Five minutes later, Lily sat alone in the backseat of a cab, the familiar feeling of abandonment growing stronger until it almost suffocated her.
The thing was, against her better judgment, she’d actually started to believe he could be there for her. That arranging for help—though not what she wanted or expected—was a step in the right direction.
But yet again he’d prioritized his work over her needs. Moving her into his house then letting her find it on her own showed her that, as clearly as if he’d handed her a note outlining his intentions.
She released a bitter laugh. Why should she be surprised? Based on past experience, she should have expected more of the same. For him, money came before people, even his wife and child. And that was why she had no future with Damon Blakely.
Six
D amon woke the next morning in his spare bedroom, curled around Lily. He smiled sleepily. What an excellent way to start the day.
He leaned in an inch, pulled her silky blond hair to the side and placed a delicate kiss to the back of her neck.
She stirred and rolled to face him, eyes opening slowly. The pleasure he saw deep in her forest-green eyes sent a bolt of satisfaction through his system…until wariness replaced her happiness.
With a primal need to banish the interloping caution, he kissed her lips, gently, teasing, the way he knew she liked. He’d rouse more pleasure in her body than she could stand…and, damn it, he’d restore that special joy to her eyes. An irresistible impulse, deep inside, demanded it.
He pulled her closer, inserting a knee between hers, not breaking the kiss, then pulled her closer again, so his thigh pressed into the juncture of her legs.
He knew she wasn’t one hundred percent happy with her decision to stay but he had more than one means of making himself indispensable. He’d give her all she could ever want with his money—materially and with staff—and all she could dream of with his body.
She was his. She and their baby.
And suddenly he knew this wasn’t just about BlakeCorp anymore—not that it had ever been the whole picture.
Something more fundamental was involved, a compelling force coming from his solar plexus.
He cupped her face, channeling all his emotion into the kiss. A delicate moan of desire came from deep within her as their roles shifted and she tugged at him, reaching to his hips and finding him naked. A purr of satisfaction greeted the discovery and in return he slid her satin nightgown over her head.
He’d never get tired of feeling her skin on his. And now they were married, he never had to. For the rest of his life, he’d spend his nights making love to her and wake with her each morning. He’d drive all her doubts away.
Growling with the thrill of conquest, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him to sprawl across his ready body. Her eyes flashed with unadulterated lust and she pulled away, straightening, straddling him, raising herself into position, then lowering to bring him into heaven on earth.
His hands shot out of their own volition and gripped her hips, planting her there, holding her firm as he bucked and buried himself as deep as possible.
Her movements slowed to a stop. She flattened her lips as that damned wariness returned, claiming her features.
She closed her eyes. “I promised myself we wouldn’t do this again,” she whispered.
Damon sucked in a deep breath through his teeth and held his protesting body in check while he processed her words. “We’re married. It’s not a sin, Lily,” he rasped.
A pained expression crossed her face. “But it’s not right, either.”
He took a patient breath. He should have expected this reluctance. Just like on their wedding night, she clung to her doubts because theirs wasn’t the traditional hearts-and-flowers courtship. But she was very wrong. They belonged together.
And now he needed a strategy before her resistance went too far. He searched her gaze, and one thing became crystal clear. She might have said she didn’t want this, but she didn’t want to stop any more than he did—despite her words, she hadn’t moved a muscle to leave.
He reached to stroke her shoulder and along her arm. “It feels right to me, sweetheart. And maybe that’s all that matters here and now.” He ran his hand down her side and she shivered. “You. Me. Feeling right together.”
She moved against him once and bit down on her lip. “What about afterward?”
He cupped her face. “We’ll handle afterward when it happens.”
He pulled her down and kissed her slowly, sensuously. “Come. Live in the moment with me.” He coaxed her velvet lips, determined to make her see they belonged together.
She moaned her assent then rose up above him once more.
His hands slid up, touching her everywhere at once, lingering over her breasts and their puckered tips, moving down to slip between the place where they joined to take her higher.
She moved against him again.
“Yes,” he groaned.
His eyes swept over her, silver-blond hair spilled across her shoulders, alabaster skin glowing with her desire, riding him like an erotic Lady Godiva.
How had he survived the months without her in his bed?
He gently grasped her shoulders and pulled her down, kissed her mouth hard, held her against him, as close as possible now he felt ready to explode, listened to her release echo in his ears and let it tip him over the edge, to the place where only he and Lily existed.
Boneless, he lay across his sheets with Lily’s sweat-slicked body draped over him. Nirvana could hold no more pleasure than this.
Relishing the sensation, he lay still for long minutes. Then, floating down from cloud nine, his thoughts turned to the future. Their future. Their baby.
“Have you had any ideas about names for the baby?” he murmured.
A dreamy smile transformed her face as she slid to his side and stretched. She bent her elbow and propped her head in her palm. “I’ve got a mental list, but nothing I’m sure of. Have you given it any thought?”
A lot of thought actually, including on the drive home from work the night before. “If it’s a girl, what about naming her after your gran? Pearl.”
Her mouth rounded in surprise, then softened. “That’s what you want? After Gran?”
He ran a finger down her cheek. “I’ll be forever indebted to her—she saved the mother of my child. Expecting my own son or daughter has made me think about how she protected you.”
Her eyes misted over but she smiled. “I’ve been thinking of that, too. And it’s a gorgeous name. Pearl Blakely.”
Giving thanks for this harmony, so rare between them lately, he placed a delicate kiss on her shoulder. “What about a middle name?”
Her hand fluttered to the silver heart pendant hanging from her neck. “I’ve been thinking Theresa would be perfect.”
Damon stilled. She wanted to give his mother’s name to their child? An unexpected lump formed in his throat. “I’d like that. Pearl Theresa Blakely.”
Lily’s hands smoothed across her naked stomach as she whispered, “What do you think, Pearl?”
Damon chuckled. “What if junior’s a boy?”
Her smile grew. “I’d like Michael, for your father. I wish I’d met him.”
His throat thickened again, and he cleared it before replying. “He would have loved you. Both my parents would have.”
“Thank you.” She swallowed then met his gaze. “I chose the first name for a boy. Do you want to choose the middle name?”
He thought for a moment. He’d considered many options last night, but only one felt right. “Andrew. Michael Blakely is from my side of the family tree, so I think Andrew from your middle name, Andrea.”
Tears filled her eyes as he drew her close again. “Michael Andrew Blakely or Pearl Theresa Blakely,” she said. “I like them.”
He nuzzled into the curve of her neck. “And the room next door to the main bedroom—our room—would make a good nursery for Pearl or Michael. We’ll be on h
and during the night.”
She took a moment to respond. “Pardon?”
He’d already worked out some of the details as he’d drifted off to sleep last night. It made complete sense. “I’ll move the home office equipment to the room down the hall. We can knock a connecting door through—” he looked around the spare room, assessing its walls in proxy “—maybe add—”
Lily slid away and gathered the sheet around her torso. “Damon, if I’ve misled you, I didn’t mean to. Just because we’re sharing a moment here doesn’t mean things have changed. Maybe I haven’t made myself clear enough. Separate rooms. Separate lives.” She paused with raised brows. “Pearl or Michael will have a nursery beside my room.”
He frowned. No, she hadn’t been clear at all. He’d told her on the plane he was trying to make their marriage work and she’d seemed happy. He’d thought she was giving them another chance. Granted, she’d slept in a spare room, not in his suite where all her things were, but he couldn’t always follow the workings of the female mind. He’d assumed it had something to do with him not being there.
And she’d been a little reluctant making love just now, though nothing she didn’t want to be talked through.
He held back a sigh and turned on a charming smile instead. He wasn’t worried. He always won—sometimes the end result took a bit more work than others. But he wouldn’t begrudge the effort when the windfall was as important as Lily and his child.
He took her hand and rubbed a thumb across her palm. “Lily, I meant what I said before. This feels right.”
She shook her head. “There’s too much at stake for me to be that simplistic. Damon, I won’t compromise my baby’s emotional well-being. I’ve told you I will not raise my child in a family where money is all-important and nothing and no one is more a priority than Daddy’s work. I’ll move out and raise this baby on my own before I let that happen.”
His shoulders bunched and his grip tightened on her hand. “I’ll make our baby a priority.” He meant it down to the soles of his feet. “Securing our child’s financial future is part of that. Making sure he has his grandfather’s company to inherit when he’s old enough is making our baby a priority.”
He bit back the beginnings of impatience at her insistence that he wouldn’t be a good father. He knew what was best for them all—being a family unit. Why was that so hard for her to see?
Lily’s mouth opened and closed as if searching for words before she said, “This isn’t about money. Do you know the drug addiction and suicide rates among rich kids?” She shook her head, as if world-weary. “Money doesn’t buy happiness. I’m talking about love and time with her or him.”
A memory flashed before his eyes of growing up with neither of those things, and he inwardly flinched. But he was nothing like his uncle. No question, his child’s upbringing would be poles apart from his own. “I can do that, too.” He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. “Just promise me you’ll consider the nursery.”
One step at a time. That’s how the best deals were secured.
Lily rolled her eyes, but not before a flash of resignation surfaced. “You’re not used to the word no, are you?”
“Actually, I am,” he said with a straight face. “As a child I heard it far too many times from my aunt and uncle and I developed an allergy to it. Now I avoid it as much as possible.”
The tension from thinking about his childhood eased from his shoulders before a grin tugged one corner of his mouth, softening the sentiment further. He could phrase it lightly to her but he was deadly serious. He hated being told no, and intended to hear yes from Lily’s mouth sometime very soon.
She looked as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or strangle him. Instead she flung back the covers and headed for the bathroom. “I have to go back to work today. We’ll continue this later.”
Damon laced his hands behind his head on the pillow and smiled.
A little extra work, a dose of humor, and he’d won this battle. Likewise he’d also win the war.
Lily looked around Damon’s kitchen—she still couldn’t call it their kitchen—bathed in mid-Sunday morning light…then she glanced at the ceiling.
Directly above her was the room Damon had earmarked as a nursery. She’d said she wanted the nursery beside her room, yet she’d been spending her nights in Damon’s….
She shook her head and focused instead on the baking aromas that filled her senses and calmed her. Not that they’d be able to eat the entire tray of blueberry muffins, apple pie, sultana cookies, banana bread and fairy cakes, but she felt better having made them all. She could drop some off to Gran in the afternoon and freeze the rest.
She’d learned to cook from Gran, but had never wanted to bake this much before. Probably a nesting instinct—which made sense considering she’d repressed all other forms of that particular urge.
A nursery would have been an obvious place to channel her maternal yearnings, but she hadn’t set foot in the room above the kitchen even once. It’d haunted her, though, on the fringes of her awareness where she had no control.
She glanced again at the ceiling, then felt herself turn toward the stairs, ignoring her well-developed sense of self-preservation. She climbed the stairs quickly, pausing at the top, then padded down the hall to the room next to Damon’s.
They’d been home—married—for nine days and she’d immersed herself in her work at the gallery most of that time, but this weekend, her thoughts were almost exclusively on the baby and their lives together.
Slowly, almost reverently, she opened the door and slipped inside, barely daring to breathe. After that first night back in Melbourne she’d begun to temporarily share Damon’s expansive room. Partly because she’d been too exhausted to move her things into the spare room, and partly because a tiny tendril of hope refused to be squashed.
Ridiculous. She knew they had no future—she’d made that decision already. Yet, when she was still or quiet, her heart whispered, What if this could work? If there’s a chance, isn’t it worth the risk?
She shook her head and laid her hands over her belly, feeling the comfort of the cotton and the small, hard mound beneath. Excitement for the precious child growing within her womb flared.
God, she wished it could work. Perhaps if she gave it a month or two, saw how it panned out…
Lily snorted a laugh. She was her mother’s daughter, clutching at straws. She ran a fingertip along the windowpane and surveyed Damon’s paved courtyard.
Peculiar how they’d fallen into somewhat of a routine, sharing a bed at night, acting as if theirs was a normal marriage as they left for their jobs during the day. She’d attended her checkup and been given the all clear. Melissa left dinner in the oven for them each night, even though Lily had told her she didn’t need to.
Damon sometimes worked late and on weekends—like today. So she’d eaten alone five of the eight nights, as she had when they were dating. She’d begun bringing work home for her next exhibition, on surrealists. It gave her something to do other than dwell on thoughts of this room.
The wisp of hope that her heart nurtured had inspired dreams of transforming the room into a child’s wonderland, close to both mummy and daddy, and she couldn’t bear to crush it completely.
She walked to the far corner, visualizing a crib draped in the finest cream lace, the place her baby would lay its head. She glanced left and imagined a chest of drawers topped with fluffy animals. If she reached out, she could almost touch them….
Downstairs, she heard a key in the lock and her heart leaped as if she were a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She couldn’t risk encouraging Damon’s confidence in his plans for the nursery, his plans for their future.
She slipped out of the room, securing the door behind her, then rushed down the stairs, pulse racing. As Damon’s footsteps echoed across the tiled floor, she stepped into the kitchen, trying to bring her breathing back under control.
“My mouth started watering as soon a
s I stepped out of the car.” Strong arms wrapped around her from behind and she smiled, heart still racing, as she melted back into her husband’s warmth and strength. Moments like these, where she could pretend the past and future didn’t exist, were glorious slivers of time where everything was perfect.
Making love in Damon’s bed allowed her that same miracle, where she could block out reality and let her fragile hope take wings. Live completely in the moment.
He nuzzled the sensitive spot behind her ear and her blood heated. “I could smell your muffins from the garage, Mrs. Blakely. I swear, your baking even beats Melissa’s.”
Lily turned in his arms, threading her hands under his suit jacket, and kissed him. “I’ve just boiled the jug if you’d like a coffee and a slice of apple pie.”
“I’ve got a better idea for my mouth.” He leaned in and met her lips in a slow promise that heated her insides.
Then he pulled back, eyes roaming her face. “You’re flushed. Is it from the cooking or did you rush to greet me?” His fingers brushed her cheeks. “Tell me you were upstairs starting on the nursery,” he said against her lips.
Her mouth tugged to one side to disguise her grin. He just wouldn’t give in. “Asking me the same question every day won’t increase the chances of getting the answer you want.”
He rested his forehead on hers. “It can’t hurt.”
His persistence gave her fledgling hope another surge of life. Maybe they could make this work….
She took a deep breath, held it, then released it in a rush. “I’ve decided to give us two months to see how things work out.”
A grin spread across his face. He probably believed his charm had worked its magic again. Perhaps it had.
Her pragmatic side kicked herself for giving in, for being gullible enough to believe, but in that moment, her optimism and hope won out.
She laid her palms flat on his chest. “If, at the end of the two months, I think we have a future, then we’ll discuss the nursery being beside your room. But, Damon, you need to be committed, as well.”
“Sweetheart, you have no idea how committed I am to this.” He captured her mouth and she lost all sense of time and place.
Claiming His Bought Bride Page 8
