Читать книгу From Paris With Love: The Consequences of That Night / Bound by a Baby / A Business Engagement - Kate Hardy - Страница 10
ОглавлениеEMMA’S HEART POUNDED as she waited for Cesare’s reaction.
She couldn’t believe this was happening. For the past ten months, she’d dreamed of this. She’d thought of him constantly as their baby grew inside her. The day Sam was born. And every day since.
But now, she was afraid.
Alain Bouchard had been a wonderful boss to Emma, looking out for her almost like a brother through the months of her pregnancy and the sleepless nights beyond. But Alain hated Cesare, his former brother-in-law, blaming him for his sister Angélique’s death. For ten months, Emma had waited for this day to come, for Cesare to find out about the baby—and the identity of her employer.
Over the past year, as she walked through the streets of Paris doing Alain’s errands, shopping for fresh fruit and meats in the outdoor market on the Rue Cler, whenever she’d seen a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man, she held her breath. But it was never Cesare. He hated Paris. It was partly why she’d chosen this job.
So today, when she’d seen a tall, dark-haired man pacing across the park, looking around with a strange desperation, she’d forced herself to ignore her instincts, because they were always wrong. She’d simply sat on the bench as her baby dozed in his stroller, and felt the warmth of the September sun on her skin. It had been almost a year since she’d last seen Cesare’s face, since she’d last felt his touch. So much had happened. Their baby was no longer a tiny newborn. Sam had grown into a roly-poly four-month-old who could sleep seven hours at a stretch and loved to smile and laugh. Already, she could see his Italian heritage in his black eyes, the Falconeri blood.
But still, as Emma sat in the park, she hadn’t been able to look away from the dark-haired man in a tailored suit, who seemed out of place as he stomped down the path, gulping down a coffee. She’d told herself her imagination was working overtime. It absolutely was not Cesare.
Then he’d walked past her, barking into his cell phone. She saw his face, heard his voice. And time stood still.
Then, without thought, she’d reacted, leaping to her feet, calling his name.
Now, as she looked up at him, the world seemed to spin, the tourists and trees and dark outline of the Eiffel Tower a blur against the sky. There was Cesare. Only Cesare.
For so long, she’d craved him, heart and soul. Cried for him at night, for the awful choice she’d had to make. He’d told her outright he didn’t want a child, but she’d still struggled with whether she’d made an unforgivable mistake, not telling him. Twice she’d even picked up the phone.
Now he was just inches away from her, close enough to touch. All throughout their conversation, she’d glanced at their baby out of the corner of her eye. How could he not instantly see the resemblance? How could he not see little Sam in the stroller, and know?
Well, Cesare knew now.
“I’m the father,” he breathed, looking from Sam to her.
“Yes.” Emma felt a thrill in her heart even as a chill of fear went down her spine. “He’s yours.”
Cesare’s dark eyes were shocked, his voice hoarse. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I...”
“How could you not tell me?” Pacing back two steps, he clawed back his dark hair. Whirling back to face her, he accused, “You knew you were pregnant when you left London.”
She nodded. His dark eyes were filled with fury.
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t exactly lie. I said I was going to have a baby....”
He sucked in his breath, then glared at her. “I thought you meant someday. And you let me believe that. So you lied.”
She licked her lips. “I wanted to tell you...”
“You were never on the Pill.”
“I never said I was!”
His eyes narrowed. “You said—”
“I said I couldn’t get pregnant,” she cut him off. “I didn’t think I could. When I was a teenager, I was—very sick—and my doctor said future pregnancy might be difficult, if not impossible. I never thought I could...” She lifted her gaze to his and whispered, “It’s a miracle. Can’t you see that? Our baby is a miracle.”
“A miracle.” Cesare glowered at her. “And you never thought you should share the miracle with me?”
“I wanted to. More than you can imagine.” Emma set her jaw. “But you made it absolutely clear you didn’t want a family.”
“Did you get pregnant on purpose?” he demanded. “To force me to marry you?”
Emma couldn’t help herself. She laughed in his face.
“Why are you laughing?” he said dangerously.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were making a joke.”
“This isn’t a joke!”
“No. It isn’t. But you are!” she snapped, losing patience.
He blinked as his mouth fell open.
She took a deep calming breath, blowing a tendril of hair off her hot forehead. “I’ve gone out of my way not to trap you. I’m raising this baby completely on my own. I wouldn’t marry you even if you asked me!”
“Really?”
She stiffened, remembering that she had indeed once yearned to marry him—even hinted at it aloud! Her cheeks burned with humiliation. She lifted her chin. “Maybe once I was stupid enough to want that, but I’ve long since realized you’d make a horrible husband. No sane woman would want to marry a man like you.”
“A man like me,” he repeated. He looked irritated. “So you’d rather be a housekeeper, slaving for wages, instead of a billionaire’s wife?” He snorted. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”
She glared back at him. “And do you really believe I’d want to sell myself to some man who doesn’t love me, when I can support myself and my child through honest work?”
“He’s not just your child.”
“You don’t want him. You said so in London. Right to my face.”
“That was different. You made it sound like a choice. You didn’t tell me the decision was already made.” He folded his arms, six feet three inches of broad-shouldered masculine stubbornness. “I want him tested. To have DNA evidence he’s my child.”
She ground her teeth. “You don’t believe me?”
“The woman who swore she couldn’t get pregnant? No.”
Ooh. She stamped her foot. “I’m not having Sam pricked with a needle for some dumb DNA test. If you don’t believe me, if you think I might have been sleeping around and now I’m lying just for kicks, then forget about us. Just leave. We’ll do fine without you.”
He clenched his hands at his sides. “You should have told me!”
“I tried to, but when I started hinting at the idea of a child, you nearly fainted with fear!”
“I absolutely did not faint—” he began furiously.
“You did! From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I wanted to tell you. Of course I wanted to tell you. What do you take me for? My parents were married straight out of high school and loved each other until my mom died. That’s what people do in my hometown. Get married and stay married. Buy a home and raise a family. Do you honestly think—” Emma’s voice grew louder, causing nearby people in the park to look at them “—that I wanted to be a single mother? That this is something I chose?”
Cesare looked astonished, his sensual lips slightly parted, his own tirade forgotten. Then he scowled.
“Don’t even try to—”
“Even now,” she interrupted, feeling the tears well up, “when I’ve just told you you’re a father, what are you doing? You’re yelling at me, when any other man on earth would be interested in—I don’t know—meeting his new son!”
He stopped again, staring at her, his mouth still open. Then he snapped it shut. He glared at her. “Fine.”
“Fine!”
Cesare turned to the baby. He knelt by the stroller. He looked into Sam’s chubby face. As Emma watched, his eyes slowly traced over the baby’s dark eyes; exactly like his own. At the same dark hair, already starting to curl.
“Um,” he said, awkwardly holding out a hand toward the baby. “Hi.”
The baby continued to suck the pacifier, but flung an unsteady hand toward his father. One little pudgy hand caught his finger. Cesare’s eyes widened and his expression changed. He moved closer to Sam, then gently stroked his hair, his plump cheek. His voice was different as he said more softly, “Hi.”
Seeing the two of them together, Emma’s heart twisted.
“You named him Sam?” he asked a moment later.
“After my dad.”
“He looks just like me,” Cesare muttered. Pulling away from the baby, he rose to his feet. “Just tell me one thing. If I hadn’t come to Paris, if I hadn’t seen you today—would you ever have told me?”
She swallowed.
“You really are unbelievable,” he ground out.
“You don’t want a family.” Her voice trembled. “All you could have given him was money.”
“And a name,” he flung out.
“He already has both.” She looked at him steadily. “I’ve given him a name—Samuel Hayes. And I earn enough money. Not for mansions and private jets, but enough for a comfortable home. We don’t need you. We don’t want you.”
Cesare ground his teeth. “You’re depriving him of his birthright.”
She snorted. “Birthright? You mean you’d have insisted on sending him to a fancy school and buying him something extravagant and useless at Christmas, like a pony, before you ignored him the rest of the year?” She shook her head. “And that’s the best-case scenario! Because let’s not pretend you actually want to be in the picture!”
“I might...” he protested.
“Oh, please.” Her eyes narrowed. “All you could have offered was money and heartbreak. Better no father at all than a father like you. My child will never feel like an ignored, unwanted burden.” She straightened her shoulders, lifting her chin. “And neither will I.”
Cesare stared at her. Then his mouth snapped shut.
“So that’s what you think of me,” he muttered. “That I’m a selfish bastard with nothing but money to offer.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then relented with a sigh. “You are who you are. I realized last year that I could not change you. So I’m not going to try.”
His handsome face looked suddenly haggard. In spite of everything, her traitorous heart went out to him. Living with him for seven years, learning his every habit, she’d seen glimpses of the vulnerability that drove Cesare to a relentless pursuit of money and women he neither needed nor truly wanted. When he came home late at night, when he paced the hallways in sleepless hours, she’d seen flashes of emptiness beneath his mask, and the despair beneath his careless charm. There could never be enough money or cheap affairs to fill the emptiness in his heart, but he kept trying. And Emma knew why.
He’d lost the woman he’d loved, and he’d never be able to love anyone again.
Even through her anger, she felt almost sorry for him. Because without love, what could there be—but emptiness?
“It’s not your fault,” she said slowly. “I understand why you can’t let anyone into your heart again. You loved her so much—and then you lost her...” At his expression, she reached her hand to his rough cheek. Her voice trembled as she whispered, “Your heart was buried with your wife.”
Cesare seemed to shudder beneath her touch. “Emma...”
“It’s all right.” Dropping her hand, she stepped back and tried to smile. “We’re fine. Truly. Your son is happy and well. I have a good job. My boss is a very kindhearted man. He looks out for us.”
Something in her voice made him look up sharply.
“Who is he? This new boss?”
She licked her lips. “You don’t know?”
He shook his head. “After you left, I tried my best to forget you ever existed.”
It shouldn’t have hurt her, but it did. Emma put her hands on the handlebar of the stroller. “That is what you should do now, Cesare. Forget us....”
But he grabbed the handlebar, his hand over hers. “No. This time, I’m not letting you go. Not with my son.”
She swallowed, looking up at his fierce gaze.
“You only want us because you think you can’t have us. No is a novelty, it’s distracting and shiny. But I know, if I ever let myself...count on you, you’d leave. I won’t let anyone hurt Sam. Not even you.”
She tried to pull away. He tightened his grip.
“He’s my son.”
“Let us go,” she whispered. “Please. Somewhere, there’s a man who will love us with all his heart. A man who can actually be a loving father to Sam.” She shook her head. “We both know you’re not that man.”
The anger in Cesare’s face slid away, replaced by an expression that seemed hurt, even bewildered.
“Emma,” he breathed. “You think so little of me—”
“You heard her,” a man growled behind them. “Let her go, damn you.”
Alain Bouchard stood behind them with two bodyguards.
Cesare’s eyes widened in shock. “Bouchard...?”
Alain was a powerful man, handsome in his way. In his mid-forties, he was a decade older than Cesare. His salt-and-pepper hair was closely clipped, his clothing well-tailored. His perfect posture bespoke the pride of a man who was CEO of a luxury goods firm that had been run by the Bouchard family for generations. But the red hatred in the Frenchman’s eyes was for Cesare alone.
“Let her go,” Alain repeated, and Emma saw his two burly bodyguards, Gustave and Marcel, take a step forward in clear but unspoken threat.
For an instant, Cesare’s grasp tightened on her hand. His eyes narrowed and she was suddenly afraid of what he might do—that a brutal, juvenile fistfight between two wealthy tycoons might break out in the Champ de Mars.
Desperate to calm the situation down, she said, “Let me go, Cesare. Please.”
He turned to her, his black eyes flints of betrayed fury. “What is he doing here?”
“He’s my boss,” she admitted.
“You work for Angélique’s brother?”
She flinched. Strictly speaking, that might seem vengeful on her part. “He offered me a job when I needed one. That’s all.”
“You’re raising my son in the house of a man who hates me?”
“I never let him speak a word against you. Not in front of Sam.”
“That’s big of you,” he said coldly.
She saw Gustave and Marcel draw closer across the green grass. “Please,” she whispered, “you have to let me go....”
Cesare abruptly withdrew his hand. There was a lump in Emma’s throat as she turned away, quickly pushing the baby stroller toward Alain.
“Are you all right, Emma?” Alain said. “He didn’t hurt you?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cesare stiffen.
“Of course I’m all right. We were just talking.” She glanced behind her. “But now we’re done.”
“This isn’t over,” Cesare said.
His handsome face looked dark as a shadow crossed the sun. She took a deep breath. “I know,” she said miserably.
“Allons-y,” Alain said, putting a hand on the stroller handle, just where Cesare’s had been a moment before. They walked together down the path and out of the park, and at every step, she felt Cesare’s gaze on the back of her neck. She didn’t properly breathe until they were out of the Champ de Mars and back on the sidewalk by the street.
“Are you really all right?” Alain asked again.
“Fine,” she said. But she wasn’t. A war was coming. A custody war with her precious baby at the center. She could feel it like the dark clouds of a rising storm. Trying to push aside her fear, she asked, “What were you doing at the park? How did you know we were there?”
“Gustave called me.”
Her brow furrowed. “How did Gustave know?”
Alain’s cheeks colored slightly. “I sometimes have my bodyguards watch you, at a distance. Paris can be a dangerous city...”
His voice trailed off as they were passed by two elegant women dripping diamonds and head-to-toe Hermès.
“This neighborhood?” Emma said in disbelief.
He gave a graceful Gallic shrug. “On ne sait jamais.” His expression darkened. “And it seems I was right to have you followed, with that bastard Falconeri showing up. He’s Sam’s father, isn’t he?”
She was sure he meant to be protective, but her privacy felt invaded. “Yes,” she admitted. “But I don’t blame him for being upset. I never told him I was pregnant.”
“You obviously had reason. Is he going to try to take the baby?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a small voice.
“I won’t let him.” He stopped, looking down at her with his thin face and soulful eyes. “I’d do anything to protect you, Emma. You must know that.”
She looked at her boss uneasily. “I know.” In spite of all his kindness, she’d found herself wondering lately if he might be more interested in her than was strictly proper for an employer. She’d told herself she was imagining things. But still... She shook her head. “We’ll be fine. I can take care of us.”
Ahead, she saw Alain’s black limited-edition Range Rover parked illegally on the Avenue de la Bourdonnais, with his chauffeur running the engine.
“After what he did to my sister, I won’t let any woman be hurt by Cesare Falconeri, ever again,” Alain vowed. Emma stiffened.
“Cesare didn’t do anything to her. It was a tragic accident. He loved her.”
“Ah, but you think the best of everyone.” His expression changed from rage to gentleness as he looked down at her. His jaw tightened. “Even him. But that bastard doesn’t deserve you. He’ll get what he deserves. Someday.”
Looking at him, Emma’s heart trembled at what she might have unthinkingly done by accepting a job with Alain. He was convinced that his sister’s death had been something more than a tragic accidental overdose. But Cesare was innocent. He’d never been charged with any crime. And Emma, of all people, knew how he’d loved his wife. She took a deep breath and changed the subject.
“Sam and I will be fine,” she said brightly. “Cesare doesn’t want a family to tie him down. He’ll soon return to London and forget all about us.”
But as dark clouds crossed the bright sun, Emma thought of the tender expression on Cesare’s face when he’d first caressed his baby son’s cheek. And she was afraid.
* * *
“To the airport, sir?”
Cesare leaned back heavily in the backseat of the Rolls-Royce. For a moment he didn’t answer the driver. He pressed his hands against his forehead, still trembling with shock and fury from what he’d learned.
He had a child.
A son.
A baby born in secret, to the woman who’d left him last November without a word. And gone to work for his enemy.
Closing his eyes, he pressed his fingertips against the lids. He didn’t believe Emma had gotten pregnant on purpose. No. She’d been right to laugh at his knee-jerk reaction earlier. She was clearly no gold digger. But leaving him in London, without a word, taking his child away, taking his decision away...
He took a deep breath. She’d done it all as if Cesare didn’t even matter. As if he didn’t even exist.
“Sir?”
“Yes,” he bit out. “The airport.”
The limousine pulled smoothly back into the Paris traffic. Cesare’s throat was tight. He struggled to be fair, to be calm, when what he wanted to do was punch the seat in front of him and scream.
His baby was being raised in the house of Alain Bouchard, a man who unfairly blamed him for his sister’s death. Bouchard didn’t know the truth, and knowing how the man had loved his sister, Cesare had kept it that way.
But now, he pictured Bouchard’s angry face, the way he’d stepped protectively in front of Emma.
Was it possible that over the past year, while Cesare had been celibate as a monk hungering for her, Emma had become Bouchard’s lover?
No, his heart said. Impossible. But his brain disagreed. After all, the two of them were living in the same house. Perhaps she’d been lonely and heartsick. Perhaps he’d found her crying in the kitchen, as Cesare once had, and she’d fallen into the other man’s bed, as she’d once fallen into his.
He hopelessly put his hands over his ears, as if that could keep his own imagination away. Anger built inside Cesare, rising like bile in his soul.
As the car turned west, heading toward the private airport outside the city, he looked out the window. He could see the top of the Eiffel Tower above the charming buildings, over two young lovers kissing at a sidewalk café.
He ground his teeth. He’d be glad to leave this damn city. He hated Paris and everything it stood for. The romance. The love.
Whether Emma was Bouchard’s mistress or not, she had no love for Cesare anymore. She’d made her low opinion of him, as a potential father or even as a human being, very clear. She didn’t want a thing from him. Not even his money. The thought made him feel low.
It would be simple to take the easy out she offered. Leave Paris. Go back to London. Forget the child they’d unintentionally created.
His child.
He could still see the baby’s face. His soft black hair. Those dark eyes, exactly like his own.
He had a son.
A child.
He closed his eyes. Over the memory of the baby’s sweet babble, he heard Emma’s voice: We don’t need you. We don’t want you.
Cesare’s fist hit the window with a bang.
“Sir?” His driver quivered, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
Cesare’s eyes slowly opened. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to be a father. But that no longer mattered.
Because he was one.
“Go back.”
“Back?”
“To my hotel.” Cesare rubbed at the base of his skull. “I’m not leaving Paris. Take me back now.”
Pulling his phone from his pocket, he dialed a number in New York City. Mortimer Ainsley had been his uncle’s attorney, twenty years ago, and presided over his will when he’d died and Cesare gained possession of his aging, heavily mortgaged hotel. Later, Mortimer Ainsley had looked over the prenuptial agreement given to Cesare by Angélique Bouchard, the wealthy older French heiress who had proposed after just six weeks.
Morty, who’d appeared old to Cesare’s eyes even then, had harrumphed over the terms of Angélique’s prenup. “If you leave this Bouchard woman, you get nothing,” he’d said. “If she dies, you get everything. Not much of a deal for you. She’s only ten years older so it may be some time before she dies!”
Cesare had been horrified. “I don’t want her to die. I love her.”
“Love, huh?” Morty had snorted. “Good luck with that.”
Remembering how young and naive he’d been, Cesare waited for Morty to answer the phone. He knew the old man would answer, no matter what time it was in New York right now. Morty would know the right attorney in Paris to handle a custody case.
Better no father at all than a father like you.
Cesare’s jaw tightened. Emma would realize the penalty for what she’d done. She’d see that Cesare Falconeri would not be ignored, or denied access—or even knowledge!—of his own child.
“Ainsley.” Morty’s greeting was gruff, as if he’d just woken from sleep.
“Morty. I have a problem....” Without preamble, Cesare grimly outlined the facts.
“So you have a son,” Morty said. “Congratulations.”
“I told you. I don’t have a son,” Cesare said tightly. “She has him.”
“Of course you can go to war over this. You might even win.” Morty cleared his throat. “But you know the expression, Pyrrhic victory? Unless the woman’s an unfit mother...”
Cesare remembered Emma’s loving care of the baby as she pushed him in the stroller through the park. “No,” he said grudgingly.
“Then you have to decide who you’re willing to hurt, and how badly. ’Cause in a custody war, it’s never just the other parent who takes it in the neck. Nine times out of ten, it’s the kid who suffers most.” Morty paused. “I can give you the number of a barracuda lawyer who will cause the sky to rain fire on this woman. But is that what you really want?”
As his Rolls-Royce crossed the Seine and traveled up the Avenue George V, Cesare’s grip on his phone slowly loosened. By the time he ended the call a few minutes later, as the car pulled in front of the expensive five-star hotel where he’d stayed through the business negotiations, Cesare’s expression had changed entirely.
The valet opened his door. “Welcome back, monsieur.”
Looking up, Cesare didn’t see the imposing architecture of the hotel as he got out. Instead he saw Emma’s troubled expression when they’d parted in the Champ de Mars.
She was expecting him to start a war over this. Christo santo, she knew him well. Now that he knew about Sam, she expected him to fight for custody, to destroy their peace and rip their comfortable life into shreds. And then after that, after he’d made a mess of their lives for the sake of his pride, she expected Cesare to grow bored and quickly abandon them both.
That was why she hadn’t told him about the baby. That was why she thought Sam was better off with no father at all. She truly believed Cesare was that selfish. That he’d put his own ego over the well-being of his child.
His lips pressed into a thin line. He might have done it, too, if Morty hadn’t made him think twice.
You have to decide who you’re willing to hurt, and how badly. ’Cause in a custody war, it’s never just the other parent who takes it in the neck. Nine times out of ten, it’s the kid who suffers most.
Before his own parents died, Cesare’d had a happy, almost bohemian childhood in a threadbare villa on Lake Como, filled with art and light and surrounded by beautiful gardens. His parents, both artists, had loved each other, and they’d adored their only child. The three of them had been inseparable. Until, when he was twelve, his mother had gotten sick, and her illness had poisoned their lives, drop by drop.
His father’s death had been quicker. After his wife’s funeral, he’d gone boating on the lake in the middle of the night, after he’d drunk three bottles of wine. Calling his death by drowning an accident, Cesare thought, had been generous of the coroner.
Now his hands tightened. If he didn’t go to war for custody, how else could he fulfill his obligation to his son? He couldn’t leave Sam to be raised by another man—especially not Alain Bouchard. Sam would grow up believing Cesare was a monster who’d callously abandoned him.
Cesare exhaled.
How could he bend Emma to his will? What was the fulcrum he could use to gain possession of his child? What was her weakness?
Then—he knew.
And if some part of him shivered at the thought, he stomped on it as an irrational fear. This was no time to be afraid. This time, he wouldn’t be selling his soul. There would be no delusional love involved. He would do this strictly for his child’s sake. In name only.
He had a sudden image of Emma in his bed, luscious and warm, naked in his arms....
No! He would keep her in his home, but at a distance. In name only, he repeated to himself. He would never open his heart to her again. Not even a tiny corner of it.
From this moment forward, his heart was only for his son.
Grabbing the car door as it started to pull away, he wrenched it open and flung himself back into the Rolls-Royce.
“Monsieur?”
“I changed my mind.”
“Of course, sir,” replied the driver, who was well accustomed in dealing with the inexplicable whims of the rich. “Where may I take you?”
Emma expected a battle. He would give her one. But not in the way she expected. He would take her completely off guard—and sweep her completely into his power, in a revenge far sweeter, and more explosive, than any mere rain of fire.
“Around the corner,” Cesare replied coldly. “To a little jewelry shop on the Avenue Montaigne.”
