An Indecent Proposal

by Margot Early

  Well, she wasn’t on the streets. She was at Fairchild Acres, and Patrick Stafford was cupping her jaw, his fingers threading her silky tresses. And then he kissed her.

  Touch. Touch. Touch.

  Yes, being near horses and dogs was well and good, but Bronwyn found herself hungry for this touch. She felt as though the kiss was giving and reaffirming life in the face of Ari’s death.

  She needed to feel this alive. She touched his chest, her fingers feeling the silk of his button-down shirt.

  Patrick felt only half-conscious, only half-sane. This was Bronwyn, Bronwyn whom he had once loved so much, Bronwyn whom he still desired. And she, it seemed, desired him.

  Yes, that’s how it seems. He heard his own doubts, and he understood the depths of those doubts within himself. She couldn’t still desire him. Not after all this time. And she’d married Ari. Which meant…

  He drew back, confused by his own action and by Bronwyn’s response to that action. He could hardly accuse her of seducing him. She hadn’t sought him out, after all. Not tonight. On the contrary. He’d come looking for her and found her.

  But now she was gazing up at him, her eyes startled, wary.

  He remembered the impact of her beauty upon him. He said, “This was your goal, wasn’t it?”

  “What?” She blinked, appearing to come out of a trance.

  “You wanted this to happen,” he said. “Between us. Again.”

  “That would have been foolishly optimistic on my part,” she said. And yet she withdrew from him slightly, perhaps taken aback by his accusation.

  Or perhaps because his accusation had been correct.

  “I don’t know how you thought that it would be all right for you to work here and for you and Wesley to live here,” he said. “I still don’t understand your motivation, but I know what has to be done about it, Bronwyn. You need to get out of here. Both of you.”

  Bronwyn reeled, her mind sifting through his words, trying to make sense of them. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’m sacking you. You need to leave.”

  “But you didn’t— You aren’t even the one who hired me.”

  “My great-aunt has granted me the power to make personnel changes. Would you like to defend yourself to her?”

  Bronwyn couldn’t believe her ears. He was firing her? She hadn’t even received her first paycheck, and Wesley had barely started school. And she had planned to tell Patrick….

  But it would be crazy to tell him the truth about Wesley. If he was capable of doing something this uncalled-for, making a pass at her and then firing her because the attraction was reciprocal… Had he just intended to trap her?

  Obviously. She couldn’t speak, didn’t know what to do. Until now, it had never occurred to her to beg Patrick Stafford for anything. “I need this job,” she said, and heard the desperation in her own voice.

  “I’ve no doubt you can find something that pays better in Sydney or elsewhere. Something that takes advantage of your educational experience, such as it is.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “What have I done to you? What has Wesley done?”

  “You’ve come to where I live, sought contact with me and tried to seduce me for your own ends, Bronwyn.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Thank God she’d never told him the truth about Wesley. If Patrick was capable of putting this slant on the events of the last week, then how could she trust him with influence on her son’s life?

  And if he wasn’t to be trusted…

  Yes, she may as well go.

  So she turned away from him in the dark, appalled by what had happened. The hypocrite, she thought. Suddenly, she couldn’t resist spinning back to him and saying it aloud. “You know, I’ve heard rumors that you and your sister only showed up here to get your hands on Louisa Fairchild’s money.”

  Patrick stiffened. This was a rumor he hadn’t heard, but who would have told him? Like most rumors, it had an element of truth. “I don’t have to answer you,” he began by saying, finding that internally he was shaking with rage. He kept his exterior steely calm. “But I’m going to. Maybe you can carry the truth back to the gossips in the kitchen.”

  “I never said—”

  He cut her off. “Louisa is our great-aunt, Megan’s and my only family besides each other. I love her. When I came here, it was because of the rift between her and my mother and grandmother. And yes, I came representing the interests of my ancestors. I felt that Louisa had stolen my grandmother’s share of Fairchild Acres. That was how I saw it. Now, I’m simply grateful for the chance to know Louisa. In the past weeks, she’s been accused of murder, had a heart attack and almost seen everything she owned destroyed by fire. She doesn’t give up. I can’t help but love and admire her. Believe it or not, having found Louisa and discovered who she really is—that’s worth more to me than all the money on earth.” Unable to stop, he said coldly, “Have you ever loved anyone like that, Bronwyn?”

  She ignored the taunt—and his insistence that he’d come to love Louisa. “It’s always been my understanding that people can leave their property to whomever they please. Why did you think it should just be divided between two sisters?”

  “I’ve told you it’s moot now. But if you want an answer, that’s the way I would do it.”

  Very interesting, Bronwyn thought. “So when…if… you have a child, you’ll leave all you have to him. Or her,” she hastily added, but felt her irritation rising. How dare he fire her!

  “That’s correct,” Patrick said. “And if I have more than one child, my estate will be divided equally between them. Favoritism creates bad feelings. If there’s one thing every child needs, at every stage of life, it’s the assurance of parental love.”

  “I’m glad you see your responsibility so clearly,” Bronwyn said, and enunciated slowly and carefully, “because you, Patrick Stafford, are a father.”

  Stillness. Patrick heard a horse snort in the paddock.

  It was as though he’d been kicked in the gut, had the wind knocked out of him. He couldn’t speak.

  It’s a trick! This is the trick she planned.

  And yet how could Bronwyn expect to trick him in this day and age, with paternity so easy to establish beyond a doubt?

  She was smarter than that.

  “Thank you,” he said coolly, “for telling me.”

  “I didn’t intend—”

  “Because I will certainly want to claim my parental rights. All of them. And Wesley may have spent his life until now with you, but I question the maternal capabilities of a woman who can lie to a child about who his father is, who can lie to her husband about the identity of the biological father. I assume you did lie to Ari?”

  “I didn’t know. At first I didn’t know. He looked like a baby. I just—”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Patrick said. “It’s a fact that human infants resemble their fathers. There is a biological imperative in this. It convinces the father that the mother is not concealing the kind of thing you concealed from Ari. Not to mention me. It assures the father of a child that he’s looking at his own offspring. Tell me, Bronwyn, in a way I can believe, that you truly believed Wesley was Ari Theodoros’s son.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t know.” Bronwyn regretted her rash announcement. He was angry, which she should have expected. She should never have told him in the way she’d chosen. “Patrick, I intended to tell you differently.”

  “When? After I’d promised to support you, as well as him?”

  “I think you should stop saying these things.” She spoke slowly and clearly. “Because you’re saying the kinds of things I will find it difficult to forget. No doubt you’ve always believed I married Ari for money. And now you’re deluding yourself that I would tie myself to you for the same reason. If you believe either of those things, then you don’t know me, Patrick Stafford. And you never have.”

  A chill went through him, and it had little to do with the knowledge tha
t he was Wesley’s father or with the thought that Bronwyn had kept the fact from him until now. It was a dim sense that perhaps he had said unforgivable—and unforgettable—things. “I’m upset,” he said quickly. “I’ve probably said things I don’t mean.”

  She sensed a slight capitulation on his part. “Patrick, I came here to tell you. This is why I came. I was going to tell you tonight. Then—”

  Then I kissed her, Patrick thought.

  Then he’d fired her.

  But he didn’t want Bronwyn Davies around anymore. Wesley, yes. Wesley was a wonderful boy, his boy, and Patrick wanted him near. His affection for the child had grown so much in the short time Patrick had known him; and now he felt pride that this extraordinary boy was his son, as well as an immediate sense that he would do anything, anything, to protect and nurture Wesley.

  He believed Bronwyn’s explanation of why she’d come to Fairchild Acres. It made more sense than his suspicions, which he now saw had been little more than wishful thinking. Patrick, you conceited— She’d just done a decent thing. Belatedly, yes.

  He knew he should tell her she wasn’t fired, that she could keep her job. He’d been an ass. Louisa would go through the roof if she heard how he’d behaved tonight. And, as usual, Louisa would be entirely right.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to take back the rash edict.

  Instead, he said, “Look. Let’s leave this for now. My lawyers will look into this. If Wesley is my son, I mean to provide for him and be a father to him. If that’s what you came here hoping, that’s what you’re going to get.”

  It was what Bronwyn had come to Fairchild Acres hoping. But she didn’t like the sound of “lawyers.” When custody suits went to court, money won. Her impulse was to take Wesley and flee—tonight, if possible. Hadn’t Patrick just fired her? Now she was unemployed and homeless. That would look really good to a magistrate.

  Keeping her fears quiet, she said, “I came here hoping Wesley could know his father.” A father he could admire. But was Patrick Stafford really such a great role model? Bronwyn wondered now.

  You can pick ’em, Bronwyn, she told herself bitterly.

  Patrick said no more, and so she turned away and headed for the employee bungalow.

  Once again, she and Wesley had no home.

  And Wesley’s father, the man she’d come to Fairchild Acres hoping he would grow to know and love, was responsible.

  Chapter Six

  Patrick lay awake, alternately considering his recent interactions with Wesley, feeling satisfaction with the person his son was—and no little sudden love for him, as well. Bronwyn had done a fine job. It had to be her influence. Patrick would have expected a child growing up surrounded by Ari Theodoros’s wealth to have a certain arrogance and sense of entitlement. Even in his own parents’ much less affluent household, Patrick and Megan both had grown used to receiving the material things they wanted, had even taken those things for granted. But Wesley wasn’t spoiled, was in no way a whiner, had excellent manners and took a simple joy in soccer, in riding Meadow Boy.

  Yes, Patrick believed that telling Wesley that he was his son was the reason Bronwyn had come to Fairchild Acres. That didn’t mean, however, that she didn’t have another agenda behind the revelation—maybe something which she hadn’t acknowledged even to herself. Fact: She was hard up for money. No doubt she’d at least hoped that he would help support Wesley, which Patrick was more than willing to do.

  He told himself that he was tossing and turning on his bed’s memory-foam mattress because he was excited to learn that he had a son. After all, he’d always wanted children. It was only finding a suitable woman to marry and be their mother that had been a problem.

  And why is that, Patrick?

  He wasn’t afraid of the question. He asked himself if he had believed in some subconscious way that no other woman could measure up to Bronwyn.

  He tossed that answer around for a bit.

  Well, the other women he’d met had failed to measure up to her in one particular way. Other women— his sister and Louisa excluded—seemed bound to tell him what they thought he wanted to hear, rather than simply what they thought.

  Certainly, he’d never marry a woman who refused to see herself as his equal. No such woman could really capture his mind and heart.

  What about fear of rejection, Patrick? Could that be part of the reason you’re not married?

  It had been a sobering, miserable experience to be turned down by the woman he’d loved, who’d also announced her engagement to a different man by saying that her fiancé’s values more exactly matched her own.

  Yes, that had been bad.

  He made himself think of Wesley again and was terribly excited. He wanted to call Megan, to tell her the news that he was a father, the father of a marvelous boy, a boy who could face down a brown snake without going to pieces, a boy who wanted to make reparation for Ari Theodoros’s crimes, a truly extraordinary young person. Yes, Wesley was exceptional.

  And Louisa would be delighted. She already had a bit of a relationship with the boy. Wesley had told her the story about the snake and Beckham’s defense of him. Louisa had told Wesley that they must do something to reward the dog, and she’d obtained a fabulous bone from the kitchen for Wesley to give Beckham. Yes, Louisa’s heart was already won by Wesley.

  Patrick nearly groaned at the thought of how Louisa would react to the news that he’d fired Bronwyn. I shouldn’t have done it. Not because of Louisa’s likely reaction, but simply because it had been wrong. He was going to have to take it back, to make sure that she stayed.

  Because if she stayed, Wesley would stay. In fact, Wesley should have his own room in the big house. Patrick began considering what sorts of things Wesley would most want in his room. Did he have favorite possessions stored in Sydney? Most probably.

  He finally rose from his bed and walked into the hall. Perhaps the room Wesley had occupied the first night he’d spent at Fairchild Acres would be the right room. Or the bigger one his mother had used. Patrick grabbed a pair of sweatpants, pulled them on and slipped out of his room, prepared to think about the possibility.

  Bronwyn stared moodily at the shadow of the lamp on the wall of the living room. She hadn’t been able to sleep, and had instead packed her belongings then grabbed a book that Marie had lent her. It was an American paperback called Red Sky at Morning, which unfortunately was very much a father-son story, and she stared at the same page for twenty minutes.

  She heard a doorknob turn, and a moment later a sleepy Marie Lafayette wandered into the hallway and then the living room, blinking at Bronwyn.

  “What are you doing up?” Marie asked. “I saw the light.”

  “I could ask you the same,” Bronwyn replied.

  Marie sighed. “I get—preoccupied. Things on my mind.”

  Bronwyn considered this. It had occurred to her more than once that Marie had some history she wasn’t keen to reveal. But Bronwyn’s attempts to get her, housemate to talk always failed to produce any earth-shattering revelations. Marie’s mother was dead, had died suddenly, and usually when Bronwyn asked what was troubling her, Marie simply responded that she was thinking about her mother.

  Having lost her own mother in the way she had, Bronwyn could understand this preoccupation.

  And, to be fair, she’d never confided in Marie.

  But now, what was to be lost?

  Wesley didn’t know Patrick was his father. And Bronwyn wasn’t sure how to tell him. Yet there was something about Marie that assured Bronwyn this woman would not let the truth slip. Marie was, quite simply, trustworthy. Bronwyn liked her, respected her maturity and valued her friendship.

  “Oh, hell,” Bronwyn finally breathed. “I have to tell someone.” And so she told Marie, in whispers as the beautiful, elfin blonde sat beside her on the couch at the edge of the room. Marie looked alternately horrified, outraged, concerned and consoling.

  “The thing is,” Bronwyn said, “he’s powerful. He has m
oney and he’s related to Louisa Fairchild. I’m no one. And I’ve already seen that he’s paranoid and vindictive.”

  “Probably more of the former than the latter,” Marie replied. “Don’t you think it’s likely wishful thinking on his part that you came here hoping to ensnare him? And I’m sure he knows it. He doesn’t seem that dishonest to me—dishonest to himself, I mean. He acts frightened.”

  “Of what?” Bronwyn demanded in disgust. Without even considering her own question, she whispered, “I’m the one who’s frightened. I heard him, Marie, when he started talking about getting his custodial rights. And he has fired me. So what’s to lose by my taking Wesley and getting out of here as fast as I can?”

  “Potentially, a lot,” Marie said. “First of all, I think you would have a hell of a time hiding from him. These people are powerful. Also, his firing you was completely unjustified. I’ve watched Louisa Fairchild a good deal since I’ve been here. You could say that I’ve studied her. She won’t stand for what Patrick has done. She has a reputation for being hard-nosed, but she’s fair. Her integrity is important to her.”

  Bronwyn considered this. “But he’s her blood.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to matter. I happen to know she basically cut her sister out of an inheritance, threw her out of the house, that kind of thing.”

  Bronwyn remembered hearing that. It was hardly a state secret, especially around Fairchild Acres. There was a definite feeling that Louisa Fairchild harbored no shame about her decision. But it didn’t strike Bronwyn as a fair one, so why should the woman be fair to her, a stranger?