Kidnapped for the Tycoon's Baby

by Louise Fuller

  Turning, he looked over at her, his eyes unreadable in the gloom of the car.

  ‘My pleasure. I called ahead and told the pilot where to take you, so you can just sit back and enjoy the ride.’

  She nodded, her heart contracting guiltily as his words replayed inside her head. He was being so reasonable—kind, even—and like a storm that had blown itself out the tension between them had vanished.

  Her pulse was racing. A few hours earlier she’d been desperate to leave the country, to get away from Ram. Only now that it was finally time to go something was holding her back, making her hesitate, just as she had three months ago when she’d crept out of his office in the early hours of the morning. It was the same feeling—a feeling that somehow she was making a mistake.

  She held her breath. But staying was not an option. She needed to go home, even if that meant feeling guilty. Only she hadn’t expected to mind so much.

  Her heart was bumping inside her chest like a bird trapped in a room and, clearing her throat, she said quickly, ‘I was wrong not to tell you about the baby. I should have done, and I’m sorry. I know we’ve got an awful lot to discuss. But you’re right—we do need time and privacy to talk about it properly, so thank you for being so understanding about me leaving.’

  His eyes were light and relaxed, and she felt another pang beneath her heart.

  ‘I’m glad you agree, and I feel sure we’ll see each other very soon.’

  The walk from the car to the plane seemed to last for ever, but finally she was smiling at the young, male flight attendant who had stepped forward to greet her.

  ‘Good evening, Ms Mason, welcome on board. My name is Tom, and I’ll be looking after you on this flight with my colleagues, James and Megan. If you need anything, please just ask.’

  Collapsing into a comfortable armchair that bore no resemblance to the cramped seats on every other flight she’d ever been on, she tried not to let herself look out of the window. But finally she could bear it no more and, turning her head, she glanced down at the tarmac.

  It was deserted. The limo was gone.

  Swallowing down the sudden small, hard lump of misery in her throat, she sat back and watched numbly as Tom brought her some iced water and a selection of magazines.

  ‘If you could just put on your seatbelt, Ms Mason, we’ll be taking off in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Leaning back, she closed her eyes and listened to the hum of the air conditioning, and then finally she heard the engines start to whine.

  ‘Is this seat taken?’

  A male voice. Deep and very familiar.

  But it couldn’t be him—

  Her eyes snapped open and her heart began to thump, for there, staring down at her, with something very like a smile tugging at his mouth, was Ram.

  She stared up at him in confusion. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I thought you might like some company.’

  Company! She frowned. Glancing past him at the window, she could see that they were starting to move forward, and across the cabin Tom and his colleagues were buckling themselves into their seats.

  ‘I don’t think there’s time,’ she said hurriedly. ‘We’re just about to take off.’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, like you said, we do have an awful lot to talk about.’

  A trickle of cool air ran down her spine, and she felt a pang of uneasiness.

  ‘Yes, but not now—’

  She broke off as he dropped into the seat beside her.

  ‘Why not now?’ Sliding his belt across his lap, he stretched out his long legs. ‘Just the two of us on a private jet...’

  Pausing, he met her gaze, and the steady intensity of his grey eyes made the blood stop moving in her veins.

  ‘Surely this is the perfect opportunity!’

  CHAPTER SIX

  NOLA STARED AT him uncertainly. Beneath the sound of her heartbeat she heard the plane’s wheels starting to rumble across the tarmac. But she barely registered it. Instead, her brain was frantically trying to make sense of his words.

  He couldn’t possibly be intending to fly to Scotland with her, so it must be his idea of a joke.

  Glancing up into his face, she felt her breath catch.

  Except that he didn’t look as if he was joking.

  Taking a deep breath, trying to appear calmer than she felt, she forced herself to smile. ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s not as if it’s on your way home.’

  His grey gaze rested on her face. ‘But you’re not asking me, are you? Nor am I asking you, as it happens.’

  Her face felt stiff with shock and confusion. Slowly she shook her head. ‘But this isn’t what we agreed. You said I could borrow your plane—you didn’t say anything about coming with me.’

  He gazed at her blandly. ‘I thought you said we had a lot to talk about.’

  ‘You know I didn’t mean now.’ Her voice rose.

  This was madness. Total and utter madness.

  Except madness implied that Ram was acting irrationally, and there was nothing random or illogical about his decision to join her on the plane. He was simply proving a point, and getting his own way just like he always did.

  She felt as though she was going to throw up.

  ‘You tricked me. You made me miss my flight and then you offered to let me use your plane just so you could trap me here.’

  And, fool that she was, she had actually believed he was trying to make amends.

  Her heart began to pound fiercely. Not only that, she’d apologised to him. Apologised for not telling him about the baby and thanked him for being so understanding.

  But everything he’d said had been a lie.

  How could she have been so stupid—so gullible?

  Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she whispered.

  He shrugged. ‘It was your choice. I didn’t make you do anything. You could have waited for a regular flight.’ His mouth hardened. ‘Except that would have meant talking to me. So I made a calculated guess that you’d do pretty much anything to avoid that—including accepting the offer of a no-strings flight back to Scotland.’

  ‘Except there are strings, aren’t there?’ she snapped. ‘Like the fact that you never said you were coming with me.’

  He looked at her calmly. ‘Well, I thought it might be a little counterproductive.’

  Her pulse was crashing in her ears. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ she said hoarsely.

  Leaning forward, he picked up one of the magazines and began flicking casually through the pages. ‘Then you clearly don’t know me as well as you thought you did.’ He smiled at her serenely. ‘But don’t worry. Now that we have the chance to spend some time alone, I’m sure we’ll get to know each other a whole lot better.’

  Her hands clenched in her lap. She was breathless with anger and frustration. ‘But you can’t just hijack this plane—’

  ‘Given that it’s my plane, I’d say that would be almost impossible,’ he agreed.

  ‘I don’t care that it’s your plane. People don’t behave like this. It’s insane!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ He gazed at her steadily. ‘You’re pregnant with my child, Nola. Insane would be letting you fly off into the sunset with just your word that you’ll get in touch.’

  ‘So you just decided to come with me to the other side of the world?’ she snapped. ‘Yeah, I can see that’s really rational.’

  For a moment she glared at him in silence, and then her pulse began to jerk erratically over her skin, like a needle skipping across a record, as he leaned over and rested his hand lightly on the smooth mound of her stomach.

  ‘Whether you like it or not, Nola, this baby is mine too. And until we get this sorted out I’m not letting you out of my sight. Where you go, I go.’

  Blood was roaring in her ears. On one level his words made no sense, for she hardly knew him. He was a stranger
, and what they’d shared amounted to so little. The briefest of flings. A night on a sofa.

  And yet so much had happened in that one night. Not just the baby, but the fire between them—a storm of passion that had left her breathless and dazed, and eclipsed every sexual experience she’d had or would ever have.

  She’d known that night that a part of her would always belong to Ram. She just hadn’t realised then that it would turn out to be a baby. But now that he knew the truth was anything he’d done really that big a surprise? She was carrying his child, and she knew enough about Ram to know that he would never willingly give up control of anything that belonged to him.

  Still, that didn’t give him the right to trap her and manipulate her like this, bending her to his will as though being pregnant made her an extension of his life.

  ‘You didn’t have to do this,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I told you I was going to get in touch and I would have done.’

  ‘I’ve saved you the trouble, then.’ He gave her a small, taunting smile. ‘It’s okay—you don’t need to thank me.’

  She glowered at him in silence, her brain seething as she tried to think up some slick comeback that would puncture his overdeveloped ego.

  But, really, why bother? Whatever she said wasn’t going to change the fact that they were stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.

  Only just because he’d managed to trick her into getting on his plane, it didn’t mean that he was going to have everything his own way. Remembering his remark back at the airport, she felt her breathing jerk, and she curled her fingers into the palms of her hands. She sure as hell wasn’t going to spend the rest of this flight entertaining him.

  ‘I’d love to keep on chatting,’ she said coldly. ‘But it’s been a long, and exhausting day, and as you can imagine I’m very tired.’

  Their eyes met—his calm and appraising, hers combative—and there was a short, taut silence.

  Finally he shrugged. ‘Of course. I’ll show you to your room.’

  Her room!

  ‘No—’ She lurched back in her seat.

  She would have liked to brush her teeth, and maybe put on something more comfortable, but the thought of undressing within a five-mile radius of Ram made her heart start to beat painfully fast.

  ‘Actually, I think I’d rather stay here,’ she said quickly. ‘These seats recline, don’t they? And I’m not really sleeping properly at the moment anyway.’

  He stared at her speculatively, and she wondered if he was going to demand that she use the bedroom.

  But after a moment, he simply nodded. ‘I’ll get you a blanket.’

  Five minutes later, tucked cosily beneath a soft cashmere blanket, Nola tilted back her seat and turned her head pointedly away from where Ram sat beside her, working on his laptop.

  How was he able to do any work anyway? she thought irritably. After everything that had happened in the last few hours anybody else—her included—would have been too distracted, too agitated, too exhausted.

  But then wasn’t that one of the reasons she’d been so reluctant to tell him about the baby? Just like her father, he always put business first, pleasure second, and then the boring nitty-gritty of domestic life last. And, having offered to fly her home in his private jet, he probably thought he’d been generous enough—caring, even.

  Stifling a yawn, she closed her eyes. Ram’s deluded world view didn’t matter to her any more than he did. He might have been her boss, and he might be calling the shots now. But that would change as soon as they landed in Scotland. Edinburgh was her home, and she wasn’t about to let anyone—especially not Ram Walker—trample over the life she had built there. Feeling calmer, she burrowed further down beneath the blanket...

  She woke with a start.

  For a moment she lay there, utterly disorientated, trying to make sense of the soft wool brushing against her face and the clean coolness of the air, and then suddenly she was wide awake as the previous night’s events slid into place inside her head.

  Opening her eyes, she struggled to sit up, her senses on high alert.

  Why did it feel as though they were slowing down? Surely she couldn’t have slept for that long? Picking up her phone, she glanced at the screen and frowned. It didn’t make sense. They’d only been flying a couple of hours, and yet the plane seemed to be descending.

  ‘Good, you’re awake.’

  Her heart gave a jolt, and she turned.

  It was Ram. He was standing beside her, his face calm, his grey eyes watching her with an expression she didn’t quite recognise.

  ‘I thought I was going to have to wake you,’ he said coolly.

  He was holding his laptop loosely in one hand, so he must have spent the last few hours working, and yet he looked just as though he’d had a full eight hours’ sleep. She could practically feel the energy humming off him like a force field.

  But that wasn’t the only reason her pulse was racing.

  With his dark hair falling over his forehead, and his crisp white shirt hugging the muscles of his chest and arms, he looked like a movie star playing a CEO. Even the unflattering overhead lights did nothing to diminish his beauty.

  Was it really necessary or fair for him to be that perfect? she thought desperately. Particularly when her own body seemed incapable of co-ordinating with her brain, so that despite his appalling behaviour at the airport her senses were responding shamelessly to his blatant masculinity.

  Gritting her teeth, hoping that none of her thoughts were showing on her face, she met his gaze.

  ‘Why are we slowing down? Are we stopping for fuel?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  He studied her face for a moment, and then glanced back along the cabin. ‘I just need to go and speak to the crew. I won’t be long.’

  Biting her lip, she stared after him, a prickle spreading over her skin. She sat in uneasy silence, her senses tracking the plane’s descent, until she felt the jolt as it landed.

  Something felt a bit off. But probably it was just because she’d never flown on a private jet before. Usually at this point everyone would be standing up and pulling down their luggage, chatting and grabbing their coats. This was so quiet, so smooth, so civilised. So A-list.

  Glancing out of the window, Nola smiled. They might not be in Scotland yet, but the weather was doing its best to make her feel as if they were. She could hear the wind already, and fat drops of rain were slapping against the glass.

  ‘Come on—let’s go!’

  Turning, she saw that Ram was standing beside her, his hand held out towards her.

  She frowned. ‘Go where? Don’t we just wait?’

  ‘They need to clean the plane and do safety checks. And then the crew are going off-shift.’

  She gazed up at him warily.

  ‘So where are we going?’

  ‘Somewhere more comfortable. It’s not far.’

  Her heart began to thump. Maybe it would have been better after all if she’d just waited for another flight. But it was too late to worry about that now.

  It was warm outside—tropical, even—but she still ducked her head against the wind and the rain.

  ‘Be careful.’

  Ram took hold of her arm and, ignoring her protests, guided her down the stairs.

  ‘I can manage,’ she said curtly.

  But still he ignored her, tightening his grip as he walked her across the runway to an SUV that was idling in the darkness.

  Inside the car, he leaned forward and tapped against the glass. ‘Thanks, Carl. Just take it slow, okay?’

  ‘I thought you said it wasn’t far,’ she said accusingly.

  Turning back to face her, he shrugged. But there was a small, satisfied smile on his handsome face that made her heart start to bang against her ribs.

  ‘It isn’t. But this way we stay nice and dry.’ His eyes mocked her. ‘Despite what you may have heard, I can’t actually control the weather.’

  She nodded, but she was barely
listening to what he said; she was too busy squinting through the window into the darkness outside.

  Stopover destinations to and from Australia usually depended on the airline. It could be Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore or Los Angeles. Of course flying on a private jet probably meant that some of those options weren’t available. But, even so, something didn’t feel right.

  For a start there were no lights, nor even anything that really passed as a building. In fact she couldn’t really see much at all, except a tangled, dark mass of trees and vegetation stretching away into the distance. Her heart began to beat faster, and she felt a rush of cold air on her skin that had nothing to do with the car’s air conditioning.

  She forced herself to speak. ‘Where exactly are we?’

  ‘Queensland—just west of Cairns.’

  Turning, she stared at him in confusion, her mouth suddenly dry.

  ‘What? We haven’t even left Australia? So why have we stopped? We’re never going to get to Scotland at this rate!’

  ‘We’re not going to Scotland,’ he said quietly.

  That prickling feeling had returned, and with it a sensation that she was floating—that if she hadn’t been gripping the door handle so tightly she might have just drifted away.

  ‘What do you mean? Of course, we’re going to Scotland—’ She broke off as he started to shake his head.

  ‘Actually, we’re not.’

  His eyes glittered in the darkness, and she felt her breath catch in her throat.

  ‘We never were. It was always my intention to bring you here.’

  She stared at him in silence. Fury, shock, disbelief and frustration were washing over her like waves breaking against a sea wall.

  Here? Here!

  What was he talking about?

  ‘There is no “here”,’ she said shakily. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

  He was mad. Completely mad. There was no other explanation for his behaviour. How could she not have noticed before?

  ‘You and I need to talk, Nola.’

  ‘And you want to do that in the middle of a jungle?’ She was practically shouting now. Not that he seemed to care.