Claiming His Bought Bride

Damon always got what he wanted.

She bit down on the rising panic—everything had veered out of control within short minutes. Her simple plan of doing the right thing and telling him about the baby, asking him for financial support, and looking for a mutually agreeable role he could play in the child’s life was now a complicated tangle.

“Lily?” He lifted her chin with a finger. “If you marry me, you and your gran would both be taken care of beyond your wildest dreams.”

Still she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, but this will work very well for us.” He leaned in to feather a kiss along her jawline.

Damon was a man others regarded as beyond powerful, but she’d known from the start that his greatest power was his ability to enthrall. To mesmerize her with negligible effort. The knowledge, however, was little protection. She felt herself falling…. His lips brushed the sensitive skin of her throat, leaving a decadently moist trail.

“There were things left—” he paused and nipped her earlobe “—unfinished between us last time. I’m not fond of unfinished business, Lily.”

She swallowed hard. “You mean I left you and you hate losing.”

She felt his mouth curve into a smile against her skin. “We were good together before,” he said between smooth kisses along her throat. “A marriage between us could work.”

Would it? Her knees felt boneless from the ministrations he was paying her neck. It was obvious sexual compatibility would never be a problem. But now she couldn’t play make a decent go of it or just try it. Breaking up over him letting her down that last day might seem an overreaction to some, but that had merely been the last straw for their relationship. She remembered the disillusionment when he dropped her home on her birthday, halfway through a romantic dinner, because work had called. Another time, he’d become so immersed in a stock market fluctuation, he’d totally forgotten to meet her. It was a day she’d really needed him—the tenth anniversary of her parents’ deaths. Both times he’d promised to make it up to her, and she supposed he had, but she’d learned Damon wasn’t a person she could rely on to be there when she needed him most. And her obligation now was first and foremost to the tiny life dependent on her.

Her own mother had put her husband’s needs ahead of her child’s. As a professional gambler, Lily’s father had needed to travel, mostly in poverty, and Lily had been dragged from place to place, craving stability, routine, reliability. Until the age of twelve, when she’d moved in with her grandmother, she’d known none.

This baby’s needs came before hers or Damon’s.

She needed to find a way to make this new development work for her.

“If I were to agree,” she croaked out through her dry throat. She swallowed, willing her voice to work. “I have some conditions of my own.”

His eyes widened slightly but he nodded. “Tell me.”

“I’d marry you if it meant Gran would be taken care of.” Lily stepped back and wrapped her arms around herself. She’d walk over broken glass for that sweet woman.

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.” His mouth curved.

“But bringing a baby into the equation is a different matter entirely.” She took a deep breath and stepped farther away, outside his aura. “I’d want to bring this baby up on my own. One thing I learned from living with my parents and then Gran is it’s not the number of people in the family that matters, it’s the capacity to love, and prioritize each other. To be emotionally reliable for each other.” Gran would be there for her now, too, and that was all she needed.

She braced herself to explain, to tell him the truth. As their baby’s father, he deserved it, and she needed him to understand. “I’d never cut you off from your own child, but you have to know already that your version of commitment isn’t what a child needs. Your priorities.” She trailed off, not sure how to word it without causing offence. Not sure how to tell him she didn’t want the cycle of the Blakely men’s frozen hearts thrust upon her innocent baby.

Uncertain, she clasped her hands together in front of her belly. “We would work out beforehand what role you’d want to play. Visitation rights that don’t interfere too much with your work.”

Damon thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. “Visitation rights?” The look in his eyes said he had no intention of being that far removed from his child, but she pressed on.

“I also want to be financially stable enough to know that my child will always have a home and things he or she needs. You’ll make an account for the baby, in my name. I need to be secure.” Her own wage was enough if push came to shove, but this was a way to ensure her baby would never go without.

He nodded, eyes calculating as she spoke. “Go on.”

“And lastly, I want a contract ensuring these conditions are met.” She raised her chin, hoping he didn’t argue this point because it was an absolute bluff—she was in too far to walk away. Her baby’s needs were paramount.

“You don’t trust me, Lily?” A rare emotion passed across his face, but she wasn’t sure it was hurt. Far more likely he was mocking her.

“I’ll marry you and have the baby you need, Damon, but I’ll raise it on my own with money from both of us. Sign a contract to that effect or you’ll have to find someone else.”

He rocked back on his heels, a smile playing around his mouth. “You drive a hard bargain. Good for you.” The smile that had threatened finally broke free and this time it reached his eyes. “These are precisely the qualities I want in the mother of my child.”

He stepped forward but she moved sideways, evading him. She was shaking inside and, knowing the negotiations were at a critical point, needed all the distance from his masculine solidness she could manage. “You haven’t answered. Will you sign a contract with my conditions?”

He reached for her, playing to her weakness, but she again evaded and crossed her arms under her breasts. “Damon?”

His gaze rested on hers, intense and unwavering. “My child will grow up where he should—in my house with his mother and father.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. Once Damon made up his mind, he was unwavering … and she had so little bargaining room. Her mind raced so fast she began to feel light-headed. She needed to find a way to give herself some emotional space in this arrangement.

But there was only one option, and she sent up a quick prayer that he agreed, because she couldn’t back out of this deal now. “I’ll concede to living in your home, but only on the condition that we have separate bedrooms. On opposite sides of the house.”

One side of his mouth quirked. “Are you sure that’s what you really want, Lily?”

Her body screamed no, even as her mind continued to fine-tune her position. “This will be a paper marriage—we’ll live separate lives under one roof. I won’t share your bed, Damon. Now or ever.”

He chuckled with genuine amusement. “Ah, sweetheart, you’re forgetting the child we need to make.” He cast her a look that in the past would have made her come to him. “I’m looking forward to that part immensely.”

Lily finally allowed herself to return the smile. She knew he’d try to change the parameters, turn the situation to his benefit, but at least if she could get him to sign a contract, she had a leg to stand on.

If only she felt as confident about resisting the invitation to his bed.

“As it happens, that won’t be a problem,” she said, laying her hands over her waist. “I’m already pregnant with your baby.”

Two

Damon called up all his famed reserves of self-control to avoid swaying on his feet.

She was pregnant?

His head swam as if he’d been sucker punched. He supposed he had been. In all the preplanning and strategizing, he’d not once factored in this possibility. It had just never occurred to him that she already nurtured his baby inside her body.

His gaze fixed on her stomach, searching for answers. He found none, just her flawless pale fingers stretched across the narrow expanse of her waist.

Heart beating slower than usual with shock, mind trying to make sense of the new information, he lifted his eyes to meet hers. She stood very still; a serene mask covered her features. How could she be so calm after delivering news this momentous?

Then it came—the crack in Lily’s veneer. She pulled one side of her full bottom lip between her straight white teeth and bit delicately down. He’d lost count of the number of people he’d played in his line of work, the number of meetings where he’d wrested control from unwilling board members. The key was always to wait until that small sign of unease appeared—to be able to recognize it—then to act without mercy.

Yet he remained unmoving, emotions frozen.

She was carrying his child?

Then, as if time caught up with crashing reality, his body came back to life. Heart pumped hard, mind cleared, adrenaline flowed.

He had a child. That baby in her womb belonged to him. He’d never considered children in his future, not until his uncle’s ultimatum, but now that the reality presented itself, he knew he’d never let that child go.

Lily’s condition of separate bedrooms be damned. He hadn’t been prepared to sign his name to that idea even before her announcement, but now there was no way in hell he’d let her create distance between them. The baby and the woman carrying it were his and would stay that way no matter what he needed to do to ensure it.

He glanced over at her. She was exquisite with her forest-green eyes, her alabaster skin, her silver-blond hair glimmering under the soft light. He desired her like no other. Even since first meeting her at a gallery fund-raiser, she’d gotten under his skin. And now she’d be forever tied to him.

Unwilling to show her any of his innermost reactions, he spoke with little inflection to his words. “You played that card close to your chest, sweetheart.”

“Not—” she cleared her throat “—not really. I suspected … thought I knew … but only had it confirmed by a doctor today. It’s why I came here tonight. To find you and tell you.” Her hands remained across her belly, almost protectively.

“So you were pregnant when you left me.” His voice was flat, almost accusing, even to his own ears.

She grimaced. “I didn’t know I was.”

He raised a brow. The outcome was the same. And he had another question while they were on the topic. “Tell me honestly, Lily, why did you leave?”

With shaking hands, she pushed a strand of hair behind an ear. “Is there any purpose in dredging this up now?”

Maybe not, but the question had bothered him—pride had kept him from pursuing an answer. But now she was here in the flesh, he needed an answer. “We’re getting married. I think a short analysis on the breakdown of our past relationship has relevance.”

She lifted her chin, but ruined the effect by biting down again on her full bottom lip. “Because I was too low a priority in your life.”

That again! He’d prioritized her above almost everything, higher than a woman had ever been, and she still wanted more?

Needing to move, to use some of the adrenaline hurtling through his veins, he strolled with controlled movements to look into a glass cage enclosing an ancient clay urn. Several museums had offered exorbitant amounts of money to buy the artifact, and yet here it’d stayed. Trapped by Travis in this mausoleum, the way Damon himself had been for many years.

Nothing mattered more to him than reclaiming his heritage. He’d been made to feel like a poor, pathetic relation, when his father’s business savvy was the only reason Travis wasn’t still working as a junior assistant somewhere. It was time to restore rightful order to the world.

He swiveled to face Lily, the only woman who’d ever sparked dreams that didn’t include BlakeCorp. The innate sensuality in the way she moved; her mouth, made for such sweetness and such sin; her heart, so untainted by the blackness that consumed his.

But everything had changed. And he needed to be very clear about his priorities. This woman was the key to BlakeCorp … and his baby.

“We’ll marry as soon as I can arrange it.” He stepped forward and grasped her upper arms, ignoring his body’s insistent response to her. His blood had heated the moment he saw her in the ballroom, and now his groin screamed for attention.

He heard her breath catch at the touch but she tried to smother it, to deny his power over her, simply nodding her answer.

He let his voice drop to the seductive timbre she always responded to. “No point hiding your reaction to me, Lily.”

Her eyes narrowed in contradiction but her chest moved in rapid, shallow breaths.

A smile of victory threatened, but he only let one corner of his mouth curve up. “Don’t worry, there will be time for that. A lifetime of opportunities.”

Gasping, Lily stepped back, rubbing her palms over the skin he had held. “No, Damon. I agreed to marry you. I agreed to have your baby, which it so happens I’m already carrying. But I did not agree to share your bed. It won’t be that type of marriage.”

The smile playing on his lips extended into a full-blown version. A challenge. He loved a challenge if the prize was worth winning. And this woman in front of him was worth bedding—he knew that well.

He let out a slow, easy breath and sank his hands into his trouser pockets. “Let’s just see how things unfold.”

“I know how things will unfold. We’ll be married in name only. We might live under the same roof, but we will be living separate lives. I let you hurt me before when I relied on you, needed you. And every time you had to choose between your business and me, you chose it, no matter how high my needs were or how minor the work issue. Be warned, I won’t be as naive this time.”

He waved her claim away. “Ancient history. We’re starting anew. Something I’m very much looking forward to.” He brushed a kiss on her cheek and held out his arm to escort her back to the party. After a brief hesitation, she raised her chin and preceded him out the doors.

He watched her go, appreciating the shape of her back, the sway of her hips.

Nothing would stop him from claiming his child or his father’s company—they rightfully belonged to him. And he had a burning need to have this woman under him again. Fate had conveniently wrapped all the things he wanted in one neat, sweet-smelling package.

All he must do was coax his bride-to-be back into his bed.

The following morning, Lily wandered through the crowd of art-lovers as they milled around the display of Impressionist paintings her gallery was showcasing.

This exhibition had been her special project—selecting the paintings she wanted to show together, arranging with interstate and international galleries to borrow artwork to complement their own examples of the style, organizing events with schools and the public to coincide with the opening week. And she’d loved every minute.

She continued her stroll. The sounds of a busy exhibition always pleased her—the muffled footsteps on the tiled floor, voices raised or lowered in wonder and awe, an occasional guide sharing their passion.

Blended with that was the knowledge that today was the second to last day, giving her a twinge of sadness that usually came with the end of an exhibition. From tomorrow night, they’d begin taking down the display, returning paintings, completing paperwork. In a few days’ time, another exhibition would fill this room.

Lily paused to appreciate some of her last moments with her favorite Monet. One of his series of water lilies, it was incredibly popular with the crowds for its lavenders, greens, pinks and blues—its undeniable intensity and luminosity.

But she loved this series because it showed the multitude of ways there were to look at the same subject, depending on time of day, the season or the position of the observer.

Similarly, there were many ways to view marriage: a fairy tale come true with hearts and flowers; a deep commitment with a soul mate that transcended the mere institution … or a pragmatic contract used to secure an inheritance.

She’d never yearned for the trappings of a fairy tale, but, despite her parents’ train-wreck of an example, she’d always secretly hoped that somewhere she had a soul mate and they’d eventually find each other.

Marriage to Damon was not such a union.

As the reality of her situation hit her again, the room around her rocked then swooped, leaving her feeling faint.

Oh, God, what had she done?

“The water lily collection always struck me as overly sentimental,” a deep voice said close to her ear.

She turned quickly to see Damon staring at the Monet, hands on hips, bunching the sides of his dark gray suit jacket above them.

“I like his series of the French cathedral more,” he said, gaze still on the artwork. “Same concept of capturing the subject in different lights, but a much more interesting outcome.”

She inhaled an intoxicating breath of his spicy scent. He always smelled so damn good. She’d noticed his cologne on other men and it’d had nowhere near the bone-melting impact it did when blended with Damon’s own scent.

With effort, she brought her attention back to the conversation on art. “Buildings are more interesting than flowers and nature?” Though, she knew the answer from Damon’s point of view. The material, the concrete, the financially tangible were always more valuable than simple beauty. What did interest her was his apparent knowledge of the French Impressionist. When they’d met, he’d claimed to have little understanding of the art world.

He turned, taking in her expression, and raised a brow—a look made all the more devilish by the accompanying heavy-lidded gaze. “I like buildings. And don’t look so shocked that I recognize the painting. If you date someone with a PhD in fine art for six months, something’s bound to rub off.”

Lily laughed softly, conceding the point. “So now you’re a gallery regular?”

“No, I’ve come to see my fiancée.” He cupped her chin and brushed a kiss across her lips. “I always did prefer snow lilies to their watery cousins.”

Words of praise dripped so easily from his tongue—with or without sincerity—that she refused to respond. She’d fallen for his silver-tongued flattery before. It had led to heartache whenever he left her without looking back. She must not forget.

And yet a part of her she couldn’t control craved his kiss, craved him beyond reason.

He released her chin and dropped his hand into his trouser pocket. “And to finalize some arrangements. How soon can you get time off work?”

Her mind clicked into gear, pushing aside any remnants of hurt that he could so easily, so clinically, switch topics of discussion. It was only what she’d expected. Men like Damon did not while away the time talking about paintings. They mentioned them as a lead-in to getting what they wanted. Another reminder not to let down her guard.

Instead, she began thinking through the question and implications. This exhibition was almost over and she’d be going into detailed planning of her next project—a good time to take a day or two off if necessary to organize legal documentation for their wedding. “What do you have in mind?”

He rocked back on his heels, all casual confidence. “We fly out to New Zealand in three days, exchange vows and fly back. You’ll need a week off work to cover the flights and a couple of days there.”

Her stomach lurched. She seemed to have missed a step. “New Zealand?”

He lifted his shoulders then dropped them in a confident gesture. “Much quicker than waiting for the paperwork to go through in Australia. I originally considered Las Vegas, but decided the shorter flights to and from Auckland will be better for the baby.”

A group of gallery patrons gathered about the Monet so, feet on autopilot, Lily moved away toward the middle of the room. Damon followed.

Her mind whirred too fast for any one thought to be clear. She needed time; he was moving so fast. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since she’d agreed to marry him, and now here he was, asking her to leave the country in three days.

Her lungs labored to draw in enough oxygen. “Can I think about it?”

“Sure.” One corner of his mouth lifted in an incomparable show of self-satisfaction. “I’ve already booked the flights so there’s no rush to secure seats.”

The world stilled as a strong sense of déjà vu settled over her. This was what it’d been like to be involved with Damon Blakely the last time. She sometimes wondered why she hadn’t seen these warning signs when they’d first met. The cavalier attitude to other people’s plans and choices. The belief he knew better, that his decisions weighed more than those of mere mortals. The same warning signs her mother should have noticed in her father.

Defensive anger rose to fill her chest. “You booked tickets without checking with me first?”

The best seats, too, she knew without asking. The man had gall for an expensive gamble like that. But then he wouldn’t have seen it as a gamble—he always got what he wanted.

He lowered his voice and his eyes darkened, the pupils expanding to almost meet the black ring around his ice-blue irises. “This is a priority for both of us. We need to make sure our baby is legitimate.”

The anger dissolved as quickly as it’d arrived, leaving her deflated, empty. He was right. They did need to ensure the baby was legitimate for the terms of the will. She’d cede on this one point, but only because it made sense, not because of his tactics.

“I’ll need to check with the gallery director.” She shook her head and began heading for the staff offices, Damon almost a step ahead even when she led. “I’ll let you know by tonight.”

He dropped a casual arm around her shoulders, which she knew would be more to stop her walking in another direction than a gesture of affection. “Come to my place after work and tell me what you’ve arranged. You haven’t seen my new house yet.” His voice had deepened into black velvet.

He’d changed tactics, turned on the charm. Her mind could acknowledge the game plan in this move but her body reacted to the timbre of his voice with primal hunger down low in her belly.

The gleam in his eye told her he knew exactly the effect he was causing. He pressed his advantage, fingers caressing the exposed skin of her upper arm where his hand hung. She kept walking, trying desperately to control her rampant hormones that urged her to turn to him, to let him charm and seduce her, no matter the cost.

But no, the stakes were too high now. His agenda wouldn’t have their baby as first priority and that was the only agenda she could approve at the moment.

She stiffened and pointedly tipped her chin to his hand as it lazily stroked her sensitized skin.

Never slow on the uptake, Damon dropped his arm—but let it trace a lazy path down her back as he did so.

Damon always held himself in such control she wondered for the hundredth time if he’d shown any genuine feeling—besides desire—in all their time together.

Dismissing the thought, she waited for the next tactic he’d pull out of the bag. The wait was short.

“Melissa is cooking pasta tonight.” His tone was casual, as if he were doing her a favor. “She’d love to see you again.”

Lily thought of Damon’s housekeeper with her bush of light brown curls and ready smile. “I’d like to see her again, too, but I’m pretty tired these days after work.”

She was past the morning sickness stage and now the main side effect of her pregnancy seemed to be fatigue. Besides, she needed as much distance from Damon as she could get. Distance seemed to be the only effective strategy in resisting him, and even then its value was questionable. “I’d rather ring and have an early night.”

Immediately, his expression morphed into concern and he swung around in front of her, blocking her path. “Are you getting enough rest?” He clasped her elbow. “Perhaps this job is too much for you in your condition.”