His Most Exquisite Conquest (13 page)

‘Nothing,’ she muttered.

‘I don’t believe you. Tell me what it is.’

‘Just sick.’

‘Sick with what? Your forehead isn’t hot so you’re not running a fever. And why have you got your phone switched off? Neither I nor Michael could reach you today.’

‘Didn’t want to be reached. Leave me alone, Ellie,’ she said plaintively. ‘I’m not up to talking.’

‘You’re hiding, Lucy,’ came the voice of certainty.

‘No. Just sick.’

‘You’re sick because you’re bottling something up. You’ve done this before, going into retreat and churning over stuff you don’t want to tell me about.’

‘Please...let me be, Ellie,’ she begged, quickly hiding her face in the pillow to stop the quizzing.

Her sister huffed in frustration. ‘Well, at least call Michael and thank him for the rose. He went to a great deal of trouble and expense to get it for you.’

‘It’s the wrong colour,’ she mumbled into the pillow, tears gushing again.

‘What do you mean...the wrong colour?’ Ellie continued to probe. ‘Michael said it was a special rose you particularly liked. He actually called Jack Pickard for one he’d grown over on the island and had it flown to Cairns by helicopter so I could put it here for you to smell. Now that deserves a thank you call from you, Lucy,’ she declared with firm authority. ‘I don’t care how sick you are over whatever you’re sick about. I’m switching your mobile on now and...’

‘Don’t!’ Sheer panic jerked Lucy up, her arm flying out to snatch the mobile from her sister’s grasp.

‘What on earth...?’ Ellie cried in shock.

Lucy clutched the mobile to her chest. ‘I can’t talk to him! I can’t!’

‘Why not?’

‘Just leave me alone,’ she pleaded.

‘No, I won’t!’ Ellie wore her determined look. ‘This has gone far enough. Tell me what’s wrong, Lucy. I’m not going away until you do.’

Lucy bit her lip. It didn’t stop the tears from falling.

‘Tell me!’ Ellie commanded.

Lucy shook her head. ‘You can’t fix it, Ellie.’

Her sister took a deep breath. ‘Have you found out you’ve got cancer, like Mum?’

It was such a shocking leap she gasped, ‘No...no...’

‘Well, thank God for that!’ Ellie regathered herself and drove forward. ‘We’ve faced a lot together, Lucy. It doesn’t matter if this can be fixed or not. We face it together. So tell me what the problem is right now.’

Her sister...her anchor...

It was who Ellie was—through and through—and she was not about to let that part of their lives change.

Lucy’s resistance collapsed.

This problem did have to be faced, and Ellie was right.

It was better faced together.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

M
ICHAEL
PROWLED
AROUND
the penthouse apartment, banging his walking stick on the tiled floor, too unsettled to sit down and have breakfast with Harry.

‘Ask Elizabeth to come straight up here when she arrives at the office,’ he commanded his brother.

‘Just because neither of them wanted to take calls last night...’ Harry began in an overly reasonable tone.

‘I want to know why,’ Michael insisted. ‘And I want to know now!’

‘Okay!’ Harry lifted his hands in surrender. ‘As long as you remember to be kind to Elizabeth. It’s not her fault if Lucy’s sick and doesn’t feel up to chatting.’

‘It’s more than that,’ Michael muttered. ‘I can feel it in my bones.’

‘Probably because they’re broken,’ Harry muttered back at him.

‘You don’t know Lucy like I do,’ Michael shot at him. ‘I think she might be backing off me now that I’m getting better.’

‘For what reason?’ Harry eyed him in an assessing fashion. ‘I know you’ve become used to her pandering to your every need this past month. I hope you haven’t just been using her for that, Mickey. She is Elizabeth’s sister.’

‘No. That’s not what it’s about.’ He couldn’t forget feeling himself turning into a frog at the ball. Lucy wouldn’t desert someone in need and he had been needy since the accident. She was big on empathy and caring. But now that he was well on the mend, other issues could be looked at and acted upon. He didn’t want to confide something he was ashamed of to Harry. ‘Please...just tell Elizabeth I need to talk to her.’

‘Will do,’ Harry finally agreed.

He had an impatient wait until Elizabeth did enter his apartment and the wary expression on her face instantly set off alarm bells in his head.

‘Good morning, Michael,’ she said so formally he sensed her keeping mental or emotional distance from him, which raised his inner tension several notches.

‘Elizabeth...’ he acknowledged with a nod, waving to an armchair in his living room ‘...have a seat.’

He propped himself on the wide armrest of its companion chair, directly facing her as she gingerly settled onto the deep cushion. ‘What’s happening with Lucy?’ he asked point-blank.

Elizabeth held his gaze with a hard searching look of her own before calmly stating, ‘Lucy is pregnant.’

‘Pregnant...’ he repeated dazedly, the shock of it sending his mind reeling.

‘Because she was so sick the night of the ball, followed up by your accident, she forgot to take her contraceptive pill. Just one night she was off track, Michael. And unfortunately, you’d had a long session in bed that afternoon just prior to the ball. So that’s how it happened.’

She didn’t have to plead for his understanding. The circumstances were crystal clear. Knowing how obsessively careful Lucy was about safe sex, Michael could picture her deeply distressed by the outcome of this one mishap. He realised this was at the core of her withdrawal from him this past week. It was a big reason. A huge reason. But she should have shared it with him, not kept it to herself.

‘Why didn’t she tell me?’ he shot at her sister.

Again the hard, searching look. ‘Do you accept that you’re the father, Michael?’

‘Of course I accept it! Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Lucy thinks you might not believe you are. She thinks you’re hung up on how many lovers she’s had in the past. She said you asked about them that night.’

Michael gritted his teeth, knowing he’d painted himself as a frog, savagely wishing he could change the green into unblemished white.

Elizabeth sucked in a quick breath and continued, ‘If it’s a concern that will always be on your mind...’

‘No!’ He sliced the air with his hand in emphatically negative dismissal. ‘It was prompted by what other men had said about Lucy but virtually at the moment I was asking the question I realised it was irrelevant to me. Irrelevant to us. And I’ve regretted bringing it up ever since.’

Elizabeth heaved a huge sigh of relief. ‘Well, I’m glad we don’t have that problem. I couldn’t like you if you thought badly of my sister.’

‘I don’t. I love your sister, Elizabeth.’

The word slid straight out of his mouth before he’d even realised how true it was.

It evoked a doubtful look. ‘Lucy doesn’t know that, Michael, and to us
love
is a big word. Please don’t use it lightly. Not in this situation.’

‘I’ll tell her. We’ll work it out,’ he asserted strongly.

Another sigh. Another doubtful look. ‘You know about Lucy’s dyslexia. She never planned to marry. Never planned to have children.’

Horror speared into his mind. ‘She’s not thinking of having an abortion?’

‘No. Lucy has too much respect for life to choose that route, but she is upset about the possibility that she’ll pass the disability on to her child. And she thinks you might not welcome a...a less than perfect child.’

The mountain of Lucy’s vulnerabilities was rising up in front of him. She not only feared rejection from him but rejection of their child, as well. He suddenly had a very sharp memory of Sarah Pickard remarking that Lucy might think she wasn’t good enough for him. In fact, Lucy had actually said so herself—
I know I’m no match for you.
This was a mountain he had to scale...somehow.

He shook his head over ever having considered her a possible gold-digger. That was so far from the truth—a million miles from the truth. She hadn’t
planned
anything, hadn’t expected anything of him, except that he would sooner or later turn into a frog and the pleasure of being with him would be over.

His jaw set in fierce determination. This frog was going to leap every mountain she put in front of him. This frog was going to be the prince Lucy had wanted him to be.

‘Thank you for being open with me, Elizabeth,’ he said sincerely. ‘I’ll take it from here.’

She rose from the armchair, hesitating before heading for the door, her eyes meeting his in eloquent appeal. ‘All four of us are going to have to live with whatever you decide, Michael. You must make it an honest decision. Trying to be honourable will only bring more hurt in the end.’

Honourable
...standing up when he didn’t really want to.

‘Lucy and I will always have each other,’ she went on. ‘You don’t have to be a part of her life. You understand? You must be honest so we know where we’re going and can work out how best to do it.’

He nodded, seeing very clearly the crossroads where they all stood—two brothers and two sisters. Elizabeth and Harry were solid. They would move forward together. He and Lucy were looking down the barrel of very divergent paths if he didn’t make the right moves—moves that had to be right for both of them. At the centre of those crossroads was a child who would tug at all of them, making the paths intersect throughout the future, causing conflict or bringing joy.

Elizabeth was at the door, about to open it, when he thought to ask her, ‘How did Lucy respond to the Pal Joey rose you took home with you yesterday?’

Her reply was preceded by a wry grimace. ‘She burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong she said it was the wrong colour.’

It made no sense to him. ‘It’s always yellow.’

Elizabeth sighed, her eyes sad as she answered, ‘I think Lucy wanted a red rose from you, Michael.’

‘Red...’ he repeated, not immediately understanding.

‘For love,’ she spelled out. ‘But please don’t give her one unless you truly, truly mean it.’

She left, having made the situation with all its complications as clear as she could.

A great PA, Michael thought.

Then he turned his mind to Lucy and the child who would be theirs.

Decisions had to be made.

He wanted his sunshine girl back. She was dwelling in shadows, some of which he’d cast, others caused by the disability that had darkened many parts of her life—a disability she feared would blight their child’s life. Somehow he had to pull her out of those shadows.

He thought of what Elizabeth had said about Lucy never having planned to marry, never having planned to have children. It made perfect sense of her having sex whenever it promised to give her pleasure. There was no moral issue involved, simply a need to feel loved for at least a little while.

Which was all she’d wanted from him. She’d told him so in the hospital when he’d more or less trapped her into revealing her dyslexia. She wasn’t expecting to be loved for a long while. Her acceptance of that ruled how she thought, how she lived, making the most of every good moment.

He understood her now.

He understood it all.

And he realised how very critical it was that he make the right decisions.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

M
ICHAEL
WAS
COMING
to talk to her tonight. Harry was bringing him to the apartment. Ellie was virtually standing over her, insisting this meeting be faced. No hiding. No bolting from it. No shutting her mind to the fact that this issue would touch all of them in the future. She had to listen and think very carefully about the decisions she made.

Having been instructed of all this, Lucy felt sick again—sick with nervous tension. She’d barely been able to eat any of the pasta meal she’d made for their dinner. Nevertheless, regardless of how she
felt
, pride demanded that she not
look
sick to the two Finn brothers.

She spent the hour before the eight o’clock deadline making herself appear bright and beautiful, determined to have Michael believe that the sunshine girl would pick herself up and move on, bringing up their child in her own way. After all, she was best equipped to do it, having firsthand experience at living with dyslexia. There was no need for him to concern himself about either of them.

Ellie had assured her that he did accept the child was his—no question. If this was true, he would probably offer financial support, which she would take. It was the sensible thing to do. Her own employment prospects would take a dive, being a single mother. In fact, whatever help he offered she would accept for their child’s sake.

Having thought this through, Lucy was feeling a little more settled in her mind when the doorbell announced the brothers’ arrival. Her heart, however, rocketed around her chest like a wound-up toy. They were early. It was only ten minutes to eight. She wasn’t quite keyed up to face them yet. As Ellie moved to open the door, some self-protective instinct made Lucy step into the kitchen, putting the counter bench between her and the men who had changed their lives.

It wasn’t Michael who entered. Nor Harry. Ellie opened the door wide to a delivery guy who was carrying a stunning arrangement of red roses—dozens of them clustered tightly together in a dome shape, and rising from the centre of this was a stick which held an amazing pom-pom of roses to top it all off.

‘This is for the coffee table,’ the guy said, moving in to place the gift as directed.

He was followed by two more delivery people whom he quickly instructed. ‘That one is to go on the kitchen bench...’

More red roses, but fewer of them in this arrangement—a very artistic Japanese style.

‘...and that one on the dining table.’

This was more a posy of red roses in a small dainty vase, perfect for its placing.

Fortunately Ellie had enough composure to thank the delivery people and see them out. Lucy was blown out of her mind. The sheer extravagance of the gift was dazzling. What it might mean...what it was supposed to mean...could she believe it? She kept staring at the roses...so many of them...red for
love
.

The doorbell rang again. Her gaze jerked to Ellie who was still standing by the door.

‘Are you okay, Lucy?’ she asked, her hand on the door-knob, pausing before turning it, waiting to be assured that her sister had herself under control.

Lucy nodded, grasping the end corners of the bench-top to hold herself steady. Her mind was a whirl. Her heart was drumming in her ears. Her stomach was cramping in nervous agitation. Everything she’d thought of saying to Michael had turned into a jumbled mess. Just listen and watch, she fiercely told herself. What he said, how he looked when he said it...that would tell her where she should go from here.

Ellie opened the door.

Michael entered first—still the most handsome prince in the world, commanding her total attention and tugging on everything female inside her. As on her very first night with him he was casually dressed; grey shorts, a grey and white striped sports shirt with buttons down the front—undoubtedly easier for taking off with his hurting ribs—scuffs on his feet. One of his hands was gripping a walking stick. The other held a single rose which wasn’t red. It was pink and white.

Confused and hopelessly distressed, Lucy was barely aware of Harry following his brother in, pausing beside Ellie, speaking to her in a low voice. It was a jolt when suddenly they were both gone, the door closed behind them, leaving her alone with Michael and a roomful of roses that surely represented some kind of emotional pressure she would have to fight. Panic welled up. She needed her sister standing beside her, needed an anchor to stop her from being drawn into a bad place.

‘There’s nothing to be frightened of with me, Lucy,’ Michael said, his deep rich voice pouring out in a soothing tone.

She swallowed hard, trying to clear the constriction in her throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to get out, gripping the counter edge even harder. ‘I’m sorry for complicating your life like this. It wasn’t meant to happen.’

‘I know it wasn’t meant to happen but I’m glad that it has.’ He smiled at her, pushing one of the kitchen stools closer to where she stood and hitching himself onto the other. ‘It doesn’t complicate my life, Lucy. In fact, I’m seeing everything very clearly now.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Sit down and relax. We’ll talk about whatever you don’t understand.’

She unglued her hands from the bench-top, reached out for the stool and dragged it around to the other side of the counter to where Michael was seated, feeling safer with putting solid distance between them. She couldn’t allow herself to be persuaded into doing something wrong. Having sat down she gestured to the roses on the kitchen bench beside her.

‘You’ve never said you love me, Michael,’ she flatly reminded him, her eyes searching his for any sign of insincerity.

‘I’m saying it now.’ His gaze held hers with intense conviction. ‘I love you and I want to marry you, Lucy. When we were on the island, I heard you say to Sarah that you’d never marry a man who didn’t love you enough to give you roses. What you see here now is a promise there will always be roses in our marriage.’

Pain stabbed her heart. It killed her to say it but she had to. ‘I won’t marry you, Michael.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s wrong to marry because of a child. It’s what my mother did, thinking it was for the best, but it wasn’t. I promised her I’d never do that. No matter how good the intentions, it’s bound not to turn out well.’

He didn’t look at all deterred by this argument. He rolled right on over it. ‘I’d agree that good intentions don’t guarantee a good marriage. I think there has to be love between the couple involved for a marriage to work well and from what you’ve told me, I don’t believe your father loved your mother. It’s different for us, Lucy. I genuinely want you in my life and I believe you want me. Can you truthfully say you don’t?’

‘It’s not as simple as that!’ she cried, agonised by the need to keep on the right track here. ‘Our child might have dyslexia too, Michael, and that wouldn’t have been what you’ve planned for yourself.’

‘I didn’t
plan
anything for myself,’ he swiftly replied. ‘Somewhere on the back-burner in my mind was the hope that one day I might meet a woman with whom I could have the kind of relationship my father had with my mother. You’re that person, Lucy—the woman who lights up my life. And I’m sure our child will light up both our lives, dyslexia or not.’

She couldn’t let him just gloss over a condition he’d never lived with. ‘You don’t know what it’s like...the confusion, the frustration, the realisation that you’re not normal like other kids. The light goes out sometimes, Michael, and it’s hard, learning how to turn it back on.’

The silvery grey eyes glittered with determination. ‘Lucy, I promise you it won’t be the problem it’s been for you. We’ll be on the lookout for it in however many children we have, get early professional help if it’s needed.’

Children? He was looking ahead to having more than one child with her?

‘I’ve been researching dyslexia on the internet,’ he went on confidently. ‘There’s a lot that can now be done—programs that weren’t available to you. But over and above that, we will both be
there
for our children. That’s what counts most, isn’t it, having a mother and father who love you, who think you’re very special regardless of any disability?’

He spoke so caringly, Lucy’s resistance to the idea of marriage began to crack. She wanted this man so much and she wanted her child to have a loving father. Yet there was another issue that could stalk and break the happy future together he was painting.

She sucked in a deep breath, released it in a shuddering sigh and looked at him with knowing wariness. ‘What if you run into other men I’ve slept with in the past, Michael?’

His gaze did not waver from hers. ‘I haven’t forgotten I turned into a frog that night of the ball. I’ve been intensely grateful that you seemed to let me get away with it, staying by my side these past few weeks.’

‘I didn’t want you to die, didn’t want to lose you, but I wasn’t thinking there could be long future for us as a couple,’ she quickly explained. ‘You made me feel bad that night.’

‘I know. And it’s made me feel bad ever since. Please believe me when I now say I don’t care if you’ve slept with
every
man in Cairns. If you’ll marry me, Lucy, I’ll always think I’m the lucky one for getting to keep you.’

The regretful tone, the vehemence of his plea to her...listening to him was playing havoc with her emotions. She so desperately wanted to believe him, yet... ‘How can I be sure of that, Michael?’

‘Give me the chance to prove it. I want to be your prince, Lucy. I want to love you, protect you, fight your battles for you, be your champion always. If you’ll just favour me with your smile...’

The appeal in his voice, in his eyes, was irresistible, tugging at the corners of her mouth.

‘...I’ll conquer the world for you,’ he finished with a flamboyant grin.

A gurgle of laughter erupted from her throat. This was all so impossibly romantic...the stuff of dreams...but it was washing straight through the cracks in her protective armour, swamping her heart, tugging at the love she felt for him.

He twirled the pink and white rose around in his fingers. The beautiful scent of it tickled her sense of smell.

‘This rose is called Princess of Monaco. I want to give it to you because you’re my princess, Lucy. I want to buy us a home with a garden where I can grow this rose so you’ll always be reminded that you’re my princess and I love you.’ He held it out to her. ‘Will you accept it from me?’

A river of emotion in full flood drowned the doubts she had tried to hold onto. She couldn’t stop her hand from reaching out and taking the perfect princess bloom, lifting it to her nose so she could breathe in the glorious scent. She couldn’t stop the smile beaming her happiness at Michael—her prince. Her
true
prince.

It spilled into words. ‘I love you, too.’

Desire blazed in his eyes. ‘I wish I could race you off to bed, Lucy. I’d use that rose to caress every part of you so you’d be totally immersed in its scent and feel totally immersed in my love for you.’

‘Oh! I do like that idea!’ She gave him a saucy smile as she slid off the stool and rounded the bench to where he sat. ‘We don’t need to race, Michael. We can get there at a reasonable pace together. Will Harry keep Ellie away for a while?’

‘Until I call him to come and get me.’

‘Then we can take our time, can’t we?’

‘Lucy, I won’t be able to...’

‘But you can turn me into a rose garden and I can take you to the moon, my love,’ she said, framing his beautiful face with her hands and kissing him with all the sensual promise of pleasure she could give him without any action on his part that might give him pain.

* * *

The fire she lit in Michael’s groin demanded instant compliance with whatever Lucy wanted to do. He didn’t care if there was some collateral pain. He wanted this intimacy, wanted to love her, wanted to feel her love for him.

She took him further than the moon. She made him burst into heaven and float there, feeling like a king, and he knew with absolute certainty that she would always be the queen in his life. She was the right woman for him. She was the perfect woman for him—an exquisite addiction that would never end. And he silently vowed that nothing would ever mar their happiness with each other.