Convenient Marriage, Inconvenient Husband Read online

  Live issue. The two words swam before his eyes.

  Damn her to hell and back. She’d cold-bloodedly allowed him to think he’d seduced her all so she could have a baby to access her inheritance. She’d played the ice maiden, being so inaccessible as to drive him to distraction and insisting on their arrangement being strictly business when all along she’d planned to have his child.

  He clenched his hands in an attempt to control the urge to pick up the top of the range laptop on his desk and hurl it through the nearest window. Oh, she was her grandmother’s successor all right. He doubted even Isobel would have accepted a man in her bed for the sole purpose of procreation for financial gain.

  A baby. His baby.

  An overwhelming flood of emotion swamped him. A sense of connection to his as yet unborn son or daughter. No matter what Amira did, he’d make sure she didn’t retain custody of the child once it was born. There was no way on this earth that Isobel’s influence, through her scheming granddaughter, would taint his child.

  He pushed his hands through his hair again and swore a blue streak. Amira would be sorry she’d ever deceived him. Sorry she ever thought to tangle with Brent Colby again. Oh, she’d pay for her deception. She’d pay dearly.

  He picked up his phone again and punched in Amira’s cell phone number only to hear the beeps that told him the number had been disconnected. He tried her home only to get the same.

  He’d track her down eventually. She could run, but she couldn’t hide from him forever.

  The wind whipped around the headland, making the palms bordering Windsong sway and dance with a massive rustle of noise. Amira got up from the desk in the office she’d made her own since she’d left Auckland in an attempt to dodge the media circus that had erupted when the wedding had been canceled. The carefully worded request for privacy as they went their own ways was as casually discarded by the media as a day-old cup of coffee.

  Two weeks after the announcement it had become impossible for her to stay in Remuera. Daily encampments of paparazzi made leaving the property a risk as her car was swamped and then chased by various means of transport. It had only been after she’d encountered a near miss with a photographer dangerously perched on the back of a motorcycle that she realized staying in her family home was putting both her and the baby at risk.

  She’d made arrangements to be transported from the property in the dead of night in a removal van, which then took her to Mechanics Bay, from where a chartered helicopter had deposited her at the island.

  For the past month that’s exactly where she’d stayed—her only physical contact with other people being the small staff who maintained the property and the interior of the house. It was a lonely existence but a necessary one. No one had thought to see if she was here, instead fictional sightings of her in Sydney, Paris and London had effectively put everyone off the track.

  She wondered what Brent thought. If he’d tried to contact her once he’d received the money. She missed him with an ache that went soul deep. Worse than the last time. She’d tried to keep busy, had submerged herself in the administrative duties she could manage to do with the Fulfillment Foundation and in the joys of discovering the week by week progress in her pregnancy.

  Already she displayed the tiniest of baby bumps, and the other day, even though from her books she knew it was unlikely, she’d been certain the flutter she’d felt had been the baby’s movement. Oh, how she wished she could have shared her excitement with Brent. But he could never know about the baby. She reminded herself again of the wording of the agreement—how he’d set her up to take her money, come hell or high water, no matter how much he said he didn’t need it. If he knew about the baby no doubt he’d take steps to take it away from her too. She couldn’t bear for that to happen. This was her child. Someone to call her own. Someone to love and who would love her unreservedly in return.

  Tears flooded Amira’s eyes, as they did so easily these days, spilling over her lashes and down her cheeks. She dabbed them away with one hand and focussed on the letter she had to e-mail back to her office in the city.

  With the electronic and satellite setup Isobel had insisted on at Windsong, Amira had maintained contact with her staff at the Fulfillment Foundation. She swore them to privacy on the promise of a massive bonus provided no news of her whereabouts leaked out. So far so good.

  Until yesterday morning.

  She’d woken with a niggling ache low in her belly. After going to the toilet, she had been horrified to see a small amount of blood. Terror had torn through her. At fourteen weeks pregnant she’d thought she was past the worst of the danger time when it was most likely to lose a baby. She was well aware of the statistics, that as many as one in four pregnancies ended unexpectedly before the twenty week mark, but she’d been so well. Felt so safe.

  Now, however, she was terrified. She’d gone straight back to her bed and called her obstetrician’s office. The nurse she’d spoken to had been comforting, consoling her that the symptoms she’d experienced may well settle down, but she’d advised Amira to make her way to the specialist’s rooms as soon as she could so they could do a scan and ensure that everything was as it should be.

  Amira’s next call had been to the helicopter company that had flown her out here. But due to the very high winds, it was impossible to get a chopper safely out to Windsong. Likewise, the swells that were running on the sea effectively trapped her where she was. Her island paradise, her sanctuary from the public eye, had turned into her worst nightmare.

  She’d stayed in bed all day, and this morning, thank goodness, the weather had died down sufficiently for a chopper to be sent to bring her back to Auckland City.

  She e-mailed the letter back to her assistant and shut down her computer. Then she grabbed her things. It was time to go out to the helipad at the back of the house and wait.

  Her timing was impeccable. Just as she secured the back door, a sleek black helicopter came in over the ridge and hovered prior to setting down on the marked H on the expansive back lawn. Strange, she didn’t recognize the logo on the side. It certainly wasn’t the company she’d used to arrange her flight back to the city.

  A tall dark form alighted from the helicopter. Sudden recognition dawned, and it was as if a shower of icy water had been dumped over her head. Brent. He’d found her.

  He covered the distance between them in a few short strides, his jacket fluttering in the buffet of wind from the slowing rotor blades. There was no doubt at all that he was angry—very, very angry. With nowhere to run—or to hide—Amira stood her ground and fought back the rising nausea that suddenly surfaced.

  “Amira. Running away again, I see?” He gestured to the small overnight bag the nurse had recommended she bring with her in case she needed to be admitted to their private hospital overnight.

  “What business is it of yours where I am?” she replied with a snap in her voice she managed to dredge from deep inside. “I don’t answer to you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Now, get off my property,” she ordered in an attempt to channel her late grandmother’s hauteur.

  “Ah, but it’s not your property yet. Is it?” he countered.

  A wave of dizziness hit her, and she swayed slightly, battling to keep her balance. The sensation receded, leaving her feeling sick. Scared.

  “Either way, you have no place here. Please, leave.” To her disgust her voice wavered.

  “We have things to discuss.”

  “We have nothing to discuss. I met my obligations to you under the terms of our agreement. You have your consents. You have your money. Now go.”

  The ache in her belly sharpened, and the bitter taste of fear flooded her mouth. How far away was her ride? She had to get to the specialist. She just knew it.

  “But what about my baby?”

  He knew? The realization slammed into her with the full impact of a freight train. The breath rushed from her lungs; spots danced before her eyes. Brent took a ste
p toward her, his dark eyebrows drawn in a straight line across eyes that demanded answers.

  “Were you planning to pay me for that too?” He said the words so casually, any bystander could be forgiven for thinking he was joking, until they saw the glare of intent in his gaze.

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m not pregnant. How could I be? Besides, I don’t have time for a baby. I’m far too busy.” Amira took a step back and rattled off her denial hoping he’d believe her.

  All she wanted was to create space between them, but he was closing that space, stepping in until he was close enough that she could see the flecks of color in his eyes, smell the hint of cologne he wore, feel the heat emanating off his body in waves.

  “Don’t lie to me, Amira. I know the full conditions of Isobel’s will. I know you used me and then discarded me like last year’s fashion. Besides, you forget, I know you. Intimately. I can see the changes in you, even feel them.”

  He put his hand on the small swelling of her belly, the heat of his hand imprinting through the fabric of her winter dress, all the way to her skin. There it was again, that flutter, followed by another spear of pain.

  “You don’t know me at all. And, besides, you set me up all along. You didn’t mean to go through with the wedding either, did you?”

  His lips firmed into a straight line as he maintained a silence that told her more than any words.

  “Just go. Leave me!” Amira cried on a sob.

  He removed his hand and stepped back. “This doesn’t end here. I will fight you with every last breath before I’ll allow you to keep my child.”

  On that note, he turned and began to walk away. Amira raised a hand toward him in a silent plea as the dizziness returned again, as the pain increased.

  “Brent?”

  He turned at the sound of her voice. Something wasn’t right. She was more than angry, more than defensive. She was frightened. And suddenly, so was he. She swayed, her eyelids fluttering. He closed the short distance between them in a flash, only to catch her in his arms as she lost consciousness. Gently he lowered her to the path, and cushioning her body against his own he checked her pulse, her breathing. As he did so he noticed the blood, and fear as he’d never known it before plunged through to his heart.

  By now the chopper pilot was running toward him, with a first aid kit in hand. But this was more than any first aid kit could handle. Brent knew it.

  “Call the rescue helicopter. Now!”

  Brent smoothed her hair from her face and held her to him, desperate to impart his health and vitality back into her. He’d never before prayed in his life, but suddenly he was prepared to barter anything to keep safe the small life he knew was at risk before it was too late.

  Thirteen

  Amira looked around her hospital room and fought to swallow the sorrow that threatened to choke her. She could no longer hold on to any hope that her dreams for the future would come to fruition. She’d lost it all. Her inheritance, the Fulfillment Foundation, the man she loved and above all else, her baby.

  And it was all her fault.

  Oh sure, the specialist had said even if she’d made it the day before she’d collapsed there was nothing that could have been done. That some pregnancies are simply not to be. But deep down inside she knew she could never forgive herself.

  She’d refused all visitors except Gerald. The colorful arrangements that had been delivered on a daily basis were an assault on eyes that had shed too many tears already, and she’d turned each display away, asking the nurses to move them to another room, another ward, anywhere people would appreciate them more than she.

  She stood and walked to the window, oblivious to the leaden skies and the clouds that skidded along, pushed by powerful gusts of wind. She was still a bit shaky on her legs. The hemorrhage that had taken her baby had almost taken her life. Sometimes she almost wished it had, because what was left for her now?

  The clouds burst open, the sudden downpour drenching all and sundry. Beneath the hospital, on the pathways, people scurried for cover. As she watched them, Amira had never felt more apart from the world than now.

  “Are you ready to go, my dear?”

  Gerald’s voice stirred her into movement. He sounded as if he’d aged a thousand years in the past few days. Goodness knew she felt as if she had too.

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  “Are you sure you want to go to the mansion? There’s been all sorts of speculation in the media about why you were admitted to hospital. Some have even hinted at miscarriage. They won’t leave you alone.”

  Amira flinched then forced herself to relax her shoulders and speak in level tone. “Let them speculate. Before long I’ll be old news.”

  She started toward the door but Gerald stopped her, gesturing to a lone card on her bedside table.

  “Don’t you want to take that with you?”

  Amira looked across the room at the colorful handmade card little Casey McLauchlan had sent when the news had broken of her hospitalization. Gerald took it off the cabinet and handed it to her, but Amira shook her head.

  “No, please leave it.”

  “But isn’t it from one of the children—?” Gerald gently laid it facedown on the bed. “Ah, I see.”

  But he didn’t see. He’d never understand how devastating it had been to receive that message of cheer from a child she’d promised the earth and then let down. She’d failed in this as she’d failed in everything. Her grandmother had been right all along.

  After Gerald had settled her back in at her apartment, he sat down in the chair next to the sofa where she’d flopped on entering.

  “I hate to bring this up now, Amira, but there’s something we really must discuss.”

  “I know. The loan. I can’t think about that right now. Please, can you defer the finance company a few more days?”

  “I’ll see what I can do, but I have to warn you that they are pressing me for a response.”

  “Gerald, please?”

  He patted her leg. “I know, my dear. I know. Now, if you’re sure there’s nothing more I can do for you right now?”

  “No. There’s nothing. Thank you for bringing me back, and thanks for arranging the meals in the fridge. I don’t think I’ll be up to going anywhere for a few days at least.”

  “Of course not,” he answered, patting her hand absently. “I’ll see myself out. Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.”

  Amira smiled in response. She wouldn’t be calling him. What she needed he simply couldn’t provide. No matter how things went in the months leading up to her birthday, she knew she’d never meet Isobel’s terms. She couldn’t bear to put herself through the fear and worry of another pregnancy just to fulfill her grandmother’s requirements; nor did she want to marry any man. The future stretched out in bleak silence ahead of her, the weight of worry about repaying the loan heavy on her mind.

  As day turned to dusk, then night, she remained where she was. Eventually she roused herself from her stupor and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As she passed her phone, she noticed the red light flashing on her message service. She pressed the button and gagged as Roland’s voice filled the air.

  “So sorry to hear about your miscarriage, darling. But never mind, if you play nice, I might still let you live with me. I’ve always fantasised about you. Would you like to hear it? Let me tell—”

  Before he could complete his poisonous suggestion, Amira ripped the machine from its socket and threw it across the room with a cry of raw pain. Shaking, she slid down the wall, collapsing at the bottom. What on earth was she going to do?

  The next day Amira roused herself into making an appearance at the foundation’s offices. Anyone looking at her in her immaculately tailored dress, stockings and high-heeled boots would never imagine the turmoil that churned inside.

  As she pushed open the front door to the office, she drew in a leveling breath, squared her shoulders and mentally rehearsed how she was going to tell her staff that it
would probably be a good time for them to start looking for new jobs. Then, that done, she’d have to find the strength to personally contact each family on their register and apologize for failing them.

  “Amira! I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been trying to call you all morning.”

  Caroline, her assistant, came racing through the main office, her face alight.

  “You’re never going to believe this. I didn’t at first myself. But it’s just wonderful, wonderful news!” Caroline bubbled with joy, her eyes gleaming and her face wreathed in a massive smile.

  “Believe what,” Amira asked. “Tell me. What’s happened?”

  Caroline’s exuberance was infectious, and for a second, Amira could forget her grief as the beginnings of an answering smile began to pull at her lips.

  “Come to my computer and see for yourself,” Caroline said, taking Amira by the arm and tugging her past the other staff who all wore similar smiles and exuded the same air of suppressed excitement. “Here, sit down.”

  Caroline pushed her into her chair and pointed to her computer screen.

  “There. See?”

  Amira stared at the screen. Caroline was logged onto their Internet banking facility, their operating account’s dismal record open for her to see. But what was that? Amira blinked to clear her eyes and looked again. That wasn’t right. The sum in the account was massive. Seven figures massive. Her scalp prickled as she realized what this meant. The foundation could go on—for a while longer at least. But surely it was a mistake. The bank must have messed up somewhere along the line.

  “Have you—?”

  “Checked with the bank? Yes. They said the money was authorized by a benefactor who wished to remain anonymous.”

  An anonymous donor. Amira slumped in her seat. Could she dare to believe it was true? That finally her campaigning and soliciting for funds had borne fruit. Forget fruit; this was a whole orchard.

  “That’s amazing,” she said weakly.

  She got to her feet to face her staff, the people who she had thought only minutes ago she’d have to turn away. Beside her, Caroline began to clap and one by one each of the Fulfillment Foundation team rose to their feet and joined her in a standing ovation.