Finn's Pregnant Bride & The Paternity Claim by Sharon Kendrick

Author:Sharon Kendrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2010-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

‘ISABELLA!’ screamed a female voice from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Can you get down here straight away?’

In her room at the top of the ugly, mock-Georgian house which stood in an ‘upmarket estate’, Isabella sighed. She was supposed to be off duty. Getting the rest which her body craved, and the doctor had demanded on her last visit to him. But that was easier said than done.

What did they want from her now, this noisy and dysfunctional family? she wondered tiredly. A pound of her flesh—would that be enough to keep them off her back for more than five minutes?

Wasn’t it enough that she worked from dawn to dusk, looking after the lively twins who belonged to the Stafford family? Au pairs were supposed to help look after the children and engage in a little light housework, weren’t they? And to have enough time for their own studies and recreation. They weren’t supposed to cook and clean and iron and sew and babysit night after night for no extra money.

Sometimes Isabella found herself wondering just why she put up with treatment which clearly broke every employment law in the book. Was she weak? Or simply a fool?

But it didn’t take long for her to realise exactly why she was willing to put up with such shoddy behaviour—one look in the mirror reassured her that she was not in any position to be choosy. The curve of her belly was as ripe as a watermelon about to burst, and Mrs Stafford—for all her faults—was the only prospective employer who’d agreed to take her baby on, as well.

Of course, there’d always been the option of going home to Brazil, or returning to the ranch. But how could she face her father like this?

When her furtively conducted pregnancy test had turned out to be positive, she’d been so stunned by disbelief that she hadn’t felt strong enough to present her father with the unwelcome news.

And the longer she put off telling him—the more difficult the task had seemed. So that in the end it had seemed easier to run to England. To Paulo. Never dreaming that her life-long infatuation with the man would render her too proud to tell him, either.

Coming to the Staffords had seemed the only decision which made any sense at the time, but she’d lived to regret it since.

Or maybe the regret had something to do with letting down the two men who she knew adored her. ‘Isa-bella!’ Resisting the urge to yell back at her boss to go away, Isabella levered herself off the bed and slipped her stockinged feet into a pair of comfortable slippers. If there was one thing she enjoyed about being pregnant—and so far it was the only thing she had enjoyed—it was allowing herself the freedom to dress purely for comfort. Elasticated waists and thick socks may have made her resemble an enormous sack of rice, but she felt too cumbersome to care.

‘Coming!’ she called, as she carefully made her way downstairs.

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