The Secret Baby Bargain

Ashleigh had never considered herself a particularly intuitive person. That had been Ellie’s role in the Forrester family, but somehow, being in Jake’s childhood home made her realise things about him that had escaped her notice before.

He hated the darkness.

Why hadn’t she ever noticed the significance of that before?

He had always been the first one to turn on the lights when they got home, insisting the blinds be pulled up even when the sunlight was too strong and disrupted the television or computer screen.

He’d hated loud music with a passion, particularly classical music. She couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t come in and snapped her music off, glaring at her furiously, telling her it was too loud for the neighbours and why wasn’t she being more responsible?

What did it all mean?

She opened another door off the hall and stepped inside. Some pinpricks of light were shining through the worn blinds, giving the room an eerie atmosphere, the dust motes disturbed by the movement of air as the door opened rising in front of her face like a myriad miniature apparitions.

The air was stuffy and close but she could see as she turned on the nearest light that it was some sort of study-cum-library, two banks of bookshelves lining the walls from floor to ceiling.

She moved across the old carpet to examine some of the titles, her eyes widening at the age of some of them nearest her line of vision.

Jake’s father had sure known how to collect valuable items, she mused as she reached for what looked like a first edition of Keats’s poems.

She put the book back amongst the others and turned to look around the rest of the room. The solid cedar desk was littered with papers as if someone working there had been interrupted and hadn’t returned to put things in order. She picked up the document nearest her and found it was a financial statement from a firm of investors, the value of the portfolio making her head spin.

She heard a sound behind her and turned to see Jake standing in the frame of the door, his dark gaze trained on her.

Her time was up.

She put the paper back down on the desk, her mouth suddenly dry and uncooperative when there was so much she wanted to ask him before she committed herself to the task he had assigned her.

‘Jake…I…I don’t know what to say.’ She waved a weak hand to encompass the contents of the room, the house and the sense of unease she’d felt as she’d moved through each part but not really knowing why.

‘What’s to say?’ he said, moving into the room. ‘My father died a very rich man.’

She gave a small frown as she recalled their conversation at his hotel the day before. ‘I thought you intimated he left you nothing in his will?’

His eyes held hers for a brief moment before moving away. He wandered over to the big desk and, pulling out the thronelike chair, sat down, one ankle across his thigh, his hands going behind his head as he leaned backwards.

‘He left me nothing I particularly wanted,’ he answered.

Her teeth caught her bottom lip for a moment, her eyes falling away from the mysterious depths of his.

‘But…we’re not talking about a few old kitchen utensils and second-hand books here, Jake. This place is worth a fortune. The house itself on current market value would be enough to set anyone up for life, let alone the contents I’ve seen so far.’

‘I’m not getting rid of the house, just what’s inside it,’ he informed her.

‘You plan to live here?’ She stared at him in surprise.

He unfolded his leg and stood up, his sudden increase in height making her feel small and vulnerable in the overcrowded space of the room.

‘I have set up a branch of my company here in Sydney. I plan to spend half the year in England and the other half here.’

She moistened her mouth. ‘But you told me earlier you’ve always hated this house.’

‘I do.’ He gave her another inscrutable look. ‘But that’s not to say it can’t have a serious makeover and be the sort of home it should have been in the first place. I’m looking forward to doing it, actually.’

Ashleigh knew there was a wealth of information behind his words but she wasn’t sure she was up to the task of asking him exactly what he meant. After all, hadn’t he been the one who’d insisted on living in a low maintenance one-bedroom apartment when they had lived in London? Whatever was he going to do with a house this size, which looked as if it had at least ten bedrooms, several formal rooms, including a ballroom, not to mention an extensive front and back garden with a tennis court thrown in for good measure?

‘It seems a bit…a bit big for a man who…’ She let her words trail away when he moved towards her.