Page 200 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

‘Rich.’ She said the word with distaste.

‘You don’t like rich people?’

‘Not really.’ Her stare was flat. ‘I didn’t like what I read about you either.’

‘You assume the media always tells the truth?’

She frowned. ‘There were lots of pictures of you at parties and—’

‘You don’t know anything about me, nymph,’ he interrupted gently. ‘Which means you have no idea what “type” I am.’

The belligerent expression on her face didn’t change. ‘So when was I supposed to “know” you?’ she demanded. ‘When you caught me in the forest after chasing me? Or maybe when you pulled me down on the bracken? Were we going to have a conversation about whether we wanted children or not then?’

His anger felt like a live wire, spitting sparks whenever he tried to grab hold of it, and he couldn’t stop himself from saying, ‘Perhaps if you’d bothered to tell me you weren’t one of my guests, we wouldn’t be in this position now.’

‘Well, I didn’t,’ she snapped right back, her own temper clearly not within her control either. ‘I was a little too busy being chased.’

Dominic opened his mouth to say something ill-advised, then thought better of it and closed it with a snap. This was getting them nowhere and being angry wasn’t going to help matters. Because while he might not have chosen it, the child was his. He’d had a part in creating it, regardless of whose fault it was. The baby’s presence was a fact, he couldn’t change it, and being angry with himself that he’d been so careless, that he’d let his own desires take control, was pointless. He couldn’t punish the child or Maude for his mistake.

His Greek mother had been one of his father’s many lovers, and he himself the result of one night of passion and a careless attitude to contraception. She’d had him then had left him with his father, vanishing into the ether, never to be seen again. Jacob Lancaster had been very open with him, telling Dominic that he’d been going to put him up for adoption, but had then changed his mind. He’d needed an heir and now he had one.

Except Jacob hadn’t been any kind of father to Dominic. He’d set himself up as a kind of business rival instead. Everything Dominic had wanted had had to be earned, had to be worked for or negotiated. Food. Clothes. Books. Toys.

Jacob had done this to teach him about the value of things and how to survive in the ‘real world’, where money was everything and the art of the deal the force that generated it. He’d wanted to turn his soft-hearted, sensitive son into an heir worthy of the great Lancaster Developments, with properties all over the world, that he had built up from nothing.

It had been a terrible childhood, but one thing Dominic would give Jacob: he’d become one hell of a businessman. But as to being himself a father, he had no idea how to do it, and he was too old now to learn, so claiming this baby as his was likely to be a mistake. He’d probably only end up repeating Jacob’s mistakes. But...he couldn’t walk away. Personal responsibility was something he believed in, and he was responsible for this.

‘So, what were you going to do?’ he asked at length. ‘Bring the child up yourself?’

‘Yes, actually.’ She lifted her chin, stubborn as a mule. ‘That’s exactly what I was going to do.’

‘I see. And you were going to bring up the child, in addition to your workload, here? Were you going to apply for leave to have the baby? You’re only on a year’s contract, remember, so you won’t have much. What did you think would happen afterwards? And how were you going to manage childcare? Or did you think you could fob the baby off onto Polly while you worked?’

Instantly the golden sparks in her eyes ignited. ‘I was not going tofobthe baby off onto anyone! I’d only just started to think about—’

‘Only just? What are you? Twelve weeks? Thirteen? More? You’ve known about it for a good—’

‘There’s a chance of miscarriage, you bloody idiot,’ she retorted hotly. ‘I didn’t think there was much point—’

‘Not much point?’ he found himself interrupting yet again, his temper slowly slipping from his grip. ‘A child isn’t a damn puppy! You can’t just give it back if you find you don’t like it!’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ She surged to her feet. ‘If you’ve only brought me here to shout at me, then thank you but I think I’ve had enough.’ She turned to the door and took a step towards it, but before she could take another, he reached out and grabbed her arm, holding it firmly, stopping her.

She rounded on him, her face pink, the gold flecks in her eyes molten with fury, turning the warm brown into bright guinea gold. ‘How dare you?’ she spat and tried to jerk away from him.

‘Wait!’Dominic growled, holding on tighter. He didn’t understand what was happening, how his usually expertly controlled temper had slipped so completely out of his grip. But no, of course he understood.

It was her and her temper. She was a flame and he dry tinder that kept igniting whenever she got too close.

She pulled her arm away but didn’t keep walking. Instead, she faced him, her expression pure fury. ‘Don’t you manhandle meeveragain,’ she snapped furiously and then, much to his surprise, instead of leaving, she took a step closer. To him.

And Dominic found himself staring into her golden-brown eyes, watching the sparks of her fury turn into something else, feeling the air around them burst into flames with the same desire that had consumed them back in the forest that night. The same animal hunger.

He swore, then reached for her at the same time as she reached for him, and her mouth was on his before he’d even managed to close his arms around her. Hot and desperate, feverish, needy. As if she’d been as starved for him as he was for her.

He’d never experienced anything like it.

She bit his lip hard, pulling a growl from him, and then he was on one of the couches, and she was beneath him, and he was giving as good as he got, biting the softness of her full bottom lip, making her jerk beneath him as he devoured her.

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