LITMIR.BIZ

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his mouth crushed hers in answer. He tasted of coffee and hunger and he smelt divine. It was one of those truly perfect moments that she cherished. The bedroom was an oasis of peace for her once the children were in bed but it was also a wildly exciting but safe place to be with Zac. Her arms closed round him as his tongue tangled with hers. She decided he deserved one beige room. She could live with beige in very small quantities.

      The next morning, Freddie slept in yet again and got out of bed in a rush, wondering why on earth she should be so tired when she was doing so little. Throwing on clothes in haste and only a smidgeon of make-up, she brushed her hair and went to join Zac for breakfast. The minute she entered the big reception room the smell of fried food assailed her nostrils and her stomach performed a virtual somersault, which left her cramming her hand against her mouth and racing back to the bathroom, grateful that Zac was out on the balcony and shielded from the sight. There she was very sick and, sobered by the experience, she leant on the vanity counter studying her perspiring face with wide, troubled eyes. Now that she thought about it, and she really hadn’t been thinking about it, she began counting days very carefully back to her last period. She was almost two weeks overdue! Could she be pregnant?

      Of course you could be pregnant, you idiot, she scolded herself in exasperation. After all, they had been doing everything possible to get her pregnant since the day after they had married. A faint wave of warning dizziness engulfed her when she walked briskly back into the bedroom and she sat down with a still-swimming head on the end of the bed. Pregnant? Pregnant! She had thought it would take months to get pregnant, she had assumed it would take months but, possibly, not always. She headed back into the bathroom to clean her teeth and freshen up. She could be carrying Zac’s baby right now.

      How long would he stay with her once she told him? That single question sliced through every other thought in her head. Of course, she would have to check that she was pregnant first because she didn’t want to sound a false alarm. And if she mentioned her suspicion to Zac, Zac would take over and she would be rushed off to see some fancy doctor when she could easily buy a pregnancy test and find out for herself. Would he stay with her at least until the baby was born? Freddie’s lips quivered and her eyes prickled like mad. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Maybe it was her hormones. Would he even stay with her until the baby was a few months old? She sucked in a deep breath like a drowning swimmer, struggling to compose herself.

      What Zac chose to do was not her business, she warned herself fiercely. They had an agreement. He had agreed to adopt Eloise and Jack with her and she had agreed to try and give him a child to enable him to take control of the da Rocha business empire. Obviously he couldn’t leave her until the adoption was finalised, she acknowledged on a tide of sudden overpowering relief that even she couldn’t ignore. And there was a couple of months yet to run on the adoption process.

      Why did the prospect of Zac leaving fill her with horror and a deep and terrifying sense of abandonment? Practicality not sentiment, she rhymed to herself. Oh, to hell with that cop-out, she decided without hesitation. He was planning to desert her with two kids and another on the way and escape all the work and hassle of a newborn! How was that fair? Freddie hurtled at insane speed from misery to rage at the injustice of his plans.

      This was the man she slept wrapped around every night. This was the man who enjoyed her body several times a day. This was the man planning to maroon her in the country with a house that needed a heck of a lot of work and someone with Zac’s drive and energy to ensure it got done! That Molderstone Manor happened to be her dream house should carry no weight in the argument, she told herself, determined to be a martyr in every way.

      ‘What’s up?’ Zac enquired lazily as Freddie tilted her nose in the air and walked to the far end of the balcony, turning her slender back to him.

      ‘Nothing’s up,’ she responded, taking in a great gulp of fresh air to close out the faint aroma of fried food still on the table.

      ‘Aren’t you joining me for breakfast?’

      ‘I’m not hungry. Where are the children?’

      ‘Izzy took them to the park.’ Zac appraised her as she turned. She looked very pale and the tip of her nose was pink as if she had been crying. ‘Have you been crying?’

      ‘Why would I have been crying?’ Freddie asked stiffly. ‘I’ve got some shopping to do.’

      ‘I’m meeting Dad for lunch but I can do shopping as long as neither paint nor fabric choices are involved.’ Zac sprang upright, every long, lean line of his powerful body defined by the beautifully tailored navy suit he wore teamed with a forest-green shirt and a silk tie. ‘You’re like a headless chicken when you shop. You can never make your mind up about anything.’

      ‘I’d rather go alone,’ Freddie muttered, biting at her lip. ‘Because afterwards I’m planning to visit the cemetery where my sister is buried. It’s the anniversary of her death.’

      ‘Why am I only hearing about that now?’ Zac queried, relieved to have grasped what had probably caused the tears he suspected. ‘You know, you hardly ever mention her.’

      ‘Doesn’t mean I don’t miss her. She was so good to me when I was a kid. But everything went wrong for her,’ Freddie responded tightly, suddenly dangerously on the edge of tears again.

      ‘She’d be proud of what you’re doing for her children.’

      Freddie said nothing because sadly her last memories of her sister only reminded her that Lauren would have sacrificed anything and anybody for her next fix. Lauren had been too lost in drugs to care about her children.

      ‘I’m definitely coming with you to the cemetery,’ Zac decreed. ‘Give me a time and we’ll meet up.’

      Freddie gave way on that point and headed straight out to buy a pregnancy test at the pharmacy only down the road. She then retreated back to the hotel cloakroom to get the test done. Well, actually, the three tests done because she didn’t want to get all worked up about a possible mistake, did she? And, one after another, each test put up an unmistakeable positive and tears rolled down her cheeks. And she hated herself but she hated Zac even more for getting her pregnant so quickly. She should be happy that she had conceived and somehow that aspect had been stolen from her by their situation.

      Why was that? she asked herself. Shouldn’t she be rushing back up to the penthouse in the lift and sharing her good news? Zac would want to celebrate. He would be surprised it had happened so quickly for them. As he had said weeks back when she had realised that she hadn’t conceived. ‘We’re not in a hurry.’ Of course, he had had to say that, hadn’t he? He didn’t want her to feel stressed out about the conception plan, having already mentioned that stress wouldn’t aid that goal. How had he known that? Had he been reading up about pregnant women?

      She looked down at her flat tummy and tried to imagine a little jumping bean like Jack nestling inside her and warm acceptance spread through her at last. A little Zac or a little girl, she didn’t care, only that it would be his child. And that was the point when it finally dawned on her that she was head over heels in love with her husband. She had broken the rules! She had gone and fallen for him in spite of all his warnings and against all common sense. The tears bubbled up again and she blinked them angrily away.

      She was happy about the baby but terrified of losing Zac, and her pregnancy had to mean the beginning of the end for their marriage. There, now she knew what was wrong with her. It was fear of the massive changes ahead of her, of rebuilding a life that would seem empty without him. No more Zac. No more smiles or jokes or kisses. No more unexpected gifts. No more envious looks from other women. No more stories about Brazil. She would never visit Brazil now. Zac had been planning to take her there once the adoption was finalised but it wouldn’t happen now. She had missed that boat.

      She would never see the horse ranch where he had spent his early years. She would never meet his grandmother on the Amazonian rubber plantation where the old lady still lived in her retirement. She would never attend the carnival in Rio with him or see the beautiful women strolling along Copacabana beach in scanty swimwear, whom

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