Barbara McMahon - Her Pregnancy Surprise - His Pregnancy Bargain / The Pregnancy Secret / Their Pregnancy Bombshell

‘I’m Lucas Patrick.’

Megan drew a deep breath and squared her slender shoulders. Well, that was it! With those words he had committed them both for better or worse…she suspected the latter.

Laura took an audible deep breath and pressed her hand to her mouth. Megan felt a fresh spasm of guilt to see her mother’s childlike delight.

‘Of course you are.’ She laughed. ‘Why, this is marvellous.’ A faint furrow appeared between her delicately arched brows. ‘My brother told me you had flu…’

‘Mal’s prone to exaggeration, but then you’d know that.’ Laura nodded happily. ‘I had a head cold, that was all.’ He looked around expectantly. ‘Where is Mal?’

‘Didn’t he mention he couldn’t make it?’

‘No, that’s a pity.’

Megan, who was amazed at how he had immersed himself in the part he was playing, watched with unwilling fascination as a troubled expression of suspicion spread across his handsome features.

‘He did…you were expecting me…?’ he pressed.

‘Of course we were,’ Laura the perfect hostess responded without skipping a beat. ‘We just weren’t sure when you’d be here, were we, darling?’

‘No, we weren’t.’ Megan glanced at her watch, how many hours of this did she have to endure? The irony was this was a situation of her own making.

‘So long as I’m not imposing.’

‘Gracious, not at all. Actually we’ve been thrilled at the prospect of having you stay. Haven’t we, darling?’

‘Thrilled,’ said Megan obediently.

‘Megan has read all your books, haven’t you?’

In full charm mode, his eyes crinkled delightfully at the corners, he turned his attention briefly to a squirming Megan. ‘I think you’ve embarrassed…’ he gave a quizzical look of apology ‘…Meg…?’

‘Megan.’

The lack of animation in her response earned her a reproachful glare from her mother. God, he seemed to be enjoying himself…! If he wasn’t a con man he’d missed his calling, she decided grimly. A man like that could convince a girl of almost anything, especially if she wanted to believe it! This was something worth keeping in mind the next time her hormones went haywire, she told herself.

‘Megan will show you to your room, won’t you, darling?’

‘Thank you, Megan.’

‘My pleasure,’ she replied with equal insincerity.

‘Please call me Luc,’ he invited them.

‘I have a French friend called, Luc,’ Laura commented.

‘My grandfather on my mother’s side was French.’

‘I knew there was something Gallic about you the moment I saw you…French men have such style,’ Laura observed. ‘Is your mother alive, Luc?’

‘No, she died when I was nine. She named me after her own father, my grandfather.’

Behind her mother Megan shook her head and telegraphed a warning with her eyes. Her fake lover smiled back enigmatically.

‘Do you speak French, Luc? I’ll get someone to bring your luggage in…’

‘No need, I travel light,’ he said, extracting a rucksack from the back seat of the Land Rover.

‘How refreshing,’ Laura said, as though she were used to guests turning up carrying a rucksack that looked as if it was about to disintegrate. ‘Show Luc up to the red room, Megan, then bring him down for tea…Then you can meet the other guests. Megan shot Lucas a questioning look.

‘A quick shower and I’m all yours,’ he promised.

Ignoring her mother’s hissed instruction to, for God’s sake, smile, he’s gorgeous , she stalked towards the house with a face like thunder. She kept a tight-lipped silence until they reached the kitchen. Reaching the door that led to the back staircase, she turned and found that he was no longer at her shoulder but standing some yards away looking around the vast room.

‘There really are an amazing number of original features intact,’ he observed, opening the door of an original bread oven set in an alcove of the cavernous inglenook.

‘Save it for my mother,’ Megan, in no mood to discuss the architectural merits of her home, snapped. ‘Did you have to lay it on with a trowel?’ she demanded. ‘Why on earth did you say you spoke French?’

‘I didn’t say I did.’

‘You implied.’

‘I do speak French.’

‘Oh! And what was all that stuff about a French grandfather…?’

‘My grandfather was French.’

Which was probably where he had inherited his dark Mediterranean colouring. ‘You’re not meant to be you, you’re meant to be Lucas Patrick.’

‘I am Lucas Patrick,’ he contradicted.

Megan sighed. ‘There’s such a thing as overconfidence. Let’s just hope the real Lucas Patrick isn’t a litigious man.’

‘You’re an awful worrier, aren’t you? Do you always assume the worst?’

‘I only worry when there’s something to worry about.’ She scanned his dark face resentfully—he wasn’t meant to be enjoying this. ‘Aren’t you even slightly nervous?’

‘Not especially.’

‘Well, you should be. From now on say as little as possible and follow my lead. Do you understand?’ she asked him sternly. It was about time, she decided, to remind him just who was in control here. Her lips curved in a self-derisive smile; had she ever felt less in control in her life?

‘Perhaps if you could write it down for me?’

‘Very funny.’ She sniffed. ‘Come on, I suppose I’d better show you to your room. We’ll take the back stairs.’

‘Anyone would think you were ashamed of me,’ he reproached.

Megan dished up a repressive glare but wasn’t surprised when he didn’t look unduly subdued. ‘There are six other people staying other than you. There’s…’

When they reached the room her mother had allocated to him, she decided not to mention it was next to her own and that all the other guests were in a different wing entirely—she asked him to repeat the names of his fellow guests.

He ran his fingers across some carving in an ancient beam above the low doorway. ‘Is this a test?’

‘Were you actually listening to me?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘I was listening; your voice is like honey.’

Megan, her hand on the door handle, stilled. She was certain she had misheard what he had said. ‘Pardon…?’

‘You have a beautiful voice. It flows…’ His hands moved in an expressive fluid gesture before he sighed. ‘I could listen to it all day…’ Her voice was part of the reason he was here. Her voice—his eyes dropped—her legs and, yes, her mouth.

‘Will you stop that? It isn’t funny,’ she croaked crossly.

His glance moved upwards to the full soft pink contours of her lips. Yes, they had all been factors—they and the fact he thought that the sexy and stuck-up Dr Semple needed to be taught a lesson. You really shouldn’t judge by appearances.

‘Of course what you actually say isn’t always riveting,’ he conceded in an attitude of regret as he ducked to enter the bedroom. He looked around with interest.

‘Not bad!’ He walked over to the canopied half tester and patted the mattress. ‘Firm, but I like that.’

Megan responded to the fact he was looking at her body and not the bed when he said this with an irritated air. Actually she would have welcomed some irritation at that moment, if he said the things his seductive eyes managed to convey he could probably be arrested.

He fell back onto the bed and, crossing one leg over the other, tucked his hands behind his head so that he could look at her. ‘Where’s your room?’

‘Next door,’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘Handy.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘The moment you begin to believe that, you’re out of here.’