at least, although not why. In fact he knew very little about her past. Nothing else had mattered at first because he’d seen the real Lisa, had loved the real Lisa—at least physically.
Then he’d broken her heart because his past meant he couldn’t open his heart to hers. He couldn’t let himself love her. It was an emotion he wasn’t capable of. His father’s sudden abandonment had seen to that, not that he’d been around much before he’d walked out for good. Max had never known where he went for weeks at a time, but now, finally, he did. He’d gone to his other family, to his legitimate son and legal wife—leaving his mistress and his illegitimate son behind.
A stab of hurt pierced into him. He had been nothing more than a bad secret to be swept out of sight. A child to be avoided, forgotten, not loved and finally knowing why only intensified the pain. The shadows cast by his past reached far into the future, destroying everything. If he hadn’t been able to love Lisa, how could he love his child?
Hell, he really didn’t need this guilt now. Not on top of recent revelations and now today’s headlines, which played to the one thing he hated—being illegitimate. The bastard child of the man who’d broken his mother’s heart and wrecked their lives without so much as an apology and definitely never an explanation. He’d walked out one night and never come back. Max had tried to console his mother, but, at eight, that had been a tall order and yet another failure as far as he was concerned.
Now he had to face that man’s legitimate son. The son he must have really wanted. His true heir. His half-brother, Raul, had only said that as part of his will his father had wanted him found and brought into the family business. So what was this all about? His father’s pathetic attempts to make peace?
He moved away from Lisa and all the complications, wanting to get this meeting under way. He paused outside the restaurant, took a deep breath and then opened the doors and walked in. It was empty of anyone except a couple who were locked in a heated debate. They were lovers, of that there wasn’t any doubt, lovers who hated and loved with equal passion. Neither was he in any doubt that he was looking at his brother.
For a moment Max waivered. If he couldn’t do emotions, could he be any kind of brother? Savagely he pushed the thought aside. He’d do this to show his father he wasn’t completely cast from the same mould as him.
* * *
Lisa’s nerves were so taut she could hardly sit still, the events of the day, which had unfolded at breakneck speed, only adding to her nausea. Raised voices had come from the room and the hasty retreat of another woman had made her more anxious. It had all gone quiet now. Too quiet.
‘How did it go?’ She jumped up from her chair as Max pushed open the door. From the look on his face she already knew the answer to that. She also had so many more questions to ask, not least who was the woman who’d fled the room, almost in tears. What had happened in there?
‘As well as such a meeting can go.’ He fired the words back at her, his jaw firm and hard, and a tremor of fear slithered down her spine.
‘That’s it?’ Lisa could see the defensive wall being built around him. He was shutting her out, keeping her away from him, from his emotions, just as he always did. Her heart softened. She’d picked the wrong day to tell Max he was going to be a father.
‘For now, yes,’ he said, but from the frown on his face, the tight set of his jaw, she knew things were far from right.
‘Will you see him again?’
Finally, Max looked at her properly, as if he’d buried all the hurt that must have come from meeting a brother he’d never met. ‘I will, yes. We have agreed not to let the past cloud the future. In light of the press headlines we will present a united front, but now it’s over I can deal with other problems.’
That fear turned to ice, draining any warmth from her body. Was she just another problem to be briefly addressed then pushed aside to be forgotten? ‘What other problems?’
‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Lisa. You know as well as I do that your news this morning is a problem.’
Was he blaming her? The accusation in his dark eyes and laced into every word certainly made it feel like that. Anger fired through her, its heat chasing away the chill of fear. ‘One you no longer need to worry about.’ Sickness filled her stomach, but she remained strong as she turned to walk away from him, in disbelief as he said nothing to stop her. He thought that little of her and the baby he was letting her simply walk away. She bit down the cocktail of anger and disappointment and continued walking, each step almost killing her.
Max caught up with her and took hold of her arm, bringing her to an abrupt stop. ‘Where the hell are you going?’
She whirled round to face him, freeing herself from his grasp. ‘As far away from you as possible.’
He looked at her, a frown of worry creasing his brow. ‘That will not be possible. You are coming home with me.’
Lisa looked at him with total shock. ‘I am not going home with you.’
‘We agreed.’ His lips pressed into a firm line, but she was too angry, too irrational to care what he thought.
‘You agreed and you can’t make me.’ She knew she sounded emotionally unstable, but she couldn’t help it, not when her body was full of pregnancy hormones, which flung her from highs to lows in just a few seconds. Or was that Max? Was he the one turning everything on its head?
‘You are coming home with me. You are my wife.’ The feral growl of his voice served only to spike her mutinous anger even higher.
‘Only when it suits you, it seems.’
‘Don’t challenge me now, Lisa. You have just told me you are expecting my child. And that changes everything. We are married and will remain married—living under the same roof.’
Like an angry lion he stood and almost snarled out his demands and instantly she became the defensive woman she’d grown up to be. The need to fight her corner, to stand up for herself and be heard, dominated all her thoughts and she lashed out verbally.
‘You might have watched your father walk away but I will not allow that to happen to my child, not when I know what it’s like to be despised by my own father and then stepfathers.’ She hadn’t meant to let the past creep out, but as he took a step toward her, towering over her, she stood steadfast, refusing to be dominated. Ever. Not by anyone, least of all the man she’d married.
‘I’m not the only one with a past to hide, or hide behind, am I, Lisa?’
‘No, you’re not,’ she raged against him and the past she’d been trying to escape all her life. She’d thought marrying Max had finally meant that she could put all that behind her, that she could finally settle and make a home, but how wrong she’d been. The situation she had been plunged into meant she had to face that head-on. ‘But I’m not the one still running.’
The barb, laced with recrimination, hit its mark. His eyes glittered with anger but she matched his with her own. Being brought up on the wrong side of town had made her always ready to leap to her defence with anger. She didn’t need him—or any man. She was more than able to look after herself and now she would do the same for her baby, just as her mother had had to do. But with one difference. She would not be inflicting a constant stream of father figures on her son or daughter. She’d rather do this alone than risk that.
‘You
