The Secret Baby Bargain

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  She sent him an arctic glare. ‘Howard is a hard-working man. Sure, he doesn’t have the sort of money that you do to throw around, but at least he is honest and up-front.’

  ‘What are you implying? That I came by my fortune by less than honest means?’ His eyes were hard as they lasered hers.

  ‘How did you do it, Jake?’ she asked. ‘When we were living in London you hardly had a penny to your name.’

  ‘I worked hard and had some lucky breaks,’ he said. ‘No shady deals, so you can take that look of disapproval off your face right now.’

  ‘From living in squalor to billionaire in four and a half years?’ she gave him a disbelieving look. ‘You should write one of those how-to-be-successful books.’

  ‘I didn’t exactly live in squalor,’ he said.

  ‘No, not after I moved in and did all your housework for you,’ she bit out resentfully. ‘How delightfully convenient for you, a housekeeper and lover all rolled into one.’

  Ashleigh felt his continued silence as if it were crawling all the way up her spine to lift the fine hairs on the back of her neck.

  She knew she was cornered. Her back was already up against the closed door behind her and his tall frame in front of her blocked any other chance of escape.

  She could feel the air separating them pulsing with banked up emotions. Dangerous emotions, emotions that hadn’t been unleashed in a very long time…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ASHLEIGH could feel the weight of his dark gaze on her mouth, the sensitive skin of her lips lifting, swelling as if in search of the hard pressure of his, her heart fluttering behind her ribcage as his head came even closer.

  ‘Don’t even think about it…’ she cautioned him, her voice a cracked whisper of sound as it passed through her tight throat.

  His lips curved just above hers, hovering tantalisingly close, near enough to feel the brush of his warm breath as he asked, ‘Is that to be another one of your little rules?’

  She moistened her lips nervously. ‘Yes…’ She cleared her throat. ‘Rule number four: don’t think about me in that way.’

  ‘How do you know what way I’m thinking about you?’ His dark eyes gleamed with mystery.

  ‘You’re still a full-blooded man, aren’t you?’ she asked with considerable tartness. ‘Or is that another one of those changes you insist you’ve undergone in the last four and a half years?’

  He had timed silences down to a science, Ashleigh thought. He used them so tactically. She had forgotten just how tactically.

  She held her breath, waiting for him to say something, her head getting lighter and lighter as each pulsing second passed.

  ‘Want to check for yourself?’ he finally asked.

  ‘What?’ Her indrawn breath half-inflated her lungs and her head swam alarmingly as his meaning gradually dawned on her.

  He pointed to his groin, her eyes following the movement of his hand as if they had a mind of their own.

  ‘You’re the expert assessor. Why don’t you head south to check out if the crown jewels are still in mint condition?’

  Her eyes flew back to his in a flash of anger. ‘This is all a big game to you, isn’t it, Jake? You think this is so funny with your stupid double meanings and sexual hints.’ She sucked in a much needed breath and continued, ‘I’m not interested. Got that? Not in-ter-est-ed. Do I have to spell it out for you? Why can’t you hear what I’m telling you?’

  ‘There seems to be some interference from the transmission centre,’ he said.

  ‘Transmiss…’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Is your ego so gargantuan that you can’t accept that what we had is over?’

  ‘It would be a whole lot easier to accept if you didn’t look at me with those hungry eyes of yours,’ he said.

  ‘Hungry eyes?’ She gaped at him in affront. ‘You’re the one with the wandering eyes!’

  ‘I said hungry, not wandering.’

  ‘Don’t split hairs with me!’ she spat back. ‘And back off a bit, will you?’ She leant back even further against the door behind her until the door handle began to dig into the tender flesh of her lower back. ‘I can practically see what you had for breakfast.’

  ‘I didn’t have breakfast.’

  ‘Do you think I care?’ she asked.

  He gave her one of his lengthy contemplative looks. Ashleigh could feel herself dissolving under his scrutiny. She felt as if he could see through her skin to where her heart was beating erratically in response to his closeness.

  ‘See?’ He held up his hands as if he’d just read her mind. ‘I’m not touching you.’

  ‘You don’t have to; just being close to you is enough to—’ She clamped her wayward mouth shut and sent him another furious glare.

  ‘Is enough to what, Ashleigh?’ he asked, his deep voice like a length of sun-warmed silk being passed over too sensitive skin.

  She refused to answer, tightening her mouth even further.

  ‘Tempt you?’ he prompted.

  ‘I’m not the least bit tempted,’ she said, wishing to God it was true.

  ‘That’s what the rules are for, aren’t they, Ashleigh?’ he taunted her softly. ‘They’re not for me at all. They’re for you, to remind you of your commitment to dear old Howard.’

  ‘He is not old!’ she put in defensively. ‘He’s younger than you. He’s thirty and you’re thirty-three.’

  ‘How very sweet of you to remember how old I am.’

  Damn! She chided herself. She hadn’t seen that coming and had fallen straight into it.

  ‘If you don’t mind I’d like to get on with what I’m supposed to be doing,’ she said, hitching up her chin.

  He stepped down a step and her breath whooshed out in relief. He didn’t speak, but simply turned away to stride down to the back of the garden to the spade he’d dug into the earth under the elm, lifting it out of the ground and resuming his digging as if the last few minutes hadn’t occurred.

  Ashleigh tore her eyes away from the sculptured contours of his muscles and, wrenching open the back door, hurried inside where, for once, the dark lurking shadows of the house didn’t seem quite so threatening.

  Her father was the first person she saw when she got home that afternoon after picking up Lachlan from the crèche.

  ‘I need to talk to you, Dad,’ she said, hanging up Lachlan’s backpack on the hook behind the kitchen door.

  ‘Where’s Lachlan?’ Heath Forrester asked.

  ‘He wanted to play outside for a while,’ she informed him with undisguised relief. Her young son had been full of energy and endless chatter all the way home from the crèche and it had nearly driven her crazy.

  Heath gave her a look of fatherly concern. ‘What’s on your mind, or should I say who?’

  Her breath came out on the back of a deep sigh. ‘Jake wants to have a family get-together of all things.’

  Heath’s bushy brow rose expressively. ‘That could be a problem.’

  She sent him a speaking glance as she reached for the kettle. ‘He wanted to come here tonight but I managed to put him off. I said I’d organise a restaurant for some other evening in a week or two.’ She leant her hips back against the bench as the kettle started heating. ‘I just wish I didn’t have to deal with this. I can’t think straight when he’s…when he’s around.’

  ‘You share a past with him,’ her father said. ‘It won’t go away, especially with Lachlan lying between you.’

  ‘You think I should tell him, don’t you?’

  Heath compressed his lips in thought for a moment. ‘Jake’s a difficult man, but not an unreasonable one, Ashleigh. For all you know he might turn out to be a great father if given the chance.’

  ‘But he’s always made it more than clear he never wanted to have children,’ she said. ‘He told me the very same thing again yesterday.’

  ‘He might think differently if he met Lachlan,’ Heath said.

  Ashleigh smiled sadly in spite of her disquiet. ‘You and Mum are t
he most devoted grandparents I know. Of course you would think that, but I know Jake. He would end up hating Lachlan for having the audacity to be born without his express permission.’

  ‘I understand your concerns but you can’t hide Lachlan from him for ever,’ Heath pointed out. ‘Attitudes have changed these days. He has a legal right to know he has fathered a child.’

  ‘I know…’ Ashleigh sighed. ‘But I can’t do it now. Not like this. I need more time. I need to prepare myself, not to mention Lachlan.’

  ‘Who is going to prepare Jake?’ Heath asked.

  ‘That’s not my responsibility,’ she said.

  Her father didn’t answer but reached for two cups in silence. Ashleigh dropped two tea bags into the cups he put on the bench in front of her and poured the boiling water over them, watching as the clear liquid turned brown as the tea seeped from the bags into the water.

  ‘I will tell him, Dad,’ she addressed the cup nearest her, ‘eventually.’

  ‘I know you will,’ her father answered, taking his cup. ‘But I just hope it’s not going to be too late.’

  Ashleigh stared into the cup in her hands, the darkness of her tea reminding her of Jake’s fathomless eyes—eyes that could cut one to the quick or melt the very soul.

  ‘Better late than never…’ she murmured.

  ‘That’s certainly a well-used adage,’ Heath said. ‘But I wonder what Jake will think?’

  Ashleigh just gave her father a twisted grimace as she lifted her cup to her lips. She spent most of her sleepless nights tortured by imagining what Jake would think.

  It wasn’t a pretty picture.

  ‘So how is your assessment going?’ Howard asked her the next morning.

  Ashleigh handed him the notes she’d made so far. ‘I’ve done one room, mostly the furniture as I think I’ll need your help with the figurines. I’ve looked them up in the journals but I’d prefer your opinion. The painting, however, is certainly an Augustus Earle original. I think there are more but the one I’ve seen so far is worth a mint.’

  ‘Good work,’ Howard congratulated her as he glanced over her descriptions.

  ‘I’ve taken some initial digital photos but I haven’t downloaded them yet,’ she said. ‘It’s a big house and the furniture is virtually stacked to the ceiling in some rooms. It will take me most of the next week to get everything photographed and documented.’

  ‘So how is it working alongside your ex-boyfriend?’

  Ashleigh found it hard to meet Howard’s gently enquiring gaze. ‘It’s all right… I guess.’

  ‘He hasn’t—’ he paused, as if searching for the right word ‘—made a move on you, has he?’

  ‘Of course not!’ she denied hotly.

  Howard gave her a slightly shamefaced look. ‘Sorry, just asking. You know I trust you implicitly.’

  She stretched her mouth into a tight smile that physically hurt. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘However, I’m not sure I trust him,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

  ‘You’ve only met him the once; surely that’s not enough time to come to any sort of reasonable opinion on someone’s character.’ She found it strange springing to Jake’s defence but it irked her to think her fiancé had made that sort of critical judgement without a fair trial.

  ‘I know the type,’ Howard answered. ‘Too much money, too much power, not enough self-restraint.’

  That about sums it up, she thought to herself, but decided against telling him how close he’d come to assessing her ex-lover’s personality.

  ‘I thought you were glad he was giving us this load of goods?’ she said.

  ‘I am,’ he said. ‘More than glad, to be honest. Who wouldn’t be? It’s a dream come true. Without this input of goods I was going to be sailing a little too close to the wind for my liking. The antiques fair coming up will time in nicely with this little haul. I will make a fortune out of it.’

  ‘If it goes through,’ she muttered darkly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Howard looked at her in consternation.

  ‘What if he pulls on the deal?’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ he asked. ‘He gave us the exclusive. Well, at least he gave it to you.’ He glanced at her narrowly. ‘You’re not making things difficult for him, are you?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  He gave a shrug. ‘You’re very bitter about him. Up until the other day you never once mentioned his name in the whole time I’ve known you.’

  ‘You didn’t ask.’ She kept herself busy with shuffling some papers on her desk.

  ‘That’s because I sensed it was too painful for you,’ he said.

  Ashleigh looked at him, her expression softening as she recalled the way he had always considered her feelings. He was like the older brother she’d always wanted—caring, considerate and concerned for her at all times.

  ‘I’m hoping he won’t pull out of the deal.’ She picked up a pen and rolled it beneath her fingers, the line of her mouth grim. ‘But who knows what he might do if he finds out about Lachlan?’ She stared at the pen for a moment before adding, ‘He seems keen to get his father’s house cleaned out so he can start renovating it.’ She gave a tiny despondent sigh and added, ‘I think I’m what you could call part of his clean-up process.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The pen rolled out of her reach. A small frown creased her brow as she lifted her gaze back to his. ‘I can’t quite work him out. Sometimes I think he wants to talk to me about his past… I mean really talk. You know, tell me every detail. But then he seems to close up and back off as if I’ve come too close.’

  ‘It’s a difficult time when a parent passes away,’ Howard said. ‘I remember when my father died how hard it was. I was torn between wanting to talk and needing to stay silent in case I couldn’t handle the emotion.’

  Ashleigh chewed her bottom lip for a moment. ‘I could be wrong, but I can’t help feeling he isn’t exactly grieving his father’s passing.’

  ‘Oh?’ Howard frowned. ‘You mean they didn’t get on or something?’

  ‘I don’t know…but why else would he be practically giving away everything his father left him?’

  Howard let out a breath. ‘I guess it wouldn’t hurt to listen to him if he ever decides he wants to tell you about it. What harm could it do? You never know, you might come to see him in a totally new light.’

  Ashleigh gave him a small wan smile by way of response. She didn’t want to see Jake Marriott in a new light.

  She didn’t want to see Jake Marriott at all.

  It wasn’t safe.

  ‘Come on!’ Mia urged Ashleigh on the cross-training machine at the local gym early the next morning. ‘Use those legs now, up and down, up and down.’

  Ashleigh grimaced against the iron weight of her thighs and continued, sweat pouring off her reddened face and pooling between her breasts. ‘I thought this was supposed to fun,’ she gasped in between steps.

  ‘It is once you get fit,’ Mia said, springing on to the treadmill alongside.

  Ashleigh watched in silent envy as her trim and toned sister deftly punched in the directions on the treadmill and began running at a speed she’d thought only greyhounds could manage.

  ‘You make me sick,’ she said with mock sourness as she clung to the moving handles of the machine, her palms slippery and her legs feeling like dead pieces of wood.

  Mia gave her a sweet smile as she continued running. ‘It’s your fault for fibbing to Jake about going to the gym regularly.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t remind me.’

  ‘Anyway, I think it’s a great idea for you to get some exercise,’ Mia said without even puffing. ‘You’re so busy juggling work and Lachlan that you don’t get any time on your own. You know how much Mum and Dad love to mind him for you so there’s no excuse. The gym is a great place to switch off.’

  Ashleigh looked at the sea of sweaty bodies around her and seriously wondered if her sister was completely nuts. Loud musi
c was thumping, a row of televisions were transmitting several versions of early morning news shows, and a muscle-bound personal trainer who looked as if he’d been fed steroids from birth was adding to the cacophony of noise by shouting out instructions to a middle-aged man with a paunch, in tones just like a drill sergeant at Boot Camp.

  ‘I can’t believe people get addicted to this,’ she said with a pointed look at her sister.

  Mia grinned. ‘It’s also a great place to meet people.’ She glanced at a tall, exceptionally handsome man who was doing bench presses on the other side of the room. ‘Not a bad sight for this time of the morning, is it?’

  Ashleigh couldn’t help thinking that Jake’s muscles as he’d dug the garden the previous day were much more defined than the man in question; however, she had to accede that her sister was right. There were certainly worse things to be looking at first thing in the morning.

  ‘How long do I have to do this for?’ she asked after a few more excruciating minutes of physical torture.

  ‘Five more minutes and then we’ll do some stomach crunches,’ Mia informed her cheerily.

  Ashleigh slid a narrow-eyed glance her sister’s way. ‘How many?’

  ‘Three hundred a day should do it,’ Mia said determinedly. ‘You’re not overweight, just under-toned.’

  ‘Three hundred?’ Ashleigh groaned.

  ‘Come on,’ Mia said and, jumping off the treadmill, pulled over a floor mat near the mirrored wall. ‘Down on the floor and let’s get started.’

  ‘One…two…three…four…five…’

  When Ashleigh arrived at Jake’s house later that morning the temperature had risen to the late thirties and the air was thick and cloying with humidity. A clutch of angry, bruised-looking clouds was already gathering on the western horizon as if in protest at the unseasonable heat.

  She couldn’t see Jake’s car or any sign of him about the house or garden so she let herself in and closed the door with a sigh of relief as the coolness of the dark interior passed over her like a chilled breath of air.

  She lost track of time as she went to work in the second of the two formal sitting rooms, this one smaller but no less jam-packed. She ran her hand over a Regency rosewood and brass-inlaid dwarf side cabinet in silent awe. The cabinet had a frieze drawer and a pleated cupboard door decorated with a brass grille and was on sabre supports. She knew it would fetch a fabulous price at auction and the very fact that Howard had it in his possession would lift his profile considerably.