Page 25 of Her Diamond Deal with the CEO

Jack leaned back against the vanity unit and again she got that suggestion of barely controlled menace. ‘You expect me to believe that. I may be stupid—as I married you that’s pretty much a given—but I’m not a total fool.’

Her heart gave a kick in her throat as he pushed away from the sink and took a step towards her. ‘So, this is your MO, is it?’

She blinked. ‘My MO?’

‘Is that how you got the last two idiots to marry you?’ he persisted. ‘By pretending you were having their baby? Only this time you messed up. You actually got pregnant. So whose is it?’ His glittering eyes tore into her. ‘The baby. Who’s the father?’

Shock was reverberating through her like a train hitting the buffers. Who did he think was the father?

‘You are,’ she said. ‘You know you are.’

He straightened then: six feet three of furious, restrained male in clothes that probably cost more than her car. ‘I don’t know anything of the sort. I know we had sex once. I also know that I wore a condom—’

‘Maybe you didn’t put it on the right way.’

‘The right way?’ The disbelief in his voice was partnered by an expression of pure incredulity. ‘I’m not some clueless teenager, Ondine. I know how to put on a condom so why don’t you stop with all the games and—?’

‘You think getting pregnant is a game?’ She felt her stomach lurch, and she was suddenly close to tears.

His eyes gleamed dark gold beneath the recessed lights. ‘No, no, no, this is not how this goes. You don’t get to be affronted, Ondine. You’re not the one who’s being played here.’

‘You haven’t been played,’ she snapped, focusing her panic and anger on him. ‘I’m as shocked as you are.’ More so, in fact.

He was shaking his head, fury and frustration imprinted in the flawless symmetry of his face. ‘I don’t believe you. I think you found out you were pregnant that day I came back to yours.’

‘That’s not true.’ The intensity of his dark gold gaze made her feel light-headed. ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant until five minutes ago, and you are the baby’s father and that’s the truth.’

‘No, the truth is that when I suggested you marry me, you threw me out of your house. But then, lo and behold, two hours later you turn up at the bungalow, all jittery and wide-eyed, and everything’s changed and now you do want to marry me.’ He laughed derisively. ‘And you expect me to believe that it has nothing to do with this. That it was just some random coincidence.’

‘It was,’ she protested. And not just a coincidence. Finding out that Oli’s fund was gone, and, worse, that she had been a passive bystander to its mismanagement, had been an enormous stomach-churning shock.

‘So what happened in those two hours? Why did you change your mind?’

Her chest felt as if it were being crushed in a vice and she opened her eyes wide so that they wouldn’t fill with tears. Listening to her brother talk about his day at the hospital, hearing the happiness in his voice, she had felt not just love but awe. He was such a remarkable person, and he would be a remarkable doctor. How could she have told him that he couldn’t go to medical school? Not this year, maybe not ever if he couldn’t get a bursary.

She might have messed up her own life, but she wasn’t about to wreck his too—

Only telling Jack about the college fund would mean revealing so much more about herself and her life than she was willing to share with anyone, but particularly this man who already thought so little of her. She might not have money or power, but she still had some pride.

And, frankly, he wasn’t in the mood to listen to her anyway. As far as he was concerned, she was guilty.

‘You put me on the spot. And it was a lot to think about. I needed time to process it.’ That was all true, but it wasn’t why she had changed her mind and she knew it. Worse, Jack knew it too. She could tell by the curl of his lip.

His breath hissed through his teeth. ‘Time to process it?’ There was a harshness to his voice that made a shiver wash over her skin, and she could practically see the interrobang hanging in the air between them. ‘You must think I was born yesterday.’

She stared at him, her breath hot and sharp in her throat. Years ago, she had dreamed of watching that second line appear, faint at first, then strong and indisputable. She had imagined the moment of revelation and mutual joy, and now it had happened, finally, miraculously, only there was no joy, just anger and suspicion and doubt and resentment.

‘Actually, oddly enough, I’m not thinking about anything but this baby.’

His perfect mouth twisted. ‘Don’t give me that. The only person you’re thinking about is you. You got yourself knocked up, but your baby daddy doesn’t want to know, does he? Did he see you for the devious, opportunistic little hustler you are? Is that why you set this whole pantomime of a marriage in motion? Or was he just not as rich as I am?’

The injustice of his words knocked the breath from her lungs, and it was almost impossible to stop herself from reacting, to restrain herself from picking up the pregnancy tests and hurling them in his beautiful, scorn-filled face.

‘How dare you?’ Her hands curled into fists. ‘First off, this stupid marriage was your idea. And just to be clear, you might be paying me to be your wife but that’s exactly why you’re the last man on this planet I’d choose to impregnate me. Do you really think I’d want some arrogant, entitled trustafarian brat like you to father my child? Because I don’t,’ she said, answering her own question.

‘And secondly, it doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not, Jack. There is no “he”. There is no other man in my life—’

‘Do not try and tell me this baby is mine.’ He was backing away from her, the dangerous, dark undertone back in his voice. ‘This is on you. It’s not my responsibility—’

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