Bound By Their Scandalous Baby

This girl was about to find out that he could not be as easily manipulated as he had been four years ago, when he’d parted with fifty thousand dollars simply to save Alexei the embarrassment of having to make a public announcement that he was not responsible for Darcy’s so-called condition.

Well, Alexei was gone now—the car crash that had killed him while he was out of his head on cocaine and champagne a direct result of Darcy O’Hara’s lies, to Lukas’s way of thinking. So Lukas had no reason and certainly no incentive to pay another cent. But this girl needed to be taught a lesson. Once and for all.

He wasn’t leaving that task to the police or anyone else. He owed it to Alexei.

‘I wish to talk to her in private,’ he said to Tanner. ‘Keep the police busy until then. And get rid of the press.’ He would speak to Garvey tomorrow about a press release to quell any rumours arising from this evening’s events. Alexei had always wanted to avoid just such a necessity, but Alexei was gone now. And the truth could no longer hurt him. If anything, it ought to stop any more gold-diggers like the O’Hara sisters coming out of the woodwork.

He felt the girl’s body sag, no doubt with relief. As he marched her down the corridor towards his private suite he felt an answering surge of satisfaction. She thought she’d just got what she wanted. He was going to enjoy proving the opposite.

He entered the suite and hauled her in after him, then let her go. As she stumbled to a stop in the centre of the room, he slammed the door and clicked the lock.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, angered anew by the pulse of heat in his crotch which hadn’t subsided since that ill-advised kiss.

She wrapped her arms around her midriff, the tremors racking her body a nice touch, he thought, as she lifted her chin and faced him, the leap of defiance still sparkling in the green depths of her irises. Her freckles stood out against the vivid flush of exertion on her cheeks—but he noticed for the first time the shadows under her eyes.

He ruthlessly quelled the prickle of sympathy.

Maybe she was an even better actress than her sister, after all. From the look of her, anyone would think she was an avenging angel on the verge of collapse, not an accomplished little blackmailer.

His gaze roamed over her, and he let every ounce of his contempt show. In the brighter light, the dress looked considerably less impressive. It didn’t even fit her properly, the soft mounds of her breasts pressed indecently against the satin. His gaze snagged on the outline of her nipples. He jerked it away again, before the heat in his crotch swelled.

She’d lost her shoes in the struggle with the security guard, her bare unpainted toes peeping out from underneath the gown’s frayed hem.

His gaze rose to examine her face. She wore no jewellery and minimal make-up. Her dewy skin was as soft and clear as a child’s. He flinched inwardly—exactly how old was she? She looked like a teenager, eighteen or nineteen at the most, playing dress-up.

The Little Orphan Annie look wasn’t one he’d been susceptible to before now—which only made the incendiary effect of having her in his arms, her mouth at his mercy, all the more galling and inexplicable.

‘Talk,’ he said. The curt demand made her flinch. ‘You’ve got five minutes to explain exactly how much you think your little revelation about Alexei fathering a son is worth before I hand you over to the cops.’

At which point he would take great pleasure in adding a charge of extortion to the ones of trespass and assault.

* * *

‘What?’ Bronte’s voice broke on the word, her shock almost as huge as her exhaustion. And her confusion.

‘You heard me. How. Much.’ The jagged scar on his cheek pulsed, emphasising his hatred.

And, as much as she hated him in return, she didn’t understand it.

Exactly how cruel and arrogant was this man? She’d just told him his dead twin had a child. And all he seemed concerned about was money—and humiliating her.

He’d treated her with complete contempt, from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. He’d as good as ravaged her in front of hundreds of people—and said the most vile things imaginable about a woman who couldn’t defend herself—and now he was accusing her of being some kind of blackmailer.

She bit into her lip, hard enough to taste blood. And held on to the diatribe she wanted to scream at him.

Don’t punch him again, Bronte. You need his co-operation. Nico needs his cooperation.

She flexed her fingers, pressing the bruised knuckles under her arm, and tried to channel Mahatma Gandhi. Not easy when she was feeling more like Genghis Khan.

Unfortunately, Lukas Blackstone was the one with all the power here. Not just in terms of his money and influence, but even within the confines of this room. He towered over her. In her bare feet she was barely five foot three; she suspected he was at least a foot taller, with an impressively fit build for a man who had probably spent every moment of his existence being pampered to within an inch of his life. There wasn’t an ounce of softness or give about him. He looked completely indomitable—and completely furious. Like a lion in his prime—who could devour her and all her hopes with one vicious swipe of his paw, and then forget about her.

‘I don’t want your money,’ she said, as clearly as she could while her knees were shaking.

She wasn’t scared of him, she told herself staunchly. This was just a reaction to everything that had happened in the last few minutes, and hours, and days and weeks. It felt as if all her hopes and fears, all her dreams and all her nightmares, were centred in this one room, concentrated on this one man—and, for better or worse, she had to come out on top in this battle of wills or she would lose everything that mattered to her.

Unfortunately, she had never been the sunny, flirtatious, irresistible sister. That had always been Darcy. Darcy with her sweet smile and her effervescent laugh and her determination to always see the best in people, even the father who had discarded them both to start another family. And Alexei Blackstone, who Darcy had been convinced had fallen madly in love with her, even if all the evidence from their one-night stand and its aftermath had suggested the opposite.

Alexei Blackstone had used Darcy. He’d been nothing more than a billionaire playboy who had hooked up with her sister for a night in Monaco, while her sister had been working at the casino bar and he’d been touring the tables. After a moonlit drive in his new sports car, he’d seduced her hopelessly romantic sister over champagne and canapés in the Blackstone Villa on the Côte D’Azur. He’d taken her virginity and then discarded her the next day. Darcy had lost her job and returned to London, confused and heartbroken, but when she’d found out she was pregnant, contacting Alexei had been impossible. He’d never responded to any of the frantic messages Darcy had left him. And then Lukas had appeared in London a few days later, his limousine taking Darcy to a private meeting at the Blackstone Park Lane. There he’d tried to bully and blackmail Darcy into having an abortion, which Darcy had been convinced had all been Lukas’s idea.

Bronte wasn’t convinced that Alexei wasn’t the one who had set his big brother on Darcy and told him to bribe her into silence, but Darcy wouldn’t hear of it.

Alexei Blackstone was as much of a creep as his brother to Bronte’s way of thinking—just a more charming one. But when Darcy had spoken of him that last time, months after his death, her eyes glazed with fever and love, an hour after Nico’s birth, Bronte had simply nodded, having lost the desire to destroy her sister’s comforting delusions.

‘Promise me you won’t tell Alexei’s brother I didn’t have the abortion. Lukas must never know about Nico.’

Bronte’s mind stalled, the fog of exhaustion burned away by the flash fire of memory. She flexed her fingers, feeling Darcy’s weak grip tightening on her hand as the sharp sickly smell of morphine and disinfectant clogged Bronte’s lungs. And the words that had haunted her and driven her for three years whispered across her consciousness.

‘I promise, Darcy. I’ll look after Nico. And Lukas Blackstone will never know he exists.’

She’d only been eighteen when Nico had come into her life and the double whammy of responsibility and Darcy’s death had cut her carefree existence off at the knees. The newborn baby had been nothing but a burden at first, especially in the depths of her grief, when just getting out of bed each morning had felt like an endeavour on a par with building the Taj Mahal singlehanded.

But eventually Nico, such a sweet, smiley baby boy, had become Bronte’s salvation, yanking her out of her grief and back into the world. She’d found a secure job as a nightclub cleaner and worked her backside off to raise Nico alone. And eventually she and Nico had found a rhythm. A rhythm which suited them. They’d weathered the highs and the many lows together. They were a team. And she’d kept her promise to Darcy. Until Nico’s paediatrician Dr Patel had told her two days ago—in her bright airy office at Westminster Children’s Hospital—that Bronte wasn’t the donor they needed for Nico’s treatment. And maybe they should look for a donor in his father’s family.

Unlike Darcy, Bronte had always been a realist, a pragmatist, the one who knew people rarely, if ever, were as good as they appeared to be on the surface. And if she’d ever been an optimist she wasn’t one any more. But if the paediatrician had believed the devil himself was Nico’s best hope she would have tracked him down—and forced him to cooperate. But having to dig deep and find a way to charm Lukas Blackstone now she’d found him felt impossible somehow—probably because her experience of charming any man was precisely zilch.

Just concentrate on the now. And get through this. For Nikky and Darcy.

Lukas’s brows drew down, making his harsh, brooding face look even more forbidding.

‘If you don’t want money,’ he said, the cynical note a clear indication he was humouring her with that supposition, ‘then why did you gatecrash this event?’

‘I told you why,’ Bronte snapped, then wished she could bite off her tongue. But he didn’t seem particularly fazed by her show of temper. Probably because he held all the cards. ‘Because I need to talk to you about Nico,’ she continued. ‘Who is your brother Alexei’s son.’

Lukas’s eyes flickered with an intense emotion she couldn’t name. But then the tiny reaction was gone, and the look he sent her could only be described as scathing. And dismissive.

She pushed against the despair threatening to engulf her. Had coming here been a terrible mistake?

‘Nico is your nephew,’ she reiterated, even though admitting the connection between this cynical, indifferent man and that innocent, funny, beautiful little boy made her stomach hurt. ‘He’s only three years old and he’s very ill—his only hope is an experimental stem cell treatment. We need at least a partial donor match but, with both his biological parents dead, Dr Patel says his best hope of finding a match is you—because you’re his father’s identical twin.’

Her voice trailed off because his face had remained impassive. Except for the tiny tic of a muscle in his jaw. Exactly how inhuman was he, that the plight of a child—his brother’s child—wouldn’t move him, even in the slightest?

But then his frown became more pronounced, as if he were considering what she’d said. Had he heard her? Would he at least consider helping?

‘If there even is such a child,’ he said, his tone laced with scepticism now as well as barely concealed contempt, ‘and he is actually sick, I think we both know there is no chance I will be a suitable donor.’

‘No, we don’t. How could we? If you haven’t been tested.’

‘Because there is no possible way Alexei could have fathered this boy. Something your sister knew when she tried to claim the same thing four years ago.’

‘Why are you saying that?’ she asked, confused now as well as frightened. ‘You knew Alexei was the father, or you wouldn’t have given my sister fifty thousand dollars to have an abortion.’

His eyebrows rose then, and for the first time she could see she’d surprised him. ‘Is that what your sister told you?’

‘Yes, and I believed her—she would never have lied to me.’ Darcy had never had a single duplicitous or greedy bone in her body. She’d taken this man’s blood money, yes, but only for the sake of her child—to put a down payment on the tiny basement flat where they lived in Hackney, East London.

‘How melodramatic,’ he said. ‘I didn’t tell her to have an abortion, for the simple reason that I didn’t believe her story about being pregnant. And if she was pregnant I knew damn well the child wasn’t Alexei’s. If she thought that was what the money was for, that was her interpretation. I simply told her I was paying her the money to rid myself and Alexei of the problem she presented.’

‘But she was pregnant and Alexei is the father...’

‘I met your sister exactly once,’ Lukas interrupted, the contempt in his voice slicing Bronte to the bone. ‘Obviously I underestimated the problem. I thought she was simply a good liar, an accomplished gold-digger. I didn’t realise she was delusional and that she actually believed Alexei was the father.’

‘But Darcy wasn’t delusional. She was telling the truth.’

‘No, she wasn’t. Alexei could not possibly have fathered her child.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because my brother was infertile. He had been since the age of sixteen.’

‘But that can’t be true.’ Bronte’s mind stalled, the revelation a crushing blow. Had Darcy made a mistake? About Nico’s father? Had this mission all been a pointless, futile exercise which was likely to get her arrested for no good reason...?

‘I assure you it is true. My father got it on good authority from a number of specialists after a bout of mumps caused severe inflammation of Alexei’s testes as a teenager.’ The stormy expression on Lukas’s face lifted the veil of indifference—so he did care, about his brother at least.

Bronte ignored the biting anger in his tone and struggled to get her head around this revelation. What Lukas was saying simply didn’t stack up.

Alexei had been Darcy’s first lover—her only lover. Clearly Lukas believed what he was saying about his brother. Which would explain why Lukas had offered Darcy money to get rid of her, and Alexei had refused to answer her calls. Obviously the two of them had both thought Darcy was some kind of conniving gold-digger looking for a pay-off, and they’d wanted to protect Alexei’s pride. The fifty thousand dollars hadn’t been to pay for an abortion, as Darcy in her panic and confusion had obviously assumed; it had simply been to stop her from going public with the news of a pregnancy they both believed Alexei could not have been responsible for.

But how did any of that explain why Nico looked so much like the Blackstone brothers? And how could Darcy possibly have got pregnant by someone else? If she’d never slept with another man?

Whatever Lukas Blackstone believed, he had to be wrong. Because Alexei had to be Nico’s father. And that meant Lukas was still Nico’s best chance of a donor.

‘I don’t care if the whole world thought your brother was infertile. He wasn’t, because Nico is his son. Darcy said so, and you only have to look at him to know it’s true.’

Lukas’s face hardened, the tic in his jaw going berserk. The lion was about to pounce, but she didn’t care any more; she would prod and provoke him until he accepted the truth—and gave Nico a chance.

‘Clearly you’re as much of a fantasist as your sister.’ He drew a mobile phone out of his pocket and began to key in a number as he spoke. ‘Your time’s up, Miss O’Hara, and this farce is over.’ He lifted the phone to his ear.

‘Stop!’ She grabbed his arm, horrified by the spurt of heat that snaked up her torso at the feel of his muscular forearm tensing beneath the sleeve of his tuxedo. ‘Before you have me arrested. Just stop and think for a moment. What if the doctors were wrong? What if, by some miracle, your brother did father a child and Nico is all that’s left of him?’

‘I don’t believe in miracles,’ he said flatly, not surprising her in the slightest, but then he lowered the phone.

‘Neither did I...’ she said, because she hadn’t until this very second, but she could see the spark of irritation—and she thanked God for it, because it was enough to give him pause. ‘Let me show you a photo of Nico,’ she said, pouring the last of her hope into the plea. ‘I’ve got loads of them on my phone—which is in my bag hidden behind the industrial dishwashers in the kitchens downstairs.’ As well as the waitress uniform she’d used to sneak into the event. ‘If once you see it you’re not convinced to at least investigate the possibility that Nico is related to you and your brother, I’ll never darken your door again. I promise.’

It wasn’t exactly much of a bargain. After all, he was about to have her escorted off the premises and thrown in jail. The chances of her ever being able to get within fifty feet of him again were unlikely. But it was the only bargaining chip she had.

She waited for a few pregnant moments. Her heart shrank in her chest when he glanced down at her fingers and she removed her hand from his sleeve. But when he lifted the phone to his ear again her breath clogged her lungs, the desperate bubble of hope expanding in her throat.

Please, God, let Lukas Blackstone give Nico this one chance. And I’ll never ask for another miracle again. I promise.

‘Tanner,’ he said into the phone—his voice seeming to echo from a million miles away as the painful hope began to cut off her air supply. ‘Get one of the team to go to the kitchens. There’s a bag hidden behind one of the dishwashers. Bring it here.’

The breath that shuddered out made her giddy, the light in the room becoming blinding. ‘Thank you.’

He tucked his phone into the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket.

‘I’ll give it to you,’ he said, his scepticism still plain on his face. ‘You’re as good an actress as your sister.’

She nodded, suddenly feeling the urge to laugh at the odd note of admiration. But as the hollow chuckle worked its way up her chest, his face—dark and forbidding and unconvinced—seemed to float in front of her. Until all she could see was the scar, pulsing and glowing in the light.

She lifted a finger, which felt like a dead weight attached to the end of her palm—no longer able to control the urge to explore the rough skin.

Her fingertip touched his cheek. His eyes flared, the dark fire burning her from the inside out. But he didn’t move as she drew her finger along the jagged line, feeling the warmth of his skin, the flex of the muscle in his jaw. And the pain in her stomach clenched and released, his face melding with Nico’s.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, her heart breaking for him as she imagined him as a boy—like Nico—vulnerable and hurting.

He stiffened and drew away, the flare of irritation turning to something much more dangerous. She dropped her finger, blinking furiously to keep the exhaustion—and that strange foggy feeling of connection—at bay.

What on earth were you thinking?

‘Don’t touch me again, Miss O’Hara,’ he said. ‘I can’t be swayed by a beautiful woman the way my brother was.’

She collapsed onto the couch as he ordered the two bodyguards who had been outside the door to watch her. But as he left the room one foolish, shameful thought ran through her mind...

Did he just call me beautiful?

* * *

The next twenty minutes seemed to last a millennium or two, as Bronte tried to keep alive the vague hope that everything would work out okay when Lukas saw Nikky’s photo.

The huge picture window opposite the couch looked out onto the Manhattan night, the room’s muted lighting casting a warm glow over the white stucco walls. The exquisite cream and blue silk furnishings were a keynote of the Blackstone brand, expensive and stylish—and yet more evidence of Blackstone’s wealth and power, as if she needed it.

Their conversation—and her ignominious exit from the Ball—kept running through her brain, along with the visceral punch of heat. Her head started to ache as a flush of reaction worked its way up to her hairline. The two bodyguards remained by the door, apparently oblivious to her distress. Or maybe they were just being polite.

‘Do you think I’ll get arrested?’ she finally managed, hoping to distract herself with conversation.

‘That will be up to Mr Blackstone,’ said the older one, not unkindly.

Just as the guard said the words, the door opened and in marched the man himself, sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Bronte pulled herself upright, feeling desperately exposed in her faded ball gown as his gaze raked over her.

The two bodyguards straightened, like soldiers snapping to attention.

‘Leave us,’ Blackstone said, and they both left with a discreet nod.

Did Blackstone have that effect on all his employees? she wondered as her own heart galloped into her throat.

Blackstone had taken off his tuxedo and the black tie. The rolled-up sleeves of his white dress shirt emphasised the muscular power of his forearms—deeply tanned and furred with dark hair. The waves of hair on his head shone black in the room’s lighting and lay in deep grooves as if he’d run his fingers through it, but if he was at all unsettled by their encounter he certainly wasn’t showing it. His expression was as intent and controlled as before.

Bronte swallowed. She felt shaky but she had the distinct impression that showing any weakness to this man would be a major mistake.

Her head began to pound, the heat on her cheeks scalding her insides as his gaze travelled over the creased satin dress. Somehow her hair had collapsed—she couldn’t even imagine what a wreck she must look like, but she pushed the futile moment of vanity to one side. She didn’t have time to care about her appearance, or what he thought of her.

‘Have you seen the pictures of Nico?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You have?’ The panic became huge. He still looked unmoved and impassive. How could he not have noticed the resemblance? Between himself and Nico? When it was so clear to her? ‘But surely...’

‘My medical team have contacted the paediatrician at Westminster Children’s Hospital in your phone’s contacts,’ he cut into her frantic reasoning.

‘Then you believe me?’ she said, the hope like a sunburst inside her.

But, instead of looking moved, he simply frowned. ‘There’s enough of a resemblance to require further investigation. That’s all.’

It’s not a no.

She clung to the lifeline, feeling light-headed again. ‘When?’ she asked, knowing that time was of the essence. ‘When are you planning to do this further investigation?’

Please let it be soon. Surely he could get tested in New York. That would work. They could feed the results back to the team in the UK, then they’d know if Blackstone was a suitable partial match for the new treatment.

He glanced at his watch. ‘We’re leaving in twenty minutes, once the helicopter is fuelled.’

‘We?’ she said, staggered. ‘Where are we going?’ And in a helicopter?

‘To JFK,’ he said, as if it were obvious. ‘The company jet is taking us to London. We should arrive by eight a.m. tomorrow. The hospital is expecting us.’

The leap of joy despite his sharp tone almost choked her. ‘Really? You’ll get tested straight away then?’

‘All I’m prepared to do is a DNA test,’ he said flatly. He still didn’t sound that convinced, but she didn’t care. Because she knew once the DNA results came in the truth would be revealed.

‘And when Nico turns out to be Alexei’s son?’ she asked, her joy hard to contain. Because she knew he wouldn’t have a choice then. He would have to get tested, once he knew for sure Nico was his nephew.