The Riccioni Pregnancy. Daphne Clair

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      Contents

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER ONE

      SHE was being followed. Silently, invisibly, but the prickling sensation at her nape and between her shoulder blades gave a primeval warning. Behind her the night hid a hunter.

      She had walked down this narrow, sloping street hundreds of times, in daylight and darkness, and never been nervous. Until now.

      The street lamps were obscured by trees that lined the narrow verge and cast deep shadows, wayward roots making treacherous humps and cracks underfoot. She should have changed her shoes before leaving work. The heels of her navy courts were high enough to be dangerous in the dark.

      She tripped, let out a whispered exclamation, and cast a hurried glance over her shoulder, her heart accelerating.

      Nothing. But it would be easy for anyone who didn’t want to be seen to dodge behind a tree or one of the parked vehicles along the street. Few of the houses had room for a garage. They’d been built huddled cosily together before the motor car became a way of life.

      Instinct quickened her pace, one hand fumbling for a key in the bag that swung from her shoulder.

      At her neighbour’s gate she paused, casting another glance behind her. Was the moving shadow under one of the trees a trick of the faint night breeze stirring the leaves in the inadequate lighting, or…?

      Briefly she pictured herself pounding on the door, pleading for entry, saw the cheerful, phlegmatic Tongan family taking her in, sending out their muscular menfolk to deal with the lurking stranger. But no lights showed, no sound of the teenagers’ music videos or the adults’ rich, rapid voices floated into the street.

      And what if she was mistaken? Fleeing some phantom attacker who didn’t exist?

      Her own gate was only yards away, and the safety of her home, the two-storey cottage that recalled New Zealand’s colonial past.

      Don’t run. A few quick strides, a practised fumble with the latch and then she was on the short brick pathway, the gate clanging shut behind her, the drooping leaves of the kowhai brushing the shoulders of her suit as her fingers closed at last on the key in her bag.

      She was on the second of the three worn wooden steps to the tiny porch when the gate clanged again, and she whirled, backing up the last step as a tall male figure materialised, closing on her.

      One high heel caught in a gap between the worn boards, and she lost her balance, flinging out a hand to steady herself and losing her grip on the key.

      She grabbed at a painted post, heard the key clatter to the brick path, saw the dark bulk of the man’s wide shoulders as he stooped and picked it up.

      There was no way she could get past him. She was trapped with a locked door behind her. And before her, a man with her key in his hand, already straightening.

      She lifted her head, opened her mouth, drawing breath into her lungs ready to scream and hope someone would hear—someone who would help.

      He took the steps in one stride, and a large, warm hand clamped over her mouth, strangling the sound at birth.

      Smartly, СКАЧАТЬ