Kitabı oxu: «With This Baby...»

CHAPTER ONE

‘NOT again!’

Patrick slammed the phone down and shot back his chair, narrowly missing the dog’s tail. Ever the optimist, the dog leapt to his feet, anticipating a walk, but Patrick shook his head.

‘Sorry, Dog, not this time,’ he muttered, snagging his jacket off the back of the chair and heading for the door. Still hopeful, those persuasive eyes watched him for the slightest encouragement, but Patrick lobbed him a biscuit and left him to it. This shouldn’t take long. It never did—although last time he’d felt almost sorry for the girl.

He shook his head to dismiss thoughts of last time from his mind, and headed for the lift. If this young woman thought she was going to be any luckier than the other one at slapping a paternity suit on him, she had another think coming. She’d have more luck with the lottery.

Patrick knew every woman he’d ever had an intimate relationship with—knew, loved and had remained friends with, furthermore—and no stranger was going to be able to hoodwink him into believing she’d had his child.

The lift doors slid open to reveal a young woman standing in the foyer with a screaming baby in her arms, and Patrick sighed inwardly. Was this a change of tack for the paternity punters? The last one had also come armed with a screaming baby—to wear him down, or tug his heartstrings?

Either way, it wouldn’t work. It hadn’t then, despite her haunted eyes, and it wouldn’t now. He was made of sterner stuff.

‘Mr Cameron?’

Well, that made a change. At least she wasn’t calling him ‘Patrick, darling’. He studied her for a moment, taking in the soft silver-blonde hair scooped back into a ponytail, the clear, challenging eyes, the too-wide mouth devoid of lipstick, the snug jacket that showed off all too clearly her softly rounded breasts and slender waist.

‘Do I know you?’ he asked, knowing full well that he didn’t—and for some reason regretting it. Stupid. She was just another money-grubbing little liar.

She shifted the baby in her arms and the screaming settled to a steady grizzle. Still rocking the infant gently, she looked up at him with those clear grey eyes that seemed to search into the deepest recesses of his soul and find him wanting.

‘No—no, you don’t know me,’ she said, and her voice surprised him, low and mellow and distracting. ‘You knew my sister, though—Amy Franklin. She came to see you a few weeks ago with the baby.’

Ah. ‘And I told her I’d never seen her before in my life.’

‘And I don’t believe you,’ she said softly, her eyes accusing. ‘I’ve got evidence—’

‘Excuse me—is that your car?’

They both turned and looked at his receptionist, Kate, who was pointing through the plate-glass doors. Right outside, and causing a chaotic traffic jam, a recovery truck was busily winching the remains of an ancient lipstick pink Citröen 2CV up into the air.

‘Good grief,’ he said weakly. It looked straight out of the 1960s hippy era. The tatty paintwork was smothered in huge psychedelic flowers, and as it was raised into the air the driver’s door fell open and swung gently in the wind, releasing a trail of paper cups and sweet wrappers that rained down like confetti on the man beneath.

‘How dare he?’

Thrusting the baby at him, the young woman turned on her heel and headed for the door, marching out with hands on hips and haranguing the unfortunate truck driver, arms flailing like a windmill as she gesticulated wildly at the dangling car.

‘Oh, good grief,’ Patrick said again, and, handing the screaming baby to his bewildered receptionist, he went outside, extracting his wallet and wondering what this little fiasco was going to cost him. Far more than the car was worth, without a shadow of a doubt, but any minute now she was going to land the poor guy one by accident and get herself arrested.

‘I’m sorry, this young lady was just trying to gain access to our car park, but the car stalled and she couldn’t get it going again. She’d just come in to call a recovery vehicle,’ he ad-libbed, shouldering her none too gently out of the way and stepping between them. ‘Perhaps I could reimburse you for your trouble…’

The man, burly and immovable, gave a dismissive snort. ‘Sorry, mate. Rules is rules. I have to remove it, it’s causing an obstruction. She’ll have to collect it from the pound—not that it’s worth it. I mean, what is it worth? A tenner? Fifty quid for the rarity value? Personally, if it wasn’t for the fact that you have to pay the fine anyway, I wouldn’t bother.’

Personally, nor would he, but, then, it wasn’t his car—thank goodness!

‘How much will that cost—this fine you’re talking about?’ she asked, elbowing herself back in front of him with a sharp dig in the ribs.

Not as sharp as her intake of breath, however, at the driver’s reply. ‘That’s obscene!’ she exclaimed, but he just shrugged.

‘Should have used a meter, love. Wouldn’t’ve happened then.’

‘But it broke down!’ she wailed, latching onto Patrick’s fabrication like a real pro. ‘You heard the man!’

‘And pigs fly. Look, love, I can’t winch it back down, I’ve done the paperwork and it’s more than my—’

‘Job’s worth,’ she and Patrick said in unison. The man’s face hardened into implacability.

‘It’s all right for you lot that don’t have to worry about money,’ he said.

Patrick sighed and rammed a hand through his hair, but his companion didn’t pause for breath.

‘You lot?’ she snapped. ‘Don’t bracket me with him! I worry about money constantly, and I haven’t got any to throw around—hence my worthless car! You can’t take it!’ And then, with a masterly touch of pathos, she added, ‘Besides, it’s got all the baby’s things in it—I need them! She’s hungry.’

‘Baby? What baby?’ The man eyed the car worriedly, and Patrick could almost hear her mind working, but then she took pity on him.

‘Don’t worry, I had the baby with me—but all her things are still in the car, you can’t take them away, I need to feed her.’

The driver sighed, clearly relieved that he wasn’t dangling a tiny baby in the car above their heads, and winched it back down with a resigned shake of his head. ‘Look, lady, I shouldn’t do this, but I’ll give you a minute to get what you want from it before I take it away.’

‘But I want my car.’

‘Just do what he says,’ Patrick advised her softly, eyeing the huge traffic jam that was building up behind the truck. ‘You can always get the car later.’

‘If I can find the money, you mean,’ she muttered. ‘And anyway, how am I supposed to get the baby home without a car?’

Patrick’s heart sank. Here we go, he thought, feeling the contents of his wallet slipping further out of his grasp with every second. ‘Don’t worry about that now. Just get your stuff.’

Just? Huh!

Five minutes later, the elegant marbled foyer of his empire was littered with a pile of junk which in total was probably worth less than the loose change in his pocket, and the Franklin girl was standing in the doorway with a ticket in her hand, staring dispiritedly after her vanishing car.

In the background the baby was still grizzling, and Patrick looked wonderingly at the pile of junk at his feet. Ancient trainers, a jumper that had seen better days, a ratty old blanket, half a dozen paperbacks, a briefcase—curiously decent and quite incongruous—and a whole plethora of baby stuff in varying stages of decay. He met his receptionist’s bewildered eyes, rammed his hand through his hair again in disbelief and sighed shortly.

‘Now what?’ he said, half to himself, half to Kate.

‘I’ll get a box,’ she said hastily, recovering her composure, and thrusting the baby back into his arms she abandoned him with it and disappeared.

Patrick looked down into the baby’s miserable, screwed-up little face and felt a surge of compassion. Whatever was going on, this poor little mite was innocent, and, judging by the feel of it, she needed a dry nappy and probably a decent meal.

‘Let me have her,’ the young woman said, and took the baby, cradling it against her shoulder and comforting it as if she’d been doing it all her life.

‘All right, sweetheart. It’s all right, Jess,’ she crooned, but Patrick wondered if it really was or if they were just empty promises.

No. Dammit, he wouldn’t fall for it.

The ticket the truck driver had given her had fallen from her fingers, drifting to the floor, and he picked it up and shoved it in his pocket. He’d deal with it later.

Kate came back with a couple of cardboard boxes and started packing the junk into them, and he crouched down beside her to help, just as the baby started to wail again in earnest.

Her hands stilled and she looked up at the baby with sympathy in her eyes.

‘I’ll deal with this lot,’ she said softly. ‘Why don’t you take Miss Franklin up to your apartment so she can see to the baby?’ she suggested, and with a resigned sigh he nodded and held out his hand to usher the young woman towards the lift.

‘I’ll need the baby seat and that blue bag,’ she said, and he scooped them up and led her to the lift, glancing over his shoulder at Kate still crouched on the floor.

‘Thanks, Kate. I owe you,’ he said softly. ‘Can you ask Sally to deal with my calls?’

She nodded, and he turned his attention back to the more pressing problem in front of him.

‘Come on, let’s get the baby sorted out and then we can talk,’ he said, reminding himself firmly that she was just a blackmailer, even if she did have a figure to die for and the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard in his life…

‘Right, now she’s asleep, let’s sort this out,’ Patrick said firmly, determined to take control of a situation that showed every sign of disintegrating into chaos. ‘As I said before, I don’t know your sister. I told her that when she came to see me, and I can’t imagine why she’s sent you now, because nothing’s happened since I saw her to change anything.’

She looked up at him, those extraordinary grey eyes filled with silent accusation. ‘On the contrary,’ she said. ‘Everything’s changed, because three days after she came to see you, my sister died of an overdose, and I’m holding you responsible—for that, and for your child—so, you see, everything has changed.’

Patrick felt shock drain the colour from his face. That poor girl, so tightly strung, her eyes haunted and despairing, was dead, and her sister was here to take up the cudgels on her behalf. No wonder she was so determined, but despite her assertions nothing had really altered, at least not as far as he was concerned.

The baby wasn’t his, and never would be, and there was nothing he’d said or done that made him in any way responsible for the tragic death of that baby’s mother, however regrettable.

‘I’m sorry about your sister,’ he said, gentling his voice but with no loss of resolve. ‘If I could help you, I would, but it really isn’t anything to do with me.’

‘Nice try, but it won’t work,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve got the photographs.’

His heart sank. ‘Photographs?’ he asked. She’d been saying something downstairs about evidence just as the car thing had intruded, but it hadn’t really registered. Oh, hell…

‘Yes, photographs. Intimate photographs—if you know what I mean.’

He did, only too well, and he winced inwardly, even though he knew they must be fake like all the others. ‘Anybody can achieve that these days with a digital camera and a bit of chicanery,’ he argued, but she wasn’t finished.

‘Photographs taken in your apartment here? On that sofa, in front of the window? In the bedroom where I changed the baby’s nappy? On your roof garden? Where and how would she have got those? Someone on your staff? Come on, Mr Cameron, you can’t get out of it. All it will take is a DNA test to prove it, and if you won’t submit to it willingly, I’ll just have to take you to court, and, believe me, I fully intend to win.’

He didn’t doubt it for a moment.

‘Get the baby tested, by all means,’ he agreed willingly. ‘My DNA has already been tested for another of these bogus claims, and I can assure you it won’t match this baby’s any more than it’s matched any other. Your sister isn’t the first young woman to try this, and unfortunately I don’t suppose she’ll be the last. I’ll see if I can find the information and send it on to you.’

‘You do that. I’ll give you a week, and then I’m taking action—starting with sending the photographs to the press.’ She delved into the blue bag that seemed to contain her entire life’s resources, and produced a slightly dog-eared card that she thrust at him.

‘Here. If you don’t contact me by next Monday morning, you’ll be hearing from my solicitor and the tabloids, probably simultaneously. Now perhaps you’ll be good enough to call me a taxi. I’ll arrange to have my other things collected in the next few days.’

On the point of telling her to take a hike, he caught sight of the sleeping baby and his irritation evaporated.

Poor little scrap. She didn’t deserve this, and it was a long way to—he glanced down at the card.

Suffolk. Ms Claire Franklin, Lower Valley Farm, Strugglers Lane, Tuddingfield, Suffolk. Nice address, but she didn’t look like a farmer. A farm worker? Lodger? Nanny? Nothing too highly paid, judging by the car and her remarks about money.

Claire. He savoured it on his tongue. Interesting, how an ordinary name had suddenly become somehow musical.

‘How are you going to get home?’ he asked her, refocusing. ‘Have you got enough money for the train?’

The confidence in her eyes faltered for a moment, then firmed again. ‘I’ll manage.’

He sighed, opened his wallet and pulled out several notes. ‘Here—that should be enough to get you and your things home in a minicab.’

She eyed the cash and her eyebrows arched eloquently. ‘You must have a hell of a guilty conscience, Mr Cameron.’

He hung onto his temper with difficulty. ‘On the contrary, Miss Franklin, I have a perfectly clean conscience—and I want it to stay that way. Now, are you going to take the money, or are you going to be stubborn and independent and make the baby suffer all the way home on the tube and the train?’

For a moment she hesitated, then she took it with a curt nod and tucked it into the bottomless blue bag. ‘I’ll pay you back,’ she said, and something in her voice made him believe her against all the odds.

Drawing her dignity around her like a cloak, she picked up the carrier with the baby in it, slung the blue bag over her shoulder and stood patiently waiting.

‘I’ll call the cab,’ he said, a trifle curtly because he didn’t want to admire her for anything. Picking up the phone, he asked Kate to order a minicab. ‘On second thoughts,’ he added to his beleaguered receptionist, ‘get George if he’s free. Usual arrangement.’

He cradled the phone, then escorted his visitor and her now sleeping charge to the lift. ‘I’ve ordered a minicab. He’ll take your things, as well, so you won’t have to get them picked up.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Miss Franklin.’

She took it almost graciously, her palm cool, her grip firm and capable, and inclined her head. ‘Goodbye,’ she murmured, but he had a feeling she wasn’t finished, and he was right. She carried the baby into the lift, turned and met his eyes with a steady look that held the promise of another skirmish to come. ‘I mean it,’ she said before the doors sighed shut. ‘One week, and then all hell breaks loose.’

He didn’t doubt it for a moment.

He held that clear grey gaze until the doors interrupted it, and then turned away with a shrug. Let her do her worst. There was no way the child was his, cute though she might have been, regardless of some bogus photographic evidence.

Of course, if Will had still been alive he would have blamed him. It wouldn’t have been the first time his brother had got him in a scrape, by a country mile, and it was just the sort of damn fool thing he might have done, Patrick thought with a fondness touched with irony.

He could just imagine him now, pretending to be his richer and more successful twin, capitalising on his brother’s success without bothering to earn the right to it. Had he entertained women here, told them his name was Patrick?

Surely he would have outgrown that kind of prank? They’d often pretended to be each other, with no thought of the consequences, driving their teachers and then later on their girlfriends mad, but then they’d grown up.

Or he had.

Will, on the other hand, had never considered the consequences of his actions—like getting the dog, for instance. It was just like Will to take pity on the poor, scruffy little black bundle he’d been and then all but abandon him when the responsibility for looking after a lively puppy got too irksome.

If it hadn’t been for Patrick, Dog would have ended up being rehomed. Instead, he’d found a master who struggled in the midst of the city to find time to exercise his intelligent mind and his restless body, and who took his care seriously.

Even if he hadn’t ever given him a proper name!

He summoned the lift, and as the doors opened he saw a small pink rabbit lying on the floor.

The baby’s. It must have fallen out of the little baby seat. Damn. He’d get Sally, his long-suffering PA, to send it—or, better still, Kate. She seemed to have a soft spot for the child and Sally would ask him endless questions.

He went into his office, the pink rabbit in his hand, and dropped it in his desk drawer just as Sally came in.

‘Everything OK?’

She tried hard to keep the curiosity out of her voice, but failed dismally. Dog, on the other hand, greeted him with cheerful and unquestioning enthusiasm, and seemed a much safer bet. He wasn’t going to ask awkward questions about his visitor!

‘Fine,’ he lied. ‘I’m going to take Dog in the park,’ he added hastily as she started to open her mouth again, and picked up the dog lead. ‘Hold my calls.’

‘Still?’ Sally said, but he pretended not to hear her. He went down to the now tidy foyer, Dog bouncing excitedly at his heels, and ignored Kate’s frantic gestures as she dealt with a phone call that was obviously for him.

The park beckoned—the park, and peace and quiet, time to think, because a troubling thought was beginning to take shape in the back of his mind.

It was early April—and Will had been dead a little over a year. If that baby was more than four months old, it could have been his.

And—because they were identical twins—the DNA would match.

‘No charge,’ the minicab driver said. ‘It’s on Mr Cameron.’

‘Oh.’ Claire blinked, puzzled. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure. That’s what Kate said when she called me. Anyway, I’m on a retainer. I’ll just bill them.’

‘But he gave me money.’

George laughed, not unkindly. ‘Of course, if I was a real rogue, I’d take that off you, love, but I’m not, so don’t argue, there’s a good girl. Just say “Thank you very much,” and be grateful. He can afford it.’

She opened her mouth, shut it again, then opened it and said, ‘Thank you very much.’

Eyes twinkling, he carried her miscellaneous possessions into the cottage, wiggled his fingers at the baby and left her to her confusion.

She could feel the cash burning a hole in the side of the blue bag. She’d give it back to Cameron, of course, and repay the cost of the minicab—once she’d earned it, and the money to get her car out of the pound.

Huh! That was the rub, she thought as she fed the grizzly, hungry baby and bathed her ready for bed. How on earth was she going to earn it? She couldn’t afford to pay the phone bill, and without a phone she couldn’t get work, at least not the sort of freelance stuff she did.

The irony of it was that Patrick Cameron was an architect, and there was probably room in his organisation for another draughtsperson, doing some of the donkey-work on the less important contracts. Maybe that was it. Maybe she should ask him for work, so she could support the baby and herself and be independent?

Independent? She snorted. She’d be more dependent on him than ever like that, and it wasn’t what she wanted. Nor did she want him taking any interest in the baby. Not that it seemed likely, because he certainly hadn’t shown any interest in her today!

No. All she wanted—needed—from him was enough money to pay for child care so she could concentrate on her job for a few hours a day and work herself out of this financial hole. Earn enough money, perhaps, to fund a bank loan to convert the barn and turn it into a studio so she could run the painting holidays she’d dreamed of.

She’d got it all worked out. She could live upstairs, with a farmhouse kitchen downstairs big enough to do all the catering, and she’d have a huge studio at one end, and the cottage could be the guest accommodation. Then she’d be able to earn money, indulge her creative streak and look after the baby, all at the same time.

Oh, yes. She’d thought it all through—all except how to pay for it, but Patrick Cameron had plenty of money, and giving his baby a future was little enough to ask of him under the circumstances.

And in less than a week she’d see him again, she was sure of it. He couldn’t afford all the mud-slinging the tabloids would get up to, not in his position, so he’d have to co-operate to a certain extent. He couldn’t continue to deny knowing Amy once he’d seen the photographs, and he’d have to start playing ball.

First off was the DNA check, of course, and then there would be no question about it.

It would be interesting to see how he dealt with that, she thought. In so many ways he’d been a real gentleman, but his stubborn refusal to acknowledge his relationship with Amy gave the lie to that. So which was the real Patrick Cameron? Her curiosity was piqued, and she realised with a shock that she was looking forward to seeing him again.

Not that she was interested in him in any personal way—of course not. He’d been Amy’s lover, and that made him strictly off limits. Besides, that dark hair, unruly even though it was short, and those curious green-grey eyes that should have been soft and yet were strangely piercing—they didn’t appeal to her in the least, except academically, because he was Jess’s father.

And that body—not that she’d seen much of it, of course, except in the photos which she’d been reluctant to study in any detail.

Liar!

Claire ignored her honest streak in favour of self-delusion. Much more comfortable, because acknowledging her interest in a man rich enough to buy her out hundreds of times over, a man whose work she respected and admired, a man who, if she allowed herself to be honest for once, was the most attractive man she’d seen in years—actually, make that two and a half decades—acknowledging her interest in him would only underline just how fruitless that interest would be.

She was nobody. Nothing. Just a frustrated interior designer and graphic artist making a tenuous living freelancing at her drawing board, working for anyone who needed her draughtsmanship and visualising skills, with no future, no hope of career advancement, no pension prospects.

She laughed silently. Pension prospects? She was twenty-six—but suddenly, since she’d become responsible for this little scrap, that seemed to matter.

And without Auntie Meg’s unexpectedly generous bequest, they’d be homeless as well.

‘Oh, Auntie Meg, I wish I knew what to do,’ she sighed, staring out of the window at the dark shape of the barn just fifty or so paces away. She could sell it, of course, but that would mean the end of her dream.

Oh, well. Maybe Patrick Cameron would prove himself to be a guardian angel in disguise. She could only wait and hope.

Patrick looked at the letter from the DNA lab that had performed the last paternity test for him a year ago—a test that had proved unnecessary, because the woman had broken down in the end and confessed she’d just wanted to get some money.

Nevertheless, the test had been done, and, in case it should happen again, the lab had agreed to keep his profile on record, the details of the individual bar-code that identified each and every one of his cells as his and his alone.

He sighed. Until last year, he couldn’t have said that, but now Will was gone.

His clone, Will used to joke, but last year he’d been serious. It had been just before he’d gone away, and he’d said, very quietly and with some considerable dignity, that it was time to move on and stop living in his brother’s shadow.

‘It’s as if I’m a clone of you, and they left some vital nutrient out of the Petri dish—that extra je ne sais quoi. Still, without you standing beside me, who would ever know? And not even you, dear bro, casts a shadow long enough to reach Australia.’

And his smile had been wry and sad, and Patrick had hugged him hard.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ he’d said, choked, but Will had meant every word of it. He’d gone to Australia, bent on making himself a new life, and two weeks later he’d been dead, drowned in a stupid accident with a surfboard.

And now it seemed he might have had a child.

Patrick dragged in a deep breath and filed the information in its envelope, then tucked it into his jacket pocket. The car—the psychedelic 2CV—was sitting in the underground car park beneath the building, and it was time to go.

As he strapped Dog into his harness and fastened him to the front seat belt, he wondered if the car would make it. By the time he reached the M11, he was almost certain that it wouldn’t. Despite its service, it ran like a pig, it was hideously noisy and uncomfortable, not to mention terrifyingly vulnerable amongst the heavy lorries, and he decided the truck driver who’d winched it away had had excellent judgement.

Paying her fine was just doing the decent thing. Bothering to have the damn car serviced and valeted and returning it to her, on the other hand, seemed a ludicrous waste of money, because he was convinced it was destined for the crusher.

Still, maybe she’d be grateful. She’d seemed sorry enough to see it go—though why he wanted her gratitude he couldn’t begin to imagine. He certainly wasn’t sure he wanted it enough to risk his life in this bit of pink tin foil she called a car!

On second thoughts, tin foil might be better—it didn’t rust. This clapped-out old heap might be a classic, but it must be thirty years old if it was a day, and it was well and truly past its sell-by date. Hell, it was at least as old as him, and considerably older than Claire Franklin.

Claire.

He rolled it round his tongue, savouring the shape of the word, remembering her eyes, her mouth, that soft, lush figure, the delicate fragrance that had still been lingering in the air when he’d gone back up to his apartment with Dog at the end of the day.

Was it really only two days ago? It seemed like a lifetime.

He could feel the little bulge of the pink rabbit in his pocket, and he wondered if the baby had missed it. Jess, she was called. Jessica? Jessamy? Jessamine?