Claiming His Bought Bride Read online

  An eternity—or was it merely minutes?—later, he pulled back and cupped her face in his hands, his face solemn. “I’ll make you happy, I swear. In fact, I want to add another vow to the ones we took in Auckland.” His voice deepened. “I vow that I, Damon, will keep you, Lily, in a state of perfect happiness at every opportunity.”

  He kissed her lips slowly, reverentially. “I’ll make sure this marriage works.”

  There was something magical in the moment, almost more meaningful than when they’d exchanged wedding vows. Almost too intense. She raised her hand to smooth the hair from his forehead. “Damon, you can’t make it happen through the force of your will—”

  He placed a finger over her lips. “Our wedding may have been rushed but I want this to last our lifetime. Beyond that. And I know you’re not sure yet, but I’ll keep working hard until you are.” He kissed her top lip, then the bottom one. “I promise you.”

  The shrill ring of the phone on the kitchen counter snapped her back to reality. Damon reached behind him and picked up the receiver, keeping one arm firmly around her.

  He answered then passed it to her, curiosity in his frown. “It’s for you.”

  Her heart skipped a beat as she took the phone. The only person who had Damon’s number was her grandmother. She’d told everyone else to reach her on her cell phone. Her stomach knotted. Even though Gran was on the road to recovery and had moved into the new house Damon had bought her with the on-site nurse, Lily couldn’t help but worry.

  “Hello? Gran?” Lily stepped back to lean on the counter behind her, watching Damon sample the banana bread.

  “Lily Blakely?” the thin voice of an unfamiliar man asked.

  One of Gran’s doctors? Her lungs constricted. She clasped the phone tighter. “Yes.”

  “I’m Ian Crawford, one of the attorneys acting for Travis Blakely.”

  Relief for Gran quickly transformed into a lead weight in her stomach, one that was completely unrelated to her pregnancy. Why hadn’t the attorney spoken to Damon?

  “Mr. Blakely has requested that you visit him—alone, this morning—on a matter of utmost urgency.” The thin voice raised a notch as if underlining his words.

  Lily gripped the counter with her free hand. She hated being near Travis Blakely. He was both cruel and intimidating—an abhorrent combination. But the hairs standing up on the back of her neck whispered, as much as she might not want to, perhaps she should hear this man out. “He wants me to come alone?”

  Damon’s head snapped around, eyes locked on hers. He’d seen her fear. She shifted her gaze and focused on the fruit bowl on the opposite counter.

  “Yes. As soon as you can get here. I can’t stress the urgency enough.” The man paused then said in a rush, “Within the hour would be preferable.” He disconnected with an audible click.

  Lily stared ahead, unseeing, mind rushing from one implausible scenario to the next. Was this a trick? She reached past Damon to hang up the phone but he took the receiver from her, replacing it himself.

  “You’ve gone pale.” He moved closer, taking her hands and rubbing them between his own, as if trying to bring the warmth back to her cold extremities. “What did he say?” he demanded, his concern iced with anger.

  She struggled to arrange her jumble of thoughts into a coherent reply. “Your uncle wants to see me this morning. Alone.”

  Damon’s face hardened to stone. “Like hell.”

  Lily bit down on her lip. “His lawyer said it was urgent.”

  “I don’t care what his lawyer says.” His eyes narrowed in determination.

  “It’s obviously something to do with the will.” Her baby’s inheritance, and the lynchpin in the deal with Damon to look after Gran for the rest of her life. “He can’t have anything to say to either one of us about anything else.” Surely it wouldn’t take long. She could face another ten minutes of that man’s revolting company when the outcome meant so much to those she loved.

  Damon’s jaw clenched. “All the more reason why you shouldn’t see him alone. I’ll go instead.”

  A bud of resistance to Damon’s high-handed manner reared its head, even as she recognized his response as concern. If their relationship had any future at all, she must keep a spine of steel and not let him dictate every choice they made. This will involved her as much as him. “What if his attorney has a question for me?”

  He shrugged. “I can answer for you.”

  Something inside her snapped. She was tired of having decisions made for her. Her back straightened. “He asked to see me. Alone. I’m going. Alone.”

  Heat and approval flared in his eyes. “I was right. You’ll be the perfect mother for our child. You’ll be a protective momma bear.” He smiled, seemingly satisfied. “We’ll go together.”

  It was probably the biggest concession she’d wrest from him. She’d seen his determined glint before. She blew out a breath and nodded. Better she conserved her energy for facing Travis Blakely.

  Lily watched Damon from the corner of her eye as he drove the distance to his childhood home. He’d been silent since he’d started the Lexus, his hands clenched tight on the steering wheel and his shoulders tense.

  Finally she faced him. “You’ve told him about the wedding and the baby?”

  Damon spared her a curt nod as he pulled off the road into Travis Blakely’s large circular driveway.

  She turned back and watched the mansion come into view. Stark white and two stories high, the front was the length of eight rooms, all with floor-to-ceiling windows, permanently shuttered. The only word that suited the structure was imposing. She supposed that was why Travis liked it.

  This place would come to her baby one day. Tears stung her eyes. Although her child inheriting a home with an unhappy legacy chilled her, she knew legacies could be changed. Relief surged. Their child would never be homeless. He or she would have a rock-solid asset. This home couldn’t be ripped away. Their child belonged here, and she was prepared to fight for that.

  She thought of Travis and shuddered. If only it hadn’t been such a soulless building.

  Everything about the Blakely mansion was unbearably cold. But once Travis was gone, perhaps this house could become the loving safe haven she’d wanted for her child. Or maybe, with everything that had happened here, that was too much to ask of the bricks and mortar before her. How had Damon survived his childhood here—with Travis?

  Lost in thought, she didn’t notice Damon had left his seat until he opened her door. Accepting his hand, she stepped out. Even in the midst of the cocktail of fear and determination, Damon’s touch still brought tingles to her fingers and simmering heat to her blood.

  He gave her fingers a squeeze. “I’m right here.” Despite his supportive tone, she felt the tension radiating from his body.

  She smiled back and let him lead her to the front door. They were met by a short, lean man with a comb-over of long gray hairs.

  “Mrs. Blakely?” His thin voice was familiar from his earlier call.

  Lily nodded. Damon thrust his hand toward the man. “And Mr. Blakely.”

  The man sighed. “He said you’d come with her. I’m Ian Crawford. Come in.”

  They walked across the black marble floor through the foyer and into the vast receiving room where the party had been held less than three weeks earlier. The room, although light and airy from the two-story ceiling and masses of glass, maintained the cold, stark atmosphere of the dark foyer.

  Damon’s reassuring hand on her waist kept her from bolting, or losing the banana bread she’d had for breakfast. “Do you know what this is about, Crawford?”

  The other man stopped and turned back. “He’s ailing.”

  Damon’s face remained impassive. “He was ailing two and a half weeks ago when I saw him.”

  Crawford shook his head, concern pinching his features. “He’s worse. Much worse. His heart is the least of his worries now—his liver and kidneys are failing. The doctors have given him only days.”
r />   Lily’s skin broke out in goose bumps. If she could ever hate a person, it’d be this old man for what he’d done to Damon. But she couldn’t bear to think of anyone in pain or fear. Travis Blakely must be in both. Her newfound sympathy warred with her abhorrence for the bully, which still gripped her insides, leaving her stomach clenched and churning.

  Days to live…She’d been so sure, but was this meeting truly about the will, or something less straightforward?

  Crawford turned to her and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “He wanted to see you, Mrs. Blakely, most urgently.” His eyes flicked to Damon, then back. “And he was insistent that it be alone.”

  Damon pulled her in closer. “Not going to happen.”

  She’d never had anyone besides Gran willing to stand by her. Until now. The thought soothed some of her disquiet. She looked up at her husband with a softened gaze. “He’s in no position to intimidate me. I’ll see him alone.”

  Damon kept his eyes on Crawford. “No.”

  Crawford nervously cleared his throat. “The nurse refuses to let more than one person in his room at a time.”

  Damon merely grunted.

  A sinking feeling enveloped her as she pictured Travis looking from her to Damon and being reluctant to talk because she’d defied him and brought his nephew. If something went awry with his will and Travis decided to leave everything to his cousin’s son, Mark, what would happen to her deal with Damon to look after Gran and their baby?

  She was prepared to face the devil himself if it meant protecting her child and Gran.

  If Crawford were to be believed, time was running out to hear what Travis wanted to say. To ensure the will remained as it stood.

  “Damon—” she swallowed, her throat suddenly too tight “—I need to see him alone.”

  Damon looked down at her, his ice-blue eyes calculating. “And I need to hear anything he has to say to you.”

  She felt the power of his demand and was acutely aware of being trapped between two powerful men. A precarious position.

  But she was no longer the naive girl Damon had dated all those months ago. Coping with her relationship breakdown with Damon, and now her impending motherhood had changed her. It was up to her to ensure her family was safe. She simply had to face the lion’s den.

  She laid her hand over Damon’s as it held her waist. “I need to do this. And Crawford said the nurse won’t let us in together. I’m a grown woman, Damon. I can go alone.”

  A myriad of emotions crossed Damon’s face before he blew out a breath and nodded once. “I’m coming with you as far as the door, though. And you’ll tell me word for word what the old bastard says.”

  Lily smiled up at him. “I promise.”

  They walked the stairs behind Crawford in silence and with each step, the tension in her stomach coiled tighter. A continuous loop of questions and self-doubt ran through her mind: should they challenge the nurse to let Damon see Travis with her? How would Travis look this close to death? Was he really dying, or was it a bluff?

  And always, the awareness of Damon’s firm hand on her waist escorting her, his solid male warmth and strength steadying her. As much as was possible for what now felt like a trip to the gallows.

  On the third step from the top she stumbled but Damon deftly caught her before she lost balance.

  Outside his uncle’s bedroom, Damon brushed a kiss across her forehead and released her. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he clenched and unclenched, clenched and unclenched. “Don’t believe anything that tyrant says,” he ground out.

  Her insides went cold before she dismissed the feeling and nodded. Then she summoned all her courage, opened the door and walked through.

  A grave, red-haired nurse stood beside the bed, monitoring several machines that would have looked more at home in a hospital ward. Travis lay beneath covers, looking smaller than she remembered. Lily bit down on her lip and managed to suppress a gasp. An oxygen tube ran under his nose and several other tubes came out from under the blankets. But his eyes were as sharp as ever.

  She took a step closer and the nurse looked up with an unwelcoming frown. “You must be Mrs. Blakely. Are you sure your business here is a priority?”

  Lily hesitated, fingers gripping the door handle behind her. “I have no idea what my business here is, or its importance. I was summoned.”

  The nurse passed a judgmental gaze over Lily, then across to Travis. “I think I’ll stay.”

  The old man coughed and spluttered then, despite his obvious frailty, fixed the nurse with a commanding stare. “Go,” he wheezed.

  Clearly reluctant, the nurse studied Lily a moment longer before shaking her head and pointing to a button attached to the bed head. “Buzz at the first sign of a problem.”

  Lily nodded, still processing the scene before her, stomach in knots, as the nurse marched out the door.

  “Come closer, girl,” Travis rasped.

  Tears of pity welled in her eyes, but she held them back, one of Gran’s favorite sayings playing in her mind. What goes around comes around. He was a bitter old vulture who didn’t deserve her sympathy. She waited for him to speak.

  The wait was short.

  “I have things to say…and little energy.” He paused, taking several shallow breaths. “Excuse me…if I come straight…to the point.”

  Lily sat in the high-backed chair beside the bed in what was obviously the nurse’s usual position. “Of course.”

  “I hear…you married him.” Hate-filled eyes burned in his ashen face.

  A strong urge to defend Damon from the man who’d tormented him through childhood destroyed the little sympathy she’d felt. But she folded her hands together on her lap, determined to at least hear the old man out. “I did.”

  “Told you why?” he wheezed.

  She nodded. “He told me about the will.”

  He looked frustrated for a moment, as if she’d destroyed his fun in revealing that information. Then his eyes regained their sly glint.

  “Know what game…he’s playing?”

  About to reply, she hesitated. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean—” he struggled for breath “—what he’s after.”

  “Damon wants BlakeCorp back. And I don’t blame him.” BlakeCorp should always have been his; of course he’d try to get it back.

  “BlakeCorp…is a front—” he closed his eyes, resting them, then dragged them open again “—for his real…agenda.”

  The little spark of hope that had been growing during the days at Damon’s house flickered, seeming more vulnerable that it’d been before.

  “Your husband…wants only revenge…against me.” He gasped for air, struggling as if it were a near impossible task. “Destroy me. Everything else…even you…is expendable…to his…obsession.”

  Her awareness shrank to just the cunning, frail man in front of her and his meaning. Expendable? To an obsession with destroying his uncle? He was only after BlakeCorp….

  The thought died as she remembered a snatch of phone conversation she’d overheard when Damon had been speaking to his assistant, Macy. “Consequences be damned. Ignore Travis’s lawyers. I want that company.”

  She’d thought he was talking about BlakeCorp—but, now she thought about it, why would he need to make arrangements when it would come to him via the will? The rosy picture she’d been painting of Damon began to flicker and blur.

  She met Travis’s reptilian eyes. “He bought one of your companies.”

  “Two.”

  She gripped the sides of her chair and brought the rosy picture back into focus. Travis was scheming again. Damon bought and sold companies every day. It could easily happen that two of them had belonged to Travis.

  She would not believe the man she loved was capable of the brutality of destroying someone.

  Seven

  A blow of surprise slammed into her chest as she realized how her mind had phrased the thought.

  She loved him.

  Oh, dear God, s
he loved him.

  Still gripping the sides of the chair, she dug her fingers in until the pressure turned to pain.

  She’d never stopped loving Damon. And if she could love him even through this mess, she’d probably never stop.

  Closing her eyes, she bit back a groan. Of course she loved him. She never would have gone along with this marriage, the lovemaking, him moving her into his house if she hadn’t. She’d just been too afraid of the consequences to face the fact.

  But what of his heart? Had all the kind words and sweet lovemaking merely been a facade? A mask covering his true nature?

  No, she wouldn’t believe it.

  Her eyes fluttered open and fixed on the ornate headboard. She wasn’t naive, she knew Damon was capable of morally questionable behavior, it was why she hadn’t wanted to get involved with him again. But these last few days had been real. He cared for her and their baby. He wasn’t the monster Travis was implying.

  Clenching her hands tightly on her lap, she narrowed her eyes at Travis.

  “Have made…arrangements.” Travis turned his head to a folder on a small table beside her.

  She looked at the plain manila folder with her heart in her mouth. It would be filled with poison, no doubt about it. She didn’t want to touch it, to be dragged further under the sea of chaos and confusion that already buffeted her.

  Again Travis turned his head toward the folder, his pale, gnarled face burning with intent. “Important.”

  She hated this man, could never forgive his treatment of Damon as a child, but she’d come here to hear him out. Because he held all the cards with regard to the inheritance. She had no choice other than to do as Travis bid her.

  She reached toward the folder and opened it.

  Last Will and Testament of Travis Nicholas Blakely.

  She bit down on her lip. Reading its contents did not mean she’d let herself be hijacked by the old man’s schemes.

  Travis wheezed twice, trying to speak before he gained enough control to form words. “Made changes…when knew…about baby.”