Which made no sense—because he didn’t want a family.
Did he?
Savagely, he tore his mind back to the present once more.
‘Bit melodramatic, aren’t you, bratik?’ he gritted out. ‘Is this about Izzy?’
‘I guess.’
Sol was lying again, and Malachi couldn’t say why he wasn’t calling his kid brother out over it.
‘Yeah. Well...no need to get soppy about it.’
‘Right.’
Downing the last of the cold coffee and grimacing, Sol crushed the plastic cup and lobbed it into the bin across the hallway. The perfect drop shot.
Then, without warning, Sol spoke again.
‘You ever wonder what might have happened if we’d had a different life? Not had a drug addict for a mother? Not had to take care of her and keep her away from her dealer every spare minute?’
It was as though the tiniest, lightest butterfly had landed on that invisible dagger in his chest, beaten its wings, and plunged the blade in that final hair’s breadth deeper. Driving to the heart of the questions which had started circling around his brain ever since he’d heard Saskia utter those words to that nurse, creeping so slowly at first that he hadn’t seen them over the chaos of the fear.
If he’d had a different childhood, would he be greeting this news differently now?
He didn’t know. He never could know.
It wasn’t worth his time or his headspace.
‘No,’ Malachi ground out, not sure if he was trying to convince Sol or himself. ‘I don’t. I don’t ever think about it. It’s in the past. Done. Gone.’
‘What the hell kind of childhood was that for us?’ Sol continued regardless. ‘Our biggest concern should have been whether we wanted an Action Man or Starship LEGO for Christmas—not keeping her junkie dealer away from her.’
‘Well, it wasn’t. I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known you were going to get maudlin on me.’
‘You were eight, Mal. I was five.’
‘I know how old we were,’ Malachi growled, not sure whether he welcomed the reminder or not. ‘What’s got into you, Sol?’
Their shameful past—their horrendous childhoods—they were the reason why he’d always sworn to himself that he would never have a child. Whenever he looked back—which he never usually did—all he could feel was age-old bitterness and anger tainting his soul.
How could he ever be a good father?
Yet if Saskia’s baby really was his—and he still needed to hear her say the words to him, not to some stranger—how could he turn his back on them?
He couldn’t. It was that simple. And Sol raking up wretched memories wasn’t helping.
‘It’s history.’ Censure splintered from Malachi’s mouth. ‘Just leave it alone.’
‘Right.’
His brother pressed his lips into a grim line and they each lapsed back into their respective silences.
He didn’t want Sol’s gratitude. He didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t taken care of their little family out of love, or a desire to be a unit. He’d done it because he’d been terrified of where they would all go if they were split up.
But he’d begrudged every moment of it. Resented the fact that at eight years old he’d had to effectively become a father to a five-year-old—had had no choice but to become the man of the house and earn money to put food on the table. At eight he had felt like a failure every time the electricity cut out and he had no money left to put anything on the card.
He’d sworn to himself that his adult life would be about himself, the way his childhood had never been. He’d been adamant that when he grew up he would never marry or have kids. His life would be his own. Finally. He had been determined that his business—which had made him a billionaire against all the odds—would be his only drive. As selfish as that might have sounded to anyone else—anyone who didn’t know what his life had been like.
And it had been. Nothing had stood in his way. Not his lack of experience, nor the competition, nor any relationship.
He’d been ruthless.
All too often he wondered if the only reason he had founded Care to Play—the centre he’d set up with Sol, where young carers from the age of five to sixteen could just unwind and be kids instead of feeling responsible for a parent or a sibling—had been to make himself feel good about his ability to shake other people off so easily.
He’d believed that he wanted to make a positive difference to other kids’ lives—if something like Care to Play had existed when he and Sol had been kids, then maybe it could have made a difference. He’d even convinced himself it was true.
But now, suddenly, he wondered if it had been just another selfish act on his part. If helping kids like Izzy, who clearly adored her genuinely struggling mother, was less about them and more about making himself feel better for the way he’d hated his own drug-addicted mother.
So now there was Saskia. Pregnant. With his child. And he couldn’t shake the idea that he had to do something about it. He was going to be a father, and fathers weren’t meant to be selfish. They were meant to be selfless.
Malachi was just about to open his mouth and confide in his brother, for possibly the first time in for ever, when Sol lurched abruptly to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets the way he’d always done when his mind was racing, ever since he’d been a kid.
It was so painfully familiar that Malachi almost smiled. Almost.
‘I’m going to check on some of my patients upstairs, then I’ll be back to see Izzy.’
Malachi dipped his head in acknowledgement, but Sol didn’t even bother to wait. He simply strode up the corridor and through the fire door onto the stairwell, leaving Malachi alone with unwelcome questions.
‘You can go back in now.’
Malachi jerked his neck around, and the sight of Saskia standing there brought a thousand questions tumbling to his lips.
‘Is there anything you’d like to tell me?’ he rasped, before he could swallow the words back.
She blanched, her eyes widening for just a fraction of a second before she pulled a smooth veneer into place.
‘If you want to know about Izzy then you’ll have to ask her mother. As you aren’t a direct family member, it isn’t my place to tell you.’
Was she playing a game? He couldn’t tell.
‘Tell me, do you always faint like that?’
Two high spots of colour suffused her cheeks. ‘Of course not.’
‘Then perhaps you’d like to explain what this morning’s little episode was all about.’
For a moment he thought she looked panicked.
‘That was a one-off.’
‘Is that so?’
‘It is.’
He arched his eyebrows. ‘And why do you think this “one-off” episode happened?’
She shook her head back, straightening her shoulders. It shocked Malachi to realise that he knew her well enough to know it was a stalling tactic.
Or, more pertinently, it should have shocked him.
‘I don’t know,’ she asserted. ‘Like you said, I probably hadn’t eaten properly, so I was running on empty. I didn’t have a proper breakfast and it’s been a long shift.’
He didn’t know whether to be impressed or insulted that she lied so easily. Straight to his face. And then, without warning, anger surged through him—whether at the way she wanted to exclude him or at the fact she thought he was that blind, he couldn’t be sure—but he quashed it, quickly and effectively.
Never let anyone see they can get to you.
Another life lesson he’d been forced to learn from an early age.
So this was the game she wished to play?
Well, he was just going to have to find a way to play against her.
Not here, not now. Not with Izzy injured in that room
. Her mother and sister would need his support more than ever right now. They had no one else, which was what made the centre so vital.
Right now he was here for Michelle and her daughters. Saskia and her lies would have to wait.
But if that was her game, then fine; he would play her at it and he would win. He just needed to take a step back and regroup so he could work out his next move.
CHAPTER THREE
‘THIS PLACE IS STUNNING...’ Anouk breathed as she took in the huge sandstone arches reaching up as though in exultation to a breathtaking stone-carved vaulted ceiling.
‘Isn’t it?’ Saskia demurred, following her friend’s gaze, trying to quell the kaleidoscope of butterflies which seemed to have taken up residence in her stomach ever since Anouk had told her she had two tickets to a gala evening and asked Saskia to join her.
A gala evening for a local young carers’ charity.
Saskia had known instantly whose charity it was. Anouk had mentioned something about Sol giving them to her, and something about a patient... Izzy? To her shame, Saskia hadn’t really been listening—she’d been too caught up in her own head.
Tickets to a charity event for Care to Play. As though fate itself was intervening.
Saskia hadn’t even asked how her friend had got the tickets, or why. She just knew that Malachi would be there and that this was her chance to do what she should have done two months ago. She had to tell him about the baby. Whatever he chose to do after that was his business.
‘I feel positively shabby by comparison.’
Anouk was still gazing at the architecture and Saskia laughed, grateful for the momentary distraction.
‘Well, you don’t look it,’ she told her friend. ‘You look like you’re sparkling, and it isn’t just the new dress. Although I’m glad you let me talk you into buying it.’
‘I’m glad I let you talk me into buying it, too,’ admitted Anouk, smoothing her hands over her dress as though she was nervous.
‘You look totally Hollywood,’ Saskia assured her wryly, knowing that it would break whatever tension her friend appeared to be feeling.
‘Don’t.’ Anouk shuddered on cue. ‘I think I’ve had enough of Hollywood to last me a lifetime.’
‘Me, too.’ More than anyone else could ever possibly know, thought Saskia. ‘But still, the look is good.’
‘Maybe I should be in a more festive colour.’
Anouk glanced at Saskia’s own dress enviously—another much-needed boost to Saskia’s uncharacteristically wavering confidence.
In fact, her friend had already waxed lyrical about the ‘stunning’ emerald dress, claiming that it might have looked gorgeous on the rack but ‘on your voluptuously feminine body it looks entirely bespoke’.
For a moment Saskia had been worried that it had been code for, I can tell you’re pregnant and it’s beginning to show. Even though Saskia knew she wasn’t showing at all. There wasn’t a hint of any swell over her abdomen yet, and she couldn’t help wondering if it was this lack of physical manifestation of her pregnancy which had stalled her in seeking Malachi out at MIG International when he hadn’t shown up at Care to Play.
As if a part of her believed he might doubt what she was saying if he couldn’t see it for himself.
‘I think I look like a Christmas tree.’ Saskia made herself laugh again, with a wave of her hand towards the glorious eighteen-foot work of art which dominated the entrance of the venue. ‘Although if I looked that amazing I’d be happy.’
‘You look even better and you know it.’ Anouk replied instantly. ‘You’ve only just walked in and you’ve turned a dozen heads.’
And yet there was only one head she wanted to turn. Supposed rebound or not.
‘They’re probably looking at you—and, either way, I don’t care. Tonight, Anouk, we’re going to relax and enjoy ourselves.’
‘We are?’
‘We are,’ Saskia said firmly, hoping she was convincing her friend even if she wasn’t convincing herself.
She snagged a champagne flute from the tray of a passing waiter, for something to do with her hands, before realising she couldn’t drink it and passing it straight to Anouk. ‘Starting with this.’
‘You still feeling sick?’ Anouk frowned, eying her with a little too much intensity.
‘Yeah,’ she lied, and another stab of guilt shot through her as she tried to suppress the heat flooding her cheeks.
Anouk didn’t look convinced. If anything, her friend seemed to tense, as though she knew.
The guilt pressed in harder. They’d never deceived each other in over twenty-five years. As soon as she’d told Malachi she would tell Anouk. Why hadn’t she told her before? Was it because she’d always known that, much as her best friend had never encouraged her to leave her ex-fiancé, Anouk had never really taken to Andy?
Ironically, Anouk had even apologised on the one occasion when Saskia had pressed her for an opinion, only for her friend to tell her that whenever she looked at Andy all she saw was another playboy—just like Anouk’s mother’s lovers.
‘Relax.’ Saskia nudged her gently now. ‘Enjoy your drink.’
‘I don’t really like...’ Anouk began, but her friend shushed her.
‘You do tonight.’
Anouk balked, and Saskia knew that all Anouk could see was her mother, downing glasses of wine and popping pills.
‘One glass doesn’t make you your mother.’ Saskia linked her arm through Anouk’s, reading her mind.
It was Anouk’s turn to offer a rueful smile. ‘That obvious, huh?’
‘Only to me. Now, come on, forget about your mother and enjoy this evening. You and I both deserve a bit of time off—and, anyway, we’re supporting a good cause.’
‘We are, aren’t we?’ Anouk nodded, dipping her head and taking a tentative sip.
Saskia told herself to stop scanning the room for Malachi, like some meerkat on watch duty. If it was meant to happen tonight, then it would. Otherwise she would go to his offices in the morning and she would finally tell him.
He had a right to know. And he had a right not to want to be involved.
She wouldn’t force him.
He would have to want her. And their child.
* * *
‘A word.’
Every inch of her skin prickled into goosebumps at the rich, deep sound of Malachi’s voice in her ear. As lethally silky as the hand sliding around her elbow even now.
And something about the tone sent a warning whisper coiling its way through her body.
He couldn’t know about the baby, could he?
Unless he’d spoken to Babette.
Saskia cursed inwardly. She was an idiot for letting that woman get to her enough to tell her a single thing, let alone for Babette to be the first person to find out that she was pregnant.
She couldn’t shake the idea that Malachi knew and, worse, that he’d found out from her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée instead of straight from her. It was little wonder that the air between them positively hummed with barely restrained tension.
Saskia wasn’t sure why she allowed him to lead her across the ballroom at the charity gala without even a word of objection.
She’d only managed to slip away from Anouk by taking advantage of Sol’s unexpected appearance to pretend she was going to check the seating plan. Just so that she could see if she could find Malachi.
And now he’d found her.
If he’d come to say what she feared then she had only herself to blame. She should have told him herself. The unspoken accusations already bombarding her were her own fault for being such a coward. And the longer the silence the more forcefully they hurtled into her, leaving her edgy and agitated and full of apprehension—and something else which she didn’t care to examine too closely at all.
As if Malachi knew that the uncer
tainty was unsettling her, he seemed to be prolonging it, by not speaking another word until they were near the now deserted entrance, well away from the beautiful, well-heeled crowd bustling inside the ballroom, each jostling to set themselves ahead of the pack. Too many of them would be competing with each other to write the biggest cheques just to prove who was higher up the food chain.
It was disheartening to see just how few of them were actually there because they cared about the charity. About the kids.
Like Malachi does?
Abruptly Saskia pulled her head back to the present just as Malachi stopped, turning her to face him before he released her. The fierce, furious expression on his face was one she hadn’t ever seen before, but she feared she could read it in an instant.
‘It’s mine.’
So that answered that question, at least.
Malachi knew she was pregnant, and whether Babette had told him, or someone else had, it hardly seemed to matter now.
Saskia fought to breathe. It was as though someone was sitting on her chest, squashing her lungs, stealing her air. Perhaps it was at the sight of the utterly masculine, foreboding figure in front of her. Or maybe it was because he was suddenly watching her with a cold, hostile expression in those eyes, when up until now she’d only ever known them to be kind and friendly—the colour of the richest, warmest cognac in his enviable drinks cabinet.
Every thought fell from her head, and everything tumbled around her. Her heart accelerated so fast she could barely even feel it. Or maybe it simply stopped.
And then suddenly a sense of calm overtook her and she knew she couldn’t deny it. There was only one thing she could say.
‘Yes.’
He tilted his head sharply.
‘I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t make this any more complicated than it already is by lying.’
Then, taking her elbow again, he steered her outside, neither of them speaking a word, and into the back of his waiting car. When he slid in beside her, filling up every last bit of space, Saskia was sure she was going to suffocate from the sheer pressure of the moment.
Surprise Baby for the Billionaire Page 3