Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins

by Faye Dyer, Lois, Logan, Nikki

  ‘It needs to happen now,’ the doctor snapped. ‘Every minute we waste is potentially destroying them. We’re right on the edge of the viable time as it is because of how long it took Bel to get to the hospital.’

  His thumping heart dragged his head back to hers. Every resentment he’d ever had for the Rochesters and their influence on his brother bubbled up and spilled out at the vulnerable woman perched nervously on the edge of the table. ‘Needed a pedicure first, princess?’

  Her lips pressed into a tight, pained line and her hands twisted and untwisted in the hospital gown. But she didn’t bite. Instead, her eyes implored him—Please!—and he got the feeling she was not a woman accustomed to begging.

  And in that moment the balance of power shifted.

  To him.

  Belinda Rochester was every bit as desperate as he was. And desperate people did desperate things. A savage plan began to take shape.

  ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law.’

  She shook her head. ‘What?’

  ‘There’s not a court in the world that will grant me custody of those children after they’ve been gestating in your body.’ He looked at the lawyers. ‘Right?’

  They both looked as if they wished they’d called in sick today. But they nodded. ‘Almost certainly,’ the only brave one amongst them said.

  ‘Mr Bradley, please …’ The Italian flattened both hands towards the ticking clock.

  Flynn kept his eyes locked on Belinda’s. ‘If I let this happen, what’s to stop you disappearing with them?’

  She threw her hands up. ‘The law?’

  ‘The law hasn’t done me any favours so far.’

  ‘It gave you an injunction.’

  ‘Which I had to fight for.’

  She glanced at the doctor, who was looking plenty pensive, and hissed out a breath. ‘I’ll give you my word.’

  His laugh was more of a bark. ‘A Rochester’s word? Worth less.’

  ‘Then what do you want? We don’t have time for this.’

  ‘You come with me.’

  More fiery strands fell free of her hairclip as she shook her head. ‘What? Where?’

  ‘Back to Australia. With me.’

  ‘Are you insane? My life’s here.’

  And mine’s on that tray over there. He was so close to saying it. He had so much to make up to his brother. His parents. He thought he’d lost the chance for ever. ‘You want these kids or not? Either you come with me or their use-by date will expire while you watch.’

  ‘Oh, my God. This is the worst kind of blackmail.’

  ‘Whatever it takes, honey. The only way I’m going to know you haven’t skipped the country with our shared property is if I keep you with me at all times. Until the case is decided. Until they’re born.’

  ‘Then what?’ She threw her hands in the air. Presumably to make damned sure he knew she wasn’t actually considering it.

  ‘Then we abide by the court’s decision. On equal ground.’

  ‘It won’t be equal. You said yourself the courts are going to favour me—’

  His eyes shot to the lawyers, specifically the one who’d been brave enough to open his mouth and commit to something earlier. ‘What will level out the playing field under UK law?’

  The two of them conferred quietly, but then the sister’s quiet voice drew his attention.

  ‘Playing field? This is not a game. Were talking about lives here.’

  He held her serious gaze and murmured, ‘Tell me about it,’ before facing the two suited men once again. ‘Well?’

  The taller one laughed but it was tight and high. ‘Short of marrying her, not a lot.’

  Even the nurses gasped and his eyes flicked back around in time to see Belinda Rochester’s coral lips fall open. He stared her down, his mind racing through what precious few options he had. Then he shrugged. His life was going roundly down the gurgler anyway …

  ‘It’s just a formality—’ he started, but she barely took a breath before squeaking her refusal.

  ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘No, I’m desperate. And so are you. Do you want this implantation or not?’

  ‘You know I do. These babies mean everything to me.’ She blazed fire and ice and brimstone and Flynn got a momentary glimpse of the protective mother she was going to be. And it wasn’t unattractive.

  ‘Then no price is too great, right?’

  Not a single person in the room breathed. The clock on the wall ticked unnaturally loud.

  ‘Bel …’ The Italian finally broke the silence and looked meaningfully at the snap-frozen straws that must have held the embryos. They almost glowed with nearly wasted life.

  She swung bleak eyes back to him, nostrils flaring. ‘This is temporary. And a marriage on paper only. I’ll break any part of you that so much as touches me.’

  It was insane to laugh at a moment like this, but the idea of those birdlike bones doing anything more than bouncing ineffectively off a son of the outback was ludicrous.

  ‘Absolutely.’ Whatever it took. Belinda Rochester would incubate his brother’s babies and, when the time came, he’d smile as he took them out of her arms and nudged her back onto a plane for Old Blighty.

  She stared at him, round-eyed and loathing, and then swung those long legs back up onto the table and lay down, eyes fixed on the fluorescent lighting above, without so much as a word of acquiescence.

  The hospital legal team looked at him for direction.

  He took a deep, painful breath and spoke.

  ‘Do it. Put them in.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  New South Wales tablelands, Australia

  ‘WELCOME to Oberon.’

  Bel tucked her arms around her light shirt as she stepped out of Flynn’s purring ute. After their three-hour drive from Sydney—into the mountains and out the other side—warmth shimmered off its bonnet. Infinitely warmer than the air around her. And the silent man beside her.

  She leaned against the toasty car and grumbled, ‘I thought Australia was supposed to be hot?’

  He took a deep breath, either annoyed that the first real words out of her mouth in twenty-four hours was a complaint, or relieved she’d finally broken the stony silence they’d both endured much of the way from Heathrow. Not that they hadn’t spoken at all. Some speech was a practical necessity. He’d had to tell her his name—Flynn, ridiculously Australian—and she’d had to ask him several times to unfold himself out of his aisle seat so she could use the bathroom. Her own fault for choosing to sit by the window, but staring out at the vast, inky blackness was infinitely preferable to making polite small talk with a man who was practically kidnapping her.

  She’d almost chickened out, waiting at the departure lounge. She had a passport, a fully cleared credit card, packed suitcases, full womb, and all the reason in the world to want to run.

  But she’d made a few promises to Gwen in the tiny hours of the morning she’d been due at the hospital for the transfer, and honouring the one about giving those babies the best life she could—a better life than she’d had—meant something to her. Enough to see her striding, stiff-backed, down the gangway and onto the flight to hell.

  ‘This is the high country,’ Flynn said. ‘The tablelands of the Blue Mountains. We’re eleven hundred metres above the heat. I hope you brought some warmer clothes.’

  She let her eyes drift around them.

  ‘Not what you imagined …?’

  She frowned, surprised by the miracle of conversation with Mr Strong-Silent-Type. ‘Its name sounded a lot more … magical.’

  Oberon. She’d had visions of Shakespeare and forests filled with Faeries. But while this little mountain town might not have horned folk and showering petals, it certainly wasn’t without charm. Very Australian—particularly since it was the only part of Australia outside of Sydney’s airport that she’d actually seen in anything other than a passing blur—and rather pretty. ‘You live in town?’

  ‘Nope. About ten kilometres
back towards Jenolan. A place called Bunyip’s Reach.’

  ‘Why have we stopped here?’

  ‘I figured you might like a break. And we could use the time to get our stories straight.’

  She looked at him. ‘We’ve had nothing but time for the past twenty-four hours.’

  ‘You didn’t seem—’ He searched for the right word.

  Approachable? No, probably not. She’d had the airline music pounding in her ears and her eyes glued to her e-reader pretty much the whole way. As though she was seated next to a total stranger. Actually, she might have tried to strike up a conversation with a total stranger …

  ‘—ready to talk,’ he finished.

  Talk? With the man who hadn’t managed more than fifty words to her since forcing her hand in the hospital? Bel took a deep breath of cold mountain air. The cleanest air she’d ever tasted. Then she tucked her arms more tightly around herself. ‘What do you mean, get our stories straight?’

  He glanced behind him. ‘Let’s get a hot drink. You’re freezing. You seriously are going to have to dress warmer up here.’

  The too familiar slice of his judgement stung. Was this how it would go? Him alternating between hostility and blatant condescension?

  ‘I’ve been dressing myself successfully since I was four, Flynn. I’m sure I’ll manage.’ Now that she knew how unexpectedly like home the highlands were.

  They walked a couple of blocks to a coffee house in awkward silence.

  He spoke to several people on the way into the café, lots of nodding and curious glances and exchanges of ‘mate’. He was popular with the locals; that didn’t bode particularly well for the quality of everyone else in the town, if an arrogant jerk was on the favoured-sons list.

  It was only when they were seated with a herbal tea for Bel and a coffee for Flynn that he started speaking to her again, his eyes hard and determined. ‘So, I wanted to set some ground rules.’

  She lifted her eyebrows. ‘Really?’ You and what army?

  ‘There are things that my family doesn’t need to know just yet. But obviously they’ll have questions …’

  ‘You’re coming home with a bride-to-be, pregnant with their other son’s baby. I should think so.’

  His lips tightened and his eyes flicked evasively out to the beautiful bush view.

  ‘They do know about the embryos?’ she asked. Because he surely would have told her something this important before now if they didn’t. Surely.

  His lips didn’t loosen. Her mouth dropped open. ‘They don’t know?’

  ‘No one knows. I’m the only one who’s seen the letter.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Her squeal drew curious eyes from the other patrons. ‘How are you planning on explaining—’ she waved her hands between them ‘—this, then?’

  ‘We’ll tell them I’m the father.’

  She needed a second to gather her wits, which were scattered like straws around her. ‘Really? And—what?—you met me on the outward flight to London, we got busy in the inflight loos and then you popped a ring on my finger? Fast work, Bradley.’

  ‘No.’ He expelled a frustrated breath slowly. ‘They won’t buy that for a minute. They know me.’

  Finally! The voice of reason …

  ‘I’m thinking we met in Melbourne last year,’ he fabricated, ‘where you were finishing your gap year …’

  ‘I’ve never been to Melbourne. And I never had a gap year.’ Not that he’d asked.

  ‘And then we bumped into each other in London. Went out a few times, for old times’ sake. One thing led to another.’

  She frowned. ‘And then you proposed?’

  He shrugged. ‘What can I say? I’m a passionate guy.’

  ‘Uh-huh. And you never mentioned me to your family, this wonderful girl you met in Melbourne that drove you to such acts of passion? They won’t find that strange?’

  ‘Actually, I did meet a girl in Melbourne last year. Just not you. But they won’t know that.’

  That shut her up. How stupid was she not to have considered he might have a girlfriend tucked away somewhere? A girlfriend who would be crushed when her man came home with a pregnant bride in tow. God, could this get any more complicated?

  ‘Oh, no … Will she—’

  He waved away the concern. ‘She’s history.’

  Literally? Or only now, since he unexpectedly had other plans? But if he wasn’t the type to join the Mile High Club, then hopefully he wasn’t the type to so carelessly dispose of a human being. Despite what he’d threatened back in the hospital.

  She took a head-clearing breath. ‘So Melbourne, then. Last year. Party? Football? Pub?’

  ‘I’m thinking somewhere more suitable for a woman of your … breeding.’ Somehow he made the word more of an insult. ‘Flemington. The Melbourne Cup. The races seems more credible, don’t you think?’ His lip almost curled.

  Bel frowned. ‘I have no idea. I’ve never been.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve never been to a horse race?’

  ‘Barbaric sport.’

  ‘But you’re a Chelsea girl.’

  She shrugged. ‘So?’

  ‘Polo?’

  A polo match, she had attended. But only one. ‘Polo’s vaguely more humane. But rather dull.’

  ‘So I guess fox-hunting is out of the question? Steeplechase?’

  She gave him the look. ‘Okay this isn’t getting us anywhere. How about we just rule out the animal-based sports altogether? Won’t your family find it difficult to believe that both their sons should happen to meet a Rochester? In a country this size?’

  He studied her closely. ‘Which is why we won’t be using your real name. What’s your middle name?’

  ‘Ah, no. Not going to happen.’

  He leaned forward. Scenting a kill. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I don’t like it. Can’t I just make something up?’

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘None of your business.’ Of course she could just lie and he wouldn’t be any the wiser but there was something about his serious grey regard. The way he just … stared. He lifted one eyebrow.

  ‘Oh, fine. It’s Belaqua.’

  He stared at her. ‘Belinda Belaqua …’

  ‘You see my concern?’

  He frowned. ‘Sounds like a porn star.’

  She was too stunned that he’d cracked a joke to be seriously offended. ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘You’ll have to pick something else.’

  She searched around in her subconscious. ‘Depp?’

  ‘Be serious.’

  ‘Pitt.’

  ‘Belinda …’

  She wasn’t prepared for the kick-in-the-ribs that her name on his lips would bring. And she couldn’t blame Drew for this one—he’d only ever called her Bel. How did someone as disagreeable as Flynn manage to make seven letters sound so … gorgeous? She smiled overly brightly. ‘Clooney, then.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Belinda Clooney. Okay, that sounds vaguely possible. But only because my parents live in a Country’n’Western bubble and barely go to the movies. And we’ll spell it with a “u”.’

  There it went again … Her heart, tumbling like a pair of knickers in the dryer just because of the way he said her first name. She fought it valiantly with her weapon of choice—flippancy. ‘You have a bit of the George about you, actually.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Mostly in the forehead. Your smile. Though you have your brother’s eyes …’ The moment the words were out she regretted them. They caused such a deep sorrow in his expression, she yearned for the flat, dead look to return.

  He cleared his throat. ‘If you want to get specific, we both have my nan’s eyes.’

  The sorrow was replaced with patent affection. It made him seem more human. Just marginally. ‘Will I meet her? Your nan?’

  ‘You’ll do more than meet her. You’ll be living with her for the first while, at least until we can get hitched.’

  Bel froze. ‘
You’re offloading me on your grandmother?’ After dragging her all this way?

  The look he gave her then was strange. Sad and baffled at the same time. ‘Drew really didn’t tell you anything about us, huh?’

  ‘Maybe Gwen didn’t want him to. We’ll never know.’ She pointlessly stirred her coffee. Just for something to occupy her suddenly weak fingers.

  ‘I live with Nan and Pop and my parents on Bunyip’s Reach.’

  Bel frowned. ‘What? Like a commune?’

  His laugh then was immediate and, for once, entirely sarcasm free. ‘It’s not a commune. It’s called a family. And the Reach is one hundred and seventy acres.’

  Her frown continued. ‘You all live together?’ In her family that was inconceivable. She’d left home at seventeen. Moved into the tiny flat her grandmother had left her as part of an inheritance.

  ‘Well, no. I have my own place in a private croft. It’s only small but it was built for Drew and I to share when we got older. You’ll be staying with my family.’

  ‘But they’re complete strangers!’ Except that they were also going to be the grandparents and great-grandparents of the babies she carried … Her hand slipped to her belly.

  ‘So am I.’

  That was true enough. Yet somehow he seemed so … not. Was it because he reminded her of Drew? ‘Better the devil you know and all that. Why can’t I just move straight in with you?’

  He turned both hands upwards as though it was the most evident thing in the world. ‘Because we’re not married.’

  She blinked at him. ‘They’re going to find out soon enough that I’m pregnant. I think they’ll know we’ve been sleeping together.’

  Fictionally … Fictionally.

  His eyes grew cold again. ‘Assuming you are pregnant. We won’t marry until we have absolute confirmation of that. What would be the point?’

  Right. Because, if she wasn’t, then warp technology wouldn’t get her out of here quick enough. On that they were both agreed.

  She shifted forwards in her seat. ‘So, let me just clarify … I lie about my name. I lie about how and when I met you. I lie about how I got up the duff. I lie about marrying you. And then, later, when the court case is resolved, I just confess all to your family and trust they’ll have a good laugh?’