Claiming his Secret Baby_One night and a lifetime of consequences...

by Clare Connelly

It took twenty minutes. Longer than it should have given they were only a suburb or so over. And the whole time, he prowled in the front entry of his Kensington house, his eyes fixed on the door, his expression grim.

  Finally, José arrived, his expression showing he’d had his own arguments with the future Mrs Salbatore.

  Xavier was furious, but then, the sight of Elizabeth walking through the door to his home holding their child on one hip did something completely unexpected to him. His body seemed to weaken at the picture they made: this woman, their child, his house. It was all so primal but he felt the strangest rip of ownership and possession. Of pride. Misplaced, yet fierce.

  Before he could speak, she lifted a finger to her lips and he realized their son was sleeping. And pale.

  A frown crossed his face as he bid her to silently follow him. He led the way up the stairs and at the first floor landing turned left, showing her the way to the room he’d set aside for Joshua. He ached to reach forward and carry the child, not to lighten her burden, he assured himself, but simply to hold his son close to his chest.

  She moved to the bed and Xavier followed, pulling the bedlinen back so she could lay their son down. She wriggled the little shoes off his feet and then straightened without a word. But it was an angry silence. She was furious!

  Fascinated, he moved a few steps behind her then paused, watching as she ran down the stairs and hoisted a tatty backpack over one shoulder. She took the steps two at a time as she returned, and slipped past him, into Joshua’s room, without making eye contact.

  From the backpack, she retrieved the same panda bear teddy Joshua had been sleeping with tucked under his arm the night before, and nuzzled it to his side. She pulled something else out, plastic, which she unfolded to show a sea-sickness bag. She put it on the other side of him, and then she patted his brow and straightened.

  Now, finally, she did meet his eyes, and the air in the room seemed to crackle and hum. An electrical storm was breaking around them, flashing with lightning and danger.

  The scent of thunder was heavy in the air.

  She moved past him and, whether accidentally or not, shoved his shoulder with her own.

  He swallowed a gruff oath and followed her into the hallway. Much as he’d done the night before, he put a hand in the small of her back and propelled her forward, away from their son’s room, and into his study. It overlooked the back of Kensington gardens and a squirrel was prancing on the outside window ledge. He waited until she was in the room and then pushed the door shut, the silence of the act not belying the seriousness of the conversation they had coming.

  “How dare you have your henchman strongarm me here?” She accused, the words trembling from her lips, trembling with anger though, nothing else. Nothing softer. Fury paled her face and hardened her eyes. “How dare you have me dragged here?”

  He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “He would not have needed to do any such thing if you had maintained the schedule we’d agreed to.”

  She blinked, shaking her head, her confusion obvious.

  “I told you I would send a driver for you at nine this morning.”

  She recoiled. “Oh, really? I didn’t hear that. I was probably still digesting the disgusting threat you’d just made.”

  He absorbed her accusation and wasn’t in the least offended nor shamed by it. He had threatened her – but it wasn’t idle. It was a threat he intended to stick to.

  “You were trying to run from this?” He asked, the question sounding calm and unconcerned when he had no idea how he’d react if she answered in the affirmative.

  “Oh, you would think that,” she glowered. “Trust you to make this all about you.”

  “We had an agreement,” he responded. “You chose to ignore it.”

  “I chose to take our son to hospital where I’ve spent the night, so I’m sorry if I put a spanner in the works of your revenge plan. You’ll just have to wait an extra day to extract more penance because I am absolutely exhausted right now and if you touch me I’ll either be ill or cry. Do you understand?”

  He was very, very still, every single one of her words landing against his broad, muscled chest like a super-powered dart. “What’s happened to him?” He homed in on the one part of the equation he was willing to deal with. “Why did he go to hospital?”

  “Because he was sick,” she hissed with obvious exasperation.

  “I am asking you for details, not pithy statements of fact which I am clearly able to appreciate for myself.”

  She glared at him and then nodded, a terse sign of agreement. “He was sick about ten minutes after you left,” she said, compressing her lips. “I was worried. He’s rarely ill and certainly not like that. He vomited three more times and his fever wouldn’t calm. So I took him to A and E. I didn’t know what else to do,” she said, and something in the region of his heart panged at this admission. And at the loneliness that it conveyed – a loneliness she’d lived with for a very long time. All of these decisions had been hers, all of the responsibility and worry.

  Though she’d had a sister and then Apollo, they weren’t the same as another parent. It was Elizabeth alone that had been caring for their child, looking after him, in sickness and in health. The words took on a new meaning then, understanding what a commitment it was to love someone to this degree. And he did love their son, already.

  “It took hours before a doctor would see us.”

  At this, Xavier puffed his chest, raising himself to his full height. “You will give that child my name from now on,” he said, “and no one will keep you waiting.”

  A look crossed her face, and he wondered if she was thinking of the hospital he’d been in after the accident – the luxurious, expensive room he’d awoken to, eventually, had been the last word in comfort. Like a five star hotel, really.

  “The hospital had people with much more serious injuries coming through the door,” she said stiffly, but her face was so pale that he felt pain behind the words. Something was upsetting her.

  Damn it. He didn’t care. “You prioritized strangers over our son?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, do me a favour and stop trying to see the worst in me for just a damned second. I took him to hospital, I sat with him on my lap all night, and a nurse triaged him. He was in good hands. Mine, the nurse’s and believe me, Xavier, if he’d continued to decline, I would have shouted the place down until someone helped him.”

  Her protective instincts slammed into him and he felt the truth in them, understood that she was motivated by a mother bear mentality that was as real as it was impressive.

  “What’s wrong with him?” He asked, reluctant to pay her any compliment, to praise her in the slightest.

  “He’s got a tummy bug. They gave me a medicine that is supposed to keep his temperature right down, which should help with the vomiting. And he’s to have these special ice-lollies from the pharmacy to help keep him hydrated.” She glared at him. “I was going to drive there once I got home but your angry little man was waiting, shouting at me and pointing at the car and I didn’t want Joshua to be frightened or upset. Damn you, Xavier.”

  A muscle jerked in his jaw as he pictured José doing exactly what Elizabeth had described. And under different circumstances, he might even have found it funny to hear all six feet of muscle described as ‘an angry little man’, but he was beyond humour.

  “And what would you have done with Joshua while you went to the pharmacy?”

  “Taken him with me,” she said wearily. “Like I always do. You have to start thinking like a parent, Xavier, if you want to play the part.”

  “Play the part?” He intoned angrily. “You think this is something I will need to pretend to do?”

  “I think that if you don’t understand that plans get waylaid when you have children then you don’t understand anything at all. I didn’t think about you, or what time your cross, unpleasant driver was coming to collect us because I’m a mum, and all of my mind was focused on our son
. That’s how it goes.”

  Her words had the power to shame him, so that he had to draw himself up and remember who he was talking to. A woman who’d cared so much for their son, allegedly, that she’d kept him from his own father.

  Yet she dared stand there and lecture him? Berate him as though he was the one who was selfish and out of order?

  Without dropping his gaze from her pale face, he lifted his phone from his pocket and pressed José’s numbed. He held it under his ear, noting the fragile flesh beneath her eyes that was stained a cloudy grey. He noted the mess of her hair and the fact she was wearing the same clothes he’d removed from her the night before.

  He spoke in Spanish, but then paused, pulling the phone away from his ear. “Was there a specific brand of ice-lolly?”

  She narrowed her gaze and nodded, pulling a piece of paper from her back pocket and closing the distance between them, so she could hand it to him. He took it, but before she could move away, he snaked a hand out and caught her wrist, holding her where she was, his expression a mask of warning. He read the name to José then disconnected the call, slipping his phone back in his pocket.

  “Let me go,” she said with cool determination, but her eyes were huge and her breath raspy. He could feel the fine tremor of her flesh, the gushing of her pulse and he knew that she was battling through this raging torrent of desire, just the same as he was.

  But she was tired.

  So tired. One look at her face and he felt her exhaustion as though it were an actual feature on her face, like another nose. He felt it as though he shared it.

  “You’re tired,” he said, and she rolled her eyes in a way that flickered a tiny flame of amusement to life.

  “Yes. I’m tired. But I’ll be fine. I need to sit with Josh.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said, the words graveled, called from deep within his soul.

  Her eyes flew wide. Was she surprised by the offer? Could he blame her for being so?

  “He’ll be surprised if he wakes up in a strange room with a strange man. He’ll be terrified.” Her condemnation was obvious.

  “Then I’ll come and get you,” he said. “My room is right next door. You’ll likely wake when he does.”

  Her cheeks flushed pale pink, and her eyes jerked away from his. Her breathing was labored and the air throbbed with sensual heat. It flared between them, and if she looked even slightly less wrecked, he would have lifted her to his desk and taken her amongst the files and stationery.

  “Your room,” she whispered, and a shiver ran the length of her body. From his vantage point, he could clearly see the way her nipples were straining against her clothes, two beautiful peaks hard and begging for his touch.

  “Come with me,” he commanded, the words angrier than he’d intended. Only he was angry at himself and his animalistic impulses to take her even when she had been through hell looking after their son.

  He held the door open and she preceded him through it then waited with a degree of uncertainty. He moved ahead of her, his face stony and impassive, as he strode down the corridor. He moved past Joshua’s room, and a distance away, before stopping and tilting his head, indicating that she should go inside.

  She appeared to hold her breath as she did so, and when she entered, she still held it, so she was almost completely frozen. Almost. Her eyes moved. From the enormous bay window that overlooked Kensington Gardens to the wall of mirrors that marked the large dressing room, to the glossy white door that led to an ensuite, to a Rembrandt he had hanging across from the bed, and finally, to the bed itself. The king-size bed with crisp white bedlinen and a grey throw blanket at the foot, and plush European pillows.

  She walked towards it, her fingers running over the bedlinen, her expression tight when she turned to face him.

  “You really mean for me to sleep in here? With you?”

  His eyes fired with glittering intent. “Yes.”

  She wanted to fight that, but perhaps the fight had left her, because she simply let out a shuddering breath and then nodded. He watched as she kicked off her shoes and shrugged out of her jacket, laying it on the edge of a chair, then pulled back the duvet.

  “Don’t let me sleep long,” she said, climbing into the bed. She looked so small, and so uncomfortable. Her body was crammed hard to the edge, as though by sleeping right there she was somehow resisting the symbolism of actually being in his bed. As though she were only half-there. She yawned. “And wake me as soon as Josh wakes. Or if he’s sick. Or needs me.”

  He nodded, but speech was beyond him. He knew he hated her, and yet the sight of her in his bed, all soft and sweetly feminine, almost made him forget that for a moment. At the door to his room he pressed a button, just below the light switch, and the blinds came down, turning the room into a blackout.

  “Sleep tight, Elizabeth.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SLEEP TIGHT.

  Not bloody likely.

  Elizabeth lay down in his enormous, fluffy, cloud-like bed and stared at the painting on the wall opposite – it couldn’t be genuine, could it? And then he plunged the room into total darkness, and she wished he hadn’t, because robbing her eyes of sight only brightened her other senses, so that the scent of Xavier Salbatore surrounded her, shrouding her in memories and agonizing desire.

  But mere minutes after her head hit the pillow, the fevered, angry thoughts dissipated, leaving only powerful, seductive memories that dragged her into a deep, suffocating sleep.

  She slept better than she had in years. She slept with all of her body and mind.

  And when she woke, it was to a rumbling, vaguely-familiar laugh.

  Xavier!

  She sat up straight in bed, disorientation making it hard to recall where she was and why, and then it all came flooding back to her.

  Josh!

  She pushed the thick, duck-down duvet off her and stood, amazed at how much better she felt, and completely lost as to the time. The room was pitch black, just as it had been when she’d fallen asleep. She moved towards the door, feeling her way around the edge of the bed and working from memory, then jerked it open.

  Soft light flooded in; she was still none the wiser as to the hour.

  She moved towards Josh’s room, but when she looked inside, it was empty. The acceleration of her heartrate was only natural. Had he wandered off? This was a new house, he’d had no idea he was here, having fallen asleep in the car on the way over. God, he had no idea who Xavier was, and what if Xavier hadn’t even heard him wake?

  She moved faster, towards Xavier’s office. It too was empty.

  She paused at the top of the steps, listening for any noises and yes! She did hear something. She walked quickly down the stairs. Her handbag had been moved from where she’d discarded it near the door.

  The noises became louder as she moved deeper into the house until finally, she could clearly discern Xavier’s deep, husky voice and Josh’s sweet little tone, all child-like with made-up and mispronounced words in his rush to express what he was feeling.

  And then, Josh’s laugh, and a loud crashing sound that had her feet bursting into action and carrying her into the room to see what had happened. Had Josh hurt himself?

  No, was the simple answer. Xavier was lying on the ground, on his side, his long, muscular legs stretched straight and crossed at the ankles, his body propped on one elbow, his pose utterly nonchalant and at ease.

  And Josh was standing in front of a tower of cardboard blocks with cartoon illustrations on each side. He had obviously just batted them half-way to the ground and now he gave another swing with his chubby little hand so that the blocks fell in a heap and Josh threw his head back and laughed.

  Relief at seeing him so well surged inside of Ellie, but it was quickly consumed by something else. She hovered at the entrance to the room, noting how comfortable they were together, how well-suited and her whole body clutched with a sense of … exclusion.

  Yes. It rushed through her, gripping her and bendi
ng her so that she was left with no idea how to process the dark, demeaning feeling.

  “Mama!” The little voice broke through the moment so she had to suppress everything she felt and plaster a smile on her face. She avoided looking at Xavier yet she felt his eyes on her. Cold, accusing, hateful.

  She swallowed, crouching down to Josh’s level and spreading her arms. He walked into them, pressing his head to her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her body, stroking her back. “You’re awake?” He said, and she heard the uncertainty there – and was ashamed to admit she was gratified by it.

  He’d been having fun with Xavier, but he’d missed her. He’d wanted her.

  “How do you feel?” She asked, pulling away a little and pressing her hand to his forehead. His temperature appeared to have broken.

  “Not good,” he said.

  She frowned. “You look much better.”

  “No, not good,” he said adamantly.

  Xavier’s voice broke through. “He enjoyed three of those iced lollies. Perhaps he is after another one.”

  And inside, she felt a hint of amusement, because undoubtedly Xavier was right, but she didn’t want to reward him by acknowledging that. “If he says he’s not well, he’s not.” She lifted Josh to her hip, and held him there, like the baby he definitely wasn’t. “You should have woken me.” She spoke calmly, not wanting to alarm Josh.

  Xavier took his cue from her, but there was an obvious throb of displeasure in his voice. “I tried,” he drawled cynically. “You were dead to the world.”

  Her skin prickled. He’d tried? He’d been into the room while she was sleeping? He’d looked at her? Had he touched her, while she’d slept, in an attempt to wake her? She swallowed, the idea unfairly erotic. Her blood simmered.

  “You gave him three iced lollies?” She muttered instead, trying to flatten the frustration out of her voice.

  “He wasn’t hungry for anything else. I offered.”

  She stroked Josh’s hair. “What time is it?”

  “Four.”

  “Four o’clock?” Her gaze pulled to the window and yes, she could see that darkness was approaching, falling early as it did in winter. “I’ve slept the day away.”