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

  “I have several,” Max agreed. “And never have I ever faced such a challenge in acquiring one.”

  “So give up,” she suggested.

  “Never.”

  The record spun itself out, and though their dancing ceased, there was still movement between them. Brandy raised her head in the same moment Max looked down and caught her in the powerful icy onslaught of his gaze. Suddenly she was drowning: in his eyes, in his arms. In his kiss. His fingers captured her chin as his mouth captivated hers, and she melted into him. Her arms were trapped against his chest, pinned, unable to fend him off, as Max’s kiss sent her straight to heaven.

  It was too much—too much like that time before. The images came flooding back, a cascade of sensory memory that threatened to overwhelm her. She realized suddenly that all her recollections of their night together were nothing, nothing, when compared to the actual thing. How could she have forgotten the caress of his tongue? The way those hands of his took hold? She remembered the actions, the choreography… but she had forgotten, beneath it all, the current of electricity sparking and crackling. They were being pulled together by forces stronger than themselves, stronger than even the strength of Max’s arms, which seemed hard-pressed to ever relinquish her again.

  But Brandy craved some hard pressing of her own. She slid her arms up his chest to entwine them around Max’s neck; she pushed her breasts against him. She wanted him to feel every inch of her body that he had forced himself to miss. A caught breath, a groan, signaled her success. Maybe Max wasn’t as unreachable as he liked to pretend. Maybe he was exactly as frustrated with their arrangement as she was.

  And maybe the heat of his kiss was a big indicator of just how badly he wanted to set aside their verbal contract.

  Brandy broke away first. Panting, arms still banded around him, she gazed up into those stricken blue eyes of his and realized he was just as lost as she was. Or was it all a front? A ruse? Was this some sort of new ploy? Seclude her, seduce her, then storm the gates of her property? Did he really want to take all that remained to her, every part of her, and then… what? Send her brokenhearted on her merry way?

  Well, she wasn’t going to succumb. This had been a lapse, that was all. She was lonely, starved for friendship and affection in a strange, foreign country, and she had needed this. Needed him. Only momentarily. But now the moment had passed—she would see to that.

  Brandy pried herself from his embrace and pushed off from his chest. She retrieved her journals and walked out of the ballroom without a word. She could feel Max’s eyes on her, watching her go, but he never budged an inch. It seemed true to form. Although she was the one who retreated, not Max, there was strength in her retreat now. She was sticking to the rules he himself had imposed. She was abiding by their arrangement.

  The man wanted this castle—not a happily ever after.

  And she wasn’t about to settle for anything less.

  7

  The first item on his agenda that week, and the most important one by far, was to avoid Brandy Jackson at all costs.

  He felt like a man who had fallen off of the wagon after a long stint of sobriety... or in his case, four weeks. Four weeks. Max buried his hands in his hair, buried himself in examining the code on the laptop screen before him, and tried to drown out memories of Brandy's body pressed against his, her luscious lips parted and available for his taking.

  It had to be a trick. It had to be. He wasn't sure who, at the end of the night, had instigated the disruption in their agreement, but there would be no more lapses. This castle belonged to him, not her, and there was still far too much time stretching between now and the judge's ultimate deliberation whereby Brandy had the potential to gain the upper hand.

  "Ugh." Max groaned and sagged back in his chair. He pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping the viciousness of his own fingers would finally be enough to force images of the woman out of his brain. Thoughts of her gaining the upper hand had only resulted in imagining her hand slipping beneath the waistline of his pants and cradling his...

  Max surged forward in his chair and snatched up his cellphone. It was hopeless trying to get any work done down here; even the castle's countless passages didn't seem enough of an obstacle between himself and that woman in this moment. He was on the verge of seeking her out and making a very, very big mistake.

  "Max?" Gavin's voice on the other end sounded surprised. "You're calling a lot these days. I'm here with Tony."

  "I want to meet," Max ground out. "I need a drink."

  "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

  "I don't care what time it is," Max growled. “I know the two of you are in the area to tour castles, but a pub crawl sounds much more immediately rewarding."

  "If you say so," Gavin added. He sounded amused. "Where should we start?"

  “We start and end at the Boar's Head Pub."

  "That's not much of a crawl, mate. And isn't that at least forty minutes from where you are?"

  The farther the better, as far as Max was concerned. If his company hadn't launched its green campaign in an attempt to lead others by example, he would have been half-tempted to take the jet and fly halfway across the globe to find a pub far enough from Brandy.

  At this point, distance was better than being fully tempted. Especially when no part of him intended to act again on that temptation.

  Forty minutes later, Max walked into the Boar's Head, shifting his broad shoulders out of his pea coat as he looked around. The pub was dimly lit, and surprisingly roomy in the afternoon; he supposed he was more used to coming during peak hours, although he saw more than enough locals nursing drinks to give the establishment a feeling of civilization.

  "Over here, Max." Tony waved to him from the bar, and Gavin, from a neighboring seat, turned to acknowledge his entry with a nod. He noticed the latter sat a bit stiffly, and wondered if the cooler weather had caused his limp to flare up again. Max crossed to them; no sooner had he sat down than a stout was sliding into his hand.

  They talked business. That was what he had called them there for, and it provided the distraction he needed. Max pretended not to notice his companions’ occasional amused glances at each other. His mates could exchange all the loaded looks they wanted. He wasn't going to say a word about Brandy.

  "Brandy?" The waitress interrupted him in the middle of a practice product pitch. Max jolted in his chair, and now his friends didn't merely look at each other; they shared a hearty chuckle at his expense.

  "Yes, thank you." Gavin accepted the drink from her. Passed it to Max. "You want to order anything else, Max, or are you satisfied with brandy?"

  "I don't think he is satisfied with this brandy situation," Tony chimed in. Max's expression darkened as his other friend-turned-enemy turned back to the waitress. "What would you recommend for my troubled friend, love?"

  "Well..." The waitress tucked a coppery curl behind her ear. She was a pretty young thing, buxom, with a head of natural red hair that flowed like fire. The slight lilt she introduced with every word made her identifiably Irish; the accent was fetching, as was the whole of her. Max understood this all objectively. Training her shy green eyes back on him, she said, "Maybe ye should get out more?"

  "An excellent suggestion," Gavin said. "Did you have anything specific in mind?"

  "I do," she agreed. Max could still feel her eyes on him as he turned back to his beer and brandy. "Although if I'm to be specific, I'd prefer to do it over text. Or maybe a drink this evenin' after my shift?"

  Maybe she wasn't so shy, after all.

  "I appreciate the offer, but I'm afraid I'm busy tonight," Max answered. He didn't bother pulling out his day planner to check the factuality of the statement. He made his own schedule, and at present, he needed to keep working... at least until he had worked a certain brunette out of his system.

  "Sorry about our friend, love." Tony was quick to try and smooth things over with the baffled waitress. He rose and walked with her back to the point of sale (p
robably in an attempt to get her number himself) as Gavin turned back to Max, raising an incredulous eyebrow.

  "You have it that bad, huh?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Max replied.

  "I'm talking about the fact that I've never known you to resist a redhead so easily. You barely even looked at her! I suppose that's one way to pique an Irish lass's interest in you. Look at her... Poor Tony. She hasn't stopped looking over here since you dismissed her."

  "I didn't do anything of the sort." He pointedly turned away and lifted the brandy to his lips, ignoring the jest.

  "Incredible." Tony was back and shaking his head in disbelief. "This Brandy must be something else entirely."

  "You said it." Max raised his glass in toast, willfully misunderstanding—and turning their little joke back on them—as he downed the rest of the brandy in his glass.

  Along with the castle (which was indisputably hers, and she would never stop saying or thinking that), Brandy had also inherited a castle library.

  The vast room would have been a wonderland for any literature enthusiast, and she had fallen head over heels in love with it on her first visit. The weather wasn't exactly conducive to being outside that day: the sky was slate-gray, the cloud cover oppressive and complete, and low, foreboding breezes were gusting along the garden paths like a pack of hounds. Brandy shivered deliciously as a particularly strong wind howled along the castle stones outside. She loved the mood of the day, but it was better to stay inside and reflect on it than to be out in it herself. Maybe she would finally get some writing done. She was ready for an adventure, fictitious or otherwise; maybe she was even in the mood to devise one.

  But for now, she was content to pull dusty tomes from the shelves and flip through them, scanning their pages and occasionally jotting down a delicious English word for later use. She moved along the library's ground floor shelves toward the window. Then, stashed in the corner, she found what appeared to be a photo album. Surprised, she drew it out, hearing an unexpected click! as she did so.

  The shelf swung inward, revealing a gaping passage in the wall.

  Brandy tripped backward in shock. Thankfully, one of the chairs she had pulled out from the table caught her fall. She collapsed back into it, blinking rapidly, clutching the photo album to her chest. The passage stared at her. She stared at it. Her heart hammered a wild rhythm in her chest.

  Max.

  "Max!" Brandy bolted upright and ran out into the hall, taking the album with her. She paused when she got to the landing, chest heaving, and tried to compose herself. It unnerved her a little that her first thought upon finding a secret passageway was to run and share it with the man who wanted to claim her property... but how could she keep it to herself? She just had to explore it, and she wasn't so naive as to think she should check out a potentially dangerous passage alone.

  Brandy darted back to her room to change. She would probably need a jacket, and better shoes, and a flashlight (or a torch, as the English called it). Should she pack water? Sandwiches? Her blood buzzed in her veins, and she was almost too excited to think straight. She tossed the photo album down on the bed and busied herself with a wardrobe change. When she turned back around, she saw that the book had fallen open, and she was greeted with pictures of...

  Herself.

  She gasped and took a quick step back in astonishment, clutching her jacket; eventually, she allowed it to slip from her fingers onto the floor. She moved toward the bed with trepidation. Her heart hadn't stopped pounding since she’d discovered the passage in the library, and now it had kicked into even higher gear.

  She stared down at the photos of herself: the young, rounded face, shining through a thick curtain of unwieldy hair, beaming a gap-toothed smile. How old must she have been in some of these photos? Five? Six? Older? Would flipping pages flip her forward in time? How many years were represented here?

  Certainly more years than her father had spent with her.

  Brandy backed away from the bed. She didn't want to face this, not now. Clearly, it was yet another mystery her father had left for her to find, another gesture come too late. Her heart twisted as she turned away. She didn't want to think about the secrets of the past, so she focused on another, bigger secret unfolding right in front of her face.

  "Max!" She ran back down the hallway and took the stairs downward two at a time. "Max?" When she arrived back on the bottom floor, she nearly collided with the man himself. "Oh! You were out?" she asked in confusion.

  Max shook a few drops of rain from his sandy blond hair and shrugged out of his coat. "Why?" He turned from her. "Have you been calling my name all afternoon? Wish I could've been here to hear it. There's really nothing like it."

  Her cheeks reddened. "Don't be lewd."

  He turned back to her and lifted an eyebrow. "I'm not being lewd," he replied.

  "You've been out drinking," she accused. He was a confident man, but she had only seen him this emboldened once before... besides, she could tell his state from his easier posture.

  "What I'm doing is flirting with you," he replied.

  "Don't do that, either."

  "All right. Then may I ask my Yankee roommate why she was calling my name? And why she's... carrying a flashlight?" His other eyebrow rose to join the first, and Brandy privately relished his surprise.

  "I'll show you." She took his hand in hers and led the way to the library. He neither protested nor pulled away. In fact, he gave their joined hands a little squeeze, and her heart sped. She pulled him into the room and released him to flip on her flashlight, letting the beam sweep the entry to the passageway behind the bookshelf.

  "This can't be what I think it is," he said.

  "It is."

  "There was nothing about it in any of the background paperwork. And nothing on the blueprints." He looked at her suspiciously. "How did you know about this?"

  Brandy just shrugged mysteriously and started forward. She was so excited by her discovery that it was hard to contain her grin; still, Max's tone made her wonder if she should keep some information to herself. What if her knowledge of the passageway helped her make a stronger claim to Landon Castle?

  But she just couldn't bring herself to think about it now. Max followed behind and then beside her when the tunnel widened. He seemed at a loss of what to do with his hands since she carried the torch; he was obviously wrestling with whether or not to take her free hand again in his own. Brandy let him stew. If he was going to be cranky, dwelling on ownership the whole time, then let him be miserable. He finally elected to draw his lighter out of his pocket and flick it on. Shadows danced on the wall in the wake of his tiny flame as they strolled.

  Max stepped in front of her to pull a string of cobwebs out of the way, so thick they looked like Halloween props.

  Thankfully, she didn’t see any hairy black bodies with too many legs accompanying them. Brandy wondered if it was the alcohol he had clearly been drinking that had emboldened him to do so, or if he was the sort of man who didn’t shy from charging into distasteful situations despite being a billionaire.

  “You’re in a good mood,” she said.

  “I’m exploring a secret passage with a beautiful woman,” he returned. “What isn’t there to feel good about?”

  “It could be booby-trapped,” she suggested, trying not to dwell on the way her cheeks warmed at being called beautiful.

  “Then I’ll go first.”

  “We’ll go together,” she insisted. “The same way we have been. I’ll take my turn catching cobwebs in the face, same as you.”

  But it turned out there were no more cobwebs, because they had reached the end of the passage. Dead end, Brandy thought, but that didn’t seem about to deter her adventure partner. Max braced his shoulder against the wall, and she joined him. To her surprise, it started to give almost at once—the wall was really a stone door.

  The door eased open, and they were let back outside. Brandy turned her head this way and that, nearly kno
cking it against Max in her eagerness to drink the view. Ivy climbed the wall, and the plants seemed to have gone untended for years, if not decades. She called up a mental picture of the grounds and tried to deduce where they were.

  “Brandy,” Max said. “This way.” She didn’t protest when he took her hand and began to tow her down an overgrown path. Really, it was their only option going forward, unless they wanted to head back the way they had come… and there was no way Brandy was ready to retreat just yet.

  "I feel like I should mention that not all English libraries are like this," Max said eventually as they fought through the overgrowth. She laughed and nearly swallowed a mouthful of leaves for her amusement. "Most of them are boring."

  "They aren't boring if you open a book."

  "I open plenty of books," he replied.

  "Of course you do. I saw you open one the other morning by accident before you had your first cup of coffee." She smiled at the recollection. "I'm pretty sure you thought it was your laptop. You should have seen the look on your face."

  "Do you make a habit out of watching me?" Max asked, and she thought she heard curiosity in his tone. "And besides, that was also before I had put my contacts in. That coffee table book looked nearly identical to it."

  "So you admit that it was a dummy move."

  "Only if you admit you're finding comedy at the expense of a blind man—“

  Max’s words cut off as they were greeted with a great green door at the end of the path. They paused, only for a moment; then, together, they tried the door. It swung open on rusted, creaking hinges, admitting them to a vast indoor garden. A solarium, Brandy thought in awe. A secret solarium.

  "Why don't you just get laser surgery?" she whispered.

  "We find a secret garden on my property, and that's the first question you think to ask?"

  "My property," she corrected as they walked forward. No way she was giving even an inch when he tried to slip comments like that into casual conversation.