That was why he was so furious.

Yes, she reallyshouldhave pretended to be a tourist.

It was too late for that now, though. Too late to pretend anything, even that she wasn’t the woman he’d spent the night in the forest with, not with this electricity crackling between them.

She really didn’t want to obey him, since it felt as if she’d spent her entire life doing what people told her, but she was freezing, and if she stayed any longer in the water, she’d probably die of exposure.

Also, she’d never been good at pretending.

Gritting her teeth, Maude rose slowly from the water and he watched her, fury snapping in his dark eyes. She didn’t look away, deciding she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her, no matter that she hadn’t told him about the baby. She had a stubborn streak in her, a streak her grandparents had tried first to whittle away and then to grind down, sanding off its sharp edges. Yet the moment Dominic Lancaster’s dark eyes met hers, all those sharp edges snapped back into life as if they’d always been there.

She didn’t bother to hide the rounded shape of her belly as she stepped from the pool and walked over to where her clothes lay, discarded on the grass. And she didn’t speak as she picked up her T-shirt, fighting to stay calm as she dried herself off with it.

He merely stood there, his eyes dark, that muscle in his jaw leaping and leaping. It should have been threatening, the way he stared at her. Should have cowed her, made her feel ashamed of keeping the secret of their child from him, but strangely it had the opposite effect.

It put steel in her spine. If he was going to watch her dress, then he could watch. She wasn’t going to hide herself or be ashamed. Because he was right, his hands had been all over her body, touching her hungrily and desperately. He’d wanted her and, from the growing flames in his eyes now, despite his fury, he wanted her still.

If he’d been the god of the forest that night, she’d been the goddess, and goddesses did not hide.

So she took her time, pulling her knickers up slowly, then putting on her bra. Easing into her damp T-shirt then stepping into her jeans. He watched her the whole time, saying nothing, filling the air with a complicated mixture of hunger and fury.

She sensed somehow that he wasn’t going to break the silence, that he wanted her to do it. Well, if so, too bad. If he could play silly games to keep her freezing in the water, then he could stand being the one to break the silence first.

Maude sat on the grass to put her shoes on—slowly—and only once she had did she get to her feet and stand facing him, meeting his hot black stare. She didn’t speak. She only raised an eyebrow.

---