Boss’s Heir Demand (Work Wives to Billionaires’ Wives #2)

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

M AUDE EYED HIM WARILY , her heart beating far too fast and far too hard.

He stood by the edge of the pool, his arms crossed over his broad chest, every line of his tall, powerful figure drawn tight with anger. It burned in eyes dark as the night too, turned his beautiful mouth hard, and made a muscle leap in his strong jaw.

He was dressed casually, in faded jeans that sat low on his hips and did wonderful things to his thighs, and a simple black T-shirt that clung to his muscled chest. The clothes should have made him less intimidating, but somehow they only highlighted it.

Dominic Lancaster. Her boss. Her god of the forest.

The father of her baby.

A baby she’d thought he’d never know about...at least until now.

The moment she’d locked eyes with him as she’d floated in the pool, she’d known she wasn’t going to get out of this with her secret intact. Not given how the tension that had been there that night in the forest had suddenly leapt between them again, electric and resonant.

She’d tried to stay beneath the water as he’d strolled to the edge of the pool, but his dark gaze had seen too much. She should have pretended she was a lost tourist and not given away the truth that she was his employee, but he’d surprised her. She’d been surprised too by her own reaction to him. It had been months since that night in the woods, yet the moment she’d made eye contact with him, she’d felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

She knew she shouldn’t have got angry with him. She knew she shouldn’t have called him a bastard. Her grandmother had instilled in her the importance of being polite to people and calling him a bastard wasn’t at all polite. But, God, the way he looked at her made her skin feel so tight she wanted to crawl right out of it.

And that wasn’t even counting the secret she was trying to hide from him. The secret curled up in her belly that she desperately hoped he hadn’t noticed.

Clearly she’d hoped in vain. He must have seen her stomach when she’d half stood in instinctive obedience to his command, and had made the right assumption. That was why he was so furious.

Yes, she really should have pretended to be a tourist.

It was too late for that now, though. Too late to pretend anything, even that she wasn’t the woman he’d spent the night in the forest with, not with this electricity crackling between them.

She really didn’t want to obey him, since it felt as if she’d spent her entire life doing what people told her, but she was freezing, and if she stayed any longer in the water, she’d probably die of exposure.

Also, she’d never been good at pretending.

Gritting her teeth, Maude rose slowly from the water and he watched her, fury snapping in his dark eyes. She didn’t look away, deciding she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her, no matter that she hadn’t told him about the baby. She had a stubborn streak in her, a streak her grandparents had tried first to whittle away and then to grind down, sanding off its sharp edges. Yet the moment Dominic Lancaster’s dark eyes met hers, all those sharp edges snapped back into life as if they’d always been there.

She didn’t bother to hide the rounded shape of her belly as she stepped from the pool and walked over to where her clothes lay, discarded on the grass. And she didn’t speak as she picked up her T-shirt, fighting to stay calm as she dried herself off with it.

He merely stood there, his eyes dark, that muscle in his jaw leaping and leaping. It should have been threatening, the way he stared at her. Should have cowed her, made her feel ashamed of keeping the secret of their child from him, but strangely it had the opposite effect.

It put steel in her spine. If he was going to watch her dress, then he could watch. She wasn’t going to hide herself or be ashamed. Because he was right, his hands had been all over her body, touching her hungrily and desperately. He’d wanted her and, from the growing flames in his eyes now, despite his fury, he wanted her still.

If he’d been the god of the forest that night, she’d been the goddess, and goddesses did not hide.

So she took her time, pulling her knickers up slowly, then putting on her bra. Easing into her damp T-shirt then stepping into her jeans. He watched her the whole time, saying nothing, filling the air with a complicated mixture of hunger and fury.

She sensed somehow that he wasn’t going to break the silence, that he wanted her to do it. Well, if so, too bad. If he could play silly games to keep her freezing in the water, then he could stand being the one to break the silence first.

Maude sat on the grass to put her shoes on—slowly—and only once she had did she get to her feet and stand facing him, meeting his hot black stare. She didn’t speak. She only raised an eyebrow.

A thick, crackling silence filled the space between them.

‘You’re pregnant,’ he said at last, and Maude experienced a brief thrill at making him break first.

‘Gosh, really?’ she said dryly. ‘I had no idea.’

His jaw hardened still further. He took a couple of steps towards her then stopped. ‘It’s mine.’

Again, it wasn’t a question, making his certainty needle at her. ‘Is it?’ She shrugged. ‘Actually, it could be anyone’s. There were a lot of men in the forest that night.’

Unexpectedly, he closed the distance between them and reached for her, gripping her upper arms, his fingers pressing hard against her skin, holding her fast. She tensed, staring challengingly up at him.

‘It is mine,’ he said in a low, hard voice. ‘You did not sleep with anyone else. You were with me the whole night.’

A small thread of excitement wound through her, as if she liked his anger, liked the hard press of his fingers against her skin and the black flames that leapt in his eyes, the skein of darkness that wound through his voice.

That darkness that connected to something inside her the way it had that night.

It made her breathless, made her want to push him, make him savage as she had five months earlier. She had no idea why. Perhaps it was all about trying to recreate what she’d felt that night, as if she’d shaken off the rules society had imposed on her, free of everything but nature’s own law.

‘You don’t know,’ she said. ‘I might have—’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ he interrupted fiercely. ‘Not about this.’

Get a grip. You can’t lie about your own child.

Cold shock hit her as reality reasserted itself and she realised what she was doing. She’d enjoyed flexing her power over him, but she’d let it go to her head and that was a bad thing. That night with him, she’d let the fire inside her, the darkness, overcome her good sense and that was why she was in the situation she was in now. She needed to control herself.

Maude swallowed. ‘Fine. Yes, I was the one in the forest that night and, yes, the baby is yours. I mean, probably.’

‘What do you mean “probably”?’

He was very close, his hands burning her skin, the rich, spicy scent of him, the scent of the forest, all around her. He was tall, like one of the oaks towering over her, and very powerful, and she could feel the electricity of his presence, an elemental and raw thing that seemed to put its fingers around her throat and squeeze.

‘Let me go,’ she said, suddenly needing to put some space between them, because if she didn’t get away from him, she wasn’t sure what would happen. ‘Let me go, now .’

Instantly, he released her, allowing her to take a couple of steps back. But fury in his eyes and the set of his powerful figure didn’t change.

‘Okay, okay.’ She was breathing faster than she would have liked. ‘Yes, the baby is yours.’

‘You just said probably. Do you really want me to insist on a paternity test?’

She hadn’t thought of herself as a proud person, but, as it turned out, she had a fair streak of pride in her too. ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘It was you. I was a virgin that night.’

His dark gaze flickered. ‘A virgin. That seems...apt. All things considered.’

She flushed, which annoyed her, and opened her mouth to make some retort, but he went on before she could get a word out. ‘What the hell were you doing in the forest that night?’ he demanded. ‘The staff were warned to stay away.’

‘I heard someone scream outside the cottage,’ she said defensively. ‘So I went out to check they were okay.’

‘Screaming in the context of that particular party is nothing to worry about. Again, you were told—’

‘I was worried,’ she interrupted, defensiveness giving way to anger yet again. ‘The forest isn’t exactly safe at night and I wanted to make sure no one had fallen and broken their leg.’

‘I see. And after that, you decided a little experiment with voyeurism was necessary?’

Again, she felt herself flush. Technically, he was correct, she’d been warned to stay away and she hadn’t. Also, she realised belatedly that she hadn’t thought about his perspective at all. He’d clearly thought she was a guest and had acted accordingly. He hadn’t known she wasn’t one, or that she was his employee. She’d been too caught up in the moment, in the magic of the forest and the night, and so had he.

That was why they were here, having this conversation, after all.

It’s your fault and you know it.

Maude’s jaw ached. She felt like she had at thirteen, when she’d had her one and only rebellion, and had sneaked out to a party given by one of the older kids at school. Her grandparents had somehow found out and her grandfather had come to get her, taking her by the scruff of the neck and marching her to the car. Then there had been an interrogation in his study the next day, with her grandmother standing beside his desk, arms folded. They’d had identical looks of disapproval and disappointment on their faces as they’d explained to her that she couldn’t do the things that other children could. That she had her mother’s wild blood in her and she had to be careful. She had to watch herself, had to learn to take responsibility for herself, had to learn self-control. They’d always made it clear that they were doing this for her own good, because they loved her, and so she’d tried. God knew how she’d tried, and mostly she’d succeeded.

But that night, none of the lessons had stuck.

And look what happened. Perhaps you’re just like your mother after all.

Maude ignored the snide thought. ‘I didn’t know you’d run after me,’ she said, knowing she sounded as if she was making excuses and, well... She was.

‘Yes, you did,’ he snapped. ‘You wanted me to. You wanted me to catch you, too.’

‘I was a virgin. Was I supposed to be carrying condoms, or—?’

‘I thought you were a guest. All guests had personal responsibility for their own birth control. Condoms were also provided.’

‘But not in the middle of the forest, clearly.’

He said nothing, dark eyes still burning with anger, the muscle in the side of his jaw flexing. The white stripe in his hair seemed brilliant in the sunlight, making the rest of the ink-black strands seem even darker, and she had the oddest thought that he looked like an angry badger.

‘What are you smiling at?’ he barked.

Maude hadn’t realised she was, in fact, smiling, and stopped. ‘Nothing.’

‘I’m glad someone finds this situation so amusing.’

‘It’s not that. I just... Well, you looked... For a minute... Like...an angry badger.’

He blinked. ‘A badger,’ he repeated blankly.

‘Yes. You know, with the stripe in your hair and—’

‘I’m familiar with what badgers look like, thank you very much.’ He tilted his head back slightly, looking down his aristocratic nose at her. The fury in his eyes had abated somewhat but the embers of it were burning still. ‘And as much fun as this conversation is, I think we’ve come to the end of what we need to say to each other about that night.’

Relief washed through her. ‘Oh, that’s great. Okay, well, I’ll just nip back to the—’

‘You will come back to the manor with me, Miss...’ He paused and frowned. ‘What the hell is your name?’

She was very tempted not to give it to him, but that would be pointless considering he could find out very easily anyway. ‘Maude,’ she said. ‘Maude Braithwaite.’ She took a breath. ‘And I’m sorry, but I’m not coming anywhere with you.’

Dominic couldn’t remember ever being so furious. Furious enough that during the conversation with the nymph— Maude —he’d done a terrible job of keeping a grip on his temper.

That never happened to him. Normally he allowed himself to care just enough to be mildly peeved when things didn’t go his way, but certainly not enough to provoke rage. Then again, ‘normally’ wasn’t a word that could be attributed to his current situation, since there was nothing normal about it.

She was pregnant and the child was his, and of course the child was his. The fact that she’d even had a stab at pretending otherwise had incensed him, and he wasn’t even sure why.

He wasn’t sure how she managed to get under his skin so badly, but she did. There was something about the way she’d looked at him, all suspicion with an edge of wariness, and a slight hint of disdain that just...needled at him. Then that had faded to be replaced by anger, the gold in her eyes glittering bright, only for that then to vanish and be replaced by, of all things, amusement. Then anger again. So many emotional currents moving through her lovely eyes and flowing over her delicate features like a fast-moving stream.

If he hadn’t been so furious himself he would have watched them move, captivated. But he was furious. Furious that she’d kept this pregnancy from him, and furious at himself that a) he hadn’t used any kind of protection that night in the forest, and b) he’d suspected she wasn’t a guest and he hadn’t bothered to find out who exactly she was.

When problems occurred, Dominic dealt with them swiftly, since problems left unsolved usually compounded themselves, and so he was very aware that he had to deal with this particular problem just as swiftly.

He also didn’t want to deal with it standing beside the waterfall, staring at Maude’s T-shirt clinging damply to her body, making him remember how she’d looked standing naked in the water. She’d had a forget-me-not stuck to her skin just above one soft pink nipple and he couldn’t get the sight of it out of his head.

With five months of celibacy weighing heavily on him and his grip on his temper not what it should be, being here alone with her was a bad move and one he needed to rectify.

‘Do you really want me to chase you again?’ he asked, ruthlessly tempering his tone. ‘Because we both know what happened the last time I did that.’

Her golden brows drew down and there was a long moment of silence. Then she said, ‘Okay, fine.’

Part of him was disappointed at how easily she capitulated, his body wanting yet another chase, but he ignored that part of him. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again, not considering the consequences of their last meeting.

Without another word, he turned and headed into the forest again, following the path back to the house.

Darkfell Manor had been built of grey stone in the late sixteenth century, and, in addition to the forest behind it, was surrounded by beautifully kept gardens, including a walled garden, a courtyard terrace, a formal parterre, a small orchard and a few fields.

Dominic had spent the majority of his early life here, and, after his father’s death, he’d spent a not so small fortune ripping the interior out and getting a designer to redo the entire place.

Gone were the tiny, dark servants’ quarters in the attic that his father had sometimes locked him into as a punishment. Gone were the hulking pieces of furniture that had crowded all the rooms, making him feel as if he were suffocating. Gone was the chill that had seemed to settle into his bones during winter because he’d failed in a negotiation with his father to keep the heating on.

Gone was the dark green wallpaper and the smell of old, damp stone, and the rooms that had felt as though they were echoing with the sound of his own loneliness.

Now, the manor’s stately interior was all white, with polished floors and thick silken rugs, and light flooding through the tall, mullioned windows. It smelled of the beeswax that Mrs Harris used on the wood half-panelling and the lemon furniture polish she used on everything else. And it was warm, the interior redone with the best central heating system money could buy, that he could turn on whenever he wanted.

It was a jewel now, and, if Dominic was honest with himself, he almost regretted his decision to sell it. But only almost. This was the last remaining piece of his father’s legacy and soon it would be gone, and good riddance to it.

After that, he’d finally be free.

He showed Maude into the formal sitting room with its view over the pretty parterre garden outside, sunlight flooding the windows and making the white walls glow. There was a deep window seat full of bright cushions, and a series of low white linen couches set in a box shape around the huge fireplace.

He gestured wordlessly to one of the couches and Maude sat on the edge of one of the cushions like a bird alighting on a windowsill, ready to take flight at any moment. There was a belligerent look in her eyes, which sent a strange thrill of anticipation through him, as if he was looking forward to whatever challenge she was going to throw in his way, and maybe he was.

The ennui he’d felt at the bacchanal had afterwards turned into an odd restlessness that he couldn’t pinpoint or satisfy. It had been bothering him, and maybe, if not for the pregnancy, he might have turned all his attention on seducing this mysterious, oddly alluring woman, but...

Well. There was the pregnancy.

You’re going to be a father.

The thought was cold and sharp, like a piece of thread edged with razor blades winding through his soul, cutting him in places he didn’t expect. Places he’d thought were invulnerable.

He’d never wanted children. Never wanted to be a father, not after the hell his own father had made for him. He wouldn’t have known how to be one even if he’d wanted to be anyway, yet it seemed now that he wasn’t going to be given a choice.

Perhaps that was why he was so angry. He hadn’t had a choice because she hadn’t given him one.

It’s not her fault. She wasn’t expecting anything like that to happen that night, but you were.

The accuracy of the thought was so painful he ignored it.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about the baby?’ he asked at last, after the silence had reached screaming point. ‘No, scratch that. Were you ever going to tell me about the baby?’

A flush had crept into her cheeks, turning them deep pink, making her brown eyes seem lighter. ‘No,’ she said without hesitation. ‘I wasn’t.’

That turned up the heat on his already simmering temper, but he kept a tight grip on it. ‘Bold of you to assume I wouldn’t want to know.’

‘I read a few articles about you on the Internet, Mr Lancaster.’ She was sitting straight-backed, with her hands resting on her thighs, fingers gripping her knees. ‘And from what I read, you don’t strike me as the family type.’

She wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t at all the family type. Yet the way she’d decided all of this, as if he had no say in how things were going to be, slid under his skin like a shard of glass.

She didn’t know him and when she’d found out she was pregnant, she must have realised he was the father, and had clearly made some kind of judgement call based entirely on what the media wrote about him.

She hadn’t bothered to speak to him personally, not once.

Why does it matter? When you never wanted kids in the first place? Throw some money at her and let her go on her way.

That was exactly what he should do. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Something about the rounded curve of her stomach, the vulnerability of it, the knowledge that there was a little life curled there, a life he’d helped create, had hit him hard. Had woken something possessive and territorial in him that he hadn’t known was there. He was never either possessive or territorial, since he didn’t care about anything enough, but for this baby... Apparently he cared about that.

Maybe it was a primitive response to that night in the woods, with her virginity and how it had felt to be with her, sacred almost. Or maybe it was only biology kicking him in the teeth. Either way, he didn’t like the intensity of the feeling or how it messed with his control.

‘So what type am I, then?’ he asked, still struggling to control his temper.

‘Rich.’ She said the word with distaste.

‘You don’t like rich people?’

‘Not really.’ Her stare was flat. ‘I didn’t like what I read about you either.’

‘You assume the media always tells the truth?’

She frowned. ‘There were lots of pictures of you at parties and—’

‘You don’t know anything about me, nymph,’ he interrupted gently. ‘Which means you have no idea what “type” I am.’

The belligerent expression on her face didn’t change. ‘So when was I supposed to “know” you?’ she demanded. ‘When you caught me in the forest after chasing me? Or maybe when you pulled me down on the bracken? Were we going to have a conversation about whether we wanted children or not then?’

His anger felt like a live wire, spitting sparks whenever he tried to grab hold of it, and he couldn’t stop himself from saying, ‘Perhaps if you’d bothered to tell me you weren’t one of my guests, we wouldn’t be in this position now.’

‘Well, I didn’t,’ she snapped right back, her own temper clearly not within her control either. ‘I was a little too busy being chased.’

Dominic opened his mouth to say something ill-advised, then thought better of it and closed it with a snap. This was getting them nowhere and being angry wasn’t going to help matters. Because while he might not have chosen it, the child was his. He’d had a part in creating it, regardless of whose fault it was. The baby’s presence was a fact, he couldn’t change it, and being angry with himself that he’d been so careless, that he’d let his own desires take control, was pointless. He couldn’t punish the child or Maude for his mistake.

His Greek mother had been one of his father’s many lovers, and he himself the result of one night of passion and a careless attitude to contraception. She’d had him then had left him with his father, vanishing into the ether, never to be seen again. Jacob Lancaster had been very open with him, telling Dominic that he’d been going to put him up for adoption, but had then changed his mind. He’d needed an heir and now he had one.

Except Jacob hadn’t been any kind of father to Dominic. He’d set himself up as a kind of business rival instead. Everything Dominic had wanted had had to be earned, had to be worked for or negotiated. Food. Clothes. Books. Toys.

Jacob had done this to teach him about the value of things and how to survive in the ‘real world’, where money was everything and the art of the deal the force that generated it. He’d wanted to turn his soft-hearted, sensitive son into an heir worthy of the great Lancaster Developments, with properties all over the world, that he had built up from nothing.

It had been a terrible childhood, but one thing Dominic would give Jacob: he’d become one hell of a businessman. But as to being himself a father, he had no idea how to do it, and he was too old now to learn, so claiming this baby as his was likely to be a mistake. He’d probably only end up repeating Jacob’s mistakes. But...he couldn’t walk away. Personal responsibility was something he believed in, and he was responsible for this.

‘So, what were you going to do?’ he asked at length. ‘Bring the child up yourself?’

‘Yes, actually.’ She lifted her chin, stubborn as a mule. ‘That’s exactly what I was going to do.’

‘I see. And you were going to bring up the child, in addition to your workload, here? Were you going to apply for leave to have the baby? You’re only on a year’s contract, remember, so you won’t have much. What did you think would happen afterwards? And how were you going to manage childcare? Or did you think you could fob the baby off onto Polly while you worked?’

Instantly the golden sparks in her eyes ignited. ‘I was not going to fob the baby off onto anyone! I’d only just started to think about—’

‘Only just? What are you? Twelve weeks? Thirteen? More? You’ve known about it for a good—’

‘There’s a chance of miscarriage, you bloody idiot,’ she retorted hotly. ‘I didn’t think there was much point—’

‘Not much point?’ he found himself interrupting yet again, his temper slowly slipping from his grip. ‘A child isn’t a damn puppy! You can’t just give it back if you find you don’t like it!’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ She surged to her feet. ‘If you’ve only brought me here to shout at me, then thank you but I think I’ve had enough.’ She turned to the door and took a step towards it, but before she could take another, he reached out and grabbed her arm, holding it firmly, stopping her.

She rounded on him, her face pink, the gold flecks in her eyes molten with fury, turning the warm brown into bright guinea gold. ‘How dare you?’ she spat and tried to jerk away from him.

‘Wait!’ Dominic growled, holding on tighter. He didn’t understand what was happening, how his usually expertly controlled temper had slipped so completely out of his grip. But no, of course he understood.

It was her and her temper. She was a flame and he dry tinder that kept igniting whenever she got too close.

She pulled her arm away but didn’t keep walking. Instead, she faced him, her expression pure fury. ‘Don’t you manhandle me ever again,’ she snapped furiously and then, much to his surprise, instead of leaving, she took a step closer. To him.

And Dominic found himself staring into her golden-brown eyes, watching the sparks of her fury turn into something else, feeling the air around them burst into flames with the same desire that had consumed them back in the forest that night. The same animal hunger.

He swore, then reached for her at the same time as she reached for him, and her mouth was on his before he’d even managed to close his arms around her. Hot and desperate, feverish, needy. As if she’d been as starved for him as he was for her.

He’d never experienced anything like it.

She bit his lip hard, pulling a growl from him, and then he was on one of the couches, and she was beneath him, and he was giving as good as he got, biting the softness of her full bottom lip, making her jerk beneath him as he devoured her.

She clawed at him, trying to pull aside his T-shirt as she squirmed and wriggled like an eel beneath him. He pushed his thigh between hers and leaned forward, pressing it against the sensitive place between her legs, making her gasp and writhe even more.

Then with quick, hard motions, he jerked her T-shirt up and over her head, then swiftly wrapped it around her wrists and pulled it tight, before pushing them up and over her head and down onto the cushions. Then he held them there.

She stared up at him, a golden-eyed fury, wildflowers still scattered through the heavy honey-gold skeins of her hair. The pulse at the base of her throat beat hard and fast and the heat between her thighs was insane, soaking through the denim of his jeans.

‘You want this?’ he demanded, his voice harsh gravel and rough sand.

She said nothing, but her eyes were full of anger and heat, her hips moving sensually against the hard press of his thigh.

Dominic was a businessman through and through. His father had raised him to be ruthless, and ruthless he was. He had the soul of a predator and, right now, that predator was hungry.

‘You have to tell me, nymph,’ he said. ‘And then you’ll have to make it worth my while.’