by Leslie North
"I'm..."
"Come for me, Brandy. Only for me."
She did. Her climax came on out of nowhere, spontaneous, violent. Incredible. The heated coil in her belly sprang apart, and she was released. All her pent-up need burst from her. She wailed and spasmed, and Max kept her pinned, as if determined to enjoy every quaking inch of her to its fullest. He pumped his hips as Brandy rose helpless to meet him, her instinct demanding that she sustain this incredible pleasure for as long as humanly possible. She was perfectly in time with him now, receiving his thrusts and working him around and around, hearing his breaths come in short, erratic bursts.
Suddenly, Max clutched the back of her head. He was pumping into her so furiously that he would have knocked her back had he not brought his hand up to protect the back of her skull. "Fuck..." he whispered. "Oh, fuck."
He gave a final jerk and spilled himself inside her. Brandy gasped as she felt the hot flood of his seed. He really had been holding himself back all these weeks, she realized deliriously.
Max's thrusts weakened as he spent himself inside her, then withdrew. The inside of her thighs was painted with him. She felt possessed in the best way possible: she felt her ownership of him, and felt owned by him in turn. She belonged nowhere but right here in this moment with Max.
"Come 'ere, love." Max snaked an arm around her waist and overturned them both. Brandy found herself atop him, luxuriating in the heat of their fire-warmed bodies pressed so close together. She let her fingertips drift along the contours of his chest. She could almost swear she heard him purring with contentment as she stroked him.
"Love?" she wondered aloud.
"A term of endearment," he explained lazily. She knew that, of course, but didn't bother telling him so. She had only wanted to test the word out in that moment, the same way he had: safely, and out of the context of what it could truly mean to two people wrapped up in each other's embrace.
"You find me endearing?" Brandy snuggled close and awaited his response, but Max was already snoring peacefully, his breaths coming heavy and even. Content. She laid her head on his chest and listened to the sluggish beat of his heart.
Maybe... just maybe... there's a happily ever after here for me after all.
9
That Saturday, Brandy was running late for her lunch date with Bettina in Glen Ridge.
But it wasn't the only thing she was late on.
"I can't be," she told the doctor when the other woman gave her the results. "It's not possible."
"I assure you that it is," the doctor informed her. "You're pregnant. Congratulations, Miss Jackson."
Congratulations? Brandy touched her stomach quietly. Nothing felt different or amiss. A hunch had carried her into the doctor's office that morning. A hunch, and the fact that her period was now two weeks late.
But it couldn't be true. She couldn't be carrying Max's baby. And yet, who else was there? He was the only man who had made love to her in a very, very long time... and they hadn't exactly been careful about it. Brandy had taken the pill religiously for years, but now she wasn't so certain. Had she kept her schedule as diligently as always? Or had the time zone change and all the excitement of acquiring Landon Castle thrown her off? That first night she’d spent with Max at the hotel... had she remembered to take it then?
"I thought it was stress," Brandy said to the sympathetic doctor. She stared at the far wall of the room, feeling like she was swimming.
No. She felt like she was drowning.
This couldn't be happening. Her situation right now was far from stable. She was late on turning in her current manuscript, and she only barely had a roof over her head. How the hell was she supposed to take care of a baby? She didn't know the first thing a woman in her position was supposed to know.
Pamphlets. That turned out to be what they gave her. Pamphlets, and many tentative congratulations as she wandered in a daze out of the clinic. It had become clear to both the doctor and nurses that her pregnancy was far from expected, maybe even not wanted. They gave her a pamphlet on that, too, though Brandy couldn't bear to look at it. She sat alone in the driver's seat of her rental car and stared out the window. Her cell phone vibrated on the seat beside her with Bettina's worried texts.
She wanted to tell Bettina. That was what surprised her the most. She wanted to tell the sister of the man who had become her lover that she was pregnant. Surprise. You're going to be an aunt. Maybe she wouldn't word it that way, but what was the point of mincing revelations now? She had to tell someone.
Max.
It was so obvious who deserved to know most, and yet she couldn't bring herself to imagine what that conversation would look like. They had just gone from enemies to lovers (who, depending on the room and practicing law professionals present, were also still enemies). How the hell was she supposed to tell Max he was now an expectant father?
Both of them came from fractured homes. Both had past trauma and trust issues.
This baby couldn't have picked a worse non-couple to visit itself on.
"Are you all right?" Bettina asked her over lunch. "You look pale. If you want, we can take a look at the photo album some other time."
"Album?" Brandy stared down at her lap, bewildered, and realized she was clutching the mysterious photo album she had discovered back in the library. She had filled Bettina in on everything that had happened that past week, with one significant omission—she assumed a sister didn't want to hear about the sexual exploits of her older brother. So she kept the truth about her and Max close to her chest, almost as close as she clutched the album now.
"Yeah... maybe another time," she conceded. She stowed the book in her bag, and they proceeded to have a pleasant (if a little strange) lunch together. It was Brandy's fault it was strange. Either Bettina didn't notice, or she pretended not to notice. She carried the lion's share of the conversation, letting Brandy eat the lion's share of the food. Not that Brandy was hungry. Everything she put in her mouth seemed to turn to ash in her stomach.
She had to tell Max.
But not at the castle. She needed to meet him in neutral territory.
After she hugged Bettina goodbye and agreed to another luncheon next week, Brandy tried to call Lucy... but of course her best friend was busy. The thought of it being wedding season back in the States almost made her want to be sick. Suddenly, romance seemed too dangerous and unpredictable to be trifled with.
She hung up on Lucy's voicemail and, clutching her phone in her hand, she started walking. She drafted a text in her head before typing it out to send to Max. Once done typing, her thumb hovered over the touch screen for a long moment.
Finally, she hit send.
Brandy wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run to. Not from this. Instead, she resumed walking to her next destination, trying not to think about what the future held.
Max. I need you to meet me at Melrose Café. It's urgent. Please don't call, just meet me.
An alarming text, to say the least, but something about Brandy's brevity already had him throwing his coat on and heading out to the car. He drove over the speed limit into Glen Ridge, but nothing and no one stopped him until he arrived in town and flew through the café door.
Brandy. She sat at a table by the window, staring out into the street. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, revealing the lean, elegant muscles of her neck. She was turned away from him, sharp chin propped in the palm of her hand, studying something he couldn't see. He doubted if anyone but her could see it.
Whatever it was, she obviously found it disturbing.
"I'm here." Max sat down and waved the waiter away. "Brandy. What is it? I don't like receiving cryptic texts."
Brandy barked an unpleasant laugh. "You don't like it, huh?" She turned to him, and he was startled to see her eyes were red-rimmed. Had she been crying, or was she about to? All he wanted to do in that moment was hold her, but instinct warned him against it. Whatever this was, she wanted to be heard out. That much was cl
ear. She was also clearly having a hard time finding the words.
But Max didn’t play games. “I like it even less that you aren’t coming out with it now. Your texts called me away from work, Brandy.” And scared the shite out of me, he added privately, but refused to say it out loud. Now that he could see for himself that she was safe and whole, he felt foolish for having rushed to any other conclusion.
Brandy scrubbed her eyes and glared at him. “There he is. The old asshole. I was wondering when he would come out. I suppose today of all days is perfect.”
Max bristled. “What the hell has gotten into you?” he demanded. “I thought you came all the way out here to meet my sister, and now you’re—“
“I’m pregnant, Max!” she interjected. Strange, how two words—in combination with his name—could feel so much like a bucket of ice water being dumped down his back. It was visceral.
He stared at her for a long moment, uncomprehending. Pregnant. I’m pregnant. The memories came flooding back unbidden: once it had been Bettina sitting in the chair across from him with those reddened, helpless eyes, after Drakar had used her love to get to him and subsequently deserted her.
He should be happy to hear this news.
He should.
It was life-changing in a way that few things really were to a man like him… yet all he could think of was his nemesis, and his sister. The warped kaleidoscope of memory superimposed itself on his present.
Then, without warning, the present snapped back into focus. There was Brandy, sitting across from him: her raven hair tumbled over one shoulder that had turned itself inward. She looked too pale, too thin. He could feel his protective instincts rearing up. He should be beside her, on her side of the table; he should be drawing her into his arms—he should be happy, for Christ’s sake, and banishing her fear with a smile. A real smile. One meant to comfort, not charm others while keeping them at a distance. He didn’t want to be distant, damn it. Not in this moment, and not from this woman.
But he had to set aside pleasure. He had to set aside feeling. Now… now was the time to let the businessman take over. Max was certain that was the only person who could save them both from Bettina’s fate. Brandy wouldn’t be his sister, and he would be damned if he’d act like Drakar.
“And you’re certain?” he asked finally, already knowing the truth of her answer deep down.
“I’m certain.”
“And it’s mine?”
“We can have a paternity test done.” Brandy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “After the baby is born.”
Max nodded, ignoring the clenching in his chest. It was his heart, he knew, but he refused to acknowledge it now. All the same, this was not how he would have wanted this conversation to go. “You said you were on the pill,” he said.
“I am,” Brandy replied hastily. “I mean… around the time that we… there’s a possibility that I got thrown off. The fact that I moved here, out of my time zone…”
“You didn’t think to adapt your schedule?”
“No, Maximillian, I’m sorry to say that I didn’t!” Brandy snapped. She looked as if she was about to cry again; Max thought he preferred her anger. Anger could be channeled, in this instance. As long as they were making strides forward to find their way out of this mess, he would have to steel himself against her possible hatred of him. “And I didn’t expect to meet someone in the hotel bar my first night here, either!”
So you say. A horrible thought kept creeping across the back of his brain. He wondered if he should flush it from hiding, now, before it grew to hold sway over him: his own fear. His suspicion. So you say, Brandy, but what if this is all too convenient? What if you intended to meet me in the bar after all? What if you intended all along to become pregnant with my child?
Max raised two fingers to the bridge of his nose and pinched. Hard. Then he looked at her, reached for the clarity he knew he had to take fast hold of before he descended into darkness. “I… have to make a phone call.” He rose, abruptly, and tossed his unused cloth napkin down on the table. “Wait right here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Not far.”
“… and you’re sure I’m not going too far with this?” he asked Gavin less than five minutes later on the phone. He leaned back against the brick wall of the café’s alleyway, smoking a cigarette he had bummed off one of the waitstaff. It had been a while since he’d sunk this low, and damn if it didn’t feel proper given the circumstances… or completely improper, as it were.
“I’m not sure what I’d do in your situation,” Gavin admitted.
“You would never get yourself into this situation in the first place.”
“Never say never.”
“So it’s settled,” Max said, bringing them back around to the point.
“If she’s keeping the baby, I don’t see how there’s any other way,” Gavin said.
“That’s because you’re a traditionalist.”
“So are you. I’m assuming that’s why you called me—to confirm what you already know you have to do.”
“And I will do it,” Max murmured as he hung up the phone. He felt that even the brief conversation had pulled him away too long. He had to get back to Brandy. Had to see this thing through.
And he had come up with the solution.
10
When the time came for him to enact his plan, Brandy was nowhere to be found.
“Damn it.” Not the words he had intended to say while holding an engagement ring box in his hands, but Max was alone—exactly a state he didn’t want to be in for a change. His desire for solitude had diminished with Brandy’s arrival into his life, despite his earliest protestations to the contrary.
Now the east wing was empty, and the hunt for his future wife had begun.
He found her sooner than expected. Despite the enormity of the castle and its grounds, he had come to know her comings and goings, and understand her predilections… no, not predilection. What she loved. And what Brandy loved most was to find her way outside on days when the temperamental English weather permitted, to write, and…
“Sleep,” Max couldn’t help quietly chuckling to himself when he found her sprawled on a bench in the garden, one arm draped across her chest, the other dangling down over the side, her curled knuckles grazing the ground beneath her. Max stood stock-still a moment, admiring the way the sunlight through the shifting leaves above dappled her hair, her cheeks.
I’m in love with you. If she had been awake, he might have said the words out loud. All thoughts of the straightforward, no-frills proposal he had planned (if not memorized to the word) suddenly bled away as he looked at her. All his fears, his doubts, vanished with a ragged intake of breath. I want you. I want you for my wife. I want you in my bed. I want you, in this castle we share—and I want you to want me in return.
Could it be possible? He had so little real experience with love: heartfelt, reciprocated, not some fabrication or means to an end. When your net worth numbered in the billions, few of those who found their way into your sphere turned out not to want something from you. They sneaked past your defenses and poised themselves for a reward if you weren’t vigilant enough.
Yet Brandy… Brandy hadn’t snuck up on him. She had unapologetically strolled right into his life and turned his understanding of the world upside down. How could he not fall for someone like her?
Max shifted the ring box back into his pocket, then knelt down beside her. It was the exact wrong order he had intended to do things in, but he couldn’t bring himself to wake her. Not just yet. He reached out to caress her cheek, just once, then turned to move her laptop off of her knees. He had seen her start awake more than once before and nearly launch her PC; he’d rather not see her—
His eyes strayed to the email she had left open and he froze. Elliott Brock. Who was Elliott Brock? A contact in the publishing industry? A friend back home. Deal is done, the email read. Time to celebrate.
“Deal?” he murmured to himself
. “What deal?”
He was hit with it all at once: an avalanche of memories he had tried to suppress or overlook. He was overly cautious, he knew, bordering on suspicious, but there were suddenly too many coincidences in their relationship to easily write off now. Deal is done. Time to celebrate.
And suddenly, in that moment, he was forced to relive all the times Brandy had accidentally walked in on him discussing his latest security program. The kitchen, the foyer, hell, even the pub that one time…
Why had Brandy been at the hotel? Why did she hold a deed to the castle he had purchased, when by law it should be his? The castle that Drakar of all people had lost? And now she was pregnant with his child?
Max drew back, studying the angelic face beneath him with new disbelief, as Brandy stirred and stretched. She let out a mighty yawn and blinked her eyes open slowly. “Max?” She sounded as if she wasn’t sure if she was fully awake or still dreaming.
Max wasn’t sure, either. He wasn’t sure suddenly if this whole scenario wasn’t his worst nightmare after all.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” he said briskly. “I have another business proposition for you.”
“Business?” Brandy turned herself around to sit up—angling her laptop screen away from him—deliberately? He couldn’t tell—and shut her computer. She laid it aside as she eyed him. “Really? You came all the way out here to—“
Max rose and drew the box out of his pocket once more. When he settled onto one knee, Brandy’s hands flew to her mouth. She stared at him with eyes as blue as heaven. Dangerously blue. “Max!” she squeaked.
“I think we should get married,” he said abruptly. “Given the news that you’re expecting, it’s what makes the most sense. We have a child together now to think about.”
“A child,” Brandy echoed him. “But Max… what about us?”