LITMIR.BIZ

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him, although he was yet to see a copy of what Emma had submitted. That, however, was the least of his worries.

      He’d replayed their night together many times in his mind and, once the anger that she’d slept with him to get her story had cooled, a new worry grew from an inkling of doubt. The more he thought of it, the more his gut was telling him they might have had an accident after she’d coaxed him back to bed...the hurried and last-minute use of the condom playing heavily on his mind.

      As he stood looking out of the window early that morning, he kept telling himself that no news from Emma was good, that their night of passion hadn’t had the consequences he’d dreaded despite the ever-increasing doubt in his mind.

      It had been many weeks since he’d marched from the hotel room and braced the snow to cool his mind and body with a walk. When he’d returned to the room, Emma had gone, and that had told him all he needed to know: he’d been used. The only good thing to come out of the night was that he hadn’t had to face his grandmother.

      Angry that he’d put himself in such a position, he’d checked out and headed straight back to New York, but he hadn’t stopped thinking about Emma. She had haunted his every waking hour and made sleep almost impossible. Something had happened to him that night, maybe even from the first moment he’d met her. She had changed him, made him think of things he couldn’t have.

      He’d done what he always did where emotions were concerned and avoided them. He still couldn’t believe he’d almost told her all about his childhood. Those hours spent in bed with her must have muddled his mind. It should have just been a night of passion to divert her from the horrible truth of who he really was, but he’d almost told her exactly what he’d wanted to remain a secret.

      He’d gone to Vladimir and confronted the ghosts of his past in order to save his mother the heartache of seeing her story all over the newspapers, exactly where it would end up once it was published by World in Photographs. What he’d found in Vladimir with Emma was something different.

      Yes, he had been guilty of wanting to distract her from the truth, but somewhere along the way things had changed. She’d reached into the cold darkness of his heart and unlocked emotions he’d thought impossible to feel. Even the woman he’d once proposed to had failed to do that, but Emma had been different.

      ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ He snarled angrily at himself. One of the only times he’d let a woman close and she’d cheated him, used him for her own gain. He’d even begun to question if Emma was as innocent as she’d claimed. Had that too been part of the plan—to make him think he was the first man she’d ever slept with—in order to get the real story?

      The fact that she’d run out on him only added fuel to the fire. Not only that, there hadn’t been a word from her since that night when he’d stood there and looked at her, clutching the sheet against her. He’d had had to fight hard not to pull the damn thing from her and get back into bed. His body had been on fire with need for her and, despite having spent all night having sex, he’d allowed the anger he felt at himself for being used to have precedence. It had been a far more reliable emotion to feel, one which had propelled him from the hotel room without a backward glance.

      Driven by that anger, he’d left quickly, tossing her a card as an afterthought. Or was it because even then, deep down, he knew things might have gone wrong? If their night together did have consequences, then he knew he would face up to them and be the father he’d always longed for in place of the cruel man who had filled his childhood with fear.

      The fact that he knew what he would do didn’t make Emma’s silence any easier. It irritated him. Did it mean she wasn’t pregnant? That the condom failure about which he’d since convinced himself hadn’t had any drastic consequences?

      He looked at his watch. Ten in the morning here meant late afternoon in London. He could ring her. It would be easy enough to get her number through World in Photographs, but what would he say?

      He’d replayed again the scene in the hotel room early that morning. He’d woken to find her sleeping soundly next to him and had watched her for a while. Then, as the ghosts of the past had crowded in, he’d had to get up. For what had felt like hours, he’d stood watching the dark and empty street outside the window as if it held the answer or truth about his past.

      Emma had stirred, her glorious naked body doing things to his, and he’d had to hold on to his self-control, wanting only to lose himself in her once more instead of facing the truth. That truth was not only the fact that she’d lured him to tell her things he’d wanted to keep well hidden.

      His phone bleeped, alerting him to a text, and he ignored it, wanting to focus on what to do next. Call her? Go to London and demand to see her? He’d have to find out where she lived.

      Insistently the alert sounded again and he swore in Russian, something he hadn’t done for a long time before he’d returned to Vladimir. When he picked up the phone and read the text, he almost dropped it as if it were red-hot.

      We need to meet. I’m in New York. E

      He inhaled deeply. This could only mean one thing—the very worst thing. There was no way she’d come here, all the way to New York, to tell him the article had been accepted, or show him a copy. An email would be sufficient for that. She needed to talk. His suspicions about their night together must be right—she was pregnant with his child—and that changed everything.

      He pressed his thumb and finger against his eyelids in an effort to think, but there was only one answer. The same answer that had come up each and every time he’d thought of Emma and that night together. The very thing he’d never wanted to happen. He just knew it: he’d fathered a child. Now he had to face his fears from childhood and prove to himself he wasn’t his father’s son...that he could bring up his child with love and kindness. The very idea terrified him.

      * * *

      Emma was late. She’d arrived at Central Park early and wandered around taking photographs until midday, the time specified by Nikolai in his reply to her text. She’d tried to put her reason for being in New York to the back of her mind and had almost succeeded when she had become engrossed in taking shots of the park. Now the impending meeting with him loomed large but she couldn’t recall which way she’d come. She looked around at the tall buildings surrounding the park and wondered if she’d be able to find her way back out. She was tired from travelling and early pregnancy was not being so kind to her. Panic rose up. She’d have to ask someone for directions.

      ‘Excuse me, is it this way to The Boathouse?’ she asked a mother pushing a pram, trying hard not to look down at the child. It would be too much like looking into her future and she wondered how she was ever going to cope on her own. Nikolai had made it more than clear that what they’d shared was just one night. He’d been so adamant about it she began to question her reasons for telling him personally. It would have been much easier just to call him, tell him he was going to be a father. It was her conscience and knowing what it felt like to be rejected by her father that had made her come.

      All through the flight one question kept going round in her head: would her own father have wanted to be part of her life if he’d been given the choice like this? The day she’d first met him, after she’d begged her mother to tell her who he was, rushed back at her, as did his icy words. It’s too late. I don’t need or want you in my life.

      ‘Keep walking and you’ll see it.’ The mother’s voice dragged her back to the present. She smiled at Emma before heading on in the other direction. With unease in her heart Emma watched her walk out of sight. That would be her by the end of the year, but she was certain she wouldn’t be here in New York, looking happy with life.

      She shook the thought away and looked at her watch again. She was fifteen minutes late. Would Nikolai still be there? With the pain of her father’s rejection stinging her heart, the need to see Nikolai, to tell him and give him the chance to be part of his child’s life, deepened. She quickened her step but within a few strides they faltered. He was standing where the path turned through the trees and, despite the distance, she knew it was him, as if her body had registered

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