Page 25

“And now yours,” he pointed out.

A low whistle escaped Tia’s lips, drawing his attention there. So pink and full. Like the kind of lips children would draw, with that perfect cupid’s bow. “Wait a second.” Her eyes widened and he could practically see her connecting the dots. “You said Cressida’s husband is infertile.”

His jaw clenched. He knew Tia was smart—no one could build the kind of business she had without that, but her ability to form connections was truly impressive.

“So your brother can’t have children. Which means you really have to.”

His jaw tightened. “I found out a week before I met you.”

A quick expulsion of breath. “Jesus. This is a lot.” She withdrew her hand, moving it to her champagne glass and lifting it to her lips.

“It doesn’t change anything between us.”

A little divot formed between her brows, and her eyes moved quickly, deep in thought. “I’m not so sure about that.”

Something else shifted inside of him now. Regret. Because he liked the status quo they’d achieved and didn’t want it to change.

“Is this about revenge?”

“What?”

“They say it’s a dish best served cold,” she pointed out. “If that’s what this is, I’d just prefer to know.”

“On the contrary,” he said, aware that he sounded more British than usual, his voice deeper, accent more pronounced. “Having a baby is an obvious necessity, but the part I regret most is the impact that will have on them. You see, I can’t hate them, Tia. Even when I hate what they did, and know I’ll never recover from it, they were once the two most important people in my life. Ewan and I grew up playing swords and soldiers, hide-and-seek, climbing trees, swimming in our lake, we were inseparable. And Cressida was—the first and only woman I’ve loved,” he admitted heavily. “When you fall pregnant, and we tell them, I know they’ll take it personally. She always wanted children.”

Tia glanced away, her face set in an impenetrable mask, but that didn’t matter. There were the finest lines at the side of her eyes, and her brows quirked with the speed of her thoughts. Finally, she turned back to face him, and when her hand reached out now it was to cup his cheek, rather than his fingers. “You are a far, far better person than I am, Lord Ashcombe. And a far better man than she deserved.”

They’d agreed not to move in together until she was (a) pregnant, and (b) far enough along to need help, which meant his car had driven Tia back to her East Village brownstone before depositing him at the penthouse he’d bought from Tia—and been allowed to move into ahead of final settlement owing to the fact no mortgage was involved. A cash transaction had greased all the wheels.

Tia was downtown, far away, and yet on the night of their wedding, she was also with him, in his dreams, her beautiful pouting lips moving towards him, kissing him, so much more satisfyingly than the chaste kiss he’d placed on her cheek after their wedding. This was a kiss that promised so much more, a kiss that spoke of need and want, a kiss that made his whole body harden in sleep, because it had been years since he’d known the touch of a woman. But it wasn’t just his self-imposed celibacy. It was Tia. The way she’d read him so easily, understood his pain and felt it almost as though it were happening to her. The way she’d seemed to want to take on the world on his behalf. He certainly didn’t need that, but it had been a long time since he’d felt that. Perhaps ever?

No, that wasn’t true. He used to think it about Ewan. They were partners. Best friends. Unified against the world. Only eighteen months separated them, and those eighteen months hadn’t ever mattered. Once upon a time, Hamish would have been Ewan’s staunchest supporter, and vice versa. But some betrayals were impossible to move beyond, and this was one of them.

Hamish hadn’t just lost his fiancée, he’d lost his future. All those late-night talks with Cressida about the life they wanted, the children they’d share, it all disappeared, sucked into a vortex from which it could never return. There was no forgiveness.

But with Tia, despite the fact they’d known each other such a short time, he felt a spark of that again—the sense that she had a desire to protect him. To stand at his side and vanquish his enemies, and it had been nice. Only nice didn’t come close to describing how his dream was making him feel, stirring him to life, making his heart race even in his sleep. Her hands were reaching for him, unfastening the buttons of his shirt and sliding it from his body before her fingertips traced his chest, following the lines of his pectoral muscles, trailing lower, towards the waistband of his pants.

He called her name into the darkness of his room and woke with a start, looking around, half-expecting her to be there. Half-expecting her to be touching him, straddling him, her sleek hair suddenly messed as she took him deep inside.

Shit.

Where the hell had that come from? Sweat beaded his brow, and it took a while for the last vestiges of the dream to clear and reality to return. The walls of his bedroom reappeared, illuminated by the constant hum of light from the city that would never sleep, and then, he realised his phone was ringing.

Frowning, he pushed out of bed at the same time he grabbed it from the bedside table, his pulse still running hot and fast courtesy of the R-rated nature of his dream. He looked at the screen to see his father’s name staring back. A metaphorical bucket of cold water if ever he’d known one.

“What is it?” For the Earl to be calling just before dawn, it couldn’t be good news.

“Shit. Did I wake you, son?”

Son. Hamish’s heart hammered for a different reason now. “Is it Mum?”

“Yes, it’s your mother.” He cleared his throat. “We just had the appointment. I didn’t think to check the time.”

“What did the doctor say?”

Hamish strode through the apartment and flicked the coffee machine on, then fired the grinder to life, muting his end of the phone call as the machine whirled noisily. It didn’t matter anyway; his father wasn’t yet capable of speaking.

“Dad?” Hamish asked, when the coffee beans had been decimated.