November Harlequin Presents 1(100)
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice,” he muttered, throwing a glance of concern at their baby who was making a mewing sound, wrinkling up his little face, maybe sensing the tension in the room and not liking it.
“It’s okay,” Erin crooned, softly stroking her tiny son’s cheek. “Mummy loves you.”
“So does Daddy.” The words were spoken very quietly but they were undoubtedly a fighting declaration from Peter. He wasn’t about to be sidelined from their lives.
Jack sighed and rested contentedly again.
“He is my son and heir,” Peter stated, his eyes biting in their intensity. “He can’t be brought up in an unprotected environment, Erin. You will find life much easier within the Ramsey fold. In fact, it’s the only way to give Jack security in every sense.”
The heir to billions…her thinking had not encompassed what that might mean to their child. Peter had lived with it all his life. He knew.
“No one has to know,” she said impulsively. “If he’s Jack Lavelle…”
“I will not hide my son’s existence,” he grated out.
“He might be more protected that way, have a chance of a normal life,” she pleaded.
“Don’t even imagine for one moment that I will not lay claim to him.”
He was right. She couldn’t imagine it. That was not the kind of man he was. The sense of a trap closing around her—a trap where she had no control over anything—was very strong. The power of the Ramsey name suddenly reminded her of how she’d become connected to Peter in the first place—the little boy, Thomas, separated from his father, the issue of custody.
“What happened with Dave Harper?”
“That has nothing to do with us,” came the curt dismissal.
“I want to know.”
Her insistence caused his jaw to tighten. He didn’t want to go down that road, but she kept her gaze locked on his, determined on an answer.
“It’s not relevant to our situation, Erin,” he grated out.
“I want to know,” she repeated, refusing to be closed off on this point which somehow seemed very relevant to her.
“Right!” he snapped. “I placed Dave Harper in a position where he could sell on commission, choosing his own hours to work so he could look after his son without help. Given the lies his wife had told about him, and the fact that she had placed Thomas in daily care at a preschool and had a nanny to look after him the rest of the time, leaving her free to carry on a very social life with her new partner, the family court decided the father would be the better nurturing parent and awarded him major custody.”
Major custody…lies told…
The trap closing around her felt even tighter, the fear growing that she could lose her child to Peter—her one and only child.
A knock on the door was a welcome interruption. Erin felt stressed and exhausted. A matronly nurse entered the room, accompanied by two male hospital orderlies.
“We’re here to wheel you to your own room, Miss Lavelle. Get you and your baby settled there,” the nurse announced, smiling brightly at both her and Peter. “And I think I should inform you, Mr Ramsey, that news has got out about your being here with Miss Lavelle. Hospital Reception has been fending off inquiries. Perhaps you’d be good enough to deal with the disturbance, settle the interest that’s apparently been stirred?”
Peter heaved a vexed sigh and rose to his full formidable height, clearly girding himself to face a different battle. “How good is security in the maternity wing?” he asked the nurse.
“No unauthorised person will get past my station, Mr Ramsey,” she confidently assured him. “Miss Lavelle should rest now and I shall see to it that she does.”
“Thank you.” He took Erin’s hand and gave it a light squeeze to command her attention. “The three ring circus is about to begin,” he said mockingly. “And I’m perfectly happy for you to be the star of this show, Erin.”
“I don’t want to be, Peter,” she cried, panicking at the thought of being hounded by the media.
“It’s inescapable.”
“You don’t have to tell anybody anything,” she pleaded.
“That would only make the problem worse. They’d keep digging.”
“What will you tell them?”
“The truth. The one really good thing about the truth is it doesn’t come back and bite you. Keeping secrets is what messes everything up.” He paused to let this all too relevant truth sink home. Then totally careless of the fact that other people were listening, he bored in with, “Do I have your consent to announcing that we’re getting married in the near future?”