Page 197 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

A thick, crackling silence filled the space between them.

‘You’re pregnant,’ he said at last, and Maude experienced a brief thrill at making him break first.

‘Gosh, really?’ she said dryly. ‘I had no idea.’

His jaw hardened still further. He took a couple of steps towards her then stopped. ‘It’s mine.’

Again, it wasn’t a question, making his certainty needle at her. ‘Is it?’ She shrugged. ‘Actually, it could be anyone’s. There were a lot of men in the forest that night.’

Unexpectedly, he closed the distance between them and reached for her, gripping her upper arms, his fingers pressing hard against her skin, holding her fast. She tensed, staring challengingly up at him.

‘Itismine,’ he said in a low, hard voice. ‘You did not sleep with anyone else. You were with me the whole night.’

A small thread of excitement wound through her, as if she liked his anger, liked the hard press of his fingers against her skin and the black flames that leapt in his eyes, the skein of darkness that wound through his voice.

That darkness that connected to something inside her the way it had that night.

It made her breathless, made her want to push him, make him savage as she had five months earlier. She had no idea why. Perhaps it was all about trying to recreate what she’d felt that night, as if she’d shaken off the rules society had imposed on her, free of everything but nature’s own law.

‘You don’t know,’ she said. ‘I might have—’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ he interrupted fiercely. ‘Not about this.’

Get a grip. You can’t lie about your own child.

Cold shock hit her as reality reasserted itself and she realised what she was doing. She’d enjoyed flexing her power over him, but she’d let it go to her head and that was a bad thing. That night with him, she’d let the fire inside her, the darkness, overcome her good sense and that was why she was in the situation she was in now. She needed to control herself.

Maude swallowed. ‘Fine. Yes, I was the one in the forest that night and, yes, the baby is yours. I mean, probably.’

‘What do you mean “probably”?’

He was very close, his hands burning her skin, the rich, spicy scent of him, the scent of the forest, all around her. He was tall, like one of the oaks towering over her, and very powerful, and she could feel the electricity of his presence, an elemental and raw thing that seemed to put its fingers around her throat and squeeze.

‘Let me go,’ she said, suddenly needing to put some space between them, because if she didn’t get away from him, she wasn’t sure what would happen. ‘Let me go,now.’

Instantly, he released her, allowing her to take a couple of steps back. But fury in his eyes and the set of his powerful figure didn’t change.

‘Okay, okay.’ She was breathing faster than she would have liked. ‘Yes, the baby is yours.’

‘You just said probably. Do you really want me to insist on a paternity test?’

She hadn’t thought of herself as a proud person, but, as it turned out, she had a fair streak of pride in her too. ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘It was you. I was a virgin that night.’

His dark gaze flickered. ‘A virgin. That seems...apt. All things considered.’

She flushed, which annoyed her, and opened her mouth to make some retort, but he went on before she could get a word out. ‘What the hell were you doing in the forest that night?’ he demanded. ‘The staff were warned to stay away.’

‘I heard someone scream outside the cottage,’ she said defensively. ‘So I went out to check they were okay.’

‘Screaming in the context of that particular party is nothing to worry about. Again, you were told—’

‘I was worried,’ she interrupted, defensiveness giving way to anger yet again. ‘The forest isn’t exactly safe at night and I wanted to make sure no one had fallen and broken their leg.’

‘I see. And after that, you decided a little experiment with voyeurism was necessary?’

Again, she felt herself flush. Technically, he was correct, she’d been warned to stay away and she hadn’t. Also, she realised belatedly that she hadn’t thought about his perspective at all. He’d clearly thought she was a guest and had acted accordingly. He hadn’t known she wasn’t one, or that she was his employee. She’d been too caught up in the moment, in the magic of the forest and the night, and so had he.

That was why they were here, having this conversation, after all.

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