Читать книгу Virgin: Undone by the Billionaire - Jennie Lucas - Страница 21

“WELL, I’m off then,” Mrs. O’Keefe said, picking up her purse and giving her employer a doleful stare. “If you’re sure you don’t want me to stay …”

“I’m sure,” Lia said, wiping her eyes. She tried to smile at her baby, who was sitting next to her on the Turkish carpet in the front room playing with blocks. “I’m fine, really,” she insisted. “I just … I’m a little sad.”

“My dear, it’s been a year and a half since he died. He wouldn’t want you to take on so.”

Of course, Mrs. O’Keefe thought Lia was weeping over Giovanni. How could she explain that she was heartsick over Ruby’s real father, a man who was very much alive but who had no interest in having a daughter, loving a wife or settling down in a home?

“That’s not why I’m crying,” Lia said, wiping her eyes. “It’s … someone else.”

“Someone else?” The Irishwoman’s eyes met hers. “Who?”

Lia shook her head. She was crying over a man who would never, ever forgive her if he ever found out how she had lied.

But he would never find out. Roark was on his way to the Far East, never to return. She should be glad, right? She should be thrilled.

But she wasn’t.

When she’d first found out she was pregnant, she’d hated Roark with such passion she’d thought the only way she could completely love her baby would be to forget the man who’d fathered her.

Now, every day for the rest of her life, Lia would look into her daughter’s eyes and be reminded of an emotion entirely different from hatred. She’d be reminded of the way Roark had tenderly asked her to stay with him. And the way Lia had refused him.

The way she’d lied.

Stop it, she told herself, wiping her eyes fiercely. Stop it.

Ruby gurgled happily, handing her mother a wooden block with the letter L. Lia smiled through her tears as she looked down at her daughter.

“L is for love,” she whispered, giving the block back to her.

She hugged her baby. Ruby would always have the best of everything. The best schools. The best homes in both New York and Italy. The best clothes. A mother who loved her.

There was just one thing that Lia couldn’t give her.

“Don’t feel bad to be the one who’s left behind,” Mrs. O’Keefe said softly. “Don’t feel guilty. Your count will not blame you from heaven if you find someone else to love. You’re young. You need a man of your own. Just as your wee girl needs a father who’s alive on this earth to love her.”

Lia stared at her. Then looked at her baby.

Ruby already had a father who was alive …

Oh, my God, she thought suddenly. What have I done?

She’d told herself that she’d kept Roark and Ruby apart for their own good.

But what if that had been a self-serving lie?

Roark was capable of change. He’d proven that today. He’d said he never wanted to get married … but he’d proposed to her.

Roark had also said he didn’t want to be a father. But he might have changed his mind about that, as well. He might have taken one look at Ruby and wanted to be her dad.

What if Lia had just made the biggest mistake of her life—sending Roark away—not because she thought he would abandon Ruby, but because Lia feared he would hate her for keeping her a secret?

She took in a sudden breath.

Lia’s own feelings meant nothing, compared to her daughter’s needs. She had to put her child first. And no matter how Roark might hate Lia, if there was a chance he might want to be Ruby’s father, she had no choice.

She had to tell him the truth.

“I hope you don’t mind me speaking to you like this,” Mrs. O’Keefe said, tears sparkling in her kind eyes. “I think of you as the daughter I never had. I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did …”

Slowly Lia rose to her feet.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “You’re right.”

The doorbell chimed. Mrs. O’Keefe cleared her throat awkwardly. “I’ll get the door. It’s likely that new stroller I ordered from the shop.”

Nodding absently, Lia grabbed the phone on the elegant table. She dialed the operator and asked to be transferred to the Cavanaugh Hotel. She waited with her heart in her throat.

“I’m afraid Mr. Navarre checked out an hour ago,” the hotel receptionist said.

Hanging up the phone, Lia felt like crying. She was too late.

“Yes?” Mrs. O’Keefe inquired at the door.

“I’m here to see the countess.”

Roark’s voice! He couldn’t be here—couldn’t be!

With a gasp, Lia dropped the phone from her suddenly numb hands. It clattered on the hardwood floor.

The gray-haired widow looked at him, then glanced back at Lia. “Ah,” she said with a sudden grin. “So you’re what all the fuss is about. You’ll do well, I think. Come in.”

And she held open the door.

He took two steps inside the foyer. He filled Lia’s foyer with masculine energy, his black coat whirling around him as he came inside her house.

“What are you doing here?” Lia whispered. “You said you’d never contact me again. I thought you were gone for good….”

“Goodbye, then!” Mrs. O’Keefe sang as she left, closing the door behind her.

“I didn’t come here for you,” Roark said. He looked at the baby sitting on the expensive carpet in front of the marble fireplace, playing with wooden blocks. “I came for her.”

She sucked in her breath. “How did you find out?”

His jaw was hard as he turned on her savagely.

“Why did you tell the whole world that she’s the count’s baby? Why did you never tell me I had a child?”

Her mouth suddenly went dry. “I wanted to tell you.”

“You’re lying!” he said furiously. “If you’d wanted to tell me, you would have done it!”

“What was I supposed to do, Roark? You said you didn’t want a child! You said you never wanted to be a father! And I hated you. When you left me in Italy, I never wanted to see you again!”

“That was your excuse then. What about yesterday, at the wedding? This morning, when we had breakfast? When you showed me the park? When we made love at the hotel? Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should have told you then. I was afraid you’d hate me.”

His dark eyes froze right through her.

“I do hate you.”

He went into the front room and got down on his knees. He handed a block to the baby, who smiled and chattered nonsense syllables, waving the block at him happily. He looked at her. And looked.

Then he picked the baby up in his arms.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“My plane is waiting to take me to Hawaii and Japan,” he said coolly. “And I don’t trust you.”

“You can’t think of taking her from me!”

He narrowed his eyes and his lips curved into a cold, cruel smile.

“No. You will come, as well. You will travel with me wherever I wish to go. You will remain in my bed until I am finished with you.”

“No,” she gasped. Be in his bed, have her body possessed by a man who hated her? “I’ll never marry you!”

“Marry?” He barked a laugh. “That was when I thought you were an honest woman with a good heart. Now I know you’re nothing more than a beautiful, treacherous liar. You aren’t worthy to be my wife. But you will be my mistress.”

“Why are you acting like this?” she whispered. “You never wanted to be a father. Why are you acting like I kept something precious from you, when we both know that all you’ve ever wanted is your freedom?”

He just drew his lips back into a snarl.

“You will agree to my demands, or I will take you to court. I will fight you for custody with every lawyer I possess.” He gave her a grim smile. “Believe me, you will run out of lawyers long before I will.”

A cold shiver went through her. She looked at her baby in Roark’s arms. Seeing them together, Roark tenderly holding his child, caused a crack in her heart. It was just what she’d always dreamed of.

Then he looked back at Lia, and all tenderness disappeared from his eyes. Instead she saw only hatred.

Hatred—and heat.

“Do you agree to my terms?”

She couldn’t let him win. Not like this. She wasn’t the kind of woman to surrender without a fight.

She lifted her chin. “No.”

“No?” he demanded coldly.

“I won’t travel with you as your mistress. Not with our child living with us. It’s not decent.”

“Decent?” His dark eyes swept through her like a storm. “You’ve never thought of decency before. In the rose garden. In the broom closet. In my hotel suite.”

“That was different.” Tears rose to her eyes, tears she despised as she glared at him. “If Ruby is with us, that changes things. I’m not going to set that kind of example for her, or give her that kind of unsettled home life. It’s marriage or nothing.”

“You’d rather show her the example of selling yourself in marriage without love—not just once, but twice?”

She flinched.

“I will accept your terms, Roark,” she said hoarsely. “I will sleep in your bed. I will follow you around the world. I will give myself up to your demands.” She swallowed. “But only as your wife.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he bared his teeth into a smile.

“Agreed.”

He put out his hand.

She reached out to shake on the bargain. The touch of his skin against her fingers sizzled her as he jerked her close.

“Just remember—becoming my wife was your choice,” he whispered in her ear. He reached his other hand to stroke her cheek, looking into her eyes. “It was your mistake.”

Roark married Lia in a drab little affair at city hall that evening. Mrs. O’Keefe held Ruby and acted as one of the witnesses; his assistant, Murakami, acted as the other witness. No family was in attendance. No friends. No flowers. No music.

Lia wore a cream-colored suit she’d pulled hastily out of her closet. Roark didn’t bother to change out of his black shirt and pants. Why should he act like this wedding meant anything to him at all?

He didn’t smile as they were married. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t even kiss her at the end. He just put a plain gold band on her finger as the judge proclaimed them man and wife.

And he would make his wife pay for what she’d done.

They left city hall for the downtown heliport in a Cadillac SUV. His assistant sat in the front passenger seat, next to the driver, with Roark directly behind him. As they discussed the current financial details of the Kauai and Tokyo build sites—the price of steel was going through the roof—Roark couldn’t stop glancing at Ruby, who was in the baby seat next to him.

He had a daughter.

He could still hardly believe it. As Murakami droned on about the rising costs of concrete, a situation that normally would have been of the utmost importance to Roark, he barely paid attention. He couldn’t take his eyes off his baby. She was yawning now, sucking sleepily from a bottle.

There could be no doubt she was his child. Her eyes were as dark as Roark’s, with the same coloring he’d inherited from his Spanish-Canadian father. She looked just like him.

But she also looked like Lia. She had the same full mouth, the bow-shaped lips. She had the same joyful laugh, holding nothing back.

Roark would just have to ignore that. He despised Lia and didn’t want to be reminded of her features in his baby’s face.

He had the strangest feeling in his heart every time he looked at Ruby. He didn’t know if it was love, but he already knew he would die to protect her.

A totally different feeling than he had for his baby’s mother.

In the third row of the SUV sat Lia and the nanny, who seemed like a sensible, trustworthy sort of woman. But Roark would have her references investigated just in case.

He ground his jaw. His instincts were clearly not as sound as he’d once believed.

God, he hated Lia.

When he remembered the pathetic way he’d lowered his guard at the snow-filled park and spoken of how his family died—something he’d never discussed with anyone—his cheeks went hot. He’d even told her about his humiliating upbringing with his grandfather. The way Charles Kane had despised his low-class blood. The way he’d fired the nannies as soon as Roark began to love them. The way he’d tried to toughen Roark up as a boy, stamping out his childish, desperate yearning for his dead family with harsh lessons and cold comfort.

Roark had revealed himself to Lia in a way he’d never done with anyone in his life.

He had laid his soul bare to her.

Now, remembering how he’d been so determined to blow her mind in bed, practically begging her to run away with him, Roark was overwhelmed with anger and shame.

He would enjoy punishing her. Their marriage vows would be the chains he’d use to destroy her. He would make her regret eighteen months of lies.

She had made Roark want her. The thought still made him furious. She’d made him think she was special, a smart, sexy, loving woman different from the rest. She’d almost made him care.

And all along she’d been playing him for a fool.

“Thanks for coming,” he heard Lia whisper behind him.

“It’s no bother,” Mrs. O’Keefe replied softly, settling back noisily against the leather car seat. “I couldn’t let you and wee Ruby fly off into foreign lands without me, now could I?”

He realized the woman saw more of the truth about the relationship between Lia and Roark than she was letting on. She knew something wasn’t right about this marriage, and didn’t want Lia and her baby to face it alone.

For Ruby’s sake, Roark was glad the woman had agreed to leave New York with them. He’d offered to double her salary for the inconvenience. He wanted his child to receive the best of care. He didn’t want her to be separated from her caregiver, as he’d been as a child.

But he disliked the thought of Lia having a friend. He didn’t want her to have any comfort.

He wanted her to suffer.

But not at the cost of Ruby’s happiness.

The chauffeur parked the Escalade outside the Pier 6 heliport, following with their luggage and the baby seat. Murakami stayed behind as Roark’s chief bodyguard, Lander, awaited them on the tarmac and escorted them to the helicopter.

After a seven-minute helicopter ride, they touched down at the small Teterboro Airport and boarded Roark’s private plane. It was comfortable and luxurious. Roark, Lia, Ruby and Mrs. O’Keefe were the only passengers, waited on by three bodyguards, two copilots and two flight attendants, one of whom brought crackers and juice for Ruby as the other offered Lia a glass of champagne before takeoff.

“Congratulations, Mr. Navarre,” the first flight attendant said, then turned to beam at Lia. “And best wishes to you as well, Mrs. Navarre.”

Mrs. Navarre. The name went through Roark’s soul with a shudder.

He had a wife.

A wife he hated.

Lia paled. As she took the champagne flute in her hand, she glanced uneasily at Roark.

He could see the question in her eyes. What did he intend to do with her?

He coldly looked away. Carrying his briefcase, he passed her without a word. He paused only to kiss the top of Ruby’s tousled head, then went to the couch in the back cabin. He didn’t want to see his wife’s beautiful, troubled face.

She was meaningless to him, he told himself fiercely. Meaningless.

And so she would remain until they arrived in Kauai, where the beach house awaited them with a massive master bedroom overlooking the Pacific.

Then she’d learn her place in his life.