LITMIR.BIZ

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a bid to calm her nerves and quell the nausea which threatened to rear its head yet again. Within days of returning to London she had woken each morning feeling ill and had at first put it down to all that had happened between her and Nikolai. After all, losing your virginity to a man, only to have him walk out in anger, was not the best experience in the world. Not once had she considered there was a lasting legacy of that night.

      As days had turned into a week, she’d known she couldn’t ignore the encroaching doubt any longer and had purchased a pregnancy test. The fact that it had taken several more days before she’d been brave enough to use it only served to increase the weight of dread which filled her from the moment she woke each day. When she’d finally had enough courage to use the test, her worry had increased as the ominous blue lines appeared, confirming that the hours spent with Nikolai had most definitely had consequences—for her, at least.

      She walked towards him now and with purpose pushed those long, lonely weeks aside in her mind, focusing instead on what had to be done. She kept her chin lifted and her eyes on him all the time. Anything else would be to show uncertainty or, at worst, fear. She wasn’t scared of her future any more and, although it was going to be a struggle, she was looking forward to giving her child all she’d never had. What she did fear was telling Nikolai and, from the rigid set of his shoulders, she’d been right to fear this moment.

      He made no move towards her, not even one step, and she hated him for doing that. He could have made the moment easier for her. Was he punishing her for contacting him? For making their one night something more? Each step she took must have shown her anxiety a little bit more. She should have called him as soon as she’d taken the pregnancy test, but shock had set in. She hadn’t even been ready to accept it herself, let alone blithely call him up and tell him their one night had created a child which would join them for ever.

      How did you tell a man who’d made it blatantly clear he didn’t want any kind of commitment that he was a father? Her mother obviously hadn’t done it right, but could she? She was about to find out.

      As she drew level with him, the inky black of his eyes held accusation, just as they had done in the hotel room the morning after they’d spent the night together, the night she’d lost her virginity to him. The firm line of his lips looked harder than they had that morning but she refused to be intimidated, just as she refused to acknowledge the hum of attraction rushing through her just from seeing him, being near him again.

      She couldn’t still want him; she just couldn’t.

      ‘You are late.’ He snapped the words out and stood his ground. Six foot plus of brooding male towered over her, sending her heartbeat racing in a way that had nothing to do with nerves at what she had to say. She hated the way she still wanted him, her body in complete denial of the numbness in her mind. How could she still want a man who’d rejected her so coldly after she’d given him her most precious gift?

      ‘I couldn’t find my way through the park...’ she began, trying to instil firmness into her voice, but he cruelly cut her off.

      ‘Why are you here, Emma?’ The hard glint in his eye sparked with anger but she wouldn’t allow him to make her feel like a guilty child. What right did he have to stand there and dictate to her what she should have done and when? He was the one who’d strode from the hotel room in Vladimir without a word to her after tossing her his card. He was the one who hadn’t handled this right.

      ‘Did you think throwing a business card onto the bed was a nice way to end our night together?’ Her words spiked the spring air around them, but he didn’t flinch. His handsome face didn’t show a single trace of any other emotion beyond controlled annoyance. This just prodded at her anger, firing her up. ‘We need to talk, Nikolai. That’s why I’m here.’

      ‘About the consequences of our night together?’ He’d guessed. Guilt and shock mixed together and she looked up at him, not yet able to say anything.

      He moved towards her, dominating the spring air around them, and while she heard people walking past she couldn’t do anything other than focus on him. If she looked away, even for just a second, all her strength would slip away.

      ‘By consequences, you mean pregnancy.’ Finally she found her voice. Her sharp words didn’t make a dent in his assured superiority, but saying them aloud filled her with panic.

      ‘Yes, exactly that. I assume you haven’t flown halfway around the world to tell me about the article. You’re here to tell me you are expecting my child.’ He looked straight into her eyes, the fierce question in them mixing with accusation. Was he blaming her?

      Emma looked away from the impenetrable hardness in his eyes and wished it could be different, but no amount of wishing was going to change those two bold lines on the pregnancy test she’d finally had the courage to use. She was pregnant with Nikolai’s child and, judging by his response to her arrival in New York, he did not like that particular revelation. It didn’t matter what he said now, she had to face the truth: she was very much alone.

      She let out a soft breath, trying to come to terms with what she’d known all along, finally accepting why she’d wanted to tell him in person. She’d had the faint hope that he would come around to the idea, be different from her father. But no. If the fierce glint in his cold black eyes was anything to go by, he didn’t want to be a father at any price. She would do this herself. She didn’t need him—or anyone. ‘Your powers of deduction are enviable, Nikolai. Yes, I’m pregnant.’

      * * *

      Nikolai braced himself against the worst possible news he could ever be told. He couldn’t be a father, not when the example he’d seen of fatherly love still haunted his dreams, turning them into nightmares if he allowed it.

      He looked at Emma, the one woman who’d captured a part of his heart. Ever since she’d left he’d tried to tell himself it was because he’d shared a bit of himself with her, shared secrets he hadn’t wanted anyone to know. He still couldn’t comprehend why he’d done that when she’d had the power to make it completely public, shatter his mother’s peaceful life and destroy his hard-won business reputation. He was thankful he’d stopped at the unhappy marriage bit, glad he hadn’t told her the full horror of how that marriage had come about. How he’d come about. If she knew the truth she wouldn’t want him to have anything to do with his child, of that he was sure. But, although he had shared some secrets, he would now do anything he could to ensure those she didn’t know about stayed hidden away.

      ‘And did you leave Vladimir in such a hurry because you thought you’d discovered extra facts for the story? Perhaps you rushed off to get it in?’

      The anger he’d felt when he’d realised she’d left not only his room and the hotel but Vladimir itself still coursed through him. He’d had to leave her in the hotel room because of the desire coursing through him. He’d needed the cool air to dull the heavy lust she evoked in him with every look. He hadn’t intended it to be the last time he saw her. He’d intended to go back and talk calmly with her, hear what she would want if the worst had indeed happened.

      ‘No.’ She looked down, as he quickly realised she always did when confronted with something difficult, as if she too was hiding from past hurt—or was it guilt for throwing herself at him just to get a few snippets of inside information? When she looked back up at him, her eyes were shining with threatening tears. ‘I had a call from my sister and left soon after you did.’

      ‘A call from your sister? So, after we’d worked together on the article, you thought spending time with her was more important?’ Her face paled at his icy tone and a rush of guilt sliced briefly through him before he pushed it aside. She’d run out on him to play happy families with her sister.

      ‘She was upset.’ Emma looked up at him as if imploring him to understand. ‘We only have each other. I left her to go back to Moscow but there wasn’t any time to contact you again. It’s not as if I knew there were such consequences then.’

      ‘When did you first discover these consequences?’ The fact that she must have known for at least a few weeks infuriated him more than the fact that she’d

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