Читать книгу Secret Heirs Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Коллектив авторов - Страница 16

‘HER NAME WAS Dominique Duval. Still is, for all I know—although who can be sure? She might have moved on to marriage number two…or three…or four by now. It’s been a few years, and no one could ever accuse Dominique of being anything other than a fast worker. I met her in a club.’

‘You know, you don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to…’

Was she really ready to hear a story of thwarted passion? Was she ready to learn all about his one and only true love and how she’d let him down? Left him to marry someone else?

‘You asked, and after more time together than I’d anticipated it’s only fair that you understand why me and commitment will never have anything more than a passing acquaintance.’

‘When you fall in love with someone it can be brutal when things go pear-shaped—especially if you’ve pinned your hopes on it working out.’

She heard a certain wistfulness in her voice and pulled herself up sharply, because the last thing she wanted was for him to guess at the depth of her feelings for him. When she told him that she was pregnant she would do so as a calm, collected adult whose only priority was to discuss technicalities and to reassure him that he could take as much or as little interest as he wanted.

‘Or so I would imagine,’ she added.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Sergio informed her. ‘I was never in love with that woman. It’s true she made a pass at me the first time we met, but I was involved with someone else at the time, and having fun with two women at the same time has never been my style.’

‘You were never in love with her? But I thought…’

‘You assumed—from a couple of throwaway remarks.’

‘How can you have a learning curve from someone you met in a club when you never had a relationship with her? Did she try and pickpocket you?’

‘My hotel. We’re here.’

Susie followed the direction of his finger to see a grand country house that was lit from top to bottom. Two uniformed men stood outside, as if guarding the entrance. She knew her aunt and uncle came to this hotel on a regular basis with friends. Apparently it did a very good dinner.

‘And, no…pickpockets don’t engender learning curves. Dominique Duval was a nurse, and she made a pass at me because she knew who I was. I was young at the time—barely out of my teens—and from a wealthy family. My mother had died years before and my father had never remarried. I was in line to inherit his fortune, but I think she knew from the get-go that a fortune in the future was a lot less enticing than a fortune she could lay her hands on immediately. Maybe if I’d been interested she would have climbed into bed with me for the fun of it, but she had set her sights higher.’

Looking back, he had been able to make sense of the interest she had shown in his background, in his widowed father—the caring, attractive ex-nurse, with a heart full of compassion and empathy because, after all, she had seen so many hurt and lonely widowers in her line of work.

‘She was a nurse? I thought that was a caring line of work…’ She was hanging on to his every word, barely noticing the grand surroundings of the hotel, or the way the woman manning the reception desk in the early hours of the morning jumped to attention the second he strode in and then scrambled behind them as they headed straight to the bank of lifts.

‘You’d think…’ Sergio flicked her a wry glance. ‘My first powerful lesson in never judging a book by its cover.’

‘And in always assuming the worst when it comes to other people’s motivations…’

‘Very good.’

‘What happened?’

Sergio’s eyes narrowed and he shrugged. His face was hard and coldly unforgiving, even though he was recalling a past situation and not currently enduring it.

‘She made sure to engineer an introduction to my father and pulled out all the right cards. She was a caring, fun girl, thirty years his junior, who could understand just what he might have been going through. She told him a life alone was no kind of life—not for a sexy silver fox like him. He was flattered. For the first time in years he decided that life was worth living after all. They were married within six months and it didn’t take long before her true colours started appearing. The caring, sharing nurse became the free-spending gold-digger she had been all along—and if that wasn’t enough she contrived to get my father to change his will. When he died suddenly of a heart attack pretty much everything went to her, and within five years she had managed to work her way through most of his fortune. Fortunately, he’d had the sense to leave the majority of his companies to me. She was cash-rich, with a couple of houses to spare, but she was still greedy enough to consult a lawyer, in the hope that she might get her hands on some of the companies. I spent five years batting her off until she finally gave up. Where she is now is anybody’s guess.’

Susie wandered over to the chaise longue by the window and sat down, her own problems temporarily on the back burner as she worked out just how he had ended up where he had.

There was safety in a hard-boiled career woman. She thought of her own sister. Alex would never be interested in anyone’s money, or in furthering herself on the back of someone else. She was fiercely independent and ambitious to get ahead under her own steam. That would be the sort of woman he would be seriously interested in. A woman who had her own life—just as he had his own life.

‘I’ve seen how a person can imagine they’re in love,’ he continued, taking up a position on the chair facing her, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his expression cool and remorseless. ‘They get swept away by emotion, lose all sense of perspective, abandon their self-control. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the sort of thing that never has a good ending.’

Susie thought that he might have been describing her.

‘In due course,’ he drawled, ‘I imagine I will want to settle down, but when that time comes it will be rather more of a business arrangement than a giddy loss of judgement.’

He was uneasily aware of just how fast his self-control disappeared when he was presented with her glorious body, but immediately dismissed that as a cause for concern because there was a clear line of demarcation between the physical and the emotional. On the emotional front he knew exactly where he was going, and on the physical front… Well, a little loss of self-control was perfectly acceptable…it made a great change to his usual predictable diet.

Susie heard the unmistakable clang of his boundary lines being repositioned.

Her breathing quickened and she flushed under the steady gaze of his eyes.

Why had she let herself be talked into coming back here with him? She knew why. Because she was weak and in love. Because one kiss from him could send her common sense flying in all directions. Because she was just the sort of emotional type he had told her he didn’t need as a long-term investment.

‘It’s late.’

‘So it is…’ He slanted her a smile that turned her bones to jelly. ‘Come here.’

‘I’m not in the mood for sex.’

‘No? Do you want to put that to the test?’

‘We need to talk, Sergio. There are things… Well, things I need to say to you…’

Sergio frowned. Women who had a pressing need to talk rarely said anything he wanted to hear. He reminded himself that she wasn’t like the other women he had dated. She talked a lot. She probably wanted to talk about the wedding—her parents, her sister, her huge array of cousins. It made such a change from his non-existent family, as an only child born to only children.

His face cleared and he smiled.

‘Let’s go to bed…’

‘This isn’t pillow talk.’

‘Who said it was? I’m just finding it hard to keep going with the chat when we could be doing other things. Why don’t you give an old man a kick and do a striptease for me…?’

‘You’re only thirty-two!’ Her face warmed and her body was going into its usual meltdown.

Sergio grinned and remained where he was, enjoying the way he had hardened for her, enjoying the thrill of what was going to follow. Sooner or later he would move on because, as she had pointed out, they weren’t suited to one another, but just at the moment familiarity was a long way from breeding contempt.

He tried to swallow down his dislike of her reminding him that he wasn’t her type, but it nagged away like a thorn in his side he couldn’t quite reach.

He stood up, strolled towards the bed, shedding his clothes en route until he was left in only his trousers, which he began to remove while she watched in her usual trance-like state of fascination.

Her body was as it always was. There were no outward signs of her pregnancy. But what would happen, she wondered, when she did begin to show? When her flat stomach began to go round…when her breasts grew even bigger…? What would happen to that overwhelming lust he felt for her, which was the one and only thing that kept him going?

It was just one more thought to pile on all the other thoughts that were buzzing around in her head like a swarm of bees.

For the moment…

What if this was the last time she had him—really had him? Because she would break the news to him in the morning and then leave, giving him time to digest the indigestible.

From that point on what they had would officially be over. Which would make right now her last chance to have him make love to her, to have him touch her and feel her and want her…

If she was a coward to be snatching it with both hands then so be it.

She followed him, kicking off her high shoes, and then stood at the side of the bed, with his deep, dark eyes on her, and performed the striptease he had asked her to do.

Sexy, erotic, sensuous… In the dark so that their bodies were shadows and angles…

She was wet for him by the time she slid under the covers. Their bodies seemed perfectly matched. She had felt comfortable with him even that very first time, and she felt so much more comfortable now.

His hands knew just where to touch, what turned her on. He nuzzled her breasts and took her nipples into his mouth in a way that sent delicious sensations zapping through her. He licked her and played with her and toyed with her…taking her to the edge before bringing her back…until her whole body was on fire.

They moved together as one, in perfect unison. He enjoyed it when she straddled him, so that her breasts hung teasingly by his mouth. When she did that she was bombarded by the dual sensations of having him suckle on her breast while he teased her below with his fingers. When she took him in her mouth she knew just how to angle her body so that he could simultaneously take her in his, suck and lick her until her clitoris could take no more, and only then, when they had enjoyed one another to the max, would he don a condom and complete her fully.

This time she didn’t want their lovemaking to end. She didn’t want to close her eyes and fall asleep, knowing that the morning light would bring all sorts of problems to their horizon.

‘So…’ Sergio nuzzled her ear.

He had long since given up his habit of abandoning the woman in his bed in favour of his computer. And he had broken with tradition by allowing her to sleep over, because his mornings were always so much more satisfying when he could wake up and make love to her.

‘So…?’

‘So you didn’t paint the full, unexpurgated picture of your background because your high-achieving family make you feel insecure…’

‘Where did that come from?’ She rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.

‘I’m a problem-solver. I like it when things add up.’

‘And I’m something that needs adding up?’

‘Your father told me that they pleaded with you to use their apartment in Kensington but you wouldn’t. Why not?’

‘Because I’m not a kid. I can stand on my own two feet.’

Even though it meant living in a cramped, disgusting hovel. He could only admire her tenacity.

‘You might think that you sister has it all, but she envies you…did you know that?’

Susie swung to look at him, although in the darkness she could barely make out his expression. ‘Did she tell you that?’

‘She didn’t have to. I could decipher it from the way she described you…free-spirited…taking each day as it comes…’

‘Alex enjoys her life. She’s so clever you wouldn’t believe it.’

‘She’s also the eldest. There’s a lot riding on her shoulders.’

‘I never thought about it from that point of view. Maybe you’re right.’ She sighed. ‘Who cares anyway?’

‘You do.’

‘I’m tired.’ She made herself yawn. ‘It’s been a big day. I’d quite like to get some sleep now.’

Sergio cupped her breast, liking the feel of its heaviness in the palm of his big hand. He rubbed her nipple with the abrasive pad of his thumb and felt it stiffen.

‘You wanted to tell me something,’ he murmured. ‘What was it?’

Susie stilled. This was not the right time. When she detonated that bomb she knew that she would have to take cover.

‘In the morning,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m way too tired to string a sentence together now…’

‘Too tired to touch me?’ He guided her hand to his erection and felt her whole body soften and yearn towards him.

They made love slowly, like two people dancing underwater. When she came it was a long, deep climax, and she fell asleep almost immediately, her body curled into his.

Light was streaming through the windows when she next woke, and the bed was empty. She surfaced groggily and for the first five seconds was blissfully forgetful of the daunting task that lay ahead.

Her peace of mind didn’t last long and she sat up, rubbed her eyes and spotted him at the desk, working.

‘What time is it?’

‘After ten.’

Susie yelped and flung herself out of bed. Shower. Get cleaned up. Put her dress back on—which was going to look ridiculous at ten in the morning. And of course she had no make-up with her…not even a hairbrush.

She couldn’t face having this talk until she was fully dressed. Being naked and in his bed made her vulnerable.

She locked the bathroom door. For the first time. No sexy, steamy shared shower. No touching. She wasn’t even sure she would be able to look him squarely in the face, never mind having his hands on her, exploring her body, turning her brain to mush.

‘Why the big rush?’

He looked at her as she emerged fully clothed from the bathroom. As jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof. Suddenly that vague feeling was back with him—the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. And yet…they had spent another incredible night together. What could be wrong? She had recovered from her little fit of pique at the thought that he had gatecrashed the wedding so that he could see for himself where she came from.

He shot her a slow, deliberate smile and it took all the will power in her repertoire not to fold.

‘I’m going to call a taxi to…er…take me back to London.’

She stuck out her chin and looked at him challengingly and Sergio frowned.

‘Why? Stanley’s waiting. My very lucky chauffeur was treated to a night in one of the finest hotels in the county so that he could be on standby for when I was ready to leave.’ He relaxed back in the chair, folded his arms on his chest and gazed at her.

‘I’m going to have to detour via the bed and breakfast I was booked into…get the stuff that I left in the room…change clothes…that sort of thing…’

Sergio didn’t say anything and silence filled the room, as heavy as a lead weight.

‘This is beginning to get on my nerves, Susie. What exactly is it that you want to say? If it’s a little speech about our future, then I’ll spare you the trauma of initiating the subject. You know how I feel on the matter.’

Sudden tension lent his voice a sharp edge that made her flinch back, as if she had been struck.

‘Of course I know!’ she snapped tensely. ‘You’ve made it perfectly clear from day one and you haven’t let up since!’

Startled at her own outburst, because it was so unlike her, she felt tears prick the back of her eyes. She blinked rapidly and took a few deep breaths. She’d been snapping at him since he had arrived and she would continue until she got what she had to say off her chest.

Sergio’s jaw hardened. ‘The reason I’m repeating myself,’ he drawled, with just the right level of boredom to induce in her another jag of misery, ‘is because weddings can sometimes do things to a girl. She sees her best friend, or in your case her cousin, walking up the aisle and suddenly she starts thinking that it’s about time her turn came along.’

‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

‘No? Because your father happened to mention in passing that a big white wedding is the only thing you’ve ever really wanted. Apparently you used to spend your childhood days dressing up your dolls in big wedding dresses and marrying them off to whatever stuffed toy was handy.’

Susie’s cheeks flamed. She’d forgotten about that. She’d certainly never thought that her father had paid the slightest bit of attention to that phase of her life.

‘I had no idea you’d been having such in-depth conversations with my parents. What else did they happen to mention “in passing”?’

‘That you insisted on that secretarial course which had only ever been a suggestion. You clung to it and stuck it out—even though it was obvious from day one that you were allergic to all things technological and got bored the second you stepped foot inside an office.’

Shaking, Susie slithered towards the chaise longue and sat down, giving her wobbly legs a rest.

He had no right to just turn up and then to burrow his way into her past via her parents. Not now. Not when everything was changing.

‘That’s not the way I remember it…’ she said, distracted. ‘Alex was always the golden girl.’

‘Memories can get a little distorted. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter. The truth is your showing up uninvited to Clarissa’s wedding…meeting my parents…wasn’t a good idea.’

‘Because they might get the wrong impression and think that this is more serious than it actually is…? Your mother might start shopping for a hat…? Your father will begin to prepare his father-of-the-bride speech…? You’ve already mentioned that. This conversation is beginning to go round in circles.’

‘It’s okay for you to sit there and smirk!’ she said in a high-pitched voice. ‘But you don’t know what it’s like!’

‘And maybe you’re overplaying how you think your family might respond to the fact that you’re going out with me. They might, actually, be a little more pragmatic than you give them credit for… They might be just a little more realistic…’ He shifted, looked at her with cool, assessing eyes. ‘And since when have you taken to shouting?’

‘I wasn’t shouting. I was trying to make a point.’ She sighed and ran her fingers through her tumbling hair. ‘Maybe this is just a side to me that you haven’t seen before. The shouting side.’

She wiped her perspiring hands on her dress and flopped back on the chaise longue, because her legs were beginning to come over all weak and wobbly again.

‘Look…I just want you to know that I don’t expect anything from you. Nothing at all.’

Sergio’s eyes narrowed. He tilted his head to one side, as though listening for something only he would be able to hear.

‘I’m not following you.’

Tense as a bowstring, Susie sprang to her feet and began pacing the room, her movements agitated. Every so often her eyes slid across to him—and the closed expression on his beautiful face didn’t exactly fill her with confidence.

She fought against the temptation to put off this awkward conversation for another day. When she was feeling a little stronger. After she had absorbed all the ramifications of her situation for herself and rustled up some kind of plan. At which point she would be able to present him with a fait accompli, all-corners-covered type of situation…

‘There’s something you need to know…and I’m afraid it’s going to put a completely different spin on what we…er…have…’

Sergio stilled. Normally so adept at reading situations, he discovered that his breathing had slowed down and his brain was not operating to its usual heightened state of efficiency.

Something was wrong. What? She still fancied the hell out of him. Even sitting there, barely meeting his eyes and wringing her hands, he could sense the mutual attraction pouring between them like a wave of electricity, undiminished.

Was she about to announce that she had done something at the wedding? While he had been busy discovering all sorts of things about her, thanks to her parents and her sister? She had seemed to know nearly every one of the guests there, including all the young men, who were obviously mutual friends of the bride and her cousins.

Jealousy rammed into him with such force that he drew his breath in sharply. Graphic images of her sneaking off with some guy behind his back competed in his head to make him feel physically sick.

Jealousy? Since when had he ever been jealous when it came to any woman?

‘I’m losing patience with this long-winded non-explanation,’ he said tightly, reining in unfamiliar emotions with difficulty. ‘If you have something to say, then why don’t you stop going round the houses and just say it?’

‘I’m pregnant.’

It was the last thing he had expected to hear and so it took him a few seconds to digest the revelation.

Then he laughed mirthlessly.

‘You have got to be kidding.’

‘Do I look like someone performing a comic routine, Sergio? I’m pregnant. I only found out yesterday. I did the test. In fact I did two tests. There’s no mistake. I’m having a baby. I’m having your baby.’

He vaulted upright, stared at her and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘You can’t be.’

He stood in front of her, feet apart, challenging her to defy that simple statement of truth.

But in his heart he recognised the ring of sincerity and fought against it.

Pregnant? How the hell had that happened? He was going to be a father? Even when he had loosely contemplated the idea of eventually settling down with a suitable woman his thoughts had not stretched into the realms of fatherhood.

His eyes flew to her stomach and just as quickly looked away.

‘Don’t tell me that I can’t be,’ Susie snapped.

She glared at him. Did he think she was lying? No, of course not! He was desperately clinging to denial because the alternative was so hideous that he couldn’t bring himself to give it credence. He was a man who liked to control every aspect of his life, and just like that he’d lost it.

She’d gone into this with her eyes wide open, never realising that she would be playing with fire. This was what it felt like to end up loving someone who didn’t actually love you back. A sick, empty feeling, as if you were spinning in a black abyss, not knowing how to get out.

But there was no point getting all worked up in the face of his reaction.

‘I’ve worked out that it happened that first time,’ she said, gathering herself. ‘Yes, we were careful all the other times—but there you go. I don’t see the point of wasting time trying to blame one another…’

‘Who said that I was apportioning blame?’

‘I wish you’d sit down, Sergio. You’re not making this any easier for me. I…I’m having to take all this in myself…’

‘You knew the entire time we were at the wedding?’

She nodded.

‘And you said nothing to me?’

‘I hardly expected you to turn up unannounced, Sergio! Besides, this isn’t the sort of conversation to be had over some bubbly and canapés.’

‘You were taken aback when I showed up…’

His brain cranked slowly back into gear. He sat down, and hunkered forward, forearms resting lightly on his thighs.

‘You didn’t want me to meet your parents because if I was in the picture it would be hard to eliminate me as the father. Were you planning on telling them that you were pregnant by some guy you’d met by chance?’ His mouth twisted sardonically. ‘Some mustard-wearing creep you met on a misguided online date, maybe?’

‘No! But if you want the truth,’ she told him bluntly, ‘I knew it would complicate things if you were around. It’s going to be horrendous enough getting through this…explaining to everyone that I’m pregnant…’

Except maybe he was right… Maybe they weren’t going to be as disappointed as she had imagined—maybe they would accept it the way they perhaps, possibly, had accepted her—and she hadn’t even seen that because she’d always been so busy comparing herself to Alex and to her high-achieving, brilliant parents…

‘And our unmarried state is going to be hard for them to swallow, given their traditional views on life,’ he said acidly. ‘Erasing me would have made a hell of a lot more sense. You’re right. Maybe you could even have made me out to be some kind of bastard who got you pregnant and did a runner…? The possibilities are endless, aren’t they, when it comes to disposing of an inconvenient lover…?’

‘You’re not being fair…’

‘No?’ he mocked.

‘No. You can hardly blame me for not wanting to shout it from the rooftops. You’ve made it crystal clear to me how you feel about long-term relationships and how you feel about me.’

‘And how do I feel about you?’

‘We have great sex and that’s it. I get it—of course I do. I mean…it works both ways… We’ve…um… Well, I’m not about to start dumping this on you and expecting you to do anything about it.’

Sergio banked down explosive rage.

‘When you say that you don’t expect me to “do anything about it”, what exactly do you mean?’

Her eyes flicked nervously across to him. What was he thinking? What was going through his head? His world had been turned upside down but at least he hadn’t shouted, or accused her of deliberately trying to pin him down. Given his experiences with his father’s second wife, he might have.

‘I mean this isn’t part of your life plan,’ she said. She stared down at her clasped fingers but could still feel his eyes pinned to her. ‘And you don’t have to think that you’re going to be lumbered with…with taking responsibilities you hadn’t banked on. As you may have noticed, my parents are pretty well off… I’ll manage financially…’

‘I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear what you just said,’ Sergio told her evenly. ‘And I’m going to get this back on track by pointing out a few things. The first is that you don’t know me at all if you think that I am the kind of man who sleeps with a woman and then walks away from a situation like this. The second is that my baby is my responsibility. I have no intention of handing that responsibility to your parents or any other member of your sprawling family, for that matter. Am I making myself clear on this?’

‘That’s fine,’ Susie whispered. ‘If you want to contribute financially, then I won’t say no. I just think it’s important for you to understand that—’

‘You’re not hearing me!’

Susie started, and stared at him nervously. ‘You want to…to help out with money. I understand.’

‘This is not just your deal. Whether I wanted this explosion in my life or not, it’s happened—and I intend to be a fully committed player in the game. I’m not just going to set up a direct debit to your account and visit as and when I can… Oh, no. And if you’re thinking along those lines, then you’ve completely misread the situation, Susie. Start the countdown, my darling. Whether either of us wants it or not, you’re about to become Mrs Burzi…’