The Price of Seduction (18 page)

“You think you’re such a big man but you’re only good for my left overs. I had Rebecca first and I had Bree before you did too.”

Conrad increased his hold. “Cut the crap. Tell me about the baby.”

“Rebecca was pregnant before you started seeing her. I’m sure you worked out that much. She was pregnant with my child and she tried to take
you for a patsy. The child she got rid of was mine. I made her go through with the abortion, drove her there, made sure she didn’t back out.”

Disgu
sted, Conrad let go of Daniels’ jacket. Conrad hadn’t even known Rebecca was thinking of an abortion until she told him
after
the fact.

He’d screamed at her, his grief unbelievable, digging into him, clawing away at him from the inside.

They’d gone out for two months and he’d
believed
the child was his. When he’d found out the tiny foetus that had been growing inside her was gone, it had felt like part of his heart had been ripped from his body.

It was bad enough to lose a child through natural causes but to find out she’d done that to their child through her own design was unforgivable.

At the time, he hadn’t known she was actually just over three months pregnant which meant the child couldn’t be his. Still, his grief and anger were as real as if the child had been his.

She
’d only told him the truth to shut him up. He knew that now. But finding out the child wasn’t his hadn’t make it easier, not then. It hadn’t diminished his grief. He’d already experienced the loss.

That was when she told him Daniels had driven her to the abortion clinic but she’d insisted he was just a friend in whom she’d confided.
It was the first time he heard the man’s name, a name he’d never forget as long as he lived.

Could it be true that Trevor Daniels had fathered that child, then forced the young woman to abort the pregnancy?

He looked at him and knew it was true.

It was three years ago but Conrad felt that same pain again, the grief, the anger, the gut wrenching loss.

He was a powerful man but when Rebecca told him what she’d done he’d felt completely defenceless. His guard had been down, his emotions exposed in full view.

Never before or since had he felt that sense of powerlessness, knowing that no matter what he did, it wouldn’t make any difference at all. The deed was done and nothing would change that. He was one of the richest men in Australia but he felt worthless because
he couldn’t buy his way out of this pain.

And now Daniels was bringing it up out of his own petty need for revenge because his career was in tatters. That man had no idea what he’d done, how low he’d sunk, how many lives had been damaged because of him. What’s more, he didn’t care.

Conrad pushed him in the chest.

Daniels stumbled back, then
stepped forward again. “It’s too late.”

The smug, superior look on
the man’s face was too much for Conrad. His fingers were already curled into a fist. He sent a big right hand straight into the middle of Daniels’s face.

And it felt good.

The man dropped to the ground. Landed on his butt. Conrad looked down at him. Violence wasn’t the answer. Still, it’d do for the time being.

In the distance, he saw bystanders coming to help
which was just as well. Conrad could leave now.

He turned and walked towards Bree, still standing by the car. He
wished she’d got inside as he’d asked her. Wished she hadn’t seen the altercation. At least she’d been out of earshot of their argument. She’d been spared that.

Bree opened the car door and
got in.

T
hey drove off in silence.

In the car, Bree couldn’t bring herself to speak. Her eyes riveted to the road ahead of them, she refused to turn her head towards Conrad. She couldn’t bear to look at him.

Conrad’s Porsch
e felt like a prison. There was a tiny little foetus imprisoned inside her and she in turn was trapped in the car. The leather seats which curled around her, the beautifully laid out interior, it was all created to trap her.

She couldn’t breathe. C
ouldn’t move.

Bree no longer knew the man sitting beside her. How could she have let herself fall pregnant to a man she barely knew? A man she no longer wanted to know.

Nothing could have prepared her for the things Trevor had told her tonight but it all made sense. It fit in with everything Conrad had told her.

He
pulled up outside her Bondi apartment and switched the engine off. All she knew at that moment was that she had to get out of the car. Desperate for air, she opened the door and slid out

“Bree, are you alright?” Conrad
walked around to where she was leaning against the car.

She nodded, sucking in deep breaths of air through her open mouth.

He leaned in close to her, his hand on her shoulder at first, before reaching towards the nape of her neck. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

He
was talking about striking Trevor.

“So am I,” she said.

“It has obviously affected you. Let’s get inside.”

She shook her head. “No, we’re not going inside. We’re staying here.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course I have to take you upstairs. We can’t stay out here.”

“There’s something I’ve been wondering for a long time and I’ve never asked you about it but now I want to know.”

Conrad nodded.

“It took you a long time before you told me about Rebecca and the pregnancy and I was wondering if there was a reason for that. I know you were obviously very upset but… ”

“You think I was upset?” He raised his voice, something she’d never heard before. “That doesn’t even begin to describe it. I don’t need to go through that pain again.”

Still, she persevered. “It must have been so unexpected for both of you when she got pregnant and you hadn’t been seeing each other very long. You never said how you felt about it. Were you shocked? Happy? Were you looking forward to it?”

The look on his face told her he wanted to get this over with quickly. “At first, no, I wasn’t happy. I was angry. In denial. I thought she must have made a mistake.”

“I know lots of women can miscarry in the first few months but then lots of women also terminate their pregnancies. It happens. I know someone who did that.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

She
sucked in a deep breath, her eyes riveted to his. “Did Rebecca miscarry or did she have an abortion?”

She’d done it. She
’d asked the question even though she wasn’t sure she could bear the answer.

Conrad’s face was expressionless. His dark rimmed blue eyes were stunning as always but there was nothing behind them. He didn’t flinch and he didn’t speak, then eventually his lips moved.

“Why are you asking me this now?”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“Bree, what’s the matter with you tonight? You’re simply not yourself.”

St
ill, he wouldn’t answer. It was true. Rebecca had had an abortion. Conrad had forced a young woman to terminate her pregnancy and that was the man who stood before her, the father of her unborn child.

What had Bree
done? What was she going to do?

She’d had one hope, the hope that Trevor had lied but now that was gone, snatched from her.

“Bree, are you pregnant? Is that why you’re asking me these questions?”

She only knew one thing. She had to protect her child. She had to lie and it had to be convincing.

“Of course I’m not pregnant. I told you that after we got back from Il Bosco.”

“Then what’s making you behave this way?
”

“What way? Like a woman who’s been used for sex for the past two months.”

He glared at her. “Oh, come on. You haven’t been used for sex. One thing I’ve been very sure of is that you didn’t fall into bed with me accidentally. You knew exactly what you were doing. More so than other women. And, damn it, you’ve enjoyed it every bit as much as I have.”

She had to get away.

“Oh, the sex has been fabulous but that’s all there is,” she said. “There’s nothing more between us other than hot, heavy sex. It’s always been that way. It’s not a relationship. It’s just sex.”

“It started that way but we’ve moved on since then and now there’s
more to it than that. We’ve got to know each other better and the more I know you, the more I care about you.”

He cared about her but that wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, not when she was carrying his child.

“How far have we really moved on?” she asked. “Don’t you remember what you said at lunch today? You’d be quite happy just to have another few months of sex.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But you couldn’t tell me where we’re headed, what form our relationship might take.”

“So you expect me to marry you? Is that it? Two months together and I’m supposed to sign my life away.”

“I didn’t say that. It’s just that there’s no sense of commitment, no future between us.”

Hi
s eyes were filled with contempt. “Well, what kind of future would you like?”

Her
eyes brimmed with tears. “Don’t you see? We’re doomed. It’s been doomed from the start. I just didn’t know it earlier. We don’t have a relationship. We have sex. Unbelievable, breath-taking, mind-blowing sex. But that’s all we have. You can’t have a relationship based on sex. It’s bound to fail.”

“We haven’t failed. What are you talking about?”

“I can’t stand it any more. I don’t like any of this.”

“Any of what?”

“Your controlling, domineering attitude, for one thing. I don’t know what kind of man you are any more. Punching out Trevor like that. What were you thinking? Was I supposed to respect you because of it?”

“You weren’t even supposed to see but you wouldn’t get in the car.”

Bree raised her eyebrows. “No, I’m not very obedient.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You assaulted a man on the street like a common thug. You might drive a flash car and live in a penthouse apartment but that doesn’t make you better than some hood off the street. What is it with that aggressive, macho attitude? Do you think hitting another person makes you tough? That it makes you a man.”

Hi
s lips tightened. “It wasn’t about being tough. Believe me, that man deserves much more than I dished up to him.”

Conrad Savage was rich and powerful and he knew exactly what his money could buy. Conrad with his
Porsche and his penthouse apartment with harbour views – what was there that he couldn’t buy? A million acres of wilderness in the north west was no problem for him. What else could he buy with his money?

He’d told
her everything had its price and she hadn’t believed him. She could never have dreamed he could buy an abortion, pay a doctor to terminate a foetus the mother wanted to keep. But then, that didn’t matter when you had the money and determination to go ahead with it.

Rebecca ha
d been pregnant but even that hadn’t meant it was too late for Conrad to arrange for what he believed had to be done. He could buy anything he wanted.

Everything has its price.

They were his words, not hers, the words he spoke to her their first night at Il Bosco.

Earlier in the day, Bree had found it hard to believe she could be pregnant. No morning sickness, no swollen breasts, her stomach still as flat as ever. Yet in the matter of a single evening she had switched and turned full circle. Inside her body another life was growing and it was her job to do everything in her power to look after it.

But then, this wasn’t a job. It wasn’t the career she’d planned for herself at this time. It was more than that.

It was her destiny.

She
knew this in a way she’d never known anything else. She’d do everything in her power to protect her child.

Whatever it took. Whatever the cost.

Conrad had forced a woman into having an abortion before and he would do it again if he had to. Bree was only two months pregnant and knew anything could happen in the first trimester of pregnancy but that was a chance she couldn’t take. She couldn’t wait that long.

She’d been wasting her time with petty arguments and now it was time to get to the point. Tonight she’d done everything in her power to rile him, pushing him to the brink but it hadn’t been enough. She had to get rid of him.

She had to act now. She had to get away from him.

Conrad grabbed her shoulders.
“Aren’t you listening? Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”

She peeled his hands away.
“I’m sick of the sound of your voice. I want you to leave me alone.”