Claiming His Child

“What are you trying to do, Nick? About the Author Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE Copyright

“What are you trying to do, Nick?

“Take my daughter from me?” Suzannah sounded desperate.

“Make that our daughter,” he said, catching hold of her as she tried to whirl past him. “I didn’t send any letter to your father. But I know exactly what was in it. You can’t get away with any more lies.” He ignored her moan. “I have irrefutable proof Charlotte is my child. You know it I know it. Now your father knows it. Plus the person who devoted their time to exposing the truth for their own ends.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?” The breath shook in Suzannah’s throat She jerked her arm away and moved into the living room, turning to confront him.

“You believe what you want to believe,” he said harshly. “It’s a handy trick hiding from the truth. Keeping quiet. Saying nothing. Ultimately, however, the truth will out. Charlotte is my child and I’m here to claim her.”

Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family on weekends, loves haunting galleries and auctions and is completely given over to French champagne “for every possible joyous occasion.” Her home, perched high on a hill overlooking Brisbane, Australia, is her haven. She started writing when her son was a baby, and now she finds there is no better way to spend her time.

Claiming His Child

Margaret Way

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

THERE is nothing quite like the moment of premonition. The certainty out of nowhere. The mind’s acceptance. So unscientific he thought, yet he knew the instant Bebe, his secretary, breezed into his office shuffling through the pages of the latest edition of Preview, the luxury real estate magazine, what would be in it.

“Damn you, Suzannah,” he thought. “Damn you for reaching back into my life.”

“I think we’ll find what we’re looking for here, Nick,” Bebe was saying with satisfaction, her eyes still glued to the glossy full-colour pages. Bebe Marshall, forty-eight, cheerful, enthusiastic, marvellously efficient, fiercely loyal. With an invalid mother to look after she had risked making the shift with him from Ecos Solutions when he had broken away four years ago to set up his own firm of information technology consultants. Konrads. Neither he nor Bebe had ever looked back. He was a millionaire many times over, Bebe had full-time professional home care for her mother and was now rich enough not to have to pursue work at all. In fact every other member of his team, all under thirty-five, all highly qualified, all gifted, sharing his broad vision were handsomely remunerated for their unswerving loyalty and dedication to his projects. Konrads had put itself on the map initially by creating a computer program, which greatly sped up the process followed by pathologists in the analysis of genetics and DNA testing. His current project worked on by all his staff in collaboration, was the creation of a worldwide data base contributed to by medical specialists all over the world, compiling and continually upgrading information relating to all aspects of genetics including DNA testing and the classification and trends of genetic mutations. It was important all-consuming work, which would benefit not only the medical field but the legal process and the law.

His brainchild.

“Hey, what’s up?” Bebe suddenly became aware of a certain hollowness in the silence. It was quarter to eight in the morning. She had come in early herself to clean up her workload but as usual Nick was already at his work station. “Don’t you ever sleep?” She fixed him with an eye half motherly, half yearning.

“Bebe, darling, I work here. You know that. Besides I don’t need a lot of sleep. Never did.” Nevertheless he stood up and squared his wide shoulders in readiness for what was to come.

“I suppose that’s what comes of being a genuine genius.” Bebe just clucked and shook her head in wonderment. Nick Konrads was amazing. The glowing power source. The man who dominated all the rest, and there were some brilliant people on his staff. Every last one of them with a Masters degree in computer science and information technology. She blessed the day she had ever laid eyes on him, fresh from university, fabulous brain, with Groszmann from Ecos always trying to pick it. Not that Nick put up with that situation long. He had every attribute it took for outstanding success. A computer wizard, mathematician, commanding presence, an electrodynamic personality that made people follow him like a messiah, yet inspired an enormous camaraderie. Everyone at Konrads felt privileged to be there. Nick was a great boss. He involved them all in important work. He deserved his glittering career though some in the business were bitterly envious of his meteoric rise. Nick soared above it. A man with wings. And a man who worked under tremendous pressure. Which brought Bebe back to the reason why she had bought the latest edition of Preview. Nick was in need of a retreat Some beautiful quiet place he could withdraw to to relax and entertain his friends. It was she who had touted the idea, gratified and pleased when Nick had decided to go along with it.

“So tell me,” he now invited, walking to the window wall with its spectacular views over Sydney and its magnificent glittering blue harbour. “Just what properties are you going to show me?” He spoke casually, even teasingly. He was fond of Bebe, but his mind and body were resonating with memories. Memories down the years from when he was a boy of ten and his immigrant mother and father had gone to live in the peaceful and prosperous country town of Ashbury in northern New South Wales. He himself had been born in Vienna of a German father and a Czech mother but his parents had brought him to Australia at the age of five. A new Australian they were then called. His father had been ill even then, both parents political refugees, though it had taken him a long time to find that out. Australia was the other side of the world. A country of great political and social stability. The only continent on earth that had never experienced the terrible bloodshed and upheaval of war on its own soil.

“Say, what’s wrong with you this morning?” Bebe was soaking up the mood with an antenna of her own. “You don’t seem to be listening at all.”

“I am. I promise.” He turned his head to smile at her, the flash of his beautiful even teeth breaking up the smouldering dark austerity of his handsome features. He was commandingly tall so Bebe, not short herself, had to tilt her head to look up to him, surprising something like pain, could it be grief, in his brilliant near-black eyes. Nick was a hundred times more complex than even she knew. A man who kept a lot inside himself.

“Well.” She smiled, suddenly wanting to hug him. “I know I’m prattling on and you’ve probably been up most of the night but there are three properties I think you should take a look at. I’ve flagged them in yellow. A wonderful retreat in the Blue Mountains. Magnificent site. Splendid gardens or there’s your own private Barrier Reef Island, mansion included and my favourite, a real classic....”

Bellemont Farm. He knew before Bebe ever got to the place’s name. A searing brand on his heart. He almost said the name aloud, feeling the prickling on the back of his neck, the terrible tensing of his muscles.

“A four-hundred-acre estate about twenty miles from Ashbury.” Bebe read on, unaware. “Used to be quite a successful horse operation and vineyard name of Bellemont. Farm. Sounds lovely! Rolling pastures, splendid old colonial, a winding creek that meanders through the estate, eight bedrooms, five baths, separate staff quarters, stables, fenced paddocks, riding facilities, tennis court, pool, great fishing in the nearby Ashbury River. Just the place for a high-octane guy.”

“You want to take care of me, don’t you, Bebe?” he said, trying to shift his tone.

“Of course I do.” She nodded her head twice. “You’ve taken great care of me. Mum and I include you in our nightly prayers.” Perfectly true. Going with Nick had changed their lives.

The chiselled mouth with its clean raised edges gently mocked. “You have to make sure I get to Heaven?”

“When you set out to charm you’d have the angels eating out of your hand,” she remarked, absolutely sure of it.

“Thanks, Bebe.” He returned to his desk, giving her shoulder a little pat as he passed. Though his mouth still curved in a half smile his wonderful eyes were jet-black in their intensity. Whatever was wrong? Bebe was puzzled. She had rarely if ever seen Nick inwardly churning. A creature of enormous volatile energy he always held it under strict control. Bebe looked at him for a space of time then retreated quietly to the door. “Professor Morganthal’s secretary confirmed his appointment at nine-thirty.”

“I knew he’d come back to us,” Nick said. “I’m the best one to help him.”

“I’m sure he realises that now. If you want to dive into Previews for five minutes I can get you a whole lot more information. I know you’re only young, Nick.” Not yet thirty-one, she thought, to have accomplished so much. “And you’re very strong but constant pressure is bad. You still need time off like the rest of us folks.”

“All right, Bebe!” He feigned a meekness that sat oddly on his dark genius and made Bebe laugh. “I’ll go through this when I have a chance. That’s a promise. You might send Chris and Sarah in when they arrive. I need them to step up their information gathering. It’s a massive job.”

“Leave it to me,” Bebe said briskly.

He worked on for ten or so minutes but in the end gave in, pulling the magazine towards him and opened up the pages where Bebe had flagged them. The Barrier Reef Island, an emerald oval surmounting a ring of pure white sand set down in a turquoise sea, glorious but maybe too far away, then in the centre, Bellemont Farm.

The place he had learned to love then hate, learned it cruelly and indelibly like some poor dumb animal seared by a brand. Bellemont Farm, home of the Sheffields since colonial times. In his time, home of Marcus Sheffield and his only child, his beautiful daughter, Suzannah. Suzannah. Would he never be free of her?

Just to murmur her name brought back a storm of emotion, anger and monstrous grief. Suzannah with her cloud of dark hair loose from its school plait floating around her heart-shaped face. Even as a child two years his junior, on first meeting her she had seemed so exquisite, so beautifully dressed, so obviously pampered and privileged he had felt almost frightened of her. He remembered he had swallowed on a hard breath that had actually hurt his chest. It had remained like that until, maddened by his grave silence she had started pulling funny faces at him and making up silly names to call him. Rude names, too, though where she got them from living like a princess with Marcus Sheffield for a father, nobody knew. The horse crowd, his mother had said, laughing ruefully. Suzannah’s clowning had been infectious and overnight they had become extraordinarily good friends. After a while Suzannah began to take lessons from his father in languages and mathematics after it was pointed out to Marcus Sheffield that Nick’s father had been a highly regarded academic in his own country. Piano lessons, too, from his mother, a Conservatorium graduate who had had to turn her fine talents to teaching ordinary country children to bring in an income. Three years later on the day he turned thirteen, his father died of a long-standing physical condition Nick hadn’t been able to fathom, something to do with his lungs, leaving his mother and him heartbroken and alone in a strange new country where everyone seemed so extraordinarily, inexplicably carefree, with substantially more money than they had.

That was how it started. Nick began to take on jobs. Anything. Mowing, mucking out stables, cleaning cars, premises, yards, a bit of carpentry. The foreign kid who seemed to be able to take care of everything. So workmanlike for one so young, practical, resourceful. It wasn’t long after that he began to assert his natural academic superiority, to the extent he started to outstrip his teachers, all the time praying to God for the impossible, that his brilliant father, his best teacher, would come back. At least his father knew what he was all about. He could go straight to his father with the most vexing problem and his father could instantly see the solution. Even Suzannah, far more clever than she let any of her flighty friends know, had benefited greatly from having his father for a mentor. After his father died she continued to come to their modest home for her twice weekly piano lessons at which under his mother’s guidance and her own musicality she excelled. He took over coaching her with her studies, the languages at which he was adept, and also in the maths and science subjects so that she, too, began to throw off her cloak of worked-at-mediocrity and shine. Both of them had gone to the Ashbury High School. Adored and adoring, Suzannah had refused to go off to one of the exclusive boarding schools in Sydney and be parted from her father.

“You, too, Nicko,” she told him, violet eyes glowing. “I couldn’t bear to be parted from you. We’re soul mates.”

It had seemed like that to him, too. She was never an honorary sister. The sister he never had. Even as children there had always been some distinction in his feelings. Feelings so innocent and pure they didn’t disturb him until he was what? Almost sixteen and already six feet tall. After that things got terribly complicated. For him and for Suzannah. Her father no longer seemed to look upon him with the same patronising favour as before. He eyed his height, the way he had filled out, his swift move to early maturity. Over the years Nick had dedicated himself to looking out for Suzannah. Much like Marcus Sheffield. But by the time he reached sixteen he began to realise he was no longer looked on as suitable to be Suzannah’s best friend.

That role was for Martin White, icon of one of the core group families in the district. Golden-haired, blue-eyed, Martin who had done everything in his power to make Nick’s life uncomfortable. He was a “foreigner”. Martin never let him forget it, though they both knew the animosity between them, which sometimes turned ugly, had at its heart their love for Suzannah. Even at fourteen Suzannah was surrounded by admirers, entranced by her beauty and high spirits, and by her social standing as the only daughter of the richest and most influential man in the district.

River Road. A beautiful emerald place with magnificent old trees sweeping over the crystal clear waters of the Ashbury River. All of the town’s young people loved to swim there, going off in groups. But he and Suzannah preferred to be a pair. They had their favourite place, Jacaranda Crossing, where one of the water holes was considered too deep. But he and Suzannah swam like fishes. He had to thank her for that accomplishment though she had declared him a natural. They always took their bicycles, tearing faster and faster along the river road, riding down the narrow dirt track that led them to their own private jade lagoon.

“Lord it’s so hot!” Suzannah jumped off her bike lightly, letting it go almost before he caught it and propped it against a tree. “I’ve never felt so much like a dip.” She began right there and then to shuck off her school clothing, a terrible maroon-and-white check pinafore, white school blouse and tie, shoes and stockings, until finally she stood in her navy swimsuit, tall for her age, slender as a willow, her long exquisite limbs gilded from a summer sun, her small blossoming breasts thrusting against the tight, thin material.

He had seen her do this many times before yet suddenly he felt a stab like a hot rapier straight to his loins.

“Come on. What’s holding you up?” She turned to laugh at him, her eyes brilliant with the anticipation of the kiss of the cold water.

He simply stood there, almost fully grown, staring and staring, not able to get enough breath around a few words of reply.

“Hey, you idiot. What are you staring at?” she cried. “Don’t stand there like a dummy.”

How could he not when he was soaking in her beauty and her femininity through every pore of his body. For the first time he truly knew what it was to be mesmerised by a woman. But she wasn’t a woman; she was a thirteen-year-old girl. A little virgin. Her father’s princess.

He came to then, stripping down to his bathing trunks and diving headlong into the water, grateful for the tingling coldness that closed over his head and the storm in his adolescent body. Suzannah was a flame. He knew that. And he could get burned. Even then he could think very clearly.

Yet there was wonderful exhilaration in his new discovery. Wonderful sport in swimming with her as if they were a pair of dolphins. Afterwards they pulled themselves up onto the sandy bank, their dark heads, an identical near black, sleek as seals.

“That was marvellous. Just what I needed.” Suzannah, towelled herself off quickly, passing her towel to him because he always managed to forget his.

Not surprisingly he didn’t answer, taking the towel extended to him from her long outstretched slender arm. Life is never going to be the same again, he thought. Never innocent and sweet as it once was but fraught with tension. He recognised it easily for what it was. Sexual tension. He couldn’t hold his feelings back. He had fallen in love.

“Nick?” she asked in such a strange voice. Not the usual glorious confidence, the self-assuredness befitting Marcus Sheffield’s adored daughter.

“We won’t ever come back here,” he said. “Not on our own.” The words were out in a spontaneous rush. The decision made.

“Oh, Nicko, it’s our place,” she said with a great wail. “I don’t want to stick with the others.”

“Your father won’t want us to come here,” he maintained.

“You can say that again!” Abruptly she laughed. “He’d kill us.”

“So you know what I mean, Suzy.” He looked at her, his expression barely veiled.

He remembered she stood perfectly still, fragile as a water nymph. “I’d be safer with you than anyone else in the world.” Tears suddenly shone in her blue-violet eyes.

“Yes, you are, but I’m not going to do anything that could possibly harm you. You’re a child”

“So are you.” She flashed with anger.

“No, I’m not I’ve never been a child like you and your friends are. In a way you’re all the same.”

“Well hell we are! I’m different.” She advanced on him, her cheeks stained red.

“But you don’t see what I see,” he protested. “You don’t feel as I do.”

“I know I love you.” She flipped back her silky black mane. “You’re my best friend in all the world.”

“Stupid baby. I swear I’m going to look after you.” He turned away abruptly, unaware of the muscles that rippled like a panther’s along his dark golden back.

She made the mistake of laying her hand along his bare skin. “Nick?”

“How about your clothes? Get them on,” he all but barked, outraged by his body’s powerful response.

“Nick, don’t turn angry,” she implored.

“I’m not angry. Never with you. Get a move on,” he urged. “You said yourself your father wouldn’t like us to be here.”

“I’ll be fourteen soon.” Obediently she turned away. “The same age as Juliet.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He tried to speak calmly, failed, and moved fast to collect his own clothes. He stepped into his trousers, zipped them, then reached for his dreary maroon shirt with the white trim. His mother had only just bought it and already it was getting too small. His father had stood over six foot three. He would be the same.

“No need to jump on me.” Anger leapt in her voice. “You’re not my big brother.” Something else in her voice made him think she was about to cry. Suzannah cry? She never cried. Even when she came a cropper from her horse.

“Ah, Suzy, come on. I never meant to upset you,” he relented.

“Well you have. I don’t like anything about this being an adult. I don’t understand what it’s all about.”

Until today.

It was then that he kissed her. Wrapping his hands around her small gilded face, touching her mouth with his own. It tasted so fresh and sweet, the shimmering joy that was Suzannah.

When he released her she held onto his wrist, the rosy delicacy of her lips pouting about to form words. Words that never came because an angry young male voice smote their ears, shouting, quivering with a kind of primal rage.

“What the hell are you up to, Konrads?” Martin White was dressed in a white shirt, jeans and sneakers, the light radiating off his thick golden hair.

He launched himself down the bank, a solid young man but no match for Nick. “Is this where you two get to?” he demanded, scarcely containing his jealousy. “Suzannah, I’m shocked at you. Wait until your father hears about this. Do you let this guy paw you?”

For answer she leapt into action, fists bunched, throwing her arm and hitting Martin squarely on the shoulder. “This guy here,” she yelled, “is worth any ten of you. He’s far and away the cleverest boy we’ve ever had in this town and probably ever will. He’s not only clever he’s highly principled and hard working. His father, the other kraut, was a distinguished man. His mother is a beautiful. talented lady. She plays the piano wonderfully. You’re the pathetic ignoramus with your offensive name-calling. Heck, you couldn’t even read until you were six. I could read when I was three!” She was so angry she was alight, pulses beating in her throat and at the blue-veined temples. “As for telling my father about anything!” she shouted. “Do that and I swear I’ll never speak to you again for the rest of my life.”

It was a threat Martin White was to take profoundly to heart. A handful of years later he married her.

Nick’s Suzannah.

CHAPTER TWO

HEADLIGHTS coming up the driveway woke her up, illuminating the bedroom. Suddenly alert to every sound, Suzannah turned her head quickly to glance at her bedside clock: 2:35. The right side of the bed was empty, the bed linen unruffled. Martin returning home. Whatever has happened to my life? she thought bleakly. I’ve tried, God knows I’ve tried, but our marriage was doomed from the start. The lies and the heartbreak. The wounds that ran deep and wouldn’t heal. She still cared for Martin even now but she had never loved him. All along Martin had known it.

The headlights didn’t swerve away to the garages as she expected. Now it occurred to her the car’s engine sounded different. It crunched around the broad loop of the driveway and stopped at the front porch.

She started up. The first hint of dread struck her. For quite a while now Martin had been drinking heavily. Had he been involved in an accident? Suzannah threw on her dark blue robe, thrust her feet into bedroom slippers then rushed through the open French door and out onto the upper balcony looking down.

A police car stood parked in the driveway, lights flashing.

Dear God! Suzannah whirled about almost overcome by the terrible trembling in her limbs. Was there anything more frightening than seeing a police car parked at one’s door in the early hours of the morning? It could only mean trouble. Perhaps tragedy. On her flight down the hallway she paused to shut Charley’s door lest her little daughter be disturbed. Her father, she knew, would be sleeping heavily. He had been taking medication since his mild stroke. She was almost at the bottom of the stain before the door chimes rang.

“Suzannah! Terribly sorry to disturb you.” It was Frank Harris, the local police chief, kneading his hat, his deputy Will Powell’s kindly rugged face totally without his usual smile, two paces behind him. “May we come in?”