Chapter Four
‘We should arrive at the airfield in about forty minutes, sir.’
‘Good. Thank you.’ Caleb nodded his gratitude to his driver as he settled himself into the luxurious interior of the car, his departure from London not coming a moment too soon. He couldn’t wait to put this whole sordid pregnancy ordeal behind him and never think of it again.
Never think of Serena Addison again either.
And how are you going to do that? You’ve been trying to put her from your mind for weeks without any success, and seeing her again in the flesh certainly hasn’t helped!
Tenison buzzed through Caleb’s veins, too much truth within that burst of thought for him to dismiss it as easily as he wanted to.
Seeing Serena again yesterday had stirred a greater reaction than he had been prepared for, igniting a fire in his blood that had continued to smoulder long after they had parted ways…
Watching from the darkened window of the car, his intent had been to observe her unvarnished reaction to his presence, but the moment she had exited her office building, unmissable with her striking long legs and slim body and that sexy tumble of strawberry hair, he hadn’t wanted to do anything except stare.
Devour the sight of her because she was even more beautiful than he had remembered.
Heat had kindled low in his stomach, and the tug of awareness deep in his groin had been fierce, so potent that the anger churning through him ever since reading that damned email and burning so hotly he hadn’t slept at all on the journey to London, had been stilled into near submission.
The wave of desire had been so strong that for a moment he had forgotten—actually forgotten—his reason for being there as his mind flooded with heated imaginings of those long legs locked tightly around his waist and his face buried in the sweet-smelling, and even sweeter-tasting, hollow of her neck as he drove himself deep into her body.
Wrenching himself from the sensual daydream had taken supreme effort, and even then, tendrils of smoky heat continued to curl through his bloodstream, threatening to pull him back under should he lose control for even the barest of seconds.
The frustration he’d felt with himself for that lapse, and the continuing weakness where she was concerned, had only made him even more unyielding when they had finally stood face-to-face.
Because as much of a nuisance as his undying desire for her was, it was an even greater aggravation hat he was burning up inside for someone who could be trying to dupe him.
However, the longer he’d spent with her, the harder it had been to keep his suspicions burning. Nothing about her seemed deceitful, and she had agreed easily to all that he’d asked, as though she truly had nothing to hide.
The conundrum of it had kept him awake into the early hours, uncomfortable with his assumptions about her. Yet he just couldn’t accept the other option—that she was being honest and he was going to be a father.
A notification alert on his phone drew his attention, and withdrawing it from his inner pocket, Caleb was happy to see it was the results of the pregnancy and DNA test. Finally, the matter could be put to bed for good, and before he reached the South of France so he would be able to proceed with the urgent matters on the new Saint-Tropez beach club without any distractions. Except…
His heart thumped uncomfortably and the air in his chest grew thin. Tight.
Serena was pregnant.
And the test confirmed that he was the father.
Caleb shook his head. It was impossible. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t…and yet it was, he accepted, glancing again at the test results, which he had been assured were 97 percent accurate.
He was going to be a father. There was shock and disbelief spreading at an alarming speed across his chest, but amongst that turbulence there was also an unassailable clarity and, although he was suddenly in a situation he’d never wanted to find himself in, Caleb knew exactly what he had to do.
‘Turn the car around.’
The driver startled, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror. ‘Sir? I thought you had a flight you needed to…’
‘What I need is to go back into the city,’ Caleb snapped impatiently. ‘Turn the car around now!’
The queue of traffic heading into the capital was far greater than the line heading out, so the car crawled for long stretches of time, but Caleb barely noticed, too lost in his own web of thoughts.
There were many reasons why he’d never entertained the notion of fatherhood.
He was selfish, for starters. He worked ridiculously long hours and rarely spent more than a year in one city before moving on again.
He had no stellar example to emulate. His father had often worked so late into the night that he’d slept at his office and left the rearing of his son to a rotation of highly qualified nannies.
And having spent the majority of his life studiously avoiding getting close to anyone and feeling anything, to prevent the mess of emotion and pain that had stained his childhood, it was now less of a habit and more of an ingrained way of being that Caleb wasn’t sure could be changed.
Or that he particularly wanted to change.
However, all of those reasons paled in comparison to the main motive, the one that was never far from his mind, that whispered its fearful prophecy in his ear whenever his father instigated another of his imploring conversations about continuing the family line and securing their future legacy—the chilling knowledge that, should he let someone into his life, someone who could grow to care about him, he would only end up hurting them.
Just as he had hurt Charlotte.
He may not intend to, but it was inevitable that he would. Hurting Charlotte was the last thing he’d wanted, but it had happened. Just by being himself.
You ruined her. Our beautiful daughter and you ruined her. She loved you and you didn’t deserve it.
Caleb’s heart never failed to race whenever he recalled those words that Charlotte’s parents had hurled at him in the corridor of the hospital when he’d attempted to visit, armed with flowers and an apology, the apology he should have offered her hours earlier, the apology that could have prevented the horrible, tragic mess that had unfolded.
Only he hadn’t been able to get anywhere near Charlotte to tell her how sorry he was or how awful he felt.
Faced with her family’s anger and his own suffocating sense of responsibility, he’d fled, but he’d never been able to erase the image of their devastated faces, ravaged by rage and pain…
so much pain for their beloved daughter and her lost future—the future that, before him, had been so bright and full of opportunity.
Charlotte had been in Melbourne for a prestigious summer internship when they’d met.
Unacquainted with the city or its social elite, she’d had no knowledge of his reputation for cycling through women, and he hadn’t taken the time to tell her, because he didn’t explain himself to anyone.
He was a Morgenthau and he did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, with whomever he wanted.
It had never crossed his mind that she would fall in love with him because love was the last thing on his agenda.
Caleb had no intention of feeling that, not for her, not for anyone, not after the emotional carnage of his childhood.
When Charlotte had finally realised that, she’d been devastated.
She had raged at him. Sobbed and shouted and eventually stormed from the club, and in her tearful, broken-hearted state had rammed her car straight into a wall, shattering her body the way Caleb had shattered her heart.
It wasn’t until late the next day that Caleb learned what had happened, but once he did, he’d been racked with guilt.
Who could doubt that it was his fault when it was his cruelty that had caused the accident?
Had Charlotte not been in such an anguished state, she would never have lost control of the vehicle, wouldn’t have gotten in the car at all.
And he’d seen how distressed she was. Why hadn’t he gone after her, stopped her?
The heavy pounding of guilt had consumed him, and the angry reaction of her parents had confirmed the fault he bore.
And Caleb had known then, with a certainty as clear as water, that he couldn’t allow anyone remotely close to him again. Because they would only end up hurting too, and he couldn’t bear to inflict that magnitude of pain of another unsuspecting, innocent heart.
And it would happen again. He knew that.
Because Charlotte wasn’t the first person to be devastated by him.
Years earlier, Caleb had destroyed his father when he’d driven away his mother, leaving Adlai Morgenthau a desolate, grief-stricken shell of himself.
But after Charlotte, he was determined there would be no others.
He’d stuck to that resolve ever since, careful in ways he’d never been before about the type of women he spent his nights with, strict about limiting their involvement to a single encounter, a period of time too brief for any feelings, for anything real, to develop.
The only misstep he’d ever made was with Serena…
a misstep that still sent chills down his spine because with her inexperience and emotionality, there were so many ways he could have hurt her.
And now that she was carrying his child, there were many more.
Despite his knee-jerk reaction to return to the capital, instinct was once again urging him that the best thing he could do for Serena and for the child was to leave them alone.
Generously provide, of course, but from afar, where they would be spared the harm that he would eventually cause and he could spare himself the burden of having to live with disappointing them.
But how could he just turn away from his child, his own flesh and blood, the way he turned away from everyone else?
Especially when he knew what it was to grow up with only one parent.
He knew the persistent ache of abandonment, the questions that filled that yawning empty space—questions destined never to be answered.
He knew it was a void that could be painted over and ignored, but still, somehow, remained.
Could he really condemn his son or daughter to that fate?
There were other considerations charging through his mind too.
Practical ones. This child would be the sole heir to the Morgenthau name and empire.
Whilst he had been unwilling to bring an innocent child into the world just to satisfy his father’s wish to safeguard the future, now there was a child, so it was a different consideration altogether.
It wasn’t about creating a life. That had already happened; now it had to be about protecting them as best he could, ensuring they received all the privilege and security their blood entitled them to.
He was the only one with the power to guarantee that.
And he had to. There was no certainty of what kind of father he would be, so he had to give his child every protection possible.
From deep within his chest his heart kicked, his stomach twisting as he approached an uneasy decision.
Instinct might still be screaming at him the same old message, that the best thing he could do was stay far away from both Serena and the baby, but he could feel the tug of other instincts now too, paternal ones, and they would countenance nothing of the sort.