Million-Dollar Love-Child

‘I didn’t say I was p-pregnant,’ she stammered, appalled and frustrated that he refused to take her seriously. ‘I told you, he’s six. He was born precisely forty weeks after we had—after you—’ She broke off, blushing furiously, and his gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered and then lifted again.

‘After I had my wicked way with you? You’re so repressed you can’t even bring yourself to say the word “sex”.’ His dark eyes mocked her gently and she bit her lip, wishing she was more sophisticated—better equipped to deal with this sort of situation. Verbal sparring wasn’t her forte and yet she was dealing with a master.

He’d wronged her and yet suddenly she felt as though she should be apologising. ‘You’re probably wondering why I didn’t tell you this before—’

‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

‘You threw me out, Luc,’ she reminded him in a shaky voice, ‘and you refused to see me or take my calls. You treated me abominably.’

‘Relationships end every day of the week,’ he drawled in a tone of total indifference. ‘Stop being so dramatic.’

‘I was pregnant!’ She rose to her feet, shaking with emotion, goaded into action by his total lack of remorse. ‘I decided that you ought to know about your child. I tried to tell you so many times but you cut me out of your life. And you hurt me. You hurt me so badly that I decided that no child of mine was going to have you as a father. And that’s why I didn’t tell you.’ She broke off, waiting for an angry reaction on his part, waiting for him to storm and rant that she hadn’t told him sooner.

Instead he raised an eyebrow expectantly. ‘Seven years and this is the best you can come up with?’

She stared at him blankly, unable to comprehend his callous indifference. ‘Do you think I made that decision lightly? Have you any idea what making a decision like that does to a person? I felt screwed up with guilt, Luc! I was depriving my son of a father and I knew that one day I’d have to answer to him for that.’ She broke off and dragged a shuddering breath into her starving lungs. ‘I have felt guilty every single day for the last seven years. Every single day.’

‘Yes, well, that’s another woman thing—guilt,’ Luc said helpfully, ‘and I suppose that all this guilt suddenly overwhelmed you and that’s why you’ve suddenly decided to share your joyous news with me?’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you’re behaving like this. Do you know how hard it was for me to come here today? Have you any idea?’ He was even more unfeeling than she’d believed possible. How could she feel guilt? She should be proud that she’d protected her son from this man. But the time for protection had passed and, unfortunately for everyone, she now needed his help. She couldn’t afford the luxury of cutting him out of her life. ‘What do I have to do to prove that I’m telling the truth?’

Luc turned his head and glanced towards the door expectantly. ‘Produce him.’ He lifted broad shoulders in a careless shrug. ‘That should do the trick.’

She looked at him in disbelief. ‘You seriously think I’d drag a six-year-old all the way to Brazil to meet a man who doesn’t even know he’s a father? This is a huge thing, Luc. We need to discuss how we’re going to handle it. How we’re going to tell him. It needs to be a joint decision.’

There was a sardonic gleam in his dark eyes. ‘Well, that’s going to be a problem, isn’t it? I don’t do joint decisions. Never have, never will. I’m unilateral all the way, meu amorzinho. But in this case it really doesn’t matter because we both know that this so called “son” of yours, oh, sorry—’ he corrected himself with an apologetic smile and a lift of his hand ‘—I should say son of “ours”, shouldn’t I?—is a figment of your greedy, money-grabbing imagination. So it would be impossible for you to produce him. Unless you hired someone to play the part. Have you?’

Kimberley gaped at him.

He was an utter bastard!

How could she have forgotten just how cold and unfeeling he was? What a low opinion of women he had? How could she have thought, even for a moment, that she’d made a mistake in not persisting in her attempts to tell him that she was expecting his child? At the time she’d decided that she could never expose a child of hers to a man like him and, listening to him now, she knew that it had definitely been the right decision.

People had criticised her behind her back, she knew that, but they were people who came from safe, loving homes—homes where the father came home at night and cared about what happened to his family.

Luc wasn’t like that. Luc didn’t care about anything or anyone except himself.

He was just like her father and she knew only too well what it was like to grow up with a parent like that. She’d been right to protect her child from him and if it hadn’t been for her current crisis she would have continued to keep Luc out of his life.

But fate had intervened and she’d decided that she had no choice but to tell him. He had to help her. He had to take some responsibility, however distasteful he found the prospect of parenthood.

But at the moment he didn’t even believe that his son existed—

He seemed to think that their child was some sort of figment of her greedy imagination.

She sank on to the nearest chair, bemused and sickened by his less than flattering assessment of her. ‘Why do you have such a low opinion of me?’

‘Well, let’s see—’he gave a patient smile, as if he was dealing with someone very, very stupid ‘—it could have something to do with the volume of money you spent after we broke up. Or the fact that you’re now stooping to depths previously unheard of in order to sue me for maintenance. Not the actions of someone destined for sainthood, wouldn’t you agree?’

She stared at him blankly. Her mind didn’t work along the same lines as his and she was struggling to keep up. ‘I’m not suing you for maintenance.’

He gave an impatient frown. ‘You want me to pay money for the child.’

She licked her lips. ‘Yes, but not to me and it’s nothing to do with maintenance. I can support our son. I took the money from you because I was pregnant, alone and very scared and I couldn’t think how I could possibly bring a child into the world when I didn’t even have somewhere to live. I used your money to buy a small flat. If I hadn’t done that I would have had to find a job and put the baby into a nursery, and I wanted to care for him myself. And I bought a few essentials.’ She gave a tiny frown, momentarily distracted. ‘I had no idea how many things a baby needed. I bought a cot and a pushchair, bedding, nappies. I didn’t use any of the money on myself. I know that technically it was stealing, but I didn’t know what else to do so I told myself it was maintenance. If I’d chased you through the courts you would have had to pay a lot more to support Rio.’

One dark eyebrow swooped upwards. ‘Rio?’

She blushed. ‘I chose to name him after the city where he was conceived.’

‘How quaint.’ Luc’s tone was a deep, dark drawl loaded with undertones of menace. ‘So if I’ve already paid for the pushchair and the nappies, what else is there? He needs a new school coat, perhaps? His feet have grown and his shoes no longer fit?’

He still didn’t believe her.

‘Last week I received a kidnap threat.’ Her voice shook as she said the words. Perhaps the truth would shake him out of his infuriating cool. ‘Someone out there knows about our son. They know you’re a father. And they’re threatening Rio’s life.’

There was a long silence while he watched her, his dark eyes fixed on her pale face.

They were sitting too close to each other. Much too close.

Her knee brushed against his and she felt the insidious warmth of awareness spread through her body. Against her will, her eyes slid to the silken dark hairs visible on his wrist and then rested on his strong fingers. Those long, clever fingers—

Her body flooded with heat as she remembered how those fingers had introduced her to intimacies that she’d never before imagined and she shifted slightly in her chair. His eyes detected the movement. Instantly his gaze trapped hers and the temperature in the room rose still further.

‘Show me the letter.’

Did she imagine the sudden rough tone to his voice? Relieved that she could finally meet one of his demands, she delved into her bag and dragged out the offending letter, dropping it on the table next to him as if it might bite her.

He extended a hand and lifted the letter, no visible sense of urgency apparent in his movements. He flipped it open and read it, his handsome face inscrutable.

‘Interesting.’ He dropped the letter back on the table. ‘So I’m expected to shell out five million dollars and then everyone lives happily ever after? Have I got that right?’

She stared at him, stunned, more than a little taken aback that he didn’t seem more concerned for the welfare of his son. Still, at least now he’d seen the evidence, he’d know she was telling the truth.

‘Do you think paying is the wrong approach? You think we should go to the police?’ She looked at him anxiously and rubbed her fingers across her forehead, trying to ease the pain that pulsed behind her temples. She’d gone over and over it in her head so many times, trying to do the right thing. ‘I have thought about it, obviously, but you can see from the letter what he threatened to do if I spoke to the police. I know everyone always says you shouldn’t pay blackmailers, but that’s very easy to say when it isn’t your child in danger and—’ her voice cracked ‘—and I can’t play games with his life, Luc. He’s everything I have.’

She looked at the strong, hard lines of Luc’s face and suddenly wanted him to step in and save her the way he’d saved her that first night they’d met. He was hard and ruthless and he had powerful connections and she knew instinctively that he would be able to handle this situation if he chose to. He could make it go away.

‘I think involving the police would not be a good idea,’ he assured her, rising to his feet in a lithe, athletic movement and pacing across the office to the window. ‘Police in any country don’t generally appreciate having their time wasted.’

Her eyes widened. ‘But why would this waste their time?’

He shot her an impatient look. ‘Because we both know that this is all part of your elaborate plan to extract more money from me. I suppose I should just be grateful it took you seven years to work your way through the last lot.’ His voice was harsh and contemptuous. ‘It was a master stroke suggesting we contact the police because it does add credibility to the situation, but we both know that would have proved somewhat embarrassing if they’d agreed to be involved.’

She stared at him in stunned silence. ‘You still think I’m making this whole situation up, don’t you?’

‘Look at it from my point of view,’ he advised silkily. ‘You turn up after seven years, demanding money to help a child I know nothing about and whose existence you cannot prove. If he’s my child, why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant seven years ago?’

‘I’ve already explained!’ She ran a hand over the back of her neck to relieve the tension. ‘Over and over again I rang and came to your office and you refused to see me. You wouldn’t even talk to me.’