Free His Brand of Passion by Kate Hewitt Page A

head. ‘You’re heading for a heart attack by the time you’re forty.’
    ‘Considering that’s next year, I hope not.’ He gave her theghost of a smile. ‘But thanks for the concern.’ He took his plate, clearly ready to bury himself in his office. Again. Zoe took a breath and plunged.
    ‘Aaron…how is a baby going to fit into your life, when it’s like this?’
    He stilled, slowly turned around. ‘Surely we don’t need to talk about that now?’
    ‘Don’t we? I know everything is still uncertain, but we need to think about the future. How it’s going to work.’
    ‘It will work,’ he said tautly, and she shook her head.
    ‘A baby isn’t an item on your agenda, Aaron. It’s a life commitment—’
    ‘A week or so ago you didn’t even want me involved,’ he said shortly. ‘Now you’re talking about life commitments?’
    Stung, she drew back. ‘You’re the one who said you wanted to be involved. I’m just trying to figure out how it will work.’
    ‘It will work,’ he repeated, and Zoe knew that was all he had: sheer determination and bull-headed arrogance.
    ‘Why did you change your mind?’ she blurted, because now she needed to know. ‘Less than two weeks ago you would have paid me a large amount of money to have an abortion.’
    ‘Are you ever going to let that go?’
    ‘It’s kind of a big one.’
    ‘I know that.’ He raked a hand through his hair and Zoe could see the lines of fatigue drawn from nose to mouth.
    ‘What made you want this baby?’ she asked quietly.
    Aaron didn’t answer for a long moment. Zoe couldn’t tell a thing from his face, his eyes so dark and fathomless, the lines of his cheek and jaw harsh and strong in the dim light.
    ‘I wouldn’t have chosen this,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s hardly an ideal situation for anyone. But I could see that you were determined to keep this baby, and if a child of mine was going to enter the world…’ He paused, his gaze distant. ‘Then I wanted to be involved.’
    Zoe said nothing. She felt an almost crushing sense of disappointment, which was ridiculous. What had she expected? that Aaron had had some miraculous epiphany, realised he actually wanted to be a father, a family? No, of course not. Nothing in his behaviour in the few days had indicated anything but that he was making the best of a difficult situation.
    ‘So,’ she finally said. ‘You’d still prefer me to have an abortion?’
    ‘I didn’t say that,’ Aaron said, irritation edging his voice. ‘If I did, I would have offered that instead of having you come live with me.’
    ‘I don’t understand you,’ Zoe said quietly and Aaron shrugged.
    ‘I’m not asking you to.’
    The rebuff was brutal, even though it shouldn’t even have surprised her. Of course he wasn’t asking for such a thing. This domestic arrangement had nothing to do with their relationship or what little of it there was, Zoe reminded herself. That was clear from how rarely she’d seen Aaron since she’d come here, how much effort she’d had to put in to getting him to so much as sit with her for a meal.
    ‘Maybe I should just go,’ she said, and felt her throat thicken with humiliating tears. ‘I haven’t had any bleeding since that first time, and I can’t lie around all day.’
    ‘You’re not lying around all day,’ Aaron pointed out, an edge to his voice. ‘You’re working every afternoon.’
    ‘You don’t really want me here,’ she forced herself to say. ‘Do you?’
    Another long, taut silence, and then Aaron finally spoke, the words dragged from him with obvious reluctance. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do.’
    She tried for flippancy. ‘You have a funny way of showing it.’
    ‘I know I do.’ He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Look, Zoe,I’m not good with emotions or feelings or even talking about…anything. I admit that. But I don’t want you to go. I like having you here, knowing you’re safe and cared for.’ He paused and she saw a surprising