Bound by Their Scandalous Baby

by Heidi Rice

  She’d seen the paparazzi amassing outside the house before she’d left. It had to be a slow news day. But she didn’t have the time or the emotional capacity to worry about them catching her coming into the Blackstone Park Lane.

  She was already twenty minutes late because she’d decided to take a quick shower and dress up properly to see Lukas. She always came over in her jeans and T-shirts, because he never gave her enough time to change before sending the car. But this time she wanted to feel feminine and confident, ready to tell him news that she hoped would change his life, as well as hers, for the better.

  She’d been expecting a call from Lukas during the ride over, demanding to know what was keeping her, but luckily it hadn’t come. Because she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to flirt with him again without blurting out the truth.

  They headed down the corridor towards the hotel’s opulent foyer, leaving the photographers behind them.

  ‘What was that about?’ she asked as they entered the penthouse elevator and James stabbed the button.

  ‘I don’t know, miss.’

  She watched the floors whisk past on the digital panel, trying not to stress about the press. Once she began to show, questions would be asked about who her baby’s father was—and hopefully she would be able to tell them, if everything went well tonight.

  The elevator glided to a stop at the executive offices on the thirtieth floor and James stepped out.

  ‘Aren’t you coming up?’ she asked. James always accompanied her to the penthouse, before disappearing discreetly.

  He shook his head. ‘Mr Blackstone told me to send you up alone.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ she murmured as the doors closed, leaving her alone in the elevator.

  The bubble of hope expanded like a balloon as the lift travelled up the final floor to Lukas’s penthouse.

  He was keen to see her. She pressed her hand to her abdomen, let her palm slide across the black silk of the short shift dress she had worn especially for him. The flutter of nerves and the tangle of anxiety were joined by the low hum of awareness and the bubble of hope that was now the size of a hot-air balloon.

  Please let him be happy. Or at least not mad at the news.

  The doors opened and her eyes tracked to the man she’d come to see standing on the opposite side of the room. He stood silhouetted against the night sky, his broad back stretching the seams of a tailored linen shirt as he stared out of the window. He looked as tall and indomitable as always but also strangely isolated and alone. The pang of compassion and empathy—and love—felt almost painful.

  Hadn’t they both been alone for too long? Protecting themselves from hurt. Surely this child could help bring them together instead of pulling them apart? Was it really too much to hope for?

  ‘Lukas?’ she said, hope thickening her voice.

  He turned and she noticed he had a drink in his hand.

  ‘You’re late,’ he said, the tone flat.

  ‘I wanted to have a shower and change into something a bit more seductive.’

  She stopped, feeling unsteady on the unaccustomed heels and stupidly shy as his gaze raked over her. Her pulse points jumped and jingled on cue.

  ‘Nice,’ he murmured, knocking back the liquor. He dropped the glass on a table. The loud crack made her jump.

  Before she had a chance to catch her breath, he reached her. Plunging his fingers into her hair, he tilted her face up to his.

  ‘You look good enough to eat, Bronte. As always,’ he said, but there was something in his voice that felt sharp and brittle.

  ‘Lukas, I need to speak to you,’ she said, breathing heavily, the weight of arousal in her stomach joined by the renewed shimmer of anxiety. She could taste the liquor on his breath and see the glitter of temper in his eyes.

  Was he angry with her for being twenty minutes late?

  ‘Let’s talk later,’ he said, pressing her back until she bumped against the wall of the apartment. ‘And screw first.’

  The crudity shocked her, but not as much as the tidal wave of longing that slammed into her as his hand rode up her thigh under the short dress. His thumb settled on her clitoris, rubbing the swollen spot through the dampening gusset of her panties.

  She jerked at the intimate touch, the devastatingly sure stroke.

  ‘Lukas?’ she said, desperately trying to grasp hold of what was wrong through the daze of passion. This didn’t feel right. Didn’t feel like the man she had teased and joked with earlier in the day. The man she had finally admitted to herself moments ago she was falling hopelessly in love with.

  His lips fastened on her neck, sending shivering sensation down to her core as he continued to caress and cajole the slick folds through the lace. The confusion and anxiety dissipated, driven into submission by desperate yearning. Her head fell back, giving him better access as her body arched into his caresses, begging for his touch.

  The sound of ripping fabric jolted her brain out of the erotic fog. But then he hooked one of her legs over his hip, spreading her wide and bringing her swollen clitoris into intimate contact with the thick ridge in his pants.

  ‘Wait, Lukas... I...’ she managed, making one last desperate effort to focus her thoughts on something other than the driving needs of her body. She needed to slow him down. To tell him about the pregnancy before they made love again.

  ‘You’re soaking wet for me, baby,’ he said, the casual endearment one he’d never used before. Why did it sound vaguely insulting?

  His face came up from her neck and his knuckles brushed against the hot flesh of her sex as he released his erection. ‘Do you really want me to wait? Tell me the truth?’

  The hunger in his voice was tempered by something else, something both terrifying and exulting. And guilt burned under the pulsing need. ‘No,’ she said.

  She hadn’t been honest with him. Perhaps now was the time to start.

  ‘I didn’t think so,’ he said.

  Grasping both her thighs, he hoisted her up and impaled her on his straining erection in one solid thrust. She sobbed, the brutal pleasure shocking in its intensity as she stretched to receive him.

  He moved, thrusting deep, forcing her to take all of him. She groaned, clinging on to his shoulders, the pleasure raw and rough and unstoppable.

  Capturing one straining nipple with his mouth, he suckled hard through lace and silk. Arrows of sensation joined the ruthless conflagration and combined with the wellspring of emotion she no longer had any control over, bombarding her, battering her. She cried out as she crashed over, her body disintegrating into a million tiny, insignificant pieces, her will no longer her own.

  * * *

  It felt like an eternity but could only have been a few moments before Lukas could force his fingers to release their grip on Bronte’s thighs.

  You weren’t going to touch her.

  Recriminations seared his brain as he lifted her off him. She flinched and an agonising feeling of regret flooded through him.

  Shut it down. Ignore it. She lied to you. She doesn’t give a damn about you.

  He waited for her to find her feet before letting go of her arm to zip his fly. Seeing the tattered remains of her panties, he bent to pick them up. And handed them to her.

  He shouldn’t have touched her, but now he had it only made him more determined to set the plan he’d been working on during the afternoon into motion. The physical chemistry between them hadn’t dimmed. Maybe he’d been sidetracked, tricked by his own libido into thinking for a few dumb moments that what they had could be more. That he wanted it to be more. But it didn’t need to be more.

  ‘Lukas?’ she asked, searching his face as she stuffed the ragged lace into her purse with trembling fingers. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘You could say that,’ he snapped, leading with anger. He had a right to be furious, dammit. ‘When were you p
lanning to tell me about the pregnancy?’

  A guilty flush rose to her hairline. But the flags of colour blazing on her cheeks and the shocked confusion shadowing her eyes only made her look more beautiful.

  ‘How do you know?’ she managed at last.

  ‘You were spotted leaving an abortion clinic this morning—by a photographer.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The shots hit the Internet about an hour ago.’ He wondered why she didn’t know about it already—Garvey had called twice, desperate to get him to issue some sort of official statement.

  ‘I see,’ she said, guilt lighting up her face now. ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner,’ she said.

  No kidding.

  ‘I should tell you now—I’m not going to have an abortion,’ she added, her voice clear and determined. The confirmation had a strange effect on the hollow ache in his stomach.

  He’d never wanted to be a father. Had always known it wasn’t something he was cut out for. And he’d already started to figure out ways to manage his involvement with this child. But, even so, the pregnancy didn’t terrify him the way he might have expected. No. That would be her, and the way she made him feel. And the fear that he might already be in too deep to pull out.

  ‘I know you’re not,’ he said. ‘Which is why we’re getting married. As soon as possible.’

  He’d put the wheels in motion this afternoon, and had been ready to present her with the deal as soon as she’d arrived. They’d gotten distracted, sure. But making her his wife instead of his mistress was necessary now. She’d chosen to have the child. But it was his child too, and he was never going to be left out of the decision-making again.

  He planned to support it and give it his name—and his protection.

  He didn’t let people get too close. But somehow she’d gotten close enough to him in the last six weeks to make him forget that if you did people hurt you, they betrayed you. So from now on their relationship was going to be on his terms, not hers.

  ‘What...?’ She looked stunned by the offer. He supposed he should be glad she hadn’t planned this pregnancy to trick him into marriage—just one of the reasons for her subterfuge that he’d considered in the last four hours. But he didn’t feel glad; he just felt numb.

  ‘You heard me,’ he said. ‘I’ll need you to sign a pre-nup. But I think you’ll be impressed with the generosity of the contract.’

  ‘The contract,’ she said, looking appalled as well as stunned. ‘That sounds more like a business arrangement than a marriage.’

  ‘Because that’s exactly what it will be.’

  ‘I can’t accept that,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to marry you under those circumstances.’ She covered her stomach with one hand, as if trying to shield him from the life inside her. The gesture had anger pulsing in his forehead.

  He might not be cut out to be a father, but did she think so little of him that she thought he would hurt their child?

  ‘It’s not a request,’ he said. ‘I’m not asking you to marry me, I’m telling you.’

  ‘I don’t get a choice?’ she murmured, looking distressed now.

  To hell with that. He wasn’t the one who had decided to keep this child a secret.

  ‘You had your choice when you decided to tell me you were taking contraception when you weren’t. When you decided not to tell me you were pregnant. And when you visited an abortion clinic and got photographed by the paparazzi.’

  Moisture filled her eyes, which she blinked away furiously. ‘But I’m not going to have a termination. Is that why you’re so angry?’

  He let his gaze roam down to her abdomen, confused again by the strange stirring in his chest at the thought of this child. Their child. Living inside her. Strictly speaking, he should be furious about that because he’d always been so careful never to get into this predicament. But the thought of the child, the reality of the child wasn’t the problem—it was the roller coaster of emotions that had been overwhelming him ever since he’d discovered its existence. Hell, before then—ever since he’d let himself fall into an affair he didn’t seem to have any control over.

  ‘We both got you pregnant,’ he said. ‘And what you decide to do with your own body is your choice,’ he said. ‘So no, that’s not why I’m angry.’

  The look of relief on her face only spiked more of those tumultuous emotions that he didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand. He just wanted them to go away.

  ‘Then what is it? If you think you have to marry me because of this, you don’t. I made a choice to have this baby and I would never force you to be involved.’

  ‘I’m already involved,’ he said. ‘No child of mine is going to grow up without the Blackstone name. Which means you’re going to have to have it too.’

  ‘You can give the baby your name without us being married.’

  ‘That’s not going to work for me,’ he said because she obviously didn’t get it. That this was about control. About the fact he couldn’t live without her yet. And he didn’t want her to live without him. Until he’d gotten this compulsion out of his system they would be stuck together. So they might as well be stuck together in matrimony. It would give him rights, not just over his child but over her.

  Pulling his phone out of his pocket as she continued to stare at him, the distress in her eyes palpable now, he keyed in Lisa’s number. ‘Lisa, you can send the legal team in now.’

  Bronte would get a generous monthly allowance for the rest of her life. And his child would be sent to the best schools, the best colleges. It would never want for anything.

  ‘You can’t force me to marry you, Lukas.’ She was shaking now, her voice trembling. He didn’t care. He wasn’t going to let himself care.

  ‘Yes, I can,’ he said, finally allowing a little of his fury with her—with the whole situation—to show. ‘I’m a very rich man, Bronte. You’re already living in a house I bought you. You kept my nephew’s existence from me for three years and you tried to do the same with my own child. How do you think a judge is going to view that when I sue for custody of both of them?’ It was a threat he’d made unintentionally before, but he was playing hard ball now. The means always justified the ends. He’d lost sight of that in the last six weeks—but it was something his father had taught him when he was seven. If you let your emotions get in the way of what you wanted to achieve, you’d never achieve anything.

  Her face blanched, the last of the colour leaching out of her cheeks.

  ‘I still think I’d win,’ she said, but her bottom lip was trembling. ‘I’m Nico’s legal guardian; you’ve only known him for a few months.’

  ‘Because you kept his existence from me,’ he countered.

  ‘At his mother’s request. It’s still...’

  ‘You really want to take me on, Bronte? To put Nico through a long protracted custody battle after what he’s already been through?’ It was a low blow. He didn’t want to hurt the boy, but he was through playing things her way.

  ‘Why are you even doing this? You can see both the baby and Nico as much as you want. I would never limit your custody. Why do you have to marry me?’

  Why? No way would he tell her the whole truth. Because it would make him feel weak and needy. And it would expose him in a way he’d never allowed himself to be exposed. Not since he was seven years old and he’d found himself locked in the dark with no way out. So he seized on the reasoning Garvey had spouted at him four hours ago, when this nightmare had begun.

  ‘The company has spent the last five years developing and investing in the Blackstone’s Deluxe Family Resort brand. Our first property opens in two weeks’ time. And you’ve just blown the whole press and PR strategy out of the water. Social media is already awash with speculation that the baby you were attempting to abort is mine. I’m the villain in that scenario, not you.’

  ‘But I wasn’t even considering a
termination. The clinic you’re talking about is a pregnancy advisory service too. I was never going to have a termination.’

  ‘So I get cast as a deadbeat dad instead? A guy who gets someone pregnant and then walks away,’ he said. ‘Our research shows that it’s women, mothers, who generally make the decision on family vacation destinations.’

  ‘You’re forcing me to marry you so you can sell vacations?’ she said, the agonised distress turning to incredulity.

  ‘What we’re talking about is a five-billion-dollar investment—which will be dead in the water, according to my PR guy, if we don’t get married.’ It wasn’t, strictly speaking, the truth. Garvey had simply said a marriage would be a great PR story to support the launch. And right at this very second, he didn’t give a damn about the money, the investment or even the branding that they’d been working on for five years. All he cared about was sealing up the black hole in the pit of his stomach and shoving all those emotions he hadn’t felt in years back in the box marked ‘don’t give a damn’.

  ‘The Maldives development is part of an eco-friendly project which supplies a sustainable living for over twenty thousand local people in one capacity or another. That project goes bust and all those people are out of a job. You really want to be responsible for that?’

  He could see he’d got to her when her eyes flickered away from his, the colour still riding high on her cheeks. Eventually she shook her head. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘We issue a press release tonight and then head for the new resort tomorrow to get married. We can stay there for a week’s honeymoon before it opens.’ Given what had just happened against the wall of his apartment, he figured they’d find ways to pass the time that didn’t involve him making any more emotional commitments he wasn’t comfortable with.

  ‘But I can’t just leave Nico for a week,’ she said, her voice breaking on the words.

  ‘Nico will be fine with Maureen. You can contact him by Skype every day. We can even fly Nico and Maureen out for the launch at the end of the honeymoon.’