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He’d gone to Vladimir and confronted the ghosts of his past in order to save his mother the heartache of seeing her story all over the newspapers, exactly where it would end up once it was published by World in Photographs. What he’d found in Vladimir with Emma was something different.
Yes, he had been guilty of wanting to distract her from the truth, but somewhere along the way things had changed. She’d reached into the cold darkness of his heart and unlocked emotions he’d thought impossible to feel. Even the woman he’d once proposed to had failed to do that, but Emma had been different.
‘What the hell were you thinking?’ He snarled angrily at himself. One of the only times he’d let a woman close and she’d cheated him, used him for her own gain. He’d even begun to question if Emma was as innocent as she’d claimed. Had that too been part of the plan—to make him think he was the first man she’d ever slept with—in order to get the real story?
The fact that she’d run out on him only added fuel to the fire. Not only that, there hadn’t been a word from her since that night when he’d stood there and looked at her, clutching the sheet against her. He’d had had to fight hard not to pull the damn thing from her and get back into bed. His body had been on fire with need for her and, despite having spent all night having sex, he’d allowed the anger he felt at himself for being used to have precedence. It had been a far more reliable emotion to feel, one which had propelled him from the hotel room without a backward glance.
Driven by that anger, he’d left quickly, tossing her a card as an afterthought. Or was it because even then, deep down, he knew things might have gone wrong? If their night together did have consequences, then he knew he would face up to them and be the father he’d always longed for in place of the cruel man who had filled his childhood with fear.
The fact that he knew what he would do didn’t make Emma’s silence any easier. It irritated him. Did it mean she wasn’t pregnant? That the condom failure about which he’d since convinced himself hadn’t had any drastic consequences?
He looked at his watch. Ten in the morning here meant late afternoon in London. He could ring her. It would be easy enough to get her number through World in Photographs, but what would he say?
He’d replayed again the scene in the hotel room early that morning. He’d woken to find her sleeping soundly next to him and had watched her for a while. Then, as the ghosts of the past had crowded in, he’d had to get up. For what had felt like hours, he’d stood watching the dark and empty street outside the window as if it held the answer or truth about his past.
Emma had stirred, her glorious naked body doing things to his, and he’d had to hold on to his self-control, wanting only to lose himself in her once more instead of facing the truth. That truth was not only the fact that she’d lured him to tell her things he’d wanted to keep well hidden.
His phone bleeped, alerting him to a text, and he ignored it, wanting to focus on what to do next. Call her? Go to London and demand to see her? He’d have to find out where she lived.
Insistently the alert sounded again and he swore in Russian, something he hadn’t done for a long time before he’d returned to Vladimir. When he picked up the phone and read the text, he almost dropped it as if it were red-hot.
We need to meet. I’m in New York. E
He inhaled deeply. This could only mean one thing—the very worst thing. There was no way she’d come here, all the way to New York, to tell him the article had been accepted, or show him a copy. An email would be sufficient for that. She needed to talk. His suspicions about their night together must be right—she was pregnant with his child—and that changed everything.
He pressed his thumb and finger against his eyelids in an effort to think, but there was only one answer. The same answer that had come up each and every time he’d thought of Emma and that night together. The very thing he’d never wanted to happen. He just knew it: he’d fathered a child. Now he had to face his fears from childhood and prove to himself he wasn’t his father’s son...that he could bring up his child with love and kindness. The very idea terrified him.
* * *
Emma was late. She’d arrived at Central Park early and wandered around taking photographs until midday, the time specified by Nikolai in his reply to her text. She’d tried to put her reason for being in New York to the back of her mind and had almost succeeded when she had become engrossed in taking shots of the park. Now the impending meeting with him loomed large but she couldn’t recall which way she’d come. She looked around at the tall buildings surrounding the park and wondered if she’d be able to find her way back out. She was tired from travelling and early pregnancy was not being so kind to her. Panic rose up. She’d have to ask someone for directions.
‘Excuse me, is it this way to The Boathouse?’ she asked a mother pushing a pram, trying hard not to look down at the child. It would be too much like looking into her future and she wondered how she was ever going to cope on her own. Nikolai had made it more than clear that what they’d shared was just one night. He’d been so adamant about it she began to question her reasons for telling him personally. It would have been much easier just to call him, tell him he was going to be a father. It was her conscience and knowing what it felt like to be rejected by her father that had made her come.
All through the flight one question kept going round in her head: would her own father have wanted to be part of her life if he’d been given the choice like this? The day she’d first met him, after she’d begged her mother to tell her who he was, rushed back at her, as did his icy words. It’s too late. I don’t need or want you in my life.
‘Keep walking and you’ll see it.’ The mother’s voice dragged her back to the present. She smiled at Emma before heading on in the other direction. With unease in her heart Emma watched her walk out of sight. That would be her by the end of the year, but she was certain she wouldn’t be here in New York, looking happy with life.
She shook the thought away and looked at her watch again. She was fifteen minutes late. Would Nikolai still be there? With the pain of her father’s rejection stinging her heart, the need to see Nikolai, to tell him and give him the chance to be part of his child’s life, deepened. She quickened her step but within a few strides they faltered. He was standing where the path turned through the trees and, despite the distance, she knew it was him, as if her body had registered his, known he was close.
She could also tell from his stance that he was not happy about being kept waiting. She breathed in deeply, then let the breath out in a bid to calm her nerves and quell the nausea which threatened to rear its head yet again. Within days of returning to London she had woken each morning feeling ill and had at first put it down to all that had happened between her and Nikolai. After all, losing your virginity to a man, only to have him walk out in anger, was not the best experience in the world. Not once had she considered there was a lasting legacy of that night.
As days had turned into a week, she’d known she couldn’t ignore the encroaching doubt any longer and had purchased a pregnancy test. The fact that it had taken several more days before she’d been brave enough to use it only served to increase the weight of dread which filled her from the moment she woke each day. When she’d finally had enough courage to use the test, her worry had increased as the ominous blue lines appeared, confirming that the hours spent with Nikolai had most definitely had consequences—for her, at least.
She walked towards him now and with purpose pushed those long, lonely weeks aside in her mind, focusing instead on what had to be done. She kept her chin lifted and her eyes on him all the time. Anything else would be to show uncertainty or, at worst, fear. She wasn’t scared of her future any more and, although it was going to be a struggle, she was looking forward to giving her child all she’d never had. What she did fear was telling Nikolai and, from the rigid set of his shoulders, she’d been right to fear this moment.
He made no move towards her, not even one step, and she hated him for doing that. He could have made the moment easier for her. Was he punishing her for contacting him? For making their one night something more? Each step she took must have shown her anxiety a little bit more. She should have called him as soon as she’d taken the pregnancy test, but shock had set in. She hadn’t even been ready to accept it herself, let alone blithely call him up and tell him their one night had created a child which would join them for ever.
How did you tell a man who’d made it blatantly clear he didn’t want any kind of commitment that he was a father? Her mother obviously hadn’t done it right, but could she? She was about to find out.
As she drew level with him, the inky black of his eyes held accusation, just as they had done in the hotel room the morning after they’d spent the night together, the night she’d lost her virginity to him. The firm line of his lips looked harder than they had that morning but she refused to be intimidated, just as she refused to acknowledge the hum of attraction rushing through her just from seeing him, being near him again.
She couldn’t still want him; she just couldn’t.
‘You are late.’ He snapped the words out and stood his ground. Six foot plus of brooding male towered over her, sending her heartbeat racing in a way that had nothing to do with nerves at what she had to say. She hated the way she still wanted him, her body in complete denial of the numbness in her mind. How could she still want a man who’d rejected her so coldly after she’d given him her most precious gift?
‘I couldn’t find my way through the park...’ she began, trying to instil firmness into her voice, but he cruelly cut her off.
‘Why are you here, Emma?’ The hard glint in his eye sparked with anger but she wouldn’t allow him to make her feel like a guilty child. What right did he have to stand there and dictate to her what she should have done and when? He was the one who’d strode from the hotel room in Vladimir without a word to her after tossing her his card. He was the one who hadn’t handled this right.
‘Did you think throwing a business card onto the bed was a nice way to end our night together?’ Her words spiked the spring air around them, but he didn’t flinch. His handsome face didn’t show a single trace of any other emotion beyond controlled annoyance. This just prodded at her anger, firing her up. ‘We need to talk, Nikolai. That’s why I’m here.’
‘About the consequences of our night together?’ He’d guessed. Guilt and shock mixed together and she looked up at him, not yet able to say anything.
He moved towards her, dominating the spring air around them, and while she heard people walking past she couldn’t do anything other than focus on him. If she looked away, even for just a second, all her strength would slip away.
‘By consequences, you mean pregnancy.’ Finally she found her voice. Her sharp words didn’t make a dent in his assured superiority, but saying them aloud filled her with panic.
‘Yes, exactly that. I assume you haven’t flown halfway around the world to tell me about the article. You’re here to tell me you are expecting my child.’ He looked straight into her eyes, the fierce question in them mixing with accusation. Was he blaming her?
Emma looked away from the impenetrable hardness in his eyes and wished it could be different, but no amount of wishing was going to change those two bold lines on the pregnancy test she’d finally had the courage to use. She was pregnant with Nikolai’s child and, judging by his response to her arrival in New York, he did not like that particular revelation. It didn’t matter what he said now, she had to face the truth: she was very much alone.
She let out a soft breath, trying to come to terms with what she’d known all along, finally accepting why she’d wanted to tell him in person. She’d had the faint hope that he would come around to the idea, be different from her father. But no. If the fierce glint in his cold black eyes was anything to go by, he didn’t want to be a father at any price. She would do this herself. She didn’t need him—or anyone. ‘Your powers of deduction are enviable, Nikolai. Yes, I’m pregnant.’
* * *
Nikolai braced himself against the worst possible news he could ever be told. He couldn’t be a father, not when the example he’d seen of fatherly love still haunted his dreams, turning them into nightmares if he allowed it.
He looked at Emma, the one woman who’d captured a part of his heart. Ever since she’d left he’d tried to tell himself it was because he’d shared a bit of himself with her, shared secrets he hadn’t wanted anyone to know. He still couldn’t comprehend why he’d done that when she’d had the power to make it completely public, shatter his mother’s peaceful life and destroy his hard-won business reputation. He was thankful he’d stopped at the unhappy marriage bit, glad he hadn’t told her the full horror of how that marriage had come about. How he’d come about. If she knew the truth she wouldn’t want him to have anything to do with his child, of that he was sure. But, although he had shared some secrets, he would now do anything he could to ensure those she didn’t know about stayed hidden away.
‘And did you leave Vladimir in such a hurry because you thought you’d discovered extra facts for the story? Perhaps you rushed off to get it in?’
The anger he’d felt when he’d realised she’d left not only his room and the hotel but Vladimir itself still coursed through him. He’d had to leave her in the hotel room because of the desire coursing through him. He’d needed the cool air to dull the heavy lust she evoked in him with every look. He hadn’t intended it to be the last time he saw her. He’d intended to go back and talk calmly with her, hear what she would want if the worst had indeed happened.
‘No.’ She looked down, as he quickly realised she always did when confronted with something difficult, as if she too was hiding from past hurt—or was it guilt for throwing herself at him just to get a few snippets of inside information? When she looked back up at him, her eyes were shining with threatening tears. ‘I had a call from my sister and left soon after you did.’
‘A call from your sister? So, after we’d worked together on the article, you thought spending time with her was more important?’ Her face paled at his icy tone and a rush of guilt sliced briefly through him before he pushed it aside. She’d run out on him to play happy families with her sister.
‘She was upset.’ Emma looked up at him as if imploring him to understand. ‘We only have each other. I left her to go back to Moscow but there wasn’t any time to contact you again. It’s not as if I knew there were such consequences then.’
‘When did you first discover these consequences?’ The fact that she must have known for at least a few weeks infuriated him more than the fact that she’d used him, seduced him into taking her to bed and spilling secrets.
‘I’ve only fairly recently had it confirmed...’ He moved even closer to her, dominating the very air she breathed and halting her words in mid-flow.
‘And now we have to deal with it.’ His attention was caught by passers-by, happy in the spring sunshine when he now had the weight of guilt pressing down on him, all but rooting him to the spot like one of the large trees of the park.
This was his fault. He should have been more careful, more in control, but if he was honest with himself he should never have given in to the attraction in the first place. Not with the woman who had the power to destroy his and his mother’s happiness. What the hell had he been thinking? What had happened to his usual self-control? Emma had happened. She’d completely disarmed him, which he strongly suspected had been her intention all along.
‘Deal with it?’ He heard the panic in her voice and turned his attention back to her, to see she’d paled even more dramatically. She needed to sit down. He did too, but the restaurant would be busy, far too busy to discuss an unplanned pregnancy and the ramifications of such news.
‘This way,’ he said as he took her arm, ensuring she came with him. He strode towards the edge of the park where he knew the horse-drawn carriages would be waiting for customers. They could talk as they toured the park and, more importantly, she wouldn’t be able to run out on him this time. She would have to face their situation, just as he’d had to as he’d gone over this very moment in his mind during recent weeks. In the carriage she would have no choice but to listen to him and accept that his solution was their only option.
‘Where are we going?’ She pulled back against him as if she was on the verge of bolting again, backing up his reasoning for taking a carriage ride like a tourist.
‘Somewhere we can talk. Somewhere you’ll have no choice but to sit and hear what I have to say, how we are going to deal with this.’ Still she resisted and he turned to face her, sliding his hand down her arm to take her hand in his. As he did so, that fizz of energy filled him once more and he could see her face again, full of desire the night she’d taken his hand in Vladimir. The night they’d conceived a new life. His child. His heir. ‘You are not going to slip away so easily this time, Emma, not now you carry my child.’
* * *
The determination and bravado slipped from Emma and her body became numb. She was too tired to fight any more, too tired to worry and fret over the future, and Nikolai’s suggestion of sitting down seemed the best option. She walked hand in hand with him through the park. To onlookers they would have appeared like any other couple, walking together in the sunshine, but inside dread had begun to fill her, taking over the sizzle of attraction from just being with him again. Exactly how did he intend to deal with it?
‘We’ll take a ride round the park,’ Nikolai said as he stopped beside a horse-drawn carriage and she blinked in shock. Was this just another of his romantic pastimes to distract her? Then the truth of that thought hit her. That was exactly what he’d done in Vladimir. He’d gone out of his way to distract her and had even successfully managed to keep her from meeting his grandmother.
He’d been keeping her from knowing more about his family and, thinking back to the moment they’d met, she could see he’d been evasive about the story of rags to riches she was supposed to cover. Why, then, had he said the things he had that morning after they’d made love, giving her a deeper insight into the childhood which had shaped the man he now was?
She still couldn’t shake off the sensation that he’d wanted to say more but had guarded against it. Had he really believed she would put all those details in the article? She’d just wanted to create a fairy-tale story to go with the amazing photographs she’d taken, but he’d accused her of manipulating everything to get what she wanted.
‘Trying to make me all soft again, are you?’ The words were out before she had time to think of the implications. If she’d been clever she would have never let him know she’d guessed his motives.
‘There is nothing to go soft about. I need to know exactly what you submitted to World in Photographs about my family and then we can discuss what happens next.’ He opened the door of the carriage and, with a flourish of manners she knew he was displaying for the purpose of getting what he wanted, waited for her to climb in.
Emma looked from his eyes to the park around her and beyond that to the tall buildings of New York, a place she’d never been to before. What choice did she have? She was alone in a city she didn’t know and pregnant with this man’s baby.
‘I have my laptop at the hotel, I can show you exactly what will be in it.’ The painful knowledge that he’d rather discuss an article she’d written than talk about their baby cut into her. She sat in the seat, wishing she hadn’t got in the carriage. The idea of playing the tourist with him again brought back heated memories of that first kiss in the sleigh.
‘Did you use anything to do with what we talked about after our night together?’ His voice was deep and firm, quashing those memories instantly as he snapped out the question.
‘No,’ she said and looked directly at him, into the depths of eyes that were shuttered, keeping her out and his thoughts locked away. ‘I never wanted to pry into your family history, more to show an insight into your country. It was what Richard had suggested in the first place.’
‘Who is Richard?’
‘A photographer I met while on my course. He works for World in Photographs and helped me get the contract to write the article about your family.’ She had nothing to hide, so why shouldn’t she tell him about how she’d got the contract in the first place? If he chose to see it in the wrong light, that was his problem.
‘What do you owe this Richard for getting you the contract?’ The sharpness of his voice made her look at him quickly, but the coldness of his eyes was almost as bitter as the wind in Vladimir had been.
‘Nothing. All I wanted was to take the best photographs I could and showcase your country, weaving in some of your family stories, which I have achieved without adding in anything you told me in your hotel room.’
‘Then for now I trust you,’ he said as the carriage pulled away, the sudden movement making her grab the seat to steady herself. Instantly his hands reached out to hold her and from the seat opposite she felt that heated attraction connect them once more. Their eyes met; she looked into the inky blackness and swallowed as she saw the glint of steely hardness had given way to something more dangerous—desire. She couldn’t allow herself to fall for his seductive charms again; she just needed to deal with the consequences of their night together and leave before she fell even further and deeper for him. Irritated by the direction of her thoughts, she pulled away and sat back in the carriage seat, desperate to avoid his scrutiny.
If he didn’t trust her with his secrets then why had he told them to her? Had that also been a way of manipulating her to do what he wanted, make her think what he wanted her to think? It had not occurred to her until now that what he’d said might not have been the complete truth.
‘I wouldn’t lie to you, Nikolai,’ she said defensively, and looked away from the dark eyes, feigning an interest in the tall buildings clearly visible above the newly green trees of the park. Maybe if she took a few shots from the carriage he’d see she was as unaffected by him as he appeared to be by her.
The lens of the camera clicked but she had no idea what she’d taken. Concentration was impossible with his dominating presence opposite her and the looming discussion of their baby. She turned the camera off and looked at him to see he’d been watching every move she’d made.
‘We need to talk about our predicament.’ Still his dark eyes watched her, assessing her reaction to his words.
‘Predicament?’ she snapped, giving him her full attention. ‘Is that what this baby is to you? A predicament? Something else you have to deal with? Just what do you suggest, Nikolai?’
‘It is a predicament,’ he said calmly, far too calmly, and it unnerved her. What was coming next? ‘One I never wanted but one which now means we must get married.’
‘Married?’ she said loudly, then looked around to see if anyone had heard her. From the satisfied expression on Nikolai’s face, that was exactly the reaction he had been hoping for. ‘We can’t get married.’
‘Give me one good reason why not.’ He sat back and regarded her sternly.
‘We live on different continents to start with.’ She grasped at the first thing she could think of and, from the amused look which crossed his face, he knew it. Why did he have to look so handsome, so incredibly sexy? And why was she still so attracted to him?
‘That can easily be sorted. I have a home in London if New York isn’t to your liking.’ His instant response unsettled her. Had he worked it all out already?
‘It’s not easy for me,’ she said quickly, angry that everything seemed so cut and dried with him. ‘I have my sister to consider and my job. I’ve only just been offered a job with World in Photographs.’
‘Your sister is in Perm for the next few years and your job could be done from anywhere, could it not?’ The tone of his voice confirmed her suspicion of moments ago. He did have it all worked out—completely to suit him.
None of what he was suggesting suited her. She needed to be in London, especially now she had a job with World in Photographs, a job she needed for financial security, now more than ever. Not only did she have Jess to help through the ballet school, she had a baby on the way, but deep down it was more than that. His so-called deal tapped into her deepest insecurities after growing up knowing that out there in the world was her father, a man who didn’t want to know her.
Overwhelmed by the panic of her situation, she glared at Nikolai. ‘I need to be in London if I’m to keep the job as a photographer with World in Photographs and I need that job to support Jess.’
‘That is easily sorted.’
She frowned, not sure what he was getting at. ‘For you, maybe.’
‘Jess will have all the financial help she needs to ensure she can—what was it you said in Vladimir?—chase her dream.’ The look on his handsome face was as severe as she’d ever seen it, not a hint of pleasure from the generous gift he’d just offered. Or was it a gift? Was it not dangling temptation in front of her?
No, it was more than that. It was a bribe and all she had to do was marry him. The thought filled her with dread. She’d dreamed of the day a man would propose to her, dreamed of it being a loving and romantic moment. Nikolai was being neither as he sat watching her; even the ride in the carriage couldn’t lend a romantic mood to the moment.
‘I can’t accept that,’ she said, still unable to believe what was happening. He was making a deal with her for their child: marry him and she, the baby and Jess would be financially secure. It hurt that she had very little chance of ever matching that, especially now her pregnancy would affect her ability to work. If she turned him down, said no, as instinct was urging her to do, she would be turning down so much more than just a marriage proposal. She would be saying no to something which would help Jess but, more importantly, give her baby what she’d never had: a father.
Turmoil raged inside her as he watched her, the motion of the carriage making her feel slightly ill, and the steady rhythm of the horses’ hooves sounding like drums in her head. How could this be happening? How could all this come from one desire-laden moment in time? How could those few blissful hours have such an impact on her life?
‘No,’ she said again, more firmly. ‘I can’t accept that.’
For a moment he looked at her and the tension between them intensified, but she refused to look away. She wanted to challenge him, wanted to push him in the same way he was pushing her.
Finally he spoke. ‘Just as I will not tolerate being pushed out of my child’s life, and the only way to ensure that is marriage.’
He leant forward in the carriage and she looked away, not daring to look into his dark eyes a moment longer. He had touched a raw and open wound. She was here because she’d hoped he’d want something to do with his child, that he wouldn’t turn his back on either her or his baby. She’d never expected this from a man who’d declared one night was all he could give. If she turned him down, didn’t that make her worse than her mother?
She couldn’t help herself and looked deep into his eyes, seeing what she’d seen that night in Vladimir, and tried to plead with him again. ‘But marriage—’
‘Is the only option.’ He cut across her once more. ‘We will be married, Emma. I will not take no for an answer, not now you are carrying my child.’
CHAPTER SIX (#ua8f19011-1539-5755-a37d-32c0ed6ff933)
THE REST OF the carriage ride had blurred into a shocked haze and now, as she stood in one of New York’s most renowned jeweller’s, that haze was beginning to lift. She couldn’t marry Nikolai. What was she thinking, allowing him to bring her here to buy an engagement ring? It wouldn’t change the fact that this wasn’t what he wanted. Turmoil erupted inside her. She didn’t want to make the same mistakes as her mother, not when she knew what it felt like to be the child whose existence a father denied.
Could she really do this—sacrifice everything to do the right thing by her son or daughter? If she walked away now would her child blame her later, as she blamed her mother for depriving her of a father?
She looked anxiously at the door but had to steel herself against the reaction Nikolai provoked in her as he stood right behind her, so very close she could feel the heat of his body. It reminded her of the night they’d shared in Vladimir. The passion had been so intense, so powerful. Didn’t the undeniable attraction count for something?
‘Not thinking of running out on me, are you?’ The whispered question sent a tremor of awareness down her spine, which deepened as he held the tops of her arms, pulling her back against the latent power of his body.
