by Nikki Logan
And he …
He was almost weak-kneed with relief. It was only the Bradley iron will that had him still upright.
But he’d made it in time.
Ten thousand miles and a three-hour sprint by car and he’d walked in here just as they were beginning. He’d been insane to take himself on a brisk circuit of the neighbouring gardens to settle his nerves, but he’d really needed to feel earth instead of pavement beneath his feet. Getting the injunction was the first win; it gave him enough time to appeal against this ludicrous court order. He’d picked it up from an out-of-hours bailiff on the way from Heathrow and he’d headed straight to the hospital to slap it on their legal department.
When he’d discovered the transfer procedure was happening right now, while he sat in a room full of hospital lawyers … That had nearly broken him. They’d practically chased him down the warren of corridors to this theatre.
He looked at Gwen’s sister again. All geared up in her hospital gown, looking all of sixteen with her flame-coloured hair piled high on her head and her face free of make-up. So horribly close to being ready.
‘Would someone please tell me what is going on?’
Belinda Rochester’s tiny voice matched her appearance perfectly. He’d been floored when he realised she was the same woman from the hospital foyer—she of the forever legs and the provocative knee-high suede boots. Her snipe was the only thing to even vaguely slap him out of the pressure-induced dark place he’d been in since getting word of the approval of the injunction.
The flash of haughty disdain in her blue eyes as she looked at his muddy boots had managed to bring him back to the real world. Just a little bit. He should have guessed then that she was a Rochester.
No wonder Drew had loved it in London so much. Where cultured manners reigned.
‘Miss Rochester …’ One of the legals stepped in to bring her up to speed. Her red-rimmed eyes widened and kept on widening as she discovered why he was here. ‘It’s simply an unacceptable level of risk for the hospital. I’m sorry.’
She turned her confusion to Flynn. ‘Appealing the custody award? Why? On what grounds?’
‘On the grounds that my family wasn’t consulted,’ he bit out.
‘Wh … What family?’
‘The Bradley family. Drew’s family.’
Blue eyes narrowed. ‘But … Drew’s family were contacted. They made no petition.’
He shrugged. ‘The letter was delayed.’ Actually, not entirely true but close enough.
That seemed to fire her up. A single strand of phoenix-red hair fell down over her face. She brushed it away savagely. ‘You’re kidding me—you’re playing the “we didn’t get the letter” card? It’s been ten months!’
He shrugged again. They had, in fact, received the letter. But some bureaucratic bungle saw it addressed to Drew by mistake, and his still-grieving mother had buried it amongst his other belongings, unable to face one more reminder of his death or—worse—one more demand for death taxes. As if losing him once wasn’t bad enough … It was only luck that saw Flynn find the legal-looking letter when going through his brother’s things the month before.
He’d nearly killed himself driving the three hours to Sydney at top speed to get the best lawyer his savings could buy.
Belinda swung her legs over the edge of the table to sit up straighter. He’d thought they were long back out in the foyer. Here, they went on eternally. Her sister hadn’t been that tall. He dragged his eyes back up to her blazing ones.
So, she was a fast rebounder.
‘Regardless, I’m the closest living relative.’
He snorted. ‘In what universe?’
‘Gwen was my sister. Biologically, I’m the closest relative to these children.’
‘And Drew was my brother. That makes me just as close, genetically, to the embryos.’ Damned if he was going to let her emotionalise this any further by acting as if two living, breathing kids stood in the room with them.
She reeled back. ‘Drew didn’t have a brother.’
Flynn sucked back the knives. Why that, particularly, should have hurt so badly after everything that had gone down between him and Drew … But to effectively disown him … ‘I have a birth certificate that says otherwise.’
She frowned. ‘Gwen wouldn’t keep something like that a secret.’
Had Drew been so under the Rochester spell he’d denied his family’s existence? His brother’s? Old hurts fuelled his anger. ‘Well, the fact remains Drew and I were brothers and I have a court injunction to prove it.’
The cornflower eyes blazed with bewilderment and fear. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want to stop the transfer.’
‘Why?’
‘Because your right to the embryos is no longer absolute. I have an equal right under the law.’
She frowned and pressed slim, perfectly manicured fingers to her temples. Every other person in the room was silent. ‘You want to raise the babies?’
‘I want the question of custody revisited,’ he hedged. He sure as hell didn’t want the only thing left of Drew being lost to his family. This was something concrete he could do. Something positive.
‘But … There’s no time …’ She turned her pained face to the doctor. ‘Is there, Marco?’
All focus shifted to the doctor. He’d tell her—that what started on ice could stay on ice indefinitely. Certainly long enough for him to get custody of Drew’s biological material for his family. Not hers.
‘Actually, no, there’s not.’
Flynn’s head snapped around. What? ‘But the implantation hasn’t started.’
‘The embryos are prepared for transfer. They’re human DNA, Mr Bradley. You can’t simply re-freeze them like a pound of sausages if you change your mind.’
Belinda’s blue eyes flared. ‘They need to go in!’
The doctor nodded. ‘Yes. They do.’
One of the hospital attorneys chimed in, drawing Belinda’s focus with a snap. ‘They’re not going in.’
‘But they’ll die!’ She dragged her eyes back to his, glittering blue again, but this time with fear. ‘Please! You’ll kill them.’
Tight claws skidded down his spine. That DNA was the only tiny part of Drew the fates had left behind when that Thai ferry sank. It was the gift of life none of his family had known a thing about. A second chance. He didn’t want those cells anywhere near the Rochesters, let alone in one of them, but letting them die was absolutely not going to happen.
He turned to the attorneys. ‘What are our options?’
The Italian cut in. ‘How many verdant, prepared wombs do you see in this room, Mr Bradley?’
He looked around desperately and his eyes landed on one of the nursing staff.
She snorted and crossed her arms across an ample chest and barked at him disapprovingly in her broad accent, ‘Don’t you look at me, sunshine!’
He snapped his gaze back to the suits. ‘There must be another option. Somewhere else to store the embryos …’
‘It needs to happen now,’ the doctor snapped. ‘Every minute we waste is potentially destroying them. We’re right on the edge of the viable time as it is because of how long it took Bel to get to the hospital.’
His thumping heart dragged his head back to hers. Every resentment he’d ever had for the Rochesters and their influence on his brother bubbled up and spilled out at the vulnerable woman perched nervously on the edge of the table. ‘Needed a pedicure first, princess?’
Her lips pressed into a tight, pained line and her hands twisted and untwisted in the hospital gown. But she didn’t bite. Instead, her eyes implored him—Please!—and he got the feeling she was not a woman accustomed to begging.
And in that moment the balance of power shifted.
To him.
Belinda Rochester was every bit as desperate as he was. And desperate people did desperate things. A savage plan began to take shape.
‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law.’
‘There’s not a court in the world that will grant me custody of those children after they’ve been gestating in your body.’ He looked at the lawyers. ‘Right?’
They both looked as if they wished they’d called in sick today. But they nodded. ‘Almost certainly,’ the only brave one amongst them said.
‘Mr Bradley, please …’ The Italian flattened both hands towards the ticking clock.
Flynn kept his eyes locked on Belinda’s. ‘If I let this happen, what’s to stop you disappearing with them?’
She threw her hands up. ‘The law?’
‘The law hasn’t done me any favours so far.’
‘It gave you an injunction.’
‘Which I had to fight for.’
She glanced at the doctor, who was looking plenty pensive, and hissed out a breath. ‘I’ll give you my word.’
His laugh was more of a bark. ‘A Rochester’s word? Worth less.’
‘Then what do you want? We don’t have time for this.’
‘You come with me.’
More fiery strands fell free of her hairclip as she shook her head. ‘What? Where?’
‘Back to Australia. With me.’
‘Are you insane? My life’s here.’
And mine’s on that tray over there. He was so close to saying it. He had so much to make up to his brother. His parents. He thought he’d lost the chance for ever. ‘You want these kids or not? Either you come with me or their use-by date will expire while you watch.’
‘Oh, my God. This is the worst kind of blackmail.’
‘Whatever it takes, honey. The only way I’m going to know you haven’t skipped the country with our shared property is if I keep you with me at all times. Until the case is decided. Until they’re born.’
‘Then what?’ She threw her hands in the air. Presumably to make damned sure he knew she wasn’t actually considering it.
‘Then we abide by the court’s decision. On equal ground.’
‘It won’t be equal. You said yourself the courts are going to favour me—’
His eyes shot to the lawyers, specifically the one who’d been brave enough to open his mouth and commit to something earlier. ‘What will level out the playing field under UK law?’
The two of them conferred quietly, but then the sister’s quiet voice drew his attention.
‘Playing field? This is not a game. Were talking about lives here.’
He held her serious gaze and murmured, ‘Tell me about it,’ before facing the two suited men once again. ‘Well?’
The taller one laughed but it was tight and high. ‘Short of marrying her, not a lot.’
Even the nurses gasped and his eyes flicked back around in time to see Belinda Rochester’s coral lips fall open. He stared her down, his mind racing through what precious few options he had. Then he shrugged. His life was going roundly down the gurgler anyway …
‘It’s just a formality—’ he started, but she barely took a breath before squeaking her refusal.
‘Are you insane?’
‘No, I’m desperate. And so are you. Do you want this implantation or not?’
‘You know I do. These babies mean everything to me.’ She blazed fire and ice and brimstone and Flynn got a momentary glimpse of the protective mother she was going to be. And it wasn’t unattractive.
‘Then no price is too great, right?’
Not a single person in the room breathed. The clock on the wall ticked unnaturally loud.
‘Bel …’ The Italian finally broke the silence and looked meaningfully at the snap-frozen straws that must have held the embryos. They almost glowed with nearly wasted life.
She swung bleak eyes back to him, nostrils flaring. ‘This is temporary. And a marriage on paper only. I’ll break any part of you that so much as touches me.’
It was insane to laugh at a moment like this, but the idea of those birdlike bones doing anything more than bouncing ineffectively off a son of the outback was ludicrous.
‘Absolutely.’ Whatever it took. Belinda Rochester would incubate his brother’s babies and, when the time came, he’d smile as he took them out of her arms and nudged her back onto a plane for Old Blighty.
She stared at him, round-eyed and loathing, and then swung those long legs back up onto the table and lay down, eyes fixed on the fluorescent lighting above, without so much as a word of acquiescence.
The hospital legal team looked at him for direction.
He took a deep, painful breath and spoke.
‘Do it. Put them in.’
CHAPTER THREE
New South Wales tablelands, Australia
‘WELCOME to Oberon.’
Bel tucked her arms around her light shirt as she stepped out of Flynn’s purring ute. After their three-hour drive from Sydney—into the mountains and out the other side—warmth shimmered off its bonnet. Infinitely warmer than the air around her. And the silent man beside her.
She leaned against the toasty car and grumbled, ‘I thought Australia was supposed to be hot?’
He took a deep breath, either annoyed that the first real words out of her mouth in twenty-four hours was a complaint, or relieved she’d finally broken the stony silence they’d both endured much of the way from Heathrow. Not that they hadn’t spoken at all. Some speech was a practical necessity. He’d had to tell her his name—Flynn, ridiculously Australian—and she’d had to ask him several times to unfold himself out of his aisle seat so she could use the bathroom. Her own fault for choosing to sit by the window, but staring out at the vast, inky blackness was infinitely preferable to making polite small talk with a man who was practically kidnapping her.
She’d almost chickened out, waiting at the departure lounge. She had a passport, a fully cleared credit card, packed suitcases, full womb, and all the reason in the world to want to run.
But she’d made a few promises to Gwen in the tiny hours of the morning she’d been due at the hospital for the transfer, and honouring the one about giving those babies the best life she could—a better life than she’d had—meant something to her. Enough to see her striding, stiff-backed, down the gangway and onto the flight to hell.
‘This is the high country,’ Flynn said. ‘The tablelands of the Blue Mountains. We’re eleven hundred metres above the heat. I hope you brought some warmer clothes.’
She let her eyes drift around them.
‘Not what you imagined …?’
She frowned, surprised by the miracle of conversation with Mr Strong-Silent-Type. ‘Its name sounded a lot more … magical.’
Oberon. She’d had visions of Shakespeare and forests filled with Faeries. But while this little mountain town might not have horned folk and showering petals, it certainly wasn’t without charm. Very Australian—particularly since it was the only part of Australia outside of Sydney’s airport that she’d actually seen in anything other than a passing blur—and rather pretty. ‘You live in town?’
‘Nope. About ten kilometres back towards Jenolan. A place called Bunyip’s Reach.’
‘Why have we stopped here?’
‘I figured you might like a break. And we could use the time to get our stories straight.’
She looked at him. ‘We’ve had nothing but time for the past twenty-four hours.’
‘You didn’t seem—’ He searched for the right word.
Approachable? No, probably not. She’d had the airline music pounding in her ears and her eyes glued to her e-reader pretty much the whole way. As though she was seated next to a total stranger. Actually, she might have tried to strike up a conversation with a total stranger …
‘—ready to talk,’ he finished.
Talk? With the man who hadn’t managed more than fifty words to her since forcing her hand in the hospital? Bel took a deep breath of cold mountain air. The cleanest air she’d ever tasted. Then she tucked her arms more tightly around herself. ‘What do you mean, get our stories straight?’
He glan
ced behind him. ‘Let’s get a hot drink. You’re freezing. You seriously are going to have to dress warmer up here.’
The too familiar slice of his judgement stung. Was this how it would go? Him alternating between hostility and blatant condescension?
‘I’ve been dressing myself successfully since I was four, Flynn. I’m sure I’ll manage.’ Now that she knew how unexpectedly like home the highlands were.
They walked a couple of blocks to a coffee house in awkward silence.
He spoke to several people on the way into the café, lots of nodding and curious glances and exchanges of ‘mate’. He was popular with the locals; that didn’t bode particularly well for the quality of everyone else in the town, if an arrogant jerk was on the favoured-sons list.
It was only when they were seated with a herbal tea for Bel and a coffee for Flynn that he started speaking to her again, his eyes hard and determined. ‘So, I wanted to set some ground rules.’
She lifted her eyebrows. ‘Really?’ You and what army?
‘There are things that my family doesn’t need to know just yet. But obviously they’ll have questions …’
‘You’re coming home with a bride-to-be, pregnant with their other son’s baby. I should think so.’
His lips tightened and his eyes flicked evasively out to the beautiful bush view.
‘They do know about the embryos?’ she asked. Because he surely would have told her something this important before now if they didn’t. Surely.
His lips didn’t loosen. Her mouth dropped open. ‘They don’t know?’
‘No one knows. I’m the only one who’s seen the letter.’
‘Are you serious?’ Her squeal drew curious eyes from the other patrons. ‘How are you planning on explaining—’ she waved her hands between them ‘—this, then?’
‘We’ll tell them I’m the father.’
She needed a second to gather her wits, which were scattered like straws around her. ‘Really? And—what?—you met me on the outward flight to London, we got busy in the inflight loos and then you popped a ring on my finger? Fast work, Bradley.’