Nine Months to Redeem Him

by Jennie Lucas

  “This is all I can give you,” he said. “Do you agree?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, my lips brushing against his. I hardly knew what I was saying. I could think of nothing other than the darkly powerful Edward St. Cyr. I was too lost in the moment, lost in pleasure that made the world a million colors of twisting light.

  I gave him my body, which he wanted, and my heart, which he didn’t. Had I just made the biggest mistake of my life? Maybe when he knows about our baby it will heal his wounded heart, so he can love us both…

  Edward lifted a dark eyebrow. “Be gentle with me,” he said mockingly. Closing his eyes, he propped his chin on his folded arms and waited for me to touch him.

  Touch him.

  I looked down at my hands, which felt suddenly tingly. I knew how to give a professional massage. Why were my hands shaking? I didn’t feel like a competent physical therapist. I felt like what he’d once called me—a frightened virgin.

  Edward St. Cyr, my boss who’d inspired me and irritated me in equal measure, who was way out of my league and didn’t see me as anything more than someone he could casually flirt with—and perhaps casually sleep with, and casually forget—was naked beneath my hands. And I feared if I showed a moment of weakness, he might roll over and devour me.

  If he felt my hands shaking… All he had to do was turn around on the table and pull me down hard against him in a savage kiss.

  Don’t think about it, I told myself fiercely. Flexing my fingers, I poured oil in one palm then rubbed my hands together to warm them. Slowly, I lowered them to his skin.

  As I ran my hands down the trapezius muscles of his upper back, I tried to calm the rapid beat of my heart. But as I stroked and rubbed Edward beneath my palms, I felt hot as summer. I closed my eyes, trying not to imagine what it would be like if he were my lover. How it would feel to sink into the pleasure I imagined he’d give me.

  Afterward my soul might be ash, but I’d finally know the exhilaration of the fire.

  JENNIE LUCAS had a tragic beginning for any would-be writer: a very happy childhood. Her parents owned a bookstore, and she grew up surrounded by books, dreaming about faraway lands. When she was ten, her father secretly paid her a dollar for every classic novel (Jane Eyre, War and Peace) that she read.

  At fifteen, she went to a Connecticut boarding school on scholarship. She took her first solo trip to Europe at sixteen, then put off college and traveled around the United States, supporting herself with jobs as diverse as gas station cashier and newspaper advertising assistant.

  At twenty-two, she met the man who would become her husband. For the first time in her life, she wanted to stay in one place, as long as she could be with him. After their marriage, she graduated from Kent State University with a degree in English, and started writing books a year later.

  Jennie was a finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart contest in 2003 and won the award in 2005. A fellow 2003 finalist, Australian author Trish Morey, read Jennie’s writing and told her that she should write for the Harlequin Presents® line. It seemed like too big a dream, but Jennie took a deep breath and went for it. A year later Jennie got the magical call from London that turned her into a published author.

  Since then, life has been hectic, juggling a writing career, a sexy husband and two young children, but Jennie loves her crazy, chaotic life. Now if she can only figure out how to pack up her family and live in all the places she’s writing about!

  For more about Jennie and her books, please visit her website at www.jennielucas.com.

  Other titles by Jennie Lucas available in ebook:

  UNCOVERING HER NINE MONTH SECRET

  THE SHEIKH’S LAST SEDUCTION

  THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT NIGHT (At His Service)

  A REPUTATION FOR REVENGE (Princes Untamed)

  JENNIE LUCAS

  Nine Months to Redeem Him

  To Krystyn Gardner, my friend since childhood, maid of honor at my wedding—the bold, fearless soul who moved halfway round the world and convinced me to meet her there. Thanks, you crazy girl, for blazing a trail, and for always being in my corner.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EXCERPT

  PROLOGUE

  THIS IS ALL I can give you, he said. No marriage. No children. All I can offer is—this. And he kissed me, featherlight, until I was holding my breath, trembling in his arms. Do you agree?

  Yes, I whispered, my lips brushing against his. I hardly knew what I was saying. Hardly thought about the promise I was making and what it might cost me. I was too lost in the moment, lost in pleasure that made the world a million colors of twisting light.

  Now, two months later, I’d just gotten news that changed everything.

  As I went up the sweeping stairs of his London mansion, my heart was in my throat. A baby. I gripped the oak handrail as my shaking steps echoed down the hall. A baby. A little boy with Edward’s eyes? An adorable little girl with his smile? Thinking of the sweet, precious baby soon to be nestled in my arms, a dazed smile lifted to my lips.

  Then I remembered my promise.

  My hands tightened. Would he think I’d somehow gotten pregnant on purpose? Tricking him into becoming a father against his will?

  No. He wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

  Could he?

  The upstairs hallway was cold and dark. Just like Edward’s heart. Because beneath his sensual charm, his soul was ice. I’d always known this, no matter how hard I’d tried not to know it.

  I’d given him my body, which he wanted, and my heart, which he hadn’t. Had I made the biggest mistake of my life?

  Maybe he could change. I took a deep breath. If I could only believe that, once he knew about the baby, he might change—that he might someday love us both...

  Reaching our bedroom, I slowly pushed open the door.

  “You’ve kept me waiting,” Edward’s voice was dangerous, coming from the shadows. “Come to bed, Diana.”

  Come to bed.

  Clenching my hands at my sides, I went forward into the dark.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Four Months Earlier

  I WAS DYING.

  After hours of being cooped up in the backseat of the chauffeured car, with the heat at full blast as the driver exceeded speed limits at every opportunity, the air felt oppressively hot. I rolled down the window to take a deep breath of fresh air and rain.

  “You’ll catch your death,” the driver said sourly from the front. Almost the first words he’d spoken since he’d collected me from Heathrow.

  “I need some fresh air,” I said apologetically.

  He snorted, then mumbled something under his breath. Pasting a smile on my face, I looked out the window. Jagged hills cast a dark shadow over the lonely road, surrounded by a bleak moor drenched in thick wet mist. Cornwall was beautiful, like a dream. I’d come to the far side of the world. Which was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it?

  In the twilight, the black silhouette of a distant crag looked like a ghostly castle, delineated against the red sun shimmering over the sea. I could almost hear the clang of swords from long-ago battles, hear the roar of bloodthirsty Saxons
and Celts.

  “Penryth Hall, miss.” The driver’s gruff voice was barely audible over the wind and rain. “Up ahead.”

  Penryth Hall? With an intake of breath, I looked back at the distant crag. It wasn’t my imagination or a trick of mist. A castle was really there, illuminated by scattered lights, reflecting in a ghostly blur upon the dark scarlet sea.

  As we drew closer, I squinted at the crenellated battlements. The place looked barely habitable, fit only for vampires or ghosts. For this, I’d left the sunshine and roses of California.

  Blinking hard, I leaned back against the leather seat and exhaled, trying to steady my trembling hands. The smell of rain masked the sweet, slightly putrid scent of rotting autumn leaves, decaying fish and the salt of the ocean.

  “For lord’s sake, miss, if you’ve had enough of the rain, up it goes.”

  The driver pressed a button, and my window closed, choking off fresh air as the SUV bumped over ridges in the road. With a lump in my throat, I looked down at the book still open in my lap. In the growing darkness, the words were smudges upon shadows. Regretfully, I marked my place, and closed the cover of Private Nursing: How to Care for a Patient in His Home Whilst Maintaining Professional Distance and Avoiding Immoral Advances from Your Employer before placing it carefully in my handbag.

  I’d already read it twice on the flight from Los Angeles. There hadn’t been much published lately about how to live on a reclusive tycoon’s estate and help him rehabilitate an injury as his live-in physical therapist. The closest I’d been able to find was a tattered book I’d bought secondhand that had been published in England in 1959—and when I looked closer I discovered it was actually a reprint from 1910. But I figured it was close enough. I was confident I could take the book’s advice. I could learn anything from a book.

  It was people I often found completely unfathomable.

  For the twentieth time, I wondered about my new employer. Was he elderly, feeble, infirm? And why had he sent for me from six thousand miles away? The L.A. employment agency had not been very forthcoming with details.

  “A wealthy British tycoon,” the recruiter had told me. “Injured in a car accident two months ago. He can walk but barely. He requested you.”

  “Why? Does he know me?” My voice trembled. “Or my stepsister?”

  Shrug. “The request came from a London agency. Apparently he found the physical therapists in England unsuitable.”

  I gave an incredulous laugh. “All of them?”

  “That’s all I’m allowed to share, other than salary details. That is sizeable. But you must sign a nondisclosure agreement. And agree to live at his estate indefinitely.”

  I never would have agreed to a job like this three weeks ago. A lot had changed since then. Everything I’d thought I could count on had fallen apart.

  The Range Rover picked up speed as we neared the castle on the edge of the ocean’s cliff. Passing beneath a wrought iron gate carved into the shape of sea serpents and clinging vines, we entered a courtyard. The vehicle stopped. Gray stone walls pressing in upon all sides, beneath the gray rain.

  For a moment, I sat still, clutching my handbag in my lap.

  “‘Consider a carpet,’” I whispered to myself, quoting Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley, the author of the book. “‘Be silent and deferential and endure, and expect to be trod upon.’”

  I could do that. Surely, I could do that. How hard could it be, to remain silent and deferential and endure?

  The SUV’s door opened. A large umbrella appeared, held by an elderly woman. “Miss Maywood?” She sniffed. “Took you long enough.”

  “Um...”

  “I’m Mrs. MacWhirter, the housekeeper,” she said, as two men got my suitcase. “This way, if you please.”

  “Thank you.” As I stepped out of the car, I looked up at the moss-laden castle. It was the first of November. This close up, Penryth Hall looked even more haunted. A good place to heal, I told myself firmly. But that was a lie. It was a place to hide.

  I shivered as drops of cold rain ran down my hair and jacket. Ahead of me, the housekeeper waved the umbrella with a scowl.

  “Miss Maywood?”

  “Sorry.” Stepping forward, I gave her an attempt at a smile. “Please call me Diana.”

  She looked disapprovingly at my smile. “The master’s been expecting you for ages.”

  “Master...” I snorted at the word, then saw her humorless expression and straightened with a cough. “Oh. Right. I’m terribly sorry. My plane was late...”

  She shook her head, as if to show what she thought of airlines’ lackluster schedules. “Mr. St. Cyr requested you be brought to his study immediately.”

  “Mr. St. Cyr? That is his name? The elderly gentleman?”

  Her eyes goggled at the word elderly. “Edward St. Cyr is his name, yes.” She looked at me, as if wondering what kind of idiot would agree to work for a man whose name she did not know. A question I was asking myself at the moment. “This way.”

  I followed, feeling wet and cold and tired and grumpy. Master, I thought, irritated. What was this, Wuthering Heights?— The original novel, I mean, not the (very loosely) adapted teleplay that my stepfather had turned into a cable television miniseries last year, with a pouty-lipped starlet as Cathy, and so much raunchy sex that Emily Brontë was probably still turning in her grave. But the show had been a big hit, which just went to show that maybe I was every bit as naïve as Howard claimed. “Wake up and smell the coffee, kitten,” he’d said kindly. “Sex is what people care about. Sex and money.”

  I’d disagreed vehemently, but I’d been wrong. Clearly. Because here I was, six thousand miles from home, alone in a strange castle.

  But even here, between the old suits of armor and tapestries, I saw a sleek modern laptop on a table. I’d purposefully left my phone and tablet in Beverly Hills, to escape it all. But it seemed even here, I couldn’t completely get away. A bead of sweat lifted to my forehead. I wouldn’t look to see what they were doing, I wouldn’t...

  “In here, miss.” Mrs. MacWhirter led me into a starkly masculine study, with dark wood furnishings and a fire in the fireplace. I braced myself to face an elderly, infirm, probably cranky old gentleman. But there was no one. Frowning, I turned back to the housekeeper.

  “Where is—”

  She was gone. I was alone in the flickering shadows of the study. I was turning to leave as well when I heard a low voice, spoken from the depths of the darkness.

  “Come forward.”

  Jumping, I looked around me more carefully. A large sheepdog was sitting on a Turkish rug in front of the fire. He was huge and furry, and panting noisily, his tongue hanging out. He tilted his head at me.

  I stared back in consternation.

  Was I having some kind of breakdown, as my friend Kristin had predicted? I had seen enough funny pet videos online to know that animals could be trained to talk.

  “Um.” Feeling foolish, I licked my lips. “Did you say something?”

  “Did I stutter?” The dog’s mouth didn’t move. So it wasn’t the dog talking. But now I wished it had been. Animal voices were preferable to ghostly ones. Shivering, I looked around me.

  “Do you require some kind of instruction, Miss Maywood?” The voice turned acid. “An engraved invitation, perhaps? Come forward, I said. I want to see you.”

  It was then I realized the deep voice didn’t come from beyond the grave, but from the depths of the high-backed leather chair in front of the fire. Oh. Cheeks hot, I walked toward it. The dog gave me a pitying glance, tempered by the faint wag of his tail. Giving the dog a weak smile, I turned to face my new employer.

  And froze.

  Edward St. Cyr was neither elderly nor infirm. No.

  The man who sat in the high-backed chair was handsome, powerful. His muscled body was
partially immobilized, but he somehow radiated strength, even danger. Like a fierce tiger—caged...

  “You are too kind,” the man said sardonically.

  “You are Edward St. Cyr?” I whispered, unable to look away. I swallowed. “My new employer?”

  “That,” he said coldly, “should be obvious.”

  His face was hard-edged, rugged, too much so for conventional masculine beauty. There was nothing pretty about him. His jawline was square, and his aquiline nose slightly off-kilter at top, as if it had once been broken. His shoulders were broad, barely contained by the oversized chair, his right arm hung in an elastic brace in a sling. His left leg was held out stiffly, extended from his body, the heel resting on a stool. He looked like a fighter, a bouncer, maybe even a thug.

  Until you looked at his eyes. An improbable blue against his olive-toned skin, they were the color of a midnight ocean swept with moonlight. Tortured eyes with unfathomable depths, blue as an ancient glacier newly risen above an arctic sea.

  Even more trapped than his body, I thought suddenly. His soul.

  Then his expression shuttered, turning sardonic and flat, reflecting only the glowing embers of the fire. Now his blue eyes seemed only ruthless and cynical. Had I imagined the emotion I’d seen? Then my lips parted.

  “Wait,” I breathed. “I know you. Don’t I?”

  “We met once, at your sister’s party last June.” His cruel, sensual lips curved. “I’m so pleased you remember.”

  “Madison is my stepsister,” I corrected automatically. I came closer to the chair, in the flickering light of the fire. “You were so rude...”

  His eyes met mine. “But was I wrong?”

  My cheeks burned. I’d been working as Madison’s new assistant, so had been obligated to attend her posh, catered party. There’d been a DJ and waiters, and a hundred industry types—actors, directors, wealthy would-be producers. Normally I would have wanted to run and hide. But this time, I’d been excited to bring my new boyfriend. I’d been so proud to introduce Jason to Madison. Then, later, I’d found myself watching the two of them, across the room.