Read Online One-Night Pregnancy by Lindsay Armstrong - Free Book Online Page A

love to, but now…
    She tilted her chin. ‘I was told to stay away, if you remember,’ she said with quiet dignity.
    He stared at her with several expressions chasing through his eyes—one of them a certain scepticism.
    It was that scepticism that made her blood boil and her green eyes flash. ‘But if you’re imagining I spilt your secrets out of pique on that account, you’re dead wrong, Adam Beaumont. Would you mind letting yourself out?’ She came swiftly to her feet.
    He stood up. And surprised her. ‘Have you still got my phone number?’
    She could only nod.
    ‘If you have any other thoughts on the matter, give me a ring. In the meantime, I apologise if I misread you.’
    ‘But you’re not convinced?’ she queried, barely audibly.
    He shrugged and turned away, and she watched him walk out of her flat and close the door behind him.
    Bridget stared at the door, then dropped her head into her hands. It was all so surreal, and she couldn’t believe it was happening to her. There seemed to be no link between the events of that stormy night and the present events. It was as if they’d happened to another person.
    Come to that, it was as if there were two Adam Beaumonts. The man she’d felt so safe with, the man she’d loved making love to, and this formal stranger who’d just walked out on her.
    Yet for a moment there it had been as if the mask hadlifted a little. A moment when he’d concentrated on her figure and she would almost have sworn he’d been thinking about their time in each other’s arms.
    She rubbed her hands together as an extraordinarily clear mental picture came to her of his lean, strong hand on her breasts, her waist, her hips, of his mouth on hers and the way her curves had fitted into the hard planes of his body. It hadn’t lasted, though, that moment when she’d thought he might have been thinking of them together that night. Perhaps she’d got it wrong?
    As for his baby—she lifted her head and her eyes dilated—what was she going to do about that?

CHAPTER FOUR
    ADAM BEAUMONT drove to his next appointment in a preoccupied frame of mind. There had been something about Bridget Tully-Smith he couldn’t put his finger on—something that was puzzling him.
    He’d been determined to see her because he’d been convinced she must be the source of the rumours sweeping the business world about the instability of the Beaumont board. And he’d been mentally kicking himself for allowing a slip of a girl to corner him into admitting what he had.
    He hadn’t thought he was going to die, he reflected with increasing irony, even if she had .
    But if it hadn’t been Bridget, who had it been?
    He parked his BMW below a high-rise apartment building at Narrowneck and took the elevator to the penthouse, where his great-uncle Julius lived.
    Now in his eighties, Julius Beaumont, his grandfather’s younger brother, was confined to a wheelchair, but he still possessed a sharp brain and, at times, a cutting tongue.
    The red velour drapes were pulled against the rainy dusk, and lamps gleamed on the polished surfaces of the heavy furniture. The building might be an ultramodern tower, but Julius Beaumont was surrounded by antiques. Even his blue velvet smoking jacket belonged to another age.
    And his chosen form of art—his passion in life, as it happened—adorned the walls: paintings of horses.
    He inclined his white head as Adam came in, and by way of greeting said, ‘Welcome, my boy, and what the hell is going on?’
    Adam was under no illusions as to what he meant, and he replied accordingly, ‘I don’t know, Uncle Julius. How are you?’
    ‘As well as can be expected,’ Julius said testily. ‘Help yourself, and pour me one at the same time.’ He gestured towards the cocktail cabinet.
    Adam poured two single malt Scotches into heavy crystal glasses and carried one over to his uncle. His own he took to an armchair.
    ‘So you didn’t decide to seize the bull by the horns and attempt to