Page 55 of The Tycoon's Shock Heir

And now she was a part of it too.

As she stared out at the balmy summer Côte D’Azur evening a chill of loneliness spread over her as damp and dark as all those nights in that frozen Croydon flat. The spectre was still there, whispering in her ear that she might think she had it all worked out, she might be imagining some shiny new future. But money didn’t kill loneliness. Oh, no. She couldn’t buy her way out this. It was only love that could do that.

Love that she feared and craved in equal measures. Love that had been like a forbidden fruit—just out of reach. The fleeting glimpse of her mother’s smile, the squeeze of a passing hug. Those momentary touches that had spread sunlight through her and then been washed away, because there had never been enough to go round.

So she’d turned to the rapture of an audience and the warm delight of an aching body that performed perfection for them and the chance that maybe some day in that sea of faces, her father would call out her name Because that kept the sunshine there that little bit longer.

And now she wanted more. She wanted to feel Matteo’s love. She wanted to love and be loved in return. Marry him, live with him, have a child with him. Dance. And maybe, just maybe, be a good mum...

She wanted to know how it felt to be loved for herself. Not for her smile, or her long dark hair, or her clever body. She wanted to be loved for being Ruby.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HE LET THE car window slide slowly down, then cut the engine. Warm, humid air pushed against his face and he reached for his collar, tugged the knot of his tie loose and flicked at the top button until it popped open.

Suits. He still hated wearing them and couldn’t accept that he’d become one. Still never properly saw himself as that type. He’d hated being made to wear one as a teenager. Being choked in the suffocating confines of grey gabardine had not been his idea of a good time.

And he’d managed to avoid wearing them right up until his father’s funeral. By then there had been no choice—and how much worse could it have been anyway? He’d started learning to fill his father’s shoes before the hard, lumpy earth was scattered on his coffin, and he was still learning. Still a work in progress.

He got out and stretched his legs. The drive up from London had been sweet and smooth, and he was just in the mood for a little wander round the lake and then up to the house where the British Ballet held their summer school. And where his beautiful wife-to-be would be waiting to meet him.

He lifted his jacket from the back seat, slung it over his shoulder and began to move along the driveway towards the patch of blue lake, lying flat and still like a bright blue eye in a green face.

A flurry of girls just like a little Ruby flew past him down the sweep of stone steps, hair scraped back in buns and slim as flamingos. He tried to work out their age. Six? Seven? He had very little idea when it came to things like that. He had very little idea about children at all, but after years of regarding them as something he could barely tolerate, the idea of a little Ruby to cherish almost felled him at the knees.

He couldn’t imagine anything sweeter. To think that his child would be born innocent, helpless and dependent on him, was almost drowning out every other waking thought. He felt like a warrior for this unborn child. He would do anything and everything he could for the little bundle of soft bones and tiny developing organs he had seen on the scan with Ruby yesterday.

His little girl.

For years he’d positioned himself as a confirmed bachelor. How he’d scoffed at other men, scorned their happy family weekend stories, derided the doting daddy photographs in their wallets. He’d been superior to all that. He’d never get caught out. He was too damn smart.

But when he’d seen that image...

Life would never be the same again. He was sure of that. He only wished he could be so sure of Ruby.

He’d watched her at the scan, lying on the bed. As the consultant had put the image on the screen he’d watched her eyes flicker and widen with surprise. She’d turned pale, and her mouth had tightened into a worried line, her hands into fists. If he hadn’t known any better he’d have said she was terrified. But that didn’t make any sense. Women loved babies.

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