By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ men ever think of anything else but sex?

      He looked as sulky as a boy, but what right did he have to be upset? It was as clear as a bell what she had to do.

      In the apartment, while he shoved his purchases into the fridge willy nilly, she said politely, ‘Would you mind if I used a laptop?’

      ‘Certainement.’ He crammed the door shut on the foodstuffs. Then with the most elaborate courtesy he showed her into his office and switched on his computer. He leaned down to type in a password. ‘If you are wishing to send an email …’

      ‘I’m booking a flight.’

      His handsome face stiffened. ‘I see. Then in that case …’

      He hit the Internet connection and stood back, with a flourish of his hand indicating she should use his office chair.

      She sat down and clicked to the site. She could feel his hand on the chair, his fingers brushing against her hair. ‘Are you intending to watch over my shoulder?’

      He said evenly, ‘I’m not watching. I am remaining here to offer my moral support.’

      ‘Just a bit late,’ she murmured.

      She regretted saying that, actually. Glancing up, she caught an accidental glimpse of his reflection in a mirror that hung outside in the hall.

      He’d moved back to glower against the filing cabinet, his arms folded across his chest, dark eyes smouldering, his brow like a storm cloud. Every line of his lean body looked furious. But what did he have to feel so raw about? She was the one In Trouble.

      Considering he didn’t want to be burdened with another man’s offspring, he was taking her decision to leave hard. She supposed it must be a macho thing. The caveman wanted to feel in control of the cavewoman, regardless of whose embryo she was incubating.

      She typed in her credentials, then scrolled through the flight times.

      Disappointingly, all remaining flights for the day had been filled. Conscious of Luc’s acute gaze trained on the screen, she tried for tomorrow’s with the same result. Incredulously she tried the following day’s flights, and the day’s after.

      No good. She realised despairingly that, unless she wanted to sacrifice the ticket Neil had purchased for her and try another airline, she was stuck for the whole week.

      She even tried other airlines, knowing she’d never really waste Neil’s generous gift. Then, to underline her terrible luck, the website she was struggling with froze.

      Only just resisting smashing something and bursting into tears, she stood up abruptly and turned towards the door. ‘This is a waste of time. I’ll go back to the Louvre instead.’

      ‘Why?’ he said sharply. ‘Because I stated what is true between us? Ecoute.’ He grabbed her and turned her to face him. His dark eyes were cool and stern. ‘I’m not a perfect guy, Shari, but I am attempting to be—to do what is the right thing. I understand you were upset today with the perfumes, the apartment, but—most of that is fixed now. I was tactless to say what I said in the café, perhaps, but what do you expect?’ He flung up his hands. ‘Zut, we are from opposite ends of the earth. And, yes, yes, I know. You are a woman, I am an idiot. I will offend you—you will offend me, perhaps—many, many times, but … Nom de Dieu. This talking with you is like walking on eggs.’

      She hissed in a breath through her teeth. Her overstressed heart smarted. But while strongly in need of sinking down in a heap and weeping the hot, bitter tears of the chastised damsel, somehow she managed to resist caving in to that final humiliation.

      ‘In case it has escaped your notice,’ she said stiffly, the merest tremor in her voice, ‘there are some things that do upset the average woman.’

      ‘I’ve heard. And I’m guilty of all of them.’ He flung up his hands, his sexy lips crushing each other in their vehemence.

      ‘No.’ She made a desperate bid to gather her serenity about her. ‘Maybe you’re right. I may have been a bit tense today. Maybe I’ve been unfair, but at least try to extend the limits of your male imagination. I have something—someone growing in here.’ Raking his lithe, angular, non-pregnant form with her eyes, she clutched her stomach region. ‘It’s hard to be charming and elegant when little eyes and ears are suddenly developing inside you. How do you think you’d cope with it, monsieur?’

      His eyes glinted. ‘I think I can imagine it. I have seen Alien, the movie. But surely the ears don’t start to develop for another week or two?’

      ‘What?’ Jolted, she ignored his silky Gallic sarcasm to stare bemusedly at him. ‘Where’d you get that?’

      A rather diffident expression crossed his face. Then his sensuous mouth relaxed and he looked less angry. Less sulky. His dark lashes flicked down as if he was suddenly feeling confident. Smug, even.

      He lifted his shoulders with elegant nonchalance.

      ‘Last night, naturally, I was—working. As a pure accident or some strange prompting of fate I happened to stumble across a website that illuminated the—what do you say?—prenatal stages. It seems it is a long process, this development of the senses.’ While she goggled, his hands made an earnest demonstration of her abdomen growing to the size of a football field. ‘En fait, while some hearing will certainly be possible soon, I believe the entire auditory channels aren’t properly established until some time well after the baby’s birth. Eighteen months or so. It is still a very sensitive time in a child’s brain.’

      ‘Oh.’ She mouthed the word, actually. For though she parted her lips, no sound would come out.

      Shock, of course. She’d imagined he’d used both the b word and the ch word, when even in her deepest womanly recesses she hadn’t permitted herself to think those frightening terms.

      He placed his hand gently over her womb. ‘We’ll have to be very careful.’

      As she stared down at that lean, tanned hand a sexual lightning bolt sizzled along her veins. Her mildly emotional state intensified a thousandfold, only it was with a more positive emotion, a more physical emotion, if such a thing could exist.

      It certainly existed right then. Her devastated heart opened to him, while the rest of her being hotted up like crazy.

      ‘Well. I had no idea you … I’m surprised,’ she breathed. ‘I didn’t expect you to … Well, to be interested.’

      ‘I am interested.’

      ‘I thought you were deeply horrified by—the situation.’

      ‘I am thirty-six years old, Shari. An unexpected child—could be a beautiful gift.’

      Oh, God. Her thrilled heart shook like an alder. ‘Well, you know … I’m so sorry about everything.’ Her eyes misted and her voice choked a little. ‘I know I’ve been too difficult. And too emotional. And I am a terrible frump.’

      ‘No, you haven’t. And you are not.’ His deep voice thickened. His hands travelled up her arms to her shoulders, where it was a short and entirely natural distance to her breasts. ‘I’ve СКАЧАТЬ