One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents (11 page)

They viewed many of the private treasures that weren't available for public scrutiny, and by the time they reached the narrow staircase leading to the turret he had relaxed a little. She had shown such interest in everything, asking him probing questions about how his ancestors came by such riches, which had made him smile in spite of everything. But now they had reached the only part of the tour that really mattered to him. He was certain that when she saw what he had prepared for her she would forget her newfound determination to defy him and come back to him with all the softness of his mouse, and all the love in her eyes he had been accustomed to seeing before hard-edged had become a bad habit.

It was the most romantic setting Carrie could have imagined…a tiny turret room at the very top of a tower where the light was perfect. She knew it was perfect before she even asked Nico the question. ‘North-facing?'

‘The perfect aspect for an artist's studio,' he confirmed, watching her closely.

Carrie's excitement abruptly died. Nico must have done his research well to be so sure of her response. Like everything else he had made it his business to find out about her before bringing her here. He had never cared enough to do that before. Carrie's suspicions were coloured with sadness as she looked around. It was so easy to think she could switch off her feelings for Nico, but she never could. If only this could have been one of those happy moments without strings attached, the type of moment she had never known with him.

But now? Everything in his manner warned her there was more to this than met the eye. When was Nico ever so strung out, unless he was waiting for sex? Though she sensed something very different was driving him now.

‘Please disregard the mess left behind by a previous tenant…'

He was trying to make a joke of it, but even he couldn't force humour into this situation. Noticing the jumble of unused articles stacked against the wall for the first time, Carrie realised that she had only seen the potential for an artist's studio when she had walked in. Nico was right about the room being perfect for that. The views stretched for miles around, and space and light like this were everything she had ever dreamed of. But he knew it, and was using it as a lever.

A lever for what? To make her his official mistress, perhaps? Madam Carrie Pompadour of Niroli? Carrie tried to smile, but, like Nico, she was a million miles away.

As Nico stood watching her Carrie knew he was waiting for her to say something. What could she say? He was everything she had ever wanted; she didn't need anything else. Her honest response to this clumsy gift was a heavy, leaden feeling in her heart. It wasn't enough, and if it had been it had come far too late.

‘What do you think?' he prompted.

‘I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think. What are you offering, Nico? A studio I can visit from time to time?' Carrie shook her head sadly. ‘What?'

Nico's eyes narrowed with affront, shattering her heart in a million little pieces. He wasn't used to his gifts being rejected, and he'd had little time to organise this ‘gift,' making it all the more valuable in his eyes. Perhaps if there had been more time he would have found an easel, palette and paints…a larger bribe. But a bribe for what? To accomplish what? For her to be in his bed when he wanted her? Had he even registered what she had told him about the baby?

‘I've ordered oil paints for you…'

The fact that he had read her so well only filled Carrie with more dread. Nico was always one step ahead of her. When she returned home she had planned to rent a small place, and had envisioned a north-facing room just like this one where she would paint in great swathes of colour…She was determined that her child would inhabit a brightly coloured world, not a dull grey world without the chance of a dream coming true.

She couldn't afford to waste another moment of her time on pointless quests, Carrie realised. Hugging her stomach protectively, she took one last look around.

Her simple gesture caught him by surprise. Always, she thought first of the child, and only then herself. He found himself overwhelmed by emotion, so many of them, and all of them new to him…He felt wonder and tenderness and excitement, along with a deeply primitive urge to share the remaining months of Carrie's pregnancy with her and then to raise their child and have the baby live beneath his protection. She couldn't take that from him, he wouldn't let her. ‘This is for you,' he stressed impatiently when she didn't turn to him right away. ‘I did it for you,' he said again, waiting for her to enthuse. ‘I just want you to be happy.'

‘Happy…'

‘You're going to be a mother soon.'

Carrie's heart soared. So he had accepted that, at least.

‘And it is my child?' His brows furrowed.

‘You must know it is…' Her confidence faltered as she looked at him. ‘Nico, there's something you aren't telling me, isn't there?'

‘Maybe,' he admitted.

‘So what is it?' She felt fear in the silence that stretched before he spoke.

‘After an illness I suffered as a boy the doctors told me I would always be infertile.'

Carrie's eyes widened in amazement. It was Nico's turn to be speaking too loud and too fast, but she now understood so much about him. ‘And now?' she said gently.

‘Now I know I'm not.'

‘How?' she asked, her compassion for him blinding her to the obvious.

‘A test.'

He was holding on to her gaze like a life raft, and then he grew guarded again, as if he expected her to find fault with him now.

But that was so far from her thinking it didn't even register on the scale. Recognising his Achilles heel, she reached out to him. ‘Oh, Nico…' Taking his work-roughened hands in hers, Carrie brought them to her face and laid her cheek against them.

T
HE MOMENT
Carrie softened towards him Nico rejoiced. ‘You could be carrying my baby…'As he said the words he barely knew how to contain his joy. The test had changed his whole outlook on the world…on Carrie, on him, on everything.

‘Could be?' Her voice was still gentle, still low, but anxiety had broken through.

‘And if you are,' he went on, brushing aside her concerns, ‘you'll stay with me—'

‘Is that an invitation,' she said more firmly, ‘or are you forbidding me from leaving you, Nico?'

He was surprised by the change in her, especially after she had shown him so much tenderness. He should have expected it. And after the way she had behaved last night he should have been prepared for it. He wished he could pinpoint the moment Carrie had changed and wind back the spool to a time when she had been more accommodating. But whatever she said, there was no scope for compromise; agreement with his plan was the only course open to her.

‘I thought…I hoped,' she amended, ‘that when I finally convinced you about our baby you would rejoice as I have done—'

‘And I am rejoicing,' he assured her.

She remained unconvinced, and turned away from him to stare out of the window.

She wasn't seeing the view. She couldn't see anything from the turret except the dust and grime of neglect. The studio was an afterthought; she was an afterthought, and the only thing Nico cared about was becoming a father.

‘Obviously, I can't know for sure if I'm the father of your child until the baby is born,' he said, breaking the silence with harsh fact.

‘And then?' She turned back to face him.

‘And then a simple test can be performed. The whole procedure is quick and painless…a swab inside the cheek…samples delivered for analysis…results available quickly…By return, in fact, because—'

‘Because you're a member of the royal family?' she supplied, staring out of the window again.

‘Don't make this any harder than it has to be, Carrie—'

‘Harder?' She looked at him, puzzled.

‘You don't seem to realise what I'm offering you.'

‘You want me to take a test. I think I got that part.'

As she looked at him he saw a variety of emotions colour her gaze. There was affront and distress, but then she settled on the one he expected least, and didn't want, and that was pity. ‘I thought this was what you wanted…' He gestured around the room.

It was as far from what she wanted as it was possible to get. But whatever Nico said, however deeply he cut into the love she felt for him, she would never find a way to excise him from her heart. That was a fact she had to live with. And perhaps he was right, perhaps she was being unreasonable. Wasn't this why she had come to Niroli? Nico was on the point of accepting their child, so shouldn't she forget about how she felt about their relationship and think about the baby?

‘You wouldn't have to stay in Niroli if the test proved negative,' he went on, as if she had already agreed.

If the test proved negative?
Was he serious? Did he think there was the remotest chance she would lie to him now? It saddened her to think how little Nico knew her. She knew him. She knew he had felt his infertility like a missing limb, and that he had wanted a child so badly it had coloured his whole life, making him court danger like a man with nothing to lose. His harsh manner was aimed at warding off anyone who might come too close to him, anyone who might discover his secret, the secret of his infertility. ‘You must decide what you want to do—' He cut her off before she could say the rest.

‘I'm glad you understand,' he said as if he were closing a deal. ‘And when the baby's born there'll be another simple test—'

Carrie held up her hand to silence him. Everything in her rebelled against the thought of some unnecessary procedure being carried out on a newborn infant.

‘It's a simple, non-invasive test,' Nico went on, reading her thoughts. ‘It involves blood being taken from the baby's umbilical cord—'

She wasn't hearing him. She wouldn't listen.

She rounded on him then, her face contorted with passion. ‘You don't get it, do you, Nico? It's
my
baby…mine and yours! And I won't allow our baby to be subjected to a barrage of tests just to prove something I already know!'

The strength of her reaction shocked him. She was shouting at him in a way he would never have dreamed she was capable of, and when he took a step towards her she waved her arms in his face to drive him away.

‘Don't touch me, Nico! I've heard enough! I thought you wanted to talk to me because you were keen to work out the best way forward for our baby, but instead you insult me and our child with your talk of tests. You don't believe me!' she shouted when he tried to take hold of her. ‘You don't believe me!' she repeated bitterly, wrenching herself free.

‘Calm down, Carrie! This can't be good for the baby—'

She went instantly still, so still she frightened him. ‘Don't you dare express concern for my child, when you're not fit to be a father!'

He'd heard pregnancy drove emotion to fever pitch in women, but he'd never realised what it could be like. He waited as she hugged herself for her shoulders to relax before trying again. ‘I'm trying to make this easy for you, Carrie—'

‘Easy?' she said incredulously, swinging round.

‘I have accepted the fact that you are pregnant,' he said patiently, ‘I have also accepted the fact that you might be carrying my baby—'

‘Might?' she interrupted. ‘Might be carrying your baby? You have accepted that? Why, that's very good of you, Nico—'

‘I want you to be happy, Carrie—' He was forced to stop as her eyes filled with tears. After her anger it was like a pendulum swinging too violently, first one way and then the other. And as she gazed around the room in the turret where he'd made his clumsy attempt to keep her in Niroli guilt hit him like a sledgehammer. ‘Please listen to what I have to say.'

‘No, Nico.' She shook her head, calmer now. ‘You've got nothing to say that I want to hear.'

When she went to move past he dragged her close, but she remained stiff and unresponsive.

‘Let me go, Nico. We're finished here.'

He couldn't let her go. ‘Not until you agree to my terms.'

‘Your terms?' She looked at him sadly.

He let her go. He released her arms and stood back. He had never used his strength against a woman in his life. ‘I'm offering you a home, Carrie—'

‘Like a stray dog?'

‘Like the woman who might be carrying my child. You don't have a home in London, and you have very little money—'

‘Your investigations do you credit, Nico.'

‘Did you expect me to sit back and do nothing?'

She shook her head, too miserable to say a word.

‘I've made plans.' He wanted to see her smile again and knew she would see the sense in them. ‘We'll announce our engagement right away, and then be married shortly after that.'

Nico was proposing marriage to her? Carrie's mind reeled. And then she realised he was waiting for her answer.

‘It makes sense, Carrie,' he insisted.

‘You say marriage makes sense?' She was vaguely aware that he was nodding his head, encouraging her on. ‘And what comes next, Nico?' She looked at him. ‘A speedy divorce? Or, better still, an annulment? And what happens if the tests prove you are not the father of my child?'

‘Is that a possibility?'

‘If the tests are carried out in Niroli I should think anything is possible for a member of the royal family.'

He reared back at her accusation. ‘Please don't insult me, or my country.'

‘Don't you insult me with your shoddy suggestion of a meaningless engagement and a loveless marriage!'

‘Perhaps I should reassure you that Niroli has a state-of the-art hospital where everything will be carried out without the donors even being named. There will be no interference with the samples, I give you my word. And I would never agree to a procedure that might inflict discomfort on a baby.'

‘On
our
baby,' she corrected him.

It was time for her to face facts. Nothing had changed as far as Nico was concerned. A side of him she had always believed existed had made a fleeting appearance, but she had always been in danger of believing what she wanted to believe where Nico was concerned. He had asked her to become his wife, which was a dream come true, except that dream was now a nightmare. His offer was nothing more than a tactic to hold her in place until their baby was born and Nico could find out if he was the father. ‘You don't have to marry me,' she assured him. ‘All I want is that you acknowledge our child—'

‘If the child is mine you can have anything you want.'

If if if!
‘I've told you I don't want anything!'

‘So you don't want royal protection for your baby?'

All the old fears returned. Everything paled in the face of her baby's safety, and her budget would never stretch to the type of security Nico was talking about.

‘Any child of the royal family would receive protection as a matter of course,' he went on smoothly.

Whatever she did for her child would never be enough. She needed professional help with protection and that cost more money than she had. ‘Can't a formal agreement be drawn up between us to allow for security measures to be put in place?'

‘A formal agreement? Marriage is a formal agreement, and under the terms of that agreement any child of ours will be entitled to protection under the legislation of Niroli.'

Carrie felt the blood drain from her face. Nico had thought of everything and spoke so glibly about marriage. He made it sound like any other business contract with nothing more than legalese to bind them together. She already thought of herself and the baby as one entity, one family, while Nico was still looking at the future from the viewpoint of an individual. ‘I don't want to marry you, Nico.'

‘What?' His expression turned black. ‘Why not?'

‘Because you don't love me.'

‘What has love got to do with this? I thought you wanted security for your child.'

The mockery of a loveless marriage…was that what Nico thought she wanted? Surely, everyone wanted and deserved to be loved? ‘So, we'd enter into a marriage of convenience to tie everything up neatly?'

‘Exactly,' he said with relief.

‘But I don't want that.'

He was growing impatient. This should have been straightforward. He was offering Carrie a brilliant match. A family was everything he had ever wanted, and as far as he could see this was the perfect contract with benefits on both sides. The tests were essential; he had no intention of taking any unnecessary chances. A marriage was easily dissolved, but he could not acknowledge a child until he was certain.

‘This is how it's going to be,' he said, feeling sure Carrie must be reassured by the thought he had put into his plan. ‘You will agree to marry me in order that your child is protected. I'll take care of your baby, Carrie, whatever the out come of the test.' From her expression he couldn't be sure that she had grasped the significance of his offer. ‘Whether the child is mine or not,' he stressed, ‘you will both have my protection.'

‘And if I don't agree?' she said quietly.

He couldn't believe she was still prevaricating. ‘You agree, or you have nothing,' he said bluntly.

‘And this offer of marriage is not because you love me, but because you won't take the chance of a royal baby being born out of wedlock?'

Her analysis of the situation was bitingly correct. ‘It's your decision.' He eased off, confident now of the outcome. No woman would walk away from the wealth and status he was offering her.

The very last thing he expected was for Carrie's face to darken with anger.

‘You still think this is about money, don't you, Nico?' Before he had chance to answer that, she added, ‘Money means nothing to me, and as for your royal status…'A look was enough.

‘Brave words, Carrie, but haven't you forgotten something?'

‘My child? My baby is always at the forefront of my mind, Nico. By refusing your offer of marriage I'm protecting my baby from a man who doesn't know how to love. Don't you think I know that the only reason you've asked me to marry you is because you can't be certain whether or not I'm carrying your heir?'

‘I'm not prepared to enter into a discussion,' he said flatly, ‘Those are my terms. You can take them, or leave them.'

‘Then, I'll leave them,' she told him with contempt. ‘And please don't trouble yourself with my transport arrangements. I can find my way to the airport without your help, too.'