Emma Darcy - Ruthless Billionaire, Forbidden Baby

Tammy closed the door and leaned back against it, staying out of the firing line of the volatile aggression pouring from Fletcher as he stalked around, checking out her living space, even poking his head into her bedroom and bathroom.

‘This place is a shoebox, Tamalyn,’ he shot at her.

Her chin rose defensively. ‘I’ve managed here quite happily for the past seven years.’

‘It meets a single person’s needs. It will not do for you and the baby,’ he stated emphatically, his gazing dropping to her stomach again.

He scooped up her door key, and the handbag she had laid on the kitchenette counter when she’d grabbed for the telephone.

‘Let’s move,’ he said, with an air of unassailable decision, striding back to her and gathering her in to his side as he reopened the door.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked, alarm at being swept out of the security of her own home kicking her heart out of its numb state.

‘I’m taking you to what will be our place.’

Initially a French/English teacher, Emma Darcychanged careers to computer programming before the happy demands of marriage and motherhood. Very much a people person, and always interested in relationships, she finds the world of romance fiction a thrilling one, and the challenge of creating her own cast of characters very addictive.

Recent titles by the same author:

RUTHLESSLY BEDDED BY THE ITALIAN BILLIONAIRE

BOUGHT FOR REVENGE, BEDDED FOR PLEASURE

THE BILLIONAIRE’S CAPTIVE BRIDE

THE BILLIONAIRE’S SCANDALOUS MARRIAGE

BY

EMMA DARCY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

The First Wedding

‘I’M SORRY you’re going to be loaded with Fletch as your partner, Tammy, but we had to make him a groomsman. He is my brother and it was safer to include him in the wedding party than try seating him anywhere else at the reception. Being such an arrogant pig he’s bound to offend whatever guests shared his table. Stuck at the end of ours, he shouldn’t upset anyone, and since you’ll be at the other end, you won’t have to put up with much of him for long.’

Celine’s apologetic, semi-pleading speech was doing a rerun through Tammy Haynes’s mind as the limousine carrying the five bridesmaids set off for the church. Although they’d all been friends with Celine since the beginning of high school, none of them had ever met Fletcher Stanton. He’d always been referred to as ‘my brother, the brain,’ doing ‘his thing’ overseas, and largely absent from his younger sister’s life.

Having flown home to Sydney only yesterday, he’d begged off the wedding rehearsal, pleading jet lag, making Celine gnash her teeth over his lack of caring for her wish for everything to go perfectly on her big day. ‘No consideration. Thinks he can just waltz through anything and get it right,’ had been her vexed mutter. ‘He could have come a day earlier, but I bet he thought it was beneath his intelligence to rehearse anything.’

His formidable intelligence clearly did not win any brownie points from his sister, though it did have to make him a stand-out kind of guy, Tammy thought, her curiosity piqued despite Celine’s criticisms of her brother. There weren’t too many people in the world who’d achieved what Fletcher Stanton had.

Quite recently there’d been an article about him in Time Magazine , headlined Technological Wizard of the Year, detailing how remarkable he was. From an early age he’d been a superstar of mathematics, winning international competitions even before his teens, doing university maths when other boys his age were still finishing primary school, graduating from Sydney University with an honours science degree at sixteen, then being invited to do a Ph.D at Princeton in the USA, which he’d gained at the amazing age of twenty-one.

He’d walked straight out of academic life and become the driving force behind creating a highly advanced computer system that could track any form of transport anywhere in the world, and he and his team of colleagues were currently making billions of dollars out of it, selling it to governments and Internet companies. None of which changed Celine’s sour view of her brother.

‘He’s even more arrogant since he’s made all that obscene wealth,’ she had commented in her warning speech to Tammy. ‘Everyone kowtowing to him and a heap of gold-digging women feeding his ego to get what he can give them. Don’t let him turn your head with his billions, Tammy. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to live with him.’

The warning wasn’t needed. No way was Tammy going to get hooked into the life of a rich man. She’d seen her mother go down that track all her life, trading on her beauty to snag wealthy husbands who’d ditched her when the desire she’d stirred was replaced by desire for someone else who looked more attractive to them. There’d been no real love in any of those marriages, nor in the affairs that had failed to make it to a wedding. It sickened Tammy to see her mother growing more and more anxious about her looks, becoming a gym junkie to keep slim and fit and resorting to cosmetic surgery to maintain a youthful desirability, as though she wasn’t worth anything if she didn’t have that.

Being a rich man’s brief possession was certainly not on Tammy’s life agenda. If she ever did marry, it would be because she truly loved the man and he truly loved her back. Like Celine and Andrew. She decided to view Fletcher Stanton simply as a curiosity, letting any arrogance from him flow right past her, refusing to let anything spoil this special day—the first wedding of one of the gang of six from school.

They’d shared so much together, counting on each other to be there at times of stress, making the joy of any great occasions so much more fun. For Tammy, the bond of their friendship had made up for the emptiness of her home life, giving her teen years a sparkle and warmth that dispelled much of the loneliness of having no family, apart from a mother who preferred her daughter not to be hanging around her neck. Even though the six of them had taken different paths into their twenties, the friendship was still as strong as ever, and Tammy hoped it always would be.

Celine, of course, was in the following limousine with her parents, but the rest of them were here—Kirsty, Hannah, Lucy, Jennifer and herself, thrilled to be fulfilling the pact they’d made years ago, standing shoulder to shoulder as bridesmaids whenever one of them became a bride.

The girls were chatting excitedly and Tammy joined in the animated conversation, putting the problematic groomsman out of her mind. Hannah was thrilled with the copper streaks in her brown hair, done especially to match up with Lucy’s naturally auburn colour. Lined up at the altar there would be two blondes—Celine and Kirsty—two redheads, then two brunettes—Jennifer’s hair being dark brown and Tammy’s almost black. The dresses were lovely; soft, floaty organza with frills around the neckline and hem. Kirsty was in pink, Hannah in lemon, Lucy green, Jennifer blue, and Tammy mauve, all of which definitely created a romantic, rainbow bridal party.

Delighted with everything, they piled out of the limousine at the church, grinned at Celine as she emerged from her car, joked with her father who was beaming with pride in his daughter, ensured that their bride looked absolutely perfect: veil falling properly, bouquet held just right. Once in the foyer, they checked each other over before lining up for the procession down the aisle, determined on doing their friend proud on this, her day of days.

Tammy felt a flutter of nerves when the music started. She was leading off and was suddenly frightened of stepping out of beat.

‘Go!’ Jennifer hissed from behind her.

Everyone in the church had turned to look. She made her feet move, concentrating fiercely on how it had been done in rehearsal. Smile, she told herself, seeing the grin on Andrew’s face at the other end of the aisle—a happy man, waiting for his bride. Her gaze skated down the line of groomsmen beside him. The last one would be Celine’s brother, probably a nerdy-looking guy wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and with a caved-in chest and round shoulders from all that work at a computer.

Except he wasn’t one bit like that!

The jolt to her heart was so hard and unexpected, her forward progress almost faltered. Some magical automatic pilot kicked in and kept her going as a wild excitement erupted through her, scrambling her usually sensible mind and staging the dance of the bumble bees in her stomach. Fletcher Stanton was gorgeous. Drop-dead gorgeous. She completely forgot his much-vaunted brain. And his billions. On a purely physical level he was dreamboat material.

He had a hard, masculine, handsome face: strong nose, strong chin, strong cheekbones, straight black brows over thickly lashed dark chocolate eyes, a firmly carved mouth with very sensual lips, hair as black as her own, a cowlick at the side part making it dip attractively over his high, broad forehead. He was the tallest man in the line-up but there was nothing remotely weedy about his body. Every man looked good in a formal dress suit, but his perfectly proportioned physique filled it with superb class.

Her smile must have still been fixed on her face because he smiled at her, revealing a flash of straight white teeth. And was that a sparkle of interest in his eyes? Did he find her attractive? Was he pleased she was his partner for the wedding? Her mind was giddy with hopeful anticipation as she reached the end of the aisle and turned to take her place as the fifth bridesmaid at the side of the altar.

She was definitely looking her best today. Normally she paid very little attention to her appearance apart from being clean and neat, having determined not to let it be of any critical importance to her. Today was different because it was important to fit in with Celine’s vision for her wedding.

A beautician had been hired to do everyone’s makeup, and Tammy had hardly recognised her own rather ordinary face when she’d finished. Subtle highlighting had made her pansy-violet eyes appear more vivid. Different shades of blusher had lessened the roundness of her cheeks and given colour to her fair skin. Her mouth looked positively lush and dewy—temptingly kissable?—from expertly applied lipstick. As for her slightly tip-tilted nose which had caught the sun all her life, its sprinkle of freckles had been miraculously creamed into non-existence. On top of this, her long hair, usually straight, had been curled into a sexy cascade of loose ringlets by the stylist who’d done all their hair.

She actually felt pretty—a strangely new and pleasurable experience, which gave her some inkling of why her mother was obsessed with needing to feel beautiful. And this incredible rush of excitement at having a man as spectacularly handsome as Fletcher Stanton view her with interest…yes, she could see why it might be worth all the trouble. Though it was terribly superficial, she reminded herself, trying not to feel so…unhinged…by the prospect of having this connection with him.

In real terms it was an enforced connection—bridesmaid and groomsman. It wasn’t a matter of choice for Fletcher. With his looks and billions, he would have to be accustomed to really beautiful women vying for his attention. Pretty probably made their partnering for his sister’s wedding more acceptable than if he’d been loaded with someone he found totally unattractive. And she shouldn’t forget that Celine had called him an arrogant pig, undoubtedly with good reason.