The Secret Baby Bargain

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  She heard him mutter an expletive under his breath.

  ‘I think you look fabulous.’ His dark gaze swept over her, stalling a little too long for her comfort on the up-thrust of her breasts. ‘You were a girl before, barely out of your teens. Now you’re a woman. A sexy gorgeous-looking woman.’

  Who has given birth to your son, Ashleigh wanted to add, but knew she couldn’t.

  Would she ever be able to?

  ‘Thank you,’ she mumbled grudgingly and looked away.

  Jake gave an inward sigh.

  He’d almost forgotten how sensitive she was. Her feelings had always seemed to him to be lying on the surface of her skin, not buried deep inside and out of reach as his mostly were.

  But the Ashleigh he’d known in the past was certainly no gym junkie. Her idea of exercise had never been more than a leisurely walk, stopping every chance she could to smell any flowers that were hanging over the fence. It had driven him nuts at times. He needed the challenge of hard muscle-biting endurance exercise to keep his mind off the pain of things he didn’t want to think about.

  He still needed it.

  ‘I’m prepared to negotiate on the hours you work,’ he inserted into the silence.

  Her head came up and he saw the relief in her blue eyes as they met his. ‘Is…is ten to four all right?’ she asked.

  He pretended to think about it for a moment.

  She shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny and he wondered why she felt so ill at ease in his company. He’d expected a bit of residual anger, maybe even a good portion of bitterness, but not this outright nervousness. She was like a rabbit cornered in a yard full of ready-to-race greyhounds, her eyes skittering away from his, her small hands fluttering from time to time as if she didn’t quite know what to do with them.

  ‘Ten to four will be fine,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to pick you up each day?’

  ‘No!’

  One of his brows went upwards at her vehement response.

  Ashleigh lowered her eyes and looked down at the twisting knot of her hands. ‘I—I mean that won’t be necessary. Besides—’ she gave him a little speaking glance ‘—Howard wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘And what Howard wouldn’t like good little Ashleigh wouldn’t dream of doing, right?’ he asked without bothering to disguise the full measure of scorn in his tone.

  She clamped her lips shut, refusing to dignify his question with an answer.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Ashleigh,’ he said roughly. ‘Can’t you see he’s all wrong for you?’

  ‘Wrong?’ She glared at him in sudden anger. ‘How can you say that? It was you who was so wrong for me!’

  ‘I wasn’t wrong for you; I just—’

  ‘You were wrong for me!’ She threw the words at him heatedly. ‘You ruined my life! You crushed my confidence and berated everything I held as important. I was your stupid plaything, something to pass the time with.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ His voice was stripped of all emotion.

  Ashleigh shut her eyes for a moment to hold back the threatening tears. She drew in a ragged breath and, opening her eyes again, sent him a glittering look. ‘God damn you, Jake. How can you stand there and say Howard is all wrong for me when at least I can be myself with him? I could never be myself with you. You would never allow it.’

  Jake found it hard to hold her accusing glare, his gut clenching at the vitriol in her words. As much as he hated admitting it, she was very probably right. He wasn’t proud of how he had treated her in the past. He’d been insensitive and too overly protective of his own interests to take the time to truly consider hers.

  The truth was she had threatened him from the word go.

  He had always avoided the virginal, looking for hearth-home-and-cute hound-thrown-in types. He’d shied away from any form of commitment in relationships; the very fact that he’d let his guard down enough to allow her to move in with him demonstrated how much she had burrowed beneath his skin.

  Her innocence had shocked him.

  He had taken her roughly, their combined passion so strong and out of control he hadn’t given a single thought to the possibility that it might have been her first time.

  He’d hurt her and yet she hadn’t cried. Instead she’d hugged him close and promised it would be better next time.

  And it had been.

  In fact, making love with Ashleigh had been an experience he was never likely to forget. She had given so freely of herself, the passion he’d awakened in her continually taking him by surprise. No one he’d been with since—and there had been many—had ever touched him quite the way she had touched him. Ashleigh had reached in with those small soft hands of hers to deep inside him where no one had ever been before. Sometimes, if he allowed himself, he could still feel where her gentle stroking fingertips had brushed along the torn edges of his soul.

  ‘Ashleigh…’ His voice sounded unfamiliar even to his own ears. He cleared his throat and continued. ‘Can we just forget about the past and only deal with the here and now?’

  Ashleigh brushed at her eyes with an angry gesture of her hand, hoping he wouldn’t see how undone she really was. How could she possibly pretend the past hadn’t happened when she had Lachlan to show for it?

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked. ‘What can you possibly hope to achieve by insisting I do this assessment for you? You say you don’t want the money all this stuff is worth…’ She drew in a scalding breath as her eyes scanned the goods in front of her before turning back to meet his steady gaze, her voice coming out a little unevenly. ‘What exactly do you want?’

  ‘This house is full of ghosts,’ he said. ‘I want you to help me get rid of them.’

  She moistened her bone-dry lips. ‘Why me?’

  ‘I have my reasons,’ he answered, his eyes telling her none of them.

  Her gaze wavered on his for a long moment. This was all wrong. She couldn’t help Jake deal with whatever issues he carried from his past. How could she when she had the most devastating secret of all, that at some point he would have to hear?

  But he needs you, another voice inside her head insisted.

  How could she turn away from the one man she had loved with all of her being? Surely she owed him this short period of time so he could achieve the closure he had spoken of earlier.

  It was a risk she had to take. Spending any amount of time with Jake was courting trouble but as long as she stood her ground she would be fine.

  She had to be fine.

  ‘I think we need some ground rules then,’ she said, attempting to be firm but falling well short of the mark.

  ‘Rules?’

  ‘Rules, Jake.’ She sent him a reproachful look. ‘Those moral parameters that all decent people live by.’

  ‘All right, run them by me,’ he said, the edge of his mouth lifted in a derisory smile.

  She forced her shoulders back and met his gaze determinedly. ‘There’s to be no touching, for a start.’

  ‘Fine by me.’ He thrust his hands in his jeans pockets as if to remove the temptation right there and then.

  Ashleigh had to drag her eyes away from the stretch of denim over his hands. ‘And that includes kissing, of course,’ she added somewhat primly.

  He moistened his lips with his tongue as if removing the taste of her from his mouth. ‘Of course.’

  She straightened her spine, fighting to remain cool under that dark gaze as it ran over her. ‘And none of those looks.’

  ‘Which looks?’ he asked, looking.

  She set her mouth. ‘That look.’

  ‘This look?’ He pointed to his face, his expression all innocence.

  She crossed her arms. ‘You know exactly what I mean, Jake Marriott. You keep undressing me with your eyes.’

  ‘I do?’

  He did innocence far too well, she thought, but she could see the hunger reflected in his gaze and no way was she going to fuel it.

  ‘You know you do and it has to stop. Now.’<
br />
  He sent her one of his megawatt lazy smiles. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I say so.’

  He shifted his tongue inside his cheek for a moment. ‘Are you done with your little rules?’

  She gave him a schoolmarm look from down the delicate length of her nose. ‘Yes. I think that just about covers it.’

  ‘You want to hear my rules now?’ he asked after a tiny heart-tripping pause.

  Ashleigh gave a covert swallow and met his eyes with as much equanimity as she could muster. ‘All right. If you must.’

  ‘Good.’

  Another little silence coiled around them.

  Ashleigh didn’t know where to look. For some strange reason, she wanted to do exactly what she’d just forbidden him to do.

  She wanted to feast her eyes on his form.

  She wanted to run her gaze over all the hot spots of his body, the hot spots she had set alight with her hands and mouth in the past.

  She could almost hear the sound of his grunting pleasure in the silence throbbing between them, could almost feel the weight of him on her smaller frame as he pinned her beneath him.

  She could almost feel the pulse of his spilling body between her legs, the essence of himself he had released at the moment of ecstasy, the full force of his desire tugging at her flesh both inside and out.

  She forced herself to meet his coal-black gaze, her stomach instantly unravelling as she felt the heat coming off him towards her in searing scorching waves.

  ‘I promise not to touch, kiss or even look if you promise to refrain from doing the same,’ he stated.

  I can do that, she thought. I can be strong.

  I have to be strong.

  ‘Not a problem,’ she answered evenly. ‘I have no interest in complicating things by revisiting our past relationship.’

  ‘Fine. We’ll start Monday at ten.’ He took his hands out of his pockets and reached for a set of keys in the drawer of the desk and held them out to her like a lure.

  ‘These are the keys to the house in case you get here before me,’ he said.

  She slowly reached out her opened palm and he dropped them into it.

  ‘See? No touching.’ He grinned down at her disarmingly.

  She put the keys in her bag and straightened the strap on her shoulder to avoid his wry look. ‘So far,’ she muttered and turned towards the door.

  ‘Ashleigh?’

  She took an unsteady breath and turned back to face him. ‘Yes?’

  He held out the blood-red rose he’d picked for her earlier, the soft petals deprived of water for so long, already starting to wilt in thirst.

  ‘You forgot this,’ he said.

  She found herself taking the four steps back to him to get her faded bloom, her fingers so meticulously avoiding his that she encountered a sharp thorn on the stem of the rose instead.

  ‘Ouch!’ She looked at the bright blood on her fingertip and began rummaging in her bag for a tissue, but before she could locate one Jake’s hand came over hers and brought it slowly but inexorably up to his mouth.

  She sucked in a tight little breath as he supped at the tiny pool of blood on her fingertip, her legs weakening as his eyes meshed with hers.

  ‘Y-you promised…no t-touching…’ she reminded him breathlessly but, for some inexplicable reason, didn’t pull her finger out of his mouth.

  She felt the slight rasp of his salving tongue, felt too the full thrust of her desire as it burst between her legs in hot liquid longing.

  ‘I know.’ He released her hand and stepped back from her. ‘But you’ll forgive me this once, won’t you?’

  She didn’t answer.

  Instead she turned on her heel and flew out the door and out of the house as if all the ghosts contained within were after her blood.

  And not just one tiny little pin drop of it…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LACHLAN flew out of the crèche playroom to greet her. ‘Mummy! Guess what I did today?’

  Ashleigh pressed a soft kiss to the top of his dark head and held him close for longer than normal, breathing in his small child smell. ‘What did you do, my precious?’

  He tugged on her hand and pulled her towards the painting room. ‘I drewed a picture,’ he announced proudly.

  Ashleigh smiled and for once didn’t correct his infant grammar. He would be four in a couple of months—plenty of time ahead to teach him. For now she wanted to treasure each and every moment of his toddlerhood.

  It would all too soon be over.

  ‘See?’ He pressed a paint-splattered rectangle of paper into her hands.

  She looked down at the stick-like figures he’d painted. ‘Who’s this?’ she asked, bending down so she was on a level with him.

  His chocolate-brown eyes met hers. ‘That’s Granny and Grandad.’

  ‘And this one?’ She pointed to another figure, who appeared to be doing some sort of dance.

  ‘That’s Auntie Mia,’ he said.

  I should have guessed that, Ashleigh thought wryly. Mia was the Forrester fitness fanatic and was never still for a moment.

  ‘And this one?’ She knew who it was without asking. The dog-like drawing beside the blonde-haired human figure was a dead give-away but she wanted to extend his pleasure in showing off his work.

  ‘That’s Auntie Ellie.’ He pointed to the yellow hair he’d painted. ‘And that’s one of the dogs she’s wescued.’

  Ashleigh’s eyes centred on the last remaining figure who was standing behind all the others.

  ‘Who is that?’ she asked, not sure she really wanted to know.

  ‘That’s you,’ he said, a touch of sadness creeping into his tone.

  She swallowed the lump in the back of her throat and stared down at the picture. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ He met her eyes with a look so like his father’s she felt like crying.

  ‘Why am I way back there?’ She pointed to the background of his painting.

  His eyes shifted away from hers, his small shoulders slumping as a small sigh escaped from his lips. ‘I miss you, Mummy.’

  ‘Oh, baby.’ She clutched him to her chest, burying her head into the baby-shampoo softness of his hair, her eyes squeezing shut to hold the tears back. ‘Mummy has to work, you know that, darling.’ She eased him away from her and looked down into his up-tilted face. ‘Aren’t you happy at crèche and at the times you have with Granny and Grandad?’

  His little chin wobbled for a moment before he got it under control. ‘Yes…’

  Ashleigh’s stomach folded as she saw the insecurity played out on his features. Hadn’t she seen that same look on Jake’s face in the past, even though, like Lachlan, he had done his level best to hide it?

  ‘I have to work, poppet,’ she said. ‘I have to provide for us. I can’t expect Granny and Grandad to help us for ever.’

  ‘But what about my daddy?’ Lachlan asked. ‘Doesn’t he want to provide for me too?’

  I will kill you, Mia, so help me God, she said under her breath. This was surely her sister’s doing, for Lachlan had never mentioned anything about his father in the past.

  ‘He doesn’t know about you,’ she said, deciding the truth was safer in the long run.

  ‘Why not?’

  She couldn’t meet his eyes.

  Was this how it was going to be for the rest of her life, guilt keeping her from looking at eyes that were the mirror image of his father’s?

  ‘I couldn’t tell him…’ she said at last.

  ‘Why not, Mummy?’

  She closed her eyes and counted to five before opening them again. ‘Because he never wanted to be a daddy.’

  ‘But I want a daddy,’ he said, his big dark eyes tugging at Ashleigh’s heartstrings. ‘Do you think if I met him and asked him he would change his mind?’

  She looked down at the tiny up-tilted face and smiled in spite of her pain. ‘I just know he would. But you can’t meet him, sweetie.’

  ‘Why?’

  She hug
ged him close, not sure how to answer.

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Mmm?’ She bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from falling apart.

  ‘I still love my daddy even if he doesn’t want to see me,’ he said solemnly.

  Ashleigh felt as if someone had just stomped on her heart.

  Howard couldn’t contain his delight at her decision to take on the assessment.

  ‘You mean he wants to give us the whole lot?’ he asked incredulously. ‘For nothing?’

  She nodded, her expression unmistakably grim. ‘That’s the deal.’

  ‘But on market value the whole load is probably worth…’ He did a quick mental calculation from the notes Ashleigh had already prepared. ‘Close to a couple of million, at the very least!’

  ‘I know…’ Her stomach tightened another notch. ‘But he doesn’t want any of it.’

  ‘He’s mad,’ Howard said. ‘Totally out of his mind, stark staring mad.’

  Ashleigh didn’t answer. She didn’t think Jake was mad, just being incredibly tactical.

  Howard frowned for a moment. ‘Does he…’ he cleared his throat as if even harbouring the thought offended him ‘…does he want something in exchange, apart from you working in the house to document everything?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ashleigh hoped her cheeks weren’t as hot on the outside as they felt to her on the inside.

  ‘Some men can be quite…er…ruthless at times, Ashleigh, in getting what they want,’ he said. ‘No one but no one gives away a fortune of goods without wanting something in return.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to sleep with me, if that’s what’s worrying you,’ she said, wondering why it had hurt to say it out loud.

  ‘He told you that?’ Howard’s red brows rose.

  She nodded.

  He let out a sigh of relief. ‘You are doing me the biggest favour imaginable, Ashleigh.’ He took her hands and squeezed them in his. ‘This will secure our future. We can get married in grand style and never have to worry about making ends meet again. Think of it!’ His face glowed with delight at this stroke of good fortune. ‘My mother is thrilled. She wants you to come to dinner this evening to celebrate with us.’