Читать книгу The Millionaire's Love-Child - Elizabeth Power, Elizabeth Power - Страница 4

‘NO, NO! It’s not true! I don’t believe you!’

Annie swung away, towards the window, her bare shoulders stiffening in rejection of the man’s devastating statement. Beneath the dark strands of her fringe, bewildered brown eyes stared out on the small square of garden that formed the rear of her terraced London flat, at the low boundary wall where the long-haired tabby crouched, poised to eject any other exploring cat from its territory. ‘You’ve got to be joking. Tell me it’s just some cruel joke. That you’re making it up. You are, aren’t you?’

‘I’m sorry, Annie.’ Behind her, those deep masculine tones were soft, yet unrelenting. ‘If I could have found an easier way to tell you, believe me, I would have.’

‘Don’t you think I’d know?’ Her thick layered hair bounced against her shoulders as she pivoted to face the man again, disbelief and confusion stamped on the pale oval of her face.

For a few seconds her eyes read—what? Sympathy, in the green-gold depths of his? Some emotion that softened those angular features with their forceful jaw and that hawk-like nose which, with his sleek black hair and the immaculate tailoring of his dark suit, added up to an almost intimidating presence. ‘Don’t you think I’d have realised if a mistake like that had been made? Do you think I wouldn’t know my own child?’

‘Annie. Annie…’ His hand outstretched, he made a move towards her, but she recoiled from any contact, shivering suddenly beneath her scanty purple sun-top and jeans. ‘You’re in shock.’

‘What do you expect?’ she flung at him, backing away from any further attempt to console her. How could he offer any consolation except to retract what he had just said?

Broad shoulders sagged almost indiscernibly beneath the well-cut jacket, and his breath came heavily as he said, ‘Don’t you think that this has been hard for me?’

She could see the lines now at the corners of those beautiful eyes, and the way his smooth, olive skin seemed stretched across his cheekbones from battle-scarring emotions made him appear even fiercer than when she had known him before. If, of course, she could claim to have known him before. She had, after all, been just a cog in the running of his empire.

Brant Cadman. Thirty-five years old and the driving force behind Cadman Leisure, whose name was synonymous with a whole chain of retail outlets, sports complexes and manufacturers of his own brand of sportswear, including the company where she had worked with Warren. But that was before she had paid the price of trusting someone. Before she had felt the need to leave her job, stung by the shame of everyone knowing. Before she had had her son.

And here Brant was, saying that the child she had raised for the past two years wasn’t her child at all, but his. His and some other woman’s. That the hospital where his own son had been born had found a discrepancy in their records which had only come to light following advisory blood tests after both he and the boy had been exposed to some viral infection during a recent visit to Spain.

Hot tears burned Annie’s eyes now, the long strands of her fringe tangling with her equally long lashes as she shook her head in denial.

‘No, no. It isn’t true! Sean’s mine! He’s always been mine!’ In all her twenty-five years she could never have imagined being dealt a blow like this.

As she swayed she saw Brant glance swiftly around, grab the chair beside the second-hand table where her paints and brushes and the miniature water-colour she was working on lay. He set it down beside her, exerting gentle pressure on her shoulder as he urged, ‘Annie, sit down.’

Like an automaton, she obeyed, too numb to do anything else.

‘When they told me, I didn’t want to believe it either.’ His voice was raw with the intensity of anguish he had obviously suffered—was still suffering—because of it. ‘But as soon as you opened the door to me, there wasn’t any doubt.’

What was he saying? Her face tilted swiftly to his, pain warring with incomprehension. That the child he was raising, whose existence until a few moments ago she had never given more than a passing thought to, somehow resembled her? Was actually hers?

She shook her head again. It wasn’t possible. The child slumbering in the next room, obliviously peaceful in his afternoon nap—he was hers. Sean was her baby.

‘OK. So the baby you thought was yours and your wife’s suddenly isn’t. But what makes you think Sean’s yours?’ Numbness and shock were giving way to a challenging anger. ‘What makes you think you can come here and try to take my baby away? Did the hospital send you? Did they tell you to come here?’

‘No.’ He slipped his hands into his pockets, his pristine white shirt pulled tautly across his chest, as though he’d taken a breath and forgotten to let it out. ‘And the last thing I want to do,’ he said quietly, ‘is take your baby away.’

Annie took a gulp of air. She, too, was finding it difficult to breathe. ‘You can try,’ she dared him vehemently.

He chose to ignore the challenge. ‘The hospital called me in when they found Jack’s blood type didn’t match up with the record they had on computer. They confirmed from their records of Naomi’s blood group and now my own that we couldn’t have produced a child with the same type as Jack’s. There was only one baby born that day two years ago whose details show up as having the correct blood type for any child of ours. Yours Annie. The only conclusion they could come to was that some time before our babies left the hospital, there had been a switch.’

‘No. It’s all a mistake! They had no right to give you my name!’

‘They didn’t,’ he said, looking down at his feet. ‘They said they couldn’t divulge the identity of our son’s—as they called it—“biological mother”.’

Biological mother?

A low moan, that could have come from her own throat rang out from the direction of the garden. An ominous sound presaging a bitter conflict, a struggle from which only the strongest and most determined could emerge unscathed.

‘So what led you here?’ Had he known two years ago that Annie Talbot—poor jilted Annie, his ex-employee—had given birth on the same day as his wife? Because she hadn’t. Not until afterwards. Not until a friend had told her that Naomi Cadman had died within twenty-four hours of producing a son. ‘No one’s contacted me. Wouldn’t they have done if these ludicrous assumptions of yours were true?’

‘They should have. They said they were doing so.’ His hands dropped from his pockets. ‘And they aren’t assumptions, Annie. I wish they were. It’s fact—yet to be confirmed, but from the hospital itself.’

‘But…you said they wouldn’t give out information, that it was against their—’

‘They didn’t. Not knowingly. When they called me in, I was left alone in the office for a short spell. The computer was on. I’d have to be superhuman not to have given in to the need to know.’

‘So you scrolled through the records?’ Eyes accusing, she wanted to rush to the phone. Report him. Tell them he’d picked her name from a whole host of others who could have given birth that day.

‘No, Annie. I merely strode over to look at it from the other side of the desk. Your details were on the screen. I suppose such carelessness is hardly surprising from an establishment that sends parents home with the wrong children.’

The wrong children. His words, and the anger that infiltrated them, was bringing her to the slow and awful realisation that it might possibly be true. That Sean, whom she loved and cherished more than life itself, might not be hers. That she might suddenly find herself in a long, traumatic battle to keep him.

Through the open window came a sudden low chorus of howls.

‘They didn’t have your correct address on record. I only found this place through Katrina King.’ From his rather dubious glance around her modest little flat he didn’t need to tell her what he thought about it. ‘I seem to recall you being close friends when you worked at Cadman Sport.’

So he had remembered that. And he had gone to great lengths to find her, even looking up the only friend and colleague she kept in touch with from her old job.

‘Have you had your son DNA-tested? Or whatever it is they do to ascertain parenthood these days? Is that why you’re so certain your little boy’s been mixed up with mine?’

She couldn’t help the scorn in her voice, betraying the hurt and the anger she was suddenly feeling, not so much with him but with the hospital and those people responsible for placing her—placing all of them—in such a harrowing situation.

‘No, I haven’t.’ He looked down at his sleek black polished shoes again. ‘Yet.’

‘Why not?’ The question seemed torn from her, but then she read the answer in those green-gold eyes. He wanted to know. Of course he did. But likewise, he didn’t want to know. And it struck her then, in startling clarity, the implications that such a test could lead to. Because if his boy wasn’t the baby that Naomi had given birth to…

She froze, staring at the table with her palette and her paints and all the colourful trappings that made up her world and provided her with an income and stability. She’d want to know, and yet would balk from the truth just as Brant was doing. She couldn’t bear ever to know for certain that Sean wasn’t her son.

A small sound from the adjoining room had her jumping up instinctively. Their voices—or the cat’s howls—had woken him. But not for long. He was quiet again, still sleeping as she opened the brightly painted door to peer through the crack, then closed it again.

‘Can I see him?’

She swung round, gasping at finding Brant standing right behind her. At five feet four she suddenly felt dwarfed by his six-foot-plus frame.

‘No!’ Her arms flew out across the door-well, and above her panicked response she heard a sudden skirmish outside. Bouncer defending his territory, protecting all he valued, all that was his. ‘No, not now,’ she enlarged in what she hoped was a more conciliatory tone.

The light from the window struck fire from the man’s hair as he dipped his head. ‘I understand.’

Did he? From the taut lines of that fiercely chiselled face she understood herself that he was exercising a formidable restraint. This close to him, she caught the elusive scent of the cologne he must have used that morning; could almost feel the tangible warmth emanating from his hard body. And rising through the trauma of the moment was the shocking recognition of his flagrant sexuality, the memory of how once, too inexperienced to resist it, she had made a total fool of herself with this man.

But that was ten lifetimes ago, she told herself. Before he had relinquished his glorious bachelordom and married the sophisticated Naomi Fox.

She wondered if he was remembering it too, or even if—heaven forbid!—he was aware of her raging emotions, before he took a couple of steps back, giving her space: cool, remote, detached. When he had telephoned earlier he had warned her that this wasn’t exactly a social call, the simple statement assuring her, as it was probably meant to, that whatever had happened between them in the past was just that—in the past.

‘I can get you counselling,’ he said. ‘It was offered to me.’

But you refused it. Of course you did, she thought, certain that no one could direct or analyse the thoughts and feelings of Brant Cadman better than Brant Cadman himself.

She lifted her hands, palms upwards, as though she was fending off something threatening, saying disjointedly, ‘I…don’t need counselling. I just…want you to go.’

‘I don’t think you should be left alone.’ His face was grim with concern.

‘I’m not alone. I’ve got Sean.’ Her chin lifted with determined ferocity. ‘I don’t care if it’s true—what you say. I won’t be giving him up.’

He seemed about to say something else, perhaps to contest her remark, but then his lips compressed on whatever it was, and he said, ‘I want what’s best for Jack—as I’m sure you do for Sean. I appreciate that this has been a terrible shock and that you need time for it to sink in. But there are things we have to discuss. Work out. I’d like to come back tomorrow.’

She knew she couldn’t deny him that if what he was saying was true. Nevertheless, a deep, resisting fear showed in her velvet-brown eyes.

‘It’s all right, Annie.’ His gaze raked over the anxious lines of her face with its pert nose, softly defined mouth and the gentle curvature of her jaw. Briefly his eyes shaped the long line of her throat and the smooth slope of her shoulders, gently tanned from minutes snatched in the early-June sun, and, lifting his gaze back to hers, he said softly, ‘Are you going to be all right?’

She nodded, but thought, What does he care? He’s only interested in his son. Or who he thinks is his son.

Panic brought her into the bedroom after she had shown him out.

In his little bed, Sean was stirring, wisps of nut-brown hair highlighted against the white pillow. The cats might have disturbed him earlier, but everything was quiet now. Through the little lace curtain she could see Bouncer preening himself further along the wall, smug in his obvious victory.

She wondered what her parents would think if they had been here today. But they were twelve thousand miles away in New Zealand.

Over three years ago, when her architect father had taken early retirement and he and his wife had decided to emigrate, they had wanted Annie to go with them. At the time, however, she had just fallen madly in love with Warren Maddox. It had been a whirlwind romance. A time of foolish dreams, planning for a wedding that was to take place only six months after their first meeting. When he had jilted her for Caroline Fenn, an up-and-coming model he’d met on one of the firm’s promotional assignments only two weeks before the wedding, Jane and Simon Talbot had begged Annie to join them, but determinedly she had declined. She was fine, she had told them, wanting to carry on with her life, pretend nothing had happened. In truth, she had been dealt such a blow that she had just wanted to remain alone to lick her wounds.

When she had had Sean, however, against her protests, her mother had made the long journey to be with her, over-protective, fussing in her well-meaning way, so that it was with mixed emotions, two weeks later, that Annie had seen her off on her journey home. Six months later she had taken Sean and flown over to spend Christmas in Auckland with them, returning after a month. That was nearly eighteen months ago.

Now Annie had to quell the strongest urge to ring her parents, hear her father’s understanding tones, but it would be the middle of the night in New Zealand and she had never been one to run for help at the first sign of trouble.

As Sean’s hazel eyes opened and he gave her a wide grin, adoringly Annie picked him up. He felt cuddly and warm in his soft pyjamas.

Everything would be sorted out, she tried convincing herself. He had her father’s ears, didn’t he? And everyone said he had her cheeky smile and her colouring.

But as she looked at the child in her arms, reminding herself of all these things, all she could see was the strong, daunting features of Brant Cadman.

The letter came from the hospital the following morning. It told Annie to contact them as soon as possible.

When she rang they said they wanted to send someone out to see her. Perhaps the following day? But Annie insisted that if they had something to tell her, she was coming up to town herself. Today.

She didn’t tell them that she knew what it concerned. Or anything about Brant Cadman. Ridiculously, she was nursing the hope that if she didn’t bring his name into it, this whole harrowing nightmare might not be true.

For what other reason the hospital might be writing to her, she didn’t stop to imagine. The fact that Brant had said he would be calling round again today was very real and she was keen to get out of the flat before he arrived. She didn’t think she could face him until someone told her for certain that there had been a mix-up. Until then, he presented a dark threat to everything she cherished.

‘I take it you know Brant Cadman was here,’ Katrina King told her as soon as Annie rang to ask her friend if she would have Sean for a couple of hours. A year older than Annie, the woman worked from home as a freelance sportswear designer. She loved children and had volunteered to entertain Sean if ever Annie needed a babysitter. ‘You did get my email, didn’t you?’

She hadn’t. She’d been too worried and overtaken by the man’s visit to even remember to check her emails.

‘When did he call?’ was all Annie could respond with.

‘About coffee-time yesterday. Still looking like every woman’s darkest fantasy. What did he want?’ Katrina asked, sounding suspicious.

‘Just to see me,’ Annie returned, thinking how pretentious that sounded, but at that moment she couldn’t begin to tell her friend the nature of Brant’s visit.

‘I’ll bet!’ Katrina’s words held a mixture of caution and envy, but Annie ignored them.

‘See you later,’ she said quickly, ringing off.

She didn’t want to let Sean out of her sight, but decided it would be best if he was with Katrina. Her friend only lived a short drive away, and fifteen minutes later, with Sean safely delivered into the woman’s care, Annie was driving back through the suburbs only to realise that, with all the trauma of what was happening, she had forgotten both the letter from the hospital and the name of the person she was supposed to see.

Forced to make a detour back to the flat, she was tripping down the steps again to her little purple Ka when she saw the dark blue Mercedes saloon suddenly pulling up in front of her home.

Brant Cadman! She didn’t even need to look at the driver to know it would be him. Not too many cars of that sort parked outside her modest little address!

She felt her whole body tense as he unfolded himself from the big car.

‘Good morning.’

Somehow, Annie found her tongue to acknowledge him and felt his eyes flit over her, noticing, no doubt, the sharp rise and fall of her small breasts in response to seeing him standing there.

‘Are you going out?’

Of course, he would want to know, she thought with her stomach knotting, struck by how devastating he looked in his casual grey polo shirt and pale chinos. But that was what men like Brant Cadman did. Devastate.

‘That letter came today.’ She started towards the Ka. ‘I’m going to the hospital.’ She couldn’t have lied to him even if she had wanted to and was suddenly disconcerted to find his tall, lean frame blocking her path.

‘Then get into the car.’ He was indicating his own plush saloon. ‘We’ll go together.’

‘No!’ Even to her own ears she sounded like a frightened schoolgirl.

‘Annie!’ His sigh was exasperated. ‘The last thing I want to do is hurt you.’

He meant emotionally, she thought, but he had already done that.

‘I just need to do this alone. To be alone.’ It wasn’t meant to, but it came out as a plea.

‘You won’t want to, Annie. Not afterwards,’ he assured her softly.

He had been through it already, she remembered. But just because he had been sent home with the wrong baby, it didn’t mean for certain that she had, did it? So he had got her name off the computer. So she had been in the hospital giving birth at the same time as his wife. But so had a number of other women, probably. And blood tests weren’t a hundred per cent accurate, were they? Sean couldn’t be the only baby that the Cadman boy could have been switched with. Could he?

The anguish that accompanied her silent, tortured questions momentarily disarmed her, leaving her open to his decisive will.

‘Come on. I’ll drive you,’ he stated. And that was that.

Her tension might have got the better of her, holding her rigid as a statue for most of the journey. But Brant kept her talking so that she couldn’t spend the whole of the drive dwelling on the traumatic situation, something deliberately calculated to relax her, she was sure.

Only once did she feel the sickening dread in the pit of her stomach threaten to overwhelm her, and that was at the outset when he asked, ‘Where’s Sean?’

‘I thought it best that he didn’t come.’ Annie’s tone was defensive. ‘He’s at Katrina’s.’

She was expecting some demand from him to see the son he claimed was his, but all he said was, ‘You get on well with her. Where did the two of you meet? At Cadman Sport?’

‘No. We were at art college together. She left before me, then told me about the vacancy in the art department, and so I joined too.’

She was aware of him steering the powerful car through the heavy traffic, of the courtesy he extended to other drivers as he slowed to let someone out of a side-turning.

‘What do you do now?’

‘I sell miniature water-colours to anyone who’ll take them, basically.’ She had a couple of regular outlets. A small gallery in Essex. A tea-shop selling crafts in a smaller village out of town.

‘Is it rewarding?’

She glanced at him, pulling a face. ‘You mean financially?’ That sort of thing, she thought, would probably rank as a priority to a man like him.

But he said, ‘Not necessarily,’ slowing down to stop at a red light.

‘You mean spiritually?’ Annie’s dark lashes shot up under the strands of her fringe. ‘As food for my well-being?’

‘Don’t knock it,’ he said, wise to the hint of surprised cynicism she had directed towards him. ‘Isn’t that the most important form of reward?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she answered, to both his questions, because financially she only just scraped a living at present, and she certainly didn’t intend going back to work for anyone else yet and leaving Sean with strangers. She had decided from the beginning that she would look after her baby herself.

Her baby. And now here was Brant, driving her to an interview that might rob her of the right to call him that forever.

No! Panic brought on that queasy feeling again with sickening intensity, draining the colour from her cheeks.

The sun struck the polished bonnet of the car, hurting her eyes with its remorseless glare. Her head tilted to one side to avoid it, as Brant put the car in motion again, she didn’t even see him glance her way.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked quietly.

Annie shot a look at his harshly defined profile. ‘Sure. I feel great! How do you expect me to feel?’ She felt too hurt, too angry, too everything to avoid making the challenge. For the briefest moment, as he turned his head, she noticed the deep concern in his eyes.

‘’Course.’ His jaw seemed clenched as his attention returned to the road. ‘Stupid question.’

‘I’m sorry.’ It was all she could say to excuse herself. She was too strung up, as well as much too conscious of him sitting beside her: of those long-tapered fingers as they flicked on the indicator, of the latent strength of his hair-furred arm as he turned the wheel.

When he glanced at her again, it was with more than just concern.

‘What?’ Annie prompted, aware.

‘The first time I saw you,’ he responded with a slight smile curving his mouth, ‘you were wearing that colour.’ His gaze fell briefly on the royal-blue top that shaped her upper body, and which clung to her tiny waist above the wide cream belt hugging her hips. ‘You seemed to epitomise everything that was bright and young and vibrant. You were wearing a vivid blue blouse with a tight black skirt and at least four-inch-high heels that made me wonder how you could even stand in them, let alone hold yourself with such alluring dignity.’

He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, she remembered, shocked even now to recognise the depth of excitement his interest had produced in her. But that was when she had been guileless, unaware of how easily a man could pledge his feelings, and how easily a woman could be snared by her own sexuality. That was when she had still been young enough to take her happiness as read, before Warren had jilted her, before she had reacted to his defection to his lovely model in the most humiliating way.

‘I suppose practice makes perfect,’ she said tartly, and wondered, with a sudden quickening of her pulse, if despite his marriage and all the time that had passed since, he could still be remotely attracted to her.

Then she decided it was just another ploy on his part to take her mind off the main issue when, still thinking about a whole host of things she would have been wise not to remember, she heard him say, ‘Here we are.’