The Baby Bind

The Baby Bind
Nikki Benjamin

Mills & Boon Cherish
A second chance? Charlotte Fagan’s attempts to get pregnant had strained her marriage to breaking point. Then the call came – the Fagans were approved for adoption. Her husband, Sean, agreed to pose as the happily married father-to-be – provided that once the adoption went through Charlotte granted him a divorce. Now at least one of her dreams would come true…Sean Fagan still loved Charlotte enough to help this last time, but after that they were through – or so he resolved, until their trip overseas made him rediscover everything wonderful about this woman.Would a beautiful baby girl tear Charlotte and Sean apart – or bind them together like never before?

Sean could see the anguish in her wide brown eyes, still damp with tears.

“It’s OK. I’ve got you,” he murmured, moving his hands around to her back in the beginning of an embrace.

Surprisingly, she didn’t pull away, but leaned against him with a sigh.

“What I meant to say was that I was so cold to you, so withdrawn those last few months. I was just so self-involved, so focused on trying to have a baby that it must have seemed that nothing else mattered to me. I am truly sorry, Sean.”

“I just wanted you to be happy, Charlotte. I still want you to be happy.”

The longing in his wife’s eyes sparked anew the heat that had never stopped smouldering in Sean. Before he could take the time to consider the possible consequences, Sean bent his head and claimed her luscious mouth in a kiss.

NIKKI BENJAMIN

was born and raised in the Midwest, but after years in the Houston area, she considers herself a true Texan. Nikki says she’s always been an avid reader. (Her earliest literary heroines were Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and Beany Malone.) Her writing experience had been limited, however, until a friend started penning a novel and encouraged Nikki to do the same. One scene led to another, and soon she was hooked.

Dear Reader,

Several years ago, a close friend’s daughter decided to adopt a child. She soon discovered that although she was a stable, healthy young woman and a dedicated teacher, her options were limited because she was also single.

Laura chose to pursue the foreign adoption alternative. Her journey to Kazakhstan to adopt the elder of her two daughters was the inspiration for The Baby Bind. She has since rounded out her very special family with the recent adoption of her younger daughter, a little girl who was born in China.

Raising children seems to become more of a challenge every day. Yet it’s heartening to see how many people choose to become loving, caring, devoted parents despite all the uncertainties they face.

This story is for all you parents out there and for all who hope to be parents one day. May all the dreams you have for yourselves and for your children come true!

Sincerely,

Nikki Benjamin

The Baby Bind

NIKKI BENJAMIN

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Chapter One

For a long time Charlotte Fagan sat alone in the close confines of her small, elegant sports car, huddled in the darkness, hands clasped in her lap. An icy January rain pounded hard against the canvas roof just above her head and ran in rivulets down the windshield, blurring her view through the glass. But the storm that raged outside her car was nothing compared to the storm that raged in her heart.

Charlotte hadn’t been sure that she was making the right choice when she left the small town of Mayfair, Louisiana, almost three hours earlier and had begun the long drive to New Orleans. Her gaze fixed upon the tall old town house tucked deep in the heart of the French Quarter, she still wasn’t sure.

There had been a time when she could have, would have, asked anything of her husband without the slightest hesitation—a time when she had been able to trust him with her deepest, most intimate needs and desires. He had willingly, lovingly, tenderly given her everything that had been within his power to give.

Now, however, she knew that convincing Sean to help her was going to be a challenge. Separated by a physical distance of two hundred miles and the emotional distance of living apart for half a year, with only the tenuous-at-best connection of a telephone line between them, she was certain that the odds of winning him over were zero to none.

Unbeknownst to him, Sean held the possibility of a dream come true, an opportunity for her happiness—in fact, the very key to her happiness—firmly in his hands. She needed his cooperation—she needed it desperately. But for the first time since that summer day ten years ago when he’d promised to love and cherish her always, Charlotte wasn’t sure that he would offer it.

She had spotted his signature red SUV at the curb on her first pass down the street. She had also detected the faint glow of light sliding through the wide wooden slats of the shutters covering the long, narrow front windows on either side of the equally long, narrow front door. No doubt about it, at least in her mind. Her husband was most certainly at home on this stormy night.

But was he home alone?

Never in the past had Sean given Charlotte reason to believe that he would be anything but faithful to her and the vows of their marriage. But the distance between them had grown so great lately that she could no longer be absolutely sure of him in any way.

Unclasping her hands, Charlotte reached across the car’s console, picked up the bulky brown envelope she’d tossed on the passenger seat less than five minutes after retrieving it from her mailbox in Mayfair, and rubbed a finger over the neatly printed return address on the shiny white label.

After ripping the envelope open and scanning the contents, she hadn’t even thought about continuing up the long gravel drive to the old plantation house she and Sean had so lovingly restored early in their marriage. She had wanted only to show the paperwork enclosed to her husband and know that he felt the same excitement and the same joy that had blossomed in her soul, as she’d quickly read through the various documents.

Though it had already been early evening and a steady rain had been sluicing down relentlessly, Charlotte had wheeled her car into a narrow U-turn and headed back to the two-lane highway that would take her to the interstate leading straight to the city.

More than once along the way, she had considered turning around and returning home again. The storm had made driving slow and tedious. And though flooding wasn’t likely in the French Quarter, Charlotte was nervous about traveling through the rest of the city, post-Hurricane Katrina.

Her initial impulse to share with her husband what had been good news to her had also faded, taking with it the flurry of hope in her heart, and the sense of urgency that hope had engendered.

Pragmatic once again, Charlotte had acknowledged that the sheaf of papers and the small glossy photograph in the plain brown envelope she now held in her hands contained no magic elixir that could remedy all that had gone wrong with her marriage. But there was also the promise of a dream about to finally come true and with it the opportunity for another kind of happiness—her happiness, at least.

A gust of wind rattled up the narrow street, rocking Charlotte’s car. The gaslight half a block away flickered ominously, sending shadows scuttling along the deserted sidewalk. Instead of letting up as she had been hoping, the rain drummed even more insistently outside her meager, not to mention increasingly cold and damp, little shelter.

Though her hasty drive to New Orleans now seemed rather foolish, she had no desire to drive all the way back to Mayfair without talking to Sean. She not only had important news to share with him—news that affected him as well as her—but also a duty to do so without delay. She wouldn’t intrude for long. She would simply state the facts of the matter. Then she would express her need for his assistance, and hope for at least some consideration from him in return.

As she tucked the envelope inside a zippered pocket of her tote, then fished for the compact collapsible umbrella she’d stashed under her car seat, Charlotte knew that approaching Sean wouldn’t be such a big deal if she could anticipate how he would respond. But after half a year apart there was very little she knew for sure about how her husband felt about anything or anyone, including her.

The umbrella was all but useless in the face of the stormy onslaught she battled from car to curb, then along the slick sidewalk and up the three narrow stone steps to the front door of the town house. Though her calf-length black wool coat worn over gray wool pants and a turtleneck sweater kept her mostly dry, her feet, shod in black leather pumps, were soaked after only a few steps.

Finally standing on the small stone porch, her hands numbed by the cold and damp, she almost lost her grip on the handle of her umbrella as another blast of wind swirled around her.

Too bad she hadn’t thought to take her gloves from her tote when she’d tucked the envelope safely inside it. Bundling her chin-length chocolate-brown curls into a headscarf wouldn’t have been a bad idea, either—if only she’d had one with her. She would have preferred not to look like a mad woman tonight, but there was little she could do about that now.

Pressing one trembling finger against the brass button that rang the doorbell, Charlotte reminded herself that her appearance mattered not at all. Sean had seen her in a worse state on more than one occasion in the past, and hadn’t shunned her. Of course, he had still been in love with her those other times that she hadn’t been at her best—

Without any warning—not even the sound of the bolt sliding in the lock—the front door of the town house swung open. Huddled close to the facade, as she was, not to mention totally unprepared for her husband’s sudden looming presence in the doorway, Charlotte took a startled step back.

At the same instant that the heel of her right shoe slid over the rain-slick stone, another gust of wind caught the umbrella. Thrown completely off balance, Charlotte let go of the umbrella, and as it sailed into the night, she stumbled again and started to fall.

Sure that she was about to land in a heap halfway down the porch steps, she uttered a small, frightened cry. Then, as suddenly as she’d begun to go down, she found herself caught up in the grip of her husband’s arms. With a smooth, steady swoop, he lifted her neatly off her feet, then cradled her securely against his chest.

Blinking up at Sean in dismay, the full force of the rain soaking her hair, her face and her coat, as well as his hair and face and rumpled white dress shirt, Charlotte was overcome by the most disconcerting urge to…giggle. The situation into which she’d gotten herself was so utterly unexpected and so utterly ridiculous that despite the stern and disapproving look on her husband’s face, she really couldn’t help but laugh.

Not a little burble, either, but an irreverent, unrestrained ripple of hilarity that first brought tears to her eyes, and then with a startling shift, drew darker, more painful tears from her soul.

Sean swung around with her still in his arms, a muttered curse rattling deep in his throat, walked back into the town house and unceremoniously kicked the door shut with one well-placed foot. Caught up so protectively in his firm yet gentle grip, Charlotte leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed like an exhausted, overwrought child.

Though she knew she was making a spectacle of herself, she couldn’t seem to stop the tears pouring from her eyes. She had dammed them up deep inside of her for so long that getting a grip on her runaway emotions now seemed all but impossible.