Scarlet Women by Jessie Keane

was a hot crackle of sheer sexual need between them.
    ‘Let’s take this upstairs,’ he said.
    ‘No,’ said Annie, digging her heels in. She wasn’t sure about him. No way was she going to be rushed. She was determined to take things at her own speed.
    He gazed steadily at her face. ‘Okay. I’ll wait. I’ll do the whole courtship thing, if you want. Why not come to lunch on Tuesday, meet the family properly?’
    ‘Oh shit, Constantine…’
    ‘They don’t bite.’
    ‘Are you sure ?’
    He laughed. ‘I’m not going to let this go,’ he warned her. ‘And this courtship thing? I won’t be patient for too long.’
    She knew it. He knew it.
    ‘You need me,’ he murmured, trailing his lips lightly over her mouth. ‘You need me like a drug. And one day soon you’re going to admit it to me—and to yourself.’
    ‘You know what? You’re an arrogant swine,’ said Annie, but he was right, damn it.
    ‘Yeah, and you like that,’ he said with a smile. ‘So let’s get this thing rolling. Come to lunch.’
    ‘Okay,’ she said at last, and wondered what the hell she was getting herself into.

Chapter 12
    They’d been so happy together, so very happy—two survivors clinging on to the wreckage of life; but to the outside world they were winners—a glossy, polished couple so wrapped up in each other, so much in love. Or so Mira had thought.
    They were voracious in their appetites. Redmond had a taste for the high life and he also had a taste for excess, and she matched him in that. They ate at the finest places, mixed with TV stars and peers of the realm…and then there was the sex: they gorged themselves on stupendous sex.
    And then suddenly one day she realized she was late. She was overjoyed. She knew he would be, too.
    ‘What do you mean, late?’ Redmond asked her when she told him, smiling happily.
    ‘Late.’ Mira threw her arms wide, let out a laugh. ‘As in, I could be pregnant.’
    ‘Pregnant?’ He stared at her. ‘But you’re on the Pill.’
    ‘It’s not one hundred per cent reliable,’ she said. ‘You know that.’
    He did know it. She’d told him, but he’d said they’d chance it anyway. He hated to use condoms, he liked to be naked inside her: wearing a condom was like trying to scratch your toes with your boots on; he hated the things. He’d known this could happen. So why was he standing there, saying nothing, looking at her as if she was a stranger?
    ‘It…doesn’t have to be a disaster though, does it?’ Mira said hesitantly, the smile dying on her face.
    Redmond ran a hand through his hair. He was still looking at her in that peculiar way, like he was wondering what the fuck she was talking about.
    ‘I mean,’ she went on hopefully, ‘we love each other. We could…have a family.’
    He walked over to where she stood. Sunlight poured through the big picture window on to her golden, tousled hair. She was a vision of beauty. But…pregnant.
    Redmond heaved a shaky sigh and ran a hand lightly down her cheek.
    ‘Get rid of it,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay.’
    She couldn’t believe that he had said that. Get rid of it. Just like that. Her child. Hers, and his. She was in love with this man. She had never been in love before but she was now. It had been instantaneous, like a lightning strike. The minute she had seen Redmond across that dining room, she had felt her heart seize up in her chest. Kept on chatting, kept on flirting with that sweet doting old fool William, but all she could think, all she could feel—and oh God, how wonderful, how completely stupendous, to actually feel something at last—was that he was watching her from that nearby table, and all she wanted was to go to him, throw herself at his feet, say I’m yours, take me, do anything, I don’t care.
    It was love. Total, absorbing—and now despairing—love. Because he didn’t want their child.
    ‘I can’t believe you said that,’ she said, half smiling, nervous, disbelieving. ‘You don’t mean