It was eleven months too late.
Eleven months of soul devastation and heartache.
Nick had stormed her defences, taken the ultimate gift of herself, demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that it had no real value to him, and she’d hated him for it—hated him because she’d loved him and he hadn’t cared enough to even recognise what she’d been giving him.
At least the eleven months had left her with no illusions about what she could expect from a marriage with him. Nick would probably give her respect and courtesy, as he’d done throughout their professional relationship, plus the dubious pleasure of his company on a daily basis. He’d make the sex good for her. After all, he was an expert at it. But Tess knew she could never attach real caring—love—to his love-making.
It wasn’t there.
She’d fooled herself about that once.
Never again.
Yet as long as she understood how it was with Nick and didn’t expect it to change…perhaps it might not be such a bad idea to marry him. It could have benefits, especially for Zack.
Their son would have his father married to his mother—both parents together—and that was good. Zack wouldn’t care how it had come about. He wouldn’t know anything else, remember anything else but having them both there for him. As it should be.
As long as Nick did turn into the kind of father who’d be good for him.
Was he capable of selfless loving?
Tess doubted a woman would ever draw it from him, but an innocent child might—a child whose life had not yet been stamped with life’s harsher lessons—a child he could shield from them. Was this what had triggered Nick’s sudden drive towards fatherhood—the yen to shape a different world for a child of his own?
They’d reached the concierge’s desk and Nick was ordering his car to be brought up from the parking area to the hotel entrance. Tess thought of the suite she’d booked for the night, knowing she wouldn’t return to it. The butler appointed to the suite could pack her things and send them home to her tomorrow. It was just baggage—unimportant possessions, nothing that would make one whit of difference to the outcome of her life.
There was only one possession of great importance tonight.
Zack.
And how Nick responded to him.
If he couldn’t feel a bond with their child, a marriage between the two of them would have no foundation worth considering. Forget sexual attraction. Forget the fantasy of loving each other for the rest of their lives. Forget the dreams of the black prince turning into her shining white knight, guarding her happiness against any encroaching shadows. Any future they might have together hinged on how much fatherhood truly meant to Nick.
That was it—plain and simple—and Tess planted that truth in the forefront of her mind, knowing she had to hang onto some common sense or she could end up being badly hurt by wanting too much from Nick Ramirez. A father for Zack—that was what this was about. His real father. And Nick Ramirez had better prove himself worthy of that title!
‘Here it is,’ he murmured, obviously referring to the silver Lamborghini being driven up to where they stood waiting.
Tess couldn’t help tensing. Fast car…fast man…fast life…she had to be mad to even think for one moment that a family future with Nick Ramirez was even remotely possible. And she was letting him invade her life, her home, her heart…
She didn’t realise her fingers had curled into claws, digging into Nick’s arm. He covered her clenching hand with his, warming it with a soothing caress as he used his soft velvet voice to reduce the sudden rush of fear.
‘I promise you it will be all right, Tess.’ A thread of ruthless determination crept into his tone. ‘I’ll make it right.’
She took a deep breath. It was impossible to turn back, anyway. Nick was not about to forget he had a child. She lifted her gaze to meet and challenge the green eyes their son had inherited from his father. ‘Zack looks like you but I don’t want him to turn out like you, Nick. I hope you’re prepared to leave a lot behind before you walk into his life tonight.’
His jawline tightened, making the intriguing little cleft in his chin more prominent, giving rise to the teasing question of how much a divided man he was between the surface Nick and the deep-down Nick. A muscle in his cheek pulsed as though it couldn’t hold steady against a wave of inner pain—pain that sapped the brilliance from his eyes, leaving them flat and more unfathomable than ever.
He sighed, forcibly relaxing himself, then offered a wry little smile and said, ‘Brave new world…here we come.’
The hotel parking attendant had opened the passenger door of the Lamborghini. Nick put Tess into his car, settled himself in the driver’s seat, and took control of transporting them both to the central holding point of their brave new world—a nine-week-old baby who was probably fast asleep, blissfully unaware of becoming the peg on which his parents were about to hang a very different future to anything either of them had envisaged.
CHAPTER SIX
NICK barely restrained himself from flouting the speed limit. The enticing power of his Lamborghini screamed at him to put his foot down and burn up the kilometres to Tess’s residence at Randwick. His son was waiting there.
But speeding didn’t belong to this brave new world of fatherhood. Neither did a Lamborghini. The days of swinging bachelorhood were over. Tess was right. He’d better get his mind geared to leaving a lot of stuff behind.
Zack looks like you but I don’t want him to be like you.
The hell of that biting statement was it echoed precisely Nick’s position with his own father. He looked like Enrique but he didn’t want to be like him.
Now was the time for change, for proving to himself—and Tess—that he could be a good family man, a good husband, too. She didn’t believe it but she’d opened the door to him tonight—the door into a life he could share with her and their son—and Nick knew he had to keep his foot in that opening or he’d lose not only Enrique’s challenge to him, but his own sense of worth as a person.
Tess had shut him out of any personal sharing all during her pregnancy, the birth, the first months of Zack’s infancy. He didn’t even know…‘Was he born in LA?’ he shot at the mother of his child.
He heard her suck in a quick breath. He gripped the driving wheel with knuckle-white intensity, reminding himself not to resent any of the decisions Tess had made, to keep the tone of any questions within a zone of warm interest and approval.