The other woman flushed angrily. ‘I wasn’t questioning the validity of your pregnancy,’ Marilyn snapped. ‘Only the timing of it. After all, it’s over two months since Ricky died—’
‘Marilyn!’ Lyon cut in harshly, speaking for the first time since Shay had made her announcement, his voice gruff. ‘For God’s sake—’
‘Don’t be naïve, Lyon,’ she scorned. ‘By presenting us with Ricky’s baby, Shay has effectively established a reason to hang on to Ricky’s share in the company; no woman would deny her child that birthright!’ She looked at Shay with dislike. ‘I’d put a sure bet on it’s being a late baby!’ she sneered.
Shay didn’t have the strength to hold back her furious grandfather, watching in horror as his hand made painful contact with Marilyn’s face. Her grandfather wasn’t normally a violent man, abhorred violence on any level, but the provocation had been extreme; Shay could have hit the other woman herself at that moment and felt no regret for the action.
‘You, madam, have the filthiest mouth I’ve ever encountered,’ Grandy bit out in disgust to accompany the blow. ‘And if there weren’t a lady present, my granddaughter, I would tell you in your own disgusting language exactly what I think of you!’
‘Don’t worry, Patrick,’ Matthew spoke grimly, ‘I’ll do that for you—as I escort Marilyn to the door!’ he added pointedly.
‘Well I don’t know why everyone is so angry with me,’ Marilyn looked petulant. ‘You have to admit, this baby is a little—convenient.’
Shay drew herself up to her full height. ‘My baby isn’t a convenience at all, Marilyn,’ she bit out clearly. ‘Ricky and I desperately wanted this child, had been trying to conceive one for several months, and I don’t aim to see it harmed, not even by your caustic tongue, so I would advise you not to make your slanderous assumptions outside of this house. This baby will be mine, will be born in my home, the home I make for us in England, and I don’t aim to let it be contaminated by the oppressive atmosphere of this so-called family,’ she dismissed disgustedly. ‘Now if you would all excuse me, I should like to go to my suite.’
* * *
LYON WATCHED HER go, deaf to the heated conversation taking place between Matthew, Patrick and Marilyn. It hadn’t occurred to him that Shay could be pregnant with Ricky’s baby, he had put the fainting down to grief, although he realised now it was probably a combination of both things.
Shay was carrying Ricky’s child. He tried to analyse how that made him feel, and couldn’t. One thing he did know, she couldn’t leave here now. Without paying attention to the heated argument going on in the room, he strode off after Shay.
* * *
ONLY LYON and Derrick had refrained from making any comment about the baby, and as the latter was probably still totally bewildered by the significance of it he didn’t really count. What had Lyon been thinking behind those golden eyes; she never had been able to tell. She had expected the angry outburst to come from him, knew from the lawyer in Los Angeles that Lyon had already had the papers drawn up to buy Ricky’s share in the Falconer empire from her. As one of the family lawyers in England, Marilyn had been sure to know of that contract, had probably helped draw it up! As the other woman had guessed, the existence of her baby prevented Shay from accepting the more than generous offer; she owed it to Ricky to let his child claim, and know, its natural inheritance from him.
She was ecstatic about the baby, Ricky had been too, but she would be the first to admit that it also placed her in an awkward position, that of having to see Lyon when she would rather never set eyes on him again. Her only consolation was that he knew it too.
Without benefit of clothes, a soothing bath being run in the adjoining bathroom, she knew her pregnancy was much more noticeable, her reflection in the full-length mirror showing full breasts, the nipples turning a darker brown, the tips highly sensitised as they prepared for the baby, her stomach slightly rounded, a faint fluttering sensation there when she least expected it telling her that her pregnancy definitely wasn’t a fantasy.
She secured her hair back loosely with a ribbon, relaxing back in the sunken bath, closing her eyes wearily as the scented water began to soothe her. It was all over, she could leave here now, find a reliable lawyer who, for the most part, could deal with Lyon. It was as if a weight had finally been lifted from her shoulders, and she could breathe again, could leave the stifling atmosphere of Falconer House and look forward to her life with her baby.
She was smiling gently to herself as she reentered the bedroom from taking her bath, her hands halting in their task of tying the belt around her robe as she saw Lyon slowly rising from his sitting position on her bed, quickly finishing the task as she straightened her shoulders challengingly. She was unaware of the forward thrust of her hard-tipped breasts beneath the clinging silk of the black robe with its purple flowered pattern that Ricky had brought back for her from a trip he had made to Japan the previous year.
‘What are you doing in here?’ Shay demanded hardly, furious that he had dared to invade her privacy in this way, no matter what he considered the provocation to be.
He shook his head. ‘When I came in here I had no idea you were taking a bath.’
She gave him a scornful look. ‘You don’t seem to have left even when you did realise.’
Lyon shrugged, his mouth twisting. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’
Her eyes flashed her anger. ‘Do you also doubt the length of my pregnancy?’ Her hands clenched about the tie-belt of her robe.
‘Marilyn has the suspicious mind of a lawyer—’
‘Marilyn has the mind and mouth of a sewer!’ Shay spat out contemptuously.
‘Those too,’ he sighed ruefully. ‘I just—Why didn’t you tell us about the baby, Shay?’ Lyon’s eyes had darkened to a deep tawny colour.
She shot him a resentful glare, moving to the mirror to release her hair down her back, irritated that the smooth paleness of her face now lacked any make-up, feeling emotionally naked and exposed too. ‘I did intend telling all of you.’ She turned back to Lyon. ‘There just hasn’t been a suitable occasion,’ she dismissed.
‘You consider today was a suitable occasion?’ Lyon mocked disbelievingly.
‘I consider your wife’s harassment just another of the nightmares I’ve had to endure in this house!’ Shay snapped vehemently. ‘Marilyn certainly excelled herself today!’
‘Marilyn is no longer my wife,’ Lyon reminded softly.
‘You aren’t divorced yet,’ scorned Shay disbelievingly, sure there would be no divorce between this couple. ‘Whose idea was it for you to separate?’
‘Marilyn met Derrick and decided she would like to marry him,’ Lyon revealed stiffly. ‘He’s a lawyer, too.’
‘I didn’t think it was your decision.’ Her voice was bitter.
‘Shay—’
‘What do you want in here, Lyon?’ she asked wearily. ‘It’s been a traumatic day and I’d like to rest for a while now.’
‘I wanted to—I need—’ He came towards her blindly, his hands covering hers as they still rested on the tie of her belt. ‘Let me see, Shay,’ Lyon urged gruffly, his eyes pure gold.
Her shocked gaze clashed with his, paling before the heated colour flooded her gaunt cheeks. ‘No…!’ She groaned her protest, unable to move as his lean hands gently caressed hers.
‘Please,’ he encouraged throatily.
Shay stopped breathing completely as he moved her hands aside, holding them firmly at her sides before slowly releasing them and moving his own hands back to the belt at her waist. She wanted to stop him, her desperation evident in her panicked dark eyes, but she couldn’t seem to move or speak, gasping for air as Lyon pulled the belt apart, smoothing the silk material back on to her shoulders, Shay’s breathing becoming strangulated as the cool air brushed her hot flesh.
‘Lyon—’
‘Shay,’ he moaned achingly as he looked hungrily at her gently swelling body. ‘Shay!’ he groaned again, touching her with h
ands that were no longer steady.
She meant to push those questing hands away, but as Lyon gently cupped the heavily aching weight of both her breasts she could only watch him dazedly, mesmerised into stillness at those leanly tanned hands against her much whiter flesh.
His head bent suddenly and he guided the tip of one painfully sensitised breast into his mouth, easing the pressure there for a moment as he suckled the nipple moistly before moving on to its twin.
‘Lyon, no …!’ She shook her head in denial, the unfamiliar feel of his lips against her breasts making her feel dizzy.
‘I need to,’ he told her raggedly, looking down at the soft swell of her stomach now, a hand curving about the smoothness. ‘Does it move, Shay?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Do you feel your child inside you?’
‘Yes. Yes!’ she repeated forcefully as he stroked her stomach.
‘You can’t leave now, Shay.’ He shook his head, watching the slow movements of his hand against her as if mesmerised himself. ‘The baby has to be born here.’
‘No—’
‘Yes!’ Lyon insisted heatedly, a fever in his eyes. ‘Your child will one day inherit everything there is. I don’t intend to marry again, Matthew won’t marry at all, and if Neil is going to do so he’s taking his sweet time about it! This child—’ He once again touched the swell of her body. ‘Your child, will probably be the only Falconer heir. It has to be brought up here in his father’s home.’
‘You don’t doubt that the baby is Ricky’s?’
‘No,’ he stated emphatically.
Shay shook her head. ‘I can’t live here.’
‘You have to—’
‘I don’t have to do anything,’ she told him haughtily. ‘Not any more.’
His mouth tightened as he held back what he had been about to say with effort. ‘At least stay until the baby is born,’ he urged evenly.
‘No, I—’
‘Shay?’ A knock on the door accompanied Neil’s calling of her name. ‘Matthew just told me the good news; can I come in?’
Shay looked down at Lyon’s hands still on her stomach and hip, horror gripping her as she realised she was still blatantly exposed to his touch and the heat of his gaze, pulling sharply away from him to refasten tightly the belt of her robe. ‘Get out of here,’ she snarled. ‘And don’t let Neil in as you leave; I couldn’t face anyone right now!’ She turned away from him, her head bowed, unable to stop the trembling of her body.
‘Shay—’
‘Get out!’ she ordered raspingly.
She heard the door open seconds later, Neil’s surprised voice as Lyon was the one to appear and not her, silence as the two men walked down the corridor and back down the stairs.
Her worst fear had come true, her worst nightmare. It had always been like that between her and Lyon, right from the first, but she had hoped she had exorcised Lyon’s physical effect on her by showing him for exactly what he was when she based the rake, Leon de Coursey, on him in her book. The man in Scarlet Lover had been as selfish and domineering as Lyon; he had also been the demon lover that Lyon had always been, the savagery he often displayed as much a pleasure as his most erotic caress.
If she had thought Leon de Coursey had driven Lyon from her mind as well as her body, his touch just now had shown her that she had been wrong; she might hate Lyon as much as it was possible to hate anyone, but she still burnt at his slightest touch!
From that first night together she had wanted him, the conclusion of their first actual date together something she had desperately tried to put from her mind, embarrassed that Lyon should take her over the plateau of desire, through the storm-tossed sea and then into calm waters, while denying himself the same release. Their second evening together had a much more satisfactory ending for both of them, she had made certain of that.
She had been nervous about going out with him again after the intimacies they had shared, and from the time Lyon called for her he had made her completely aware of his intention to make complete love to her that night. It had been an intent she had no intention of denying him.
When he had invited her back to his apartment after their meal together she had breathlessly agreed, his innuendos and caressing glances during the evening filling her with tense excitement, longing for that aching sweetness he had shown her last time. As soon as the door closed behind them, encasing them in a world of expectant silence, they moved into each other’s arms, Shay’s mouth open to his, welcoming the deep trusts of his rigid tongue.
They didn’t even get as far as the bedroom, pulling off their clothes in heated movements, falling to the thickly carpeted floor, mouths searching and finding, hands touching, caressing, clawing, legs entwined, their bodies damp with perspiration as Lyon delayed a joining between them. His lips and teeth were rough with pleasure on her breasts, his hand on the moist core of her before his fingers entered to know her intimately, introducing a rhythm that made her arch against him with need.
‘Not yet,’ he rasped, leaning back. ‘Take me in your hands and know me as I know you, Shay,’ he groaned, his eyes bright with need.
On her knees beside him, her breasts moved temptingly in front of him, a temptation he couldn’t resist, levering up to take one desire-tightened nipple into his mouth, pulling on it in suckling caresses. Red-hot heat surged through her body as she arched into him, Lyon touching her in no other way than with his lips and tongue and, occasionally, teeth.
She took his flesh between loving hands, shyly caressing him with her fingertips, the rhythm of her movements causing a constriction of his stomach muscles, his whole body rigid with need as he fought release against her velvet-soft touch.
He pulled her astride him, dragging her down on to him, the tip of his throbbing shaft hitting a gossamer-like barrier before he surged completely inside her, filling her, engulfing her, big and hard as he began to move slowly within her, increasing the tempo as she arched back wildly on top of him, seeking the ultimate sensation he had shown her only once before.
‘Next time we’ll take it more slowly,’ he ground out heatedly. ‘Right now I need you too much, need—Oh, Shay!’ he groaned dazedly as she began to shudder around him in convulsive movements his eyes half-closing as he gave in to the warm demand of her.
Shay’s fingers bit into his shoulders as pleasure such as she had never known ripped through every particle of her body, her eyes squeezed shut as the heat reached the top of her head, the tips of her fingers, and down to her contracted toes, feeling the heat of Lyon as he flooded her, his pleasure seeming never-ending too as he thrust even deeper inside her, again and again, until finally she collapsed on top of him, too weak to move.
‘I never knew virgins could be so damned sexy,’ Lyon finally murmured into her hair.
Shay didn’t move, unable to gauge his reaction to her inexperience. ‘You knew?’
‘Of course I knew,’ he drawled, his lips against her throat and shoulders. ‘Even if I hadn’t felt your virginity, I don’t usually have to teach my women how to touch me.’
Colour stained her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry.’ She began to ease herself away from him.
‘No.’ His arms tightened about her. ‘I want to show you every pleasure there is between a man and a woman. You’re like a brand new book, and I want to write on every page! No, this was only the start, Shay!’
It had been the beginning of a relationship that rarely saw them out of bed, the merest touch igniting the desire that was never far below the surface. Every day she waited for Lyon to grow bored with her, to reach a satiation point with the lovemaking that could sometimes be so wild they were both bruised and scratched.
But Lyon showed no sign of becoming bored with her, demanding to see her every night, spending so much time together that a lot of her things accumulated at the penthouse apartment he called home when he was staying in London.
The visits they made to the Falconer family home weren’t something she enjoyed, Lyon’s three brothers always a little sceptical
even if they were unfailingly polite. And the presence of Lyon’s wife on several occasions made her feel very uncomfortable, the other woman treating her with open contempt. It was at the end of one of those awkward weekends with Lyon’s family that she had finally broached the subject of where her own relationship with Lyon would eventually lead. His answer had been enough to almost destroy her!
She couldn’t stay on here now, wouldn’t stay here, not when Lyon could still touch her in that way and receive only a half-hearted rejection from her.
* * *
‘I THINK you should stay on with the Falconers.’
Shay’s eyes widened with shock at her grandfather’s statement. He had joined her for dinner in her suite, quietly supportive as he ensured that she ate the well-balanced meal that had been brought up on the trolly for them by Patty. She had never imagined he would advise such a thing when he knew how she felt about Ricky’s family.
‘You have to be joking, Grandy,’ she scorned.
His expression remained serious, his blue eyes un-twinkling. ‘Surely you can see that it’s the only sensible thing to do in the circumstances.’
‘Sensible!’ she choked disbelievingly, standing up to move restlessly about the room, the soft material of her long lilac gown brushing silkily against her legs. ‘Grandy, I don’t like being in the same country as Lyon Falconer, let alone the same house! We don’t get on, Grandy, and we never will.’
‘Think of your child, Shay—’
‘I am thinking of it.’ Her arms went about her body protectively. ‘I think of nothing else,’ Shay added softly. ‘And I can assure you that staying here will only make me, and consequently the baby too, ill.’ She grimaced.
Her grandfather looked worried. ‘You don’t intend living alone when you leave here?’
‘Unless you want to move in with me.’ She arched dark brows questioningly.
‘Live in London?’ The face he pulled answered that question. ‘How about your coming back to Ireland with me?’ he suggested eagerly. ‘It could be like old times.’
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