Look at me, Raoul silently commanded again.

Sirena’s lips drained of color and her hand trembled as she reached out, trying to find the gate. She stared straight ahead, eyes blinking and blinking—

“She’s fainting!” He shoved past his lawyers and toppled chairs to reach her even as her own lawyer turned and reacted.

Raoul shouted for First Aid.

Someone appeared with oxygen in a blessedly short time. He let himself be pushed back a half-step, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the way Sirena’s cheeks had gone hollow, her skin gray. Everything in him—breath, blood, thought—ground to a halt as he waited for a sign that she would be okay.

Distantly he heard the attendant asking about pre-existing conditions and Raoul racked his brain. She wasn’t diabetic, had never taken any medication that he’d seen. He’d reached for the phone he’d turned off while court was in session, intent on accessing her personnel file, when he heard her lawyer answer in a low murmur.

“She’s pregnant.”

The words burst like shattered glass in his ears.

DANI COLLINS discovered romance novels in high school and immediately wondered how a person trained and qualified for that amazing job. She married her high school sweetheart, which was a start, then spent two decades trying to find her fit in the wide world of romance writing, always coming back to Harlequin Mills & Boon®.

Two children later, and with the first entering high school, she placed in Harlequin’s Instant Seduction contest. It was the beginning of a fabulous journey towards finally getting that dream job.

When she’s not in her Fortress of Literature, as her family calls her writing office, she works, chauffeurs children to extra-curricular activities, and gardens with more optimism than skill. Dani can be reached through her website at www.danicollins.com

Recent titles by the same author:

MORE THAN A CONVENIENT MARRIAGE?

PROOF OF THEIR SIN

(One Night With Consequences) NO LONGER FORBIDDEN?

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

A Debt Paid

in Passion

Dani Collins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

LOOK AT ME, Raoul Zesiger willed Sirena Abbott.

He had to lean back in his chair to see her past the three men between them. He should have been looking at the judge, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Sirena.

She sat very still, face forward, her profile somber. Her absurdly long gypsy lashes had stayed downswept as his lawyer had risen to speak. She didn’t even flick a glance in his direction when her own lawyer stood to plead that jail time was counterproductive, since she needed to work to pay back the stolen funds.

Raoul’s lawyers had warned him this wouldn’t result in incarceration, but Raoul had pressed hard for it. He would see this treacherously innocent-looking woman, with her mouth pouted in grave tension and her thick brunette locks pulled into a deceptively respectful knot, go to jail for betraying him. For stealing.

His stepfather had been a thief. He had never expected to be taken advantage of again, especially by his reliable PA, a woman he’d come to trust to be there, always. But she had dipped her fingers into his personal account.

Then she had tried to manipulate him into going easy by being easy.

He didn’t want the flash of memory to strike. His ears were waiting for the judge to state that this would progress to a sentence, but his body prickled with heat as he recalled the feel of those plump lips softening under his. Her breasts, a lush handful, had smelled of summer. Her nipples were sun-warmed berries against his tongue, succulent and sweet. The heart-shaped backside he’d watched too often as it retreated from his office had been both taut and smooth as he had lifted her skirt and peeled lace down. Thighs like powdered sugar, an enticing musky perfume between that pulled him to hard attention as he remembered how tight—almost virginal—she’d been. But so hot and welcoming.

Because she’d known her criminal act was about to come to light.

His gut clenched in a mixture of fury and unparalleled carnal hunger. For two years he’d managed to keep his desire contained, but now that he’d had her, all he could think about was having her again. He hated her for having such power over him. He could swear under oath that he’d never hurt a woman, but he wanted to crush Sirena Abbott. Eradicate her. Destroy her.

The clap of a gavel snapped him back to the courtroom. It was empty save for the five of them behind two tables, both facing the judge. His lawyer gave Raoul a resigned tilt of his head and Raoul realized with sick disgust that the decision had gone in Sirena’s favor.

At the other table, partly obscured by her lawyer, Sirena’s spine softened in relief. Her wide eyes lifted to the heavens, shining with gratitude. Her lawyer thanked the judge and set a hand under Sirena’s elbow to help her rise, leaning in to say something to her.

Raoul felt a clench of possessiveness as he watched the solicitous middle-aged lawyer hover over her. He told himself it was anger, nothing else. He loathed being a victim again. She shouldn’t get away with a repayment plan of six hundred pounds a month. That wasn’t reparation. That was a joke.

Why wouldn’t she look at him? It was the least she could do: look him in the eye and acknowledge they both knew she was getting away with a crime. But she murmured something to her lawyer and left the man packing his briefcase as she circled to the aisle. Her sexy curves were downplayed by her sleek jacket and pencil skirt, but she was still alluring as hell. Her step slowed as she came to the gate into the gallery.

Look at me, Raoul silently commanded again, holding his breath as she hesitated, sensing she was about to swing her gaze to his.

Her lips drained of color and her hand trembled as she reached out, trying to find the gate. She stared straight ahead, eyes blinking and blinking—

“She’s fainting!” He shoved past his two lawyers and toppled chairs to reach her even as her own lawyer turned and reacted. They caught her together.

Raoul hated the man anew for touching her as they both eased her to the floor. She was dead weight. He had to catch her head as it lolled. She hadn’t been this insubstantial the last time he’d held her. She hadn’t been fragile.

Raoul barked for first aid.

Someone appeared with oxygen in blessedly short time. He let himself be pushed back a half step, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the way Sirena’s cheeks had gone hollow, her skin gray. Everything in him, breath, blood, thought, ground to a halt as he waited for a new verdict: that she would be okay.

It was his father all over again. The lack of response, the wild panic rising in him as he fought against helplessness and brutal reality. Was she breathing? She couldn’t be dead. Open your eyes, Sirena.

Distantly he heard the attendant asking after preexisting conditions and Raoul racked his brain. She wasn’t diabetic, had never taken medication that he’d seen. He reached for the phone he’d turned off while court was in session, intent on accessing her personnel file, when he heard her lawyer answer in a low murmur.

“She’s pregnant.”

The words burst like shattered glass in his ears.

* * *

Sirena became aware of something pressed to her face. Clammy sweat coated her skin and a swirl of her ever-present nausea turned mercilessly inside her.

She lifted a heavy hand to dislodge whatever was smothering her and a voice said, “You fainted, Sirena. Take it easy for a minute.”

Opening her eyes, she saw John, the highly recommended lawyer who’d been perfunctory until she’d almost vomited in his wastebasket. She’d told him the father’s identity was irrelevant, but Raoul was glaring from beyond John’s shoulder with all the relevance of an unforgiving sun on a lost soul in the desert—and he appeared about as sympathetic.

She had tried hard not to look at Raoul, former boss, brief lover, unsuspecting father. He was too...everything. Tall, dark, unabashedly urbane and sophisticated. Severe. Judgmental.

But of their own accord, her hungry eyes took in his appearance—her first opportunity to do so in weeks. She cataloged his razor-sharp charcoal suit, the solid black tie. His jaw was freshly shaved for his morning appointment, his dark hair recently cut into the sternly simple style of a successful businessman.

And there were his eyes, the gray irises stormy and full of condemnation as they snared hers in an unbreakable stare.

John asked, “Is there any pain? We’ve called an ambulance.”

Sirena flashed a terrified glance back at Raoul. It was a mistake. She realized immediately that he’d read it for what it was: an admission of guilt. A betrayal of truth.

Clenching her perfidious eyes closed, she willed him not to pick up on what had been revealed, but he was the most acutely intelligent person she’d ever met. He missed nothing.

If he knew she was carrying his baby, there’d be another fight. Considering what this current contest had taken out of her, she wasn’t ready for another. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, let him think he had a right to custody of her child.

“Sirena,” Raoul said in that dark chocolate voice of his.

Her skin rippled in a pleasurable shiver of recognition. Two years of hearing every intonation in that voice left her with the knowledge that her name on his lips right now was an implacable warning.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Sirena reached blindly for John’s hand, clenching her icy fingers on his warm, dry ones. Beneath the oxygen mask, her voice was hollow and whisper thin.

“Tell him to leave me alone or I’ll take out a restraining order.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE FIRST VOLLEY of the second war was waiting when she got home from the hospital. More tests had been scheduled, but for the moment her doctor was putting her faint down to stress and low blood sugar resulting from her unrelenting nausea.

Sirena thought nothing could be more stressful than facing prison while dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, but Raoul knew no bounds when it came to psychological torture. She read the email John had forwarded:

My client has every reason to believe your client carries his baby. He insists on full involvement in the care through pregnancy and will take sole custody at birth.

Her blood congealed, even though this was no surprise. Raoul was possessive. She’d learned that. This reaction was fully expected, but having anyone try to take this baby from her was unthinkable.

Blinking the sting of desperation from her eyes, she typed, It’s not his, saying aloud, “And tell him to go to hell.”

She didn’t let herself dwell on the fact that Raoul wanted his baby. It would make her weaken toward a man she needed to believe was a monster—even though she’d spent two years falling into deep infatuation with not just a dynamic tycoon, but a man who was a caring son and protective older stepbrother. In some ways he was her mirror image, she’d often thought fancifully. They’d both lost a parent and both wanted the best for their younger siblings. She had come to believe him to be an admirable person with a dry wit and standards that put her learned habits of perfectionism to shame.

No, she reminded herself as she prepared a slice of toast she would force herself to eat. He was a cruel, angry, small person who felt nothing. For her, at least. He’d proven it when he’d made passionate love to her one day, then had her arrested the next.

A black hole of despair threatened to open beneath her feet, but she was safe now. That part was over. She’d made a horrible mistake and the judge had accepted her remorse, even if Raoul hadn’t. She had no idea how she would come up with six hundred pounds a month, but that was a minor worry against convincing Raoul the baby wasn’t his.

There was no way she could live with having another loved one wrenched from her life. The fear of her baby growing up without its mother, the way she had, had given her the strength to fight tooth and nail against Raoul’s determination to put her in jail. Somehow she would rally the strength to oust him from her life for good.

Which left her feeling incredibly bereft, but she ignored it.

Taking tea, toast and a tablet for nausea to the sofa, she scanned her laptop to see if any transcription jobs had come in. The legal bills were appalling and being fired three months ago had decimated her very modest savings.

If only she could take back that one awful moment when she had thought, Raoul will understand. She rubbed her brow where it crinkled in lament. Borrowing from him had seemed the most simple and obvious thing to do when her sister had been in tears, saying, I guess I’m not meant to be a teacher. Their father was expecting payment from a big customer any day. Ali had struggled so hard to get her marks up and be accepted into the specialized program. The tuition was due, but the cash was not in hand.

I can cover it, Sirena had assured her, confident the balance would move out and come back into Raoul’s account on the same statement. He probably wouldn’t even notice, let alone care. He paid her to worry about little details like that.

Then her father’s customer had gone insolvent.

Not overnight, of course. It started with a delay of a few more days. A week. Sirena had begun chasing it herself, right up to the monthly cutoff date, not wanting to mention her self-approved loan to her boss until she had the funds to repay it.

The money hadn’t appeared and the opportunity to explain hadn’t arisen, not before other events.

And since she didn’t want to involve her father when his livelihood was nose-diving, she had shouldered the fallout herself, keeping her motives from Raoul and not revealing to her family what she’d done or that she was facing jail time for it.

This had been the most crushingly lonely and frightening time of her life.

A muted beep announced an incoming email. From Raoul. Her heart leaped in misplaced anticipation. It was one word.

Liar.

He wasn’t buying that the baby wasn’t his.

Gritting her teeth against an ache that crushed her chest, she added Raoul to her email block list and sent a missive to John.

Tell him that contacting me directly is out of line. If the baby was his, I would sue for support. I would have asked for leniency when he was trying to put me in jail. This baby is not his and he must LEAVE ME ALONE.

Hitting send was like poking herself in the throat. She drew a pained breath, fighting the sense of loss. But life hit you with sudden changes and you had to roll with them. She had learned that when her mother had died, and again when her stepmother had whisked her father and half sister to Australia with brutal speed as soon as Sirena graduated and enrolled in business school.

People left, was what she’d learned. They disappeared from your life whether you wanted them to or not. Sometimes they even fired you and tried to lock you away in prison so they’d never have to see you again.

Making a disgusted noise at herself for indulging in what amounted to emotional self-harm, she turned her thoughts to the little being who wouldn’t leave her. With a gentle hand on her unsettled abdomen, she focused on the one person she’d do everything in her power to keep in her life forever. She didn’t intend to smother the poor thing, just be his or her mother. She couldn’t countenance anyone taking that role from her. And Raoul would try. He was that angry and ruthless.

She shivered as she recalled seeing that side of him for the first time, after making bail. The only thing that had gotten her through the humiliating process of being arrested, fingerprinted and charged was the certainty that Raoul didn’t know what was happening to her. Some accountant had done this. A bank official. They didn’t understand that Raoul might be gruff on the outside, but she was his best PA ever. His right hand. They’d become intimate. He would be furious that she was being treated this way.

She had believed with all her heart that as soon as she told him what had happened, he’d make it right.

He hadn’t. He’d made her wait in the rain at the gate of his mansion outside London, eventually striding out with hard-hearted purpose, his severe expression chilly with distaste as he surveyed her.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” Sirena had said through the rungs of the security gate, frightened by how unreachable he seemed. “I was arrested today.”

“I know,” Raoul replied without a shred of concern. “I filed the complaint.”

Her shock and stunned anguish must have been obvious, but his mouth had barely twitched in reaction. Cruel dislike had been the only emotion in his scathing expression. Sirena’s stepmother had been small and critical, but she hadn’t outright hated Sirena. In that second, she realized Raoul reviled her, and that was more painful than anything.

Guilt and remorse had made her want to shrivel up and die, but she couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe she’d ruined her career and her budding relationship with the man of her dreams over one tiny misstep.

“But...” Everything she wanted to say backed up in her throat. They’d developed friendship, reliance and respect over two years of working together and just yesterday they’d taken that relationship to a new level. He’d been tender and teasing and...

God, she had believed he’d been loving.

“But what?” he challenged. “You thought sleeping with me would make a difference to how I’d react when I found out you had stolen from me? I was bored. You were there. That’s all yesterday was. You ought to know better than to think it would make me go easy on someone who was cheating me. Get a lawyer. You need one.”

Swallowing the rock that her crust of toast had become, Sirena pushed the betrayal firmly away. Raoul was in her past and somehow she had to make a future for herself and her baby. She turned her attention to putting out more feelers for work.

But over the next several weeks, the attacks from Raoul kept coming. Settlement offers that increased in size. Demands for paternity tests. Time limits.

Pacing John’s office, she bit back a rebuke at him for revealing her pregnancy that day in the courtroom. She hadn’t admitted to anyone that Raoul was the father and she was determined she never would.

“Here’s what I would like to know, John. How am I supposed to pay more legal bills I can’t afford when it’s not even my wish to be talking to you about this?”

“Your wish may be coming true, Sirena. He’s stated clearly that this is his final offer and you’re to accept it by Monday or forever go empty-handed.”

She stopped and stilled. Loss again. Like watching the final sands drifting through the neck of an hourglass, unable to stop them. Pain in her lip made her aware she was biting it to keep from crying out in protest. Rubbing her brow with a shaking hand, Sirena told herself it was what she wanted: Raoul gone from her life.

“Look, Sirena, I’ve told you several times this isn’t my area of expertise. So far that hasn’t mattered because you’ve refused to admit the baby is his—”

“It’s not,” she interjected, keeping her back to him. She wasn’t a great liar and didn’t like doing it, but she justified it because this baby was hers. Full stop.

“He obviously thinks it’s possible. You and he must have been involved.”

“Involvement comes in different levels, doesn’t it?” she snapped, then closed her mouth, fearful she was saying too much.

“So you’re punishing him for bringing less to the relationship than you did?”

“His mistresses spend more on an evening gown and he tried to send me to prison for it!” she swung around to blurt. “What kind of relationship is that?”

“You’re punishing him for his legal action, then? Or not buying you a dress?”

“I’m not punishing him,” Sirena muttered, turning back to the window overlooking a wet day in Hyde Park.

“No, you’re punishing your child by keeping its father out of the picture—whether that father is Raoul Zesiger or some other nameless man you’ve failed to bring forward. I’m a father, so even though I don’t practice family law, I know the best interests of the child are not served by denying a parent access just because you’re angry with him. Do you have reason to believe he’d be an unfit parent?”

Completely the opposite, she silently admitted as a tendril of longing curled around her heart. She had seen how Raoul’s stepsister adored him and how he indulged the young woman with doting affection while setting firm boundaries. Raoul would be a supportive, protective, exceptional father.

Her brows flinched and her throat tightened. She was angry with him. And secretly terrified that her child would ultimately pick its father over its mother, but that didn’t justify keeping the baby from knowing both its parents.

“Have you thought about your child’s future?” John prodded. “There are certain entitlements, like a good education, inheritances...”

She had to get this baby delivered first. That’s where her focus had really been these last several weeks.

Sirena’s fists tightened under her elbows as she hunched herself into a comfortless hug. Her mother had died trying to give birth to the baby who would have been Sirena’s little brother. Sirena’s blood pressure was under constant monitoring. Between that and the lawyer meetings, she was barely working, barely making the bills. The stress was making the test results all the more concerning.

She tried not to think of all the bad things that could happen, but for the first time she let herself consider what her child would need if she couldn’t provide it. Her father and sister were all the way in Australia. It would be days before they could get here—if her stepmother let either of them come at all. Right now Faye was taking the high ground, sniffing with disapproval over Sirena’s unplanned, unwed pregnancy. No one would be as emotionally invested as the baby’s father...

“Sirena, I’m not trying to—”

“Be my conscience?” she interjected. He was still acting as one. “I have a specialist appointment on Monday. I don’t know how long it will take. Tell him I will give his offer my full attention after that and will be in touch by the end of next week.”

John’s demeanor shifted. “So he is the father.”

“That will be determined by the paternity test once the baby is born, won’t it?” Sirena retorted, scrambling to hold onto as many cards as she could because she was running out of them, fast.

* * *

Raoul’s mind had been going around in circles for weeks, driving him mad. If Sirena was pregnant with his child, she would have used that to keep him from trying to incarcerate her. Since she hadn’t, it must not be his. But she could have used her condition for leniency during the proceedings and hadn’t. Which meant she wanted to keep the pregnancy from him. Which led him to believe the baby was his.

Most troubling, if he wasn’t the father, who was?

Raoul sent baleful glances around his various offices as he traveled his circuit of major cities, aware there were a plethora of men in his numerous office towers with whom Sirena, with her voluptuous body and warm smile, could easily have hooked up.

The thought grated with deep repugnance. He’d never heard the merest whisper of promiscuity about his PA, but she’d obviously led a secretive life. It wasn’t as if she’d been a virgin when he’d made love to her.

She’d been the next thing to it, though, with her shy hesitancy that had turned to startled pleasure.

Biting back a groan, he tried not to think of that afternoon in a house he’d toured as a potential real estate investment. Every day he fought the recollection of their passionate encounter and every night she revisited him, her silky hair whispering against his skin, her soft giggle of self-consciousness turning to a gasp of awe as she stroked him. The hum of surrender in her throat as he found the center of her pleasure nearly had him losing it in his sleep.

Every morning he reminded himself he’d used a condom.

One that had been in his wallet so long he couldn’t remember when or for whom he’d placed it there. He’d only been grateful to find it when a downpour had turned Sirena from the open front door into his arms. A stumbling bump of her pivoting into him, a gentlemanly attempt to keep her on her feet, a collision of soft curves against a body already charged with sexual hunger.

When she’d looked up at him with wonder as her abdomen took the impression of his erection, when she’d parted her lips and looked at his mouth as though she’d been waiting her whole life to feel it cover her own...

Swearing, Raoul rose to pace his Paris office. It was as far as he was willing to get from London after trying to settle with Sirena once and for all. The remembered vision of her passion-glazed eyes became overlaid with a more recent one: when her lawyer had mentioned her pregnancy and she had shot that petrified look at Raoul.

The baby was his. He knew it in his gut and if he’d been ruthless with her for stealing money, she had no idea the lengths he’d go for his child.

Doubt niggled, though. If the baby was his, and she was the type to embezzle, then try to sleep her way out of it, why wasn’t she trying to squeeze a settlement out of him?

None of it added up and he was losing his mind trying to make sense of it. If she’d only talk to him. They used to communicate with incredible fluidity, finishing each other’s sentences, filling in gaps with a look...

Lies, he reminded himself. All an act to trick him into trusting her, and it had worked. That’s what grated so badly. He’d failed to see that she was unreliable, despite his history with shameless charlatans.

And how the hell had he turned into his father? Was it genetic that he should wind up sexually infatuated with his secretary? He’d successfully ignored such attractions for years. His father had killed himself over an interoffice affair, so he’d made it a personal rule to avoid such things at all costs. It was a matter of basic survival.

His surge of interest in Sirena had been intense right from the beginning, though. He’d hired her in spite of it, partly because he’d been sure he was a stronger man than his father. Maybe he’d even been trying to prove it.

It galled him that he’d fallen into a tryst despite his better intentions. But he might have come to terms with that failing if she hadn’t betrayed him. Suddenly he’d been not just his father, but his mother, naively watching the bank account drain while being fed sweet, reassuring words to excuse it.

I was going to pay it back before you found out.

He tried to close out the echo of Sirena’s clear voice, claiming exactly what any dupe would expect to hear once she realized her caught hands were covered in red. That he’d seen her as steadfast until that moment left him questioning his own judgment, which was a huge kick to his confidence. People relied on him all over the world. His weakness for her made him feel as though he was misrepresenting himself, and more than anything he hated being let down. It galled him. Mere repayment wasn’t good enough to compensate for that. People like her needed to be taught a lesson.

Staring at his desktop full of work, he cursed the concentration he’d lost because of all this, the time wasted on legal meetings that could have been spent on work.

And the worst loss of production was because he was trying to replace the best PA he’d ever had!

Seemingly the best. His only comfort was that he hadn’t given her the executive title he’d been considering. The damage she could have done in a position like that was beyond thinking. She was doing enough harm to his bottom line no longer employed by him at all.

It couldn’t go on. He’d finally, reluctantly, sent her a strongly worded ultimatum and his palms were sweating that she would reject this one, too. She knew him well enough to believe that when he said final, he meant final, but he’d never had anything so valuable as his flesh and blood on the table. If she refused again...

She wouldn’t. Sirena Abbott was more avaricious than he’d given her credit for, but she was innately practical. She would recognize he’d hit his limit and would cash in.

As if to prove it, his email blipped with a message from his lawyer.

Sirena Abbott had an appointment on Monday and wanted the rest of the week to think things through.

Raoul leaned on hands that curled into tight fists. His inner being swelled with triumph. Silly woman. When he said Monday, he meant Monday.

* * *

As Sirena entered the alcove that housed the front of her building, she was still preoccupied by the lecture from the obstetrician about taking time to relax. She needed to read up on side effects of the medication he’d prescribed, too.

Distracted, she didn’t notice anyone until a lean, masculine body stepped out of the shadows. Her pulse leaped in excited recognition even as she jerked in alarm.

Her keys dropped with a clatter. Pressing herself into the glass door, she pulled her collar tighter to her throat. His familiar scent overwhelmed her, spicy and masculine beneath a layer of rain. The late-afternoon gloom threw forbidding shadows into the angles of his features and turned his short, spiky lashes into sharp blades above turbulent eyes. He was compelling as ever and she was as susceptible as always.

“Hello, Sirena.”

That voice.

“What are you doing here?” Her knuckles dug into her neck where her pulse raced with dangerous speed. She was supposed to be avoiding this sort of elevation of her heart rate, but Raoul had always done this to her. Thank God she’d spent two years perfecting how to hide her girlish flushes of awareness and awestruck admiration. With a tilt of her chin she conveyed that he didn’t intimidate her—even though she was in danger of cracking the glass at her back, she was pressed so hard against it.

“You didn’t really think I’d wait until Friday,” he said, uncompromising and flinty.

“I didn’t think you’d be waiting at my door,” she protested, adding with admirable civility, “I’ll review the documents tomorrow, I promise.”

Raoul shook his head in condescension. “Today, Sirena.”

“It’s been a long day, Raoul. Don’t make it longer.” Her voice was weighted with more tiredness than she meant to reveal.

His eyes narrowed. “What sort of appointment did you have? Doctor?”

A little shiver of premonition went through her. Something told her not to let him see how unsettling the news had been, but the reality of all those tests and personal history forms had taken a toll. If she had thought she could avoid signing a shared custody agreement with Raoul, today she’d learned it was imperative she do so.

“Is the baby all right?” Raoul demanded gruffly. The edgy concern in his tone affected her, making her soften and stiffen at the same time.

“The baby is fine,” she said firmly. If the mother could keep herself healthy enough to deliver—and ensure there was at least one parent left to rear it—the baby was in a great position for a long and happy life.

“You?” he questioned with sharp acuity. Damned man never missed a thing.

“I’m tired,” she prevaricated. “And I have to use the loo. It’s only five o’clock. That gives me seven hours. Come back at eleven fifty-nine.”

Raoul’s jaw hardened. “No.” Leaning down, brushing entirely too close to her legs, he picked up her keys and straightened. “No more games, no more lawyers. You and I are hammering this out. Now.”

Sirena tried to take her keys, but Raoul only closed his hand over them, leaving her fingers brushing the hard strength of his knuckles.

The contact sent an electric zing through her nervous system, leaving her entire body quivering over what was a ridiculously innocuous touch.

She’d been too stressed and nauseous to have sexual feelings these last months, but suddenly every vessel in her body came alive to the presence of this man, the avenging god who had never had any genuine respect for her in the first place.

Tamping down on the rush of hurt and disappointment that welled in her chest, Sirena found her spine, standing up to him as well as a woman in flats could to a man who was head and shoulders taller than she was.

“Let’s get something clear,” she said, voice trembling a bit. She hoped he put it down to anger, not weak, stupid longing for something that had never existed. “Whatever agreement we come to is contingent on paternity tests proving you’re the father.”

Raoul rocked back on his heels. His negotiation face slid into place over his shock. In the shadowed alcove, Sirena wasn’t sure if his pupils really contracted to pinpoints, but she felt his gaze like a lance that held her in place. It made her nervous, but she was proud of herself for taking him aback. She couldn’t afford to be a pushover.

“Who else is in the running?” he gritted out.

“I have a life beyond your exalted presence.” The lies went up like umbrellas, but she had so few advantages.

He stood unflinching and austere, but there was something in his bearing that made her heart pang. She knew he was the father, but by keeping him guessing she was performing a type of torture on him, keeping him in a state of anxious inability to act. It was cruel and made her feel ashamed.

Don’t be a wimp, Sirena. He could take care of himself. The only thing she needed to worry about was her baby.

“Let’s get this done,” she said.

CHAPTER THREE

RAOUL HAD NEVER been in Sirena’s flat. When he entered he was surprised to immediately feel as though he was returning to a place both familiar and comfortable. It was so her.

She was a tidy person with simple taste, but her innate sensuality came through in textures and easy blends of color. The open-plan lounge-kitchen was tiny, but everything had a place, houseplants were lush and well tended. Family snapshots smiled from walls and shelves. He had time while she was in the powder room to take in the miniscule bedroom kept as scrupulously neat as the rest, the bed notably a single.

Sirena cast him a harried glance as she emerged and shrugged from her coat, draping it over the back of a dining chair.

Her figure, voluptuous as ever, had a new curve that made him draw in a searing breath. Until this moment, pregnant had been a word bandied through hostile emails and legal paperwork. As he cataloged the snug fit of leggings and a stretchy top over a body that hadn’t filled out much except in the one place, he felt his scalp tighten.

Sirena was carrying a baby.

Her pale, slender hand opened over the small bump. Too small? He had no idea about these things.

Yanking his gaze to her face, he saw defensive wariness and something else, something incredibly vulnerable that triggered his deepest protective instincts.

Thankfully she glanced away, thick hair falling across her cheek to hide her expression. Raoul regrouped, reminding himself not to let her get to him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off that firm swelling. He’d spent two years fighting the urge to touch this woman, had given in to a moment of weakness once, and it took all his self-discipline not to reach for her now. His hands itched to start at that mysterious bump then explore the rest of her luscious shape. He shoved his fists into his overcoat pockets and glared with resentment.

“I’m having ice water and an orange. Do you want coffee?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he bit out. No more foot dragging. He was still reeling from her coy remark about paternity, played out so well he was entertaining a shred of uncertainty. He couldn’t begin to consider what he’d do if he wasn’t the father.

The not knowing made him restless, especially because he couldn’t understand why she was tormenting him. Yes, his position would be strengthened if she admitted he was the father, but so would hers. He would do anything for his child. One glimpse of a pregnant belly shouldn’t affect him this deeply, but all he could think was that his entire life had changed. Every decision from now on would be weighed against its effect on that tiny being in Sirena’s center.

She took her frosted glass and plate of sectioned orange to the table, opening a file as she sat down. One glance invited him to take the chair across from her. They didn’t stand on ceremony. He didn’t hold her chair; this wasn’t a date. It was reminiscent of the times they’d planted themselves on either side of a boardroom table and worked through projects and tasks until he’d cleared his plate and loaded hers full, confident it would all be completed to his exacting specifications.

He tightened his mouth against a blurted demand for answers. Why? If she had needed money, why hadn’t she asked him for a loan? A raise? The salary he’d been paying her was generous, but he’d seen she was ready for more responsibility and the compensation that went with it. Had this been her plan all along? Pregnancy and a custody settlement?

The thought occurred as she opened the file and he glimpsed a copy of a contract filled with notations and scribbles.

“You have read it,” he said with tight disgust.

“I do my homework, same as you,” she retorted, ice clinking as she sipped. Her skin, fine grained as a baby’s, was pale. Weren’t pregnant women supposed to glow? Sirena didn’t look unhealthy, but there were shadows under her eyes and in them. She touched her brow where she used to complain of tension headaches. He could see the pulse in her throat pounding as if her heart would explode.

The precariousness of his position struck him. He wanted to be ruthless, but not only was he facing a woman in a weakened condition, her condition affected a baby. As he absorbed the raised stakes, his tension increased. The scent of the fresh orange seemed overly strong and pungent.

“I want medical reports,” he said with more harsh demand than he would typically use at the opening of a negotiation.

Sirena flinched and laced her fingers together. Without looking at him, she said, “I don’t have a problem sharing the baby’s health checkups. So far it’s been textbook. I have a scan on my laptop I can email you once we’ve signed off.” Now her eyes came up, but her gaze was veiled. She was hiding something.

“Who are you?” he muttered. “You’re not the Sirena I knew.” His PA had been approachable and cheerful, quick to smile, quick to see the humor in things. This woman was locked down, serious and more secretive than he’d ever imagined.

Like him, which was a disturbing thought.

“What makes you think you ever knew me, Raoul?” The elegant arches of her dark brows lifted while bitter amusement twisted her doll-perfect lips. “Did you ever ask about my life? My plans? My likes or dislikes? All I remember is demands that revolved around your needs. Your intention to work late. Your bad mood because you hadn’t eaten. You once snapped your fingers at me because you wanted the name of the woman you’d taken to dinner, maybe even bed, the night before. She needed flowers as a kiss-off. On that note, as your former PA I’m compelled to point out that your new one dropped the ball. I didn’t get my lilies.”

Her audacity tested Raoul’s already dicey mood. His inner compass swung from contempt to self-disgust that he’d slept with her at all to a guilty acknowledgment that no, he hadn’t spent much time getting to know her on a personal level. He’d wanted too badly to take things to an intimate level, so he’d kept her at a distance.

Not that he had any intention of explaining when she was coming out swinging with two full buckets of scathing judgment and brutal sarcasm.

“That ice water seems to have gone directly into your veins,” he remarked with the smoothness of a panther batting a bird from the air.

“Yes, I’m a kettle and so much blacker than you.” She pivoted the file and pushed it toward him. “You might as well read my notes and we’ll go from there.”

Cold. Distant. Unreachable. She wasn’t saying those words, but he’d heard them from enough women to know that’s what she was implying.

Oddly, he hadn’t thought Sirena saw him that way, and it bothered him that she did. Which made no sense, because he hadn’t cared much when those other women said it and he hadn’t once put Sirena in the same category as his former lovers. She was never intended to be his lover at all. When he took women to his bed, it was without any sort of expectation beyond an affair that would allow him to release sexual tension. Sirena had already been too integral a part of his working life to blur those lines.

Yet he had. And she seemed to be holding him to account for his callous treatment of her—when she had only slept with him for her own gain! Possibly for the very baby they were fighting over.

Drawing the papers closer, he began taking in her notations. The first was a refusal to submit to paternity tests until after the birth, at which point this contract would come into effect if he was proven to be the father.

He didn’t like it, but in the interest of moving forward he initialed it.

Things quickly became more confusing and audacious. Distantly he noted that she’d circled a formatting error—one more eagle-eyed skill he regretted losing from his business life.

“Why the hell is everything to be held in trust for the baby?”

“I don’t want your money,” she said with such flatness he almost believed her.

Don’t get sidetracked, he warned himself. Obviously she had wanted his money or she wouldn’t have stolen from him, but arguing that point was moot. Right now all that mattered was getting paternity resolved and his right to involvement irrevocable.

He lowered his gaze to the pages in front of him, trying to make sense of her changes when they all favored the baby’s financial future and left her taking nothing from him. Raoul cut her a suspicious glance. No one gave up this much...

“Ah,” he snorted with understanding as he came to the codicil. “No.”

“Think about it. You can’t breast-feed. It makes sense that I have full custody.”

“For five years? Nice try. Five days, maybe.”

“Five days,” she repeated through her teeth, flashing an angry emotion he’d never seen in her. Her eyes glazed with a level of hatred that pierced through his shell with unexpected toxicity, leaving a fiery sting.

And was that fear? Her generous mouth trembled before she pressed it into a firm line. “If you’re not going to be reasonable, leave now. You’re not the father anyway.”

She rose and so did he, catching her by the arms as she tried to skirt past him. The little swell at her belly nudged into him, foreign and disconcerting, making his hands tighten with a possessive desire to keep her close. Keep it close, he corrected silently.

“Don’t touch me.” Fine trembles cascaded through her so he felt it as if he grasped an electric wire that pulsed in warning.

“Sure you don’t want to try persuading me into clemency again?” he prodded, recognizing that deep down he was still weakly enthralled by her. If she offered herself right now, he would be receptive. It would change things.

“I didn’t sue you for sexual harassment before, but I had every right to.”

Her words slapped him. Hard.

Dropping his hold, he reared back, offended to his core. “You wanted me every bit as much as I wanted you,” he seethed. His memories exploded daily with the way her expression had shone with excitement. The way she’d molded herself into him and arched for more contact and cried out with joy as the shudders of culmination racked them both.

“No, you were bored,” she shot back with vicious fury that carried a ring of hurt.

It shouldn’t singe him with guilt, but it did. He’d been saving face when he’d said that, full of whiskey and brimming with betrayal. The news that she had been released had been roiling in him like poison. Having her show up at the end of his drive had nearly undone him.

Now he teetered between a dangerous admission of attraction and delivering his brutal set-down for a second time.

“Get out, Raoul,” Sirena said with a pained lack of heat. She sounded defeated. Heartbroken. “I’m sorry I ever met you.”

The retort that the feeling was mutual hovered on his tongue, but stayed locked behind teeth clenched against a surprising lash of...hell, why would he suffer regret?

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he reminded himself the woman he’d thought he’d known had never existed. He threw himself back into his chair. “We’ll hire a panel of experts to work out the schedule of the baby’s first five years based on his or her personal needs. At four years we’ll begin negotiating the school years.”

“A panel of experts,” she repeated on a choking laugh. “Yes, I’ve got your deep pockets. Let’s do that.”

“If you’re worried about money, why are you refusing a settlement?”

Her response was quiet and somber, disturbingly sincere. “Because I don’t want money. I want my baby.” She moved to the window. It was covered in drizzle that the wind had tossed against the glass. Her hand rested on her belly. Her profile was grave.

Raoul dragged his eyes off her, disturbed by how much her earnest simplicity wrenched his gut. It made him twitch with the impulse to reassure her, and not just verbally. For some reason, he wanted to hold her so badly his whole body ached.

That wasn’t like him. He had his moments of being a softy when it came to his mother or stepsister. They were beloved and very much his responsibility even though they weren’t as helpless these days as they’d once been. He still flinched with guilt when he remembered how he’d been living it up his first year of college, drinking and chasing girls, completely oblivious to what was happening at home. Then, despite how brutal and thoughtless his stepfather’s gambling had been, the man’s death had shattered the hearts of two people he cared for deeply. Faced with abject poverty, it had been easy for Raoul to feel nothing but animosity toward the dead man, but the unmitigated grief his mother and Miranda had suffered had been very real. He’d hated seeing them in pain. It had been sharply reminiscent of his agony after his father’s suicide.

But as supportive as he’d tried to be while he took control and recovered their finances, he’d never been the touchy-feely sort who hugged and cuddled away their pain.

Why he craved to offer Sirena that sort of comfort boggled him.

Forcing himself to ignore the desire, he scanned the changes she’d made to the agreement, thinking that perhaps he was more self-involved than he’d realized since he had been focused this entire time on what the child meant to him, how his life would change, how he’d make room for it and provide for his progeny. What he wanted.

Suddenly he was seeing and hearing what Sirena wanted and it wasn’t to hurt him. She had ample ways to do that, but her changes to this document were more about keeping the baby with her than keeping it from him.

“Did you think about termination at all?” he asked with sudden curiosity.

“Yes.”

The word struck him like a bullet, utterly unexpected and so lethal it stopped his heart. Until his mind caught up. Obviously she’d decided to have the baby or they wouldn’t be here.

He rubbed feeling back into his face, but his ears felt filled with water. He had to strain to hear her as she quietly continued.

“I was only a few weeks along when I found out. There’s a pill you can take that early. You don’t have to go into hospital, there are fewer complications... There seemed to be a lot of good reasons not to go through with the pregnancy.” Her profile grew distressed and her fingertips grazed the pulse in her throat.

Reasons like the threat of prison and having a man she didn’t want in her life demanding access to her baby. Raoul’s sharp mind pinned up the drawbacks as quickly as her own must have. His blood ran cold at how close he’d come to not knowing about this baby at all.

“I couldn’t bring myself to...expel it from my life like that. I want this baby, Raoul.” She turned with her hand protectively on her middle again, her eyes glittering with quiet ferocity. “I know it’s foolish to let you see how badly I want it. You’ll find a way to use it against me. But I need you to believe me. I will never let anyone take my baby from me.”

His scalp tightened with preternatural wariness and pride and awe. Sirena was revealing the sort of primal mother instinct their caveman ancestors would have prized in a mate. The alpha male in him exalted in seeing that quality emanating from the mother of his child.

While the cutthroat negotiator in him recognized a tough adversary.

“You’re trying to convince me I can’t buy you off,” he summed up, trying not to let himself become too entranced by her seeming to possess redeeming qualities. She had fooled him once already.

“You can’t. The only reason I’m speaking to you at all is to give my baby the same advantages its father might provide its future siblings, whether that’s monetary or social standing or emotional support. Consider what those things might be as you work through the rest of that.” She nodded at the contract and slipped into the powder room again.

Future siblings? Raoul’s mind became an empty whiteboard as he bit back a remark that he hadn’t expected this child; he certainly wasn’t ready to contemplate more.

* * *

Three months later, Raoul was taking steps to ensure he was prepared for the birth, looking ahead to clear his calendar in six weeks. He rarely took time off and found even Christmas with his mother an endurance test of agitation to get back to work. Anticipation energized him for this vacation, though.

Because it was a new challenge? Or because he would see Sirena?

He shut down the thought. The baby was his sole interest. He was eager to find out the sex, know it was healthy and have final confirmation it was his.

Not that he had many doubts on any of that. True to their agreement, Sirena had sent him updates on the baby’s progress. Nothing concerning her own, he had noted with vague dissatisfaction, but he expected he would be informed if there were problems. The second scan later in the pregnancy had not revealed an obvious male, so he’d assumed the baby was female and found himself taken with the vision of a daughter possessing dark curls and beguiling green eyes.

As for paternity, to his mind, the fact Sirena had signed made the baby his. The final test after the birth was a formality that would activate the arrangements, that was all.

But that was a month and a half from now and he had people to organize. People who were abuzz with the news that the driven head of their multinational software corporation was taking an extended absence.

Only a handful of his closest and most trusted subordinates knew the reason, and even they didn’t know the mother’s identity. The scandalous circumstances of his father’s infidelity and suicide had made Raoul a circumspect man. Nothing about his involvement with Sirena, their affair, her being fired for embezzlement or her pregnancy was public knowledge. When people asked—and she’d made enough of an impression on associates and colleagues that many did—he only said she was no longer with the company.

Part of him continued to resent that loss, especially when the assistants he kept trying out turned out to be so trying. The highly recommended Ms. Poole entered the meeting with a worried pucker in her magic-marker brows.

“I said life or death, Ms. Poole,” he reminded, clinging to patience.

“She’s very insistent,” the spindly woman said, bringing a mobile phone to him.

“Who?” He tamped down on asking, Sirena? Her tenacity was something he’d come to respect, if not always appreciate.

“Molly. About your agreement with Ms. Abbott.”

He didn’t know any Molly, but something preternatural set an unexpected boot heel on his chest, sharp and compressing, causing pressure to balloon out in radiant waves. Odd. There was no reason to believe this was bad news. Sirena hadn’t contacted him directly since he’d left her looking wrung out and cross at her flat that day, neither of them particularly satisfied with the outcome of their negotiations, but possessing a binding document between them.

“Yes?” He took the phone in a hand that became nerveless and clumsy. As he stood and moved from the table, he was aware of the ripple of curiosity behind him. At the same time, despite everything that had passed between them, he experienced a flick of excitement. His mind conjured an image of Sirena in one of those knitted skirt-and-sweater sets she used to wear.

“Mr. Zesiger? I’m Sirena Abbott’s midwife. She asked me to inform you that the baby is on its way.”

“It’s early,” he protested.

“Yes, they had to induce—” She cut herself off.

He heard muffled words and held his breath as he strained to hear what was said.

She came back. “I’ve just been informed it will be an emergency cesarean.”

“Where is she?” he demanded while apprehension wrapped around him like sandpaper, leaving him abraded and raw.

“I understood you were only to be informed and that a paternity test be ordered, not that you would attend—”

“Save me the phone calls to find her so I can come directly,” he bit out.

A brief pause before she told him. “But the results won’t be known for days.”

“Tell her I’m on my way,” he said, but she was already gone.

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