‘It’s lovely to meet you at last.’ Supressing the anger still bubbling over the cruelty she had shown Serena, he sent her his most charming smile. ‘I’m Caleb Morgenthau. Serena’s fiancé.’
Her eyes widened, her eyebrows flying up into her hairline. ‘Her… I’m sorry…herfiancé?’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed silkily, slipping his arm around Serena’s waist to draw her tightly into his side. Serena tensed, but his secure grip neutralised her attempts to wriggle away, and the pleasure of how snugly she fitted against him infiltrated his mind and body with far too many sparks. Unbidden, memories of their night together flooded his brain—heated flashes of their seeking, open-mouthed kisses, their bodies kneading hungrily together, her flesh welcoming him—and an inferno of heat exploded in his core, but he clung to his focus. ‘Please accept my apology for you only just this moment finding out, but I insisted on Serena and I sharing the news together in person, and business kept me from London until yesterday. That may, however, have been a mistake as it seems our happy news has caused some friction within your family.’ He made sure to meet the woman’s eyes, summoning all of his commanding power into his gaze. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing more than a misunderstanding, as surely you, and anyone else who cares to look, can see there’s no scandal here. Just a young couple who’ve fallen in love in a whirlwind relationship and are starting their life together.’ He gazed down at Serena the way he imagined a besotted man might, and it was far easier than he’d thought as his eyes indulged in her bright amber gaze and full, inviting mouth and a smile drew naturally across his lips.Mine, he thought, shocked by the possessive force of the thought. ‘There’s certainly no reason for anyone to have questions over Serena’s propriety. And whilst I completely understand and respect your desire to protect your children from harmful influences, there are none here. Unless you consider joy and happiness to be harmful.’
‘Well…of course not…’ Marcia replied falteringly.
‘Excellent, so there’s no reason for there to be any further talk of Serena being a bad influence, and definitely no reason for three siblings who love and rely on each other very much to be kept apart any longer. Is there?’ he demanded, daring her from behind his charm to defy him.
Her mouth thinned, tightened. ‘If you are in fact getting married and starting a respectable family…then, no,’ she agreed, reluctance underwriting her every word. ‘There is no problem.’
‘Perfect.’ Caleb beamed, enjoying watching her almost choke on the words and catching a hint of a smile on Serena’s lips too. ‘Now, we would love to share this news with Kit and Alexis ourselves, so how about we arrange a visit for once they’ve finished school this afternoon? And as for the wedding,’ Caleb continued, not offering her any chance to respond, ‘it’s planned for this weekend, in the South of France. It’s set to be an extraordinary day, but please don’t worry about the arrangements, I will take care of everything.’
‘I look forward to it,’ murmured Marcia, her skin losing colour rapidly. ‘Now I had best be going.’
‘I’ll walk you out,’ Caleb offered, gesturing for Marcia to precede him out into the hallway. ‘I’d like to think I can rely on you to quash any further talk of scandal, Mrs Addison? I would hate for my fiancée’s reputation to be impugned for no reason, and should I find out that people were talking of her in such a way, I would have to take quite drastic steps in response. That is a husband’s prerogative, after all, to protect his wife from anyone who means her harm.Anyoneat all,’ he added, firing a pointed look that there was no chance of her misunderstanding
‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ she demurred.
‘I hope not,’ he said, seeing her into the street and smiling as she walked away, deflated and defeated, because victory was such a sweet taste, and a double victory…well, that was double the sweetness.
‘What the hell was that?’ Serena demanded, rounding on Caleb with temper blistering in her eyes as soon as he walked back through the door.
From his superior height, Caleb regarded her calmly, almost smugly, from eyes that blazed victorious. ‘I think that the words you’re looking for arethank you.’
‘Thank you?’ Serena parroted on a giant breath of disbelief. ‘Thank you? You actually expect me to be grateful for the way you just railroaded me into a marriage that I hadn’t agreed to.’
‘I think you should be grateful that I just put your stepmother back in her box and enabled you to keep having a relationship with your siblings and to see them as soon as this afternoon.’
That took the wind right out of Serena’s words because he had done exactly that and it was no small feat, mastering her stepmother in the way that he had. It wasn’t something she’d ever been able to manage. Serena had never seen Marcia back down so quickly or be at such a loss for words, but she’d been no match for Caleb’s lethal charm offensive. Watching it unfold had rendered her speechless and weak-kneed at his show of power. However, the fire raging in her chest was less easy to dampen because ofhowhe had done it.
‘By telling her that we’re getting married. And this weekend!’
Caleb tipped his dark head ever so slightly, the steel in his eyes softening to silver. ‘I’m afraid I saw no other way around it. You heard her, Serena. There was no way she was going to let you back into your siblings’ lives, not whilst you were, at least in her eyes, disgraced.’
Arms crossed tightly across her chest, she glared back at him. ‘Do not pretend that you did that to help me. You are not some knight in shining armour who just slew a dragon and rescued me from a tower.’ Although there was some part of her that did feel rescued, and she hated that. Because she couldn’t even start to believe he was someone she could rely on in that way. In any way. ‘You saw an opportunity to get exactly what you wanted, and you seized upon it.’
‘Perhaps I did. But I never claimed to be someone who wouldn’t do whatever I have to, to get what I want, did I?’ Shivers ran over her because he was so unapologetically arrogant, and it was dazzling. ‘And it doesn’t mean I didn’t want to help you and your siblings. And why didn’tyoutell me that in addition to kicking you out, she was stopping you from seeing your brother and sister?’ he asked, watching her from his gleaming gaze. ‘How can she even get away with that?’
‘Because she adopted them when they were little, right after she married my dad, so she has final say on everything. And I didn’t say anything because it has nothing to do with you.’
She hated that she sounded like a petulant teenager, but the way he had crashed into her life and thrown out commands and now backed her in a corner from which she had no escape had sent her spinning back to all those other times where she’d felt utterly, horribly powerless, as if every drop of power she possessed was slipping from her grasp, and the harder she tried to catch and hold on to it, the more she lost. And now it was happening all over again. And it was worse, because as much as she wanted to loathe Caleb entirely—she didn’t. Couldn’t.
Because he had helped her. Without any hesitation. It had been so long since she’d had anyone on her side, anyone to fight for her when she felt weak. Her father had almost always taken her side in her scrapes with Marcia. With hindsight she could see how that had aggravated their tenuous relationship, their closeness only making Marcia harden towards her, but in spite of her stepmother’s coolness, she’d known such safety, knowing her father was there to catch her if she stumbled or fell. But then, in a blink, he’d been gone and she’d been so alone… So, to finally have someone on her side felt good. Too good, so she had to snap herself out of it because he wasn’t offering that kind of partnership. He’d done it in service to himself.
‘We both know that isn’t true. As long as you’re carrying my child, your life is my business.’
The words sounded so full of sense that her feelings only spiralled even deeper. ‘That doesn’t give you the right to sweep in and start making decisions that affect the rest of it.’
He inched towards her, making her blood fizz and pop all over again. Serena could still feel where his arm had banded around her waist, as if the strength and heat of his skin had imprinted deeply, and she remembered how being pressed up against the hard, hot muscle of his body had made everything else she was feeling slip away and brought desire to the fore, as if she’d been turned upside down, yet had suddenly felt righted.
‘I didn’t hear you interrupting to tell your stepmother that I was jumping the gun, that we’re not getting married,’ he pointed out with a smartly arched brow, pausing for the observation to sit between them and rankle her further. Because it was true. She hadn’t stopped him. ‘And I think the reason you didn’t is because you know that marrying me is the only solution available to you.’
Serena spun away from the all-knowing expression on his handsome face with an anguished exhale, knowing he was right on all counts. She didn’t have any other options. She had consulted a legal expert. They could help, but it would be a protracted and expensive battle, and whilst it was a fight she would happily undertake, she couldn’t afford to, not financially, nor, she suspected, emotionally. Not whilst she was pregnant and not when it wasnowthat the twins needed her. Not in the years it would take for the battle to be waged and won.
No, if she wanted to be back in her siblings’ lives, marrying Caleb was her only choice. Marcia would be far less troublesome if Serena had Caleb by her side. As much as anything else, she would enjoy having a stepson-in-law of such wealth and bearing. Was that why, as Caleb had pointed out, she hadn’t interjected to correct him, even though the words had been on her tongue, hadn’t pulled away from his snug grip around her waist, even as it had stirred memories,yearnings, that she would have preferred remained undisturbed? Not because his touch had penetrated every level of her being and rendered her helpless, but because for the first time in days she’d seen a chink of light on the horizon, felt a kindling of hope that she could right the wrongs and reunite with Kit and Alexis. Even if it meant compromising on the future she’d envisioned again and binding herself to this impossible man, wasn’t it worth it to feel whole again? To be able to fulfil the last promise she’d made to her mother? Not to mention all the other advantages to her unborn child that she’d agonised over all night, wavering the more she’d considered…
‘Fine. We’ll get married,’ she said, forcing the words out.
