Their Secret Baby

R
HYS
M
ORGAN
swung his car off the main road and pressed his foot down on the accelerator as even the powerful engine slowed on the steep slope before it.

‘
This
is the road to a hotel?’ he muttered impatiently to himself, steering the sleek vehicle carefully around the wicked bends with hands that were clenched so tightly around the wheel the knuckles showed white. ‘It’s more likely to put people off.’

But nothing would deter him. Not now.

Not when the end of his search was finally in sight. When the prospect of coming face to face with the woman he had finally tracked down seemed only seconds away. When he could finally learn from her the whereabouts of the one thing on which his thoughts had centred to the exclusion of everything else.

His daughter.

He had neglected his work, his business, his friends—his life for the past three months, because of this. He had travelled for miles, taking in at least three countries and God knew how many towns. And all because of one small person who he had never known existed until months after her birth.

The child he had thought would never be born. The child he’d thought his estranged wife would have been determined to destroy, because she had always said pregnancy would ruin both her figure and her lifestyle.

But just three months ago he had learned that something very different had happened.

The steep drive flattened out suddenly to a wide gravel-covered parking space, at the end of which stood the small, family-run hotel he had come to find.

Set high above the valley, it stood square and solid against the driving rain, with the wild hills and the deep expanse of Lake Windermere spread out below it.

‘At last!’

Rhys steered the car into a roughly marked parking space and pulled on the brakes, sitting back with a deep sigh. Staring through the sheeting rain with his sapphire-blue eyes narrowed, he pushed both hands through the sleek blackness of his hair and frowned in thoughtful concentration.

He was here.

And it was time to consider his next move.

Time to decide exactly how he was going to play things when he finally came face to face with his wife’s cousin. Caitlin Richardson. The woman who now had custody of the daughter he had never known he had.

Caitlin Richardson put the phone down and sighed wearily, pushing one hand through the dark fall of her hair. She grimaced as she felt how rough and uneven the ends had become. She hadn’t had time to have a decent haircut in weeks.

She hadn’t had time for anything.

Caring for a six-month-old baby didn’t leave much time for leisure or relaxation—or looking after yourself for that matter. Not when it was combined with trying to hold down a full-time job and earn enough money to feed them both as well.

And she was tired. Worn out. Fleur had been sleeping badly for the last couple of weeks—a combination of teething and the change in her routine—and as a result Caitlin herself hadn’t had a full night’s rest in as long as she could remember.

Certainly not since the news had come through about Amelie and Josh.

‘No!’

It was a low, drawn-out moan. She rubbed the back of her hand over eyes shadowed with the darkness of misery as memories she wished she could erase surfaced to hit her in the face, making her close her eyes against the pain.

‘I don’t want to remember.’

‘I’m sorry?’

It was a stranger’s voice. A voice she had never heard before, and it broke into her thoughts in a rush, startling her and jolting her eyes wide open.

‘I—I was talking to myself.’

It was difficult to collect her thoughts. Almost impossible when she found herself staring into eyes as brilliant and stunning a blue as these.

And to have been caught talking to herself! Talking to herself about things she didn’t even want to think about privately, let alone bring out into the open in front of a total stranger! It was not in the least bit surprising that all coherent thought had fled her mind.

Fortunately, years of training and a determined professionalism snapped into place, giving her at least
something
to say.

‘Can I help you?’

She hoped her smile was convincing. Hoped that she at least looked welcoming, if he was a guest.

Was
he a guest? He didn’t look the sort of person who normally came to the Linford. Casual family groups, or retired couples who were having a weekend away, were more the sort of clientele who favoured this far from five-star hotel, especially in a cold, damp spring like this one.

This man looked too affluent for them. For all that he was so casually dressed, in tight-fitting black jeans and an oatmeal-coloured sweater, his clothes had a style and a quality to them that spoke of money, and plenty of it.

‘I have a reservation…’

So he
was
a guest. Somehow she managed to swallow down the exclamation of surprise that almost escaped her and reached for the computer keyboard.

‘In what name?’

‘Delaney—Matthew Delaney.’

Had he moved forward? He suddenly seemed too close for comfort. She felt the tiny hairs on her skin prickle and lift in apprehension, for no good reason that she could think of.

‘Delaney…’

Her vision blurred as she hunted for the name on the screen. She had never been so intensely aware of another human being in her life.

Those eyes really were stunning. Deep, deep blue, like the sky at the end of a long, hot summer day, just before night. He too needed a haircut and the fall of his dark hair over his high forehead was a sensual temptation in itself. Her fingers itched to brush it back, to feel the warmth of his skin under their tips.

‘Delaney…’ she tried again, more forceful this time, concentrating ferociously.

Then jumped nervously as a long, square-tipped finger moved past her and stabbed purposefully on a computer key.

‘What—?’

‘Matthew Delaney.’

His tone sounded reasonable enough but there was a note threaded through it that set her teeth on edge even if she didn’t quite know why.

‘My name—it’s right there.’

‘I could see that!’

The need not to look a fool made her voice sharper than she would have liked—and sharper than
he
liked too, that much was obvious, as the straight black brows twitched together at her tone.

‘I’m sorry—I mean…’

‘What you mean is, keep my nose out.’

To her relief his voice sounded reasonable, even amused, and a faint smile softened the hard, controlled line of his mouth.

‘Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite that bluntly. But I did have things in hand.’

‘Of course you did, Miss—’ those blue eyes dropped to the name badge pinned to her smart white blouse ‘—Miss Richardson.’

And suddenly, unnervingly, the smile had vanished as swiftly as it had come.

‘So now that you have things in hand, Ms Caitlin Richardson, would you like to tell me exactly where my room is?’

This Caitlin Richardson was not at all what he had expected, Rhys reflected. He’d never seen her before. She hadn’t been one of the few guests Amelie had invited to their whirlwind wedding just over two years before. Knowing she was related to Amelie, he had expected her to look like his ex-wife. And when you were anticipating the sleek, blonde, sophisticated, Parisian style of Amelie Deslonge, then this very ordinary little creature was something of a shock to the system.

Average height; average build; average colouring. That was the way he had described her within the privacy of his own thoughts. There was simply nothing special about her…

Or, rather, nothing until she had opened her eyes. And one swift, astounded glance into their golden depths had told a very different story.

He had never seen eyes like those. Cat’s eyes. Huge, golden, glowing eyes, fringed with impossibly long lashes.

Stunning eyes.

Beautiful.

Bedroom eyes.

And suddenly his thoughts were off course, on very different tracks from the ones on which they had been running as he had come up the drive, walked through the door.

‘Room three-four-two. If you’d just sign here, and put your car’s registration there…’

‘Of course.’

Damn it! The distraction of his thoughts had almost led him to sign automatically, using his
real
name!

It took a hasty second’s pause to reconsider and turn his pen to a slightly different angle before he managed to scribble down the fake identity he had used to make his booking.

Well, not totally false, he admitted to himself. He was entitled to every part of it. Just not in that order. Matthew and Delaney were his middle names, the Delaney coming from his mother’s maiden name.

It might make things a little complicated when it came to paying the bill, but by then he hoped to have made his real identity clear anyway. But Rhys Matthew Delaney Morgan might have been too well known to Caitlin Richardson, or anyone who knew of his reputation as an international art dealer, alerting her to the fact that her cousin’s estranged husband was on his way to the hotel, determined to find some facts and get some answers to some very serious questions.

Answers that only Caitlin Richardson could give.

‘You’re on the top floor. The lift is over there—the stair-case is just around the corner to your right. Would you like any help with your luggage?’

‘Hardly.’

He indicated the one small bag that stood on the polished wooden floor at his feet with a casual nod. To a man of his height and strength, it was a featherweight, no trouble at all.

‘I think I can manage.’

The irony in his tone brought hot colour rushing up into her cheeks, emphasising the high bones, the soft skin.

‘I’m quite sure you can!’

Once again the sharp edge to her words revealed how uncomfortable she felt.

She’d feel a whole lot more uncomfortable if she knew who he really was, Rhys reflected darkly. If she suspected the truth of his real identity and the reason why he was here, she was more than likely to snatch back the proffered key, grabbing it away from him and refusing to let him touch it.

‘Breakfast is from seven…’

The practised list of details slid right over his head as a sudden, disturbing thought struck him. He recalled how, as he had walked from the car park to the main entrance to the hotel, he had watched the sheep grazing peacefully on the slopes of the hills outside. Now he had the distinctly unnerving feeling that he was in the position of being the big, bad wolf, circling the unsuspecting lambs, waiting for a chance to pounce.

It wasn’t a position he was used to being in. Or one that he had ever thought to find himself taking. It was so alien to him that he scarcely recognised himself.

‘And if you want anything in your room, then the room-service menu is available twenty-four hours a day. I think that’s everything.’

‘Not quite.’

‘Oh?’

Once again that puzzled frown crossed her face.

‘What else is there?’

‘When do you get off duty?’

Hell and damnation! How had that slipped past his guard? OK, so, ultimately, that had been part of the plan. To get to know her, win her trust. Then to ask her out—to wine and dine her, and try to tease the information he needed out of her without her knowing.

Then he would have declared his true identity and if necessary gone for the big guns—by bringing in his lawyers.

But now he’d risked messing it all up by blundering in way too soon. What had he been thinking?

No, he admitted to himself drily. The question was what had he been thinking
with
? And the answer was most definitely not his brain.

Looking into those stunning tawny eyes, he saw the polite smile, the helpful expression fade from them rapidly and knew that he’d blundered. In his haste to get closer to knowing the truth, he’d risked taking several steps backwards instead of forward.

‘Off duty?’ Caitlin echoed, realising that it was a phrase she hadn’t actually used about herself in a long time.

‘I wondered if you’d like a drink, or a meal…’

Just for a second some tiny, irresponsible and young part of her heart, a part she hadn’t felt since she had learned the truth about Josh, lifted at the thought. When had she last really been ‘off duty’?

And when had some attractive stranger last asked her out on an impulse?

But of course it couldn’t be.

‘I’m sorry. It’s not possible, I’m afraid. The management don’t encourage staff to socialise with guests. Policy…’

Policy be blowed! she added privately. If her father knew about the invitation then he’d be there like a shot, urging her to accept, to go out and have some fun. To remember she was only twenty-four.

He would even volunteer to babysit, she was sure.

But then her father didn’t know the real truth about Amelie and Josh. He knew nothing of the sense of betrayal, the shock and loss that had torn through her when she had found out.

Everyone thought she was still mourning Josh and Amelie. They didn’t know that she had lost them both months before the actual accident. Before Fleur had even been born.

‘Are you sure?’

Something had changed, Caitlin thought uneasily. It was as if that easy smile was fraying at the edges, the warmth in his eyes cooling rapidly. And without that warmth, they were very cold indeed.

Some instinct she couldn’t explain had her pressing the bell under the desk to summon the porter, the need to have company suddenly uppermost in her mind.

‘It’s only a drink I’m offering. Nothing to be afraid of.’

Caitlin chose to ignore the deliberate provocation of that remark.

‘I’m quite sure. But thank you for asking anyway.’

‘No problem.’

She did a good line in polite regret, Rhys admitted. So much so that he almost believed her himself.

Almost.

But the investigations that had got him here today had been too thorough to allow him to be convinced. The so-called ‘management’ was her father, who owned the hotel. And if Bob Richardson’s daughter was anything like her late cousin Amelie, then she could twist any susceptible male around her little finger and still not have a hair out of place.