Page 66 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

His gaze fell to her other hand, pressed to the rounded swell of her stomach bulging beneath the white shirt she wore.

His lungs forgot to inhale.

It was her. The woman who had made him want. Made him ache until he’d forgotten every vow he’d made to himself.

He read the title: Heiress, Lady Aurora Arundel: pregnant. Who’s the father?

Sebastian closed his eyes.

The flashback that burst in his mind was a physical assault on his senses. His blood heated instantly. The memory was visceral. The scent of her, the softness of her against him, her tightness ripping a short-lived ecstasy from his body.

He opened his eyes and found her picture again. Her big, wide eyes…

Then his blood ran cold.

He was the father.

His mind roared with the truth, the certainty. They had both been virgins. They had not used protection.

Of course, it was possible that he wasn’t the father. It had been six months. She could have met someone—

Bile rose in his throat.

He wouldn’t, couldn’t, think of that. He would not examine how the idea of another’s hands on her flesh made him want to rage, made him want to break things.

She was not his, after all.

But the baby inside her…

A memory gripped him by the heart in a tight fist.

How he’d softly stroked Amelia’s forehead, tucked the blanket around her small body, kissed her good-night, and closed the door behind him. Turned the key to keep her safe.

Only he hadn’t kept her safe.

Death had taken her in his absence.

And now he had a choice to made.

Would she and his child be better off without him?

Had he learnt nothing? That doing things just because he wanted to had consequences. He’d left his sister all alone in a house of depravity to sneak out into the night and paint, and she’d died.

And his selfishness had come at a cost once again. He’d wanted a night, a moment six months ago, with a woman who’d heated his blood. And now she was pregnant, and alone. His baby growing inside her.

Maybe.

He had to know for sure. And if she was carrying his child, he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He couldn’t. He’d protect them. The way he hadn’t protected Amelia.

‘Esther?’ he croaked.

‘Have you been listening?’

He ignored her.

‘The auction,’ he said, and images flooded his mind again, and made his body tighten in ways he swore it never would again.

But he’d keep his promise.

Only once.

This wasn’t about her or him.

It was about the baby inside her.

‘Eachus House, six months ago,’ he growled, and charged out of his studio. ‘I want the address of the winning bid. Now. ’

If he was the father of her baby…

He’d stop at nothing to make sure they were safe.

Pride filled Aurora.

She fingered the green leaves of the cabbage, still wet from the morning downpour.

It was so big, so ready. She’d grown nothing before.

She’d never been allowed to push her hands into the dirt and dig a hole.

Never been allowed to let a little seed flourish into life because she willed it so, and prepared the earth so it could flourish.

But here was the fruit of her labour. Several of them.

‘Shall I cut them back, Miss Aurora?’ the gardener asked.

She turned to him, looked at the wild bush of holly intertwined with vines of thorns and clusters of black and red fruit behind him.

‘Mrs Arundel would be furious I’ve let them spread so far,’ he said, his shears at the ready to take them down to the root.

She placed her hand on the damp, soft grass and pushed herself up from her knees.

‘Let me help.’ The gardener dropped his shears beside him and stooped toward her.

‘I’m okay, Dennis.’ She smiled, because she was. For the first time in so long, she was…okay. More than okay. She was flourishing like her little seeds.

Dennis released her elbow.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and stroked the swell of her stomach.

Together they stood, looking at the wild bush.

‘Leave them,’ she said.

‘Leave them?’

‘The holly, the brambles. Build a trellis,’ she said. ‘We will contain them, but we’ll let them grow.’

‘A good idea.’ He nodded, and his eyes smiled. ‘The student becomes the teacher.’

‘Hardly!’ She chuckled softly. She did that often these days. Laughed, because she could. Because she felt like it. Because it felt good to do so.

‘I will build it,’ he said. ‘Do you want help to get into the house?’

‘I’m pregnant, not an invalid,’ she rebuked him lightly.

‘It will be good to have a young one here.’ His eyes moved over the manor standing tall at the edge of the grounds. Arundel Manor. A house, but never a home. At least, it hadn’t been before.

‘It will,’ she agreed.

Dennis smiled. Waving, he left her alone in the garden of cabbages and wild blackberries.

She walked over to the wall of invasive fruit.

Pinched the top of a juicy one, picked it.

It was almost black. Ready and ripe. And she felt the urge to put it into her mouth, clamp her teeth through it and lick the juice from her fingers.

But she knew she shouldn’t. Not because her mother would have been appalled, but because it should be washed first.

She was ready to do the hard work. The preparation was done for the life growing inside her.

She gathered her skirt into a mock bowl and stared at the bump she couldn’t hide beneath the green cotton. Didn’t want to hide.

It was her little seed.

Finding out she was pregnant, she’d known she had to take charge of her life, learn how to be independent, live for herself. And so she had. The cook was teaching her how to prepare food, the gardener how to grow food.

It was something primal, she knew, and she embraced it. The need to have the skills to give her baby everything she hadn’t. Freedom to dig a hole in the earth.

She reached for another blackberry and dropped it into her skirt. It would stain, probably . But she’d bought so many new dresses, dresses with jangly and dangling bits. Dresses her mother would have hated, but she adored.

He adored your dress.

She should not think of him.

But she did. Often. Too often.

She remembered in moments like these, when the world felt so right, that it wasn’t because of her she’d changed.

Not entirely. It was because of him. And she remembered too, late at night, when her hand, her fingers, found their way between her thighs, and she began to crave the fullness she’d felt with him.

He was the reason she had this gift inside her.

A baby.

A baby conceived of her desperation for more.

And now she had more.

A slither of embarrassment heated her cheeks, but she squashed it. The why or the how, it didn’t matter anymore. She was pregnant. She was going to be a mother. But she couldn’t squash it. Not completely.

Their night, her words, her desperate need to be close to a stranger, were embarrassing. How hard she’d persisted. How he’d discarded her before she’d had chance to catch her breath. When she could still feel him inside her.

Heat gathered in her abdomen as she plucked another berry, pricking her finger as she did so.

She hadn’t gone back inside Eachus House that night. She’d run barefoot to the car park and found her driver. She’d given him the shock of his life as she’d climbed inside, sealed herself in the cocoon of the limousine, in a man’s jacket, drenched and barefoot.

She had been embarrassed then. And it had taken weeks for her not to cringe at the memory. For her heart to heal from such a devastating rejection. But she had healed. And so had her feet.

She picked more berries. A punnet’s worth. That should be enough for a pie, or a crumble. She would ask her cook to show her how. Cooking didn’t come naturally to Aurora, but she was getting better.

Aurora walked up the path to the house, bypassing the entrance into the main hall, and opened the French doors to the lounge.

She walked through the doorway, the sheer white silk of the curtains billowing around her as she did.

How she’d liked to pretend when she was younger, hiding behind these very drapes, that they were her veil and she was wearing a wedding dress.

That her groom was waiting just beyond. A fanciful notion.

She couldn’t imagine being tied to another now.

Couldn’t imagine being held accountable to anyone but herself.

She was alone, and she was content to be so. For her baby. For the family she would make.

‘Aurora.’

She swivelled on her heel to the call of her name. Shock wrapped itself around her.

A man stood in front of the fireplace in dark jeans.

He wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt, sunglasses nestled in the V-neck, a curl of hair poking out.

Then her gaze rose to take him all in. His chestnut hair falling around his shoulders, his thick neck, his green-and-amber eyes. Eyes she knew, intimately.

Recognition flared inside her.

It was him .

She gasped. Released her skirts. The blackberries fell to her feet.

‘You.’

‘Me,’ he confirmed.

Her heart hammered in her ears in the deafening beat of a bass drum. ‘How did you get in?’

‘The door was unlocked,’ he stated simply before walking toward her with long, stealthy strides.

She felt the urge to retreat. To run. But Aurora was done running.

She told herself to calm down, to breathe evenly, to stand tall.

He stopped, looked down at her as she turned her face to look up at him. Her heart continued to hammer and her breathing quickened as she remembered all too well how a moment like this had unfolded between them so many months ago.

Heated images stole her breath. But she would not soften under his gaze. She wouldn’t let herself remember how good it had felt. She would only let herself remember the hurt of his rejection. Remember how much it still hurt.

A flash of anger burnt in her chest.

Her narrowed gaze returned to his. ‘What do you want?’

‘The baby, Aurora,’ he growled, ‘is it mine?’

He knew her name.

Reality returned in swift blows of anxiety. He shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t part of her plan. She was going to do this alone. Parenthood.

She did not need him.