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His scalp tightened with preternatural wariness and pride and awe. Sirena was revealing the sort of primal mother instinct their caveman ancestors would have prized in a mate. The alpha male in him exalted in seeing that quality emanating from the mother of his child.
While the cutthroat negotiator in him recognized a tough adversary.
“You’re trying to convince me I can’t buy you off,” he summed up, trying not to let himself become too entranced by her seeming to possess redeeming qualities. She had fooled him once already.
“You can’t. The only reason I’m speaking to you at all is to give my baby the same advantages its father might provide its future siblings, whether that’s monetary or social standing or emotional support. Consider what those things might be as you work through the rest of that.” She nodded at the contract and slipped into the powder room again.
Future siblings? Raoul’s mind became an empty whiteboard as he bit back a remark that he hadn’t expected this child; he certainly wasn’t ready to contemplate more.
* * *
Three months later, Raoul was taking steps to ensure he was prepared for the birth, looking ahead to clear his calendar in six weeks. He rarely took time off and found even Christmas with his mother an endurance test of agitation to get back to work. Anticipation energized him for this vacation, though.
Because it was a new challenge? Or because he would see Sirena?
He shut down the thought. The baby was his sole interest. He was eager to find out the sex, know it was healthy and have final confirmation it was his.
Not that he had many doubts on any of that. True to their agreement, Sirena had sent him updates on the baby’s progress. Nothing concerning her own, he had noted with vague dissatisfaction, but he expected he would be informed if there were problems. The second scan later in the pregnancy had not revealed an obvious male, so he’d assumed the baby was female and found himself taken with the vision of a daughter possessing dark curls and beguiling green eyes.
As for paternity, to his mind, the fact Sirena had signed made the baby his. The final test after the birth was a formality that would activate the arrangements, that was all.
But that was a month and a half from now and he had people to organize. People who were abuzz with the news that the driven head of their multinational software corporation was taking an extended absence.
Only a handful of his closest and most trusted subordinates knew the reason, and even they didn’t know the mother’s identity. The scandalous circumstances of his father’s infidelity and suicide had made Raoul a circumspect man. Nothing about his involvement with Sirena, their affair, her being fired for embezzlement or her pregnancy was public knowledge. When people asked—and she’d made enough of an impression on associates and colleagues that many did—he only said she was no longer with the company.
Part of him continued to resent that loss, especially when the assistants he kept trying out turned out to be so trying. The highly recommended Ms. Poole entered the meeting with a worried pucker in her magic-marker brows.
“I said life or death, Ms. Poole,” he reminded, clinging to patience.
“She’s very insistent,” the spindly woman said, bringing a mobile phone to him.
“Who?” He tamped down on asking, Sirena? Her tenacity was something he’d come to respect, if not always appreciate.
“Molly. About your agreement with Ms. Abbott.”
He didn’t know any Molly, but something preternatural set an unexpected boot heel on his chest, sharp and compressing, causing pressure to balloon out in radiant waves. Odd. There was no reason to believe this was bad news. Sirena hadn’t contacted him directly since he’d left her looking wrung out and cross at her flat that day, neither of them particularly satisfied with the outcome of their negotiations, but possessing a binding document between them.
“Yes?” He took the phone in a hand that became nerveless and clumsy. As he stood and moved from the table, he was aware of the ripple of curiosity behind him. At the same time, despite everything that had passed between them, he experienced a flick of excitement. His mind conjured an image of Sirena in one of those knitted skirt-and-sweater sets she used to wear.
“Mr. Zesiger? I’m Sirena Abbott’s midwife. She asked me to inform you that the baby is on its way.”
“It’s early,” he protested.
“Yes, they had to induce—” She cut herself off.
He heard muffled words and held his breath as he strained to hear what was said.
She came back. “I’ve just been informed it will be an emergency cesarean.”
“Where is she?” he demanded while apprehension wrapped around him like sandpaper, leaving him abraded and raw.
“I understood you were only to be informed and that a paternity test be ordered, not that you would attend—”
“Save me the phone calls to find her so I can come directly,” he bit out.
A brief pause before she told him. “But the results won’t be known for days.”
“Tell her I’m on my way,” he said, but she was already gone.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u317e74bc-9496-543a-aac4-020d03c88741)
A WOMAN MET him in the hospital reception area. She wore red glasses and a homespun pullover. Her ditch-water hair was in one thick plait, her expression grave.
“Raoul? Molly.” She held out a hand and offered a tight smile. “Sirena told me I’d know you when I saw you. The baby is a girl. They’ve taken the samples and should have the results in a few days.” Her manner was disconcertingly strained.
Because she didn’t want to get his hopes up? The baby was here, the moment of truth at hand. He shouldn’t be so stunned given the nature of the call or the time it had taken to fight traffic to get here, but the swiftness of the procedure surprised him. At the same time, he was aware of a gripping need to see the infant and know she was his.
A girl. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted one. And safely delivered. The abruptness of the call and lack of details had unsettled him, but they were fine. Everything was fine.
“Good,” he heard himself say, finally able to breathe. “I’m pleased to hear they came through all right.” He gestured for her to lead the way, assuming she’d show him to their room.
Molly didn’t move. “Premature babies always have certain hurdles, but the pediatrician is confident she’ll progress as well as the best of them.” She seemed to ponder whether to say more.
“And Sirena?” he prompted. Some unknown source of telepathy made him brace even as the question left him. A kind of dread that was distant but gut-churningly familiar seeped into his bloodstream like poison, unwanted and tensing him with refusal and denial before he even knew what she would say.
Molly’s eyes became liquid. “They’re doing all they can.”
For a long moment nothing happened. No movement, no sound, nothing. Then, from far off, he heard a torn inhale, like a last gasp of life.
No. Her words didn’t even make sense. He suddenly found himself bumping into a wall and put out a hand to steady himself. “What happened?”
“I wondered if she had told you about her condition.” Molly moved closer. Her touch was a biting grasp on his upper arm, surprisingly strong and necessary as he wondered if he’d stay on his feet. “It’s been a risky pregnancy from the start. High blood pressure, then early-onset preeclampsia. She’s been managing that condition these last few weeks, trying to buy the baby more time. Today they couldn’t wait any longer without risking both their lives, so the doctors induced. After she had a seizure, they stopped the labor and took her for surgery. Now she’s lost a lot of blood. I’m sorry. I can see this is hard for you to hear.”
Hard? All his strength was draining away, leaving him cold and empty. Clammy with fear. Her life was about to snap free of his and she hadn’t even told him. She might as well have swallowed a bottle of pills and left herself for him to find when he got home from school. Suddenly he was nine again, barely comprehending what he was seeing, unable to get a response out of the heavy body he was shaking with all his might. Not there soon enough. Helpless to make this right.
“Why the hell didn’t she say something?” he burst out, furious that she’d given him no indication, no warning, just left him tied to the tracks to be hit with a train.
Molly shook her head in bafflement. “Sirena didn’t talk about the custody agreement, but it’s been my impression things have been hostile.”
So hostile she kept from him that her life was on the line?
“I don’t want her to die!” The word was foul and jagged in his throat. He spoke from the very center of himself, flashing a look at Molly that made her flinch. He couldn’t imagine what he looked like, but his world was screeching to a halt and everything in it was whirling past him.
“No one does,” she assured him in the guarded tone developed by people who dealt with victims. It was the same prudent nonengagement with explosive emotions that the social worker had used as she had steered his young self from his father’s body.
“Take me to her,” he gritted out. A horrible avalanche of fear like he’d never known crushed him. He wanted to run shouting for her until he found her. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
“I can’t. But—” She seemed to think twice, then gave him a poignant smile. “Maybe they’ll let us into the nursery.”
He forced one foot in front of the other, walking as if through a wall of thick, suffocating gelatin as he followed Molly to the preemie clinic, ambivalence writhing like a two-headed snake inside him. Was it his fault Sirena hovered on the brink? Or another man’s? He adamantly wanted his child, but the idea that one life could cost another appalled him.
He came up to the tiny, nearly naked being in the incubator, her bottom covered in an oversized nappy, her hair hidden by a cap. Wires extended from her bare fragile body and her miniature Sirena mouth briefly pursed in a kiss.
He couldn’t see anything of himself in her, but a startlingly deep need to gather and guard the infant welled in him. Pressing his icy hands to the warm glass, he silently begged the little girl to hang on. If this was all that would be left of Sirena...
He brutally refused to entertain such a thought, turning his mind to sending a deep imperative through the walls of the hospital to the unknown location of this baby’s mother. Hang on, Sirena. Hang on.
* * *
Sirena had the worst hangover of her life. Her whole body hurt, her mouth was dry and nausea roiled in her stomach. In her daze, she moved her hand to her middle, where the solid shape of her baby was gone, replaced with bandages and a soft waistline.
A whimper of distress escaped her.
“Lucy is fine, Sirena.” His voice was unsweetened cocoa, warm and comforting despite the bitter taint.
“Lucy?” she managed, blinking gritty eyes. The stark ceiling above her was white, the day painfully bright. Slowly the steel-gray of Raoul’s gaze came into focus.
“Isn’t that what you told Molly? That you wanted your daughter named for your mother, Lucille?”
You don’t mind? she almost said, but wasn’t sure where the paternity test was. When she had signed the consent forms, they’d told her the kind of proof he’d requested, the kind admissible in court, was a more complex test that would take several days. She wondered if waiting on that had been the only thing keeping him from whisking Lucy from this hospital before she woke.
She didn’t ask. She could barely form words with what felt like a cotton-filled mouth. It took all her concentration to remain impassive. Seeing him gave her such a bizarre sense of relief she wanted to burst into tears. She reminded herself not to read anything into the shadow of stubble on his jaw or the bruises of tiredness under his eyes. The man was a machine when it came to work; he could have been at the office late and dropped by on his way to his penthouse.
Still, that scruff of light beard gave her a thrill. She’d seen him like this many times and always experienced this same ripple of attraction. The same desire to smooth a hand over his rough cheek. He would be overworked yet energized by whatever had piqued his ambition, his shirt collar open, his sleeves rolled back and soon, a smile of weary satisfaction.
But not today. Today he was sexily rumpled, but his demeanor was antagonistic, making a shiver of apprehension sidle through her as he spoke in a rough growl. “You should have told me you weren’t well.”
The harsh accusation in his tone was so sharp she flinched. All she could think about were those harrowing moments when they’d told her the baby had to come out. Not for Lucy’s sake, but her own. The fear in her had been so great, she’d been on the verge of begging Raoul to come to her. The Raoul she had once imagined him to be anyway. He was so strong and capable and she’d instinctively known she’d feel safe if he was near.
He hated her, though. He wouldn’t care. Like always, she’d been on her own.
She’d gone through the induction and the beginning of pains without anyone at her side, only calling Molly when the nurse confirmed that yes, labor was properly started. That was when she’d been required to notify Raoul. She had been explaining that to Molly when something went wrong.
She didn’t even know what had happened. Having a huge blank like that was frightening. His blaming her for not advising him it was a possibility added insult to injury, putting her on the defensive.
“Why would I tell you anything?” she challenged from her disadvantaged position, flat on the bed, tied down with wires, voice like a flake of yellowed onionskin. “You can’t be happy I pulled through.”
“You haven’t yet,” he said, snapping forward in a way that made her heart jump. He set his big hands on either side of her and leaned over her, promising reprisal despite her pathetic condition. “And don’t ever accuse me of anything so ugly again.”
Sirena tried to swallow and couldn’t even feel her dry tongue against her arid lips. “Can I have some water?” she begged in a whispered plea. “Please? I’m so thirsty.”
“I don’t know if you’re allowed to have anything,” he said with a scowl, something avid and desperate flickering through his eyes before he bent with the sudden swoop of a hawk going for a kill.
His mouth covered hers for the briefest second. His damp tongue licked into the parched cavern of her mouth to moisten the dry membranes. The relief was incredible, the act surprising and intimate beyond measure.
“I’ll tell the nurse you’re awake.” He walked out, leaving her speechless and tingling with the return of life to her entire body, mind dazed and wondering if she was still unconscious and hallucinating.
* * *
Sirena had thought nothing could make her melt so thoroughly as the vulnerable sight of her premature daughter. Then she began hearing the stories of Raoul learning to diaper and feed her. Raoul, who didn’t even know for sure he was the father, had paced a path between Lucy and Sirena, talking unceasingly to Sirena when they had feared she would slip into a coma. He’d only gone home for a shower and sleep now that Sirena had woken, nearly seventy-two hours after the birth.
She told herself not to read it as a sign of caring. If Raoul was tending to Lucy, he was only stamping a claim while trying to prove Sirena was dispensable. To some extent she was. She quickly learned she could hold her baby, but she was too sick and weak for anything else. She was pumping her breasts, but only to keep her thin milk supply going while she waited for the cocktail of medications to leave her system. She couldn’t feed Lucy or do anything else a mother ought to do.
Dejected, she was fretting over how useless she was as she headed back to bed the next morning, wiped out by the tiny act of brushing her teeth.
Raoul walked in on her attempt to scale the bed, finding her with one hip hitched on the edge, bare legs akimbo as she quickly tried to stay decent under her hospital gown.
Aside from faint shadows under his heavy eyes, he looked fantastic in casual pants and a striped shirt. He brought a wonderfully familiar scent with him, too. For a second she was back in the office welcoming her freshly shaved boss, sharing coffee with him as they discussed how they’d tackle the day.
He eyed her balefully, but that might have been a reaction to the ferocious scowl she threw at him. She hadn’t been allowed coffee since early in the pregnancy and he was sipping from a travel mug tagged with a ProZess Software logo. He was a picture of everything she couldn’t have.
“Why are you here?” she asked, struggling to use her severed stomach muscles to heft herself onto the bed.
He smoothly moved to her side, set down his coffee and helped her.
“I don’t—” She stiffened in rejection, but he bundled her into his crisp shirt anyway. The press of his body heat through the fabric burned into her as he used a gentle embrace to lift her. His free hand caressed her bare, dangling leg, sliding it neatly under the sheet as he slid her into bed as if she weighed no more than a kitten.
Shaken, she drew the sheet up to her neck and glared at him.
He picked up his coffee and sipped, staring back with his poker face. “Your doctor said he’d have the paternity results when he did his rounds this morning.”
Her heart left her body and ran down the hall to bar the door of the nursery.
She wasn’t ready to face this. Last night had been full of sudden jerks to wakefulness that had left her panting and unable to calm herself from the nightmare that Raoul would disappear with their daughter.
That he would disappear from her life again.
Why did it matter whether he was in her life? She felt nothing but hatred and mistrust toward him, she reminded herself. But the weeks of not seeing him while she waited out her pregnancy had been the bleakest of her life, worse even than when her family had left for Australia.
Logic told her he wasn’t worth these yearning feelings she still had, but she felt a rush of delight that he kept showing up. When he was in the room, the longing that gripped her during his absences eased and the dark shadows inside her receded.
She couldn’t forget he was the enemy, though. And she was running out of defenses.
He must have seen her apprehension, because he drawled, “Scared? Why?” The question was like a throwing star, pointed on all sides and sticking deep. “Because I might be the father? Or because you know I am?”
The stealthy challenge circled her heart like a Spanish inquisitor, the knife blade out and audibly scraping the strop.
She noticed her hands were pleating the edge of the sheet into an accordion. What was the use in prevaricating? She licked her numb lips.
“Are you going to try to take her from me if you are?” she asked in a thin voice.
If? You bitch, he thought as the tension of not knowing stayed dialed high inside him. The last three days had been hellish as he’d grown more and more attached to that tiny tree frog of a girl while cautioning himself that she might belong to another man.
Just like her mother.
“I could have taken her a dozen times by now,” he bit out. “I should have.”
It wasn’t completely true. The hospital had accommodated his visiting the baby, but only because he was the kind of man who didn’t let up until he got what he wanted. They wouldn’t have let him leave with her, though.
