The Secret Sinclair by Cathy Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

‘Since I ended up being responsible for another human being,’ she said. ‘I know it’s not your fault that youweren’t aware of the situation …’
Although it was, because if he had only just given her a contact number she would have been able to get in touch with him
. ‘But it was terrifying for me when I discovered that I was pregnant. I kept thinking how nice it would be if you had been around to support me, and then I remembered how you had dumped me because you had plans and they didn’t include me, and that if you
had
been around my pregnancy would have been your worst nightmare.’
    ‘My plans didn’t include
anyone
, Sarah. I did you a favour.’
    ‘Oh, don’t be so arrogant! If you’d cared enough about me you would have kept in touch.’ She was breathing heavily as all the remembered pain and bitterness and anger surged through her, but staring into the depths of his fabulous dark eyes was doing something else to her—making her whole body tingle as though someone had taken a powerful electrical charge to it.
    Raoul clocked her reaction without even consciously registering it. He just knew that the atmosphere had become taut with an undercurrent that had nothing to do with what they had been talking about. It was a type of non-verbal communication that sent his body into crazy overdrive.
    ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you any of this.’ She jerked her hand in clumsy dismissal, but he caught her wrist. The heat of physical contact made her draw in her breath sharply, although he wasn’t hurting her—not at all. He was barely circling her wrist with his long fingers. Still … she was appalled to find that she wanted to sink against him.
    That acknowledgment of weakness galvanised her into struggling to free herself and he released her abruptly, althoughwhen she could have turned around and stalked up the stairs she continued to stare at him wordlessly.
    ‘I know it must have been a bad time for you …’
    ‘Well, that’s the understatement of the decade if ever there was one! I felt completely lost and alone.’
    ‘You had your parents to help you.’
    ‘That’s not the same! Plus I’d left for my gap year thinking that I was at the start of living my own life. Do you know what it felt like to go back home? Yes, they helped me, and I couldn’t have managed at all without them, but it still felt like a retrograde step. I never, ever considered having an abortion, and I was thrilled to bits when Oliver was born, but I was having to cope with seeing all my dreams fly through the window. No university, no degree, no teaching qualification. You must have been laughing your head off when you saw me cleaning floors in that bank.’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
    ‘No? Then what
was
going through your head when you looked down at me? With a damp cloth in one hand and a cleaning bottle in the other, dressed in my overalls?’
    ‘Okay. I was stunned. But then I started remembering how damned sexy you were, and thinking how damned sexy you still were—never mind the headscarf and the overalls …’
    His words hovered in the air between them, a spark of conflagration just waiting to find tinder. To her horror, Sarah realised that she wanted him to repeat what he had just said so she could savour his words and roll them round and round in her head.
    How could she have forgotten the way he had treated her? He might justify walking out on her as
doing her a favour
, but that was just another way of saying that he hadn’t cared for her the way she had cared for him, and he hadn’tbeen about to let a meaningless holiday romance spoil his big plans.
    ‘I’ve come to realise that sex is very overrated,’ Sarah said scornfully, and then flushed as a slow smile curved his beautiful mouth.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’ But she heard the telltale tremor in her voice and wanted to scream in frustration. ‘It certainly has nothing to do with what’s …