a cab from the airport?’
‘Of course I can!’ She sounded angry now. ‘I’m not a complete fool.’
‘Meet me in the bar of the Meadow Hotel at seven. We can talk then.’
He cut the call and walked up the stairs towards the elegant town house, where the agent was slanting him a great big smile.
DESPITE ALL HER BRAVADO, Tara wondered if Lucas had deliberately chosen to meet her in the most inaccessible bar in New York. It was situated deep in the bowels of the fanciest hotel she could ever have imagined—a place which instantly made her feel overheated, overdressed and scruffy. She’d worn a thick sweater with her jeans because it was autumn and the city was supposed to be colder than Dublin—but the temperature inside the hotel made it feel more like summer and consequently there were little beads of sweat already appearing on her brow and stubborn curls were sticking to the back of her neck, like glue. And she couldn’t take the sweater off because she had only a very old vest top on underneath.
After convincing the granite-faced doorman that her appointment was genuine, she was instructed to put her anorak and old suitcase in the cloakroom, where she was given a look of frank disbelief by the attendant. Her long scarf she kept draped round her neck out of habit, like an overaged child still clutching a security blanket. Tucking her ticket into her purse, she walked through the huge foyer—past impossibly thin women on impossibly high heels who were smiling adoringly into the faces of much older men—and never had she felt quite so awkward. Several times she had to ask for directions and was made to feel even more self-conscious for not knowing where she was going. As if showing any kind of ignorance meant you’d failed a test you hadn’t even realised you were taking.
Eventually she found the bar, which was situated down a dimly lit passageway—dimly lit and daunting with its understated display of quiet opulence and a lavish oriental feel. Standing in front of a display of coloured glasses and bottles, a barman was vigorously shaking a cocktail mixture as if it were a pair of maracas, playing to the group of businessmen sitting on tall stools at the bar in front of him. It was definitely a man’s room but Tara was met with nothing but disparaging glances, indicating that without the clothes, the sophistication or the glamour, she was the wrong kind of woman to drink in a place like this. And didn’t that simple fact acknowledge more clearly than words ever could just how awful the predicament in which she now found herself?
Where was Lucas? she thought, with a tinge of desperation as she sat down at a vacant table in the corner of the room and snuck a glance at her watch. And who was this woman called Brandy he’d been meeting when she’d telephoned him from the airport? She felt her self-esteem take another dramatic nose-dive as a familiar voice broke into her reverie.
‘Tara?’
Thank heavens. Her heart pounded with relief. It was Lucas and he must have entered the room without her noticing because he was standing right beside her. She could detect his subtle scent as his shadow enveloped her, making her acutely aware of his powerful body. As befitted the sophisticated environment, he was wearing a suit, a crisp shirt and a tie—but, despite the elegant exterior, Tara knew all too well what lay beneath the sophisticated city clothes.
And suddenly he was no longer her soon-to-be ex-boss who had migrated to the opposite side of the globe, but the man with whom she’d shared all kinds of intimacies. The man with whom she had lain naked—skin next to warm and quivering skin. Who had stroked her eager body with infinite precision and licked his tongue over her puckering nipples. Had she really lost her virginity to the man she’d worked for and never looked twice at for all those years? Had he really thrust deep inside her as he’d taken her innocence and introduced her to that terrible and exquisite joy? How did something like that even happen?
Her heart began to race even faster. It was one thing being in Dublin and deciding that telling him to his face was the only way to impart her unwanted news—but now she wondered if she had been too hasty. Should she have sent him an email, or a text, even though it would have been an extremely impersonal method of communicating that she was carrying his baby? Suddenly what she was about to tell him seemed unbelievable—especially here, in this setting. Because this was his world, not hers. It was quietly moneyed and privileged—and it was pretty obvious that she stuck out like some country hick with her home-knitted scarf and cheap jeans.
‘H-hello, Lucas,’ she said.
‘Tara.’
His voice was non-committal as he gave a brief nod of recognition, but as he turned to look at her properly Tara almost reeled back in shock because his face looked ravaged—there was no other word for it. The faint lines which edged his mouth seemed deeper—as if someone had coloured them in with a charcoal pencil. And despite the dim golden glow cast out by the tall light nearby, she could detect a bleak emptiness in his green eyes. As if the Lucas she knew had been replaced by someone else—a cool and indifferent stranger, but one who was radiating a quiet and impenetrable fury. Lucas was no even-tempered, angelic boss, but she’d never seen him looking like this before. What was responsible for such a radical change? Was he angry that she’d turned up without warning and was this to be her punishment—being given the ultimate cold shoulder for daring to confront him like this?
Well, his reaction was just too bad and she wasn’t going to let it get to her. She couldn’t afford to. She wasn’t some desperate ex-lover chasing him to the far ends of the earth because she couldn’t accept their relationship was over, but the woman who was carrying his baby. She needed to do this and she would do it with dignity.
‘I know this is unexpected.’
‘You can say that again.’ He sat down opposite her, loosening his tie as he did so, but his powerful body remained tense as he looked at her. ‘Have you ordered yourself a drink?’
Now was not the time to explain that she’d been too intimidated by the ambidextrous barman to dare to open her mouth, aligned with the very real fear that buying something here would eat dangerously into her limited budget. ‘Not yet.’
‘Would you like to try one of their signature cocktails?’ He fixed her with an inquiring look and she knew him well enough to recognise that his smile was forced. ‘They come with their own edible umbrella and are something of an institution.’
She tried not to look ungrateful, even though she found his tone distinctly patronising. But he was summoning a waitress who was travelling at the speed of light in her eagerness to serve him and Tara told herself not to be unreasonable. She had to look at it from his point of view. They’d had some bizarre unplanned sex and now it must look as if she were trying to gatecrash his new life. Because he still didn’t know why she was here and what she was about to tell him—and it was going to come as a huge shock when he did.
So the sooner she did it, the better.
Nervously, she cleared her throat. ‘Just a glass of water would be fine for me.’
The darkness on his face intensified, as if he had suddenly picked up on some of the tension which was making her push nervously at the cuticles of her fingernails, like someone giving themselves a makeshift manicure. He glanced up at the eager server who was hovering around his chair. ‘Bring us a bottle of sparkling water, will you?’
‘Coming right up, sir.’
And once they were on their own, all pretence was gone. The courteous civility he’d employed when asking her what she wanted to drink had all but disappeared. All that was left in its place was a flintiness which was intimidating and somehow scary, because it suddenly felt as if the man sitting opposite was a complete stranger, and Tara shifted uncomfortably on the velvet seat, dreading what she had to tell him.
‘So. I’m all ears. Are you going to tell me why you’re here, Tara?’ Those curiously empty green eyes fixed her with a quizzical look. ‘Why you’ve made such a dramatic unannounced