Baby of His Revenge

by Jennie Lucas

  “I do not!” she said indignantly, then licking her chin she discovered it was true. She heard the sudden catch of his breath.

  “Let me help with that,” he said huskily, and he leaned forward on the bed to lick it off her chin.

  Seconds later, both breakfast trays crashed to the floor as he pushed her back against the bed, drizzling maple syrup all over her body, and she was smearing it on him, and they were licking and kissing every inch of each other. Afterward, they were seriously sticky and had to take a long, hot shower. Where they then discovered the sexy possibilities of having hot steamy water shooting all over their warm, wet, naked skin.

  Laney couldn’t get enough of him. And Kassius couldn’t get enough of her.

  After the shower, they toweled each other off and were tempted to get back into bed until they got a good look at the tangled sheets, sticky with syrup.

  “Maid service,” Kassius said breathlessly.

  She brightened. “We’ll go out!”

  They let management know that maid service was required, then got dressed to venture out of the hotel. Laney was suddenly glad for the excuse. She was keen to show him her city—in a way, also his city—at the most thrilling time of the year. Mardi Gras.

  Taking him by the hand, she led him out of the elegant formality of the hotel to the sheer madness that was Bourbon Street. It was barely noon, but crowds of people bedecked in over-the-top costumes or the Mardi Gras colors of purple, green and gold already filled the neon-lit bars and the sidewalks and streets. They walked around, gawking, then had lunch at a crowded courtyard restaurant, the best in the city. Since it didn’t accept reservations, and Laney flatly refused to allow him to try to get bumped up the wait list by giving the hostess a thousand-dollar tip, they had to wait an hour to be seated. It was a novel experience for Kassius.

  “I can’t believe you want to wait for a table,” he grumbled as they stood in the crowded outdoor bar. In the distance they could hear the music of a brass band over the noisy chatter of others waiting for a table.

  “Anticipation is half the fun,” Laney informed him.

  Reaching out, he took her hand and tenderly kissed her palm, causing her to tremble. “Yes.” His dark eyes smoldered as he straightened. “It is.”

  Laney stared at him, feeling hot and shivery all over. Even though they were having fun wandering around, and even though Kassius had made love to her so many times already, she knew he was already counting down the minutes until he could get her back to the hotel. To his bed. And suddenly, so was she.

  “Get you something?” the bartender said brusquely, clearly having no clue who Kassius was, treating him like just another rowdy reveler.

  Kassius started to order his usual martini, but Laney interrupted him. “He’ll have a hurricane. A sweet tea for me, please.”

  “Hurricane?” Kassius said with a frown.

  “You’ll see.”

  A few moments later, he was looking down with dismay at a garishly colored red-and-orange cocktail of rum and fruit juice in a large curved glass. “It looks like something a tourist would drink.”

  She sipped her own sweet, nonalcoholic iced tea. “How convenient, since you’re a tourist.”

  “I don’t like sugary things.”

  “You sure?” Her grin widened. Her eyelashes fluttered a little as she picked the glass off the bar and held it out toward him, her breasts pressing against him as she whispered, “Try it. You’ll like it.”

  Never taking his eyes off her, he grabbed the glass and put his mouth on the straw. He gulped the whole thing down. Then he gasped, “I’d rather have some tart with my sugar...”

  Then he kissed her, and she tasted the sweet tang of the orange juice and grenadine and rum on his lips.

  After a lunch of Cajun-style cooking that Kassius raved about for hours, they ventured back outside. Bourbon Street had only gotten more crowded as the afternoon faded. A parade went down a nearby street and people went crazy as the floats went by, revelers waving in their sparkled costumes. Confetti and bead necklaces filled the air, along with noise and laughter and music.

  As twilight fell, the French Quarter became so crowded it was almost impossible to walk through the streets. He held her hand tightly so as not to get separated.

  “Let’s have dinner back at the room,” he growled, his palm pressing against hers, and she felt a zing of electricity through her body, an intense need that was overwhelming. Quivering, she nodded.

  But as they hurried down a back alley, Laney heard shouting above them. She looked up to see three college boys on a covered wraparound wrought-iron balcony. They were hollering at her, shaking necklaces of beads. She blushed.

  Kassius frowned and looked at them, then back at her.

  “What do they want?”

  She said meekly, “If I lift up my shirt and flash them my breasts, they’ll throw me down some bead necklaces.”

  “Those bastards,” he growled, his hand tightening over hers. “I’ll go up there and teach them some manners...”

  “It’s not an insult. They mean it as a compliment—it’s tradition.”

  Kassius looked both speechless and enraged.

  Laney tilted her head as if considering. She tapped her chin. “Honestly, I could use some new jewelry...”

  So it was that a half hour later, she found herself at an exclusive jeweler’s in the Vieux Carré, where he’d immediately dragged her and insisted on buying her a necklace of diamonds and sapphires that reminded her of that obscenely big sparkler in the movie Titanic.

  “You can flash me later,” he whispered in her ear, and she blushed and gave a laugh almost like a giggle.

  She’d just been teasing him before, but as they walked the last blocks back to the hotel, Laney kept touching the cool platinum-set stones against her neck, thrilled that he was so determined to spoil her—in every way.

  It was proof he cared. Wasn’t it? And caring was almost like love. Wasn’t that what such an irrational gift meant?

  Then she remembered another diamond necklace, which he’d given to another woman in London. Her delight fled. The necklace suddenly felt like cold rock against her skin as she remembered her old boss Mimi, and Kassius’s strange loans.

  However it might seem right now, when they were married and taking such pleasure and joy in each other, Laney actually didn’t know her husband at all. Yes, she knew where his mother had been born. But there was so much about him that was mysterious. She still had so many questions that now—with her promise—she couldn’t even ask.

  And how she wanted to know everything. She felt achingly close to him. Like she hadn’t been a fool to picture him as noble and good. Like he might actually be that man.

  If only he would share his past, share his secrets and heart with her!

  But she feared he never would.

  There are other ways to learn secrets. The poisonous thought crept into her mind. When they’d first met, Kassius had hired a private investigator to dig through her life. Before, she’d been furious at the invasion of her privacy. Now she shuddered with the temptation.

  No, Laney told herself firmly. She wasn’t going to sneak behind his back. She would just love him, be a good wife and pray that he would choose to open up to her.

  If she just loved him, sooner or later he would tell her everything. Wouldn’t he?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EXCEPT, OF COURSE, he didn’t.

  Six months later, Laney was trembling as she pressed her phone tighter to her ear. “What did you say?”

  “Your husband’s real name is Cash Kuznetsov,” the investigator said.

  Laney’s heart was pounding as she sank into a chair in their new Monaco flat. With a deep breath, she rubbed her enormous belly. She’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Hoped that over the course of their marriage, her husband would just reveal his secrets to her of his own free will.

  But he hadn’t. And as they’d traveled frequently around the world, in some ways—i
n spite of his generosity with his wealth, his care of her family and of her—he’d been more secretive than ever.

  Last week, she’d discovered him out of bed in the middle of the night in their new Monaco home. Apparently, the villa on Cap Ferrat that he’d been hoping to buy for the last six months was still not on the market. So in a fit of pique, Kassius had purchased a bigger penthouse in a luxury high-rise, five bedrooms with a rooftop terrace and panoramic view of Fontvieille Harbor, the rocks and the sea. She was still in shock that he’d make a thirty-million-euro purchase on impulse. As a temporary replacement for the house he really wanted.

  That villa on Cap Ferrat must really be something, she thought in awe.

  That night, she’d discovered her husband pacing as he spoke quietly into the phone. When she’d confronted him, asking him whom he could be speaking with at two in the morning, he’d refused to explain. “If you don’t want me to lie, you promised never to ask,” was his terse response.

  It had been the last straw.

  The next morning, feeling hurt and anxious and twisted up with emotion, she’d contacted a private investigator recommended to her by Kassius’s friend, the best man at his wedding, Ángel Velazquez. The Spaniard billionaire was the only person she knew who wouldn’t be afraid to go against Kassius Black.

  Ángel had been amused when he’d gotten her call. “You already wish to hire a detective, after just a few months?” he’d said sardonically. “How pleasant marriage must be.”

  She’d gone hot with embarrassment and tried to stammer out excuses before he’d mercifully cut her off. But at least he’d given her the name of a very good private investigator, who liked the idea of a challenge—of discovering the true background of the man whom no one else had ever been able to properly trace. He’d told her, “I just need a place to start.”

  Feeling like a traitor, Laney had given him the address of the Cash home on St. Charles Avenue—the address where Kassius had recently decided to build a brand-new house expressly for her grandmother and father, with a guest wing where she and Kassius could visit after the baby was born.

  Just thinking of how she’d gone behind his back while he was building a house for her family made her feel ashamed.

  And he’d done far more for the Henry family than just the house. Since the marriage, Laney’s grandmother and father now considered Kassius family. So they were happy to let him spend money on them. They didn’t see his generosity as charity, but merely as his way of showing love.

  “Some men just aren’t good with words, Laney May,” her father had explained.

  “Any man that’s a man,” her grandmother grumbled.

  So they hadn’t fought Kassius when he’d insisted on sending Clark to Atlanta on his private jet to see a highly regarded doctor who offered innovative medical treatments. Especially after Kassius had explained his anguish that he’d been unable to get the best care for his own mother when he was young.

  Only a heart of stone could have refused him, and Clark Henry, beneath his gruff exterior, had no heart of stone. After months of treatment, her father was seeing improvements, with partial sight already restored in one eye.

  “There’s this nurse with a really sexy voice who’s been taking care of me. I’m just trying to get a good look at her,” he’d explained half-jokingly, but he’d sounded happier than Laney had heard him in years.

  As if her father having hope and a new crush wasn’t enough, her grandmother had been traveling the world. Yvonne started with a ten-day cruise of the eastern Caribbean, but the day she’d returned, she’d hopped on a new ship to see the western side. In the last six months, the longtime widow had cruised the whole world, meeting new friends and even a few new boyfriends.

  “You’ve left a trail of broken hearts across the world,” Laney liked to tease her.

  Yvonne just said coyly, “I can’t help it if men keep falling for me.” Her grandmother had now branched out to even greater adventures, backpacking across Europe, staying at hostels, and most recently visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia with a Norwegian man friend ten years younger.

  Laney was incredibly touched and grateful for what Kassius had done for them—all of them. She’d tried to be satisfied. She’d reminded herself that Kassius was a good husband and would be a good father. She’d told herself that every man had secrets.

  But she couldn’t let it go. And now she understood why.

  “What’s his father’s name?” she whispered now, but as the investigator told her, she’d already known what it would be. By the time she hung up the phone, all the pieces were clicking into place. The loans he’d made to a man who was unlikely to ever repay. The secret gifts to Mimi du Plessis.

  Laney thought of the hard light in his eyes the night of their wedding, when he’d shown her the empty land where his grandparents’ elegant mansion used to be. This precious house meant everything to them. After they died, I bought it. Had it demolished. It was the only thing that made sense.

  She knew why he kept coming back to Monaco and what he was after. And why.

  Laney paced through the afternoon, waiting for Kassius to come home. When he finally did, it was hours later. She was sitting wearily by the wide windows overlooking the sparkling lights of the city in the dark night, and the dark sea beyond.

  Kassius frowned at her, obviously shocked to find her awake so late, with a bottle of scotch on the table beside her.

  “You’re drinking scotch?” he said in disbelief.

  Well might he be surprised—she hadn’t had even a sip of champagne since she’d discovered she was pregnant. Opening the bottle, she poured some in a short crystal glass. “It’s not for me.” She held out the glass. “It’s for you.”

  Setting down his laptop bag, he looked at her with a frown and slowly took the glass.

  “I know who you are, Kassius,” Laney said quietly, looking up at him from the sofa. “And I know who your father is.”

  He took a small sip of scotch, watching her. “Do you?”

  Exhaling, she nodded. “All this time, I’ve wondered about your expensive gifts to Mimi du Plessis and your endless anonymous loans to her boss. Now I understand. You didn’t want her to tell Boris Kuznetsov all those loans were from the same source—you. You didn’t want him to get curious about you. Because if he looked at you too closely, he might recognize you as the eleven-year-old boy he abandoned in Istanbul. Cash Kuznetsov, the illegitimate son of Boris Kuznetsov and Emmaline Cash.”

  “How did you learn this?”

  “An investigator. I got his name from Ángel Velazquez.”

  For a long moment, Kassius looked at her, then he barked a laugh. Lifting the glass, he drank all the scotch in a single gulp. He set the glass down with a clunk.

  “Fine,” he said abruptly. “You got me.”

  “What are you trying to do to him?” she whispered, hoping against hope she was wrong.

  He poured himself another glass of scotch, then considered her. “Destroy him, of course.”

  “How?”

  His sensual lips curved in a bitter smile. “Like I told you, Kuznetsov wasn’t around much when I was growing up. He was a busy man, working in Moscow, and had to do lots of travel throughout the Soviet Union and beyond. That was how they’d met, when she was a stewardess based out of Istanbul.” He took another sip of scotch. “After he abandoned us, after my mother got sick, I went through her papers and found his address in Moscow. I wrote letters. He never replied. When I was sixteen, I hopped a train to Moscow and found out why. He was already married.”

  “Oh, no,” she breathed.

  He shrugged. “I saw him walking, arm in arm, with his beautiful blond wife in her fancy clothes, into a mansion, followed by three golden retrievers bounding at their heels. So cozy. So rich. So happy.”

  Laney sucked in her breath.

  “I was so shocked I stumbled back. Straight into a metal fence. That’s how I got this.” He traced the raised white scar on his cheekbone. His lips tw
isted. “He’d strung my mother along for sixteen years, promising her he’d marry her someday and buy her a candy-pink villa in the South of France. I still remember how happy those dreams made her. She always believed he was coming back to her. I didn’t have the heart to tell my mother what kind of man he really was.”

  Laney suddenly understood so much. “No wonder you hate the idea of love,” she whispered brokenly. “To you, all it means is a lie.”

  His jaw clenched, and he looked away, toward the vast darkness of the sea.

  “I didn’t want you to know, Laney,” he said heavily. “Because it’s not your way. I wanted you to keep your ideals about love. About me,” he added quietly.

  She slowly rose from the sofa. At eight months pregnant, she had to push herself up with a little more force than in the past.

  Grabbing his hand, she placed it over the spot on her belly, where she felt her baby kicking inside her.

  “That’s our son,” she said in a low voice. His eyes went wide.

  “Son?” he breathed.

  She smiled bashfully. “I know we promised each other we would wait to find out, but well... I couldn’t help myself from asking at my last appointment.”

  “A son.” He blinked fast. “Perfect. I’ve already got my hands on what’s left of his company. All he has left now is the villa. If he takes one more loan, I will have that, too.”

  Pain ripped through her. “Don’t do this. Revenge won’t make you happier. It won’t. Please, just let it go!”

  “Let it go?” He stared at her incredulously. “He has to be punished for what he did.”

  “Please,” she whispered. “For my sake. For our baby’s. Just talk to him. There might be extenuating circumstances. You don’t know.”

  His eyes hardened. “I know enough.”

  “Listen...” Her voice cracked. “I was angry all the time when I was a teenager, hating my mother for leaving us, blaming her for dumping everything on us so she could run off and be free. But I was so unhappy. So awfully unhappy. I didn’t want to feel that way. So I decided to forgive her. To remember the good times. I chose love—which is what I feel for you, Kassius.” She took a deep breath and lifted her gaze to his. “I love you.”