“We’ll see about that.”
“Then you’ll see you’re wrong. About this, about me. About everything. I was faithful to Patrick. Always. Mind, heart and body. You can think what you like but I know the truth.”
“I don’t think you even know what the truth is anymore, Helena. In fact, I don’t think you ever did.”
“How dare you!”
“Oh, I dare.” He flicked the sheet of paper with his fingers. “And I will get to the bottom of this. I hope you’re prepared for what comes out because if I find so much as a hint that you’ve been stealing from Patrick all these years, you will be sorry you ever met him, or me.”
“Sorry? I’m already sorry I met you.”
“Good, then we both know exactly where we stand.”
As they drove in frozen silence toward the waterfront suburb where Patrick had built Helena their home, Mason itched to get to the root of what those numbers were hiding, and if they matched up with his suspicions about Helena. Patrick had been a generous man. More than generous. Mason could only be grateful that his mentor had never suspected his beautiful trophy wife of such duplicitous behaviour. The truth would have devastated him.
He took his eyes off the road long enough to flick a glance her way. Helena sat, locked in her thoughts, beside him. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and dark shadows scored rings under her eyes. This morning had come as quite a shock to her, that much was obvious. Something she’d said earlier tickled at the back of his mind.
“You mentioned the paternity testing before. What did you find out?”
He felt her start as his words broke the frigid air between them.
“The testing lab is right here in Auckland. It’s quite straightforward. You pay your money, you get your test.”
“How much?”
Helena told him the figure she’d been given over the phone.
“So when are we going?” he pressed.
“I haven’t booked it yet.” Helena sounded surprised.
“Don’t you want to know now, or is it that you’re frightened I’m going to find you out for a liar?” His fingers tightened on the wheel as they turned into her gates and swung up the cobbled drive to the front of her house.
“I’m not afraid of anything, Mason Knight, particularly not the truth. Maybe that’s something you should try sometime before jumping to asinine conclusions.”
“I call it as I see it until I know differently. How soon can we get the results?”
“They said their general time frame is three weeks but apparently in most cases the results are available within a few days.”
Mason drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. A few days. In only a few days he could find out whether he had a son. A son he knew only from a few boastful photographs shared by Patrick after a business meeting. A son he’d deserved to know from birth. The hollowness that had taken residence deep inside his chest since he’d learned he might be Brody’s father ached anew. All those wasted years. If it was true, it wasn’t only Helena who’d cheated him out of fatherhood, it had been his mentor, too. The betrayal didn’t bear considering. Patrick had known him even better, perhaps, than his own father—he alone would have known what this news would do to him, the toll it would take. He shut the door firmly on that part of his mind and focussed on the present.
“What’s involved?”
“All we need is recent photo identification of the parties involved and we can either have the samples taken at the laboratory itself or at any local diagnostic collection room.”
“That simple, huh?”
Helena sighed. “Yeah. I thought it would be more complex. But all they need is the consent forms completed and either a blood sample or a swab of your mouth.”
“Book it.”
“I can’t just do it like that.”
His ire rose at her protest. “Why the hell not?” He ground the words past his teeth. She’d taken it this far. The only reason she wouldn’t go all the way now was if she was having second thoughts. As far as he was concerned it was way too late for them now.
“I have Brody to consider.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, I don’t want to upset him. He doesn’t need to know yet that Patrick wasn’t his father. He’s just coming to terms with his grief. I can’t do that to him. I need to tread carefully here.”
“Helena, if you don’t organise this within the next few days, I can promise you that I will take whatever steps are necessary to have Brody tested.”
“You can’t!”
“Don’t push me.”
He watched as she lifted a hand to her hair, and absently twirled a hank until it wound like a corkscrew. A shudder ran through him as he remembered the texture of that hair—like warm, russet coloured silk—through his fingers, across his body. A sharp jolt of desire burned a trail below his belt. He hated that she could incite such a reaction in him.
Mason let go the breath he’d drawn in a frustrated rush of air. “I’m not negotiable on this, Helena. You came to me for help. I want proof.”
“I might be able to get him tested at school, but I’m not telling him why. Not yet.”
“Frankly, at this stage I don’t care what you tell him. Just get it done.”
“Fine. Is that everything then, master?”
The sarcasm in her voice was just enough to tip him over the edge. Ever since he’d dropped her home on Saturday she’d plagued his mind and body. The sooner he got this wretched physical yearning for her out of his system, the better. Denying himself the satisfaction of release on Friday night had been a bad move. It only served to make him want her more.
“Everything? Not by a long shot.”
Mason hooked one arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, his other hand reaching behind her head, grabbing the fullness of her hair and tilting her face to meet his onslaught. From the split-second it took to identify the fear in her emerald gaze to the moment his lips touched hers, he was driven by anger—by the need to dominate and force her to submit to him. But as her soft lips parted in surprise beneath his and his mouth filled with the heady intoxicating taste of her, the fury left his body, leaving it replaced instead by something far more dangerous. Something that threatened his equilibrium in a way nothing and no one else ever had.
She tasted of some sweet feminine blend he couldn’t get enough of—a taste that was intrinsically her own. His tongue swept past her lips to stroke against hers, to entice her to take him deeper. She moaned from deep down in her throat and the sound drove him crazy. She was his for the taking. He should be disgusted that it was so easy—that she was so easy for him—but all he wanted was more. More of her mouth, more of her body, more of her heat.
He lifted his head and watched as she opened her eyes—the green depths hazy with desire, her pupils dilated to enormous black pools.
“Let’s take this inside,” he growled.
The change in her expression was as immediate and as chilling as a hail storm.
“Let’s not.”
Before he could stop her, she’d gathered her things and was out of the car.
Mason climbed from the vehicle and leaned over the roof, watching as she all but ran for the sanctuary of her front door. “You can run from me, Helena, but it’s not over between us until I say so,” he called after her retreating form.
She hesitated for a moment in the portico, her key already slotting into the front door. For a second he thought she’d turn and say something, anything, but with a flick of her wrist the door was open and she stepped inside. The resounding bang as it closed behind her retreating form echoed across the drive.
Helena watched from behind the sheer curtains in the front room as, for a full thirty seconds, Mason didn’t move. Then, to her relief, he got back into the car and roared away—gravel spitting out from under his tyres.
One touch, that’s all it took, and she’d melted for him again. Her body still clamoured for his. She had to shore her reserves agains
t him somehow. She turned from the window and raced up the stairs to her bedroom and discarded her clothing in an untidy heap. As cold as the swimming pool would be, anything would be preferable to the flaming heat that seared her veins. She grabbed a black one-piece swimsuit from the drawer and pulled it on over her body, groaning slightly as the fabric caressed her breasts. Had she done as Mason had suggested, it would be his hands, his mouth, his tongue, caressing her now. And maybe, just maybe, the ever tightening knot of need that had plagued her since Friday night would begin to be assuaged.
But she’d said no, and she’d run, because she knew deep down inside that if he’d touched her once more she’d have conceded to his power over her, and done so willingly.
Her inner muscles clenched tight against the tingle of desire deep inside. Even now she wanted him, even when he so clearly despised her and had believed whatever web of lies Evan had spun. Without pausing for another thought Helena barrelled down the stairs and through the house to the indoor pool. She hadn’t bothered to keep it heated since Patrick’s death and the sluicing coolness would be just what her body needed right now. About twenty laps should do it, she thought haphazardly, or maybe a hundred. Whatever it took, she wasn’t getting out of that pool until she felt as weak as jelly and as incapable of submitting to Mason Knight as possible.
Rain-laden skies threatened overhead, turning the late afternoon into premature night. She hoped the weather would hold off. They had the last appointment at the clinic and would miss it if the weather, and subsequently the Auckland city traffic, turned foul. Helena stood nervously in the brightly-lit portico at her front door waiting for the roar of Mason’s Porsche to come up her drive. She hadn’t spoken to him since a week ago on Monday when he’d driven her home. A computer forensics company had turned up at her door, just as she’d finished her gruelling marathon in the pool, to take the computer from the library and since then she’d had no contact with work at all.
The first day home had stretched out interminably and finally boredom had driven her to start going through Patrick’s personal items—packing up his clothes and things that neither Brody nor Evan would want into boxes for local charities, and setting aside other items Patrick had listed in his will as bequests for Evan and some of his old friends. It had been a job she’d been putting off—the finality of it almost too much to bear. The boxes now stood, stacked like sentinels, just inside her front entrance. A physical reminder of Patrick’s absence from her life.
She didn’t want to think about that right now. Today would be trial enough without dealing anew with her grief. When she’d booked the appointment at the laboratory, in defiance and knowing Mason could be contacted at Davies Freight, she had deliberately left a message with his secretary at Black Knight Transport about where they had to be and when.
Caller ID had saved her from having to speak with him when he’d called back to confirm he’d be picking her up to take her for their tests. The tone of his voice on the answering machine left her in no doubt that he suspected she was standing there, listening, and refusing to pick up the phone to speak with him personally. She’d almost hoped she could get away with taking a taxi and meeting him there, but acceded that it would only be prolonging the inevitable. She had to face him some time, somewhere.
In the distance she heard the downshift of gears as a car approached from the road and a sweep of headlights lit the foliage that lined the long driveway—it may as well be now.
As he swung the gleaming low-slung vehicle around her turning bay, she stepped out toward the car. Nerves bundled into ever-tightening knots as she reached out to open the door and settled herself inside. With nothing but a curt nod from Mason, they were on their way. Fortunately, the threatening rain held off, but despite the fact that the laboratory was a mere twenty minutes from her home, every kilometre passed in painful thickening silence. Finally, she could stand it no longer.
“So? Have you found out everything you need to prove I’m a liar yet?” she challenged.
“Not yet.”
“That’s because there’s nothing there.”
“We’ll see.” Mason pulled the car up in the parking lot outside the laboratory. “What have you arranged for Brody?”
“I told Brody our family doctor was concerned with how lethargic he’s been lately.” That in itself was no lie, although their doctor had also hastened to add that at Brody’s stage of adolescent development it wasn’t unusual, especially combined with his grief over losing the only father he’d ever known. The doctor had advised Helena to ask the school nurse to keep an eye on him and they could take further action later if necessary.
“And?” Mason prompted.
“And I told him that the doctor wanted to be sure he hadn’t contracted glandular fever and had requested blood work be done. I don’t appreciate having to lie to my son.”
“Why start worrying about that now? You’ve lied to him his entire life.” The acrid bitterness in Mason’s voice flayed her like a whip and she physically recoiled from him.
“I didn’t know Patrick wasn’t his father until his lawyer gave me his medical records. Why won’t you believe me?”
“Because I really have no cause to believe you, Helena.”
“Well, you’ll have to believe me when we get the results of these tests.”
“All they will prove is that either you’re lying now or that you’ve cheated me out of my son’s life for the past eleven years. Frankly, I don’t find anything admirable in either of them. Do you?”
“I didn’t know!”
Mason ignored her as he alighted from the car and came around to open her door. “Come on. At least this will get us one step closer to the truth.”
Helena walked by his side, his hand at her elbow as they entered the building. Fleetingly she wondered how many couples the staff here saw arriving like this—couples filled with anxiety at the outcome of the test. In her heart, she knew the result couldn’t be anything but proof that Mason was Brody’s father. She hadn’t been with anyone in almost a year prior to her marriage to Patrick—no one except Mason.
The memory of that night, of the raw passion that had driven her, drove a spike of pure longing from her core and through her entire body. It had been an instinctive reaction to the trauma she’d been through, she understood that now. She’d read every book on the topic in a vain attempt to identify what had driven her uncharacteristic behaviour that night. The fact that it could be pigeonholed by psychobabble was little comfort in the face of Mason’s behaviour, however.
He barely spoke to her as they went through the process of confirming their identification and completing the forms and consents. The test itself was almost disappointingly simple. Helena felt that for something so momentous it should have been more complex, more time-consuming. More important, somehow. Once the samples were taken they were free to go. Free to wait for what would arguably be the three longest days of her life.
Now, as they walked out to the car in a silence that was anything but companionable, she felt the tension begin anew. As she buckled her car seat belt, she sighed.
“Too late for second thoughts,” Mason stated, turning to face her with a flare of challenge in his eyes.
“I’m not having second thoughts.”
The expression on Mason’s face told her clearly he thought she was lying, and since that was basically what he thought about everything that came out of her mouth, she had retrained herself not to care—much.
“I’m not scared of the truth,” she insisted. At least not in the way you think, she added silently. When she’d initially approached Mason it had been with the sole intention of securing Brody’s inheritance and seeing that Patrick’s wishes were carried out. But, in the face of his animosity toward her, she’d been rattled by an even more disturbing consideration.
What if Mason wanted to take fatherhood a step further? What if he wanted to take Brody away from her?
While a part of her mind argued that surely no famil
y court in New Zealand would allow such a thing, she knew it wouldn’t take too much digging to expose the piece of her past that would sit like a big black mark against her. Digging, ha! If Evan knew, the whole world could know in only a matter of moments. She swallowed against the obstruction lodged between her throat and her chest like a malignant knot of fear. She couldn’t afford to even think about that happening.
Patrick had had his reasons, whatever they were, for not telling Mason about his son any earlier. He would never have shared that information if he’d dreamed it could see her lose the human being most dear to her. Since their marriage her relationship with her parents had become strained, and her contact with them had become less frequent. It was something that brought her plenty of sleepless nights, dogged with guilt, but they’d seemed happy enough in their own world. A world Patrick had paid for, not that they knew that. The older her parents had become, the more insular they’d grown and their relief that she was financially off their hands had been huge.
Besides, she knew Patrick couldn’t have lied to her about his infertility. He had neither cause nor advantage to have done so. In his letter to her he’d told her how he’d figured it out after seeing the logs of the radio conversation Mason had had with the controllers at the depot that night. How he’d saved a young woman’s life and returned to her safety. Given that Patrick knew she’d lost her car on the journey north, it hadn’t taken him long to figure out what might have happened when she’d told him she was pregnant. In Helena’s opinion, it said a lot for Patrick’s strength as a man that he’d accepted Brody as his own.
Mason was Brody’s father no matter how much he distrusted her. That distrust, however, still kept her from her duties at Davies Freight. Every day she’d worried and wondered how things were going, whether Mason was any closer to discovering the soak hole that was draining the company’s financial stability.
“How are things at work?” Helena switched subjects.
The Tycoon's Hidden Heir Page 8
