A Debt Paid in Passion

RAOUL HAD NEVER been in Sirena’s flat. When he entered he was surprised to immediately feel as though he was returning to a place both familiar and comfortable. It was so her.

She was a tidy person with simple taste, but her innate sensuality came through in textures and easy blends of color. The open-plan lounge-kitchen was tiny, but everything had a place, houseplants were lush and well tended. Family snapshots smiled from walls and shelves. He had time while she was in the powder room to take in the miniscule bedroom kept as scrupulously neat as the rest, the bed notably a single.

Sirena cast him a harried glance as she emerged and shrugged from her coat, draping it over the back of a dining chair.

Her figure, voluptuous as ever, had a new curve that made him draw in a searing breath. Until this moment, pregnant had been a word bandied through hostile emails and legal paperwork. As he cataloged the snug fit of leggings and a stretchy top over a body that hadn’t filled out much except in the one place, he felt his scalp tighten.

Sirena was carrying a baby.

Her pale, slender hand opened over the small bump. Too small? He had no idea about these things.

Yanking his gaze to her face, he saw defensive wariness and something else, something incredibly vulnerable that triggered his deepest protective instincts.

Thankfully she glanced away, thick hair falling across her cheek to hide her expression. Raoul regrouped, reminding himself not to let her get to him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off that firm swelling. He’d spent two years fighting the urge to touch this woman, had given in to a moment of weakness once, and it took all his self-discipline not to reach for her now. His hands itched to start at that mysterious bump then explore the rest of her luscious shape. He shoved his fists into his overcoat pockets and glared with resentment.

“I’m having ice water and an orange. Do you want coffee?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he bit out. No more foot dragging. He was still reeling from her coy remark about paternity, played out so well he was entertaining a shred of uncertainty. He couldn’t begin to consider what he’d do if he wasn’t the father.

The not knowing made him restless, especially because he couldn’t understand why she was tormenting him. Yes, his position would be strengthened if she admitted he was the father, but so would hers. He would do anything for his child. One glimpse of a pregnant belly shouldn’t affect him this deeply, but all he could think was that his entire life had changed. Every decision from now on would be weighed against its effect on that tiny being in Sirena’s center.

She took her frosted glass and plate of sectioned orange to the table, opening a file as she sat down. One glance invited him to take the chair across from her. They didn’t stand on ceremony. He didn’t hold her chair; this wasn’t a date. It was reminiscent of the times they’d planted themselves on either side of a boardroom table and worked through projects and tasks until he’d cleared his plate and loaded hers full, confident it would all be completed to his exacting specifications.

He tightened his mouth against a blurted demand for answers. Why? If she had needed money, why hadn’t she asked him for a loan? A raise? The salary he’d been paying her was generous, but he’d seen she was ready for more responsibility and the compensation that went with it. Had this been her plan all along? Pregnancy and a custody settlement?

The thought occurred as she opened the file and he glimpsed a copy of a contract filled with notations and scribbles.

“You have read it,” he said with tight disgust.

“I do my homework, same as you,” she retorted, ice clinking as she sipped. Her skin, fine grained as a baby’s, was pale. Weren’t pregnant women supposed to glow? Sirena didn’t look unhealthy, but there were shadows under her eyes and in them. She touched her brow where she used to complain of tension headaches. He could see the pulse in her throat pounding as if her heart would explode.

The precariousness of his position struck him. He wanted to be ruthless, but not only was he facing a woman in a weakened condition, her condition affected a baby. As he absorbed the raised stakes, his tension increased. The scent of the fresh orange seemed overly strong and pungent.

“I want medical reports,” he said with more harsh demand than he would typically use at the opening of a negotiation.

Sirena flinched and laced her fingers together. Without looking at him, she said, “I don’t have a problem sharing the baby’s health checkups. So far it’s been textbook. I have a scan on my laptop I can email you once we’ve signed off.” Now her eyes came up, but her gaze was veiled. She was hiding something.

“Who are you?” he muttered. “You’re not the Sirena I knew.” His PA had been approachable and cheerful, quick to smile, quick to see the humor in things. This woman was locked down, serious and more secretive than he’d ever imagined.

Like him, which was a disturbing thought.

“What makes you think you ever knew me, Raoul?” The elegant arches of her dark brows lifted while bitter amusement twisted her doll-perfect lips. “Did you ever ask about my life? My plans? My likes or dislikes? All I remember is demands that revolved around your needs. Your intention to work late. Your bad mood because you hadn’t eaten. You once snapped your fingers at me because you wanted the name of the woman you’d taken to dinner, maybe even bed, the night before. She needed flowers as a kiss-off. On that note, as your former PA I’m compelled to point out that your new one dropped the ball. I didn’t get my lilies.”

Her audacity tested Raoul’s already dicey mood. His inner compass swung from contempt to self-disgust that he’d slept with her at all to a guilty acknowledgment that no, he hadn’t spent much time getting to know her on a personal level. He’d wanted too badly to take things to an intimate level, so he’d kept her at a distance.

Not that he had any intention of explaining when she was coming out swinging with two full buckets of scathing judgment and brutal sarcasm.

“That ice water seems to have gone directly into your veins,” he remarked with the smoothness of a panther batting a bird from the air.

“Yes, I’m a kettle and so much blacker than you.” She pivoted the file and pushed it toward him. “You might as well read my notes and we’ll go from there.”

Cold. Distant. Unreachable. She wasn’t saying those words, but he’d heard them from enough women to know that’s what she was implying.

Oddly, he hadn’t thought Sirena saw him that way, and it bothered him that she did. Which made no sense, because he hadn’t cared much when those other women said it and he hadn’t once put Sirena in the same category as his former lovers. She was never intended to be his lover at all. When he took women to his bed, it was without any sort of expectation beyond an affair that would allow him to release sexual tension. Sirena had already been too integral a part of his working life to blur those lines.

Yet he had. And she seemed to be holding him to account for his callous treatment of her—when she had only slept with him for her own gain! Possibly for the very baby they were fighting over.

Drawing the papers closer, he began taking in her notations. The first was a refusal to submit to paternity tests until after the birth, at which point this contract would come into effect if he was proven to be the father.

He didn’t like it, but in the interest of moving forward he initialed it.

Things quickly became more confusing and audacious. Distantly he noted that she’d circled a formatting error—one more eagle-eyed skill he regretted losing from his business life.

“Why the hell is everything to be held in trust for the baby?”

“I don’t want your money,” she said with such flatness he almost believed her.

Don’t get sidetracked, he warned himself. Obviously she had wanted his money or she wouldn’t have stolen from him, but arguing that point was moot. Right now all that mattered was getting paternity resolved and his right to involvement irrevocable.

He lowered his gaze to the pages in front of him, trying to make sense of her changes when they all favored the baby’s financial future and left her taking nothing from him. Raoul cut her a suspicious glance. No one gave up this much...

“Ah,” he snorted with understanding as he came to the codicil. “No.”

“Think about it. You can’t breast-feed. It makes sense that I have full custody.”

“For five years? Nice try. Five days, maybe.”

“Five days,” she repeated through her teeth, flashing an angry emotion he’d never seen in her. Her eyes glazed with a level of hatred that pierced through his shell with unexpected toxicity, leaving a fiery sting.

And was that fear? Her generous mouth trembled before she pressed it into a firm line. “If you’re not going to be reasonable, leave now. You’re not the father anyway.”

She rose and so did he, catching her by the arms as she tried to skirt past him. The little swell at her belly nudged into him, foreign and disconcerting, making his hands tighten with a possessive desire to keep her close. Keep it close, he corrected silently.

“Don’t touch me.” Fine trembles cascaded through her so he felt it as if he grasped an electric wire that pulsed in warning.

“Sure you don’t want to try persuading me into clemency again?” he prodded, recognizing that deep down he was still weakly enthralled by her. If she offered herself right now, he would be receptive. It would change things.

“I didn’t sue you for sexual harassment before, but I had every right to.”

Her words slapped him. Hard.

Dropping his hold, he reared back, offended to his core. “You wanted me every bit as much as I wanted you,” he seethed. His memories exploded daily with the way her expression had shone with excitement. The way she’d molded herself into him and arched for more contact and cried out with joy as the shudders of culmination racked them both.

“No, you were bored,” she shot back with vicious fury that carried a ring of hurt.

It shouldn’t singe him with guilt, but it did. He’d been saving face when he’d said that, full of whiskey and brimming with betrayal. The news that she had been released had been roiling in him like poison. Having her show up at the end of his drive had nearly undone him.

Now he teetered between a dangerous admission of attraction and delivering his brutal set-down for a second time.