The Blackmail Pregnancy. Melanie Milburne
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She threw the question at him crossly. ‘Just because he’s gay?’
‘No,’ he answered evenly. ‘It has nothing to do with that. He hasn’t got what it takes to run a business.’
‘And neither do I?’
He reached for his glass of red wine and twirled it in his hand before responding.
‘No. Your heart’s not in the books—it’s in the design end of things. I could see it in your eyes when you saw my house.’
He was right, but she wasn’t going to let him enjoy that little victory.
‘We can’t all be highfliers like you, Byron,’ she said. ‘Trevor and I weren’t educated in one of Victoria’s most prestigious fee-paying schools. We don’t have family money to back us.’
‘You had my money. The divorce money.’
‘It’s expensive setting up an office,’ she said. ‘The computers and so on.’
He seemed to accept her answer and she inwardly sighed with relief.
‘How soon can you get the house ready to live in?’ he asked, unsettling her again.
‘I…I’ve got a few ideas about furniture, but it could be weeks.’
‘I told you a month—that’s all.’
‘It’s not long enough.’
‘Surely we can live in the house with the bare essentials?’ he said. ‘All we need is a bed and—’
‘You expect me to live with you?’ she asked in alarm.
‘Of course. I thought you understood that.’
‘But what about my apartment?’
‘You call that shoebox an apartment?’
She gave him another cold, resentful glare.
‘I would’ve thought you’d have the most sensational home after all those years in the business. Or is this yet another case of the plumber with a leaky tap?’ he added when she didn’t respond.
‘I had other priorities. I’m hardly home, so it didn’t seem important,’ she said.
‘Well, you can sell it, or rent it out for the time being. I want you to live with me at the Cremorne house and I want you to start tomorrow—furniture or no furniture.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Her eyes widened in panic.
‘I’m signing on the dotted line tomorrow with your financial people. I expect you to fulfil your part of the contract.’
‘I hardly call it a contract,’ she ground out bitterly. ‘More like a dictatorship.’
‘Call it what you like. It’s immaterial to me. I’m putting a lot of money in your business and I want some immediate returns on my investment.’
‘You’re sick,’ she fired at him. ‘How can you sit there and discuss this…this farce, so clinically?’
‘Quite frankly, Cara, I don’t really care what you think about me personally. I have a goal in mind, and this time not even you are going to stand in my way.’
‘You definitely need help,’ she muttered as she savaged her bread roll. ‘I’ve never met anyone with such a big ego.’
‘And I’ve never met anyone with a lesser one,’ he countered neatly.
Cara’s butter knife clattered against her plate as she looked away from his penetrating gaze. Fortunately the waiter appeared just then, with their food, and she was spared the right of reply. Not that she could think of one; he was right—she had no self-esteem, never had. Her mother had seen to that, right up to the very day she died.
She forced herself to eat at least some of the food set before her, even though her appetite had completely disappeared.
‘You don’t seem to be enjoying that,’ Byron observed some minutes later. ‘Would you like something else instead?’
She shook her head and forced another mouthful down.
‘You look as if you’re going to face a firing squad at dawn,’ he said after another minute or two had elapsed. ‘Relax, Cara. You might even enjoy it.’
A vision of their passion-locked bodies flitted unbidden into her mind and she lowered her head to her plate to disguise the heat she could feel coursing across her cheeks.
After a few painful minutes she pushed her plate away in defeat. She wiped her mouth on her napkin and caught the hard glint in his eyes.
‘You’d do anything but talk to me, wouldn’t you, Cara? Even force-feed yourself a meal you don’t want so you don’t have to speak to me.’
‘I have nothing to say to you.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What about, How was it for you that day I left? Were you upset? That would be a good place to start.’
Her hands tightened in her lap but she didn’t answer him.
‘Or what about, Did you know I was pregnant when I left? That would make for a very interesting conversation, now, don’t you think?’
Cara stared at him in abject horror, all the colour draining away from her face. His expression was clouded by anger, his dark eyes glittering dangerously with it, showing her that this was no time for denial. Without warning the moment of truth she’d quietly dreaded for seven years had finally caught up with her.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE couldn’t speak. Anguish tied her tongue and sent tremors of reaction to her very fingertips. They were already fizzing, as if her blood couldn’t quite make the distance to them. She felt as if she would faint—hoped for it, in fact. How could she avoid the subject she dreaded the most?
‘Let’s get out of here.’ Byron suddenly broke the heavy silence by getting to his feet and signalling to the waiter for the bill.
Cara got to her feet with considerably less agility. Her legs were shaking, her palms moist, and the rest of her body felt as if it had been clubbed.
Byron fixed the bill and led the way back to his car in silence. He unlocked the doors with a snap of the remote that sounded like a gunshot and she had to stop herself from flinching.
‘Get in.’
His words were just as sharp, hitting her like bullets. She got in the car, glad that her legs didn’t have to hold her upright any more. He started the car with a roar that indicated the depth of his anger. Although he’d hidden it well, he’d waited until she was lulled into a false sense of security and then struck her where she was most vulnerable.
He drove towards her apartment with a grim determination that did little to settle Cara’s nerves. She had so much to say, but most of it could never be for his ears. He’d never understand the sort of decisions she’d had to make. The secrets she’d kept; the pain she’d hidden in order to survive.
He walked her to her apartment, all the while maintaining cold silence. She didn’t know what was worse. Hearing him castigate her, bearing his stony silence or torturing herself with what she imagined he was thinking.
At the door of the apartment she turned to him, forcing herself to meet his diamond-hard gaze.
‘Thank you for dinner.’
He seemed about to say something, but then changed his mind. He raked a hand through his dark hair and the lines around his mouth appeared to relax a little.
‘Will you need some help packing?’ he asked.
‘No, I’ll be fine. I don’t have all that much to pack,’ she answered in a