Baby of Shame by Julia James Read Free Book Online Page B

face tightened, with a wary expression in her eyes he did not miss. She was recovering her guard.
    ‘How should I?’
    Her evasiveness enraged him. She dared lie there and try and play games with him while his son was abandoned to foster care?
    He subdued his rage again.
    Instead, he simply said a single word.
    ‘Nicky.’
    The name fell into the silence. Into the yawning space between them.
    He watched her face as he said his son’s name.
    It froze.
    Completely.
    His veiled eyes went on looking down at her expressionlessly. Dismay was etched visibly through her every haggard feature. Anger bit at him again. So he’d been right—she hadn’t wanted him to know yet, had wanted to go on biding her time, keeping his son from him until she could get the best deal on him.
    The best price for him.
    Black fury convulsed through him. He thrust it aside. It would not help now.
    Instead, he watched her, like a fly trapped in treacle, as he forced his knowledge upon her. Beneath his rigidly schooled expression he could feel his anger, leashed on a hard, tight wire.
    Rhianna could only stare sickly, frozen, the air solidifying in her lungs. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
    Oh God, he knew about Nicky…
    He knew.
    She could feel panic start to rise in her breast like a clawing beast.
    How— how had he found out?
    She must have mouthed the word, because his brows suddenly drew together. For an instant, no more, there was a flash deep in his eyes. But when he spoke the tight mesh of control was still in place, draining all emotion from his voice.
    But the very lack of emotion filled Rhianna with dread.
    ‘How? Your social worker phoned me.’ He paused infinitesimally, his eyes boring down into Rhianna’s . Hers were still glazed with shock, her face frozen. He went on, biting out each word, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘She made very free with her views on men who fathered children and then declined to shoulder financial responsibility for them.’ His voice chilled. ‘She was particularly incensed that a man with my “extensive financial resources”, as she phrased it, should have so evaded his obligations.’ As he finished, there was ice in every word. ‘She gave me to understand that she was sure I would find it both socially and reputationally embarrassing if my…neglect…of my responsibilities were to reach the courts or the press.’
    Oh, God, thought Rhianna , realisation hollowing her out. So that’s why he’s here. That social worker has ripped into him and threatened him with the tabloids!
    Her nails clenched into her palms, digging painfully. She was reeling, punch-drunk. Her mind had gone numb, completely numb. All she could feel was the horror ballooning inside her that Alexis Petrakis knew about Nicky’s existence.
    He was speaking again, and she tried to make sense of the words, desperately trying to pull her mind together, still reeling from shock and dismay. His clipped, staccato words cut through her flailing emotions.
    ‘I want him out of care. Immediately.’
    The hard, expressionless eyes bored down on her, drilling into her. Yes, she thought—fighting to make sense of this nightmare that had just walked through the door and seized her by the throat until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—that’s why he’s here. The tabloids would have a field-day—a multimillionaire refusing to pay maintenance for his son in state foster care!
    He would never risk that. And that was why he was here—to neutralise the danger to himself.
    ‘They won’t release him until I’m discharged from hospital.’
    Her voice was thin. Flat. Not revealing her agony at being parted from Nicky, her gut-churning fear that he would never be returned to her. Every instinct told her to hide her emotions from this man, whose sole concern was protecting himself from scandal.
    Alexis’s mouth tightened. No sign of admitting that her drug addiction was keeping her son in care as much as her injuries. Let alone