Secret Heirs And A Forever Family

Accustomed to living a life of complete independence—a life of frankly not giving a damn what other people thought of him—he was brought up short at the way it had been whittled away at the edges ever since she had announced that he was going to be a father. On the other hand, strength lay in the ability to adapt. He had adapted. It was a means to an end.

‘Of course I have.’

But in between the sudden burst of spring cleaning energy and tying up the final bits of her commission she realised that food had taken a back seat. Or at least robust meals had—because when she was on the go crackers and cheese or sandwiches were always a faster option.

‘I’ll be moving in tomorrow. You’ve been overdoing things. And you may be prepared to take chances but I’m not. Let’s get something clear right now. This isn’t just about you. You’re going to have to deal with that whether you like it or not.’

‘But it’s not necessary for you to move in!’

‘I’ll drop you back home and you can get some sleep. I’ll be with you first thing in the morning to make sure that you eat your breakfast.’

‘And do you intend to take time off work to supervise my lunches?’

‘Now that you mention it, I can work from the house—so, in answer to your question, quite possibly. You want to behave like a child, then expect to be treated like one, Susie.’

‘I haven’t been behaving like a child and I don’t want you around all the time, getting under my feet!’

Was that what he thought? That she was like a kid who needed to be told which road to follow because she was too simple to choose the right one? She hated the thought that she had gone from being the woman he wanted to someone he felt he had to look after. All his consideration for her over the past few months, she thought, had removed her sexuality.

‘Too bad.’ Sergio’s voice hardened. ‘Needs must.’

They drove the remainder of the way in silence. It was a quick drive, because at this hour the roads were clear. She knew that he would see her into the house, as indeed he did, and all the while she thought about him being there with her, living with her, sharing space with her, sitting in the little snug with her watching television.

She thought about the way they had been with one another before her pregnancy had forced him to put things into perspective. And then immediately her thoughts turned to when she had been lying on that narrow, uncomfortable bed in that room, being scanned, her stomach exposed to his gaze.

What had been going on in his mind then? Relief that they were no longer lovers? Impatience that he had had to come to the rescue because she was not independent enough to look after herself? Frustration that he had embarked on a light-hearted fling with someone out of his comfort zone just because he had liked her novelty value, only to find himself trapped with her for ever? Was he being forced to have her as an ongoing concern because of a child he hadn’t wanted in the first place?

‘So what time shall I expect you in the morning? Perhaps you could let me know how this arrangement is going to pan out?’

She contemplated him lurking in the house, materialising from dark corners, turning her on and distracting her, treating her like someone who couldn’t look after herself. Treating her the way her parents and her sister treated her. When she thought like that she felt sick.

‘Here’s how it’s going to pan out.’ Sergio looked at her evenly. ‘I’m going to set up camp in the downstairs den. There’s a desk there already. It’ll do for when I want to use it. I’ll transfer over my desktop computer so that I have both my desktop and my laptop handy, and I’ll arrange for a dedicated line to be put in so that you won’t be plagued with calls coming through for me on your landline—although I can use my mobile well enough. How’s it sounding so far?’

‘Constricting,’ Susie said with utter dejection.

He frowned at her. ‘You have the night to get used to the prospect.’

‘I’ve become accustomed to peace and quiet.’

‘I’ll make sure not to play my trumpet too loudly. You’ll thank me when this baby is delivered fat and healthy.’

And then? she thought. What happens then? She would have become accustomed to having him around. She knew that because she was already accustomed to having him around now and he wasn’t even living with her.

‘And shall I…er…? Well, I feel I ought to ask this…what about sleeping arrangements?’ she asked in a rush.

They found themselves in the kitchen and she sank into a chair and looked at him.

‘What about them?’

Just like that his mind swung back to the sight of her on that bed, the bigness of her stomach, her belly button slightly protruding—the essence of the rounded, fertile woman. His woman.

Except she wasn’t, was she?

Currently she was a woman who was trying to have a conversation about the boundaries she could put into place to spare herself the discomfort of having him under her feet. His mouth tightened, but he wasn’t going to get involved in a row with her. Stress came in different guises, and he wasn’t going to stress her by arguing with her—especially not now.

Marriage was no longer a subject under discussion. It had been efficiently and silently removed from the menu. Should he have pressed home his point in the beginning? Left her with no wriggle room? Because if they had got married he would have been able to keep an eye on her…they wouldn’t have ended up racing to the hospital in a state of flat-out panic.

But a reluctant, bitter and resentful wife…? No, the answer did not lie there.

Nevertheless, reluctant and resentful as she might be at his intrusion into her happy, solitary and peaceful existence here, it was still going to happen.

‘There are four bedrooms in this house, Susie…’ He couldn’t veil the simmering frustration that had crept into his voice at the thought of, for the first time in his life, planting himself somewhere where he wasn’t wanted. ‘I don’t think it will be an insurmountable problem if I use one of them. And if memory serves me right there are two en suite bathrooms, so there will be no danger of our crossing paths first thing in the morning with toothbrushes in our hands.’

Susie blushed, guiltily aware that he was putting himself out for her and doing it without complaint. It would be a far more laborious commute for him to get to work in the mornings, and if he chose to work from the house, that too would be a huge sacrifice.

Why did she always emerge feeling like the villain in the piece?

Because she wanted so much more from him, and wanting more made her edgy…made her sound ungrateful for the little things he did…even for the big things he did. Because, however big they were, they weren’t big enough.

‘Just relax about it, Susie. It’s no big deal and it won’t be for long.’

‘Because when the baby’s born you’ll clear out?’

‘What else would you want?’ he asked brusquely.

For a heartbeat, she played with the idea of throwing caution to the winds and telling him that actually what she wanted was a ring on her finger and him in bed beside her every night, for them to grow old together. What she wanted was for him to be madly in love with her, and it would be weak and stupid ever to think of settling for anything less.

But when she thought of him tonight…the way his safe, solid presence had taken away all her fears and made her feel secure…

‘Good. Okay.’

‘I’ll even take the load from your shoulders by helping with the cooking,’ he said, and shot her a slanting smile that set her whole body alight.

‘Is that a threat or a promise?’

‘You have my solemn word that I’ll consult recipe books before I decide to fling a few things into a pan.’

‘I guess it would be nice to have somebody cook for me.’

She was a woman built to share her life with someone, and that fact was brought forcibly home to him when she said that, her voice wistful. Hard on the heels of that thought came a less pleasant one, and that was that the person she would end up sharing her life with wouldn’t be him—even though between them they had created the new life growing in her stomach.

‘No stress. Remember what the consultant said? And I don’t like the thought of you spending hours in that studio of yours, doing painstaking work.’

‘I move around a lot,’ Susie confessed. ‘I draw and paint a little, and then I stretch my legs and wander around the house to make sure my muscles don’t decide to seize up on me. Besides, I’m nearly finished with my commission, and the next one is for a children’s book so it’ll be far less detailed. In fact I shall probably be able to do a lot of it in front of the telly. Sergio, there’s no need for you to feel that you have to micromanage every single aspect of my life because I’m pregnant.’

Sergio ignored that. ‘Are you all right to stay on your own tonight?’

‘Of course I am—and that’s just what I’m talking about!’ She took a deep breath. ‘In fact,’ she said evenly, ‘I’m so tired I shall probably fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow.’

Unlike all those other times, when bed had signalled a lot more than falling asleep.

A rush of jumbled thoughts crowded into her head, jostling for space. Memories of being touched by him combined with the stress of the past few hours, the security she had felt at having him at her side, the relief at having received the all-clear…the sadness of realising that he truly saw her as nothing more than a responsibility, the helplessness at wanting more and knowing she would never have it.

Her eyes darkened and she licked suddenly dry lips. He was staring at her and she was rooted to the chair, unable to move a muscle. Except for her heart. Her heart was the only thing moving, beating inside her so fast and so hard that she wanted to faint.

‘Don’t,’ Sergio warned her gruffly.

She blinked at him in an attempt to clear her head. ‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t look at me like that.’ He shook his head, broke eye contact briefly, but then was compelled to look at her again.

‘Like what?’

‘Like you’re issuing an invitation.’

Or maybe he had misread that expression on her face? Before he had always had complete and utter confidence in his ability to have whatever woman he wanted, but she had managed to instil in him a healthy vein of self-doubt.

‘You’re tired,’ he continued. ‘We’re both exhausted after tonight.’

‘Which means…’ she was angry with herself again, because she had only just managed to catch herself before she fell headlong into what would have been a stupid mistake ‘…that it’s time for you to leave.’

She hazarded a smile, which seemed to do the trick, breaking the spell between them and allowing her to breathe as though something heavy wasn’t sitting on her chest. She stood up and began walking him to the front door, keeping her distance.

It was bad enough that she would have to fight her feelings for him without the luxury of having time out when he wasn’t around, but how much worse if she had given in? If she had done what her body had been urging her to do? If she had just…stepped towards him, laid her palm on his hard chest, stripped off her jumper and her thick thermal vest and her sensible bra so that he could swirl his tongue over her sensitive nipples…?

How uncomfortable would that have made the situation? Because he would have responded. She had glimpsed the flare of hunger in his eyes. And maybe he was just horny because he hadn’t had sex in a while, or maybe he was curious to find out what it felt like to make love to a woman who was big with his child, but he would have responded…

And then in the morning he would no longer have been horny, and would no longer have been curious, and where would that have left them?

She heard herself talking normally to him as she showed him out, even though her mind was in a whirl, and when he had gone she leaned against the front door and finally allowed herself to breathe evenly.

How the heck was she going to survive the next couple of months? she wondered.

CHAPTER TEN

‘I THINK I felt something…’

Sergio looked up from the report he had been scanning on his computer. Sometimes he found it hard to believe that he was the same man who had wined and dined women, slept with them, moved on… The same man whose entire life had been focused on work and the thrill of making money and growing an empire. A man who had enjoyed the freedom of living exclusively for himself.

He had moved in with her seven weeks previously and they had settled into a routine which was one born of necessity. He knew that. Of course he did. Circumstances had compelled him to live life at a pace he would never have imagined possible. What made him uneasy was the fact that he had adapted so fast.

They were living in a weird kind of bubble, in which they functioned as a couple for the sake of their unborn child. Bubbles eventually burst. When this one did the dithering would be over and she would accept the inevitable. He had indulged her by not forcing her hand, but in the end the result would be the same.

Except now the certainty that this was going to work out as planned seemed to hang in the balance, and he felt a rare surge of confusion.

‘No, it’s nothing.’

Susie had been frankly terrified of this arrangement, and sometimes when she thought about it she was still terrified—because she had become so accustomed to sharing space with him. Had he been right all along? That a marriage of convenience would be a workable marriage? Had she made far too big a deal of wanting the fairy tale of love and romance and assuming that anything that fell short of that was a waste of time?

‘You’re becoming the queen of the false alarm,’ Sergio said drily, flipping shut his laptop and standing to stretch out his muscles, which had tightened from sitting in one place for too long.

He had gone into the office today, had successfully signed on the dotted line for a deal that had been brewing for nearly a year and a half, and yet his only thoughts had been of how fast he could get back to her.

He looked at her broodingly and she met his gaze and then glanced away.

This happened a lot less than she had feared…this flipping over of her heart when their eyes met and held for a fraction too long…when she happened to see something in his gaze that spoke of other stuff…not just the normal, casual, comfortable stuff that passed between them from day to day.

It was like looking down into a clear stream and glimpsing the swirl of dangerous currents moving so fast and so deep that they didn’t ruffle the calm surface except very occasionally, when they glittered and seduced and held her temporarily captive.

Dry-mouthed, she dragged her eyes away from him, half wishing that he wouldn’t stand there, stretching, so that his shirt tugged free from the waistband of his trousers, exposing a sliver of bronzed flat belly that tempted her fingers.

‘I know…’ Her breath hitched in her throat. ‘Every time I feel anything I think I’m about to go into labour—even though the midwife’s told me a hundred times that it’s only labour if I can time the contractions. Getting something that feels like a contraction every other day doesn’t count.’

‘You’d be forgiven for getting panicky—especially in light of that scare…not to mention the fact that the baby’s due any day now.’

‘I know. It’s come round so quickly since…since…’

‘Since you sprang it on me?’

His voice was low and serious, and for some reason she felt a little thread of alarm race through her because this was as serious as he had been since… Well, since he had moved in.

The intimacy of their shared situation settled like a weight on her. It was pitch-black outside. Dinner had been eaten, dishes stacked in the dishwasher, and she was a handful of minutes away from heading upstairs for the night, leaving Sergio in the sitting room. He would resume work and then would retire to bed at some point during the night or the early hours of the morning.

Winter was all around them. The homely warmth of the house kept it at bay, but as he continued to look at her she was aware of the fact that, yes, there really were only the two of them in this place. Ex-lovers who had created a baby between them… Herself and the man she was compelled to look at, driven to want…

She licked her lips and set aside the little sketch pad on which she had been drawing.

‘I…er…’ She cleared her throat and looked at him. ‘I’ve never thanked you for being so decent about the whole thing. Your whole life’s been turned on its head.’ She laughed. ‘Can you believe that this is the first time we’re really talking about this?’

‘There seemed little point in stressing you out with long-winded discussions…’ Eyes still pinned to her face, Sergio strolled to one of the chairs facing the sofa and sat down, hunching forward so that his forearms were resting on his thighs.

But now the time had come to talk. He wasn’t sure how long this had been building inside him, how long he had known that the comfortable arrangement they had fallen into would have to be broken. He just knew that the baby would be born any day now and that once that baby arrived the situation between them would change dramatically.

Opportunities would be lost for ever.

Suddenly opportunities and having access to them seemed like the most important thing in the world. So this was it. Naturally they had to talk. They couldn’t walk blindly into parenthood without first sorting out all the little details that would crash into them the second this baby was born. They had to be prepared. She had to be prepared. And this so-called conversation was going to stress her out.

‘I know you think I’ve needed watching over ever since the scare at the hospital, but I don’t,’ Susie said flatly.

Restlessness washed into her. She wondered whether she should mention that her stress levels were building—and then decided that her stress levels would rocket whenever they had this conversation, be it here and now, or next week, or when she was lying in a hospital bed with their baby in a crib next to them.

There was never going to be a right time to hear what had to be said, because she had become so accustomed to having him around.

‘You can’t blame a guy for being concerned. You are, after all, carrying my child.’

‘Shall I tell you something? I never thought you were the sort of conventional person who’d ever come out with stuff like that.’

‘I’m glad to have introduced you to a new side of my personality.’

‘I’ve seen lots of different sides of your personality over the past few weeks…’

‘Should I be uneasy when you say that?’

‘You said that we needed to talk.’

‘I don’t remember putting it quite like that.’

‘Not in so many words…’ She shrugged. ‘But I’ve developed a knack for reading between the lines.’ She sighed and sifted her fingers through her hair. ‘I guess this is as good a time as any to decide what…what’s going to happen once the baby’s born. It needs to be out in the open. I mean, there are all sorts of decisions to be made.’

‘Yes. There are.’

‘For starters, you’ve got a life to lead—a life that’s waiting out there for you.’

‘What makes you think that you know what sort of life is out there waiting for me to lead it?’

‘I feel like you’ve been forced to put your whole life on hold to move in here with me. It’s been a sacrifice.’

‘For you?’ Sergio drawled. ‘Or for me?’

‘For…both of us…’

But since when was it a great sacrifice to be living with the guy you loved, who was looking out for you? Taking care of you? What pregnant woman didn’t want to be treated like a piece of china? If she could only box up all the other anxieties that went along with that scenario…

Sergio flushed darkly. He wondered when his priorities had shifted and marvelled that he had failed to pay due attention to this sea change. He had mistakenly thought that the bombshell had been her pregnancy. He’d been wrong. The fog of confusion he had earlier dismissed returned and then cleared, and in the clear light he could see the precipice over which he was dangling.

She was fidgeting, her fingers playing with the cotton of her loose jogging bottoms. She had only just conceded in the past couple of weeks that she needed proper maternity wear. Before that she had banked on elasticated waistbands to do the trick.

‘It’s been worth it, hasn’t it? Having me here?’

‘You can be very reassuring.’

‘Is that all you have to say on the subject?’

‘What else is there to say?’ Susie cried, suddenly wanting this dreadful conversation to be over and done with, and angry with him for drawing it out with pointless questions.

The businesslike arrangement he so approved of might have taken a bit of a knock, but she wanted him to bring it back to the table now, so that she could get her head around it before the baby came.

‘Do you want me to present you with a medal because you took time out of your hectic lifestyle to supervise me and make sure I wasn’t getting up to anything that might harm the baby?’

‘I’m not looking for medals.’ Maybe this wasn’t the time to be having this conversation after all. ‘And I don’t want to stress you out, Susie. That’s not my intention.’

‘I’m not stressed out.’

She breathed evenly, deeply, clearing her head and trying to fight her way past the fog of unhappiness that threatened to smother her—because she didn’t want to think about what was going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or at the end of the month. She wanted to wallow in the present and, yes, pretend that the present wasn’t going to turn into the future. She wanted to be a coward for a little bit longer.

‘And there’s no need for you to be so darn gentle with me, Sergio. I’m not going to fall apart at the seams just because you want to clear the air and sort out the details before life gets busy with a baby. I want that too! So—you’ll move out and you can come and visit as often as you like. You’d just have to give me notice. I don’t want you showing up out of the blue and expecting a cup of coffee. I know you bought the house, and I know right now you have a key, but I’ll expect you to return the key when you leave. For good.’

She was holding herself ramrod-stiff. The deep breathing obviously had a way to go when it came to relaxing her. It didn’t augur well for labour.

‘Right.’

‘And I’m sure we can work out something sensible with the financial side of things. I mean, the arrangement we have at the moment seems to be working all right—and, of course, the more established I get in my freelance work, the less dependent I’ll be on you…’

‘Right.’

Her words were floating around his head without really registering. He was staring down into an abyss and for the first time in his life was paralysed with inaction. How was it that he hadn’t spotted the ground opening up beneath his feet? He had never in his entire life taken his eye off the ball, but he had done it with her.

‘And then you can get back to your busy life. I don’t know… Would you want me to sign anything?’

‘My busy life…?’

‘Earning money, running an empire, being a mover and a shaker in the big, bad world…’

Over time she had come to grasp not just the extent of his wealth but the extent of his power and influence. Neither impressed her, because if he’d been poorer and less influential, then maybe he would have wanted what she wanted: just a normal relationship. Maybe he would have loved her the way she loved him. She didn’t enjoy thinking like that, but she couldn’t help it.

‘I seem to have taken quite a bit of time out of my “busy life” over the past few weeks, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘But I didn’t force you to—’

‘Did I say that you did?’