Maddie's Love-Child

‘I don’t remember him at all,’ Carolyn admitted. ‘There again ... I did have my mind on other things that night.’ And she winked at her husband.

‘Wicked woman,’ he rebuked, but softly, lovingly.

‘I remember him only too well,’ Maddie said sharply, and Carolyn and Vaughan’s heads whipped round to stare at her.

‘No, I did not seduce him,’ she added.

Though it wasn’t for want of trying....

‘But he’s not the sort of man one easily forgets,’ she went on. ‘If one’s eyes were not already full of stars, that is.’ Her droll tone belied the squirming in her stomach as her mind flashed back to that night.

Miles MacMillan....

Vaughan was right when he called him an arrogant bastard, though Maddie doubted he was a bastard in the literal sense of the word. Not like herself. Miles MacMillan was blue-blooded through and through. If asked, he could undeniably trace his British ancestry right back to the dim dark ages, and there would not be a single entry from the wrong side of the blanket.

None in writing, anyway.

He was upper class through and through. Upper class, upper crust and up himself!

That said, he was also the most maddeningly attractive man Maddie had ever seen, Tall, dark and handsome, with superb bone structure, a squared jawline with a Cary Grant dimple, steely grey eyes and a perversely sensual mouth totally at odds with his coolly controlled air of haughty superiority.

Maddie had found him downright irresistible from the moment she’d spotted him across Julian’s living room, standing all alone, dressed in an impossibly stuffy pin-striped suit, not a hair out of place on his dark, well-shaped head, his aristocratically chiselled nose high in the air.

When she’d swanned toward him in her semi-transparent black chiffon dress, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. Understandable, considering her seeming lack of underwear—the skin-coloured teddy she was wearing did give the illusion of nakedness underneath.

Maddie had foolishly believed he’d been hers for the taking that night, especially once she found out he wasn’t married.

How wrong she was!

Oh, yes, he’d been interested, in a sexual sense. She’d been too long on the end of male desire not to recognise the signs. But as much as he’d been aroused by her, he’d also been faintly repelled, she decided later, his ambivalence towards her making him run hot and cold all night. She wondered afterwards if he’d been unable to make up his mind whether to risk his reputation—or perhaps his soul?—by responding to such a shameless creature’s advances.

When she’d boldly asked him home for a nightcap, he’d stared at her as though she’d suggested something really depraved. He’d declined politely in a voice reminiscent of Queen Victoria’s we-are-not-amused remark, added a curt good-night, then decamped, leaving Maddie in a most unusual state of hurt, humiliation and anger.

Never before had a male prey of his ilk escaped once she set her sights on him. And never before had a man made her actually feel cheap.

But Miles MacMillan had. He’d made her feel lower than the lowest, vilest, slimiest reptile.

Unaccustomed as she was to rejection and humiliation, Maddie had taken some time to get over the incident. Now Miles MacMillan was coming back into her line of fire, and she didn’t know if she was excited by that prospect or terrified of it.

Both, she suspected.

‘Does Mr. MacMillan know about my business association with you, Vaughan?’ she asked archly. ‘Does he realise that if he engages your services, he also gets the services of Miss Madeline Powers, interior designer extraordinaire?’

She could not quite recall what she had told their British visitor about herself that night. His cryptic responses had rattled her somewhat. But she rarely prattled on about herself on first meeting with a member of the opposite sex, concentrating on him instead. Presumably he knew nothing about her job, not to mention her passion for painting nude portraits. She usually didn’t bring that up till the second meeting.

‘I haven’t mentioned you to him yet,’ Vaughan admitted. ‘But I doubt there’ll be any problem. Wealthy men don’t like doing their own decorating, unless they have some female in tow who needs to be pleased. Which there isn’t. No wife, fiancée or live-in girlfriend with him. I asked.’

‘So our esteemed Mr. MacMillan is still unattached,’ Maddie drawled. ‘How interesting.’

Carolyn groaned. ‘She’s off on the prowl again, Vaughan. Do you think you should warn this poor Miles person?’

Vaughan laughed. ‘The not-so-poor Miles is well able to take care of himself. If Maddie is silly enough to set her cap at his head, then she’s the one who needs warning. Men like Miles don’t lose their heads to any woman. They don’t have it in them. They have ice in their veins instead of blood, and computer chips where their hearts should be.’

Carolyn shuddered. ‘I don’t know what you see in men like that, Maddie.’

‘Neither do I,’ she returned airily. ‘But it’s been the same with me as long as I can remember. Still, it’s not as though I want to marry any of them. It’s strictly on a love ’em and leave ‘em basis.’

‘Sure is. Once they fall in love with you, you leave them,’ Carolyn muttered. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of soliciting this Miles person to be the father of the baby you’ve decided you want all of a sudden.’

Surprise sent Maddie’s black eyes rounding. The thought had never crossed her mind. But now that Carolyn had mentioned it ...

Why, Miles MacMillan would be the perfect candidate! Not only did he have the.brains, beauty and breeding she was looking for, but he was only staying in the country six months.

No doubt after his exile in the colonies was over, he would wing his way back to merry England, where he would eventually marry some peaches-and-cream-complexioned lady, raise an heir or two in the image of his own stuffy self and end up in . Who’s Who and the House of Lords!

Or was it Commons? No, no, she was the one who was common. Spencer had said so the other night, and Spencer would know, the hypocritical creep!

‘Vaughan, say something to stop her,’ Carolyn said in a panicky voice. ‘I can see it written all over her face. She’s going to seduce that man. I just know she is!’

‘What Maddie does in her private life is her business,’ Vaughan pronounced stolidly. ‘Besides, you don’t honestly think she’d take any notice of me if I tried to stop her, do you?’

Carolyn sighed. ‘I suppose not.’

Maddie didn’t defend herself, because Vaughan was right. There wasn’t a man alive who could stop her from doing what she wanted to do. Men, she’d decided from a very early age, would never play a controlling role in her life. Never!

But seducing Miles MacMillan was more a fantasy at that moment than a reality. Frankly, as perfect a sperm donor as the man might be, Maddie wasn’t about to put herself in a position to be humiliated yet again. Rejection was no good for the soul, or her self-esteem.

‘Don’t worry your pretty little head, Carolyn, love,’ she said. ‘I do not have my sights set on Miles MacMillan. He didn’t want to have anything to do with me last time we met, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him now, except in a business sense. So when is his lordship due, Vaughan? Is he coming to the office or are you meeting him on site?’

‘He’s coming to the office.’

‘What time?’

‘Around two.’

‘Bring him along to meet me then. Best we make sure he’s agreeable for me to do his decorating right from the start.’

‘You think he might object?’

Maddie shrugged. ‘It’s on the cards.’

‘He damned well wouldn’t want to. You’re the best interior decorator for miles. I’ve got no intention of having my perfectly splendid design ruined by a ghastly decor. I’ll make it abundantly clear when he arrives that if he wants one of my houses, he gets you, too!’

Maddie smiled and batted her eyelashes at him. ‘My champion.’

‘I’m not your champion, and you know it. I’m selfish to the core where my work is concerned. Object to you, indeed,’ he scorned. ‘He won’t object when I’m through with him, believe me!’

CHAPTER TWO

MILES didn’t know what to make of the situation or this possible complication. It had never occurred to him that Maddie might be having a thing with her business colleague. The investigator hadn’t brought up any such possibility, but how else could one explain Slater’s overly protective attitude towards her?

He stared at the man as he pointed out for a second time that he and Miss Powers were an inseparable team.

‘You buy a Vaughan Slater home, then it comes decorated by my partner. Take it or leave it!’

The aggressive tone suggested he feared Miles might not take it, which was ironic. Little did he know the only reason Miles was buying one of his — damned homes was that Maddie came with it.

Not that the man wasn’t a good architect. He was, if a little unconventional. Miles had thought Julian’s home quite incredible when he’d seen it last year. Made of steel and concrete and glass, it clung to a mountainside overlooking Wollongong, giving -it a panoramic view of the city below and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Miles knew he wouldn’t suffer—either financially or comfort-wise—from buying a Vaughan Slater home.

‘That’s fine by me.’ It was a huge understatement, delivered quite coolly while he sized up this highly unexpected competition.

Vaughan Slater was a handsome fellow, no doubt about that. And well built, to boot. Around Miles’s own six foot three, he had broad shoulders, a strong mate face, intense brown eyes and unusual coloured hair. Dark brown mixed with red.

Miles could not imagine Maddie not finding the man physically attractive—and vice versa. And the way the man carried on... Well, it was obvious Maddie meant more to him than just a business partner.

Miles hated the idea of their being lovers, but he knew that Slater having a wife and new baby didn’t mean he wasn’t having something on the side.

Frankly, Miles’s view of male morals was even more tarnished and cynical than Annabel’s. His father had been an unconscionable rake. His brother was a roué of the worst kind. Most of the married businessmen Miles knew were having dalliances with other women. Hell, just about all of them were!

Miles detested that kind of disloyalty. And while he could understand some circumstances where adultery was excusable, he could find none such excuse for the man in front of him. Or Miss Madeline Powers, for that matter.

Slater was married to her supposed best friend, Julian’s stepdaughter, Carolyn, a lovely-looking and very nice young woman from what Miles could recall. If Maddie was having an affair with her best friend’s husband then he would have none of her. It was as simple as that.

But of course it wasn’t as simple as that.

Miles was to realise the extent of his self-delusion as soon as he was escorted along to Maddie’s adjoining office.

Slater ushered him past an empty reception area—muttering something about Maddie refusing to have a secretary—then through another door with only the briefest of knocks, catching the woman herself standing at the huge plate-glass window behind her, her back towards them.

For a few distracting moments Miles’s gaze was drawn to the breathtaking view of bright blue sky above, turquoise ocean in the distance, crisp white sands closer to hand, then a clean-looking shopping centre directly below. Fifty or so miles to the south of Sydney, Wollongong was one of the most beautiful seaside cities Miles had ever seen.

He took a deep breath, telling himself it was worth it to come halfway across the world for the view alone. But then the witch began turning round, and he knew she alone was the reason for his long journey.

Hell, he thought, as his eyes took in what she was wearing this time. Black again. And leather. Tight, tight leather, stretching and straining to encase those long, long legs and that tautly rounded derriere.

The vest top was another story, only a single button holding it provocatively together over obviously braless breasts. Not big breasts. But high and firm and round, the soft, tight leather moulded around them, pressing them together to form a shadowed valley underneath that stupid button.

Miles had never been turned on by black leather before. That was one of Max’s kinks.

But he was this time. Or was it the woman within the leather, the witch woman with the tightly curled black hair, which was down today, and fluffed wildly out over her shoulders?

He swallowed and did his best not to look like a man who was dangerously aroused. Suddenly, he knew he should run a mile from this woman. She was going to change his life irrevocably if he became involved with her. He would never be the same again, could never go back to the stolid, staid existence at home. She would sweep him into a world he’d not yet tasted, but which, once savoured, could quickly become an addiction. She was untamed, this creature. Totally wild and tantalisingly wicked.

She would probably corrupt him and was best avoided at all costs.

Miles took a long, hard look at her and wanted her more than ever.

Maddie tried to contain her nerves as she turned round, annoyed with herself for letting a man rattle her. If he looked down his nose at her again, she would not be responsible for her behaviour!

‘Vaughan, darling!’ she exclaimed, her red lips smiling only briefly before pursing into a reproachful pout. ‘You’re late again, you bad man. You did say two, didn’t you?

‘Why, hello, Miles,’ she managed airily, making no concession to an ongoing and most uncharac-teristic attack of butterflies. ‘Long time, no see. Vaughan tells me you’re out here for six months and want us to whip up a weekender for you. Is that right?’

His momentary hesitation in answering irritated the death out of her, as did his ongoing and faintly contemptuous survey of her appearance. She used the awkwardly silent moments to do a survey of her own, finding to her disgust that she still thought him the most attractive man she’d ever met. She also realised why she’d been transitorily drawn to Spencer. He was a watered-down version of Miles.

Being faced with the real thing, however, brought home to her the many differences. Miles was taller than Spencer, and leaner and far more elegant. That severely tailored pale grey suit looked superb on him, as did the colour, the same as his eyes. Maddie thought his nose wonderfully patrician, and that dimple in his chin quite irresistible, especially since he always held himself with his chin and nose tilted slightly upwards.

He stood before her, the epitome of beauty, brains and breeding.

He was, no doubt, the ultimate choice for the father of her child. But as such, the ultimate challenge.

For it was obvious from the look on his face that he was still as disapproving of her as he’d been at the party last year. There was no sign, either, of any reluctant desire. His grey gaze remained cold as it swept over her a second time.

He would be a lot harder to seduce than Spencer, Maddie conceded. But all of a sudden, she was determined to succeed. Nothing would stand in her way. It might take time, but then, she had a whole six months. She could afford to take her time, to be a little more subtle than usual, if necessary.

She looked him up and down again and decided he would be well worth waiting for. Ah, but he would make a magnificent donor! With his impeccable breeding, he would surely pass on all those qualities she admired. His looks, his intelligence, his strength, his style.

But none she despised. Because he would not be around to give her child those. His offspring would not learn his snobbishness, or his ruthless ambition, or his cold, callous selfishness. His child would learn nothing but love. He or she would be a true love child in every sense of the word.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said at last, his voice as rich and cultured as she remembered. ‘I’ve been assuring Vaughan here that I well understand your services come with purchasing one of his houses.’

I’m counting on it, Miles thought with black irony, having already surrendered himself to the inevitable.

It was some salve to his pride that he would not have to make the running. She would do that. Already she was looking him over like a greedy child with a much-desired toy in its sights.

He wondered where her pride was. Didn’t she have any at all? He’d rejected her advances the last time. Quite brutally. Yet the gleam in her eye suggested she was ready and willing to mount a second assault on his supposed virtue. Lord, if only she knew!

‘Have you shown Miles the house at Stanwell Park yet, Vaughan?’ she asked, flashing her partner-cum-whatever a dazzling smile. ‘If you haven’t, then I’ll be only too glad to do the honours. That way you can visit Carolyn and the baby again this afternoon.’

‘Would you? That’d be great, Maddie. Would you mind, Miles?’

Mind? He couldn’t think of anything he’d like better. He wanted her alone. He wanted her anywhere. He just wanted her.

Why, then, did he adopt such a coolly indifferent pose, plus such a formal polite voice? Habit, he supposed. And more of his infernal pride. It was going to be the death of him, that pride.

‘If Miss Powers doesn’t mind abandoning her work to show me the house,’ he pronounced stiffly, ‘then I do not object. I would not, however, wish to put her to any inconvenience.’

Maddie resisted the urge to sigh. Instead, she glanced away for a moment. Getting this pompous fool into bed was not going to be easy. Getting him there without protection might prove near nigh impossible ! She wondered caustically if his underwear was as starched as his personality. All she could hope was that underneath all that chilling English control lay a real man, with real male hormones.

Looking at him, she caught him off guard for a moment, glimpsing a moment of naked desire in his eyes. It was gone in a flash, but it had been there. She was sure of it.

So! The game was the same as last time. He wanted her yet didn’t want her.

It was a game she’d played before, with other men of his ilk. But none, she conceded, of Miles MacMillan’s stiff stature and staunch standing.

How good it would be to break that iron control, to have him practically beg her to let him make love to her.

Maddie’s eyes narrowed at the prospect. The pleasure of a man’s body was nothing compared to the pleasure she gained from his utter surrender to her power as a woman.

Maddie enjoyed sex in her own way but had never had an orgasm in her life. She knew she wasn’t capable of it. But she was such a brilliant faker in bed that her lovers never twigged. She always praised their performance afterwards, and they were left smugly thinking they’d satisfied her as well as any man had ever satisfied her.

Which they had.

Maddie looked at Miles and knew his surrender would give her more pleasure than any man’s had ever done. She would not only win the game, but a prize, as well. A baby...

She could hardly wait.

‘I’ll just get my keys,’ she said sweetly, ‘and we’ll be on our way.’

CHAPTER THREE

MILES clung to the seat belt for added support as the car swung round another sharp curve at far too fast a speed. Lord, the woman drove like a maniac. On top of that, her car was a bomb, an old black thing with a big silver grille in front, which she’d proudly said was one of the original F.J. Holdens, whatever they were.

He wished to God he’d insisted on using his hire car. At least it had air-conditioning. He was beginning to feel rather hot under the collar, not to mention totally frazzled inside.

She was coming on to him again the same as before, with all the subtlety of a steamroller, and he still didn’t know how to handle her. It was one thing to think about the sexually charged Miss Madeline Powers from the safety of England, quite another to be faced with the woman in the flesh. Especially when that flesh was poured into black leather.

‘Runs like a dream, doesn’t it?’ she enthused as another curve was successfully negotiated on two wheels.

The road they were traversing generally followed the coastline. It had started out going through sedate village-like streets but had left. civilisation behind and was winding a narrow path round the edge of cliff faces. Dangerous drops greeted one to the right, raw mountainside covered in virgin bush rose steeply to the left. The place looked as wild and untamed as the woman next to him.

‘Mmm,’ was all he could manage.

‘Am I driving too fast for you?’ she asked in an innocent-sounding voice. ‘Just say so if I am.’

He resisted telling her she did everything too fast for his liking. But maybe his pale face gave her the message, for her foot lifted off the accelerator. She laughed as she slowed.

‘Vaughan’s always telling me I drive too fast. Not that he can talk, the bad man. He has this old red MG with the top down, which he tears around Wollongong in. Though he might have to sell it now the baby’s come.’

‘You and Slater seem very, er, close,’ Miles ventured.

‘Oh, we are. Very. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Vaughan.’

‘Nothing?’ Miles echoed in a dryly derisive voice.

Maddie slanted him a look of mock horror, then smiled a devilishly attractive smile. God, but the woman was more than wicked. She was downright irresistible.

‘If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, Mr. MacMillan,’ she said, ‘then shame on you. Vaughan is a married man. Not only that, his wife is my very best friend. Even if I chose to overlook my hard-and-fast rule never to sleep with married men, I could never betray Carolyn. You’ve met her, haven’t you?’

‘Briefly.’

‘Then you must know anyone who betrayed such a sweetie should have a millstone put around her neck and be cast into the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Anyway, Vaughan’s besotted with her. He wouldn’t look twice at another woman, and especially not me.’

‘Why not you?’ he said.

‘Because he doesn’t fancy me. Never did. We’re good friends, nothing more.’

‘And you don’t fancy him?’

‘Heaven’s, no. He’s not my type at all.’

‘And what’s your type?’

She gave him a look that made him grateful he wasn’t driving. As it was, his heart and loins leapt uncontrollably.

Maddie silently berated herself as she returned her eyes to the road. You call that subtle, you idiot? You have to play this fellow like a fish. Slowly and very, very carefully.

But damn it all, she did find him so delicious. She dearly wished to take his startled face and kiss the shock from his mouth and from his eyes. She wanted to whisper wickedly seductive things into his ears and make him squirm with desire, wanted to strip him of those wonderfully stuffy clothes and caress him till he was trembling with need and longing.

An almost alien heat suffused Maddie’s whole body at the thought of his flesh fusing with hers. My God, if she didn’t know better, she might think she actually wanted this man. In a physical sense, that is.

Impatiently, she dismissed the idea. Impossible! She’d never really wanted a man like that! And probably never would.

This foreign excitement had to have something to do with choosing him as the father of her baby. Knowing that she might conceive made even thinking about sleeping with the man so much more marvellously meaningful.

‘Is it much farther to the house?’ Miles asked abruptly.

‘Nope. Fact is, we’re here!’

Miles glanced up as the car suddenly zoomed off the road and up a steep driveway, his eyes rounding at the sight of the impressive concrete-and-glass construction looming high over them.

Not dissimilar to Julian’s house, it seemed to cling to the cliff, its two storeys sporting identical semicircular balconies, which would give a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the ocean.