Bound by Their Scandalous Baby Page 6

  ‘So you’ll move into the house in Regent’s Park without an argument?’ He forced himself to make it sound like a question instead of a demand.

  He could see the momentary struggle she waged before she nodded. ‘Yes. If you’re sure it’s necessary.’

  ‘It is. And the bodyguards? I need your complete cooperation there too, for Nico’s safety.’

  ‘Absolutely. I understand,’ she said, but he could see the new struggle. She’d been doing this on her own for so long, he supposed she was finding it hard to let go of control. He tried not to gloat. ‘But would it be okay if they wore something more casual?’ she added. ‘And made an effort not to be too intimidating? Nico’s a very sociable kid when he’s well, but he’s been through a lot recently and he’s fragile. I don’t want their presence to freak him out.’

  ‘Of course.’ Lukas nodded, realising her show of defiance had only been because she was putting the boy’s needs first. Needs that would never even have occurred to him. ‘I will speak to my security people, tell them to employ men and women who have experience guarding children and know how to relate to them.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Again her gratitude seemed heartfelt. ‘Could I say something else?’ she said, her stubborn chin firming up again.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I don’t want Nico moved to a private hospital.’

  He quelled his immediate instinct to shoot down her request. He must force himself to negotiate—not something he had a lot of experience with. But then, when was the last time he had been faced with a woman—or anyone really—who was prepared to refuse him?

  ‘The security in a public hospital isn’t strong enough,’ he said.

  ‘Then hire more bodyguards, or figure out a way to make it more secure...’

  ‘There’s no need to...’

  ‘This hospital is the leading centre in its field on the experimental treatment they’re advocating for Nico,’ she cut in, jumping on his slight hesitation. ‘Without these doctors and this staff, Nico wouldn’t even have this chance. Not only that, but he has friends here, among the other patients and the nurses and doctors. It may be a public hospital but it’s where Nico needs to be to get well.’

  She wasn’t asking him, he realised, she was telling him, but the passion in her voice and the vibrant colour in her cheeks told him Nico’s welfare was driving her determination and he found he couldn’t bring himself to push back. He would get expert independent medical advice to ensure all she was telling him was true—but it was already clear she believed in this place. And maybe that was enough, for now.

  For the first time in a long time he found himself forced to back down. ‘All right, we’ll play it your way for now. You know the boy best.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again, but the slight edge to her voice suggested she wasn’t feeling all that grateful this time. ‘And about the staff...’

  ‘The staff are non-negotiable.’ This was one issue he would not be backing down on, he decided as he registered the dark smudges under her eyes again.

  ‘But I really don’t think I need staff,’ she said. ‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after Nico and myself on my own,’ she added, the edge in her voice annoying him—almost as much as the strange pressure in his chest at the evidence of her exhaustion.

  ‘Well, you won’t be doing that any more. You’ll need a chauffeur, a gardener, cleaning staff and a nanny at the very least.’ She was being stubborn now. And he was not about to allow her to make herself ill because of some ludicrous sense of misplaced pride.

  ‘Why would I need a chauffeur?’ she said. ‘I don’t even have a car. And I don’t need a nanny either. I can look after Nico myself, especially if I won’t be able to go back to scrubbing johns,’ she said, but her rising frustration had the opposite effect on him as it occurred to him that her determination not to need him, or anything his money could provide, made her the opposite of the gold-digger he’d originally taken her for.

  Why that should matter, he had no idea, but it seemed that it did.

  ‘You’ll need secure transportation to and from the hospital. Hence the chauffeur.’ And the three bullet-proof cars he would be supplying them with, but he didn’t see the need to mention that just yet and inflame the situation further. ‘And the nanny is simply for backup,’ he added, not quite sure why he was so determined to provide one. Maybe it was those damn dark smudges again. He didn’t like the idea of her having to struggle on alone—the way she’d struggled so much already.

  His nephew’s well-being was all that mattered to him. Not hers. But, even so, he felt oddly relieved when he saw the last of the fight go out of her.

  ‘Okay, but I still don’t want to employ a stranger. Maybe I could ask Maureen if she’d like to move in with us?’

  ‘Who’s Maureen?’

  ‘You met her.’ She frowned, clearly unimpressed that he hadn’t remembered the woman. ‘When you arrived. She’s my next door neighbour and she’s fabulous with Nico.’

  ‘Is she trained?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s a retired nurse,’ she replied flatly, the green fire of indignation making her eyes sparkle.

  So not trained in childcare then. He held back the retort as a lungful of her scent—fresh and beguiling—invaded his senses.

  He nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll instruct Lisa to ensure the housekeeper’s quarters are made ready for her. And arrange a suitable salary.’ He needed to end this conversation now. He’d spent enough time sparring with this woman over unnecessary details. Details that really shouldn’t matter to him this much.

  Bronte opened her mouth, as if she were going to disagree with him, but then closed it again. Tension rippled through her small frame. And he knew she felt it too, that visceral tug of yearning.

  ‘I should go back to the ward,’ she said, glancing at the door and tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

  The movement made her breasts stretch the cotton tank top she wore, making him aware of the vague outline of her nipples against the worn fabric. He watched them harden into bullets, as the urge to peel down her top and lick the turgid tips lodged in his brain and would not be dislodged.

  A bright flush rose on her cheeks, their awkward truce sharpening on the knife-edge of desire, as the peaks engorged and her lust-blown pupils flooded the deep mossy green of her irises.

  What the hell?

  She took a cautious step back, the awareness in her expression tempered by wariness. And he noticed the fatigue again, making her eyes look huge in her pale face.

  Not the time or the place to deal with this, Blackstone.

  ‘Nico should wake up again in a few hours and I want to be there when he does,’ she said, the words rapid, her breathing coarse and uneven.

  Was she scared of him, or just of the strength of the sexual chemistry between them?

  She lifted a hand out of her pocket and jerked her thumb over her shoulder as she retreated towards the door. ‘Would you like to come and sit with me? I’m sure Nico would love to meet you properly when he wakes up.’

  He shook his head, and he saw her visibly wilt with relief at his refusal.

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ he said, determined to keep that boundary in place. He was more than invested enough in this situation already. He needed to take stock, to properly define the parameters of his interaction, and not just with the boy, apparently, but also with his far too captivating aunt, before he spent any more time with them.

  If he spent any time with them, he corrected himself.

  ‘I’ll be staying at the Blackstone Park Lane while I’m in London,’ he said before she could bolt out of the door. ‘Lisa will escort you to your new home when you’re finished here. You can let her know if there’s anything else you or Nico needs.’

  She bobbed her head, her hand trembling on the door knob. ‘Okay, and th
anks again.’ Her face softened, the emotion shining in her eyes only making her more attractive. And him more tense. ‘For coming here, and giving Nico this chance. I know you don’t want to be a superhero, but if this works you will be, to me.’

  He nodded, not trusting himself to reply, and not understanding the tight feeling in his chest as she left the room.

  He wasn’t a superhero. He wasn’t even a good person. Something she would discover soon enough if they ever decided to act on the sexual chemistry that had flared between them without warning.

  Not gonna happen.

  He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and contacted Lisa to set up the press conference for tomorrow. Then he headed out of the waiting room behind Bronte and turned in the opposite direction, walking towards the hospital exit—while attempting to ignore the pulsing ache in his crotch and the tight feeling in his chest which had refused to subside ever since he’d first spotted her at the Ball.

  * * *

  Six hours later, Bronte lay in a huge four-poster bed in a bedroom suite bigger than her whole flat. She stared at the intricate cornicing on the ceiling while she attempted to regulate her breathing and process everything that had happened to her—and Nico—in the last twenty-four hours.

  The detached Georgian house—correction, the detached Georgian palace—Lukas Blackstone had insisted on buying for her and Nico was as overwhelming as she had expected it to be. Four storeys of ornate stucco painted in pristine white with manicured lawns that led to a wrought iron gate leading onto Regent’s Park. But it wasn’t this house—correction, palace—that was making her hyperventilate. It was him.

  Her breathing sped up again, the heavy thud of her heartbeat squeezing the air out of her lungs.

  What was the matter with her? She should be ecstatic about everything. This mansion, the staff, the decision to employ Maureen, who was moving into the housekeeper’s cottage tomorrow, Lukas’s agreement to donate bone marrow to help find Nikky a cure. But instead she felt completely overwhelmed.

  This isn’t about Lukas Blackstone. This is about you. And your inexplicable reaction to him.

  She sighed. There, she’d admitted it.

  The man was just so overpowering. And it wasn’t just his vast wealth—which had been shocking enough—but everything about him. His tall muscular body, the harshly masculine face and that compelling scar, that enticing juniper scent, the indomitable presence, the way he seemed intent on bending her to his will and, worst of all, the flash of...something...in his eyes when they’d been in the waiting room together and she’d felt her breasts swell and her nipples tighten under that intense gaze. All she’d wanted in that moment was for him to rip open her T-shirt, drag down her bra, release her heavy breasts from their confinement and feast on them, the way he’d feasted on her mouth the night before at the Ball. She’d gone into some weird erotic trance, which even now felt so vivid and so volatile it shocked her to her core.

  She squeezed her thighs together, brutally ashamed of the liquid tug in her abdomen that hadn’t gone away since their encounter. Slotting herself into a life totally alien to everything she had ever known seemed like small potatoes compared to having to deal with this uncontrollable, all-consuming hunger.

  So there’s that.

  She placed her arm over her face.

  Had he known? What her body had been begging for him to do? Mortification engulfed her, but the burning flush was soon doused by a cold, hard dose of reality.

  Oh, please. Why does it even matter if he knew? He would never, ever act on it. Lukas Blackstone dates supermodels and A-list actresses—he’s not interested in you. And, even if he were, sex isn’t even on your radar. You’ve got less experience than Snow White for a very good reason. Nico is all that matters at the moment. All that has ever mattered.

  And, even if he wasn’t, Lukas Blackstone was not someone she would ever consider dating, if she did date. Which she didn’t. The women in her family had a bad habit of becoming emotionally besieged by overpowering and emotionally unavailable men. Her mum had done it and so had Darcy. She was not about to follow suit just because of a ridiculous physical reaction which had probably been brought on by fatigue and all her recent emotional upheavals.

  Giving in to that split-second urge to jump Lukas Blackstone was not who she was. She was better than that, stronger than that.

  She climbed under the ten thousand thread-count sheets, trying to switch her mind off the subject of Lukas and back on to the much more important business of Nico and the weeks ahead. She should be focused on tomorrow and the results of Lukas’s blood tests. The operation that would hopefully follow and Nikky’s recovery. Lukas Blackstone and that daft little frisson between them was just a distraction.

  But even worse, she realised, had been that even more idiotic moment when he’d insisted on hiring a nanny for her, and she’d actually believed—for a second—that he cared about her welfare as well as Nikky’s.

  Why would he? And why would you even want him to?

  She breathed in the scent of freshly laundered linen and new paint as her gaze roamed over the immaculately furnished room, and found the open door to the adjoining suite.

  She spotted the corner of Nikky’s bed—the bed he would be sleeping in soon, if the treatment worked. Her breathing evened out. At least a little.

  Just keep your eyes on the prize. And that prize is seeing Nico well and happy again. Helping him to handle his newfound status as the Blackstone heir. And making this palace a home, somehow.

  But as her tired mind finally drifted into sleep it wasn’t Nico’s face she saw, but Lukas’s. The jagged scar on his cheek tensed with barely leashed control.

  The potent hunger in his dark eyes made her whole body yearn for things—scary things—she had no experience of. But far worse was the echo of longing which she’d thought she’d destroyed years ago, when she’d stood on her father’s doorstep and willed him to look at her—and he never had.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AS THE NEXT few days and weeks unfolded, Bronte adapted to the staggering change in her and Nikky’s circumstances with more ease than expected—because all her energies were focused on his treatment.

  The morning after she had arrived at their new home she received the longed-for call from Dr Patel to confirm that Lukas was the partial match they needed for the experimental treatment. The following days spun past in a whirlwind of activity at the hospital, punctuated by long agonising waits, as Nico was prepped for surgery, given the life-altering graft of new bone marrow and then moved to an isolation chamber for his recovery.

  Maureen and Lisa, the new team of bodyguards and the impressive support team Lukas had put in place handled all the niggling details of everyday life as Bronte devoted herself to being there for Nico.

  She left the house early each morning in a chauffeur-driven car, was hustled through the phalanx of reporters and paparazzi who hadn’t been put off by Lukas’s press conference, and returned late each night—exhausted but ever more hopeful as each day passed.

  Nico did his bit, responding wonderfully to the treatment. A few weeks after the operation he was already well enough to have a few carefully vetted visitors. Maureen, the staff from his old nursery school, Manny and the bouncer from the Firelite Club where she used to work. Even Lisa and some of the new staff at the house popped in to see him.

  The only person who never appeared was Lukas.

  At first, Bronte had been pathetically grateful he had kept his distance—the myriad confusing, conflicting and disturbing emotions he inspired not something she wanted to deal with. But as Nico recovered in leaps and bounds she began to feel less relieved at Lukas’s continued absence from their lives.

  Because Nico asked about his uncle constantly. The little boy had obviously latched on to Lukas, despite the tycoon’s one perfunctory five-minute interaction with him.

 
As the weeks turned to months and Nico became well enough to return to his new home, Bronte’s relief at Lukas’s absence turned to guilt and concern.

  In the two press conferences he’d given to control the media furore—in the early days before and then the weeks after Nico’s operation—Lukas hadn’t even mentioned his part in the boy’s treatment and recovery.

  Bronte had tried to contact him several times, to thank him for the bone marrow donation and update him on Nico’s progress during his recovery, but Lisa, who had been assigned the job of being Bronte’s point of contact with Lukas, hadn’t been able to get him to respond in person to any of Bronte’s news or enquiries.

  She supposed she’d agreed to that too, that day in the waiting room, but she wasn’t convinced Lukas’s absence was the best thing for Nico any more as time passed. Eventually, Nico would wonder why Lukas never came to visit him. And she didn’t want him to feel unwanted or inadequate, the way she had been made to feel by her own father’s rejection.

  Lukas Blackstone was Nico’s uncle—and Nico’s only connection to the man who had sired him—which meant, as far as Bronte was concerned, he was going to have to make more of an effort. Or Nico would suffer.

  She was pondering the increasingly intransigent problem of Nico’s absentee uncle one bright autumnal afternoon, nearly two months after the little boy had left hospital, as she watched Maureen show Nico how to make her famous sugar cookies, when the buzz of the kitchen phone snapped her out of her thoughts.

  ‘Bronte, it’s Dr Patel. I’ve just got Nico’s latest lab results back and it’s great news.’

  Bronte’s stomach lifted into her throat. ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’s in complete remission.’

  The words reverberated in her skull, bouncing around like teenagers at a rave. Bronte sat down heavily in the chair by the phone. ‘That’s wonderful—what does that mean?’ she added as she sent a thumbs-up to Maureen, who was watching her encouragingly.

  ‘It’s basically the best news possible,’ Dr Patel announced on the other end of the line. ‘Obviously he’ll need to continue having regular check-ups for a while, so his progress can be monitored. But we’re not expecting any problems. Given the success of the treatment so far we have no reason to believe this isn’t the cure we were hoping for.’