Free The Contaxis Baby by Lynne Graham Page A

did Jen, who had invited her to stay in the first place, really have to be so sour?
    ‘Look, I’ll get changed and get rid of her and then I’ll be out of here just as fast as I can get my cases back into my car,’ Lizzie promised, hurrying down to the bedroom, refusing to subject herself to the further embarrassment of greeting Felicity in an outfit that spelt out the demeaning truth that she had not slept anywhere near her own wardrobe the night before.
    Clad in tailored cream cotton chinos and a pink cashmere cardigan, Lizzie walked into Jen’s sitting room ten minutes later. Felicity spun round from the window, a tiny brunette, barely five feet one inch tall with a gorgeous figure and a tiny waist that Lizzie noted in surprise was still not showing the slightest hint that she had to be almost four months pregnant. Her classic, beautiful face was dominated by enormous violet-blue eyes. Predictably, those eyes were already welling with tears and Lizzie’s teeth gritted.
    ‘When your father told me what he had done, I was devastated for you!’ Felicity gushed with a shake in her breathless little-girl voice. ‘I felt so guilty that I had to come straight over here and—’
    ‘Check out that I would continue to keep quiet about you and my former boyfriend?’ Lizzie slotted in with distaste, for the brunette’s shallow insincerity grated on her. ‘I gave you my word that I wouldn’t talk but it’s not something I want to keep on discussing with you.’
    ‘But how on earth will you cope without your allowance?’ Felicity demanded. ‘I’ve been thinking…I could help you out. Maurice is very generous and I’m sure he wouldn’t notice.’
    Hush money, Lizzie found herself thinking in total revulsion. ‘I’ll manage.’
    Felicity gave her a veiled assessing look that was a poor match for her tremulous mouth and glistening eyes. ‘You’ve never been out there on your own and you don’t know how hard it can be. If only I didn’t have our baby’s future to think of, I swear I would have told your father the truth.’
    The truth? And which version would that be? Lizzie thought back to the conflicting stories that Felicity and Connor had both hurled at her in the aftermath of her inopportune visit to the cottage which had become their secret love-nest. Her stepmother’s priorities had been brutally obvious. Felicity had had no intention of surrendering her comfortable lifestyle and adoring older husband to set up home with an impecunious lover. As he had listened to the brunette lie in her teeth about their affair and accuse him of trying to wreck her happy marriage, Connor’s jaw had dropped, his disbelief palpable. When her stepmother had followed up that with the announcement that she was pregnant, Lizzie’s shock had been equal to Connor’s devastated response.
    Dredging herself back from her disturbing recollections of that day, Lizzie was so uncomfortable that she could no longer stand to look at the other woman. ‘Dad will come round in his own good time. And with Connor gone, you have nothing to worry about.’
    ‘That’s a wicked thing to say…’ Felicity condemned tearfully.
    But deserved, Lizzie reflected. It would be a very long time before she forgot the flash of relief that she had seen in the brunette’s face when she had first learnt that Connor had died in a car crash. But then what was the point of striving to awaken a conscience that Felicity did not have? The brunette had few deep emotions that did not relate to herself.
    As soon as Felicity had gone, Lizzie got stuck into re-packing her luggage. Jen appeared in the bedroom doorway and remarked. ‘If it’s any consolation, we were all eaten alive with raging envy when you landed Sebasten Contaxis last night…’
    Encountering the sizzling curiosity in the pert blonde’s gaze, Lizzie coloured and concentrated on gathering up the cosmetics she had left out on the dressing-table.
    ‘Mind you,’ Jen continued, ‘I hear