The Army Doc's Baby Secret

‘Why France?’

‘That’s where our training sites are based. More room. I’m going back to oversee a course and I’m taking my son so that we can start to get to know each other. You don’t start work officially for a month. Or so you said before.’

‘No, but...’

‘Coincidentally, Z-Black currently has a need for a medical trainer with experience out in a hostile environment.’ Or, at least, it would after he’d made a phone call. ‘Which leaves you with two choices, Tia.’ He paused, forced himself to smile, as if he found some perverse pleasure in this awful scenario. ‘Either you watch me take my son with me. Or you take this role and come with us as a sort of a family.’

‘No,’ she whispered, her hand fluttering at her chest.

‘Then my son and I will go alone. I have a housekeeper who has nine grandchildren she’s forever showing me new photos of. She can show me anything I need to know.’

‘You’re not taking Seth out of the country without me.’

He hated himself for doing it to her, but there was no way he wasn’t going to take the opportunity to get to know his son away from the distractions of everyday life. It was too vital not to get right.

‘I’m taking the opportunity to get to know my son. I told you, you’re welcome to come too—that option still stands. To my mind, Tia, it’s a no-brainer. But then that’s just my opinion. The choice, as they say, is yours.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE CHATEAU WAS bathed in the most stunning sunset as their black, muscular four-by-four powered up the endless, winding tree-lined driveway. It rose out of its setting of verdant sprawling vineyards in stunning yellow stonework which made it seem warm and welcoming—even the single stunning turret wasn’t imposing and hostile, like its owner—whilst the pretty shutters only enhanced the romantic feel of the property.

Yet as the car sped over the uneven ground with a light bump, Tia’s heart gave a far more violent jerk. She didn’t know what unsettled her the most: the fact that she’d allowed Zeke to command her to bring herself and Seth to live with him whilst he got to know his—their—son, the fact that Z-Black was a private chateau in the south of France, or the fact that he had flown them out on a private plane.

Now they were here her sense of unease only intensified.

It was all a world away from the Zeke she had known, the Zeke she had married, and she couldn’t shake the impression that this was his way of showing her exactly that. Proving to her that she didn’t know the first thing about him any more.

Maybe it was unintentional. More likely it was a deliberate attempt to unnerve her.

Either way, it was certainly working. She’d been worried enough about the custody angle when she’d seen his home back in Westlake. This was a hundred times worse.

And so she did the only thing she could—she reached for something solid, something which could ground her, something which mattered.

Seth.

‘He’s still asleep,’ she murmured, stroking the soft hair above his brow in the way that always gave her comfort. ‘It seems a shame to have to wake him. It has been a tumultuous couple of days.’

Too late, she realised it probably sounded as if she were making a dig at Zeke. She lifted her eyes, opening her mouth to clarify, but the hostile expression that greeted her made her close it again.

‘Which is why I’ve heeded your request not to tell my son who I am,’ Zeke ground out before adding darkly, ‘Yet.’

Tia swallowed.

‘And I appreciate that. I think...it would help for him to get to know you a little before dropping that bombshell on him.’

‘The way you dropped it on me, you mean?’

For the second time in as many minutes she opened her mouth only to close it again. Zeke had her boxed in. And he knew it.

They sat in silence for the next few minutes—though it might as well have been years—whilst the vehicle finally pulled up outside the house.

Before she realised it, Zeke had scooped his still-sleeping son up into his arms and was lifting him out of the car and carrying him to the door, with her scurrying to catch up.

Father and son. Leaving her behind. Wasn’t this partly what she had feared by coming back into his life? That, or watching him reject Seth as his son. The way he had rejected her almost six years ago.

Ironic how she outwardly objected to him ordering her around, demanding that she and Seth join him in France, and yet it was that very commandeering front that made her feel they were wanted. Required. She certainly couldn’t believe she’d ever considered that Zeke rejecting Seth would be a possibility.

And there it was, the unpredictability that had always been Ezekial Jackson. The reason she had let him reject her back then. Not fighting for him, or their fragile marriage, the way a part of her had so desperately longed to do.