Tycoon's Forbidden Cinderella

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Lucien sat by his father’s bedside in ICU later that day when he’d flown back in from London. He’d had some work to see to for a client awaiting his report for court so he hadn’t had any choice but to fly back to London and sort it out. His father had been sleeping on and off but had woken a couple of times to speak to him. It was strange having that time with his father. Alone time, if you could call it that when you were surrounded by machines and monitors and multiple medical staff milling about as they attended to their duties.

  Whenever he’d spent time with his father in the past there were always managers or publicists or other band members about. When he’d met his father for the first time when he was ten years old there’d been twenty other people in the room.

  But now it felt as if it was just the two of them. A father and his son just...hanging out.

  Harlan opened his eyes again and gave Lucien a lopsided smile. ‘I thought you’d have something better to do than hang around here.’

  ‘Nowhere I’d rather be right now.’

  Harlan’s eyes watered. ‘I haven’t been a good father to you, Lucien. Thing is... I didn’t know how to be a dad. Mine was a mean, sadistic bastard who beat my mother up and sold our belongings to feed his gambling habit. Beat me up too. Heaps of times.’ His fingers gripped the sheet under his hand as if he was remembering each and every blow of his father’s fists. ‘It made me worried I might do the same...you know...if I got too close to you.’

  Lucien had never heard his father mention his own father. He’d had no idea his dad’s childhood had been so grim. Was that why his dad drank and partied to cover up his pain at how he’d been treated? He took his dad’s hand, suddenly realising it was the first time he had ever touched him in such an affectionate way. ‘You’re a better father than I am a son. I’ve been too critical of you, too judgemental. I haven’t taken the time to see the man behind the fame.’

  Harlan squeezed Lucien’s hand. ‘I know you don’t care for Sibella but I love her and want to spend whatever time I have left with her. We’ve been bad for each other in the past but we’ve made some changes. Good changes. Tough changes. I hope one day you get to feel the same sort of love for someone. Don’t settle for anything less. Promise me that.’

  Lucien was finding it hard to find his voice. He had already found that sort of love. What he felt for Audrey was so much more than lust. If it had been simply lust then why was he still feeling so empty? Why was he feeling like his heart had been severed from his chest? He’d been pushing his feelings from his mind. Shoving them back like a shirt in his wardrobe he couldn’t bring himself to look at for the memories it triggered. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Torn between dreading running into her at the hospital and yet feeling bitterly, achingly disappointed when he didn’t. Tempted to call her so much he’d turned off his phone. He’d pushed her away because he’d believed she had disappointed him, betrayed him. Lied to him.

  But who was the bigger liar?

  He was. He’d been lying to himself for years. Six years. It had started when Audrey flirted with him at his dad’s first wedding to her mother. And he’d continued lying to himself when Audrey approached him the second time, smiling up at him with those big brown eyes of hers.

  And what had he done? Each time he’d pushed her away. Cruelly rejected her. She’d given herself to him. He was her first and only lover. Didn’t that mean something?

  His gut clenched, his heart gave a spasm and regret tasted like bile in his mouth.

  It meant he’d made a terrible mistake.

  Lucien brought himself back to his conversation with his father with an effort. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were ill? I could have organised the best medical—’

  ‘I made Sibella promise not to tell you,’ Harlan said. ‘I wanted her to know first, and then, when we got the wedding out of the way, we were going to tell you and Audrey. I didn’t want either of you to try and talk us out of it. You know what you two are like. Fricking fun police, the pair of you.’

  Lucien swallowed again. ‘So when did Audrey find out you were ill?’

  ‘When she ran into Sibella the other day,’ Harlan said. ‘She made Audrey promise not to tell you because that’s what I wanted. I insisted on telling you in person but only when I was ready to. She was only acting on my wishes, Lucien. Please don’t be too offended I didn’t tell you first. But you have to understand Sibella’s my go-to person now. The person I want to tell everything to, the good stuff and the bad stuff. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I do in my own inept and clumsy way.’

  Lucien put his other hand on top of his father’s and somehow managed a smile. ‘I love you, too... Dad.’

  Harlan blinked away tears but he was still wearing his bad-boy rock star smile. ‘If you tell anyone I’ve been bawling like a teething baby I’ll have to kill you, okay?’

  * * *

  Lucien walked out of ICU a short time later in a daze. What had he done? He’d destroyed his only chance at happiness with Audrey. He’d ruthlessly, cruelly cut her from his life. He hadn’t given her time to explain anything. If only he’d listened. If only he’d realised his feelings for her weren’t a bad thing. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Just like Sibella was for his father. The love Sibella and his father shared had matured into something that could withstand illness, even death.

  It was exactly the sort of love he felt for Audrey. He had fought so hard not to fall for her. He had fought so hard not to lose control. But she had been too much for his willpower. She had always been too much for his willpower, which was why he’d held her aloft for so long.

  His chest cramped as if someone had kicked him square in the heart. What if he’d lost her? Was it too late to tell her? Was it too late to hope she might forgive him? Sweat prickled his back and shoulders. A sick feeling churned in his stomach. He couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not now he’d finally realised he’d been waiting for this sort of love for most of his adult life.

  He couldn’t lose her.

  Oh, God. If he lost her...

  * * *

  Audrey left her mother chatting to some fans in the hospital cafeteria. The press had been around when they’d first arrived at the hospital but she had managed to avoid them. Sibella had issued a press release about Harlan’s condition and asked for privacy and, thankfully, that was mostly what they’d had. Now that Harlan was a little better, Audrey knew it would soon be time for her to go back to London. She knew she should have already made arrangements well before now but hadn’t been able to let go of a gossamer thread of hope Lucien might seek her out and tell her he’d changed his mind.

  She was walking along the wide corridor when she saw him walking towards her. She considered darting into one of the storage rooms out of sight, but his stride length increased and so did his speed. Before she could make up her mind which door to choose he was within arm’s reach. ‘Audrey?’ The way he said her name made her heart skip. Was that a note of...of desperation in his voice?

  She kept her face blank and turned with her spine so rigid and straight it looked as if she’d just graduated as star pupil from deportment school. ‘Yes?’

  His expression was hard to read but she thought she could see a flicker of worry in his eyes. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘I think you’ve said all that needs to be—’

  He held her by the upper arms, his voice gruff and with that same note of desperation she’d heard before. ‘Please, sweetheart. Just hear me out. I know I don’t deserve it after the way I cut you from my life the other day. I was wrong to blame you for not telling me about my father’s illness. You were acting on his wishes and I would’ve done exactly the same if the tables were turned.’

  Audrey wasn’t ready to forgive him. Why should she when he’d treated her so cruelly? He could apologise all he liked but it wasn’t an apology she wanted from him. She
wanted his love and that was unlikely to be why he was standing in front of her now. He was too proud a man to grovel. He was probably clearing his conscience after his cosy little chat with his father. ‘Oh, so now you’re apologising because he’s told you he was the one who insisted you not be told? How terribly gallant of you, Lucien.’

  He gave a slow blink as if her words pained him like a vicious stab but he still maintained his hold on her arms. ‘I’d already realised I loved you before my father told me he’d insisted I not be told.’ His hands slid down her arms to grasp her hands, holding them gently. ‘I love you, Audrey. I think I’ve been in love with you ever since you hit on me at our parents’ first wedding.’

  Audrey couldn’t find her voice. She opened and closed her mouth and blinked a couple of times to make sure she wasn’t imagining this conversation. ‘You...you love me? Really and truly love me?’

  He smiled a wide smile that made his dark blue eyes shine. ‘Really and truly and desperately love you. I’ve been such a fool for denying it all this time. I don’t know why I did. It’s so obvious you’re the only one for me. You’re the other half of my heart. I feel so empty without you. Will you marry me, sweetheart?’

  Audrey beamed up at him and threw her arms around his neck. ‘You’re the only person I want to marry. I love you. I don’t want anyone else but you. I think that’s why I never dated all these years because I’ve been secretly waiting for you.’

  ‘The wait is over, my darling,’ Lucien said, holding her close. ‘We belong together. I can’t imagine how miserable my life would be without you in it.’

  ‘I was so sad when you ended our fling—’

  ‘Don’t call it that ever again.’ He grimaced as if in pain. ‘It was never a fling. It was never just about lust, even though I kept telling myself it was. It was always about love. How could I have been so deluded as to convince myself otherwise?’

  ‘I did it too,’ Audrey said, holding on to him to keep herself from falling over out of sheer relief and joy. ‘I pretended I hated you. I couldn’t even hear your name mentioned without wanting to grind my teeth to powder. But I was always a bit in love with you.’

  He grimaced again. ‘I can’t bear to think we might have missed out on being together. I’ve been such an idiot. Forgive me? Please?’

  ‘Of course I forgive you. I love you.’

  He brushed her hair back from her face. ‘I want to build a life together. Do you want children? God, I can’t believe I’m even asking that in a hospital corridor.’

  ‘Do you want them?’

  ‘I asked first.’

  Audrey gazed into his twinkling eyes. ‘I only want them if they’re yours.’

  He smiled and brought his mouth down to hers. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  EPILOGUE

  Ten months later...

  LUCIEN SAT NEXT to Audrey at the dining table at Bramble Cottage. She reached for his hand under the table and, smiling at him, gave it a squeeze. His heart gave a leap just as it always did when her beautiful brown eyes looked at him like that. He smiled back and winked at her and, yes, she still blushed.

  ‘Hey, you two, the honeymoon should be well and truly over by now,’ Harlan said, from the other side of the table. His hair hadn’t grown back yet from the gruelling chemo but his cranial scar was fading and his specialists were happy with his progress so far. So far. No promises were being made about a complete recovery but Lucien was determined that, no matter what awaited them in the weeks and months ahead, his father’s happiness would be a top priority.

  And no one made his dad happier than Sibella.

  ‘Like you can talk,’ Lucien said, smiling at the way his father’s arm was around Sibella’s shoulders and how she was beaming at Harlan with such love in her eyes it made him feel ashamed of how he had misjudged her in the past. His father and Sibella weren’t perfect, but he had come to a place where he accepted them as they were and didn’t expect them to change to suit him.

  ‘Mum, Dad, we have something to tell you,’ Audrey said, looking like she was about to burst with the secret she’d been keeping for the last couple of weeks until they hit the twelve-week mark in their pregnancy.

  It just about made Lucien’s heart explode with emotion every time she called his father ‘Dad’. It spoke of the deep affection she had for his father, and her care and concern and nursing abilities over the last few months had made Lucien, and of course his father, love her all the more.

  And now Lucien was to become a father. In the not so distant future a little person would look up at him and call him Dad.

  ‘Will you tell them or will I?’ Audrey said, smiling at him.

  He took her hand and brought it up to his mouth. ‘Let’s do it together.’

  And so they did.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed TYCOON’S FORBIDDEN CINDERELLA, why not explore these other Melanie Milburne stories?

  BLACKMAILED INTO THE MARRIAGE BED

  A VIRGIN FOR A VOW

  THE TYCOON’S MARRIAGE DEAL

  A RING FOR THE GREEK’S BABY

  Available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from BOUND TO HER DESERT CAPTOR by Michelle Conder.

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  Bound to Her Desert Captor

  by Michelle Conder

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘I’M SORRY, YOUR MAJESTY, but there has been no further information as to your sister’s whereabouts.’

  Jaeger al-Hadrid, King of Santara, nodded once then turned his back on his silver-haired senior aide. He stared out of the arched windows of his palace office on to the city of Aran below. It was early, the dawn sun bouncing off the Gulf of Ma’an and bathing the sleepy capital of Santara in a golden glow. The pale pink palace perched on the crest of a hill faced the once industrious port that had recently been transformed into a tourist mecca: hotels, restaurants and shopping outlets, tastefully designed to blend the old with the new. It was just one of Jaeger’s successful attention-grabbing visions to boost the local economy and showcase the changing face of his kingdom.

  He didn’t see any of it right now, his mind locked down by the worry brought about by his sister’s disappearance.

  Where was she? And, more importantly, was she all right?

  A week ago he had returned from a business trip to London to find a note on his desk.

  Dear Jag,

  I know you won’t like this but I’ve taken off for a
few weeks. I’m not going to tell you where I’m going because this is important to me. That’s why I haven’t taken my cell phone.

  No doubt if I did you’d figure out where I’m going before I even get there! But don’t worry, I’ll be fine.

  I love you,

  Milena xxx

  Don’t worry? Don’t worry? After what had happened three years ago, how could he do anything but worry?

  He reached for the note on his desk, now enclosed in an evidence bag, and had to force himself not to crumple it in his fist. So far the only thing his elite security team had been able to find out was that she had taken a flight to Athens and then disappeared with a man. A man who had been identified as Chad James. An employee, no less, whom Jaeger had personally allowed his sister to work alongside for the past six months.

  His jaw hardened and he had to force himself to breathe deeply. Chad James was a brilliant graduate who had been recruited from the States last year to work for his pet company, GeoTech Industries. The company only employed high-energy, intelligent men and women who could think outside the box to create leading-edge technologies that rivalled anything coming out of Silicon Valley. A week ago the young graduate had put in for one month’s leave without pay.

  Had he coerced Milena into going with him for some lovers’ tryst? Or, worse, kidnapped her and planted the note, planning to ask for a ransom any day now?

  Jag cursed silently. Since becoming King a decade ago he’d done his best to keep his siblings safe from harm. How had he failed so extraordinarily in that endeavour? How had he got it so spectacularly wrong? Again! Because it was his fault. He’d put his sister in harm’s way, even if he hadn’t known it at the time, and he held himself fully responsible.

  And it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

  For the past decade he had worked tirelessly to pull Santara out of the economic and political quagmire his father had inadvertently left it in, and, right when he was on the verge of having Santara recognised as an integral political powerhouse on the world stage, his sister went missing.