by Maisey Yates
If she really was pregnant with Rafe’s baby, spending her father’s money to confirm it was amusing in some ways. Even if nothing else about the situation was.
She could tell herself whatever she wanted about being under stress, about life changes affecting her cycle. But the fact of the matter was she had gone on the lam for five years, constantly afraid that somebody might find her, and had never once missed a period. Most likely, it had more to do with the fact that she had had sex for the first time in her life, and it had been unprotected. Something she had blocked out of her mind the moment she had walked away from Rafe’s penthouse.
She checked in at the front desk and then walked into the plush waiting room. And her heart nearly exploded.
Because there he was. In the clinic. It wasn’t possible. It didn’t seem like it could be. She had spent five years running from one of the criminal world’s most notorious bosses, and no one had found her.
But Rafe was here. He was here, and he had to know.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He turned toward the sound of her voice. “I would ask you the same question, but I have a strong suspicion that I already know.”
“I’m here for a Pap smear,” she said, staring him down.
“I doubt that.”
“Ms. Adair.” She turned to see a nurse standing in the doorway. “Dr. Schultz is ready to see you now.”
“I will be accompanying her,” Rafe said, standing up from his chair. He grabbed hold of his cane, black with a silver tip, and began to walk toward where the nurse was.
“You will certainly not accompany me,” Charlotte said, keeping her voice low.
He moved toward her then, much more quickly than she expected him to. “Do not make a scene, cara mia,” he said. “You will not like the way it ends.”
She was too numb to protest further. She should have. She should have screamed and tipped over the ficus by the door. Then, maybe someone would have stopped him. But who would have? Who was going to physically accost Rafe Costa, known billionaire and powerful businessman? And even if they didn’t know who he was, he was well over six feet tall and made almost entirely of muscle.
Charlotte imagined that she wouldn’t find an ally here.
Her temples were pounding as they walked down the hallway that Charlotte assumed would lead to the exam room. She felt like the walls were closing in on her. Like the sky might be crushing down on her.
And she had to ask herself why she had been so desperate to keep this from Rafe in the first place. It was his baby. There was no one else. There never had been.
That initial response, the one that had demanded that she keep all of this to herself, had been based in panic. He was here now. Didn’t he deserve to know?
Her own father had played the part of villain in her life; that much was true. But Rafe wasn’t a villain. She knew that.
Maybe there would be no baby. That would be a good thing. She was only just beginning to figure out what she wanted after a lifetime of being hidden away.
She was only just beginning to figure out who Charlotte Adair was. On her own. Without a group of men searching for her. She had no idea what she would do if she was supposed to try to figure that out while trying to figure out how to be a mother.
She had never even held a baby. There had never been any children at her father’s compound except for her.
Yes, she had watched women push strollers around when she’d worked at the shops. She had watched them kiss away fat, angry tears from chubby cheeks. And of course, she had wondered what it must be like. To have someone to love. Someone who would love you so very much in return.
The thought made her chest ache. But her head hurt too. From the impossibility of all of this.
And then there was Rafe. Who loomed large behind her.
She was handed a small plastic cup and directed toward a bathroom. Her cheeks flamed as she went inside. And then she tried not to think about the fact that Rafe knew exactly what the cup was for as she completed the task.
She exited the restroom and went into the exam room. And the nurse left Rafe and Charlotte alone.
“When exactly were you going to tell me?” he asked as soon as the door had closed behind the retreating nurse.
“I was definitely going to wait until I had something confirmed by a professional. When you think about it, it’s a little bit ridiculous that we’re supposed to buy something from a grocery store that tells us something so essential, and just trust that it’s correct.”
“I see. And how many of those did you take?”
She waved a hand. “I don’t know. Maybe ten?”
“I see.” His jaw was hard, his face set into a grim expression. “And what did those ten tests tell you, Charlotte?”
“That I’m pregnant,” she answered, feeling subdued.
There was a knock on the door, and Dr. Schultz swept into the room. After some risk preparation, Charlotte found herself staring at an ultrasound screen as the Doppler swept over her stomach.
“There isn’t much to see at this stage,” Dr. Schultz said, her eyes on the screen. “But we do want to confirm viability.”
“What do you see?” Rafe asked, from his position in the corner.
“Nothing yet,” the doctor said.
“Just black lines,” Charlotte said softly.
Then the image on the screen changed. And she could see it. Just ever so faintly. A little bit of motion.
Charlotte couldn’t help it. She giggled. The strangest response she could have imagined having to such a thing.
“What?” Rafe asked.
“Something moved,” Charlotte said, looking up at the doctor.
“Yes,” Dr. Schultz responded, changing something on the ultrasound machine, turning up the sound so that a watery noise filled the room. And beneath the kind of indistinct blur was a rhythmic whispering. “That’s a heartbeat.”
Charlotte looked over at Rafe, who had gone pale. And then a second, very similar sound filled the room.
Charlotte’s head whipped back toward the screen. She looked up at the doctor. “Is that...?”
“That is a second heartbeat,” the doctor responded. “Congratulations. Twins.”
* * *
The words were ringing in Rafe’s ears after the doctor left, and Charlotte was dressing. He could hear her rustling in the corner. She was otherwise silent.
The black hell that he lived in seemed to close in around him. His sense of the slight distinction between light and dark felt erased in that moment.
Twins. Charlotte was having twins.
And he—a man who had never had a father, a man who had no sense of how to be a father—was supposed to know what to do.
He couldn’t see. He would never see his children. How would he care for them?
With nannies. Of course. That’s the purpose of money.
He heard a sharp movement from Charlotte’s direction. And that was when he realized he had spoken those dour words out loud.
“I doubt I’ll need nannies,” she said, her voice stiff.
“Did you not care for yours?” He had rather liked his. What he could remember of her.
He had spent only five years in that life. The life where there had been shining marble halls and nannies and all the food he could want. But he’d been happy then. As far as he recalled.
She huffed out a laugh. “On the contrary, they were an improvement to my father and stepmother. I imagine that perhaps my mother was fine enough. But I know nothing about her since she died in childbirth, and my father never spoke of her. I always got the impression that Josefina was his mistress before my mother’s passing. All she did was change rooms. And gain an official title.”
“So, then nannies are not so bad.”
“But I won’t need them. I will need to work at some point because the money that my father left me—whether he left it intentionally or not—won’t last forever, but it will be sufficient for a time.”
“You seem resolved.”
“I am,” she responded, taking a couple of steps toward him, wearing hard-soled shoes that made a distinct sound as she moved.
He cursed his lack of sight yet again. Because he would like very much to be able to see how she was reacting, truthfully. Not just with her brave, carefully chosen words. He wanted to see her face. If she was pale. If she looked as frightened as he suspected she probably was.
His whole life was structured to serve him, and he rarely thought much about his lost vision. But Charlotte—this piece of his past that she represented—brought out memories. Memories of what it had been like to hold her in his arms, to look at her pale body, to brush his fingers through her golden hair.
Visions of how she had looked standing in an open field with the overwhelming light of the sun pouring over her beauty, illuminating her.
And that brought out the contrast of what it was like to be with her now and to be robbed of that vision. To have this future—children—looming before him and yet to see nothing more than darkness.
“I am resolved, as well.” He stood, walking across the space between them and holding out his hand. He could sense her hesitation. “Please take my hand,” he said. “I am in unfamiliar surroundings, and it would be helpful.”
While that was not strictly untrue, it wasn’t really true either.
She took his hand, and he allowed her to lead him toward the door, which he could have found on his own.
“Did you take a cab to get here?”
“Yes,” she responded. “I don’t feel all that well and I didn’t want the hassle of the Tube.”
“I never do. But then, I rarely bother with traffic. Where do you need to go?”
“Home,” she said simply.
She was not going home. He was resolved about that. And he was done at the office for the day. But he wasn’t going to tell her that.
“I have a helicopter. Do you suppose it’s possible to land on your building?”
He could tell by the resounding silence beside him that he had succeeded in shocking her. He was gratified by that. “You know, I didn’t ask about helicopter parking when I moved in.”
“An oversight.”
“You don’t need to give me a...flight back.”
“Allow me to. My pilot will know exactly where he can land that’s in proximity to your building.” It didn’t actually matter.
“Rafe...”
“I am told the view of London is quite spectacular. Of course, I am not able to see it. It would be nice if one of us could enjoy it.”
Had he a conscience remaining inside him that was something other than a theoretical understanding of right and wrong, he might have felt guilty about that. But he didn’t. So he didn’t.
She sighed heavily. “All right. I’ll let you give me a ride back. I’ve never been in a helicopter before. I’ve never flown before.”
“Are you nervous?”
“No.” She sounded somewhat astonished by that. “I’m not.”
They went up to the top of the building, where the helicopter was waiting for them, and he allowed her to brace herself on his hand as she got into the vehicle. He followed suit, putting on his headset and holding hers back as the rotor started turning, creating a deafening sound around them.
He knew that she wouldn’t be able to hear the instructions he was giving to his pilot.
“To the castle,” he said.
Then he handed Charlotte her own headset. She would figure it all out soon enough. When the flight took them over the ocean, and took more than an hour. But unless she was going to fling herself from the helicopter—and he doubted it—by then it would be too late.
It took a while. He wasn’t quite certain what the view below looked like, but he had made the educated assumption that they were leaving London behind when Charlotte spoke.
“My flat is the other direction,” she said.
“I like your English,” he said. “An interesting mixture. American in some ways. Vaguely British in others. If I recall correctly, your Italian is quite good too.”
“Wonderful. But that has nothing to do with what I just said.”
“Because I’m not concerned about what you just said.”
“You’re not concerned about the fact that your pilot might be lost?”
“My pilot is not lost. He’s going exactly where I told him to go.”
“Where...where did you tell him to go?”
“Why, we’re going to my castle in Germany, cara mia.”
“I just escaped Germany,” she said sharply. “Why would I want to go back?”
“You seemed to have fond memories of it. It is incredible to me that we spent some time in the same country and never knew it.” He settled back in his seat, feeling more and more relaxed as the journey wore on. Because he had already won. “I heard about a castle for sale and simply couldn’t resist it. After all, my two closest friends are royalty, and I didn’t want to be left out.”
“What difference does it make? You can’t even see it.”
She spat the words, and they hit him like a slap. He quite liked it. Enjoyed the fact that she was strong even though she had been raised by a madman who would as soon have used her as a pawn to shore up his empire as given her a hug.
“Yes, but it pleases me to know what surrounds me. Anyway, you must know a castle possesses a certain atmosphere. It cannot be replicated by a modern building. In fact, I would suggest to you that such atmosphere is more important to someone such as myself than it would be to someone like you. I can feel the history when I walk through the doors. I can smell the age of the rooms. The books. Everything in modern construction is so smooth. It lacks texture. In the castle... It is everywhere. I can feel how the walls look.”
“Why are you taking me there?”
“Because,” he said. “I find I have lost quite enough in my life to risk losing my children, as well. You weren’t going to tell me. I think we both know that. Why, I cannot fathom. I thought we had come to some sort of agreement, some sort of understanding. I didn’t abandon you, any more than you abandoned me. And yet, you’re still treating me like a man you have reason to distrust.”
“He says as he kidnaps me in a helicopter.”
Rafe chuckled and leaned back in his seat. “But I hadn’t kidnapped you before.”
“You worked for my father. You know what that says about you.”
“You didn’t mind when you were eighteen and letting me put my hands between your legs. And you certainly didn’t mind a few weeks ago when you begged for my—”
“Stop it,” she hissed.
“You and I will have plenty of time to talk over the next few months. So for now, I will stop. Because later...later you and I will reckon with each other. That is a promise.”
CHAPTER SIX
CHARLOTTE WAS STILL numb sitting in an ornate bedroom in what looked like a fairy-tale castle hours later. The helicopter had landed in a clearing in a beautiful, orange-tinged forest, and left them there.
Then, as if summoned by the sheer force of Rafe’s magnetism, a car had pulled up to the edge of the trees and driven them up the side of a mountain, up a winding dirt road that seemed chiseled into the side of it.
The castle was glorious, wreathed in gold, with dramatic turrets rising up and spiraling toward the sky. It seemed to be built straight from a rock face, or placed directly on top of the mountain.
At least there was a road. Otherwise, she would imagine it was impossible to escape this place. Like it, and its inhabitants, had been trapped here by some kind of enchantment.
Of course, there seemed to be no town for miles. At least none she had seen when they had flown in, or when they had driven to the castle.
It was...it was profound isolation. And she had none of her own things with her. Only her purse, which at least contained her ID and her credit cards.
But, seeing as she felt as though she had been transported back in time, it didn’
t feel like any of those things would be useful to her.
She stood up, moving to an ornate vanity made from beautiful inlaid stones—jade, jasper and obsidian—and lined with gold. She looked at herself, stunned by the ridiculous contrast created by her reflection.
Her hair was escaping its confines, her face drawn and pale. Her black turtleneck sweater and blue jeans looked outrageously casual in her exceedingly formal surroundings.
Actually, she looked a little bit too casual for a kidnap victim, truth be told. She frowned. This was not the first time in her life she had been kidnapped. Charlotte had accepted a long time ago that her life wasn’t normal. But this...well, this was just pushing the boundaries.
There was a knock on her door, and she made her way across the room, pulling it open just a crack and looking to see who was there. “Yes?” There was a woman there, one she had never seen before.
“Mr. Costa has requested that you come down to the study.”
“I would like to request that Mr. Costa jump in a lake. Though, I imagine he wouldn’t take terribly kindly to that.”
The woman only looked at her blankly. Charlotte sighed heavily.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
The woman shrugged. “I have a feeling that were you to refuse him, Mr. Costa would come up here and carry you down himself.”
“That does sound like him.” At least it sounded like the man he had become. A little bit too close to her father for Charlotte’s liking. A man who was not opposed to keeping her locked away if he thought it would serve him. That made her chest feel like it was caving in on itself. It was even more painful than seeing him without his vision.
That change, the change that had clearly occurred in his soul, was much more disturbing than any physical change. A much greater loss, in her opinion.
Instead of arguing, she simply complied, leaving her bedroom and following the woman down the labyrinthine hallways. She reached up, brushing her fingertips against the wall, against the golden fleurs-de-lis that were stamped into the plaster.
