The Unexpected Baby(52)

The noise sounded horrendous. Her fingers clutched the soft leather of her bag and her heart stopped beating, then thundered on as quietness settled around her.

He hadn’t woken. She delved for the package and padded through the house, taking care not to bump into furniture. The main door was heavy, wide and ancient. Jed had shot the bolts home before going to bed. She reached for the top one, remembering the grinding noise it made. They both needed oiling.

She was sweating, rivers of panic rushing through her veins, when she finally pulled the door open and stepped outside into the enclosed courtyard at the front of the house.

All she had to do now was put the package outside the big arched doorway.

In contrast, those doors swung open easily, and she was on the stony track, the rosy fingers of dawn already touching the tops of the crumpled mountains. She bent to put the package down—and Liam stepped out of the shadows.

She slapped her hand across her mouth to push back her cry of fright, and dropped the package. Liam picked it up, weighing it in his hands. She hadn’t expected him to be waiting. She hadn’t wanted him to be waiting. She had never wanted to see him or speak to him again.

‘Thanks, doll.’ He grinned at her. ‘You know it makes sense.’

He looked more respectable than when he’d appeared at Netherhaye. The dark grey denims and matching battle jacket looked new. And she could see a fancy truck parked a little way down the track. Had he borrowed it? Or stolen it? Either way, she didn’t care. She wanted him off her property.

‘Just go,’ she hissed through her teeth, shivering now in the chilly dawn air.

‘Only when I’ve checked this isn’t a wad of newspaper.’ He opened the package, pulling out the crisp notes. He leered at her. ‘I’m not au fait with the exchange rate, but it looks about right to me. I don’t think you’d be stupid enough to do the dirty on me again. It will do nicely, for starters.’

‘There won’t be any seconds,’ she told him decisively, refusing to give in to the desire to have hysterics. ‘So take it and go, and just be thankful I didn’t go to the police and have you put behind bars again!’

She heard the opening of the door in the wall behind her and went weak with a totally unexpected surge of relief. She had tried, for his sake, to keep him ignorant of this vile business, but he had woken and followed her out so she had failed.

But this failure was sweetly welcome. She no longer had the need to deceive him. If Liam did go to the tabloids when she refused to make more payments—and Jed would insist she did nothing of the kind—then at least he would be forewarned, prepared when those smears against her character—and, by association, his—came to light.

‘Get off this property, Forrester.’ Jed’s voice was hard and flat. ‘If I see your face around here again I’ll personally rearrange it for you.’ The lack of emotion in his tone made the threat very real. Even Liam blinked as he hurriedly stuffed the paper money back into the package, as if he was afraid the other man would take it from him.

Turning swiftly, Elena hurried to Jed’s side. He hadn’t bothered to dress, just pulled on the cut-offs he’d worn the day before. She reached out a hand, her fingers light and cool on the firm, warm skin of his arm. ‘Thank you,’ she said huskily, and really, really meant it.

‘Get back inside before you get a chill.’ His eyes swept the inadequate silk that skimmed her naked body. He turned and walked through the arched doorway, waiting for her, then re-secured the double doors. He strode back to the house, straight to the bathroom. She stood outside the door, listening to the gushing of hot water, her heart quailing.

Surely he didn’t think...

She pushed open the door just as he turned the shower head off. He reached for a towel, his eyes flat. ‘I suggest you go back to bed. From the look of you, your furtive assignation obviously took it out of you. Funny thing is, if I hadn’t cared I would never have known you’d told him where you’d be, arranged for him to come to you. What did you do? Promise to give him that hand-out because you felt sorry for him? Or because you like to keep men dangling? Can’t you let him go?’

He was still using that flat, emotionless tone. That made it all so much worse. It couldn’t all be going so wrong, not for a second time!

He finished with the towel and tossed it in a corner. ‘As I said, if I hadn’t cared I wouldn’t have known. I heard noises, heard the bolts being drawn. I thought you couldn’t sleep. So I followed. I didn’t want you to be sleepless and alone. But you weren’t alone.’