Innocent's Secret Baby (Billionaires & One-Night Heirs, Book #1) Read online

  Apparently the great Raul did not usually stoop to holding hands, so the press had been interested.

  She’d been telling him about her father then.

  Confiding in him.

  And he had been playing her all along.

  All she had of him was this statue.

  No, Lydia corrected, in six months’ time she would have his baby.

  And Raul needed to know.

  The director finally addressed her. ‘With your permission I’m going to make a few phone calls, and then perhaps we’ll be able to see more where we’re at.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lydia agreed.

  And so must she make some calls.

  Lydia was shown to a comfortable waiting room that was more like a lounge and offered tea.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Lydia said as she took a seat. ‘Could you please close the door?’

  The door was closed and from her purse Lydia took out the business card he had given her.

  It had been three months since Lydia had heard his voice.

  The business card had had many outings, but always she’d bailed before completing his number.

  Today Lydia held her breath as she was finally put through.

  He didn’t answer.

  It was just a recording—telling her to leave a message. ‘Lasciate un messagio...’

  An anti-climax, really, and yet the sound of his voice had her folded over in the chair.

  Not because of what she had to say to him, but because of what she wanted to.

  That even while she was so terribly angry with him, it was the hurt of not seeing him, not hearing him, not touching him that refused to heal.

  She didn’t know what to do.

  How did you tell a man who would have a baby removed from a restaurant for crying that you were pregnant with his child?

  Raul would think she was calling for money.

  How could he not, given she had looked him in the eye and told him she was a gold-digger?

  And a snob.

  Oh, she had to play the part now. But she couldn’t and so rang off.

  Straighten up, she told herself, and reminded herself of the terrible things he had done.

  Raul had used her so badly.

  He had sunk to such depraved lows and she must always remember that.

  Always.

  Panic was starting to build, but Lydia took a deep breath and told herself to be practical and deal with things.

  So she straightened up in the chair and repeated the call.

  ‘Lasciate un messagio...’

  ‘Raul, this is Lydia.’

  She refused to cheapen herself by giving him dates and further details. If Raul was such a playboy that he didn’t remember her, then she wasn’t going to make things easier for him.

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  She had said it too fast and too soon, Lydia knew that, but better that than to break down.

  ‘I’ve had a few weeks to get used to the idea, and I’m actually...’ She let out her first calm breath—maybe because she’d told him now...maybe because she was speaking the truth. ‘I’m fine with it. We’ll be fine. The baby and I, I mean.’

  And she knew that had sounded too brusque.

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that I’m not calling for support, neither on an emotional nor financial front. We both know you don’t do the former, and I’ve had the statue valued and it covers the latter...’

  Not quite.

  Yes, no doubt she could squeeze him for half of his billions, but it was not the route she wanted to take. The thought of lawyers and acrimony, of whether or not he believed her, were the last things she wanted.

  ‘If you need to discuss things, then give me a call back.’

  Lydia ended the call and sat staring at her phone for a very long time.

  His reaction she could not fathom, and, for the first time since arriving back in England, Lydia felt grateful for the distance between them.

  He knew now.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SHE WAS IN a holding pattern now of her own making.

  Awaiting his response.

  Once home, Lydia had replaced the statue by her bed.

  She had decided that it was not for sale.

  Some things were more important.

  For now.

  She did not want to be like her mother, holding on to a castle she could not afford to keep, but she was not going to rush into selling it.

  Lydia checked her phone for the hundredth time, but of course it hadn’t rung.

  So she checked her email to see if anyone had responded to her many job applications.

  She’d had one interview at a museum, but there were four other applicants—no doubt all with qualifications.

  And she had an interview next week to work at one of their rival wedding venues.

  Joy.

  Not.

  The pregnancy would start to show soon.

  Who would want to take her on then?

  Lydia opened a window and leant out and looked over the land her mother’s family had owned for ever.

  The hills to the left and the fields to the right had been sold off some time ago, but if she looked ahead it was still theirs—for now.

  And she understood her mother a little better, for she knew it hurt so much to let go.

  Lydia heard the low buzz of a helicopter and looked to the sky.

  It was a familiar sound in these parts—the well-heeled left for London in the morning and returned in the evening, but usually later than now.

  Occasionally there was an air ambulance or a tourist.

  Except this helicopter hovered over the castle and the buzzing sound grew louder.

  She could see the grass in the meadow moving in the swirl the rotors created.

  It was Raul who was descending, Lydia knew.

  Not for her.

  He’d had weeks and months to find her.

  No, she had dropped the baby bombshell and he had responded immediately.

  He was here about their child.

  Her breath quickened as he climbed out. He was wearing a dark suit and tie and shades. He looked completely together as he strode across the land with purpose and she watched him.

  There was no instinct to hide.

  If anything her instinct was to descend the stairs and run towards him, but that would show just how much she had missed him.

  Raul didn’t need to know that.

  And neither would she tell him that she knew about his long-running feud with Bastiano.

  Yes, Lydia was far from innocent now.

  Knowledge was power, and she would use it wisely.

  And she would never reveal how deeply she had loved.

  So she did not check her reflection, nor bother to don lip gloss. Instead she descended the circular stairs of the turret and walked through to the main entrance.

  Neither did she go through the palaver of making him knock.

  The door was heavy, but she opened it with practised ease. The days of having staff to attend to such things were long since gone.

  ‘Raul...’ She hesitated, because unlike her earlier summation she saw he wasn’t quite so together. There was a grey pallor to his face and his jaw was tense. His eyes remained hidden behind dark shades. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Then you don’t know me.’

  Those words sent a shiver of warning down her spine.

  No, she didn’t know him—but those words told her the news she had so recently broken to him was being taken very seriously indeed.

  ‘Were you already in England?’

  ‘No.’

  Raul had been walking
away from the cemetery when he had heard her message.

  ‘Oh...’ The speed of his arrival was rapid, but then she had only been privy to his casual use of his private jet but once.

  ‘I’m sorry for the shock.’

  ‘Nobody has died, Lydia.’

  Raul was right. It was a pregnancy they were dealing with, after all, not a sudden death, and yet it was surely a shock to a man like him—a confirmed bachelor, a reprobate playboy.

  Or maybe not, Lydia mused.

  Perhaps he had illegitimate children dotted all over the world, for certainly he seemed to be taking rapid control.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Of course we do,’ Lydia said. ‘That’s why I called. Come through and I’ll make some tea.’

  She would take him to the receiving room, Lydia decided. It was a little faded and empty, but it was certainly the smartest room. There she would ask him to take a seat, and then go and make some tea, and then they could calmly discuss...

  Fool.

  ‘I don’t drink tea, Lydia.’

  As she went to walk away his hand closed around the top of her arm, and Lydia actually kicked herself for thinking she could so easily dictate this.

  ‘Coffee, then?’

  She received a black smile in response.

  ‘The helicopter is waiting to take us to my jet—we shall discuss this in Venice.’

  ‘Venice?’ She shook her head, her attempt to deal with him calmly, disintegrating. ‘Absolutely not. We can talk here. My mother is at her sister’s and Maurice is gone.’

  His features did not soften.

  ‘We can go out for tea if you prefer. If that makes you feel...’

  She did not get to finish.

  ‘You think we are going to sit in some quaint café and discuss the future of our child?’

  ‘We could!’

  ‘And what time does this café close?’ He watched her jaw clench and then continued. ‘We have a lot to sort out, dear Lydia.’ The term was without endearment. ‘Did you really think you could drop a message like that on my phone and expect us to go out for afternoon tea?’

  ‘I thought we could calmly discuss—’

  ‘I am calm.’

  He didn’t sound it to Lydia.

  Oh, his words were calm, but there was an undercurrent, an energy that danced in the grand entrance hall and not even these ancient walls could contain it.

  ‘We shall speak at my home.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Okay, we’ll talk at my office.’

  ‘In Venice?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lydia, what time to you have to be at work tomorrow?’ Raul asked, guessing she probably hadn’t bothered to get a job.

  ‘That wasn’t kind.’

  ‘I’m not here to be kind.’

  She glimpsed again his power and knew this man did not fight fair.

  He proved it now.

  ‘I thought you said you were leaving home and getting a job...’ He gave a black laugh as he looked around. ‘But you’re still here, and of course you don’t need to work now.’

  ‘Raul...’ She wanted to take back that gold-digger comment, but it was way, way too late. ‘Please listen—it was an accident.’

  ‘Of course it was!’

  She could almost taste his sarcasm.

  ‘Lydia, unlike you, I do have to work—however, I have set aside an hour tomorrow at eleven for us to start to go through things. If you don’t want to fly with me, fine, but can you get yourself there, at least?’

  ‘I’m not going to be there, Raul.’

  ‘Then we do this through lawyers. Text me the name of yours.’

  He was done.

  Raul was not going to stand there and plead.

  His head was throbbing.

  The events of today—Bastiano, the revelations about his mother, his father, if Gino had even been his father, and now the fact that he himself was going to be a father...

  Hell, Raul wanted a drink.

  He did not want to be standing in some draughty old castle, rowing with a woman he wanted—even after the way she had left—to have all over again.

  Lydia turned him on.

  And, titled or not, he turned her on too.

  Raul could feel it.

  This day might end not in bed but on the floor, two minutes from now.

  But sex had got them into this hot mess and it was time for him to get out.

  ‘Lawyer up!’ he said, and turned and left.

  He was leaving, Lydia knew.

  Leaving their baby in the hands of lawyers.

  She ran out and grabbed his arm.

  ‘I’ll talk to you.’

  He looked down at her hand and shook it off, because even minimal contact he could not keep to for long.

  ‘Then go and pack,’ Raul told her. ‘If you’re not ready in five minutes we leave it to the professionals to sort out.’

  She packed—though five minutes didn’t give her much time. Especially when she wasted two of them by sitting on her bed and wondering what she should do.

  She could not bear to go back to Venice.

  Yet Lydia knew she had to.

  Somehow she had to get past the raw hurt and sort out the future of their child.

  He had hurt her so deeply, though.

  And he didn’t even know.

  Just like the jagged wound that ran down Raul’s back, just like the savage scar on Bastiano’s cheek, her pain ran deep.

  She had been used for revenge.

  It was a wound that could never properly heal.

  And yet Lydia knew she had to be adult and somehow work out terms with this difficult and complex man.

  There was the baby to focus on, and she would not be weakened by his undeniably seductive charms. The sexual energy between them had unnerved her—Lydia was still aware of her palm where she had grabbed his arm.

  But she dusted her hands together and brushed it off.

  No way!

  Worried that her mother might return and sell the statue, Lydia wrapped it in a thick jumper and packed it. Trying as she did so to not remember the night when it had been the two of them melded and heated. She swore she would not allow herself to lose her head to him again.

  No, she would not weaken.

  Lydia walked down the steps and he didn’t rush to relieve her of her case. Instead he stood impatient at the door.

  ‘Hold on,’ she said, and bent down. ‘I forgot to lock it.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ he said, and went over and took it. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Raul...’ Lydia stalled. She wanted to make things very clear. ‘I’m going to Venice only to discuss the baby.’

  ‘What else would I be bringing you there for?’ he asked. ‘Lydia, you’ve had what you wanted from me in the bedroom department.’

  ‘I just want to make it perfectly clear. I don’t want—’

  ‘Lydia, let me stop you there,’ Raul interrupted her. ‘This isn’t about your wants—we’re going to be discussing our child.’

  ‘Well, let’s keep things civil.’

  ‘Civil?’ Raul checked. ‘I thought you didn’t consider me capable.’

  ‘I meant businesslike.’

  ‘That,’ Raul responded as they walked to the waiting helicopter, ‘I can clearly be.’

  ‘Good.’

  He might just as well have painted her gold and handed her a spade as he stalked ahead with her case.

  And the last word was his.

  ‘But then, you knew that right from the start.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THERE WAS NO worse plac
e to be lonely than Venice.

  And for Lydia that theory was proved again.

  Loretta, his housekeeper, walked her along the lovely mirrored hallway, but instead of going straight ahead, Lydia was shown to the right.

  She walked along another hallway and through to an apartment within his home. Loretta brought her dinner, and it was served at a polished table on beautiful china, but though her surroundings were gorgeous Lydia ate alone.

  Raul, of course, ate out.

  Naturally she didn’t sleep, and in the morning she spent ages trying to work out what to wear.

  It wasn’t just that she had no idea what she should wear to a meeting to discuss their child’s future. Nothing was a comfortable fit.

  Lydia had no choice but to settle for the taupe dress—the one with the buttons. Only now it strained across her breasts.

  Instead of undoing a couple of buttons she put on a little cardigan.

  It would have to do.

  She loathed it that she had been pencilled in as some sixty-minute item on his to-do list.

  And she certainly hadn’t expected an audience to be in attendance!

  But as she walked into the drawing room Raul sat relaxed and chatting with a very beautiful woman.

  ‘This is Allegra,’ Raul told her. ‘My assistant.’

  Lydia, with her hackles already up and perhaps a little too used to her mother’s handling of staff, gave Allegra a cursory nod and then ignored her.

  Raul could see that Lydia was uncomfortable and he didn’t blame her for that.

  He had resisted discussing this at her home and was aware that he had the advantage, so he moved to the first point on his list.

  ‘Would you be more comfortable in a hotel?’

  ‘I don’t intend to be staying very long,’ Lydia replied coolly. ‘The apartment is sufficient.’

  Sufficient?

  She had a six-room apartment within his home.

  But Raul said nothing—just moved to the next point.

  ‘There is a property less than a mile from here that has come onto the market. Allegra has arranged a viewing for you at two today.’

  ‘Why would I need to see a property here?’ Lydia asked. ‘The baby will be raised in England.’

  ‘But I shall be seeing my baby regularly. I assume you will want to be close when I do? Especially at first.’