A Debt Paid in Passion

* * *

Three months later, Raoul was taking steps to ensure he was prepared for the birth, looking ahead to clear his calendar in six weeks. He rarely took time off and found even Christmas with his mother an endurance test of agitation to get back to work. Anticipation energized him for this vacation, though.

Because it was a new challenge? Or because he would see Sirena?

He shut down the thought. The baby was his sole interest. He was eager to find out the sex, know it was healthy and have final confirmation it was his.

Not that he had many doubts on any of that. True to their agreement, Sirena had sent him updates on the baby’s progress. Nothing concerning her own, he had noted with vague dissatisfaction, but he expected he would be informed if there were problems. The second scan later in the pregnancy had not revealed an obvious male, so he’d assumed the baby was female and found himself taken with the vision of a daughter possessing dark curls and beguiling green eyes.

As for paternity, to his mind, the fact Sirena had signed made the baby his. The final test after the birth was a formality that would activate the arrangements, that was all.

But that was a month and a half from now and he had people to organize. People who were abuzz with the news that the driven head of their multinational software corporation was taking an extended absence.

Only a handful of his closest and most trusted subordinates knew the reason, and even they didn’t know the mother’s identity. The scandalous circumstances of his father’s infidelity and suicide had made Raoul a circumspect man. Nothing about his involvement with Sirena, their affair, her being fired for embezzlement or her pregnancy was public knowledge. When people asked—and she’d made enough of an impression on associates and colleagues that many did—he only said she was no longer with the company.

Part of him continued to resent that loss, especially when the assistants he kept trying out turned out to be so trying. The highly recommended Ms. Poole entered the meeting with a worried pucker in her magic-marker brows.

“I said life or death, Ms. Poole,” he reminded, clinging to patience.

“She’s very insistent,” the spindly woman said, bringing a mobile phone to him.

“Who?” He tamped down on asking, Sirena? Her tenacity was something he’d come to respect, if not always appreciate.

“Molly. About your agreement with Ms. Abbott.”

He didn’t know any Molly, but something preternatural set an unexpected boot heel on his chest, sharp and compressing, causing pressure to balloon out in radiant waves. Odd. There was no reason to believe this was bad news. Sirena hadn’t contacted him directly since he’d left her looking wrung out and cross at her flat that day, neither of them particularly satisfied with the outcome of their negotiations, but possessing a binding document between them.

“Yes?” He took the phone in a hand that became nerveless and clumsy. As he stood and moved from the table, he was aware of the ripple of curiosity behind him. At the same time, despite everything that had passed between them, he experienced a flick of excitement. His mind conjured an image of Sirena in one of those knitted skirt-and-sweater sets she used to wear.

“Mr. Zesiger? I’m Sirena Abbott’s midwife. She asked me to inform you that the baby is on its way.”

“It’s early,” he protested.

“Yes, they had to induce—” She cut herself off.

He heard muffled words and held his breath as he strained to hear what was said.

She came back. “I’ve just been informed it will be an emergency cesarean.”

“Where is she?” he demanded while apprehension wrapped around him like sandpaper, leaving him abraded and raw.

“I understood you were only to be informed and that a paternity test be ordered, not that you would attend—”

“Save me the phone calls to find her so I can come directly,” he bit out.

A brief pause before she told him. “But the results won’t be known for days.”

“Tell her I’m on my way,” he said, but she was already gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

A WOMAN MET him in the hospital reception area. She wore red glasses and a homespun pullover. Her ditch-water hair was in one thick plait, her expression grave.

“Raoul? Molly.” She held out a hand and offered a tight smile. “Sirena told me I’d know you when I saw you. The baby is a girl. They’ve taken the samples and should have the results in a few days.” Her manner was disconcertingly strained.

Because she didn’t want to get his hopes up? The baby was here, the moment of truth at hand. He shouldn’t be so stunned given the nature of the call or the time it had taken to fight traffic to get here, but the swiftness of the procedure surprised him. At the same time, he was aware of a gripping need to see the infant and know she was his.

A girl. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted one. And safely delivered. The abruptness of the call and lack of details had unsettled him, but they were fine. Everything was fine.

“Good,” he heard himself say, finally able to breathe. “I’m pleased to hear they came through all right.” He gestured for her to lead the way, assuming she’d show him to their room.

Molly didn’t move. “Premature babies always have certain hurdles, but the pediatrician is confident she’ll progress as well as the best of them.” She seemed to ponder whether to say more.

“And Sirena?” he prompted. Some unknown source of telepathy made him brace even as the question left him. A kind of dread that was distant but gut-churningly familiar seeped into his bloodstream like poison, unwanted and tensing him with refusal and denial before he even knew what she would say.

Molly’s eyes became liquid. “They’re doing all they can.”

For a long moment nothing happened. No movement, no sound, nothing. Then, from far off, he heard a torn inhale, like a last gasp of life.

No. Her words didn’t even make sense. He suddenly found himself bumping into a wall and put out a hand to steady himself. “What happened?”

“I wondered if she had told you about her condition.” Molly moved closer. Her touch was a biting grasp on his upper arm, surprisingly strong and necessary as he wondered if he’d stay on his feet. “It’s been a risky pregnancy from the start. High blood pressure, then early-onset preeclampsia. She’s been managing that condition these last few weeks, trying to buy the baby more time. Today they couldn’t wait any longer without risking both their lives, so the doctors induced. After she had a seizure, they stopped the labor and took her for surgery. Now she’s lost a lot of blood. I’m sorry. I can see this is hard for you to hear.”

Hard? All his strength was draining away, leaving him cold and empty. Clammy with fear. Her life was about to snap free of his and she hadn’t even told him. She might as well have swallowed a bottle of pills and left herself for him to find when he got home from school. Suddenly he was nine again, barely comprehending what he was seeing, unable to get a response out of the heavy body he was shaking with all his might. Not there soon enough. Helpless to make this right.

“Why the hell didn’t she say something?” he burst out, furious that she’d given him no indication, no warning, just left him tied to the tracks to be hit with a train.

Molly shook her head in bafflement. “Sirena didn’t talk about the custody agreement, but it’s been my impression things have been hostile.”

So hostile she kept from him that her life was on the line?

“I don’t want her to die!” The word was foul and jagged in his throat. He spoke from the very center of himself, flashing a look at Molly that made her flinch. He couldn’t imagine what he looked like, but his world was screeching to a halt and everything in it was whirling past him.

“No one does,” she assured him in the guarded tone developed by people who dealt with victims. It was the same prudent nonengagement with explosive emotions that the social worker had used as she had steered his young self from his father’s body.

“Take me to her,” he gritted out. A horrible avalanche of fear like he’d never known crushed him. He wanted to run shouting for her until he found her. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

“I can’t. But—” She seemed to think twice, then gave him a poignant smile. “Maybe they’ll let us into the nursery.”

He forced one foot in front of the other, walking as if through a wall of thick, suffocating gelatin as he followed Molly to the preemie clinic, ambivalence writhing like a two-headed snake inside him. Was it his fault Sirena hovered on the brink? Or another man’s? He adamantly wanted his child, but the idea that one life could cost another appalled him.

He came up to the tiny, nearly naked being in the incubator, her bottom covered in an oversized nappy, her hair hidden by a cap. Wires extended from her bare fragile body and her miniature Sirena mouth briefly pursed in a kiss.

He couldn’t see anything of himself in her, but a startlingly deep need to gather and guard the infant welled in him. Pressing his icy hands to the warm glass, he silently begged the little girl to hang on. If this was all that would be left of Sirena...

He brutally refused to entertain such a thought, turning his mind to sending a deep imperative through the walls of the hospital to the unknown location of this baby’s mother. Hang on, Sirena. Hang on.