Fiona McArthur - Escape For Mother's Day - The French Tycoon's Pregnant Mistress

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.’

THREE days later Alana finally had to acknowledge that she really hadn’t had a choice. Not that it made her feel any better. What could she have done? Her family was reeling from the revelations. The country was reeling. Reporters had camped out on her parents’ front lawn until Pascal had hired security guards to protect them and drive the reporters away. She’d created an unholy row. She’d never confided in her brothers and sisters, so to seek help now—and in doing so bring the media circus behind her—would be unforgivable. The best thing she could do was to disappear. But unfortunately that could only happen with the one person she really didn’t want to have to face: Pascal. By coming to Paris, she knew she’d tacitly agreed to stay for an indeterminate amount of time—till things calmed down at home, or until she could get another job. Either way, she was in no position to call the shots for now.

Yet she’d prevaricated, resisted, and watched with mounting horror as the story had taken hold in the press, had watched as her tiny house and square had come under siege. Pascal had finally battled through reporters the previous day, his face rigid with censure as he’d rounded on her once inside the tiny space.

‘This is ridiculous. If you don’t leave and come with me right now, today , you’re going to turn this into something even bigger. They know where you live, where your family lives. You’ll have to leave the house at some stage, or were you planning on surviving on air and water?’ His scathing glance had taken in the already bare-looking shelves in her kitchen.

Alana had never felt so undone, so threatened, in all her life. Even when Ryan had been at his worst, she’d had a level of freedom, space. He hadn’t touched the part of her deep down that this man was trampling all over. She’d shaken her head as much in negation of that as anything else. ‘Please. Don’t make me; I can’t leave. I’ll manage somehow.’

‘How?’ he’d asked curtly. ‘As of next month, you’re facing repossession. You’re hardly in a position to go out and seek employment within a two-hundred-mile radius of this country. I’ve stayed here out of concern for you and your family, but I have to return to France.’ He’d gestured to the curtains drawn over her window. She could hear the jostle of people outside. ‘Are you really ready to take them on by yourself?’

Alana had looked at him and let easy anger rise. She’d lashed out as much at herself as him, but made him the target. ‘This is all your fault. If you hadn’t pursued me, if you hadn’t wanted me—’

Her words were cut off as he bridged the gap between them and gripped her upper arms, hauling her close. Words died in her throat as she felt her body come flush against his. She’d never seen him look so angry.

His mouth was a thin slash of displeasure. ‘I wanted you, yes, but you acquiesced, Alana. I’m not the reason your marriage failed, and I’m not the reason you never spoke the truth before now, and I’m certainly not the reason you felt compelled to spill your guts the other day.’

Alana gulped as she looked up, held captive in his hands, her body already responding to his. The problem was, he was the reason, but she knew she couldn’t blame him. He’d changed her; since the first moment their eyes had met, something in her had started to melt and breathe again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly, soberly. ‘You’re right. It’s not your fault.’