The Billionaire’s Baby (14 page)

‘That’s why Nan left all her money to me. And why you didn’t want me to go to Melbourne on my own. That’s it, isn’t it?’

She didn’t need her mother’s mute nod to confirm what she already knew. It had never been about her folks trying to hold her back. It had been about two parents being protective, willing to do whatever it took to hang on to their only child.

‘Your father wanted you to have the money when you turned eighteen, but I didn’t. He doesn’t know about my past. He doesn’t know that the reason it took so long before I was ready to start a family was because of the miscarriage and the hash I made of my life back then. And I wanted to shield you
from all that, to hold on to you for as long as I could. I was stupid and selfish, and I’m sorry, love. For everything.’

Shaking her head, she enveloped her mum in a hug. ‘We made a right mess of things.’

‘That we did, love.’

Feeling as if a ten-tonne weight had lifted off her shoulders, she pulled back, smiling for the first time in ages. ‘You do know this means I’m not moving back. But I plan on not being a stranger.’

Raising her cup of tea in her direction, her mum chuckled. ‘You’re always welcome. You always have been. This is your home.’

Home.

Why did that word conjure up visions of a huge house perched on a cliff, a house filled with precious, all-too-brief memories of a man she could never forget? ‘You were right about Blane, too. If he’s back in your life, he obviously was true to his word when he told us back then that he’d always love you, that he was only leaving for your own good.’

Camryn blinked, wondering if she’d heard correctly. Her mum had only ever criticised Blane, from the first moment she’d brought him home.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d spoken to him, that he’d said that?’

Not that it would have changed anything back then. She’d been so young, so idealistic, and she’d had so much anger against the guy who’d captured her heart before breaking it. Hearing he’d left for her own good would have merely exacerbated her fury at being ditched.

Her mum frowned, and her lips puckered in the disapproving ‘prune face’ she remembered from the rare detention note she’d brought home.

‘Because I’d already blurted out the truth about the money in that God-awful argument, and you wouldn’t have believed anything else I had to say.’

Her mum’s lips compressed further. ‘I made so many mistakes. I should’ve told you the truth a long time ago.’

She smiled, raising her teacup and gently clinking it with her mum’s.

‘Here’s to burying the past, digging up the future, living in the here and now.’

At the tinkle of fine china touching, she knew that was exactly what she had to do, tell Blane the truth, no matter how much her heart ached at the enormity of it.

B
LANE
strode along the riverbank, whistling an old Eagles tune and scanning the dappled shadows for Cam.

The Rainbow Creek Motel hadn’t been anything like Hotel California, but what it lacked in ambience it more than made up for with its functional rooms, which enabled the two of them to lose themselves in each other’s arms all night.

It had been incredible. It was as if stepping back in time to where they’d first met had helped them reconnect on so many levels.

‘Hey, you.’

Her soft voice startled him as she popped out from behind a towering eucalypt, her French braid unravelling, her olive top blending with the bush surrounds.

‘Hey, yourself.’

He reached out to her, taking her hands in his, caressing the backs of them before raising a hand to trace the contours of her beautiful face.

‘I have to admit, you were very mysterious about having me meet you down here, but now that we’re here…’ He glanced around, the tranquillity of the sluggish river bubbling over flat-bed rocks, the buzz of lazy dragonflies and the far-off caw of a magpie beckoned like a peaceful oasis. ‘I think you’re a genius. It’s very secluded, perfect for—’

‘Ssh.’

She planted a swift, scorching kiss on his lips, the kind of kiss to give a guy very firm ideas of what he’d like to do with his wife in all this isolated bushland.

However, before he could deepen the kiss, she broke away, her mouth twisting in a grimace, the devastation in her eyes scaring the hell out of him.

‘What’s wrong?’

He reached out for her, but she held up her hands to ward him off as a strange sense of foreboding stole through him.

She hadn’t asked him down here to indulge in a bit of afternoon delight. Far from it, if her rigid back, clenched fists and clamped lips were any indication.

Tugging on the end of her plait, she slowly raised her eyes to meet his, wide and beseeching and clouded with agony.

‘I need to make you understand,’ she said, her voice soft and tremulous.

‘Understand what?’

‘Why I’m doing this. Why we can’t be together. Why—’

‘Hold on a minute and back up. What do you mean we can’t be together?’

He couldn’t comprehend it let alone believe it. One moment they were planning to move into the house at Barwon Heads in a few weeks, the next she was ending it?

‘I can’t give you what you want,’ she blurted, her anguish audible. ‘I’ve seen the way you are with your nieces and nephews. I know how much you want kids, no matter how much you say I’ll be enough for you. And after that night in the hospital, I know I can’t go through any more procedures. I’ve been through too much already, and I can’t face any more…’ Her words petered out as she sank onto a nearby log, dropping her head in her hands.

‘We don’t have to go down that route. We can adopt. We can—’

‘No.’

Her head snapped up, her eyes bleak. ‘I’m going away. To Europe. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and I think now is a good time.’

She was running away, just like he had years earlier.

Maybe she was scared of how fast this had all happened, maybe she didn’t fully trust him yet, but she was running nonetheless.

‘I think you’re using the kids issue as an excuse,’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck till it hurt. ‘But if you need to go away, take some time to think things through, go ahead.’

‘I don’t need to do any more thinking.’

Her almost whisper had him dropping to his haunches to hear her, to be near her, to reach out and touch her in a world dangerously close to spiralling out of his control.

‘Don’t do this, Cam.’

He touched her leg, his heart sinking when she flinched away.

‘I have to. It’s the only way.’

She’d tugged so much on her plait it had unravelled, and her hair fell forward, shielding her face from him. But he didn’t need to see her expression. He could hear how much she was hurting, could see it in the defeated slump of her body.

‘Why are you really doing this?’

He had to ask, had to get answers to the questions swirling around his brain, no matter how much he wouldn’t like her response. ‘I need to know.’

Slowly, painfully, she lifted her head, pushing her hair back with a shaky hand. ‘I can’t be the wife you want me to be.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

She shook her head, trying to hide the shimmer of tears, but he’d already seen them, already felt them like a kick in the guts.

‘I’m going away so you can get on with your life.’

He wouldn’t give up on them, not when every word she uttered, every anguished line of her body told him she didn’t want to do this.

‘You are my life, Cam. It’s as simple as that.’

Bundling her into his arms, he didn’t let go, not when she stiffened, not when she tried to push him away. Instead, he cradled her close, gently shushing as the tears tumbled down her cheeks and drenched his T-shirt, rocking her back and forth until her sobs subsided.

When she’d finally quietened, he leaned back, tilting her face up.

‘I’m not a fool. I know you don’t trust me enough to believe me when I say kids aren’t an issue as long as I have you. I know you’re pushing me away out of some misplaced idea that I’ll be happier that way. But I won’t be, not unless you’re with me.’

His jaw jutted, as if challenging her to argue with him. He expected it, would take great delight in shooting down each and every crazy argument she threw his way.

To his surprise, her face softened. ‘Want to know why I brought you here?’

He didn’t need her to tell him. He remembered every twig, every rock, every leaf of this place. It was where they’d first made love, where he’d asked her to marry him.

It was a special place,
their
place, a place made for magic, a place where anything could happen.

‘Tell me,’ he said, slowly strumming her back, knowing every dip and curve intimately.

The small smile he’d glimpsed playing about her mouth while she’d darted a glance around the riverbank vanished.

‘Because this is the place it all started. And this is where it has to end.’

‘Cam—’

‘No, let me finish.’

She placed her palm against his lips, dropping it quickly when he kissed it. ‘I believed you when you came back into my life and told me why you’d walked out on us. You said you’d put my dreams ahead of your own. Well, I’m returning the favour.’

‘But that’s crazy! My dream is you.’

She shook her head, her bereft expression cutting straight to his heart and cleaving it in two.

‘I’m just a part of it. Your dream is for a family, a family as great as your own, a family filled with kids and love and laughter, and I want that for you. I want it for you so badly.’

Clutching at his T-shirt, she hauled him close, her face mere millimetres from his.

‘I love you. I’ve always loved you, and that’s why I have to do this. I need you to understand. I need you to let me go.’

He didn’t have time to respond. She crushed her lips to his in a shattering, heart-rending kiss that reached down to his very soul, leaving him yearning and devastated and vowing he’d never let her go no matter what.

Wrenching her mouth away, she hugged him close, burying her face in the crook of his neck, nuzzling him like she’d done many times before.

‘Take your trip, take as long as you like, but know this, Cam. I can’t let you go. I’m going to fight for us, for as long as it takes.’

He sensed her smile against his skin and wanted to leap up and swing her around in victory. Instead, he held her upper arms and set her back from him.

‘That’s right. Do what you have to do. But when you get back, I’m going to be waiting for you.’

Cupping his cheek, she murmured, ‘You need to follow your dream.’

‘I am.’

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, hungry gazes locked, hers stubborn, his hopeful, and as the sun set over Rainbow Creek, he hoped that when she took this trip, she wasn’t taking his hopes and dreams for the future with her.

C
AMRYN
strolled over the ancient footbridges in Venice, she sighed over dusk in Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower, she marvelled at the British architecture along Oxford and Regent Streets, but it wasn’t until she reached Rome that the futility of what she was doing struck with a vengeance.

She’d deliberately distanced herself from Blane for three months, hoping her actions would speak louder than her words.

He hadn’t believed her when she’d said they were over. He wouldn’t accept her returning the favour he once did her, so she’d done the only thing possible and stayed away despite every cell of her body straining to board the first flight back to Melbourne after his first call. And his second.

It had shattered her completely to ignore his attempts at contact, but she’d had to do it in the hope he’d move on. And now?

Looking around, watching a handsome Italian man in a designer suit strolling hand in hand with his equally gorgeous girlfriend across the piazza, she knew this wasn’t enough.

Beautiful cities steeped in culture had acted as a suitable distraction for a while, but no amount of statues and paintings by the masters or concerts by virtuosos could eradicate the great, gaping hole in her life without Blane by her side.

She’d tried, she’d really tried to do the right thing and set him free, but the thought of him waiting for her, the memory of the many times he’d told her she was enough for him, had reverberated around her head endlessly until she kept coming back to the same conclusion. She had to return home. To her husband.

Decision made, and feeling more energised than she had in months, she sipped on a deliciously frothy cappuccino, eager to return to her hotel and send Blane an email. She was going home to be with the man she loved.

Unable to keep the smile off her face, she drank quickly, glancing at her watch and trying to figure out the time difference between Rome and Melbourne, fervently hoping he’d be up so she wouldn’t have to wait too long for a reply.

However, as she finished her cappuccino, her stomach roiled unexpectedly, and she stared into her cup in disgust, wondering if the milk was off.

‘
Signorina?
Is everything all right?’

Forcing a smile for the elderly waiter when in fact she wanted to make a bolt for the Ladies, she said, ‘I’d love a glass of water, please.’

‘Bene!’

Straightening his shoulders, he beamed at her, his proud smile suggesting he’d find a well and dredge up the bucket himself. ‘Another cappuccino to go with it?’

‘No, thanks.’

As another wave of nausea hit, she slid the cup across the table towards him. ‘I’ve had enough, thanks.’

As he bustled away, she rubbed her tummy, hoping she hadn’t picked up a bug. For a girl who lived and breathed coffee, the smell of it had never made her feel like this before.

Suddenly, she sat bolt upright, clutching at the table to steady herself as a faint buzzing filled her head, making her feel faint. Something her mum had once said…about not
being able to work in Ma and Pa’s when she’d been pregnant because of the smell of coffee…

She shook her head, dismissing the ludicrous thought in an instant. There was no way she could be pregnant. Well, okay, considering what she and Blane had got up to a few months ago there was the remotest chance. Her periods had been extremely light, but she’d put that down to all the air travel she’d been doing. Was it a possibility? After all, the doctors had said it would be difficult to conceive naturally, not impossible…

Nah…it couldn’t be. But what if it was? A pure, indescribable joy rushed through her, making her want to leap from the table and run through the piazza with her arms outstretched and twirling like Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music
.

She had to find a chemist and hope her meagre Italian extended to requesting a pregnancy test.

If it was true…if the unbelievable had happened, the reunion she had planned for her husband would take on a whole new dimension.

She could hardly wait.

Blane tipped out of the hammock, stretched and glared at the laptop that had disturbed his peace. Not that it was the computer’s fault. He’d been the lazy one, too damned tired to switch it off after surfing the Net for a patio set, the call of his brand-spanking-new hammock too strong to ignore.

He’d always wanted one, the type of wide, comfy sling he could lie back in and sway, obliterating the day-to-day grind.

Until now, he’d never had the opportunity to just ‘do nothing’, nor the space. His penthouse in Melbourne wasn’t exactly a hammock kind of place.

Frowning, he glanced at the computer screen. He’d taken care of a few residual business emails earlier and had no idea who [email protected] was, the sender of the
email dropping into his inbox the offender who had disturbed his peace.

‘Caffeine chick?’

As he slid his index finger over the glossy flat mouse pad, he froze. No, it couldn’t be. Why would Cam be contacting him after all this time? From an email address he didn’t recognise?

He scanned the unopened message for clues, but there were none. The subject line was blank, and all he had to go on was the name of the sender.

The pointer hovered over the email, curiosity urging him to open it, common sense telling him to delete it unopened.

If it was from her, he didn’t want to read it, had no intention of reneging on the decision he’d made. It had taken him this long to get past the insane expectation: every time the phone had rung, he’d hoped it was her, every time the doorbell had rung, he’d willed it to be her. Crazy, seeing as she was on her overseas jaunt and had made it more than clear they were finished by ignoring every one of his attempts at contact.

She’d almost killed him that last time at Rainbow Creek, telling him she loved him but had to let him go anyway. That wasn’t love, it was madness, and he’d tried everything to convince her otherwise. But she’d still left, had effectively wiped him from her life, and it still hurt. A whole damn lot.

The loud squawk of a hungry seagull swooping nearby broke into his thoughts, and he clocked to open the email in a reflex gesture, sending the gull an angry glare a moment before realising how stupid he was being. With a sardonic chuckle, he returned his attention to the screen and focused on the brief email, his gaze instantly jumping to the name on the bottom.

Cam X.

Not Camryn. Cam. The informal name she didn’t let anyone use but him, most often in the throes of passion when he’d whispered her name. Cam. With a kiss.

Frowning, he tore his gaze away from that one, small, significant X and started at the beginning.

‘Keep dreaming’…
That was all he’d been doing for the last six years: dreaming of making something of himself for her, dreaming of offering her the world on a silver platter when they reunited, dreaming of a happy marriage with the woman he’d loved since he’d first laid eyes on her.

But she hadn’t wanted a bar of his dreams. She’d left and ignored him since to prove it. So what did she mean by ‘keep dreaming’? Was she over her funk and ready to believe in them, this time for keeps?

Sinking onto the canvas chair in front of the fold-out table where his laptop perched, he rested his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands. The urge to respond to her email was powerful. His fingers burned with it.

But he’d made a decision after that first fortnight when she’d ignored his messages. He’d give her time and space. He wouldn’t do any more chasing; he’d sit back and keep the faith, knowing that the true test of their relationship to see if she loved him enough to come back was to set her free.

He couldn’t waver now, no matter how much he wanted to respond.

There was too much at stake: their entire future.

Straightening, he stabbed at the delete key, obliterating the temptation to have a moment of weakness with one easy click.

He’d waited this long for her.

What was another week?

Camryn scanned her emails on a daily basis, hand trembling as she manoeuvred some dodgy mouse in the equally dodgy hotels she stayed in for the next seven days before returning home, heart racing, the weight of expectation making breathing difficult, the subsequent let-down almost devastating.

Blane didn’t respond. Not even a brief one-liner, not a word to hang a scrap of hope on, nothing.

Initially she’d reasoned he didn’t have to respond; she hadn’t asked him to. However, as the days dwindled along with her hopes, no amount of positive self-talk in the world could erase the gut-wrenching truth: she’d achieved her objective. He’d moved on with his life.

Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore flashed by in a kaleidoscope of bright lights, monstrous malls and skyscrapers, but nothing, not even a dazzling display of fabulous shoes in the biggest shoe shop in the world, could lighten her heart.

She trudged through the final leg of her trip, her spirits limping into Tullamarine airport on a foggy Melbourne morning, the familiar city skyline doing little to ease the permanent ache deep in her soul. Heading to the Niche would have been her first instinct, but she couldn’t face it, not today.

Valentine’s Day.

The worst day of the year had rolled around again, and, while Blane hadn’t responded, she couldn’t help but wish he’d remember today and what it entailed. The anniversary of their first meeting. The anniversary of the night he’d walked back into her life and changed it for the better.

Sighing, she hefted her suitcase off the carousel, popped
up the handle and pulled it behind her, heading for the taxi rank. No, she couldn’t face the Niche today. Time enough to face the future…tomorrow.

Blane hadn’t been back to the Docklands for over four months. He’d avoided the place, missing Cam too much, preferring to conduct the few meetings with the builders at the house or at his apartment.

However, Dirk had insisted he needed a caffeine fix at his favourite café, and he’d caved, knowing it wouldn’t be long until Cam returned and he’d have his answers then. It would be a quick meeting, their last, as the house had finally reached lock-up stage.

Reaching the café, he stopped dead, his gaze riveted to the banner bearing corny cherubs strung across the front windows.

Valentine’s Day.

Hell, he’d forgotten. In the blink of an eye he was transported back to a year ago when he’d strolled into this place and taken a chance on love again. Now, if only his wayward wife could take a chance on him…

Slamming his hand against the enormous glass door, he pushed it open and headed for the furthest table away from the cooing couples. Dirk hadn’t arrived yet, leaving him with too much time on his hands—too much time to look around, too much time to remember…

‘Hey, Blane. Long time no see. Though it’s pretty obvious why you haven’t been in, what with the boss lady traipsing around the world and all. What’ll it be?’

Glancing up, he smiled at Anna, momentarily blinded by her garish, orange, pink and purple kaftan.

‘And if you say a pair of sunglasses, I’ll spit in your coffee.’

He winced. ‘Sorry. Am I that easy to read?’

Anna propped her ample hip against a nearby stool and
sighed. ‘No. I’ve had that same look from everyone in this place today. No one appreciates a good fashion statement these days.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

He knew jack about fashion. Apart from the fact he loved Cam’s usual café outfit of tight jeans, knee-high black boots and clingy bright pink top. She made a statement all right, and, despite his vow to play things cool, he couldn’t help but look around in the vain hope she’d come strutting in here with her funky plait over one shoulder and that sassy gleam in her eyes.

‘You miss her, don’t you?’

Understatement of the year, he thought as he sat back and ran a hand over the back of his neck.

‘It’s been too long.’

‘She’s crazy about you, you know. Never seen her so happy.’

Jerking her thumb towards the banner, she said, ‘Maybe this fat guy with the bow and arrow has more talent than I give him credit for.’

Had he made Cam happy? Truly happy? The type of happiness she’d do anything to preserve and nurture and build upon?

‘She came home this morning but won’t make it in here today.’ Anna paused, tapping her gnawed pencil against the pad in her other hand. ‘Not unless she has good reason to, and maybe I’m looking at him.’

‘She’s home?’

His nonchalant act flew out the window at the news he’d been waiting for, and it took all his willpower to sit there and act casually rather than race up to her apartment.

‘I’ll bring you an espresso, and you can think about it. But I gotta warn you, the chubby cherub’s in a romantic kind of mood today, and Valentine’s Day guarantees happy endings for everyone. No use fighting it.’

A happy ending for him and Cam? He wished. Then again,
since when had he relied on wishes? He made things happen. He went out there, grabbed what he wanted, thrived on a challenge. He’d done it his whole life, first in the construction world, now with resurrecting his marriage.

So what was stopping him from making things happen with Cam? He’d stepped back, just as she’d asked, but what if playing it cool had been the wrong tactic?

What if he should have pursued her to the ends of the earth to prove how much he loved her?

He found his gaze drawn to the banner again, where Cupid seemed to be smiling down on him with an arrow aimed in his direction.

‘Go ahead, shoot,’ he muttered, glancing at the happy couples around him, drawn by the intimate smiles, the touches, the murmured sweet nothings, wanting what they had so badly.

He sat bolt upright, stunned by the simplicity of it all. He had a plan. A good one. And just like the blueprints for his house, he had to start at the ground level and build upwards, putting each step in place before he could achieve the best result.