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The Millionaire's Baby

Page 37

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So it must be her. She must be so emotionally man­gled that she was dreaming up impossible scenarios, putting imaginary words into his mouth.

There was only one explanation and that was totally unlikely, and completely out of the question, but she voiced it, just in case. 'Am I to take it that you would like me to continue as Sophie's nanny?'

'Certainly not. I couldn't stand the strain! You said earlier that you thought the set-up at Mytton sounded perfect. You were wrong. But you could make it per­fect. Share it with us. Be there with us, as Sophie's mum, as my wife, as mother of my children—if you want them.'

Caro swallowed. Hard. She was dreaming. She had to be. Dusk had deepened into darkness. The head­lights carved a tunnel between the high hedgerows. Dreaming, or died and gone to heaven!

'Caro! Say something!' His voice was raw round the edges. 'Dammit, woman! This is impossible!' Frustration growled in his tone. 'I didn't intend pro­posing at a time when I have to keep both eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel! You dragged it out of me! There's champagne in the fridge at Mytton, and a bed, and—'

'Are you proposing marriage, Finn?' That proved it. She was dreaming. She put out a tentative, explora­tory hand and rested it on his thigh. The heat of his flesh burned her through the soft, lightweight fabric and felt solidly, sexily real.

'Don't do that!' he muttered hoarsely, and knocked her hand away.

'Do what?' She put her hand on his knee. That, too, felt reassuringly real.

'Touch me,' he growled through his teeth. 'We are a good ten minutes away from Mytton and there are no lay-bys along this lane. And even if there were I do not want to make love with you on a car seat in a lay-by. But if you keep touching me I will not be held responsible.'

How could she believe him?

How could she not believe him and deny herself a taste of heaven? Could hearts break in dreams as well as in reality?

She folded her hands primly in her lap. He had made it sound as if something cataclysmic would hap

­pen if she touched him one more time. And he was right. Heat of the wicked, wanton kind was building up right inside her, coiling sweetly, hotly through her, making her ache with longing.

'But you don't like me.' She sounded as puzzled as she was. 'You threw me out.'

'So?' He sounded as if he hurled half-clothed fe­males off his property every day of his life. 'You made me angry. You'd hurt me. I couldn't resist you, and I didn't want to entrust my happiness to the type of woman who would make love with a man she be­lieved to be married, to get revenge for something he hadn't done.'

'I did try to explain about all that, and I have apolo­gised. And before we went to Mytton that first time I'd decided I wouldn't go through with the revenge thing. I was just going to tell you what I thought of what I then believed you'd done to Katie...'

She pushed her hands shakily through her hair. All this was getting weirder by the second. Why would he propose marriage to a woman he didn't like? 'But you touched me, kissed me, and things just got out of hand, and I wasn't thinking about anything but the way it felt to be in your arms and—'

'Don't I know it!' Briefly, emotionally, his hand covered hers in her lap. 'After you'd gone I spent days thinking about it. About us.' He transferred his hand back to the steering wheel. 'I ended up despising my­self. I'd blamed you for believing the worst of me without hearing my side of things or going to the trou­ble to get at the truth.

'Yet there I was doing the same to you, and I had heard your side of the story. Of course you wanted to pay me back for hurting your sister. Of course you believed her story. Why wouldn't you? You'd been standing up for her for most of your life, you loved her, you didn't know me from Adam. So naturally you took up the cudgels on her behalf.

'And once I'd seen that particular light, and come to terms with the way you'd said you'd intended to get revenge, I knew that you weren't the sort of woman to make love with a married man. You stopped me well before we got to the point of no return.'

'I don't know that I understand you.' Her mouth was dry; she could hardly get the words out. 'You fired me—'

'I fired you because I'd been hurt. I'd fallen in love with you and had got to the point of telling you so, and you shattered me completely. You let me know you believed I was married.'

She closed her eyes, pulling oxygen deep into her lungs because she was light-headed. 'You went cold on me, told me your wife was dead. Then sacked me. I thought it was because you still mourned her so much, had loved her so much, you thought hearing her name on my lips was sullying her memory. But it wasn't that? Please say it wasn't. I love you, Finn; I want to be your wife. But I wouldn't want to feel I was a second-rate substitute, not daring to mention her name, seeing a silver-framed photograph of her in every room I went into.'

They were on the Mytton Wells driveway now and the headlights illuminated the facade of the lovely old house. Finn switched off the lights, cut the engine, turned to her and tenderly took her face between his hands.

'I love you, Caroline Farr. More than I've ever loved anyone or anything. I keep Fleur's photographs around so that Sophie will grow up knowing what her mother looked like and will be able to identify with her.' The balls of his thumbs stroked the smooth hol­lows beneath her cheekbones, then slid slowly down to rest at the corners of her mouth.

'I married Fleur because she was in deep, deep trouble. It's a long story, sweetheart, and I'll try to keep it brief because sitting here, talking about my first wife, is not something that's top of my wants list right at the moment.

'After my father retired, he and Ma lived in the south of France. Fleur's adoptive mother came in on a daily basis to cook and clean. I was twenty-four to Fleur's fourteen when I met her for the first time. I used to go out there several times a year and got to know Fleur well. She was a determined young lady. She was going to make something of her life; she wasn't going to scratch a living as her parents did. I admired her spirit. She would have been sixteen or so when my father died and Ma sold up and went back to live in her native Canada.

'I didn't see or hear of Fleur until a couple of years ago—at about the time of that fiasco with Katie. I was in Paris on business. I literally bumped into her on the street. She looked dreadful. She was pregnant. She was ill.

'Over dinner she told me the full story. A matter of weeks after my father's death Fleur had run away from home. She made a living of sorts singing in bars, then she got a job in a nightclub and things began to look up for her. Then came a brief spell of success. She made a record that shot to the top of the charts, but neither of her adoptive parents had lived to see her succeed, and that success turned sour because she became pregnant and within weeks of that she en­dured two blows—either one of which would have knocked the stuffing out of most other people.

'Her lover dropped her. He disowned the coming baby. He was already married and aiming to go into politics. The second blow was mortal. Literally. She was diagnosed as suffering from a terminal illness and the prognosis was bleak. She could carry the child to term but she wouldn't survive the birth for more than a few weeks. She was alone, she was pregnant, she knew she was dying.'



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