by Lucy King
Fifteen months later
STILL NO NEWS.
Oblivious to the faint thud of music coming from the club below, Finn tossed his phone onto his desk and stalked to the window, frustration boiling through him as he stared out through the Georgian sash window into the dark London night.
It had been two months since he’d found the adoption certificate amongst the papers left behind by the man he’d always considered to be his father, and he was no closer to discovering the truth surrounding his birth now than he had been the moment he’d figured out what he was holding and his life, already shattered by grief, had blown fully apart. The only people who could shed any light on anything were no longer around to ask, and the investigation agency he’d hired—allegedly one of the best in the country—had hit a dead end with every lead.
The paralysis was driving him demented. All he wanted was answers. All he needed was clarity. He’d thought the sorrow and emptiness that had consumed him in the days following his father’s—no, Jim’s—death and the realisation that he was now all alone in the world had been harrowing, but at least there’d been a feeling of closure. At least there’d been a logical, if agonising, process to get through.
Now there was nothing but chaos. Where order and certainty had once ruled Finn’s world, confusion and doubt now reigned. He no longer knew what to believe; facts he’d never once had cause to examine now tormented him day and night. Who was he? Where did he come from?
The questions that spun around his head and left scorching trails of betrayal in their wake were many and relentless. Why had he been adopted? Where and who was his real family? Had he been abandoned? How had he ended up where he had?
And, most crushingly, why had he never been told the truth? There’d been eleven thousand opportunities to explain the circumstances surrounding his adoption, give or take a day or two, and eleven thousand opportunities missed. Why keep it a secret? His father, the man he’d so admired and looked up to, who’d circled the wagons when his mother had died and to whom he’d turned for advice and support back in the early days of his business, had become a stranger overnight.
As a result Finn had no idea how much of his thirty-one years on the planet had been genuine and how much hadn’t. In the absence of fact, his previously staid imagination ran riot. In the darkest moments, when he couldn’t sleep and prowled around his penthouse apartment unable to stop the constant churning of his mind, he found himself revisiting the circumstances of his mother’s death. He’d only been ten when she’d stepped out into a road and been hit by a bus. The driver had sworn she’d seen him coming, had even looked him straight in the eye, but why would she have done it deliberately, a pale-faced, tight-jawed Jim had immediately countered, when she’d had no reason to take her own life and everything to live for?
The coroner had ruled her death an accident and Jim had always unflinchingly maintained this verdict, but in the cool, calm quiet of the early hours of the past couple of weeks the doubts had crept into Finn’s head and taken root. Jim had lied to him about his birth, had lied to him his entire life, and now he couldn’t help thinking, what if he’d been lying about that too? What if his mother’s death hadn’t been an accident? What if every time she looked at him, her adopted son, she was reminded of what she’d never been able to create for herself? What if that had finally become too much to bear? What if she’d deliberately stepped in front of that bus because of him, because in some way he’d failed her, because he’d behaved too badly or somehow hadn’t been a good enough son?
If he’d been able to think logically, rationally, he might have seen this extrapolation for the unlikelihood it was, but logic and reason were long gone. His identity, his history, his entire belief system had been decimated and he didn’t know what to think or who to trust any more. He couldn’t even trust himself. He’d been taken for a fool and deceived his whole life, yet had never suspected a thing. The instincts he’d always considered rock solid and uncannily reliable were clearly worthless, and as a result his ruthlessly efficient decision-making ability had vanished. His concentration was shot and his attention to detail was history. His usually long fuse was now microscopically short, and he was snapping and snarling at anyone who had the misfortune to cross his path.
He neither recognised nor liked the man he’d become, a man who no longer knew his place in a world he’d always dominated, but there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do about it. The armour he’d taken for granted had been brutally stripped away and he was all at sea, unanchored and rudderless, and it was hell.
‘Boss?’
Shaking free of his tumultuous thoughts, Finn turned from the window to see the club’s doorman standing in the doorway.
‘Yes?’ he all but growled.
Bob, built like a tank and in possession of an attitude to match, didn’t even flinch. ‘There’s someone looking for you.’
‘Who?’
‘No idea. But she’s outside, asking if anyone knows you.’
‘She?’
‘Brunette. Mid-to-late twenties, I’d say. Slim. Could be stunning if she tried. Not really dressed for partying. She’s saying she met you in the bar the October before last. She sounds like a fruitcake if you ask me, but I thought you should know in case she turns out to be a crazy stalker or something.’
Finn’s brows snapped together. ‘CCTV?’
‘Sure.’
The doorman pulled a device from the inside of his jacket and hit a couple of buttons. ‘There she is,’ he said, pointing at a figure on the screen.
Finn took the device, examined the live feed and froze, his entire body clenching with recognition and an unwelcome punch of heat.
Georgie.
Once met, never entirely forgotten, much to his irritation.
If he chose to, he could recall the night they’d spent together as clearly as if it had been yesterday. The heated looks they’d exchanged at the bar, the heavily laden conversation, the bizarrely intense connection... The chemistry between them had been incredible. The sex had been hot and wild, the best he’d ever had. Over and over again that night she’d given him the oblivion he’d craved, and for a brief mad moment as dawn had broken he’d been tempted to ask for her number before remembering that they’d agreed to one uncomplicated night only, and, in his case, why that was. He’d had enough on his plate with Jim’s illness. He’d been in no way looking for anything more. But that hadn’t stopped her invading his dreams and giving him uncomfortably sleepless nights for weeks afterwards.
‘What does she want?’ he asked, ignoring the heat and handing the device back with an odd sort of reluctance.
‘She won’t say. Just keeps flashing around this photo of you on her phone.’
The same photo she’d taken outside his club, just in case, she’d said with a foxy smile that had thumped him square in the chest? Had to be. She wouldn’t have found one anywhere else. Despite owning a company whose portfolio boasted seven-star hotels, top-end bars and clubs, and restaurants with six-month waiting lists, he rarely appeared in the media. He didn’t need to; the firm that dealt with his PR was outstanding.
‘What would you like me to do?’
Good question, thought Finn, shoving his hands in his pockets as he searched for the answer that not so long ago would have come to him instantly. If Georgie had come looking for him before his entire life had been turned upside down he’d have wondered if perhaps she’d been having as much trouble forgetting him as he had her, and whether she might be up for a repeat performance.
But now he didn’t know what to think and because he didn’t, because his behaviour was currently so unpredictable, he ought to have her sent on her way and put her out of his mind. Besides, he didn’t need to know why she was here. They were done months ago and the last thing he wanted was potentially even more chaos and complication.
And yet for some unfathomable reason, despite his be
tter judgement, he wanted to know why she was looking for him, now, after all this time. It intrigued him, shifted his focus and gave him a welcome respite from the turmoil. Frankly, her reason for showing up here couldn’t be any more destructive than anything else that had happened to him over the last couple of months, could it? ‘Send her up.’
With a heavy heart, Georgie locked her phone and stuck it back in her bag, weariness and despondency washing over her in a great, drowning wave. Coming to the club where she and Finn had met all those months ago had been a long shot, but she hadn’t known where else to try.
She’d spent two days trying to track him down with nothing to go on except his first name and a photo. Unsurprisingly, the internet had yielded nothing. The records held by the hotel in which they’d spent the night were data protected, and her enquiries here had met with blank stares and stony silence.
Which meant she was all out of options and back at square one, she thought, anxiety churning around in her gut as the hopelessness of her situation hit her all over again. She had no job, little money and home was, for the moment, a tiny, damp bedsit in a crime-ridden part of London. Because of what had happened, she was unemployable. Her prospects were nil. Her confidence had hit rock bottom and her judgement was unreliable. How she was going to manage going forward she had no idea.
Digging deep to stave off the relentless despair, Georgie turned to leave, only to freeze when she heard a brusque, ‘Stop.’
She swung round, her heart banging against her ribs, to see the man with the muscles and the unpromising attitude, he of the stony silence and blank stare, bearing down on her.
‘Don’t worry, I’m going,’ she said, lifting her hands and backing off as he came to a halt in front of her.
‘Wait.’
She blinked. ‘What?’
‘The man you’re looking for,’ he said curtly. ‘He’s upstairs.’
At the unexpected information, Georgie’s stomach gave a great lurch and her pulse leapt. ‘Really?’ she said, glancing up and seeing nothing but dark windows and an absence of movement.
‘Follow me.’
He turned smartly on his heel and, for a moment, she dithered. Was it true? Could she really have found him at last? On the other hand, how likely was it that Finn was indeed up there? Why would he be? What if Muscles was part of some dastardly trafficking scheme or something and taking her to a place from which she wouldn’t return?
No.
Ridiculous. That was what she was being. Utterly ridiculous. She was in no danger. She needed to banish the wreck she was these days, beat back the paranoia and channel the fearless Georgie of the October fifteen months ago, who hadn’t hesitated to go for what she wanted and watch out anyone who got in her way. The old her was in there somewhere. She had to be.
Gritting her teeth, Georgie determinedly shook off the frightening darkness that was gathering at the edges of her mind in an all too familiar way and the memory of the confusing, terrifying thoughts that had consumed her for much of the last six months, and set off in the doorman’s wake. She stepped through the door and into the club, and was immediately hit by a wall of noise, a burst of heat, and a deluge of memories that had her momentarily stopping in her tracks with their vividness.
There was the bar where she’d walked up to Finn and asked if she could join him, she thought, recalling the desire that had swept through her when she’d looked at him and realised he was as breathtakingly gorgeous as she’d hoped. Where he’d given her that devastatingly wicked smile and she’d known in that instant that they’d be leaving together. Where they’d sat close and flirted, their gazes locked, their bodies communicating on an entirely different level, their off-the-charts chemistry sizzling and soaring until they hadn’t been able to take any more.
When she’d breathed into his ear that she wanted to leave—with him—he’d taken her hand and led her out of the club with flatteringly indecent speed. He’d pulled her into a dark doorway and kissed her until her knees went weak and her stomach dissolved into a puddle of lust. He’d then taken her back to his hotel room where they’d spent hours burning up the sheets of his bed before parting in the morning with no promises and no regrets.
It had been everything she’d been hoping for.
It had been perfect.
And then, a while later, not so perfect.
With a sigh, Georgie let go of the memories, and resumed her progress across the room, aware of the curious glances she was attracting, which were hardly surprising, since her appearance gave a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘dressing down’. She hadn’t dressed up for this meeting. She hadn’t dressed up for anything in a long time. Would her zest for life, her energy, her libido, ever come back? Would she ever wholly come back? Who knew?
As she followed the doorman up the stairs at the back of the club her heart began to thump, not with excitement, as it had the last time she’d been here, but with nerves. How was this going to go? She didn’t have a clue. On one level she was sure that seeking Finn out was the right—the only—thing to do. Yet, on another, she didn’t know him, she didn’t know how he was going to react, and therefore the outcome was scarily unpredictable.
At the top of two flights of stairs Muscles rapped on a door and opened it. He stood to one side and gestured for her to go in. Georgie took a deep breath in through her nose that she let out slowly through her mouth, and, on legs that felt like jelly, stepped forwards.
And there he was. Standing at the window in the shadows with his back to her, the same broad, muscled back she’d raked her nails down while gasping his name and writhing with pleasure.
The door closed behind her. Finn turned and her breath left her lungs. She’d forgotten just how attractive he was. How breathtaking the impact of his indigo gaze on her could be. The intensity of his focus sent an unexpected bolt of heat shooting through her that for the briefest of moments sliced through the icy numbness she’d lived with for what felt like for ever and made her wish she had the energy to care about the whole make-up-hair-clothes thing.
As the seconds stretched and the silence throbbed she dragged her gaze from his and ran it over the rest of him. He looked harder than she remembered, as if life had knocked him about a bit. Less forgiving too, which perhaps didn’t bode well for this meeting. Possibly even a bit wary about why she was turning up out of the blue like this. None the less compelling, though. None the less in command as he stood there utterly still, utterly in control, his feet apart and his hands in his pockets. And if he seemed bigger and broader than she remembered...well, maybe that was because she’d shrunk.
She lifted her eyes back up to his and she thought she saw a flicker of heat, of shock, in the depths of his. But it disappeared before she could work out if she was right, and whatever he’d been thinking was now hidden behind a mask of neutrality. She couldn’t gauge how he felt about her being here. Or if he felt anything at all, for that matter. Not that he had any reason to. What they’d had had been a mutually agreed one-night stand, nothing more. She’d hardly expected the same laid-back, full-on seduction she’d been on the receiving end of when she’d initially approached him all those months ago. She wasn’t expecting anything. Hoping for, yes, but expecting, no.
‘Hello,’ she said hoarsely, her heart pounding and her mouth dry. ‘So you probably don’t remember me, but—’
‘I remember you.’
‘Good,’ she said with a shaky attempt at a smile. That made things slightly easier. At least she didn’t have to first explain how they knew each other. ‘How have you been?’
A shadow flitted across his expression. ‘Fine. You?’
Not quite so fine, actually, although there was no way she was telling him how not fine she’d been. She had far too much to lose. ‘Couldn’t be better.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it.’
‘I can’t believe I found you.’
&nb
sp; ‘How hard have you been trying?’
‘Very. I didn’t have much to go on. Just your first name and the photo I took when we left here that night.’
He gave the briefest of nods. ‘Just in case.’
‘It seemed sensible.’
‘You kept it.’
‘As a memento.’ Which, in hindsight, was deeply ironic when she’d ended up with a memento of a totally different kind. ‘Anyway, I remembered that you looked comfortable at the bar. You didn’t pay the bill. I wondered if you had a tab and, if you did, whether you might be a regular. Now I know differently.’ She glanced around the softly lit space that contained a mahogany desk, a couple of chairs and sage green walls lined with books. ‘Do you manage the club downstairs?’
‘I own it.’
Right. That made sense. He’d said he worked in hospitality and he hadn’t struck her as the type to take orders. ‘No wonder no one threw you out for wearing jeans.’
His dark brows snapped together in a deep frown. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘As fascinating as this trip down memory lane is, Georgie, I’m busy. So get to the point. What are you doing here? What do you want?’
He was right. The time for dithering was over. Finn had a right to know and she badly needed any support he might be prepared to offer. She stuck her hands into the back pockets of her jeans to hide the trembling and took a deep breath. ‘Well, the thing is, you...we...well, basically, Finn, our one-night stand left me pregnant and as a result you have a son.’
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN FINN HAD instructed Bob to send Georgie up he hadn’t given much thought to what he was expecting with regards to her appearance. On the rare occasion he’d allowed the memory of her to flow unfettered through his mind, she either sat at the bar, exuding confidence and vibrancy and dazzling him with flirty banter and smouldering smiles, or lay sprawled across his bed as morning dawned, looking flushed and tousled and sleepily sexy.