The Secret Baby Revenge

by Emma Darcy

  He made it easy to pretend there was caring in his kisses, tenderness in the sensuality of his caresses. Maybe if she pretended enough, she could bring herself to believe he loved her.

  And it wasn’t just great sex.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THIS was his woman, Quin thought, holding Nicole close and revelling in the pleasure of their naked intimacy. It seemed absurd to him that she wouldn’t simply accept that he was her man. The sex wouldn’t be so good—so great—if they weren’t in tune, instinctively meeting each other’s needs, responding to whatever was wanted. Why was she resisting the idea of marrying him?

  Surely she understood that nothing now stood in his way of giving a firm commitment to a future together. It would be best for Zoe to have her parents married and all three of them living under the same roof. Travelling back and forth for visits was an inefficient use of time.

  Quin told himself to curb his impatience. Nicole was a very intelligent person. And reasonable. She was allowing his mother to meet Zoe. That was a big step, given that she had been shut out of his mother’s life in the past. It was probably enough at this point to have planted the seed of a wedding, start her thinking about it, not push too hard. The sense of so much time lost was eating at him, but maybe his best play now was a waiting game, gradually wearing down Nicole’s resistance to his plan.

  She heaved a sigh, the warm spread of her breath across his chest making his skin tingle. His hand automatically began gliding down her spine, seeking more sensory pleasure. He loved every feminine curve of her body, loved the voluptuous softness of her bottom.

  “You should go back to your mother, Quin. It must be hours since we left her. The hotel can call a taxi to take me home.”

  Unwelcome words.

  He wanted to immerse himself in feeling.

  “It’s our night together,” he said.

  She hitched herself up to address him face to face. “You brought your mother into it. People are usually out of kilter with their sleep patterns after a long flight. If she’s restless…”

  “She can look after herself, Nicole.”

  Her expression of concern hardened to glittering mockery. “What? She’s served your purpose so you don’t have to give her any more attention? Still working on that basis, Quin?”

  He frowned at the harsh criticism. “My mother understands how important you are to me. She understands I’ll be spending as much time with you as I can.”

  “Of course.” Her tone was bitterly ironic. “Your needs come first. They always have.”

  Before he could counteract the allegation she rolled away from him, off the bed and onto her feet, defiantly declaring, “I’m getting dressed and going home.”

  “We have a deal,” he reminded her, more in frustration than with the intent of keeping her to it.

  She had already bent to pick up her clothes from the floor. Very slowly she straightened up, standing with her chin lifted high, meeting his gaze with a look of fierce scorn. “How remiss of me! What with your visit to my daughter tomorrow, and your mother’s visit to come on Sunday, I quite forgot I was your paid whore. Perhaps we should revise the arrangements for these family visits.”

  “No!”

  Her arms folded belligerently. “You expect to get everything your own way, Quin?”

  He’d struck the wrong note with her and the danger of losing the ground he’d made forced him into a fast re-appraisal of the situation. He propped himself on his side and grimaced apologetically, gesturing an appeal for a stay of judgement as he conceded, “Okay, I guess I’m being selfish, not wanting to let you go. The truth is…I never will have enough of you Nicole, so I’m greedy for whatever you’ll give me.”

  “You’re getting more of my time than we bargained for,” she stated tersely, not softening one bit.

  “I know. And I’m grateful for your generosity.”

  She looked away from him, thinking her own private thoughts. The tension emanating from her put Quin on edge. Should he get up and hold her, cut the distance she was putting between them? Or give her room to move whatever way she wanted?

  He waited.

  She shook her head, chiding herself as she muttered, “I agreed to stay the night. Twenty-six nights.” Her gaze met his derisively. “This is the thirteenth. You still have another thirteen, Quin. I shouldn’t have let myself get distracted by other considerations.”

  The number, thirteen, had never sounded so ominous to him. He had to change what she was trying to put back into place right now. It was suddenly very clear that not even great sex would get him what he wanted with Nicole. He quickly rose from the bed and gently grasped her upper arms to hold her still and concentrate her attention on what he had to say. Her eyes locked onto his, challenging the kind of man he was. He spoke quietly, injecting each word with intensely serious purpose.

  “I don’t want you as my whore, Nicole. I want you as my wife.”

  Instant recoil in her expression. No pause to consider. “I guess that would be very convenient for you, Quin, but I don’t feel like serving your convenience for the rest of my life,” she stated flatly, then nailed her point of view by adding, “I’d like you to see things my way, too.”

  Red Alert signals went off in Quin’s brain.

  He instantly moved into damage control.

  “You’re right. We’ll get dressed and go. Which I hope will prove I do care about how you feel.” He tried an appealing smile. “Give me time, Nicole. I’ve been so fixated on forcing my way back into your life, fighting for every minute I get with you, I haven’t had the chance yet to show we could have a good future together.”

  She searched his eyes as though she wanted to believe him but couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. “You were free to come looking for me after you finished your business in Argentina three years ago. It took an accidental meeting for you to decide you wanted me again.”

  “I thought I’d lost you. Seeing you again made me determined to change that.”

  “I don’t want how it was before,” she cried.

  “It won’t be. I swear to you it won’t be.”

  She looked uncertain, fearful.

  “Give me time, Nicole,” he pressed.

  Her eyes closed, as though she couldn’t bear to look at him any more. “Well, tomorrow is another day,” she said on a deep sigh. “Let’s get going.”

  Knowing he would win nothing by holding onto her any longer, Quin released her arms and they set about dressing in the clothes they had discarded earlier. A sharp sense of disappointment made him wonder if he was fighting a battle that couldn’t be won. Her response had not been hopeful. Not even particularly interested.

  The silence in the room felt oppressive. It triggered the memory of other silences just before she left him five years ago. They meant an inner withdrawal from him, a retreat to a personal space he couldn’t touch, let alone share. He wanted to break into it, reach out to her, drag her back to him, but he realised force was not going to get him where he wanted to be.

  For thirteen nights he’d ruled on what he and Nicole did or did not do together. She had been compliant, keeping to the deal, but here they were at the halfway mark, and Quin doubted any progress had been made towards his end goal—keeping her as his life partner.

  He called down to reception and ordered his car to be brought up from the parking lot. As he was putting the telephone down, Nicole broke her silence. “Please ask for a taxi to be called, too.”

  She was brushing her hair, not looking at him.

  “I’ll drive you home,” Quin said decisively.

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” he argued. “I’ll see you safely home, Nicole.”

  “What if I don’t want you to?”

  “Then you’ll just have to suffer it because I’m not going to see you off in a taxi as though you were my whore,” Quin retorted in exasperation with her determination to stay independent.

  No re
ply to that.

  She put her hairbrush back in her handbag and headed for the door. As Quin escorted her out of the hotel room to an elevator, the sobering thought hit him that he was going to fail if he didn’t change what was wrong for her.

  Their relationship had always been handled his way.

  Somehow he had to turn that around.

  But not on the point of driving her home.

  “What time suits you for me to come tomorrow?” he asked as they rode the elevator down to the lobby.

  Her head was lowered, the long silky curtain of her hair almost hiding her face. She didn’t look up to answer him. “Zoe will be worn-out with excitement if you don’t come in the morning,” she said dryly. “Nine o’clock would probably be best. Ten at the latest.”

  “You can tell her I’ll be there at nine.”

  “Don’t forget the silver chain.”

  “I won’t.”

  She nodded, not so much as glancing at him.

  Quin could feel his jaw tightening, his hands clenching. He had to battle the instinct to fight. There was no physical conflict between him and Nicole. It was mental, emotional, and laying out his side of the past tonight was not enough to remove the hurt of being consigned to a secondary role in his life. She might very well be thinking that their daughter now had first place. He hadn’t brought up marriage before meeting Zoe.

  Bad timing.

  It had always been bad timing with Nicole.

  He needed to make a new plan to win her over.

  His car was waiting at the entrance to the hotel lobby. The doorman ushered them over to it and opened the passenger side for Nicole to get in. She stepped forward quickly, lowering herself onto the seat and fastening her safety belt, keeping her head averted from Quin.

  Tomorrow is another day, he told himself, reining in his frustration with the current situation as the doorman closed Nicole into the car and he rounded the bonnet to take the driver’s seat. He started the engine, but before accelerating away from the hotel he shot a glance at Nicole, wanting to catch her looking at him. She wasn’t. Her thick lashes were lowered but they couldn’t quite catch the tears that were trickling through them, making shiny wet tracks down her cheeks.

  Shock ripped through Quin.

  In all the time he’d known her he’d never seen her in tears, and the certain knowledge that he must have caused them appalled him.

  What had he said to give her grief?

  What had he done?

  His mind was in absolute tumult as he automatically manoeuvred the Audi back onto the route to Burwood. It was impossible to shake the image of Nicole sitting miserably alone, sad and defeated by forces that were beyond her control—forces that made her feel terribly vulnerable—no way out because he was Zoe’s father.

  There was no use arguing he didn’t want to hurt her. He had in the past. A promise that it would be different this time probably sounded like empty words to her. Why should she believe it, given her past experience with him when he’d concentrated solely on his needs?

  Words were useless.

  Taking her to bed with him was useless, too. That was the same as before.

  The thirteenth night…

  He had to change what was happening on their nights together, show Nicole it was different. He could arrange a dinner party, invite not just his friends but hers, too, like the couple he’d met at the Havana Club, Jade and Jules Zilic. Involving other people might get Nicole to relax more in his company, and drawing her into his social circle would prove he wanted her by his side for more than just sex—his woman—his wife!

  He heard a siren wailing and immediately checked his speedometer, aware that he hadn’t done so and they’d been on Parramatta Road for some time without much traffic to slow them down. It was all right. He wasn’t driving above the speed limit. He hadn’t drunk any alcohol, either. Maybe the siren came from an ambulance on its way to an emergency.

  If that were the case, he might have to pull over into another traffic lane. The rear-vision mirror didn’t show any vehicle with flashing lights yet the siren was definitely louder now, probably coming from a nearby street. He thought of Zoe, seriously ill with meningitis. Had she been rushed to hospital by ambulance in the middle of the night? He should have been at her side. At Nicole’s side, as well.

  It didn’t occur to him to stop at the next intersection. The lights were green. There were cars in front of him, cars behind him. He was thinking of the daughter he hadn’t known about, the years he’d lost, the years ahead of him and how he wanted to spend them.

  He didn’t see the car that hurtled straight past the red lights, speeding straight across the intersection towards him until it was too late to take evasive action. There was a split second when he knew it was going to crash into the Audi. Then the impact came and he lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  PAIN.

  Nicole struggled against sickening waves of it, a sense of urgency driving her to keep on fighting them, make it through. There was something she had to remember but her head was swimming in a whirlpool and it couldn’t reach the important thing that hovered on the edge. She felt wetness on her face. Panic clutched her heart. Was she drowning?

  Her eyes flew open and were hit by a swarm of dots.

  Not water.

  “Ah! You’re awake,” someone said.

  The dots gradually grouped themselves into an image—a woman, dipping a cloth into a bowl on a tray.

  “I’m just cleaning up your scalp wound which bled a lot,” the woman said, gently applying a damp cloth to Nicole’s head. “Going to need quite a few stitches. We’ll have to shave the hair around it, I’m afraid. But it will just be a strip. You’ve got so much hair, you’ll have no problem covering it over.”

  Scalp wound…

  She tried to speak, to ask what had happened, but all she could produce was a croak. Her throat was horribly dry.

  “Want a piece of ice to suck?” the woman asked. Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed a paper cup from the tray and popped a small piece of ice into Nicole’s mouth. “Better not drink a lot of water right now. You’ll be going up for X-rays soon.”

  She must be in a hospital. And apparently there was uncertainty about the extent of her injuries if she had to have X-rays. The pain in her head made her wonder if she had a skull fracture.

  Having worked some moisture off the piece of ice, Nicole managed to ask, “How…why…?”

  “You’ve been in a car accident, dear,” she was calmly informed.

  A car accident meant she’d been in a car. Travelling where? For what reason?

  She tried to concentrate her mind, clear the thick fog. Gradually memories seeped through—the argument in the hotel, Quin insisting on driving her home, the anguish of wanting to believe they could have a good future together, the conflict of how he had made her feel in the past still churning through her. She remembered sitting in the car, silently fighting the tears welling from the torment in her heart, but she could find no memory at all of the car crashing—where it happened, why it happened, what had happened to Quin.

  Alarm crashed around her head, making it feel like a bomb about to explode. Quin would be here with her if he could be. He’d feel responsible. No way would he leave her side until he was assured she was all right.

  Her hand automatically lifted and clutched the arm of the nurse who was lifting the wet cloth to her head again. She needed her attention. Her full attention. The action startled the woman into looking directly at her.

  “Quin…was he hurt, too?”

  “Who, dear?”

  “Quin Sola. He was with me. The driver of the car.”

  The nurse shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s not in this ward.”

  “What ward? Where am I?”

  “The emergency ward at St. Vincent’s Hospital. It’s in Darlinghurst near the inner city.”

  “What time is it?”

  The nurse checked her watch. “Almost two
-thirty in the morning.”

  They’d left the hotel at about midnight. Not so very long ago. Nicole’s chest felt so tight, she had difficulty finding enough breath to speak. “Quin would have stayed with me if he wasn’t hurt. They would have brought him here, too, wouldn’t they?” she demanded, her mind instinctively shying away from the dreadful possibility he might be dead.

  “I’m sorry. I know nothing about him.”

  “Can’t you find out for me?”

  “A doctor will see you shortly,” the nurse answered evasively. “You can ask him about your friend.” And having resolved the matter to her satisfaction, she calmly removed Nicole’s clasp on her arm, laid her hand back on the bed, patted it reassuringly, and went back to dabbing away at the scalp wound.

  Full-blown panic swirled through Nicole, making her headache much worse. Her whole body ached. Finally she burst out, “He’s not my friend. He’s the father of my daughter. And…and we’re getting married.”

  That made her almost next of kin. She had a right to know what had happened to him. What was happening. He couldn’t have been killed. Not Quin. He was the ultimate fighter. A winner, not a loser.

  She clutched the nurse’s arm again, her fingers digging in with the ferocity of feeling racing through her. “Stop that right now!”

  Frowning, the nurse started to chide, “You mustn’t…”

  “I need to know about Quin. Go and call the admissions desk. Ask about him.”

  “I’m not supposed to…”

  “I’ll fight you until you do,” Nicole threatened, totally uncaring of hospital protocol. “His name is Joaquin Sola. Have you got that?”

  “Yes.”

  Nicole released her arm. The nurse set down the cloth on the mobile tray and hurried away. The effort of fighting for action had exhausted Nicole. Her head spun sickeningly. She closed her eyes and grimly held back a wave of nausea. How long she lay there, waiting for news, determined to remain conscious, she didn’t know.

  She kept willing Quin to be alive. For all she had railed against his intrusion on the life she’d made without him, and the terrible turmoil he’d given her over how good a father he’d be to Zoe, she couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again, never being with him again. In her heart, she desperately wanted the chance for a different relationship to grow between them. He’d promised it would. A new beginning…