Their Secret Baby (14 page)

She must have drifted off to sleep because the next time she became aware of anything was when Rhys came back into the room, bringing with him the calm, smiling woman who was the local doctor.

But all the calm and the smiles in the world couldn’t prepare Caitlin for the results of the examination. The diagnosis that turned her fearful suspicions to terrible reality.

‘I
CAN’T
be pregnant! I just can’t!’

But Dr Collins was not to be swayed. She simply smiled some more, and patted Caitlin’s hand in her calm and reassuring way.

‘I think you’ll find you can, my dear. I know it’s obviously come as a shock to you right now, but once you’ve adjusted to the idea I’m sure you’ll be thrilled. And after all, it’s not as if you’ll be on your own to cope with this. From what I’ve seen of your young man, if the way he’s been dealing with your little girl is anything to go by, he’ll be a wonderful help when the new little one arrives.’

By the time Caitlin had recovered from hearing Rhys described as her ‘young man’ the doctor had gone and could be heard chatting to the ‘young man’ himself in the hall as she said goodbye.

And now she had to face Rhys, knowing that he’d been told the news.

Caitlin’s insides felt as if someone was tap-dancing all over them while her nerves tied themselves into tight, painful knots that twisted harder and harder with each repetition of the word
pregnant
inside her mind.

Pregnant.

With
Rhys’s
child.

Under the cover of the bedclothes her hand crept over the softness of her stomach, still totally flat and showing no sign at all of the momentous event that had happened. In spite of herself her expression softened and she found herself imagining the small baby that was already forming inside her.

Rhys’s child. Her child.
Their
child.

‘I brought you some dry toast because the doctor said that might help with the sickness.’

Rhys’s voice sounded from the door, coolly cynical and slashing into the brief, happy dream she had allowed herself.

‘So it seems that we’re going to be parents.’

Caitlin’s eyes flew open to clash with Rhys’s cold, assessing blue stare, and she felt all the wonder and contentment seep away from her like air from a punctured tyre. That had been the dream. This was the reality.

She was going to have a baby with Rhys. With the man who, she was now forced to admit if only to herself, had stolen her heart and offered her nothing in return. A man who had slept with her on the night they had made that baby purely for the most selfish reasons, because he wanted to leave her vulnerable to him so that he could get his hands on Fleur. Well, she was vulnerable to him now all right. As vulnerable as she could possibly be.

And, knowing how Rhys had fought to get custody of Fleur, she could have little doubt that he would come after this baby in the same way.

‘She told you, then?’

‘She asked if I was the “daddy,”’ Rhys returned, still in that bleakly cynical tone.

‘And you said…?’

‘What do you think I said? I said yes, of course—because I am, aren’t I?’

He looked at her sharply, blue eyes probing the pallor of her face.

‘I
am
the daddy, aren’t I?’

In a fury of indignation, Caitlin picked up a piece of toast and flung it at him, feeling a rush of satisfaction when it hit him squarely on the chest, leaving brown speckled crumbs all over his pale blue shirt.

‘Of course you damn well are. Who else could be? I don’t exactly making a habit of sleeping with strange men the first night I go out with them.’

‘But in my case you made an exception?’

It was openly taunting, something she had to struggle to ignore.

‘You didn’t go for the morning-after pill, then?’

‘If you remember, the “morning after” was interrupted by Mandy bringing Fleur round to my house. And then other things intervened…’

She knew from the look on his face that he was recalling how those ‘other things’ had included the way she had been forced to tell him that she believed Fleur was not his child.

‘After that, neither of us was thinking too clearly.’

‘Well, I’m thinking pretty damn clearly now—and what I’m wondering is were you ever going to tell me? If I hadn’t turned up here today, would you have let me know?’

‘I’ve barely had time to realise it for myself, let alone decide what I’m going to do.’

‘Not I,’ Rhys corrected sternly. ‘We.’

‘We?’

The implications of that single syllable had Caitlin leaning weakly back against the pillows in a moment of total shock.

‘What do you mean, we?’

‘Oh, come on, Caitlin!’ Rhys scorned. ‘You are not that ill—or that stupid! You know perfectly well what I mean. It takes two to tango—or, in this case, to make a baby. And, as I was intimately involved in this start of this, then I’m going to stay around to the bitter end.’

‘Bitter end’ made her wince and despairing tears sting her eyes. It had a terribly dark, cynical sound to it.

‘I don’t think there’s any need for that—’

‘And I think there’s every need for it, sweet Caitlin. This at least is a baby I
know
is mine! You might wish that it were the child of your unforgettable lover Joshua, but I’m afraid that, unless you believe that he somehow resurrected himself in order to get you pregnant, the blame all lies with me. And I’m staking my claim loud and clear right from the start. There isn’t any way I’m letting this child be taken away from me.’

‘I—I’ll let you see—’ Caitlin began, but he cut her off, shaking his dark head adamantly as he strode into the room, coming to sit on the edge of the bed.

‘Oh, no, my darling. I’m not making do with that. Amelie deprived me of months of Fleur’s life—I might never even have found out that she was born if a mutual friend hadn’t told me. I have no intention of going through that again. This time I want everything signed and sealed—legally.’

The painful tears were pushing at the backs of Caitlin’s eyes once again and she bent her head to hide them, nervously pleating the sheet over and over in her fingers.

He sounded as if he was discussing some business deal, an important sale in his art-dealing business, not the future of herself and her child—their child. He was cold as ice, clear-headed and totally uninvolved, while her thoughts were fuzzy with weakness and shock, and all her senses were on high alert to the fact that he was there, sitting just inches away.

The sound of his voice was in her ears, the scent of his skin in her nostrils. And in the bright afternoon sunlight that slanted through the window his hair and eyes had a new, almost fierce strength of colour about them, one that brought him stunningly, vividly alive in her mind and in her heart.

But to him, she doubted if she existed as a person. Except as the person who was carrying his precious child.

‘So you want me to see a solicitor?’ she managed and was stunned when he shook his head again firmly.

‘No solicitor,’ he declared inflexibly. ‘I want this done properly—with a registrar and a priest…’

It took several long, stunned seconds for the truth to dawn on her. Several disturbing moments in which her mind went blank then cleared again, but when she considered what he might really mean she couldn’t quite believe it was possible.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Of course you know damn well what I’m talking about! You’re not cutting me out of this child’s life, Caitlin!’

She looked as if she’d just received a death sentence rather than a marriage proposal, Rhys reflected ruefully. And no doubt to her it felt very much like that. Probably the only proposal she had ever wanted to hear had been one from her beloved Josh, and that was never going to happen.

And he hadn’t exactly
proposed
. Not in the romantic way that he suspected every woman would truly want to be proposed to. But he was in no mood to negotiate. No mood for thinking up niceties and dressing up his feelings in delicate words.

Caitlin was pregnant. Pregnant with a child that this time he knew for sure was his. He wasn’t going to risk her keeping that child from him as Amelie had.

Besides, he wanted her to be with him, in his future, so desperately, and he had just been handed the perfect lever with which to manoeuvre her into his life. To tie the knot and have it all signed, sealed and official. And he just hadn’t been able to resist grabbing it with both hands.

But if he wasn’t careful he might push her into refusing to have anything to do with him ever again—let alone agreeing to be his wife. She was on the edge of doing just that, he knew. It was etched onto her face, clouding the burning golden eyes.

She was about to reject the idea of marriage, or anything. He needed some way of forcing her hand. Something that would buy him her agreement. And then, when she was his wife, maybe, in time, she could come to care for him.

Then he remembered something, something that he prayed might give him the extra edge he needed.

‘Hang on a minute,’ he muttered, getting to his feet.

Leaving her staring bemusedly after him, he ran down the stairs, collecting something from the hall and making his way back up to the bedroom, where he dumped the bulging suitcase on the floor in full view of the bed.

‘So tell me about this,’ he said.

He’d hit the right spot; the way her face changed told him that. He wouldn’t have thought it was possible for her skin to grow any paler, but when she looked at the case her face became ashen white, her lips almost bloodless. ‘I—’

‘Where were you planning on going with this?’

Her reply was so soft-voiced and muffled that he couldn’t catch it.

‘Where?’

‘London! And yes, damn you—yes! I
was
coming to see you.’

He struggled not to let the smile that was growing inside escape onto his face. She would only interpret it as triumph and that would ruin everything.

‘And why?’

She glared at him the way a wild cat caught in a trap might glare at its captor, knowing all the while that there was no escape.

‘I’d thought some more about your—your offer.’

‘To look after you and Fleur?’

Her nod was mute and reluctant, her mouth set into a stubborn line.

‘You were going to come and live with me in London?’

Again she nodded, still silent, still glaring, though perhaps a little less fiercely.

This time he did let himself smile. The satisfaction was too great to hold it back.

‘So what’s the difference now? You were going to do it anyway.’

‘The difference is—you
know
what the difference is!’

‘The difference is the fact that this time I want marriage?’

She didn’t need to answer. The look she turned on him said it all.

‘But that’s how it has to be, Caitlin.’

Deliberately he hardened his voice, needing to drive this home to her so that there could be no possible mistake, no chance of misunderstanding.

‘I almost lost Fleur—I’m not going through that again. This baby is my child—and I am going to be its father. Physically, emotionally, legally—I will settle for nothing less.’

Still she resisted him. Her delicate jaw had set stubbornly and her amber eyes burned with defiance, though a little less fiercely than before. Sensing she was weakening, he pressed home his advantage.

‘What is it, darling—was my proposal not romantic enough for you? Would you prefer it if I went down on one knee?’

Was that what she had expected Josh to do? Hell, but that rat had hurt her so badly!

‘I will do if you want…’

That got to her.

‘No!’ she said sharply, reaching out a hand as if to stop him if he so much as tried it. ‘No! There’s no need for that!’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘We don’t have any need for such nonsense, do we? Not when there are two small children—well, one small child and the tiniest beginnings of another—depending on us.’

‘But Fleur—what if…?’

She couldn’t complete the sentence but she didn’t have to. He knew the way that her thoughts were heading without it having to be said.

‘I have something for you,’ he said, putting a hand into his jacket pocket and pulling out the solicitor’s letter, still firmly sealed. ‘Here.’

He dropped it on the quilt in front of her, watching fixedly as she reached out slowly, picked it up, then turned to him with a bewildered frown on her face.

‘The DNA test results,’ he told her, his voice not quite as steady as he would have liked. ‘I’ve never opened it so I have no idea what it says. But it doesn’t matter now.’

‘It doesn’t?’ Her voice was little more than a croak.

‘Not if you’ll marry me. Fleur is who she is, Caitlin. And I love her for what she is. Her parentage won’t change that one way or another. If you marry me, she’ll be ours. Our daughter—our child, the same as the one you’re carrying inside you. We’ll be a family together.’

He paused, swallowing to ease the dryness of his mouth, as he ran an uneasy hand through his hair, praying she wouldn’t see the way his fingers shook.

‘Maybe one day, some time in the future, Fleur will need—or want—to know. So I’m asking you to keep that safe for her in case she ever asks for it. But I don’t want to see it. I’ll never ask. It doesn’t matter any more.’

‘That’s—that’s…’

Whatever she had been about to say was choked off as she crushed the envelope tight in her hand. A moment later she turned to him and her eyes were brilliant with unshed tears.

‘Rhys…’

But he couldn’t wait any longer. Couldn’t stand here in doubt, halfway between heaven and hell. He had to know. He had to have her answer before his mind totally blew a fuse.

‘Caitlin, say yes! Say you’ll marry me. There are two children who need us.’

‘You want me to marry you—for the babies’ sakes?’

‘For the babies’ sakes.’

If that was what it took, then he’d go along with it. For now.

‘Can you think of a better reason?’

Yes, Caitlin thought. Oh, yes. I can think of a much better reason. The one where you say you love me. That you can’t live without me. That you want me with you for the rest of your life. Children or no children. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. Till death us do part.

But that sort of proposal from Rhys would only ever happen in her dreams. ‘For the babies’ sakes’ was the only thing she was going to get.