Million-Dollar Love-Child

He was going to kiss her.

She recognised the signs, saw the darkening of his eyes and the lowering of those thick, thick lashes as his heated gaze swept her flushed face.

The tension throbbed and pulsed between them and then suddenly he released her with a soft curse and took a step backwards.

‘So why are you here?’ His tone was suddenly icy cold, and there was anger in the glint of his dark eyes. ‘You wish to reminisce? You are hoping for a repeat performance, perhaps? If so, you should probably know that women only get one chance in my bed and you blew it.’

A repeat performance?

Erotic memories flashed through her brain and she took a step backwards, as if to escape from them. ‘Let’s get this straight.’ Despite all her best efforts, her voice shook slightly. ‘Nothing would induce me to climb back into your bed, Luc. Nothing. That was one life experience I have no intention of repeating. Ever. I’m not that stupid.’

He stilled and a look of masculine speculation flickered across his handsome face. ‘Is that a fact?’

Too late she realised that a man like Luc would probably consider that a challenge. And he was a man who loved a challenge.

She looked at him helplessly, wondering how on earth the conversation had developed into this. For some reason they were right back where they’d left off seven years before and it wasn’t what she’d planned.

She’d intended to be cool and businesslike and to avoid anything remotely personal. Instead of which, their verbal exchange had so far been entirely personal.

And still she hadn’t told him what she needed to tell him.

Still she hadn’t said what needed to be said.

He prowled around her slowly and a slightly mocking smile touched his firm mouth. ‘Still so much passion, Kimberley, and still trying to hold it in check and pretend it doesn’t exist. That it isn’t a part of you and yet how could your nature be anything else?’ He brushed a hand over her hair with a mocking smile. ‘Never get involved with a woman who has hair the colour of dragon’s breath.’

Kimberley lifted her chin and her green eyes flashed. ‘And never get involved with a man who has an ego the size of Brazil.’

He laughed. ‘Ours was never the most tranquil of relationships, was it meu amorzinho?’

Meu amorzinho. He’d always called her that and she’d loved hearing him speak in his native language. It had seemed so much more exotic than the English translation, ‘my little love’.

His unexpected laughter released some of the throbbing tension in the room and she felt the colour flood into her face as she remembered, too late, that she’d promised herself she wasn’t going to fight with him. She couldn’t afford to fight with him. ‘We both need to forget the past.’ Determined not to let him unsettle her, she took a deep breath and tried to find the tranquillity that usually came naturally to her. ‘Both of us have moved on. I’m not the same person any more.’

‘You’re exactly the same person, Kimberley.’ He strolled around her, like a jungle animal assessing its prey. ‘Inside, people never really change. It’s just the packaging that’s different. The way they present themselves to the world.’

Before she could guess his intention, he lifted a lean bronze hand and in a deft, skilful movement removed the clip from her hair.

She gasped a protest and clutched at the fiery mass that tumbled over her shoulders. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Altering the packaging. Reminding you who you really are under the costume you’re wearing.’ His burning gaze slid lazily down her body. ‘You come in here, suitably dressed to teach a class of schoolchildren or sort books in a library, that hot red hair all twisted away and tamed. On the outside you are all buttoned up and locked away, yet we both know what sort of person you are on the inside.’ His dark eyes fixed on hers and his voice was rich and seductive. ‘Passionate. Wild.’

His tongue rolled over the words, his accent more pronounced than usual, and she felt her stomach flip over and her knees weaken.

‘You’re wrong! That’s not who I am! You have no idea who I am.’ Despite her promise to herself that she’d remain cool, she couldn’t hold back the emotion. ‘Did you really think I’d be the same pathetic little girl you seduced all those years ago? Do you really think I haven’t changed?’

Despite her heated denials, she felt a flash of sexual awareness that appalled her and she squashed it down with grim determination.

She wasn’t going to let him do this to her again. She wasn’t going to feel anything.

She’d come here to tell him something she should have told him seven years ago, not to resurrect feelings that she’d taken years to bury.

‘You weren’t pathetic and neither,’ he said softly, touching a curl of fiery red hair, ‘did I seduce you, determined though you seem to be to believe that. Our passion was as mutual as it was hot, meu amorzinho. You were with me all the way.’ He said the words ‘all the way’ with a smooth, erotic emphasis that started a slow burn deep within her pelvis. ‘The only difference between us was that you were ashamed of how you felt. I assumed that maturity would allow you to embrace your passionate nature instead of rejecting it.’

To her horror she felt her body start to melt and her breathing grow shallow and she shrank away from him, desperate to stop the reaction.

How?

How, after all these years and all the thinking time she’d had, could she still react to this man?

Did she never learn?

And then she remembered that she had learned. The hard way. And it didn’t matter how her body responded to this man, this time her brain was in charge. She was older and more experienced and well able to ignore the insidious curl of sexual desire deep in her pelvis.

‘This isn’t what I came here for.’ She lifted a hand to her hair and smoothed it away from her face. ‘What happened between you and me isn’t important.’

‘So you keep saying. So what is important enough to bring you all the way back to Rio de Janeiro when you left and swore never to return, I wonder? Our golden beaches? Our dramatic mountains?’ His rich accent rolled over the words. ‘The addictive beat of the samba? I recall that evening that we danced on my terrace…’

He flicked memories in front of her like a slide show and she looked away for a moment, forcing herself to focus on something bland and inanimate, trying to dilute the disturbing images in her head. The chair drew the full force of her gaze while she composed herself and plucked up the courage to say what she had to say.

‘I want us to stop talking about the past.’ She paused for a moment and felt her knees turn to liquid. It was now. It had to be now. ‘I’m here because—’ Her voice cracked and she licked dry lips and tried again. ‘I’m trying to tell you—w-we had a son together, Luc, and he’s now six years old.’ Her heart pounded and her body trembled. ‘He’s six years old and his life is in danger. I’m here because I need your help. I’ve no one else to turn to.’

CHAPTER TWO

HOWcould silence seem so loud?

Was he ever going to speak?

Relief that she’d finally told him mingled with apprehension. What was he going to say? How was he going to react to the sudden discovery that he was a father?

‘Well, that’s inventive.’ His tone was flat and he sprawled in the nearest chair, his eyes veiled as he watched her, always the one in control, always the one calling the shots. ‘You certainly know how to keep a guy on his toes. I never know what you’re going to come up with next.’

Kimberley blinked, totally taken aback.

He didn’t believe her?

She’d prepared herself for anger and recrimination. She’d braced herself to be on the receiving end of his hot Brazilian temper. She’d been prepared to explain why she hadn’t told him seven years before. But it hadn’t once crossed her mind that he might not believe her.

‘You seriously think I’d joke about something like that?’

He gave a casual shrug. ‘I admit it’s in pretty poor taste, but some women will stoop to just about anything to get a man to fork out. And I presume that’s what you want? More money?’

It was exactly what she wanted but not for any of the reasons he seemed to be implying.

Her mouth opened and shut and she swallowed hard, totally out of her depth. She hadn’t even entertained the possibility that he wouldn’t believe her and she honestly didn’t know what to say next. She’d geared herself up for this moment and it wasn’t going according to her script.

‘Why wouldn’t you believe me?’

‘Possibly because women don’t suddenly turn up after seven years of silence and announce that they’re pregnant.’