Chapter Nine
Four months later
Donovan expected to feel nothing at all when he drove into the Loch Naine region again. He thought he might feel a touch rueful, a little irritated that things had not worked out with the investors, perhaps even a little wistful for the very short time he had spent here with Carly.
Instead, the moment he saw the familiar spires and streets of the small Irish town, he felt as if he had been punched in the chest. He saw a bookstore where he and Carly spent a pleasant afternoon, he saw a flower shop where he stopped to get her gladiolas, her favorite flower. Every piece of the town carried a part of his relationship with the unforgettable dark-haired girl, and somewhere deep down, he thought he had already known it.
Donovan cursed himself under his breath. Four months in Spain hadn’t changed anything. There was a deal he wanted to pursue there, and the money he had made off of it was immense, but afterward, a time when he should have been feeling on top of the world, he simply felt empty.
The pleasures of Barcelona and Ibiza had entirely lost their appeal, and every woman he saw, no matter how gorgeous, interested and intriguing they were, paled in comparison to the American he had met in his own Ireland.
Finally, it had been too much.
The consortium had moved on from the Loch Naine deal, but he still thought that perhaps he could make something out of it. The property he had purchased still had potential.If he were honest, though, a part of him simply craved the sight of Carly. Perhaps they could speak again, and he could figure out what the hell had happened. He had never experienced something like that before, and when he had left Loch Naine the first time, he had simply been stunned. Then when he started to put the pieces back together, he had begun to wonder. Why would a woman who was as sane and reasonable as Carly break up with him like that, especially when things were going so well?
Donovan’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since Dublin. The Goat and Compass was just where he had left it, however, and when he walked in, the barman nodded at him as if he had never left.
There has got to be something to be done with this community, he thought, taking his customary seat. He removed his jacket and his scarf, relishing the warm pub after the brisk fall air. He knew what he wanted, and he raised his hand to tell the waitress when the door opened again.
Chills ran up his spine but it had nothing to do with the sudden gush of cold air. No, it was because of the woman in the red coat in the doorway, her dark hair in a braid falling down behind her and the wind in her rosy cheeks. She was smiling, she was calling out to the bar man and she was heavily pregnant.
She saw Donovan just a moment later, and then she was turning on her heel and dashing out the door. Donovan swore and without a second thought, dashed after her.
There was really only so fast that she could go in her condition, and he caught up with her less than half a block later. Her red coat made her easy to spot, and he closed the distance between them with the grim determination of a predator. His hand latched out to circle around her upper arm, and he brought her to a stop.
“You can’t run off like that, not when you’re...”
He looked down into her flushed face, and for a moment, it was as if no time had passed at all. Her eyes were large and liquid pools of copper, and her lips were parted slightly, as they were when they kissed passionately. The moment was so familiar that Donovan nearly bent down to kiss her again, but then he pulled back far enough to see her distended belly underneath. How long had he been gone?
“All right,” he said. “We’re going to go back to the pub, we’re going to get some food, and you are going to tell me exactly what in the world happened.”
“I think that should be obvious, don’t you?”
The words caused them both to freeze, her hand flying up to her mouth, and then before he could laugh and forgive her for everything, Donovan shook his head and dragged her back to the pub.
***
The day had been going so well. She had finished one big project for a new client overseas, and another one had just gotten back to her, telling her to block out some time in the weeks to come. Business was booming, so to speak, and she had thought that it might have been a good day to reward herself and the baby with some mutton stew. She had been singing driving down to the pub in the bright autumn day, and she hadn’t thought about him once.
A day spent without thinking of Donovan was a success. At the very least, it meant that it was largely free of the cursing and crying that the days thinking of him produced.
Then she walked into the Goat and Compass and all of the progress she had made over the last few months not thinking of him evaporated. Suddenly it felt as if there was too little space in her chest, far too little breath in her lungs. Her mouth moved as if she could actually think of things to say, and then he had looked straight into her eyes.
Silver, his eyes are silver, she had time to think, and then she was turning on her heel and running.
She had no idea what she was thinking. She knew even before she made it to the door that she had no chance of escaping him, not when he had spotted her so easily. She only knew that she had to run, to get away from the situation before she risked destroying herself yet again.When his hand lashed out and caught her upper arm, she had cried out briefly, but somewhere deep inside her was a feeling of relief. The past months without him had felt unnatural somehow, as if she was missing a piece of herself. Now that he had found her, no matter how strange the situation or how angry he was, she was relieved.
“Two mutton stews please,” Donovan said to the waitress, and Carly experienced a moment of intense deja vu.
“That’s what you ordered for us the first time we came here,” she said softly, and he looked at her in surprise before scowling. His scowl was fearsome, and she could imagine it cowing his opponents in business into submission. But for some reason, there was no fear in her heart. There was only an intense longing that made no earthly sense at all.
“I don’t want to talk about stew,” Donovan bit out, but he seemed to have no idea how to proceed. She wondered how many people in the world had ever seen him as lost as he was at right now. Not many, she guessed.
“Is... is it mine?”
She reared back as if he had slapped her, and even though a part of her had been braced for this question, it stung viciously.
“Well, who else was I sleeping with five months ago?” she whispered. “Do you really think that I’m so unfaithful?” When he had no answer for her, she rose from the booth. She knew that after he dragged her here that he probably wouldn’t let her storm off, but she couldn’t stand the thought of him doubting her loyalty in that moment. True to her suspicions, he pulled her back again.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have known better than that.” The apology was a surprise, and she blinked at him uncertainly.
“That’s a little unexpected,” she admitted, and he smiled a little wryly.
“God above, what have I done to make you think so badly of me?” The conversation that she overheard all those months ago hovered at the back of her mind, but she shook her head. There was nothing about that day that she wanted to rehash again, so Carly merely shrugged.
“There were a lot of things,” she said. “You always said that you were not one for romance. We were having a good time, but we never thought about it being more than that.”
Something flickered over Donovan’s face, and for a moment, Carly wondered if she had hurt him. It seemed unlikely. At last he shrugged, and she wasn’t sure how wounded she was when he looked supremely indifferent to it all.
“I suppose that is true enough. I have never been a man who was all that in those things.” She started to tell him that that was fine, that she had never asked those things of him, when he reached over to touch the very tip of her chin.
She shivered at the electricity between them still, at how good it felt to be touched. That was still present between them, and no amount of half-truths or dodging the matter would allow her to elide it.
“But perhaps I am changing my mind.”
She blinked, startled. “Changing your mind?”
“Seeing you like this... I can’t quite explain it.”
Carly raised an eyebrow. “Feeling a bit mortal, then?”
Instead of being angry, Donovan laughed. “I suppose you could put it that way,” he admitted. “I have never thought of a child before. Now that I am confronted with this, I don’t know what to think.”
“That’s an honest enough answer, I suppose,” Carly said dubiously. “Donovan... what do you want from me?”
“I want access.” She blinked at him. The word seemed startlingly cold, especially when she could still feel the tingle of his touch on her chin. It felt almost mechanical, and when Carly spoke again, she was cautious.
“You’re going to need to spell that out for someone who doesn’t spend a lot of time working with far-flung real estate firms.”
He smiled, and there was something sharp about his expression this time. It made her wrap her hand over her belly almost protectively. Alarm bells were going off in her head, and she didn’t know what was happening. A few minutes ago she had simply been trying to have lunch. Now Donovan was back, and she didn’t know what to do about it.
“I mean that I want access to you and to what you are doing until the baby’s born. I want be with you, sort out how I feel about fatherhood.”
She prickled at him, glaring “This isn’t some kind of vacation,” she spat. “This isn’t a seminar you can attend and then at the end decide that it’s not for you.”
“Ah, but that’s the rub, isn’t it?” he asked with a slightly sinister smile. “After all, you were the one who left me without a choice.” She nearly choked on that, and undeterred, he continued. “You were the one who went about your business never telling me that you were having my baby, and from what I have seen, you would never have told me.”
He lanced her with a stern glance that she could feel right to the core of her. “That is not acceptable. It never has been, and if we take that to the courts especially given what has passed between us... I wonder what they would say.”
Carly gasped at him. “You can’t be serious. Are you saying that you are going to take my baby away from me?!”
Another strange look crossed Donovan’s face, this one even more difficult to read. It was gone in a second, however, and he was again looking at her with that distant yet predatory look, one that she was certain his opponents in boardroom would have recognized.
“I am saying nothing of the sort,” Donovan said smoothly. “That would be a threat, and believe me, Carly, I have no reason to threaten you. Not at all. Especially if you allow me to be a part of this process, allow me to be with you through the rest of this pregnancy. I think we can agree that you have denied me enough so far, yes?”
“It’s not denying someone something when they...”
...When they flat out don’t want something, her mind supplied helpfully, but she pushed it away. She could feel every moment of the last few months pressing on her, leaving her weary and exhausted. She could feel the weight of Donovan’s power and influence as well, something that had never felt so heavy.
“...When you never knew that they wanted it in the first place,” she said. “So, if I give you ‘access,’ as you say, then what?”
“Then after the child is born, we decide what we want to do. Perhaps we go our separate ways and I arrange a trust for the child, or perhaps we decide that we can parent together in some strange way.”
“You are deciding to be a parent very quickly,” she said, and he flashed her a grin.
“I’m leaving myself a loophole, mind. I might be entirely unsuited for it, and that is what happens if I arrange a trust. Unless you are concerned that you might be unsuited as well?”Her hands closed reflexively over her belly again. She was already shaking her head without thinking of it, her answer clear.
“The moment I knew that I was pregnant, everything changed,” she said. “I wasn’t just myself anymore, I was going to be a mother. I know it doesn’t happen that way for all women, or even most women, but that was the way it happened for me and that meant that I needed to do everything I could to be a good mother. That is not going to change.”
She looked up startled as he cupped her cheek in his hand. There was something almost inexpressibly tender about it. For a moment, it was like no time had passed at all. He was the same man who had awakened her womanhood after all, and she leaned her face against his touch before she remembered that things were very different now.
“This does not need to be an ordeal,” he murmured. “Not at all. Give me what I want, play your cards right, and at the end, you could end up very well. I remember how we were together, Carly... I remember how much pleasure we had of each other. Perhaps at the end of this, I'’ll want to keep you as well as the child. I could find you a house, some place fashionable, comfortable....”
She jerked back as if she had been slapped, staring at him with wide open eyes. “You mean, you want me to live as... as a mistress?”
He shrugged, and when he spoke again, his tone was distant. “You can call it whatever you like, and of course you know that I would never force you in any way. However, you cannot deny that we were once good for each other. That we once shared something. That might not be a terrible thing to share again, within reason.”
She thought for a moment, and finally, she shook her head. “I don’t really have much of a choice, do I?” Perhaps there was a bit of repentance in his voice, but there was steel in his pale eyes.
“No. You don’t.”