Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  ‘So tell me about the baby. About Daisy.’

  It was the chance she had wanted, that she had prayed for. But now that it was here she hardly knew where to begin.

  But Andreas had used the baby’s name. He’d called her Daisy. So surely he couldn’t be going to turn his back on the little girl. Not when that seemed to mean that she was becoming a real person to him.

  ‘I have a photograph—it’s upstairs in my…’

  She had been getting to her feet, anxious to go and fetch it, to show him her beautiful baby niece, but she stopped when he shook his head, sank back down into her seat instead.

  ‘I want to hear about her from you.’

  For a second Becca couldn’t find the words, didn’t know where to begin, but then she started hesitantly, and suddenly everything just came pouring out. How reluctant her sister had been to admit that she was having a baby. The way that Macy had neglected herself during her pregnancy…

  ‘She’s always been in danger of being anorexic and when she started getting bigger with the baby, she hated it. I tried to get her to eat, but she was always saying she was too fat. She never ate enough to keep herself alive, never mind let the baby grow healthy. Then she went into labour early—too early. Daisy was born prematurely …’

  She choked off the words, unable to continue, staring in front of her with unfocused eyes as she remembered the tiny little scrap of humanity that the baby had been at that time.

  ‘They managed to save her—but there are problems with her heart. We were told that the operation she needs isn’t available in England—it’s too new, too specialised. Before this babies like her just died—no one could do anything for them. But there’s a surgeon in America who has been working wonders on tiny babies just like her. If we could just get him to operate on her.’

  ‘And for that you need money.’

  Becca could only nod silently, her heart too full for speech. Putting Daisy’s plight into words like this had brought it home to her how desperate the situation was; made her remember just how fragile the little girl’s life could be.

  ‘And that is why you came to me?’

  There was a note in his voice that she couldn’t interpret, and his eyes were bleak as ice floes.

  ‘I—I wrote to you about it,’ she managed and Andreas nodded slowly.

  ‘I remember that now—a letter that arrived just before the accident. Those days are still not clear.’

  He frowned faintly, rubbing at his temples, obviously trying to recall things from before the car crash.

  ‘The distant past is something I remember better. But I sent an answer, I believe.’

  ‘Yes. You told me to get in touch with your solicitors—write down exactly what I needed and why and you would con—consider my request.’

  That frown was back between Andreas’ black brows, but it was more pronounced now.

  ‘Then why are you here? Why didn’t you just do that?’

  ‘Because …’ Becca began then broke off sharply as something Andreas had said a moment earlier hit home to her.

  Those days are still not clear … The distant past is something I remember better.

  Did he not remember that he had been asking for her? That was the one reason she was here. A reason that she had been forced to decide had just been Leander imagining things, because nothing in Andreas’ behaviour seemed to fit with a moment like that.

  But if he didn’t remember …

  ‘Because?’ Andreas prompted harshly.

  Leaning forward, Becca snatched up her glass of wine again and took an unwary gulp. It was enough to clear her head.

  ‘Because I thought it was best to explain the situation to you face to face. You deserved that at least if you were going to help us.’

  ‘But when you got here, you found that I didn’t remember your letter—or you.’

  ‘And so I let you think that we had never split up. I’m sorry,’ Becca put in hastily and sincerely. ‘I couldn’t think of anything else to do.’

  Andreas didn’t seem to be listening. He was reaching into the pocket of his trousers, pulling out a folded piece of paper. He tossed it onto the table beside her wine glass.

  ‘What’s this?’ Becca looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘Open it and see.’

  She picked up the paper with hands that shook, opened it with difficulty. But she couldn’t make head or tail of the contents. Even when she held the document directly under the lamp, it still didn’t make any sense and the words and figures on it—especially the figures—danced and blurred in front of her eyes.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Instructions to my bank—I faxed them just now. They will release the money—anything you need.’

  ‘Anything I need…’

  Becca couldn’t believe that this was happening. Was it true. Had Andreas really said…?

  ‘You’re going to help?’

  ‘I always said I would give you any money you needed.’

  ‘Oh, thank you!’

  It was hopelessly inadequate to express the way she felt. She wanted to dance for joy—she wanted to fling her arms around Andreas and kiss him … but a careful look into his dark, shuttered face made her rethink that idea hastily. Instead she reached out across the table and caught both of his hands in hers, holding them tightly.

  ‘Thank you! Thank you so much!’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  The words meant one thing, but the expression in those glittering black eyes and the way that he pulled his hands from her grasp said something else completely and a lot of Becca’s euphoria evaporated as he got up and moved away.

  Of course—he was prepared to help Daisy, but not her. Though there was something he had said…

  But before she could quite grasp what it was, Andreas had spoken again and his words pushed all other thoughts from her mind.

  ‘So now you’ve got what you came for…’

  How she wished that Andreas hadn’t got to his feet because now he seemed to tower over her, dark and forbidding, as she registered what he had said.

  She’d got what she’d come for and now he wanted her to leave. She’d been right that he couldn’t let Daisy suffer for the division that had come between them, but his actions hadn’t indicated any healing or even a hope of peace. He’d provided the money she needed; he wasn’t offering her anything more.

  ‘Of course.’

  She stumbled to her feet in a rush, refusing to let the anguish in her heart show in her face. She might be falling apart inside at this speedy, cold-blooded dismissal, but outwardly she was determined to be as brisk and businesslike as possible.

  ‘I’ll leave at once. If you’d just give me time to pack, I’ll be on my way. And if you call me a taxi—’

  ‘No.’

  It was hard and coldly savage, slashing into her words as she tried to get them out.

  ‘No. That’s not the way it’s going to be.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  The sun was almost totally below the horizon now and the room so dark that she could scarcely see his face. But one last, lingering ray of light fell on the coldly glittering eyes, the start of his tightly clamped jaw. There was no yielding in him, no gentleness at all, and her heart quailed at the thought of just what he was about to say. ‘You’re not leaving.’

  It was so unexpected that she almost laughed. But she caught back the betraying sound with an effort and managed to control her face so that the shocked astonishment she was feeling didn’t show on it.

  ‘Of course I am.’

  She had to get home, tell Macy the wonderful news, get the hospital to put things in motion…

  ‘You can’t want me to stay.’

  She blinked in astonishment as an autocratic flick of Andreas’ hand brushed aside her protest in a second.

  ‘That is where you are wrong, agape mou, ‘ he told her with deadly intensity. ‘I very much want you to stay.’

  ‘But why …?’

  ‘O
h, Becca, Becca…’ Andreas reproved and the softness of his tone made an icy shiver crawl all the way down her spine. ‘You are not so naïve that you have to ask that question. You know why I want you here, what I want from you.’

  And of course she did.

  ‘Sex,’ she stated baldly and saw a frown draw his black, straight brows together. ‘I prefer to call it passion.’ ‘You can call it what you like.’

  The pain that was clawing at her heart made her voice harsh; the fight to hold back tears roughened it at the edges.

  ‘But sex is what you mean and …’

  Her voice failed her as a terrible truth dawned in her thoughts, the horror of it taking away all her strength.

  ‘Is this about the money? Is this what you’re demanding in return for helping Daisy—your conditions for the loan? Is it what I have to do to ensure she gets the operation?’

  She knew she was wrong as soon as she’d spoken. Even the shadows in the room couldn’t disguise the way his head went back, the hiss of his breath between clenched teeth.

  ‘What sort of a brute do you think I am?’

  The vein of savage anger in Andreas’ voice made her blood run cold. There was no room for possible doubt of his sincerity. But she didn’t have the strength to take the words back, particularly not when his hand flashed out, clamped tight around her wrist and pulled her towards him with a rough, jerky movement.

  ‘Your sister and her child, the money for the operation—money that is a gift, not a loan—all that is dealt with. You can get on the phone to your sister—to the hospital, tell them arrange everything—and then that is done. Finished. This is between you and me. And nothing is finished between the two of us.’

  ‘But …’ Becca tried to interject but Andreas ignored her weak attempt at speech.

  ‘I let you go too easily the last time, and I’ve regretted it ever since. I’ve never been able to get you out of my mind. You’ve shadowed my days—haunted my dreams—and this afternoon in my bed reminded me of just why you have this effect on me. And it also told me that once would never be enough. I want so much more.’

  Becca could only listen in dazed silence, struggling with the cruelly ambiguous feelings his words woke in her.

  They should be complimentary. They should be what every woman dreamed of the man she loved saying to her. But she knew what he really meant and that destroyed any joy she might have wished she could find in what he was saying.

  Money I’ll give you but nothing else, he had flung at her, and now here he was, offering her nothing—nothing more than the cold-blooded passion he had for her, the purely physical need that he openly admitted was all he felt.

  ‘And I know you feel it too. That’s why I want you to stay. I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll give you anything you want—everything you want.’

  I have a reputation for generosity to my mistresses. The words spoken outside by the pool—was it only a few hours ago?—came back to haunt her. And that was all she would be—his mistress. His wife in name but his mistress in reality. Because as his wife she should be loved, cherished—and she might hope to stay with him for life. As his mistress…

  ‘How long?’ she croaked out, her voice failing her. ‘How long would you want me to stay?’

  ‘For as long as it lasts. As long as it works. If we’re both getting what we want out of this, then I don’t see why it can’t last…’

  ‘Until we get each other out of our systems?’

  Becca prayed that her falsely airy voice hid the agony that was squeezing her heart deep inside.

  She would never get what she wanted out of this. Never. There was no hope of that, because what she wanted—what she longed for—was for Andreas to love her just as much as she loved him. And as she had given him her heart without hesitation or restraint in almost the first moment she had met him—and again here, when she had realised that she still adored him—there was no hope of that adoration ever being reciprocated.

  Money I’ll give you—but nothing else. Not a damn thing else.

  And yet her body cried out to her to accept—her body and her weak, foolish heart that begged her to take this, take the little he was offering and accept it. It was better than nothing. Better than having to turn now and walk away—knowing that if she did so there was no hope that he would ever let her back into his life again.

  She couldn’t do that. She had had to walk away from him once, and the moment that he had slammed the door behind her had almost killed her. She couldn’t do it again.

  I married you for sex—for that and nothing else.

  And so when a weak, longing voice in the back of her mind whispered that Leander had said that Andreas had asked for her in the first few moments after he had regained consciousness—he had asked for her and perhaps … she pushed it away and made herself face the reality of what she was being offered.

  And sex was all he wanted from her still. The thing that was different now was that she no longer had any illusions. She was no longer deceiving herself that Andreas loved her, she knew exactly where she stood, and in that knowledge was a desperate kind of strength.

  In that moment the sun finally disappeared below the horizon, and the last rays of light fled the room completely so that there was only the small lamp in the corner to see by. And in the darkness it was easy to hide the way she was really feeling.

  In the darkness she could step forward and put herself completely into Andreas’ arms. With her face unseen, her eyes and their betraying message hidden, she could put her hand against the warm strength of his chest, whisper his name, the single word, ‘Yes,’ and lift her face to his for his kiss.

  And when his mouth came down hard on hers then all thought stopped, only feeling began. And that was when nothing else mattered. Only this man for whatever time she might have with him. She would take that. And she would never let herself dream of more.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE light of the full moon through the window made the bedroom almost as bright as day when Andreas finally gave up on any hope of sleeping and slid from the bed. Pulling on his jeans, he paused for a moment to look down at Becca’s sleeping form, her body still curved as it had been when it had been pressed up against his, her face almost buried in the pillow.

  She was completely out of it, lost in a world of total exhaustion, oblivious to anything. By rights he should feel that way too. The blazing passion between them had had full rein during the night, each hungry coming together more eager than the first, each tide of mounting pleasure stronger, each soaring, burning climax more mind-blowing than the one that had gone before. Never in his life had he known such pleasures, such delight in another person’s body—in the gratification it could bring to every single one of his senses. And in the end it had been only exhaustion that had ended it. The exhaustion that had plunged Becca deep into the oblivion of sleep and left him lying awake and restless, staring at the ceiling as the moon rose high out in the bay.

  At first he had had no idea why he too couldn’t find the ease he needed in sleep. His body was sated, his clamouring senses quietened—for now anyway—but it was his mind that wouldn’t let him rest.

  It kept playing over and over again a snatch from the conversation that he had had with Becca days before. A set of words that were the reason for the way he was feeling, the cause of his unease.

  ‘How long?’ Becca had said. ‘How long would you want me to stay?’

  ‘For as long as it lasts. As long as it works. If we’re both getting what we want out of this, then I don’t see why it can’t last …’

  ‘Until we get each other out of our systems?’

  The problem was, he reflected as he slipped out of the door and headed downstairs, he doubted that he would ever get Becca out of his system, no matter how hard he tried.

  And God knew he had tried!

  It had been a week now since she had agreed to stay, and every day it had seemed that instead of his appetite for her being blunted, it had grow
n until there wasn’t a moment of his day, a single second in the night, even in his sleep, when his mind wasn’t full of thoughts of her. It was worse than when he had thrown her out on the day of their wedding. At least then he had had no sight of her to remind him of how beautiful she was, no touch to bring home to him how fabulous she felt, no kiss to fill his mouth with her own essential taste. Instead, now she was always there, setting his senses on red alert, making him hungry again even in the moment of his greatest satisfaction.

  If he had known that it would be like this, then just as he had told her to stay he might have hesitated, knowing that he was being a fool to himself to even consider it. He should have realised then that this would never be over, not for him; that he was only risking his peace of mind, his sanity, to take her back into his life again, knowing that one day she would walk out of it again.

  She had been so determined to leave just as soon as she had the money she needed. She’d been on her feet and almost heading out the door when he had known that he could not let her go. He had wanted to have her, to hold her—and so he had damn nearly ordered her to stay.

  ‘To have and to hold from this day forward until death us do part…’ The lines from the wedding service haunted him as he made his way into his office, but he pushed them away, refusing to let them settle in his thoughts.

  There was no till death us do part with Becca—she’d made that only too plain a year ago, when she had married him simply for his money while all the time conducting a passionate affair with Roy Stanton.

  But now that Stanton was out of the picture…

  Stanton was out of the picture, wasn’t he? He had to be now that he had fathered Becca’s sister’s child.

  Roy Stanton. The name tasted like acid in his mouth, making him want to spit as he unlocked the bottom drawer in his desk and yanked it open.

  The file was still there. So often he had meant to take it out and shred it, burn the contents, but he had never quite managed to do it. Tonight he felt he could. He had to if he was to have a hope of moving forward.