Page 4 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

‘When is the child due?’ he asked.

She blinked the unwelcome memory away and forced her voice to remain steady. ‘In three weeks.’

He exhaled and inclined his head. ‘I am to assume from your stunt in the courtroom that it is mine?’

‘Yes.’

If he asked how she knew it was his, she would throw her bag at him.

‘And I am to assume that your stunt was designed to bring attention to this to the whole world?’

Her mouth dropped open. Incredulous, she shook her head and laughed. ‘Seriously?’

His jaw clenched again. ‘What else am I supposed to think? A note to a member of my legal team would have been as effective.’

‘I would have done that if I thought you’d read it.’ She wished she could sit straight with ease and cross her legs, project the image she wanted him to see rather than the reality, which included swollen feet and ankles. Instead, she had to use her elbows for purchase to straighten. ‘I’ve spent seven months trying to tell you.’

He raised a sceptical eyebrow.

Quelling the burst of fury this provoked and determined to speak without a hint of emotion, Flora leaned forwards as much as her belly would allow and eyeballed him. ‘You blocked my phone number and email. I called two of your homes and spoke to two of your housekeepers. I spoke to your PA three times. I wrote you four letters.Four.I told you in every single one of those letters and the messages I left for you that I was pregnant with your child, but it wasn’t until I made another call to your office and spoke to a temp that I was told you had instructed all communications from me in whatever form they came to be ignored or destroyed and that anyone who so much as whispered my name to you would be fired for gross misconduct. You cut me off dead and refused to have my name spoken in front of you, not just a refusal but a specific order—that’swhy I had to show you publicly. It was the only way to guarantee you’d notice.’

Ramos’s hands were still clasped together but now the knuckles had whitened. The tension on his handsome face was such that the flick of a pebble onto it would see it shatter.

Low in Flora’s belly, her baby shifted. It was a movement she adored, and had the effect of staunching the anger that had been building in her. She rubbed in big, sweeping motions and was rewarded with a foot or a hand poking against her palm.

She didn’t want to get angry and lose her temper. Trying to maintain a zen edge for her baby’s sake while her life was falling apart at the seams had, at times, felt impossible, but from the moment the pink line appeared on the pregnancy stick, protective love for her growing baby had overridden all the other emotions engulfing her. That love was primal, strong enough to douse the terror of a future raising a child alone without the mother she’d loved with all her heart and the brother who—for all his faults in his personal life—had always been there for her; a rock for her to lean on. Flora had found an inner strength she’d never known she had and she was not going to let Ramos undo all that hard work, especially not so close to the birth.

But it was so hard. Being in the same room as him for the first time in eight months was awakening memories she’d spent eight months trying her best to forget...

Waking in his arms, their mouths fusing together and then the fusion of their bodies before Ramos woke enough to drag himself away for protection...that memory came in a rush of vivid colour. The passion she’d experienced with him, the utter rightness she’d felt in his arms.

She pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulder. If the pain in her back hadn’t sharpened, she would have hauled herself to her feet. She wanted out of this room and away from the man who’d taken her to heaven and dropped her into hell.

‘Well, you know about the baby now,’ she said, speaking tightly through the pain. ‘Let’s get this trial over and done with and then we can talk about your future involvement.’

He leaned his muscular body forward, animation returning to his eyes, his movements like those human statues she’d seen on the Embankment and Trafalgar Square. ‘Future involvement?’

‘If you want to be a part of his or her life...’ She pinched the bridge of her nose, knowing he would likely want no involvement at all. ‘Entirely up to you, but I will need child support. The sooner the better.’

Distaste flashed on his face. ‘So that’s what that little scene was all about. You’re after my money.’

Flora clenched her teeth and swallowed back a fresh wave of anger. ‘You’re the father. You had a right to know, but your insistence on having Justin tried in a country where every criminal trial is prosecuted whether or not the defendant pleads guilty has wiped me out financially.’

The clenching of his jaw was pronounced.

‘Someonehad to help him.’ The pain had lessened enough for Flora to straighten her back, the act of straightening her spine injecting another dose of steel into it. ‘You chose to prosecute him in a country that doesn’t have legal aid and made sure all his assets were frozen. Well,Ipaid for his legal fees, by remortgaging my home and taking a loan on my business and I am now skint, so yes, I want your money, as much as the law entitles me to but only so I don’t have to raise our child in poverty, and if you want to think me a gold-digger for that then be my guest. I couldn’t give a fig what you think of me. I care about two things—my brother and my child. You’ve already ruined my brother and I will not let you ruin my child too, and if you want to fight me about money then fine, when the press next swarm around me, I will talk to them and I will give a statement and I will tell the world how the father of my unborn child seduced me when I went to him pleading for mercy and then cut me dead, and I will name and shame you.’

His bronzed skin darkened with every word she said, a tight contortion of emotions playing on his face. And then he smiled.

It was the cruellest smile she’d ever seen.

‘Will you tell them how you prostituted yourself too?’

CHAPTER TWO

RAMOS’SICILYDELIVEREDwords hit Flora like a slap.

A burning flush crawled up her neck and covered her face.

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