The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (33 page)

She wished Michael would call her. She was staring at the telephone, willing him to, when it rang. She snatched up the receiver, giving her name in an eager rush.

“Lauren, it’s Evan Daniel.”

Disappointment.

“I’m a daddy.”

“What?”

“Tasha had the baby this morning. It’s a girl. The most beautiful little girl in the world.”

Such pride and love! Tears pricked Lauren’s eyes. “That’s wonderful, Evan. Is Tasha okay?”

“Fine. Everything’s fine. I’m with her right now in the maternity ward at Leura Hospital and she’s cradling our daughter in her arms and we’re both over the moon with happiness.”

“Give her my love and best wishes.”

“Will do. I wanted to talk to you about the Brisbane tour. I don’t know whether I can do it or not. It means leaving-”

There was an altercation at his end of the line, then Tasha’s voice. “He’ll do it, Lauren. Evan’s not thinking straight.”

Lauren laughed. “I’ll come and visit you this evening. We can talk about it.”

It was an impulsive decision, but Lauren immediately warmed to the idea. Maybe seeing Tasha with her baby would settle her own feelings about having one. Besides, they were Michael’s friends. She’d like to hear what they said about him as opposed to Roxanne’s highly coloured views.

She rang Michael’s apartment and got his answering phone. The message she left on it told him where she would be if he wanted to contact her when he arrived home. Going up to Leura in the Blue Mountains wasn’t exactly waiting for him, but she needed activity, needed someone to talk to, needed sympathetic people who knew both of them.

Evan and Tasha would help. Maybe their baby would help. To Lauren, at this time of upheaval in her life, they suddenly represented a substitute family for the family she couldn’t go home to in Melbourne.

B
EING
three weeks premature, the baby was tiny, still a little crinkled and red-faced, but definitely beautiful, like a rosebud still unfurling. The soft little body, the sweet baby smell, the clutch of miniature fingers. Lauren’s heart was caught from the moment Evan laid his daughter in her arms.

“Isn’t it lovely she’s got Evan’s hair?” Tasha said with proud delight.

The brown fuzz was tightly curled. Lauren smiled. “She’s very lucky.”

“It was so good of you to come all this way to visit. Evan will do the tour, Lauren. He was just overexcited about the baby.”

“I can cancel if you’d rather have him with you, Tasha.”

“The book is important. We can’t lose sight of that.” Tasha eyed her besotted husband sternly. “He’ll catch the flight to Brisbane on Sunday night and be back here Monday night. We can manage without him for one day.”

Lauren grinned. Tasha had her feet more on the ground than Evan at the present moment.

“Michael rang. He’s on his way up, too,” Evan said happily. “If you’d waited a bit longer you needn’t have caught a train, Lauren.”

“Well, she wasn’t to know that,” Tasha said sensibly, then gave Lauren a smile of warm pleasure. “I’m so glad you and Michael have made up your differences. He’s such a special man.”

“Yes. Though I don’t really know much about him.” She grimaced. “Roxanne gave me another earful today. None of it nice. I remembered what you said about defamation, Evan, and warned her that Michael might sue her for slander if she kept on.”

“What was she saying?” Tasha asked, shocked at such nastiness.

Lauren gave them the gist of the conversation, and both of them were outraged at the slur of madness in Michael’s family.

“They had too much money for their own good,” Tasha declared. “It spoils people. They left their children to nannies and posh private schools and went off and did what they liked. Self-indulgence is not madness.”

“And there was nothing mysterious about his parents’ deaths,” Evan said angrily. “They went on safari in Africa. His father was trampled by a bull elephant that charged him, and his mother succumbed to some tropical virus that killed her before they could get medical help. They lived dangerously and died doing what they wanted to do.”

“What about his grandmother?” Lauren asked tentatively.

“Huh!” Evan snorted. “A right old Tartar, she was. Liked to crack the whip. But believe me,
Lauren, there’s a lot of people who revel in power in this world. Especially people of great wealth whom no-one can really touch. It goes to their heads. I could tell you about quite a few of them in our Australian history. No-one considered
them
mad.”

“It’s true, though, she did abuse Michael and Peter, Evan,” Tasha said softly. “She was a cruel, unfeeling woman.”

“She never got the better of Michael,” Evan argued.

“No, Michael wouldn’t let anyone or anything beat him,” Tasha said knowingly, then sighed. “But I do feel sorry for him. He’s never had the love he deserves.” She looked hopefully at Lauren. “We all need love. It doesn’t matter how self-sufficient we can be, nothing makes up for not being loved.”

The riches of life, Lauren thought.

“Well, I know someone who’s going to be showered with love.” She smiled at the baby. “Have you decided on a name for her?”

While Tasha and Evan happily discussed the merits of their preferences, Lauren pondered Tasha’s perception of Michael, appreciating the other woman’s longer knowledge of him.

While she herself had been lonely in Sydney, she had never known the loneliness that must have been integral to all of Michael’s life. His parents had deserted him. His grandmother certainly hadn’t loved him. Neither had Roxanne. His brother had chosen to live on the other side of the world.

Lauren wondered about his brother and the aunt in Italy, both apparently alienated from their natural heritage and leaving the responsibility of administering the Timberlane estate to Michael. Was that why Michael was keen on having a family of his own?

She looked at the tiny scrap of humanity cradled in her arms. It embodied so many hopes and dreams for the future. She was suddenly certain that Michael would do his best to give his child—his children—all he had been deprived of himself, the love, the caring and the happiness that came with sharing. If it was within his power, he would make the hopes and dreams come true.

“Michael!” A warm cry of welcome from Tasha.

Lauren glanced up. He was in the doorway to the ward, carrying an exquisite arrangement of pink tulips, but it was the look on his face that arrested her attention. His eyes were on her and the baby, and the hopes and dreams of the inner man were poignantly written there, and in the soft smile lingering on his lips. She had seen him looking forbidding and formidable—the dark side, as Roxanne put it—but this was the face of love, and Lauren’s heart leapt in response.

She was holding Tasha’s baby.

When she held her own. his.

“What beautiful flowers!” Tasha said with pleasure.

He dragged his gaze from Lauren and grinned at her. “I figured Evan would supply the roses.” There
was, indeed, a vase of pink roses on Tasha’s bedside table. “Congratulations to both of you.”

He kissed Tasha’s cheek, shook Evan’s hand, admired their newly born daughter, refused to arbitrate over the choice of names, declaring them all lovely, while at every opportunity his eyes told Lauren how beautiful, how desirable, how special she was to him, melting the chill of loneliness she had felt all day.

Tasha’s parents arrived, and Lauren gave the baby up to its grandmother. In the flood of family talk that followed, Michael drew Lauren aside, threading his fingers through hers and gripping her hand with the same strong feeling reflected in his eyes.

“I’ve booked a suite at the Fairmont Resort. It’s only ten minutes from here. Will you come with me, Lauren?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. She wanted, needed to be with him.

His smile bathed her in warmth. “Shall we leave the happy family?”

She nodded. “We’re superfluous now.”

But she did feel better for having come, less disturbed about where she might be heading with Michael and more secure about her judgment of him. She knew, as they took their leave, that Tasha and Evan would become her friends, too. They were good people.

Getting into Michael’s car reminded her of the sense of setting out on a new, important journey she had felt on the night of Global’s launching
party. This time it was stronger, sharper. It wasn’t just her and Michael’s intent on discovering more of each other. A child had been conceived. It added a highly critical element to their relationship.

Should she tell him now?

He settled beside her in the driver’s seat, this man who had made love to her more intimately than he knew, his seed becoming part of her, inextricably entwined in a new life. Would he share that life as she wanted him to, not only as a father to their child, but as a true and loving partner to her in every way?

He felt her measuring look and cast an inquiring glance at her as he started the engine. “Is this all right with you, Lauren? If you’re not sure.”

“I’m glad you came. It’s fine with me, Michael,” she assured him. “How did your business go in Melbourne?”

“Oh.” He flashed her his wicked grin, then set the car in motion. “Ultimately rewarding, I think. Well worth doing.”

“What boards do you sit on?” she asked, wanting something more concrete from him.

“Most of them have to do with funding various charities,” he said offhandedly.

“Like what?” she persisted.

“Shelters for street kids. Homeless children. The association for crippled children. Rehabilitation programs. The general aim is to give young people a better chance at life.”

“That’s certainly worth doing,” Lauren said with warm approval.

“It’s good when you see the difference that hope can make. Some of them are handed such a raw deal, yet the human spirit is amazingly resilient.”

It seemed very apt to Lauren that Michael would actively encourage the will to survive against any odds. More than survive. To move forward and forge a brighter future.

“Has the Timberlane family always contributed to charities for the needy?” she asked curiously.

“All charities are for the needy, Lauren,” he answered seriously. “These are my special interests. The Timberlanes have always been patrons of the arts, and I keep that up, as well. I’m a friend of the opera and the ballet and so on.”

A friend. A friend to many people in many places.

“The arts may not provide food for starving kids, but they do nourish the soul and broaden the mind,” he went on. “The tapestry of life would not be as rich without them.”

“That’s true,” she agreed, wondering what had been his favourite books during the dark times of his childhood.

“Roxanne didn’t favour what she called my slum charities,” he remarked sardonically.

“No social eclat.”

“Mmm. What do you think?”

“Whenever you want to drum up media interest to get something accomplished for those kids, I’m your woman.”

His smile held private satisfaction, as though she had confirmed his expectations of her. Lauren
smiled, too. Michael had confirmed her reading of his character. He followed in no-one’s footsteps. He made his own decisions and acted on them.

They arrived at the Fairmont Resort, which overlooked the Jamieson Valley. The reception area was very modern-polished wood floor, leather lounges, high ceilings, staircases leading down to a bar where a huge slate fireplace supplied a welcoming log fire. The evening had turned bitterly cold, and Lauren eyed this source of heat with considerable favour as Michael went through the business of checking in.

Her mobile telephone beeped and she quickly removed it from her handbag to answer the call. Her mother’s voice raised a tingle of alarm. Wayne was making more trouble-that was the thought that flew to her mind.

“What’s the problem, Mum?” she instantly asked.

“No problem, dear. Quite the contrary. I just wanted to let you know how very impressed I am with your man of action.”

“Who?” Lauren was completely bewildered.

Laughter, happy, carefree laughter. “Michael Timberlane. He’s absolutely marvellous, Lauren. I’m so delighted you’ve found someone like him.”

“You’ve met Michael?” Lauren recalled he’d asked for her mother’s address, but she’d had so much else weighing on her mind since her return from Melbourne, she hadn’t wondered about it.

“Of course, dear. Hasn’t he told you what he did?”

“No. What did he do?” she asked warily.

More laughter. “I’ll put Johnny on. He can tell it better.”

“Hi, Lauren. We’re all celebrating down here,” her brother crowed excitedly. “You’ve got a great guy in Michael Timberlane.”

“Thank you, Johnny, but I’d like to know why you think that,” Lauren said impatiently.

The account of Michael’s “business” in Melbourne left her flabbergasted. Roping in her family to pull such an outrageous confidence trick on Wayne was mind-boggling enough, but his personal outlay in stamping home his point to her ex-husband put her value to Michael on an astronomical level.

Fifty thousand dollars for the car that had been written off, the cost of the limousine, the “boss” outfit, the other vehicles, time of men involved. It was so impossibly extravagant, so. caring. Her heart turned over. This then, was what he meant by looking after her.

“So now you’re free of that creep, Lauren. You don’t have to worry about Wayne any more,” her brother finished.

“Thanks, Johnny,” she said faintly. “And thank everyone else for me, too. Got to go now. Michael’s coming for me.”

He’d turned away from the reception desk and was walking towards her, an eager spring in his step, his face alight with anticipation, a man of purpose, a man of action, a man who cared so much for her.

Lauren knew in that moment there could be no holding back from him. He had earned her trust, her respect, her loyalty and her love. The words
too soon
no longer had any meaning. He had given her the gift of freedom from her past. She hoped she had the means in her power to give him the gift of freedom from his past.

“W
HAT
would you like to do first?” Michael asked, leaving the choice to Lauren.

The warm, relaxing atmosphere of the bar and the open fire was forgotten. She held out her hand to him. “Let’s go to our suite.”

The communication of urgency was silent and swift. Michael didn’t question. The need to be alone together was deep and mutual.

Lauren was intensely aware of his hand enfolding hers as they walked down a long corridor. She didn’t notice the decor they passed. The focus of her mind was entirely inward, playing through all the dimensions and permutations of one thought. Michael Timberlane might not be his brother’s keeper, but she wanted him to be hers.

He unlocked a door and led her into the welcome privacy of their suite, pausing only to operate the lighting system and airconditioning. He drew her into his embrace, and she went eagerly, wanting to join with him again, yearning for the allencompassing oneness that shut the rest of the world out and wrapped them in an intimacy that belonged only to them.

His mouth was soft and hungry on hers, and while she knew there was no time limitation tonight, the flow of desire was so powerful, she urged
him into passion, straining closer, revelling in the explosion of sensation as their mouths tangled in fierce greed for each other.

Still it wasn’t enough. The memory of how it had been on that one night of ultimate magic raged through Lauren, demanding more of the same. Her hands plucked at his jacket. He tore it off. She could feel the hectic beating of his heart, the quiver of his flesh under her touch, the questing strength of his arousal, and she knew his desire was as strong as hers.

Yes, her mind sang exultantly as he lifted her long blue sweater and swept it from her arms. Yes, yes, came the feverish refrain as he pushed her skirt over her hips and she wiggled it down to her feet to kick it away, another unwanted barrier gone. She was attacking his shirt buttons when it suddenly occurred to her, with riveting clarity, that this lustful rush was open to terribly destructive interpretations.

Her fingers faltered, sensible sanity warring with teeming temptations. They were half-undressed already. Action was more eloquent than words. Naked truth was best. The radiation of his body heat was an irresistible magnet. Being naked had to be right. Nothing hidden.

“Don’t stop,” he growled, fanning her ear with erotic warmth as his thumbs hooked into her tights and his fingers danced an enticingly sensual rhythm beneath her hip bones.

Impossible to stop now. But she couldn’t completely ignore the warning signals pulsing through her fevered brain. She didn’t want Michael to get
the wrong idea. Only naked truth. “This isn’t gratitude,” she declared fiercely, tearing at his buttons with driven haste, getting rid of his shirt.

“Nothing like it,” he agreed, scooping down her tights and hoisting her up to remove them.

Breathtaking speed. Expert efficiency. Lauren loved it. She hung around his shoulders, panting with excitement. Such manly, broad shoulders, strong enough to carry off anything he set his mind to. Did he realise what she meant about gratitude? Better make it clearer.

“I know what you did about Wayne,” she said quickly, adoring him for taking such a daring and dashing initiative, showering his hair and ears with hot, appreciative kisses.

“Don’t think about him any more,” Michael advised, easing her away from him momentarily so he could whisk off her camisole and bra.

Free to hug him, the delicious delight of squashing her breasts against his beautifully muscled chest, skin against skin. His trousers frustratingly in the way. Other things still to be acknowledged and disposed of.

“You spent a lot of money frightening Wayne off,” she reminded him, breathlessly matching him in efficiency at helping to relieve him of his lower garments.

“Made me feel good.” His shoes and socks went flying.

Lauren had a vague feeling he hadn’t got the point. There were far more urgent points of compelling interest grabbing their attention, and control
was slipping away from both of them. Urgent needs frayed the last threads of coherency in her mind. It was a sheer act of will for her to focus on anything other than how utterly magnificent he was.

“I’m not rewarding you, Michael. I want you,” she insisted, determined that he understand her position and unable to resist touching him to reinforce her claim.

“And that’s the greatest feeling in the world,” he assured her, swinging her to the bed.

Flesh against flesh, hot and sleek and sensual. Lauren was hopelessly distracted, luxuriating in the feel of his lean, lithe physique, so powerfully constructed and excitingly responsive to her touch. Deep, drowning kisses, arousal swift and sweet.

“Michael.” His name exploding from her lips, a frantic need to communicate before she lost herself in him, lost the chance to set everything straight between them. “I’m not trying to trap you.”

“You think I don’t know that?” A wild, primitive glow of triumph in his eyes.

“Roxanne…”

“Malicious spite. Don’t listen to her,” he mumbled, carelessly dismissive of a past that held no power to reach him in the face of what he had now.

He burned a trail of kisses down her throat, lower, grazing the swell of her tight, tingling breasts. Her body arched instinctively, craving the pleasure of his mouth, the moist heat, the tantalising caress
of his tongue, the rhythmic sucking that inundated her with waves of intense sensation.

But at the last moment she couldn’t let him. Couldn’t, because the image of a baby burst into her mind and she had to tell him. Her hands clutched his head, forcibly lifting it, making him meet her eyes.

She saw the passion glaze clear to a sharp questioning as he realised something had to be badly wrong for her to stop him. He dragged in deep lungfuls of air, struggling to clamp down on his raging impulses, recognising there was a need that had to be answered before he could go on.

“What is it, Lauren?” His voice was hoarse, straining to respond, to give whatever she required of him.

She had his attention. He was listening. They were naked together, making love. It had to be all right. Yet a frightening sense of vulnerability thickened her throat and scrambled her mind. “You. I. We. It was an accident, Michael.”

“It’s all right,” he soothed, quickly repositioning himself over her and tenderly brushing her hair away from her face. “Tell me what’s worrying you.”

It was so big, so important. She choked on it. “Roxanne said she wouldn’t have a baby with you.”

He looked perplexed. She wasn’t making sense. Yet, seeing her distress, he tried to answer her.

“The truth is she couldn’t, Lauren.”

“Couldn’t?”

He didn’t understand what relevance this had, but again he responded, forcing himself to be patient, to wait until she could give herself to him again. “She’s infertile. Quite happily, so don’t feel sorry for her. It suits Roxanne just fine. Pregnancy would ruin her precious figure,” he added sardonically.

“But…” Incredulity forced her to speak. “She told me she’s pregnant to Godfrey.”

He shook his head. No flicker of doubt. “I’ve seen her medical record, Lauren. Roxanne cannot conceive a child. Maybe she’s now lying to Godfrey as she once lied to me about wanting to have children.”

Or lying to Lauren to put her off Michael. Lying malevolently about madness in his family. The sheer viciousness of Roxanne’s spite sickened Lauren. Being married to her must have been as souldestroying for Michael as her marriage had been to Wayne.

The realisation gave her the courage to say what had to be said. “When we made love before.”

His eyes simmered into hers. “It was perfect. The best night of my life, Lauren. I’m sorry there’s been so many other forces coming between us, but I promise you I’ll sort them all out.”

“I don’t know how it happened, Michael.”

“It happened because we’re right for each other,” he insisted with husky fervour. His gaze moved to her mouth and his head began to lower, intent on establishing the rightness again.

“No, I mean…” She took a deep breath and spoke the truth in a rush. “I did a pregnancy test this morning and it was positive.”

Shock. Utter stillness as he absorbed the connotations of what she was telling him, his eyes focusing more and more intensely on hers as he sought to read her mind and gauge her feelings. His face reflected a churning of many emotions, a soft tenderness, a jaw-clenching determination, a grimace of regret.

“I should have been with you,” he finally said, and she knew intuitively that he felt he’d failed to look after her when she needed him at her side.

“You weren’t to know,” she softly assured him.

He stroked her cheek with gentle fingertips. “Are you unhappy about it, Lauren?”

His concentration on her stirred uncertainty about his response to having fatherhood thrust upon him and the commitment it involved if they were to share a future. “That depends on you, Michael,” she answered simply and directly. “What do you want?”

An irrepressible smile broke across his face. “To marry you this minute and shout to the world that we’re going to have a baby.”

She looked at him in startled bemusement. “Roxanne hasn’t put you off marriage?”

“That wasn’t marriage. It was a travesty of what a marriage should be.” His eyes blazed with conviction as he added, “What we share is the real thing. You feel that too, Lauren.”

“Yes. Yes, I do,” she acknowledged, awed that he was so certain.

His grin was a flash of dazzling happiness. “Then it’s settled. We get married and work everything out together. Partners and parents.”

“Not so fast. I think we should work everything out
before
we get married.” But his happiness was infectious, and Lauren couldn’t be stern or sensible when her heart was bubbling with joy. He wanted them both, her and the baby, no hesitation at all about a lifelong commitment. She wound her arms around his neck and stretched her body provocatively. “Though I like the togetherness part,” she added invitingly.

Wicked delight danced into his eyes. The critical talking was done, and the loving could go on.and on, a long celebration of togetherness that climbed to a crescendo of exquisite ecstasy, binding them blissfully to the fulfilment of their dreams.