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But would she? He didn’t know her, not really. For a few crazy hours he had experienced a connection with her that had flummoxed him, but with hindsight he had recognised that it had been nothing more than a mutual powerful attraction.
And now she was expecting him to be happy with entrusting her with raising his child. What was the best thing to do? For the baby? Neither he nor Charlotte mattered in all of this. ‘Don’t you think a child has the right to know its father, to benefit from that support?’
White teeth bit down on the soft, tender plumpness of her lips. He cursed silently at the drag of attraction that barrelled through him.
She pulled on the collar of her plain lilac blouse and eyed him impassively before she answered, ‘Perhaps, but only if the father wants and is capable of doing so.’
Fresh irritation swept through him. He set furious eyes on her. ‘You’re making a lot of dangerous assumptions.’
She held his gaze, her mouth now a thin line of scepticism. ‘Am I?’
‘Let me be clear. I’ll make the decision as to my role in this baby’s life. Starting with understanding just how you propose to raise it. Are you going to work full-time? Who will take care of it when you do? Have you thought through the financial implications? Who else in your life will support you? What happens if something happens to you, you get sick or are in an accident—who will care for the baby then?’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to me.’
She spoke with a tremor in her voice. For a moment he paused, taken aback by the fear in her eyes...the same fear and vulnerability he had seen the night they’d spent together. Inexplicably he was hit with the urge to reach out for her again, to pull her soft body against him, to whisper that everything would be okay. Just as he had done that night.
Canary Wharf Tower, a touchstone for the command of commerce and finance in London, was now visible in the distance. Until thirty minutes ago he had thought of nothing but business and stamping his mark as the most successful owner in the global construction sector. He had worked for almost twenty years to achieve that position, moving from labourer to site management and then into operations. Moving companies, moving countries, working, working, working. Acquiring small companies in the early days and rapidly and aggressively expanding those by taking risks, all the time defying economic predictions. Needing to prove he was strong, that he wasn’t a failure, wasn’t a coward.
The feeling that he was at a critical crossroads in his life moved through him, dancing from his whirling brain down to the confusion plugging his chest. ‘How can you be sure nothing will happen? None of us know what the future holds—you need support in raising a baby.’
She reached down for her handbag again and, placing it on her lap, searched through it, not looking towards him when she answered, ‘I’m sure friends will help me.’
‘And your parents?’
Her fingers clasped the sharp, firm ridges of her handbag bottom. She eyed him warily before mumbling, ‘They’ll be supportive but they’re elderly.’
‘Have you siblings?’
‘No and I don’t see what the issue is here. Lots of people are happily brought up in single-parent homes.’
‘The problem is that I don’t like being given ultimatums. I will decide what involvement I want, when I’m ready to do so.’
She turned to stare out of her window.
When they passed a signpost for the Docklands Light Railway, Blackwall Station, he knew they were close to the airport.
Her gaze fixed on the outside world, she said in a low voice, ‘Even though I don’t want you in our lives.’
He closed his eyes for a moment, her words stinging hard.
He was another mistake in a woman’s life.
Too angry to speak, he willed away the remaining ten minutes of his journey.
He needed space and time to think.
He needed to get away from the woman next to him. The soon-to-be mother of his child. He see-sawed from an infuriation at her coldness, her icy assertion that she didn’t want him in her life, to a deep desire to tug her to him and kiss away that frozen exterior to the warm, passionate woman he had spent the night with.
When his driver pulled up at the departure terminal at City Airport, he turned to her. His words were lost for a moment when he once again was pulled under by her fragile beauty: the pale skin over high cheekbones, the plumpness of her lips, the high arched eyebrows over sea-green eyes that mostly belonged to the Arctic Circle but occasionally reminded him of the sun-kissed warmth of the turquoise sea by his villa in Sardinia. ‘What you want isn’t important. I’ll do what’s best for our baby. We’ll speak again when I return from my business trips.’
He jumped out of the car and stalked away but pulled up when he heard her call his name.
She stood behind the door he had exited, her hands clutching the frame. ‘I’ll still be handing in my resignation letter later today.’
He walked back to her and stared down into those defiant eyes. She pulled the car door even closer against her body.
He leant down close to her ear and whispered words that came from the very centre of his being. ‘Trust me, I’m not going to let you go that easily.’
* * *
Later that evening, Charlotte left the open expanse of the Thames river walkway in Bankside to scoot down Clink Street. The dark narrow cobbled street once again sent an involuntary shiver through her. Now a fashionable part of London, this historic area, famous for Clink prison, still held a hint of menace. And she loved it.
She loved all of London. It was why she walked to and from her work in St James’s to her home in Borough every day. Her journey took her past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Then the London Eye, the giant wheel always making her smile when she remembered her mum’s terror when they had ridden it for her fourteenth birthday. And towards the end of her walk came her favourite, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The timber construction embodying the history that this city was steeped in and the determination of its people to continue its rich and vibrant culture.
And now she was going to have to leave all of this. Leave her apartment, leave her challenging but exhilarating work, leave this buzzing city. She was leaving for all of the right reasons, but she would miss this life she had worked so hard to achieve.
Lucien’s question earlier that day as to who would care for her baby should something happen to her came back to plague her again. She yanked the strap of her rucksack tighter on her shoulder, her sports-trainer footsteps falling silently on the cobbled street. What if her depression did return? Not that he knew anything about her past illness.
A tight, tight, tight cord lashed itself around her throat.
How would she care for her baby if it did come back?
That’s not going to happen. I’m strong now.
She passed a noisy popular fusion restaurant and looked away from the smiling and animated couples and large groups of friends dining there. They all seemed so carefree.
In her final year at university she had been sucked deeper and deeper into depression. Not that she had understood any of that at the time.
At first it had just been a feeling of being overwhelmed by her workload, her looming exams and the self-imposed pressure of achieving a first-class degree. Unable to concentrate, constantly tired, her mind swamped by a sense of hopelessness. She’d kept it hidden for months. Not wanting to be thought of as weak. Feeling a complete failure. Not wanting to be a burden to anyone. Eventually she had told her boyfriend Dan and best friend Angie. And had somehow managed to drag herself through her final exams.
On the night of her final exam she had told Dan once again that she was too tired to go out. To her relief, for once he hadn’t become quietly irritated with her. But later she had changed her mind. Hoping that now that the exams were over just maybe she would be herself again.
With that glimmer of hope sustaining her, she had made her way to the riverside pub. And had found Dan and Angie in the beer garden. Kissing. Intimately. Lovers intimately.
Dan had been the first to see her. He had broken away and approached her with a guilty but almost relieved look on his face. Within minutes she had learned that they had been dating for weeks. And it was over between herself and Dan.
She had gone home to her parents that night. Broken. And had spent the following year slowly dragging herself out of the swamp of depression.
In the years since, she had wrapped up all the memories of that year into a tiny capsule that sat deep within her. Knowing that she needed to mind herself, protect herself against the depression returning. And she did that by telling herself that she was strong, protecting herself in relationships, and guarding herself against men who might hurt her again.
She passed an upmarket burger restaurant and walked on by. But a few steps on she came to a stop and turned around.
She needed a milkshake.
Twenty minutes later, she turned right onto Kipling Street, sucking hard on the thick sweet vanilla mixture, fears at bay for now, just glad to see her apartment block further down the street and the prospect of watching escapism TV for an hour.
The drink straw dropped from her mouth.
And her shock was much too quickly superseded by the hot heat of embarrassment and soul-destroying attraction.
Leaning against the door of this dark saloon, Lucien was talking on his phone. Earthy, menacing, sexy.
He hadn’t seen her yet.
She pushed away the impulse to run away and instead put the milkshake carton in a nearby bin, tidied the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail, grimaced down at her purple and blue leggings and dark navy sweatshirt, and tightened her grip on her rucksack handle.
He became aware of her when she was twenty paces away. He continued to talk on the phone but he watched her intently. Every. Single. Step. Of. The. Way. Green eyes narrowed, lazily travelling down her body and back up again.
He was tieless, top button undone, his shirt sleeves rolled up. His dark brown hair was cut tightly into his scalp at the side, the top a little longer and curling slightly, adding to his air of menace. The powerful strength of his fighter body was clear in his muscular forearms, the broad width of his shoulders, the long length of his legs, planted wide apart.
Lucien didn’t look like the other suave CEOs that swarmed London. Instead he looked like a dock worker from Marseille who modelled and took part in mixed martial arts in his spare time.
She hated how attracted she was to him.
She hated how her body melted just seeing him, the tight longing that pulled hard within her.
She hated the physical hunger that froze her brain and all logic.
Destructive, crushing chemistry.
She came to a stop a few steps away from him and he finished his call.
They stared at each other and she raised an eyebrow. Determined not to be the first to talk. To ask him why he was here. To say that she thought he was away on business for the next fortnight.
His gaze dropped down along her body again. And stopped on her stomach. Heat blasted through her at the intimacy, protectiveness, ownership of his look.
Her heart thudded in her chest.
He was the father of her child.
They would be bound for ever.
A thought that was mystifying, incredible, terrifying.
She cleared her throat loudly and dropped her rucksack down in front of her, to swing against her legs. Her arms now shielded her belly.
‘We need to talk,’ he said.
She wanted to say no. This morning had been way more difficult than she had ever anticipated. In perhaps complete naivety she had thought Lucien would be shocked but accepting of her plans for the future. He wasn’t father material, after all. She had sat at her desk all day thinking about what he had said. And come to the realisation that she needed to reassure him of her ability to care for their baby.
He gestured down the street. ‘We can talk in a café on the High Street.’
‘The smell of coffee makes me nauseous.’ She hesitated for a moment as the lines around his eyes tightened. In concern or dislike at another reminder of her pregnancy? With a sense of inevitability and a need to get this over and done with, she added, ‘We can talk in my apartment.’
Lucien said something quickly to his driver and then she led the way into the 1960s redbrick block.
Inside the foyer, he reached for her rucksack. ‘I’ll carry your bag.’ For a brief moment their fingers met. Their gazes clashed and all of the intimacy, the intensity, the closeness of their night together rushed back.
She yanked her hand away and, not welcoming the prospect of being stuck in the tight confines of the lift with him, led him to the stairwell instead.
Walking alongside him up the stairs, she asked, ‘What explanation did you give Human Resources for wanting my address?’
He looked at her with a hint of bemusement. ‘The HR director has enough sense not to ask.’ Then his features fixed back into their usual hard shrewdness. ‘I also spoke to Simon. He made no mention of your resignation.’
They had reached the third floor and she paused on the stairwell and answered, not quite able to meet his eye. ‘I didn’t resign... I’ll do so tomorrow.’
‘Why?’
His now dispassionate tone, so in contrast to the heat of his gaze in the foyer, his lack of understanding of how her life was being turned upside down and his insistence on questioning everything she needed to do had her answer crossly. ‘Simon was busy, and frankly I couldn’t face it...not after this morning. I couldn’t take another difficult conversation today.’ She paused, and as the true realisation of what she was giving up hit home she grabbed her rucksack off him. ‘I love my job. I’ve worked so hard over the years to get to this position.’ A lump suddenly formed in her throat. She knew of her reputation as a tough negotiator within the wider organisation, but within her department, where she was one of the most senior staff members and often mentored the younger staff, she was more relaxed, more herself. ‘It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to everyone.’
She twisted around and stormed through the door into the corridor that led to her apartment. As she searched her rucksack for her keys he joined her at her front door and said, ‘You don’t have to resign.’
‘Yeah, that would work out just fine—me pregnant with the CEO’s baby and we can’t even bring ourselves to say hello in the corridors.’
‘That’s why I came back from Paris. We need to sort this out now.’
With tense fingers she opened the front door of her apartment, a heavy knot of anxious speculation landing in her stomach at his words, while simultaneously managing to worry about the trivial: what would he make of her minuscule apartment, especially in comparison to his vast five-storey Mayfair town house? But her love for her apartment’s bright open interior and pride that she had finally managed to get a foothold on the crazy London property market had her march in ahead of him.
In the open-plan lounge and kitchen she gestured to her grey velvet couch, silently inviting him to sit, and asked, ‘Can I get you something to drink?’
He didn’t sit but instead paced around the room. The room shrank around his restlessness, the power and strength of his body. Needing some oxygen against the tension in the room, she moved to the lounge window and opened it to the still-warm April air.
When she turned back to face him, he hit her with a non-compromising stare. ‘I want to be a part of this baby’s life on a daily basis.’
The knot of anxiety inside her twisted. ‘That’s not possible, you know that. I’m moving away from London.’
‘Don’t move away.’
She gestured around her apartment. ‘I need more space. I need to be near my parents. To have family close by.’
‘I agree, that’s why I believe you should move in with me...and, for that matter, why we should marry.’
She sank down onto the window seat below the open window. ‘Marry!’
‘Yes.’
A known serial dater was proposing marriage. This was crazy. He had the reputation for being impulsive and a maverick within the industry, but his decisions were always backed up with sound logic. And that quick-fire decision-making, some would even say recklessness, often gave him the edge over his more ponderous rivals. But he had called this one all wrong. She gave an incredulous laugh. ‘I bet you don’t even believe in marriage?’
He rolled his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck hard, his expression growing darker before he answered, ‘It’s the responsible thing to do when a child becomes part of the equation.’
This was crazy. She lifted her hands to her face in shock and exasperation, her hot cheeks burning against the skin of her palms. ‘Have you really thought about what it takes to be a father? A child needs consistency, routine, to know that they are the centre of the parent’s life. Have you considered the sacrifices needed? Your work life, the constant travel, all of the partying—everything about the way you live now will be affected. Are you prepared to give up all of that?’
Standing in the centre of the room, he folded his arms on his wide imposing chest, his eyes firing with impatient resolve. ‘I don’t have a choice. This child is my responsibility and duty. I will do whatever it takes to ensure that it has a safe and happy childhood.’
‘I can give my baby all of that.’
‘You admitted this morning that you have limited support.’
