Wealthy Australian, Secret Son Read online

  “Not all dreams have happy endings, Rohan,” she said with a melancholy expression.

  How could she ever tell Rohan that Martyn, their friend from childhood, had raped her? Such a hideous word she hesitated to think it, let alone give it voice. It was all too degrading. Rohan would be speechless with anger—some of which would have to fall on her for having given Martyn opportunity.

  “Even now, my mother will do her utmost to break us up,” she added.

  “She won’t succeed,” he said, with absolute belief in himself. “I’m thinking an April wedding. We’ll honeymoon in the European spring. Five months will give you time to get back into practice for loving me. It’s a lifetime when a man wants a woman as desperately as I want you. You led me down the garden path, Charlotte, from when we were kids. We might not get the happy ending we talked about, but we do get another chance. We’ll be together with our son.”

  She should have told him there and then that he was all she had ever wanted. Why didn’t she? What was stopping her from saying, Rohan, I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. I was in despair when I had to marry Martyn. I truly believed I was carrying his child. But she knew Rohan’s mind was focused on very different reasons. Getting back what he had once had was all that mattered to him now.

  “What are you thinking about?” Rohan’s voice brought her out of her reverie.

  Her poignant smile tore at his heart.

  All the awful stuff locked up inside her. The years with Martyn. He’d had to have her. But oddly he’d never got her pregnant. She hadn’t always taken precautions, believing she had a moral duty to give him his own child and his parents a real grandchild.

  “I was thinking one has to pay for past sins,” she said, bitter tears at the back of her throat.

  “Not surprising, when the past is where it all began,” he said quietly. “Come to bed.”

  The note in his voice, the look in his eyes, turned her limbs liquid. There was a burning along her veins. She didn’t think she could move at all, or even draw breath, though her heart was soaring, lifting on wings.

  Come to bed.

  Could they really reclaim what they’d had? Passion was ravishing. Trust was something else again. Any relationship would flounder without trust.

  “Finish your cognac if you think you need it.”

  She looked back at him across the space of seven years. The times they had been in each other’s arms. The secret meetings. The secret language they’d used to communicate with one another. She thought of the passionate lovemaking, the delirious lovemaking, the soft, sweet lovemaking, of the times they’d been content to make each other laugh. They had been so young.

  He had taken her virginity, himself a virgin. The first time for one had been the first time for the other. Only they had been quickly done with the kissing and the teasing. They had been driven to move on. Unfulfilled rapture was one thing, but there was too much physical pain involved if overwhelming desire couldn’t find release.

  How, then, could he believe for a moment she had sold herself to Martyn? How could he think her capable of such treachery? Shouldn’t he be working his way through to some answers?

  You’re not helping him, chided the voice in her head.

  How could she help him? My God, Martyn had done a job on her. She couldn’t speak for the shame.

  “Charlotte? Are you coming?” He held out his hand.

  Her answer was little more than a whisper. She picked up her crystal balloon, took a last fevered gulp. Heat coursed down her throat, past her breasts into her stomach, then into the delta between her legs. That was where she wanted him—to make her cry out in rapture. She wanted other children. His children. Siblings for her darling Christopher.

  He went to her, drawing her to her feet. Then his arms closed around her as if they were going to dance. Maybe he had some romantic ballad in his head? He must have, because he danced her around the quiet room, all the while staring down into her face.

  She made an aching sound in her throat. There had been such heartbreak. But there was always hope. How could the intense love they had shared ever go entirely away? The space between them was throbbing with a sexual desire that had only picked up momentum.

  “I want you so badly,” he said, in an overpowering rush.

  “Want is one word. Please tell me another.”

  “I need you.” He kissed her cheek very softly.

  “Can’t you keep going?”

  He was clasping her so tightly their bodies seemed fused—his hard with desire. “What is it you want to hear? That I’ll love you for ever and a day?”

  “You used to tell me that.” Her sadness was immense.

  “The past is another country, Charlotte.” He kissed the dip behind her ear.

  “But you know how unpredictable life is.” She lifted imploring green eyes. “Good things happen. Bad things happen. Life-altering things.”

  “We were supposed to face them together. I used to dream I would get you pregnant.”

  An incredible intimacy bonded them. “You did,” she said softly.

  “But you married Martyn.”

  “My mistake. I had to live with it.” The opening was there again. A brave woman would have taken the hurdle. Only once more she balked. “Those years are over, Rohan. They were full of pain.”

  Frustration caught him by the throat. He wanted to shake the truth out of her. He had difficulty not doing it. “So why can’t you tell me the whole story? Don’t I have a right to know? Were you frightened of how your parents—your mother—would react? Knowing them, I can appreciate that. Was there safety and security in marrying Martyn? Pleasing your parents?”

  Charlotte swallowed painfully. “Does it matter now?” The trouble was he was judging Martyn by his own standards. Martyn fell far below them. Martyn had been ill-equipped for not getting his own way, even by force. He had thought taking her was his right. Would the truth help her here?

  “Okay. I’m done with talking.”

  Rohan’s voice echoed his tension. He released her abruptly, so hard with desire he wanted to pull her down onto the rug and cover her there and then. His hunger was so strong. He wanted his body over hers. He wanted to forget those years when he’d thought his life had been smashed. If they had any chance at all he had to forget his bitterness, clamp down on his frustration. He had her now. He could so easily spoil things. Martyn had won her. But Martyn was gone.

  She was a lightweight in his arms.

  He carried her down the passageway to the master bedroom, cool from the air-conditioning. He let her body fall gently onto the luxurious bed. She bounced against its springiness before half rolling away from him.

  He lowered himself onto the bed beside her, one hand on the slope of her bare shoulder, turning her back to him. “‘While the one eludes, must the other pursue.’ Browning, I think.” He stared down into her river-green eyes. “I’m not looking for the right wife to live with, Charlotte. I’ve had other women. Nothing easy about being celibate. But I’ve never been able to wipe you out of my mind. Never lost my vivid memories of you. Attractive women came and went. All because of you. I found I didn’t want a woman I could live happily enough with. I want a wife I can’t live without. And that, Charlotte, is you. I know you never loved Martyn.”

  Her long hair glittered against the mix of gold, chocolate and black silk cushions that adorned the bed. That much she could admit. She had never loved Martyn.

  “I’m trying so hard to understand.”

  “Then you’ll use up all your understanding.” Her defensive walls had been too long in place. “Make love to me, Rohan.” She pressed a hand to her aching breast. “At least you want me.”

  “As you want me.”

  It was a statement not to be denied.

  “Maybe we should let go of the past?” he suggested quietly.

  “I want that too.”

  He turned her over, putting a hand to the long covered zipper on her evening dress. His nimble
fingers unzipped her in one smooth movement before turning her back to him. “One thing, Charlotte.” There was severity in his expression. “Never, never lie to me again.”

  A flush travelled all over her flawless skin. “I have never lied.”

  He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Promise me. Say it. I’ll never lie to you again, Rohan.”

  “Then you must say that to me too.” Her eyes glowed as green as the ocean.

  He didn’t say a word. Neither did she.

  Instead he began slowly to lower the bodice of her gown, revealing her small breasts, the white of roses. “Having our son hasn’t changed your body,” he said very quietly, his eyes gliding all over her as she lay on his bed. “Your breasts are still as perfect, the nipples coral-pink. See how they swell to my fingertips? Your waist is as narrow…” He began to peel the white chiffon dress further down her body like a man enthralled, listing his observations as he went. “Your stomach just as taut.” He palmed his hand over it, circling and circling, moving lower, until he let his long fingers sink into the triangle of fine blonde hair at her core. “Remember all the crazy things we used to do?” His eyes were a perfect electric-blue. “Your body was my body. My body was yours. Two bodies. One beating heart. One soul.”

  She shivered to his touch. Beyond answering. She would picture how they’d been when she was dying. So young. Alone together. Without inhibition. Heat was sizzling up through her skin. Her whole body went into spasm as his fingers sought and then touched on an acutely sensitive spot. Her trembling legs fell apart. She wanted to lift them, wrap them around him, bind him to her. She wanted to make it up to him for every moment of those years of heartbreak.

  His mouth came down on hers with a ravenous hunger, opening it up fully to his tongue. “Good,” he muttered into the brandied sweet honey of her mouth. “Because we’re going to do all of them again.”

  Love could bring either agony or ecstasy. Sometimes it brought both entwined.

  The last time he had made love to her they had made a baby. A beautiful baby. Christopher.

  Only she hadn’t told him that momentous thing. It was beyond making sense of.

  Within a week of that most memorable night Barbara Reiner decided it was high time to pay her daughter a visit. Vivian would most probably be at Riverbend—at the Lodge, of all places. Talk about a headlong fall from grace! Vivian was such a fool—always hiding his head in the sand. And to think he had sold the Marsdon ancestral home to Rohan Costello! It defied belief. But then Vivian was notorious for making horrendous decisions.

  Silver Valley was only a few hundred miles from Sydney, but she certainly didn’t intend to drive herself. She commandeered Kurt’s Bentley and his chauffeur for the afternoon. Kurt had dared to rumble a tiny protest. Apparently he needed the car. But she had raised her eyebrows and told him to call a cab. She was looking forward to the trip. She knew Costello was in Sydney. She had rung his office, pretending she was a friend. No way did she want Costello anywhere on the scene. She didn’t want him around to back up her daughter.

  The boy would be at school. Rohan Costello’s son. She could remember the precise moment when she’d first had her suspicions. She had been trying to give Charlotte some advice, and the boy—way too protective of his mother—had turned and given her such a piercing look of appraisal, with near-adult intelligence, she had been truly astonished. She had been judged and found wanting. It had suddenly dawned on her that she had seen that very look before. And those brilliant blue eyes didn’t fit into the family, did they? Vivian had blue eyes, of course, but even as a young man they had never had that depth of colour, never mind the intensity of regard. She didn’t actually know. She’d just had a gut feeling.

  That was when she had started ignoring the boy. Others might find that extremely harsh, but they hadn’t suffered like she had. And there was her daughter—the survivor. Charlotte hadn’t learned her lesson. Costello was back in her life. There was going to be a scandal, but she had gone beyond caring. Anything to get back at Costello. He might have passed himself off in society, but his very humble beginnings were bound to come out. And there was the way poor Martyn had been treated! The only thing that would guarantee her silence was for Charlotte and Costello to split up. She presumed he didn’t know the child was his. Any woman could pull the wool over a man’s eyes. Men missed so much!

  Charlotte couldn’t remember the last time Christopher had had a day off school, but he—like a number of children and adults in the Valley—had caught a twenty-four-hour bug that had been doing the rounds. Mild enough, she had nevertheless decided to keep him at home for the day. Rohan had picked out some suitable computer games, so that would keep him occupied in his room.

  It was a room any boy would envy. It housed his computer, a television, and a bookcase packed with a range of books on subjects that interested him. Not many boys Christopher’s age shared his wide-ranging interest in learning and getting “the facts”, but that was the way his mind worked. She had nearly fainted when his headmaster had made the chance remark, “The only other child I can remember as extraordinary as your boy, Mrs Prescott, was Rohan Costello.”

  One day Christopher would have to know the truth. But she recognised with gratitude that Rohan was as committed as she to giving their son time.

  Christopher was actually the first to spot the Bentley sweeping up the driveway. It was after lunch. He ran back down the stairs, calling out excitedly to his mother, “Mummy, Mummy—I think maybe it’s Grandmother in a Bentley.”

  Vivian Marsdon strode into the entrance hall. “Good God, surely not!”

  “That will cost you, Grandpa!”

  “Well, knock me down with a feather.” Vivian changed tack, a huge frown on his face. “What do you suppose she wants?” he asked of his equally transfixed daughter.

  “Maybe she’s dropping in with goodies?” Christopher burst out laughing at his own joke.

  Goodies, indeed. Charlotte felt only alarm. “Go back upstairs, darling. Stay in your room like a good boy.”

  “Can’t I stay here?” Instinct told Christopher his mother and grandfather were preparing for trouble. They might need his help.

  Vivian Marsdon confirmed his hunch. “There’s something wrong with this. Why didn’t she ring? I hope she hasn’t got that b—husband of hers with her.”

  “Another fifty cents, Grandpa,” Christopher reminded him, as the swear words started to come thick and fast.

  “All right, all right. I’ll pay up. Your mother is right. Go upstairs, Chrissie. Please don’t come down until I come to get you.”

  Christopher took his mother’s hand. “Won’t it make you feel better if I stay? Grandmother doesn’t worry me. She has no feelings for me.”

  Vivian Marsdon was aghast. “My dearest boy, your grandmother loves you. She just doesn’t know how to show it.”

  Christopher gave his grandfather a kindly look. “It’s okay, Grandpa. I don’t miss her either.”

  “If I hadn’t given up smoking I’d consider lighting up a cigar.”

  “Cigars are for celebration, aren’t they?” Christopher asked.

  “They’re also an excellent way to soothe a man’s nerves.”

  Charlotte smiled down on her son. “Do as I say, darling. Go back upstairs. Grandpa and I will take care of this.”

  Obediently Christopher turned away. “How do you know you can?” he paused to ask. “Grandmother is a serious pain in the a—”

  “That will do, Christopher,” Vivian Marsdon held up a warning hand. “I’ve told you not to use that crude expression.”

  “Sorry, Grandpa. By the way, she’s by herself in the back seat. A chauffeur is driving. He’s wearing a uniform with a hat.”

  “Dear Lord!” Vivian Marsdon rolled his eyes heaven-ward as Christopher disappeared up the stairs. “This is like waiting for a bomb to go off. Barbara has developed such a taste for doom and gloom, all she has left is her dark side.”

  Charlotte bowed her he
ad in silent agreement. Her own concerns were intense. Today of all days, when Christopher was by chance home from school, her mother had arrived.

  Barbara took tea before she launched into the reason for her unscheduled visit.

  “It’s about the boy,” she said, setting down her fine bone-china cup.

  “His name is Christopher,” Vivian reminded his ex-wife testily. “The boy…the boy…I very much resent your calling your grandson that.”

  “So what do you call him?” Barbara asked, with a wild flash in her eyes.

  Vivian stared back, utterly perplexed. “What on earth are you talking about, Barbara?”

  Barbara’s eyes shot to her daughter, who was looking very pale. “I see you haven’t told your father?” she said, totally without sympathy.

  “No one tells me a thing—how would I know?”

  “Why are you doing this, Mum?” Charlotte asked. “Have you absolutely no compassion? No love in your heart?”

  Barbara’s tone was hard. “Don’t try to turn the tables on me, Charlotte. I can’t bear to be part of this…this…conspiracy,” she cried, looking the very picture of self-righteousness.

  Vivian Marsdon, provoked beyond measure, suddenly gave vent to a roar. “What the hell is this? Is it supposed to be some sort of trial, with you the judge and the jury, Barbara?”

  She glared back at him. “Your golden angel betrayed us all,” she said, riding a bitter wave. “She married poor Martyn Prescott, knowing she was carrying Rohan Costello’s child.”

  Vivian Marsdon’s handsome face turned purple. “W-ha-t?”

  “Doesn’t that make you feel good?” Barbara hurled at him. “Charlotte—your perfect girl—was having sex with both of them. She might have thought at the beginning it was Martyn’s child—got her dates wrong—but it wouldn’t have taken her long to wake up. The boy is enormously bright, I grant you. And poor Martyn was an idiot.”

  “You be very careful with what you’re saying.” Vivian Marsdon looked formidable. “If this is some vicious scheme from an old woman—”

  “Old? Old!” For a moment Barbara looked as if she was going into cardiac arrest. “Why, you silly old man—I’m three years younger than you.”