Married Again to the Millionaire. Margaret Mayo
had always been her crowning glory, was cut in a short, chunky style that suited her elfin face.
She certainly didn’t look like the mother of an energetic four-year-old. She was dressed to kill. She had come here to drop her bombshell—and she had certainly done that. It was a wonder it hadn’t exploded and brought the whole apartment block down around their feet. Above them the sky was blue and serene but inside his body a war was raging.
‘My first instinct, when I discovered that I was pregnant, was obviously to tell you,’ she said, her eyes holding his.
Intense blue eyes, eyes that he had once felt himself drowning in. Eyes which now warred with his but were extremely beautiful nevertheless.
‘But as you’d told me enough times that you didn’t want kids, not for many years anyway, I knew it would cause another unholy row between us.’ Sienna lifted her shoulders and let them drop again. ‘So I decided to bring Ethan up on my own.’
And still she looked unswervingly into his eyes.
Ethan! The boy’s name was Ethan! He rolled the name experimentally on his tongue. ‘So why are you here now?’he asked harshly, ignoring the unease he felt at her words. It was true he had never wanted children and he hadn’t been afraid to say so. But he would never have ignored a son or daughter. They would have been given his love and he would have adapted his lifestyle. He would have had to.
Could he truly have done it, though? He hated himself for admitting that he would have been truly angry that his well-ordered life had been so rudely disrupted.
‘You said it wasn’t for money.’ He pushed his thoughts to one side for the moment. ‘What other reason can there possibly be?’ He did not understand her, not one little bit. The shock still hadn’t worn off and despite the fact that he didn’t drink he felt as though he could do with a generous slug of brandy. He needed something to restore his equilibrium.
‘Because,’ she began hesitantly, for the first time lowering her lids and looking slightly uncomfortable, ‘Ethan’s been ill, very ill.’ Then she looked at him again, a proud tilt to her head, trying to hide the pain in her eyes. ‘He had meningitis and I thought I was going to lose him. I realised that if he had died and you’d never even known you had a son, I would have done you an injustice.’
Adam felt a band tighten around his heart. He felt physical pain. His son had been close to death and he had known nothing about it! The blood roared in his head and he quickly closed the space between him and Sienna, taking her shoulders, gripping them so hard that he saw her wince. But he did not care.
‘What sort of a mother are you,’ he growled, ‘denying your son his father? Especially at a time like that. How could you? I’m presuming that he’s all right now?’
Sienna nodded and swallowed hard but she did not try to pull away from him. She stood there and looked sadly into his eyes.
He saw tears, big fat tears that welled and escaped and rolled slowly down her cheeks. One half of him wanted to brush them gently away with the tip of a caring finger, the other half, the angry half, wanted to shake her to within an inch of her life.
In the end he did neither. He released her and, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, pushed it into her hand. Then he turned away, contemplating the London skyline instead. Not that he saw anything. His eyes were blinded by fury, by disappointment, by the knowledge that his son, his own flesh and blood, had lain at death’s door and he had been left in ignorance.
Adam felt a lump in his throat and an odd feeling he could not put a name to. He was not usually an emotional man, keeping an iron control over his feelings. He had a ruthless work ethic and it often crept into his home life as well. And yet Sienna had found a chink in his armour. She had hit him hard with this fresh piece of information.
Accepting the fact that he had a son had been bad enough, but to hear that he had almost died knocked him for six. How long he stood there staring into space he didn’t know. It was not until he heard Sienna’s tentative voice behind him that he snapped himself back to the present and turned to look at her.
Her eyes, which were sometimes more turquoise than blue, were incredibly pale at this moment. ‘I’m sorry.’ And her voice was so low as to be almost inaudible.
‘Pray tell me,’ he growled, breathing hard and looking fiercely into her face. ‘Would you have ever told me if—if my son—’ he wanted to say the name Ethan but he couldn’t get his head round it yet ‘—hadn’t fallen ill?’
‘I don’t know,’ answered Sienna quietly, still not taking her eyes away from his. ‘I honestly don’t know. But your reaction tells me that I did the right thing. You still don’t want children, do you? You still put your work first.’
Adam didn’t answer. She was so damned right that he felt guilty.
‘Ethan would have had no father figure to look up to if we had stayed and lived with you. He’d be in bed when you got home and you’d have left for your office before he rose each morning. Not an ideal life for a child.’
She paused but he still didn’t answer, he couldn’t answer. Every word she spoke was the absolute truth.
‘But,’ she continued, ‘I think he should know who his father is. Just as I think you should meet Ethan. We can still carry on living our separate lives.’
‘In other words,’ he growled, hating the scenario she had described, even though it was probably true, ‘you will now be well within your rights to claim money from me. Just as I thought.’
‘Damn you, Adam Bannerman! I want nothing from you except a father’s love for his child. I might have known it was too much to expect.’ Her eyes glittered as she swung around on her dangerously high heels.
The next second he heard a sharp crack and Sienna stumbled as one of her heels snapped off. He moved like lightning and caught her before she hit the floor, wrapping his arms around her and jerking her hard against him.
He had forgotten what she felt like. And what she smelled like. A summer’s evening after rain. A delicate fragrance that briefly drugged his senses. She had grown into a beautiful, sensual woman.
He felt himself grow hard and quickly thrust her away from him. Damn! Sienna had just devastated him with her news. He should be hating her, not feeling raw hunger.
Neither did he want her to know that she still had the power to arouse him in case she used it to her advantage. He still wasn’t entirely sure that her sole reason for coming there was to tell him about Ethan’s illness. Why do something like that after the event? There had to be more to it.
Sienna felt stupid. If she hadn’t moved so quickly she wouldn’t have broken her heel. What was she to do now? Walk home barefoot? Hobble? Call a taxi—which she could ill afford?
She had borrowed the shoes from a friend, now she would have to pay for a new pair. But not only had she ruined a shoe, it was her dignity as well. She should have known it was a bad idea. Adam had reacted in exactly the way she had expected him to.
She glared at him as she slipped off her other shoe and marched indoors. She did not want to spend another minute in his suffocating presence.
‘Where do you think you are going?’ Adam’s harsh voice sounded over her shoulder.
‘Home.’ That one single word was as much as she could muster.
‘And how far are you going to get without shoes on your feet?’ he wanted to know. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sienna.’
‘So what am I supposed to do?’ she asked angrily, turning to face him. ‘Perhaps you’d like to pay for a taxi?’
‘I could do that,’ he said slowly. ‘Or I could take you myself. And meet this boy I am supposed to have fathered.’
His eyes met and held hers but Sienna saw red. ‘Supposed?’ she queried, her eyes flashing hot sparks. ‘Thanks for your offer, but no thanks. If and when