The Baby Secret

‘You’re really not going to listen to me, are you?’ he said thoughtfully after a tense few seconds had ticked by. ‘But you believed every word the dragon lady said.’

His nickname for her mother used to make Victoria smile but she didn’t feel like smiling any more. And now, in spite of the muggy, sweltering heat that had the dusty streets deserted and empty except for a few chickens pecking desultorily here and there, the temperature chilled to zero as he added, ‘And you ran to William Howard; you trust William Howard. Why is that, Victoria?’

‘William?’ In the shock of seeing Zac again she hadn’t thought to ask exactly how he had known where she was, but now her voice trembled as she said, ‘Did William tell you where I was? You...you haven’t hurt him—’

Now it was arctic conditions. ‘No, I haven’t hurt him,’ Zac grated with dangerous composure, his eyes lethal. ‘I wasn’t aware that there was any reason to, but I’m beginning to wonder. I found out where you were by other means; I have...contacts.’

Oh, yes, she was well aware of his ‘contacts’, Victoria thought bitterly. He had a small army of minions ready to jump at the click of his fingers, and money could buy anything—or anyone. She had heard him talk about ‘necessary research’ once—they had been at a party and one of his business colleagues had button-holed him about a prospective deal—and when she had asked him what he had meant, once the man was gone, he had smiled before saying, ‘I have people who find out things, Tory, that’s all. Things that other people might prefer to keep hidden.’

‘Private detectives, you mean?’ she had asked naively.

‘Something like that. And then he had changed the subject.

‘Why doesn’t Coral know this William?’ Zac asked sharply.

Victoria snapped back from the past as Zac’s voice cut into her thoughts. ‘My mother never took any interest in my friends,’ Victoria said tightly, ‘as well you know.’ Except you, she thought. My mother took a great interest in you from day one. And now she knew why. ‘Have you asked her about William?’ she added abruptly as the portent of his words made itself known. Silly question; of course he had

‘Yes, I have.’ The night-black eyes were boring into her brain. ‘He is the brother of a schoolfriend, yes? That is all that Coral knew. My...source informed me he was out of the country covering some disturbance or other in Saudi Arabia.’

‘That’s top-secret information,’ Victoria blurted out, shocked to the core. William had impressed upon her, on his last visit the previous weekend, that only very few people knew of his forthcoming, extremely sensitive and delicate assignment.

‘But he told you,’ Zac said very softly. ‘He told you, Victoria.’

‘Of course he did.’ She had meant that William had confided his whereabouts to her because she was an old and trusted friend who was living in his home—or one of them—and Victoria knew William had been trying to prevent her worrying if she was unable to contact him for a week or two. But now, as she stared into the menacingly dark face of her husband, she realised Zac had put quite another interpretation on her innocent reply.

‘Of course.’ His mouth was a hard, angry line, his black brows drawn together in a ferocious scowl. ‘Victoria, exactly what is your relationship with this action man?’ Zac asked with icy control. ‘And I want the truth, please,’ he added cuttingly.

‘My...’ He was jealous. He was jealous of William, Victoria thought numbly. And who was he to talk about truth?

‘You flew out to Tunisia in the middle of April,’ Zac bit out harshly, looking every inch his mother’s son as his glittering black eyes blazed his Italian blood. ‘Where were you for the two weeks before that when you fell off the face of the earth?’

He was questioning her morals? Victoria thought disbelievingly, white-hot rage beginning to bubble like a volcano about to explode. He was actually daring to suggest that she and William...

‘How dare you?’ she spluttered helplessly, utterly outraged.

‘Oh, I dare, Victoria. I most certainly dare,’ he snarled darkly, breaking into her loud, hissing protest with a fury that matched her own. ‘I’m asking you again—where were you?’

She glared at him, drawing herself up to her full five feet six inches as she tilted back her head and stared him straight in the eyes. ‘I was at William’s flat,’ she said icily. ‘Okay?’

‘I see.’ It was more ominous than any bellow.

‘No, you don’t! You don’t see at all,’ Victoria shot back tightly. ‘William has been absolutely wonderful to me, he always has been, but we’re friends, that’s all. Platonic friends.’

‘There is no such thing between a man and woman,’ Zac stated tautly, ‘especially a woman who looks like you. He would have to be made of stone, and I take it he is very much a flesh-and-blood man, right? A man who likes women?’ He added suddenly, evidence that he had thought of another possibility clear on his face.

‘Of course William likes women.’ Victoria was even more furious that Zac obviously considered the only way she and William had been able to keep their hands off each other was if William preferred men. ‘He’s very...’ Her voice stopped abruptly as she realised it wasn’t tactful in the circumstances to labour William’s masculinity. She stared at him as her mind went blank.

‘Very...?’ Zac rasped angrily. ‘William is very...?’

Oh, to hell with it. ‘Male,’ Victoria said a trifle weakly.

‘Is he?’ If ever two words were loaded, those two were. ‘And this very male man looks on you in the same way an aged uncle would?’ Zac continued with heavy sarcasm. ‘How old is he?’

‘Twenty-seven.’ Victoria’s tone clearly stated, Make of that what you will. ‘And I’m not prepared to discuss William with you,’ she added firmly, contradicting herself immediately when she said, ‘He, at least, has never let me down.’

‘I bet he hasn’t,’ Zac derided contemptuously, ‘but if you ever stay with him again you’d better book him a hospital bed at the same time. He’ll need one.’ He glared at her ferociously.

‘You wouldn’t!’ Victoria glared back, horrified. ‘How dare you threaten William? He’s never done anything to you.’

‘It’s not what he’s done to me that concerns me,’ Zac said with lethal intent. ‘And it’s not a threat, it’s a promise.’

‘I don’t believe this!’ She was so angry she could barely get the words out. ‘After all you’ve done, you have the cheek to object to William and me—’ She suddenly had a wave of light-headedness and stopped abruptly, her colour coming and going as she stared into the blazingly angry face of her husband.

‘William and you...?’ Zac pressed softly, his face making it clear he was thinking the worst from her sudden silence.

‘Being friends.’ Even to her own ears it sounded like an afterthought, and her own patheticness made her voice tremble with a mixture of rage and injured pride as she said, ‘It is your suspicious mind that has made up the rest. William is one of the nicest men I know, and certainly the most honourable. He’s kind and generous—’

‘Spare me a list of his virtues, Victoria, please,’ Zac grated with hateful sarcasm. ‘I’m amazed this paragon hasn’t got wings already. And whilst we’re talking about suspicious minds, might I remind you you are in no position to cast the first stone?’

‘You’re saying I’ve got a suspicious mind?’ Her voice had risen to a shrill shriek that made Zac wince. ‘After you—’ She couldn’t go on, she was too angry, and it was a few gasping breaths later before she managed to say, ’I’m not discussing this any more, there’s absolutely no point, but I can’t believe you just said that.’

‘One rule for you and one rule for me?’ Zac suggested icily. It was adding salt to the wound.

‘I’m going to lie down.’ Victoria drew herself up, her voice fairly coherent, which was a miracle in itself considering how she was feeling. ‘I’m...I’m feeling worse.’ Worse? She felt ghastly.

‘Whereas I, of course, am feeling great?’ came the sarcastic rejoinder. And then, when she didn’t venture a comment, he asked, ‘Do you want the number of my hotel?’

‘No.’

Victoria shut the door on his outraged face and just made it to the bathroom before she deposited the contents of her stomach into William’s bright blue basin.

CHAPTER THREE

‘AND you haven’t told him you’re pregnant?’

It was a full week later and Victoria was back in England, the crowded restaurant where she and William were having lunch packed to bursting with the élite of London’s high-fliers.

‘No, I told you. He was only in Tunisia overnight, and when he came back in the evening we just fought again. It...it was awful.’ Victoria wanted to cry but she knew she couldn’t—not in the middle of Radstone’s where her lettuce leaves and chicken must be costing William a small fortune. ‘I told him I was coming back to England and...and that I’d be renting a place.’ She hadn’t told William the full story—William, like Zac, had a healthy amount of fierce male pride, and she doubted he would appreciate being labelled the third part of a triangle.

It seemed she was less adept at hiding the truth than she had thought. ‘I take it he objected to you staying at Mimosa?’ William asked wryly with a lift of his dark eyebrows. ‘And even more my flat, no doubt. Well, I can understand that of course.’

‘But why?’ Victoria objected plaintively. ‘I told him we were old friends, and that our relationship was purely platonic, but he didn’t believe me. He...said that there was no such thing as a platonic friendship between a man and a woman.’

‘He was right,’ William agreed with a remarkable lack of heat.

It wasn’t what Victoria had expected, and her face said so.

‘Look, Blue-eyes—’ it was the nickname he had given her when she was eight years old and had stuck ever since ‘—you’re absolutely gorgeous, and I fancy you like mad, but I’ve always known you see me as a big brother and nothing more. So...’ He shrugged easily, his nonchalance hiding a pain which had plagued him for years and had taken more self-will than he had known he possessed to come to terms with. ‘That’s okay. I’d rather be in your life as a friend than out of it altogether.’ He shrugged slowly.