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This isn’t a game, she’d said.The baby is mine.
Saint found himself thinking,Mine, too.
He braced his hands on either side of the sink, reminding himself to breathe while he took that in. Whether he wanted to be a father or feared he’d make a terrible one didn’t matter. He was about to be put to the test. This was real. And hedidtake responsibility for his actions—even when his mistake was putting too much trust in the wrong person.
Swearing did nothing to help, but it felt very satisfying to curse out a long, vicious blue streak. Sensation was seeping back into his limbs, and his brain was crawling out of the rubble of emotions that were still piled up around him: shock and fury and guilt. So much guilt toward Fliss. There was something else there, too, deep under the heavy weight of that. Something that was too nascent to excavate. Something almost like relief or... He didn’t know what it was and would rather focus on taking action.
He needed a paternity test for his father’s sake. Ted would turn this into another black mark against Saint, possibly vetoing the board’s approval.
Saint swore again, tiredly this time, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
You want this problem to go away. Let me go away.
As if it were that simple. She was right. As soon as she grew plump enough for people to suspect pregnancy, they would do the math and guess that he was the father. Even if he wanted to take the easy way out that she’d offered and made a statement that the baby wasn’t his, she would still be badgered.
And he couldn’t turn his back on his child. Not in good conscience. Within a year or two, the baby would look just like him anyway, giving how strongly he resembled his own father.
No, if Fliss was having his baby,theywere havingtheirbaby.
Where had she said she was going? Errands. Hell. That could mean anything. If he wanted to catch her, he’d have to be waiting in Nottingham for her.
He went to look for his phone to order the car, ignoring the way Fliss’s last words resounded in his ears.
There’s no way onearthI would raise a baby with you.
CHAPTER SIX
WEEPINGINPUBLIC—on a train, for instance—was a skill Fliss had mastered years ago. As a teen, when she’d been a veritable outcast given the side-eye wherever she went, she had left most of her tears on her pillow. Later, though, when Granny had been struggling and Fliss had felt very helpless, she’d put on a brave face at home and let emotion overwhelm her when she’d been on the bus to work.
It was a matter of having a scarf or a handful of tissues at the ready and taking slow, careful breaths. She liked to wear earbuds so if someone asked with concern whether she was all right, she could claim to be listening to a very sad book. She always kept the sobbing very contained, not making a production of it. She simply let the pain wash over her and leak out her eyes.
Not that Saint deserved her tears. She wasn’t crying over him anyway. She was crying over the fact that Granny and her baby would never meet. And because her memory of a magical night had been revealed to be smoke and mirrors. It had been sleight of hand that was akin to a lie. She felt like a sucker.
She was crying because even though she wanted her baby and knew that she would make this work, she was overwhelmed and scared. She didn’t have a strong network of support. She had some loose friendships in London, all singletons who were living their single lives, and Mrs. Bhamra, who was healthy for her age but an octogenarian all the same.
Fliss would tell her eventually, but she didn’t want to worry the woman. She would wait until she’d paid her back for loaning her the deposit on her bedsit—which was nicer than the one she’d had in London,Saint. It had a window onto a well-tended garden and a kitchenette and her own loo. Her landlords were a pleasant older couple who spent their days birdwatching and their evenings talking about it. The house was situated a short bus ride to her day job and a few blocks from the pub where she picked up shifts when she could.
As she approached the station, she mopped the last of her tears, half-thinking she should tell the pub she was available if they needed her to come in tonight, but she was exhausted—emotionally and physically. She had barely slept last night, knowing she would see Saint today, then she’d been up early to get into London.
Her day had been an endurance event of cleaning her room, selling what she could online, then taking the last of her handmade clothing to a nearby consignment shop. She’d had that awful meeting with Saint, then returned to the house to change and catch her housemates as they’d come home from work. She’d said her final goodbye and turned over her key.
The remnants of her time in London were now in a small backpack, a couple of cloth grocery bags and Mrs. Bhamra’s rolling suitcase. Fliss might yet sell her sewing machine—a professional-grade Juki—but Mrs. Bhamra had said she would take it as security against the money she’d loaned her, so Fliss was hanging on to it for now.
Wearily, she gathered everything as the train stopped and made her way to the curb.
She was comparing the cost of taking a ride share home against walking to the tram when a swanky black sportscar pulled up before her. The driver’s door opened and Saint rose from behind the wheel.
He wore the same clothes as earlier but had added mirrored sunglasses and a leather jacket that made him lookTop Gunsexy.
Drat. She’d left her sunglasses on the train. She looked back into the station but knew they were gone.
“I’ve been parked over there for thirty minutes. I was starting to think I’d missed you.” He opened the boot.
“I thought I made it clear that your infamy is a liability for me. I don’t want to be seen with you.” Her heart was in her throat from more than alarm and surprise. What did it mean that he was here?
“So get in. No one will see you.” He started to take her suitcase, then checked as he realized how heavy it was. “What the hell is in here? A body?”
“The last man who crossed me, yes.” She stared into the two miniature reflections of her own glower.
