The door closed behind her. Finn turned and her breath left her lungs. She’d forgotten just how attractive he was. How breathtaking the impact of his indigo gaze on her could be. The intensity of his focus sent an unexpected bolt of heat shooting through her that for the briefest of moments sliced through the icy numbness she’d lived with for what felt like for ever and made her wish she had the energy to care about the whole make-up-hair-clothes thing.
As the seconds stretched and the silence throbbed she dragged her gaze from his and ran it over the rest of him. He looked harder than she remembered, as if life had knocked him about a bit. Less forgiving too, which perhaps didn’t bode well for this meeting. Possibly even a bit wary about why she was turning up out of the blue like this. None the less compelling, though. None the less in command as he stood there utterly still, utterly in control, his feet apart and his hands in his pockets. And if he seemed bigger and broader than she remembered...well, maybe that was because she’d shrunk.
She lifted her eyes back up to his and she thought she saw a flicker of heat, of shock, in the depths of his. But it disappeared before she could work out if she was right, and whatever he’d been thinking was now hidden behind a mask of neutrality. She couldn’t gauge how he felt about her being here. Or if he felt anything at all, for that matter. Not that he had any reason to. What they’d had had been a mutually agreed one-night stand, nothing more. She’d hardly expected the same laid-back, full-on seduction she’d been on the receiving end of when she’d initially approached him all those months ago. She wasn’t expecting anything. Hoping for, yes, but expecting, no.
‘Hello,’ she said hoarsely, her heart pounding and her mouth dry. ‘So you probably don’t remember me, but—’
‘I remember you.’
‘Good,’ she said with a shaky attempt at a smile. That made things slightly easier. At least she didn’t have to first explain how they knew each other. ‘How have you been?’
A shadow flitted across his expression. ‘Fine. You?’
Not quite so fine, actually, although there was no way she was telling him how not fine she’d been. She had far too much to lose. ‘Couldn’t be better.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it.’
‘I can’t believe I found you.’
‘How hard have you been trying?’
‘Very. I didn’t have much to go on. Just your first name and the photo I took when we left here that night.’
He gave the briefest of nods. ‘Just in case.’
‘It seemed sensible.’
‘You kept it.’
‘As a memento.’ Which, in hindsight, was deeply ironic when she’d ended up with a memento of a totally different kind. ‘Anyway, I remembered that you looked comfortable at the bar. You didn’t pay the bill. I wondered if you had a tab and, if you did, whether you might be a regular. Now I know differently.’ She glanced around the softly lit space that contained a mahogany desk, a couple of chairs and sage green walls lined with books. ‘Do you manage the club downstairs?’
‘I own it.’
Right. That made sense. He’d said he worked in hospitality and he hadn’t struck her as the type to take orders. ‘No wonder no one threw you out for wearing jeans.’
His dark brows snapped together in a deep frown. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘As fascinating as this trip down memory lane is, Georgie, I’m busy. So get to the point. What are you doing here? What do you want?’
He was right. The time for dithering was over. Finn had a right to know and she badly needed any support he might be prepared to offer. She stuck her hands into the back pockets of her jeans to hide the trembling and took a deep breath. ‘Well, the thing is, you...we...well, basically, Finn, our one-night stand left me pregnant and as a result you have a son.’
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN FINN HAD instructed Bob to send Georgie up he hadn’t given much thought to what he was expecting with regards to her appearance. On the rare occasion he’d allowed the memory of her to flow unfettered through his mind, she either sat at the bar, exuding confidence and vibrancy and dazzling him with flirty banter and smouldering smiles, or lay sprawled across his bed as morning dawned, looking flushed and tousled and sleepily sexy.
He barely recognised the on-edge, wary version standing in front of him. Her dark hair was scraped back from a face that was ghostly pale. Her eyes were dull and her cheeks hollow. Her clothes were hanging off her. Above the neckline of her white T-shirt, her collarbones stuck out, and her jeans hung loose on her hips despite her belt being tightly buckled. It was as if someone had switched off her light, and once he’d got over his shock he’d found himself wondering what had happened to her.
Now, with the bombshell she’d just dropped, he couldn’t think at all. His mind had gone blank. His pulse was thundering and a cold sweat had broken out all over his skin. His vision was blurred. The room seemed to be spinning.
‘What?’ he said roughly, his voice sounding as if it came from far, far away while the disorientation intensified.
‘You, well, we, have a son,’ she said. ‘Josh. He’s six months old.’
A son.
Josh.
Six months old.
The words flew through the air, bulldozing a path through the chaos and hitting his brain like bullets, where they pulverised the fog and cleared the way for indisputable logic and instinctive denial.
A baby?
His baby?
It was impossible.
Or at the very least improbable.
‘We can’t,’ he said thickly, grappling for some kind of hold on this.
‘We can. We do.’
‘You said you were on the pill.’
‘I was.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said with a slight frown. ‘I might have been sick. Or on antibiotics. I don’t remember.’
Disbelief barrelled through him. ‘You don’t remember?’
‘No.’
How could she be so cool, so calm? Could she possibly have done it deliberately? At the thought his blood chilled and his gut churned. ‘How convenient.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘What do you think?’
Her chin came up. ‘Believe me, I did not plan it. I did not plan any of it.’
‘What makes you think he’s mine?’