Bound by Their Scandalous Baby

by Heidi Rice

  ‘What?’ The horror etched on her face tore at that place deep inside he’d kept hidden, protected, buried for so long. Ever since his father had sat him down in his office and told him he wasn’t as important as Blackstone’s business reputation.

  ‘It wasn’t the money, he told me, it was the principle of the thing.’

  ‘That scumbag.’ Bronte’s fury seemed to pierce the numb feeling that had permeated his life for so long.

  But he resisted it. He didn’t want to feel. Didn’t want to open himself to that kind of hurt again.

  ‘The truth is I’ve spent my whole life trying to be the same cold, ruthless bastard he was. And I’ve succeeded.’

  Grasping his face, she dragged his gaze to hers. He stiffened, startled to see a tear roll down her cheek. Her face flushed with anger.

  ‘That’s nonsense, Lukas. You’re not cold or ruthless. And, just for the record, you were worth every single penny of that bloody ransom.’

  He clasped her hands, hopelessly torn by the urge to pull away from that fierce love and the desire to sink into it at the same time.

  ‘You have to understand, Bronte, I can’t love you,’ he said, the words coming out on a husky breath, because now she knew exactly how broken he was. ‘Because I’m simply not capable of that depth of emotion. Not any more.’

  * * *

  Oh, Lukas. You idiot.

  Tears welled in Bronte’s eyes but she blinked them back. She mustn’t fall apart now, or she’d never be able to say to him everything that needed to be said.

  ‘I don’t know what you think love is, Lukas. But it isn’t some grand romantic gesture; it’s all the little things you do to show people you care about them, that they matter to you.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re happy to love me, knowing I can never love you back?’ he said, sounding frustrated now and so confused. ‘Because that’s nuts.’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

  ‘Then what are you saying?’ he said, his voice rising with frustration. But she could hear the anguish beneath, and the insecurity. And it was all the opening she needed.

  ‘Can I tell you about something that happened to me, when I was a little girl?’

  He sent her a stiff nod.

  ‘When I was a baby my father walked out on me and Darcy and my mum. Like your father, he was selfish and shallow and he only ever thought about himself. I was so young when it happened I didn’t even remember him, but I’d built up a picture in my head of this ideal guy. Then one day my mum told us we were going to meet him. I was so excited. But when he opened the door that day he didn’t even make eye contact with Darcy and me. He told my mother he’d “moved on”, he told us to go away, and so we did. And that was the last time I saw him.’

  ‘That bastard.’

  She forced a breath past constricted lungs, the fury in Lukas’s expression all the courage she needed to continue. ‘I was devastated, but I buried that hurt and that unhappiness. I told myself not to care, not to love, not to want that kind of commitment from anyone, to protect myself from ever feeling that devastated, that rejected again.’

  How foolish not to realise much sooner that Lukas had been doing exactly the same thing with her and Nico.

  ‘But can’t you see,’ Lukas said, ‘I’m damaged the same way he was, the way my father was. You need to protect yourself from me. Loving me will only lead to more of...’

  ‘Shh.’ She touched his cheek to silence him. The scar tensed, but the devastation, the guilt in his eyes was like a benediction.

  ‘What I wanted to say, to explain, was that I’ve realised something very important in the last few weeks and months knowing you, seeing you with Nico and being with you.’ She blushed. ‘Both in bed and out of it. Something I didn’t realise fully until I said those vows on the beach today and I wanted so much for them to be real.’

  He sighed, shook his head. ‘They can’t ever be real. I...’

  ‘Lukas...’ She touched her fingertip to his lips. ‘I’m not finished.’ She smiled at his frown—the evidence that he was very rarely interrupted somehow endearing. ‘What I wanted to say was that for months after that day I relived that moment on my father’s doorstep hundreds of times in my head. I would imagine that he looked at me and Darcy and he told us he loved us and he always would. Eventually I had to kill that dream because it was only making me more unhappy, more insecure. But you know what I’ve realised since meeting you?’

  Lukas shook his head, his frown deepening.

  ‘I’ve realised that it wouldn’t have made a difference what he did or said that day. Because during all the years of my childhood, before that day and after that day, he’d never once shown me he loved me. He wasn’t there for birthdays and Christmases... He wasn’t there for my first day of school or my last. He wasn’t there for all the times when I was scared or lonely or needed comfort and reassurance. For all the times I needed to know I was cherished and important. He wasn’t there, because he’d chosen not to be. But ever since I met you, Lukas, you have been there. You’ve shown me, and Nico, in so many little ways, and some pretty enormous ones—bone marrow donations and twenty-eight-point-five-million-pound palaces most definitely included—that you do care, that we matter. And that’s what love is.’

  ‘The bone marrow was a trick of genetics,’ he said, still frowning. ‘And the house was just money.’

  ‘Well, thank goodness for that trick of genetics,’ she said, knowing it had been much more than that. ‘And it’s not the amount the house cost that’s important,’ she said. Even though in some ways it was, because he’d bought that place for two people he didn’t even know, whereas his own father had refused to pay twenty-eight-point-five times less than that to make his own son safe. ‘What’s important is why you bought it for us. You wanted us to be safe. To be secure. And that matters. Just like when you came round three days ago to show Nico how to play ball, or when you spent hours building a Lego house for an explorer you’d never heard of the first time you came to see him. You showed Nico he matters to you, even though you were scared of making that commitment. And every time you tried to seduce me into staying the night at your penthouse because you were worried I was too tired to go home, or rang me up in a panic because I had gone out without my bodyguards, you showed me that I mattered to you too.’

  ‘I only did what any person would do; you’re settling for too little, Bronte.’

  ‘Any person?’ she said, raising her eyebrows at him. ‘Like your father? Like mine?’

  ‘They were damaged people.’

  ‘And you’re not. That’s the point.’

  ‘Even if that were true,’ he said, ‘and that’s a very big if, it still doesn’t mean I can give you and Nico what you need. Emotionally speaking.’

  Yes, it did, she thought. But she didn’t have to convince him of that yet. He would discover it in time. All the goodness, the tenderness, the sensitivity inside him, the huge capacity for love he had denied existed for so long, would be self-evident to him too, eventually. All she had to do now was give them the chance to explore all those possibilities.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about giving us anything, Lukas.’ Although the fact he did worry totally proved her point. ‘All you need to worry about is whether you want this marriage to be more than a convenience. More than a contract between two business associates. More than a means of giving your child your name. And keeping all the very nice people here employed and this resort a success. Because if you do, I do too.’

  * * *

  ‘Yes, damn it.’ The words shuddered out of Lukas on an anguished breath.

  He grasped her waist, unable to hold himself back from touching her a moment longer. He pressed into her body, banded his hands around her slender waist as she lifted up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. He could taste the salt of her tears
and feel the urgency of his own arousal. He let his hand drop, to grasp her hips and pull her against the straining heat of his erection.

  ‘But what if this is all I can give you?’ he said, the words wrenched from him. ‘What if this is all I’ve got?’

  ‘It’s not,’ she said with a certainty that humbled him, her face full of love and acceptance. And complete and utter faith.

  It scared him to death.

  He should draw back, should stop touching her. He couldn’t have sex with her under these circumstances. But all those dark desires, all those driving needs—to be wanted, to be loved—broke over him and he found himself lifting her into his arms.

  Just this once, let them do this thing with no subterfuge, no lies between them.

  She wrapped her legs around his waist as he marched into the bedroom. He dropped her on the bed, then tore off his clothes, and watched her scramble out of hers. He fell on her like a starving man, licking and nipping at her breasts, fuller now because of her pregnancy. He touched the swollen seam of flesh, felt her jolt in response as he tested her readiness.

  ‘Take me, Lukas. I need you inside me now.’

  Grasping at soft flesh, he plunged deep. She widened her hips, taking him deeper still as he ploughed into the welcoming heat. He tried to hold back—he wanted to make this good for her, as good as it was for him. But then she tightened around him like a vice, massaging his length as she climaxed, and an agonised shout was ripped from him as he crashed into orgasm.

  He lifted off her with an effort, scared to crush her. Then held on to her, his heartbeat slowing, his limbs heavy with exhaustion as he listened to her breathing.

  He lifted the sheet and draped it over her, the image of her heavy with their child in the months ahead making his hands tremble. He’d kidded himself that this marriage was to protect his business, to protect her, to protect their baby. But it had never been about that. It had always been about stealing the one thing he was terrified he needed beyond everything else. Her.

  But now he was very much afraid he would never be able to let her go.

  Her hand covered his and he was forced to look into her eyes. Those deep emerald pools that had always captivated him.

  ‘I love you, Lukas. And I’m going to keep on loving you. And, for now, it doesn’t matter if you think you can love me or not. Because I know you can.’ Gripping his hand, she pressed it to her belly. ‘We both do.’

  His eyes felt gritty, the surface of them raw and painful with tears he hadn’t allowed himself to shed since he’d sat in his father’s office all those years ago.

  ‘But why does it matter if I love you?’ he murmured, knowing there was no if about it. ‘If I still end up hurting you?’ His gaze travelled down to her belly, where her hand covered his. ‘Both of you? And Nico?’

  * * *

  Bronte’s heart lifted and swelled at his gruff, agonised words. He looked lost and mildly terrified. And she knew precisely how he felt, because she had felt exactly the same way when she’d first become captivated by him—this dominant, frustrating, possessive, infuriatingly over-protective man. But she didn’t feel that way any more. They had a long way to go before he would fully believe what a wonderful father and husband he would be. It would take them both some time to fully trust in this love, which was still so new and fresh and raw. But hope and honesty were powerful things. So much more powerful in the end than the rejections they had both suffered.

  Lifting up, she straddled his hips, rejoicing in the dark intent in his gaze as those onyx eyes roamed over her and his hands clasped her waist.

  Leaning forward, she let her hair drift over his cheek. The tips of her breasts grazed that solid, unyielding chest and she murmured, ‘Is that your roundabout way of telling me you love me too?’

  ‘I’m so busted,’ he murmured.

  She covered his hard lips, her heart lifting as she captured the stunned chuckle that finally signalled his surrender to hopes, to dreams... And, best of all, to love.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘LUKAS, HOW’S FATHERHOOD? The new baby giving you and Bronte any sleep?’

  ‘Bronte, are you enjoying your first family vacation since the birth? What’s the Blackstone Island Resort like?’

  ‘Nico, Nico, give us a wave.’

  ‘The resort is wonderful,’ Bronte shouted above the melee of shouted questions while Nico tugged her hand to lean past her and wave at the reporters, who were being held back by a phalanx of Blackstone security guards in Velana International Airport.

  ‘Do not encourage them, you two,’ her husband demanded as he wrapped his arm around her, shielding her and Nico from the burst of camera flashes.

  ‘But I want them to know how great the resort is.’ Bronte grinned at his grumpy expression as he ushered them into the private gangway.

  ‘Publicising the resort is not your job,’ he announced, as he led her and Nico towards the exit gate for their private flight to the Blackstone atoll, with their baby son cradled securely against his shoulder. ‘That’s Garvey’s job and I intend to have words with him next time I see him,’ he said, his expression thunderous. ‘I very much doubt it’s a coincidence that the press knew exactly when and where we would be changing planes.’

  ‘Garvey’s just doing his job,’ Bronte said as they stepped aboard the private jet.

  The staff greeted them then left them in the luxury cabin to prepare the plane for the final phase of their journey to the resort.

  ‘Garvey is going to be looking for another job if he pulls any more stunts like this one. I’ve told him before—my family is off-limits,’ he said, while absently patting their baby son’s back to soothe the little boy, who had been woken up by all the commotion.

  The picture he made, so competent, so caring, so devoted, and so different from the man she had met over a year ago, made Bronte’s heart swell in her chest and her pulse batter her eardrums.

  Their lives had been a whirlwind in the last ten months as they adjusted to marriage, to becoming a family, to welcoming Markus into their lives. But their love for each other had never faltered. And now Lukas believed in it too.

  The honesty and the hope they had established on their wedding day, and the heat between them, had been a bedrock on which to build so much more. A foundation which had stayed strong while they met the many challenges of forming a new and exciting relationship, not just with each other but with Nico and little Markus too.

  Bronte stroked his cheek, the scar rough against her palm, and smiled when his expression softened, the way it always did whenever he looked at her, or Nico, or Markus.

  ‘Your transformation from playboy bachelor to devoted husband and father happens to be great press for the new brand. Deal with it.’ She laughed at his exasperated expression as she repeated Dex Garvey’s favourite phrase.

  ‘Don’t you start,’ he muttered, rolling his eyes, but amusement quirked his lips and no small amount of pride flushed his cheeks.

  ‘Daddy, Daddy, when are we going to get there?’ Nico had let go of her hand as soon as they’d boarded and now raced up to Lukas to tug on his trouser leg.

  Daddy.

  Bronte’s heartbeat stuttered, as it always did when she remembered the scene two months ago, after Nico had come back from his first day at pre-school in tears. Bronte had known something was terribly wrong, but the little boy had refused to talk about it until Lukas had returned from work.

  ‘Why can’t you be my daddy and Auntie Bronte be my mummy?’ he had asked Lukas, his face heart-wrenchingly distraught. ‘If baby Markus can have you as his mummy and daddy, why can’t I? I don’t want my mummy and daddy to be dead.’

  Lukas had looked at her over the little boy’s head as he’d lifted Nico into his arms to try and soothe him, the agony she felt reflected in his eyes.

  It wasn’t something they’d ever discussed properly, oth
er than to acknowledge that neither one of them wanted to usurp Alexei and Darcy’s rightful place in Nico’s life. But, as with so many things, Lukas had been the one to solve the problem. Simply and pragmatically, he’d negotiated with the little boy, man to man. He had sat Nico on his knee and explained to him that he was just as important to them as baby Markus and he always would be. But Nico had replied—being almost as tough a negotiator as Lukas—that his new friend Jake at school had told him being a nephew wasn’t the same as being a son.

  Lukas’s gaze had connected with hers again and she had nodded, giving him her permission to find a solution. And, once again, her faith in his ability to handle Nico with tenderness and sensitivity and understanding had been rewarded.

  He had told the little boy that while he would always have an extra mummy and daddy, who had loved him very much, of course Nico could call him and Bronte Mummy and Daddy too, if he wanted to, because that was exactly what they were to him.

  Ever since, Nico had been calling them Mummy and Daddy as often as was humanly possible. And after ten hours on a plane with not nearly enough sleeping going on, his excitement at having his daddy’s attention for two whole weeks had made his voice more than a little shrill.

  ‘Will you take me on the water slides when we get there, Daddy? Will you, Daddy? Will you?’

  ‘It’s going to be dark by the time we get there, Nikky,’ Lukas said, kneeling down to talk to the little boy eye to eye. ‘So that would be a no,’ he added, never afraid to use a firm hand with Nico—unlike her.

  Nico’s chin dropped comically to his chest. ‘But Daddy, I want to. I’ve been dreaming about it for hours and hours.’

  ‘To be dreaming about it, you would have had to be asleep,’ Lukas pointed out, tucking a finger under Nico’s chin and lifting his face to his. ‘And not a lot of sleeping has been going on, as I recall.’

  ‘But Daddy...’ Nico employed his wheedling voice.