Page 49 of To Claim His Heir by Christmas

As if he could feel her eyes on him Thane turned his head to catch her stare. His dark eyes were stormy and full of condemnation as they snared hers in an unbreakable glare.

She wanted to battle it out with him, make him see her side of things, but this wasn’t the time or place. And deep down she knew he’d never look at her in any other way. Certainly not the way he had last night. With need and adoration and respect. Something close to joy.

Luciana sank her teeth into her bottom lip, unable to sever the dark, hypnotic pull, and for a second—when the faintest crease lined his brow—she imagined those beautiful obsidian eyes shimmered with striations of golden warmth.

Hope spun its crazy web inside her…

Then, with a curl of distaste at his mouth, he tore his gaze from hers. And that web disintegrated into the pit of her stomach.

Deafening, the whoop-whoop of the helicopter grew louder and louder. Her hair whipped around her face and she focused on the only thing that truly mattered.

The colossal machine lowered into a lethal squat on the landing pad in the centre of Thane’s huge circular driveway. And the need to run to Natanael—see him, hold him, touch him—had her bolting forward and hurtling down the steps.

At the bottom, Thane snagged her arm to pull her back.

‘Wait,’ he ordered fiercely.

‘Let go of me, Thane.’ She felt as if she was hanging by the slenderest of threads over a vast, dark churning abyss and at any moment now the line would snap.

‘It is too dangerous—wait a moment.’

He stood with rigid tense-jawed focus, but when the black door swung wide, and Natanael emerged, for a split second he looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

Nathanael careened towards her at a speed of knots. And though he swam in her vision she could still see those gorgeous dimples in his smooth caramel cheeks, those deep expressive eyes so much like his father’s.

His father—whose entire body had gone rigid, as though he was desperately fighting to maintain control.

Luciana threw hers to the winds and ran.

* * *

Thane had a curious feeling in his chest—as if someone had reached in and taken hold of his heart.

It was like looking at himself. Turning back the clock and gazing in the mirror to see himself as a small boy. And at that moment Thane vowed to do everything in his power to ensure his son would not suffer hurt or cry in pain. He swore it. Swore to move heaven and earth to prevent any of it.

He’d always been adroit at killing his emotions—with the exception of those evoked by Luciana—but he’d never felt anything close to this. Emotions…so many emotions flooding over him. All-powerful. All-consuming.

Natanael—meaning ‘God has given’. He tried it out on his tongue for the first time, because maybe he hadn’t truly believed it until now, and acknowledged how good it felt—how right.

Thane’s fingers burned with the need to touch all that smooth skin, his silky hair—ebony, like Thane’s own. But he didn’t want to frighten him. The scars on his face were enough to scare anyone, let alone a child.

So instead he ground his feet into the gravel and soaked up every nuance as his son shouted in utter joy, with the biggest smile Thane had ever seen, when he spotted Luciana.

‘Mamá!’

Luciana lowered herself into an elegant crouch to catch him and ended up on her bottom in the dirt, not caring about it one iota, hugging him with a glorious smile of her own, smoothing the thick glossy waves of his hair, kissing his brow, his soft cheek.

Never had he seen anything like it. Or maybe he had. Maybe the sight before him resurrected memories he’d rather keep buried six feet under.

Dios, his chest was imploding.

A sweet strum of a giggle flew past Natanael’s perfect lips and Thane wondered what she was doing to make him laugh. Saw her fingers tickling his sides, realised he must like that, even though he was yelling, ‘Stop! Stop!’ And then she was wrapping him in her arms again, kissing him and touching him. All over.

And in that moment there was something so profoundly, exquisitely beautiful about her he felt the strangest sensation in his throat, behind his eyes. Like tiny hot needles pricking.

‘Did you see? I was in the big black ’copter, Mamá!’

‘I know, darling, and I’m so glad because it brought you to me.’

Darling. The endearment fisted Thane’s heart.

‘I’ve missed you so much. My goodness—I swear you’ve grown an inch.’

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