‘I’ll do my best, Bridget,’ he said. ‘But Adam is a little hard to pin down at the moment, so if it’s urgent…?’ He raised an eyebrow at her.
‘No. Hard to pin down?’ Bridget just couldn’t help herself.
‘I think he might be taking some time off,’ Mark said. ‘It will be common knowledge in the next day or two—he has ceded all his holdings in Beaumont Minerals to his brother, Henry, and since then he hasn’t been around a lot.’
Bridget blinked, then stared at the solicitor, wide-eyed. ‘Surely that’s quite contrary to his uncle’s wishes?’
Mark Levy shrugged. ‘This is only my personal opinion, Bridget, but I think it’s foolish to want to rule from the grave.’
‘So do I, now I come to think of it,’ Bridget murmured. ‘But I don’t understand,’ she said helplessly. ‘Has something happened in the family?’
Mark took his time. It was a known fact in the legal world that Adam had relinquished all his interests in Beaumont Minerals. What he did not know was why.
He stirred at last. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there. You haven’t been in touch with Adam himself?’
Bridget cleared her throat. ‘No. I was hoping…’ She paused. Did it need to be a secret? ‘I was hoping not to have to. Do you—would you know if Marie-Claire has gone back to Henry?’
Mark felt a pang of regret for this girl as he thought, So that’s what’s at the bottom of it all—for her, at least. But he could only tell her the truth. ‘I believe not.’
Bridget didn’t go home. She went to the beach.
She sat on a sand dune, her favourite spot, in the sun, and simply let the waves, the sunlight, the birds, and the clear blue sky soak into her psyche for a long time.
And gradually she realised why she was sitting so still, breathing it all in. It was in the hope that, just as the sea on the beach was scouring the sand clean, her dreadful confusion would be wiped away.
She put her hand on her stomach and let it lie there as she thought deeply about the baby she was carrying. Was it a boy or a girl? Would it have the Beaumont blue eyes, or green, like her own? Whatever, she reflected, the baby was her absolute priority now. And, whatever, nothing could change who this baby’s father was. And, since they couldn’t live together in harmony, some kind of arrangement had to be made. Not in anger, though.
But what had happened to make Adam relinquish his desire to take control of Beaumont Minerals? Yes, he hadn’t wanted to get there on his uncle’s coattails, so to speak, or on anyone’s. But a legitimate bequest, his uncle’s dying wish, had to be another matter, surely?
And as she thought about it, she realised she’d believed that he would see it that way eventually. She’d believed that over and above herself and the baby, even over and above Marie-Claire, that was what meant most to Adam Beaumont: control of Beaumont Minerals. It was the only thing that would redress not only Marie-Claire’s defection and Henry’s perfidy, but his father’s treatment of him.
So what to make of this news?
She picked up a handful of sand and let it drift through her fingers. It could have no bearing on her, though. And she thought of the note she’d written and put into the package with his engagement ring.
I’m happy to make some arrangement, not marriage, but an arrangement, whereby we live our separate lives but your child has your protection and love.
She’d penned a final line:
This is not negotiable.
Tears blurred her eyes and a song came into her heart. The Dolly Parton song Whitney Houston had made even more famous—‘I Will Always Love You’…
Her tears had dried, and she was staring out to sea following a yacht sailing south when she decided it was time to go home.
She got up and brushed herself off, but she was still thinking of Adam Beaumont as she came to the road and stepped off the pavement—almost under the wheels of a car.
Someone saved her. Someone with a strong pair of arms pulled her away in the nick of time. And that someone was furiously angry.
Adam, who’d never looked taller, in jeans and a navy sweater, or more threatening.
‘How can you just step onto a road without checking the traffic?’ he ground out. ‘How can you be so foolish? Don’t you know I’ve scoured the length and breadth of the country looking for you? And the moment I find you, you’re about to wipe yourself out!’
His eyes blazed down at her and his mouth worked, then he pulled her into his arms and held her so tight she could barely breathe. Not only that, she could feel the heavy, slamming beat of his heart, and she couldn’t doubt there was fear as well as anger driving him.
‘Adam—Adam…’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t think you cared—’
‘Cared!’ He held her a little away from him and stared at her.
‘No.’
‘Well, you’re wrong,’ he said shortly, then visibly took hold of himself. ‘I’m sorry. You gave me a fright.’
Bridget swallowed. ‘Who…how did you find me? Or is it just coincidence?’
‘Yes and no.’ He released her, but took her hand. ‘Can we go back to the beach?’
She nodded after a moment.
He said no more until they’d reached the beach. ‘I called in to see Mark Levy, so I knew you were back in town, and I got your note. You weren’t home, so I—We used to come here together sometimes, remember?’
‘Y-yes,’ she stammered. ‘Adam—’ she couldn’t help herself ‘—why did you let Beaumonts go? I thought it meant more to you than anything.’
‘To prove to you I could live without anything, but not without you.’
Bridget stared at him with her lips parted and her eyes huge.
He rubbed his jaw. ‘I know you may find it hard to believe after our last encounter, but when I discovered that I might never find you, that I didn’t even know where to start looking, sanity kicked in—and I couldn’t believe I’d been such a bloody fool. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realised until then how much I loved you, and hadn’t made you believe it.’
She tried to speak, but no words came.
‘Where were you, incidentally?’
‘Perth.’ She explained about her mother.
He grimaced. ‘You may not realise it, but there are two private detective agencies trying to track you down.’ He sketched a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Because once that revelation hit me I knew I had to get you back.’
‘So…’ She had trouble making her voice work. ‘But to walk away from Beaumonts…?’
He took her hand. ‘Sit down.’
They sat down, side by side.
‘I have no regrets,’ he said, and paused, almost as if he was looking back down the path of his life. ‘Beaumonts has been a torment, a real thorn in my flesh, ever since I can remember,’ he said slowly, and stared out to sea. Then he turned back to her. ‘Not only that, but it led me into making the worst mistake of my life.’
‘Marie-Claire?’ she hazarded, and held her breath.
‘Yes. She epitomises all the blunders I’ve made in the name of believing I had some right to the company.’
He hesitated and seemed to gather his thoughts. ‘It wasn’t only that she left me for Henry, it was the fact that she really left me for Beaumonts that made me so bitter and so hellbent on revenge. You were right about the cynicism she left me with—’ He broke off and looked tortured. ‘And you were right again. You and our baby did seem like a good way to keep her at bay, keep on punishing her. It was only looking back after you’d gone, when I remembered all my days in the sun with you.’ He stopped. ‘Anyway, it was only then that I saw what I’d been too blind to see—too wrapped up in my own ambitions, too wrapped up in all my old scars, going way back to my father. Marie-Claire meant nothing to me any more, and neither did Beaumonts. I loved you.’
Bridget moved her hands and discovered she had tears rolling down her cheeks.
‘I didn’t mean to make you sad.’
‘I—I—I’m
still amazed, though,’ she confessed. ‘You believed, and your uncle Julius believed, Henry wasn’t doing a good job.’
Adam heaved a sigh. ‘Henry,’ he said, ‘has his own demons. He’s had me breathing down the back of his neck for years, watching every step he made. And he’s had Marie-Claire manipulating him—I know he’s been no saint in that direction but, well, things could change now. Anyway, it’s no concern of mine. I’ve been a basket case since you left,’ he went on. ‘I can’t seem to function without you. My staff are in despair because I’m never there, and I never know where I’m liable to be either.’
Bridget smiled a trembling little smile. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Chasing up leads on you, Mrs Smith. Hang on! I drove past your apartment last night but there wasn’t a single, solitary light—when did you get home?’
She told him, and explained about the lack of lights too.
‘Well, at least you got my demented messages on your mobile phone. Or—did you?’
Bridget shook her head. ‘I didn’t. I dropped my phone and smashed it before I could charge it.’
He swore under his breath, but there was a glint of humour in his eyes. He was silent for a long moment, then, ‘Do you believe me, Bridget?’ He stared deep into her eyes. ‘You once said to me that if I needed you I knew where to find you—I need you with every fibre of my being.’
Bridget thought of what he’d given away, how he’d changed his life for her. She thought of his reaction to her all but stepping in the path of a car. ‘Yes.’
‘And—am I forgiven?’
She breathed in the very essence of him and felt her senses come alive. ‘Oh, yes…’
He hesitated, as if he couldn’t quite believe her soft avowal, then he swept her into his arms.
Some minutes later they became aware of a little boy of about six, standing nearby and watching them closely.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
Bridget released herself from Adam’s arms and patted herself down self-consciously.
‘I was kissing this lady,’ Adam said gravely.
‘Is she your mother?’
Bridget made a strangled sort of noise.
‘No, but she’s going to be my wife.’
‘Oh. I only kiss my mother,’ the boy asserted. ‘My dad and I shake hands. Well, sometimes I kiss my grandmother, but she hugs me almost to death so I don’t really like it.’
‘I don’t blame you. Uh—are you on your own, young man?’ Adam enquired.
The boy swung round and pointed to a couple at the water’s edge. ‘I s’pose I better go back. They don’t like me to wander away. Bye!’ He ran off.
‘Do I look like your mother?’ Bridget enquired.
He smiled down into her eyes. ‘No, you don’t, Mrs Smith. And I also have to tell you that this beach is far too public for us.’
‘And I have to tell you—’ her lips curved ‘—I agree with you.’
‘Your place or mine?’ he asked quizzically.
‘Mine is closer,’ she said demurely.
‘So be it. Race you?’ he teased.
‘No, you can drive me.’
But they were serious again as they lay in each other’s arms in her bed.
‘I can’t quite believe I deserve this.’ He ran his hand down her body, then rested it on her belly.
She looked into his eyes and saw they were sombre. ‘I think I’ve always loved you,’ she said quietly. ‘One of the reasons I was so unsure about marrying you was because I didn’t just want respect, care and affection from you. I wanted you to love me the way I love you.’
He closed his eyes. ‘I can’t believe I was such a fool.’
‘Hush,’ she recommended. ‘We’ve got a whole new life in front of us. And I’m dying that special kind of death again. Are you?’
He groaned, and everything he did to her from then on showed unequivocally that he was…
They were married two weeks later.
It was small, simple and private, but the bride glowed in a strapless cream silk dress, and wore an emerald pendant to match her engagement ring.
The bride’s mother, who had forgiven Adam Beaumont, was also radiant.
And in the fullness of time Adam and Bridget were blessed with a daughter they named Grace Mary. She had her mother’s coppery hair and her father’s blue eyes. This called for another celebration—a christening.
When the guests had departed, and Mount Grace was quiet and settled for the night, Bridget said to Adam, ‘Your daughter requires your presence.’
He looked up. He was sitting on the chintzy settee in the lounge with his feet up, surrounded by the weekend papers. ‘Since my daughter is only three months old and cannot talk, how did she indicate this to you?’
‘I can tell.’ Bridget had changed from her christening finery into slim cream pants and a green blouse, which she happened to be buttoning up.
‘Here.’ He got up. ‘Let me—you’ve got them crooked.’
She accepted his ministrations, and her lips curved as he patted her down and murmured, ‘All present and correct. For the moment.’
She looked into his blue eyes and deduced, correctly, that he would be undressing her in the not too distant future. And she was shaken inwardly by how much she loved Adam Beaumont; how, after all the trauma, the joy of being married to him never left her.
She was still, at times, amazed at the change in him—wrought by freeing himself from the yoke of his bitterness, and helped by their closeness. There were no longer two men in her life, just the one Adam Beaumont—the one she’d loved right from the start.
She slipped her arms around his neck. ‘Do you ever think of that night in the Numinbah?’
‘Yes. Do you?’
‘I do,’ she concurred gravely. ‘I used to think that it was the most foolish act of my life, to sleep with a man I’d never met before because I thought I was going to die. But I don’t think it’s turned out to be such a bad thing after all.’
‘Ah. One could even say you showed not only great judgement but great taste,’ he offered, with a perfectly straight face.
Bridget looked at him in mock disapproval, then had to laugh. ‘Don’t get too swollen a head,’ she warned, all the same.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Since you have not one but two adoring females in your life, it’s quite possible. Now, Grace won’t go to sleep until she sees you. Trust me. I know this.’
He laughed and kissed her lightly. ‘I don‘t believe you for a moment, but I’ll come—in a moment.’
She raised her eyebrows at him.
‘It’s simple,’ he said. ‘All I want to say is—I love you. The only problem is I keep on wanting to say it, over and over.’ His blue eyes were quite serious.
Bridget melted against him. ‘It’s not a problem,’ she assured him.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
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First published in Great Britain 2010
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
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© Lindsay Armstrong 2010
ISBN: 978-1-408-91885-2
One-Night Pregnancy Page 14
