Читать книгу The Baby Deal - Alison Kelly - Страница 10

CHAPTER THREE

REB hastily ‘pulled his punch’ when the door, towards which his fist was again heading, was reefed open and Amanda-Jayne stepped into its path.

‘How on earth did you get in here?’

Her tone implied people wearing jeans and carrying leather jackets and bike helmets were usually shot on sight by the doorman, but what gave Reb pause was her face. There was no question she was every bit as beautiful as he remembered, but despite her cool, controlled expression and regal poise there was also no question she’d been crying. A lot.

For some reason the notion of Amanda-Jayne Vaughan crying was as incongruous as it was disturbing and it took him several seconds to refocus on what she was saying.

‘…security block. Now how did you get my address and who let you in?’

‘The guy on the door seemed to think this qualified as a pass key.’ Grinning, he handed her the business card she’d previously given him. ‘It was the back that impressed him most,’ he added as she frowned at the card.

“‘Hoping to hear from you soon,’” she read, the pitch and disbelief in her voice rising with each word. “‘Drop in and surprise me. A.J.!” This isn’t my writing!’

‘Lucky for me, the doorman didn’t know that,’ Reb said, stepping around her to stroll into the centre of her living room.

‘Mmm, nice view you’ve got here. Although I don’t go much on this bleached decor—’

‘How did you get my address?’ she demanded. ‘I didn’t give it to you.’

‘No, and neither would your mother, so—’

‘Stepmother.’

The force of her correction was telling. ‘Ah,’ he said sagely, ‘so that’s the way the wind blows. Well, that’s something we have in common; I wasn’t real taken with the woman either.’

‘I’m not interested in your opinion of Patricia,’ she said, her eyes flashing with rage. ‘I asked how you found out where I lived.’

‘Just a matter of posting off those medical records you wanted and waiting until you went to the post office to pick them up.’

‘You’ve been following me?’

‘Not personally. But if you ever need a good P.I. let me know.’

‘How dare you? You have no right to invade my privacy that way.’

‘Sweetheart, you’re carrying my child, which as far as I’m concerned gives me a whole heap of rights. So as of right now you can forget any ideas you’ve got about cutting me out of its life. You mightn’t have much of an opinion of me or my gene pool, but you’re way off base if you think I’m going to walk away from my own flesh and blood.’

Amanda-Jayne felt herself teetering on the brink of hysteria and immediately her stomach started acting up again. Taking a steadying breath, she tried to assimilate the fact that Reb Browne had tracked her down and was actually in her living room. Nothing was working out as she’d envisaged; all her hopes of an uncomplicated pregnancy were going from bad to disastrous. Her morning sickness was never-ending, all the money she’d expected to have she didn’t and the father she’d counted on fading into the background hadn’t. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go! It was just supposed to be her, her baby and a future filled with happiness. Instead…instead… Oh, God, she prayed, please don’t let me start crying in front of him.

Reb watched as a dozen emotions rushed across her pale face, but he couldn’t guess at what she was thinking. Still, there was no doubt his announcement had shaken her up, but since that had been his intention it irked him that he was now feeling guilty about it. He’d meant what he said; no way was he going to be shut out of his kid’s life.

Unnerved by her ongoing silence and suspecting she was hoping it would either force him to speak first or simply give up and walk out, he made a production of tossing his jacket and helmet onto her well-stuffed sofa then dropping down beside them.

Amanda-Jayne opened her mouth to demand that he leave, but before she could form the words her common sense suddenly started jumping up and down and yelling, Think, you idiot! He’s here because he wants to contribute to the baby’s upkeep… And right now you need money. Even if it is his!

That the man who was currently draped over her sofa like a model in a jeans commercial was the answer to her prayers didn’t sit at all well with her; in fact it further agitated her already distressed stomach. However, the reality was she wasn’t in any position to pander to her pride. She was up to her eyeballs in bills and facing countless more in the next few months. Swallowing the taste of bile along with a chunk of her self-esteem, Amanda-Jayne forced herself to speak calmly and civilly.

‘Am I to understand it,’ she said, ‘that you hired a private investigator to follow me simply because you’re determined to contribute to the baby’s upbringing?’

‘I think I made that more than clear to you when you came to see me. And you,’ he said, ‘made a point of throwing the offer back in my face then skipping town.’

‘I…er…didn’t want to be responsible for placing you under a financial strain.’ It was a lie and the smile on his handsome face told her he knew it.

‘Very considerate of you, but I think it’s best if you let me worry about my finances and you take care of your own.’

If she hadn’t felt so ill she’d have laughed at the irony of his comment, but all she wanted to do was get rid of him before she humiliated herself and lost the contents of her stomach.

‘Very well, then,’ she said briskly. ‘Since you’re so insistent and have gone to such extreme lengths to find me and pursue the matter, I’m prepared to accept your financial assistance. I’ll speak to my solicitor tomorrow and have him draw up the necessary paperwork.’

‘Oh, that won’t be necessary; I’ve already got my solicitor taking care of that,’ he said.

The one-upmanship in his voice tempted her to say she hadn’t realised criminal lawyers handled maintenance cases, but she decided to quit while she was ahead for the first time in weeks. ‘In that case, I’ll give you the address of mine.’

She’d just started to cross to her desk when he mentioned the monthly sum he considered reasonable and she nearly staggered with surprise. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was far more than she’d have been getting even if she’d qualified for social security. While she had no idea what garage proprietors made, she doubted Reb would have very much left for himself once he’d paid out that large a sum to her. Given her own recent experience of being cash-poor, she didn’t feel comfortable putting anyone else in that position; not even him.

‘Er…that’s very generous,’ she said, almost choking on the desire to say, I’ll take it! ‘But are you sure you can afford that much?’

‘I thought we agreed I’d worry about my finances and you’d worry about yours?’

Well, so much for trying to be considerate and reasonable! Stung by his cavalier attitude, she sent him her frostiest glare then hurriedly scribbled down the details of her solicitor. Returning to where he lounged on her sofa, she held the piece of paper out to him at arm’s length. ‘Here. I don’t think we have anything more to discuss. I’ll accept your offer as it stands.’

‘I’m afraid there’s a condition to my offer…’

Amanda-Jayne swallowed hard. ‘What?’

‘You have to marry me to get it.’

At his deadly serious expression Amanda-Jayne’s heart lurched into her throat. ‘Marr—oh, God, I’m going to be sick!’

By the time Reb recovered from the shock of her words and the sight of her racing across the room with a hand clamped over her mouth, Amanda-Jayne had locked herself in what he presumed was the bathroom. Her initial responses to his enquiries as to whether there was anything he could do were merely a series of worrying retches, gags and heart-wrenching whimpers and he was considerably relieved when these eventually progressed to curses, demands that he get out and accusations of, ‘This is all your fault!’

It was almost an hour before she re-emerged wearing what Savvy referred to as a slip-dress—a plain spaghetti-strapped navy shift that brushed her ankles above feet that were bare and sporting cherry-coloured toenails.

She shot Reb a lethal glare. ‘I thought I told you to get out?’

‘You did. Several times. But I never walk away from a card game when I have all the trumps.’

‘The only thing you have,’ she fired back, ‘are delusions of grandeur or a serious drug problem! Why on earth would I want to marry you for a measly monthly sum like you offered? Potentially I’m worth more than you can even dream about.’

‘That might be so. But right now,’ he said, strolling to her desk and picking up a fistful of the bills littering it, ‘your potential worth is about as useful to you as last week’s TV guide.’

She raced to snatch the papers from his hand. ‘How dare you snoop through my personal papers? Just because I’m a bit behind—’

‘Cut the act, A.J.,’ he said tersely. ‘We both know you’re in debt up to your pretty little ears and that your trust fund has been frozen.’

Even as embarrassment warred with anger in her face, Reb could practically hear the gears in her head rotating as she fought to engage her brain. He knew the instant she had by the flash of triumph in her whisky-brown eyes.

‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ she said haughtily, ‘but I happen to be in the process of negotiating the sale of this penthouse. I can assure you that once that’s finalised money will be the least of my problems.’

Reb grinned. ‘Rubbish. The money for this place was advanced to you from your trust after your divorce, but with the condition that you can’t sell it and gain the use of the funds until such time as your inheritance is released to you. According to my sources that’s three years down the track.’

Amanda-Jayne clenched her fists and concentrated on not punching him. Never in her entire life had she wanted to hit someone as much as she did Reb Browne. The problem was he was absolutely right. She’d weighed up all her money-raising options and every one was terminally anorexic. Any way she looked, this odious, arrogant hellraiser was her and her baby’s only immediate source of income.

‘Well?’ he prompted, making no attempt to conceal a smart-alec grin. ‘What’s your answer?’

‘I hate you.’

‘I’m not looking for a love match.’

‘What exactly are you looking for?’

‘Stability for my child.’

It was a noble sentiment, but Reb Browne didn’t strike her as the noble type. Then again, she’d recently discovered neither was she… When she’d first realised the extent of her money problems she’d intended filing a lawsuit against Patricia as a means of forcing her to release the money she was owed; all that had stopped her was learning the family solicitors would side with Patricia and that such an action by her would be deemed as bringing the Vaughan name into disrepute, thus contravening her father’s wishes anyway. She was in a position where she was going to be damned if she did, damned if she didn’t and, Lord help her, damned well going to have to marry Reb Browne!

Surely a person was supposed to be dead before having to endure hell? Then again, hadn’t she’d already experienced it once in this lifetime? She’d managed to survive seven years in one bad marriage; what was a further measly three in another one? she reasoned.

Besides, in a few months the baby would provide her with all the happiness she’d ever need. It was the baby she had to think of; even though the very idea of being Mrs Browne filled her with an almost electric dread there was simply no other solution. Unless, of course, I hyphenate my name to Vaughan-Browne! Finding a glimmer of light in her black humour, she turned to the man whose presence seemed to shrink her spacious apartment to phone-booth proportions. She breathed deeply before saying, ‘I’ll accept your condition, but I have one of my own… If we marry I want to keep my maiden name.’

Reb told himself the sigh he expelled came from impatience, not relief, but he knew he was lying. His biggest concern had been that she’d refuse to marry him, leaving him next to no legal rights over the baby, and with his family history and her wealthy background he needed as much legal leverage as he could get. Traditionally the women who bore children to the Browne men invariably lacked maternal instincts; his own mother had shot through when he was only ten and Savvy’s hadn’t stuck around even that long. Neither woman had cared enough to take her kids with her, but if they had, in the absence of a marriage certificate in both cases, there would have been little chance of either his father or uncle getting custody.

Reb might well be the first male Browne to produce a child in wedlock for three generations, but his proposal wasn’t motivated from a moral or social angle, purely a legal one. He knew that when Amanda-Jayne decided to call it quits, unlike his mother and aunt, she’d be the type to take her child with her, if only because she had the money to do it. He also knew that he couldn’t match it with the Vaughans in an expensive, drawn-out custody battle. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to be shoved entirely from his child’s life and marriage would prevent that happening.

‘You can call yourself anything you like,’ he said, snatching up his helmet and jacket. ‘I’ll be here at nine tomorrow morning so we can go get a marriage licence. Once we’ve done that we’ll be heading for Vaughan’s Landing; I’ve only got the bike so pack light. You can arrange to have the rest of your stuff sent—’

‘What do you mean we’ll be heading to Vaughan’s Landing? I’m not going back there! Why would I?’

‘We’re getting married, remember?’

‘As if I could forget! But there’s no reason we can’t live here.’

‘In case it’s slipped your mind, I have a business there and I’m not about to commute three plus hours twice a day.’

As insane as it seemed, it wasn’t until that moment that Amanda-Jayne’s brain actually grasped what being married to Reb Browne would mean. Unlike Anthony he wouldn’t be gone for months at a time on business trips; this man would be in her life every day and, God forbid, possibly her bed every night! The realisation threw her breathing pattern into complete disarray, but desperation kept her mind ticking over for a solution. She almost cheered with glee as inspiration struck. ‘I know!’ she said. ‘You could stay in Vaughan’s Landing during the week and just come here on weekends.’