The Millionaire's Redemption

by Margaret Tanner

  “It’s all right, baby, it’s all right. Mummy will feed you in a minute. She leaned against the pillows, pulling the blankets up to her waist. Thank goodness she hadn’t bothered putting on a bra. Pushing up her top, she guided the baby’s head and his mouth clamped on her nipple.

  “See, Mummy wouldn’t let you go hungry,” she crooned, brushing his downy black hair with her fingertips.

  After Robert finished feeding, he lay there staring at her with his deep blue eyes. Would they change later, turn to gray like his father’s? His dark hair looked just like Justin’s; he had inherited the cowlick at the nape of his neck.

  Oh, Justin she thought sadly, how different things could have been if you’d cared for me, been prepared to make some kind of commitment. Lilly wandered in whimpering with hunger. It was well past their normal teatime. In desperation, Holly shifted Robert to one side and offered Lilly her breast. She had been drinking from a bottle over the last few weeks but didn’t hesitate to take the breast again.

  Lilly sucked for about five minutes before drifting off to sleep. Robert slept now as well. If she rested her eyes, the pain might go away.

  What if she were suffering from concussion? If she fell asleep, she mightn’t wake up? Fear reared its ugly head again. She lay still with her eyes closed, imploring herself not to fall asleep. It would be bliss to slip into oblivion for a little while, but a single mother with two babies didn’t have the luxury. They needed help. Common sense told her this. How could she look after two babies when she struggled to get out of bed?

  I want Justin. Desperation overwhelmed her. I don’t care if he’ll never love me, that he’ll despise me for letting myself get pregnant and for running away. He had always been kind to Lilly. Surely he wouldn’t turn his back on them now at this, their darkest hour. He wouldn’t reject his son, even if he hadn’t wanted him in the first place. She must believe this or she would go to pieces completely.

  The logical solution would be for him to come over and make everything right again. She could relax and have a proper sleep. A few hours of uninterrupted sleep instead of broken catnaps, would get her back on track again. A couple of hours of his time, would he begrudge them that?

  Pride had to be booted out the door if it interfered with the welfare of her children. She argued with herself, her pounding heart becoming a desperate echo of the howling wind and rain lashing at the windows.

  Lilly slept now. Wrapping Robert in his bunny rug, she picked him up and maneuvered herself off the bed. Slowly, with infinite care, she stood up. The room didn’t tilt, but her head ached and she still felt nauseous.

  She trembled with the effort of putting the baby back into his crib and tucking him in. Her mobile phone, her lifeline to the outside world, lay on the dressing table. Grabbing it, she stumbled into the lounge room and collapsed in a chair. With a blanket wrapped around her shoulders she rested the phone in her lap while she argued with herself a little more.

  Holly woke up with a start. She must have dozed off in the chair. She didn’t have a clue how long she had been asleep, but the rest didn’t make her feel much better. It was pitch black outside now. She didn’t have the energy to get up and check the time. Her hands trembled as she picked up the phone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Justin cursed as the ringing phone woke him up. Damn it all, couldn’t a man get even one night’s sleep without interruption? He decided to ignore it, but in a reflex action, his arm automatically shot out and picked it up.

  “Devereux,” he snarled.

  “Justin.”

  He heard the tremulous voice that had disturbed his sleep for months and wondered whether in fact he was dreaming.

  “It’s a matter of life and death. Don’t hang up.” The desperate plea stopped him from cutting her off straight away.

  “What do you want at this hour of the bloody night?” He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in months thinking and worrying about Holly.

  “I need you to come over and help me. I can’t cope on my own anymore.” She started crying, and he swore under his breath.

  “Is Lilly all right?” What if something had happened to the child? God, he would never forgive himself for not trying to find them to make sure they were okay.

  “Yes, it’s me, Justin. I’m sick. I hit my head, and I’m so frightened. What if something happens to me? If I become unconscious? What happens to Lilly and...?”

  “All right.” He cut off her almost incoherent babble. Holly could be a bit of a drama queen, but she sounded on the verge of hysteria. “Calm down and tell me where you are.”

  She told him.

  “Back at the bungalow?” he repeated incredulously. “I thought you were in Queensland.”

  “No, no, I lied, so you wouldn’t follow me. Please come straight away or something terrible might happen,” she pleaded.

  Oh God, surely she wouldn’t be contemplating...

  He broke out in a cold sweat. “Don’t do anything. Stay put until I get there.”

  He leapt out of bed and dashed over to the wardrobe to grab some fleecy track pants and a top. What a shocker of a night. He couldn’t remember the last time the weather had been so foul.

  A man must be crazy going out in such a fierce storm, but Holly sounded so distraught. He charged out of the apartment. Why the hell did he let her get to him again? He had just about gotten her out of his system, hadn’t he?

  As he drove out of the underground car park, he cursed under his breath. No matter what she had done, how she messed up his emotions, he couldn’t turn his back on her when she sounded so desperate.

  He should have checked on her, but didn’t want to spoil things if she had found happiness with someone else. A man carrying the emotional baggage he did, couldn’t give Holly the stability she needed, but he missed the pair of them. Lilly’s chubby baby arms wrapped around his neck, her sloppy kisses. Holly’s warmth and spontaneity, the passion they had shared. He had fallen in love with her, but fought it every step of the way because of a crazy ideology he had manufactured years ago. Holly accused him of making her feel cheap, and he had. Wincing, he remembered the ugly accusations he threw at her, how he tried to humiliate her to hammer home a point. He hadn’t taken her anywhere, but it wasn’t for the reasons she thought. Hell, he wanted her all to himself. Possessiveness was the driving force, pure and simple.

  Would she come back to him if he begged her to? Holly was a romantic. If he confessed his love, surely he would stand a chance of winning her back.

  The windscreen wipers struggled with the volume of driving rain. The roads were empty. The yellow light thrown out from the street lamps cast ominous shadows on the glistening, wet roadway. Like battery acid, fear ate away at his insides. He literally felt the deep, corrosive pain.

  Eventually, he made it to the tree-lined street where Holly lived. Driving slowly, he checked the house numbers as he did so. Number twenty-six was in darkness, but he peered down the side drive and spied a light cutting a swathe through the shrubbery. She must be living in the old bungalow she had told him about. He parked the car in the street and sprinted up the drive.

  As he fumbled with the catch on the side gate, water poured down on his head from both the sky and the tall overhanging shrubs. Damn it. He felt like kicking the gate down.

  Finally, he dragged it open and hurried towards the bungalow. It looked forlorn squashed between the dark shrubbery. Most women would be scared witless living alone behind an empty house, but Holly was a gutsy little thing.

  He hammered on the door. Why the hell didn’t she answer? He was getting drowned. “It’s Justin, open up.”

  The door opened. The moment he stepped over the threshold Holly hurtled into his arms.

  “You came, you came.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him like a limpet and he held her close. What a welcome. His heart leapt with hope. She still cared about him.

  He pushed the door shut with his foot. His euphoria quickly turned into a f
eeling of dread. The place felt as cold as the morgue. Holly was even thinner than he remembered, and she was trembling.

  Her soft, flyaway hair smelt like he remembered. He tugged it gently to bring her face up so he could taste her lips again, savor their sweetness.

  Shock shuddered all the way through him when he realized the state she was in. She looked white as death. Her tear-filled eyes had sooty smudges under them. A nasty bruise flawed the alabaster skin at the side of her forehead.

  He touched it gently with his fingertips and she winced. “What happened?”

  “I slipped over and hit my head.” Moving further into the room, he was greeted with utter chaos. Pots, pans, toys and groceries lay strewn all over the place. The floor covered in something white: powder or flour.

  “Lilly made the mess.” Holly started crying. “I felt too weak to clean it up.”

  “It’s okay,” he soothed, running his fingers through her hair as she sobbed into his wet jacket. “I understand.” But he didn’t. The place looked like a pigsty. How the hell had she let things get into such a shocking state?

  “I’d better take my coat off. It’s making you wet. This place is freezing, don’t you have a fire?” He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the door handle.

  “Yes, but it won’t light up. I’ve tried and tried.”

  “I’ll see if I can fix it. You look terrible. Have you been sick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you contact me earlier?” he growled. It hurt like a physical pain that she couldn’t bring herself to ask for help until she was reduced to this pitiful state. He squatted near the fire. “The pilot light has gone out. Do you have any matches?”

  She nodded.

  “Sit down before you fall down. I’ll get them.”

  “There’s some in the drawer under the sink.”

  He picked his way through Lilly’s debris. No surprise Holly would live in a rundown dump of a place like this because it was cheap, but unbelievable for her to let it get into such a state. She had always been so fastidious at his apartment.

  She sat slumped in an old armchair when he returned, so forlorn and exhausted, his heart bled. The skin stretched over her cheekbones, made her heart shaped face seem smaller, more delicate than he remembered.

  “When did you last eat a decent meal?” he asked, as he lit the match and fiddled around until the fire came on.

  “I don’t remember, yesterday I think.” Her voice sounded husky, worn down by despair.

  He came over to the chair, squatted down and picked up her hand. “What the hell’s been happening? How long have you been back in this dump?”

  “Since I left you.”

  “What!” The admission hit him with the force of a sledgehammer.

  “I lied about going to Mrs. Harris’ to salvage my pride. I knew you wanted to get rid of me.”

  “I never wanted to get rid of you. I let myself get caught up with work. I spent weeks in Turkey. When I got back, you’d gone. No explanation, just some crappy little note.”

  “You didn’t care enough to even ring me.”

  “I tried on several occasions. Things were difficult with the time differences, and the phone reception was virtually non existent in some places.” The excuse sounded even more pathetic when spoken out loud. He’d been too selfish and wrapped up in his work to bother making the effort, if truth be known.

  It was crunch time, now or never if he wanted her back. “Listen Holly, come back to me. I’ve missed you like hell. Things will be different between us this time. I swear it… I love you.”

  “Since when?”

  “I don’t know. Probably the first time I met you, if I really think about it, but I was too stupid to realize. We’ll get married. I’ll make a proper home for you and Lilly,” he promised.

  “Things have changed,” she whispered. She had to tell him about little Robert but couldn’t find the words. He loved her, but it was too late. At best he would think she had tried to trap him by deliberately getting pregnant at worst, he would be enraged because she had deprived him of the chance to see his child come into the world. Better for him to have said he hated her, she thought sadly, not offer her hope of a future together only to snatch it away once he found out what she had done.

  “I want you desperately, Holly, nothing has changed. I...”

  The sudden crying of a baby cut him off mid sentence. It didn’t sound like Lilly. “Bloody hell.” Realization dawned. It slammed into him with such force he almost doubled over with the shock. All the strange pieces of the jigsaw slotted into place.

  He was a father, and she hadn’t told him. They had created a child together. How could she do such a thing to him? “You stupid little fool.” He towered over as she struggled to get up. She had put their child and herself at risk. Not to mention Lilly.

  The terrible pain in her eyes killed his anger stone dead. He felt overwhelmed with remorse because he had treated her with so little respect, had let what happened to Brad taint his view of marriage.

  Please, Justin, I have to feed...

  “All right,” he interrupted her. “Don’t move. You look ready to keel over.” He strode off. The bedroom was cluttered with furniture, Lilly’s things and other baby paraphernalia. He saw all of this by the light streaming in from the lounge room.

  Where the hell was the baby? Frantically, he looked around. Lilly slept soundly in the bed. He leaned over and pulled the blankets closer around her shoulders and patted her soft warm cheek. He spotted the crib perched on a set of drawers. Why would Holly put a baby up there?

  So Lilly wouldn’t get it. He answered his own question. No wonder Holly looked so tired and drawn. She was too frightened to fall asleep. He felt sick to his stomach. His gut knotted up. Why the hell hadn’t she let him know? He picked up the baby and was shocked at its tiny size. He knew nothing about babies, but this was obviously new born. Surely she wouldn’t have given birth here, all alone? His legs buckled under him and he slumped on the bed. God Almighty, she could have died, the child could have died. As for Lilly? His mouth dried up, his chest tightened and he struggled to breathe. Gritting his teeth, he stood up.

  “Hey, it’s okay, you’ll do yourself damage screaming so hard.” He held the baby in the crook of one arm and rocked it gently as he tried to get himself under control.

  He staggered out into the lounge room, clutching the baby against his chest. “When and where did you give birth to this baby?” he raged, thrusting the screaming infant at her. The screams were cut off when the baby’s mouth found the comfort of Holly’s breast.

  “I had him in hospital,” she whispered.

  “Him? It’s a boy?” A son to inherit the empire he had built up over years of wheeling and dealing, working eighty hour weeks. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Yes, he’s four days old.”

  “What the hell are you doing here then?” he demanded, trying to get a grip on his emotions. One part of him wanted to scream and rant at her, the other part wanted to kiss all her pain and trauma away.

  “Public maternity hospitals send mothers home after a couple of days, and the hospital crèche wouldn’t keep Lilly for any longer.”

  “Why didn’t you contact me before? How could you put my son at risk? Put yourself and Lilly at risk?” he demanded.

  “I didn’t think you cared about me, that you’d think I got pregnant on purpose.”

  “What kind of man do you think I am?” A selfish, egotistical scumbag, no doubt. And he was. “All right, I deserve your contempt, but why contact me tonight then?”

  “Because I got even more desperate than before. I’ve been too scared to fall asleep in case I didn’t wake up. Then what would happen to Lilly and Robert?”

  “Robert!” He clenched his jaw to stop yelling out. How could you name my son after your dead husband? Easy, he thought bitterly. Hadn’t he ranted like a maniac when he thought she might be pregnant? His heart constricted with guilt and r
emorse. She was reduced to this pitiful state because of him.

  “I’m sorry, Holly. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did.” His apology sounded stilted and pathetic, but he didn’t know what else to say. He put a trembling finger out and caressed the baby’s soft, pink cheek. How smooth it felt. How warm and alive.

  “If you’d only told me,” his voice broke. “I would have helped.” He felt shattered because she hadn’t been able to trust him. Not that he blamed her.

  “It wasn’t so bad for a while when I had Harry to help me.”

  “Harry?” Justin’s hackles rose. “Who the hell is Harry?”

  “My knight in shining armor.” She gave a sad little smile.

  “Who the hell is he?” Justin demanded, trying to swallow down on the jealousy surging through him. I’ll rip him apart if I get hold of him.

  “My friend. He’s about seventy years old and owns the store where I buy my groceries. For the last few weeks, when I couldn’t get around much, I rang him up with my order, and he delivered it for me. But he’s got the flu, and Mildred, his wife, has been sick,” she gabbled. “He rang me up and said he had closed the shop because he didn’t want to leave her alone.”

  He watched Holly transfer the baby to her other breast and he suckled strongly, clenching and unclenching his little hand. His dark hair stuck out a little at the nape of his neck. He had obviously inherited the dreaded Devereux cowlick.

  “What do you think of little Robert Justin Kirwan?”

  His heart lifted with hope. If she had given the baby his name along with Robbie’s it must mean that she still cared. “He’s beautiful. Oh, God, Holly.” He gulped down on the lump forming in his throat. “I’ve been such a fool. Can you forgive me?”

  “I don’t know. I loved you, Justin, probably right from the very start, but I didn’t want to betray Robbie by falling for you so quickly. The guilt nearly ripped me apart, but I started to realize the way I loved Robbie was special, but different from how I felt about you.”