The Tycoon's Hidden Heir

Her heart ached for Brody. He had only just settled back at his exclusive boarding school and had been troubled since Patrick’s sudden death—easily upset and reluctant to leave her. Understandable, all of it, of course. She was already worried about how he’d cope at school during this difficult period of adjustment. If Evan spread his poisonous secret Brody’s life would become a living hell. She would not let that happen.

But what on earth was she to do? Already entrenched in the company as marketing director, from the day of Patrick’s fatal heart attack, Evan had exerted his power as new part owner of Davies Freight and taken over Patrick’s chair and the decision-making processes that fell to the managing director. She’d been unable to stop him, and with the demands of dealing with Brody’s grief, not to mention her own, she hadn’t had the energy left to fight back in the boardroom. This week, she’d finally returned to the office, where she supervised the business’s administration. It hadn’t taken long to discover Evan had completely taken over.

Evan had never appreciated or understood his father’s love of the cut and thrust of the industry, or his cautious plans for expansion. No, all he saw was an easy ticket to maintain his plush lifestyle and the quickest way to get rid of her. Of course, on paper, he could be seen to have gone through the motions—pitching new contracts, renewing old ones—but deeper analysis had shown the truth. If Evan was permitted to keep on his current path the business would be bankrupt within a year.

She’d grown up having to scrape together every penny. There was no way she would let that happen to her son.

A look of scorn slid across her stepson’s face, making it patently clear that no matter how coldly polite he’d been to her while his father was alive, the gloves were most definitely off now. Helena’s fingernails bit into her palms as she struggled not to whack him hard across his smug features. No doubt he hoped she’d do exactly that. With his connections, he could press assault charges and see her son removed from her care. Then he could do whatever he wanted with Brody’s share of the company. Yeah, he’d like that all right, but it sure wouldn’t happen this side of hell freezing over. Not while she still had breath in her body.

What scared her most was if Evan discovered the full truth he’d delight in ripping his much younger half brother to shreds. With the resources he had at his disposal she knew he’d have people digging for dirt on her—the fact he’d found out how she and Patrick had met was just one example of how far he was prepared to go to find anything to discredit her and help him reach his avaricious goal. She had to protect her son, no matter what, and at the same time to somehow find the courage to honour Patrick’s last wishes to the letter.

Helena swallowed back the tears that threatened. When she’d met Patrick she’d been prepared to accept his help in return for her companionship in marriage. She’d never dreamed she would learn to love him. She missed her husband more than she could ever have imagined—his steady hand on the tiller of their world, his gentle encouragement to strive for her dreams, his unadulterated enjoyment in the child born within the first year of their marriage. He’d always boasted Brody had made him young again. Not young enough, unfortunately, to see the fast-growing boy much past eleven years old.

“So?” Evan’s sneer jerked her back to cold harsh reality. “What do you say?”

“I can’t answer you now, Evan. It’s too soon.”

“Don’t underestimate me, Helena. You and the bratare just a blip on my radar. I’ll leave now, but remember I will have what’s my due—one way or another.”

Helena couldn’t bring herself to rise from her chair to even see him from her home, couldn’t trust herself not to resort to the old Helena and to fly at him, giving vent to her rage. No, if there was one thing she’d learned the hard way in the past twelve years it was to think first, act second. Evan knew the way out; she only wished he’d stay there.

The hollow echo of the front door resounded through the house and the tension slowly ebbed from her shoulders. God, she’d thought she was tough but it would take more than tough to see her through this. It would take a miracle. She drew in a deep breath and rose from the chair. There was work to be done, and plenty of it. First, she had to arrange an appointment—one she’d been dreading. She couldn’t ignore Patrick’s final instructions any longer.

Her heart twisted with regret that her sweet, generous husband had understood the reality of his eldest son’s true nature, that he’d known that this situation would come to pass.

Half an hour later Helena let the telephone receiver fall back haphazardly into its cradle. Mason Knight was nigh on impossible to track down. She couldn’t give up though, he was the one man Patrick had said would be able to help her, the one man he’d insisted she ask and, coincidentally, the last man on earth she wanted to seek out for help.

The secretary at his office had said he was out of Auckland and refused to give any further information, but Patrick had mentioned something about a holiday home on the Coromandel that Mason used as his bolt-hole when he needed to escape the city. She’d lay odds on him being there, so that’s where she had to go.

A warning trickle of dread ran down her spine and for a moment Helena questioned whether she was doing the right thing. As intimately as they’d known one another that one and only time, the man was a virtual stranger. How would he react when she turned up on his doorstep and asked for help? Over the years he’d made it perfectly clear to her how much he detested her, and had avoided seeing Patrick when she too would be there.

Could she stand it if he slammed the door in her face and left her to deal with Evan on her own? And what of Brody?

There was only one thing for it. She had to get to the isolated Coromandel Peninsula address she’d found in Patrick’s Rolodex. For a minute she rued the fact that Mason Knight couldn’t have built his minipalace somewhere like Pauanui, a popular playground for New Zealand’s wealthy and somewhere she was familiar with. But it was probably best not to have any chance of being recognised in his presence. It wouldn’t take much mental arithmetic before tongues would start to wag and minds to speculate. She couldn’t do that to Brody, no matter what.

Mason looked through the wall of floor-length glass that faced out to the ocean and drank in the wild beauty of the scene. He loved this place and not just because it was his own personal testament to the first million he’d ever made. He’d never grow tired of the sight of the native bush, as it hugged the hillside on its gentle drop toward the sea, or the sea’s ever-changing mood. It’d been too long since he’d come here to recharge.

When he woken at 5:00 a.m., his mind still fogged with sleep, he’d known it was time to clear his diary and get away from the city, and all its demands, for the weekend. Okay, so it had taken some juggling, and a few extra grey hairs for his secretary, but he’d walked out of the office at two-thirty this afternoon without a backward glance. Now the weekend stretched before him, gloriously empty. His to do with whatever the hell he wanted.

He lifted a glass of red wine in a silent toast to the view then put it to his lips and relished the flavour of his favourite merlot—an indulgence he saved only for these stolen weekends here at his hideaway. His mouth twisted into a wry smile. Of course, Patrick had always teased him that the only thing to make a runaway weekend perfect was spending it in the company of a special person. But Mason had no such special person in his life. He had neither the time nor the inclination to weed through the gold diggers, the publicity seekers, the schemers.

Realistically, of course, he knew that not all women were like that—his sisters-in-law being perfect examples and hell-bent on putting what they believed were suitable marriageable candidates across his path. What was it about happily married people that made them want to see everyone in the same state, he wondered. It was like an epidemic over the past couple of years. His eyes rested briefly on the snapshot of his growing extended family taken at their last gathering. Who would’ve thought he’d be an uncle twice over by now?

Marriage. His lip curled slightly at the thought. While his brothers, Declan and Connor, didn’t seem to have any complaints it certainly wasn’t a state he was in any hurry to embrace. What he enjoyed now was the company of suitable escorts from his personal list. Sophisticated women who made no emotional demands on him at all. Cut-and-dried—just the way he liked it.

Mason strolled across the room to flip the light switch. It grew dark early this time of year. The wind was coming up. Good. He loved a howling winter storm. Nothing like it to blow the cobwebs from your mind and reenergize your soul. He had everything here he needed, and if the power went out, so be it. Nothing would mar the perfection of his all-too-infrequent time away from work, alone.

Buzz, buzz!

Mason froze. Nothing but the intrusion of an uninvited guest, he thought as the gate intercom’s strident warning bounced about the high-raftered ceiling. Who the hell could it be? He hadn’t even told his secretary where he was headed when he walked out the office door. Sure, his brothers or his dad would figure this was where he’d come if they tried to contact him at home, but they would respect his privacy. One thing was for sure: whoever was at the gate wasn’t welcome.

Buzz, buzz, buzzzzzzzzz!

With a muttered expletive Mason put his glass of wine down on the heavy pine coffee table and walked over to the intercom console on the far side of the room. He leaned one forearm against the wall and depressed the Talk button with a dangling finger.

“Yeah, what?” he snarled into the speaker.

“Mason? Mason Knight?”

His skin chilled as he recognised the husky lilt of the woman’s voice. How the hell had she tracked him here and, more importantly, why?

“Can we talk? I really need to see you.”

“We have nothing to talk about, Mrs. Davies.”

“Don’t switch off. It’s important, or you know I wouldn’t be here. Mason? Please?”

Oh yeah, she injected just the right amount of pathos into her tone. Any other man would leap to her aid. Any other man but him. But then not everyone knew what a little schemer Helena Davies was, or how little she’d valued her wedding vows. He’d often wondered just how many times she’d cuckolded Patrick since that night and the thought still made his blood boil.

“It’s for Patrick. Just give me five minutes,” she finished.

Mason’s heart gave a twist. Patrick Davies, the one man he’d admired unreservedly—until he’d married Helena. He warred with his desire to switch off the intercom, go out onto the deck and be buffeted by the rising wind and pretend he’d never begun this conversation. But despite Patrick’s appalling taste in wives, he owed it to both the man and his memory to hear her out.

“Five minutes only. Come on up.”

He hit the button to unlock the gate then strode through the house to the front door and threw it open to wait for her arrival. She didn’t take long. He could hear the strain of the car’s engine as the transmission dropped to a lower gear to climb the steep, unsealed private road. His whole body tensed as the taxi drove onto the flagstone-covered apron outside the house.

Taxi? He stifled a groan. Only Helena Davies would bring a taxi for the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Auckland to this spot on the Coromandel. The woman threw money around like there was an unending supply. He watched as she handed a fistful of hundred-dollar notes to the driver then alighted from the vehicle. His stomach tensed. She still looked good, he noted bitterly, although a bit paler and a bit thinner than the last time he’d seen her. In the dark emerald-coloured suit, buttoned just high enough to expose a hint of perfect creamy breast, and with her brown-red hair tightly twisted to the back of her head, she played the grieving widow well.

“A taxi, Helena?”

“And what’s wrong with that? I’ve recompensed him, and then some.” Her glittering green eyes met his gaze and clashed. Every nerve in his body went on full alert.

“Just seems a bit extravagant, don’t you think? Especially when you can drive any one of Patrick’s cars yourself.”

“I don’t drive anymore. Not since…Well, anyway, I never got my confidence back behind the wheel.” Her eyes drifted away from his face and fixed on a spot somewhere behind him.

Acid burned low in his belly. Like he needed the reminder of that night right now.

The taxi driver swung through the circular turning bay at the front of the house and disappeared back down the drive. What?

“Hey, where’s he going?”

“Back to Auckland.” Helena’s voice held an underlying thread of steel.

The tightness in his gut ratcheted up another notch as, in a few graceful steps, she closed the distance between them. Her perfume reached out to tantalise his nostrils—a bit sweet, a bit spicy. His body stirred with unwelcome interest. He hated that she could still do that to him.

“You said five minutes.” He bit the words out as if he’d chipped them from stone.