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‘It’s precisely why I work, for security, and to have nice things around me.’ His dark blue eyes watched her closely. ‘I also have a pied-à-terre in France and an apartment in New York. It gives me a feeling of great satisfaction.’
‘Or is that you have so much money now you have nothing else to spend it on?’ Sienna queried, unable to keep the distaste out of her voice. It was as though he was deliberately throwing his wealth in her face, showing her what she had missed out on.
‘If you’ve come here to question my lifestyle, I suggest—’
‘It’s not that,’ cut in Sienna quickly. But she wasn’t ready yet to disclose her real reason for being here. It was such a delicate subject that she had to get Adam into the right mood. ‘It simply seems odd that you have these other places to live and no one to share them with.’
‘Are you putting yourself forward?’ He smiled grimly and his eyes locked with hers, sending a fresh scurry of feelings through her veins.
She had thought that over the years everything she had ever felt for Adam Bannerman had died. She didn’t want to feel anything for him, she despised him and she wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t entirely necessary.
There was ice in both her voice and her eyes when she spoke. ‘I’ve had a taste of what it’s like living with a workaholic. It’s no fun, I assure you, and I’m not entirely surprised that you haven’t found another woman to share your life.’
‘Are you suggesting that I should? Is it a divorce you’re after? I occasionally wonder why you’ve never filed for one.’
The deep sarcasm in his voice scoured over her already tense nerves like sandpaper.
‘I could say the same about you.’ She held her head high and met his eyes. For several long seconds they challenged each other, Sienna not wanting to be the first to turn away.
‘I’ve never had the time or the inclination,’ he drawled, his eyes still not leaving hers. ‘I knew that one day, when you were ready, you would start proceedings. What I didn’t expect was that you would visit me in person. It’s quite a surprise.’
‘And a mistake,’ she snapped before she could stop herself. ‘I really think I should be going.’ There was no way on this earth now that she could broach the subject that had made her come here. Adam was doing a very good job of letting her know that he liked his life the way it was. He wanted nothing to spoil it. She pitied him. He would become a lonely old man one day if he kept putting work first.
‘You’re not leaving until you tell me what brought you here,’ he said, his tone sharp and authoritative. ‘Why don’t you finish your wine?’
Sienna glared at him, but she picked up her glass and downed the rest of its contents in one swallow. ‘There, finished.’ And she stood up.
Adam followed suit and Sienna was glad that she had worn high heels because they made her almost as tall as he was. She lifted her chin and looked into his eyes—and felt a wave of something she dared not think about pass over her. The word began with S and ended in X.
Why was this happening now, when she needed to be strong and in control? Was it the fact that he was the first and only man she had ever fallen in love with? Had her body retained those feelings even though she had been convinced that they had not?
Hell, what a situation to find herself in. Especially as Adam showed no sign of returning them. She couldn’t believe how cold he was. It was as though she had never meant anything to him.
‘So why are you here?’
Sienna closed her eyes. It looked as if there was no escape. And if the truth be known, she had to do it. She owed it to Adam, to herself, to—She stopped her thoughts there, drew in a deep breath, and bluntly and coldly stated the facts.
‘I’m here to tell you that you have a son.’
Chapter Two
ADAM felt as though he had been poleaxed. The words that had just left Sienna’s lips sent him reeling across the courtyard.
She was saying he had a son!
A son!
A son who would now be…four years old!
And in all the time they’d been apart she had never had the decency to tell him!
The blood roared through his head like a hurricane and he wanted to hit out at her, shake her, ask her what the hell she had thought she was doing, keeping him in ignorance. This was a scenario he had never envisaged, not in his wildest dreams. It was something he was finding difficult, if not impossible, to take in.
He had never wanted a family, he was happy doing what he did. Happy, for goodness’ sake! He didn’t want a child in his life, disrupting his routine. The big question was, why had she told him now? Why not when she found herself pregnant?
His eyes blazed as a bigger scenario hit him. ‘I’m not the father, am I? Why in heaven’s name would you wait this long to tell me if I were? You’re after money. You’re trying to take me for a fool. Get out of here, Sienna. Get out!’
Never in his life had he been so angry. If Sienna had thought she could pull this stunt on him, she was very much mistaken. If the baby really had been his, she would have wasted no time in coming back. She would have made him face up to his responsibilities. Even if she hadn’t, no woman in her right mind would bring up her baby alone without seeking maintenance from the father. She would have insisted on that. She had to be lying.
Sienna’s back straightened and her fantastic blue eyes flashed with indignant fury. She looked like a tigress protecting her young. ‘He is definitely yours.’
‘So you say.’ He was not going to be so easily fooled. Words were easy. He had heard of women who did this sort of thing, who tricked their former partners or husbands into believing someone else’s child was their own.
‘Do you want proof?’ she demanded. ‘It can be arranged.’
Her eyes locked into his and held, and in that moment Adam saw nothing but blazing honesty. His brief suspicion was reluctantly relegated to the deepest recesses of his mind. Maybe it would resurrect itself. Maybe. Perhaps if he saw the child, he would know at once whether he was his or not. He’d had a strong resemblance to his own father so there was every reason to believe that he would see something of himself in this boy.
Adam folded his arms and looked hard into the blue of her eyes. ‘If the boy is mine, why have you waited so long to tell me about him?’ He was aware that his voice was still harshly condemning, and filled with more than a little suspicion, but, hell, she couldn’t drop a bombshell like this and expect no reaction.
His heart felt as though it was trying to escape from his chest and he was afraid to stand any closer to Sienna because he felt like shaking her. Why, for pity’s sake, had she kept her secret all this time? Why?
She looked stunning in a black and white top and stylish black trousers, which hid none of the curves of her sexy bottom. Her black high-heeled sandals gave her added height, even though they looked dangerously difficult to walk in. And her rich chestnut hair, which had always been her crowning glory, was cut in a short, chunky style that suited her elfin face.
She certainly didn’t look like the mother of an energetic four-year-old. She was dressed to kill. She had come here to drop her bombshell—and she had certainly done that. It was a wonder it hadn’t exploded and brought the whole apartment block down around their feet. Above them the sky was blue and serene but inside his body a war was raging.
‘My first instinct, when I discovered that I was pregnant, was obviously to tell you,’ she said, her eyes holding his.
Intense blue eyes, eyes that he had once felt himself drowning in. Eyes which now warred with his but were extremely beautiful nevertheless.
‘But as you’d told me enough times that you didn’t want kids, not for many years anyway, I knew it would cause another unholy row between us.’ Sienna lifted her shoulders and let them drop again. ‘So I decided to bring Ethan up on my own.’
And still she looked unswervingly into his eyes.
Ethan! The boy’s name was Ethan! He rolled the name experimentally on his tongue. ‘So why are you here now?’he asked harshly, ignoring the unease he felt at her words. It was true he had never wanted children and he hadn’t been afraid to say so. But he would never have ignored a son or daughter. They would have been given his love and he would have adapted his lifestyle. He would have had to.
Could he truly have done it, though? He hated himself for admitting that he would have been truly angry that his well-ordered life had been so rudely disrupted.
‘You said it wasn’t for money.’ He pushed his thoughts to one side for the moment. ‘What other reason can there possibly be?’ He did not understand her, not one little bit. The shock still hadn’t worn off and despite the fact that he didn’t drink he felt as though he could do with a generous slug of brandy. He needed something to restore his equilibrium.
‘Because,’ she began hesitantly, for the first time lowering her lids and looking slightly uncomfortable, ‘Ethan’s been ill, very ill.’ Then she looked at him again, a proud tilt to her head, trying to hide the pain in her eyes. ‘He had meningitis and I thought I was going to lose him. I realised that if he had died and you’d never even known you had a son, I would have done you an injustice.’
Adam felt a band tighten around his heart. He felt physical pain. His son had been close to death and he had known nothing about it! The blood roared in his head and he quickly closed the space between him and Sienna, taking her shoulders, gripping them so hard that he saw her wince. But he did not care.
‘What sort of a mother are you,’ he growled, ‘denying your son his father? Especially at a time like that. How could you? I’m presuming that he’s all right now?’
Sienna nodded and swallowed hard but she did not try to pull away from him. She stood there and looked sadly into his eyes.
He saw tears, big fat tears that welled and escaped and rolled slowly down her cheeks. One half of him wanted to brush them gently away with the tip of a caring finger, the other half, the angry half, wanted to shake her to within an inch of her life.
In the end he did neither. He released her and, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, pushed it into her hand. Then he turned away, contemplating the London skyline instead. Not that he saw anything. His eyes were blinded by fury, by disappointment, by the knowledge that his son, his own flesh and blood, had lain at death’s door and he had been left in ignorance.
Adam felt a lump in his throat and an odd feeling he could not put a name to. He was not usually an emotional man, keeping an iron control over his feelings. He had a ruthless work ethic and it often crept into his home life as well. And yet Sienna had found a chink in his armour. She had hit him hard with this fresh piece of information.
Accepting the fact that he had a son had been bad enough, but to hear that he had almost died knocked him for six. How long he stood there staring into space he didn’t know. It was not until he heard Sienna’s tentative voice behind him that he snapped himself back to the present and turned to look at her.
Her eyes, which were sometimes more turquoise than blue, were incredibly pale at this moment. ‘I’m sorry.’ And her voice was so low as to be almost inaudible.
‘Pray tell me,’ he growled, breathing hard and looking fiercely into her face. ‘Would you have ever told me if—if my son—’ he wanted to say the name Ethan but he couldn’t get his head round it yet ‘—hadn’t fallen ill?’
‘I don’t know,’ answered Sienna quietly, still not taking her eyes away from his. ‘I honestly don’t know. But your reaction tells me that I did the right thing. You still don’t want children, do you? You still put your work first.’
Adam didn’t answer. She was so damned right that he felt guilty.
‘Ethan would have had no father figure to look up to if we had stayed and lived with you. He’d be in bed when you got home and you’d have left for your office before he rose each morning. Not an ideal life for a child.’
She paused but he still didn’t answer, he couldn’t answer. Every word she spoke was the absolute truth.
‘But,’ she continued, ‘I think he should know who his father is. Just as I think you should meet Ethan. We can still carry on living our separate lives.’
‘In other words,’ he growled, hating the scenario she had described, even though it was probably true, ‘you will now be well within your rights to claim money from me. Just as I thought.’
‘Damn you, Adam Bannerman! I want nothing from you except a father’s love for his child. I might have known it was too much to expect.’ Her eyes glittered as she swung around on her dangerously high heels.
The next second he heard a sharp crack and Sienna stumbled as one of her heels snapped off. He moved like lightning and caught her before she hit the floor, wrapping his arms around her and jerking her hard against him.
He had forgotten what she felt like. And what she smelled like. A summer’s evening after rain. A delicate fragrance that briefly drugged his senses. She had grown into a beautiful, sensual woman.
He felt himself grow hard and quickly thrust her away from him. Damn! Sienna had just devastated him with her news. He should be hating her, not feeling raw hunger.
Neither did he want her to know that she still had the power to arouse him in case she used it to her advantage. He still wasn’t entirely sure that her sole reason for coming there was to tell him about Ethan’s illness. Why do something like that after the event? There had to be more to it.
Sienna felt stupid. If she hadn’t moved so quickly she wouldn’t have broken her heel. What was she to do now? Walk home barefoot? Hobble? Call a taxi—which she could ill afford?
She had borrowed the shoes from a friend, now she would have to pay for a new pair. But not only had she ruined a shoe, it was her dignity as well. She should have known it was a bad idea. Adam had reacted in exactly the way she had expected him to.
She glared at him as she slipped off her other shoe and marched indoors. She did not want to spend another minute in his suffocating presence.
‘Where do you think you are going?’ Adam’s harsh voice sounded over her shoulder.
‘Home.’ That one single word was as much as she could muster.
‘And how far are you going to get without shoes on your feet?’ he wanted to know. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sienna.’
‘So what am I supposed to do?’ she asked angrily, turning to face him. ‘Perhaps you’d like to pay for a taxi?’
‘I could do that,’ he said slowly. ‘Or I could take you myself. And meet this boy I am supposed to have fathered.’
His eyes met and held hers but Sienna saw red. ‘Supposed?’ she queried, her eyes flashing hot sparks. ‘Thanks for your offer, but no thanks. If and when you two ever meet, I want to prepare Ethan first. He doesn’t know about you yet.’
‘So who does he think his father is?’ asked Adam, a sudden fiercely quizzical look in his eyes.
Sienna shrugged. ‘He’s not old enough to ask questions like that.’ Actually, Ethan had more than once asked her why he didn’t have a daddy but she’d always managed to avoid a definite answer, thankful that there were other single mothers at the nursery he attended. She believed that it would be best to tell him when he was older, when he could understand better.
‘But he will have to know one day. So why not now?’ Adam insisted.
‘Because I need to prepare him,’ she answered sharply. ‘I can’t suddenly introduce his father to him. I need to talk to him first, make sure he understands why you haven’t been a part of his life.’
To her annoyance Adam’s lips pulled into a brief, dry smile. ‘And you will tell him—what? That his father’s been busy making money? Actually, it should impress him. It does most people.’
‘Most people don’t know the agony it causes,’ flared Sienna. ‘It’s no life living with someone who’s rarely home.’ She saw a pulse jerk in Adam’s jaw and knew she had hit a raw nerve. Good! He deserved it. ‘I’d be obliged if you’d phone for a taxi.’
Adam closed his eyes momentarily and Sienna knew that he was warring with himself as to whether to do as she asked or insist that he run her home himself. If only she hadn’t broken her stupid heel. She did not want him anywhere near where she lived. She had been protecting herself as well when she’d said that she needed to prepare Ethan.
Just as she had begun to think that Adam was ignoring her request he reached out for the phone and barked a request.
‘My driver is at your disposal.’
Sienna’s brows rose though she said nothing, privately wondering whether there was anything this man could not organise at a moment’s notice. Money spoke. And money ruined marriages! She compressed her lips and nodded her thanks.
‘Before you leave I propose we arrange another meeting. We need to talk about our son and his future.’
Sienna felt her heart drop. It had been hard coming there, it would be even harder seeing him a second time. She had dropped a bombshell, which he would pick up and dissect and come back at her with suggestions that she would not like. Even though it was to be expected, even though she was the one who had started the ball rolling, she felt her whole body grow icy cold at the thought of seeing Adam again, of talking about Ethan, arranging for them to meet.
It was something she had shied away from for the past four years. She had known that Adam wouldn’t want his life disrupted. But now she had done it, and she had to face the consequences. It was quite possible that he might insist she and Ethan move in with him. How disastrous would that be? On the other hand he might be happy to settle a sum of money on them. Wasn’t money his god? Wasn’t it all he wanted in life? His answer to everything?
Ethan would naturally be delighted to meet his father. He wouldn’t know that Adam would remain a distant figure, seen only occasionally. So it would be up to her to stand her ground, declare that they were happy living as they were. She would allow him access, but as for anything else…
‘What are you suggesting?’ she asked stiffly. She was missing the extra three inches her shoes had afforded her. She needed to look up now into his face and it put her at a definite disadvantage. Nevertheless, she kept her chin high and her eyes cold.
‘Dinner tomorrow night?’
‘I thought you always worked late?’ Her response came back with the speed of a bullet.
Even though Adam smiled, it did not reach his eyes. ‘I’m prepared to make an exception.’
So miracles did happen! Or would it be a one-off? She’d like to bet that he would rarely make such exceptions. In the beginning maybe, but soon he would be back to his old lifestyle and poor Ethan would be left wondering what had happened to the father he had only just met.
‘Very well,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘I guess there are things we need to talk about.’
‘I’ll send a car for you.’
Sienna raised her brows. He would send a car! Not he would pick her up. Oh, no, he didn’t have time for that. He would send his driver. It would give him extra time at the office. Damn the man. She felt like slinging his suggestion back in his face, telling him that he didn’t deserve to meet his son, he would be a failure as a father and she wished that she had never set eyes on him in the first place. But, of course, she said none of these things.
‘Eight o’clock. You do have someone who can look after…Ethan?’
It was the way he said his son’s name, the awkward way he said it, that made Sienna realise that the shock she had given Adam went far deeper than she had at first thought. It had shifted the earth from beneath his feet and he was having great difficulty in getting used to the idea.
Had she made a mistake? A big mistake? Nevertheless, she nodded. ‘I have a friend who will look after him.’
