One Foolish Night (Eternal Bachelors Club #4)

His mother smiled at him warmly. “I’m just trying to make sure our guest doesn’t get bored, darling.”


“I’ll be going for a little walk on the beach with Jonathan later,” Olivia helped out, turning to Tara. “Maybe you want to come along with us? But I can’t promise how far we’ll get. It’ll depend on that little rascal here.” She ruffled Jonathan’s hair, who, to Paul’s surprise, ate his eggs rather quietly.

“That would be nice,” Tara said.

“I think I’ll join you,” Quentin added.

Olivia raised an eyebrow. “But didn’t you say just a half hour ago that you needed to work?”

“That can wait.”

“Oh, dear!” Mirabelle suddenly exclaimed.

“What is it?” Paul’s father asked, concern in his voice as he leaned toward her.

Mirabelle sighed. “I forgot my pills in my room.”

“I’ll get them for you,” Paul’s father offered.

She put a hand on his arm, preventing him from getting up. “No, no. Stay and finish your breakfast. You won’t find the right ones. I’ll get them.” Then she looked across the table. “Paul, would you mind giving me a hand?”

Paul shot up from his chair. “Of course.” Though he didn’t think his great-aunt needed any help, he went around the table and helped her out of the chair, then offered his arm to lead her into the house. She appeared to walk a little slower than usual.

As soon as they were inside, Mirabelle let go of his arm and started walking faster. Suspicious, he stopped. “What’s going on?”

Mirabelle turned her head and waved him forward. “If you don’t want anybody to overhear our conversation, you’d better get a move on. One would think you were an old man, walking so slowly.”

As Paul followed her into the hallway and down the corridor to the only guest room on the main floor, he couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “You’re not really looking for your pills, are you?”

“Do I look like I need pills?” She rolled her eyes and entered her room, then indicated he should shut the door behind him.

“What are you up to?” Paul asked

“I was going to ask you the same, my devious nephew.”

“What are we talking about?”

“Holly.”

Shock shot through him. Had Mirabelle already seen through his charade and realized that Holly wasn’t really his girlfriend? But how? Since before Mirabelle and his parents had arrived, he and Holly had in fact been behaving like boyfriend and girlfriend. They hadn’t just been pretending. So how could she have found out?

“So you know.”

“Of course I know. It’s kind of obvious. First she doesn’t drink any alcohol when everybody else is drinking. And even at dinner she had water.”

“Huh? What has that got to do with it?”

“Do you know nothing about medical issues?”

Paul felt like scratching his head. “I’m not following.”

“Maybe your parents don’t see the signs yet, but Holly looked like a ghost this morning, and a girl who didn’t drink the night before and then throws up in the morning can only mean one thing.”

He held his breath. This wasn’t about his hiring Holly as an escort at all. This was about something entirely different.

“So how long are you going to keep it from your parents that your girlfriend in pregnant?” Mirabelle sighed. “I mean, I know your mother can’t stand her, but that shouldn’t stop you.”

Paul shook his head. This wasn’t possible. Holly couldn’t be pregnant. Not by him. No, she couldn’t be pregnant at all. Escorts—no, ex-escorts—made sure they didn’t get pregnant. They used condoms, took the Pill. Anything to avoid that occupational hazard.

“Oh my God, you didn’t know,” his great-aunt suddenly said. “She hasn’t told you yet.” Mirabelle put a calming hand on his arm, though it did nothing to soothe the storm inside him that was only starting to build. “It’s early still. She must still be in her first trimester. The morning sickness often dissipates after that.”

“She said it was the food,” he said numbly.

“There was nothing wrong with the food.”

Could it be possible? He tried to think back through the last few days and remembered that the night they’d had pizza, Holly had refused alcohol too. Nor had she had any on the boat, when he knew from the wedding they’d both attended over two months earlier that she enjoyed a good glass of wine as well as other spirits. And when she and Sabrina had left the boat because Sabrina had felt sick, he thought he’d heard Holly say to her friend that she too had felt a little queasy. He’d dismissed it at the time as Holly simply wanting to make her friend feel better by telling her that she wasn’t bothered about leaving the boat because of Sabrina’s illness.

But did that mean that Holly was pregnant? If it was true, then who was the father?

“But we used condoms.”