Surprise Baby For The Billionaire

The fact that he seemed so utterly committed to helping those kids had been part of what had attracted her in the first place. So different from her self-serving ex.

‘I should go and see Izzy’s mum. Bring her up to date.’

‘Don’t worry. Sol’s with her.’

She tried to skirt past Malachi without looking pointed.

Not because she didn’t want to touch him. More because if she did she was certain she would self-combust. Her mouth was insanely dry. Her body throbbed mercilessly. It was all she could do to keep her brain functioning.

‘The little girl is my patient.’

‘And Sol saw her, too,’ he countered.

‘I’m perfectly aware that your brother is a doctor. One of the top neurosurgeons in this place, in fact. But he isn’t my patient’s doctor now. I am. And, as such, I should be the one to talk to her mother.’

Saskia only realised she’d drifted forward when her hands made contact with his unforgettable granite chest.

She leapt back like a scalded cat, and fought valiantly to drag her mind back to the present.

They’d had a gloriously wild, wanton time together, but she couldn’t afford to rehash it in her mind. She had no claim on Malachi Gunn, and she still hadn’t even told him her life-changing news.

And could she really drop her pregnancy bombshell on him? He had a right to know—but would he prefer not to? Her mind was spinning, and it didn’t help that he was still standing there, scrutinising her.

‘I really should go,’ she said.

‘I’d rather you rested a little more.’ He frowned, looking irritated.

She shifted from one foot to the other, reaching out to place her hand on the door handle. But she didn’t open the door and she didn’t walk out. Instead she shuffled some more and wrinkled her nose.

‘I’m fine.’

He didn’t look impressed.

‘Have you eaten?’

‘I’m fine, Malachi,’ she repeated, more firmly this time.

He lifted his arm past her, holding the door closed with his hand, and for a moment she thought he was going to say something else. Then, without warning, he dropped his arm.

She told herself she wasn’t disappointed, yet it was all she could do to tug at the handle and make herself walk through the door, overcompensating a little by hustling fast to the unit where Izzy was being treated.

With every step she was conscious of the fact that Malachi was following her. It was all too easy to imagine his long, effortless stride as she schooled herself not to sashay her hips or appear in any way as though she was being provocative. No mean feat when her whole body was so hyper-aware of him, her belly clenching. If the baby had given a good, strong kick in response to Malachi’s presence she doubted she would have been surprised, even though logically she knew it was far too soon for that.

It was as though the man was somehow imprinted on her. On both of them. She’d be glad when this moment was over and she could get away from him and back to her patients.

At least, that was what she told herself.

The truth was that she wasn’t entirely convinced she was buying it.

CHAPTER TWO

WAS SASKIA PREGNANT?

Malachi sat on one of the plastic seats in the hospital corridor. Saskia was still in the room, telling Michelle about her daughter, and he was out here...uncharacteristically rattled.

His brain fought to focus; his body felt supercharged. He rolled the idea around his head as if testing it, seeing if it might fit.

Pregnant?

The problem was that he couldn’t be sure. Certainly he thought that was the last thing she’d said to that godawful nurse with the irritating voice, but then he hadn’t been thinking straight from the moment he’d stepped around that corner and caught sight of Saskia—the woman who had haunted his dreams for the last three months.

The blood roared through Malachi’s ears.

And elsewhere, if he was being honest.

When he’d heard her mutter—thought he’d heard her mutter—that word pregnant as he’d approached, he hadn’t really thought a lot about it. After all, she might have been talking about any one of her patients. Or colleagues. But then they’d sat in that on-call room together and she’d been so...odd...that slowly things had started slotting themselves into different places and suddenly he’d found himself wondering if she’d actually been talking about herself.

In that moment everything had...shifted. Kids. Family. Two things he’d thought could never be in his future. Two things he’d sworn never would be in his future. Not after the childhood he and Sol had endured. Not after becoming responsible and providing for his drug-addled mother and kid brother when he’d been a mere ten years old. He’d endured enough responsibility and commitment to last a lifetime, and he’d sworn to himself he would never put himself through any more as an adult.

Nor would he put any kid through the trauma of having someone as detached and emotionally damaged as he was for a father.

Instead he had dedicated himself to his work, his business, his charity. Partly because he lived for those things, but also because it ensured he’d never have time in his life for anything—or anyone—else.

And now this.

Maybe.

Possibly not.

Yet some sixth sense—the one he had trusted his entire life, the one which had allowed his eight-year-old self to keep his brother and mother together and a roof over their heads, the one which had helped him make his first six-figure sum by the age of fifteen, his first million by the age of eighteen, the one which had ensured he could send his brother to medical school and make MIG International a global business—told him it was true.

No wonder his entire world was teetering so precariously on the edge of some black abyss.

How was it that in the blink of an eye everything he’d worked for could suddenly be hovering over some unknown precipice? Everything that made him...him gone in one word.

Pregnant.

His body went cold. His brain fought to process this new information and make some kind of sense out of it. But the only thing it could come up with was that any baby couldn’t be his. They’d used protection.

He always used protection.

Except that first time, when all his usual rules had splintered and shattered one by one. Not least any thought to the notion of protection.

Which meant that he had no one else to blame for the fact that a baby wasn’t wholly out of the question.

So how the hell was any kid to cope with him as a father?

Malachi’s mind hurtled along like a car with no brakes. He was usually controlled, intuitive—effective when it came to dealing with business problems put in front of him—but right now he felt as if the ground beneath his feet was opening up. Instead of focusing on the issue all he could picture was her lush naked body, spread out before him like some kind of personal offering. He could still practically feel the heat from her mouth, as wild as it was sweet.

He couldn’t say she’d been experienced, or skilled, and yet he’d never replayed sex with any other woman the way he’d replayed those nights with Saskia.

Why?

Maybe because he’d been lusting after her from the moment she’d walked into Care to Play as a medical liaison volunteer a few months earlier. Somehow during the so-called interview she’d ended up telling him about her failed engagement and her cheating fiancé, and she’d been so refreshingly open with him that he’d found himself captivated, wondering what kind of an idiot man would let a woman like Saskia slip through his fingers.

He’d had no intention of acting on the attraction, of course. Even as it had sizzled between them for months he’d been determined not to go there. Firstly, she was bound to be rebounding, and secondly she was a volunteer at the centre that he’d set up, and he’d told himself that was tantamount to making him her boss.

He’d even said those very words to her that evening at the nightclub, several months later, when Saskia, Sol, and a group of their Moorlands General colleagues had been letting loose for once, and she’d laughed in his face. Confident, sassy and oh-so-sexy, she’d told him in no uncertain terms that he was nothing like her boss. She’d also told him that maybe a rebound fling was exactly what she needed, given that she’d never had a one-night stand in her life before.

And he’d believed her. More than that, he had wanted to believe her. Because she’d spoken to something utterly primal deep within him...and what was the harm of a one-night stand?

Only he hadn’t been able to let her go that night. Or the next night. Or the next.

It had been the most indulgent, incredible long weekend Malachi could ever have imagined, and when she’d finally left he hadn’t been prepared for how quiet—how empty—his luxury bachelor pad would suddenly feel. As ridiculous as that was.

He’d fantasised about her returning with a sharpness that punctured him. Whether because he knew he was nothing more to Saskia than a rebound fling, or because he knew that he didn’t have the time or inclination for a relationship, he couldn’t be sure. Either way, what choice had he had other than to put a little distance between them and avoid Care to Play every single time he’d known she was due there, in the hope of letting that sharpness dull?

Only it hadn’t dulled. It hadn’t faded at all.

If anything, this latest encounter had only proved that he wanted Saskia more than ever—pregnant or not.

His baby.

It was enough to bring his head round a full three-sixty.

Surely he was the last person in the world who should ever have a kid? He wouldn’t love it. That quality wasn’t in him—not any more. It was gone. Spent. Used up all those years ago when he should have been the one being loved and cared for—not the other way around.

A baby?

He could provide for it, but he couldn’t be the all-attentive father figure it would need.

Worse—and he was ashamed of this more than anything—he would end up resenting it, and the time and attention it demanded, the way he’d resented his own mother. The way he’d once resented even Sol.

He still hated himself for those feelings. Even now.

The responsibility he’d had for his younger brother since they’d been little kids had made him so angry back then. And even now, over two and a half decades later, he still felt it. Especially as Sol looked a million miles away now, a plastic cup of vending machine coffee in his hands.

‘What’s the story, bratik?’

Sol frowned before parroting out information in a way that only confirmed that he was sidestepping the real answer.

‘The scan revealed no evidence of any bleed on the brain, and Izzy didn’t damage her neck or break her jaw in the fall, which we suspected—hence why she’s been transferred to Paediatric Intensive Care. Maxillofacial are on their way, to deal with the teeth in Izzy’s mouth that are still loose. We have the two that came out in a plastic lunchbox someone gave to Izzy, but I think they’re baby teeth, so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. We won’t know for sure until some of the swelling goes down.’

‘I know all that. I was there when the paediatric doctor told Michelle.’

The paediatric doctor.

As though simply saying Saskia’s name would allow his brother to read the truth all over his face.

As though he didn’t know how every inch of how her body felt and tasted.

As though she wasn’t carrying his baby.

Possibly.

Probably?

Shaking it off, he tried for levity.

‘I was asking what the story was with you, numbnuts.’

Not exactly his most convincing attempt at humour, but it was all he had in him. Fortunately Sol seemed too caught up in his own issues to pick up on it.

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he mumbled, a sure-fire giveaway that he was lying.

Malachi snorted. ‘You know exactly what I mean. You forget I’ve practically raised you since we were kids. You can’t fool me.’

Sol opened his mouth and Malachi waited for the usual witty comeback. But for once it didn’t come. Instead his younger brother glowered into his coffee. Strangely, he was avoiding Malachi’s stare. And when Sol spoke his voice was unusually quiet, his words coming out of the blue.

‘I haven’t forgotten anything. I remember everything you went through to raise us, Mal. I know you sold your soul to the devil just to get enough money to buy food for our bellies.’

The words—the previously unspoken gratitude—slid unexpectedly into Malachi’s chest. Like a dagger heading straight to the heart and mercifully stopping just a hair’s breadth short.

How was it that the very moment he was ready to doubt himself his brother seemed to say the words that made him think again? As if Sol had known just what to say when he couldn’t possibly have guessed about Saskia being pregnant, let alone that it might be Malachi’s.

Or was it just that he was reading into it what he wanted to read? Trying to convince himself that perhaps Saskia and her baby—their baby—wouldn’t be better off without him?

Which made no sense—because he didn’t want a family.

Did he?

Savagely, he tore his mind back to the present once more.

‘Bit melodramatic, aren’t you, bratik?’ he gritted out. ‘Is this about Izzy?’

‘I guess.’

Sol was lying again, and Malachi couldn’t say why he wasn’t calling his kid brother out over it.

‘Yeah. Well...no need to get soppy about it.’

‘Right.’

Downing the last of the cold coffee and grimacing, Sol crushed the plastic cup and lobbed it into the bin across the hallway. The perfect drop shot.

Then, without warning, Sol spoke again.

‘You ever wonder what might have happened if we’d had a different life? Not had a drug addict for a mother? Not had to take care of her and keep her away from her dealer every spare minute?’

It was as though the tiniest, lightest butterfly had landed on that invisible dagger in his chest, beaten its wings, and plunged the blade in that final hair’s breadth deeper. Driving to the heart of the questions which had started circling around his brain ever since he’d heard Saskia utter those words to that nurse, creeping so slowly at first that he hadn’t seen them over the chaos of the fear.

If he’d had a different childhood, would he be greeting this news differently now?

He didn’t know. He never could know.

It wasn’t worth his time or his headspace.

‘No,’ Malachi ground out, not sure if he was trying to convince Sol or himself. ‘I don’t. I don’t ever think about it. It’s in the past. Done. Gone.’

‘What the hell kind of childhood was that for us?’ Sol continued regardless. ‘Our biggest concern should have been whether we wanted an Action Man or Starship LEGO for Christmas—not keeping her junkie dealer away from her.’

‘Well, it wasn’t. I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known you were going to get maudlin on me.’

‘You were eight, Mal. I was five.’

‘I know how old we were,’ Malachi growled, not sure whether he welcomed the reminder or not. ‘What’s got into you, Sol?’

Their shameful past—their horrendous childhoods—they were the reason why he’d always sworn to himself that he would never have a child. Whenever he looked back—which he never usually did—all he could feel was age-old bitterness and anger tainting his soul.

How could he ever be a good father?

Yet if Saskia’s baby really was his—and he still needed to hear her say the words to him, not to some stranger—how could he turn his back on them?

He couldn’t. It was that simple. And Sol raking up wretched memories wasn’t helping.

‘It’s history.’ Censure splintered from Malachi’s mouth. ‘Just leave it alone.’

‘Right.’

His brother pressed his lips into a grim line and they each lapsed back into their respective silences.

He didn’t want Sol’s gratitude. He didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t taken care of their little family out of love, or a desire to be a unit. He’d done it because he’d been terrified of where they would all go if they were split up.

But he’d begrudged every moment of it. Resented the fact that at eight years old he’d had to effectively become a father to a five-year-old—had had no choice but to become the man of the house and earn money to put food on the table. At eight he had felt like a failure every time the electricity cut out and he had no money left to put anything on the card.

He’d sworn to himself that his adult life would be about himself, the way his childhood had never been. He’d been adamant that when he grew up he would never marry or have kids. His life would be his own. Finally. He had been determined that his business—which had made him a billionaire against all the odds—would be his only drive. As selfish as that might have sounded to anyone else—anyone who didn’t know what his life had been like.

And it had been. Nothing had stood in his way. Not his lack of experience, nor the competition, nor any relationship.

He’d been ruthless.

All too often he wondered if the only reason he had founded Care to Play—the centre he’d set up with Sol, where young carers from the age of five to sixteen could just unwind and be kids instead of feeling responsible for a parent or a sibling—had been to make himself feel good about his ability to shake other people off so easily.

He’d believed that he wanted to make a positive difference to other kids’ lives—if something like Care to Play had existed when he and Sol had been kids, then maybe it could have made a difference. He’d even convinced himself it was true.

But now, suddenly, he wondered if it had been just another selfish act on his part. If helping kids like Izzy, who clearly adored her genuinely struggling mother, was less about them and more about making himself feel better for the way he’d hated his own drug-addicted mother.

So now there was Saskia. Pregnant. With his child. And he couldn’t shake the idea that he had to do something about it. He was going to be a father, and fathers weren’t meant to be selfish. They were meant to be selfless.

Malachi was just about to open his mouth and confide in his brother, for possibly the first time in for ever, when Sol lurched abruptly to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets the way he’d always done when his mind was racing, ever since he’d been a kid.

It was so painfully familiar that Malachi almost smiled. Almost.

‘I’m going to check on some of my patients upstairs, then I’ll be back to see Izzy.’

Malachi dipped his head in acknowledgement, but Sol didn’t even bother to wait. He simply strode up the corridor and through the fire door onto the stairwell, leaving Malachi alone with unwelcome questions.

‘You can go back in now.’

Malachi jerked his neck around, and the sight of Saskia standing there brought a thousand questions tumbling to his lips.

‘Is there anything you’d like to tell me?’ he rasped, before he could swallow the words back.

She blanched, her eyes widening for just a fraction of a second before she pulled a smooth veneer into place.

‘If you want to know about Izzy then you’ll have to ask her mother. As you aren’t a direct family member, it isn’t my place to tell you.’

Was she playing a game? He couldn’t tell.

‘Tell me, do you always faint like that?’

Two high spots of colour suffused her cheeks. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then perhaps you’d like to explain what this morning’s little episode was all about.’

For a moment he thought she looked panicked.

‘That was a one-off.’

‘Is that so?’

‘It is.’

He arched his eyebrows. ‘And why do you think this “one-off” episode happened?’

She shook her head back, straightening her shoulders. It shocked Malachi to realise that he knew her well enough to know it was a stalling tactic.

Or, more pertinently, it should have shocked him.

‘I don’t know,’ she asserted. ‘Like you said, I probably hadn’t eaten properly, so I was running on empty. I didn’t have a proper breakfast and it’s been a long shift.’

He didn’t know whether to be impressed or insulted that she lied so easily. Straight to his face. And then, without warning, anger surged through him—whether at the way she wanted to exclude him or at the fact she thought he was that blind, he couldn’t be sure—but he quashed it, quickly and effectively.

Never let anyone see they can get to you.

Another life lesson he’d been forced to learn from an early age.

So this was the game she wished to play?

Well, he was just going to have to find a way to play against her.

Not here, not now. Not with Izzy injured in that room. Her mother and sister would need his support more than ever right now. They had no one else, which was what made the centre so vital.

Right now he was here for Michelle and her daughters. Saskia and her lies would have to wait.

But if that was her game, then fine; he would play her at it and he would win. He just needed to take a step back and regroup so he could work out his next move.

CHAPTER THREE

‘THIS PLACE IS STUNNING...’ Anouk breathed as she took in the huge sandstone arches reaching up as though in exultation to a breathtaking stone-carved vaulted ceiling.

‘Isn’t it?’ Saskia demurred, following her friend’s gaze, trying to quell the kaleidoscope of butterflies which seemed to have taken up residence in her stomach ever since Anouk had told her she had two tickets to a gala evening and asked Saskia to join her.

A gala evening for a local young carers’ charity.

Saskia had known instantly whose charity it was. Anouk had mentioned something about Sol giving them to her, and something about a patient... Izzy? To her shame, Saskia hadn’t really been listening—she’d been too caught up in her own head.

Tickets to a charity event for Care to Play. As though fate itself was intervening.

Saskia hadn’t even asked how her friend had got the tickets, or why. She just knew that Malachi would be there and that this was her chance to do what she should have done two months ago. She had to tell him about the baby. Whatever he chose to do after that was his business.

‘I feel positively shabby by comparison.’

Anouk was still gazing at the architecture and Saskia laughed, grateful for the momentary distraction.

‘Well, you don’t look it,’ she told her friend. ‘You look like you’re sparkling, and it isn’t just the new dress. Although I’m glad you let me talk you into buying it.’

‘I’m glad I let you talk me into buying it, too,’ admitted Anouk, smoothing her hands over her dress as though she was nervous.

‘You look totally Hollywood,’ Saskia assured her wryly, knowing that it would break whatever tension her friend appeared to be feeling.

‘Don’t.’ Anouk shuddered on cue. ‘I think I’ve had enough of Hollywood to last me a lifetime.’

‘Me, too.’ More than anyone else could ever possibly know, thought Saskia. ‘But still, the look is good.’

‘Maybe I should be in a more festive colour.’

Anouk glanced at Saskia’s own dress enviously—another much-needed boost to Saskia’s uncharacteristically wavering confidence.

In fact, her friend had already waxed lyrical about the ‘stunning’ emerald dress, claiming that it might have looked gorgeous on the rack but ‘on your voluptuously feminine body it looks entirely bespoke’.