Page 14 of 2 Books in One Bundle

‘How would you see it playing out?’ she asked, not that she was particularly interested or anything.

‘The baby is my responsibility,’ he said, opening the door and standing to one side. ‘I will do everything in my power to keep it safe. And therefore you too. I’ll get the world’s top obstetrician on speed dial. You’ll be waited on hand and foot. You won’t have to lift a finger. You can avail yourself of my library and my cinema. Your comfort will be my only concern. Anything you want, anything you need, tell me and I will arrange it. Your wish will be my command.’

He stopped and in the ensuing silence Mia thought with a sigh of longing that actually that did all sound really rather heavenly. When was the last time she’d been taken care of? She couldn’t remember. The first signs of her mother’s dementia had begun the summer after she’d turned eleven, even though they hadn’t had a formal diagnosis until much later, and from that moment on, for the next five years, their roles had slowly reversed.

Mia was the one who’d kept everything together while her mother became increasingly incapable. She’d done the shopping, the cleaning, the washing and the cooking. She’d got rid of nosy neighbours and come up with endless plausible excuses for not being at school. She’d done whatever it had taken to keep up the pretence that everything was all right because she’d been terrified of having to confront the unknowns and uncertainties of reality. And as if that hadn’t been enough, she’d done it all while struggling to work out what was happening to the mother she adored, who sometimes adored her back and sometimes didn’t, who was sometimes lucid and sometimes wasn’t, which had been bewildering and scary and heartbreaking.

So why was she resisting Zander’s proposal when being cared for and not having to worry about a thing had once been the stuff of her dreams?

Because it was more of a command than a suggestion and she was used to being in control of her life? Because of the annoying way she still responded to him? Because after nearly two decades of fending for herself she suspected she might actually find the attention a bit stifling?

Well, she should probably get used to occasionally relinquishing control if they were going to parent together, and her reaction to him needn’t be an issue. She’d spent the four months prior to his party ignoring it. She could do so for another couple of weeks. No doubt the searing attraction she still felt was down to rampaging hormones anyway, but all she had to do if it did become a problem was remind herself that he’d once blocked her phone, a sure sign if ever there was one that he was absolutely not interested in a repeat of the night they’d spent together.

They were going to be connected for years. They needed to get to know each other, and wouldn’t that be easier if they were in the same vicinity? Wouldn’t a short period of cohabitation provide an excellent opportunity to discuss the future? He could hardly move in with her. She only had the one bedroom. If she did feel a bit smothered, she could find ways to sneak out, she was sure. Presumably he wouldn’t be thereallthe time. And the library and cinema did sound intriguing.

‘How many bedrooms do you have?’ she asked because if she was going to do this it seemed prudent to check the sleeping arrangements.

‘There are three guest suites, of which you can take your pick.’

Excellent. ‘What’s your kitchen like?’

‘Pristine. Enormous. State-of-the-art and very well equipped.’

‘May I use it?’

‘It would be all yours.’

‘All right, then,’ she said, and got in the car.

CHAPTER SIX

HAVINGINSTRUCTEDHISassistants to cancel his plans for the rest of the week, Zander moved Mia and her luggage into his central London penthouse apartment that evening. He wasn’t taking any chances. In the six months since they’d met, he hadn’t known her to sit still or stop moving once. He’d detected a certain shiftiness in her demeanour outside the clinic, which suggested that, left to her own devices, she might make unwise decisions. Besides, the sooner she was safely installed in one of his guest rooms, he’d figured, the sooner he could start changing her mind about marriage.

With hindsight, however, he should have given some thought to what happened beyond that short-term goal because now he’d got her here, for the first time since he could remember, he was at a loss as to how to proceed.

Generally, the women in his life fell into one of three categories—family member, colleague or business acquaintance, object of his desire—and generally, he had no trouble adapting his behaviour to suit the occasion. When it came to his sisters, he rolled with the punches. At work, he treated everyone with equal decisiveness and respect. His seduction technique was second to none and he could operate the app that controlled the lights in this apartment, which had no fewer than nine settings that mostly ranged from low to off, with his eyes closed.

Mia, however, was in a category all of her own, for which there were no guidelines, and he had the suspicion that this experience was going to be like stumbling around uncharted territory in the dark with neither a compass nor a torch.

‘Is there anything in particular you need?’ he asked, setting down her one suitcase and her overnight bag just inside the guest room door.

‘No, this looks amazingly comfortable,’ she said as she swept her gaze around the space and then headed to one of the floor-to-ceiling triple-glazed windows. ‘Very soothing, all these neutrals. Great views in the daylight, I imagine.’

The views were indeed excellent. This bedroom overlooked Hyde Park on one side and on another Green Park and beyond, all the way to the City. At a push, on a very clear day, you could even see the sixty-storey Stanhope Kallis tower in Canary Wharf, where she’d changed his life for ever.

However, Zander wasn’t remotely interested in the views. Every drop of willpower he possessed was engaged in keeping his attention off the enormous bed that dominated the space and resisting the onslaught of the hot, vivid memories that brought to mind what had happened the last time he and Mia had been in such proximity to one.

Sex wasnotwhat this arrangement was about, he reminded himself sternly as he willed his pulse to slow and the fire scorching through him to ease. It was about keeping Mia and his baby safe and securing the future. A purely practical plan, the only kind he knew how to make, the kind he excelled at.

So he would not think about the electrifying heat of her mouth, the dazzling strength of her desire for him and the way he’d repeatedly lost his mind in her arms. He would not dwell on the irritating way the details kept haunting his dreams by night and derailing his thoughts by day, or the knee-buckling attraction that inconveniently still burned as brightly as it ever had.

Nor would he allow himself to revisit the events of this afternoon and his utterly unfathomable response to her panicked phone call. What that suffocating pressure in his chest and the hollowing out of his stomach had been about he had no idea. He hadn’t felt anything like it in decades. But it required no analysis. In the general scheme of things, it was unimportant.

Whatwasimportant was coming up with another of those purely practical plans pretty damn quickly, because how was he going to get through the next two weeks if every time he looked at her he was struck by the overwhelming urge to flatten her against the nearest suitable surface and keep her there until his hunger was satisfied and she couldn’t move? He’d go mad. It had to stop.

Thanks to his once-only rule, Mia could no longer be the object of his desire and she certainly wasn’t a family member, so perhaps the way forward was to treat her like a business acquaintance.

Respect.

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