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that is?’ Cesare persisted mercilessly when she still couldn’t make herself form the words. ‘Just what is the truth that you…’
    â€˜That I’m pregnant!’ Megan cut in when, having drawn a deep, determined breath, she knew there was no going back. ‘That’s what’s happened. I had an affair at college—I made a mistake and—and I’m pregnant as a result,’ she finished starkly. ‘I’m having a baby in seven months’ time.’

CHAPTER THREE
    â€˜Y OU’RE what ?’
    If he had felt as if he had been slapped in the face earlier, then this sensation was painfully like being kicked somewhere much more delicate—and intimate. It worked like magic on the ache of his libido however, making it vanish in a trice, leaving him numbed and bewildered, his head spinning wildly.
    â€˜What did you say?’
    He didn’t need her to repeat the words; they were already disturbingly clear, etched into his thoughts in letters of fire. But he had to say something— anything at all. He had to keep talking—the most inane nonsense if necessary—just so he didn’t say the things that were buzzing in his mind.
    So he didn’t say—what the hell did you go and do that for?
    And he didn’t shout. Though he wanted to. Didn’t turn and kick something—anything. Though he wanted to. Didn’t demand to know why she had given herself to someone else when she was his ! Didn’t she know that? Didn’t she see that she had no right to be with anyone else—let alone sleep with anyone else? But he had spent so long—a lifetime it seemed, pretending with Megan. So somehow he just slipped back into how it had been.
    And most of all, worst of all, he had to make sure that he never, ever, admitted to the raging inferno of jealousy that was surging through him. To the pain that was clawing at him, the blinding, black fury at the thought that she hadcared for someone else enough to go to bed with him—to make love with him—to conceive a child with him.
    â€˜ What did you say?’ he repeated when Megan didn’t speak, but simply stood, white-faced and huge-eyed, her bottom lip trembling slightly as she faced him.
    â€˜You know what I said! You heard me! I said that I’m pregnant.’
    â€˜And how, in the name of God, did that happen?’
    Her smile, shaky though it was, was the last thing he had expected. Slightly wobbly and distinctly fraying at the edges, it was touched with a hint of wryness and just the tiniest bit of scepticism.
    â€˜Oh, Cesare, surely you of all people don’t need to ask that! Don’t you know about the birds and bees?’
    â€˜Yes, obviously I do,’ he growled, uncomfortably. ‘But you know what I mean. What happened?’
    â€˜I… Do you think you could pass me my T-shirt?’ she said, changing the subject abruptly. ‘I’m—I’d prefer to cover up, if you don’t mind.’
    If anything revealed the way that things had changed, the dramatic alteration in the atmosphere in the room, the way that the tension seemed to have drained away all the air so that it was impossible to breathe, then it was that simple phrase—‘I’d prefer to cover up.’ That and the way that she barely lifted a finger as she gestured in the direction of the white T-shirt still lying on the floor some feet away, where he had tossed it in the heat of passion.
    There couldn’t have been a greater contrast with the uninhibited, wildly sexual siren who had delighted him on the settee just minutes before, and this uptight, heavily embarrassed woman who kept her arms firmly crossed over the lush curves of her breasts so as to keep herself hidden from him. She even managed to hook the T-shirt he tossed her on her thumb before determinedly turning her back in orderto pull it on, concealing every sexy inch of herself from his watchful