by Dani Collins
Her book was finished and advance reviews and preorders were strong. His latest project had been clinched by his wife’s charisma, and they were expecting. Provided she was allowed to travel, they were headed to Hawaii in a few weeks for the latest phase of his project there.
He heard her stirring a few minutes later and put the finishing touches on the breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs he’d whipped together. He had already made her an appointment with the doctor, but she had time to eat first. Hopefully, it would stay down this time.
Her eyes were a little red as she appeared and she came right into his arms, fitting herself against him in the way that was reassuringly familiar. He rubbed her back, still disturbed.
“You were crying. I thought you must be hungry.” He wasn’t sure if he should mention his dream, but his gaze was drawn to the photo on the side table in the lounge. It was the only one she had of her with her mother and sister. Surely, he’d conjured the image from that.
“Juliana came.”
He kept rubbing her back while the hairs all over his body stood up. “It’s been a long time since you’ve had one of those.” Not since before he proposed in Greece.
“She said she’s not coming back. She says I have you now.”
He cradled her closer, disturbed by the melancholy in her voice, but hoping this meant no more crying in her sleep ever again.
She drew back and cocked her head. “What do you think of the name Julian if it’s a boy?”
“I love it,” he said, voice catching with emotion, echoes of giggles still in his head. “Juliana if it’s a girl?”
“I’ve always thought Lilith for a girl, after Mom.”
“I like that, too.” He was bonkers, no question, but he didn’t care. Not when this woman made him so happy.
He hugged her and she smiled, lifting on her toes to kiss him.
He released her and she eyed the breakfast he’d made. “You’re my hero for making this, but if the baby rejects it, that’s not on me.”
No, it would be on Julian.
Julian, who arrived seven months later with a fine cap of his mother’s red-gold hair and a challenging but funny personality that kept his parents on their toes. Travis was so proud and filled with love for the boy, he could barely contain it. He wondered daily how he had ever thought this would be too much for him when he couldn’t get enough of family life.
Their daughter, Lilith, came along two years after that. She had her father’s coloring and a pair of eyes that Travis knew he’d seen in a dream once. She was incredibly sweet and loving, impossible to resist, not that anyone tried, especially her parents and brother. Her only flaw was a tendency to startle the life out of her father by appearing beside the bed in the middle of the night, then giggling at his reaction.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed Claiming His Christmas Wife by Dani Collins, you’re sure to enjoy these other Conveniently Wed! stories!
The Greek’s Bought Bride
by Sharon Kendrick
Claiming His Wedding Night Consequence
by Abby Green
Bound by a One-Night Vow
by Melanie Milburne
Sicilian’s Bride for a Price
by Tara Pammi
Keep reading for an excerpt from Bound by Their Christmas Baby by Clare Connelly.
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Bound by Their Christmas Baby
by Clare Connelly
CHAPTER ONE
GABE WAS BORED. He always was at these damned things, but they were part and parcel of his life. His job. His all. And he’d never been a man to walk away from a challenge.
God knew Noah—his business partner and best friend—wasn’t going to step forward to attend a damned investors’ dinner. A party in a club, sure. Noah would be there in an instant. But this kind of entertaining fell to Gabe, and Gabe alone. He looked around the table, smiling blandly, wondering how much more he had to endure before he could make his excuses and leave.
There were a thousand better ways than this to spend an evening.
He hadn’t been to New York in a year, and the last time? Well, it had been a spectacular disaster. No wonder he’d avoided it like the plague. Too much melancholy at Christmas, that was the problem. He’d actually allowed himself to feel lonely, to feel alone, to feel sorry for himself. That was why he’d been stupid enough to fall for her ploy.
‘Calypso’s going to be game-changing,’ Bertram Fines said with confidence. ‘You’ve done it again.’
Gabe ignored the flattery. People were all too quick with praise now that he and Noah had established the foremost technology company in the world. It was the early years when they’d been without friends, without funds, and still made it work through sheer perseverance and determination. He reached for his glass. It was empty. He lifted a hand in the air, summoning a waiter without lifting his gaze.
‘This is the culmination of a lot of innovation, and even more research. Calypso isn’t just a smartphone, it’s a way of life,’ he said with a lift of his shoulders. It was the culmination of an idea he and Noah had years earlier, and they’d worked tirelessly to get it to this point—almost to the market. Calypso went beyond the average smartphone. It was smarter. More secure, guaranteeing its users more privacy.
His spine straightened with a frisson of alarm when he recalled how close he’d come, a year ago, to compromising the project. How close he’d come to seeing Calypso’s secrets taken to one of his business rivals.
But that hadn’t eventuated. He’d made sure of that. His eyes glinted with the ferocity of his thoughts, the strength of his resentment, but his smile was all wolf-like charm.
‘How can I help you, sir?’ A woman appeared to his left. A brassy redhead with a pleasing figure and a smile that showed she knew it. Once upon a time, Gabe might have smiled back. Hell, he’d have done more than smile back—he’d have laid on the charm, asked what time she finished her shift, and then he’d have seduced her. Bought her a drink, taken her for a drive in his limousine before inviting her to his hotel room.
But the last time he’d done that, he’d learned his lesson. He would never again invite a wolf in sheep’s clothing to his bed, nor a woman dressed like a temptress who’d come to betray him. Before he had met Abigail Howard, Gabe couldn’t have imagined going a month without the company of a beautiful woman between his sheets, but now it had been a year. A year since Abigail, a year without women, and he barely cared
.
He named a bottle of wine, one of the most expensive on the menu, without smiling, and turned his attention back to his table of guests. Conversation had moved onto the cost of midtown realty. He sat back, pretending to listen, fingers in a temple beneath his chin.
The restaurant was quietening down. Despite the fact it was one of Manhattan’s oldest and most prestigious spots, it was late—nearing midnight—and the conservative crowd that favoured this sort of establishment were wrapping up their evenings.
Gabe let his eyes run idly around the room. It was everything he’d come to expect in this kind of place, from the glistening chandeliers that sparkled overhead to the sumptuous burgundy velvet curtains adorning the windows, to the menu and wine list that were both six-star.
The waitress approached with the wine and he gestured that she should fill up his companions’ glasses. For Gabe’s part, he wasn’t a big drinker, and certainly not with men he hardly knew. Discretion was the better part of valour—another lesson he’d learned a year ago. No, that wasn’t true. He’d known it all his life. She’d just made him forget.
His eyes wandered once more, this time towards the kitchens, concealed behind large white doors that flapped silently as staff moved quickly through them. Inside, he knew, would be a hive of activity, despite the calm serenity of the restaurant dining room. The doors flicked open and for the briefest moment Gabe was certain he saw her.
A flick of white-blonde hair, a petite figure, pale skin.
He gripped the stem of his empty wine glass, his whole body stilled, like a predator on alert.
It wasn’t her. Of course it wasn’t.
In the kitchen? Had that been a dishcloth in her hand?
Not possible.
He homed back in on the conversation at the table, laughing at a joke, nodding at something someone said, but every few moments his eyes shifted towards the doors, trying to get a better look at the ghost of Christmas last.
Gabe wasn’t a man to leave things to chance. He’d experienced enough random acts, enough of fate’s whimsy, to know that he would never again let life surprise him.
She had surprised him though, that night. What was it about the woman that had got under his skin? She was beautiful, but so were many women, and Gabe wasn’t a man who let a woman’s appearance overpower him. In fact, he prided himself on being more interested in a woman’s mind. Her intellect. The decency of her soul and conscience.
And yet she’d walked into the bar of his Manhattan hotel and their eyes had sparked. Then he’d held his breath for the longest time, waiting for her to say something, needing to hear her voice and to know all about her instantly.
What madness had overtaken him that night?
It hadn’t been a random spark though. Their meeting had been planned meticulously. He forced himself to return his attention to his guests, but his mind was on that long-ago night, a night he usually tried not to remember. A night he would never forget. Not because it had been so wonderful—though at the time he thought it had been—but because of the lessons it had taught him.
Don’t trust anyone. Ever. Except for Noah, Gabe was alone in this world, and that was the way he wanted it.
Still, the mystery of the vision of Abby remained, so that, as the night wore on and cars were called for the investors, he gestured towards the maître d’.
‘How has your evening been, Mr Arantini?’ the man asked with an obsequious bow. Gabe might have grown up dirt-poor, but he’d been phenomenally wealthy for a long time now; such marked deference was not new to him. He’d even come to find it amusing.
Gabe didn’t answer the question. There was no need. If he hadn’t found the evening a success, the maître d’ would have heard about it well before then. ‘I’d like to speak to Rémy,’ he said silkily.
‘The chef?’
Gabe lifted a brow. ‘Unless you have two Remys working this evening.’
The maître d’ laughed a little self-consciously. ‘Not at all, sir. Just the one.’
‘Then I’ll let myself into the kitchen.’ He stood and spun on his heel, stalking towards the doors without allowing the maître d’ a reply.
At the doors, though, he hesitated for the briefest moment, bracing himself for the likelihood that he might come face to face with her once more. And the greater likelihood that he would not.
So?
Why did that bother him?
If he’d wanted to see Abigail Howard again, he’d had ample opportunities. She’d called him relentlessly, desperate to ‘apologise’ for her part in the scam. Desperate to see him, to make amends. Didn’t she realise how futile those efforts were? As if Gabe could ever forgive such a betrayal! He’d left her in little doubt as to how he felt when she’d turned up at his office in Rome—for heaven’s sake—demanding to see him.
That had been six months ago. Six months after she’d bargained her innocence for a glimpse at top secret Calypso files on behalf of her father. His blood still curdled at what that night had been about—at what she’d been willing to give up for commercial success.
He’d known a lot of manipulative characters in his time, but none so abhorrent as she’d been.
The satisfaction of having his security remove her from his office had been immense. She’d come to Rome to see him and he’d made it painstakingly obvious that he’d never see her again.
So? What was he doing now? Hovering outside a restaurant kitchen because he thought he’d caught a glimpse of her? And how could he possibly have recognised her in the brief moment the blonde had walked past the doors? It wasn’t physically possible, he told himself, all the while knowing he had recognised something about the woman. The lithe grace of her walk. The elegance of her neck as she turned her head, hair that was like clouds at sunset, glowing with the evening’s rays.
Great.
Now he was becoming poetic about a woman who’d seduced him with the sole intention of ruining him.
He tightened his shoulders and pushed into the kitchen. It wasn’t so busy as he’d thought earlier. The dinner rush was over, and now there were chefs prepping for the next day’s service, some cleaning, some standing around talking. His eyes skimmed the kitchen and his stomach dropped unexpectedly.
She wasn’t here. This was a men-only zone at present—something he’d never allow in any of his hotels or restaurants. Within his and Noah’s company, Bright Spark Inc, they demanded equal gender representation across the board. They invested heavily in STEM projects for schools—they were both passionate about playing fields being levelled as much as possible, having been on the dodgy end of their own playing fields for a long time.
‘Rémy,’ he said smoothly, striding across the kitchen.
‘Ah! Arantini!’ The chef grinned. ‘You like your dinner?’
‘Exceptional.’ Gabe nodded, annoyingly put out by having come into the kitchens and not found the woman he’d seen.
‘You had the lobster?’
‘Of course.’
‘Always your favourite,’ Rémy chuckled.
Gabe nodded, just as the cold room door opened and the woman stepped out. Her head was bent, but he’d have known her body anywhere, any time and in any clothes.
True, the night they’d met she’d been dripping in the latest couture, but now? She wore simple jeans, a black T-shirt and a black and white apron tied twice around her slender waist. Her hair was pulled into a ballerina bun and her face, he saw as she lifted it, was bare of make-up.
His gut twisted and a strong possessive instinct hammered through him.
She’d been his in bed. That hadn’t been just about Calypso. She’d wanted him. She’d given him her virginity, she’d begged him to take her, and he’d thought it a gift. A special, beautiful moment. He’d never been anyone’s ‘first’ before.
She placed the containers she was carrying onto the bench and t
hen lifted her eyes to the clock above the doors. She hadn’t seen him, and he was glad for that. Glad to have a moment to observe her, to remember all the reasons he had for hating this woman, to regain his composure before showing her how little he thought of her.
When he’d had her evicted from his office in Rome, he’d told himself it was for the best. He never wanted to see her again, and nothing could change that. But here, in this six-star Manhattan hotspot, looking nothing like his usual romantic quarry, Gabe knew he’d been lying to himself.
He’d wanted to see her again and again. He drank in the sight of her, knowing it could only ever be this minute, this weakness, this moment of indulgence, before he would be forced to remember that she’d planned to ruin him.
Bright Spark Inc wasn’t just a business to him. It was his and Noah’s life. It had saved them when their own futures had been bleak and they’d been desperate for a fresh start.
And she’d wanted to destroy it. She’d come to him specifically to steal Calypso’s secrets. It was a crime for which there could never be sufficient repentance.
‘Rémy.’ He spoke deliberately, slowly, and loud enough that she heard. He had the satisfaction of seeing her head jerk towards him the moment the word was uttered, saw shock flood her huge, expressive green eyes, saw the colour drain from her face and the telling way she pressed her palms into the counter. ‘You have a traitor in your midst.’
Rémy frowned, following Gabe’s gaze across the restaurant. ‘A...traitor?’
‘Sì.’ Gabe moved across the room, closer to where she stood. She was trembling slightly now, her expression unmistakably terrified. His own expression remained cool and dismissive, the aloofness he was famed for evident in every line of his hard, muscular frame. No one in that kitchen could have known that beneath his autocratic face and strong body was a pulse that was rushing like a stormy sea.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘This woman,’ Gabe said with quiet determination, ‘isn’t who you think.’ He flicked his gaze from her head to her stomach—which was all he could see of her, owing to the large bench she stood behind. ‘She’s a liar and a cheat. She’s no doubt working here to pick up whatever secrets she can from your customers. If you care at all about your reputation, you’ll fire her.’
