Surprise Baby For The Heir

‘You don’t want to go back?’

Oh, there was so much more to that question, and she could see from the look in his eyes, lit only by the moon, that he knew it.

Surely it was late enough by now that she wouldn’t be missed at the reception? In her plan for the day, that was meant to be her cue to leave. To get home to her mum and her sister. Not to slope off somewhere with a stranger she would probably never see again.

Because if there was one thing she was sure about when it came to this connection she felt to Fraser, it was that it was never going to last more than a night. She had tried balancing a relationship, her work and family commitments before, and it hadn’t been possible. She’d got hurt. Alex had got hurt. And she knew her family had been hurt too, as they’d seen all their hopes for her unpicked and falling away.

But one night with this man—well, that could be something interesting. More and more, it was feeling as if it could be something irresistible.

‘I don’t want to go back,’ she said, looking up to meet his eyes, making sure that he couldn’t mistake her meaning.

She let the tree take her weight, surrendering herself to her decision, to her desire. The champagne glass slipped from her hand and she heard it hit the ground with a soft rustle. With her hands free, she brushed the front of Fraser’s jacket, taking a moment to really feel the fabric, the softness of well-worn wool on her fingertips. From his lapels she stroked upwards, inwards, and heavy fabric gave way to soft cotton.

His eyes never left hers as she reached the studs of his shirt and hooked her fingers into the fabric, pulling him down to her.

‘What do you want?’ Fraser asked, breaking their look at last and glancing down at her hands.

‘I think you know.’

‘Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea. But I want to hear you say it.’

‘It’s going to be like that, is it?’ Elspeth asked with a shiver, hoping very much that it would be.

He was still looking at her as if he wanted to consume her, and she was good with that. She had too much in her head. Too much in her life. She wanted to be devoured, to devour. To lose herself in her senses, in the present. To be so overwhelmed that she couldn’t think about anything beyond the next second.

She slipped her foot out of her shoe and hooked it around Fraser’s calf, noticing the feel of every hair that slipped beneath the arch of her foot, the line of his calf muscle, taut and defined and bared to the elements.

As she slipped her foot higher, feeling the slide of his skin beneath hers, she couldn’t help imagining what she would find higher still. Wondering whether he was exposed to the elements, to her, beneath that kilt.

With the fingers of one hand still hooked in his shirt, keeping him close, she lifted the other to the back of his neck, feeling the softness of the hair curling at his collar. Meeting his eyes again, she smiled.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ Fraser asked, with a smile just the right side of smug.

‘You know I am,’ she murmured, dropping her eyes to his mouth and finding herself unable to look away from it.

She licked her lips, and watched as his mouth curved into a knowing, confident smile.

‘Good. Don’t stop.’

She had absolutely no intention of stopping. Gripping the front of his shirt tighter, she twisted the fabric between her fingers as she pulled him down to her. She held her breath as she closed her eyes, stretching up on tiptoes until at last her lips brushed against his. Sensation exploded at the touch of his warm mouth and she let out a quiet moan, revelling in every physical sensation assaulting her body.

In the press of hard wood and soft woollen blanket behind her, the creased cotton and tweed in front. The curling hair and soft skin beneath her hand. And the uninhibited mouth on hers. Tasting her, tempting her. Teasing her with its tongue and its lips.

Fraser’s arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her away from the tree into his solid chest. Elspeth let her lips trace the line of his jaw until she was close enough to whisper in his ear.

‘Let’s go.’

* * *

Fraser woke to the sensation of silk sheets beneath his body and a warm summer breeze caressing his back. And soft, soft lips pressing against his.

Elspeth.

With his eyes still closed, he wound fingers into her hair, cupped his other hand around her cheek and kissed her lazily, slowly remembering the night before. He pulled her down on top of him, but she stiffened, drawing away until his body and his bed felt cold.

‘Bye, Fraser.’

He lifted his head and blinked his eyes at the sound of high heels on deep carpet, heading towards the door, and it was only in the dawn light creeping round the edge of the curtains that he saw Elspeth’s face.

‘Bye.’

He croaked out the word and then fell back on the pillow as the door closed behind her.

He didn’t have her number.

The thought occurred to him and then he was sitting up without realising he’d decided to, and he had a foot out of the bed before he’d thought about what he was doing. Before he stopped himself, as he always had before.

No strings. They’d never actually said the words last night, but it had been clear enough in the way they had been with each other. Well, if he’d had any doubt she’d just proved it by walking out with barely a kiss goodbye.

For a fraction of a second he wondered if he could catch her before the lift reached their floor, but that summer breeze brushed him again, colder this time, and he realised what he was thinking.

He didn’t do relationships. He’d seen when he had still been barely more than a child the harm they could do. What happened to people and their lives when they followed their desires rather than making sensible, objective decisions.

He’d sworn that he wouldn’t make the same mistakes. Just the fact that he was even thinking of acting on a whim now was all the proof he needed that it would be a bad idea. Of all the women he might have a second date with, the one who was making him question all his carefully set ground rules was not the one to try it with.

He collapsed back, letting his arm fall over his eyes as he remembered falling into this same bed last night, with Elspeth pulling at his clothes and her body warm and supple beneath him.

Last night wasn’t going to be easy to forget. She wasn’t going to be easy to forget.

CHAPTER TWO

ELSPETH THREW DOWN her work bag by the door and shouted out as she walked through the hallway. ‘Mum? Sarah?’

‘In here,’ her sister called back from the direction of the kitchen.

Elspeth crossed the hallway and smiled at the sight of the pair of them at the kitchen table, the huge pan of chicken and pasta she’d left in the fridge the day before sitting between them. Thank God. She was starving. All she wanted to do was carb-load and fall straight into bed. Again. She’d not made it past nine o’clock a single night this week, and she wasn’t planning on breaking her streak tonight.

Her patients had been back to back from eight o’clock that morning, and the only food she’d had all day was a sandwich at her desk while she caught up on notes and phone calls. She was used to the workload, to the stress and the non-stop appointments, but for some reason this week it had caught up with her. Her body felt heavy, weary in a way she’d not felt since she’d been caught in an endless cycle of night shifts, studying and revision in her first years as a junior doctor.

She just had one last thing to do before she went to help Sarah with her evening routine of medication, personal hygiene and changing for bed.

She had to pee on a stick.

It was just a formality, really. Just to rule out the flashing light that her inner doctor wouldn’t allow her to ignore. She was a week or so late, but that wasn’t unusual. She’d never had a cycle she could set the clock by. And she’d never taken risks—she always used a condom. But if she’d had a patient sitting in front of her, complaining of the sort of fatigue she had been feeling, she would have ordered a pregnancy test, so it only made sense to rule it out.

She smiled through dinner with her mother and Sarah, listening to stories of their day. Her mother’s at work, her sister’s at college. But in the back of her mind she couldn’t shake off the thought of that little test sitting at the bottom of her bag.

As soon as her fork hit an empty plate she tidied the kitchen, thanked her mum for dinner, made her excuses and headed upstairs. Locking the bathroom door behind her, she thought for the thousandth time what a luxury it would be to be able to leave the door unlocked, free from the fear that her mum or Sarah could walk in on her.

Living at home in her thirties wasn’t exactly ideal. But with her mum in her sixties, it wasn’t fair to expect her to take on the full responsibility of caring for her sister. They all worked hard to ensure that Sarah was living as independently as possible, but she still required extra support and Elspeth was determined that her mother wouldn’t have to take on all that herself. And she wanted to be able to buy a house. Somewhere for her and Sarah to live—a home that they could be certain would always be theirs—and that meant staying at home and saving for a deposit.

Elspeth peed on the test and set it on the side of the bath as she glanced at her watch. Three minutes and she’d be able to dispel this nagging doubt and get her head on the pillow. Which meant she had three minutes during which she could legitimately let herself think about Fraser.

Because for the past three weeks she’d not let herself do that. She’d pushed her memories of that incredible night out of her mind, knowing that with all the responsibilities in her life she couldn’t afford the luxury of a relationship. No matter how good the sex had been. And, oh, it had been good. Better than good. Better than sex, actually. Because for those few hours there had been a connection between them. They had laughed, joked, challenged each other.

And when the sun had crept over the horizon in the morning she had crept out of his bed with a sigh of regret, wishing for a moment that her life could be different.

But here, in the cold, stark light of the bathroom, she knew that it couldn’t be. She had responsibilities, and she and Alex had already done a fine job of proving that those responsibilities were not compatible with a romantic relationship.

It was a sobering thought, she realised as she kept her eyes averted from the pregnancy test. Looking ahead to a life without romance. Without marriage. Without a family of her own.

Elspeth loved her mum and her sister. She was devoted to them, and it was no sacrifice to set aside what she might want for herself for what was best for her family. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t curious. That she didn’t wonder what sort of life she might have had if her decisions had been her own to make. Maybe she would have been peeing on one of these sticks hoping for it to show a smiley pregnant face rather than dreading the result.

She glanced at her watch. Three minutes. Well, there was no point putting it off any longer. All she had to do was check the test, put her daydreams and her sister to bed, and then climb in between the sheets herself.

She turned the test over.

Pregnant.

For a second she wished she’d bought one of those cheap, old-fashioned tests. Where you had to scrutinise the stick and the leaflet to work out if there was a line. What the line meant.

Seeing the truth just sitting there, so unvarnished, was a blow to her chest. She couldn’t pull in air and sat heavily on the side of the bath, staring at it, unable to tear her eyes away.

She was pregnant. She did the maths in her head. Just a few weeks. Six weeks gestational age, at most. Barely a grouping of cells.

She had options. She ran through them as she would for any patient who wanted them, and in her head she was halfway through the referral process to end her pregnancy before she realised that the thought of doing so made her feel sick. Sick in her stomach, sick in her bones.

She realised that it wasn’t the right choice for her.

And that was it, Elspeth thought, as she looked at herself in the mirror. Decision made. She was having a baby.

As she walked out of the bathroom Elspeth could hear her sister typing in her bedroom, and she knocked on the door before pushing it open.

‘Hey, sis. Ready for bed?’

Sarah smiled and turned her head, gesturing for Elspeth to sit. ‘What’s up, Els?’ she asked, frowning. ‘You’re completely white. You’re not going to throw up, are you? If you are, you can get off my bed.’

Elspeth pulled a face, feigning ignorance. ‘I’m fine. How was college today?’

Sarah gave her an insightful look. ‘We already talked about that. Don’t change the subject. You look terrible.’

‘Gee, with a sister like you…’

‘I know—who needs friends? But I’m not letting you off that easy. Come on. Tell me what’s up.’

Elspeth considered her options. It wasn’t as if she could keep it a secret for ever. And she could do with talking about what was on her mind. Maybe if she said the words out loud they would start to feel more real.

‘I—’ Her voice broke, stuck behind a lump in her throat. She coughed, took a deep breath and tried again. ‘I’m pregnant.’

She heard the words for the first time, but it still didn’t help. It felt as if she was talking about someone else. Except for the look on Sarah’s face. That made it a little more real.

‘Okay. Whose is it?’ she asked after a long pause. ‘Not Alex’s?’ she added, looking aghast.

‘No,’ Elspeth said, unable to help smiling at her sister’s horror at the prospect that she was back with her ex. ‘It’s someone…new,’ she said eventually, not sure she wanted her sister to know she’d been picking up strange men at weddings. ‘We’re not really in touch at the moment.’

They weren’t meant to be in touch at all. Not if it meant trying to cram a relationship into a life that she’d already proved had no space for one.

‘Guess that’s going to have to change,’ Sarah said.

Elspeth threw her a look only an older sister could give. ‘You’re very insightful tonight,’ she said.

Sarah turned her chair so that she was looking directly at Elspeth. ‘You’re the one throwing bombshells. I’m just trying to keep up. How long have you known?’

‘I’ve just found out,’ Elspeth said. ‘Don’t tell Mum. Not till I’ve had a chance to speak to her first.’

‘Of course,’ Sarah said, watching her more closely than Elspeth was comfortable with.

Elspeth picked up a book from Sarah’s bed, fiddling with it in her hands, running scenarios through her head, none of which were helping.

‘Can you grab my pyjamas?’ Sarah asked, with a glance at her restless fingers. ‘I’m not getting anywhere with this essay. I think I need to sleep on it.’

‘Of course,’ Elspeth replied, pleased to have the distraction. As she went through the nightly routine—helping Sarah in the bathroom, dressing her, administering her meds and going through her physio regime—her thoughts kept drifting back to Fraser, as hard as she tried to keep them in the present moment.

‘Are you going to tell me about him?’ Sarah asked, and Elspeth realised she had been looking out of the window for the past few minutes, Sarah’s toothbrush in her hand, completely forgotten about.

‘I’m not sure there’s much to tell. I haven’t known him long. I don’t even know if he’s going to want to be involved. I mean, we’ve done okay, haven’t we?’

Sarah gave her a look that wasn’t at all difficult to interpret.

‘I know, I know… I’ll tell him. I know that I have to. It’s just… Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t stick around, you know?’

Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t judge them all by Alex’s standards.’

‘He wasn’t—’ Elspeth started to defend her ex. It hadn’t been his fault that she hadn’t been able to commit to their relationship. She had been asking too much from him—way too much—and she hadn’t been surprised when he had taken the escape route she had offered him.

But Sarah interrupted her before she could explain. ‘Save it, Els. You know he wasn’t the one for you. I’ve got higher hopes for this new one.’

‘You don’t know a thing about him.’

‘Exactly. I don’t know a thing about him other than the look he’s put on your face and I already like him more than the last guy.’

CHAPTER THREE

FRASER STARED INTO his coffee and could tell without having to glance at the mirror opposite him that his eyebrows were pulling together in a way that was giving him a line between them.

He was pretty certain that this was a bad idea.

His usual practice when he had unexpected text messages from one-night stands he’d thought he’d never hear from again was to say a polite but firm no, and he should have stuck to that today.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like spending time with women—he liked to have fun. But he’d seen first-hand what happened when you let yourself be swept away by emotions. Lust and passion were all well and good for a night or two. But when you gave in to them for longer than that they clouded your judgement and led to the people around you getting hurt.

He got hurt.

That was what he had learned as a teenager, when he’d seen his father throw away twenty years of marriage and move in a woman who hadn’t lasted more than a couple of years. But when Fraser had given him an ultimatum—‘Either she goes or I do!’—in the early, heady days of that relationship, his father had chosen his new partner instead of his son.

So Fraser had packed up his things, helped his mother into the car—with her white face and her shocked silence—and left his home, the ancient seat of his ancestors and his title. The estate he had been preparing to inherit from the day he was born.

And he didn’t know if he would ever get them back. All because his dad hadn’t been able to say no to a pretty face and walk away. Seeing what that had done to his mother had made the decision for him. Nothing and no one, no relationship, could be worth the sort of pain that she had gone through.

Meeting with Elspeth now went against every rule he had made for himself and stuck to so rigidly for the past fifteen years. But she had found his phone number somehow and invited him for coffee.

She was clearly keen. Keener than most. And that meant he had to be even firmer than usual. He had to tell her, face to face and in no uncertain terms, that he wasn’t interested. He didn’t do relationships. He’d assumed that she’d known that when she’d taken him home halfway through a wedding and then barely woken him for a goodbye kiss the following morning. Had assumed that she wasn’t after anything serious.

So why had she tracked him down? The time for swapping numbers had come and gone without either of them suggesting it, and he had assumed that meant that she felt the same way he did.

Whatever. The whys of the situation didn’t matter. All that mattered was shutting this thing down. And it seemed more effective to do that in person than by text. He could show her that he really meant it.

And show himself.

Because he’d been thinking about Elspeth far more than was reasonable or desirable over the past few weeks. Perhaps it was the way that she had sneaked out in the half-light of dawn. The colours in the room faded in the early morning, the silhouette of her face the only clear thing.

But that was no excuse. He’d shared plenty of dawn kisses goodbye before and hadn’t had any problems forgetting them.

The door of the hotel lounge where he’d suggested they meet opened and he glanced up. Even though he was expecting her, he still felt his stomach dip at the sight of her.

He’d forgotten how petite she was. Her shoulders were half the width of his, and her head barely reached his collarbone. Her ankles and wrists were so tiny he could wrap them with his thumb and little finger. And so sensitive that she’d moaned every time he’d done so. And those freckles over her nose and her cheekbones…like a constellation of stars. He’d stared at them so intensely that night he had been able to see them even when he’d closed his eyes—like the negative image left by a bright light.

And wrapped up in that delicate exterior was a desire and a strength and a passion that had given his six feet and two hundred pounds a run for their money for a whole, blissful night.

But he wasn’t meant to be thinking about that, he reminded himself as he schooled his face back into something neutral. He had to remember that this meeting was about breaking things off, not about picking up where she’d left him, naked in bed, wanting more.

‘Hi,’ Elspeth said as she approached his table.

Her smile was wary and it made his forehead crease again. She was the one who had asked to meet him, so why was she looking so guarded? So very much as if she didn’t think being here was a good idea any more than he did?

He stood to kiss her on the cheek—a polite habit, he told himself, rather than anything meaningful. The hand that he dropped to her shoulder met firm, tense muscle, and he realised that she was really nervous.

‘Have a seat,’ he said. ‘What do you want to drink?’

‘I’ll have tea. Thanks.’

He could see her looking around the richly decorated interior of the hotel lounge as he summoned the waiter with a glance and wondered whether he’d made a mistake, choosing somewhere so intimate. But he hadn’t wanted to have this conversation in a crowded restaurant or bustling coffee bar. Though that would have had its advantages… He’d have loved a reason to step away from her right now and catch his breath.

The sight of her had brought memories flooding back, and he wanted some space to remind himself that it didn’t matter that she was beautiful. It didn’t matter that she was funny. It didn’t even matter that they had killer chemistry together. What mattered was that he couldn’t trust himself around her, and he had to make sure that she knew this wasn’t going to go anywhere.

He ordered her tea, and a fresh drink for himself. Something to do with his hands. To keep them distracted. To try and forget the memory of the delicate bones of her wrists trapped between his fingers.

‘Thanks for meeting me,’ Elspeth said eventually, gazing at a point somewhere past his left shoulder.

Alarm bells started ringing. There was definitely more to this meeting than he understood, and he didn’t like it.

‘What’s going on, Elspeth?’ he asked, his voice brusquer than he had intended. But he couldn’t regret it. He had to know what she wanted from him because his body was growing increasingly tense, and the suspicion that this conversation was going somewhere he wasn’t going to like was becoming impossible to ignore.

Elspeth took a deep breath, and—finally—looked him straight in the eye. Her face was set defiantly, as if she were expecting a fight, and a shiver travelled the length of Fraser’s spine. A flash-forward—a presentiment, perhaps. An acknowledgement that, whatever it was that had put that expression on her face, he wasn’t going to like it.

‘I’m pregnant.’

The words hit Fraser like a bus, rendering him mute and paralysed. He sat in silence for long, still moments, letting the words reverberate through his ears, his brain. The full meaning of them fell upon him slowly, gradually. Like being crushed to death under a pile of small rocks. Each one was so insignificant that you didn’t feel the difference, but collectively they stole his breath and would break his body.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

He didn’t know why. She wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t sure. The look on her face told him that she was sure. And he wasn’t going to insult her by asking if he was the father—she wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.

‘I’m sorry. Of course you’re sure.’