The Secrets She Must Tell - Lucy King Page 0,24

of the silence and emptiness their absence would bring. And of course he wasn’t worried about abandonment and rejection and being left all alone again. What he’d come up with was a purely practical solution to an unthinkable possibility and a means to eliminating a very great risk, and he’d implement it just as soon as she turned up.

Which, finally, he thought darkly as he heard the sound of the front door opening and closing and abandoned the coffee to stride towards it, was now.

‘Where have you been?’ he said curtly, relief, a shot of unwanted desire and something else undefinable making him sound short.

Having parked the pushchair just inside the door, Georgie glanced up at him, her eyebrows raised no doubt in response to his tone. ‘Out,’ she said, turning her attention to Josh, unbuckling him and lifting him free.

‘Where?’

‘We had lunch with Carla.’

‘I called.’

‘My phone ran out of battery.’

‘It’s late.’

‘We were chatting. I lost track of time.’

‘You should have left a note.’

As she fitted Josh to her hip, she turned to him, her eyes narrowing minutely and her chin jutting up. ‘Are you implying I’m somehow accountable to you, Finn?’

No. Yes. Dammit. ‘No.’

‘So why are you so cross?’

‘You weren’t here when I got home. That’s never happened before. I was worried.’

She froze, tension suddenly pouring off her as the colour bled from her face. ‘Josh is fine,’ she said, her voice tight. ‘Truly. Look.’

What? No. She couldn’t believe that he’d think she’d hurt him, could she? Hell, just how bad had things got? ‘That wasn’t what I meant at all.’

‘Really?’

‘No,’ he said with a decisive shake of his head.

‘Then what did you mean?’

There was no way he could explain the emotions that had ripped through him when it had occurred to him that she and Josh might have gone for good. He wasn’t entirely sure he fully understood them himself. Perhaps it would be best to get to the point. ‘I have a proposal.’

Her gaze turned quizzical, wary. ‘What kind of a proposal?’

‘A way forward that will suit us all. Permanently.’

She frowned. ‘By “proposal” you don’t mean marriage, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Phew. Thank goodness for that.’

‘I wouldn’t go thanking goodness just yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because instead, you and I are going to enter into a civil partnership.’

If Georgie hadn’t been holding on quite so tightly to Josh she might well have dropped him in shock. A civil partnership? Was Finn being serious? He couldn’t be. And yet he didn’t look as if he was joking. His jaw was set and he wasn’t smiling. His gaze was fixed on hers with an intensity that was both unnerving and oddly exciting. He clearly meant every word.

‘What on earth makes you think that’s a good idea?’ she asked, ignoring the little leap of her pulse and concentrating on the fact that a civil partnership may not technically be marriage but it was just as much of a commitment and equally unnecessary.

‘It will provide security for Josh.’

Not ‘would’ but ‘will’, she noticed. So this wasn’t a hypothetical proposal. Finn had given it quite a bit of thought already and evidently considered it a fait accompli. Too bad for him that she didn’t. ‘He already has security without it,’ she pointed out. ‘We’ve added your name to his birth certificate and he now carries your surname instead of mine. Plus financially you’ve set him up for life.’

‘That’s not enough.’

Of course it was enough. It was more than enough. So what was going on? What more security could Josh have or need? Unless it wasn’t only Josh Finn was thinking of. ‘Is this in some way about you?’ she asked, since there was absolutely no chance it was about her.

Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, something that suggested she’d hit the nail on the head. ‘Why would it be about me?’

Hmm. ‘You do know that I have no intention of ever preventing Josh from seeing you or vice versa, don’t you? Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I don’t see how it would be possible.’

‘I have no doubt you mean that at the moment.’

Ouch. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘It’s early days.’

‘I’m well aware of that,’ she said coolly, still stinging at the realisation he didn’t see her progress in the same light as she did.

‘Then you’ll understand why a formal arrangement is necessary.’

‘I can understand why you think it might be, but I don’t agree.’

‘It will benefit you, too.’

Oh? ‘In what way?’ she asked, transferring Josh to the other hip.

‘Commit to me and you’ll have