by Lynne Graham
‘You had a crush on me for years,’ Jai countered levelly. ‘Is that why it wasn’t wrong for you?’
Willow’s soft mouth opened and closed again as she gazed back at him in horror, hot, painful colour slowly washing up her cheeks. ‘I can’t believe you are throwing that in my face.’
‘It’s relevant to this situation,’ Jai breathed sardonically.
‘The only person making a situation out of this is you!’ Willow condemned, fighting her mortification with all her might. ‘Yes, I may have had a crush on you when I was a schoolgirl, but I grew out of that nonsense years ago!’
‘I’m not sure I can believe that some sentimental memory didn’t influence you.’
‘It didn’t. Whether you believe that or not is up to you,’ Willow replied curtly. ‘I’m all grown up now. I don’t have any romantic notions about you…and if I had, you’d have killed them stone dead.’
Her continuing refusal to be influenced by his attitude surprised Jai. He was accustomed to those he dealt with coming round to his view and supporting his opinion, but Willow was stubborn enough and independent enough not to budge an inch. Meanwhile those bright green eyes, reminiscent of fresh ferns in the shade, damned him to hell and back.
‘Then let’s get down to business,’ Jai suggested, disconcerting her when she was bracing herself for another round of the same conversation. ‘I want to buy your father’s books.’
Willow regrouped and contrived to nod. ‘I’m content with that.’
‘Is the dealer you mentioned last night a book dealer?’
‘Nothing so fancy…why?’
‘At least two of the books are quite valuable first editions and you could do better auctioning them,’ Jai warned.
‘I haven’t time for that. I didn’t know any of them would be worth anything,’ she completed stiffly.
‘I will buy them at a fair price but you may wish to take further advice.’
Willow groaned out loud. ‘Oh, Jai… I don’t think you’re likely to cheat me!’
‘Very well. The books will be packed for you and collected later this morning and I will pay you in cash as that may be more convenient for you right now,’ Jai murmured levelly. ‘Will you allow me to pay for you to stay in a hotel until you get on your feet again?’
‘Would you be offering me that option if you hadn’t slept with me last night?’ Willow asked suspiciously.
His eyes clashed with her sceptical appraisal. ‘Yes.’
‘No. Thanks, but no,’ Willow told him without hesitation. ‘I don’t mind staying with Shelley for a while.’
‘Will you accept any further assistance from me?’ Jai enquired.
‘I’d prefer not to,’ Willow responded truthfully.
‘Life isn’t always that straightforward,’ Jai replied wryly as he settled his business card on the table. ‘If at any time you need help, you can depend on me to deliver it, no strings attached. Phone me if you are in need.’
‘And why would you make me an offer like that?’ Willow demanded shortly.
‘I wish you well,’ Jai admitted levelly.
Willow spun around in a rather ungainly circle and went to open the front door. ‘I’ll get by fine without you,’ she told him with a defiantly bright smile. ‘But thanks for caring.’
And on that hollow note, Jai departed. As soon as he was gone, Willow felt empty, exhausted and horribly hurt. She would never see him again except in newspapers or magazines at some glamorous or important event, but that was for the best because Jai had rejected her on every level. He had switched back to treating her like a distant acquaintance, whom he was willing to help in times of trouble, smoothly distancing himself from their brief intimacy.
He not only regretted sleeping with her, but also suspected that she had slept with him because she had once been infatuated with him. He had made mincemeat out of her pride and humiliated her.
Goodbye, Jai, she thought numbly. Goodbye and good riddance!
CHAPTER THREE
WILLOW SAT ON the side of the bath and waited for the wand to give her a result while Shelley sidled round the door, too impatient to wait outside. ‘Well?’ she pressed excitedly.
‘Another thirty seconds,’ Willow muttered wearily.
‘I love babies.’ Shelley sighed dreamily.
‘So do I… I just thought it would be years before I had one. And maybe it will be,’ Willow contended, trying not to be too pessimistic.
After all, skipping a period wasn’t always a sign of pregnancy even in a woman with a regular cycle. But then there was also the soreness of her breasts, the occasional light-headed sensation and her sudden sensitivity to smells and tastes that had never bothered her before. Yet Willow still couldn’t credit that an unplanned pregnancy could happen to her. Surely Jai had used condoms? She hadn’t thought to check or ask him, had simply not even considered the danger of conception, which had been exceedingly foolish when it was she who would fall pregnant if anything went amiss. Maybe a condom had failed, maybe during the night he had forgotten to use one, maybe she was just one of the unfortunate few who conceived regardless of the contraception used.
‘Congratulations!’ Shelley carolled irrepressibly and grabbed her into an enthusiastic hug. ‘You’re pregnant.’
Willow paled. ‘Are you sure?’ she gasped, peering down at the wand for herself, and there it was: the line for a positive result.
‘You’ll have to go to the doctor ASAP,’ Shelley warned her. ‘I mean…you must be at least eight weeks along now and you should be taking vitamins and stuff.’
In no hurry to approach a doctor for confirmation, Willow wandered back out to the very comfortable sofa she slept on and sank heavily down. Pregnant! Just when her life was slowly beginning to settle again into a new routine, fate had thrown her onto a roller coaster of a ride that would destroy all her self-improvement plans. Of course, there were options other than keeping the baby to raise, she reminded herself doggedly, even while she knew that neither termination nor adoption had any appeal for her.
But how on earth would she manage? Currently she was waitressing in the bar that Shelley managed. The tips were good, particularly at weekends, and in another couple of months she would have saved up enough for a deposit for a little place of her own. After making that move, she had planned to polish up her CV and start trying to find work in the landscaping field that would pay enough for her to live on. She had her qualification now and even the most junior position would be a good start to a decent career and perhaps, ultimately, her own business. Throw a baby into the midst of those plans, however, and it blew them all to smithereens!
And yet the prospect of having Jai’s baby was already beginning to warm her at some deep level, although she felt guilty about feeling that way. He mightn’t have wanted her, but he couldn’t prevent her from having his child and she did love babies, and the thought of one of her own pleased and frightened her in equal parts. She didn’t have a single relative left alive, but her baby could be the foundation of a new family, she reflected lovingly.
She had lain awake on the sofa many nights reliving that night with Jai, wishing she didn’t feel like such an immature idiot for having slept with him in the first place and wishing that she didn’t miss him now that he was gone again. She wasn’t kidding herself that she was in love with him or anything like that, but she could not deny that Jai, the Maharaja of Chandrapur, had always fascinated her and that he had attracted her more powerfully than anyone else ever had. Those were the facts and she tried not to dress them up. She felt that she should’ve called a halt to their intimacy, but she hadn’t and the coolness of his departure had been her punishment. He had hurt her, but she tried not to dwell on those wounded feelings because what would be the point in indulging herself in such sad thoughts?
‘I’ll help you every step of the way,’ Shelley told her, sitting dow
n beside her to grip her hand comfortingly. ‘We’ll get through it together…and at least you won’t have to worry about money, not with the father being rich.’
‘I’m not going to tell Jai!’ Willow exclaimed in dismay. ‘He didn’t want me so he’s even less likely to want a baby with me!’
‘It takes two to tango.’
‘And one to have common sense, and neither of us had any that night.’ Willow sighed and then groaned out loud. ‘Why should I make him suffer too? It would be so humiliating as well. I can’t face that on top of everything else.’
Shelley’s freckled face and bright blue eyes were troubled below her mop of brown curls. ‘Well, then, what are you planning to do?’
‘I don’t want to tell Jai… To be frank, I don’t want anything more to do with him,’ Willow admitted unhappily. ‘I’ll work this out without bothering him for help. Somehow I’ll work it out even if it means living on welfare benefits to survive.’
Two weeks later, while Willow was at work, Shelley had to deal with the surprise of Jai himself turning up on the doorstep asking after Willow because he hadn’t heard from her. Aware that her friend wanted no further contact with him, Shelley lied and said that Willow had moved out and hadn’t yet sent her a forwarding address. Jai left his mobile number with her.
Thirteen months later, the private investigation agency Jai had hired to find Willow finally tracked her down and, in the midst of his working day in his London office, Jai immediately settled down with a sense of urgency to flick open the ominously slim file.
The first fact he learned was that the investigation team had only contrived to find Willow by covertly watching and following her friend, Shelley. Jai was disconcerted to learn that Willow’s friend had lied to him when he had only had Willow’s best interests in mind. He would have been satisfied with the assurance that she was safe and well. He assumed that Willow had confided in her friend and it was conceivable that that night he had spent with her had muddied the water in her friend’s eyes and made his motivations seem more questionable, he conceded grudgingly.
After all, what could Willow possibly have to hide from him? Why would she get lost and neglect to get in touch with him when he had been so specific on that point? Had he offended her to such an extent?
He knew he had not been tactful. He had been too outspoken. He had embarrassed her, hurt her, he recalled unhappily. But he had been very shocked to realise that he had taken advantage of her innocence and his self-loathing on that score had still to fade, as had his recollections of that night. It seemed even worse to him that the memories of her still remained so fresh. Averse as he now was to any kind of casual encounter, he had not been with a woman since then. He had broken his own code of honour unforgettably with Willow and had buried himself in work while struggling to come to terms with that depressing truth.
Her disappearance and continuing silence had seriously worried him and had only made him even more determined to locate her.
The bald facts of what came next in the file shook Jai to his essentially conservative core and he was instantly grateful that he had refused to give up on his search for her because she was in trouble. Willow had had a child and was now living in a hostel for the homeless, waiting for the local council to find her more suitable accommodation. A child? How was that possible in so short a time frame? Had she turned to some other man for comfort after he had left her? He focussed back on the printed page and his blood ran cold in his veins when he saw the birthdate of the child and then, startlingly, his own middle name… Hari.
Far across London, Willow knelt on the floorboards while Hari sat on his little blanket and mouthed the plastic ball he was playing with. Everything went into his mouth and she had to watch him like a hawk. He was almost seven months old and, although he couldn’t yet crawl, he had discovered that he could get around very nicely just by rolling over and over so that he could get his little chubby hands on anything that attracted his attention. And everything attracted Hari’s attention, which meant that she needed eyes in the back of her head to keep him safe.
She had not known that it was possible to love anyone as much as she loved Hari. Her love for the father she had continually failed to please paled in comparison. From the moment Hari had arrived he had become her world and she was painfully conscious that as a mother she had nothing to offer in material terms. Sadly, moving into the hostel had been a necessity to get on the housing list. Shelley hadn’t wanted them to move out of her apartment but staying any longer hadn’t been an option in the chaos that she and Hari had brought to her friend’s life. So she might be, for the moment, a less than stellar mother to her son, but in time she would get better and provide him with a decent home where their life would improve.
The knock that sounded on the door made her jump and she peered through the peephole to identify another resident, the woman from the room next to hers, before she undid the lock.
‘Reception asked me to tell you that you have a visitor waiting down in the basement,’ the woman told her.
Willow suppressed a sigh and bundled Hari, his blanket and a couple of toys up into her arms. Visitors weren’t allowed to enter the rooms in the hostel, but the basement was available for necessary meetings with housing officials, social workers and counsellors. Willow hadn’t been expecting anyone, but the number of people now involved in checking up on her and Hari and asking her to fill in forms seemed never-ending.
My goodness, maybe somewhere had finally been found for her and Hari to live, she thought optimistically as she walked down the steps to the basement to enter a large grey-painted room furnished mainly with small tables and chairs, few of which were occupied. She hovered in the doorway and then froze when she saw Jai standing by the barred window that overlooked a dark alleyway.
Jai looked so incredibly out of place against such a backdrop that she could not quite believe her eyes and she blinked rapidly. Clad in a black pinstriped suit teamed with a white shirt and gold tie, he looked incredibly intimidating. But he also looked impossibly exclusive and gorgeous with that suit sharply tailored to a perfect fit over his tall, powerful frame. The stark lighting above, which flattered no one, somehow still contrived to flatter Jai, enhancing the golden glow of his skin and the blue-black luxuriance of his hair and accentuating the proud sculpted lines and hollows of his superb bone structure. He was stunning as he stood there, absolutely stunning, his light eyes glittering in his lean, strong face, and she swallowed convulsively, wondering how he had found her, what he wanted with her and how on earth she could possibly hide Hari from him when she was holding him in her arms.
Jai noticed Willow at almost the same moment, lodged across the room, a tiny frail figure dressed in jeans and an oversized sweater, against which she held a child. And he stared at the child in her arms with helpless intensity and, even at that distance, he recognised his son in the baby’s olive-toned skin and black hair. His son… Jai could not work out how that was possible unless Willow had lied to him about it being safe for them to make love without him taking additional precautions. But just at that moment the how seemed less significant than the overpowering and breathtaking sense of recognition that gripped him when he glimpsed his infant son for the first time.
Willow walked towards him and he strode forward to greet her, noticing that she was struggling to carry the child along with the other things she held. Without hesitation, Jai extended his hands and lifted the baby right out of her arms.
Hari chortled and smiled up at him. Evidently, he was a happy baby, who delighted in new faces. Jai looked into eyes as pale a blue as his own, his sole inheritance from his British mother, and knew then without a shadow of doubt that, hard as he found it to credit, this child had to be his son, his child, his responsibility. He moved away again, and Willow hovered, feeling entirely surplus to requirements, until one of the four bodyguards seated at a nearby table surged forward to pull out chairs a
t another table and Jai took a seat with Hari carefully cradled in his arms.
Willow dropped into the seat beside Jai’s and Hari grinned at her while he tugged at Jai’s tie. ‘How did you find me?’ she whispered.
‘A private detective agency. They’ve been trying to trace you for months,’ Jai imparted, his wide, sensual mouth compressing at that unfortunate fact. ‘I only wish I’d found you sooner.’
‘I can’t imagine why you’ve been trying to find me,’ she confided.
‘But isn’t it fortunate that I did?’ Jai traded smoothly as he stroked a gentle finger through the spill of Hari’s black hair. ‘You must realise that you cannot stay in such a place with my son.’
Paper pale at that quiet declaration, Willow gazed back at him. ‘Your…son?’ she almost whispered, shaken by the certainty with which he made that claim.
‘He is my image. Who else’s son could he be?’ Jai parried very drily as if daring her to disagree or throw doubt on the question of his child’s parentage. ‘And as this is not somewhere that we can talk freely, I would like you to go back to your room right now and pack up all your belongings to leave.’
‘I can’t do that. I’m here waiting to get a place on a council housing list and if I leave, I’ll lose my place in the queue,’ she protested in a low intent voice.
Jai settled Hari more securely on his lap. ‘Either you do as I ask…or I will seek an emergency court order to take immediate custody of Hari as he is at risk in such an environment. That is unacceptable. Be warned that I hold diplomatic status in the UK and the authorities will act quickly on my behalf if I lodge a complaint on behalf of my heir. The usual laws do not apply to diplomats.’
In sheer shock at that menacing information, Willow went rigid, her blood chilling in her veins. ‘You’re threatening me with…legal action?’ she gasped in astonishment, barely able to believe her ears. ‘Already?’