Their Secret Baby (2 page)

Hadn’t she already done so with him? Driving him to forget his carefully thought-out plans and make a totally uncharacteristic impulsive move.

But how had she done it?

Two minutes ago he had thought her ordinary. Compared with Amelie, she
was
ordinary. Then something had happened. Something he couldn’t put his finger on or explain.

But one thing he knew for sure was that the process of finding out about the baby suddenly seemed to be a much more attractive prospect than he had ever anticipated.

‘Caitlin?’

It was another voice. A masculine voice, but lighter and more youthful than his own, bringing his eyes to the door where the tall, gangling figure of a young porter had suddenly appeared.

‘Did you want something?’

‘Yes.’

Caitlin nodded her dark head.

‘Mr—Mr Delaney needs his bag taken up to his room. Three-four-two.’

‘I—’ Rhys began, but then a glance into the golden eyes of the woman before him made him clamp down sharply on the protest he had been about to make.

There was defiance in those eyes, defiance and a touch of wary challenge. And a determination not to back down.

He’d acted unthinkingly, stupidly, jumping in too fast, and by doing so had alerted her suspicions in a way that was the last thing he needed. He wanted to win her over, not have her alarmed and ready to fight.

And so he forced himself to smile and nod too, turning his gaze to the porter, and inclining his head in the direction of his case.

‘Thank you.’

‘Sean will take you to your room.’ It was icily polite. Dismissive.

He could almost feel her eyes on him as the porter came forward, lifting the case with an ease that made a mockery of the suggestion that Rhys should need his help at all. He was inches taller than the younger man—broader too at every point that mattered, with clearly defined muscles under the clinging sweater.

‘This way, sir.’

The words were cut through by a sound. A sudden and totally unexpected sound that rang through the stiffly awkward silence in the reception hall, bringing everyone’s head up.

It was the cry of a very young child.

And it came from the door behind Caitlin Richardson. The door that led straight into the receptionist’s office.

The baby.

Rhys couldn’t stop himself. Reacting totally instinctively, he had paused and half turned, sharply assessing eyes going swiftly in the direction of the sound, before he realised how stupid he was being. How much he was giving away.

No! he forced his mind to scream at his wayward body. Not now! Not yet!

Somehow he managed to rein in the automatic rush forward, to push the door open, gather the child in his arms.

‘Not yet! Not yet!’ he muttered under his breath. ‘It’s too damn soon!’

Luckily Caitlin had also reacted immediately, whirling round and hurrying away, disappearing through the dividing door before he had time to think any further. And Rhys could only be grateful that the speed of her own reaction had meant that she hadn’t noticed his own betraying movement.

Hot waves of anger flooded his mind, blending dangerously with emotional pain and an almost unbearable yearning that he could scarcely control. The explosive combination drove out all rational thought, leaving him with just feeling.

Behind that door was his baby.
His
child. And this woman—this
stranger
was in there now with his daughter. It would be her hands that lifted the baby, her arms that held it, her voice that soothed…

‘Sir? Mr Delaney?’

The porter’s discreet cough, his careful murmur, dragged his thoughts unwillingly back to the present and the need to display a reasonable, uninvolved mask to the hotel staff if they were not to become suspicious. At least for now.

‘I’m sorry.’

He switched on an easy smile, turned and forced himself to stroll towards the lift doors.

‘Is it usual to bring a baby to work?’ he asked as they began their journey upwards.

‘Ah, well, that’s Miss Caitlin’s little girl,’ Sean told him. ‘Things are rather difficult there.’

Too damn right they were! And the baby was
not
Miss Caitlin’s anything…

Rhys swallowed down the angry retort with an effort and opted instead for a casual, man-to-man approach.

‘She’s an attractive woman.’

‘Mmm.’ Sean’s response was noncommittal. ‘But it’s look but don’t touch where she’s concerned. I’ve only been here just over a month, and I soon learned that!’

‘The ice-maiden sort, huh?’

‘And how. This is our floor. It’s the third door on the left.’

So the youthful Sean had tried it on with Ms Richardson and been rebuffed, Rhys reflected when, left alone, he had tossed his case on the bed and looked around the room that was to be his for the next week or so. Decorated in dark green and white, it seemed clean and comfortable but rather small, even for one person.

But then of course he was used to much better hotels than this. Travelling as often as he did, looking for items to display in his gallery, paintings to sell, he always insisted on the best that money could buy. And his money could buy the very best.

Tossing his keys from one hand to the other, he prowled around the limited space, pausing to stare out of the window. The room was at the back of the hotel, looking out onto the rain-soaked, curving lawn, the dripping greenery of the shrubbery.

And Ms Richardson was an ice maiden. Well, with a little persuasion ice could melt. It was only ice—not stone. And he had plenty of experience of melting reluctant, cool women. It was a challenge, and he’d always liked a challenge.

And she wasn’t indifferent to him; he was sure of that. He’d seen the flare of response in her eyes, watched the burn of awareness flood her skin. She might act all cool and collected, but if she was anything like her cousin, like Amelie, then there was a wild volcano underneath, just waiting to break through the layer of ice that covered the surface.

‘So, Ms Caitlin Richardson—it’s look but don’t touch, is it? Well, we shall see.’

As he spoke her name aloud he saw again in his mind the image of her face, of those golden eyes when she had looked at him downstairs. He thought back over the conversation they’d had—calm and businesslike on the surface but whirling with undercurrents and studded with rocks underneath. The things that had been said without a word being spoken.

Had she guessed anything? The atmosphere had been tense, taut enough to stretch the nerves. He’d been a fool to blunder in with his impulsive invitation. Moving too quickly, too thoughtlessly.

He’d better be careful because that impulse had made her wary. With her head up like that and the big tawny eyes wide in something close to alarm, she’d looked as nervous as a young roe deer scenting intruders into her territory. If he didn’t take care she’d suspect something.

‘Softly, softly…’ he murmured to himself.

But even as he resolved on caution, the memory of the moment that he had heard the baby’s cry seared into his mind, making his hand clench tight on the keys until the hard metal dug into the skin of his palm. Recalling how she had left the desk and gone into the back room, he found that suddenly he couldn’t see, couldn’t think for the red mist of anger that hazed his eyes.

That was
his
child,
his
daughter. But he knew nothing about her. He didn’t even know her name, goddammit! If he hadn’t met up with a mutual friend of his and Amelie’s, who had told him the whole story, he would never even have known that the baby existed. His wife had been adamant that children were not for her; that if she got pregnant she would have an immediate abortion.

But somehow Amelie had changed her mind. The baby he’d thought he’d never have was real. And
she
—this Caitlin Richardson, with her cool smile and her cool voice and her ‘touch me not’ image—was keeping the child from him. She hadn’t even let him know. Wouldn’t have told him about it if he’d asked.

‘Oh, yes, Ms Caitlin Richardson,’ he muttered savagely, thudding his clenched fist hard against the edge of the wooden window frame, ‘you do right to be wary where I’m concerned. And if you’re wise, you’ll keep on being wary—much good may it do you! Because I’m going to get my daughter from you whatever it takes. That baby is going to be mine—by fair means or foul.’

And right now, with hot fury blurring his thought processes, quite frankly he felt that
foul
was much the preferable option.

In fact, remembering those burning, molten tawny eyes and the lure of the promises they offered, in total contrast to the frosty control of her ice-maiden act, he thought it was possible that it might be the most enjoyable approach as well.

T
HREE
days could change so very much, Caitlin reflected as she settled the baby in the office behind the reception desk and prepared for work.

Three days ago, life had seemed settled and controlled. OK, so it was not what she’d wanted, what she
dreamed
of, but after the chaos and misery of the past months it had at last seemed back on some sort of regular track so that she had an idea of where she was going.

But that was before Matthew Delaney had appeared to complicate things.

Oh, be honest! a critical little voice inside her head carped. It’s not Matthew Delaney that’s complicating things! It’s your reaction to him.

‘Sleep tight, Fleur, darling.’ She used the crooned words to distract herself from her uncomfortable and unwanted thoughts. ‘I’ll just be right here.’

She didn’t want to think about the way that Matthew Delaney suddenly seemed to have become so totally present in her life. She didn’t seem to be able to get away from him. If she turned around, he was there, in the hall, in the lounge, in the dining room. Over the three days her feeling of being faintly flattered had changed to one of vague uneasiness, shading into a definite shiver of apprehension whenever she thought of him.

And always, at the back of everything, was this intense awareness of him as a man.

Her skin prickled when he was near. Her heart thudded heavily and every sense seemed heightened, sharpened, in the most disturbing way. She felt intensely feminine, shockingly sensual in a way she had never known. And she couldn’t stop her gaze from sliding towards him, fixing on him whenever he was in the room.

A cold chill of uncertainty slid down her spine as she recalled the number of times that he had seemed to sense her eyes on him and looked up, their gazes clashing, fixing, holding for long, disturbing seconds before she had lost her nerve and looked away again sharply.

But that wasn’t going to happen again, she resolved, pulling on her tailored navy jacket and smoothing down the matching skirt. She wasn’t going to let Matthew Delaney get to her in any way any more.

Her resolve lasted just as long as it took her to leave the office and go to the reception desk.

The flower lay on the polished wooden surface. A single lush, perfect, long-stemmed rose, its rich red colouring proclaiming a message of love to anyone who was interested.

Caitlin was
not
interested.

She was shaken—and unnerved—and furious at being made to feel this way.

And evidence of just who was responsible for putting her in this mood wasn’t hard to find.

Matthew Delaney—of course it was Matthew Delaney!—was sitting just a few feet away, relaxing in a huge velvet-covered armchair, hidden behind the pages of a broadsheet morning paper.

‘Damn him!’ Caitlin muttered under her breath, struggling for control. ‘Damn, damn, damn him!’

Couldn’t he take no for an answer? Didn’t he realise that his attentions and his invitation to dinner weren’t welcome? Didn’t he—?

But no. She had to collect herself, get herself back under control.

Count to ten.

‘One—two—three…’

The final number ten came, and was passed—and came again—and still she couldn’t calm down.

And matters were only made so much worse by
that man’s
obvious total relaxation.

As she watched, another of the hotel’s guests went past his chair and obviously said something. Delaney raised his dark head, responding briefly and lightly. The next moment the sound of his laughter came across the room to where she stood.

She knew that he wasn’t laughing at her. Every ounce of common sense she possessed told her that, and yet somehow that laughter sparked off a reaction in her that she couldn’t control.

She didn’t
want
Matthew Delaney in her life! She didn’t want any man! She wanted Josh back. Wanted things to be how they had once been. And she couldn’t have that.

Even if Josh were still alive, then things could never be how they had once been. Josh was gone. And Matthew Delaney…

Anger flared, her hold on her temper failing under the impact of the terrible pain that gripped her. Snatching up the red rose, she marched round the desk, across the hall.

‘I don’t want this!’ she declared, throwing it furiously over the top of his paper and down into his lap. ‘I don’t want anything from you, can’t you see that? What do I have to do to get the message across to you?’

His sudden, frozen silence was disturbing, a tiny shiver of apprehension crossing her skin as she saw the way that his hands tightened sharply on the newspaper. Swallowing hard, she nerved herself for the coming storm, half anticipating it with a perverse degree of pleasure.

At least maybe now he would leave her alone.

But then he lowered the newspaper and looked her straight in the face.

And the fact that the deep blue eyes were brimming with an unholy amusement was the last thing she had expected. The glint of wicked mockery stole her breath away and left her standing, unable to speak, shifting uneasily from one foot to another.

‘My, we do overreact, don’t we?’ he drawled. ‘It’s only a flower—just a—’

‘I know very well what it is!’ Caitlin flung at him, goaded back into speech by that taunting smile. ‘I know it’s a rose—but I don’t want it! I don’t want
anything
! Not from you! I don’t want your invitations and your flowers and—’

‘I didn’t give it to you,’ Rhys inserted quietly when she paused for breath.

‘What?’

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘I didn’t give it to you.’

His smile was lethal, totally destroying what little was left of her composure. And what made it all the worse was the fact that it was so gently tolerant—at least on the surface.

‘But you must have done! I mean—who else…?’

It was working, Rhys reflected, watching her struggle for breath, trying to find the right words. And about time too.

When she had rejected his invitation to dinner or a drink he had wondered if he’d overstepped the mark, moving too quickly. He was prepared to take this one step at a time, but his patience was limited. If he didn’t get to see his daughter, hold his baby in his arms
fast
then he felt that he would implode, unable to contain his feelings any longer.

So instead of pushing, he’d tried the opposite approach.

He would carry on as usual, not saying a word. Not even directing a glance her way—though when he had looked up several times to see her eyes on him, it had been all he could do not to respond.

But the policy of ignoring her had started to work. He had felt those golden eyes burning into him more and more often over the past forty-eight hours, though her gaze had skittered away nervously whenever he’d looked up.

And now here she was. Nervous and edgy—and shockingly angry—but at last she had come to him.

And the anger wasn’t anything to do with him.

‘Who else?’

Wary of revealing too much, he dropped his eyes to the rose that still lay in his lap, studying it with a concentrated attention that hid the almost irresistible urge to let his mouth twitch into a triumphant grin.

‘Surely you must have guessed?’

‘No, I haven’t. I don’t—
who
?’ she almost begged, clearly coming to the end of what little patience she had in reserve.

Rhys reached for the rose, picking it up carefully by the long green, dethorned stem and twirling it round and round reflectively between finger and thumb.

‘Your secret admirer,’ he murmured softly, glancing upwards from eyes half-veiled by thick black lashes to watch the effect his words had.

They had every bit of the effect he could have wanted.

‘Secret admirer!’

It was expelled on a hiss of disbelief, and as if the sigh had been the air escaping from a pricked balloon she subsided rapidly onto a nearby chair, not seeming to trust her legs to keep her upright any more.

‘What secret admirer? I thought—’

Hastily she bit the words back, but not quickly enough to hide the fact that she was betraying something she didn’t want him to know.

‘You thought that
I
was your admirer,’ he supplied as the fiery colour flooded her face and the words faltered on her lips.

‘I—I…’

‘Well, you could be right.’

He made it sound as if he was putting her out of her misery.

‘But you must know that I’m not the only one.’

That brought those brilliant eyes to his face in a rush, wide and darkly clouded with confusion. She looked so bewildered that for a moment he almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

But then he remembered what she had done to him. The tiny, vulnerable little secret baby that she must know was his and yet was deliberately keeping from him, and his heart hardened until it felt like a lump of stone in his chest.

‘I don’t—who else?’

‘I’m not sure I should betray his secret.’

But he’d pushed her just an inch too far. He saw that from the flash of anger in her eyes, the rejection etched onto her face.

‘You don’t know, do you?’ she stormed, getting back to her feet in a rush. ‘You’re just pretending! In fact, I don’t believe there is any such thing as a “secret admirer”! You’re making it up!’

He hadn’t thought of doing any such thing, but it might almost have been worth it if he had. She looked spectacular when she was angry, with those amber eyes blazing and for once a touch of colour across her high cheekbones. And the way she stood, with her hands on her hips in defiance, pushed her small, pert breasts forward in a display that any red-blooded man would appreciate. Especially from this angle.

‘And why would I do that?’

‘Oh, how should I know? I’ve no idea what’s going on inside that devious head of yours! Just because I turned down your invitation to dinner…’

‘Who’s turning down dinner invitations?’

Another voice broke into her tirade, obviously with the intent of cooling and calming the atmosphere. Caitlin’s father’s voice, Rhys recognised at once. Bob Richardson had come up behind her unexpectedly and now he was standing just at her side.

‘Oh, nothing…’ she muttered, unwilling to continue the conversation, but Rhys wasn’t going to let her escape that easily.

‘I invited your daughter to dinner but she declined. Said it was policy for staff not to see guests.’

‘Cait?’

Caitlin groaned inwardly, knowing just what was coming. She was right.

‘What are you talking about? You know there’s no such—’

‘It wasn’t a serious invitation, Dad!’

She knew that look and would do anything to erase it from his face. That ‘You need to get out more—have some fun. You’re only young’ look had appeared at least once a day, if not more, ever since the news about Amelie and Josh had broken.

‘What makes you say that?’

Rhys was folding his newspaper, putting it aside as he got to his feet. His smooth, lithe movements, imposing height and a certain intensity in the brilliant blue eyes gave Caitlin the uncomfortable feeling that it was like watching some deadly snake uncoiling, ready to strike.

‘What makes you think I wasn’t serious?’

‘Well—I—you…’

Oh, to blazes with it! She was going to tell him the truth!

‘Well, you can hardly say that you seemed disappointed!’

No, that had been a mistake. A big mistake! The gleam in his eye brightened, warning her that she’d fallen into some subtle trap she hadn’t even been aware that he’d laid, and cold fingers of doubt crept over her skin.

‘I was serious,’ he said softly. ‘And disappointed.’

Ambiguous and contrasting feelings fought a nasty little battle in Caitlin’s thoughts as she struggled to know which one to bring into the open. She had a worrying suspicion that this was all a game to him, but at the same time she couldn’t suppress the disturbing lift to her thoughts that came with the realisation that perhaps he really had meant his invitation seriously.

She didn’t want to admit to herself that she had been struggling with disappointment at the fact that he seemed to have given in on the subject of asking her out. That, deep inside, she had wanted him to try again, even though she had known she would give the same answer.

She didn’t want to go out to dinner with him, she told herself—go anywhere with him. But all the same she didn’t want to think she was so instantly forgettable.

‘You really wanted to have dinner?’

‘I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.’

‘And you said no?’ Bob interrupted again. ‘I think it’s just what you need.’

‘But if it’s company policy…’ Rhys inserted with just the right amount of understanding to convince her father and at the same time set her teeth on edge.

‘Mr Delaney, I don’t know where you’ve got the idea that I frown on my employees socialising with guests, but believe me, there is no such rule. And besides, this could be just what my Cait needs. She’s had a hard time lately—’

‘Dad, I can’t!’ Caitlin broke in hastily, before her father could launch into a detailed and unwelcome explanation of the disasters and the miseries of the past year. She felt vulnerable enough already without exposing this wounded part of herself to a complete stranger. ‘I can’t leave the baby!’

This last remark was hissed at him in what she hoped was a secret undertone. But the secret bit didn’t work. The dark head of the man before her came up sharply, blue eyes swinging to her face and narrowing swiftly.

‘You have a—a baby?’

Hell and damnation, Rhys cursed himself furiously. He’d very nearly messed up badly there. He’d known what she’d been about to say—the next excuse she would roll out to avoid having dinner with him. And as a result he had almost reacted in quite the wrong way.

It had taken him a couple of all too revealing seconds to realise that he should be reacting in total surprise and confusion, not with the ‘Yeah, I
know
that’ his thoughts were forming.