Marriage Without Love & More Than a Convenient Marriage(23)

‘I’ll carry him,’ Kieron announced firmly. ‘He’s too heavy for you.’

‘No!’

‘For God’s sake,’ Kieron swore angrily, ‘I’m not going to tear him out of your arms and make off with him! What sort of man do you think I am?’

Her eyes gave him the answer. Just because Nicky was so precious to her it didn’t necessarily mean that Kieron would feel the same way, and yet there had been something in his eyes when he looked at Nicky which made her heart pound with fear.

The moment Nicky saw the car he was wide-eyed with awe. Kieron insisted on holding him while Briony got in the back, handing him to her when she was sitting down.

‘Okay, son?’ he asked as he closed the door. The words were commonplace enough, but the look in his eyes made Briony go ice-cold with dread.

She was too concerned with Nicky’s comfort to pay much attention to their surroundings, but when the car came to a stop outside an imposing block of apartments in the heart of Knightsbridge she glanced angrily at the back of Kieron’s head. In the driving mirror his eyes met hers.

‘We’ve got things to talk about,’ he said softly.

Briony shivered. For a moment he had looked angry enough to kill her. ‘I want to go home.’

He leaned behind her and opened the door. ‘Out!’

They were in the lift before he spoke to her again, his eyes meeting hers over Nicky’s curly head. The little boy had asked curiously where they were going, but had seemed quite satisfied with her answer that they were going to see Mr Blake’s flat.

‘I’ll say one thing for you,’ Kieron said curtly. ‘At least you care about the child.’

‘More than you could possibly know,’ Briony breathed, not caring what she was betraying and missing entirely the thoughtful look in his eyes as he punched the buttons and the lift soared upwards.

His apartment was large and surprisingly comfortable. Kieron told her to make herself at home in the huge living room and disappeared into what she guessed to be the kitchen, emerging several minutes later with a glass of orange juice and a tray of coffee.

Nicky accepted the drink shyly. He had been unusually quiet in the car and Briony had put it down to his accident. Now, though, as she watched him staring solemnly at Kieron, it struck her that he must be shy. He was sitting on her lap and Kieron squatted down beside them, his eyes on a level with his son’s.

‘Are you a daddy?’ Nicky asked him gravely.

Briony’s muscles stiffened defensively, and she could not bring herself to look at Kieron.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

Nicky’s shoulders hunched.

‘I haven’t got a daddy,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘But I want one, don’t I, Mummy?’

Briony felt as though she wanted to die, or to have the ground open up and swallow her—preferably the former. A muscle twitched in Kieron’s jaw and she couldn’t tell whether he was angry or amused.

‘Well, we’ll have to see what we can do about that, son,’ he said in a deep voice. ‘Why don’t you have a little sleep while your mummy and I talk about it?’

‘Why did you have to say that to him?’ Briony breathed angrily, when Nicky had been tucked up in Kieron’s huge king-sized bed. To her surprise the little boy had evinced no concern at sleeping in the strange room, accepting Kieron’s assurance that they would be within call.

‘It’s already hard enough for us. He’s far too young to understand why he doesn’t have a father.…’

‘And young enough to forget that he ever did not,’ Kieron replied in a clipped voice.

She fell back, clutching the deep leather settee.

‘What do you mean?’ But she already knew what he meant, and her eyes told him so.

‘Nicky is my child, Briony, you can’t deny it.’

‘You fathered him, don’t you mean?’ Briony lashed back. ‘But you have no other right to him.’

‘No? I wonder what a court of law would say about that? He needs a father,’ he said abruptly. ‘Surely even you can see that?’

Her eyes dilated in fear, her voice choked.

‘You’re not going to take him away from me!’

He was watching her through narrowed eyes. ‘It needn’t come to that.’

What was he going to ask for? Visiting rights? She would never allow Nicky to be torn between them, and she would tell him so.

‘We could always marry and provide our son with both his parents.’

Shock silenced her.

‘Marry you?’ she croaked when she had got her voice back. ‘After what you did to me last time. Never!’

‘I gave you Nicky,’ he reminded her softly.