Fiona McArthur - Escape For Mother's Day

Along with it came the memory of what it had been like to be shunned, rejected, and surging up within Pascal now was a zealous desire to give this child, his child, the kind of acknowledgement he’d never had. The revelation stunned him.

Alana started to pace, anything to avoid looking at him, wanting him. She had to sort her head out. She couldn’t let him distract her.

‘Look. This has happened. It was reckless and silly, but we both know where you stand on this kind of thing.’

He stood up and was immediately dangerous, towering over her. ‘Oh, we do?’

Alana felt like stamping her foot childishly. ‘Yes! I can’t imagine you’re happy to be faced with a pregnant—’

‘Mistress?’ he asked equably.

‘I hate that word. I’m not your mistress.’

‘Then what are you? Go on—say it, Alana.’

He was goading her, teasing her, even now. She glared up at him, arms crossed. ‘I’m your latest lover. The one in between your last one and your next one.’

His expression hardened, his eyes flashed. ‘Yes. But now you’re my pregnant lover, so that changes things somewhat.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re seriously happy with this?’

‘Not happy, exactly, no,’ he bit out, feeling defensive. ‘But how do you know that I haven’t always wanted a child someday?’

‘Have you?’ she shot back.

Now Pascal was the one backing away, feeling a little poleaxed again. His recent revelation was too new, too raw to articulate. This whole afternoon was taking on an unreal hue, as if he’d stepped into some mad time-warp. He was in a tiny house in the middle of Dublin with a woman who’d stepped into his life and turned it upside down. She’d just told him she was pregnant, and he was still there. He wasn’t running as fast as his legs could carry him away from her, which was how he’d always envisaged reacting to such a scenario.

He looked at her steadily and tried to ignore the way her hair was escaping the confines of its neat bun, the way he could see the hollow at the bottom of her throat where he’d opened the button. Even now, more than ever, he wanted her. He answered almost distractedly, ‘Yes … of course I did. On some level.’ Someday.

His mind cleared and fixed on Alana. ‘What about you?’

He saw her hand go to her belly again; she’d done that a few times, almost as if to protect the unborn child from something —their unborn child. Something in his chest felt tight.

Alana turned away from Pascal’s gaze for a moment. He was looking too deeply, seeing too much. When she turned around, his expression had lost that intensity; it was more innocuous.

‘Yes. I always wanted children. We … myself and Ryan … tried, but nothing happened. And I was always grateful then that we hadn’t. No child deserved to be born into our sham of a marriage.’

‘And what will this be, Alana?’

She looked up into his eyes, panic trickling through her. He was so powerful, a million times more powerful than Ryan ever had been. He was cold, remote, and she had that prescience again of what it would be like to cross him—she wouldn’t win.

‘This will be just us, having a baby. I’m not going to marry you, Pascal.’ She was shaking her head, moving away. He advanced.

‘I wasn’t aware that I’d asked you,’ he said silkily.

She flushed. ‘Well, isn’t that … how you people operate?’

He threw back his head and laughed, but Alana knew he wasn’t amused. ‘What do you think I am, a masochist? Why would I want to marry a woman who doesn’t want to marry me?’

And who I don’t want to marry , he should have added. Alana shrugged, feeling silly now. ‘So that you can have control over our baby. Child.’

He was very close now.

‘Oh, I’ll have control, Alana, as much as you do. We don’t need to be married for that. It’ll be my name on the birth certificate, and I expect to be involved every step of the way.’

‘But …’ Alana’s throat was dry. ‘But how is that going to work?’

Pascal’s hand reached out and she felt his finger trail from her jaw down to her neck, to the hollow where her pulse beat fast and unevenly.

‘It’s simple—for now you’ll come back and live in Paris with me. We can sort things out from there.’

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