Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  She feared it for poor baby Daisy, who needed this man to help her so much—and yet who would probably be condemned not for anything she had done but for the simple biological fact of who her father was.

  And she feared it for herself because she dreaded how she was going to feel if Andreas did reject her and walk away in a black, unforgiving fury as soon as she spoke the name that enraged him so much.

  And she knew that he wouldn’t let go of this until he knew.

  ‘Becca …’ Andreas’ use of her name was a warning, but it was the fact that he had once more reverted to the shorter, more affectionate form of it that finished her completely. The tears she had struggled against wouldn’t be held back any longer but flooded her eyes and a single one spilled out and ran slowly down her cheek.

  ‘Don’t ask me…’ she whispered, and to her astonishment Andreas accepted her plea and didn’t push her any more. But only because he didn’t need to. Her response, the distress she couldn’t hide, had given him her answer.

  ‘Roy Stanton,’ he declared, hard and flat. ‘The baby’s father is Roy Stanton…’

  It was a statement, not a question, but still Becca had to give him an answer, though all she could do was nod silently, the ability to speak having deserted her completely.

  ‘Roy Stanton,’ Andreas repeated, the other man’s name almost like a curse on his lips.

  She couldn’t read his expression through the blur of tears but she didn’t have to. All she needed to know about his reaction was there in his voice, in the way he spat out the words.

  And then it was as she had always dreaded it would be when, without another word, Andreas turned on his heel and walked away from her, striding fast and determinedly over the terrace and down the roughly carved steps that led from the cliff to the shore. Rejection and hostility were stamped into every line of his powerful body and she knew that if she tried to call him back he would refuse to even show that he had heard.

  And besides, she couldn’t find the strength to do so. She didn’t know what she could say to change his mind, and even if she’d been able to think of anything her voice wouldn’t work. So all she could do was stand and watch through tear-drenched eyes, staring after him until he disappeared from view.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DOWN in the bay, a lively breeze was whipping up the sea into unruly waves. The water whirled and swayed, rising up into foam-topped peaks and then hurling itself against the shore in a swirling rush before ebbing back out again fast, in a way that had it sucking at the sand, drawing it back with it.

  The atmosphere suited Andreas’ mood perfectly. The restless movement all about him was in keeping with his own frame of mind, the way that he couldn’t make his thoughts settle into any balanced pattern. Instead they swung from burning rage to icy cold and back again in every second that passed.

  Roy Stanton.

  He kicked viciously at the sand as the name burned in his mind, making him clench his teeth hard against the feeling.

  Roy Stanton.

  Almost a year before he had hoped that he had heard the last of that name. That the man who had ruined his life, and taken away the one thing of value he truly loved, was out of his life for ever.

  Roy Stanton and Becca between them had destroyed his happiness, and when he had thrown her out of the villa on the evening of their travesty of a wedding day he had hoped—prayed—that he would never, ever see or hear of either of them again.

  And then she had turned up, needing money.

  Money for a sick child.

  Money for Roy Stanton’s sick child.

  Standing staring at the sea was doing nothing to ease the restless rage of his thoughts and Andreas set off along the edge of the shore, striding fast, splashing through the water, heedless of the way that the waves broke against his legs, soaking the fine linen of his trousers. He needed the movement to express his feelings, to ease the fury in his mind so that he could think.

  There was one thing that stood out clearly. The baby was innocent in all this. How could he not help a sick child? That was not in question. But Roy Stanton …!

  Obviously the selfish bastard had moved on from Becca to another woman—Theos, he’d moved to her sister and had a child by her! And Becca had wept at the thought of it.

  Oh, she’d fought with everything that was in her not to show those tears, but he’d seen them sheening her pale eyes, swimming under her lids as she fought to blink them back. Stanton had taken her from him, he’d made her break her wedding vows before she had even spoken the words out loud in the ceremony, and then he had broken her heart by moving on to someone else and fathering a child on her.

  And Becca had still come here to plead for help for that baby. Her sister’s baby. Her sister’s child with her own former lover. His stomach heaved at the thought.

  Inevitably, his mind went back to the time just before the wedding. The last time that he had been truly happy. When his future had been like a glorious sun rising out there on the horizon. He was going to be married to the woman he adored. She was his life and she loved him back—or so he had believed. Another few days, less than a week, and they would be together forever.

  And then the phone calls had started.

  Foul, sneaking phone calls that spoke of secrets and lies. The voice at the other end of the line had told him that Becca—his fiancée—wasn’t the woman he believed her to be. That she didn’t love him at all but was only using him; marrying him to get as much money from him as she could. Money that she was then going to share with her real lover …

  And for a fee—a substantial fee—he would reveal the name of that lover. For now he would just give the initials. And those initials were RS.

  Coming to a halt in his furious march over the sand, Andreas stared out at the horizon with unseeing eyes, shoulders hunched, hands pushed deep into his pockets.

  He’d laughed. He’d actually laughed. The story was impossible to believe. He had trusted Becca. There was no way she was deceiving him. He’d slammed the phone down on the call; put it out of his mind.

  Until the letter had arrived with a photocopy of a cheque. A cheque for the full amount of the money he had recently given Becca to help her pay for everything she needed for the wedding—right down to the last penny. And the cheque in the copy had been written in his fiancée’s handwriting—and made out to one Roy Stanton.

  That was when he’d called in an investigator. He’d wanted to get to the bottom of this, find out the truth.

  There had been nothing to find, the man he’d hired had assured him. He’d turned up no evidence to link Rebecca Ainsworth to Roy Stanton. The phone calls had been traced to the same Roy Stanton, who was obviously at the back of all this.

  Whatever Becca had paid him the money for, he’d obviously wanted more. But Andreas didn’t give a damn about the money. He had plenty of that. It was only if the claims that Stanton was Becca’s lover were true that he would have acted.

  And so he’d put the matter out of his mind and gone through with the wedding. He wouldn’t have been human if a doubt, a worry, hadn’t flashed across his mind just once—but he pushed them away. One look at his bride’s face had been enough to convince him that she was honest, innocent and as much in love with him as he was with her.

  It was there in the way that she’d smiled at him, the way she’d looked deep into his eyes when she said her vows. And it had been there in the way that, in reply to the usual question ‘Do you take this man …?’ she had been unable to hold back in her reply, answering not just with the simple ‘I do’, but saying:

  ‘Oh, I do—I do—I do …’

  At least that was what he had thought. It was what he had wanted to believe too.

  He had married the woman he adored; brought her here to his home on this tiny island that his family had owned for centuries, thinking that he could put it all behind him. He’d hardly been able to keep his hands off his beautiful bride, and had made passionate love to her just as soon as the
y had reached the house. Their marriage couldn’t have begun in a more perfect way, he had told himself.

  And then the photographs had arrived. The faxes had been waiting for him when he walked into his office. Sent by the investigator he had put on the case. Photos he couldn’t deny, no matter how much he wanted to.

  Stooping, Andreas picked up a flat stone and flung it into the sea, watching as it skipped its way over several waves, and then sank deep into the water, disappearing without a trace.

  Becca hadn’t been able to deny anything either, when he’d challenged her with Roy Stanton’s name. She’d gone white, and he had seen the near-panic in her eyes. She’d never expected to be found out, that much was obvious. Had she really thought that she could hide her affair with the other man while being married to him?

  Had she really thought that the money she could hope to give her lover would keep him by her side?

  Because obviously, when she had returned home, her tail between her legs, without the huge financial settlement they must have been expecting, Roy Stanton had grown tired of her and his eye had started wandering. Or perhaps he had wandered even before then, and Becca had been duped all along.

  Did she really care for him so much that she would come here, plead for money for his child? Or was the child now her uppermost concern? And if that was why she was here then why—why—had she gone to bed with him today?

  Just remembering the experience of that afternoon, the passion that had blazed between them, made Andreas’ blood pound in his veins, setting his whole body throbbing in recollection. He would pay any price to have that experience all over again.

  Any price…

  Daisy’s not my baby—though I love her as if she were. She—she’s my niece. And I would do anything I could to help her.

  In the back of his thoughts he heard Becca speaking as clearly as if she had been standing behind him, whispering in his ear.

  I would do anything I could to help her.

  All right, let’s see if she meant that …

  Becca hadn’t been able to move from her place on the terrace since Andreas had left her there. She had seemed to be frozen there, her legs unable to move, as she watched him walk away and out of her sight. And then she had sunk down onto one of the low stone walls that edged the terrace, shielding anyone on it from the long, sheer cliff to the sea, covering her eyes with her hands briefly as she faced the fact that she might have ruined everything. That she might have destroyed Daisy’s one and only chance of help.

  She didn’t know how she was going to go back and face Macy, what she was going to tell her sister, if that was true. Macy was barely back on the straight and narrow as it was, and another setback could ruin everything. Brutal claws of anxiety clutched at her heart, making her wish for the relief of tears. But somehow the tears that had burned in her eyes so hotly before, now seemed to have vanished completely, leaving her eyes dry and uncomfortable.

  And suddenly she knew why. Whatever had made Andreas walk off like that, it was nothing to do with Daisy. Andreas had been listening, his attention totally focused, when she had been telling him about Macy and her baby. It was only when the name of Roy Stanton had come into the conversation—when he had forced it out of her—that his mood had changed, become blackly savage, and he had turned and walked off without another word. Perhaps there was still hope—and if there was any sort of a chance, she wasn’t going to let it go.

  She had said that she would do anything she had to to save Daisy’s life—and she’d meant it. She only prayed that Andreas would give her the opportunity.

  The sun was setting by the time that Andreas came back from the beach. He appeared at the top of the cliff steps just when the burning red ball had hit the horizon, and his tall, powerful figure was silhouetted against it, like some demon appearing out of hell, making Becca shiver in dreadful apprehension in spite of the warmth of the evening.

  He had made up his mind, that much was obvious. She could see it in the way he held himself, the tension in his shoulders, the set to his jaw that etched white lines of determination around his nose and mouth. His decision was made, and if he had decided against her then she doubted very much that there was anything she could do to change it for better or worse.

  ‘You’re still here,’ Andreas said as he came within a few yards of her. It was a statement, not a question, and there was no way of judging his mood from it, or from his tone, so she simply nodded in agreement.

  ‘I was waiting for you,’ she said in a low, uncertain voice.

  ‘Why?’

  Why? There was an answer for that in her heart, but she had no idea whether she dared to risk giving it to him. But what else did she have?

  Taking a deep breath, she forced the words out, fighting to control her voice so that she sounded so much braver than she felt.

  ‘Because I know that no matter what you think of me—or—’ her courage failed her at the thought of saying that provocative name ‘—or Daisy’s father, you won’t be able to turn your back on a child. You might hate me, but you won’t let an innocent baby die if you can help it.’

  If her words had been a slap aimed at his face, his head wouldn’t have gone back any more sharply. Becca wished she could see his expression but the way he stood with his back to the sun threw his face into shadow and all she could spot was the way that he had closed his eyes just for a moment.

  ‘We need to talk,’ was all he said and he walked past her, into the house, not sparing her another glance but obviously expecting her to follow.

  Which she did, of course. She had no other option.

  In the sitting room, Andreas clicked on a single lamp but that was all. With some light still filling the room from the sinking sun, it was possible to move around, but not to see anything really clearly. But at the same time, the shifting shadows in the room were a sort of comfort, suiting Becca’s mood completely. She felt as if she was groping her way forward, hoping that somehow she would end up in the place she most wanted to be.

  Though the truth was that right at this moment she had no idea where that might be.

  ‘I could do with a drink,’ Andreas said abruptly, making her start in surprise. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I—Some wine would be nice,’ Becca managed carefully. Perhaps the alcohol would relax her, ease her dry throat, help her handle what she felt was going to be one of the most difficult conversations of her life, second only to the appalling confrontation on the evening of her wedding day.

  But that time she had been caught on edge, not knowing what was coming. This time she was desperately tense because she knew exactly what they had to talk about. Right at this moment she had no way of saying which situation was actually worse.

  ‘White or red?’

  Did it matter? She knew that he was just preparing the ground, so to speak. He was being polite, offering a drink, settling her down before…

  Before what?

  That was the really important question. The one she needed answering now. But she didn’t dare to press the point, to risk pushing Andreas into saying anything he was not ready to say. And so she tried a small smile, almost managed it.

  ‘Red will be fine.’

  ‘I’ll get it. I will be back in a moment.’

  He was gone much more than a moment. How long did it take to find a bottle, open it—pour? Becca paced around the room like a restless cat, unable to settle, too uneasy to sit still.

  Was he ever coming back?

  It was as she thought the words that the door opened again and Andreas came back into the room. And at once for Becca it was as if the world had suddenly righted itself again, in a way that had nothing at all to do with the reason why she was here, the question she was waiting for him to answer.

  The truth was that she was so desperately in love with this man that simply to be with him, in the same room, so that she could see him, watch him, know he was there, was enough for her. She could see how the burning light from the sunset fell on th
e raven’s-wing darkness of his hair, burnishing it with glowing red tones, look into the blackness of his eyes and see their brilliance in spite of the shadows of the room. She could hear his soft breathing, the pad of his still bare feet on the wooden floor. And the ozone tang of the sea was still on his skin and hair from the time on the beach.

  And from wanting things to hurry up, from needing an answer to her questions as quickly as possible, she suddenly knew an overwhelming desire to drag this confrontation out for as long as she could. She had just realised that this was probably going to be the very last conversation she ever had with Andreas. The last time she would be able to be with him and talk to him at all. After this, whatever his answer was, then they would go their separate ways. She would go home to England, to Macy and Daisy and some sort of life she would live there, and Andreas would stay here. And she would never, ever see him again.

  The thought burned in her throat, closing it up so that she had to struggle to breathe, concentrating so fiercely that she didn’t hear Andreas speak even when he repeated the words more loudly. ‘I—I’m sorry?’

  ‘I said, would you like to sit down?’

  Andreas gestured towards the settee with one of the wine glasses he held.

  ‘Isn’t it usual at this point to say—do I need to?’ she managed, aiming for a joking tone.

  But then she looked into Andreas’ sombre, shadowed face and all trace of laughter, real or pretend, fled from her thoughts at once.

  ‘Do I?’ she asked on a note of anxiety.

  ‘Sit down, Becca,’ Andreas said and it was a command not a suggestion, one that had her slumping down onto the big leather settee without daring to protest or question any further.

  ‘All right …’

  Andreas sat opposite as he had before, placing both glasses of rich red wine on the table and pushing one towards her. Becca reached for hers, picked it up, then hesitated, looking down into the ruby-coloured liquid. She had the nasty feeling that if she tried to swallow it, her throat would constrict even more, choking her, and she would simply splutter the drink everywhere. With a faint sigh she set it down again and waited.