Lynne Graham - Contract Baby

Raul scanned her anxious blue eyes. A slight smile momentarily curved his wide, sensual mouth. ‘You need some time and space to consider that decision. Right now, I have no intention of putting pressure on you—’

‘Just having you in the same room is pressure,’ Polly countered uncomfortably. ‘Having you pay my bills makes it even worse.’

‘Whatever happens, I’m still the father of your baby. That makes you my responsibility.’

‘The softly, softly, catchee monkey routine won’t work with me... I’m so fed up with people telling me that I don’t know what I want, or that I don’t know what I’m doing.’ Polly raised her small head high and valiantly clashed with brilliant black eyes as sharp as paint. ‘The truth is that I’ve grown up a lot in the last few months...’

Raul held up a fluid and silencing hand in a gesture that came so naturally to him that she instinctively closed her lips. ‘In swift succession over the past year or so you have lost the three people you cared about most in this world. Your father, your mother and your godmother. That is bound to be affecting your judgement and your view of the future. All I want to do is give you another possible view.’

Setting aside his empty coffee cup, he rose gracefully upright again. Polly watched him nervously, the tip of her tongue stealing out to moisten the dry curve of her lower lip.

Raul’s attention dropped to the soft, generous pink curve of her mouth and lingered, and she felt the oddest buzzing current in the air, her slight frame automatically tensing in reaction. Raul stiffened, the dark rise of blood emphasising the slashing line of his hard cheekbones. Swinging on his heel, he strode over to the window and pushed it wider.

‘It’s stuffy in here... As I was saying, an alternative view of the future,’ he continued flatly. ‘You can’t possibly want to marry that little jerk Henry Grey—’

Taken aback, Polly sat up straighter. ‘How do you know?’

His chiselled profile clenched into aggressive lines. ‘He’s just being greedy...he wouldn’t look twice at a woman expecting another man’s child unless she was an heiress!’

Polly flinched at that revealing assertion. ‘So you found out about my godmother’s will...’

‘Naturally...’ Raul skimmed an assured glance in her direction. ‘And the good news is that you don’t have to marry Henry to inherit that money and make a new start. You’re only twenty-one; you have your whole life in front of you. Why clog it up with Henry? He’s a pompous bore. I’m prepared to give you that million pounds to dump him!’

In sheer shock, Polly’s lips fell open. She began to rise off the sofa. ‘I b-beg your pardon?’ she stammered shakily, convinced he couldn’t possibly have said what she thought he had said.

Raul swung fluidly round to face her again. ‘You heard me. Forget that stupid will, and for the present forget the baby too...just ditch that loser!’

Her blue eyes opened very wide. She gaped at him, and then she took a step forward, fierce anger leaping up inside her. ‘How dare you try to bribe me into doing what you want me to do? How dare you do that?’

Raul’s cool façade cracked to reveal the cold anger beneath. He sent her a sizzling look of derision. ‘Caramba! Surely you’d prefer to stay rich and single when Henry’s the only option on offer?’

Without an instant of hesitation, Polly snatched up the water jug by the bed with a feverish hand and slung the contents at him. ‘That’s what I think of your filthy offer! I’m not for sale this time and I never will be again!’

Soaked by that sizeable flood, and astonished by both her attack and that outburst, Raul stood there dripping and downright incredulous. As his lean fingers raked his wet hair off his brow, his dark eyes flamed to a savage golden blaze.

‘I’m not sorry,’ Polly admitted starkly.

Raul slung her a searing look of scantily leashed fury. ‘Por Dios...I am leaving before I say or do something I might regret!’ he bit out rawly.

The door snapped shut in his imperious wake. Polly snatched in a slow steadying breath and realised that even her hands were shaking. She had never met with a temper that hot before.

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