a bottle of the mineral water he recalled she favoured, then threw himself into a soft leather chair and deliberately stretched out, as if he was at ease. Her eyes widened, even as she drew her lips into a thin line and lifted her nose ever so slightly in the air.
Malachi didn’t realise he’d been holding his breath until she finally, stiffly, followed him into the room.
She eyed the leather sofa—where even now he could remember laying her out almost reverently, before finally burying his face in her sweet, intense heat—and she perched, rather awkwardly, on its arm. The mineral water was left untouched on the table between them.
‘What now?’ she repeated sharply, but he didn’t miss the glimmer of nervousness.
The problem was that he didn’t really know the answer. She was pregnant with his baby and she’d been so afraid that he wouldn’t want to know that firstly she hadn’t even told him, and secondly she’d tried to absolve him of all responsibility.
Fresh anger surged through him, and suddenly Malachi found himself talking without even realising what he was saying.
‘Now, Saskia,’ he bit out, ‘you will move in with me and I will provide for you and for our baby.’
‘I’m sorry...what did you just say?’
She looked utterly stupefied. Exactly the way he ought to feel. He could hardly believe the words that had come out of his mouth—move in with him—where had that even come from? It was ludicrous. Sheer folly.
And yet there wasn’t an atom of him that wanted to take it back.
He ought to feel numb.
Detached.
Instead he suspected that what he was feeling—for the first time in a long, long time—was alive.
And that made no sense either.
Even now, after everything she’d said, it was taking more self-control than he felt it ought to not to reach out and haul her to him. He wanted her with a ferociousness he didn’t recognise in himself.
A yearning.
And he didn’t yearn. He wasn’t desperate. Not ever.
At least not any more. He’d left that nonsense behind along with his childhood. Yearning for a better life, a kinder childhood, a fairer world—all of which he’d quickly learned wouldn’t simply come to him. If he wanted them, he’d have to take them. Claim them. Seize them. In business and in his personal life. Fighting with every fibre of his body—even as an eight-year-old—to keep himself and Sol off the Social Services radar.
He hadn’t stopped fighting since.
Conquering. Annexing. Discarding.
And people thanked him for it.
Companies were all the better for it even when he stripped them down and walked away from them.
Yes, it suited him just fine.
But his baby? That was one thing on which he could never turn his back. He knew that now with a certainty that rocked him to his core. In an instant all the fears which had crowded his head—his heart—had simply...vanished.
He didn’t feel resentment, or fear, or bitterness when he thought of the two of them in his life. He felt...odd.
But not a bad odd.
Malachi shoved the unfamiliar sensations aside roughly. They only brought with them a sense of confusion, and that was the last thing he wanted.
‘I don’t think you’re thinking straight, Malachi,’ she managed defiantly.
‘On the contrary. I’m thinking perfectly straight.’
‘You can’t really expect me to move in with you as though...as though...we’re going to be some kind of...happy family,’ she stuttered, flailing her arms around a little too much for someone who was trying to sound in control.