Baby Bequest Page 5

  But Gage hadn’t come back…not until yesterday.

  “Your mother never knew?” she asked and he shook his head. “She died during my second year of college, didn’t she? I was away in Canberra.” She’d changed universities, not because of faculty choices, but because she’d wanted to get as far away from home—her unhappy family life and memories of Gage—as she could.

  “Your father gave me his word he would look after her,” Gage said. “I sent money every month and from my mother’s return letters, Raphael kept his word. But it was no secret she was an alcoholic. The addiction took its toll. I came back briefly for the funeral, but Raphael Darley and I only exchanged nods.”

  She imagined her father’s appraising onyx gaze. Had Gage experienced his first business success by then? Had he worn budget trousers to his mother’s funeral, or a tailored suit?

  She would have come home to pay her respects to Mrs. Cameron—she’d been a kind woman, just so very sad and broken. But her father hadn’t told her of Mrs. Cameron’s death until some weeks after the event. No doubt he’d wanted to keep the distance between his willful daughter and the young man his wife had accused of attempted rape.

  Now Gage had returned home because of three more funerals.

  She swallowed the block of wood stuck in her throat. “How long had you been talking with Dad about the possibility of a buyout?”

  “We spoke before I flew out to Dubai. Raphael said…” Gage hesitated then continued with more conviction. “He said he was tired and wanted to retire. I said I’d see if I could help.”

  “And now?”

  He leant forward. “Now we have more important things to focus on. Like a white dress and a baby.”

  His hand rested near hers. When his index finger grazed her pinkie, a jet of nerves and abject longing flooded her system. It was just a touch and yet the anticipation and heavenly heat it caused invaded every cell in her body, making her beat and glow from the inside out.

  A white dress…

  After a wedding day came the wedding night. He’d said that they would need to put on a show, but was even a portion of her earlier intuition correct? Did Gage have something more than conversation scheduled for behind closed doors?

  An image of two bodies, naked and consumed by heightened passion, swam to the forefront of her mind. Fire bloomed in her cheeks, smoldered up her limbs and blew a flame at that private place, low and deep inside.

  She set her teeth.

  For heaven’s sake, think about the baby.

  Averting her gaze, she drew her hand away and threaded her fingers in her lap. The diamond twinkled up at her, the embers smoldered again and she looked into Gage’s eyes.

  “I’m certain we should marry in Australia,” she told him in a firm voice. “Leeann will have enough objections and suspicions. We don’t need to give her an opportunity to stir trouble over whether a wedding conducted on foreign soil is recognized here, even if it is. It might even delay matters rather than push them forward.”

  A muscle jumped in Gage’s jaw before he shucked back one broad shoulder. “It’s your show.” He collected his phone. “I’ll have my personal assistant track down a good marriage celebrant and make an appointment. We’ll get the paperwork filed today.”

  After thumbing a couple of buttons, he frowned at the screen. “Message from my lawyer.” He pressed the phone to his ear. One eyebrow slowly lifted then his face turned dark.

  By the time he disconnected, Jenna’s heart was pounding in her ears. “What is it?”

  Was it about Leeann?

  “Your stepmother doesn’t waste time,” he told her, setting the phone down. “She wants you out of that house. You have a week to find alternate accommodations so Leeann can move back in. And that’s not all. She wants to see me two weeks from today at the Darley Realty head office.” He grinned. “Let the games begin.”

  Five

  “Welcome to your new home.”

  As Gage fanned open the door of his three-story penthouse, he fought the impulse to sweep Jenna up, carry her across the threshold and make a beeline for the master suite. Even if he could restrain the urge, the primal messages pulsing through his body didn’t lie. He wanted her lines and curves against him. Wanted to hold her, fully, and for the longest time.

  This past week had been a blissful kind of torture.

  Jenna took a wary step inside and looked around. Curling a wave of hair behind her ear, she took in the extravagantly high ceilings, the king-size crimson-and-cream sunken lounge, then lifted her chin to scan beyond the sheer-curtained glass wall to one of the penthouse’s four extensive balconies.

  “I really could’ve found a place of my own. Something slightly less grand than the Taj Mahal,” she said, pivoting around. “I’d hate to see your country estate.”

  He smiled. Maybe one day he’d show her his acreage in Colorado, though he didn’t doubt she’d already seen Aspen’s spectacular scenery during her travels.

  He shut the door and strolled beneath the shadow of a Swarovski crystal chandelier. “We agreed. This is the best-fit solution. Living together is another way for Leeann and her lawyers to understand that we’re serious about our relationship.”

  Her round eyes asked, How serious?

  He almost stroked her silken cheek as he passed.

  Serious enough.

  After visiting her at the Darley address, dining out at casual venues and posing for the press like a regular couple in love, he sensed Jenna was beginning to trust him. No mean feat. He’d hurt her once, but he’d returned to make recompense.

  If she decided that she wanted to take this rekindled friendship to the next level—to its delayed but natural conclusion—he wouldn’t object. As long as she was fully aware of her actions and his limitations. Whatever they enjoyed, however many times they enjoyed it, it wouldn’t be “till death us do part,” no matter what papers they signed.

  From his first memory he’d wanted to escape—his background, his dead-end life, his sometimes loving, sometimes neglectful mother. When they’d lived alongside the Darleys, Jenna had given him a reason for hope, a reason to stay. Then Leeann had accused him of attempted rape and Raphael had sent him on his way with more money than a regular guy could earn in a year.

  The ugly truth was…

  At twenty-one, he was relieved to leave “home,” and thankful that Jenna had been spared from his less than stellar influence. She’d been way too good for him, a bright young woman from a respectable family. A virgin he had no right to deflower, yet no doubt would have if he’d stayed around for much longer.

  As the years rolled on, another truth had bloomed.

  No matter how many homes he owned or how powerful he became, the gap between himself and Jenna would never be bridged. He would always feel half-empty inside, missing the ingredient that made other people whole. Whoever’s fault that was, it didn’t matter. Long story short: his kind shouldn’t reach for things they could never hope to have, and shouldn’t damage other people when they tried but failed.

  Loners shouldn’t have families.

  If Jenna didn’t have her heart set on bringing up her niece…if she didn’t want children of her own…well, maybe then. But if he hadn’t been good for Jenna back then, he was definitely no good for her now…except where fighting for Meg—her family—was concerned.

  An ironic twist, to be sure. But life, he’d learnt, was full of distortions.

  “In three weeks,” he said, checking the nearby high-tech facsimile for mail, “we’ll be Mr. and Mrs. Cameron. Soon after that, you’ll gain guardianship of Meg.” He turned and offered a teasing grin. “If we’re lucky, it might happen even sooner.”

  While her eyes sparkled with fragile hope, her hands joined, as if in prayer, and pressed against her mouth. “This is about your meeting with Leeann next week, isn’t it? You’ve found something out.”

  A thread of doubt wove down his spine. But he’d held back these last bits of information long enough. Some sh
e would like, but others…

  Regardless, it was time.

  “My sources say Leeann wants to sell Darley Realty.”

  She nodded slowly as if expecting more. “I wasn’t sure whether she’d like the idea of being the female figurehead of a successful company like Darley’s, or whether it would interfere with her lifestyle. Guess it’s the latter. But what’s that got to do with our chances of getting Meg?”

  He spun a finger in the air. “Rewind a little.”

  “To what part?”

  “The part where Darley’s is successful.”

  Her brow creased. “I don’t follow.”

  “Remember I said your father was tired and wanted to retire? That was only half of it.”

  Jenna’s complexion faded from peaches and cream to the alabaster of the walls in one second flat.

  His gut wrenched, but he resisted the urge to comfort her, even while her trembling lips seemed to beg him to do just that.

  “Was he sick?” she asked.

  He stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets, out of harm’s way, and moved forward. “Your father was under a lot of stress. His company had suffered a succession of financial blows, a combination of bad advice and worse luck.”

  Her face pinched with disbelief. “And he asked you to bail him out?”

  He nodded.

  Her delicate shoulders, in that simple white T-shirt, stiffened. “I’m still missing a piece, aren’t I?”

  He hesitated. Should he come clean? Out of necessity, Raphael had told him everything, then had sworn him to secrecy. But Raphael was dead, and Jenna had said it herself: she deserved to know.

  He stopped before her and held her eyes with his. “Your father suspected that Leeann was having an affair.”

  Jenna withered onto the nearby settee as if her legs had dissolved beneath her. She gazed at the floor, her white-knuckled fists clenched at her sides.

  “The leather jacket.” One fist punched the cushion. “I knew it.”

  Yes, he’d known it too, particularly given his own experience with Leeann. “I’m not at all sure that your father was still in love with his wife. He was pretty convinced of her infidelity. He wanted to sort out his affairs. Amy’s share was already taken care of in his will, although I believe her husband had been wealthy in his own right. But Raphael admitted that he’d written you out after you two had had an argument and you’d left home for good.”

  He broke off.

  Her pallor was much worse.

  “You could do with some water,” he said. “Or maybe something stronger.”

  He started toward the black granite wet bar, but she caught his forearm, bare beneath his rolled-up sleeve. The contact was a charge…startling, electric. He inwardly groaned as it shot a white-hot arrow to a highly responsive part of his anatomy.

  Tugging, she drew him down to sit beside her. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “I don’t need a drink, Gage. I need to know everything.”

  The details would hurt but, a week on from their meeting again, he sensed that her strength had returned enough to cope. It had been her personal strength that had initially attracted him to Jenna. Then he’d discovered the power of her smile, the magic of her sigh. How he’d managed to hold off from easing himself fully inside her that last night was nothing short of a miracle.

  He took a deep breath.

  Stay focused, Cameron.

  “Your father was ashamed of writing you out and more ashamed that he’d been too pigheaded to change his will back. He wanted to make amends. He wanted you to come home so he could tell you he was sorry.”

  As her eyes filled, the muscles in his chest and back tensed. He found her left hand and covered it with his right. That charge again, more intense this time, quickened his pulse to a gallop.

  Her glistening eyes questioned his. “But something doesn’t fit. If you already knew about the will, why did you pretend to guess a week ago that my father had bequeathed everything to Leeann?”

  He stroked the top of her wrist with his thumb as he’d done twice before this week—once in his lawyer’s office, the second time when they’d visited their marriage celebrant. If the intimacy of that touch was overstepping the line, she’d have let him know. Instead she seemed to take comfort in it. She wasn’t the only one.

  “The last time we spoke, your father was set to change his will, but he also thought the sale of Darley’s might be the sounder option for his purpose of ensuring that his daughters received their inheritance. He wanted to forgive the past and its mistakes and give you, as well as Amy, the proceeds from the sale straight away to save any arguments later. We were going to sign papers when I arrived back from Dubai.”

  Hanging on each word, she nodded. “But he died before he could change his will or close the deal with you.”

  “On a business that I still believe will be very profitable when the right measures are in place. Your father…” How to put it? “On top of his suspicions over Leeann, I think he’d simply had enough. I was in a position to help.”

  “And pay him back for the money he gave you to make your start twelve years ago?”

  He shrugged. “It would’ve been a win-win situation. I get to repay an old debt, attain a company I could build on, and you would’ve been taken care of.” Her hand moved slightly beneath his and that hurtling arrow hit its mark again, the burn hotter and longer-lasting this time.

  “I told you before,” she said with a reproving but also grateful note, “money isn’t important to me.”

  “But money is important to Leeann. She must know now the state of affairs. That there’s work ahead if Darley’s is to survive. The negotiations were confidential between the two principals, our financial controllers and a couple of my head people. No doubt Darley’s man has informed her of the option her husband was looking into.”

  He sat back against the cream, tasseled cushions. She did too, her lips slightly parted as she listened.

  “I’d prefer to win back Meg without this kind of bargaining,” he said, remembering the grilling he’d received from Jenna a week ago regarding any plans he may have had to speak with Leeann about a buyout. “But since Leeann has set the agenda, now I’ll let her know that I’m willing to pay dearly for the privilege of owning Darley Realty. Then it’ll be a question of how dearly Leeann prizes her privileged lifestyle.”

  “You think she’d exchange Meg for money?” Jenna slipped her hand from his and waved it as she shook her head. “She might not make a cat’s mother but she wants a child. You saw how much. She’d have enough funds without your offer. There’s the house, the penthouse, Dad’s investments—”

  “The house is mortgage-free,” he said, trying to ignore how much he missed their recent skin-on-skin contact. “But the bank owns the penthouse. The other investments have been converted into funds to buoy a dangerously high overdraft.”

  He’d been through all the financial details with Raphael. The company was caught in a downward spiral of debt and interest. Only a massive injection of funds could pull it out of the vortex now.

  Her jaw was hanging. “Everything gone? Even his holdings in Western Australia?”

  “The company still owns that piece of land, but initial reports tell me it’s hardly a prime piece of real estate.”

  “So now we wait and see if Leeann takes the trade?” She winced. “Oh, God, that sounds horrible.” Then her back straightened. “But, damn it, I don’t care.”

  He smiled. “That’s the spirit.” The take-no-prisoners attitude he’d loved so much about her…that was drawing him toward her now, like a line reeling him in.

  His groin flexed.

  Dear Lord, damming his impulses where she was concerned would never get any easier. In fact, it could only get harder.

  Maybe it was time to get things out in the open before he did something he would very much enjoy but quite possibly regret. He’d said he wouldn’t take advantage of the situation. It’s time he was frank.

  Jenna, too.


  He threaded his hands and, leaning forward, angled his forearms on his knees. “There’s something else we need to discuss about this arrangement. Jenna, we need to discuss us.”

  A blush crept up her throat and her pupils dilated. She wasn’t immune to the heavy-hot strum resonating between them. Clearly she knew what was coming; he merely wanted to know whether to act on it. Was she as curious and flat-out frustrated as he was?

  “I need to explain some things about myself,” he told her, “and how I feel about you.”

  Her gaze flared then dropped away to land on the coffee table. She absently collected a pack of cards, which he’d left out this morning, and started to shuffle. “Explain?”

  Distracted by the cards, he frowned. “Yes.”

  “Remember when you explained how to play poker?” She forced a smile as the cards slotted back and forth into her bejeweled left hand. “We stayed up till four one morning. I won.”

  Frown deepening, he scratched his temple.

  From her avoidance tactics, it would appear he’d spoken too soon, if, in fact, there would ever be a right time to speak about the lightning-infused fever that brewed inside him whenever Jenna was near.

  Still, he couldn’t forget how he’d managed to make her laugh this past week, and how she fit so snugly alongside him whenever they walked. Last night at the movies, when the heroine had walked away from the hero just before the credit roll, Jenna had looked at him. He’d looked at her. Time had sped up and simultaneously slowed to a thick sweetly pitched crawl. He’d come so close to kissing her. He still believed she’d wanted him to.

  He sucked down a breath.

  He’d been right the first time. They needed this building awareness out in the open. Now.

  He reached to take the cards from her hands, but she dodged and shuffled more quickly.

  This time, he wasn’t put off. “I don’t want to discuss poker, Jenna.”