The Royal Baby Bargain

Of course Abby hadn’t believed that her guest’s premonitions meant anything. She’d set herself to easing what she thought was maternal fear, and felt she’d managed it quite well, but Gemma had been right. Michael had only been two weeks old when one of the Pacific Ocean’s vicious cyclones had changed course and smashed into Palaweyo so swiftly there had been no time to evacuate the weather coast.

They’d taken refuge in the hospital, but a beam had fallen on Gemma, breaking her spine. And before she’d died, she’d extracted a promise from Abby—one she was determined to keep.

Whatever it took.

Abby dragged in a deep breath and stared at Caelan’s dark, impervious face. Attack, she thought bleakly; don’t go all defensive.

‘Whatever bribes you paid the villagers—and I hope they were good big ones because they need the money—he’s mine.’

‘I gave them a new hospital—cyclone-proof this time—and staff to run it.’ Caelan’s tone was dismissive, but there was nothing casual in his eyes. Icy, merciless, scathing, they raked her face. ‘I know the child is Gemma’s son.’ Watching her with the still intentness of a hunter the moment before he launched a weapon, he finished with charged menace, ‘Which makes me his uncle and you no relation at all.’

Abby’s head felt woolly and disconnected. Regulating her breath into a slow, steady rhythm, she fought for composure. If the prince knew for certain she was no relation to the child he’d get rid of her so fast that Michael would wake up tomorrow without the only mother he’d ever known.

She loved Michael more than she had ever loved anything else.

Ignoring the cold hollowness inside her, she swallowed to ease her dry throat and said tonelessly, ‘Michael is my son.’

Caelan hadn’t expected to feel anything beyond justified anger and contempt for her, but her dogged stubbornness elicited an unwilling admiration.

Not that she looked anything like the radiant, fey creature who’d met his eyes with a barely hidden challenge four years previously.

In spite of that, in spite of everything she’d done, he still wanted her. He had to clench his hands to stop them from reaching out to her—to shake her? Or kiss the lie from her lips? Both, probably.

The lust should have died the moment he’d discovered she’d stolen Gemma’s son.

Deriding himself, he examined her mercilessly, enjoying the colour that flared into her exquisite skin and the wariness shadowing her eyes. Even with bad hair colouring and depressing clothes, her riotous hair confined in brutal subjugation and her eyes hidden behind tinted spectacles, her sensuous allure reached out to him.

Golden as a faerie woman, as dangerous as she was treacherous, behind the almond-shaped eyes and voluptuous mouth hid a lying, scheming kidnapper.

The dossier said that the child seemed happy, but who knew what had happened to Gemma’s son?

And why had she done it? Was she one of those sick creatures who yearned so strongly for a child she stole one? One glance at her glittering eyes despatched that idea. She was as sane as he was. So had she thought that possession of Gemma’s child would lead to a direct line to Gemma’s money?

He changed tactics. ‘How much is it going to cost me?’

The last tinge of soft apricot along her astonishing cheekbones vanished, leaving her the colour of parchment. Arms swinging out to catch her, Caelan took an involuntary step forward, then let his hands fall to his sides when she didn’t stagger. Sardonically, he watched her eyes close, their long lashes casting fragile shadows on her tender skin.

Oh, she knew all the tricks! He took a deliberate step backwards, removing himself, he thought with cold disgust at his body’s betrayal, from danger.

Her lashes lifted and she transfixed him with eyes that usually blended green and gold; not now, though. Stripped of all emotion, enamelled and opaque, they blazed a clear, hard green, vivid in the dim light of the small, bare hall.

‘How much for what?’ she asked in a staccato sentence.

He didn’t bother with subtlety. ‘For you to give up the child.’

CHAPTER TWO

NOT a muscle moved in the delicate ivory skin, but a shadow darkened Abby’s eyes. ‘You disgust me,’ she said woodenly. ‘Get out.’

Time, Caelan decided, to use the blunt instrument; if appealing to greed wouldn’t do the trick, threats usually worked. ‘You’re in trouble, Abby. If I decide to play it heavy, you face a conviction for kidnapping the child and giving false information to the passport authorities.’

That shocked her. She winced as though against a blow, but her soft mouth hardened. ‘His name is Michael,’ she stated fiercely, shaken by a gust of emotion he couldn’t define. ‘He’s not some entity you can define by the term child; he has a personality, a place in the world.’

‘A place in the world?’ Caelan looked around the shabby hall, his derision plain. ‘He deserves better than this.’

‘You might have grown up in the lap of luxury, secure in the fact that you’re a prince, but most children are perfectly happy with a more down-market set of relatives and much less money. He is loved and he loves. He has little friends—’

‘You’re taking him away from them,’ he interrupted in his turn, not trying to hide the contempt in his tone.

She looked away. Whatever she’d been going to say died on her tongue; she shivered, and once more delicate colour flared along her high cheekbones. On a burst of fierce, angry triumph, Caelan knew that he wasn’t the only one feeling the violent pull of an old craving.

‘Let’s deal,’ he said, forcing himself to speak judicially. Clearly, she wasn’t going to be bought off, so he had no choice; she was the only mother Gemma’s son had known, and, until the child could manage without her, they were both stuck with her.

Not that he was going to tell her that. No, he’d frighten her thoroughly first, and then drive as hard a bargain as he could.

With cool deliberation, he went on, ‘I’m offering you a future. I want the—I want my sister’s child. However, because he thinks you’re his mother, I propose we bury the hatchet.’

Torn by a tumult of conflicting thoughts, she stared at him. ‘How?’ she said at last, her voice stiff and defensive, waiting for his next words with painful apprehension.

He said ironically, ‘It’s quite simple.’

‘Simple?’ Abby was so incensed she almost gobbled the word. ‘Nothing about this is simple.’

‘You should have thought of that before you decided to play with Michael’s life,’ the prince said grimly. ‘You removed him from his family, took him away from the only people who’d know how to protect him. Have you thought of the danger you could be exposing him to?’

‘Danger?’ Eyes widening, she stared at him. ‘What danger?’

He said coldly, ‘He’s a Bagaton, which makes him prime kidnap material.’

So shocked she almost fell for the trick, she had to bite back the words that trembled on her lips. Hoping he didn’t notice the momentary hesitation, she said haughtily, ‘He is not a Bagaton. His name is Michael Metcalfe. And we Metcalfes are noted for our long and happy marriages, not for being kidnapped.’

A slashing jet brow rose in irony. ‘A writer is sniffing around Palaweyo, researching a book on Pacific tragedies.’ His hard, sensuous mouth curled. ‘Any woman you can label a princess is always useful when it comes to selling books, especially if she’s young and beautiful and dies in a monster cyclone after giving birth. Once the writer finds out that Michael is Gemma’s child—’

Abby struggled to remain calm, but the panic beneath her ribs intensified so that she couldn’t control her racing thoughts. ‘I doubt whether any writer—however well his books sell!—can afford to dangle the bribe of a hospital in front of the villagers in return for the right lies,’ she flashed.

‘I knew that the child was Gemma’s before I decided to give the villagers their hospital,’ he told her casually. ‘They spoke quite freely about you and her—they have no reason not to tell anyone who asks. And no writer worth his salt is going to keep it quiet.’ His face hardened. ‘Inevitably you will be tracked down—’

‘How? It took you, with all your resources, three years to find us,’ she snapped, but he could see the fear in her eyes.

‘Writers have resources too.’ He waited while she absorbed the impact of that before adding forcefully, ‘Once he finds you, the resultant publicity will expose Michael’s existence—and his lack of protection—to anyone who wants a quick fortune. Didn’t you read about the de Courcy heiress?’

Colour drained from Abby’s face. The fourteen-year-old daughter of a billionaire had been snatched from her exclusive school, yet although her parents had paid the huge ransom, it had been too late. She’d been killed the day after she’d disappeared.

The cold, inflexible voice of the prince battered at her composure. ‘Whoever did that got away with five million euros, worth in New Zealand dollars about—’

‘I know how much it’s worth! You’re trying to frighten me,’ she said thinly, turning her head away from his intimidating gaze as though she could shut out the effect of his words.

‘Damn right I am! There are people out there who’d see Michael as a passport to easy money, a soft target. Are you willing to risk that?’

She went even paler and closed her eyes. He was manipulating her, but the thought of Michael in the clutches of some cold-hearted psychopath robbed her of speech and the ability to think.

A soft noise brought her head around sharply; Michael was stirring. And the prince was walking with long, noiseless strides towards the open door of the bedroom.

Panic hit her in a howling, destructive storm, propelling her after him into the tiny room. Caelan loomed over the bed. He didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge her presence at all, his whole attention bent on the child as though claiming him in some primal way.

Abby pushed desperately at his hard, lean body. She might as well have tried to move a granite pillar, except that his body heat reached out and blasted through the brittle shell of her self-control.

Her hands dropped, but she didn’t move. In a fierce voice pitched too low to disturb the restless child, she ordered, ‘Get out of here.’

Silently Caelan turned, but he waited at the doorway, a silent, threatening figure. After straightening the bed-clothes over Michael, Abby dragged in a juddering breath and left him.

‘We’ll go into the living room.’ She pushed open the door.

Once inside Caelan Bagaton said with cold distaste, ‘I don’t hurt children, Abby.’

‘All right, I overreacted,’ she returned shakily. ‘I don’t think you’d be cruel to him. I know you weren’t cruel to Gemma—she told me herself that she barely knew you because you were away so much. But can’t you see that the last thing she wanted was for her son to be banished to a nursery like an abandoned doll stuffed in a cupboard, cared for by nannies who come and go regularly?’

Caelan’s expression didn’t change at her inadvertent admission that the child was Gemma’s. His desire to see the boy had shattered Abby’s composure; she didn’t even realise she’d given herself away.

Instinct warned him to proceed with caution. He said neutrally, ‘Her mother wasn’t maternal, but she made sure Gemma had the best care available. And my father had duties he couldn’t avoid, as well as a corporation to run. He did his best for her.’

Hands clenching into fists at her side, Abby skewered him with an outraged glance and carried on in full, indignant fervour. ‘By sending her off to boarding school the minute she turned eight, where she was wretchedly, miserably unhappy? That was his best?’ With an elaborate dismissive shrug she finished scathingly, ‘In that case, I’m really, really glad to hear that he didn’t dislike her!’

‘That’s enough!’

Caelan’s harsh, deep voice drowned her in cold menace. Damn, she thought, mortified; don’t let emotion get the better of you! She could see contempt in his eyes, in the hard line of his mouth, the still tautness of his powerful body. No matter how angry he was, the prince remained in full control.

‘Admit that he’s Gemma’s child.’ At her obstinate silence, he said coolly, ‘You asked for proof that he’s not yours. Here it is.’

He drew a sheet of paper from the pocket of his casual, superbly cut jacket. When he offered it to her she took it and tried to read, but the words danced and blurred in front of her eyes. Blinking, she forced her brain to focus.

Couched in scientist’s prose, it was quite definite; there were enough points of similarity between tissue samples one and two for there to be a familial connection.

‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered, fighting off dark dread. The paper dropped from her nerveless fingers.

Watching her with unsparing eyes, the prince made no attempt to pick it up.

When she regained enough composure to be able to speak again, she said stiffly, ‘This could be anyone’s samples. There’s no way you could take a blood sample from Michael without my knowing, and I know you didn’t get one from me.’

His beautiful mouth relaxed into a sardonic smile. ‘Blood isn’t necessary for DNA testing—any tissue will serve.’ His inflexible tone warned her. Heart hammering, she listened as he went on. ‘And I didn’t need one from you. It was easy enough to send in a worker at the child-care centre; she stayed three weeks before deciding she didn’t like living in the backblocks, and she came away with saliva samples and blood from a grazed knee. The results prove that you’re not Michael’s mother—that you’re no relation to him.’

Blood roared through her head as outrage manhandled fear aside. She grabbed the back of the sofa and fought for control, finally grinding out, ‘How dare you? You had no right to—’

‘You had no right to steal my sister’s child,’ he cut in, his lethal tone quelling her anger as effectively as a douche of ice water. ‘Why did you do it? What satisfaction did it give you?’

‘Gemma asked me to take care of him.’

The strong bone structure of his face was very much in evidence. Dispassionately he said, ‘If she did, it was typically dramatic and thoughtless of her to demand that you put your life on hold for Michael, but that’s irrelevant now.’ He paused, his hooded eyes keen and watchful. ‘The next step is a court case, where the first thing any judge will do is order another DNA test. And we both know how that will turn out.’

An acceptance of defeat rose like bitter anguish inside Abby. She was going to lose Michael. But not, she thought grimly, until she’d made this arrogant prince fight to the last for his nephew.

Pride and disillusion gave her voice an acid edge when she said, ‘If all you’re planning for Michael is a lonely, loveless childhood like Gemma’s, why on earth do you want him?’

‘Because he is a Bagaton,’ he said coldly.

‘Gemma was a Bagaton too, but it didn’t make her happy. She wanted me to look after him.’ When he raised his brows she cried, ‘I’ve got a letter to prove it.’

She stooped to her bag, holding her shoulders stiffly and her spine so rigid she thought it might splinter. With trembling fingers she unzipped an inner pocket in one suitcase and took out an envelope.

Thrusting it at the man who watched her with eyes as translucent and cold as polar ice, she said, ‘Here.’

He took it, but didn’t look at it. His startlingly good-looking face was set in lines of such formidable determination that she flinched, yet a melting heat in the pit of her stomach astonished and frightened her. It was one thing to acknowledge that he had a primitive physical power over her; it would be shameful to let her body’s treachery weaken her.

‘Read it,’ she said desperately. ‘It will make any judge think about his decision.’

Frowning, the prince examined the single sheet of notepaper.

Abby waited tensely, mentally going over the words she knew by heart.

Dearest Abby, If you’re reading this I’m dead. See, I told you I could foretell things! Take Michael to New Zealand, but make sure neither Caelan nor my mother find you—or him. I know you love my baby, and I know you’ll take care of him. And thanks for being my wise, sensible friend. Don’t grieve too much. Just keep on loving Michael, and look after him.

In a voice without the slightest trace of emotion, Caelan said, ‘It certainly looks as though Gemma wrote it—I recognise the aura of drama and doom.’ His long fingers tightened on the sheet of paper and he looked at her from half-closed eyes, his mouth twisting. ‘You’re too trusting, Abby. What’s to stop me tearing it to shreds and lying about seeing it?’

Oddly enough, it hadn’t occurred to her. His reputation for fair dealing matched the one for ruthlessness. Her mouth tightened. ‘It’s a copy; the real one is in a solicitor’s office,’ she said steadily.

The hard, uncompromising determination stamped on Caelan’s lean, bronze face was replaced by a gleam of humour.

Her susceptible heart missed a beat. Although Gemma had told her that he despised people who used their charm to dazzle others, he possessed an inordinate amount of it himself. His smile was a weapon, a dangerously disturbing challenge that had penetrated stronger defences than hers.

Lazily he said, ‘I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t made sure of that. But this means nothing; I can produce evidence to show that Gemma was a fragile, emotionally unstable woman, incapable of knowing what was best for her child.’

Abby opened her mouth, but honesty stopped the fierce words that threatened to spill out. Yes, Gemma had been fragile, as well as funny and delightful, but she’d been absolutely determined Michael wouldn’t grow up without love and attention.

Caelan looked around the small room furnished with cheap, shabby cast-offs. The harsh central light turned Abby’s skin sallow and robbed her hair of highlights or any depth of colour. It was, he thought with cool cynicism, a sin to hide that glorious mane of red-gold hair.

And an even greater one to cover her slender body with a loose black T-shirt and pair of dust-coloured corduroy trousers.

He banished tantalising memories of the figure beneath the shapeless clothes, sleek and lithe and strong, her exquisite skin an instant temptation…

And her mouth, soft and hot and delicious beneath his, opening to him with an eagerness that still affected him.

Abby had strayed into his life, a glowing, sensuous girl who seemed unaware of her sexual power. Not that he believed in her innocence; Gemma chose friends who tended to be sophisticated and spoilt.

Already in a very satisfying relationship with another woman, he’d put Abby resolutely from his mind. Yet he hadn’t been able to prevent himself from kissing her—a kiss that had led directly to the termination of his affair. And when Gemma told him the fey, strangely tempting health worker had gone to some backwater Pacific island for a year on a volunteer basis, he’d been taken aback by an odd sense of loss.

Then all hell had broken loose in a far-flung part of the business; he’d spent months unravelling the mess while Gemma had stayed with her mother in Australia. Caelan didn’t like his stepmother, but he kept in touch with his sister, and when she’d written to say she was on Palaweyo spending time with Abby, he’d decided to call in and re-acquaint himself with the alabaster-skinned girl, discover if the provocation in her inviting mouth and tilted eyes was genuine or a cynical come-on.

But the cyclone had intervened, and by the time he’d got to Palaweyo, Gemma was dead and buried and Abby had vanished with her child.

Abby swung to face him, her movements graceful in spite of her tension. ‘Do you honestly believe Michael might be in danger?’

‘It’s always a possibility,’ he said, but she broke in, colour returning in a soft flood to her skin with the heat of her response.

‘I want the truth.’ She paused, searching for words, then forced herself to say unevenly, ‘I know that someone in your position might be seen as a target, but Michael has nothing.’

He said ironically, ‘He has a very rich uncle and a large trust fund.’

Stunned, she stared at him, realising the implications of this. No wonder he was suspicious—did he believe she had her eye on that rich trust fund? ‘I didn’t know,’ she said, knowing he wouldn’t believe her.

He gave her a look that should have frozen the words on her lips. ‘Come on, Abby! I’m sure Gemma spent a lot of time complaining about the cruel brother who kept such a tight grip on the purse strings, but you knew she didn’t have to work.’

‘I thought—I thought you made her an allowance.’

Looking down the arrogant blade of his nose, he said with forbidding restraint, ‘My father made sure she was provided for.’

If anything had been needed to point up the difference between them, his casual words did it. In the prince’s world children were set up with trust funds, whereas Abby had grown up on an orchard. Although her parents had worked hard, when they’d died they’d left little for her—just enough for her to pay her way for a year on Palaweyo to help the community with their health needs.

He said forcefully, ‘I didn’t approve of the way Gemma was relegated to the outer perimeter of her mother’s life. It won’t happen with her son.’ His tone edged each word with satire. ‘I don’t intend sending Michael to boarding school until he reaches secondary school. Not even then, if he doesn’t want it.’ He directed an ice-laden glance around the bleak room. ‘He’ll be much better off with me than with a woman who’s both a kidnapper and a liar, and who lives from hand to mouth in a rural slum.’

Abby forced back the bubble of hysteria that threatened to block her throat and her thought processes. ‘At least I love him!’

Dark brows lifted in taunting disbelief. ‘It’s an odd love that confines a child to a life in places like this. And this isn’t about you or me—this is about Michael, whose rights should be paramount. After all, it’s his future that’s on the line.’

‘He has all the security he needs,’ she retorted, trying hard to sound sensible and confident—and failing. The thought of Michael’s life at the hands of this flinty, uncompromising tyrant edged her tone with desperation. ‘What can you offer him? I’m sure that chasing yet another million to add to the pile you’ve already accumulated will take precedence over spending time with a little boy.’

His white teeth snapped together. After a taut few seconds he returned caustically, ‘At least he won’t have to worry where his next meal is coming from.’

‘He’s never gone hungry.’ Occasionally she had, but not Michael. ‘What do you know about children? He’s noisy and grubby and demanding, and he needs attention and love and the knowledge that he’s hugely important to at least one person in this world. Even more, he needs to know that that person will be there whenever he wants her, not just for an hour after work. All your money and royal links and social position mean nothing compared to that.’

‘So why did you send him to a child-care centre with constantly changing workers, most of them almost untrained?’

Goaded, she retorted, ‘I needed the money, and it was only for half of each day.’

He shrugged dismissively, the swift movement reminding her of his Latin heritage. ‘A nanny would provide more stability, and I can certainly make sure he never has to worry about feeling cold in winter.’

Abby stared at him, defiance crumbling under guilt and fear. She took refuge in sarcasm. ‘Of course, you know so much about small boys.’

‘I was one once.’

She snorted. ‘I don’t believe that. You were born six feet four tall and breathing fire.’

Amazingly, his hard mouth quirked. ‘If so, my mother never told me.’ The momentary amusement disappeared instantly, replaced by chilling hauteur. ‘Stop fencing. I asked you before—how much do you want to get out of his life?’

‘And I told you that I won’t sell him,’ she retorted furiously.