“Lily, I didn’t know,” he repeated, and she caught his eyes and they were glittering dark with something that she couldn’t read, something hideously painful and she had to get away from it. Was desperate to get away from it. She needed to flee.
She tried to look over his shoulder but he was too tall, too close. Things were happening in the room, there was urgent talk, maybe even a tussle. But all she could see was Nate.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
She frantically shook her head against his hands.
“Lily, look at me.”
At his soft, gentle words, she couldn’t stop herself, she looked at him. She looked into his impossibly handsome face.
And then, for the first time since she knew he was alive, she spoke to him. She said the words she’d been saying in her head for days.
“You told me you’d never let me go,” she whispered but it was an accusation.
His eyes closed and the pain in them swept over his entire face and settled there like it would never, ever leave.
Then he shocked her again. He dropped his forehead to hers and kept his hands on her.
Something out of her control made her continue.
“You told me,” she said in a shaky voice, “you’d always take care of me.”
He opened his eyes and stared into hers. He was so close that if she moved the lower half of her face forward, less than an inch, she would have been kissing him.
“You didn’t take care of me,” she murmured, stating the obvious.
“Mr. McAllister, step away from my client,” Alistair demanded from somewhere close.
Nate didn’t move, not a single muscle.
“Mr. McAllister!” Alistair snapped.
“Let him be!” Victor shouted fiercely and then, “Let them be,” he said this last in a voice that, Lily noted dazedly, was utterly broken.
Alistair was not to be denied. “Mr. McAllister!”
Nate ignored him, his eyes drilling into hers.
She couldn’t bear it a second longer, she couldn’t shift moods this easily. Something was happening but she had no idea what it was. She had so little fight left in her and she had to concentrate. She wasn’t strong enough, in that moment with Nate’s hands on her, his warm body pressed against hers just like she’d been wishing for years, his forehead resting on hers. She simply couldn’t bear it.
“Nate,” Lily said softly, beseechingly, “let me go.”
He ignored her too, for a moment.
Then, just as abruptly as he pursued her, he did as he was asked and let her go.
And just as swiftly, he walked back to his chair, righted it to the table and sat down.
After a moment of stunned silence where everyone seemed immobile, the entire assemblage did the same though not nearly as quickly.
Nate watched Lily as she slowly, shakily walked back across the room and resumed the seat Alistair was holding for her.
“Are you quite all right?” Alistair asked once he’d also sat down and was leaning into her, peering at her, his own face beyond angry and she was glad there were no paperweights in the room or there would have been hell to pay.
She nodded, undone by the whole scene and wanting nothing more than to leave. To go back home, to Tash and Fazire, and recoup, recharge and fight some other day.
Worse still, her head was beginning to ache and she felt more than slightly queasy and she had the terrible feeling that a migraine was coming over her.
“Let’s just get this over with,” she begged, her voice so small it was tiny.
She had no idea her voice betrayed to the two men in the room she knew a very short time many years ago, one she had come to care about deeply, one she had adored more than life, that she was now just a mere shadow of the former Lily Jacobs.
At her words Alistair fully lost his temper and his head jerked around toward the others.
“Right. Then. I suppose after
that
scene I don’t have to go into detail about the financial situation all that left Ms. Jacobs in. There was not a great deal of wealth in her family, Lily had attended Oxford on a scholarship and had been working in pubs and shops since her arrival in England. Due to the pregnancy, she was unable to work, had a mortgage that went unpaid for months and was nearly thrown out of her home. She was not entitled to National Health Service so the birth and subsequent hospitalisation were all private and cost a fortune. She was forced, even though she didn’t wish it, to sell her family home in Indiana but death duties and a bad exchange rate meant that money was practically gone before it got to the country. She –”
Nate’s solicitor interrupted Alistair wearily, sensing they’d lost the upper hand they’d been so certain of when they’d entered the room. “Just tell us what you want.”
Alistair didn’t hesitate. “We want five hundred thousand pounds for back child maintenance for the last seven years. We want two thousand pounds a month starting now. Mr. McAllister can see his daughter one weekend a month, two weeks during summer holidays and alternating school holidays. Ms. Jacobs wants Natasha every Christmas. The first meeting of Mr. McAllister and Natasha will be supervised by either Maxine Grant or Lily’s long-time family friend, Fazire.”
Alistair was on a roll, he was asking for more than they agreed. If Lily wasn’t already wound up by all that had happened, she would have spun like a top at what he was currently demanding.
But he was interrupted.
“Give it to her.” This was Nate’s deep voice cutting in and Lily’s head jerked to him.
He was staring at her. Staring at her so intensely she felt his eyes like they were a physical touch on her skin.
“I’m sorry?” Alistair asked, nonplussed at being disturbed in his postulation.
“Give it to her. Have the money transferred to her account by the end of the day.” As he said this, Nate’s head moved to look at his solicitor and it was clear it was an order.
“But, Mr. McAllister –” his solicitor threw in.
“The five hundred thousand?” Alistair was, Lily saw, thrilled.
“A million,” Lily’s head jerked back to Nate and her mouth dropped open in shock.
“A million pounds?” Alistair was nearly bouncing in his chair.
“Yes, a million pounds…” Nate stated and Alistair was about to shoot to the moon when Nate continued, “for each year Natasha has been alive.”
Lily blinked, her shock so profound a stampede of buffaloes could have stormed through the room and she wouldn’t have moved. If Alistair had done a back flip out of his seat, Lily would not have been surprised.
“Seven million pounds?” Alistair was now, simply, agog. Lily didn’t know anyone who had seven million pounds much less could transfer it into another bank account “by the end of the day”.
“Yes,” Nate said flatly.
Lily couldn’t look at Nate, her eyes moved to Victor and he was staring at her in a way, in a way…
In the way he used to look at her.
She had no time to process Victor’s look as Alistair pressed, “Do you agree to the visitation schedule?”
“No,” Nate noted implacably.
Lily, already stunned, became so still a single touch would have sent a crack running through her body. She had known it was too good to be true.
“I’m sorry?” Alistair parroted his earlier question.
“I want full custody,” Nate declared.
It was Lily’s turn to shoot out of her chair. At his words, all the shock and numbness fled and the fight came crashing back into her.
“
What?
” she shrieked.
Nate rose too, albeit slowly. He faced her, his eyes looking directly into hers, the expression on his face carefully controlled.
“I want full custody of my daughter,” he told her calmly.
“You can’t have it!” Lily shouted, not at all calmly and forgetting her promise to Alistair not to say anything.
“She’s moving to London to live with me,” Nate stated.
“No!” Lily yelled.
Nate went on. “And you are too.”
“
What?
” This time it came out as a high-pitched scream.
“What?” Alistair shouted, also jumping up from his chair.
Victor, not to be left seated, also got up.
Eyes never leaving Lily, Nate announced, “You’re moving to London.”
“I am not,” Lily returned.
“You and Natasha are moving in with me. You and I are getting married in two months.”
“
What?
” Lily screamed again.
“This is
insane,
” Alistair threw in.
Nate’s gaze sliced to Alistair and he repeated, “Lily and I will be married. She and Natasha are moving to London, moving in
with me.
”
Lily leaned forward and put her hands on the table. This was too much, just too damned much. She’d had
enough
.
“You forget, I tried that before and it… did… not… work!” Lily flung at him.
Nate’s carefully controlled face flinched.
“Lily –” Victor said softly.
She interrupted whatever Victor was going to say. “No! No, no,
no!
” Lily pushed away from the conference table and looked at Alistair. “I’m leaving,” she declared flatly.
Alistair was visibly grinding his teeth. If there was a paperweight close by, at that moment she would have gladly handed it to him and showed him where to aim.
He stopped grinding long enough to grunt, “Go.”
She grabbed her bag where it was sitting on the table, whirled and headed smartly for the door, not looking back.
She was brought to an abrupt halt with a strong hand on her upper arm.
She winced uncontrollably in pain when the hard fingers closed around her bruised arm and she turned and looked at the familiar, strong, long-fingered hand then at Nate who was standing behind her.
He watched her wince at his touch and something anguished flashed through his eyes.
“Take your hand off my client,” Alistair, seething, was walking swiftly toward them.
Nate ignored him.
“I want to meet my daughter,” he told Lily.
“Fine,” Lily snapped, wanting nothing but escape. Her head was beginning to pound.
“I want to meet her tomorrow,” Nate demanded.
“Fine!” Lily clipped.
“I want you there,” he pushed.
“
Fine!
”
“Lily, don’t say another word,” Alistair warned from beside them.
“You’ll be there tomorrow,” Nate ordered, it should have been a query but it was a command.
“Yes!” she cried. She would have said anything to get away.
She wrenched her arm free as Alistair said her name sharply in frustration.
She didn’t pay attention.
She turned away from Nate and ran away as fast as her high heels would carry her.
Nate & Victor, Nate & Laura
For the first fifteen minutes of the ride back to London, the two passengers in the back of the Rolls Royce were completely silent, each lost in their own tormented thoughts.
Then the silence was broken.
“Nathaniel –” Victor began.
“Don’t,” Nate’s voice cracked like a whip.
Victor held his breath for a moment.
There was not a single man on earth he would allow to speak to him that way except Nathaniel.
Especially now.
Victor sighed, looked out the window and instead of seeing the rolling pastureland, his vision filled with Lily.
Jesus, fucking, God,
he thought. Laura couldn’t tell him not to curse so blasphemously in his thoughts and more than likely, if she’d witnessed the nightmare in that conference room, she’d have a few curses of her own.
The minute Victor walked in the room, seeing Lily so close and cosy with her lawyer, looking so beautiful, stylish and serene, he’d wanted to tear her head off.
Ten minutes later he’d had the crazy, sudden, unprecedented urge to get down on his knees and beg her forgiveness.
She’d named her child Natasha, for Nathaniel.
She’d named her child after
him
, Victor, she’d given her baby,
Nathaniel’s
baby, Victor’s name.
And she’d nearly died doing it.
And after ten minutes more, Victor had been too broken to know
what
to do and that was a feeling he’d not felt for decades.
He was broken because she was broken. Broken because the bright, vivacious girl who had walked innocently into his home eight years before had been all but destroyed.
That suit she wore was camouflage, making it not so easy to see all that had been the glorious Lily was lost. The longer the attorneys talked the more she retreated, the further she got from them, from anyone and especially from Nate. She was so thin, so pale, she actually looked at the end in physical pain.