Читать книгу Billionaires: The Daredevil: Claimed for Makarov's Baby / Defying the Billionaire's Command / Redeeming the Billionaire SEAL - Lauren Canan, Michelle Conder - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU CAN’T,’ SAID Erin fervently as the limousine gathered speed, and she turned to look at Dimitri, who was sitting like some granite-faced sentry in the back seat beside her. Sofia’s designer jeans were indeed too big but the baby-blue sweater hugged her nicely and now she was warmer she felt more in control. She made one last attempt to appeal to the Russian’s better nature, even if deep in her heart she knew he didn’t have one. ‘You can’t just turn up out of the blue and introduce yourself to a six-year-old boy and tell him you’re his long-lost father.’

‘Just watch me,’ he said grimly.

Erin heard the harsh note in his voice and was reminded of his fierce reputation. Not that he had minded. He always maintained that a fierce reputation kept fools at a distance and for a long time she had been flattered by that statement and its implication. Because she had been one of the few people he’d allowed to get close to him—and hadn’t that made her think she meant more to him than she actually did? Oh, the foolish longings of a rich man’s secretary!

‘Think about it, Dimitri,’ she said quietly.

‘What do you think I’ve been doing?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve done nothing but think about it since I was first shown a photograph of the boy.’

‘And when was that?’

‘Seven days ago,’ he snapped.

She nodded, determined not to let him sweep her aside with the force of his anger, knowing she had to fight her little boy’s corner here. For his sake. For all their sakes. ‘Leo doesn’t know you—’

‘And whose fault is that?’

A wave of remorse washed over her and suddenly her decision didn’t seem quite so clear-cut. Because Dimitri did seem different. The clear-eyed man in the pristine suit was light years away from the stubble-jawed and hungover man who used to arrive at the office demanding strong coffee. ‘Mine,’ she admitted. ‘But I did it with the best intentions.’

‘I don’t care about your intentions, Erin,’ he said, his voice dipping. ‘I just care about what is mine. And this child is my flesh and blood, too, not just yours.’

His unashamed possessiveness sent a ripple of alarm through her and Erin recognised that once a piece of information was out there, you couldn’t get it back. And you couldn’t control the outcome, either. Dimitri was here and—judging from the grim expression on his face—he was here to stay.

‘If you really care about him,’ she said, ‘then you must take it slowly. Imagine how it would feel if you suddenly exploded into his life without warning.’

‘You should have considered that before, shouldn’t you?’

The car drew up in front of a set of red traffic lights and a man on a bike raced past them, using the inside lane. Erin listened to the blare of horns which greeted the cyclist’s action as she thought how best to get Dimitri to see sense. He liked facts, didn’t he? Hard, cold facts. So present them to him.

She sucked in a deep breath. ‘You always used to say you had no desire to be a father.’

‘Given the choice,’ came his flat response. ‘Which I haven’t been.’

‘And what if that’s still true? You might meet him and wish you never had. It might reinforce all the worst things you ever thought about fatherhood. And if that were the case, wouldn’t it be hard for you to walk away and even harder for him to pretend that the meeting had never happened?’

Dimitri’s lips tightened as her words struck an unwanted chord, thinking how well she knew him—better perhaps than anyone else. What if he met the child, but could not meet the boy’s expectations? What if the boy wanted love from him—real love—and commitment? Could he take that risk, knowing that he could provide none of those things?

‘What are you suggesting?’ he demanded.

She met his gaze without flinching. ‘I don’t know you any more. I have to be sure that you’re no longer the man you used to be. You have to convince me that you’ve changed. I don’t want Leo mixing with gamblers or heavy drinkers, or witnessing a stream of women parading their bodies in front of him.’

His mouth twisted. ‘You mean you want to vet me?’

‘Can you blame me?’ she retorted. ‘But we also need to discuss what to say to him. If you’re going to meet Leo after all this time, we need to present a united front.’

Dimitri felt his body tense as she stated her demands. As if what she wanted was the only thing which mattered. There was no sense of remorse that she’d kept this information from him for so long, was there? Not a flicker of it...

Anger bubbled up inside him and suddenly he felt the need to lash out. Without thinking, he caught hold of her arms—thinking how slim they felt beneath the borrowed sweater. She jerked her head back in surprise so that the light caught the cheap, fake pearls which were woven into her hair. Her lips were parted, her green eyes were dark and, although her face was wary, he realised that she still wanted him. That in the midst of everything, there was desire. Of course there was. No female remained immune to him for long. He could feel sexual hunger pulsating in the air around them as his gaze flickered to the twin thrust of her nipples pinpointing against the soft wool of the sweater. He thought how easy it would be to burrow his hands beneath. To caress those hard little nubs with the skill which could sometimes make a woman come, just by doing that. For a nanosecond he was tempted beyond measure, his fingers longing to creep over those tiny mounds and play with them.

Until he remembered that this was the woman who had deliberately concealed his son from him. Who had written him out of her life as if he no longer existed. How could he possibly desire a woman like that? Abruptly, he dropped his hands, wondering if she was aware that disappointment was written all over her face as he did so. A flicker of triumph coursed through him as she bit her lip and he took a moment to enjoy her obvious frustration.

‘So what were you planning to do after your wedding?’ he questioned. ‘Were you coming back here to the café with your new husband to parade your shiny new ring for all to see?’

‘No. We’d...we’d planned to spend a long weekend at a hotel in the country. Chico took my suitcase down there yesterday.’

‘For your honeymoon?’ he scorned.

‘I suppose you could call it that. It was intended to make our marriage seem more authentic to the authorities, that was all.’

‘So Leo knows about the wedding?’

There was silence for a moment. ‘Of course he does,’ she said. ‘He likes Chico. We were... We were all going to live together in a lovely house in the country.’

‘A fake marriage to a gay man—with separate rooms, I presume?’ he said. ‘How the hell was that supposed to work?’

‘We would have made it work,’ she defended. ‘I was thinking about Leo’s future. About giving him the financial security I could never guarantee him!’

‘What kind of example is that to set for a child?’ he demanded bitterly, because he was discovering a nerve which was still raw, even after all these years. ‘Basing your life on lies and deception?’

Nervously, she glanced out of the window. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. At least, not now,’ she said, her voice growing strained. ‘Because we’re nearly there.’

He followed the direction of her gaze to the grey, treeless streets outside. ‘And will my son be there?’

She flinched a little, as if it hurt to hear him use the possessive phrase. Well, tough, he thought grimly. She was going to have to get used to a lot more than that.

‘No. He’ll still be at school. He won’t be back for a couple of hours.’

Dimitri flexed his fingers as he forced himself to think about practicalities, because he could see that she was right. He couldn’t just burst in, unannounced—and although it went against his every instinct, he could see that the process should be gradual. Yet his discovery about the boy could not have come at a worse time, because he was due to travel to Jazratan tomorrow, for some delicate end-stage negotiations with the Sheikh of that oil-rich land. It was a deal which had been a long time in the making, and Saladin Al Mektala was not a man whose presence you could postpone. But Dimitri recognised suddenly that this discovery was more important than any deal—and the realisation surprised him almost as much as the unexpected twist of his heart when he thought of his unknown son. Because he was a man who put business above everything—who never allowed his personal life to intrude on his material ambitions.

He glanced at Erin, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her head was bent and the fake pearls were glinting in her dark hair. He guessed he could start getting to know Leo when he returned from his desert trip, but he was reluctant to let her out of his sight. What if she disappeared while he was away, taking Leo with her? If she was determined for him not to meet his son, he wouldn’t put it past her. He wouldn’t put anything past her.

Unless... Restlessly, he tapped his finger against one taut thigh as he began to sift through all the options which lay open to him and the germ of an idea came to him. It wasn’t perfect, but it was simple—if he could persuade her to accept it. His mouth hardened, knowing he would make her accept it, whether she liked it or not.

‘So if the wedding is off and you were due to go away for the weekend, then Leo won’t be expecting you home?’ he said.

‘N-no,’ she answered uncertainly, as if sensing a trap.

‘Then listen to me very carefully, Erin—because this is what you are going to do. You will go and pack yourself another bag.’

She stilled. ‘What for?’

‘Think about it. You said that you needed to get to know me and that we needed to present a united front when I meet Leo—so that’s exactly what we’re going to do. As it happens, I’m booked to go to Jazratan this weekend to stay at the royal palace—’

‘Not with the horse-mad Sheikh?’

Her instant recall of his business dealings made him give a reluctant nod of satisfaction. ‘That’s the one.’

‘You’re not still trying to buy some of his oil wells?’

‘Indeed I am. And I am this close...’ he held up his thumb and forefinger, with a distance of an inch between them ‘...to succeeding. Which is why the trip cannot be cancelled—and why you will be accompanying me.’

‘Me?’ Her voice was a squeak as her hands tightened into balled fists. ‘Why on earth would I come with you to Jazratan?’

‘Why not? It will provide us with the space we need. I’ll have to run it past the Sheikh’s advisors first, but I can foresee no problem. You were the best secretary I’ve ever had and you’ve worked on some of the negotiations with me in the past. I can say that I want you beside me if and when I sign the biggest deal of my life.’

She stared at him. ‘Are you...out of your mind?’

Abruptly, his mood seemed to change. Gone was the element of negotiation and in its place was a steely determination she recognised only too well.

‘No, I am not out of my mind,’ he iced back. ‘I am trying to work out a solution and I am fighting every instinct I possess not to go in there and tell that little boy the truth. To tell him that not only is his mother a liar, but that she has kept me completely out of the loop. I don’t think the courts look very favourably on that kind of behaviour these days. A mother denying her child access to his father is seen as selfish, not noble—and gone are the days when a father has no rights. So are you going to accept my suggestion, Erin—or are you going to waste time by arguing with me, when we both know I always get what I want in the end?’

Yes, he did.

Always.

Erin tried to get her head around his words. Accompany him to Jazratan, to stay in a desert palace?

He couldn’t force her...yet if she turned him down, her refusal to cooperate would surely impact on Leo. Her gaze strayed to his stony profile and she saw a nerve flickering at his temple—an indication he had reached the limit of his patience, a quality for which he had never been renowned. And she knew he was right. There was no point in fighting him. Because he would win.

‘It seems I have no choice,’ she said.

He smiled, but the smile didn’t touch his eyes. ‘That is possibly the first sensible thing you’ve said all day,’ he said. ‘So go and get your stuff together and explain to your sister that there’s been a change of plan.’ He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘This is my private number. She can contact you via this should the need arise while we’re away.’

Erin took the card from him as the limousine drew up at the end of her road and thoughts of escape overwhelmed her as she reached for the door handle. What if he turned up at the appointed time and she and Leo weren’t there—he would have to leave for Jazratan without her, wouldn’t he?

But almost as if he’d read her mind, he reached out and caught hold of her and Erin could feel her pulse rocketing as his fingers curled over her wrist.

‘This is going to happen, make no mistake. So don’t keep me waiting and don’t even think about running away,’ he said softly. ‘You have precisely one hour and then my car will return for you. Do you understand?’

Erin was still shaking as she watched him drive away, taking a moment to compose herself as she pushed open the door of the Oranges & Lemons café, which her sister had named after a famous nursery rhyme about the church bells of London. It was a bright and cheerful place, decorated with framed paintings of the fruits done by local children, and usually Erin enjoyed that first explosion of colour whenever she walked in. But today all she could think about were a pair of icy eyes and the harsh words Dimitri had spoken to her.

Her sister, Tara, was polishing glasses behind the counter and she looked up in surprise when she saw her, blinking behind her owl-like glasses.

‘Erin! What on earth are you doing here? You look terrible,’ she added before lowering her voice, even though there were hardly any customers around. ‘Did something happen? Did it...’ She hesitated, her face twisting with a funny kind of expression. ‘Did the wedding all go off as planned?’

‘No,’ said Erin flatly. ‘It didn’t.’

Tara stared. ‘Whose clothes are you wearing?’

For a minute Erin didn’t know what her sister was talking about and then looked down and realised she was wearing another woman’s sweater and a pair of jeans which didn’t fit her properly. ‘It’s a long story,’ she said and then, stupidly, her voice began to wobble and for one awful moment she thought she was about to cry. She swallowed, because she wasn’t going to do that. She mustn’t do that. Staying calm needed to be her focus, not making stupid displays of unnecessary emotion. She drew a deep breath and tried to make her voice sound as bland as if she were announcing what was showing on TV that night. ‘Dimitri Makarov turned up.’

Tara’s face blanched. ‘He actually turned up?’

‘That’s right. He—’

‘For God’s sake.’ Tara put the glass down with a hand which was far from steady. ‘Come round here and sit down. I’ll make you a coffee.’

‘I don’t want any coffee.’ But Erin walked behind the bar all the same and noticed that Tara was making her a cup anyway. She watched her grinding beans and driving steam into the small cup, and forced herself to take a sip of the espresso which was pushed firmly along the counter towards her.

‘So, what happened?’ asked Tara.

Briefly, Erin explained—though it sounded like the plot of an old film as she recounted how Dimitri had stormed in to halt the wedding, before taking her back to his place to lay down the law.

‘He did that?’ questioned Tara shakily.

‘He did.’ Erin’s voice was grim. ‘He wants to see Leo. He wants to get to know him.’ And suddenly it wasn’t quite so easy to stay focused. Suddenly, it was all too easy to see how problematic this was going to be. ‘He’s coming back in an hour and he wants me packed and ready.’

‘Packed and ready for what?’

‘You’re not going to believe me if I tell you.’

‘Try me.’

Erin wriggled shoulders which were stiff with tension. ‘He’s taking me to Jazratan. It’s a country in the Middle East—one of the richest of the desert states, as it happens. He thinks we ought to get to know each other better before he’s introduced to Leo.’

Tara frowned. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I don’t know.’ Beads of sweat broke out on Erin’s brow and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. She told herself she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to. But that was the trouble. With Dimitri it wasn’t that simple—nothing ever was. Whenever she looked at him she started thinking about things which were forbidden. Things she was never going to have. Things she didn’t even believe in. And she’d made that mistake once before. She’d thought she’d been in love when she’d woken up in his bed that morning and look where it had got her. His look of shock and horror had stripped away all her stupid delusions. Her grand passion had gone the way of all grand passions—it had burnt itself out before it had even had the chance to get started. It had reinforced everything she’d always known about letting your heart rule your head—and no way was she going to repeat that mistake. Her life hadn’t been easy since she’d handed in her notice—but at least she hadn’t had to live with the unbearable pain of heartbreak.

She pushed away her cup before looking up at her sister with bewildered eyes. ‘The only thing I can’t work out is how he found out about the wedding.’

There was a pause, and when Tara spoke it was in a voice Erin didn’t recognise.

‘I told him.’

For the second time that day Erin’s heart felt as if it had been crushed by an iron fist. For a moment she just sat there frozen with shock, before her breath exploded from her mouth. ‘You told him?’ she echoed. ‘You told Dimitri about the wedding? You?’

‘Yes,’ said Tara.

‘What, you just tracked him down and phoned him up and announced that he had a son?’

‘He was easy enough to find—he owns half of London, for heaven’s sake! Getting through to him was the tricky part but once I mentioned your name, he took the call straight away. But I didn’t say anything about Leo, I promise you that, Erin. I just told him you were getting married. I didn’t breathe a word about his son.’

‘Then how come he knew he had one?’

‘I don’t know!’ snapped Tara. ‘And before you say anything else—I’m glad I did it. Yes—glad!’

Erin felt sick. Her sister was the closest person she had, next to Leo—the person she would have trusted most in the world—and she had betrayed her to the man she feared most. She had unleashed a powerful secret without knowing where it would take them.

‘Why would you be glad about something like that?’ she questioned dully.

‘You know why,’ said Tara softly. ‘Because you were breaking the law by marrying Chico so that he could get a work permit and I was worried about the fallout if that ever got out. Because Dimitri might have changed—and shouldn’t you at least give him the chance to show you whether he has? But mainly because Leo...’

Her words tailed off and Erin’s head jerked back, anger and hurt blending together to form a potent cocktail of emotion as she stared at her sister.

‘Because Leo what?’ she questioned coldly.

Tara swallowed. ‘Leo deserves to know who his father is. He does, Erin. Don’t you ever feel guilty that he doesn’t even know?’

‘Of course I do!’ Erin’s hissed words were so fervent that they startled her as much as they evidently startled Tara. ‘But life isn’t black and white. You know exactly why I did it. I didn’t want my son to be brought up in the kind of world which Dimitri inhabits.’

‘I didn’t hear you objecting when you worked for him.’

Erin didn’t answer. No, that much was true. Because she’d loved her job and had been dazzled by the trust he’d placed in her. So she’d turned a blind eye to all the whispers and rumours about the Russian oligarch. Even when her eyes had been opened to the kind of man he really was, even when the scales had fallen away and she’d seen the dark soul at his core, it hadn’t made any difference. And wasn’t that the worst part of all—that she had wanted to reach out to help clear that darkness away instead of running as fast as she could in the opposite direction? What a fool she’d been. Because all that had happened was that her altruism had been misinterpreted by a man who didn’t seem to know what kindness was—and had ended up with them having sex. Sex which had meant nothing to him.

‘And he’s been getting some very good press lately,’ continued Tara. ‘I’m sure I read that he’s built a laboratory to investigate childhood diseases, somewhere in Russia. In fact, I think he’s set up some sort of charitable foundation in his name. Maybe he’s a reformed character.’

Erin kicked the tip of her white wedding shoe against the counter and for once Tara didn’t object. ‘Leopards don’t change their spots,’ she said flatly. ‘Everyone knows that.’

‘Maybe they don’t,’ said Tara quietly. ‘But even leopards can adapt—otherwise you wouldn’t find them living in zoos.’

‘I hate zoos,’ said Erin, sliding down from the stool and staring at her sister. ‘And I still can’t believe you told him.’

‘I did it because I love you,’ said Tara simply. ‘And one day you might even thank me for it.’

With an angry shake of her head, Erin went upstairs to the room she shared with Leo. She’d done her best to smarten it up, with pale walls and rows of books which she encouraged her clever son to read—but the cramped dimensions reminded her that this way of living couldn’t continue indefinitely. Her gaze lingered on the framed photos of Leo at various milestones in his life—from chubby and very demanding infant right up to his first day of school, last year. She studied that one the hardest, her eyes scanning his innocent little face—so full of hope and happiness—and her heart clenched with a sense of having completely messed things up.

Kicking off her shoes, she changed into her own clothes, wondering how she must have appeared to Dimitri after all these years. Had she changed much? She stared into the mirror. Of course she had. Even the most liberal of observers would have described her appearance as bizarre, and nobody had ever accused Dimitri of being liberal.

Her green eyes were fringed with more make-up than usual and her hair was still woven into a complex updo, studded with the fake-pearl pins which she’d bought from the cash-and-carry to try to emphasise her bridal status. All that time spent angsting over her decision and all the trouble she’d gone to, trying to look like a pukka bride—and it had all been over before it had even begun. Viciously, she tugged the pins out, one by one, until her long brown hair floated free and her thoughts were spinning as she began to brush it.

She had to get a grip. She had agreed on a course of action and she was going to stick to it, with as little fuss and emotion as possible. She would accompany the Russian to Jazratan and pretend to be his secretary. The two of them would talk candidly about Leo and maybe Dimitri would realise that having a child just wouldn’t fit into his lifestyle. That there was a good reason why he’d never wanted any children of his own.

And was it a terrible thing to admit that a part of her hoped that would be the case? Because wouldn’t that be easier all round? No uneasy meetings. No thoughts about the future. No sizzling sexual chemistry. She put the hairbrush down and gave her reflection a defiant stare.

She would handle it.

She had to.