The Royal Baby Bargain

And why had she done it? Was she one of those sick creatures who yearned so strongly for a child she stole one? One glance at her glittering eyes despatched that idea. She was as sane as he was. So had she thought that possession of Gemma’s child would lead to a direct line to Gemma’s money?

He changed tactics. ‘How much is it going to cost me?’

The last tinge of soft apricot along her astonishing cheekbones vanished, leaving her the colour of parchment. Arms swinging out to catch her, Caelan took an involuntary step forward, then let his hands fall to his sides when she didn’t stagger. Sardonically, he watched her eyes close, their long lashes casting fragile shadows on her tender skin.

Oh, she knew all the tricks! He took a deliberate step backwards, removing himself, he thought with cold disgust at his body’s betrayal, from danger.

Her lashes lifted and she transfixed him with eyes that usually blended green and gold; not now, though. Stripped of all emotion, enamelled and opaque, they blazed a clear, hard green, vivid in the dim light of the small, bare hall.

‘How much for what?’ she asked in a staccato sentence.

He didn’t bother with subtlety. ‘For you to give up the child.’

CHAPTER TWO

NOT a muscle moved in the delicate ivory skin, but a shadow darkened Abby’s eyes. ‘You disgust me,’ she said woodenly. ‘Get out.’

Time, Caelan decided, to use the blunt instrument; if appealing to greed wouldn’t do the trick, threats usually worked. ‘You’re in trouble, Abby. If I decide to play it heavy, you face a conviction for kidnapping the child and giving false information to the passport authorities.’

That shocked her. She winced as though against a blow, but her soft mouth hardened. ‘His name is Michael,’ she stated fiercely, shaken by a gust of emotion he couldn’t define. ‘He’s not some entity you can define by the term child; he has a personality, a place in the world.’

‘A place in the world?’ Caelan looked around the shabby hall, his derision plain. ‘He deserves better than this.’

‘You might have grown up in the lap of luxury, secure in the fact that you’re a prince, but most children are perfectly happy with a more down-market set of relatives and much less money. He is loved and he loves. He has little friends—’

‘You’re taking him away from them,’ he interrupted in his turn, not trying to hide the contempt in his tone.

She looked away. Whatever she’d been going to say died on her tongue; she shivered, and once more delicate colour flared along her high cheekbones. On a burst of fierce, angry triumph, Caelan knew that he wasn’t the only one feeling the violent pull of an old craving.

‘Let’s deal,’ he said, forcing himself to speak judicially. Clearly, she wasn’t going to be bought off, so he had no choice; she was the only mother Gemma’s son had known, and, until the child could manage without her, they were both stuck with her.

Not that he was going to tell her that. No, he’d frighten her thoroughly first, and then drive as hard a bargain as he could.

With cool deliberation, he went on, ‘I’m offering you a future. I want the—I want my sister’s child. However, because he thinks you’re his mother, I propose we bury the hatchet.’

Torn by a tumult of conflicting thoughts, she stared at him. ‘How?’ she said at last, her voice stiff and defensive, waiting for his next words with painful apprehension.

He said ironically, ‘It’s quite simple.’

‘Simple?’ Abby was so incensed she almost gobbled the word. ‘Nothing about this is simple.’

‘You should have thought of that before you decided to play with Michael’s life,’ the prince said grimly. ‘You removed him from his family, took him away from the only people who’d know how to protect him. Have you thought of the danger you could be exposing him to?’

‘Danger?’ Eyes widening, she stared at him. ‘What danger?’

He said coldly, ‘He’s a Bagaton, which makes him prime kidnap material.’

So shocked she almost fell for the trick, she had to bite back the words that trembled on her lips. Hoping he didn’t notice the momentary hesitation, she said haughtily, ‘He is not a Bagaton. His name is Michael Metcalfe. And we Metcalfes are noted for our long and happy marriages, not for being kidnapped.’

A slashing jet brow rose in irony. ‘A writer is sniffing around Palaweyo, researching a book on Pacific tragedies.’ His hard, sensuous mouth curled. ‘Any woman you can label a princess is always useful when it comes to selling books, especially if she’s young and beautiful and dies in a monster cyclone after giving birth. Once the writer finds out that Michael is Gemma’s child—’

Abby struggled to remain calm, but the panic beneath her ribs intensified so that she couldn’t control her racing thoughts. ‘I doubt whether any writer—however well his books sell!—can afford to dangle the bribe of a hospital in front of the villagers in return for the right lies,’ she flashed.

‘I knew that the child was Gemma’s before I decided to give the villagers their hospital,’ he told her casually. ‘They spoke quite freely about you and her—they have no reason not to tell anyone who asks. And no writer worth his salt is going to keep it quiet.’ His face hardened. ‘Inevitably you will be tracked down—’

‘How? It took you, with all your resources, three years to find us,’ she snapped, but he could see the fear in her eyes.

‘Writers have resources too.’ He waited while she absorbed the impact of that before adding forcefully, ‘Once he finds you, the resultant publicity will expose Michael’s existence—and his lack of protection—to anyone who wants a quick fortune. Didn’t you read about the de Courcy heiress?’

Colour drained from Abby’s face. The fourteen-year-old daughter of a billionaire had been snatched from her exclusive school, yet although her parents had paid the huge ransom, it had been too late. She’d been killed the day after she’d disappeared.

The cold, inflexible voice of the prince battered at her composure. ‘Whoever did that got away with five million euros, worth in New Zealand dollars about—’

‘I know how much it’s worth! You’re trying to frighten me,’ she said thinly, turning her head away from his intimidating gaze as though she could shut out the effect of his words.

‘Damn right I am! There are people out there who’d see Michael as a passport to easy money, a soft target. Are you willing to risk that?’

She went even paler and closed her eyes. He was manipulating her, but the thought of Michael in the clutches of some cold-hearted psychopath robbed her of speech and the ability to think.

A soft noise brought her head around sharply; Michael was stirring. And the prince was walking with long, noiseless strides towards the open door of the bedroom.

Panic hit her in a howling, destructive storm, propelling her after him into the tiny room. Caelan loomed over the bed. He didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge her presence at all, his whole attention bent on the child as though claiming him in some primal way.

Abby pushed desperately at his hard, lean body. She might as well have tried to move a granite pillar, except that his body heat reached out and blasted through the brittle shell of her self-control.

Her hands dropped, but she didn’t move. In a fierce voice pitched too low to disturb the restless child, she ordered, ‘Get out of here.’

Silently Caelan turned, but he waited at the doorway, a silent, threatening figure. After straightening the bed-clothes over Michael, Abby dragged in a juddering breath and left him.

‘We’ll go into the living room.’ She pushed open the door.

Once inside Caelan Bagaton said with cold distaste, ‘I don’t hurt children, Abby.’

‘All right, I overreacted,’ she returned shakily. ‘I don’t think you’d be cruel to him. I know you weren’t cruel to Gemma—she told me herself that she barely knew you because you were away so much. But can’t you see that the last thing she wanted was for her son to be banished to a nursery like an abandoned doll stuffed in a cupboard, cared for by nannies who come and go regularly?’

Caelan’s expression didn’t change at her inadvertent admission that the child was Gemma’s. His desire to see the boy had shattered Abby’s composure; she didn’t even realise she’d given herself away.

Instinct warned him to proceed with caution. He said neutrally, ‘Her mother wasn’t maternal, but she made sure Gemma had the best care available. And my father had duties he couldn’t avoid, as well as a corporation to run. He did his best for her.’

Hands clenching into fists at her side, Abby skewered him with an outraged glance and carried on in full, indignant fervour. ‘By sending her off to boarding school the minute she turned eight, where she was wretchedly, miserably unhappy? That was his best?’ With an elaborate dismissive shrug she finished scathingly, ‘In that case, I’m really, really glad to hear that he didn’t dislike her!’

‘That’s enough!’

Caelan’s harsh, deep voice drowned her in cold menace. Damn, she thought, mortified; don’t let emotion get the better of you! She could see contempt in his eyes, in the hard line of his mouth, the still tautness of his powerful body. No matter how angry he was, the prince remained in full control.

‘Admit that he’s Gemma’s child.’ At her obstinate silence, he said coolly, ‘You asked for proof that he’s not yours. Here it is.’

He drew a sheet of paper from the pocket of his casual, superbly cut jacket. When he offered it to her she took it and tried to read, but the words danced and blurred in front of her eyes. Blinking, she forced her brain to focus.