Page 21 of Hidden Heir With His Housekeeper

Mason sank down onto the edge of the bed, his knees too shaky to hold him. So many thoughts and feelings were bombarding him he couldn’t seem to differentiate any of them. Except the hole opening up in the pit of his stomach, which he remembered from when he was a kid.

He cut off the memories.

Not going there. Not ever. That was ancient history. He’d been a skinny boy back then, still kidding himself his mum would come back one day and his dad wasn’t a bad guy, just a man with an addiction he couldn’t control.

But he wasn’t that gullible, stupid kid any more, had stopped being him when he’d left that life behind.

He thrust his fingers through his hair, appalled to realise his hand was shaking. He clenched his fingers into a fist to stop the pathetic reaction. And noticed the phoenix in flight he’d had inked onto the back of his hand when he was fourteen years old. The night he’d promised never to let anyone use him again.

‘What makes you think Medford hasmetargeted as a possible son-in-law?’ he asked, surprised his voice was steady when his stomach was so jumpy he felt nauseous.

Was that why she had chosen him? To take her virginity. It had never been about him, or the livewire sexual connection he had thought was genuine... She had never really been into him. She’d been told to come on to him by her old man.

‘Just stuff I’ve heard in the last few days,’ Joe said, sounding increasingly uncomfortable. ‘When I saw the pictures online last night, of you and her leaving the Cascade launch, I figured you knew. That you were playing her.’

So last night had been a big fat lie that he’d fallen for. Enough to be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning at the thought of dating her. Of making her his.

‘I’m not that desperate to get laid, Joe,’ he said, but he could hear the bitterness in his own voice. And the shame.

Because he was exactly that desperate. Or why would he have fallen for her act so easily? He’d even told her he had been honoured she’d chosen him to be her first, like some romantic fool. Instead of a man who had always known the score. That women like her thought they were above guys like him.

Which was really ironic. Because, for all her airs and graces and that plummy accent, she was no better than the women who used to leave their calling cards in the broken phone boxes around Bermondsey when he was a boy. The big difference being those women hadn’t had a choice. Had been driven by desperation, poverty, coercion and/or addiction. He’d always had sympathy for them. He had no sympathy for Beatrice Medford, though. Because she hadn’t been forced to play him last night. She probably thought she was better than those working girls too, except she wasn’t. Because she wasn’t desperate, she was just spoilt and entitled. And greedy.

‘Right. Well, thanks for letting me know,’ Mason murmured.

‘You still want me to make that appointment with Dr Lee?’

He frowned. And swore softly.

Hell, she could be pregnant. Had she planned that too? Maybe not. After all, he was the one who had supplied the faulty condom. But she hadn’t even mentioned birth control. Her panic last night must have been an act too, he decided. Because surely a pregnancy would fit right in with her father’s get-your-hooks-into-Mason agenda.

And if she were pregnant he would be stuck with her, because one thing he would never do was desert his own flesh and blood, the way his mother had.

‘Yes,’ he said, thrusting his fingers through his hair, his anger at her and himself—for being such a chump—starting to consume him. ‘But tell Lee I’ll want her to persuade Ms Medford to agree to a pregnancy test ASAP.’

If there were consequences, he would deal with them. His way.

He ended the call with Joe, then sat staring at the view he’d been so proud of five minutes ago—the view which had assured him he had finally arrived, and had become the man he had always wanted to be. Not just successful, but worthy of success.

The view which now looked flat and dull and ostentatious.

Because he’d just been taken for a colossal mug. By Beatriceandher old man.

But even as he nursed his resentment and nurtured his fury—so he could fill up the hole in his gut—an empty space remained.

Reminding him there was still some of that dumb kid inside him—the kid who could be hurt. The kid he thought he’d killed a lifetime ago. The little boy who had waited for his mum to return for months, until he’d finally wised up and realised she was never coming back. But somehow Beatrice Medford had found that kid and exploited him.

‘Hi, Mason, are you here?’ her voice called from the living room, shy and unsure.

He forced himself to get off the bed.

He spotted her standing by the coffee machine as he walked into the living area. And had to brace against the visceral jolt of heat. How could he still want her? When she had played him so comprehensively.

But when she swung round and he saw the vivid blush slashing across her cheeks and the shy smile lifting lips still red from last night’s kisses, he knew exactly why. Wearing nothing but the old T-shirt which skimmed her thighs and showed off her mile-long legs to perfection, her hair a mess of unruly curls and her ragged breathing drawing his gaze to the way her unfettered breasts peaked beneath the worn cotton, she looked so fresh and appealing and guileless his mouth watered.

Cynical fury twisted inside him as he rode the wave of want. Because it was fake.

Or mostly fake. Their livewire connection had been real, because she sure as hell hadn’t faked those orgasms. But she had also bartered her virginity and risked a pregnancy to hook him.

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