Secret Heirs And A Forever Family

Rose stepped forward, hands clasped in front of her. ‘It won’t take long. I need to explain something to you… Well, everything, actually.’

Something inside Zac went very still at the intensity of her gaze. As much as he was itching to get out of her far too disturbing orbit, he was also intrigued.

‘My car is picking me up in half an hour. You’ve got fifteen minutes.’

Rose cursed her jumping nerves, self-conscious in her jeans and plain shirt. Zac clearly didn’t welcome seeing her here, and that had hurt more than she’d thought it would. But she knew that if she didn’t do this now she’d lose her nerve. And she wanted to tell him before his grandmother had a chance to get to him. She’d taken a huge gamble earlier today and she had to pray she’d done the right thing, putting her trust in Zac. Her father’s life depended on it.

‘Well?’

He’d put down his glass and was standing with his hands in his suit pockets, legs spread. Intimidating. Powerful. It galvanised her to put some distance between them and she went and stood close to the windows.

She faced him again from across the safer distance, took a breath, and dived in. ‘Your grandmother came to me with the plan to set you up.’

Zac’s face darkened with impatience. ‘It was either you or her, and to be quite frank it doesn’t really matter who initiated it. Look, if you’re not going to tell me something new—’

Emotion rose up inside Rose as she choked out, ‘It does matter. And I need to tell you why I said yes in the first place—’ She stopped abruptly and took a breath. ‘It was for my father.’

The words hung in the air between them.

Zac frowned. ‘What’s your father got to do with this?’

Rose’s legs were feeling shaky, so she sat down again on the nearest chair. She looked at Zac and said helplessly, ‘Everything.’

He stared at her, and she half expected him to walk out, but he didn’t.

He said grimly, ‘Go on.’

‘If I tell you what I’m going to tell you I need you to promise me something first.’

His mouth tightened. ‘You’re really not in a position to bargain.’

Rose stood up again. She had to be strong for this. ‘I want this baby to be a Valenti too, Zac. I don’t want any part in your grandmother’s scheme. But if I’m to go against her for you, and this baby, I need you to match what she was paying me.’

Zac got angry. ‘Now you’re willing to negotiate?’

He paced back and forth, energy crackling across the space between them.

‘It’s not a negotiation.’

Her voice rang out, harsher than she’d ever heard it. And it stopped Zac too.

She went on. ‘The reason I could never tell you the price she paid me is because this was never about money—’

‘Oh, please—’

‘It wasn’t,’ she said, in the face of his blatant disbelief.

‘If it wasn’t about money then what was it about?’

Rose felt numbness stealing over her, cushioning her slightly from Zac’s blistering impatience. ‘My father is ill. Very ill. He needs an operation on his heart and it’s one of the most expensive operations in the world. He was a driver for your family for years. You know him.’

Rose could see Zac trying to compute this information, and eventually he said incredulously, ‘Séamus O’Malley? He’s your father?’

Rose nodded, feeling emotional. ‘Yes. It started a few months ago. He wasn’t feeling well and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. After tests the doctors realised that it was his heart. He told me the results over the phone when I was at work in your grandmother’s house. Our insurance is basic, at best. It was devastating news, because we knew we could never afford the operation he needed.’

Rose continued.

‘But before I go any further I need your promise that you’ll take over the care of my father, protect him from any possible repercussions that come out of my telling you everything. He’s due to have the operation in two days. If he doesn’t have it he won’t last until the end of the year—’

Her voice had cracked on the last words, but Zac appeared unmoved.

‘Why should I do this?’

‘Because he’s an innocent party in this. He doesn’t deserve to suffer because of my mistakes.’

Zac prowled towards her, his face darkening. ‘Oh, so I’m a mistake now?’

Rose flushed. ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant the mistake of letting your grandmother use me as a pawn to get to you, and then everything getting out of control.’

Zac stopped. Even though feet still separated them, she could feel his physical pull on her.

He looked at her for a long moment. ‘I’ll have to check what you say is true.’

‘Of course.’ She seized on even the slightest chance that he might do this. ‘And then will you help him?’ Rose thought she’d get down on her knees if she had to.

Zac was silent for so long that she felt the spark of hope wither inside her… Perhaps she’d misjudged him. He wouldn’t unbend. Not for her—not for anyone.

She was about to admit defeat and retreat when he nodded once, curtly. ‘If your father truly is ill and he played no part in this, then, yes, I will help him. Now, tell me. Everything.’

For a moment the relief Rose felt was almost overwhelming. And then she registered Zac’s impatience. He was waiting for her to speak.

She struggled to formulate her thoughts, aware that she was on borrowed time. ‘When I found out about my father I was upset. Your grandmother found me crying in one of the bedrooms. At first she was annoyed that I wasn’t working, but then when I explained why I was upset she seemed to get interested…’

Rose knew she didn’t have to go into the minutiae. Zac got it. His grandmother had seen an opportunity and seized it.

‘She presented me with a plan to go to a function and deliberately contrive to meet you. She spoke about seducing you…getting pregnant…but in all honesty I was so distraught that half of what she said barely made sense. And then, when it sank in, I truly believed that the chances of the plan actually working were slim to none. I have no defence for even contemplating what she proposed for me to do except to say that I was panicking and she was telling me that she would pay for my father to have the operation he needed. She had the contracts and non-disclosure agreements drawn up by the next day… Even as I signed them I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I was so scared for my father.’

Zac was still giving nothing away with his expression.

Rose forged on. ‘I spent most of that evening we met hiding in the hotel bathroom. I realised I couldn’t do it. It was crazy. I was totally out of my depth. And I was terrified of actually meeting you… I hoped you’d left, that I could tell your grandmother it hadn’t worked…’

Zac’s gaze dropped to Rose’s waist and he said, in a voice stripped bare of expression, ‘But we did meet.’

Rose put a hand over her belly. ‘Yes.’

He looked back up. ‘And then we met again—and not by chance.’

She flushed with shame. ‘No, not by chance. But not by my choice either. After I left you that first night I wrote a note to your grandmother telling her I couldn’t go through with it, including my resignation. I went home to Queens and resolved to try and look after my father myself, even if I had to work five jobs… But then she came and found me a week later… She told me you’d been looking for me—’

Rose faltered, afraid of Zac’s reaction to that, but he remained stony-faced.

She went on, ‘She reminded me that I’d signed legal documents and that if I didn’t go through with the plan she’d sue me. I was afraid she’d do even worse things, like fight me for custody.’

Zac almost exploded. ‘Anyone would know that she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in a court of law if it came to fighting the rights of the biological mother.’

Rose went so hot with instant humiliation that she could feel sweat break out all over her body. And anger gripped her too, surging forth like water from a dam that had broken after too much pressure.

‘How on earth was I supposed to know that? I’m a maid, Zac. I left high-school at seventeen with no qualifications. When one of the world’s richest women stands in front of you with a signed document, it’s pretty hard not to believe that she has the power to annihilate you. Plus she made me sign a non-disclosure agreement—which is why I believed I couldn’t tell you anything.’

Rose was breathing hard after her outburst, and realised her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. She consciously relaxed them and tried to regain control. Zac’s slightly stunned expression was no comfort. She was shaking from the adrenaline rush of anger and of defending herself for the first time to this man.

But then the expression on his face closed again, became obdurate. As much as Rose wanted to crawl somewhere safe and lick her wounds, she knew she had to keep going—bare herself completely.

She lifted her chin. ‘The truth is that as much as she was coercing me to comply with threats of legal action… I wanted to see you again. It’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever done, going back to your apartment with you that day, but I thought…I believed that I could have that moment…that as long as I made sure you used protection…’

She fell silent under the weight of the evidence that all her good intentions hadn’t protected her—or them.

As if reading her mind, Zac said, ‘As interesting as all of this sounds, I’m inclined to see the fact that you did get pregnant as a somewhat calculated part of the plan, no matter how reluctant you say you were to go along with it.’

Rose fought down a feeling of despair. It had always been a long shot that Zac would believe her—but at least he’d listened and had agreed to take care of her father. That had to be enough for now. She didn’t see the point in telling him that she’d been face to face with his grandmother that afternoon. He would find out soon enough.

He folded his arms. ‘If I do this and help your father, how do I know you won’t turn around and fight me for custody of my child?’

She felt incredibly weary now. ‘Because I’m putting my father’s life in your hands. And I’m telling you that I want my baby to have your name. Your rightful name. I’ll sign anything you want.’

Zac’s mouth twisted. ‘I think we can safely say that you’ve proved how adept you are at that, at least.’

His phone rang in his pocket then, and he cursed as he looked at his watch and then back to her.

‘I need to go to this function. I’m giving the keynote speech.’ He reached into his inside jacket pocket and held out a card. ‘Call my assistant and give him all your father’s details. Once I’m satisfied that he’s an innocent party I’ll arrange for his care to be put in my name.’

Just like that. Weeks of agonising, and now the thought that she might possibly have told Zac everything from the start made emotion rise up inside her, twisting her heart in her chest.

She took the card, and he was almost out through the door when Rose managed to get out a strangled-sounding, ‘Wait…’

He stopped and turned again. His face was stark. No emotion. When she felt as if someone had just ripped her guts out.

‘I just…’ Rose faltered under that cool regard. She just…what? ‘I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I never meant for any of it to happen like this.’

She still refused to regret becoming pregnant, but she was sure he wouldn’t appreciate hearing that right now.

‘I’m not sure you didn’t, Rose, but you’ve told me enough for now. As you say, your father shouldn’t be punished for your actions.’

And then he was gone, the door closing quietly behind him. Rose sank down on the couch behind her, suddenly weak as the overload of adrenaline left her system. She was trembling all over, like a shock victim.

The cool lack of emotion in his eyes just now scored at her already raw insides like a knife. The fact that he would never believe she hadn’t set out to trap him deliberately, regardless of what she’d told him, was devastating.

In the shattering aftermath of their lovemaking in Italy she’d truly believed that maybe he felt something for her beyond resentment. There had been glimmers of an accord… But obviously it had just been her pathetic wishful thinking.

But still a tiny bud of hope refused to die. If there was any chance at all that she could persuade Zac that she’d never wanted to betray him, then wasn’t it worth a try? Even if she had to tell him how she felt to convince him. Even if that prospect made her feel weak all over again.

She knew that if she hadn’t fallen for him in the first place—probably from the moment she’d laid eyes on him—then this chain of events would never have happened. It was the fact that she’d wanted him so much for herself that had led to this, and she owed it to him to make that clear.

Filled with determination, and with her heart pounding, Rose went into what had been her bedroom and rummaged through the wardrobe until she found what she was looking for.

Zac wasn’t sure what he’d said during the keynote speech, but it must have been the right thing because people were coming up and slapping him on the back, making all the right noises and responses.

He wasn’t sure what he’d said because his brain was still trying to assimilate everything Rose had told him. She wanted him to believe that she’d done it all for her sick father.

He remembered Séamus O’Malley. He’d always been nice to Zac, and had let him sit up at the front of the car when his grandparents hadn’t been around. His accent used to fascinate Zac, and he would tell him stories of Ireland and tales of great Irish warriors.

It unnerved him now, how vivid those memories still were.

But if everything Rose had said was true, then why the hell hadn’t she just told him from the start? Of course he would have helped her father. Could he really believe that she’d been all but blackmailed by his grandmother into trapping him with a pregnancy?

All Zac had to do was think of his grandmother’s cold, imperious face and one word resounded in his head: yes.

Rose’s impassioned defence when he’d questioned her intelligence came back now, too, and he felt his chest grow tight. He took this world for granted, but he knew powerful people could be intimidating—and there was nothing more intimidating than the threat of legal action, especially when you couldn’t afford it.

Suddenly the conversation around him stopped and a familiar scent reached his nostrils. His companions were looking at someone behind him and he turned around slowly. His eyes widened incredulously.

Rose stood before him in the same black dress she’d worn the first night they’d met. It shimmered and clung to every curve, and to the small proud swell of her belly. Dimly he recognised that it had grown bigger in just the space of a week, and the knowledge made him feel as if something was slipping a mooring inside him.

Her hair was down, she wore no make-up, yet she was luminous. Ethereal. His fey enchantress. His betrayer.

His voice sounded hoarse to his ears. ‘What are you doing here?’

She came closer. ‘I need to say something else.’

Aware of the spike in interest around them, Zac said tersely, ‘Now is hardly the time to continue this conversation.’

He saw the pulse at the base of her neck beating hectically and his own blood throbbed in response.

‘Now is as good a time as any.’

Zac was aware of the keen interest of everyone around them and took Rose’s arm in his hand, pulling her away from prying eyes and flapping ears.

He walked her over to a quieter spot and let her go. ‘Well? What’s so important it couldn’t wait?’

She took a deep breath, which made her breasts rise against the dress. Distracting.

‘I need you to know that there was always so much more to this for me—from the first night we met. The last thing I wanted to do was betray you…or derail your life… Even when I knew I was being unconscionably selfish in going back to your apartment with you that day, I told myself that you’d make sure we were protected. I thought I could take a sliver of what you were offering and then walk away and never see you again. It would be my secret, to hold tight forever.’

She gestured to the dress with a jerky movement.

‘I just wanted to try and show you that the girl you met that night was the girl you thought I was. Unbelievably naive and gauche. But I was caught up in something I didn’t know how to navigate. And yes, there was an agenda, but I hated every moment of the deception.’

She grabbed his hand then and placed it over her small belly. He could feel her trembling.

‘The truth is that I fell in love with you, Zac, and I don’t regret for a second that we’re having this baby, no matter how it came about, because for me this baby will be born out of love.’

This baby will be born out of love.

For a second Zac’s chest swelled with something that felt scarily euphoric. And then he remembered… No matter what she said, this baby had been conceived in deception. And treachery. The fact was that she was pregnant, so she could say what she liked. She had him trapped.

A memory surfaced of how reverent he’d felt when he’d touched Rose that afternoon she’d come back to his apartment. It had been like nothing he’d ever experienced before. How awed he’d been by her apparent honesty…

But she hadn’t been remotely honest… She’d known exactly what she was doing. And at no point had she attempted to come clean.

Rose had had the last week to think things through, and Zac had to concede that she was nothing if not enterprising. He took his hand from under hers and ignored the way that small hard swell had evoked a need in him to protect. It was a need to protect his unborn child from her.

Coolly, he said, ‘I don’t appreciate this public stunt.’

Rose frowned. ‘It’s not a stunt.’

Zac lifted a hand. ‘Please—I don’t want to hear it.’

She took a step back and looked at him. ‘You still don’t trust me.’

He emitted a half-laugh. ‘Trust? You think a public declaration of love and remorse will convince me to take leave of my senses altogether?’ He shook his head. ‘You really don’t have to do this, you know. It’s overkill. Once you sign the contract put together by my legal team I’ll make sure you’re comfortable for the rest of your life. You’ve realised that as the baby’s father I was always going to win in any battle against my grandmother and you’re just switching your allegiance. I get it. I recognise someone bent on survival because I’ve been there too.’

Rose just looked at him. He could see the light in her eyes dimming. The light of hope, it occurred to him, bizarrely, and for a moment he almost forgot and reached out to grab her. She’d gone so pale…

But then she took another step back and smiled woodenly. ‘You have to admit it was worth a try,’ she said.

It felt as if something was cracking in Zac’s chest. Something that had no right to exist. Because it meant that on some level he still had a fatal weakness for this woman and that a part of him had wanted those words to be true.

Ridiculous.

As a five-year-old boy Zac had impulsively hugged his grandmother one day, only to have her push him away so hard he’d fallen and hit his head on a table.

She’d stood over him and said, ‘Don’t ever touch me like that again—do you hear?’

He had to force a smile now, because it didn’t come easily. ‘It’s always worth a try, Rose.’

And then he turned and walked back into the crowd, and hated that it was the hardest thing in the world not to look back and see her face.

When he finally returned to the group he’d been with before and did look back, she was gone.

As Rose packed her things a short while later, in the apartment beside Zac’s, she was still in a state of something like stoical numbness. The fact that she’d gone there in that dress, in public, and had all but prostrated herself at his feet had meant nothing. Changed nothing.

She’d told him how she felt and it had been like a scene in a sci-fi movie, with bullets bouncing off an invisible membrane, uselessly.

The fact that she’d so weakly taken the opportunity to let him give her an out, by agreeing with his accusation that it was just an act, was something she was not going to beat herself up over now. She had a lifetime for that.

Her child would be her main focus now. And her father.

She took a last look around the room. The black dress was draped across the bed and this time she wouldn’t be taking it with her, because it was the last reminder she wanted. Then she picked up her bag and walked out.

CHAPTER TEN

‘IT LOOKS LIKE she’s telling the truth, Zac. Her father’s operation is tomorrow. And there’s been no other transfer of funds that we can find. It’s literally just the hospital costs. We’ve no reason to believe her father is involved in any way.’

Zac sat in his chair in his office, hands steepled under his chin. With a mounting feeling of vague dread in his belly he said, ‘Okay, thanks, Simon. Will you see to it that all the costs are taken care of?’

‘Of course—and do you still want to go ahead with the contract you outlined?’

‘Yes, as soon as possible.’ Even though that made him feel uneasy now too.

‘Consider it done.’

When the call was terminated Zac stood up and went over to the window, feeling restless. On edge. He could see the Statue of Liberty. And the Brooklyn Bridge. It was from here that he had overseen his resurrection. And yet now the sense of accomplishment he usually felt didn’t fizz in his veins.

All he could see was Rose’s face last night, when that light had dimmed in her eyes and she’d said in a brittle voice, ‘It was worth a try.’

When he’d returned to his apartment there had been no trace of her apart from the faintest lingering of her scent. Even that had had an effect on him. Enough to make him come up with some half-baked excuse to go to the adjoining apartment and knock on the door.

When there’d been no answer the concierge had let him in and Zac had prowled the rooms, as restless as a panther. She hadn’t been there either. All the clothes he’d bought her had been hanging up neatly. And the black dress had lain across the bed in the master suite. A mocking reminder of the lengths she’d gone to.

Panic mixed with anger had roiled in his gut. Suspicion had mounted that she’d gone back to his grandmother’s, figuring she could battle him for custody from there, but then he’d seen a piece of paper on the table by the door with his name on it.

Zac, thank you for the offer of the apartment but I’ll be more comfortable at home in Queens. I’m going to be with my father at the clinic until after his operation, and then, when he comes home, I’ll help him recuperate, if all goes well.

As you didn’t want to see me anyway, I’m sure you can’t find fault with this. I’ll be in touch once the baby is born to let you know everything is okay, and perhaps then we can discuss plans to go forward.

In the meantime you can send the contract, or any other correspondence to my Queens address.

Rose

Just thinking of the letter now made Zac feel sicker. And he hated it. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d said he wanted? For her to all but disappear from his life?

She’d offered him the perfect out, and once she signed the contract he was having drawn up he’d be able to rest assured that his child would be brought up a Valenti. He would have what he wanted and he could get on with his life… So why did he feel so antsy? And why did he keep thinking of what she’d said about the night they’d met?