Kitabı oku: «Their Baby Surprise»

CHAPTER ONE

YOU CAN’T OUTRUN your past.

And right now Lucien Duval’s past was staring at him from the radio studio’s anteroom with as much warmth as a canister of liquid nitrogen.

That past being Charlotte Aldridge, the verbal assassin of Huet Construction’s legal department.

Ten minutes ago, like an avenging angel to his guilty conscience, she had stalked into the anteroom, presumably sent to monitor every word he uttered in his early morning radio interview.

Ash-blonde hair coiled into a tight bun. Dark suit with buttoned-up blouse. Professional. Serious. A walking, talking, breathing human Hands Off! sign.

The type of woman he typically gave a wide berth to.

But those sea-green eyes of hers, which always observed him as though he was a disappointment, somehow also managed to burn something hot and liquid through his veins. Every. Single. Time.

And two months ago, he had learned that that tense mouth of hers was capable of softening and sending his pulse into another year.

And that those sea-green eyes, so cool and detached normally, could melt into a gaze of vulnerability and caution that had tripped over his heart. Two months on and he was still trying to shake off whatever hold she had on him.

The old scar just above his right ear began to tighten and itch.

He already had his board of directors haranguing him for his outspoken criticism of how the UK housing and infrastructure crisis was being managed—he didn’t need the added disapproval of an employee he had recklessly slept with.

Charlotte had been an error in judgement, a slip in his usual strict self-control.

His honeymoon period as the new CEO and majority shareholder of Huet Construction was rapidly coming to an end. If he didn’t start producing the results the City expected, the share price and investor confidence of one of the world’s largest construction companies would soon be heading south.

And all of those who were sceptical of his buy-out of Huet, who said he was an opportunist, a maverick, would be proved right.

Never.

He shifted in his seat; he needed to get out of this radio studio.

Now.

He didn’t have time to be listening to yet more empty promises from a politician.

He had a gigabyte worth of emails waiting for him...and points to prove.

He leaned forward across the studio table and growled, ‘Enough.’

Mid-sentence, the Housing Minister, his fellow interviewee on the UK’s largest breakfast radio show, leapt in his seat, his studio headphones twisting around, momentarily leaving him unable to speak as he tugged them back into place.

A quick look towards Charlotte’s glacial gaze intensified his need to agitate, revolt, defy.

He switched his attention back across the table. ‘Minister, I think you have bored the listeners enough, don’t you? Let’s allow them to enjoy their breakfasts in peace. It’s the least you can do considering that the majority of them are actually having to live on a daily basis with the circumstances of this housing crisis: spiralling rents, the inability to provide a home for their families, couples unable to start families. And yet again, you’re waffling and making excuses while not taking a single worthwhile action. When are you going to actually tackle the issues around land banking, compulsory purchase orders and the transparent disposal of public sector land? Look at innovative ideas like pre-fab housing? I say never because you have neither the courage nor the ability to do so. I’d have more faith in a bunch of toddlers with a box of play building bricks to sort out this crisis.’

With the minister grappling for words, an amused-looking radio presenter took the opportunity to wrap up the interview.

Lucien stood and approached the minister, who reluctantly accepted his handshake. Lucien gave him a brief nod and turned away. His plane was waiting for him at London City Airport.

* * *

Lucien swept through the anteroom and out into the corridor without as much as a glance in her direction.

Charlotte tried not to wince.

They had not spoken since their night together. It had been excruciating enough the few times they had passed one another in the corridors of Huet headquarters to nod in his direction, knowing what it was like to feel the weight of his powerful, hard body on hers, knowing the havoc his hands could cause.

But now, knowing that this would be the only time she got him alone, she chased after him as he strode towards the elevators. Instead of waiting for an elevator, he headed through the double doors to the stairwell so she followed him. Out in the empty concrete space she called to him on the landing below. ‘Can I speak with you for a moment?’

He reached for the staircase handrail, looked at her impatiently and shook his head. ‘I have a flight to catch.’

She dragged down the humiliation that he wouldn’t even afford her a minute of his time deep into her stomach and followed him with resolve hardening her spine.

Struggling to keep up with him thanks to the narrowness of her knee-length pencil skirt, she called down to him, ‘It won’t take long.’

Now a full flight of stairs below her, he called back in a bored tone, ‘Speak to my PA.’

Cursing under her breath, while a new wave of nausea folded her stomach into a cube of horribleness, Charlotte yanked off her shoes and hoisted her skirt. They had to talk. Now. ‘I did yesterday evening—she told me that you will be away on business for the next fortnight.’

As he descended the last flight of stairs, she finally caught him up, with only the open iron bannister separating them. He slowed and his eyes ran the length of her bare legs. A surge of heat burnt in his eyes. She dropped her skirt. She moved down a step so that she was at eye level with him. Six inches or so taller than her, he usually towered over her.

The last time they had been like this, at eye level, was when they had been in his bed. When their senseless rushed, frenzied, unexpected, kissing and touching and exploring in his garden had been followed by him making the slowest, most incredible love to her in his bedroom.

Had it all been a dream?

She searched his eyes now for some remembrance, a hint that it too had been different for him...that she hadn’t been just another conquest of this renowned serial dater.

He blinked hard. Long dark eyelashes sweeping over narrowed, alert, brilliant green eyes.

A deep frown cut down through the centre of his tanned forehead, reaching the top of his perfectly straight nose. A nose at odds with the rugged handsomeness of his face, the thin line of his mouth, the boxer-like quality of the deep cleft in his chin.

Lucien carried himself with the street-savvy smarts of a man who had worked his way from nothing to being the CEO of a billion-dollar company. To not have acquired a broken nose or two on his journey from construction labourer to the majority owner of Huet Construction by the age of thirty-six proved his intelligence and shrewdness...and made the prospect of getting him to agree to her plans for the future even more daunting. He wasn’t the type to roll over easily, but hopefully in this instance he’d be more than willing to see her head off into the sunset.

He came a little closer, his hand almost touching hers on the handrail.

Her heart kicked against her ribs.

His green liquid eyes blazed into hers, sending burning heat into her cheeks.

His gaze dropped to her mouth. Her lips, useless traitors that they were, parted.

A door banged higher up on the stairwell.

She jumped and he jerked away before making his way down the remaining stairs. ‘Send me an email.’

She followed him out of the stairwell in her bare feet and ran after him as he swept out of the building, the receptionists and a group of visitors signing in, turning to stare at her.

Outside, seeing her opportunity to talk to him slip away, she reached for his arm and pulled hard.

He came to an immediate stop.

Eyes glinting darkly, he stepped towards her, lowered his head and murmured in that lightly French-accented voice that always managed to hold a sexy threat, ‘I’m not interested in having a lecture on libel laws right now.’

His nearness, his voice, his warm breath tangling on her hair played dangerous games with her long-held resolve never to let a man get to her again.

She stepped back and prayed her cheeks didn’t look as hot as they felt. She affected a laid-back air, in defiance of her galloping heart, refusing to bend to the blistering male chemistry swirling towards her. ‘Well, that’s lucky because I’m a construction lawyer, not a defamation one. I’ll travel with you as far as the airport.’

‘Didn’t Simon send you?’

Simon was her boss. ‘No. He did mention last week that he had threatened to send someone to monitor your interviews. So when my radio alarm woke me this morning to the news that you were to be interviewed alongside the minister, I decided it would be a good opportunity to get you on your own.’

A stalker alert flickered in his eyes. He stepped away. ‘I have calls to make.’

A fresh wave of nausea hit her.

Maybe she should just leave it for now.

Get her head straight first.

But she needed him to know.

The only way she was going to get through this sudden turn in her life was by having a clear plan for the future. She needed certainty in her life.

If they had to do this on the footpath, so be it. But he couldn’t leave without her personally telling him. She needed to keep him onside. ‘I wanted you to be the first to know that I’m resigning from Huet.’

He gave an impatient sigh, called to his driver, who was waiting by the open rear door of a black saloon, to start the engine, and then shifted his attention back to her, ‘Tu plaisantes? You’re kidding? Isn’t that an overreaction to my interview? I wouldn’t have been so easy on the minister if I hadn’t been in such a rush for my flight. I know you legal heads are born pedantic worriers but you really need to relax a little.’

‘This has nothing to do with the interview.’

Realisation dimmed his brilliant eyes to suspicious wariness. He walked to the car door and held it open, silently but grudgingly gesturing for her to get in.

His driver pulled out onto Regent Street and headed south to Oxford Circus. The stores on the iconic shopping street were still closed but the pavements were bustling with early morning commuters, coffees in hand, earphone leads dangling, heading to work. There was a buzz in the air; only now in late April were they having the first true warm days of spring.

He twisted to face her, drumming his phone on his knee like an insect at night tap-tap-tapping against a window pane desperate to reach the light inside. ‘I take it that you’re resigning because of our night together.’

She tried to stay impassive. She had been through worse. And survived. But having to share the most wonderful but scary news of her life with a man she barely knew had her rehearsed words stick in her throat and she only managed to eke out a pathetic, ‘Yes.’

‘I thought we had both agreed to put it behind us.’

Oh, God. There was no easy way to say this.

Get it over and done with. Then you can move on with your life.

A fresh bout of nausea joined her pounding heart.

The car was suddenly way too hot.

The panicked, terrified void that had almost consumed her in her doctor’s consulting room reared up again. How would she cope? She couldn’t possibly raise a child on her own. She knew nothing about child-rearing, being a parent.

And what if her depression returned? What would she do then? But it wouldn’t. She was strong now.

And then there were all those selfish thoughts that had eaten her up with guilt: what of her aspirations to become head of Legal, to move into a larger apartment in London, to travel?

She gulped in some air and forced herself to look into those green heartbreaker eyes. ‘I’m pregnant.’

He jerked away.

Behind him, they swept past Trafalgar Square.

Brow furrowed, he stared at her. ‘Because of that night?’

‘Yes! Of course it was that night. I wouldn’t be here telling you if I had any doubt about that. I’m eight weeks pregnant—it has to be you.’

Lucien was once again tapping his phone against his knee, the silver case banging against the charcoal wool of his trousers. She had wrapped her legs around his that night, felt the hard muscle of his thighs. A night of insanity that had knocked her life completely off course.

Lucien shook his head. ‘We used protection.’

She fiddled with the window switch on the door and lowered her window, needing relief from the heat rising in her. Not able to meet his eye, she muttered, ‘Not in the garden...’ She trailed off and looked at him, praying he didn’t need further explanation.

He winced and looked away.

Lucien had held a reception in his Mayfair home for all of his HQ senior management on the night of his first AGM. Lucien’s takeover of Huet had heralded a bonanza for the hairdressers and fashion stores in the vicinity of Huet HQ as the entire female workforce fell for his rugged looks and alpha charisma. But Charlotte knew a player when she saw one. And she refused to join his fan club. Having her heart broken once in a lifetime was once too often for her liking. No man would ever get the opportunity to do so again. In fact she went out of her way to ignore him whenever she saw him at work.

But a week before the party she had to meet with him to discuss issues on a bid contract. And, despite herself, his astute charm and lightning intelligence had threatened to melt her cynicism. At the end of the meeting, dizzy from the effect of being so close to him, she had almost tripped over a low coffee table as she had struggled to leave his office. While he had worn an amused lethal grin.

Brief glances were all they had shared the night of the reception. He had shown no interest in talking to her, and as the party had broken up she had gone out into the garden to find her phone that she’d left there, relieved to get away from her pretence that she was oblivious to him, but also a little miffed that he had spoken to practically everyone else except her. About to go back inside, she had felt her heart somersault when he had walked down the cobbled garden path towards her, his large frame even bigger as his shadow had moved towards her and engulfed her. She had offered a polite thanks and said she should leave with everyone else. But he’d told her that they were alone. Everyone else had already left.

He had smiled down at her. A kind, easy smile. A Well, what will we do now? type of smile. And she had foolishly stepped towards him, all thought and caution abandoned to that wonderful, what seemed sincere, glistening green gaze.

She had reached out her hand towards his open suit jacket with an unbearable urge to touch the dark grey material, to make contact with him.

And he had stepped towards her. Run his fingertips along her cheek.

And the next thing she’d known, his mouth had been on hers, hot, seeking, exploring.

In an instant her body had been aflame. His fingertips, his mouth, his scent, his hard, hard, hard body making her lose every inhibition, every memory, every protective layer she had grown over her heart and soul in the past six years.

Frenzied, they had unbuttoned and unzipped without thought, driven by a desperate hunger for one another. But when he had claimed her against that cold garden wall, she had stilled and her heart had gone into free fall. All of those memories of her ex’s betrayal, of how lonely and ugly and beaten she had felt during her depression, had gushed back and threatened to drown her. Lucien had gently drawn away and watched her with a soul-destroying questioning, as though wanting to understand. Only after did it dawn on her that this was a key skill of any Lothario. The pretence to care.

But that night he had brought her to his bedroom and, her body weak with longing though her heart had been afraid, she had willingly gone. And he had made love to her, slowly and tenderly. And after she had cried in his bathroom when she’d realised how empty her life was...and how stupid, stupid, stupid she was to have slept with her womanising boss.

Now, as he faced the consequences of that night, he ran a hand across the deep frown lines of his forehead and muttered, ‘Zut!’

Unexpected sadness pulled hard in her chest. A baby should bring joy, not this shock. What was he even thinking?

Did he hate her for this?

Bitterly regret the fire that had raged between them in the garden and the seconds when they had become one and senselessly forgot all thoughts as to the need to use protection?

Regret the baby growing inside her?

A fierce protectiveness surged through her.

Dismayed at how her hands were trembling, she pulled her notebook from her handbag and opened it to the pages where she had bullet-pointed her action plan. Needing the comfort of seeing in black and white her strategy for coping with this shocking but incredible turn in her life. ‘My doctor confirmed two days ago that I’m almost eight weeks pregnant. My apartment here in London is too small to raise a baby so I’ve decided I’ll move to the countryside, close to where my parents live. I will get work locally.’

He waved off her words with an impatient flick of his hand.

For five, ten, twenty seconds he stared at her intently, his gaze burning a hole in her heart.

He leaned a little closer, his shoulders tense, his eyes scanning her features like an interrogator searching for tell-tale body-language slips in a crime suspect. ‘Are you certain that I’m the father?’

The lawyer in her knew that it was a reasonable question. But the woman in her, the mother-to-be, the idealist who believed in truth, fairness and honour, felt his question like a slap. She felt her throat constrict, a heaviness invade her sinuses, a burning sensation in her eyes. She was not going to cry. She was strong. A fighter. She sucked in some air. He was the serial dater, not her.

‘I haven’t slept with another man in a very long time. What happened between us was not typical for me,’ she said fiercely.

She paused and cringed at having given him too much information and wondered why she felt she had to justify herself to him. Annoyed that she was doing so, she pulled in a steadying breath. ‘I want nothing from you. I don’t need financial support and I know a baby will not fit into your lifestyle. I want to give my child security and stability, a happy childhood. I’ve told you that you will be a father because you have the right to know but I don’t want or need you in our lives.’