‘You know quite a bit, then.’
‘Yeah, they also train up their own close protection teams for both foreign and domestic scenarios. Rumour has it they’re into a heck of a lot more than that, but their guys are immensely loyal and no one on the inside has ever confirmed anything. You work for them?’
‘Not exactly.’ He could have simply told her, but he wanted to see if she would come to it on her own. If a part of her believed in him enough. ‘What do you think the Z and the Black stand for?’
‘Black is black ops.’ She pursed her lips, moments before her eyes widened. ‘The Z...is you?’
‘Me. And also the other two founding partners. Brothers, William and Frazer Zane.’
He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t laugh with him. He could well imagine what was going through her head.
‘You couldn’t.’ She paled. ‘You wouldn’t use Z-Black to take Seth from me.’
‘Then don’t make me, Tia. Don’t take my son from me.’
It was shocking, inexplicable, this...bond...he felt with a boy he’d seen for barely a few moments. He hardly knew what to make of it. He only knew it was potentially the best news he’d ever heard in his life.
‘This house...’ she managed, sweeping around as if taking it in all over again. ‘You and your partners must be millionaires? You’re going to use that against me if I fight you.’
‘Multimillionaires,’ he corrected. The three of them weren’t far off billionaire status, but Tia didn’t need to know that right now. ‘And I don’t want to use anything to fight you, Tia. Just don’t back me into a corner where I have no other choice. Seth is my son, too.’
She looked as though she wanted to argue. Perhaps wisely, she bit the words back.
‘Why France?’
‘That’s where our training sites are based. More room. I’m going back to oversee a course and I’m taking my son so that we can start to get to know each other. You don’t start work officially for a month. Or so you said before.’
‘No, but...’
‘Coincidentally, Z-Black currently has a need for a medical trainer with experience out in a hostile environment.’ Or, at least, it would after he’d made a phone call. ‘Which leaves you with two choices, Tia.’ He paused, forced himself to smile, as if he found some perverse pleasure in this awful scenario. ‘Either you watch me take my son with me. Or you take this role and come with us as a sort of a family.’
‘No,’ she whispered, her hand fluttering at her chest.
‘Then my son and I will go alone. I have a housekeeper who has nine grandchildren she’s forever showing me new photos of. She can show me anything I need to know.’
‘You’re not taking Seth out of the country without me.’
He hated himself for doing it to her, but there was no way he wasn’t going to take the opportunity to get to know his son away from the distractions of everyday life. It was too vital not to get right.
‘I’m taking the opportunity to get to know my son. I told you, you’re welcome to come too—that option still stands. To my mind, Tia, it’s a no-brainer. But then that’s just my opinion. The choice, as they say, is yours.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE CHATEAU WAS bathed in the most stunning sunset as their black, muscular four-by-four powered up the endless, winding tree-lined driveway. It rose out of its setting of verdant sprawling vineyards in stunning yellow stonework which made it seem warm and welcoming—even the single stunning turret wasn’t imposing and hostile, like its owner—whilst the pretty shutters only enhanced the romantic feel of the property.
Yet as the car sped over the uneven ground with a light bump, Tia’s heart gave a far more violent jerk. She didn’t know what unsettled her the most: the fact that she’d allowed Zeke to command her to bring herself and Seth to live with him whilst he got to know his—their—son, the fact that Z-Black was a private chateau in the south of France, or the fact that he had flown them out on a private plane.
Now they were here her sense of unease only intensified.
It was all a world away from the Zeke she had known, the Zeke she had married, and she couldn’t shake the impression that this was his way of showing her exactly that. Proving to her that she didn’t know the first thing about him any more.
Maybe it was unintentional. More likely it was a deliberate attempt to unnerve her.
Either way, it was certainly working. She’d been worried enough about the custody angle when she’d seen his home back in Westlake. This was a hundred times worse.
And so she did the only thing she could—she reached for something solid, something which could ground her, something which mattered.
Seth.
‘He’s still asleep,’ she murmured, stroking the soft hair above his brow in the way that always gave her comfort. ‘It seems a shame to have to wake him. It has been a tumultuous couple of days.’
Too late, she realised it probably sounded as if she were making a dig at Zeke. She lifted her eyes, opening her mouth to clarify, but the hostile expression that greeted her made her close it again.
‘Which is why I’ve heeded your request not to tell my son who I am,’ Zeke ground out before adding darkly, ‘Yet.’
Tia swallowed.
‘And I appreciate that. I think...it would help for him to get to know you a little before dropping that bombshell on him.’
‘The way you dropped it on me, you mean?’
For the second time in as many minutes she opened her mouth only to close it again. Zeke had her boxed in. And he knew it.
They sat in silence for the next few minutes—though it might as well have been years—whilst the vehicle finally pulled up outside the house.
Before she realised it, Zeke had scooped his still-sleeping son up into his arms and was lifting him out of the car and carrying him to the door, with her scurrying to catch up.
Father and son. Leaving her behind. Wasn’t this partly what she had feared by coming back into his life? That, or watching him reject Seth as his son. The way he had rejected her almost six years ago.
Ironic how she outwardly objected to him ordering her around, demanding that she and Seth join him in France, and yet it was that very commandeering front that made her feel they were wanted. Required. She certainly couldn’t believe she’d ever considered that Zeke rejecting Seth would be a possibility.
And there it was, the unpredictability that had always been Ezekial Jackson. The reason she had let him reject her back then. Not fighting for him, or their fragile marriage, the way a part of her had so desperately longed to do.
Because she’d known that he’d been dealing with enough just coming to terms with losing his leg. Just trying to find a way to piece his life back together and work out a new path for himself, and for his future.
She’d already explained to him the reasons for her keeping Seth a secret, and they were true. But it hadn’t stopped a part of her from always railing against the fact that her son didn’t know his father, especially one he could be proud of like Zeke.
The fact that he’d started Z-Black certainly explained how he’d dropped off-grid after leaving the rehab’s home. And why the first time she’d heard of him was years later when the newspaper had run those reports about Zeke, the hero coxswain.
Despite herself, Tia felt a soft smile toying with her mouth as she followed Zeke upstairs, still cradling Seth in his arms.
There were so many Zeke-like traits that she recognised. As bizarre as it might seem to a casual onlooker, she knew him well enough to understand why a multimillionaire would be working as a coxswain for a lifeboat charity. The sea ran through his blood, much as it did hers. It was who he was, and it was what he loved.
The Westlake connection still baffled her, though. Why had he come back there, of all places, to be a coxswain? He’d hated the place. Barely able to hang arou
nd at the scene of his awful childhood once he’d become old enough to join up.
If she hadn’t known better she might have fancifully imagined that he’d come back because of the connection to her. To the way they had first met.
Tia hastily shut the idea down. To believe that was foolhardy. He wouldn’t have come back for her. Ever. If there was one thing Zeke had never been, it was sentimental. But then, what had that angry young man, dragged up in a town of people who looked down on him, ever, ever had to feel sentimental about?
No, he hadn’t come back for her. She couldn’t allow herself to think that way. She didn’t want him to have come back for her. It was too raw, too electrifying. She’d spent her entire youth terrified that every time her mother walked out of the front door that would be the last time they would ever see each other, and then it had happened.
Somehow, Zeke—charismatic, indomitable Zeke—had convinced her that he was bulletproof. That he would always walk back through their front door.
Until he hadn’t. And the pain had been intolerable.
And now he was back to playing the hero, only this time behind the helm of a lifeboat rather than behind the trigger of a rifle.
She wouldn’t put herself through that again. More to the point, she wouldn’t put Seth through that.
And yet here she was, watching Zeke tenderly carry their son. Like the most precious cargo.
‘Where does a fish keep its money?’ Seth had gleefully asked during the flight—before exhaustion had finally overwhelmed him.
‘I don’t know.’ Zeke had pondered thoughtfully, and then proceeded to offer a myriad solutions, each one more absurd than the last and eliciting howls of laughter from a delighted Seth.
In the end, their son had almost been reluctant to answer, knowing it would be the end of the hilarious and outlandish suggestions from the man who had suddenly, unequivocally, entered his little life.
‘In the riverbank,’ Seth had announced proudly, his tiny chest positively swelling as Zeke had slapped his palm to his forehead and proclaimed how silly he’d been for not realising and then had wonderfully hammed up how impressed he was.
Now, hurrying behind them both to her temporary bedroom, Tia shook her head. As if that could somehow reorder the jumble of thoughts churning around in there, each vying for pole position.
‘These are your rooms,’ he announced, kicking open the slightly ajar door with one foot and striding inside. ‘I’d have given you the tour but I had a feeling you would want to stay with Seth so he doesn’t wake up alone in a strange bed. Your luggage will be brought up imminently.’
‘This will be just fine,’ she murmured, taking in the room, which was probably about the size of a small Parisian apartment. The sheer grandeur of it making her feel gawkish and out of place.
Another reminder that Zeke was now a multimillionaire, who could probably afford to pay the best lawyers to win custody of Seth—if he so chose. He might not have outwardly threatened to do just that, but it was there, simmering below the surface.
It should twist her in knots. But it didn’t.
Why?
Because a part of her truly believed, deep down, that Zeke would never do that to her or Seth. Was she being naïve?
She hovered as Zeke laid Seth gently on the bed before moving to an ornate blanket box and taking out a colourful throw to cover his son.
‘This is Seth’s room,’ Zeke informed her pointedly, before indicating across to the far wall. ‘Your rooms are through that adjoining door. Feel free to freshen up, even take a nap. I imagine it has been a fairly stressful seventy-two hours. Dinner will be in two hours in the large dining room. I’ll give you the tour after that.’
‘So formal for just the three of us?’
‘Actually I thought Seth might prefer to eat a little earlier with some of Mme Leroy’s grandchildren, since she babysits them from school every day before her daughter can collect them. Just for tonight whilst we discuss the ground rules whilst you are here.’
‘I’m to have ground rules?’ She smiled a little too tightly, but Zeke ignored her.
‘I always hear them having a lot of fun, and then you can get him into bed before you come down. Besides, some of my senior instructors usually dine over here so that they can brief me on the day’s events.’
Of course they did. Because work always came first with Zeke. It was one of the qualities that had drawn her to his young self. But it was also one of the ways he’d kept himself closed off from her—even if she’d never appreciated it at the time.
* * *
Zeke was deep in conversation with one of the instructors when Tia made her way down the stairs a couple of hours later, yet he was aware of her presence before he even saw her. Tiny hairs on his body standing to attention, as though the entire aura of the room had changed just by her approaching it.
And then she walked in looking like any single one of his fantasies over the last few years despite the fact that she was in nothing more dressed up than a light grey, soft cashmere jumper over a pair of charcoal trousers and those things he was pretty sure they called ballet pumps on her feet.
Her hair was piled up on her head as though she’d thrown it up there having only just got out of bed. A fact that was belied by the faint mandarin scent of shower gel as she glided gracefully up to him.
How he wished he could dismiss the others now and just have the evening with this arresting creature, as every part of him screamed mine.
‘Gentlemen, I don’t believe you’ve met Dr Antonia Farringdale before.’
‘I most certainly have not had that pleasure.’
Zane. He might have known his old marine buddy wouldn’t be able to resist her and as ridiculous, as schoolyard, as it was Zeke couldn’t help himself—he took a tiny step forward, so subtle it looked simply as though he were shifting his weight from one foot to the other, but enough that his shoulder was tilted towards the newcomer.
The sense of possessiveness that charged through him caught him off guard. He wondered what a body language expert might make of it. He didn’t desire Tia. He couldn’t possibly. Not after she’d lied to him. Denied him, all these years.
He tried to hold onto the fury, the rage, that had almost overtaken him two nights ago when he’d found out that he had a son. A son. And yet he found he couldn’t. That initial rage had waned the instant she’d left his house in Westlake that first day. All her words, her admissions, rolling around his head.
He hadn’t wanted to understand her excuses, let alone believe them, and yet even then he’d known that he didn’t matter.
Only Seth mattered.
And feuding parents would be the last thing the four-year-old boy would need.
Yet if it was only about Seth, and not about Tia, then why was it he still couldn’t quite bring himself to relinquish his defensive stance as he introduced her to the room? Starting with his old buddy.
‘Tia, allow me to introduce Zane, otherwise known as William Zane. One of the other Zs in Z-Black.’
‘William.’ Tia smiled and the openness and brilliance of it almost knocked Zeke for six.
How had he forgotten how powerful that smile of hers could be?
He ignored the voice that told him that he hadn’t forgotten. Not for a moment.
‘Zane, please,’ his buddy corrected, beaming back.
Making Zeke uncharacteristically long to punch him in the mouth.
‘Zane.’ Tia inclined her head. ‘You guys have got a great place here.’
‘Thanks. We’re kinda proud of it.’
‘It pays the bills.’ Zeke grinned, though it turned into more of an uncomfortable baring of teeth. ‘Shall we finish introductions and then eat?’
He’d like to have thought that his companions didn’t notice—possibly the others didn’t—but Zane and Tia eyed him a fraction too long.
A fraction too intently. Then the moment passed, and the evening unfolded relatively easily after that, with the meal passing smoothly and the conversation covering the day’s events, as it always did.
But for once, Zeke couldn’t concentrate.
He felt completely out of control, watching her eat, straining to hear her own soft conversations. Especially those with Zane, a lothario by his buddy’s own admission.
‘Would you prefer that we all left so that you and your wife could become a little less estranged?’ Zane murmured, catching Zeke off guard. ‘Perhaps I should warn the guys that you might not make it out into the training village tomorrow.’
‘Bull,’ Zeke gritted out. ‘There’s nothing between Tia and me. I’ll be there.’
But his tone was too thick and too dark; it revealed far too much.
‘Yes, I can tell that by the way you’re both taking great pains to look anywhere but at each other.’ Zane’s eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘To talk to every other person at this table but one another. Fascinating.’
‘Sod off,’ Zeke grumbled.
But it was too late. There was something taking flight within him.
Hope.
Forget all his vows to himself that he wasn’t going near Tia again. All he wanted was for his business partner and the instructors to be gone so that he could be alone with her.
‘I’ve been toying with a potential new business venture,’ he growled. ‘We can discuss it in my study after the meal.’
‘That desperate to keep your distance from her, huh?’ Zane grinned. ‘Man, you must have it bad.’
It took everything Zeke had not to let his eyes slide to Tia.
‘You’re clutching, mate. We’ll have a drink and talk business tactics.’
‘Can’t.’ Zane sloshed down a mouthful of red wine. ‘I have a cheeky little rendezvous lined up for later. I’ve been chasing this one for weeks.’
The Army Doc's Baby Secret Page 10
