by Robyn Donald
Iona said blankly, ‘You mean she sold Chloe to you?’
‘Yes.’
Her face revealed her shock and dismay, and then she asked a question that reinforced his conviction she’d make Chloe an excellent mother. ‘Why did you buy her?’
‘Because she is my sister,’ he said honestly. ‘I had her DNA tested when she was born, of course.’
‘Of course,’ she said on a spurt of irritation.
Luke almost smiled, but this was too important. The fact that he’d had her investigated clearly still stung. Besides, she’d done her own checking; she certainly already knew of the sordid reason for his father’s disinheritance. ‘I am Greek, Iona, the only son. I was brought up to believe that the family was my responsibility—and that means everyone in it.’
‘What about your father?’
He shrugged. ‘I am no longer his son.’
‘How did he find out Chloe was his daughter?’
She had the right to know.
Concisely, Lukas replied, ‘The woman who gave birth to Chloe has run through the money I paid her. She approached me for more and I refused to give her any. My initial payment to her should have been enough to support her for the rest of her life, but she has wasted it away. So out of spite she went to my father and told him what she’d done. Possibly he paid her well for the information—I neither know nor care.’
Iona glanced at him, her mysterious mermaid’s eyes troubled. ‘Why does he believe her now?’
‘I don’t know whether he did believe her,’ Luke said curtly. His father simply hadn’t been prepared to pass up a possible opportunity to attack him. ‘However, she must have been convincing enough for him to obtain a sample of Chloe’s DNA—bribe a chambermaid at a hotel we’ve stayed at, possibly—and have it tested.’ He glanced at the documents he’d unpacked, and then back at Iona. ‘The results show conclusively that she is his true daughter.’
Her brow wrinkled. ‘But you adopted her—legally you are her father, not him. He has no claim to her.’
‘Not all countries have legal systems as impeccably lacking in corruption as yours in New Zealand, and the fact that he is her birth father is strong support to his case. My father has power and connections, and the will to use both. It is important to him to take from me what he believes is rightfully his.’
Iona felt sick. Scandalised, she blurted, ‘She’s not a thing—to be bought and sold with no concern for her feelings. I wouldn’t do that to a pet, let alone a child.’
‘Good,’ Luke said calmly. ‘I thought as much. I’ll set the wheels in motion for a quick wedding. I believe Tahiti has just established a residency period of three days, so we’ll go back there.’
Her shock chilling into an unbearable mixture of panic and betraying anticipation, Iona scanned his uncompromising face.
She was being torn in two, her new-found love warring with a profound caution warning of heart-wrenching danger. To live unloved—to marry a man who saw her as someone who’d help him win a legal case…‘I haven’t agreed to that! Why is it so necessary for you to marry someone?’
‘Not someone—you.’ He paused deliberately. ‘If you were making a decision about the welfare of a three-year-old, which father would you choose—a bachelor who travels a lot, or a man happily married to a wife who is fond of the child?’
Chilled, she said stubbornly, ‘If they loved her either would be better than a total stranger like your father.’
‘I will do whatever I have to retain custody,’ he said inflexibly, ‘and I have a much better chance of achieving that if I show that Chloe is happy in a stable family situation. She loves Neelie, and her nanny loves her, but Neelie is old school and not comfortable with displays of affection. Even in these few short days you have given Chloe something Neelie never could—fun and vitality and youth. She already relies on you, and is learning to love you. You might not love her yet, but it won’t take long.’
Iona opened her mouth, then closed it again. She didn’t dare admit that leaving Chloe would be a huge wrench.
His brows lifted, but when she remained resolutely silent he went on, ‘If I can prove I’m giving Chloe a settled home life, with two people she loves and who love her—as opposed to life with an old man who has never seen her and a nanny who will also be a total stranger—my legal team tell me it will make an important difference.’
But what about me? Iona thought cravenly. Torn by a mixture of temptation and stark fear at his cold-blooded summation of the situation, she chewed on her lip, only stopping when his gaze came to rest on her maltreated mouth and a spark lit the tawny depths of his eyes.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said imperiously.
His intent gaze set need smouldering into life, tightening her skin and setting her nerves alight.
Only to be quenched when he went on, ‘And, as the only man in the family, I will, of course, make sure your cousin and her sons are cared for.’
‘Don’t try that—you can’t buy Angie,’ she flashed. ‘Or me, if it comes to that.’
‘I’m not trying to buy either of you,’ he said evenly, but his eyes narrowed. Holding her gaze, he drawled, ‘And if I were to try anything with you, it would be seduction.’
His smile sent hot little rills of anticipation through Iona. Colour swept up, heating her skin, only to fade, leaving her cold and uncertain when he spoke again.
‘But that is not my intention. This is too important for cheap tricks. Chloe’s future depends on integrity from both of us.’
Relief swept over Iona—followed almost immediately by aching disappointment. Some weak part of her wished he’d dazzle her into taking this step into the unknown instead of logically—honestly—setting out his reasons for needing a wife.
A temporary wife at that, she suspected. And the stark chill of that thought numbed her into silence.
Chapter Eight
‘As I told you before,’ Luke said, ‘I was bred to take my place as head of the family—it is part of what I am. By marrying me you will become my responsibility, and so will your cousin and her boys.’ His expression iced into contempt. ‘Especially since their father doesn’t take an interest in them, and they apparently have no other relatives except you.’
Iona felt the jaws of a trap closing around her. A trap made of her love for both the man and the child. Panic tightened her nerves. ‘I suppose you found that out when you had me investigated?’ she snapped.
‘Relatives have to be taken into consideration when I’m choosing a nanny for Chloe,’ he said, equally blunt. ‘Now, give me an answer.’
Thoughts jostling chaotically, feeling herself backed into a corner, Iona put off a reply by asking, ‘If I refuse, what will you do?’
‘Persuade you,’ he said promptly, and smiled at her.
He didn’t move, but she felt the power and intensity of his will, fierce and compelling, backed by the force of his personality.
His voice deepened into a lazy caress. ‘Would it be so difficult, Iona? We are good together—you can’t deny that. For me there has never been another woman like you. Is it the same for you?’
‘Yes,’ she said, dazzled into foolishness, then could have cut her tongue out. She’d handed him an overwhelming advantage.
Ruthlessly he used it. ‘So would it be so difficult to become my wife? We could have a good life together, you and I.’
Temptation clouded her mind with honeyed urging; she didn’t dare look at him because she could feel her defiance seeping away. She should be angry for even considering his outrageous proposal—no, not a proposal, she reminded herself, he’d called it a proposition.
Thoughts jostled feverishly in her mind. Denied of his family, Luke had built himself another. If his father succeeded in destroying that, she would always feel responsible. Luke loved the child he’d adopted; if he lost her something hugely important would be taken from him.
It would be a measure of Iona’s love if she did this for him.
When she spoke
her voice sounded oddly disconnected. ‘And how long do you expect this marriage to last?’
‘For as long as you want it.’
She said desperately, ‘Luke, it wouldn’t work. We don’t even know each other—not really.’
His lashes drooped, hiding his thoughts as he covered the floor between them in several strides. He stopped, close enough to tease her nostrils with the faint, fresh tang that was his alone. A surge of white-hot sensation—raw and sinfully enticing—locked Iona’s breath in her throat and sent her thoughts stumbling into confusion again.
His textured voice warm with amusement, backed by something more primal—a distinctly territorial note—he said, ‘Now you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. We have slept in each other’s arms night after night, made love with unconfined passion, laughed together, played together. I know you make love like some ancient goddess, and that your delicious sensuality is reinforced by genuine honesty, a warm heart and a good mind. Of course we know each other. I know you are growing fond of Chloe. And you did not doubt that I was innocent of the accusations of my father’s wife.’
Every nerve quivering with the restraint she enforced, she said unevenly, ‘But it wasn’t anything more than a holiday romance. You made no attempt to get in touch with me afterwards.’
‘You hoped I would?’
‘No.’ It was almost the truth; her guilt over what she’d seen as the betrayal of her love for Gavin had made her feel she didn’t want anything to do with Luke. But the time she’d spent with him had laid the foundations for her to think more clearly, and the guilt had dissipated.
Now she wondered what she’d have done if he had contacted her.
She saw his chest lift as he took in a breath. ‘The day you left my father took another step in the never-ending war he conducts with me. I had to fight on several fronts; it took me some time to block him. And then Chloe got meningitis.’
She gasped, and he nodded. ‘It was a difficult time. And I didn’t know if you had got over your love for your fiancé. But I never thought it was simply a holiday fling—surely you understood that when I asked you to go with me?’
‘You didn’t intend permanence,’ she said slowly, her body insensibly warming. His closeness was a threat, undermining the part of her brain that warned her no joy could possibly come of a marriage based on practicality.
And sex, she thought practically. Marvellous sex. Surely as their lives knitted together her love would be enough to make a success of any marriage?
‘I didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘But I did intend us to get to know each other—out of bed,’ he said on a low laugh, and took her in his arms, pulling her so close she could feel the taut strength in his body.
‘This is not going to help,’ she managed to mutter, before his grip tightened even further so that every honed sense leapt into full awareness.
His mouth found hers and took it in a kiss so disturbingly sensual she forgot everything in the wonder of it.
Until he lifted his head and looked down at her with intent, gleaming eyes.
Unbearably stimulated, she shakily blurted the first thought that came to her from the maelstrom of her mind. ‘I thought you said you weren’t going to try seduction.’
His lashes drooped, hiding his satisfaction. ‘That can wait. But I intend this to be a real marriage,’ he said calmly as he released her and stepped back. ‘I am not of the temperament to stay celibate, and when I remember how it was for us both in Tahiti I think that you’ll agree it would be unnecessarily foolish of us to even consider such a thing. Besides, I would like more children; Chloe needs brothers and sisters.’
Iona’s heart jumped in her breast. The sensations still churning through her blocked any coherent thought process; she wanted to tell him that the whole situation was outrageously impossible, but some treacherous part of her kept reminding her of new-found love, of the passionate eroticism of those nights and days in Tahiti.
Mingled with the memories were fears for Chloe, possibly to be taken from the man she considered to be her father and handed over to an old, bitter, angry stranger who viewed her as a weapon. It would be a devastating blow for the child.
A knock on the door made her start. Luke frowned and said, ‘Leave it.’
‘I’ll go to my room. I need time to think,’ she said swiftly.
He fixed her with a keen glance, but didn’t object. However, when she turned to go he commanded, ‘Stay a moment. If this is what I suspect it is, you should know about it.’
Puzzled, she watched him take delivery of a courier parcel. He signed a receipt, waited until the courier had gone, then slit open the package.
The contents were documents. Luke flicked through them, his face impassive, and then dropped them onto the nearest table as though they contaminated him.
‘My father,’ he said shortly. ‘To tell me he is sending a nanny to pick up his daughter.’
Appalled, Iona stared at him. ‘Surely he doesn’t expect you to just hand her over? She’s lived with you for three years…’
Her voice trailed away at the smile that hardened his face. Cold and satirical, it chilled her blood.
‘He knows I will not do that without a fight,’ he stated. ‘Apparently Chloe’s mother is now willing to state on oath that I forced her to allow me to adopt. That almost guarantees a very nasty legal case that could drag on for years.’
‘How could they do that?’ Iona asked numbly. ‘Can’t they see what such a case would do to Chloe? Don’t they care about her at all?’
Luke said cynically, ‘Chloe’s mother wants money so that she can indulge herself; my father wants only to assert power over me. Chloe means nothing to them except a way of achieving what they want.’
Closing her eyes, Iona fought back a deep sense of foreboding. There was no longer a choice; she could not do that to the child. She’d seen the damage done to Angie’s children by a father who’d abandoned them, and there had been others in the nursery school—children without roots, already showing signs of disturbance.
If it was possible to save Chloe from such a fate, she had to do what she could. But first she had to face the final hurdle—one even her love wouldn’t be able to overcome.
She took a deep breath and said thinly, ‘All right. I’ll marry you. But I want something too.’
‘I understand,’ Luke said cynically. ‘What is it?’
Holding her head high, she met eyes of burnished gold, searching and unreadable. ‘Your promise that you’ll be faithful.’
When he said nothing she braced herself. If he wouldn’t give on this, she wouldn’t—couldn’t—agree to marry him. A union of one-sided love was bad enough; one where she’d be faced with his adultery was impossible. It would kill her.
No muscle moved in his face. ‘Of course.’
‘I don’t think there’s any of course about it,’ she said, her tone matching his expression. ‘I happen to despise people who break their vows.’
Luke said quietly, ‘I too. I will do my best to make sure that you never regret your decision.’
His grave, oddly formal statement wasn’t what she wanted, but she trusted him to keep his promise, and her hopeful heart dreamed that the attraction he felt might some day turn to love.
So she ignored the pang of useless disappointment to ask, ‘In that case, what happens now?’
In an oddly taut voice he said, ‘We will fly to Tahiti as soon as possible. Knowledge of our previous affair there will establish a history for us. It might help convince a judge that our marriage is not a deliberate attempt to forestall my father’s claim to Chloe.’
No sentimentality there. Feeling empty, as though he’d dashed some forbidden hope, she said, ‘I’m still finding it almost impossible to believe he has any chance of success.’
Luke shrugged. ‘I hope you are right. However I don’t want her life overshadowed by years of legal wrangling. It is possible that when he realises he is fighting a good marriage and a devoted pair of parent
s with a happy child he might give this up without going so far as taking us to court.’
‘Possible, but not probable?’ she guessed.
He gave a sardonic smile. ‘I see you understand. Do you have a ring that fits you?’
Iona glanced down at her hands. ‘Not here.’
Gavin’s engagement ring still nestled in a drawer at home, but it was hardly appropriate.
Luke said crisply, ‘Then we need string to measure the size of your ring finger.’
Iona’s fingers curled into her palms. She forced herself to relax, unclenching both fists at her sides. Gavin’s memory had faded into the past, relinquished without pain, but a residual guilt hurt her for a moment. So many times she’d said goodbye to him; this would be the last.
Uncannily, Luke said, ‘He is dead, Iona.’
She went white. ‘How…how did you know what I was thinking?’ she whispered.
‘A certain look—a shadow across your face.’ He shrugged, a typical brief lift of his shoulders. ‘He was a good man, and you would have been happy with him, but he is long dead. Let him go in peace.’
‘I have. It’s just that the last time my finger size was taken was for his engagement ring,’ she said quietly, and gave him the measurement, adding, ‘He’s gone from my life, Luke.’ And, because it had to be said, she added with a shaky smile, ‘He left when I met you.’
‘Good.’ He held out his hand, and reluctantly she put hers into it.
In a strange way that simple handclasp was more intimate than the kiss they’d just exchanged. Lean, long fingers closed around hers so firmly she tensed, but before the grip tightened into pain they eased. Yet it felt as though Luke was establishing some sort of claim on her—a claim he reinforced by lifting her hand to kiss the back of her fingers, then turned it and kissed her wrist.
With the touch of his mouth lingering on her skin, she thought he was gentling her into acceptance, forging a connection between them that transformed their purely physical previous one.