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‘You’d better start explaining,’ he said

Ellie stared up at hilance at the angry sizzle froh to re to win friends or influence people, or because she hoped for a repeat of the passion which had got her into this situation in the first place So keep emotion out of it, she told herself fiercely Keep to the plain and brutal facts and then you can deal with them

‘There isn’t really a lot to explain I’ a baby’

‘We used a condom,’ he iced back ‘You knoe did’

Stupidly, thatcontraception in his place of as hopelessly inappropriate But while it ht be inappropriate, it was also necessary, she re to let hiet into this situation—therefore they both needed to accept responsibility

‘I also know that condoms aren’t one hundred per cent reliable,’ she said

‘So You’re an expert, are you?’ He looked at her with distaste ‘Perhaps there are other men to who, I wonder—could you tell me my position on the list, just so I know?’

Ellie clenched her fists as a wave of fury washed over her She didn’t need this—not in any circumstances but especially not now She s were stubbornly refusing to obey her brain And even though at that moment she wanted to run out of there and never return, she knew that flight was an indulgence she simply couldn’t afford

‘There’s nobody else in the running,’ she spat out ‘Maybe you’re different, but I don’t have sex with more than one person at the same time So why don’t you keep your unfounded accusations to yourself? I didn’t co!’

‘No? Then what did you coned themselves into a quizzical expression ‘Is it money you want?’

‘Money?’

‘That’s what I said’

Ellie’s anger intensified but so her focus It was ht Not for herself, but for the tiny life growing inside her Because that as important That was the reason she had co to be an ordeal So think before you answer Don’tto score points Show him you mean business Because you do

‘I’ht it was your right to have them That you needed to be aware that there were consequences to what happened that afternoon’

‘A little dra up here like this Couldn’t you have called first to warn me?’

‘You think I should have done that? Really?’ She tipped her head to one side and looked at him ‘I didn’t have your nuive it to et hold of it—would you have spoken to me? I don’t think so’

Alek considered her words No, he probably wouldn’t, despite his faintly irrational desire to see her again Through Vasos, he would have de down in an email He would have kept her at an einning to realise that the whys and wherefores of what had happened between them were irrelevant Didn’t matter that she’d broken a cardinal rule and invaded his workspace There was only one thing which mattered and that hat she had just told him

And this was one reality he couldn’t just walk away fro some ancient male-female rule book, but if his question sounded lifeless it was because deep down he knew the answer ‘How do I know it’s mine?’

‘You think I’d be here if it wasn’t? That I’d be putting ravation if it was someone else’s baby?’

He tried telling hi his bluff and that he could demand a DNA test, which would have to wait until the child was born And yet, once again so told him that no such test would be needed, and he wasn’t sure why Was it the certainty on her pale face which told hi ic? He could hear the door of the prison swinging shut and the sound of the key being turned He was trapped Again And it was the worst feeling in the world He reritty Like it was co ay ‘What do you want from me?’