On the Rachel front they seemed to be observing a truce, both of them focussing on Blake’s privacy. Rachel and Blake had been virtually house bound. The preschool had warned them of a media presence every day since the documentary piece on Jake Vance had aired, and they’d all agreed it would be best if Rachel kept Blake home and out of the glare of publicity that the documentary had rekindled.
With Mrs Kincaid not returning home before the end of the month, Rachel had taken on most of her mother’s duties along with the care of Blake. Much as Matt tried to ignore it, there was a certain comfort in coming home to the two of them each day—a sense of home that had been missing from the house for far too long.
Now, almost a week after sending away the test kit, Matt was impatient for the result. One way or another.
He’d decided to finish work early today and surprise Blake, who was due home from a rare play date in the next hour. If the rain that had been forecast held off, maybe he could forestall Rachel cooking dinner and suggest she go back to her apartment for the night, leaving him to take Blake to nearby Cheltenham Beach for fish and chips. Rachel was still on him about spending more time with Blake and she was right. He’d been so fixated with vengeance against the Blackstones he’d pushed aside his obligations to his son.
He’d just pulled the Mercedes into the garage at home when the breast pocket of his jacket vibrated. The caller display said “unknown number.” Matt’s heart leaped in his chest.
“Matt Hammond,” he answered.
“Mr Hammond, it’s Liz Walters from the testing lab. Could you give me your security password please?”
Matt gave her the password he’d meticulously written onto the sample submission form.
Two minutes later he snapped his phone shut, adrenaline coursing through his body together with a sense of relief so immense it brought tears to his eyes. Finally he had the proof. The confirmation that what his heart had always told him was true. He had someone of his own. Flesh of his flesh.
Blake was his son. Categorically and irrevocably his.
“Matt? Is everything all right?” Rachel stood in the doorway to the garage. “I heard your car come in but you’re taking forever. Is everything okay?”
“Yes. Everything is more than okay.” A wide grin split his face as he stepped towards her, grabbing her from the top of the three stairs that led down into the garage and swinging her around and around.
Her laughter bubbled in the air around them.
“Put me down,” she choked. “You’re making me dizzy!”
“He’s mine, Rachel. He’s mine. I got confirmation just now.”
He slowly stopped spinning, although his head and his heart felt as though he was still on a fast-moving carousel. Every nerve in his body went on full alert as her soft curves brushed against his chest, his abdomen, as he lowered her to the ground.
“Confirmation? You mean you had the test done?”
“Yes, to both.”
Rachel lifted a hand to cup his cheek, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Oh, Matt, I know how much this means to you. This is wonderful news.”
Her fingers, so small and warm, branded against his skin. Her hazel eyes sheened over, the gold glints inside her irises glowing with pleasure. Slowly he saw the light in her eyes change and deepen into something else. Something that made him lower his head, take her lips and obliterate the last remnants of doubt that had lingered in his mind.
The taste of her was intoxicating, heady. He pulled her more tightly to him, feeling her frame melt against the hard planes of his body and intensifying the swiftly building tension in his groin to new heights. Her arms slid under his suit jacket, her hands gripping at his back, clutching at his shirt as if she’d fall if she let go.
He angled his head so he could take her mouth more deeply and plunder the hot recess with his tongue. Each taste was more enthralling than the last. The texture of her lips, her tongue, gave rise to an insatiable desire that started where their skin touched and burned through him like molten metal.
He pushed one hand up under her sweatshirt and pulled her T-shirt from the waistband of her jeans, desperate to touch her skin, to feel her warmth against his skin. The clasp on her bra was an easy victim to his able fingers, and her full breasts fell free of the binding Lycra and lace. He cupped one breast with his hand; she fit perfectly, as if she’d been made for him and him alone.
His thumb abraded her nipple, feeling it tighten into a hardened peak of want. Matt shoved her clothing up, baring her breast to the cool air. Goose bumps peppered her skin but she made no protest. He bent his head to her breast, taking the questing nipple between his lips, biting gently. Her guttural moan of response sent a spear of sensation straight to his groin. He wanted her, right here, right now.
With his other hand he cupped her buttocks, pressing her mound against his increasingly hard erection. She flexed against him in a natural rhythm as old as time. He pressed her back against the side front wheel guard of the Cayenne. When he reached for her belt buckle her hands flew to help him. As soon as her zipper was undone his hand pushed aside the denim and delved into her panties, into the hot secret part of her.
She was slick with need. Need for him. He felt all-conquering. Supremely male. He pushed her jeans down farther, allowing him better access to her soft, moist folds. Her breath rushed past his throat on a heated sigh as he probed her entrance, delving first one, then two fingers inside her. Her inner muscles clenched against him, drawing him deeper.
“I want you inside me. All of you.” Her voice was strained, as if the very effort of speech was too much. “Matt, please?”
He wanted it, too. Wanted it so much his head was ringing with it. Ringing? No, that was the chime on the front gate intercom. The sound was a sharp thrust of reality, forcing Matt into painful awareness of his surroundings—of the woman in his arms, of what he was doing to her, with her. Again.
If he’d stepped off an ice floe in the Antarctic and into the ocean his senses couldn’t have been jolted harder.
He pulled his hand slowly from the liquid heat of her body, feeling her shudder as he did so, and helped her rearrange her clothing.
“That’ll be Blake coming home.” Her voice sounded thick, as if the words were sticky toffee coating her tongue.
“I’ll see to him.” Matt stepped back, away from her, away from the siren-like enticement of her body. “I’m sorry, Rachel. It seems I’m destined to keep making the same mistake with you. We will discuss this later.”
She was refastening her belt, with some trouble as her hands shook violently. She looked up. Her lips were swollen with their kisses, her eyes still awash with the heated pulse of desire that had almost seen him take her up against the side of his dead wife’s car. If anything, that was even more sobering than the chime at the gate. This was the second time in as many weeks he’d almost lost control. It wouldn’t—couldn’t—happen again.
Rachel stood completely still as Matt strode away to the intercom at the connecting door to the house, and after a few short words hit the button to admit the car waiting outside. She knew she should move, say something, do anything, but her limbs remained frozen at her sides, her body still racked with the aftermath of emptiness after being stoked to such heights.
She forced her legs to move, deliberately stepping one foot in front of the other as she made her way back into the house, focussing on each inhale and exhale in an attempt to force her heartbeat back into some semblance of normality. She fled upstairs to her room.
Sorry.
Mistake.
The words hurt more than his withdrawal from her two weeks ago in Tahiti. He could have said anything but that. Anything else might have given her hope that she stood a chance with him, that her love for him could finally make a difference to his life. Instead, he was sorry. Incapable of seeing that the attraction between them went beyond the incendiary physical need they incited in one another.
Rachel refastened her bra beneath her clo
thing, then splashed cool water on her face. Outside she heard Blake’s ride pull up at the front portico and Blake’s shout of glee when his father opened the door to let him inside. She knew she should go downstairs and start dinner. But right now all she wanted to do was curl into a ball in the darkest corner of a closet and hide.
For the briefest moment, when Matt had told her he’d received the result of the paternity test, he’d been the old Matt. The Matt she’d known as a teenager. The one who laughed and loved life and took every challenge head-on and with a smile on his face. Not the coldly driven and single-minded stranger he’d become in the past six months.
She reached for a towel and buried her face in its thick softness, then straightened and pulled her shoulders straight, regarding her reflection in the mirror.
Nothing visible remained of their uninhibited connection in the garage. But inside, the wounds still cut deep. She’d lived with this for the past eleven years, she reminded herself. It was nothing new. She’d survive. She always had. Except this time the hurt went deeper than before. The love she’d borne for him as an idol-struck teenager was nothing compared to what she felt for him now.
Back then she’d been driven by little else than hormones and the firm belief that if they made love everything would be all right, that he’d acknowledge his feelings for her and she’d be his girl. But she’d been wrong. So very wrong. If anything it had made things worse. And these past two encounters had only served to drive him farther away from her.
Rachel neatly folded her towel back on the rail and left her bathroom, determined to paint an expression on her face that left him in no doubt that she was unmoved by their passion. That she could withdraw from him as effectively as he had from her.
She’d do it, even if it killed her inside.
Seven
Downstairs she followed the sounds of Matt and Blake talking, finding them both in the family room, their heads bent together over a large floor puzzle. Matt looked up as she came into the room. He’d changed into jeans and a cable-knit sweater and looked far too sexy for her shattered senses.
“I was thinking I’d take Blake to the beach for fish and chips for dinner. You can take a break and head off home now if you’d like. Have a night to yourself.”
At first she was at a loss for words. She hadn’t expected outright rejection of her presence, not by any means. She was on the verge of acceding to his suggestion when Blake leaned forward and whispered in Matt’s ear.
“No, son. Rachel needs time alone, too.” Matt’s voice was firm.
Blake rocked back on his heels, a recalcitrant pout marring his features.
“I want her. I want Rachel!”
“It’s okay, Blake.” Rachel interrupted before a full-scale tantrum could develop. “You and Dad go and have some fun feeding the seagulls. But you’ll have to hurry. There are rain squalls forecast early this evening.”
Matt looked outside, a frown pulling at his face. “Looks like they’re here already.”
Another idea occurred to Rachel. “Have you given your parents the news yet?”
“No, I was going to call them this evening. Why?”
“Well, I can put dinner together for five as easily as three. Why don’t you invite them over, make it a celebration.” Be damned if she’d show him how much his rejection had stung. “Honestly, it’s no problem. Blake can come and help me get things ready while you go and pick your mum and dad up. You know how your mother hates driving in this weather.”
For a moment it looked as if Matt would refuse and insist she leave, as he’d suggested, but Rachel held her ground under his steely gaze.
“Fine. I’ll call them now.”
Rachel let go of the breath she’d held hostage in her lungs as he stalked out the room and across the hall into his study. She reached out a hand to Blake.
“C’mon, honey. Let’s go and get some dinner ready for Nanna and Poppa.”
Matt’s parents had been ecstatic about the news. Although there’d been an awkward moment when Katherine discovered Rachel had set four dinner places in the formal dining room.
“Rachel, aren’t you eating with us?” Katherine asked.
“No, thank you, Mrs Hammond. I’ll have mine in the kitchen,” Rachel said as she put the steaming platter of chicken and zucchini pasta on the table.
“Don’t be silly, you’re one of us. Isn’t she, Matt?”
Matt looked up from where he was settling Blake at the table. “Mum, if Rachel’s more comfortable eating in the kitchen, that’s her choice.”
Rachel looked at him in shock. Could he have been more blunt?
“That’s just ridiculous,” Katherine protested, moving over to the sideboard to collect an extra place mat and table setting. “You’ve gone to all this trouble to prepare a lovely meal. The least you can do is enjoy it with us.”
She shot her son a look that spoke volumes and patted Rachel on the hand. “There you are, dear, now we can all celebrate as a family.”
Despite the rocky start, the meal turned out to be a relaxed affair. They’d lingered at the table for a while after they’d eaten. Then Katherine suggested she bathe Blake and get him ready for bed. Rachel went through to the kitchen to make coffee and tidy up the last of the dishes. She was surprised when she saw that Katherine had followed her.
“Rachel? Can I have a word with you?” she asked.
“Of course,” Rachel replied as she rinsed off a plate then stacked it in the dishwasher.
“I just wanted to say thank you.”
Confusion furrowed Rachel’s brow. “Thank you? Whatever for?”
“For talking Matt into getting that wretched paternity test done.” Katherine put up a hand to stop Rachel’s protest. “Now, now. I know exactly how intractable Matt can be, so I’m sure you had something to do with persuading him to go ahead and get the proof he…” Katherine’s voice wobbled precariously close to a sob but she pulled herself together on a sharply indrawn breath and continued. “The proof he needed to move on.”
“Move on?”
“To put this whole sordid business between Marise and Howard behind him. It’s eating him up. I’m just grateful you helped make him see sense. You can tell it’s made a difference for him already.”
Rachel nodded. She had seen a difference in Matt tonight when he dealt with Blake. As much as he’d tried to deny it, the fear that Blake wasn’t his biological child had influenced his behaviour towards the boy. With Blake’s paternity no longer under question Rachel knew their relationship would now grow stronger.
Katherine put an over-tired and overexcited Blake to bed at nine-thirty before coming back downstairs. It was getting on for ten by the time Katherine and Oliver left, insisting they take a taxi rather than have Matt drive them home. Rachel was unloading the dishwasher before heading off to bed herself when Matt came into the kitchen.
“Did you need me for something?” she asked, then instantly wished the words unsaid.
They’d already established he needed her for nothing more than the succour of his son. But a part of her still wanted to believe in miracles—to believe that he could embrace the feelings he had for her and admit them to himself as well as to her.
“I wanted to thank you for tonight. Having Mum and Dad over was a great idea. They really enjoyed it and, as you saw, they’re over the moon that the whole paternity question is resolved.”
“Are you going to issue a press statement? At least to stop the media hounding you both.”
“I’ll speak with our PR people tomorrow and discuss the best way to handle it.”
“Good idea.” Rachel finished wiping down the bench top then wiped her hands dry on a towel. “Matt?”
“Yeah?”
“What made you change your mind about the test?” She hoped like crazy that he’d done it for Blake’s sake. To remove all and any doubt about the boy’s parentage as he was growing up and to prevent the question being raised in the media again and again.
“Several things.” Matt pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down, gesturing for Rachel to do the same. “It was partly to halt the speculation, but essentially I wanted to ensure that no-one else could stake a claim on him. There’s no way I’ll ever let anyone take him from me. I meant what I said before I got the results. Blake’s mine. This means it stays that way.”
“But why would anyone—?”
“Marise was divorcing me. She was suing for full custody of Blake.”
Rachel sat back in her chair as if she’d been slapped. “She what? When? How did you find out?”
Matt swallowed and she watched the muscles in his throat work before he spoke again. His eyes were a flat grey, as cold and lacklustre as unpolished silver.
“I was served with papers on my way out of the mortuary where her body was held. Ironic, isn’t it?” His mouth twisted in a mockery of a smile. “In death she prevented the one thing she seemed hell-bent on. Taking me for everything I hold dear.”
Rachel yearned to comfort him. But she daren’t reach out, not again. Instead she held in the cry of denial that Marise could’ve been so foolish as to throw away her marriage, let alone to believe that someone like Matt would let go of his son without a monumental battle. If there was one thing in this world he was passionate about it was family. Even his business came second to that. Or at least it had until recently.
Now it made even more sense. His bitter plan to take over Blackstone Diamonds, his refusal to accept overtures from the Blackstone family. No wonder. He had all the proof he’d needed that Marise had been having an affair with Howard Blackstone and Rachel could only imagine the depth and breadth of his anger when he’d been served the papers at such a horrific time.
“Which leads me to my next decision.” He paused and levelled his gaze directly at her.
A sense of foreboding prickled down her spine. Whatever he had to say next she was certain she wouldn’t like it. Rachel lifted her chin and met his stare face on.
Jealousy & a Jewelled Proposition Page 7