Читать книгу Tall, Dark... Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Carole Mortimer - Страница 23

NICK watched Hebe’s face suffuse with a look of horror as the full realisation of what he had just said hit her.

Not exactly a flattering response to a proposal of marriage!

Certainly not the response he had been expecting.

Most women he knew, in Hebe’s position, would have jumped at the idea of marrying him.

Hebe just looked as if he had dealt her another insult!

Unless he was just meant to think she was horrified at the suggestion?

He tried to force this idea from his mind. If the two of them were to be married and have a child together, there had to be some sort of common ground for them other than the baby. It would be a disaster otherwise—their marriage just a battleground. Even if they were going to be marrying for reasons other than love.

‘Oh, come on, Hebe,’ he chided tauntingly. ‘It won’t be so bad. You won’t have to work any more. You can spend as much of that Cavendish money as you like redecorating my apartments, if they don’t suit.’ Looking round at this apartment at its warmth and homeliness, he had a feeling that the chrome and leather décor in his own homes wouldn’t be what Hebe would choose at all. ‘Or we could buy a house,’ he suggested, as the thought occurred to him. ‘It would probably be better for the baby if it had a garden to play in—’

‘Stop, Nick!’ she cut in forcefully. ‘Just stop! I am not going to marry you—’

‘Oh yes, you are,’ Nick assured her softly.

‘No. I’m. Not,’ she said firmly.

‘Oh-yes-you-are,’ he repeated, with restrained anger.

‘No!’ She shook her head decisively. ‘I don’t want to marry you. I don’t know you! You don’t know me, either!’ she reasoned frustratedly. ‘And what you do know you don’t like!’

Nick gave a lazy smile as his gaze moved slowly over the slim contours of her body. Whether she realised it or not, her nipples were taut with tension beneath that fitted tee shirt. ‘Oh, I think you’ll find I like my side of the bargain just fine,’ he said mockingly.

Hebe eyed him with frustration, knowing he was deliberately misunderstanding her. What he was talking about was purely physical. The two of them had undoubtedly found a compatability that single night they’d spent together, but that had nothing to do with the commitment of marrying someone, living with them every day. He was thinking only of the nights—not the days, weeks and years of living together.

‘I think you’ll like it just fine, too, Hebe,’ he murmured throatily as he stood up to move purposefully towards her. ‘Would you like me to demonstrate how much you’ll like it?’

‘No…’ Hebe took a step back, her eyes wide as she easily guessed his intention.

She already knew that she did like—only too well!

Nick paid absolutely no attention to her half-hearted protest, taking her in his arms as his head lowered and his lips claimed hers.

Oh, God…!

Hebe simply melted against him, having no defences against his marauding mouth and hands as she felt the flood of warmth between her thighs, her breasts highly sensitised against the hardness of his chest.

His mouth moved hungrily against hers, sipping and tasting, the moist warmth of his tongue moving erotically against her lips before dipping deep into the hot cavern beneath.

Burning desire ripped through her, tearing her defences apart in a single assault, and her hands clung to the strength of his shoulders as she gave in to that engulfing fire.

His mouth broke away from hers, his lips and tongue trailing heatedly down the creamy column of her throat, his hands pushing her tee shirt impatiently aside. Taking one fiery nipple into the heat of his mouth, tongue caressing, teeth gently biting, he let his hand move down between her legs, cupping her there, just that touch through denim and silk making her quiver with pleasure.

She wanted—She needed—

Nick gave her what she needed, his palm pressing against the hardened nub between her legs, pressing more firmly as his mouth moved to her other breast, drawing the nipple into his mouth, sucking deeply as his tongue moved moistly, teeth biting with the same rhythm as his hand stroked, seeming to find that hardened nub unerringly as he touched and caressed her to fever pitch.

She couldn’t take any more. She felt as thought she was about to explode. She could feel the pleasure building until it couldn’t be contained, finally finding her release in long, convulsing waves of pleasure so deeply felt it was almost pain.

She collapsed weakly against him as he kissed her breasts gently in the aftermath of her release, realising her hands had become entangled in the dark thickness of his hair as she held him against her.

What had she done?

Stupid question—she knew what she had done. She just had no idea how to continue fighting Nick after responding to him so wantonly.

Nick straightened slowly, pulling Hebe’s tee shirt down as he raised his head to look at her flushed face and pleasure-dazed eyes. His own body was still hard with desire—a desire he had no intention of satisfying. It was Hebe’s pleasure that was important right now, to show her what they could find together any time she wanted once they were married.

She looked at him frowningly. ‘But you haven’t—’

‘I don’t need to, Hebe,’ he assured her huskily. ‘That was for you. Sex may not have been part of your plan, but I dare you to deny wanting me after that,’ he murmured throatily.

Wrong thing to say, Nick. So very wrong, he realized, as she tensed before moving abruptly away from him.

But he had needed to make her see just what they could have together besides the baby now growing inside her.

His baby, he acknowledged again fiercely. His.

And he would do anything—anything at all—to ensure that Hebe realised she was going to marry him rather than be paid off.

Even take advantage of Hebe’s response to him?

Yes, if that was what it took!

Damn it, he would keep Hebe naked in bed for a month if that was what he had to do to make her see sense!

Because she would marry him. Would become his wife. The mother of his child.

Hebe shook her head, trying to clear it of the cottonwool her brain had become as Nick kissed and caressed her.

She had to think, damn it. Had to make Nick understand that no matter how she responded to him she couldn’t marry him.

Which, after her arousal just now, and the way she still trembled in the aftermath of that shattering release, wasn’t going to be easy to do!

She raised her chin determinedly. ‘That’s just sex, Nick,’ she dismissed firmly.

He shrugged. ‘It’s a start.’

‘No, it isn’t.’ Her voice rose heatedly. ‘Marriage is for people who love each other, who want to be together for the rest of their lives—’

‘Or for people who have already made a baby together,’ he put in pointedly.

Hebe closed her eyes, wishing she could shut out the truth of his words as easily. They had made a baby together. And did she have the right to deny that child both its parents?

Yes—if they didn’t love each other!

But she did love Nick…

It was impossible to try and tell herself differently. Her fascination for him all those months ago had blossomed into love during that night they’d spent together six weeks ago.

The same time as their child had found a place and nestled inside her body…!

If Nick had loved her in return she knew that she wouldn’t have hesitated in agreeing to marry him. She would be the happiest woman in the world right now if that were true.

But it wasn’t. He thought she was after his money, not his love.

And surely love on one side was just as bad as no love between them at all?

‘Why does it have to be marriage?’ She frowned.

He raised dark brows. ‘You would rather just live with me?’

‘No! I mean, of course I wouldn’t,’ she admitted irritably. ‘I simply don’t understand why you feel you have to marry me.’

His mouth quirked with black humour. ‘Perhaps I make it a point of honour to marry the mothers of my children? It’s certainly something I’ve done so far in my life!’ he added derisively.

Hebe looked at him searchingly. He couldn’t think this child would be a replacement for the one he had lost? Luke had been Luke. This child, whether boy or girl, could only ever be itself and no one else.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I realise that losing Luke must have been devastating—’

‘Do you?’ Even that dark humour had gone now, and grim lines were etched beside his nose and mouth. ‘Yes, it was—devastating,’ he conceded slowly. ‘It was also three years ago. And nothing and no one can ever change that.’

‘Exactly.’ She breathed her relief that he had quite literally taken the words out of her mouth. ‘This baby—’ Oh, God…! ‘This baby,’ she began again, ‘can’t replace him—’

‘You think that’s what I want? To replace him?’ Nick suddenly seemed bigger and more ominous in his obvious anger.

Hebe eyed him warily, knowing she had stepped onto dangerous ground. ‘Well, I—’

‘You can’t replace people any more than you can bring them back to life!’ he ground out harshly, blue eyes glittering with emotion. ‘Hebe, do you have any idea of the significance of that night we spent together six weeks ago?’

She grimaced. ‘Well, I’m pregnant, if that’s what you mean—’

‘No, that isn’t what I mean!’ Nick swung away from her, his hands clenched at his sides, fury emanating from every muscle and sinew of his body. ‘That day, six weeks ago, was the anniversary of Luke’s death,’ he told her flatly. ‘Three years to the day since some maniac got in his car after consuming too much wine with his business lunch and drove straight through a crowd of afternoon shoppers on the busy streets of New York. Sally and Luke were amongst them. Sally was seriously injured and Luke—Luke was dead before the medics even got there!’

Hebe could still hear the pain and horror of that day in his voice.

Not just to lose a child, but to lose him in such an awful way.

To receive a telephone call, probably from some unknown person, telling him that his wife had been seriously injured and his son was dead.

And this baby—Hebe’s baby—had been conceived on the night of the anniversary of that little boy’s death…

How eerie was that? Almost as if—

No, she wouldn’t think of it in that way. It was just coincidence. Or perhaps a little more than that, she conceded. Nick had probably needed a woman in his bed that night to help anaesthetize him, to keep the pain of that anniversary at bay.

And because of that need Hebe was now pregnant with his child.

She shook her head. ‘Please believe me when I say I really am sorry about that. It must have been awful for you. And Sally,’ she added quietly.

She had known of her own baby’s existence for only minutes—had no idea if it was a boy or a girl, even—but even so she knew she would be devastated if it were taken away from her now.

‘But I can’t marry you, Nick.’ She groaned. ‘People don’t marry each other any more just because the woman’s pregnant—’

‘Judging by the fact that you were adopted, that certainly seems to have been the case in your family so far, I agree!’ he cut in scathingly.

Hebe gasped, staring at him disbelievingly. ‘That—that was—unforgivable!’

‘Yes, it was,’ he acknowledged, giving a self-disgusted shake of his head. ‘I apologise. But I do mean to marry you, Hebe. This child will know its mother and its father. And don’t tell me we don’t have to get married for that, either,’ he warned grimly. ‘I don’t want to be some part-time father with weekend and vacation access to my own kid! I mean this child to have parents who live together—two people he or she will call Mommy and Daddy.’

‘And what about what I want?’ Hebe protested emotionally.

Nick gave her a considering look. ‘You were brought up by two people who loved you, weren’t you? Parents who gave you the nurturing and security that your real mother, whoever she was, obviously thought she couldn’t provide?’

‘Yes…’ Hebe eyed him uncertainly, not quite sure where he was going with this.

‘Meaning you weren’t left to live alone with your mother, possibly brought up in daycare once you were old enough to be left, so that your mother could go back to work in order to support you both, not too much money coming in on that single wage. Or alternatively with a father in the background who maybe had access to you but only took it up sporadically, breaking your heart somewhere along the way—’

‘It wouldn’t be like that!’ Hebe could quite clearly see where he was going with this now.

‘Not if I agree to keep you and the child in the lifestyle to which you wish to become accustomed, no,’ he acknowledged sarcastically. ‘But I’m not going to do that, Hebe. The only way in which you will have that is by marrying me,’ he told her implacably. ‘I intend being in this child’s life every single day, Hebe,’ he assured her determinedly. ‘There in the morning when it wakes up, to love and care for it each and every single day. There at night to read it a bedtime story, to care for it when it’s sick or upset.’

‘And its mother?’ she demanded. ‘Once you’ve married me to get what you want, what are you going to do with me?’

His expression became less intense. ‘I’ve already shown you what we can have together, Hebe,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘It’s all I have to give.’

She couldn’t deny her response to him. Couldn’t deny his response to her—had felt his need pressed against her, as throbbingly heated as her own desire.

But would that last? More to the point, was it enough to base a marriage on?

‘Has it occurred to you, Nick,’ she said slowly, ‘that perhaps now I know your conditions I may not even want this baby?’

His hands clenched at his sides, his expression grimly forbidding. ‘I hope you’re not talking about what I think you are!’

Hebe sighed, knowing abortion wasn’t even a possibility as far as she was concerned. That it wasn’t as far as Nick was concerned either, if his sudden fury was anything to go by.

‘No,’ she conceded heavily. ‘I couldn’t do that.’

‘I should damn well hope not,’ he rasped uncompromisingly.

She shook her head. ‘It was just an idea. Not one I meant to be taken seriously, I might add,’ she said, as she saw his anger hadn’t abated in the least at her explanation.

‘If I thought for a moment that it was—’

‘I’ve said that it wasn’t!’ she defended firmly. ‘I can’t even think straight at the moment, Nick.’ She sighed. ‘This is all just too much on top of everything else. I don’t even know who I really am!’ she explained shakily.

‘Then we’ll find out together,’ he said quietly. ‘In fact, I insist on it,’ he added hardly.

Frowning, she looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Isn’t it obvious, Hebe?’ he rasped impatiently. ‘You’re expecting a baby, but you don’t know for certain who your real parents were—not their medical history, anything. For the baby’s sake, at least, I think we need to know those things, don’t you?’

For the baby’s sake…

Of course. How could she have thought Nick would offer to help her for any other reason? After all, he believed the woman in the portrait was her! And that she had deliberately got pregnant!

It was as if she had had a bucket of ice water thrown over her. The trembling of her body was for quite another reason now.

‘Yes,’ she acknowledged hollowly, having no intention of telling him that she had already made an appointment to speak to Andrew Southern’s agent tomorrow. She would keep that appointment alone and find out what she could about the woman she thought was her mother, and her relationship with Andrew Southern.

He nodded briskly. ‘The first thing we need to do concerning that is talk to your parents—see if they know anything, anything at all, about your real parents.’

‘But of course they don’t.’ Hebe frowned. ‘They would have told me if they did.’

‘Would they?’ Nick prompted softly.

‘Of course,’ she answered impatiently. ‘What possible reason could they have for not telling me?’

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps the fact that they wanted you to have a settled, loving childhood, and not have your life ripped in two, as some adopted children’s lives seem to be once they’ve located their real parents.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Hebe. But I do think we at least have to ask them, don’t you?’

‘I suppose so,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘I’ll go and see them at the weekend—’

‘We’ll go and see them at the weekend,’ Nick corrected firmly. ‘It’s going to be we in everything from now on, Hebe,’ he told her firmly, and she looked at him with a frown.

We.

Hebe and Nick.

Hebe and Nick Cavendish.

How unlikely was that?

Completely unlikely! There was no way she could agree to marry this man just because he said she must. Absolutely no way!

‘Tomorrow I’ll see what I can do about arranging for the two of us to get married as quickly as possible.’ Nick nodded distractedly, obviously having taken absolutely no notice whatsoever of her refusal. ‘Today is Thursday, so I think it might be better if you took the rest of the week off. Saturday we’ll go and see your parents, and Sunday we’ll move your things into my apartment—our apartment,’ he corrected ruefully.

‘I’m not moving into your apartment on Sunday or at any other time!’ Hebe protested incredulously. ‘And I’m not marrying you either!’

‘Of course you are,’ he answered mildly.

‘No—’

‘Yes, Hebe, you are,’ he repeated patiently.

‘Is what I want to be of absolutely no consideration at all?’ she gasped.

Nick eyed her critically. ‘But you are getting what you want, Hebe. More than you want, in fact,’ he added sarcastically. ‘You really hadn’t planned on getting me as your husband into the bargain, had you?’ he mused grimly.

If Nick had loved her, if he had wanted to marry her, then she wouldn’t have hesitated to say yes to his proposal. But he had made his feelings for her all too plain: he thought she was an opportunist and a gold-digger.

‘You can’t force me—’

‘Calm down, Hebe,’ he soothed. ‘All this upset isn’t good for the baby.’

The baby. That was all he cared about. All he would ever care about…

‘I will marry you, Hebe. I insist on it. Do you really think you have the right to deny our child all the things I can give it? Or do you want this to deteriorate into a battle?’ he added softly. ‘A battle I would have every intention of winning?’

She blinked, a sinking feeling in the base of her stomach. ‘What do you mean?’

He wasn’t being fair, threatening her in this way. He knew he wasn’t. But marriage between them was nonnegotiable as far as he was concerned. Hebe could have anything and everything she wanted as his wife—but only as his wife.

‘I would fight you for custody, Hebe,’ he told her flatly. ‘In fact, if you persist in fighting me on this I’ll go to my lawyers right now and draw up papers to set the custody battle in motion.’

She was looking at him as if he were some sort of monster now. And maybe he was. But he wouldn’t back down on this. He couldn’t. There was too much at stake. He couldn’t let this second chance at being a father pass him by.

She swallowed hard. ‘You would really do that…?’

‘If I’m forced to, yes,’ he bit out tautly.

‘Even if it meant I’d end up hating you?’ she said emotionally.

Having Hebe hate him from the onset was not a good idea, he knew, but what choice was she giving him…?

‘Even then,’ he said grimly.

Hebe was looking at him now as if she had never seen him before—or as if she wished she never seen him in the first place!

She shook her head, turning away. ‘I think I would like to be alone now for a while, if you don’t mind,’she said abruptly.

Nick did mind—was reluctant to leave her. Even for a moment. He wasn’t sure, now that she knew he was insisting on marriage rather than the settlement she had hoped for, that she wouldn’t attempt to run away from him and hide if he left her on her own. Unless he could convince her beforehand that there was nowhere she could go that he wouldn’t find her!

‘We are getting married, Hebe,’ he told her softly. ‘You are going to move into my apartment. And we are going to see your parents on Saturday. And don’t think I wouldn’t find you if you tried to run away from me,’ he added challengingly, knowing by the way her cheeks paled that she had at least been thinking about doing exactly that.

Hebe looked at him with dull eyes. ‘You’re really serious about this?’

‘Most assuredly,’ he bit out.

She nodded. ‘I’ll call my parents and tell them to expect us some time in the afternoon,’ she said.

‘And you’ll move into my apartment on Sunday?’

She sighed. ‘Let’s just take one step at a time, hmm?’ They didn’t have time for ‘one step at a time’, damn it!

But one look at her pale and drawn face told him that she really had had enough for one day.

Maybe he shouldn’t have said those things to her in her condition. They were the truth, but maybe he shouldn’t have been so harsh.

Or told her about Luke…!

But he hadn’t felt he could do anything else in the circumstances. He had been fighting for his life—and his baby—and if that meant he had to fight dirty, then he was willing to do it.

Maybe he shouldn’t have made love to her in that way, either. She was pregnant, after all. But he hadn’t, as she chose to think, just wanted to prove a point to her. He had needed to hold her, to make love to her, and he knew he had been needing to do so ever since he’d seen her again in the gallery earlier this afternoon, his body responding uncontrollably just at the sight of her.

Even before that…!

He had tried to put her from his mind these last six weeks, in the same way he had every other woman he had been involved with since he and Sally parted, but Hebe had persisted in popping into his mind at the most inconvenient of times.

Because she had been so delicious to make love to, he had told himself. Because she had made love to him so deliciously too.

But neither of those things explained why he had still been able to imagine the delicate curve of her cheek, the beauty of those unusual gold-coloured eyes, the way a dimple appeared in her left cheek when she smiled, the husky sound of her laugh.

And then he had seen the portrait.

A portrait he had been convinced on sight was Hebe, the woman who had been haunting his days—and nights—for the last five weeks.

He had been filled with a mindless fury the first time he’d looked at the portrait, his imagination running riot and his mind going into overdrive thinking of the scenario that might have preceded the painting of it. Hebe’s face and body were exactly as they had looked that night five weeks before, when he had made love to her.

He had known then and there that he had to have the portrait—and that, despite it being an almost priceless Andrew Southern, once he had it no one else would be allowed to look at it but him.

He had also known in that moment that he didn’t want anyone else but him to see the real Hebe like that again, either—that he wanted to take her back to his bed and keep her there.

He hadn’t expected it to happen quite in this way, but the ultimate result was the same. And this way he didn’t have to admit to any of these feelings. He could take Hebe as his wife whether she wanted it or not.

For better or for worse…!

‘Okay,’ he conceded huskily. ‘I’ll call round tomorrow evening and let you know what I’ve managed to sort out about the wedding.’ No matter what Hebe said he wasn’t letting go of that; she would marry him. And soon. ‘Maybe the two of us could go out to dinner?’

Hebe gave him a rueful smile. ‘I think it’s a little late for us to start dating, don’t you?’

‘You said it yourself, Hebe. We need to start getting to know each other,’ he insisted. ‘By my reckoning, we have precisely seven and a half months in which to do that!’

By her reckoning too, Hebe mused dully, feeling as if a trapdoor were closing behind her. She had no doubts whatsoever that Nick meant it when he said she wouldn’t be able to hide from him and that he would find her.

He meant what he said about marrying her too.

Just as he meant his threat regarding a fight for custody of the baby she carried deep inside her if she didn’t agree to marriage.

It was obvious why he felt so strongly about it too. Luke’s death meant that he had no intention of losing this second child.

But by this time tomorrow she would have been to see David Gillespie, Andrew Southern’s agent, and would have at least set that situation in motion.

Once she had the answers she needed she would take great delight in telling Nick just exactly how wrong about her he had been!

In regard to the portrait, at any rate…

This pregnancy she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do anything about.

Which meant she either had to marry Nick or fight him.

With all the Cavendish millions behind him, it was a fight she already knew Nick was sure to win!

That trapdoor closed with a resounding bang!