The Wrong Billionaire, page 8
Instead, he was saying it was up to her. That was a huge responsibility to carry! What if she did get pregnant? Micah would be furious. Hunter would be...well, who cared if Hunter had to weather another storm of unflattering publicity? Remy was the one who would be affected the most.
She bit her thumbnail, trying not to be swayed by his promise to be with her all the way. What if he was lying? What if this was exactly what Micah had warned her about?
It wouldn’t matter, she realized with illogical clarity. She would want the baby regardless. She had always wanted a family. The family she had grown up in had been fractured by her mother’s difficult relationship with Micah’s father, forcing her only sibling to grow up away from her. When her cousins had started having their children, she had said goodbye to beloved grandparents, then her father. She had never imagined motherhood would be easy, but she had always known she wanted to have a child.
Remy was right about there being no real control on timing, either. Her life was a mess, so today wasn’t optimal, but even if she lost the company, she was a very privileged person. She had enough resources that she could afford to support her child.
Most importantly, she didn’t know when she would find another man with whom she would want to make love, let alone make a baby. As first times went, Remy had made hers as near to perfect as it could be. She would have no regrets on how conception had happened.
If it happened. Her heart pounded with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. What if it did? She would be bound to him for a lifetime. Was she ready to take that risk?
She turned to face him and knew she was. Why? Yes, he was handsome and so well-dressed it was blinding, but she wasn’t that superficial. She had only interacted with him a few times so she couldn’t claim to really know him, but... Was she delusional? She felt as though she knew him at a soul-deep level, even though she couldn’t say what he ate for breakfast or whether he preferred cats to dogs.
She trusted him, though. Instinctually. She had climbed into his car in her moment of need because she felt safe with him. She wanted to be with him. Her entire being yearned for it, and had since the moment she had met him in Paris.
“I want to see what happens.” What if he thought she was trying to trap him?
He paused in tidying up the remnants of their picnic.
“Okay.” He nodded gravely. Then he continued using economical movements to close jars and stack the dirty dishes in the sink.
“Really? You’re not going to react more strongly than that?” Reveal delight or dismay?
“I’m impatient to know whether it happens, obviously.” His mouth twisted with self-deprecation. “But that will take a couple of weeks?” His whiskey-gold eyes fixed on her.
She nodded jerkily. “I think the early tests only work if you to know when you ovulated. I’m not sure, so...”
“So we wait.”
She searched his expression because his equanimity didn’t make sense.
“Are you sure you won’t be angry if...?” If I carry your child? “You don’t want a baby with me, Remy. I know you don’t.”
His cheek ticked and he turned away, veering from the open bottle of wine to the bar. He unceremoniously snapped the seal on a bottle of whiskey, twisting off the cap as though he was wringing someone’s neck.
“It’s not ideal,” he said, tone so ironic she knew it to be a gross understatement.
She came to the other side of the bar and gripped it.
“Because of Micah. He said your father stole proprietary information from his.”
Remy’s reaction was to pour a healthy measure of amber liquid into a glass. Then he topped it with the smallest splash of sparkling water from the refrigerator. He offered her the rest of the water.
After the salty snacks, she was dying of thirst. Plus, her mouth was positively arid. She took the glass he offered and poured it out for herself.
“Your brother seems to think I have it in for him. The truth is, I don’t think about him at all. If our paths never crossed again, I’d be thrilled.”
Her hand unconsciously went to her midriff while a searing pain pinned itself through her chest. Her throat flexed, refusing to swallow the water in her mouth.
Remy had his back to her, so he didn’t see her reaction, but now he turned.
“He seems to think my lust for you is retaliation.” His matter-of-fact tone caused a flood of pained heat to rise in her cheeks.
Lust? That’s all it was?
“The conflict should have remained between our fathers.” His cheek ticked with tension. “Micah’s father, Kelvin Gould, literally pulled me into it.”
“Micah said something once, but he didn’t want to get into it. You met his father? Where? When?” And how? Eden had never met Kelvin Gould herself. Micah’s father had mostly stayed in Europe, only visiting Canada once that she knew of. Her mother had left her with Grammy Bellamy, her father’s mother, while he was in town. Kelvin had developed dementia when Micah was in his late teens and died a few years later.
“It was a middle-school basketball tournament in Toronto.”
“When Micah lived with us.” She recalled Micah saying that, too. “You would have been eleven? Twelve? I was really young, myself. Not even in school. All I really remember is that Micah was supposed to stay with us, but he went back to boarding school. I cried for weeks and begged to be sent to boarding school when it was time for kindergarten. I thought it meant I would see him there.”
“Cute,” he said with a dry snort that she took as patronizing.
“I love my brother, Remy.”
“I don’t doubt it. Or that he loves you.” He sipped his drink, gaze fixed on her.
“But,” she prompted. “What happened at the game to get him sent back to boarding school?”
“I don’t know why he had to leave town. It wasn’t that big a deal.” He came out from behind the bar and wandered to the window. “The game was much like any other at that age, clumsy and loud. There was a father on the other team’s side who was riding his son pretty hard, but I didn’t pay much attention. My father noticed, though. He was an assistant coach and chaperoned the away games. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he glanced across and recognized Kelvin Gould. It was worse than seeing a ghost. It was a type of hatred that...” Remy swallowed some of his whiskey and there was a rasp in his voice from the alcohol when he continued. “It was murderous. My father was a very generous and loving man. I didn’t know he was capable of that sort of lethal revulsion.”
A chill settled into her chest. “What happened? Did he confront him?”
“Not immediately. He told me later that he wished he had pulled me from the game the moment he saw Gould. That we had waited on the bus, but I was playing well, having fun. Then Gould saw my father. He figured out which kid was his and started calling out some truly vile things at me. Racist remarks, which was hurtful enough, but I could tell he was doing it because he knew that going after someone he loved was the most effective way to hurt my father. I couldn’t stand it. I tripped Micah.”
“You said this feud wasn’t between you two!”
“I tripped him in a game, Eden. We were kids. The only real damage was to his adolescent pride. But his father left the bleachers and came after me like a street fighter.”
“Oh, my God.” She touched her cold fingers to her lips.
“Next thing I know, I was waking up on the floor. Dad was over me. One eye was bloodshot and his lip was split. Gould had been removed and Micah was gone, too. My father took me to get checked at the hospital and I never saw Kelvin Gould again. I didn’t see Micah until that night in Paris, when he seemed to think I was continuing what we’d started that day by making advances on you. I’m not that childish,” he said derisively.
“He said you were mad that he bought a vineyard, one your family wanted. And that you never let his company bid on your projects.”
“That’s business,” he said, dismissing her suggestion with a flick of his hand. “For the projects we’ve had, hiring Gould Automation would be like asking a neurosurgeon to give us a haircut.”
“So it all goes back to Micah’s father thinking yours robbed him?”
“My parents were the ones who were robbed,” he said forcefully. “Have you ever looked it up online?”
“I didn’t find much.” Basically, the story was exactly as Micah had related it. Remy’s father had allegedly double-crossed his employer by selling proprietary information.
“The story you read was written by the side with the greater financial resources.” Remy’s spine was rigid. “My parents weren’t poor, but they weren’t on Gould’s level. My father was born in Martinique, and my mother was Haitian. They met while schooling in France and both had family there so it made sense to marry and settle in Paris. My father took a position with Gould Automation as a robotics engineer. He was very talented.”
Eden had no doubt. Micah had inherited the conglomerate that helped factories around the world become more efficient. The company had always been well regarded as innovative and profitable.
“The undisputed facts are that my father was a lead engineer working on a project in the Netherlands. His laptop and backup diskettes went missing from their home. Shortly thereafter, a Gould competitor poached the client and built them a system very much like the one my father had been designing.”
“Was the competitor ever questioned?”
“They claim it arrived anonymously. Investigations proved nothing except that my father didn’t benefit financially. Even so, Kelvin Gould did everything he could to discredit and ruin him. The accusations followed him to Canada. Fortunately, Mom had family in Montreal who were trying to expand from selling package tours to the Caribbean into operating a dedicated fleet of airplanes. My father became a pilot and it all worked out.”
Remy was still at the window, keeping his back to her, which gave her a vague suspicion he wasn’t telling her everything.
“So Micah’s father attacked you because he believed your father had stolen from him and got away with it? Then, years after that, Micah thought you were still nursing a grudge about his father’s attack and came after me? I’m sorry, Remy, but it sounds like you two need to sit down and clear the air. It’s not worth holding on to so much acrimony, is it?”
“Not to you. Or Micah. His father’s company lost a hundred thousand euros, which is no small sum, I’ll grant you, but my family was impacted far more personally and profoundly.” He threw back the last of his drink. “So, no thank you. I do not want to kiss and make up with him.”
She considered how his parents must have felt—uprooted. Their reputations were shredded and their careers stopped in their tracks. Did Micah think Remy was still covering up for his father? Why did he continue to be so suspicious of him?
The room phone jangled, startling her from her ruminations.
Remy frowned.
“The airfield?” she queried.
He picked up the extension on the end table next to where he was standing.
“Hello?” His expression went flat. He held out the phone to her.
No-o-o. Micah had found her? Eden took it gingerly.
“Hello?”
“Why are you in a room registered to him?” Micah asked in his I’m-willing-to-be-reasonable-but-don’t-waste-my-time voice.
“What have you been doing? Calling hotels?” Infuriating man!
“He caught me catching a rideshare to come here.” Quinn’s urgent voice sounded in the background.
“You’re here?” Eden had texted Quinn after her shower, but that had been two snack baskets and two deeply disturbing conversations ago. “For God’s sake, Micah. I am an adult.”
“And as such, you will give me your room number and invite me up to speak with you,” he said with false pleasantness. “Or meet us here in the lobby.”
“Why are you so—” She stopped herself and clenched her teeth in frustration.
Part of her wanted to force the conversation he needed with Remy, but one glance at Remy and her heart juddered to a halt.
Remy was watching her closely. Outwardly, his expression was remote and unaffected, but she sensed the explosive tension gathering beneath his surface. He hadn’t told her everything. She knew that instinctually.
She also knew that Micah would again accuse Remy of playing on her feelings and using her as an instrument against him. She wouldn’t be able to hide from her brother that she had made love with Remy. She definitely couldn’t stand here and listen to Micah berate him.
“Is the concierge there? Let me speak to them. I’ll ask them to let you up.”
A man’s voice came on the line. She gave him their room number and hung up.
Still holding Remy’s inscrutable look, she said, “We have to go.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
EDEN RATTLED QUINN’S key fob onto the coffee table. Then—with a wild look of panic—retrieved the “honeymoon” basket from the bedroom.
Remy took it from her as she thrust it at him, even though he was not in the habit of fleeing with evidence from the scene of consensual lovemaking. Nor was he afraid of Micah. He had steeled himself to be around the man today, willing to keep their family history from overshadowing his best friend’s wedding.
That was, of course, before he had taken Eden’s virginity and courted an unplanned pregnancy. Somehow, he didn’t think Eden’s naive vision of his breaking bread and mending fences with her brother could be built on that new information. She was right. It was best he left.
He refused to leave her to make explanations on his behalf, though. He held the door while she hurriedly tied herself into her shoes.
The white heels didn’t go with her outfit at all. They were embellished with sparkles and a satin ribbon that hung in a bow at her ankle, but they did what heels did and piled sex appeal onto an already knockout figure. Her hurried strides pulled at the narrow skirt so it slithered against her ass and thighs, and he saw a flash of her shins.
His fascination with her had gone far enough, however. The implications of what they’d done went beyond a possible pregnancy. He had only scratched the surface on the events of twenty-eight years ago when the rivalry between their families truly started, but some secrets were meant to stay buried.
He would worry about how to keep it buried if Eden actually turned up pregnant.
Eden set the internal locking lever so the door remained cracked as they left.
“I’ll text Quinn to make herself at home.” She turned away from the elevator. “We should take the stairs—Oh. That’s convenient.”
Midway along the hall, a wide, carpeted staircase led them down to a deserted, multifunction floor. It held a closed bar and a handful of locked breakout rooms. At the far end, there was an elevator that would take them straight to the parking level.
“I’ve been drinking,” Remy recalled as she pushed the button for the basement. “My keys are with the valet.” He set the basket on the floor of the elevator and pulled out his phone to call the front desk. There was a text from his pilot. “They’re replacing the part right now. That answers where we’re going.”
“I’ll tell Quinn I’m going to Toronto. Micah can meet me there if he’s that anxious to see me.” Eden sent her text and hurried from the elevator into the parking garage. “Hi! Hello! Excuse me!” Eden trotted forward a few steps, waving at a woman climbing into a hatchback. “Are you leaving? Would you be interested in driving us to the heliport for...” She glanced at her purse. “I think I have forty dollars. I don’t carry much cash,” she told Remy.
“Make it a hundred.” He had a half dozen currencies on him at all times.
The woman warily agreed. Eden put her at ease on the short drive, encouraging her to share that she worked in catering and had two kids. Her husband worked at the US-Canada border. When she asked about their reason for needing a lift, Eden brushed away her question.
“It’s a long story, but let me give you my card. Please reach out if you need anything at all. I have a lot of resources at my disposal and you’ve been such a lifesaver.”
“You realize she’ll go to the press once she puts together who you are and what happened?” Remy asked as Eden waved her off. “Micah will know you left with me. Everyone will.”
“The media storm is already throwing hailstones,” she said starkly. “I authorized my assistant to confirm the wedding is off, but I have to prepare a press release so Hunter’s people can coordinate with my team then...ugh. Ride it out, I suppose.”
Him, too. Remy was realizing that it had been one thing to be seen with her in the moments after the wedding had fallen apart—that had been a favor to his friend—but any enterprising paparazzo could trace them to that hotel room and draw salacious conclusions.
“Oh, you’re back,” Andrea said as they strode into the heliport. “And you’ve changed.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I guess you enjoyed the room.”
Salacious like that. What the hell was wrong with some people? Eden blushed chokecherry-red and tried to stammer out a thank-you for the woman’s earlier assistance.
Remy cut her off as he demanded, “Status of my machine?”
“I believe they’re working on it,” Andrea said, sobering as she read his dismay.
“Good.” He grabbed Eden’s hand and tugged her out to the tarmac with him, refusing to leave her there to suffer that woman’s speculation even though his possessive, protective attitude basically confirmed they had “enjoyed” the room.
None of this was supposed to have happened. He was furious with himself and could only think that they needed to keep a lid on it. He couldn’t drop her in Toronto to ride out the wait alone, though.
“The mechanic is finished, sir. We’re fully fueled and can take off as soon as we’re cleared by control,” his pilot said.
