Charlotte Hawkes - Surprise Baby For The Billionaire

Yet if Saskia’s baby really was his—and he still needed to hear her say the words to him, not to some stranger—how could he turn his back on them?

He couldn’t. It was that simple. And Sol raking up wretched memories wasn’t helping.

‘It’s history.’ Censure splintered from Malachi’s mouth. ‘Just leave it alone.’

‘Right.’

His brother pressed his lips into a grim line and they each lapsed back into their respective silences.

He didn’t want Sol’s gratitude. He didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t taken care of their little family out of love, or a desire to be a unit. He’d done it because he’d been terrified of where they would all go if they were split up.

But he’d begrudged every moment of it. Resented the fact that at eight years old he’d had to effectively become a father to a five-year-old—had had no choice but to become the man of the house and earn money to put food on the table. At eight he had felt like a failure every time the electricity cut out and he had no money left to put anything on the card.

He’d sworn to himself that his adult life would be about himself, the way his childhood had never been. He’d been adamant that when he grew up he would never marry or have kids. His life would be his own. Finally. He had been determined that his business—which had made him a billionaire against all the odds—would be his only drive. As selfish as that might have sounded to anyone else—anyone who didn’t know what his life had been like.

And it had been. Nothing had stood in his way. Not his lack of experience, nor the competition, nor any relationship.

He’d been ruthless.

All too often he wondered if the only reason he had founded Care to Play—the centre he’d set up with Sol, where young carers from the age of five to sixteen could just unwind and be kids instead of feeling responsible for a parent or a sibling—had been to make himself feel good about his ability to shake other people off so easily.

He’d believed that he wanted to make a positive difference to other kids’ lives—if something like Care to Play had existed when he and Sol had been kids, then maybe it could have made a difference. He’d even convinced himself it was true.

But now, suddenly, he wondered if it had been just another selfish act on his part. If helping kids like Izzy, who clearly adored her genuinely struggling mother, was less about them and more about making himself feel better for the way he’d hated his own drug-addicted mother.

So now there was Saskia. Pregnant. With his child. And he couldn’t shake the idea that he had to do something about it. He was going to be a father, and fathers weren’t meant to be selfish. They were meant to be selfless.

Malachi was just about to open his mouth and confide in his brother, for possibly the first time in for ever, when Sol lurched abruptly to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets the way he’d always done when his mind was racing, ever since he’d been a kid.

It was so painfully familiar that Malachi almost smiled. Almost.

‘I’m going to check on some of my patients upstairs, then I’ll be back to see Izzy.’

Malachi dipped his head in acknowledgement, but Sol didn’t even bother to wait. He simply strode up the corridor and through the fire door onto the stairwell, leaving Malachi alone with unwelcome questions.

‘You can go back in now.’

Malachi jerked his neck around, and the sight of Saskia standing there brought a thousand questions tumbling to his lips.

‘Is there anything you’d like to tell me?’ he rasped, before he could swallow the words back.

She blanched, her eyes widening for just a fraction of a second before she pulled a smooth veneer into place.

‘If you want to know about Izzy then you’ll have to ask her mother. As you aren’t a direct family member, it isn’t my place to tell you.’

Was she playing a game? He couldn’t tell.

‘Tell me, do you always faint like that?’

Two high spots of colour suffused her cheeks. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then perhaps you’d like to explain what this morning’s little episode was all about.’

For a moment he thought she looked panicked.

‘That was a one-off.’

‘Is that so?’

‘It is.’

He arched his eyebrows. ‘And why do you think this “one-off” episode happened?’

She shook her head back, straightening her shoulders. It shocked Malachi to realise that he knew her well enough to know it was a stalling tactic.

Or, more pertinently, it should have shocked him.

‘I don’t know,’ she asserted. ‘Like you said, I probably hadn’t eaten properly, so I was running on empty. I didn’t have a proper breakfast and it’s been a long shift.’

He didn’t know whether to be impressed or insulted that she lied so easily. Straight to his face. And then, without warning, anger surged through him—whether at the way she wanted to exclude him or at the fact she thought he was that blind, he couldn’t be sure—but he quashed it, quickly and effectively.

Never let anyone see they can get to you.

Another life lesson he’d been forced to learn from an early age.

So this was the game she wished to play?

Well, he was just going to have to find a way to play against her.

Not here, not now. Not with Izzy injured in that room. Her mother and sister would need his support more than ever right now. They had no one else, which was what made the centre so vital.

Right now he was here for Michelle and her daughters. Saskia and her lies would have to wait.

But if that was her game, then fine; he would play her at it and he would win. He just needed to take a step back and regroup so he could work out his next move.

‘THIS PLACE IS STUNNING...’ Anouk breathed as she took in the huge sandstone arches reaching up as though in exultation to a breathtaking stone-carved vaulted ceiling.

‘Isn’t it?’ Saskia demurred, following her friend’s gaze, trying to quell the kaleidoscope of butterflies which seemed to have taken up residence in her stomach ever since Anouk had told her she had two tickets to a gala evening and asked Saskia to join her.

A gala evening for a local young carers’ charity.

Saskia had known instantly whose charity it was. Anouk had mentioned something about Sol giving them to her, and something about a patient... Izzy? To her shame, Saskia hadn’t really been listening—she’d been too caught up in her own head.

Tickets to a charity event for Care to Play . As though fate itself was intervening.

Saskia hadn’t even asked how her friend had got the tickets, or why. She just knew that Malachi would be there and that this was her chance to do what she should have done two months ago. She had to tell him about the baby. Whatever he chose to do after that was his business.

‘I feel positively shabby by comparison.’

Anouk was still gazing at the architecture and Saskia laughed, grateful for the momentary distraction.

‘Well, you don’t look it,’ she told her friend. ‘You look like you’re sparkling, and it isn’t just the new dress. Although I’m glad you let me talk you into buying it.’

‘I’m glad I let you talk me into buying it, too,’ admitted Anouk, smoothing her hands over her dress as though she was nervous.

‘You look totally Hollywood,’ Saskia assured her wryly, knowing that it would break whatever tension her friend appeared to be feeling.

‘Don’t.’ Anouk shuddered on cue. ‘I think I’ve had enough of Hollywood to last me a lifetime.’

‘Me, too.’ More than anyone else could ever possibly know, thought Saskia. ‘But still, the look is good.’