LITMIR.BIZ

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medical expenses. And I’ll employ a private nurse to help until she’s back on her feet. Longer, if she’ll allow it.” He smiled, assured his offer was too good to refuse. “You know she’ll accept. She knows I can afford it and she always had a soft spot for me.”

      “Why would you do that?”

      He shrugged and took her hand, drawing her still closer, pressing his advantage. “Travis invited me here tonight to make me an offer. I want to extend the offer to include you. And your Gran.”

      Lily narrowed her eyes. “I thought you’d both sworn never to lay eyes on the other again.” In fact, she’d been astonished when Travis’s secretary had rung to follow up on Lily’s RSVP tonight, and had revealed that Damon was expected. But she’d immediately seen her chance to speak with him—Damon had been out of the country and, unsure of when he’d jet off again, she’d grabbed the first opportunity to see him she could.

      But she had to stay on guard. Game playing came as naturally to the Blakelys as making money. “Why would Travis come to you now and make an offer?”

      “Been keeping up on the family goings-on, Lily?” His thumb ran up and down on the wrist he held. “Perhaps you still have my best interests at heart.”

      Lily blew out a dismissive breath and withdrew her hand. Her stomach churned. How much more of this game could she take? “Damon, for pity’s sake, cut the theatrics and answer my question.”

      He smiled—the slow smile of a panther assured of catching its prey. Though, just who he thought his prey was this time—her or Travis—she wasn’t certain.

      “Travis received some tragic news from his doctor today.” Damon didn’t even try to pretend that any news that was tragic for Travis would adversely affect him. There had been no love lost between the two long before she’d met either of them.

      She knew Travis had raised Damon with more than an iron rod—he’d also used emotional abuse and deliberate neglect as tools to rear his older brother’s son. Damon had never wanted to talk much about it, but it’d been easy enough to put two and two together—and the answer had broken her heart. Perhaps she’d given Damon one chance too many when they’d been together, knowing how he’d never really escaped the torment of his childhood. But she couldn’t go on giving him chances now. Things had changed.

      One thing she knew, Damon would never forgive Travis. What surprised her was that they’d lasted so long without either one destroying the line of inheritance.

      She tried to gauge Damon’s feelings from his expression but failed. “If he’s talking to you again, the news is obviously something that’s made him confront his mortality.”

      Damon nodded. “Despite retaining the services of the best cardiovascular surgeon in the country, last month’s operation to repair his heart was unsuccessful. Test results that came in today confirmed it. And he’s apparently not a good candidate for a heart transplant—lack of donors, his age and the mistreatment he’s given the rest of his body have seen to that. He pressed them for a prognosis. They’ve given him twelve months to live.”

      Despite Travis’s mistreatment of Damon as a child, she couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy.

      And sympathy for Damon, faced with losing the only family he had left, albeit an estranged and loathed family member. Impulsively she reached out and laid her hand on his forearm, stroking the material covering his golden-brown skin.

      “Damon, I’m sorry.”

      He made a dismissive sound and clamped down on her hand with his free one—not allowing her sympathy, but not permitting her to break the contact, either. “Actually, there’s good news come from this. He’s prepared to revise his will.”

      Lily blinked several times. “He’ll give you your father’s company back?” Was that why Damon was at this party tonight?

      A glint appeared in his eye. “That was my price.”

      She hesitated, holding off congratulating him on achieving his longtime ambition until she’d heard the cost.

      “It seems Travis has become sentimental. He wants to leave a legacy to his family.” Damon’s scornful smile clearly showed his opinion of his uncle’s change of heart.

      Lily frowned in confusion. “He’s leaving you everything?”

      “No, he’s still determined I’ll never touch a penny of his money. But he offered to leave his entire portfolio of assets and cash to my child. He said my child will be rich.” Damon’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “He failed to take into account that any child of mine would be rich without his generous offer.” He moved away, restless, tension radiating from him in waves she could almost feel, but the emotion was tightly leashed.

      Any child of his? He was seriously thinking about children? She’d hoped that, despite his incredibly busy life, he’d want to play some role in their baby’s upbringing—though not a role that could allow him to repeat the cycle of the Blakely’s cold, emotionally harsh parenting style. Perhaps something more like a big brother. She’d assumed he wouldn’t want more than that—he’d told her more than once he didn’t want children.

      He stopped before a portrait of a Victorian woman surrounded by children dressed as small adults, gazing at the figures as if they held secret wisdom.

      “Your child?” Instinctively her hand went to her belly as she watched his broad, tense back. And then another thought struck—had she missed a vital piece of Damon’s history where he already had a child?

      He turned in a cold, almost casual way and faced her again, this time with several feet distance between them. “If I conceive a child before he dies.”

      Lily nodded, with a streak of intense, perverse joy that Damon had no other children before the one she carried.

      No. She gritted her teeth. She had to stop letting possessive thoughts like these sneak through her defenses. They were counterproductive to her goals. She needed to tell him her news, ask his cooperation and keep both her baby and heart protected in the process.

      Stray possessive thoughts could play no part in her future relationship with him. She needed her wits about her. She was prepared to provide for this baby if Damon rejected fatherhood or denied paternity; she earned a good wage as assistant curator at the gallery. But she’d hoped with all her heart he’d want to make sure his child had every advantage. It seemed from his comments he would.

      Rich was another story though. She didn’t want Damon’s fortune. The Blakely family was a stellar example of how excessive wealth corrupted morals.

      Her hand found the silver heart pendant at her throat. “What did you tell him?”

      He looked at her, down his long, proud nose. “I said no.”

      The vision of the two Blakely lions squaring off earlier in the night was strangely compelling. “So that’s when he offered you your father’s company?”

      “He dangled BlakeCorp as a bribe and then threw in a touch of blackmail. Told me he’d leave all his worldly goods to his cousin’s son, Mark, if I refused. And Mark would break it up and sell everything to the highest bidder—as long as that bidder wasn’t me, as per my dear uncle’s directions.”

      Lily had met Mark once at a family dinner. He had the Blakely ruthless, money-hungry gaze and it had chilled her from across the table. “So how will you produce this baby?”

      Curiosity made her ask. She knew she should tell him now about her pregnancy, but first she desperately wanted to know what plan he’d devised.

      “Ah, good question. And it’s not just any baby. He wants a legitimate heir.” Damon lifted a sardonic brow.

      She drew in one long breath. “You’ll marry?”

      “Which is where you come in.” Suddenly he was close again, so close she could feel the heat from

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