Pregnant by the Billionaire
Sin wasn’t enjoying this conversation one little bit, especially now that he could clearly see the effect it was having on Luccy. But he had no intention of letting her just walk out of here, either. Not now. Not ever!
He continued to look at her, his gaze compelling her to answer.
She closed her eyes briefly before opening them again, her gaze challenging. ‘I’m pregnant, Sin,’ she murmured softly. ‘Eight weeks pregnant, to be exact,’ she added defiantly. ‘But, then, you had already guessed that, hadn’t you?’ she concluded self-derisively.
Having his suspicions and having those suspicions confirmed were two totally different things, Sin discovered. Now he was filled with a whole new set of emotions. Awe, firstly, at the knowledge that Luccy carried his child. Tenderness, at the thought of the child, his child, growing inside her. Quickly followed by a return of anger as he wondered exactly when Luccy had intended telling him!
No, for the moment Sin wouldn’t go there. If he thought about that now, then anger would become his prime emotion, and even if that anger was perfectly justified it certainly wasn’t going to help an already fraught situation.
Instead he opted for being cool and controlled. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’ he prompted as he slowly turned to face her.
Luccy looked at him frowningly for several seconds before answering. ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘The baby’s fine. I’m fine.’ She shrugged. ‘He doesn’t foresee any complications.’
To say that she was surprised at Sin’s relative calm following her announcement would be a big understatement! He had to know, by the fact that she had stated so clearly that she was eight weeks pregnant, that the baby was his.
Not that it could ever have been anyone else’s—no matter what Sin might choose to believe to the contrary. The last—and only—time that Luccy had been in an intimate relationship had been seven years ago.
How did he really feel, now Luccy had confirmed that she was carrying his baby? She could discern absolutely none of Sin’s emotions from looking at him, his expression closed as he continued to look at her with those enigmatic grey eyes.
But surely he had to feel something on hearing he was to become a father?
Didn’t he…?
Personally, Luccy had been absolutely dumbstruck when the doctor had announced that the symptoms that had brought her to his clinic in the first place—tiredness, nausea, lack of appetite, a late period—could all be attributed to the fact that she was pregnant.
Pregnancy simply hadn’t occurred to her as an explanation for those symptoms!
Why it hadn’t, she had no idea. Probably because she stupidly hadn’t thought that a single evening of unprotected lovemaking—unprotected because Luccy simply hadn’t thought she would actually be making love with Sin or, indeed, anyone else that night!—could have resulted in her becoming pregnant.
‘That’s good,’ Sin answered evenly, still determined to keep this situation from spilling over into anger if at all possible. ‘Very good,’ he repeated. ‘Although I’ll obviously want you to see someone over here as soon as possible—’
‘Why will you?’ she questioned sharply.
He raised a dark brow. ‘Luccy, I’m sure your own doctor is a more than capable GP, but I would obviously prefer you to see a specialist of my choosing—’
‘Maybe we should get something straight right now, Sin,’ she cut in determinedly as she stood up. ‘This is my baby, and—’
‘And mine,’ he grated harshly.
‘Yes.’ She nodded abruptly. ‘But it will be up to me to decide which doctor I see during my pregnancy.’
His mouth twisted. ‘I think we both know that isn’t true.’
Luccy became very still as she looked at him warily. ‘What do you mean?’
Sin turned away to thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Before he reached out and touched Luccy again. Something that would be a definite mistake on his part.
Luccy was pregnant.
With his baby.
And ordinarily that would be reason for celebration—it was reason for celebration! Sin just had no idea yet what Luccy intended doing about it…
‘Sin…?’
His face was an expressionless mask as he turned back to face her.
‘The child you’re carrying is the Sinclair heir.’
‘What if it’s a girl?’ she came back challengingly.
‘I already told you I’m the only grandson, so, girl or boy, as soon as it’s born, this child will automatically become the Sinclair heir,’ he bit out tersely. ‘I’m sure you aren’t unaware of what that means?’
Luccy had a sinking feeling she really wasn’t going to like the rest of this conversation! Not that it had been exactly enjoyable so far, but the way this was going she just knew it was going to get worse…
She frowned. ‘All it means to me is that my child’s father is named Jacob Sinclair the Third.’
‘Our child will be the Sinclair heir!’
‘So you’ve said. Repeatedly.’ Luccy grimaced. ‘But that will only apply until you have other, legitimate children—’
‘What makes you so sure that I don’t intend for this child be legitimate?’ Sin cut in forcefully, those grey eyes once again glittering arctically.
Luccy gave him a bewildered look. The only way the child she carried could be legitimate was if—’You can’t seriously think I want to marry you?’ She gasped incredulously.
He gave a pitying glance. ‘I’m sure that you would much rather I set you up in your own home and kept you and our child in the life to which you no doubt long to become accustomed—’ He broke off as Luccy’s hand swung up in an arc and made sharp contact with his cheek. ‘Feeling better?’ he taunted, the marks of her fingers already showing on his tightly clenched cheek.
‘Not particularly, no!’ She glared up at him, so angry that she was shaking with the emotion. ‘I dislike you intensely!’
‘So you’ve said. Repeatedly.’ He gave a mocking inclination of his head. ‘I can assure you, I’m not particularly fond of you at the moment, either. Not a prestigious start to a marriage, is it?’
‘I am not marrying you!’ Luccy repeated furiously.
Sin gave a humourless smile. ‘I think you’ll find that’s exactly what you’re going to do.’
‘No—’
‘It isn’t something that’s up for negotiation, Luccy,’ he cut in grimly. ‘Marriage is my price,’ he declared.
‘Are you deaf? I’ve just told you that I don’t want to marry you!’ she all but shrieked in frustration.
He shrugged. ‘Maybe that was something you should have thought about before you became pregnant.’
Luccy gasped. ‘You don’t think I became pregnant on purpose?’
‘I’ll admit it had to have been more luck than judgement.’ Sin shrugged. ‘You just got very lucky.’
He couldn’t seriously believe that Luccy had planned this pregnancy?
But he did. Luccy could see by the utter ruthlessness of his expression that that was exactly what Sin thought.
She was barely used to the idea of being pregnant herself, so to have Sin now accuse her of having planned it that way was incredible!
‘People don’t get married nowadays just because the woman is pregnant!’ she protested.
Sin looked down at her coldly. ‘I do.’
‘So did my sister,’ Luccy reminded him. ‘That’s the reason that eight unhappy years and two children later she’s in the middle of a messy divorce!’
And Luccy didn’t want that for herself or her child. She couldn’t believe that Sin really wanted to be married to a woman he didn’t love, either…
She gave a heavy sigh. ‘Sin, I’m twenty-eight years old, and quite capable of bringing this child up on my own. I certainly don’t intend marrying any man—even a Sinclair!—just because I happen to be expecting his baby.’
‘Luccy, you may as well get used to the idea that there is no question of your bringing this baby up on your own.’
‘Why isn’t there?’
His mouth twisted. ‘I’ve already explained the reasons why. Repeatedly, remember?’ he drawled. ‘There is an alternative, of course. One I’m sure you must have considered…’
Luccy frowned, not knowing what he meant. Then…’I have not, and I will not, consider having an abortion!’ she told him forcefully.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Sin rasped, ‘but that wasn’t the alternative I was referring to. Are you willing to hand the baby over to me after it’s born? In exchange for a cash settlement, of course?’ His top lip curled back with distaste.
Luccy recoiled as if he had struck her, even more taken aback by this suggestion than she had been by his earlier one. Sin wanted to take the baby away from her…? Wanted to give her money in exchange for handing her baby over to him after it was born?
Until that moment Luccy hadn’t been sure herself how she felt about her pregnancy—she had still been in a state of shock from learning she was pregnant at all!
Mostly she had ignored it, deciding it was something she could deal with later, when it became more of a reality.
But Sin’s suggestion that he take the baby from her after it was born suddenly made it very real to her. She was expecting a baby. Her baby. Admittedly it was Sin’s baby too, but even so—!
‘No way,’ she told him fiercely even as her hands moved protectively over her stomach where her baby nestled safe and warm. ‘Absolutely no way!’ She glared at him.
Sin, having half prepared himself to hear Luccy say she would accept his offer, now felt the relief wash over him at the fierceness of her refusal.
Maybe there was hope for the two of them yet…
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘IT’S settled, then.’ Sin nodded decisively. ‘We’re getting married.’
‘The fact that you have made a decision does not make it settled, Sin!’ Luccy told him exasperatedly. ‘You have just insulted me in the worst possible way, seem to think that I deliberately planned this pregnancy for mercenary reasons, and now you calmly assume we’re getting married!’ She gave a determined shake of her head. ‘I don’t think so, Sin.’
He gave a rueful shrug. ‘Do you have any other suggestions—viable ones,’ he added harshly as Luccy would have spoken.
‘My having the baby and continuing to live and work in London is a viable suggestion.’
‘Not to me.’
Luccy felt as if she were going round and round in ever-decreasing circles—with no way out of the labyrinth! ‘People—even pregnant ones—who take a big step like marrying each other should be in love when they do.’
‘Who’s to say that we won’t learn to love each other, given time?’
‘I somehow doubt that very much!’ Luccy muttered.
Sin shrugged. ‘Stranger things have happened.’
‘Not to me, they haven’t!’ she growled.
‘In that case, as I fully intend for us to be married before the baby is born, it would appear I have seven months in which to convince you otherwise, doesn’t it?’ he pointed out. ‘I’ll try to make those months as pleasurable for both of us as possible.’
‘If you think you can seduce me into falling in love with you, then all I can say is you must have a very inflated opinion of the effect your lovemaking has on me!’ Luccy was breathing hard in her agitation.
Sin slowly crossed the room, his movements all feline stalking. ‘I’ll probably have to work pretty hard at it,’ he acknowledged dryly. ‘But as I said, I’ll endeavour to make sure that you enjoy the experience…’ He stood in front of her now, those grey eyes gleaming like molten steel as he looked down at her.
Sin’s eyes were like heated mercury, Luccy thought inconsequentially as she found herself unable to look away from the warmth of that gaze as it moved slowly over her slightly flushed features. And just as lethal if she got too physically close!
If Sin set out to deliberately break down her defences, then she wouldn’t stand a chance. She gave a determined shake of her head as she tried to evade the spell that heated gaze was weaving about her senses. ‘I have a plane to catch—’
‘Not today, I’m afraid, Luccy,’ Sin told her softly.
‘I’ve already warned you not to presume to tell me what I can and can’t do, Sin,’ she retorted.
He didn’t bother to reply as he moved to pick up the telephone receiver before pressing a single button. ‘Reception?’ His gaze held Luccy’s as he spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘Could you call the airport and cancel Miss Harper-O’Neill’s flight to England later today? Thanks,’ he added decisively before replacing the receiver to look at her challengingly.
‘Damn it! I’ll simply rebook!’ Luccy told him with angry impatience. ‘You really are the most arrogant man it has ever been my misfortune to meet!’ She glared at him.
‘Was meeting me really so unfortunate, Luccy?’ he prompted huskily even as he reached out and curved his hand about her cheek before running the pad of his thumb caressingly across her bottom lip.
A caress Luccy felt from the hair on top of her head to the skin on the soles of her feet as it completely eradicated every other thought in her head.
Her lips tingled from the caress, the whole of her body becoming sensitised, breasts firming, nipples tightening, a warm clenching sensation in the pit of her stomach, that familiar heat between her thighs.
Luccy was still furious with Sin for the insulting remarks he had made to her earlier. Even more so for his high-handedness in cancelling her flight just now.
Obviously, just not furious enough to prevent herself from physically responding to him…
Before meeting Sin she had never thought of herself as a particularly sensual person, hadn’t found her previous physical experience particularly stimulating, and had only mildly enjoyed the few kisses she had received at the end of other dates over the years. Yet Sin only had to look at her in a certain way, to touch her however lightly, and she felt that caress all the way from her head down to her toes.
‘Was it, Luccy?’ Sin persisted huskily, the lure of her parted lips proving almost too much of a temptation to him as he touched their softness, his whole body having tensed with awareness.
She swallowed hard. ‘Can you doubt it when it’s resulted in an unwanted pregnancy?’
Her breath was like a light caress across the tops of his fingers, totally distracting him from the sting of her words. ‘It isn’t unwanted by me.’
Her eyes widened. ‘How can you say that when you’re insisting on marrying a woman you don’t even like?’
‘Who says I don’t like you?’
Luccy stared up at him exasperatedly. ‘Of course you don’t like me! You can’t possibly like someone you don’t trust.’
Sin didn’t answer her in words, his hand dropping back to his side before he slowly lowered his head and captured her lips with his own, not touching her in any other way now as he sipped and tasted their pouting softness and he felt her quiver in response beneath the gentle onslaught.
Sin knew when a woman responded to his kisses. Just as he knew that Luccy’s response to him the night they had made love had been completely genuine. As had his own response to her.
Even if they never felt more for each other than that physical desire, surely, for the sake of their child, it would be enough to sustain a marriage?
Sin raised his head slightly to look directly into the dark blue of her eyes. ‘Now do you believe me when I say I don’t dislike you?’ he prompted gruffly.
Luccy didn’t know what to believe any more!
But she couldn’t marry a man who didn’t love her just because he physically aroused her every time he so much as touched her. That sort of heated passion didn’t last, and once that had died what would they have left? The same disastrous mess as Abby and Rory’s marriage had been.
She drew in a ragged breath. ‘I believe that at the moment, because of the baby, you think that marriage is what you want,’ she conceded huskily. ‘But—’ Sin placed silencing fingertips over her lips.
‘I want our baby to grow up with two parents, Luccy,’ he told her emotionally. ‘The same way that I did. The same way that you did.’
‘And once this baby has grown up, where would that leave the two of us?’
‘As grandparents, possibly?’
He really was serious about her marrying him!
It was tempting, oh-so-tempting, to accept his offer of marriage and to hell with what happened later. To lay down the mantle of responsibility and let Sin take charge.
But even for the sake of the baby she carried Luccy knew that without that magic ingredient of a shared love—something Sin would never, ever feel for her!—they didn’t stand a chance of making a marriage between them succeed.
Sin had watched the flickering emotions on Luccy’s expressive face, had seen that brief flare of doubt quickly followed by one of firm resolve. ‘Let’s just forget about the whole idea of marriage for the moment and concentrate on getting to know each other, instead,’ he suggested. ‘I doubt it’s good for you, or the baby, if you continue to upset yourself in this way.’
‘You aren’t going to be one of those overprotective prospective fathers who attempts to wrap the pregnant woman in cotton wool until after the birth, are you?’ she challenged. ‘Because if you are I think I should tell you right now that I’m pregnant, not ill. I also intend to continue working until the moment they wheel me into the delivery-room!’ Her eyes sparkled like twin sapphires as she glared at him rebelliously.
‘Sinclair wives don’t work,’ Sin told her arrogantly. ‘And especially not when they’re pregnant,’ he added firmly.
‘This one will!’
Sin knew that there would have to be a lot of adjusting, by both of them, over the next seven months and beyond, but he was determined not to be goaded into arguing with Luccy before they had even begun.
He took a deep breath. ‘If you insist, I’ll just come along and carry your equipment for you.’
Luccy eyed him frustratedly. ‘Sin, I don’t think you’re taking what I have to say seriously.’
‘Sure I am,’ he said briskly. ‘Is your luggage downstairs in your room?’
‘How did you know—? How long have you known it was this hotel I’ve been staying at?’
Sin’s smile was wicked. ‘I made it my business to know once I realised you couldn’t be relied upon to keep our luncheon appointment. Reception had strict instructions to let me know if you tried to book out.’
Luccy should have known. He was a Sinclair, after all. Besides, he owned the damned hotel!
‘Your luggage, Luccy?’ he prompted.
‘Yes, of course it’s in my room, ready for when I book out,’ she said. ‘But—where are we going?’ she demanded as he opened the door out into the corridor before waiting for her to precede him out of the suite.
‘First to get your luggage, and then home,’ he informed her.
‘Home?’ she echoed sharply, her eyes widening. ‘Your home?’
‘Well, of course my home,’ Sin said.
‘But—I thought—’
‘Yes?’
She shook her head. ‘I thought you lived here…’
‘In a hotel?’ Sin raised dark brows. ‘Hardly.’
Luccy still hung back. ‘You don’t live with your grandfather, do you?’
Luccy had been apprehensive and, yes, a little scared, when only she knew of her pregnancy, as she’d wondered how she was going to continue working once the baby was born, amongst other things. But having Sin just step in and take over in this way was even more frustrating. She certainly didn’t intend going to stay with his grandfather!
Sin shot her a mocking glance. ‘I’m thirty-five, Luccy, not five! I’ve had my own home for fifteen years or so,’ he added dryly.
Luccy continued to protest at Sin’s high-handedness even as she followed him down to her room, scowling at him as he stood to one side to allow her to unlock the door.
‘This is unbelievable,’ she complained, having no choice but to continue following him as he strode off to the lift with her two bags. One of them only had her clothes in, but the other one contained her camera and other equipment, expensive equipment she wasn’t willing to let out of her sight. ‘You can’t just kidnap someone against their will!’ she muttered even as she stepped into the lift beside him.
Sin glanced at her. ‘I’m not kidnapping you, Luccy—I’m kidnapping your camera!’ he teased.
Her eyes narrowed in warning. ‘I could always call the police.’
‘And tell them what, precisely? That I’ve stolen your camera? Yeah, they’re really going to believe that!’ Sin gave her an evil grin.
Of course the police wouldn’t believe her if she said Sin had stolen her camera and equipment; Sin was rich enough to buy himself a thousand—a million!—cameras like hers. She doubted the accusation of kidnapping would be believed, either…
This really was incredible.
Unbelievable.
And, Luccy realised belatedly, completely inevitable the moment Sin had known that she was pregnant with his baby…
‘I know we have some tea bags somewhere,’ Sin muttered with his head in one of the kitchen cupboards.
The meticulously clean and tidy kitchen cupboards. In fact, the whole house was so neat and tidy that Luccy felt she should have taken her shoes off before she entered.
She had been more than a little surprised when, instead of driving to some luxurious penthouse apartment in Manhattan, Sin had driven his foreign sports car out of New York completely and into the suburbs to this rambling single-storey ranch-style house surrounded by its own acres of forest and parkland set behind a high wall and huge iron security gates.
The inside of the house was even more surprising, the hallway alone big enough to be one of the rooms in her own London flat.
There were pale cream marble floors and comfortable brocade furniture throughout the whole of the house as Luccy followed Sin through to the kitchen. The paintings on the walls were obviously originals—even the Monet—and the huge kitchen itself was like something out of a glossy magazine, with its green and cream tiled floor, cream units, an array of copper pans suspended along one wall, and a huge picture window at one end that looked out over the forest and rolling parkland.
Luccy stood hesitantly in the doorway. ‘Do you live here alone?’ It was a very large house for one man.
Ideal for a family, of course, and an ideal setting in which to bring up a child…
Sin straightened to look at her knowingly. ‘There’s no other woman in residence, if that’s what you’re asking,’ he drawled. ‘Nor has there ever been,’ he added as she didn’t look convinced.
‘Is it always this neat and tidy?’ Luccy grimaced as she stepped tentatively onto the cream and green tiled floor.
Sin took the tea bags from the cupboard then looked about the kitchen. He rarely came in here as it happened, but he could see now that the copper pots shone along one wall, with not a single item left out on the green marble work surfaces to spoil its neat symmetry, the cream wood units gleaming spotlessly.
He turned back to her with a frown. ‘You don’t like neat and tidy?’
‘Well… yes, of course I like neat and tidy,’ she protested. ‘It’s just that I’m notoriously the opposite.’
Ah, she was looking for reasons as to why the two of them would never be able to live together…
‘No problem.’ Sin shrugged as he took a cereal packet from one of the cupboards and scattered its contents over one of the worktops before taking a carton of milk from the fridge and tipping that on top of the cereal. ‘I can drop an egg or two on the floor too if that would make you feel more comfortable?’ He quirked dark brows.
‘I said I was untidy, not a slob!’ Luccy gave him an exasperated glare even as she moved to pick up a cloth and clean up the mess he had made.
Sin leant back against one of the units as he watched her. ‘Would you like to see the study where I work when I’m at home?’ he offered once she had cleaned up to her satisfaction.
She eyed him warily. ‘Is that some sort of obscure sexual invitation? Like another man asking me if I would like to see his etchings or even the family jewels?’