His Pregnant Mistress
His Pregnant Mistress
CAROL MARINELLI
If she wants payment, she'll get it…Australian billionaire Ethan Carvelle cut Mia Stewart out of his life seven years ago. But now Mia's claiming that she's carrying his late brother's child! Ethan suspects Mia wants to get her hands on the Carvelle fortune. Torn between duty and desire, Ethan decides he'll take Mia as his mistress….But Ethan knows nothing of the deep, dark secret Mia is hiding.
Ethan paused, his voice like the crack of a whip.
“You should add the word ‘con’ to your job title, Mia! It’s the twenty-first century. You can’t just pass my brother off as the father because it suits your bank account.”
“I’m not trying to pass the baby off.” Finally she dared look at him. “This is my baby, Ethan. In fact, I never intended for you or your family to find out—especially now Richard’s…”
“But Richard did die,” Ethan said finally. “Richard did die, Mia. And if you’re telling the truth, if this is his child, then we’ve got a helluva lot to talk about!”
She could feel the tiny hairs rising on the back of her neck, the chilling feeling that suddenly everything had become impossibly complicated, and she finally admitted to herself that today wasn’t going to bring closure—that things had, in fact, just started.
Relax and enjoy our fabulous series about couples whose passion ends in pregnancies…sometimes unexpected! Of course, the birth of a baby is always a joyful event, and we can guarantee that our characters will become wonderful moms and dads—but what happened in those nine months before?
Share the surprises, emotions, drama and suspense as our parents-to-be come to terms with the prospect of bringing a new baby into the world. All will discover that the business of making babies brings with it the most special love of all….
Delivered only by Harlequin Presents
His Pregnant Mistress
Carol Marinelli
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
DON’T look up.
Don’t look up.
Over and over, Mia said those three little words to herself, knew, without a shadow of a doubt, it was the only way she could get through this dark hour in her life.
She attempted to focus on the order of service she held. Her hands trembled so violently it made reading impossible, which was maybe just as well, for even the photograph of her dear friend Richard smiling back at her was enough to cause a fresh batch of tears to well in her eyes, for the stifled scream to build in her throat at the agonizing end to such a beautiful life; it didn’t make sense.
Nothing today made any sense.
Nothing in the formal surrounds of the church, or the austere people that packed the tiny pews, captured the essence of what Richard was about. She could count on one hand Richard’s true friends—the so-called dreamers and drifters that were relegated like herself to the back pews of the church. While the Carvelles and their entourage sat at the front, sweltered in the unfamiliar tropical heat in heavy black suits, the sultry, balmy heat of the late afternoon in Cairns clearly a distant memory, as one by one they had drifted down south, as one by one they had abandoned their roots and headed for the concrete security of the financial capital, their money too big, their egos too wide for the lush, unspoilt beauty of far North Queensland where they had first made their fortune, building and developing the type of luxury hotels that ensured the tourists returned. Too much was never enough where the Carvelles were concerned, the grass was always greener, the wallets always deeper somewhere else.
Only Richard had stayed.
As she stared at the order of service her mouth hardened and it took a moment to register that the emotion she was feeling was anger.
Anger towards the insensitive might that was the Carvelles.
Even the photo of him they had chosen looked wrong, wooden and formal in a suit and tie a world away from the casual, scruffy shorts and T-shirt guy Richard was.
Had been.
The mental correction caused a searing pain to rip through her, her hands moving to her stomach, massaging the life within, willing herself to stay calm for the sake of the baby she carried inside.
Richard’s baby.
The surge of panic that overwhelmed her was exacerbated by the rustle in the pews as the congregation stood and Mia attempted to stand, her legs trembling violently as the procession moved, willing herself to hold it together, to just get through the necessary formalities without drawing attention to herself.
So she stared down, screwing her eyes closed as the procession passed, the horrible scent of incense from the minister’s lantern as he led the mourners an aching reminder of her father’s funeral just two years previously. But despite her vow not to look up, to keep to the plan Mia had put in place merely to get her through, as the music stilled, and the congregation hushed, Mia’s strategies fell by the wayside as her eyes slowly lifted. Drawn, not to the coffin, but to the dark-suited figure that followed behind, to the face that had haunted her dreams for the last seven years, to the face that had loved her, the eyes that had adored her and to the man who had so cruelly discarded her.
Ethan.
Only his haughty profile was visible as he walked with the sombre procession, taking his place in the front pew, staring fixedly ahead as the minister’s voice welcomed the congregation on this sad day.
And though the minister’s words were well delivered, though it was Richard that had brought her here today, it was Ethan that held her attention, Ethan whom she stared at as the congregation shuffled to a stand, realizing, not for the first time, just how different Ethan was from his younger brother whom they were here to mourn. Richard, pale-skinned with light auburn hair, so vulnerable and fragile; the absolute antithesis of this confident, jet-haired swarthy-skinned, imposing man standing tall at the front of the church, easily a head above the rest. The only sign of emotion in his impassive face was that his jaw clenched in stony silence as the rest of the congregation started to sing, one hand held behind his back, the knuckles white with tension against his immaculate suit, and as an age-old hymn she’d heard a million times before filled the sacred space only now did she really hear it for the first time, each and every word seeming to dredge through the remnants of her soul. And only now did she really feel it, begin to understand it: the timeless wonder of love, the everlasting promise of peace, and as the words soared skywards, as her tears fell downwards, all Mia could think, all Mia could wish at the loneliest moment of her life was that the man who stood so distant and aloof at the front of the church didn’t still touch her so.
She wished with her whole heart that the seven years that had passed since she had seen Ethan Carvelle could have rendered him less impressive, less authoritative…less beautiful.
She had known today would be hard, but it wasn’t just saying goodbye to Richard that was on her mind. She had said her farewells to him weeks ago. Expended most of her grief in painful stages as day by day the cancer that had ravaged his body had taken him piece by piece, like a beautiful statue being slowly dismantled, his short-term memory fading first, followed closely by pride as his functions had decreased. Yet all that Mia could deal with, even the agony of watching his sparkling humour slowly slip away, watching as he’d struggled to make a point, to finish a joke, hadn’t come close to the tragedy of his vacant eyes, which one black morning, had failed to recognize her. A mouth that hadn’t smiled as she’d entered his sun-drenched room in the hospice. Mia had known then that for Richard, her dear, kind Richard, it was over. She had said goodbye to him then, her mourning commencing that very day for the wonderful man who the doctor had gently told her would never now return.
Today was a formality—the end of the tragic end.
She had hoped it would be the same when she saw Ethan.
That seeing him after all this time would bring some closure. That the seven years of pain she had suffered after Ethan’s cruel rejection would somehow now abate. That finally after all this time she could really move on with her life.
But watching Ethan as he left his pew and walked towards the front of the church, Mia felt her breath trap in her throat, her legs finally still—cold shock setting in as all over again, as if for the very first time, she witnessed his beauty face on.
He seemed taller if that were possible, his shoulders wider, and the years had treated him kindly. His hair, still jet-black, was cut shorter than it had been seven years ago. The last gasps of the youthful twenty-three-year-old she had witnessed in those unforgettable weeks they had shared were gone for ever now, replaced instead with a savage maturity that quite literally took her breath away. And not just Mia’s—the whole church descended into utter silence, every face turned to his commanding figure. Ethan held the packed church in the palm of his hand—not just because he was Richard’s brother, not just because his surname happened to be Carvelle, but because the mere sight of him, the very presence of him demanded respect. He could walk into a bar on the other side of the world, order a drink in that measured, clipped voice and every head in the place would turn, every woman would sit up straighter, and every man stand up taller.
He paused before he started his reading, staring down for a fraction of a second. Mia watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down, waiting in tense silence as a man used to public speaking prepared himself for the most difficult speech of his life. Seeing the hands that had once tenderly held hers gripping the lectern, proud, tall and commanding as his deep voice delivered the reading, it was as if each word shot an arrow to her already bleeding heart. And it was more than she could bear to watch, sheer torture to see what she could never now have, so she dragged her eyes away from the object of his outer beauty, trying to remember the cruelty within, focusing on her own tightly clasped hands, her fingers interlaced over the soft swell of her stomach, chewing her lip as tears flooded her cheeks, watching as her knees again started to jerk up and down as if dancing to their own private tune as his deep, measured tones ripped through her, every last word the antithesis of the treatment he had dished out to her.
The faith he had shattered, the hope he had destroyed; a fresh batch of tears welled in her eyes as finally the reading turned to what Ethan clearly couldn’t give, his voice searing through her as he delivered his final words…
“‘Meanwhile these three remain: faith, ho…”’ His deep voice wavered and then halted, a tiny cough as he cleared his throat and the beat of a pause dragged on mercilessly, the congregation shuffling uncomfortably as Ethan forced himself to continue.
“‘Faith.”’ He dragged the single word out, paused a second too long again and Mia found herself mouthing the next word silently to herself, bitterly recalling the hope there had once been, the hope that had surrounded the conception of her child, a future for Richard they had hoped to ensure. But as the pause went on her mind turned again, drifting back along the painful, familiar path she had followed for so long: the road to Ethan. Dragging her eyes up, she recalled the hope that had surrounded them all those years ago, those stolen, balmy weeks when the world seemed to have paused for a while, when they had stood on the threshold of tomorrow, glimpsed a future that might just have been kind, and despite the pain he had caused, despite the agony he had put her and her father through, at that moment she felt for him, felt her heart go out to this strong, proud man as he stood alone at the front of the congregation, for once faltering and hesitant. She felt no joy in watching him suffer, took no pleasure in his pain. His eyes flicked to hers, and for the first time in seven years their eyes met, and it was as if it were just the two of them in the church, as if the years that stretched behind them had somehow melted away and she was in his arms again, the closeness they had once shared somehow captured in that gaze. In an instinctive show of support Mia gave him a tiny nod, told him with her eyes he was doing okay. Like a parent at a school play she willed him to carry on speaking, and it worked, Ethan’s eyes holding hers as he finished the reading.
“‘Faith, hope and love… And the greatest of these is love.”’
Determinedly avoiding her gaze now, he made his way back to his seat, and for Mia the rest of the service passed in a blur. Her tears dried up as finally the crowd moved outside. She took in huge gulps of the humid mid-morning air, blinking at the sunlight as her high heels crunched in the gravel, the congregation slowly working the line, shaking hands with the Carvelles before they headed for the crematorium—a private cremation the order of the day for the Carvelle family. Shutting out friendship, discounting outsiders in their usual closed-rank way; it probably never even entered their heads that in the last few months Mia had spent more time with Richard than the whole lot of them combined.
She could argue the point, if she were that way inclined. Point out that, like it or not, she was very much family now; that the swell of her stomach beneath her black dress meant she had every reason to join them.
But she didn’t.
Instead she murmured her condolences, shook hands with the endless faces, and braced herself to kiss the cheeks of Richard’s mother as one would for touching a snake. Mia stared into the cold blue eyes of a woman who, though she had borne two sons, didn’t have a maternal bone in her body.
‘Miss Stewart.’ Her lips twisted around the two words, as if it were more than she could bear to say the name.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Mia responded, willing the line to move, wanting this just to be over with, but Hugh Carvelle was talking intently to another dark-suited gentleman and, Mia realized with a sinking feeling, she’d have to face Richard’s mother for a little while longer yet.
‘It’s a blessing,’ Rosalind said in a practised voice, ‘Richard was in a lot of pain.’
And maybe the polite thing would have been to murmur her understanding, but quite simply Mia couldn’t do it. What would this woman know about Richard’s pain? How did she even have the gall to comment when, despite Mia’s phone calls urging her to come, she’d barely spent an hour with her son over the last few weeks, waltzing into the hospice for a brief visit before disappearing again? And where was the blessing?
Where was the blessing when a twenty-eight-year-old man lay dead?
Taking a deep breath, Mia willed herself calm, choked back the fury that welled inside her, told herself that Rosalind Carvelle was a grieving mother, that it wasn’t for Mia to judge, then let out a long sigh of relief when finally the line moved on. Mia listened as Hugh, clearly not even recognizing her, not even remembering that it had been her father he had so cruelly dismissed from his employment seven years ago, invited her back to a five star hotel for a dignified drink after the private cremation. Mia willed the line to move faster, despite the open space positively claustrophobic now as the moment she simultaneously dreaded and yearned for drew nearer, her breath so shallow she could barely catch it as finally Ethan’s hand closed around hers. She didn’t need to look up to know it was his, felt the force of his presence as they stood just a few inches apart, the touch of his skin on her hand enough to trigger a response only Ethan could ever yield.
‘Mia.’ His voice was low; she could feel his eyes burning into the top of her head as she stared fixedly at the ground. ‘Thank you for coming today. I know it would have meant a lot to Richard.’
‘How?’ Glittering eyes snapped up to his. ‘How do you know that it would have meant a lot to Richard when you barely even spoke to him?’
And she hadn’t wanted to do this, hadn’t wanted any sort of confrontation, had merely hoped just to make it through, so why was she courting disaster now? Why was she staring defiantly into the face of the man who had, not only cruelly broken her heart, but dragged her unsuspecting father into things just to turn the knife a touch further? Why wasn’t she walking away with the last shred of dignity she had instead of exposing her pain? Instead of staring at that unscrupulous face and questioning his love for his brother?
He couldn’t look.
Couldn’t look into those two sparkling jewels that always dragged him in, those aquamarine pools that had once captured his heart, remembering in that instant the first time they had met, how she had, quite simply, ensnared him with a smile.
Even before the waitress had led him to the table outside on the balcony, as he’d walked through the massive glassed doors his eyes had darted to where she’d sat. Her bronzed skin glistening in the low evening sun; eyes mirrored by glasses as she’d stared out onto the ocean; a soft mint-coloured linen shift dress that showed a tantalizing glimpse of toned slender thighs; simple silver sandals on her feet. Every detail Ethan had processed in a second, except her hair—blonde, tumbling ringlets piled loosely on top of her head—had taken a few seconds longer. So had the long, slender neck, long silver earrings dancing in the seductive shadow of her throat even though her head had been perfectly still. Even if the waitress had led him to another table, Ethan would, quite simply, have had to go over, to introduce himself to this incredible parcel of femininity. But in a delicious twist of fate the waitress had been leading him to her table.
‘Mia Stewart.’ She smiled as he sat down, held out a slender hand as he forcefully reminded himself that tonight was strictly business.
Business, Ethan reminded himself, forcing himself to get a grip. Richard was missing and this lady surely knew why.
Every road in his investigations had led him to her.
Mia Stewart—Richard’s hippy, arty girlfriend.
Mia Stewart—daughter of the manager of the Cairns Hotel. The manager who was secretly being investigated. Some of his transactions had caught Ethan’s sharp eye in the Sydney office and he had alerted his father. Any day now, Conner Stewart would be marched out of the office, not only without a golden handshake, but, if Ethan’s suspicions were confirmed, his wrist would be encased, not with a heavy watch to mark his years of service, but with handcuffs.
‘I’m Ethan.’ Offering his hand, somehow he kept his voice even, managed his usual detached smile as her hand met his, the other pulling down her sunglasses. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
‘How could I not?’ She gave a small shrug. ‘It all sounds very mysterious. Richard’s disappeared and you assume I know his whereabouts. You’ve got me intrigued.’
‘I’m the one who’s intrigued,’ Ethan replied evenly. ‘You’re supposed to be his girlfriend, yet you’ve no idea as to his whereabouts.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong.’
‘I don’t think so…’ Ethan started, but his voice trailed off as Mia carried on talking.
‘You see, Richard and I are just friends.’
Normally he would have pushed further, questioned her harder, but her glasses were off now, revealing aquamarine eyes, thickly framed with dark lashes, eyes as deep and as divine as the ocean that glittered behind, as entrancing and as captivating as the woman who was staring back now, and Ethan beat back the first blush that had graced his cheeks in a decade.
Mia Stewart, who that very moment had captured his heart…
‘I know that you and Richard were close.’ His hand was still holding hers, black eyes still boring into the top of her head, his voice steady, not a trace of the hesitancy that had stilled him in the church. ‘I know that the last few weeks must have been a terrible strain and that today must be hard for you too.’ His eyes dragged down and she could feel the blood rushing to her pale cheeks, colour suffusing her, her heart rate quickening more if that were possible as the weight of his gaze dusted her body. Her breath held hot in her bursting lungs as he took in the ripe swell of her stomach beneath her black linen dress, and she could feel the scorching heat from those black coal chips as they flicked down to her hands, undoubtedly taking in the absence of a ring. ‘Will you and your partner be joining the family for a drink after the cremation?’
‘I’m here alone.’
He nodded, those dark eyes giving nothing away. He might just as well have been wearing shades for all the expression in his eyes as he stared directly back at her.
‘Perhaps we could talk…’
‘I really don’t think there’s much to talk about, do you?’
‘I meant about Richard.’ For the first time he looked uncomfortable but he quickly recovered. ‘Wakes are supposed to be important for grieving, for remembering…’
‘I’ll remember Richard in my own way,’ Mia broke in. ‘And I certainly don’t need the Carvelles to give me permission to grieve.’
The fire died in Mia then. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t stand and score points off Ethan Carvelle, couldn’t besmirch Richard’s memory in this way, yet neither could she pretend to give or receive comfort to his cold, self-serving family, on this, one of the blackest days of her life.
It was safer to leave now.
Reclaiming her hand, she made her way down the line, holding her tears, her grief firmly back, her hand still tingling from his touch, the one area of warmth in her cold, frozen body apart from the silent tears that trickled down her now pale cheeks.
And she held it in, held it deep inside, watching in respectful silence as the coffin was loaded into the hearse, Ethan, proud and tall, carrying his brother on his broad shoulders for his final journey, a flash of tears in those black eyes, that delicious mouth quilted in pain.
Only when the entourage departed did her emotions finally catch up.
Only as she watched the car containing Richard disappear out of sight, the back of Ethan’s head in the family car following slowly behind, did the true depth of her loss finally hit Mia.
Her hands gripping her stomach, she contemplated the baby inside, the father it would now never meet, the loving gesture that had seemed so right at the time, so straightforward and uncomplicated, terrifying her now, spinning her into a panic that would surely never end. The full weight of responsibility descending on her tired shoulders seemed almost too much to bear.
Silver spots danced before Mia’s eyes; as the floor seemed to spin around her she could hear the worried shouts from the crowd as they dashed over, see the floor coming to meet her as she sank down onto the grass.
Grief, agony, both past and present all homing in, all suffocating her with the impossibility of her situation. But it wasn’t that her baby’s father was dead, wasn’t that she was in this alone now that seemed to be smothering her as she struggled merely to breathe.
Worse, far worse than her loss was the knowledge she had gained today. As much as she hated him, as much as every fibre of her being loathed him for all he had put her and her father through, seeing Ethan again, feeling his hand on hers, listening to that deep, measured voice, staring for that moment into his dark brooding eyes, Mia realized it was for ever. Knew that after all these years the feelings were still as strong, the pain he had inflicted was everlasting, the closure she craved would never eventuate, the grief that gripped her now, had suffused her for seven years, would never, ever relent.
She could hear the ambulance sirens, was vaguely aware of a mask being slipped over her face, the cool, dark confines of the ambulance as they closed the doors and pulled away from the church towards the hospital.
But none of it mattered, none of it registered, not when a life of agony stretched before her.
She still loved Ethan Carvelle.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WE’D really rather keep you in.’ A rather impatient-looking doctor stared at her notes. ‘At least for a couple of days until your blood pressure comes down.’
‘It’s hardly likely to come down here,’ Mia replied through gritted teeth, wishing they would all just leave her alone, that she could get in her car and drive back to her home to pore over the day’s events in her own surrounds. ‘Once I’m home I’ll be fine.’
‘What if you’re not?’ The doctor stared at her coolly over his glasses. ‘You don’t live locally, Ms Stewart; you live two hours out of Cairns in the mountains. It’s all very well for you to take risks with your own health, but bear in mind that you’re seven months pregnant. Arguing over a couple of days’ admission…’
‘Who’s arguing?’
Thank God they’d taken the blood-pressure machine off her arm, because if her reading had been high before, as Ethan’s dry tones filled the rather small cubicle Mia was sure it would be up through the roof about now. His heavy cologne mingled with the sickly antiseptic smell, his height, his presence dwarfing everything, and even the rather terse doctor seemed to take on rather more courteous tones as he addressed Ethan.
‘I was just explaining to your wife, sir—’
‘She’s not my wife,’ Ethan corrected, totally at ease as the doctor’s eyes swivelled nervously to the notes in his hands.
‘Well, your partner, then. I was trying to explain that it’s imperative she stay in hospital for a couple of days for the baby’s sake…’
‘She’s not my partner either,’ Ethan said with a slight edge. ‘She’s a friend.’
‘I’m most certainly not!’ Mia retorted. ‘A passing acquaintance would be a more apt description.’
‘Prickly, isn’t she?’ Ethan smiled and if the doctor wasn’t already gay he was certainly heading for conversion because he practically melted on the spot as Ethan turned his black eyes to him. ‘What exactly is the problem, Doctor?’
Mia’s horrified expression at Ethan’s rude intrusion should have been enough to stop the doctor in his tracks, but given both men’s backs were practically to her she lay instead welling with indignation as they proceeded to discuss her as if she weren’t in the room.
‘Her blood pressure’s high and according to her blood work she was slightly dehydrated when she arrived as well as underweight. We just want to keep her here for a couple of days to make sure everything’s progressing normally with the pregnancy.’
Mia was about to respond but held back when Ethan’s calm, measured tones appeared to support what she’d been saying.
‘What if she agreed to come back tomorrow for a check-up? Surely her own home would be the best place for her to rest?’
‘Normally, yes, but given she lives a two-hour drive away it’s out of the question. She needs to be resting, not driving a car along winding mountain roads, and if something goes wrong help isn’t easily at hand.’
‘Fair enough.’ Ethan nodded. ‘Don’t worry, Doctor, I’ll soon talk her around.’
‘You will not!’
Remembering, finally, that Mia was actually the patient, the doctor actually managed to address her. ‘I’m waiting for your GP to call through with your antenatal history, but in the meantime I want you to lie there and relax, and perhaps your “passing acquaintance” might be able to talk some sense into you.’
‘I’ll do my best!’
Alone with Ethan the fire seemed to die within her. Impossibly shy and confused, she stared again at her fingers, utterly refusing to look up, to be the one to break the oppressive silence, but, when it was clear Ethan had more staying power than her, finally Mia relented.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ Ethan quipped. ‘I should be halfway down a bottle of whisky by now and regaling tales of Richard’s and my supposedly happy childhood…’ His voice trailed off and if she’d looked up she’d have seen his face soften slightly. ‘When I got back to the hotel I heard a woman had collapsed at the funeral. The words “blonde” and “pregnant” kind of narrowed the field.’
‘You didn’t need to come.’
‘I know,’ he admitted, ‘but I was worried about you.’
‘It’s a bit late to be worried about me, Ethan!’ She could hear the bitterness in her own voice. ‘Seven years too late, actually. You lost all right to worry about me when you walked, or rather flew, out on me without a backwards glance. You lost all right to worry about me when you arranged to have my father sacked two days later…’
‘He wasn’t sacked,’ Ethan retorted. ‘I distinctly remember signing the cheque—’
‘He was sacked!’ Mia broke in, her voice choking with emotion at the memory of her father’s strained face, the utter devastation as he’d slumped in his chair that afternoon, told Mia that after twenty years of devoted service the Carvelles had accused him of theft. ‘And worse, he was expected to be grateful that you hadn’t called the police…’
‘He was fiddling the books, Mia…’ Ethan’s voice was pure ice, his stance unequivocal, but seeing her lie back on the pillow, the swell of her stomach beneath the white sheet, witnessing firsthand the utter exhaustion and devastation on her proud face as she lay struggling to hold it together, he chose to relent.
‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’
‘Which I am.’
‘Not according to the doctor,’ Ethan pointed out, but his voice was gentler now. ‘He seems to think that you’re not well at all.’
‘This isn’t your problem.’
‘I know.’
‘In fact…’ Mia’s voice gave an involuntary wobble but she quickly recovered ‘…this has absolutely nothing to do with you.’
‘Thank God,’ Ethan muttered, flashing a malevolent smile, just to show he was still in control. ‘So I take it you want me to go?’
Mia nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Ethan leaving was the last thing she wanted, but it was safer, so very much safer this way.
‘I’ll let the rest of your visitors in on my way out, shall I?’
‘The rest of my visitors?’ She stared at him nonplussed, simultaneously kicking herself as she realized she’d fallen directly into his trap.
‘I thought as much,’ Ethan said with a note of triumph. ‘There’s not exactly a queue of concerned visitors outside, waiting to drive you home. What about the baby’s father?’
She could feel the sweat beading on her forehead, feel its icy rivers trickling between her breasts, her pale cheeks flushing as Ethan’s eyes bored into her, running a tongue over impossibly dry lips as she carefully chose her words.
‘He’s not in the picture any more.’
His breath hissed out, the longest silence followed by the sharpest of words. ‘Another “passing acquaintance”, I presume.’
‘Much more than that.’ She stared at him, eyes glittering in pain, honesty a breath away but she held it in.
‘So tell me, Mia, are you planning to drive yourself home?’
‘Of course. I’m fine!”
‘Not according to this you’re not.’ Picking up her chart, he skimmed his eyes down it; not like a normal person, though, Mia noted. Normal people squinted at charts upside down, made sure no one was looking as they tried to decipher what had been written, but Ethan Carvelle, damn him, was holding the chart and reading it authoritatively as if he were the blessed consultant. ‘It says here that you’re underweight, dehydrated and your blood pressure’s way too high.’
‘Of course it’s high.’ Mia’s voice was rising now. ‘I’ve spent the last few months driving up and down the mountains every day to visit Richard as well as trying to keep the gallery going…’
‘Gallery?’
‘My old studio. The one my father…’
‘The one where we…’ His voice trailed off as he apparently realised the danger in pursuing that line of questioning. The fact they had first made love there had no bearing on today. Could never have any bearing now.
‘It’s a gallery now,’ Mia said instead for him. ‘And the reason my blood pressure is up is because, not only have I been neglecting it of late, not only am I way behind with some paintings I’ve been commissioned to do, I’ve also just lost my best friend in the whole world…’ her voice wobbled, the tiniest, most irrelevant of problems surfacing now, an attempt perhaps to drag her mind away from the true preposterousness of her situation ‘…and to top it all I’m on a two-hour park in the middle of the city…’
Tears started then, horrible, uninvited tears that she didn’t want him to witness, that she didn’t want to stoop to, but, seeing him there, another layer of emotion on top of her hellish day was all too much and the tension, the utter, unbearable tension that had been holding her together, snapped then, whipping her reserve away as sobs drenched her fatigued body. Ethan was over in a second, pulling her into his arms and holding her tightly. It was the only place on earth she wanted to be, the only place she had ever truly belonged. And even though it was wrong, even though it could surely only complicate things, right here, right now she needed him. She wanted those strong arms to hold her and needed just a fraction of the strength that was Ethan Carvelle. Even though it was only transitory, and for all the wrong reasons, she allowed herself the indulgence of being held by him, of just letting go and leaning on him for a tiny while.
‘I don’t pretend to know a thing about art—’ his voice was low and deep and comforting ‘—and I know I don’t mean a thing to you compared to Richard…’ She inhaled his scent, dragged on his strength, even moved her head a fraction in denial. Nothing could ever replace Richard, but Ethan was everything to her, always had been, and always would be, but sensibility prevailed, holding her back at the final moment, keeping in what could never, ever be said. ‘But if a car needs moving, then I’m your man.’
The flash of humour was so unforeseen, so unexpected, it toppled her over the edge. Clinging on for dear life, she found herself letting go, really letting go, perhaps for the first time in seven years.
‘Let it out, Mia.’ His face was buried in her hair, her cheek against his chest feeling every breath he took as his heart hammered against her. His elusive scent she had chased for seven years filled her nostrils, and he was all she needed, everything she needed and maybe, just maybe, now she could tell him.
‘Ms Stewart?’ The doctor was back, an unwelcome intrusion, and Mia stiffened, but still Ethan held her…still she clung on. ‘I’ve just spoken to your GP on the telephone; he’s filled me in a bit on your history. I’m very sorry—I didn’t realize that it was the baby’s father you buried today…’
Mia felt Ethan tense in her arms. His breathing stilled for an impossibly long time, then tripped into overdrive as he broke away. But as he lay her back on the pillow not a flicker of his expression relayed his reaction to the news as her anguished eyes searched his. ‘Perhaps given the circumstances…’ the doctor droned on, utterly oblivious to the bombshell he had just dropped, impervious to the mounting tension in the room ‘…home might be the best place for you. I’d prefer if we let the drip finish, though, so we can ensure that you’re adequately rehydrated, and I want you back here tomorrow or at your local GP’s to have that blood pressure checked.’
‘Thank you,’ Mia croaked, dreading what she might see, yet looking for some type of reaction, trying to fathom Ethan’s take on the news he had just heard, but his expression gave away nothing.
‘Naturally, someone should drive you home.’
‘I will.’ Ethan’s voice was supremely calm. ‘How long till the drip finishes?’
‘An hour or so,’ the doctor answered.
‘Give me your keys.’ Rummaging under the trolley, he pulled out her handbag and tossed it beside her. ‘I’ll go and fetch your car for you.’ He shot her a black look. ‘At least it will be one less thing for you to worry about.’
‘But you don’t know which one it is,’ Mia answered, flustered, but Ethan didn’t deign a response, just took the keys without another word to her, saving all his icy venom for the poor doctor.
‘I’ll be back within the hour, Doctor. And for the record, Ms Stewart is grief-stricken, she’s clearly in no fit state to discharge herself, so I strongly suggest that if she isn’t here when I return you’ve made damn sure your medical indemnity insurance is fully paid up.’
The doctor was no match for Ethan’s stern glare and scuttled gratefully out. Ethan stood, silently staring—and suddenly Mia didn’t want Ethan’s take on this, didn’t want to hear his reaction to the news that had just been imparted. Pleating the sheet between her fingers, she stared down, feeling the anger, the incredulity emanating from Ethan, could feel the disdain blazing from his eyes even though she couldn’t bring herself to look at them.
‘Sweet little Mia,’ he said finally, his voice like the crack of a whip. ‘You should add the word “con” to your job title, Mia! Well, you might be able to fool the doctors, your friends, hell, even a few journalists into believing your half-baked story, but it’s the twenty-first century, Mia. You can’t just pass Richard off as the father because it suits your bank account.’
‘I’m not trying to pass the baby off.’ Finally she dared look at him. ‘This is my baby, Ethan. In fact, I never intended for you or your family to find out. It was you who came here, remember; you who chose to ride roughshod and stand over me while the doctor was here.’
‘Bull.’ His voice was menacingly quiet, his head slowly shaking in sheer disbelief. ‘If this is Richard’s baby, how come we don’t know? Why on earth wouldn’t he tell us?’ When she didn’t answer he pressed on relentlessly. ‘If this is my brother’s child, why aren’t there provisions for it in his will?’
‘Because there wasn’t time, and, as much as I didn’t want you to know, I’m not going to deny Richard now. I’m not going to pretend it’s not his child just to make you feel better. But for your information I was always going to raise this baby alone; it was how we planned it!’
‘What?’ Incredulous eyes snapped to hers.
‘I was going to bring up the baby alone, whatever happened to Richard. I always intended to be the sole carer…’
‘Who needs a man in their life?’ he jeered. ‘What the hell’s the point of rotting up a kid with a male perspective on life? Is this one of your half-baked hippy schemes that you roped Richard into, Mia? One of the trendy bandwagons you decided to jump on board…’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t fool me for a moment, Mia Stewart. You had this planned down to the last detail, didn’t you? This was your last little stab at the Carvelle fortune.’ She opened her mouth to argue but he overrode her in an instant. ‘Well, bring it on, Mia.’ The hands that beckoned her were anything but welcoming, his unusually pale face savage in the fluorescent hospital light. ‘Bring it on, because I’m ready for you—more ready than you’ll ever know.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ In an instinctive gesture her hands cradled her stomach, pulling her knees up, protecting the one thing on God’s earth that was hers and hers alone. ‘You don’t scare me, Ethan, and as hard as it may be for you to believe your wealth doesn’t intimidate me either. I don’t want a cent from the Carvelles.’ She let out a low, mirthless laugh. ‘I don’t want them anywhere near me, in fact, but I will not deny this child its father. I will not lie here and tell you it’s not Richard’s child just to make things easier for me. This is Richard’s baby and I’ll never be ashamed of that fact.’
Something in her voice seemed to reach him, something in the proud jut of her chin, the glittering anger in her eyes halted his angry retort. His eyes drifted down to her stomach, staring at the firm mound under the sheet, one hand moving to his face, covering his mouth for a second. Then he closed his eyes and for an appalling moment she thought he was going to break down, that the impervious mask that was Ethan Carvelle was about to slip, but he recovered quickly, dragging his eyes back to her, repeating a question that she still hadn’t answered, but from the hoarseness in his voice, the slight grey tinge creeping into his features, Mia knew his world had been rocked, knew he was actually starting to believe that the baby she was carrying might be Richard’s.
‘Why didn’t we know?’ His voice was raw and he cleared his throat, fixing her with his black stare, but it wasn’t quite so assured now. ‘If what you’re saying is true, why the hell didn’t Richard say anything? He never even implied you were anything more than friends…’
‘During one of your weekly phone calls?’ Mia retorted nastily, but she was beyond caring now, the implication that she was in this only for the money too abhorrent not to reciprocate with harsh words of her own. ‘Or perhaps he should have included it in one of the regular emails you fired to each other…’ Seeing the pain in his eyes, she realized she’d gone too far; the day of Richard’s funeral was hardly the time to point out the void between them, the tragedy of a relationship reduced to stilted birthday and Christmas cards. And, Mia thought reluctantly, given the rapidly unfolding circumstances, given the Carvelle name and all its implications, Ethan’s reaction was probably merited.
It wasn’t his fault that she loved him.
‘I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.’ After the longest pause she found her voice.
‘It’s the truth.’ Ethan shrugged.
‘But this really was a very much wanted baby.’
Maybe Mia’s gloves were off, but Ethan’s were still firmly tied on, every word a painful punch to her already fragile soul.
‘Please.’ His voice was dripping with sarcasm as he hit her while she was down. ‘So wanted that none of his family even knew about it, so wanted we didn’t even know he was dating you, so wanted that a baby wasn’t even on the agenda till he was dying…’
‘He wasn’t supposed to die!’ Agony rasped in every word, her strained voice overriding his powerful one on emotion alone, forcing a quiet, forcing him to stop his tirade to stand stock-still as Mia continued. ‘He wasn’t supposed to die,’ she said again, but Ethan remained unmoved.
‘He had cancer, Mia. The doctors gave him eighteen months, two years at most. So what the hell was he doing having children? What the hell was he doing bringing a child into the world he would surely never be there to watch grow up? It just doesn’t add up.’
‘We don’t all live by your rules, Ethan; we don’t all walk around with a mental calculator weighing up the pros and cons, checking for longevity and distant projections. Richard knew he might never see his child grow up and I knew it too, but it was a risk we were prepared to take…’
‘You really talked about it?’ His voice told her the preposterousness he felt in her actions. The incredulity in his eyes as he stared back at her only distanced him further, yet she ached to reach him, to drag him beside her, to reach an understanding while somehow avoiding the truth.
‘We talked about it for weeks, Ethan, for weeks.’
‘So it wasn’t an accident, a one-night stand…’
‘This was a wanted baby, Ethan.’
‘Oh, I bet it was,’ Ethan hissed. ‘It’s what you’ve been wanting for years, isn’t it, Mia?’
‘Ethan, please, you don’t understand…’
‘Don’t I?’ Ethan snapped, his face menacingly close as the doctor melted away. ‘Save the tears, Mia. You’ve got what you wanted, or most of it.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You couldn’t quite manage to hook the Carvelle surname for yourself, but you’d use a dying, confused man to ensure you snaked your way in somehow. But you’ve picked the wrong family, Mia. If you think for one second my parents are going to be the pushover Richard clearly was, then I’m about to burst your bubble, darling…’ His lips sneered around the word, no sentiment intended as he spat the endearment. ‘They’ll wrap you up so tightly in legal red tape you’ll be pulling your pension before you see a single cent for your efforts.’
‘You bastard.’
‘No.’ Ethan shook his head, his eyes glittering with rage, his face taut, his breath hot on her cheeks, his hand moving to her stomach and holding the swollen flesh for a moment, shuttering his eyes for a second as if it physically hurt to touch her, to feel the life within her. ‘That’s what this little one is; that’s the level you’d stoop to, to get what you want.’
‘This was never about money.’
‘Good,’ Ethan quipped, ‘because you’ll die waiting before my parents come around. No smiling, cooing baby will melt their cold hearts.’
‘I don’t need the Carvelles’ money,’ Mia hissed. ‘I have a life, a home, a career I’m proud of and I’ll do just fine on my own.’
She thought that was the end of it, almost thought she’d seen the last of him, that Ethan would walk off now, but still he stood, his eyes narrowing as he stared down at her.
‘So what now?’
‘You get on with your life and I’ll get on with mine,’ Mia snapped, but even as the words came out she sensed their futility, knew that now Ethan knew it was Richard’s child she was carrying he couldn’t just walk away. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, Ethan,’ she said more softly. ‘I don’t expect you to understand what Richard and I shared, but all I ask is that you believe me when I say that this had nothing to do with money and everything to do with love. He wasn’t supposed to die…’ Tears brimmed in those aquamarine pools, and the colour was so vivid, so reminiscent of the beautiful land she inhabited, for a tiny second there he felt as if he had come home.
Home, not just to the tropical paradise of Cairns, where lush green trees reached for a sky that blended with the ocean, but home to the capricious, captivating spirit of Mia, and so alien was the feeling that welled inside him, so physical the pain that suddenly gripped him, it took a second for Ethan to register it as need. A need so pure he could feel it, a yearning almost for the balmy, safe haven he had found all those years ago, for the time spent in each other’s arms and minds, when the world had seemed at peace, when there was nothing he wouldn’t have done for her; and he ached, ached to reach over to catch the splash of tears that rolled down her cheeks, to pull her in his arms and make her world safe.
But he couldn’t.
Couldn’t allow himself to fall under her spell again, couldn’t go through it again and expect to come out the other side. He had to be strong here, had to remain impervious to her charms, hold onto his head and forget about his heart.
‘But he did die,’ Ethan said finally. ‘Richard did die, Mia, and if you’re telling the truth, if this is his child, then we’ve got a hell of a lot to talk about!’
She could feel the tiny hairs rising on the back of her neck, the chilling feeling that suddenly everything had become impossibly complicated, finally admitted to herself that today wasn’t going to bring closure, that things had, in fact, just started.
‘Wait here,’ he ordered, jangling her car keys in his pocket and pinning her with his eyes. ‘I’ll go and get your car, but don’t even think about discharging yourself and jumping in a taxi, Mia. Believe me, I’ll find you.’
CHAPTER THREE
SHE should go.
Every sensible thought told Mia to just demand the drip be taken down, pack up her few things, jump in a taxi and get the hell out of there.
Ethan Carvelle had no say here. He couldn’t demand she stay at the hospital; he had nothing to do with this.
Time and again she pushed down the cot side of the trolley, picked up a cotton swab, ready to pull the blessed drip out herself. It was her life, her choice if she walked out of the hospital this very moment; his idle threats bore no weight in the real world. Ethan Carvelle counted for nothing here.
But time and again she pulled the side of the trolley back up, leant against the pillows in utter defeat as the fluid dripped into her veins, knowing it was only herself she was kidding.
Ethan Carvelle counted for everything.
He had since that day seven long, lonely years ago when he had walked into that restaurant. Every pore, every inch of her skin had screamed for him since then, since that one sweet moment when he had not only taken her virginity, but altered her whole perspective, shifted the lens, made the world sharper somehow, invigorated her, exhausted her, engulfed her.
And maybe she could leave now, could get up and walk away, but the action would be merely physical. Her mind, her soul, her heart were constantly with him and she begged for resolution, needed this chance of closure as much as Ethan clearly did.
Needed to tell him how much he had hurt her, needed this time together before she closed this painful chapter for good and moved on.
And it had to be closed, Mia reminded herself; there was too much water under the bridge for anything else.
She sensed his presence before she saw him.
Felt the tension in the room lift a notch as the doctor removed her drip and the nurse helped her out of her gown, and tried to ply her shaking body into the beastly black dress.
‘I’ll take it from here.’
He stood at the entrance to the cubicle, supremely in control, trapping her with his gaze as the medical personnel drifted off.
‘I can dress myself, thank you.’
But pride had no place in this cramped hospital cubicle; shaking hands and his unwavering gaze made the simplest task impossible. With only one stocking on it was easier to rip it off than attempt the other, forcing bare feet into way-too-high heels, then reluctantly taking his hand as she lowered herself off the trolley.
‘Have you got everything?’
‘Apart from my pride.’ Angry eyes met his. ‘How dare you demand I stay till you return? How dare you exert your authority on the hospital staff and talk about me as if I were some sort of unhinged person? I nearly went, you know.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Ethan pointed out, not remotely fazed by her outburst. ‘Turn around; your zip’s undone.’
And if she hadn’t been seven months pregnant she’d have reached her hand behind her back and pulled it up herself in one lithe movement, but pregnancy allowed for no such luxuries, and pulling her dress to her waist and half doing the blessed zip up then twisting it around as she had done this morning clearly wasn’t an option right now. Instead, burning with shame, she stood stock still, refusing his order to turn around, her breath catching in her throat when Ethan gave an easy shrug and moved behind her, piling her blonde curls unceremoniously on top of her head and lifting her hand to hold them.
‘It’s stuck.’ She could feel his breath on her neck, feel his warm fingers as they tugged at the treacherous zipper that had chosen the worst possible time to give in on her. Okay, it wasn’t a maternity dress, just a simple linen shift, and maybe Mia had been pushing her luck choosing to wear it today, but never had she envisaged this outcome. When she had put it on this morning, not for a single second had it entered her head that Ethan Carvelle would be dressing her later.
Undressing her maybe.
The honest admission, even if it was only to herself, caused a deep blush to darken her cheeks, spreading over her neck and down to her swollen breasts. As his hands made contact with her spine it was as if he’d reached into her body and touched her somewhere deep inside, her whole body involuntarily quivering as slowly he worked the zip upwards, pressing one hand onto her exposed flesh, past the black of her bra strap, up between her shoulder blades, her arms trembling as she held her hair out of the way, eyes closing as he moved to the tiny hook and eye at the top of the neckline, his touch more than she could bear and be expected to breathe.
‘That’s fine.’ Pulling away too sharply, she shook her head slightly, his bland, utterly unmoved expression only serving to exacerbate her palpable tension. ‘Can I go home now?’
‘Of course.’
‘You collected my car?’ Mia checked and Ethan nodded. ‘How did you know which one it was?’ Her eyes narrowed, watching every flicker of his reaction, waiting for a blush, a look of discomfort to flash over his face, but Ethan remained unmoved, giving a small shrug before he answered.
‘I’ve been watching you.’
‘Watching me?’ Appalled by his answer, gibbering with rage, she stepped closer, but instead of stepping back Ethan stood his ground, the closeness she had instigated excruciatingly uncomfortable for Mia, but having zero effect on Ethan as her enraged voice rose. ‘What do you mean you’ve been watching me? For how long?’
‘A few weeks now.’ Ethan shrugged. ‘Despite your little speech about being the only one close to Richard, Mia, the simple fact is that I’ve visited my brother regularly. Towards the end I visited him every day, in fact.’
‘But you live in Sydney, your whole family’s in Sydney now…’
‘Correct. And as much as you’d like to write us all off and give more weight to your theory that all Carvelles are callous, the simple fact of the matter is that since Richard was diagnosed as terminal I flew to Cairns every week to visit him, which is no small journey, and towards the end, when I knew time was running out, I moved into one of my properties here so I could spend more time with him.’
It was too much to take in. Her mind whirred, reeling at the information, that Ethan had been here, that he had been watching her these past few weeks, had been in the hospice holding Richard’s hand. Mia’s mouth opened and closed over and over, hundreds of questions bobbing on her tongue as she tried to fathom what exactly it was she wanted to ask.
Ethan answered her unvoiced question.
‘I avoided you, Mia.’ His words were short and clipped, his eyes more menacing than she could ever have imagined, unrecognizable from the giving young man who had made love to her all those years ago, a world away from the tenderness he had once so easily imparted. ‘Truth be known, I could think of nothing worse than being in the same room as you: a confrontation at a dying man’s bedside really isn’t my style. Despite the crap you might have read about me, I do have some standards.’
‘No, Ethan, you don’t.’ It was Mia’s voice that was short now, Mia’s voice unwavering and in control, her eyes defiant as she stared back at him. ‘I’ve read all about your multimillion-dollar deals, circling like a vulture over failing hotel businesses then swooping in and buying them for a song.’
‘That’s business.’ Ethan shrugged.
‘Perhaps,’ Mia conceded, but her stance stayed strong. ‘But what about the women, Ethan? What about the women you woo into your bed, only to discard the following morning?’
‘I’m not into one-night stands,’ Ethan clipped. ‘If you actually read the papers a bit more closely you’d have realized most of my relationships survive a bit longer than that.’
‘Not much,’ Mia sneered. ‘A week, a month at the most.’
‘So?’ Ethan shrugged. ‘I don’t lie, Mia. I never promise it’s going to be for ever, and if you actually asked any of the women I’ve dated in the past I can guarantee not one of them regret it, however short and sweet it may have been.’
‘You can guarantee it, can you?’ Her lips were set in a taut line, her breasts rising and falling as if they had a life of their own as the unleashed fury that had held her together for seven years ripped out of control. ‘Well, here’s one woman that regrets it, Ethan. You’re now looking at a woman who wishes more than ever that she hadn’t been one of your ships that passed in the night, who would love to turn back the clock and wipe out every last piece of memory of the time we shared.’
‘Liar.’ One finger slowly razored her cheek, working its way past her ear, down the hollows of her neck till it met the flickering pulse in her neck. Transfixed, filled with loathing and lust, she stared back at him, stared back at the man who seemed to read her innermost thoughts, the man whom she had physically pushed aside in every waking moment but who had, for seven long years, slipped into her dreams every long, lonely night. She wished she could lie better, wished she could stare back and tell him that she meant every word she had said, but her mouth wouldn’t move, she couldn’t force her lips around the words as relentlessly he continued. ‘You live to remember it, Mia. I was there, remember; I felt you writhing in my arms, heard you calling out my name, so don’t stand there and tell me you wish it had never happened. Don’t try and pretend I’m not the best damn lover you ever had…’
‘Is everything okay?’ The doctor was back, staring nervously at the two of them, and Mia wrestled to stay calm, certain that if they took her blood pressure now there was no way on earth they’d let her out.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Ethan said coolly, picking up her frozen hand and wrapping it possessively in his. ‘In fact, I’m just about to take Ms Stewart home.’
The cool night air on her flaming cheeks was bliss, a gentle breeze around her bare legs as she clipped along beside him, feeling the sizzling hatred emanating from her. Even though she was confused, and though the day had spun irretrievably out of control, there was some solace to be had from being with Ethan now.
That finally after all these years she had faced him.
Stood up to him even.
And maybe, maybe an end to her agony was in sight, when whatever had to be said was finally over, when questions that had hung in the air had actually been answered, she could finally walk away.
Emotionally bruised perhaps.
Still loving him, probably.
But seven years of being left in the dark, of never fully understanding why, with no explanation, he had walked away from all they’d had, had drained every last vestige of inner reserve. Surely the truth, however unpalatable, however much it cheapened their time together, was better than the darkness through which she had stumbled these past years.
She would let him drive her home, Mia had already decided on that. The two-hour drive was surely enough time to glean the answers she craved, and then she’d call him a taxi.
Ethan Carvelle could afford it!
‘Where’s my car?’ Staring at the luxury sports model bleeping as the doors unlocked, Mia shook her head. ‘You said you’d collect my car.’
‘Which I did.’ Ethan shrugged.
‘So where is it?’
‘Scaring the neighbours in my driveway,’ he responded easily. ‘You didn’t think I was going to let you drive home, after what the doctor said?’
‘Of course not. I thought that you were taking me home.’
‘Which I am,’ Ethan clipped.
‘I mean my home…’ her voice trailed off as Ethan let out a mirthless laugh.
‘What? You really thought I was going to take you to your little love shack in the hills? Sorry, darling, I’m simply not up to a two-hour drive. I, for one, need a stiff drink and a marble bathroom with hot running water, none of which, I’m quite sure, you can provide.’ He held up a hand to halt her tirade. ‘Elderberry wine and tepid, solar-heated water really aren’t my thing…’ Staring hard at her, his eyes narrowed, his lips set in such grim determination Mia knew that any argument would be wasted, that Ethan had long ago made up his mind about her and the life she led. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, Mia. You can risk your own health, hell, once this baby’s born you can jump out of a plane without a parachute for all I care, but if you think for one moment that I’m going to let you head off to the mountains to lead your so-called bohemian lifestyle while you wait for the inheritance to flood in, then you’ve got another think coming. This child deserves a damn sight more than you can give and I’m going to make damn sure it gets it. Now get in the car!’
Despite the burning anger at his presumption, despite her fury at his appalling arrogance, as she clipped on her seat belt, and though she’d never in a million years admit it, somewhere deep down inside Mia was relieved. A two-hour drive, even if it was in a luxury sports car, wasn’t exactly at the top of her list. The day seemed to have caught up with her all of a sudden. Exhaustion saturated every pore, overriding even the need for answers from Ethan, quelling slightly the utter force of his presence as they drove along the foreshore. But when they pulled up outside his “property”, as her feet crunched on the smooth white stones beneath her feet the wealth and power that were Ethan Carvelle were rammed home yet again.
Why had she been naive enough to think they would be heading for some small luxury apartment in a nameless high-rise building? The residence they were entering now mocked that image a thousand times over. A massive white single-level home, chiselled so closely into the cliff edge she felt as if she could almost reach out and touch the pounding ocean that thundered below.
‘I’ll show you around…’ Ethan started, but Mia shook her head.
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CAROL MARINELLI
If she wants payment, she'll get it…Australian billionaire Ethan Carvelle cut Mia Stewart out of his life seven years ago. But now Mia's claiming that she's carrying his late brother's child! Ethan suspects Mia wants to get her hands on the Carvelle fortune. Torn between duty and desire, Ethan decides he'll take Mia as his mistress….But Ethan knows nothing of the deep, dark secret Mia is hiding.
Ethan paused, his voice like the crack of a whip.
“You should add the word ‘con’ to your job title, Mia! It’s the twenty-first century. You can’t just pass my brother off as the father because it suits your bank account.”
“I’m not trying to pass the baby off.” Finally she dared look at him. “This is my baby, Ethan. In fact, I never intended for you or your family to find out—especially now Richard’s…”
“But Richard did die,” Ethan said finally. “Richard did die, Mia. And if you’re telling the truth, if this is his child, then we’ve got a helluva lot to talk about!”
She could feel the tiny hairs rising on the back of her neck, the chilling feeling that suddenly everything had become impossibly complicated, and she finally admitted to herself that today wasn’t going to bring closure—that things had, in fact, just started.
Relax and enjoy our fabulous series about couples whose passion ends in pregnancies…sometimes unexpected! Of course, the birth of a baby is always a joyful event, and we can guarantee that our characters will become wonderful moms and dads—but what happened in those nine months before?
Share the surprises, emotions, drama and suspense as our parents-to-be come to terms with the prospect of bringing a new baby into the world. All will discover that the business of making babies brings with it the most special love of all….
Delivered only by Harlequin Presents
His Pregnant Mistress
Carol Marinelli
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
DON’T look up.
Don’t look up.
Over and over, Mia said those three little words to herself, knew, without a shadow of a doubt, it was the only way she could get through this dark hour in her life.
She attempted to focus on the order of service she held. Her hands trembled so violently it made reading impossible, which was maybe just as well, for even the photograph of her dear friend Richard smiling back at her was enough to cause a fresh batch of tears to well in her eyes, for the stifled scream to build in her throat at the agonizing end to such a beautiful life; it didn’t make sense.
Nothing today made any sense.
Nothing in the formal surrounds of the church, or the austere people that packed the tiny pews, captured the essence of what Richard was about. She could count on one hand Richard’s true friends—the so-called dreamers and drifters that were relegated like herself to the back pews of the church. While the Carvelles and their entourage sat at the front, sweltered in the unfamiliar tropical heat in heavy black suits, the sultry, balmy heat of the late afternoon in Cairns clearly a distant memory, as one by one they had drifted down south, as one by one they had abandoned their roots and headed for the concrete security of the financial capital, their money too big, their egos too wide for the lush, unspoilt beauty of far North Queensland where they had first made their fortune, building and developing the type of luxury hotels that ensured the tourists returned. Too much was never enough where the Carvelles were concerned, the grass was always greener, the wallets always deeper somewhere else.
Only Richard had stayed.
As she stared at the order of service her mouth hardened and it took a moment to register that the emotion she was feeling was anger.
Anger towards the insensitive might that was the Carvelles.
Even the photo of him they had chosen looked wrong, wooden and formal in a suit and tie a world away from the casual, scruffy shorts and T-shirt guy Richard was.
Had been.
The mental correction caused a searing pain to rip through her, her hands moving to her stomach, massaging the life within, willing herself to stay calm for the sake of the baby she carried inside.
Richard’s baby.
The surge of panic that overwhelmed her was exacerbated by the rustle in the pews as the congregation stood and Mia attempted to stand, her legs trembling violently as the procession moved, willing herself to hold it together, to just get through the necessary formalities without drawing attention to herself.
So she stared down, screwing her eyes closed as the procession passed, the horrible scent of incense from the minister’s lantern as he led the mourners an aching reminder of her father’s funeral just two years previously. But despite her vow not to look up, to keep to the plan Mia had put in place merely to get her through, as the music stilled, and the congregation hushed, Mia’s strategies fell by the wayside as her eyes slowly lifted. Drawn, not to the coffin, but to the dark-suited figure that followed behind, to the face that had haunted her dreams for the last seven years, to the face that had loved her, the eyes that had adored her and to the man who had so cruelly discarded her.
Ethan.
Only his haughty profile was visible as he walked with the sombre procession, taking his place in the front pew, staring fixedly ahead as the minister’s voice welcomed the congregation on this sad day.
And though the minister’s words were well delivered, though it was Richard that had brought her here today, it was Ethan that held her attention, Ethan whom she stared at as the congregation shuffled to a stand, realizing, not for the first time, just how different Ethan was from his younger brother whom they were here to mourn. Richard, pale-skinned with light auburn hair, so vulnerable and fragile; the absolute antithesis of this confident, jet-haired swarthy-skinned, imposing man standing tall at the front of the church, easily a head above the rest. The only sign of emotion in his impassive face was that his jaw clenched in stony silence as the rest of the congregation started to sing, one hand held behind his back, the knuckles white with tension against his immaculate suit, and as an age-old hymn she’d heard a million times before filled the sacred space only now did she really hear it for the first time, each and every word seeming to dredge through the remnants of her soul. And only now did she really feel it, begin to understand it: the timeless wonder of love, the everlasting promise of peace, and as the words soared skywards, as her tears fell downwards, all Mia could think, all Mia could wish at the loneliest moment of her life was that the man who stood so distant and aloof at the front of the church didn’t still touch her so.
She wished with her whole heart that the seven years that had passed since she had seen Ethan Carvelle could have rendered him less impressive, less authoritative…less beautiful.
She had known today would be hard, but it wasn’t just saying goodbye to Richard that was on her mind. She had said her farewells to him weeks ago. Expended most of her grief in painful stages as day by day the cancer that had ravaged his body had taken him piece by piece, like a beautiful statue being slowly dismantled, his short-term memory fading first, followed closely by pride as his functions had decreased. Yet all that Mia could deal with, even the agony of watching his sparkling humour slowly slip away, watching as he’d struggled to make a point, to finish a joke, hadn’t come close to the tragedy of his vacant eyes, which one black morning, had failed to recognize her. A mouth that hadn’t smiled as she’d entered his sun-drenched room in the hospice. Mia had known then that for Richard, her dear, kind Richard, it was over. She had said goodbye to him then, her mourning commencing that very day for the wonderful man who the doctor had gently told her would never now return.
Today was a formality—the end of the tragic end.
She had hoped it would be the same when she saw Ethan.
That seeing him after all this time would bring some closure. That the seven years of pain she had suffered after Ethan’s cruel rejection would somehow now abate. That finally after all this time she could really move on with her life.
But watching Ethan as he left his pew and walked towards the front of the church, Mia felt her breath trap in her throat, her legs finally still—cold shock setting in as all over again, as if for the very first time, she witnessed his beauty face on.
He seemed taller if that were possible, his shoulders wider, and the years had treated him kindly. His hair, still jet-black, was cut shorter than it had been seven years ago. The last gasps of the youthful twenty-three-year-old she had witnessed in those unforgettable weeks they had shared were gone for ever now, replaced instead with a savage maturity that quite literally took her breath away. And not just Mia’s—the whole church descended into utter silence, every face turned to his commanding figure. Ethan held the packed church in the palm of his hand—not just because he was Richard’s brother, not just because his surname happened to be Carvelle, but because the mere sight of him, the very presence of him demanded respect. He could walk into a bar on the other side of the world, order a drink in that measured, clipped voice and every head in the place would turn, every woman would sit up straighter, and every man stand up taller.
He paused before he started his reading, staring down for a fraction of a second. Mia watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down, waiting in tense silence as a man used to public speaking prepared himself for the most difficult speech of his life. Seeing the hands that had once tenderly held hers gripping the lectern, proud, tall and commanding as his deep voice delivered the reading, it was as if each word shot an arrow to her already bleeding heart. And it was more than she could bear to watch, sheer torture to see what she could never now have, so she dragged her eyes away from the object of his outer beauty, trying to remember the cruelty within, focusing on her own tightly clasped hands, her fingers interlaced over the soft swell of her stomach, chewing her lip as tears flooded her cheeks, watching as her knees again started to jerk up and down as if dancing to their own private tune as his deep, measured tones ripped through her, every last word the antithesis of the treatment he had dished out to her.
The faith he had shattered, the hope he had destroyed; a fresh batch of tears welled in her eyes as finally the reading turned to what Ethan clearly couldn’t give, his voice searing through her as he delivered his final words…
“‘Meanwhile these three remain: faith, ho…”’ His deep voice wavered and then halted, a tiny cough as he cleared his throat and the beat of a pause dragged on mercilessly, the congregation shuffling uncomfortably as Ethan forced himself to continue.
“‘Faith.”’ He dragged the single word out, paused a second too long again and Mia found herself mouthing the next word silently to herself, bitterly recalling the hope there had once been, the hope that had surrounded the conception of her child, a future for Richard they had hoped to ensure. But as the pause went on her mind turned again, drifting back along the painful, familiar path she had followed for so long: the road to Ethan. Dragging her eyes up, she recalled the hope that had surrounded them all those years ago, those stolen, balmy weeks when the world seemed to have paused for a while, when they had stood on the threshold of tomorrow, glimpsed a future that might just have been kind, and despite the pain he had caused, despite the agony he had put her and her father through, at that moment she felt for him, felt her heart go out to this strong, proud man as he stood alone at the front of the congregation, for once faltering and hesitant. She felt no joy in watching him suffer, took no pleasure in his pain. His eyes flicked to hers, and for the first time in seven years their eyes met, and it was as if it were just the two of them in the church, as if the years that stretched behind them had somehow melted away and she was in his arms again, the closeness they had once shared somehow captured in that gaze. In an instinctive show of support Mia gave him a tiny nod, told him with her eyes he was doing okay. Like a parent at a school play she willed him to carry on speaking, and it worked, Ethan’s eyes holding hers as he finished the reading.
“‘Faith, hope and love… And the greatest of these is love.”’
Determinedly avoiding her gaze now, he made his way back to his seat, and for Mia the rest of the service passed in a blur. Her tears dried up as finally the crowd moved outside. She took in huge gulps of the humid mid-morning air, blinking at the sunlight as her high heels crunched in the gravel, the congregation slowly working the line, shaking hands with the Carvelles before they headed for the crematorium—a private cremation the order of the day for the Carvelle family. Shutting out friendship, discounting outsiders in their usual closed-rank way; it probably never even entered their heads that in the last few months Mia had spent more time with Richard than the whole lot of them combined.
She could argue the point, if she were that way inclined. Point out that, like it or not, she was very much family now; that the swell of her stomach beneath her black dress meant she had every reason to join them.
But she didn’t.
Instead she murmured her condolences, shook hands with the endless faces, and braced herself to kiss the cheeks of Richard’s mother as one would for touching a snake. Mia stared into the cold blue eyes of a woman who, though she had borne two sons, didn’t have a maternal bone in her body.
‘Miss Stewart.’ Her lips twisted around the two words, as if it were more than she could bear to say the name.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Mia responded, willing the line to move, wanting this just to be over with, but Hugh Carvelle was talking intently to another dark-suited gentleman and, Mia realized with a sinking feeling, she’d have to face Richard’s mother for a little while longer yet.
‘It’s a blessing,’ Rosalind said in a practised voice, ‘Richard was in a lot of pain.’
And maybe the polite thing would have been to murmur her understanding, but quite simply Mia couldn’t do it. What would this woman know about Richard’s pain? How did she even have the gall to comment when, despite Mia’s phone calls urging her to come, she’d barely spent an hour with her son over the last few weeks, waltzing into the hospice for a brief visit before disappearing again? And where was the blessing?
Where was the blessing when a twenty-eight-year-old man lay dead?
Taking a deep breath, Mia willed herself calm, choked back the fury that welled inside her, told herself that Rosalind Carvelle was a grieving mother, that it wasn’t for Mia to judge, then let out a long sigh of relief when finally the line moved on. Mia listened as Hugh, clearly not even recognizing her, not even remembering that it had been her father he had so cruelly dismissed from his employment seven years ago, invited her back to a five star hotel for a dignified drink after the private cremation. Mia willed the line to move faster, despite the open space positively claustrophobic now as the moment she simultaneously dreaded and yearned for drew nearer, her breath so shallow she could barely catch it as finally Ethan’s hand closed around hers. She didn’t need to look up to know it was his, felt the force of his presence as they stood just a few inches apart, the touch of his skin on her hand enough to trigger a response only Ethan could ever yield.
‘Mia.’ His voice was low; she could feel his eyes burning into the top of her head as she stared fixedly at the ground. ‘Thank you for coming today. I know it would have meant a lot to Richard.’
‘How?’ Glittering eyes snapped up to his. ‘How do you know that it would have meant a lot to Richard when you barely even spoke to him?’
And she hadn’t wanted to do this, hadn’t wanted any sort of confrontation, had merely hoped just to make it through, so why was she courting disaster now? Why was she staring defiantly into the face of the man who had, not only cruelly broken her heart, but dragged her unsuspecting father into things just to turn the knife a touch further? Why wasn’t she walking away with the last shred of dignity she had instead of exposing her pain? Instead of staring at that unscrupulous face and questioning his love for his brother?
He couldn’t look.
Couldn’t look into those two sparkling jewels that always dragged him in, those aquamarine pools that had once captured his heart, remembering in that instant the first time they had met, how she had, quite simply, ensnared him with a smile.
Even before the waitress had led him to the table outside on the balcony, as he’d walked through the massive glassed doors his eyes had darted to where she’d sat. Her bronzed skin glistening in the low evening sun; eyes mirrored by glasses as she’d stared out onto the ocean; a soft mint-coloured linen shift dress that showed a tantalizing glimpse of toned slender thighs; simple silver sandals on her feet. Every detail Ethan had processed in a second, except her hair—blonde, tumbling ringlets piled loosely on top of her head—had taken a few seconds longer. So had the long, slender neck, long silver earrings dancing in the seductive shadow of her throat even though her head had been perfectly still. Even if the waitress had led him to another table, Ethan would, quite simply, have had to go over, to introduce himself to this incredible parcel of femininity. But in a delicious twist of fate the waitress had been leading him to her table.
‘Mia Stewart.’ She smiled as he sat down, held out a slender hand as he forcefully reminded himself that tonight was strictly business.
Business, Ethan reminded himself, forcing himself to get a grip. Richard was missing and this lady surely knew why.
Every road in his investigations had led him to her.
Mia Stewart—Richard’s hippy, arty girlfriend.
Mia Stewart—daughter of the manager of the Cairns Hotel. The manager who was secretly being investigated. Some of his transactions had caught Ethan’s sharp eye in the Sydney office and he had alerted his father. Any day now, Conner Stewart would be marched out of the office, not only without a golden handshake, but, if Ethan’s suspicions were confirmed, his wrist would be encased, not with a heavy watch to mark his years of service, but with handcuffs.
‘I’m Ethan.’ Offering his hand, somehow he kept his voice even, managed his usual detached smile as her hand met his, the other pulling down her sunglasses. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
‘How could I not?’ She gave a small shrug. ‘It all sounds very mysterious. Richard’s disappeared and you assume I know his whereabouts. You’ve got me intrigued.’
‘I’m the one who’s intrigued,’ Ethan replied evenly. ‘You’re supposed to be his girlfriend, yet you’ve no idea as to his whereabouts.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong.’
‘I don’t think so…’ Ethan started, but his voice trailed off as Mia carried on talking.
‘You see, Richard and I are just friends.’
Normally he would have pushed further, questioned her harder, but her glasses were off now, revealing aquamarine eyes, thickly framed with dark lashes, eyes as deep and as divine as the ocean that glittered behind, as entrancing and as captivating as the woman who was staring back now, and Ethan beat back the first blush that had graced his cheeks in a decade.
Mia Stewart, who that very moment had captured his heart…
‘I know that you and Richard were close.’ His hand was still holding hers, black eyes still boring into the top of her head, his voice steady, not a trace of the hesitancy that had stilled him in the church. ‘I know that the last few weeks must have been a terrible strain and that today must be hard for you too.’ His eyes dragged down and she could feel the blood rushing to her pale cheeks, colour suffusing her, her heart rate quickening more if that were possible as the weight of his gaze dusted her body. Her breath held hot in her bursting lungs as he took in the ripe swell of her stomach beneath her black linen dress, and she could feel the scorching heat from those black coal chips as they flicked down to her hands, undoubtedly taking in the absence of a ring. ‘Will you and your partner be joining the family for a drink after the cremation?’
‘I’m here alone.’
He nodded, those dark eyes giving nothing away. He might just as well have been wearing shades for all the expression in his eyes as he stared directly back at her.
‘Perhaps we could talk…’
‘I really don’t think there’s much to talk about, do you?’
‘I meant about Richard.’ For the first time he looked uncomfortable but he quickly recovered. ‘Wakes are supposed to be important for grieving, for remembering…’
‘I’ll remember Richard in my own way,’ Mia broke in. ‘And I certainly don’t need the Carvelles to give me permission to grieve.’
The fire died in Mia then. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t stand and score points off Ethan Carvelle, couldn’t besmirch Richard’s memory in this way, yet neither could she pretend to give or receive comfort to his cold, self-serving family, on this, one of the blackest days of her life.
It was safer to leave now.
Reclaiming her hand, she made her way down the line, holding her tears, her grief firmly back, her hand still tingling from his touch, the one area of warmth in her cold, frozen body apart from the silent tears that trickled down her now pale cheeks.
And she held it in, held it deep inside, watching in respectful silence as the coffin was loaded into the hearse, Ethan, proud and tall, carrying his brother on his broad shoulders for his final journey, a flash of tears in those black eyes, that delicious mouth quilted in pain.
Only when the entourage departed did her emotions finally catch up.
Only as she watched the car containing Richard disappear out of sight, the back of Ethan’s head in the family car following slowly behind, did the true depth of her loss finally hit Mia.
Her hands gripping her stomach, she contemplated the baby inside, the father it would now never meet, the loving gesture that had seemed so right at the time, so straightforward and uncomplicated, terrifying her now, spinning her into a panic that would surely never end. The full weight of responsibility descending on her tired shoulders seemed almost too much to bear.
Silver spots danced before Mia’s eyes; as the floor seemed to spin around her she could hear the worried shouts from the crowd as they dashed over, see the floor coming to meet her as she sank down onto the grass.
Grief, agony, both past and present all homing in, all suffocating her with the impossibility of her situation. But it wasn’t that her baby’s father was dead, wasn’t that she was in this alone now that seemed to be smothering her as she struggled merely to breathe.
Worse, far worse than her loss was the knowledge she had gained today. As much as she hated him, as much as every fibre of her being loathed him for all he had put her and her father through, seeing Ethan again, feeling his hand on hers, listening to that deep, measured voice, staring for that moment into his dark brooding eyes, Mia realized it was for ever. Knew that after all these years the feelings were still as strong, the pain he had inflicted was everlasting, the closure she craved would never eventuate, the grief that gripped her now, had suffused her for seven years, would never, ever relent.
She could hear the ambulance sirens, was vaguely aware of a mask being slipped over her face, the cool, dark confines of the ambulance as they closed the doors and pulled away from the church towards the hospital.
But none of it mattered, none of it registered, not when a life of agony stretched before her.
She still loved Ethan Carvelle.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WE’D really rather keep you in.’ A rather impatient-looking doctor stared at her notes. ‘At least for a couple of days until your blood pressure comes down.’
‘It’s hardly likely to come down here,’ Mia replied through gritted teeth, wishing they would all just leave her alone, that she could get in her car and drive back to her home to pore over the day’s events in her own surrounds. ‘Once I’m home I’ll be fine.’
‘What if you’re not?’ The doctor stared at her coolly over his glasses. ‘You don’t live locally, Ms Stewart; you live two hours out of Cairns in the mountains. It’s all very well for you to take risks with your own health, but bear in mind that you’re seven months pregnant. Arguing over a couple of days’ admission…’
‘Who’s arguing?’
Thank God they’d taken the blood-pressure machine off her arm, because if her reading had been high before, as Ethan’s dry tones filled the rather small cubicle Mia was sure it would be up through the roof about now. His heavy cologne mingled with the sickly antiseptic smell, his height, his presence dwarfing everything, and even the rather terse doctor seemed to take on rather more courteous tones as he addressed Ethan.
‘I was just explaining to your wife, sir—’
‘She’s not my wife,’ Ethan corrected, totally at ease as the doctor’s eyes swivelled nervously to the notes in his hands.
‘Well, your partner, then. I was trying to explain that it’s imperative she stay in hospital for a couple of days for the baby’s sake…’
‘She’s not my partner either,’ Ethan said with a slight edge. ‘She’s a friend.’
‘I’m most certainly not!’ Mia retorted. ‘A passing acquaintance would be a more apt description.’
‘Prickly, isn’t she?’ Ethan smiled and if the doctor wasn’t already gay he was certainly heading for conversion because he practically melted on the spot as Ethan turned his black eyes to him. ‘What exactly is the problem, Doctor?’
Mia’s horrified expression at Ethan’s rude intrusion should have been enough to stop the doctor in his tracks, but given both men’s backs were practically to her she lay instead welling with indignation as they proceeded to discuss her as if she weren’t in the room.
‘Her blood pressure’s high and according to her blood work she was slightly dehydrated when she arrived as well as underweight. We just want to keep her here for a couple of days to make sure everything’s progressing normally with the pregnancy.’
Mia was about to respond but held back when Ethan’s calm, measured tones appeared to support what she’d been saying.
‘What if she agreed to come back tomorrow for a check-up? Surely her own home would be the best place for her to rest?’
‘Normally, yes, but given she lives a two-hour drive away it’s out of the question. She needs to be resting, not driving a car along winding mountain roads, and if something goes wrong help isn’t easily at hand.’
‘Fair enough.’ Ethan nodded. ‘Don’t worry, Doctor, I’ll soon talk her around.’
‘You will not!’
Remembering, finally, that Mia was actually the patient, the doctor actually managed to address her. ‘I’m waiting for your GP to call through with your antenatal history, but in the meantime I want you to lie there and relax, and perhaps your “passing acquaintance” might be able to talk some sense into you.’
‘I’ll do my best!’
Alone with Ethan the fire seemed to die within her. Impossibly shy and confused, she stared again at her fingers, utterly refusing to look up, to be the one to break the oppressive silence, but, when it was clear Ethan had more staying power than her, finally Mia relented.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ Ethan quipped. ‘I should be halfway down a bottle of whisky by now and regaling tales of Richard’s and my supposedly happy childhood…’ His voice trailed off and if she’d looked up she’d have seen his face soften slightly. ‘When I got back to the hotel I heard a woman had collapsed at the funeral. The words “blonde” and “pregnant” kind of narrowed the field.’
‘You didn’t need to come.’
‘I know,’ he admitted, ‘but I was worried about you.’
‘It’s a bit late to be worried about me, Ethan!’ She could hear the bitterness in her own voice. ‘Seven years too late, actually. You lost all right to worry about me when you walked, or rather flew, out on me without a backwards glance. You lost all right to worry about me when you arranged to have my father sacked two days later…’
‘He wasn’t sacked,’ Ethan retorted. ‘I distinctly remember signing the cheque—’
‘He was sacked!’ Mia broke in, her voice choking with emotion at the memory of her father’s strained face, the utter devastation as he’d slumped in his chair that afternoon, told Mia that after twenty years of devoted service the Carvelles had accused him of theft. ‘And worse, he was expected to be grateful that you hadn’t called the police…’
‘He was fiddling the books, Mia…’ Ethan’s voice was pure ice, his stance unequivocal, but seeing her lie back on the pillow, the swell of her stomach beneath the white sheet, witnessing firsthand the utter exhaustion and devastation on her proud face as she lay struggling to hold it together, he chose to relent.
‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’
‘Which I am.’
‘Not according to the doctor,’ Ethan pointed out, but his voice was gentler now. ‘He seems to think that you’re not well at all.’
‘This isn’t your problem.’
‘I know.’
‘In fact…’ Mia’s voice gave an involuntary wobble but she quickly recovered ‘…this has absolutely nothing to do with you.’
‘Thank God,’ Ethan muttered, flashing a malevolent smile, just to show he was still in control. ‘So I take it you want me to go?’
Mia nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Ethan leaving was the last thing she wanted, but it was safer, so very much safer this way.
‘I’ll let the rest of your visitors in on my way out, shall I?’
‘The rest of my visitors?’ She stared at him nonplussed, simultaneously kicking herself as she realized she’d fallen directly into his trap.
‘I thought as much,’ Ethan said with a note of triumph. ‘There’s not exactly a queue of concerned visitors outside, waiting to drive you home. What about the baby’s father?’
She could feel the sweat beading on her forehead, feel its icy rivers trickling between her breasts, her pale cheeks flushing as Ethan’s eyes bored into her, running a tongue over impossibly dry lips as she carefully chose her words.
‘He’s not in the picture any more.’
His breath hissed out, the longest silence followed by the sharpest of words. ‘Another “passing acquaintance”, I presume.’
‘Much more than that.’ She stared at him, eyes glittering in pain, honesty a breath away but she held it in.
‘So tell me, Mia, are you planning to drive yourself home?’
‘Of course. I’m fine!”
‘Not according to this you’re not.’ Picking up her chart, he skimmed his eyes down it; not like a normal person, though, Mia noted. Normal people squinted at charts upside down, made sure no one was looking as they tried to decipher what had been written, but Ethan Carvelle, damn him, was holding the chart and reading it authoritatively as if he were the blessed consultant. ‘It says here that you’re underweight, dehydrated and your blood pressure’s way too high.’
‘Of course it’s high.’ Mia’s voice was rising now. ‘I’ve spent the last few months driving up and down the mountains every day to visit Richard as well as trying to keep the gallery going…’
‘Gallery?’
‘My old studio. The one my father…’
‘The one where we…’ His voice trailed off as he apparently realised the danger in pursuing that line of questioning. The fact they had first made love there had no bearing on today. Could never have any bearing now.
‘It’s a gallery now,’ Mia said instead for him. ‘And the reason my blood pressure is up is because, not only have I been neglecting it of late, not only am I way behind with some paintings I’ve been commissioned to do, I’ve also just lost my best friend in the whole world…’ her voice wobbled, the tiniest, most irrelevant of problems surfacing now, an attempt perhaps to drag her mind away from the true preposterousness of her situation ‘…and to top it all I’m on a two-hour park in the middle of the city…’
Tears started then, horrible, uninvited tears that she didn’t want him to witness, that she didn’t want to stoop to, but, seeing him there, another layer of emotion on top of her hellish day was all too much and the tension, the utter, unbearable tension that had been holding her together, snapped then, whipping her reserve away as sobs drenched her fatigued body. Ethan was over in a second, pulling her into his arms and holding her tightly. It was the only place on earth she wanted to be, the only place she had ever truly belonged. And even though it was wrong, even though it could surely only complicate things, right here, right now she needed him. She wanted those strong arms to hold her and needed just a fraction of the strength that was Ethan Carvelle. Even though it was only transitory, and for all the wrong reasons, she allowed herself the indulgence of being held by him, of just letting go and leaning on him for a tiny while.
‘I don’t pretend to know a thing about art—’ his voice was low and deep and comforting ‘—and I know I don’t mean a thing to you compared to Richard…’ She inhaled his scent, dragged on his strength, even moved her head a fraction in denial. Nothing could ever replace Richard, but Ethan was everything to her, always had been, and always would be, but sensibility prevailed, holding her back at the final moment, keeping in what could never, ever be said. ‘But if a car needs moving, then I’m your man.’
The flash of humour was so unforeseen, so unexpected, it toppled her over the edge. Clinging on for dear life, she found herself letting go, really letting go, perhaps for the first time in seven years.
‘Let it out, Mia.’ His face was buried in her hair, her cheek against his chest feeling every breath he took as his heart hammered against her. His elusive scent she had chased for seven years filled her nostrils, and he was all she needed, everything she needed and maybe, just maybe, now she could tell him.
‘Ms Stewart?’ The doctor was back, an unwelcome intrusion, and Mia stiffened, but still Ethan held her…still she clung on. ‘I’ve just spoken to your GP on the telephone; he’s filled me in a bit on your history. I’m very sorry—I didn’t realize that it was the baby’s father you buried today…’
Mia felt Ethan tense in her arms. His breathing stilled for an impossibly long time, then tripped into overdrive as he broke away. But as he lay her back on the pillow not a flicker of his expression relayed his reaction to the news as her anguished eyes searched his. ‘Perhaps given the circumstances…’ the doctor droned on, utterly oblivious to the bombshell he had just dropped, impervious to the mounting tension in the room ‘…home might be the best place for you. I’d prefer if we let the drip finish, though, so we can ensure that you’re adequately rehydrated, and I want you back here tomorrow or at your local GP’s to have that blood pressure checked.’
‘Thank you,’ Mia croaked, dreading what she might see, yet looking for some type of reaction, trying to fathom Ethan’s take on the news he had just heard, but his expression gave away nothing.
‘Naturally, someone should drive you home.’
‘I will.’ Ethan’s voice was supremely calm. ‘How long till the drip finishes?’
‘An hour or so,’ the doctor answered.
‘Give me your keys.’ Rummaging under the trolley, he pulled out her handbag and tossed it beside her. ‘I’ll go and fetch your car for you.’ He shot her a black look. ‘At least it will be one less thing for you to worry about.’
‘But you don’t know which one it is,’ Mia answered, flustered, but Ethan didn’t deign a response, just took the keys without another word to her, saving all his icy venom for the poor doctor.
‘I’ll be back within the hour, Doctor. And for the record, Ms Stewart is grief-stricken, she’s clearly in no fit state to discharge herself, so I strongly suggest that if she isn’t here when I return you’ve made damn sure your medical indemnity insurance is fully paid up.’
The doctor was no match for Ethan’s stern glare and scuttled gratefully out. Ethan stood, silently staring—and suddenly Mia didn’t want Ethan’s take on this, didn’t want to hear his reaction to the news that had just been imparted. Pleating the sheet between her fingers, she stared down, feeling the anger, the incredulity emanating from Ethan, could feel the disdain blazing from his eyes even though she couldn’t bring herself to look at them.
‘Sweet little Mia,’ he said finally, his voice like the crack of a whip. ‘You should add the word “con” to your job title, Mia! Well, you might be able to fool the doctors, your friends, hell, even a few journalists into believing your half-baked story, but it’s the twenty-first century, Mia. You can’t just pass Richard off as the father because it suits your bank account.’
‘I’m not trying to pass the baby off.’ Finally she dared look at him. ‘This is my baby, Ethan. In fact, I never intended for you or your family to find out. It was you who came here, remember; you who chose to ride roughshod and stand over me while the doctor was here.’
‘Bull.’ His voice was menacingly quiet, his head slowly shaking in sheer disbelief. ‘If this is Richard’s baby, how come we don’t know? Why on earth wouldn’t he tell us?’ When she didn’t answer he pressed on relentlessly. ‘If this is my brother’s child, why aren’t there provisions for it in his will?’
‘Because there wasn’t time, and, as much as I didn’t want you to know, I’m not going to deny Richard now. I’m not going to pretend it’s not his child just to make you feel better. But for your information I was always going to raise this baby alone; it was how we planned it!’
‘What?’ Incredulous eyes snapped to hers.
‘I was going to bring up the baby alone, whatever happened to Richard. I always intended to be the sole carer…’
‘Who needs a man in their life?’ he jeered. ‘What the hell’s the point of rotting up a kid with a male perspective on life? Is this one of your half-baked hippy schemes that you roped Richard into, Mia? One of the trendy bandwagons you decided to jump on board…’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t fool me for a moment, Mia Stewart. You had this planned down to the last detail, didn’t you? This was your last little stab at the Carvelle fortune.’ She opened her mouth to argue but he overrode her in an instant. ‘Well, bring it on, Mia.’ The hands that beckoned her were anything but welcoming, his unusually pale face savage in the fluorescent hospital light. ‘Bring it on, because I’m ready for you—more ready than you’ll ever know.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ In an instinctive gesture her hands cradled her stomach, pulling her knees up, protecting the one thing on God’s earth that was hers and hers alone. ‘You don’t scare me, Ethan, and as hard as it may be for you to believe your wealth doesn’t intimidate me either. I don’t want a cent from the Carvelles.’ She let out a low, mirthless laugh. ‘I don’t want them anywhere near me, in fact, but I will not deny this child its father. I will not lie here and tell you it’s not Richard’s child just to make things easier for me. This is Richard’s baby and I’ll never be ashamed of that fact.’
Something in her voice seemed to reach him, something in the proud jut of her chin, the glittering anger in her eyes halted his angry retort. His eyes drifted down to her stomach, staring at the firm mound under the sheet, one hand moving to his face, covering his mouth for a second. Then he closed his eyes and for an appalling moment she thought he was going to break down, that the impervious mask that was Ethan Carvelle was about to slip, but he recovered quickly, dragging his eyes back to her, repeating a question that she still hadn’t answered, but from the hoarseness in his voice, the slight grey tinge creeping into his features, Mia knew his world had been rocked, knew he was actually starting to believe that the baby she was carrying might be Richard’s.
‘Why didn’t we know?’ His voice was raw and he cleared his throat, fixing her with his black stare, but it wasn’t quite so assured now. ‘If what you’re saying is true, why the hell didn’t Richard say anything? He never even implied you were anything more than friends…’
‘During one of your weekly phone calls?’ Mia retorted nastily, but she was beyond caring now, the implication that she was in this only for the money too abhorrent not to reciprocate with harsh words of her own. ‘Or perhaps he should have included it in one of the regular emails you fired to each other…’ Seeing the pain in his eyes, she realized she’d gone too far; the day of Richard’s funeral was hardly the time to point out the void between them, the tragedy of a relationship reduced to stilted birthday and Christmas cards. And, Mia thought reluctantly, given the rapidly unfolding circumstances, given the Carvelle name and all its implications, Ethan’s reaction was probably merited.
It wasn’t his fault that she loved him.
‘I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.’ After the longest pause she found her voice.
‘It’s the truth.’ Ethan shrugged.
‘But this really was a very much wanted baby.’
Maybe Mia’s gloves were off, but Ethan’s were still firmly tied on, every word a painful punch to her already fragile soul.
‘Please.’ His voice was dripping with sarcasm as he hit her while she was down. ‘So wanted that none of his family even knew about it, so wanted we didn’t even know he was dating you, so wanted that a baby wasn’t even on the agenda till he was dying…’
‘He wasn’t supposed to die!’ Agony rasped in every word, her strained voice overriding his powerful one on emotion alone, forcing a quiet, forcing him to stop his tirade to stand stock-still as Mia continued. ‘He wasn’t supposed to die,’ she said again, but Ethan remained unmoved.
‘He had cancer, Mia. The doctors gave him eighteen months, two years at most. So what the hell was he doing having children? What the hell was he doing bringing a child into the world he would surely never be there to watch grow up? It just doesn’t add up.’
‘We don’t all live by your rules, Ethan; we don’t all walk around with a mental calculator weighing up the pros and cons, checking for longevity and distant projections. Richard knew he might never see his child grow up and I knew it too, but it was a risk we were prepared to take…’
‘You really talked about it?’ His voice told her the preposterousness he felt in her actions. The incredulity in his eyes as he stared back at her only distanced him further, yet she ached to reach him, to drag him beside her, to reach an understanding while somehow avoiding the truth.
‘We talked about it for weeks, Ethan, for weeks.’
‘So it wasn’t an accident, a one-night stand…’
‘This was a wanted baby, Ethan.’
‘Oh, I bet it was,’ Ethan hissed. ‘It’s what you’ve been wanting for years, isn’t it, Mia?’
‘Ethan, please, you don’t understand…’
‘Don’t I?’ Ethan snapped, his face menacingly close as the doctor melted away. ‘Save the tears, Mia. You’ve got what you wanted, or most of it.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You couldn’t quite manage to hook the Carvelle surname for yourself, but you’d use a dying, confused man to ensure you snaked your way in somehow. But you’ve picked the wrong family, Mia. If you think for one second my parents are going to be the pushover Richard clearly was, then I’m about to burst your bubble, darling…’ His lips sneered around the word, no sentiment intended as he spat the endearment. ‘They’ll wrap you up so tightly in legal red tape you’ll be pulling your pension before you see a single cent for your efforts.’
‘You bastard.’
‘No.’ Ethan shook his head, his eyes glittering with rage, his face taut, his breath hot on her cheeks, his hand moving to her stomach and holding the swollen flesh for a moment, shuttering his eyes for a second as if it physically hurt to touch her, to feel the life within her. ‘That’s what this little one is; that’s the level you’d stoop to, to get what you want.’
‘This was never about money.’
‘Good,’ Ethan quipped, ‘because you’ll die waiting before my parents come around. No smiling, cooing baby will melt their cold hearts.’
‘I don’t need the Carvelles’ money,’ Mia hissed. ‘I have a life, a home, a career I’m proud of and I’ll do just fine on my own.’
She thought that was the end of it, almost thought she’d seen the last of him, that Ethan would walk off now, but still he stood, his eyes narrowing as he stared down at her.
‘So what now?’
‘You get on with your life and I’ll get on with mine,’ Mia snapped, but even as the words came out she sensed their futility, knew that now Ethan knew it was Richard’s child she was carrying he couldn’t just walk away. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, Ethan,’ she said more softly. ‘I don’t expect you to understand what Richard and I shared, but all I ask is that you believe me when I say that this had nothing to do with money and everything to do with love. He wasn’t supposed to die…’ Tears brimmed in those aquamarine pools, and the colour was so vivid, so reminiscent of the beautiful land she inhabited, for a tiny second there he felt as if he had come home.
Home, not just to the tropical paradise of Cairns, where lush green trees reached for a sky that blended with the ocean, but home to the capricious, captivating spirit of Mia, and so alien was the feeling that welled inside him, so physical the pain that suddenly gripped him, it took a second for Ethan to register it as need. A need so pure he could feel it, a yearning almost for the balmy, safe haven he had found all those years ago, for the time spent in each other’s arms and minds, when the world had seemed at peace, when there was nothing he wouldn’t have done for her; and he ached, ached to reach over to catch the splash of tears that rolled down her cheeks, to pull her in his arms and make her world safe.
But he couldn’t.
Couldn’t allow himself to fall under her spell again, couldn’t go through it again and expect to come out the other side. He had to be strong here, had to remain impervious to her charms, hold onto his head and forget about his heart.
‘But he did die,’ Ethan said finally. ‘Richard did die, Mia, and if you’re telling the truth, if this is his child, then we’ve got a hell of a lot to talk about!’
She could feel the tiny hairs rising on the back of her neck, the chilling feeling that suddenly everything had become impossibly complicated, finally admitted to herself that today wasn’t going to bring closure, that things had, in fact, just started.
‘Wait here,’ he ordered, jangling her car keys in his pocket and pinning her with his eyes. ‘I’ll go and get your car, but don’t even think about discharging yourself and jumping in a taxi, Mia. Believe me, I’ll find you.’
CHAPTER THREE
SHE should go.
Every sensible thought told Mia to just demand the drip be taken down, pack up her few things, jump in a taxi and get the hell out of there.
Ethan Carvelle had no say here. He couldn’t demand she stay at the hospital; he had nothing to do with this.
Time and again she pushed down the cot side of the trolley, picked up a cotton swab, ready to pull the blessed drip out herself. It was her life, her choice if she walked out of the hospital this very moment; his idle threats bore no weight in the real world. Ethan Carvelle counted for nothing here.
But time and again she pulled the side of the trolley back up, leant against the pillows in utter defeat as the fluid dripped into her veins, knowing it was only herself she was kidding.
Ethan Carvelle counted for everything.
He had since that day seven long, lonely years ago when he had walked into that restaurant. Every pore, every inch of her skin had screamed for him since then, since that one sweet moment when he had not only taken her virginity, but altered her whole perspective, shifted the lens, made the world sharper somehow, invigorated her, exhausted her, engulfed her.
And maybe she could leave now, could get up and walk away, but the action would be merely physical. Her mind, her soul, her heart were constantly with him and she begged for resolution, needed this chance of closure as much as Ethan clearly did.
Needed to tell him how much he had hurt her, needed this time together before she closed this painful chapter for good and moved on.
And it had to be closed, Mia reminded herself; there was too much water under the bridge for anything else.
She sensed his presence before she saw him.
Felt the tension in the room lift a notch as the doctor removed her drip and the nurse helped her out of her gown, and tried to ply her shaking body into the beastly black dress.
‘I’ll take it from here.’
He stood at the entrance to the cubicle, supremely in control, trapping her with his gaze as the medical personnel drifted off.
‘I can dress myself, thank you.’
But pride had no place in this cramped hospital cubicle; shaking hands and his unwavering gaze made the simplest task impossible. With only one stocking on it was easier to rip it off than attempt the other, forcing bare feet into way-too-high heels, then reluctantly taking his hand as she lowered herself off the trolley.
‘Have you got everything?’
‘Apart from my pride.’ Angry eyes met his. ‘How dare you demand I stay till you return? How dare you exert your authority on the hospital staff and talk about me as if I were some sort of unhinged person? I nearly went, you know.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Ethan pointed out, not remotely fazed by her outburst. ‘Turn around; your zip’s undone.’
And if she hadn’t been seven months pregnant she’d have reached her hand behind her back and pulled it up herself in one lithe movement, but pregnancy allowed for no such luxuries, and pulling her dress to her waist and half doing the blessed zip up then twisting it around as she had done this morning clearly wasn’t an option right now. Instead, burning with shame, she stood stock still, refusing his order to turn around, her breath catching in her throat when Ethan gave an easy shrug and moved behind her, piling her blonde curls unceremoniously on top of her head and lifting her hand to hold them.
‘It’s stuck.’ She could feel his breath on her neck, feel his warm fingers as they tugged at the treacherous zipper that had chosen the worst possible time to give in on her. Okay, it wasn’t a maternity dress, just a simple linen shift, and maybe Mia had been pushing her luck choosing to wear it today, but never had she envisaged this outcome. When she had put it on this morning, not for a single second had it entered her head that Ethan Carvelle would be dressing her later.
Undressing her maybe.
The honest admission, even if it was only to herself, caused a deep blush to darken her cheeks, spreading over her neck and down to her swollen breasts. As his hands made contact with her spine it was as if he’d reached into her body and touched her somewhere deep inside, her whole body involuntarily quivering as slowly he worked the zip upwards, pressing one hand onto her exposed flesh, past the black of her bra strap, up between her shoulder blades, her arms trembling as she held her hair out of the way, eyes closing as he moved to the tiny hook and eye at the top of the neckline, his touch more than she could bear and be expected to breathe.
‘That’s fine.’ Pulling away too sharply, she shook her head slightly, his bland, utterly unmoved expression only serving to exacerbate her palpable tension. ‘Can I go home now?’
‘Of course.’
‘You collected my car?’ Mia checked and Ethan nodded. ‘How did you know which one it was?’ Her eyes narrowed, watching every flicker of his reaction, waiting for a blush, a look of discomfort to flash over his face, but Ethan remained unmoved, giving a small shrug before he answered.
‘I’ve been watching you.’
‘Watching me?’ Appalled by his answer, gibbering with rage, she stepped closer, but instead of stepping back Ethan stood his ground, the closeness she had instigated excruciatingly uncomfortable for Mia, but having zero effect on Ethan as her enraged voice rose. ‘What do you mean you’ve been watching me? For how long?’
‘A few weeks now.’ Ethan shrugged. ‘Despite your little speech about being the only one close to Richard, Mia, the simple fact is that I’ve visited my brother regularly. Towards the end I visited him every day, in fact.’
‘But you live in Sydney, your whole family’s in Sydney now…’
‘Correct. And as much as you’d like to write us all off and give more weight to your theory that all Carvelles are callous, the simple fact of the matter is that since Richard was diagnosed as terminal I flew to Cairns every week to visit him, which is no small journey, and towards the end, when I knew time was running out, I moved into one of my properties here so I could spend more time with him.’
It was too much to take in. Her mind whirred, reeling at the information, that Ethan had been here, that he had been watching her these past few weeks, had been in the hospice holding Richard’s hand. Mia’s mouth opened and closed over and over, hundreds of questions bobbing on her tongue as she tried to fathom what exactly it was she wanted to ask.
Ethan answered her unvoiced question.
‘I avoided you, Mia.’ His words were short and clipped, his eyes more menacing than she could ever have imagined, unrecognizable from the giving young man who had made love to her all those years ago, a world away from the tenderness he had once so easily imparted. ‘Truth be known, I could think of nothing worse than being in the same room as you: a confrontation at a dying man’s bedside really isn’t my style. Despite the crap you might have read about me, I do have some standards.’
‘No, Ethan, you don’t.’ It was Mia’s voice that was short now, Mia’s voice unwavering and in control, her eyes defiant as she stared back at him. ‘I’ve read all about your multimillion-dollar deals, circling like a vulture over failing hotel businesses then swooping in and buying them for a song.’
‘That’s business.’ Ethan shrugged.
‘Perhaps,’ Mia conceded, but her stance stayed strong. ‘But what about the women, Ethan? What about the women you woo into your bed, only to discard the following morning?’
‘I’m not into one-night stands,’ Ethan clipped. ‘If you actually read the papers a bit more closely you’d have realized most of my relationships survive a bit longer than that.’
‘Not much,’ Mia sneered. ‘A week, a month at the most.’
‘So?’ Ethan shrugged. ‘I don’t lie, Mia. I never promise it’s going to be for ever, and if you actually asked any of the women I’ve dated in the past I can guarantee not one of them regret it, however short and sweet it may have been.’
‘You can guarantee it, can you?’ Her lips were set in a taut line, her breasts rising and falling as if they had a life of their own as the unleashed fury that had held her together for seven years ripped out of control. ‘Well, here’s one woman that regrets it, Ethan. You’re now looking at a woman who wishes more than ever that she hadn’t been one of your ships that passed in the night, who would love to turn back the clock and wipe out every last piece of memory of the time we shared.’
‘Liar.’ One finger slowly razored her cheek, working its way past her ear, down the hollows of her neck till it met the flickering pulse in her neck. Transfixed, filled with loathing and lust, she stared back at him, stared back at the man who seemed to read her innermost thoughts, the man whom she had physically pushed aside in every waking moment but who had, for seven long years, slipped into her dreams every long, lonely night. She wished she could lie better, wished she could stare back and tell him that she meant every word she had said, but her mouth wouldn’t move, she couldn’t force her lips around the words as relentlessly he continued. ‘You live to remember it, Mia. I was there, remember; I felt you writhing in my arms, heard you calling out my name, so don’t stand there and tell me you wish it had never happened. Don’t try and pretend I’m not the best damn lover you ever had…’
‘Is everything okay?’ The doctor was back, staring nervously at the two of them, and Mia wrestled to stay calm, certain that if they took her blood pressure now there was no way on earth they’d let her out.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Ethan said coolly, picking up her frozen hand and wrapping it possessively in his. ‘In fact, I’m just about to take Ms Stewart home.’
The cool night air on her flaming cheeks was bliss, a gentle breeze around her bare legs as she clipped along beside him, feeling the sizzling hatred emanating from her. Even though she was confused, and though the day had spun irretrievably out of control, there was some solace to be had from being with Ethan now.
That finally after all these years she had faced him.
Stood up to him even.
And maybe, maybe an end to her agony was in sight, when whatever had to be said was finally over, when questions that had hung in the air had actually been answered, she could finally walk away.
Emotionally bruised perhaps.
Still loving him, probably.
But seven years of being left in the dark, of never fully understanding why, with no explanation, he had walked away from all they’d had, had drained every last vestige of inner reserve. Surely the truth, however unpalatable, however much it cheapened their time together, was better than the darkness through which she had stumbled these past years.
She would let him drive her home, Mia had already decided on that. The two-hour drive was surely enough time to glean the answers she craved, and then she’d call him a taxi.
Ethan Carvelle could afford it!
‘Where’s my car?’ Staring at the luxury sports model bleeping as the doors unlocked, Mia shook her head. ‘You said you’d collect my car.’
‘Which I did.’ Ethan shrugged.
‘So where is it?’
‘Scaring the neighbours in my driveway,’ he responded easily. ‘You didn’t think I was going to let you drive home, after what the doctor said?’
‘Of course not. I thought that you were taking me home.’
‘Which I am,’ Ethan clipped.
‘I mean my home…’ her voice trailed off as Ethan let out a mirthless laugh.
‘What? You really thought I was going to take you to your little love shack in the hills? Sorry, darling, I’m simply not up to a two-hour drive. I, for one, need a stiff drink and a marble bathroom with hot running water, none of which, I’m quite sure, you can provide.’ He held up a hand to halt her tirade. ‘Elderberry wine and tepid, solar-heated water really aren’t my thing…’ Staring hard at her, his eyes narrowed, his lips set in such grim determination Mia knew that any argument would be wasted, that Ethan had long ago made up his mind about her and the life she led. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, Mia. You can risk your own health, hell, once this baby’s born you can jump out of a plane without a parachute for all I care, but if you think for one moment that I’m going to let you head off to the mountains to lead your so-called bohemian lifestyle while you wait for the inheritance to flood in, then you’ve got another think coming. This child deserves a damn sight more than you can give and I’m going to make damn sure it gets it. Now get in the car!’
Despite the burning anger at his presumption, despite her fury at his appalling arrogance, as she clipped on her seat belt, and though she’d never in a million years admit it, somewhere deep down inside Mia was relieved. A two-hour drive, even if it was in a luxury sports car, wasn’t exactly at the top of her list. The day seemed to have caught up with her all of a sudden. Exhaustion saturated every pore, overriding even the need for answers from Ethan, quelling slightly the utter force of his presence as they drove along the foreshore. But when they pulled up outside his “property”, as her feet crunched on the smooth white stones beneath her feet the wealth and power that were Ethan Carvelle were rammed home yet again.
Why had she been naive enough to think they would be heading for some small luxury apartment in a nameless high-rise building? The residence they were entering now mocked that image a thousand times over. A massive white single-level home, chiselled so closely into the cliff edge she felt as if she could almost reach out and touch the pounding ocean that thundered below.
‘I’ll show you around…’ Ethan started, but Mia shook her head.
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Carol Marinelli
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: If she wants payment, she′ll get it…Australian billionaire Ethan Carvelle cut Mia Stewart out of his life seven years ago. But now Mia′s claiming that she′s carrying his late brother′s child! Ethan suspects Mia wants to get her hands on the Carvelle fortune. Torn between duty and desire, Ethan decides he′ll take Mia as his mistress….But Ethan knows nothing of the deep, dark secret Mia is hiding.