Their Secret Baby Read Free

defined muscles under the clinging sweater.
    ‘This way, sir.’
    The words were cut through by a sound. A sudden and totally unexpected sound that rang through the stiffly awkward silence in the reception hall, bringing everyone’s head up.
    It was the cry of a very young child.
    And it came from the door behind Caitlin Richardson. The door that led straight into the receptionist’s office.
    The baby.
    Rhys couldn’t stop himself. Reacting totally instinctively, he had paused and half turned, sharply assessing eyes going swiftly in the direction of the sound, before he realised how stupid he was being. How much he was giving away.
    No! he forced his mind to scream at his wayward body. Not now! Not yet!
    Somehow he managed to rein in the automatic rush forward, to push the door open, gather the child in his arms.
    ‘Not yet! Not yet!’ he muttered under his breath. ‘It’s too damn soon!’
    Luckily Caitlin had also reacted immediately, whirling round and hurrying away, disappearing through the dividing door before he had time to think any further. And Rhys could only be grateful that the speed of her own reaction had meant that she hadn’t noticed his own betraying movement.
    Hot waves of anger flooded his mind, blending dangerously with emotional pain and an almost unbearable yearning that he could scarcely control. The explosive combination drove out all rational thought, leaving him with just feeling.
    Behind that door was his baby. His child. And this woman—this stranger was in there now with his daughter. It would be her hands that lifted the baby, her arms that held it, her voice that soothed…
    ‘Sir? Mr Delaney?’
    The porter’s discreet cough, his careful murmur, dragged his thoughts unwillingly back to the present and the need to display a reasonable, uninvolved mask to the hotel staff if they were not to become suspicious. At least for now.
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    He switched on an easy smile, turned and forced himself to stroll towards the lift doors.
    ‘Is it usual to bring a baby to work?’ he asked as they began their journey upwards.
    ‘Ah, well, that’s Miss Caitlin’s little girl,’ Sean told him. ‘Things are rather difficult there.’
    Too damn right they were! And the baby was not Miss Caitlin’s anything…
    Rhys swallowed down the angry retort with an effort and opted instead for a casual, man-to-man approach.
    ‘She’s an attractive woman.’
    ‘Mmm.’ Sean’s response was noncommittal. ‘But it’s look but don’t touch where she’s concerned. I’ve only been here just over a month, and I soon learned that!’
    ‘The ice-maiden sort, huh?’
    ‘And how. This is our floor. It’s the third door on the left.’
    So the youthful Sean had tried it on with Ms Richardson and been rebuffed, Rhys reflected when, left alone, he had tossed his case on the bed and looked around the room that was to be his for the next week or so. Decorated in dark green and white, it seemed clean and comfortable but rather small, even for one person.
    But then of course he was used to much better hotels than this. Travelling as often as he did, looking for items to display in his gallery, paintings to sell, he always insisted on the best that money could buy. And his money could buy the very best.
    Tossing his keys from one hand to the other, he prowled around the limited space, pausing to stare out of the window. The room was at the back of the hotel, looking out onto the rain-soaked, curving lawn, the dripping greenery of the shrubbery.
    And Ms Richardson was an ice maiden. Well, with a little persuasion ice could melt. It was only ice—not stone. And he had plenty of experience of melting reluctant, cool women. It was a challenge, and he’d always liked a challenge.
    And she wasn’t indifferent to him; he was sure of that. He’d seen the flare of response in her eyes, watched the burn of awareness flood her skin. She might act all cool and collected, but if she was anything like her cousin,