Trish Morey - The Heir From Nowhere

Dominic scowled, no doubt racking up another black mark against her, courtesy of the area where she lived. And then he surprised her. ‘Simone, I think I can handle it from here. You might as well go back to the office.’

‘But Dom, surely you need minutes?’

‘We’ll manage. See you back at the office.’

Dismissed, the other woman had no choice but to leave as a waiter appeared bearing crusty bread and sparkling water. Angie fell upon both gratefully. The bread was dense and chewy and divine when slathered with butter so good it must be real, the sparkling water cool and refreshing.

She was still chewing when two waiters swept in bearing steaming plates of food and for a moment Angie was too staggered by the sight in front of her to think straight. There were mountains of meat in a rich tomato and vegetable sauce over an equally generous serving of golden rice. It looked and smelt fantastic and nothing like the steak she’d been expecting.

‘This is what I ordered?’

‘Osso buco,’ Dominic said, as his own plate descended in front of him. ‘It’s actually veal, rather than steak. I think you’ll like it.’

‘It smells fantastic.’

‘It’s a classic Italian dish,’ he said, picking up his fork. ‘Do you like Italian food?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly, contemplating her plate, wondering where to start. Shayne had never been one for anything fancy or spicy, so she’d given up experimenting long ago. And at least it hadn’t cost a lot to keep them in sausages and mash.

‘Try it,’ he prompted.

She didn’t need her knife, she discovered; the meat fell apart with just her fork. She gathered a piece together with some of the sauce and rice, and lifted it to her mouth and tasted it, sighing with contentment as the flavours hit her tongue. It was divine, the meat so tender it practically melted in her mouth, the sauce rich and tasty, the rice golden with butter and tangy cheese.

‘It’s delicious,’ she said, and then stopped, staggered to see what looked almost like a smile. It was so amazing the difference that one tiny tweak of his lips made to his face, transforming him from chiselled rock to flesh and blood in an instant. And suddenly he didn’t just look powerful. He looked almost—real.

Devastatingly real.

And then he realised she was staring and the scowl returned.

‘Eat up,’ he ordered, the hard lines of his face back in control. ‘And then we’ll talk.’

He couldn’t believe how much she could eat. Simone would have poked and prodded and chased around bits of tuna in her salad and still left half of it sitting in her bowl, whereas this woman had devoured—no, demolished —her entire plateful, as if it was the first decent meal she’d had in years. Then again, maybe it was, given the way the woman was now reaching for the bread to mop up the gravy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman even eat bread, come to think of it. But then he’d never seen any woman eat like this one.

At least he knew that she wouldn’t be going home hungry. More to the point, his baby wouldn’t go hungry tonight.

His baby. Even twenty-four hours on, the very concept still sent a shudder through his veins, the news so unexpected and left-field he was still having trouble trying to assimilate it.

Once upon a time he’d prayed for it to happen, if only so he could see Carla smile again and know that she meant it, if only so that she might finally find that elusive happiness she sought.

But the whole IVF process had been so intense, so clinical, and as it turned out, so laden with despair and disappointment that it had been a relief when the doctors had put a stop to it. He’d written off his chances of having a child then.

That it should happen now, so many years later, was a victory as bitter as it was sweet.

Because by some freakish accident, by some cruel twist of fate, he was going to be a father after all.

It had finally happened.

But why—damn it all, why—in the womb of this woman?

Cruel twist of fate?

Or cruel joke?

He screwed up the napkin in his lap, dropped it next to his plate. Cruel either way. Because the one thing she had in common with Carla was the one thing he’d hated about her the most.

God, and Dr Carmichael had assured him she was healthy. She didn’t look healthy. And hadn’t she practically fainted on him earlier? She was gaunt, her arms perilously thin and when she’d taken off her sunglasses to come inside, the dark circles under her eyes had threatened to swallow up her whole face.

And right now a niggling concern tugged at the edges of his admiration for her appetite. For there had been those rare times that Carla too had eaten well, getting his hopes up that maybe she was recovering, only for her to spend the next few hours locked in the bathroom purging herself of every last calorie.

He watched the woman opposite put down her knife and fork and take a sip of water. Any second now, he thought, the past flooding back with bitter clarity, she’ll excuse herself …

But, instead, she surprised him by sitting back in her chair with a look of utter contentment on her face. ‘That was amazing,’ she said. ‘I am so full.’

He might have smiled in other circumstances, if he hadn’t already been counting. He knew the drill. Twenty minutes would be enough for her body to absorb vital nutrients for his child. He just had to keep her sitting there for twenty minutes.

The plates were cleared away, an order for coffee taken. The woman stuck with water though she’d been offered decaf. She made no attempt to go to the bathroom. He didn’t like that he couldn’t find fault with either of those things, even though there was an abundance of things about her that still rankled, from the way her hands fidgeted when she wasn’t eating to the fact that this meeting was even necessary. But it was her appearance that was right up there near the top of the list.

Though he had to concede she looked better for eating. There was colour in her face now, he noticed, her cheeks faintly blushed, her lips pink and wide and surprisingly lush now that he thought about it. Strange, how much difference colour made to her features. Even her eyes seemed to have found colour somewhere, maybe because her face was no longer dominated by the dark circles under her eyes. Clear blue, like crystal clear pools where you could almost see the bottom but for the ripples on the surface, they looked almost too big for the rest of her face. He searched them now, wishing the ripples away so he could find out what it was that motivated her, what had really brought her here today, but they chose that moment to skitter away and he was left wondering—was she hiding something?

There was only one way to find out. ‘Okay,’ he said, placing a small voice recorder on the table between them, ‘let’s get down to business.’

Angie licked her lips. A moment ago she’d been enjoying the afterglow of the best meal she’d ever had, her tastebuds still tingling, alive with new flavours. But that was then. Now she felt his resentment coming in waves across the table and she didn’t understand why. His tone and his words made it sound as if they were in the midst of some kind of business meeting rather discussing the future of the child she carried. ‘What’s that for?’

‘For the record, Mrs Cameron. Rest assured, you’ll be given a copy.’

She blinked. ‘You don’t trust me.’

His eyes pinned her across the table and for the first time she noticed just how dark they were, as dark as his voice was deep, as if they’d both been tapped from the same dark cavern, deep below the earth. ‘Who said anything about not trusting you?’

Was he kidding? His answer was right there in his eyes, if not in his actions. ‘But you don’t trust me. You only bought me lunch because you couldn’t trust me to eat it otherwise.’