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

Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

M AUDE LAY ON the couch beneath Dominic Lancaster’s hard, hot body, a dim part of her screaming a warning. She couldn’t quite work out how she’d got here, only that one moment they’d been shouting at each other, and she’d decided to leave, then the next she’d turned and thrown herself into his arms instead.

His mouth had been on hers and she’d still been furious.

Furious that he’d made her feel bad for how she’d acted. Furious that he’d made her feel afraid. Furious that, apparently, he wasn’t going to laugh off her being pregnant with his child and let her resume life as if nothing had happened. Furious that he’d made her feel stupid for not considering her future, when a very deep part of her was still in shock that she was pregnant at all.

Furious that she wanted him so badly it was almost painful.

It was easier to kiss him than to talk to him. Easier to bite him and scratch him than it was to swallow her fury. Easier to channel that fury into desire than to keep hold of her temper and try not to lose it, not to be at the mercy of her wilder emotions the way her grandparents had always warned her about.

The way he touched her, with firm mastery, felt so good. Made her feel as if she could rage out of control, give into her darker impulses, and it would be fine, because he was there. He was strong and powerful and he could take anything she threw at him.

The way he’d bound her wrists made her feel contained and safe, which was weird since being tied up usually indicated the opposite.

He wouldn’t hurt her, though, she knew that deep in her soul. He was the god of the forest and she was under his protection.

His dark brown eyes, so much darker than her own, bordering on black, stared down fiercely at her. Flames in them.

‘Well?’ he demanded, his rich, deep voice as dark as his eyes. ‘What’s it going to be?’

She took a gasping breath. ‘Make it worth your while? What do you mean?’

‘If it’s sex you want, I’ll give it to you. But then you will give me a calm, rational discussion about this baby.’

She did want sex. She wanted him to give it to her. But to talk about the baby... their baby...

‘You can just walk away, you know,’ she said thickly.

‘I know. But sadly for you I’m not a man who walks away from his responsibilities.’

‘You can walk away from this. I won’t hold it against you.’

‘No, but you’d rather other parts were against me, wouldn’t you?’ He shifted his thigh between her legs, pressing delicately. ‘Like this, hmm?’

Maude shuddered, the pressure causing the most exquisite pleasure. ‘You don’t want...children...’

‘How do you know? I could want a whole horde of them.’

‘But you...you don’t.’ A sound broke from her, torn from deep in her throat as he shifted again, the friction making her want to lift her hips against him.

He bent his head, his mouth close to her ear. ‘Keep telling me what I don’t want, nymph,’ he purred. ‘I’m sure you know better.’

This was insanity and she knew it. From the minute he’d shown up at the edge of the pool, watching her, she’d known it. Then being in this room, feeling as if the walls were closing in on her, because he was in it too, taking up all the space, all the air. Standing there like a king, with his arms folded, his black eyes accusing. As if she were one of his subjects and had to do what he said.

She didn’t want to do what he said. She wanted to push him as much as he was pushing her, throw all her anger and frustration at him. She’d never felt so out of control and wild as when he was close, his electric presence making her feel as if she had a million ants under her skin.

It was ridiculous. As he’d so astutely pointed out, she didn’t even know him.

Except...he made her feel so good. He made her feel alive and wild, the way the forest did, and she wasn’t sure that was a good thing. But she couldn’t think. He had his thigh right there and she was... God, it felt just right. It made her want to give him anything he wanted.

She struggled to take a breath. ‘I...okay. A calm, r-rational discussion... That’s...all?’

He shifted his thigh yet again and she writhed as sparks of pleasure shot along all her nerve endings. If this was what sex was like for everyone, then she couldn’t think why anyone ever did anything else.

‘You should have told me,’ he said in that dark voice again, purring and soft. ‘What kind of man do you think I am?’

His eyes were so dark, so deep she could fall right into them. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, she was falling and falling.

‘I...don’t know.’ She was hardly aware of what she was saying, all her awareness concentrated on that delicious pressure between her thighs and the lines of his beautiful face. ‘I looked on the Internet... Like I said...there were pictures...of you...’

‘Not father material, hmm?’ He moved and she gasped as a jolt of pure physical pleasure electrified her. ‘Is that what you thought?’

She couldn’t remember what she had thought. It was all becoming very hazy. ‘I...just wanted to do it myself,’ she said, her voice uneven. ‘I...don’t need you...t-telling me what to do.’

‘Is that right?’ For a moment he remained still, looking down at her, his dark eyes utterly impenetrable. Then abruptly he pushed himself away from her and off the couch, standing once again at his full height. ‘In that case let’s proceed straight to the discussion about the baby and you can give yourself an orgasm later.’

Maude blinked up at him, her arms still bound over her head, her legs lying open, the ache between them insistent. No. What was he doing? He couldn’t just leave her like...this... Could he?

And apparently he could, because he didn’t move, his arms folded across his broad chest, regarding her coolly, his expression giving nothing away.

A small pulse of fury hit her, that he could look so unbothered while she was lying here, desperate and hungry for him to finish what he’d started.

She swallowed and glanced down his body, looking for and finding evidence of his own arousal, pushing against the denim of his jeans.

He glanced down too, following the direction of her gaze, then shrugged, his mouth curving slightly. ‘That’s easily remedied. In the shower later.’

Bastard. He looked so unaffected while she felt...undone.

Did he want her to beg? Was that what he was doing? Or had he been offended when she’d said she didn’t need him? Was he trying to prove a point?

In which case, he could go to hell. She didn’t need him and maybe she was the one who needed to prove it.

Trying to get herself under control, Maude gave him her own version of his cool stare. ‘Untie me, then. I’m not having a discussion with you like this.’

‘Pity,’ he murmured. ‘You do make a pretty picture.’ But he reached forward and untied the T-shirt around her wrists. As the fabric fell away, Maude sat up, slightly startled to find him crouching in front of her, and before she could move, he took her wrists in his strong hands, chafing them gently.

His touch was warm and not at all sexual, and it took her by surprise. So much so that she just sat there as he glanced down at her wrists, presumably checking the blood flow.

Her grandparents weren’t physically demonstrative. There were never hugs or affectionate touches, or kisses for her. There hadn’t been comfort or reassurance. It was as if they didn’t know how to express it. The most she’d ever had out of them had been the few times when she was sick or had a cold, and her grandmother would bring her a glass of water and some watery soup in bed.

So it was a little shocking to have Dominic Lancaster crouching before her, gently coaxing the feeling back into her fingers, his dark head bent, the stripe in his hair glaring white. There was a hint of grey at his temples too.

He was very close and he smelled so good, as he had the night they’d spent together. Of the spice of the forest and good, warm earth, and something else, something inherently masculine that made her mouth water.

‘Why do you have a stripe in your hair?’ she asked, the question popping into her head and then out of her mouth without any thought.

‘I’m not sure,’ he answered, as if he’d been asked the same thing many times. ‘I’ve always had it. My mother had the same.’

She stared at the stripe, itching to put out her hand and touch it. As if touching him was natural. As if he’d already allowed it. She stopped herself, though, her hands clenching into fists. No point in encouraging him.

He noticed of course and glanced up at her, his dark eyes enigmatic. ‘If you want to touch me, nymph, you have to earn the right.’

Maude glared at him as he rose to his full height once again. ‘I don’t want to touch you.’

‘Is that why you clenched your fists? Because you don’t want to touch me?’

‘The baby,’ she said, deciding they had to get this conversation started so it could end and as soon as possible. ‘That’s what we were supposed to talk about.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured. ‘That’s right. There’s a baby. Almost forgot about that.’

‘You were the one who—’

‘I will not be cut out of my child’s life,’ he interrupted, his tone hard as iron. ‘Do you understand me? I will be involved. You might not need me, Maude Braithwaite, but my child will.’

At the sound of her name, spoken in that voice, all darkness and heat, she felt another electric pulse. As if part of her had liked what he said and wanted it, which couldn’t be true. She didn’t want him involved. Her mother had brought Maude up on her own, without any help from Maude’s father. In fact, her mother had never even told Maude who her father was, not that Maude cared.

Her grandparents had thought Sonya hadn’t done a good job with her, but, despite that, her memories of the commune were good ones. She certainly hadn’t suffered through lack of a father, and she’d make sure her own child wouldn’t suffer either.

Except the look on Dominic Lancaster’s face and the iron in his tone made it clear that he would brook no argument.

Her heart gave an odd little thump and, while she didn’t want to admit it, a part of her was almost admiring of his willingness to step up and take responsibility for his child.

However, he also was who he was. A man with too much money, who apparently liked clubs and parties, all things that Maude didn’t care about, and who almost certainly didn’t value the things she did or wouldn’t even be interested in them.

She didn’t want him to be part of her child’s life.

The child was her responsibility. She’d made a mistake, it was true, and she should have never done what she had in the forest that night. But now there would be a baby, and she couldn’t shake off the feeling that somehow this child was a gift from the forest. It had been conceived in a way that still felt magical and sacred, even now. Perhaps if the man standing in front of her had been as deeply connected with nature as she was, then she would have felt differently. But he wasn’t.

He was from the city and inhabited a different world. The same kind of world that her grandparents inhabited, and she didn’t want her child to have the same kind of upbringing she’d had. Where she’d been told what to do and how to be and how to behave. Been stuffed into the little box they’d prepared for her and never let out. Forced to grow into a shape that wasn’t her own.

She wanted her child to be free to be their own person.

How do you know he doesn’t feel the same way you do about it?

Well, here he was, already ordering her around and laying down rules, so of course he didn’t feel the same way she did. That wasn’t even a question.

‘Why do you even want a child?’ she asked belligerently.

‘I didn’t. But we can’t always get what we want, can we?’

‘Unfortunately,’ Maude muttered. ‘I can take the child away. You can’t stop me.’

He lifted one dark brow. ‘Do you really believe I can’t stop you?’

Maude wished that she didn’t, in fact, believe him, but there was a steely glint in his eyes that made her think that would be a mistake. He was a billionaire, with mountains of money and a whole bunch of lawyers on speed dial. Of course he could stop her.

He could take the child from you if he wanted to.

Something cold settled in the pit of her stomach. He had a hard edge, this man, a harder edge than she’d expected. He was rich and liked parties, but that didn’t mean he was stupid. In fact, she had a feeling he was the opposite, and that while she had a stubborn streak a mile wide, he had a ruthless one as stark as the white stripe in his hair.

‘Fine,’ she bit out, trying to mask her trepidation. ‘What kind of involvement are you talking about, then?’

‘I want the child to live with me.’ His eyes glittered. ‘And that includes you as well.’

Maude’s brown eyes widened and she blinked, her mouth opening slightly. Which satisfied Dominic far more than it should. About time he surprised her, because he was tired of her doing the same to him.

She wouldn’t like what he suggested, he knew that already.

It was a tactic of his, to make outrageous demands and then see what the response was. Usually the response was a refusal, which was then his cue to start proper negotiations. From there, he would gradually give ground until it looked to the other party as if they’d got the best deal, when, in fact, they’d ended up giving him everything he wanted.

She would refuse, he knew, and sure enough, after a moment of shocked silence, she said, ‘Are you kidding? I’m not living with you.’

There was no reason to feel a slight prick of irritation at that, yet he felt it all the same. ‘It’s not as if you’d be living on the street,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a substantial house in the middle of London and—’

‘No,’ she said before he could finish. ‘I’m definitely not living in London.’

He wanted to argue, which was insane since the next step in his tactic was to concede minor ground until he got what he actually wanted. And surely what he actually wanted was not her living with him.

But then you’ll have the child. And you’ll have her in your bed. Why not?

He could think of several very good reasons why not. He’d only suggested it because it was the most outrageous demand, and one she’d never agree to. Yet now he’d demanded it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

That moment on the sofa just before, with her writhing beneath him, obviously desperate for him, had been the most intense aphrodisiac he’d ever experienced, and it had taken almost everything he had to pull away.

But he’d never been intending to take it further. Again, she’d pricked his temper with her arguments and stubbornness, and he’d wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine, make her desperate, make her stop pushing him. Perhaps even make her beg for him.

Yet it had almost backfired on him. He’d become so distracted by the thought of her begging that his intention to stop had fallen by the wayside. At least until she’d insisted she didn’t need him and...yes, again, he’d found that unreasonably annoying.

Everything about her was unreasonably annoying.

It had taken everything he had to pull away, but he’d managed it, and her look of surprise and irritation as he’d done so had made that worth it.

Except he was still hard and he ached, and he resented both of those things. That night in the forest he’d lost control and he’d found it freeing in the moment. But that moment was gone and he didn’t want to want it again. He didn’t want to want her . Every interaction with her felt fraught, as if he were walking a tightrope between his control and her undeniable physical pull, and even the slightest wrong move would cause him to lose his balance and fall.

He’d never experienced a feeling like it and he hated it.

He hated, too, that the thought of her living with him, or, more accurately, her being in his bed, was far too tempting to ignore. He’d been so restless lately, not wanting any woman in particular, and it wasn’t until that moment on the couch that he’d realised that he did, in fact, want a particular woman: Maude.

‘What’s wrong with London?’ he asked, trying to cover his irritation.

‘I don’t like the city,’ she said. ‘I never have. And I don’t want to bring my baby—’

‘ Our baby.’

‘ The baby up in a city.’ She was glaring at him again. ‘He or she is connected to the forest and needs to grow up as part of the natural world.’

The muscles in Dominic’s neck and shoulders were getting tense. He uncrossed his arms and thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans instead. ‘The baby can visit the natural world in London,’ he said tersely. ‘There’s parks and woods, all sorts of natural phenomena.’

‘It’s in the city,’ she said insistently. ‘Those parks and woods are surrounded by houses and roads and train tracks and streets. We created the baby here and he or she needs to live here.’

Dominic stared at her, utterly bemused. Her hair was drying into a wild tangle of curls and waves, and the bedraggled remains of wildflowers were still caught in amongst the golden strands. The gold in her eyes was glittering, her delicate features flushed with temper, and she looked very much like a wild creature he’d somehow caught. There was something wild about her, too, something untamed, that made him want to catch her, tame her to his hand...

Maybe his demand that she live with him wasn’t so outrageous after all. Maybe that was what he did want, so he could have that magical experience of that night in the forest again. And again and again...

‘Well, he or she can’t live here,’ he said. ‘Because I’m selling the manor and the forest along with it.’

‘What?’ She paled. ‘But you can’t do that.’

This time her obvious shock didn’t give him any satisfaction, because if he wasn’t much mistaken that was a glint of pain in her eyes. As if he’d taken something precious from her and ground it into the dust.

‘Why not?’ he asked, feeling vaguely as if he’d made a mistake and resenting that too. ‘It’s my manor and my forest. I can do what I bloody well like with it.’

‘But...’ She stopped and her mouth compressed into a hard line, her chin jutting mutinously. ‘Who are you selling it to?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘I’ll buy it.’

He nearly laughed. ‘Oh? You have a few million pounds lying around, do you?’

She flushed. ‘No, but I’ll... I’ll save up. My grandparents were going to gift me some land further north that I was going to use to rewild. But I can sell that.’ She shoved herself off the couch after a moment, standing in front of him, all righteous indignation. ‘I’ll go to the bank and borrow as much as I can. I’ll do unpaid work. I’ll sign a contract—’

‘Why?’ he asked, cutting off the flood of words, mystified by her sudden passion. ‘Why on earth do you care so much about Darkfell?’

She was silent, biting her lip. Then she said simply, ‘I love the forest here. It feels like...like...home. Like... I belong here. The baby was conceived in the forest and so the forest is connected to it. I know that sounds strange and I don’t expect you to understand, but that connection to nature is important. I feel very strongly that this child needs to be born here and that he or she needs to grow up here.’

She was right, he didn’t understand. That she, who had no connections to this place, should feel so passionately about it, while he, who’d actually grown up here...

For years he’d put Darkfell to the back of his mind, visiting it only in midsummer, for the bacchanal. He never thought about it when he wasn’t here—it was very much a case of out of sight, out of mind. But it had always felt like a millstone around his neck, dragging him down.

It wasn’t so much the place itself, though that was part of it.

It was what it represented.

His father, Jacob Lancaster. Who’d made him beg for everything he’d needed. Or rather, not so much beg—the distinction was important—but explain why he’d needed it. List the pros and cons, present a case for payment, ‘sell the idea’, as Jacob had put it. Dominic had had no money with which to pay for it, and so everything he’d made a case for had had to be put on his ‘tab’, a growing debt that he could never pay off.

When he was thirteen, his father had presented him with a full accounting of that debt, expenses incurred throughout his childhood, including food, clothing, schooling and the wages of a nanny when he was very young.

To Dominic back then the debt had seemed astronomical. He’d had no hope of paying it back, or so he’d told his father, weeping. But Jacob hadn’t cared. It was a lesson in how to do business and was it unfair? Yes. But life was unfair. Life was also open to negotiation, so state your case, negotiate the costs, cut them down, change my mind and on and on. Stop crying. Harden up. Figure out the deal.

So Dominic had. He’d hardened up, had figured out the deal, and had cut the costs of his upbringing in half by the time he was fifteen.

At seventeen, when his father had died of a heart attack, Dominic hadn’t expected to inherit Lancaster Developments. He’d been sure his father had put one last obstacle in his way and, indeed, Jacob had. The will had specified that, since Dominic still owed him for his upkeep and hadn’t proven himself adequately, the company would instead go to Jacob’s second in command.

But Dominic had been waiting for this moment, planning, and doing deals just as his father had taught him. He’d used those lessons to wrestle the company back under his control and then, once he’d had it, he’d broken it up into tiny little pieces and sold every last one.

Now, he owed his father nothing .

Darkfell was the last of it.

‘How strongly?’ he asked, his brain turning over.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, what would you do to stop me from selling it?’ He arched a brow. ‘What would you give me?’

She looked puzzled. ‘Are you asking about money? Because I don’t have—’

‘It’s not money I’m talking about.’

‘But... I don’t have anything else.’

With another woman he might have suggested sex, since it was clear that she wanted him every bit as badly as he wanted her. But she wasn’t another woman and he didn’t play such games with innocents like her. She was far too sincere, too honest, and, apart from anything else, he’d lost control of himself so completely the last time they’d had sex, he had no desire to do it again. Especially given the severity of the consequences the last time it had happened.

That didn’t mean she had nothing to give him though.

‘Yes, you do.’ He allowed his gaze to settle on her stomach, where their child rested. ‘You have plenty to give me, nymph.’

Instantly fire leapt in her eyes, and she put a hand protectively over her little bump. ‘You’d really use our child as a bargaining chip?’

Both the gesture and the sharply worded question sent an unexpected arrow of discomfort through him, and he found himself brought up short by a sudden realisation.

This game they were playing together, he’d just fallen into it. The game of negotiation and bargaining, of making a deal, was as natural to him as breathing. He did it all the time, in his work and when he was with a woman, bartering and negotiating for money or pleasure, it was all the same to him.

But this, with a child in the mix and a woman who didn’t play games...

You can’t do that with her. It’s wrong and, worse, it’s no better than what your father did with you.

The arrow of discomfort turned cold and sharp.

How lowering. To be like his father in any way, shape or form. Especially when he’d always seen himself as the very opposite.

‘Of course not,’ he said coldly, drawing himself up. ‘I would never use the child. The bargaining chip is Darkfell, the manor and the forest. If you don’t want me to sell it, then I’ll hold off until the child is born. You can also continue to live in the groundskeeper’s cottage. But in return you will make no argument about any obstetric care I see fit to employ or any discussions about custody arrangements once the child is born.’

Her eyes narrowed, her hand still curled protectively over her bump, which angered him for reasons he couldn’t articulate. Did she really think he was dangerous? That he would hurt her or their child? He would never do that. Never.

‘I want paid maternity leave for when I have the baby,’ she said flatly.

Normally he would have loved that she’d joined in his negotiation, giving him demands of her own, but there was something about the way she still had her hand over her stomach, protecting their child from him, that incensed him and, worse, made him feel ashamed of himself.

‘Naturally.’ He tightened his grip on his temper that kept on lunging like a rabid dog on a short leash. ‘I’m not a monster. The child is mine, after all.’

She studied him for a moment, chewing her bottom lip, and he didn’t like that at all. He had his armour, the facade of the jaded, bored playboy that he’d been wearing so long it had become part of him. But now she was looking at him as if that armour wasn’t there at all, as if she could see through him, all the way to the small, angry, hurt boy he’d once been.

‘Well?’ he demanded, the word sharp as a pistol shot.

‘So, what?’ She was seemingly oblivious to his mood. ‘You’ll sell Darkfell after the birth?’

Dominic snarled inside his head and choked the life out of his temper. Give nothing away, that was key to this, the key to any good deal. Maintain a good poker face.

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps. And perhaps not.’

It was only marginally satisfying to see how that needled her and it must have, because she scowled abruptly. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that, unfortunately for you, I’m the owner and I get to say whether I sell it or not.’

‘Why do you want to sell it?’

‘None of your business.’ His temper was still there, snarling behind the bars of the cage he’d set around it, which meant that probably the best thing for him to do right now was to leave. ‘Well?’ he asked, with the merest hint of his usual insouciance. ‘Do we have a deal?’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘I suppose so,’ she said at last.

Normally he would have reached out and shaken her hand, sealing the deal between them and leaving her with a sensual reminder of his touch. But her hand was still guarding her stomach and her gaze was wary, and for some reason that was food for an anger that had no reason for being and no outlet, and he was tired of it. Tired of her getting under his skin. Tired of being here in this house and her hand over her stomach as if he was a threat.

So he didn’t shake her hand.

He only gave her a sharp nod, then turned on his heel and walked out.