Chapter Six
Santiago
Her blue eyes have gone wide, the frantic beat of her pulse racing beneath my thumb.
It was a mistake to touch Beatrix and I know it.
I was getting frustrated with her lies, and I wanted to see the expression on her face, see what she was trying to hide, because she was avoiding my gaze for a reason.
Yet now her warm skin is beneath my fingertips and her delicate scent is wrapping itself around me, and I can see how her gaze darkens.
Fuck, I should be learning from all these mistakes I keep making with her, yet I’m not.
After she hung up on me yesterday, I debated what to do for some time.
I could have called her back, but I knew she’d only ignore me, so I dismissed that idea.
A visit seemed in order, and a personal one at that, since I had to impress upon her the importance of the test, and if necessary drag her all the way back to Paris to get it done.
Yet when I came in she was so cool, so calm, flicking through a magazine, not even deigning to look at me. It infuriated me. My temper was already on edge from having to make this quite unnecessary trip, and I had to pull the magazine away from her to get her attention.
Her blue gaze was cold, but I could see the fire lurking beneath all that ice. Especially when I told her the baby was a mistake. That drove her up onto her feet, the ice melting, fury glittering brightly in her eyes.
She clearly didn’t like me saying that, though for what reason I’m not sure.
But then she tried to walk away from me, and I wasn’t having that.
She’s done that twice to me now, first after our interlude at the church, and second, hanging up on me during our phone conversation.
There will not be a third, so I stopped her.
Then I reached out and took her jaw in my hand and forced her gaze to meet mine.
I wanted to see what was in her eyes, ask her just what her issue with the paternity test was, especially if she’s so certain the baby isn’t mine.
That’s when I saw her fear. I caught only a fleeting glimpse before she managed to hide it, but it was there. Her fear shouldn’t have mattered to me, nor should I be curious about it, except if it was fear of taking the paternity test itself I need to know why.
Yet then came the moment that always comes when we get close.
When physical awareness of each other impinges on and blots out everything else.
The softness of her skin, the delicate scent of flowers, the flickering hunger beneath the ice in her eyes.
The raging electricity that crackles and sparks when we touch.
It was enraging to find it still burning, yet it was impossible to deny. And, since I knew that self-restraint hadn’t worked, there was only one other possible solution: feed the hunger until I’m not hungry any more.
Hence my offer to her. I know she wants me, that she can’t resist me, and I know that she hates our chemistry as much as I do. This is a chance for her to set fire to it, let it burn away completely until there’s nothing but ashes left. And in return, she’ll take the test willingly.
‘Your “services”?’ she echoes, shock in her eyes.
Does she really not know what I’m talking about? When I made the same offer to her eighteen months ago?
‘Come, now, Miss Morgan,’ I say. ‘Do I really have to explain myself? You know exactly what I mean.’
Her pulse has picked up, I can feel the beat of it against my thumb.
The shock in her eyes is giving way to a mix of fury and—yes, I can see how the blue darkens into tell-tale violet—desire.
She doesn’t want to want me the way I don’t want to want her, but we’re both helpless against it all the same.
‘How dare you?’ she says, quivering with rage. ‘I’m not a sex worker.’
‘Are you not?’ I ask. ‘Didn’t my father pay you for your services?’ I don’t care that he did—after all, I offered her the same deal. No, I’m only asking out of curiosity.
Her cheeks flush with colour, her eyes glittering like stars. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she says in a tight voice. ‘I chose to have sex with him.’
But I’m not interested in what it was ‘like’ with him. I don’t care about him, not any more. What I want is her.
The more I think about it, the more certain I become. I should have realised this four months ago in the church, when my self-control failed, that having her is the only way. Her in my bed for however long it takes us to finally get rid of this chemistry. It’s basic logic.
‘Just like you chose to have sex with me,’ I point out. ‘Or are you going to lie again and say you didn’t want me? That you didn’t beg when I had my hand between your thighs?’
She pulls herself out of my grip then, yet doesn’t sidestep me.
Instead she stays exactly where she is, far too close to me, and lifts her chin, proud as any queen.
‘I see.’ One golden brow lifts. ‘So would this be for my benefit or yours?’ She leans in a little, her blue gaze on mine.
‘I bet if I was to put my hand between your thighs, you’d be hard. ’
If she thinks that giving me a taste of what I gave her will win this particular confrontation, she’d be wrong. Unlike her, I’m honest about what I want and I see no reason to hide it. Not when the truth is so obvious.
‘Why not find out?’ I invite silkily. ‘Don’t be shy.’
Are you sure this is what you want to do?
Naturally, I’m sure. It’s the most logical solution to a reprehensible situation.
I would rather not feel this hunger for her, but it is what it is.
I feel it and so does she, and feeding the hunger is the best answer.
It doesn’t mean I’m addicted. It doesn’t mean I’m helpless against my baser urges.
I have made the decision, not my cock, and as far as I’m concerned, my intellect is still in full control.
Her gaze drops to my fly, then back up again, cool and calm as a frozen sea. ‘No, thank you,’ she says, as if I’m offering her a cup of tea she doesn’t want. ‘I’d rather not.’
I almost admire her response. Respect even, that she’s working so hard to pretend she doesn’t want me with everything in her. But the darkness of her eyes, those flickers of violet, give her away. She wants to touch me. She’s desperate to touch me.
You want her to touch you, too.
Oh, I do. But I’m not desperate. I can wait.
I smile, letting her know that I can see all the way through her. ‘You need more to sweeten the deal? Fine. Multiple orgasms and money. Whatever my father was paying you, I’ll double it.’
Her jaw tightens, hot sparks of temper melting the ice in them. ‘I don’t want you,’ she insists. ‘And I don’t want your money.’
‘What do you want, then?’ I’m growing impatient with the conversation. If she continues to argue, I’ll throw her over my shoulder and carry her to the helicopter myself. I do not have the time for yet more protests.
A bright blue flame burns suddenly in her eyes. ‘I want to keep my baby. That’s what I want.’
Something shifts inside me, something unfamiliar, and once again I find myself reluctantly admiring her stubborn determination.
She has a…strength of character that I wasn’t expecting, and the scientist in me is intrigued.
It likes a puzzle. Still, what’s between us is merely physical, simple chemistry, and no matter how much of a puzzle she is, I won’t be following up on it.
However, I’m going to have to think about her demand.
Because, while I’m sure I am the father, the test will prove it, and once it does I’ll have to make some decisions about what I want when it comes to the child.
But I’m not going to do that until I have all the facts.
There are too many variables to account for now.
‘I shall take that under advisement,’ I tell her testily, because I’m impatient to get going. ‘I need all the facts before I make you any promises.’
She lifts her chin. ‘I don’t care what you need. If you don’t give me your word that the baby stays with me, then I’m not going anywhere.’
Damn, stubborn woman. How she knows that giving my word is a sacred vow I have no idea, but she does. ‘You would trust my word?’ I ask, since, for all my protests, I will follow up on this particular curiosity.
‘I trust your honesty,’ she says, ‘seeing as how it’s clearly important to you.’
She’s not wrong. People are sometimes difficult to read, which is why honesty is vital and why I demand it from my employees, colleagues, and from my lovers. I demand it from myself too, so giving my word now means I’ll have no choice but to keep it.
Allowing her to keep the child will cost you nothing.
It won’t and I know that intellectually.
Yet something inside me, the strange, powerful and possessive urge that gripped me the moment I knew she was pregnant, is shifting inside me again.
It’s angry, this thing, and it’s telling me that the child is mine too, and any decision about said child has to be made with my input.
I’m not a possessive man. Possessiveness implies want, which, apart from the sexual desire I have for Beatrix, I don’t feel.
Of course, I want to solve the present difficulties we’re having with the propulsion system of a new rocket we’re developing, but that is ambition.
I don’t want to own the breakthrough—that will be for the good of the world, not for my personal monetary gain—but I certainly want to be the one who makes that breakthrough.
Except this is different. This possessiveness goes deeper than ambition or even desire. It’s a biological response, hard-wired into my DNA, and the scientist knows it’s impossible to ignore. Regardless of the fact that I never wanted children, I will be a father, and I want the child. My child.
But she won’t go willingly with you unless you promise her.
Furiously, I think once again about picking her up, tossing her over my shoulder and carrying her off. It would certainly end this ridiculous discussion once and for all. But dragging her kicking and screaming to the helicopter holds no appeal, and so I do the only thing I can.
‘Very well,’ I say. ‘The child will stay with you.’
‘Your word, Mr Veracruz,’ she says, enunciating my title in a way that gets under my skin like a burr. ‘I’m not going anywhere until I get it.’
‘I promise the child will stay with you,’ I say, enunciating the word right back, and then, because I’m not giving up on this idea of getting rid of our mutual hunger once and for all, I add, ‘on one condition.’
Her eyes widen fractionally. ‘You don’t have the right to—’
‘This baby is mine,’ I interrupt. ‘And once the formalities have been completed and the results are clear without a shadow of a doubt, I will claim it. I won’t take it away from you, but if you want to stay with it, there is only one way you may do so: in my bed.’
Her temper glitters, angry sparks leaping in her eyes. ‘So that’s how you’re going to handle this? You’re going to blackmail me into bed?’
‘Is it really blackmail when you’re desperate to be there?’ I meet her gaze head-on. ‘One way or another, pretty Beatrix, that’s where you’re going to end up and we both know it.’
The colour in her cheeks has deepened, the blue of her eyes hot with fury, yet I can see the violet of her desire, it’s burning there too, making a liar out of all her protestations.
‘You just can’t stand him winning, can you?’ she says, low and furious. ‘Even now he’s gone.’
‘This has got nothing to do with him,’ I snap, because of course she means Antonio. ‘This is about you and me.’
She takes a breath. ‘I thought you didn’t want “sloppy seconds”?’
The way she throws my own ill-chosen words back at me does nothing for my temper. Especially when I did, in fact, want his sloppy seconds and still do.
‘Enough,’ I say in a hard voice. ‘I have no time for petty arguments. I have given you my promise; now I want yours.’
There is no sign of the ice maiden in her now, her eyes burning and her cheeks burning along with them. She’s furious with me, doesn’t want to give in, yet she wants the baby, and, whether she likes it or not, she wants me, too.
‘I hate you,’ she says flatly.
‘That’s the first honest thing you’ve said all day,’ I say in the same tone.
She mutters something vicious under her breath, then finally says, ‘Okay, I promise. Now, let’s get this over with.’