Honeymoon Baby. Susan Napier
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medical procedure. You had nothing to do with it.’
He laughed, and for once she couldn’t detect a single cynical note in his amusement. ‘I had everything to do with it—me and my little jar and my wicked stock of fantasies.’
Her blush deepened, her hands fisting on her thighs. ‘You know what I mean.’
He sobered. ‘Yes, I know exactly what you mean. And you’re wrong. I may not have been a partner in the highly questionable deal you and my father struck but I am involved. You’re a rich, pregnant widow because of me. If I’d thought about it at all I presumed that my sperm would go to help happily married infertile couples have the children they desperately wanted...not to a selfish, egotistical old man and a soon-to-be-widowed wife with extremely questionable values. As I see it, I have a responsibility here.’
‘Responsibility?’ Jennifer echoed, her eyes widening in horror.
‘To my father—may God have taken pity on his manipulating soul—and to you.’
‘But you don’t have to feel responsible for me. I don’t want you to!’
‘And of course to my son or daughter,’ he said calmly, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I suppose it’s too early to tell which?’
She nodded her head dumbly. ‘You can’t—you told your father that you never wanted brats of your own,’ she accused shrilly.
‘But you and Sebastian took that decision out of my hands. Instead of giving my gift of life to some anonymous couple, Sebastian took it for himself, and in asking me to forgive him for it—the first time I’ve ever heard him admit he was wrong about anything—he was trusting me to repair the harm he might have done. I’d be a despicable bastard if I turned my back and ignored his dying wish.’
‘But I want you to turn your back!’ she wailed. He was tormenting her again, that’s all, she told herself. He was just saying those things to wind her up. He just wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to try and hold the family to ransom over child support. ‘I told you, I don’t need anything. I’ll even sign a paper saying so, if that’s what you want!’
‘You’re very emotional, aren’t you? I never noticed that when you were in London. You always seemed very quiet and practical, very restrained...a colonial country mouse in the big city. So maybe all the extra hormones flooding your system are making you touchy.’
His hand had crept under the band of her jumper while he was talking, and found the silky skin of her belly.
She jumped. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I just want to see if I can feel my baby.’ He pushed up the band a little way, so they could both see his tanned hand contrasted against the white skin of her stomach.
His use of the word ‘my’ made her nervous. ‘Well, you can’t—even I can’t feel anything yet. Stop it. I don’t like you touching me.’ She wished it were true. The pads of his fingers were surprisingly soft, while his palm was faintly dry and abrasive. Just below the cuff of his jacket she could see silky threads of dark blond hair dusting the back of his wrist.
‘You’re very pale here,’ he murmured, his thick lashes masking the glitter of his curiosity. ‘Don’t you wear a bikini in the summer?’
‘No.’ He was running his finger around and around the rim of her navel, making her skin feel too tight for her body. ‘Do you mind? You’re making me queasy.’
He stilled the movement, but left his hand where it was. ‘Have you been having morning sickness?’ he asked, studying her flushed face.
‘No, I’ve been as healthy as a horse,’ she said. ‘Another reason why you’re not needed.’
‘Well, we’ll wait and see, shall we?’ He began to withdraw his hand, and whether by accident or design his middle finger slid into the indentation he had been lazily circling.
Jennifer sucked in her breath and his finger snugly rode the sudden movement of her diaphragm.
‘Perfect fit,’ he murmured wickedly, glancing down, then up again, catching the streak of sinful speculation in her startled gaze.
His lids drooped as he slowly withdrew his finger, and to Jennifer the whole world seemed to darken and shiver in awareness.
She knew then that the devil had green eyes and an English drawl. How else could he offer so much temptation with so little effort?
‘What did you mean. wait and see?’ she asked belatedly.
‘Why, you don’t think I came all this way just to turn around and go home again, do you?’ he said, pulling her jumper back down over the top of her trousers. ‘I think I need to know a great deal more about the mother of my baby before I make any decision about whether to trust her with the raising of our child. And what better place to plumb the depths of her character than in her own home?’
Her jaw dropped. ‘You can’t mean you intend to stay in New Zealand!’
‘Not just New Zealand. Here. In this house. With you. I’m sure you could put me up for a few days, or however long it takes. You could put me in the room my father had...’
However long it takes?
Just as Jennifer was about to shoot him down in flames she heard the sound of the front door opening and two female voices mingling with excited barking, one rising to a familiar contralto lilt.
‘Hello, Jenny darling, we’re home! What a nightmare, I hope you’ve got the kettle on...’
‘It’s my mother! Oh, God—’ Jennifer clutched at Rafe’s jacket.
‘Good. I’m looking forward to meeting her.’
‘You can’t!’ She looked around, wondering frantically where to hide him. He was too big to stuff under the furniture. ‘You can’t let her see you.’
‘I think it’s too late for that,’ said Rafe, rising politely to his feet as a stocky grey-haired woman in a baggy beige suit marched into the room, followed by a slender, bird-like woman in a wheelchair, whose thin face lit up at the sight of the hovering man.
‘Rafe! How wonderful that you could come! Oh, Jenny darling, why didn’t you tell me—or did he surprise you, too?’ Paula Scott didn’t seem to notice Rafe’s dazed expression as she coasted forward to hold out her delicate hands. ‘Oh, come down here, you wonderful man, and give me a kiss. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to meet my daughter’s husband at long last—I was beginning to think you didn’t exist!’
CHAPTER THREE
JENNIFER sat tensely upright on the soft couch, balancing her cup of tea on her lap while Raphael sprawled comfortably beside her, his jacket discarded, his long legs tucked under the coffee table and his arm extended along the back of the couch so that his fingers could idly play amongst the tousled waves at the nape of her stiff neck.
‘Yes, I flew into Auckland yesterday, shortly before they closed the airport because of the spreading volcanic smog,’ he was telling her mother. ‘I had been going to catch a connecting flight here, but when the airline said it had no idea when any of the local airports might be reopened I decided to hire a car and drive down. And I’m glad I did—it gave me a chance to see something of your wonderful countryside.’
He was certainly turning on the friendly charm, thought Jennifer sourly, brushing at the faint damp patches which still lingered on her trousers.
After being briefly disconcerted by Paula Scott’s words of welcome, Rafe had quickly summed up the situation and deftly turned the scenario to his advantage. And her mother had fallen for him like a ton of bricks, leaning forward in her wheelchair, her blue eyes sparkling with animation, as Rafe described his drive and his dramatic first view of the rumbling mountain with its ash column rising thousands of feet in the air, casually comparing it with some of the world’s