The Tycoon’s Pregnant Lover (European Tycoon Book 1) Read online

  "My real question is," Brandy replied, "and I can't believe I'm offering this: why don't you let me fix us both breakfast with what you've got on your shelves?"

  Max turned this over. He didn't see any reason to refuse. He was hungry; he had the assets, and Brandy had the will. "I'm perfectly capable of fixing my own breakfast," he answered, just to see what she would say. "This deal benefits you more than it does me."

  "So we do have a deal," Brandy said as she pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge.

  Max didn't respond. He watched her move around the kitchen, flitting here and there as she prepared what appeared to be a delicious scramble replete with (his) sausage and (his) vegetables. Soon enough, the smell of breakfast sizzling on the stovetop drew him out of his attempts to ignore her. He set aside one of the contracts he had been going over and rose to start another pot of coffee. This time, he brewed enough for two.

  Moments later, when he appeared over her shoulder holding two mugs, Brandy turned into him in surprise.

  The spatula nearly slipped from her fingers as she blinked up at him. "Who's sneaking up on who now?" she asked in a tremulous voice.

  Max passed her the second mug, privately relishing the way her fingers skated across his as she received it. "I never said you sneaked up on me the other night," he corrected. "Unless you admit that you were sneaking around?"

  "I admit nothing of the sort," Brandy countered. She leaned back against the countertop and blew on her coffee to cool it. Max noticed she hadn't moved away, at least, not as far as he had expected. He leaned beside her against the counter.

  "You know we're off the record here," he told her.

  "I'm glad we got off," Brandy said. Then she blushed so dark a red, her cheeks rivaled the roses in the back garden. "I mean... oh God, you know what I mean." She glanced at him sharply, then appeared to study something on his face. "Don't do that," she said.

  "Do what?"

  "Smile like that."

  "Smile like what?"

  She shook her head. "Wow. You've been doing it so long, you don't even realize."

  Max felt a flare of irritation at this, though he couldn't quite identify why the woman's words nettled him. She was clearly baiting him by withholding information, and he refused to try to rise now and snatch for it. Whatever it was she thought she saw... whatever it was she felt... it didn't concern him.

  He pushed off from the counter and went back to his work. He thought he caught a flash of disappointment on her face. He should count it as a victory that he had disturbed this strange, congenial mood between them, but it just made him feel empty. The sooner their ninety days were up, the better.

  An echoing knock resounded through the castle then. They looked at each other, and Max wondered if she was as suspicious as he was as to whether he’d heard right. The knock came again, and there was no mistaking it this time. "Expecting company?" Max asked her.

  "No," she responded. She turned back to their breakfast. "I don’t know anyone over here, so it's probably for you. Why don't you go see who it is?"

  Both suggestions irritated him. He stowed his work documents out of sight, taking the precaution to carry his briefcase with him as he went. He ignored the way Brandy rolled those beautiful eyes of hers as he left the room. So what if she thought he was paranoid? It was better than being daft enough to repeat the mistakes of the past.

  He pulled open the front door, a growl of warning already on his lips. "What do you want?" he demanded of the person who was interrupting his (already taxing) morning,

  The small blonde woman standing on the step outside rose up on her tiptoes and bestowed a loving kiss on the edge of his jaw before he had even realized who it was. "Good morning!" she greeted cheerily. "Why so grumpy, Maximillian? I thought you adored your sister!"

  "Bettina." Max blinked, still trying to process the advent of his early morning caller. "What are you doing here?"

  "Can't a girl pay a surprise visit to her brother at his castle?" Bettina laughed happily and moved past him. “Wow, would you look at this place? Well done, Max! I thought it would be as stuffy as you are, but I consider myself corrected.”

  Bettina didn’t know his real reasons for purchasing the castle, of course. As far as she knew, Drakar Farnsworth was safely behind them, relegated to a past that she no longer needed to revisit on a daily basis. A part of Max doubted it was that easy for her, but seeing her beam up at him now with hint of mischief in her eyes made him relax a little. She was safe now, and happy. She didn’t need to know the details of his designs against Drakar, and if he kept control of the situation, she never would.

  A dainty sneeze sounded from the kitchen, reminding Max in that moment just how much his worst-made plans had been diverted from their intended course.

  Bettina glanced at him, raising a fair eyebrow. “Is that your flatmate?” she inquired. “The one I’ve been hearing so much about?”

  “Bettina…” Her name was laden with warning, but she scarcely seemed to hear him, much less heed him. She skipped out of sight to the kitchen, forcing him to follow. Max cursed under his breath and trailed after her.

  “You must be Brandy!” Bettina crowed as soon as she clapped eyes on the willowy brunette. Brandy turned in surprise, a stray strand of hair drifting across her face, plates heaped high with scrambled eggs in each hand. Bettina took full advantage of the other’s lack of any defense and went right in for a hug, squeezing the other woman affectionately.

  Brandy nearly dropped one of the plates, but Max swooped in to catch it at the last second. “My sister,” he introduced coldly. “Bettina. You’ll notice that she doesn’t fit the mold of a properly reserved Englishwoman.”

  “I should have been born in America,” Bettina sighed as she withdrew her arms from around Brandy’s middle. “You lot get to have all the fun. You certainly aren’t born with a stick up your arse the way my very unfortunate brother was.”

  Brandy laughed, clearly delighted to have so easily found herself an ally. “That’s not the only story from Max’s childhood, I hope?” she coaxed as she returned to the stove to fix an extra breakfast for their uninvited plus one. “Please, tell me everything.”

  “Please don’t,” Max said severely. “Bettina…”

  “Oh Max, relax!” Bettina laughed. “The stories I have to share can hardly give her a worse opinion of you!” She flapped a hand at him. “I’m going to fill her in on everything, and then she’ll have the full picture of who it is she’s rooming with. I’m sure you haven’t given her any opportunity to get to know the real you!”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he heard Brandy mutter as he carried his briefcase and breakfast plate out of the room. Max was boycotting the kitchen until further notice. Two women hell-bent on making his life impossible had no place on the agenda for today.

  Their gales of collaborative laughter followed him all the way back to the west wing.

  6

  The explorer in her couldn’t be suppressed forever. By week three, Brandy was going as crazy as a Gothic mad wife locked in an attic, and she was determined not to lose her mind completely. She needed her brain, damn it, and she needed more inspiration than the now-familiar walls of the east wing could offer her.

  And it wasn’t as if she was avoiding Max. Ever since that morning in the kitchen—and the morning she had met his far more charming sister, Bettina—things had been almost cordial between them. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still the enemy, of course, and the inspiration for the villain in every novel she was currently contemplating, but that moment (and every moment since) had solidified for her that she could do this. She could win against Maximillian Benton and send the billionaire packing, the same way his absence the morning after their night together had sent her back to her room alone.

  She had, after all, signed up for this, Brandy reminded herself. She had agreed to everything that had happened and had conducted herself so far with intention and grace—even if Max’s mere presence ins
isted on testing both. She was in a new country, playing by new rules and trying out new things. She now knew that one-night stands weren’t for her. It didn’t matter. This castle was for her, and as soon as Max was out of the picture, she could start to really clear her head on all these matters. In the meantime, she would focus on the one thing she loved more than anything: penning a new novel.

  She tucked her favorite pen behind her ear, hiked her thesaurus and journals beneath her arm, and started off in search of a new place to write. Today’s weather was almost warm, which meant the damp that hung in the air and seemingly off everything else didn’t cut so close to the bone, so she decided she would wander outside the castle today. She moved along one of the twisty garden walks, letting her fingers drag idly through leaves that fringed the path. She would have to learn the names of them all, she decided. She’d be able to find plenty of inspiration out here while neatly avoiding plenty of distractions.

  Farther along, she found an alcove and settled herself in, pulling her knees in close and improvising a table with her thighs. Then she sat there, hidden from the noise of the world, with her pen poised. She waited. The ideas would start flowing any minute now, the way they always did, and she had to be ready to receive them. She was less a writer sometimes and more a conduit; it felt like characters, scenarios, romances, came to her. Not in real life, of course. Reality was a different matter altogether.

  Yet reality was all she could think about.

  The reality of her body pinned beneath Max’s—the reality of his hands, the hot, inescapable reality of his hungry mouth making an unending feast of hers…

  “No-o-o,” Brandy moaned quietly to herself. She clenched the pen in her fist and knocked the heels of her palms gently against her forehead in an attempt to banish the images. The memories. She was certain Max wasn’t in any way struggling as badly as she was with their arrangement, and she refused to be the only one burdened by it. She would not be the sort of woman who pined after a lover when both knew that episode was over.

  But what a hot episode it had been. There was nothing wrong with admitting that much, right?

  “Focus, Brandy,” she muttered to herself. Easier said than done when her actual nine-to-five job was writing romance and thrillers. In a castle, either or both seemed likely to exist around every corner… especially when you shared the rooms and halls with a man as wealthy as a prince.

  She spent another half hour this way, having to wrench herself back from drifting in and out of daydreams of Max. It’s over. It’s done. Yet her heart, and her body, didn’t seem eager to hear her message or learn their lesson.

  Finally, she gave up. She knew this castle was the perfect place to find inspiration, and she was optimistic that the words would come eventually… but she might need to communicate to her editor back in the States her need for a Max Extension (that is, some relief from submitting chapters until she was relieved from having to deal with him).

  As she packed up her journals and headed in, Brandy smiled and entertained herself thinking what that phone call would entail. Just because the garden alcove hadn’t worked out didn’t mean she couldn’t try again someplace else. She had been wandering the castle almost nonstop since she’d moved in, and there were still passages and rooms she hadn’t explored fully.

  Instead of heading back to the east wing, she opted to continue along the northernmost face of the castle. A rogue wind coming off the hills whipped her hair back and sent some of her looser journal pages flying; thankfully, seeing as she hadn’t written anything, she didn’t risk losing any work when they alighted in the nearby creek and sailed away. Still, it was turning into a walk more distressing than relaxing, so she pulled out her keys to the property and ducked in through the nearest door.

  “Holy…!”

  Her exclamation cut off abruptly when she dropped her armful of journals. She found herself in an enormous room, dazzlingly ginormous, with a wide dance floor and vaulted ceiling. A glimmering chandelier worth more than her last house presided over it all like a rare flower blooming downwards; even dust and wan light couldn’t disguise its regal beauty. She could easily imagine what it looked like, shining brightly—like a brilliant star that had fallen to earth and been commandeered for the revelry of mankind.

  The ballroom. This was the Landon Castle ballroom. She remembered reading about it while doing her research on the castle. Why hadn’t she gone and looked for it first thing?

  She knew why. She had been so preoccupied with Max and staying out of his way—when really, he should be staying out of hers!—that she had kept her exploration to furtive spurts. Well, no more. This was her castle, damn it, and if she was going to own a fairytale ballroom, she was going to enjoy it—even if she was all alone in doing so.

  Brandy set her writing materials down on a nearby stack of chairs and wandered farther into the room. She laced her hands behind her back and took light, deliberate steps, swinging this way and that to take in every detail. A person couldn’t help but move like they were dancing in this room. When she observed a phonograph collecting dust in the corner, she nearly died right then and there of happiness. It even had a record in it.

  “Come on, baby.” Brandy blew some of the dust off, careful to avoid inhaling and setting off a coughing fit. That would hardly be romantic, after all. She touched the phonograph here and there, getting a feel for the device, making sure it was plugged into the wall before attempting to coax it to life. To her immense surprise, the record started rotating; it wobbled a little on its axis at first, then smoothed itself out. A plaintive, achingly familiar song filled the ballroom, louder than she had expected.

  “Wow. Phonographs…who knew?” Brandy grinned and stepped back. Why invest in a more contemporary sound system when the tinny, bell-like quality of the phonograph made everything so… romantic?

  Yes, it was perfectly suited to the setting of the ballroom.

  And the ballroom itself was perfectly suited to romance.

  Brandy stepped out onto the dance floor. Lifting her arms, completely unselfconscious of being discovered, she began to sway back and forth. Oh, she had always wanted to do this—to dance in a ballroom with a ghostly beau of the past. Of course, a flesh-and-blood beau would be a fine substitute, but where was she going to find one of those?

  No. The only option was to dance alone, enjoying her solitude to the fullest. She skipped along, making up each configuration as she went, drawing from her memories of movies and her own imaginings. She felt lighter than air as the music swelled. She spun herself, smiling, eyes partially closed, closer to the doorway… where a very real pair of arms caught her.

  Brandy’s eyes flew open. “You realize you’re disrupting my work?” Max gazed down his proud, aquiline nose at her. She was distracted momentarily by the grim set of his mouth, making her think he was actually angry. She rose to the occasion; nose to nose with him, she glared with all her might. She would not be embarrassed at being discovered this way.

  “You realize that’s not my problem?” she exclaimed. “You’re in my castle, and—“

  Max stepped into her, forcing her back. She tried to return the advance, but he wouldn’t allow it. We’re dancing, she realized. She could scarcely believe it, but Max had stepped in to join her.

  She decided to go with it. For now. It was hard, if not impossible, to stay angry when the phonograph was making the air gorgeous around them. “I didn’t ask you to dance with me,” she murmured in defeat as her hand slipped inside his own.

  “I don’t see any other volunteers.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to dance with anybody.”

  “Liar.” His hand took hold of her hip and filled that waiting, swaying space that had been void until he came along.

  “How do you know I’m lying?”

  “Because I saw the way you moved.” He bent down to whisper the next words into her ear and made her shiver. “And I’m holding you now. I can feel exactly how much you want to be held.”

&
nbsp; “You’re an incredibly arrogant man, Mr. Benton.”

  “And you are an incredibly distracting woman, Miss Jackson.”

  Brandy wondered if he meant now, under these circumstances while he was trying to work, or if he meant always. She hoped for always.

  He spun her around the ballroom, and she followed the gentle guidance of his hands. He had probably learn to dance so elegantly in whatever expensive school he had attended. He certainly knew how to make his partner look good. He knew how to move her, move them both.

  She tried not to remember how well she knew this.

  “What’s the name of this song?” She didn’t know why she assumed he knew; she just did.

  “La Vie En Rose,” Max replied quietly.

  “I’ve heard it before.”

  “Probably more than once. It’s one of the most famous songs in the world.”

  Brandy laughed quietly. “Really? The most famous song in the world?”

  “One of them.”

  She smiled. “Well, it’s beautiful. I think it must be so famous for a good reason.”

  They swayed together. When the talking stopped, she could feel the heat of his breath on her cheek. She turned aside but realized there was nowhere to escape to but his shoulder, so she laid her head against it in an effort to avoid his eyes. She was certain they were glowing brighter than the chandelier when it was actually switched on. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered.

  “Doing what?”

  “Dancing. With you.”

  “No,” he agreed. “You shouldn’t.”

  His agreement annoyed her. “Well, you shouldn’t have walked in on me when I was having… a moment.” It was an unspectacular conclusion, but she decided to stick to it.

  “Maybe I took pity on you, in here dancing alone.”

  “If you want to take pity on me, you should give up the castle,” she supplied. “Otherwise I’m effectively turned out on the street. You have… what? Three houses? Four? Scattered all over the world?”