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And she had always wanted him.
But now, with her hormones in a state of rampant disarray, desire was thick in her veins, threatening to weaken her.
Worse, threatening to lead her to him.
Skye flipped over in the bed, staring at the wall across the room with its ornate wallpaper that she could just make out in the moonlit darkness of the room.
Tears that she’d held at bay all night were closer to the surface now, wetting her eyes and thickening her throat. The wall grew fuzzy before her eyes as grief enveloped her. She pressed a hand to her stomach, breathing deeply, imagining their baby inside her.
How she’d wanted this pregnancy! For the most part, they’d taken precautions, but not every time. And, on those occasions, Skye had wanted a baby to be the result more than she could ever have said.
And she’d got her wish, only the joy she’d anticipated was nowhere to be seen.
The discovery, after leaving Matteo, that they’d created a baby together had presented a whole new world of problems. For, almost immediately after, reality had descended on her like a hurricane. It might have taken two of them to create a baby, but there wouldn’t be two of them raising it.
She’d be alone.
Again.
Like always.
Yet not alone, because there would be a baby to care for. A baby she would love with all her heart. She’d love it enough for both of them, and she’d make sure the baby grew up to be kind and smart, adored and loved.
And her child would never be capable of acting like Matteo had!
Skye was determined that she would do everything right and give the baby all the love she’d never known. As well as stability and adoration, support and acceptance. She’d only known the baby to be inside her for days before she’d begun to make wholesale changes to her life and lifestyle.
She didn’t want to raise her child as the heir or heiress to a billion-pound fortune—let alone two! She didn’t want them to equate wealth with luck or success. While she wanted her child to have everything it needed in life, Skye knew first-hand that true needs weren’t based on financial wealth. Not beyond the immediate concerns, in any event. A roof over one’s head, a bed, enough food not to feel hungry... Once these things were taken care of, what more did one need?
She’d always had more than she needed, materially. But when it came to love?
She had been starved in the cruellest of ways.
A tear slid out of one eye, landing with a thud onto the silk pillow beneath her.
She’d been such a perfect target for Matteo’s plans—what an easy deception it had been for him to weave. He had lied to her but, oh, she’d been begging for the lie.
For the love.
She’d been so desperate for anyone to love her that she hadn’t stopped for a moment to question a single, damned thing. She’d learned, years earlier, that fairy tales didn’t exist...so why had she let herself forget that so easily?
CHAPTER FIVE
Two years earlier
HE WAS, WITHOUT a doubt, the most stunning man Skye had ever seen. Her eyes kept seeking him out, even when she knew she should have been paying better attention to the people she was locked in conversation with. After all, this party was for her family’s charity, and she was the sole surviving member of the Johnson fortune.
How their ranks had dwindled! From her great-grandfather who’d had six children, to her grandfather who had raised four, and then to her father, who had come along with his inability to commit, his incessant cheating, his determination not to settle.
Skye had been the result of an affair with an air hostess and, had her grandfather never intervened, she doubted her father would have known she existed, far less taken an interest in her upbringing.
She had cousins, of course. But, while they’d inherited million-pound fortunes, it was Skye alone who’d been left the reins of the business empire.
Undoubtedly because no one had realised how quickly her father would die—his skiing accident had been a completely unexpected death. Weeks later, her grandfather had died. The rumours spoke of a broken heart—but Skye suspected it had more to do with his daily habit of over-indulgence in whisky.
She’d become a billion-pound heiress at nine years of age, and a childhood always marred by neglect and disinterest had descended into a barren wasteland devoid of human contact. Boarding school, where she’d found it hard to fit in; a great-aunt who’d tolerated Skye for the briefest stints possible during school holidays, and generally only when a nanny couldn’t be found to care for her.
Her eyes flicked sideways and landed straight on his face. He was watching her. A frisson of something new and intriguing glanced across her spine.
