She moved her mouth to just above his groin, in the sensitive region between his belly button and the base of his penis. Licking and stroking with the tip of her tongue, taking little nips as she got closer and closer to her prize, only to back away again, spinning out the anticipation until he was twitching with need.
‘You’re killing me,’ he said in a raw, breathless tone.
She glanced up at him through half-mast lashes. ‘I’m not finished with you yet.’
He made a vain attempt to reach for a condom but she batted away his hand and went down to take him fully into her mouth, drawing deeply, sucking and pulling until he let out a long deep groan and then tensed. She lifted her mouth and took over with her hands so she could watch him come. There was something so wickedly exciting about witnessing the spurting flow of his essence, the way it spilled in a creamy fountain over her hand.
‘I’ve always wanted to do that,’ she said, handing him a tissue.
He dealt with the practicalities before meeting her gaze with a twinkle in his own. ‘You’re right. Your carpets are top standard.’
Isabelle leaned forward to press a kiss to his sternum. ‘Are you hungry yet?’
‘Did you cook for me?’
She sat back. ‘No. I don’t have a kitchen.’
‘So you only eat hotel food?’
‘Not always.’ She got off him and reached for her bra and panties. ‘I go out occasionally.’
He rolled onto his side to watch her dress. ‘Don’t you get tired of the same menu week after week?’
Isabelle zipped up her dress. ‘I make sure the menu is changed regularly.’
He got off the floor and stepped into his trousers, his gaze still trained on her as he zipped them up. ‘Can you cook?’
She gave him a quelling look. ‘What is this? An interview for a wife? If you want someone to cook for you, then go sleep with a chef. I have better things to do with my time.’
He shrugged on his shirt, still watching her as he did up the buttons. ‘Why are you being so defensive?’
‘I’m not being defensive. I just think it’s a little archaic of you to assume just because I’m a woman that I want to spend my time slaving over a hot oven.’
‘You used to love cooking,’ he said. ‘You told me when we were dating.’
‘Yes, well, that was then, this is now.’
‘What changed?’
I changed. Isabelle turned for the dining area where she had set out their meal. ‘I have a career that’s incredibly important to me. I’m sure you don’t spend your spare time whipping up gourmet meals for your lovers.’
He let out a long, frustrated-sounding sigh. ‘Why do we always end up arguing?’
She turned to look at him, her shoulders going down at the rueful look on his face. ‘I’m not sure...maybe because we both want to prove something.’
‘You don’t have to prove anything to me.’
Don’t I?
Isabelle made herself busy setting the microwave to reheat the food. After a moment she felt him come up behind her. His hands went to her waist, his mouth to the side of her neck. She forgot about the food as she turned in his arms, looking into his blue eyes and seeing the raw need she felt reflected there. ‘I don’t want to argue with you,’ she said. ‘It’s just I can’t bear to lose what I’ve worked so hard for.’
‘We can have what we both want,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see that?’
What did she want?
She was hardly sure of it herself. It was a tangled mix inside her head. She wanted her hotel to remain under her control but he had major share and there was only a slim chance of her winning it back. She wanted him but she didn’t want the threat of heartbreak. She wanted intimacy but she didn’t want to lose herself in a relationship that might not last beyond a week or two. She yearned for a family to call her own but how could she have it without opening herself up to loss like she had experienced before?
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘You.’
‘For how long?’
His hands tightened on her waist. ‘I’ve never considered anything long term. It’s never crossed my radar before but what we have...the feeling I have with you is unlike anything I’ve had with anyone else. We’re good together, Isabelle. Better than good.’
How much of his want of her was tied up in his want of her hotel? The chance to prove himself to his family was his primary motive. She would be foolish and naive to forget that. Her own motivations were just as confusing. She wanted to maintain her family’s hold on The Harrington. She had put everything on the line to do that: her life, her happiness, all of her innermost desires, had been sacrificed on the altar of the success of the hotel. ‘I can only give you this,’ she said. ‘A fling is all I want.’
His hands loosened on her waist and then fell away. ‘Fine.’
Isabelle let out a breath. ‘You’re angry.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You’re frowning.’
He relaxed his expression. ‘I’m not.’
She handed him the salad bowl. ‘Why don’t you take this through? I’ll bring in the chicken once it’s heated.’
* * *
Spencer carried the bowl with the Greek salad out to the table in the dining area where Isabelle had set up a candlelit setting. It had all the hallmarks of romance and yet he couldn’t help feeling it was a sham. She had made her intentions clear. They were ironically the same as his intentions had been ten years ago. She wanted a no-strings fling.
But he felt differently now.
He couldn’t put his finger on when or why he had changed. Perhaps it was being with her, seeing her again, touching her again and making love with her. It awakened the feelings he had been trying to ignore. Feelings that niggled at him, reminding him the life he had been living was shallow, pointless, as pointless and shallow as the affairs he had with women he couldn’t remember once they left his bed.
How had his life come to that?
Isabelle staying to watch over him last night while he’d been ill had moved him deeply. No one had ever been that close to him before. It had given him a vision of what a relationship—a proper, committed relationship—could be like. One where both parties watched out for each other, allowing each other to grow and reach their potential rather than holding back and limiting or obstructing each other as his parents had done. He wanted more for his life than that. How had it taken him this long to realise it? Wasn’t that why he had told her about his biological origins? He had sensed she wouldn’t judge him for it. That it would help her connect with him better, to understand what drove him so relentlessly.
He put the salad on the table and wandered over to the bookcase where all the books Isabelle had read were lined up neatly like soldiers in a row. Except for one. It was out of alignment as if it had been shoved in quickly. He went to straighten it but something made him take it off the shelf. It was an anthology of English poetry. He leafed through the pages, recognising so many poems he had studied as a schoolboy: Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth and Donne—all of the names as familiar to him as old friends.
But then something between the pages fluttered to the floor. He bent down to pick it up just as he heard Isabelle come in. Her heard her indrawn breath before he registered what he was looking at. His heart gave a painful kick against his breastbone. His stomach hollowed. His mouth went completely dry.
It was an ultrasound image of a tiny foetus.
He swung his gaze to Isabelle’s, his heart giving another sickening lurch when he saw the shocked expression on her face. ‘What’s this?’ he said.
She took the photo from him and held it close to her chest. ‘I was going to tell you...’
His heart kicked again. ‘Tell me what?’
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip as her gaze fell away from his. ‘I...I was pregnant.’
Every organ in his body shifted from its foundations as if rocked by an earthquake. He couldn’t get his brain to compute the words she’d just said. Pregnant? She’d been pregnant? Who was the father? Where was the baby?
He looked at the image again. Swallowed tightly. Painfully.
Isabelle had carried another man’s child.
The thought was so foreign, so shocking, to him he couldn’t get his mind to accept it.
‘When?’ His voice came out like a hollow croak.
He saw her throat rise and fall. Saw her teeth pull at her lip and the colour wash into her cheeks. ‘Ten years ago.’
Spencer’s stomach dropped like an elevator. ‘What?’
Her bottom lip quivered. ‘I lost the baby just before the four-month mark.’
He opened and closed his mouth. He couldn’t locate his voice. His heart was pounding as if he’d run a marathon without training. He swallowed to clear the blockage in his throat. ‘You were pregnant...with my child? Why didn’t you...?’
‘I didn’t find out until I got back home.’
‘For God’s sake, why didn’t you tell me then?’
She looked away, still clutching the photo to her chest. ‘I was in denial at first. I couldn’t believe the test results. It was like a bad dream. I didn’t want to be pregnant. Not to you.’
‘Thanks.’
She flicked him a glance. ‘Not to anyone. I felt too young. I was still missing my own mother. How could I be ready to be a mother myself?’
He couldn’t get his mind around the fact he’d got her pregnant. He had planted a child inside her womb. They had made a baby together. It wasn’t just a bunch of his cells and hers but a baby. Their baby. ‘But we used protection.’
‘It must’ve failed.’
Flick knives of guilt slashed through him. Had he been careless? There were times when he’d taken a while to withdraw. What if a condom had leaked or broken? And then there was the way he’d allowed things to end with her. He had dismissed her as if she’d meant nothing to him. She had been carrying his child, his own flesh and blood. He of all people knew how important it was to claim and take responsibility for one’s child. He had been robbed of the chance but it was his own fault. ‘I don’t know what to say...I don’t know how to make this right.’
‘You can’t.’
He came over to where she was standing clutching the photo. ‘Can I see it?’
She handed the photo to him. ‘Her. She was not an it.’
He felt something claw-like grab him deep inside his chest. He had fathered a little daughter. A daughter he would never get to meet. She had existed for such a short time. He looked at the image of his little girl. She was tiny, more like a peanut than a baby, but even so he could make out the beginnings of her human form. He had never allowed himself to imagine becoming a father, not since he found out about his origins. The loss of something he hadn’t even known he wanted hit him like a blow to the solar plexus.
He’d fathered a little girl.
Emotion thickened his throat until he couldn’t swallow or speak. His eyes burned and blurred and he blinked to clear them. ‘Did you name her?’ he finally managed to ask.
‘I called her Olive.’
‘Olive.’ He tested the name on his tongue. ‘That’s nice.’ He looked at the image again. ‘Can I have a copy?’
Isabelle took the photo from him. ‘I’ll get one made tomorrow.’
Spencer looked at her. ‘Who else knows about her?’
She chewed at her lip again. ‘Only Sophie.’
He frowned. ‘You told no one else? Not even your father and sisters?’
She shook her head.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked.
‘I told you why.’
‘Damn it, Isabelle, I had a right to know. You should’ve contacted me immediately.’
Her eyes flashed at him. ‘So you could do what? Talk me into having an abortion?’
Spencer’s throat was raw as he swallowed. ‘You think I would’ve pressured you to do that? Do you really?’
She flung herself away from him, tucking the photo back inside her book and putting it back in amongst the others. ‘I didn’t know what to think.’ Her hand fell away from the bookshelf as she turned to look at him again. ‘I thought you’d betrayed me with that bet. I thought the very last thing you’d want from me after that was a request for child support.’
A toxic turmoil of emotions was churning his gut, a mix of guilt and shame and regret. ‘I still think you should’ve told me. Either way I could’ve helped you.’
She gave him a cutting look through glittering eyes. ‘Come on, Spencer. Be honest with yourself. You would’ve freaked out if I’d told you I was pregnant. You would never have stood by me.’
‘How do you know?’ He had to force himself to keep his voice down. ‘How can you possibly know how I would’ve reacted when you didn’t give me a chance to react?’
She stood in front of the bookcase with her back turned resolutely towards him, her arms wrapped tightly around her slim body. Everything about her posture locked him out. It made another wave of righteous anger ricochet through him. How could she freeze him out over something so life changing? How could she have kept this secret from him for so long?
But then he realised her shoulders were shaking. His chest seized. Emotions he hadn’t realised he was capable of feeling clogged his throat. He had done this. He had all but ruined her life. His selfish pursuit of her had left her devastated and terrifyingly alone. She hadn’t told anyone but her closest friend about the pregnancy. What right did he have to be angry? He had no idea of what she must have gone through.
He went over to her and gently turned her to face him. Twin tracks of tears were streaming from her eyes and her bottom lip was quivering in spite of the clamp of her teeth. He had never seen her cry. She was always so stoic, so strong and feisty and fighting from her corner with two fists up and ready. He caught a glimpse of the young terrified girl she had been and another fist of guilt grabbed at his guts. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, gently blotting the tears away with the pad of his thumb. ‘I know that’s never going to be enough but I’m truly sorry.’
She swallowed and blinked a couple of times. ‘I was so frightened...I didn’t know what to do...’
He held her to his chest where his heart was still contracting with painful spasms. ‘I don’t know what to say. I feel like I’ve ruined your life.’
She pulled back to look up at him through reddened eyes. The pain in her gaze made his insides clench again. ‘I felt so confused about it at first. I was in denial for weeks. I did test after test hoping each one would be negative. But then I got used to the idea...I started to plan. I thought about how it would be to have a baby, someone to need me, someone I could love more than life itself. Like the way my mum had loved my sisters and me. I wanted to have a chance to do that...to be the sort of mum who would give everything up for her children.’
Spencer cradled her head in his hands, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. ‘I can’t bear to think of what you went through.’
Her chin wobbled again. ‘I felt so alone when I...when I lost her. Walking out of that hospital the day after was like leaving half of myself behind. I walked past families coming in to visit other women who’d given birth. Dads with little kids in tow, grandparents and uncles and aunties carrying flowers and teddy bears and beautifully wrapped gifts. It was like everyone was deliberately torturing me for failing at being a mother.’
He pulled her back against his chest, holding her as his own eyes burned. ‘You didn’t fail, darling girl. You were a perfect mother to her. You loved her and wanted her and did all you could to protect her.’
He gently stroked her hair, his emotions in a twisted knot that seemed to be trapped halfway down his throat like a handful of chopped razor blades. ‘This isn’t about me. It’s about you. What you went through. I can’t rewind the clock. I can’t undo what’s happened no matter how much I want to.’
She eased out of his hold with a fragile-looking smile. ‘I’m sorry about dinner but I don’t feel hungry anymore. I’m exhausted. I think I might go to bed.’
He couldn’t hear an invitation to join her, which either meant she was withdrawing from him or needed time alone. Or both. But then, didn’t he feel exactly the same? He tucked another strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Do you want to be alone?’
She didn’t meet his gaze but addressed his shirt buttons. ‘Would you mind?’
Disappointment sliced through him but he decided against trying to change her mind. His world had tipped on its axis, like hers had done ten years ago. He needed time to process it. To understand how he was going to manage things from here. He brushed his thumb over her lower lip. ‘Let’s have breakfast tomorrow. I’ll bring it.’
She gave another ghost of a smile but it didn’t get anywhere close to involving her eyes. ‘That’d be nice.’
* * *
Isabelle closed the door and leant back against it after she’d seen him out. For a moment there she thought he was going to insist on staying. She could see the moment of indecision in his gaze as it held hers. She even thought he was going to kiss her. But he must have remembered the forfeit. If he broke the rules he would pay.
A nut of anger reformed in her belly. Of course he wouldn’t break the rules. He still wanted to win this, no matter what emotional hits she threw at him. What could be more of an emotional knockout than knowing you’d fathered a child ten years ago?
Yes, but you pushed him away, a tiny voice reminded her.
Isabelle dismissed it. Of course she’d pushed him away. But if he cared wouldn’t he have pushed back? Insisted on staying to comfort her even if it meant he lost his stupid shares?
Chatsfield's Ultimate Acquisition (The Chatsfield: New York Book 1) Page 14