Her Enemy’s Secret Son
Julia James
Chapter One
“THIS WAY,STICK CLOSE,” Laurel said, holding on to her son’s hand. He was only six, and the department store—one of London’s poshest—was crowded. They were heading to the lavish toy department to round off a day spent at the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs, a treat for Dan on his school’s half-term break this chilly week in February, before taking the Tube back home. Her tight finances would only stretch to a small purchase from the toy department to mark the occasion, and Laurel’s expression flickered as they walked past the ground-floor gift counters groaning with expensive goodies, from handbags costing thousands to delicate scarves costing hundreds. Were there really people who could snap such things up without thinking? It was a rhetorical question. She knew there were.
One of them was her son’s father.
But she wouldn’t think about him. She never did. He’d thrown her out of his life seven years ago, brutally and ruthlessly, ordering her off his private yacht, discarding her on the quayside at Piraeus, the port of Athens, his denunciation of her ringing in her ears. She’d marched off, head held defiantly high, burning inside her at his accusations. Refusing to let her vision blur with tears…
Pointless, useless tears. Angry tears. Worse than angry.
There had been only one saving grace. That neither she nor—and she gave thanks for this every, every day—he knew that she had walked away pregnant.
Her expression softened, glancing down at Dan as they headed towards the lifts. Though he had his father’s dark hair and eyes, there was still something of her own father about him as well, including his name, Daniel Peters, and she was glad. Her father had made a home for them in the little terraced house where she’d grown up in North London, his grandson a comfort to him after the death of his wife some years earlier, until his own ill health, a legacy of a lifetime in the building trade, had taken him too soon as well, when Dan was only three. Since then, without her father’s modest earnings, money had been punishingly tight. Thankfully, she had a roof over their heads, but even with the help of some state benefit as a single mother, and what income as she could make from her online tutoring working for an agency, there was council tax, and utility bills and all the other costs of living which had to be found. With Dan now at school she at least had the school day to work in as well as the evenings when Dan was abed, which definitely helped, though it brought new concerns as well. She was increasingly worried that he was not thriving at his overcrowded, under-resourced school with large classes, high teacher turnover, children from problem families or newcomers without English as a first language. She did her best with extra home-schooling, but she feared he was falling behind. She knew the value of education—it had got her to university. It was only ironic, she was well aware, that the graduate career she’d been hoping to have, had proved impossible with Dan on the way.
But a career can wait! For now, it is Dan, and Dan alone, who is important! These precious years with him—
Even if endless budgeting was a necessity and every bill to pay a worry, she would never, never regret her son’s existence. He was the light of her life, her joy, her heart’s love, and she would do anything for him—
Anything!She squeezed his hand more tightly as they approached the bank of lifts. There were a good few other shoppers waiting, and as the arriving lift opened its doors Laurel drew Dan aside to let the lift empty first.
And as it did, she felt the blood drain from her.
Xander strode forward impatiently. He’d left Fabia, with whom he’d just had a lengthy lunch at the store’s renowned rooftop restaurant, and now he was heading back to his hotel to fit in some work and a session in the gym. He’d known Fabia a while, and she was more than keen to help him move on now that his marriage was over. The marriage that had been such a failure—
He pulled his mind away. No point thinking about what was past. Whether it was the wife he’d failed, the children they’d never been able to conceive despite endless medical tests on both of them, or—
He pulled his mind away again, more sharply now. There was a past that was forbidden for him to think about, that he’d ruthlessly banned.
But as he headed out of the elevator that forbidden past rose up like a snake, to bite him in the face…
A full moon was riding over the open sea. The yacht was at anchor, the swell imperceptible in this sheltered bay. They were standing by the deck rail, gazing out over the moonlit water.
“This is so, so beautiful,” she sighed.
He gave a low laugh, the husk in it audible to himself.
“But not as beautiful as you—”
He let his hand glide down the length of her golden hair, like a fall of silk beneath his touch. He felt her quiver, her neck arch slightly at the sensation.
“So, so beautiful—” The husk was more pronounced.
He turned her towards him. Her eyes were wide, long-lashed, her tender lips parted. All evening he’d waited for this moment, steered her lightly, skilfully…seductively…towards it, from sipping champagne as they stood on the deck, with her gazing around her in wonder at being aboard a private yacht, through the gourmet dinner prepared by his on-board chef, the vintage wines his steward served, low music playing from hidden speakers, soft lights strung across on high to cocoon them on the deck…all the way through to this moment now, when, all alone with her, crew despatched to their own quarters, he was finally free to do what he had been wanting to do all evening…
Desire creamed in him, and for one moment longer he held it under leash, savouring this moment. Then, as he felt her hands lift to his upper arms, her head fall back slightly as his height loomed over her slender figure, he lowered his mouth to hers. To taste, to take, to explore…and to indulge.
Indulge in full.
In all of her.
For all the night—for all the carefree, pleasure-filled days that followed, and the sensual, desire-sated nights that came, as they drifted from island to island, cocooned in a timeless idyll.
Until the end came. The ugly, sordid end.
And he had thrown her from him, tainted and toxic.
