“Amira?” Gerald interrupted her thoughts. “I know this has come as a shock to you, but may I remind you of the alternative?”
A cynical laugh fought its way past the lump in her throat.
“What? Bankruptcy? Living on the streets?”
She couldn’t help it, but right now no other solution presented itself. It wasn’t just about the money, no matter what Brent thought of her in that regard, although without the money from her inheritance the foundation would be lost forever—closed due to mismanagement and insufficient funds. And it would be all her fault. All those lost dreams, not to mention the loss of employment for her staff.
How would she explain it to the children and their parents? How would she break the news to Casey? A sob rose in her throat, but she swallowed against it, instead closing her eyes for a moment and pushing down the urge to cry out in desperation. Why was it that as soon as one door opened in her life another slammed viciously shut just as quickly?
And how was she to break the news to Brent? Would he ever understand or forgive her now that she was forced to jilt him again? Tears burned harshly at the back of her eyes, and she closed them again, determined not to let go.
Gerald cleared his throat uncomfortably. For a man who’d just come back from a lengthy holiday, he already looked strained and gray with stress.
“I don’t wish to be indelicate, but do you recall the other part to this inheritance clause in Isobel’s will?”
“Other part?” Amira’s mind refused to budge from the death of her hopes for the future.
Gerald shuffled through the copy of the will on his desk and stabbed a stubby finger at the paper. “Yes, this one. This subclause relating to having borne live issue before your thirtieth birthday.” Gerald sounded as uncomfortable suggesting it as he obviously felt if the way he ducked his head and fidgeted with his papers was anything to go by.
A child? How on earth would she find someone to father a child when all she wanted was what was rightfully hers? And how did one go about that sort of thing anyway? Brent was out of the question. Once he knew she had to break off their engagement again there was no way on this earth he’d touch her, let alone give her a child, even if they hadn’t agreed to keep their relationship purely on a business footing.
Which left what? A sperm donor? A one-night stand and hope for a hit? Her mind instantly rejected both options as impossible. She could no more submit to a coldly clinical procedure using donor sperm to bring a baby into the world, for the sheer purpose of inheriting, than she could fly off the Auckland Sky Tower. Nor could she subject herself, or her theoretical child, to the dangers of a one-night stand.
No. If she was to have any man’s child, by choice, it would be Brent’s. Which left only one option.
One man.
Could she carry it off? Could she withhold the truth from him that she was going to jilt him again for long enough to get him to father a child with her?
Amira’s stomach churned at the thought of using him so cold-bloodedly. But would it be cold-blooded? They’d had a passionate relationship before. Could she hope to stoke that fire of attraction between them again to trick him into impregnating her?
She thought of little Casey—a child to whom life had already dealt too many blows with the loss of her family and her leukemia. She thought of the many other children being added to the register of the Fulfillment Foundation. Of the families desperate for some respite or hope—families who deserved so much more than the months and years of unhappiness they’d been dealt through circumstance.
A picture of Roland’s dissolute features swam into her mind, together with the latest gossip headlines from Australia, which speculated over the size of his gambling debt, his hard drinking and loose women. And she knew she had to do it. She had to seduce Brent to have his baby.
Eight
“Two to one odds. Not bad,” Adam commented over the rim of his brandy balloon as he watched Brent line up a shot on the billiard table. “But I like your odds better. I’m thinking I might place a bet. What do you reckon?”
Despite Adam’s attempt to distract him, Brent pocketed the brown and set up his next shot. The wide-screen LCD TV mounted on the wall opposite them droned on. Not satisfied with touting two to one odds that Amira wouldn’t show up on the day, the cohost on the late night show that was screening had offered ten to one odds that it would be Brent who’d fail to show.
“I reckon you should keep your money in your pocket,” Brent answered, hoping his cousin would drop the subject. He should be so lucky. “Or at least place a decent bet on this game.”
Adam just laughed. “C’mon, Brent. You know you have no intention of going through with this. Can’t a man have a little fun along the way? It’s not as if I’m likely to make any money off you tonight any other way, what with Draco AWOL and—”
“It’s not a joke, Adam,” Brent said quietly.
“Yeah, I know. She cut you up pretty bad last time. So, how’s it going anyway? You guys are spending a lot of time together. Mending any bridges?”
Brent chalked the tip of his cue. Mending bridges? No. Not a chance. But he was making some inroads at getting under her skin. He thought back to the brief montage of clips they’d shown on the late night talk show. One in particular had shown Amira in an unguarded moment, and the hunger on her face as she’d looked at him had been unmistakable.
“I don’t know about bridges, but she’s asked me to Windsong this weekend.”
Adam sat up in his chair. “The Windsong? The Forsythe private hideaway? My, my, things are looking up.”
Brent laughed. Looking up or not, he planned to have Amira in his bed by the end of the weekend. He wanted her bound to him in every way possible. That way, when he cut her loose, she’d get a taste of what he’d gone through eight years ago.
“Well,” Adam said as Brent finished off the table, “as scintillating as your company is, I’d better be on my way. Have a few problems of my own to sort out.”
“Anything I can help you with?”
“No, I can handle it. This one’s right up my alley. Or at least she will be, eventually.” He gave Brent a wink and grabbed his car keys from the coffee table. “Thanks for dinner. We’ll have to try and track down Draco and pin the next meal on him. It’s not like him to miss these nights when he’s back in New Zealand. Do you think it has anything to do with that woman at the memorial service?”
“Who knows, but if it is, I can’t wait to hear why. If he calls, I’ll let you know.”
“Same,” Adam agreed.
After he’d seen Adam off, Brent wandered back in to the game room. The late show was still going on about him and Amira. He flicked a finger on the remote to turn off the TV. Couldn’t anyone talk about anything these days but the upcoming nuptials of the Forsythe Princess and the Midas Man, as they’d dubbed him in the national papers during recent years?
He took a sip of his brandy, but the entertainment slot had soured his taste buds. The Midas Man. They trotted out nicknames with unerring frequency and with no small amount of irritation to the recipient. There was nothing golden in his touch. Everything he’d gained he’d achieved through sheer bullheadedness and damn hard work. And he’d done it alone.
Alone. The word echoed through his mind. How different would their life have been had she gone through with their first planned wedding? Would she still be at his side? Would they have started a family by now, the halls of the house echoing with the sounds of children at play?
He pushed the thoughts from his mind. It was time wasted dwelling on an impossible past. He hadn’t made his fortune by looking back.
He thought ahead to tomorrow’s meeting with Amira and Marie and of the matters they needed to discuss. Topping the list was some way of getting Marie to generate counterpublicity to the current reign of conjecture as to whether or not Amira would actually make it to the altar this time. For his own satisfaction he wanted to put a lid on any comment that she might not make it.
>
Above all, the last thing he needed was some magazine to run a story expounding on the theory he might be the one to pull out this time. He didn’t need her to be spooked at this stage of things. Mind you, with the carrot of her inheritance dangling juicily in front of her he’d wager the better part of his fortune that there was no way she’d be standing him up this time.
It niggled at him constantly, this avaricious need of hers to gather more and more funds. The subsidiary rights to their engagement and reunion story had sold for an exorbitant sum, a sum he had no doubt that she’d drummed up as high as she could get it.
She’d never been this focused on money before, never been this…greedy. The word had a nasty sound to it, one totally at odds with the Amira he’d fallen in love with the first time around. But that woman had been phony, he reminded himself—as phony as his intention to follow through with their wedding now. It occurred to him that when he didn’t turn up at the wedding she’d no doubt sell that story to the highest bidder too. It was an irony that wasn’t entirely wasted on him, and a smile curled his lips as he switched off the downstairs lights and made his way upstairs to the master suite.
Her uncharacteristic grasping need for disposable income had sent up a few flags in his mind, and he had called in one of his handpicked private investigators to do some digging to find out what lay behind the apparent change in Amira’s fortune. With her father having been the only, and much beloved, child of the old dragon and her husband, Amira stood to gain a lot from Isobel’s passing. Unless there was more to it than Amira had said. If that was the case, he’d soon know all there was to know.
He thought about her elegant beauty at the charity function the other week—the night he’d received his formal invitation to the league. She’d carried the whole evening off with a sophistication totally at odds with her current financial obsession.
When the car had pulled up in the forecourt of the hotel and he’d stepped forward to assist her from her seat, his heart had slammed against his chest at the sight of her. Every instinct in him had fought, with untamed need, to sweep her past the ballroom entrance and instead to the suite he’d used to prepare for the evening. And there he wanted to slake the simmering lust for her that glowed, silent and hungry, beneath the surface of his composure.
Damned if she didn’t still push all his buttons to high alert every time he saw her. It was a situation he’d expected to have mastered by now, to have wrestled under control. But instead it only seemed to gather strength. To burn hotter, harder.
He should never have agreed to her terms of a strict business arrangement. He’d entered into this too lightly—too intent on extracting his own revenge against the only woman he had ever loved. He hadn’t stopped to weigh the cost, physical or mental. And right now that physical cost was tying him in knots. There hadn’t been a single night in this past week where he hadn’t woken, sheets tangled about him, his body raging with a fever only Amira could assuage. Tonight would be no different. It augured badly for the next couple of months, but he could and would tolerate it if it meant he’d get to teach her that overdue lesson. To show her you couldn’t walk all over people the way she’d walked all over him.
The next morning an e-mail from his private investigator awaited him. He was surprised to get a response so swiftly, but the content of the e-mail surprised him more. Surprised and concerned him.
Amira Forsythe was, to date, the sole donor to and benefactor of the Fulfilment Foundation. He’d heard of the foundation and of Amira’s work with it. He’d assumed that, as usual, she was a figurehead—no more than an attractive spokesperson whose primary function was to attract sponsorship and public interest with her already high profile. Further details followed on the mission statement of the foundation and its charter. Brent found himself agreeing to its core structure and overall purpose, but he was horrified when he saw the projected costs to run the foundation and its current financial position.
Where was the money Amira’s family were famous for bestowing on the charities of their choice? He could name at least ten charities, without even straining his memory, the Forsythes publicly supported in varying degrees. So why not this one?
By the looks of things, it was Amira’s baby.
He poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and continued reading the report. Further digging had shown that Isobel had been outspoken amongst her peers about the infeasibility of the foundation—a fact that puzzled Brent. Why this one? Was the old lady so determined to control everything Amira did that she’d quashed her granddaughter’s ideas? The fact Amira had gone ahead and set up the foundation and put things in motion to implement its plans showed backbone he’d never witnessed in her before.
The next paragraph had him replace his mug carefully on his desk and whistle long and low. How his PI had garnered this particular snippet of information he really didn’t want to know. It went deeper into the Forsythe financial structure than Brent would have imagined possible, even with the exorbitant sum he paid the PI. The guy had definitely earned himself a generous bonus.
Apparently Amira had no personal income—only a small annuity from her parents’ life insurance. An annuity that her grandmother had topped up in keeping with inflation—a fact her parents had sadly neglected to consider, obviously, when they’d taken out their policies. Worse, the annuity, which appeared to be channeled directly into the foundation, was due to cease on Amira’s thirtieth birthday.
How on earth did the foundation function? The donations from the general public were abysmally low. Without major sponsorship or generosity from a clutch of private donors, the entire thing would collapse around her ears. How could she play with people’s lives like that? To all accounts and purposes she was virtually promising these children and their families the moon; yet all she could deliver was a handful of space dust.
A slow burning anger rose from Brent’s gut, making his vision blur and his hands clench into fists on the desktop. Just how irresponsible could Amira be? He knew what it was like to do without and what it was like to have to accept financial aid to achieve his potential.
Sure, he’d paid back every penny his uncle had put forward, but without that money in the first place, he’d never have had the opportunity to attend Ashurst and even earn the scholarship that had made repayment possible. Whatever people said, money moved mountains. Not having it made people vulnerable and the Fulfillment Foundation was there for the most vulnerable of all.
The foundation promised scholarships, family holidays—all manner of things that any child or family could wish for. Hadn’t these people suffered enough without added disappointment? Did Amira have no idea of the amount of pride it took to accept a handout, or any inkling as to what it would feel like to see that pride trodden upon when the promise was broken?
Amira had been given opportunities galore in her life and yet she was still as flippant with others as she’d been with her promise to marry him—to love him. Obviously the foundation was nothing more than a passing interest to her. A game. It made him feel ill to see how she had trivialized something so important.
He could make a difference to this charity. He could help these people reach for their dreams, see the children involved know happiness where before they’d only known illness and hardship. His mind began ticking off the possibilities and he opened a new e-mail, to both his accountant and his lawyer, listing a series of instructions.
The Fulfillment Foundation would reach its potential, eventually. But one thing was certain. Amira Forsythe would not be at its helm when it did so.
Amira paced the confines of her sitting room. A baby. She had to have a baby with Brent. She laid her hand on her stomach. What would it be like to bring his child into the world? A flush of heat spread through her body. What would it be like to be back in his arms—in his bed? Her womb tightened, sending a spiral of longing through her body. Her breasts suddenly heavy, sensitive to the softness of her silk bra, the tease of lace across the demi cup.
&nbs
p; She remembered the touch of his hands, the taste of his skin, the heat of his possession with a primitive longing that made her groan out loud in the pristine silence of the room. She fisted her hand to her mouth. God, how on earth would she get through this?
She had eight weeks—only eight weeks—to pull it off. A quick check last night of her last menstrual cycle, thankfully always as regular as clockwork, showed her prime time to conceive would probably fall over the coming weekend. If that didn’t work out she had one more chance and then, if that failed also, nothing.
Would she be lucky enough to get pregnant right away? She’d heard so many stories of women who’d struggled for years to become pregnant.
This was monumental. The decision to make a child, to bring a helpless baby into the world for any reason other than out of love went against everything she’d ever believed in. Everything she’d ever hoped for. But the thought of holding her child in her arms. Someone who was hers. Someone who didn’t judge, didn’t find fault, didn’t find her wanting. The concept was almost overwhelming.
She was getting ahead of herself. First she had to swing it. She had to coerce Brent into her bed and convince him to have unprotected sex with her. She had to ruthlessly lie and use him—seduce him into making love with her, sharing breath, sharing each other’s bodies.
Again her body tightened, thrummed in anticipation. It would take some planning, but planning was what she was good at. And she had the means and the motivation to get him there; all it would take was a little subtlety, some nuance. She could do this. She had to.
He’d never forgive her when he found out. A fine tremor ran through her body. He’d be angry. Far more angry than when she’d left him standing at the altar. But she’d gladly bear his anger to honor her promise to the children. Gladly bear his child.
It all seemed so clinical. So unfair. What had her grandmother been thinking when she’d inserted that wretched clause in her will? Not of Amira’s happiness, certainly. But then had her happiness ever been Isobel’s primary focus? Amira scoured her memories.
Convenient Marriage, Inconvenient Husband Page 8
