* * *
‘Why?’ she asked, her brows furrowing in suspicion. ‘You don’t love me. You told me that in no uncertain terms.’
Lisa looked at Max as his eyes met hers across the small space of his office. Her heart flipped over and her stomach fluttered just as it always had done when he’d looked at her like that. For her it was all about being in love, but for him it was something different.
‘Because we have created a child, our child, and we owe it to that child to at least try.’ His words confirmed her thoughts. This was about his conscience, about doing the right thing.
She’d never wanted a divorce. Not because she couldn’t admit they’d made a mistake, but because she still loved him. It had been his cold and cruel words after their passionate night that had prompted her to tell him that morning she wanted a divorce and the pain had stung long enough to ensure she’d eventually seen it through.
‘Our night together should never have happened.’ She turned and glared at him, pushing down her softer side, the one that wanted to fall into his arms and take anything he was offering. She might have been able to do that once, but not any more, not now she had a child to think of.
‘So why did it, Lisa?’ His voice was deep, gravelly and very sexy.
She bit down hard, keeping the truth inside. There was no way she was ever going to let him know she still loved him. She’d thought her dreams had all come true at once when she’d first met Max and giving up on her dreams was hard. Too hard.
‘Far too much wine.’ She snapped the words she’d used earlier and turned, leaving the small office and the air that was full of the scent of Max. She couldn’t stay here any more, not when every word, every look, made her remember all she’d lost.
‘Nothing else?’ He taunted her and she stopped, her breathing deep and fast as she looked steadfastly at the door of his apartment, her escape. She wouldn’t turn round, couldn’t look at him.
‘No.’ She shook her head and took the final steps to the door but before she could open it Max was in front of her. ‘Nothing.’
‘But there is something now,’ he said all too calmly. ‘Our child.’
She clutched at the first thing she could think of to change the subject. ‘What about your brother? Aren’t you intending to meet him this afternoon?’
‘I am meeting my brother...’ he paused and lifted his arm to look at his watch, the movement exposing his tanned wrist and, try as she might, she couldn’t tear her gaze away ‘...in one hour. Which means, we will have to continue this discussion later.’
‘In that case, I’ll go home.’ Her blasé reply made his brows rise in a suggestive and incredibly sexy way and she drew in a deep breath.
‘You will come with me, Lisa, and afterward, we will call at your apartment to collect all you need to move back in here while we sort things out.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Quite possibly.’ He smiled, the kind of smile that left her in no doubt he was sure he held all the power. ‘But I am not about to allow you to walk away with my child.’
‘A child you’ve never wanted.’
‘That may have been the case once, but not any more.’
MAX’S MIND HAD been a turmoil of thoughts as he and Lisa had made the journey across London to the hotel his brother had suggested for their meeting. One minute he’d been thinking of his brother and how finally meeting him would affect him, and then his thoughts had gone to the child he was now responsible for. How could he be a father when he was the son of a man who’d led a double life, effectively having two families simultaneously?
He looked at Lisa as she sat down in one of the cosy-looking armchairs in the hotel foyer. A wave of unease washed over him as he noticed she was still pale beneath the heavy make-up she nearly always wore. It was her armour, her wall to hide behind. He knew that much at least, although not why. In fact he knew very little about her past. Nothing else had mattered at first because he’d seen the real Lisa, had loved the real Lisa—at least physically.
Then he’d broken her heart because his past meant he couldn’t open his heart to hers. He couldn’t let himself love her. It was an emotion he wasn’t capable of. His father’s sudden abandonment had seen to that, not that he’d been around much before he’d walked out for good. Max had never known where he went for weeks at a time, but now, finally, he did. He’d gone to his other family, to his legitimate son and legal wife—leaving his mistress and his illegitimate son behind.
A stab of hurt pierced into him. He had been nothing more than a bad secret to be swept out of sight. A child to be avoided, forgotten, not loved and finally knowing why only intensified the pain. The shadows cast by his past reached far into the future, destroying everything. If he hadn’t been able to love Lisa, how could he love his child?
Hell, he really didn’t need this guilt now. Not on top of recent revelations and now today’s headlines, which played to the one thing he hated—being illegitimate. The bastard child of the man who’d broken his mother’s heart and wrecked their lives without so much as an apology and definitely never an explanation. He’d walked out one night and never come back. Max had tried to console his mother, but, at eight, that had been a tall order and yet another failure as far as he was concerned.
Now he had to face that man’s legitimate son. The son he must have really wanted. His true heir. His half-brother, Raul, had only said that as part of his will his father had wanted him found and brought into the family business. So what was this all about? His father’s pathetic attempts to make peace?
He moved away from Lisa and all the complications, wanting to get this meeting under way. He paused outside the restaurant, took a deep breath and then opened the doors and walked in. It was empty of anyone except a couple who were locked in a heated debate. They were lovers, of that there wasn’t any doubt, lovers who hated and loved with equal passion. Neither was he in any doubt that he was looking at his brother.
For a moment Max waivered. If he couldn’t do emotions, could he be any kind of brother? Savagely he pushed the thought aside. He’d do this to show his father he wasn’t completely cast from the same mould as him.
* * *
Lisa’s nerves were so taut she could hardly sit still, the events of the day, which had unfolded at breakneck speed, only adding to her nausea. Raised voices had come from the room and the hasty retreat of another woman had made her more anxious. It had all gone quiet now. Too quiet.
‘How did it go?’ She jumped up from her chair as Max pushed open the door. From the look on his face she already knew the answer to that. She also had so many more questions to ask, not least who was the woman who’d fled the room, almost in tears. What had happened in there?
‘As well as such a meeting can go.’ He fired the words back at her, his jaw firm and hard, and a tremor of fear slithered down her spine.
‘That’s it?’ Lisa could see the defensive wall being built around him. He was shutting her out, keeping her away from him, from his emotions, just as he always did. Her heart softened. She’d picked the wrong day to tell Max he was going to be a father.
‘For now, yes,’ he said, but from the frown on his face, the tight set of his jaw, she knew things were far from right.
‘Will you see him again?’
Finally, Max looked at her properly, as if he’d buried all the hurt that must have come from meeting a brother he’d never met. ‘I will, yes. We have agreed not to let the past cloud the future. In light of the press headlines we will present a united front, but now it’s