Free LovePlay by Diana Palmer Page A

meant to blurt it out like that; it was pure nervous reaction to his odd behavior. But it was too late for regrets. She watched him, trying desperately to find some kind of reaction.
    He lifted an eyebrow over hard green eyes. “You’re what?” he asked.
    “Pregnant.”
    “Yes, I know. It’s in the script.”
    She swallowed. “Cul, it’s not only in the script. Not now.” She searched his face, fascinated by the slow draining of color, by the sudden wild glitter of his eyes. She laughed nervously. “Well, I did mention that we hadn’t taken precautions….”
    His breathing was ragged. Although he hadn’t moved an inch, he seemed to grow taller, broader. His eyes were frightening.
    “Pregnant by whom?” he asked in the coldest tone she’d ever heard.
    “By you, of course,” she faltered. “You know I was a virgin.”
    “Were, yes,” he agreed. “But you’ve been with Hadison a lot since I left.”
    “I never slept with him,” she said softly. “There was only you.”
    He started to laugh, slowly, bitterly. He threw back his head and roared, leaning back against the door, with his hands in his pockets. “So you’re pregnant, and it’s mine.”
    She felt an icy finger run down her spine. “Of course it’s yours.”
    He caught his breath and the expression on his face could have stopped an armed combat veteran. “Well, that’s interesting. A biological miracle.”
    “Miracle?” She stood up slowly, feeling her legs wobble. “We slept together!”
    “Of course we did, darling,” he drawled mockingly. His eyes narrowed, so cold they made her shiver as they ran down her body. “Just as I’ve slept with a dozen other women. But none of them got pregnant, and we never had to worry about precautions.”
    Her lips trembled. He wasn’t making sense.
    “You don’t understand yet?” He lifted his head at an arrogant angle and smiled at her. “If you’re really pregnant, Bett, and this isn’t some wild last-ditch stand to get me in front of a minister, you’ve put your foot in it for good. You see, darling,” he added, with ice dripping from his voice, “I can’t father a child. One of the foremost experts in fertility in the country told me that it would take a miracle for me to get a woman pregnant. I’m sterile.”
    Sterile, sterile, sterile… The word kept echoing in her mind like a litany. He said something else, something insulting, but she wasn’t hearing him anymore. Her eyes were wide and horrified as what he was telling her penetrated the mists. He was telling her that he didn’t believe the child was his. That it couldn’t be his. But she knew for an absolute fact that it was, because there hadn’t been another man!
    “There wasn’t anyone else,” she whispered numbly.
    “Of course not,” he agreed. “And this is one for the record books, isn’t it?” He shouldered away from the door. “But, Bett, if you tell anyone that baby’s mine, I’ll sue you to hell and back. I won’t have my inadequacies paraded in a paternity suit and let the papers have a field day with me.” His eyes glittered dangerously. “Beyond that, I’ll make damned sure you never work again. So keep your lies to yourself, darling.”
    Her mind seemed to freeze. “But the baby…” she whispered shakily.
    “That’s Hadison’s problem. not mine,” he said, turning on his heel. “Let him take care of you.”
    “Cul!” she screamed.
    He glanced at her from the open door, his look so contemptuous that it made her want to hide. “You never knew, did you, why I wrote so many plays about pregnant women? Or why I walked away from you when you were eighteen? You wanted children so much….” He laughed coldly. “I wish I’d had a camera when I told you. The look on your face was a revelation. Did you think I’d break my neck to marry you, once I knew?”
    She knew her face was white, and she felt a wave of nausea wash over her. She sat down quickly, trying to breathe steadily.
    “Not