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He sighed, knowing he would be forced to reveal something only a handful of people knew. Something he had never wanted anyone to know.
‘When I was seven years old I was kidnapped,’ he said. Ignoring her sudden gasp, he made himself continue. ‘They were a ruthless criminal gang. They snatched me in Central Park, while I was there with Alexei and our governess. They’d been planning it for months. They kept me for three days, while they tried to persuade my father to pay a million-dollar ransom.’ He rubbed his thumb over the scar on his cheek as the memory of the rending pain, the childish terror, bombarded him.
‘The scar? They cut you?’ Bronte’s eyes widened with horror and something a great deal more disturbing. Compassion. ‘It wasn’t an accident?’
He let his thumb drop, disturbed by her intuition and her reaction to the news. ‘That’s not relevant,’ he qualified quickly because she looked devastated by his revelation. And the one thing he didn’t need from her was her pity. ‘The point is, they would have killed me, were preparing to kill me, when I was rescued by the SWAT team. I was lucky to survive. I’m not prepared to put your life or Nico’s life at risk in that way because of your association with me. Which means you have to stay where I can keep you safe. Now do you understand?’
* * *
Bronte nodded, the power of speech having deserted her. He looked so indomitable, his expression rigidly controlled. But she’d seen the flicker of something raw and so painful in his expression when he’d rubbed the jagged scar—that the horrifying thought of him as a child, being brutalised in that way for money, had felt like being stabbed in the stomach.
‘Okay,’ she managed at last because he seemed to need an answer.
There were so many more questions she wanted to ask him. How had he survived? Not just the pain, but the fear? Three days would be an eternity to a child. Was that why he kept his emotions under such ruthless control? Why he’d struggled with making an attachment to Nico? Surely a trauma of that magnitude at such an impressionable age would have a devastating effect on any person.
She stopped herself from asking him any of those questions, though. Because she doubted he would answer them. His closed expression suggested that even giving her this much information about the incident had been a struggle for him.
But compassion for that little boy, and the man he had become, swamped her regardless. And tangled with the guilty knowledge of her pregnancy.
She should have told him about the baby as soon as she’d arrived. She’d intended to, but seeing him again had been so overwhelming she’d needed to compose herself, to figure out exactly how to say it. And when she’d finally worked up the guts to do it he’d interrupted her. And then given her this devastating glimpse of the trauma he’d suffered during his childhood—his tone so controlled and unemotional it had broken her heart. As if sharing the pain of those moments would somehow diminish him in her eyes.
Consequently, the news of her pregnancy was now lodged in her throat like a boulder that she couldn’t seem to expel. Suddenly his motives two weeks ago—when he’d told her he didn’t have it in him to be a father, that he didn’t make love, that he didn’t need love—seemed so much more complex.
What if he’d said that, what if he believed it, not because he was cold and emotionless but because he needed to believe it to protect himself? If she told him about the baby now, he would react the only way he knew how, the way he’d done as that traumatised child. By shutting down his emotions and denying they existed. He’d feel threatened and trapped again, and he would have every right to feel that way because she’d lied to him.
Telling him the truth now would destroy this thing between them before it had ever had a chance to grow.
Would it be so wrong to give it a chance, not just for her own sake but for their child’s?
‘The proposition I’m going to make would always be based on mutual consent,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I’m not going to threaten or bully you into my bed. If you’re not there of your own free will it would destroy my pleasure just as much as yours.’
She managed a mute nod again, heat flooding through her at the intensity in his gaze. And the memory of his hands on her hips, his huge erection seated deep inside her. Perhaps the connection they had was purely sexual. But would it be so wrong to discover if it could be more than that?
‘But I’m not going to deny I want you back in my bed,’ he added. ‘Any way I can get you. I’ve had sex with a lot of women, Bronte. I’ve got a healthy sex drive, probably above average, but even so I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you.’
It wasn’t a declaration of his feelings. He was talking about the sexual chemistry between them. She knew that, but even so she felt the deep tug of yearning twist and turn inside her and morph into something that felt like hope.
‘I’d very much like to explore that connection,’ he continued, his voice so husky now it seemed to scrape over her nerve endings like sandpaper, igniting and agitating every inch of her skin. ‘I know you’re inexperienced so I’m prepared to take it slow. I’m not great at compromise but we can negotiate the where and when and how of this liaison. I want you to be comfortable. But I think it would be madness not to make the most of a physical connection that has the potential to give us both so much pleasure. Don’t you?’
It was a direct question. One which she should only have one answer to. No.
Sleeping with Lukas Blackstone again was the height of insanity—from an emotional point of view. A leap of faith that she had promised herself she would never make again, ever since she’d been a little girl and she’d stood on her father’s doorstep praying for him to look at her, just once.
But even before she’d taken the pregnancy test this morning she’d known, although she had refused to admit it to herself, she was already more invested, more drawn to Lukas than she should be. And despite the deep throbbing in her sex, the dizzying, disorientating rush of adrenaline at Lukas’s proposition, she knew that investment had always been more than just physical.
Surely now though, after what she had discovered less than an hour ago, she had the incentive to discover how much more.
She was pregnant with Lukas’s child. Whatever happened now, she would always have a connection to this man. Would it be so terribly wrong to take this opportunity to get to know him better? Before she told him about the pregnancy?
Even with her tiny amount of experience, she knew it was a massive mistake to think sex with Lukas would lead to emotional intimacy—especially as she now knew why he was so guarded. But surely physical closeness—and spending time with him—would give her the opportunity to at least answer some of the many questions she had about him. Didn’t she deserve to know those answers?
And then there was all the pleasure he was promising too. She’d never regretted the sacrifices she’d made to look after Nikky, because the rewards had been astronomical—not just in every smile and cuddle she got from him, but also in the things she’d discovered about herself as a person. But what was wrong with wanting to experience more of the wild, uninhibited joy she had found in Lukas Blackstone’s arms? Why should she feel guilty about wanting him?
She clasped her hands in her lap and stared out of the window of his penthouse. She took a deep breath and turned back to him, to see the inscrutable concentration on his face. Excitement and terror surged.
Be brave. Take a chance.
‘Okay,’ she murmured, her breath choking out.
