Tycoon's Valentine Vendetta

by Yvonne Lindsay

  How would she tell him? Lily played over several conversational starts in her mind but nothing felt right. She lay her hand over her belly. Another baby. And therein lay her answer. She had to tell him about Nathaniel. Only then could she give him this news as a salve to the child they’d lost.

  She swivelled away from the view outside and forced her mind to concentrate on the reports she’d been given to go over by her father’s financial team.

  Two hours later she lifted her head. Today was proving to be one out of the bag of big shocks. Finding out about her pregnancy had been hard enough to believe, but not even that had affected her as deeply as the news that now spread out in front of her. Ripples of shock ran through her body as she tried to make sense of the reports.

  Charles Fontaine had been operating in a downward spiral for some years and now stood poised on the precipice of total ruin.

  Against the recommendations of his financial advisers he’d continue to expand and had borrowed heavily, determined that the next bid would secure a contract that would trade FonCom out of their problems. But the contracts had consistently gone to other companies and the debt had begun to mount up.

  Even his home on the peninsula was mortgaged to the hilt, as was the company building—the mortgages held by a private finance company. In itself that raised a red flag to Lily’s inexperienced mind. When a bank refused to lend any further funds, it was time to reassess, scale down, not to go looking for high-interest/high-risk loans from private lenders.

  The management team had started to search the Companies Office record files in an attempt to secure the information Lily needed to make a personal plea to the mortgage holding company for a stay of execution. They felt that only a personal approach from her could possibly make any kind of difference at this point in time. It was that or shut the doors forever.

  With careful optimism they’d projected that with cutbacks it was possible for FonCom to trade out of its difficulties—cutbacks and a whole heap of good luck. But without further extension on the overdue payments, they’d all be down the road. Correspondence to the mortgage holding company had elicited only a terse response making it clear that the directors would not consider any further delays before foreclosure. Now it was up to her.

  Just how much had she contributed to her father’s current financial mess? Lily wondered. For all the years he’d poured money into her accounts as she flitted from country to country and party to party in between contracts—spending up her earnings on clothing and airfares and using the generous allowance from her father to cover living costs—she owed it to him to make it right. To find some way to fight out of this disaster.

  A knock at the door had Lily spinning around in the chair before rising to her feet. A sudden swell of nausea sent a fine sheen of perspiration beading on her upper lip and forehead.

  “Miss Fontaine, are you all right?” her father’s secretary, Jenna, asked as she came in.

  “I’ll be fine. Just stood up a little too quickly, that’s all.” But the nausea didn’t abate, instead it rose in her throat, sending her in a mad dash for her father’s private bathroom.

  Once she was spent, Lily dashed cool water on her wrists and rinsed her mouth out thoroughly. Back in her father’s office she sat in his chair as Jenna came bustling back in with a pot of tea. The scent of peppermint hung in the air.

  “Here you are, you poor love. Try this. It’s good for settling a squiffy tummy.” She poured a cup of weak herbal tea in the bone-china teacup and handed it on its saucer to Lily.

  Lily took a refreshing sip and leaned back in the seat. As the warm liquid slid down her throat she began to feel the soothing effects immediately.

  “Thanks, Jenna. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “You’re running yourself ragged, my girl. Between spending hours with your dad and the time you’ve been locked in meetings here, no wonder you’re not feeling well. Now make sure you finish that cuppa and call me if there’s anything else I can do for you. Here’s that Companies Office search you were needing.” Jenna passed the folder to Lily with a sharp look. “You’re staying with Jack Dolan at the moment, aren’t you?”

  Lily felt a flush of colour rise in her cheeks.

  “I don’t believe that’s any of your business, Jenna,” she answered firmly. The woman might have worked for her father for years but she had no right to pry into Lily’s personal business. Jenna was no fool. It wouldn’t take her five seconds to put two and two together and come up with the right answer.

  Clearly unruffled by Lily’s comment, Jenna tapped on the cover of the folder. “Don’t worry, Miss Fontaine. I won’t be telling anyone, but remember, not much remains secret around here, young lady. Besides, you might want to reassess your accommodations when you read that.”

  Lily recognised the underlying warning in Jenna’s words. It wouldn’t be long before the whole town knew about the baby. After all, hadn’t her father found out about her last pregnancy before she’d even had the chance to tell Jack? She leaned forward to open the file, sorting through the various papers that listed company names and details. It appeared the company that had loaned her father funds had been controlled by a cobweb of other companies, but with the information available via the Companies Office Web site it had been possible to track back through the complex array of ownership to one man.

  Jack Dolan.

  If Lily hadn’t already emptied the contents of her stomach, she had no doubt she’d be doing it right now. Her skin felt as if it had suddenly grown too tight for her body and the hot rise of anger and betrayal boiled inside.

  Suddenly she understood what Jack had been about. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair, the tone of his voice when he’d told her about Bradley Dolan’s death ringing in her ears—the waves of resentment and frustration that poured off him even now. It all made sense. Jack had never been the kind of person to let things lie. He’d exacted his own revenge in the best way he knew how—by attacking her father at his heart, FonCom.

  And now her.

  She couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that the rekindling of their love affair was a part of his scheme. Jack Dolan was not the kind of man who did things by halves. No, he’d have premeditated every last caress and she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with him all over again. And worse, fall pregnant to him again. She’d clearly played straight into his hands. No doubt Jack was laughing himself silly behind her back at the thought of how her father must feel, knowing she was with him.

  She thought about the damage to FonCom. Hadn’t he thought about the jobs that would be lost? The people whose lives would be affected much as his family’s had been when his own father had lost his job? The sheer calculated coldness of Jack’s actions sent a chill through her body.

  Lily gathered up the papers in the folder and jammed them back into some semblance of order. She would face Jack with what he’d done. Only he had the power to undo it. She could only hope that he would be prepared to listen.

  The house on the beach was silent as Lily let herself inside. She looked around the building that had so quickly come to feel like home and knew a pang of loss. Her relationship with Jack would never be the same after this. The burgeoning love she had for him now would never reach its rightful conclusion for as long as his hatred of her father fell between them.

  Lily put the folder with the damning information from the Companies Office on the coffee table in the sitting room and pushed open the bifold doors to step out on the massive deck. She walked over to the railing and leaned against it. As she looked out over the sea she wondered if she’d ever find tranquillity in its view again after today, or if it would forever be imprinted with the taint of bitter betrayal.

  How long she stood there she didn’t know, but she knew the instant Jack arrived home. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled in early warning with the awareness that was intrinsic where he was concerned. She waited for his steady step on the wooden planks behind her before facin
g him.

  “What’s wrong? Is your father okay?” he asked, lifting a finger to stroke her cheek as he bent to kiss her.

  Lily turned her head away, avoiding his caress.

  “You have to ask me what’s wrong? I’d have thought you knew exactly.” She flung the words at him.

  “You’re talking in riddles. Something’s obviously upset you. If it’s not your father, what is it?”

  She stalked inside the house, grabbed the folder of incriminating proof and thrust it at him when he followed her.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it.” Lily crossed her arms across her aching chest. She could still barely believe the truth of it, the reality that he’d set her father up all along. Her fragile new world was crumbling around her.

  Jack flicked open the folder and riffled through the pages, his lips settling into a grim straight line as he found the sheet with his name encircled in red pen. He lifted his head, his eyes meeting hers without any sign of regret in their depths.

  “And the problem?” he asked coolly.

  “So you don’t deny it?”

  “No.”

  He dropped the folder on the table and sat on the wide leather sofa, stretching his legs out before him and cupping his hands behind his head in a nonchalant pose that left Lily in no doubt he had no regrets about his activity.

  She perched on the edge of the facing sofa.

  “How long have you been undermining my father’s business?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “Yes, to me, it does, and I’m sure it does to all the people you’re putting out of a job because of what happened to your father.”

  “They’ll be compensated.”

  “Compensated? How? There’s absolutely nothing left for FonCom to compensate them with! They’ll have no jobs, no security. How could you do that to them?”

  “Them, Lily? Or your father? Or even you?” Jack suddenly snapped out of his comfortable lounging position and stood upright, tall and intimidating as he loomed over her. “Your concern for FonCom’s staff does you credit, but it won’t change anything. On my father’s grave, Fontaine Compuware is going down.”

  The harsh purpose in his words seeped into her veins like poison.

  “What happened to you, Jack?” Lily whispered. “Why this? Why now?”

  “What happened? I told you what happened. Your father destroyed mine. I vowed I’d destroy him in return. As to timing, it’ll be ten years next week since Dad died. Ten years since your father killed him. Fitting, don’t you think?”

  “Fitting? How can you even begin to think that? Since when has it been fitting to manipulate other people’s lives like this? Okay, I can understand you’re angry at my father, he was wrong in what he did. But this doesn’t solve anything. It hurts people like your dad, people like your family.”

  “You’re wrong. It does solve things. It settles the score for good. Your father won’t be able to hurt anyone ever again.”

  “He already can’t. He’s never going to get better. If he finds this out, it will probably kill him.”

  “And you think that bothers me?”

  “It should, of course it should.”

  “No, Lily. Your father made sure my family suffered. He could have said anything when the police and the insurance company investigators questioned him about my dad’s state of mind that day, anything but what he did. He led them to believe dad was suicidal when he was nothing more than a man stricken with fear that he could no longer support his family. Charles Fontaine stole my father’s dreams and his ideas, and he made his millions on them. He deserves everything that’s coming to him.”

  Lily slowly rose to her feet.

  “You were never so bitter, Jack. I don’t know you anymore. I can’t believe you’ve let yourself become this person.” Tears pricked at her eyes but she resolutely refused to give them freedom and blinked them back furiously. “You’ve lost your humanity.”

  Jack’s cynical laugh was short. “Every last ounce of humanity I had left was buried with my father. I’m not going to apologise for what I’ve done, Lily. I swore on Dad’s grave that Charles Fontaine would pay, and he has.”

  “Please, I beg you to reconsider. This anger, it’s only going to eat you up, Jack. You have to give FonCom a chance to trade out of this. Give the staff a chance to keep their pride, their living.”

  “Eat me up? No, I don’t think so. This is finally going to free me.”

  “So there’s no way I can persuade you to give FonCom another chance?”

  “As delectable as you are, no.”

  “Is that all I’ve been to you, Jack? A bit on the side while you bring my father down?”

  “No. That’s not all. I wanted to bring you down, too.”

  Lily froze. He what? She sank back on the seat on legs that were suddenly too weak to support her.

  “Why?” she whispered. “What did I do to you?”

  “You can sit there and ask me that? Your family has been the instrument of everything that brought pain to mine.” Jack’s voice rose in anger. “You took my child and you gave it away. You didn’t even do me the courtesy of telling me we were going to be parents. I had to discover that when I started my investigations into your father’s business affairs. How do you think it made me feel to find out you’d cast off my son or daughter without so much as a chance to bring the child up myself?”

  “Stop it!” Lily cried. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I can’t listen to this.”

  She staggered to her feet and dashed upstairs to the master bedroom and began dragging her clothes from the drawers and the wardrobe, jamming them haphazardly into the bag in which she’d brought them over. He knew about Nathaniel! He’d known all along. Suddenly the rekindling of their love affair took on a whole new and more sinister slant. Had it been his intention all along to get her pregnant again? She heard his footsteps at the door and looked up.

  “Running away again?” His voice was cold, emotionless.

  “No, I’m just giving myself some distance. I need thinking space and I can’t do that with you. Not the way you are now—filled with anger and resentment. You have to let it go, Jack. It’s poisoned you. I thought I knew you, thought I’d fallen in love with you again. But the man I love isn’t the man here now. You’re nothing but a stranger.” She hefted the bag up by the shoulder strap and took a step toward the door. “Just tell me one thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Did you deliberately try to get me pregnant again, or was it just an accident?”

  It took mere seconds for the truth to sink in and she watched as realisation swept through his mind.

  “You’re pregnant?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “Have you told your father you’re expecting my bastard? I bet he’ll be thrilled with the news. I’m only sorry I won’t be there to see the expression on his face.”

  “Don’t you dare refer to this baby in those terms again. It’s not a pawn in your filthy plans,” Lily protested. Her hand flew to her stomach in an age-old gesture of protection. She was horrified that Jack could speak so harshly, it was a side of him she’d never known he was capable of.

  “Like our last child wasn’t a pawn in yours? You used that baby to get out of town, to make your father agree to you getting out from under his roof. I can’t believe you just gave our baby up. Don’t think I’ll let you do that again.” His face contorted, as if in pain.

  “What makes you think I gave our baby up?” Lily fought to keep her voice level.

  “I have the papers you signed, agreeing to a closed private adoption. Don’t bother lying to me, Lily. You’re just as ruthless as I am.”

  “Your information was out of date. He was never adopted out. Our son died.”

  Jack’s heart hammered in his chest as her words sunk in. Dead? Their baby—their son—was dead?

  “You’re lying,” he finally managed to say, pushing the words through lips that almost refused
to form. “I saw the papers.”

  “My father forced me to sign those papers a few days after I rang you, when I begged you to come and get me. I believed him when he told me he’d offered you money to stay away from me, and that you’d accepted it.”

  “You believed him? You didn’t even give me a chance to refute his lies!” Jack’s fury boiled over.

  “When had money ever not been important to you? All you ever spoke about was getting enough money to get out of Onemata to better yourself. Of course I believed him. He told me that without your support I’d be on my own and that our child would suffer for that if I didn’t agree to the adoption. I had no choice—I had no way to support a baby on my own. I knew he would wash his hands of me, like I thought you had done. I had to give our baby a chance at a normal home—a normal family.

  “You have no idea what I went through. I loved that baby with every beat of my heart. Every day of my pregnancy was a torment, knowing I’d agreed to give him away. Things progressed well, I was a textbook case for a perfect delivery of a normal healthy child, but there were complications during the delivery. There was a knot in Nathaniel’s umbilical cord, it wasn’t detected until it was too late. My labour was long, he was distressed, eventually the contractions cut off his oxygen. He was stillborn.”

  Her words, delivered in such a matter-of-fact manner, couldn’t disguise the grief on her face. Pain such as he’d never known before pierced his chest. Even losing his father hadn’t hurt this bad. All this time he’d imagined there was a child out there still, his child. He wanted to believe that was still the case and not what she had just told him, but the truth of her words was irrefutable. Speech failed him.

  “I hope you’re happy. You got what you wanted.” Lily hefted her bag higher on her shoulder. “I’d like you to remember something though, before you close down FonCom completely.”

  “What?” He could barely speak, but forced the monosyllabic question from his mouth.

  “If you think you’re going to have anything to do with this baby, you can think again. There’s no way on this earth that I’ll let you within a hundred metres of us if you keep on with this cruel vendetta. And while you’re thinking about it, remember this—your son or daughter will be born without a roof over its head because you destroyed its world before it was even born.”