Miranda Lee - Maddie's Love-Child

‘Well?’ Vaughan straightened to throw Maddie a questioning glance. ‘What’s so old-fashioned?’

‘Your wife thinks I should be married before I have a baby,’ came her dryly amused reply.

Vaughan looked more shocked than in the thirteen years she had known him. ‘Good God,’ he blurted out. ‘You’re pregnant?’

‘No, of course not, you silly man. But seeing your lovely baby girl has sunk a deep well into previously untapped maternal instinct. Yet when I expressed my wish to have a baby, your dear wife insisted I marry Spencer first.’

Vaughan grimaced. ‘Good God, not him. Find someone else, for pity’s sake. He might be a top solicitor, but he’s the most arrogant bastard I’ve ever met.’

‘See?’ Maddie pulled a face at Carolyn, who pulled another right back. Both women started to giggle and the baby to cry.

‘Here, give her to me,’ Vaughan suggested, scooping up his daughter and walking around the room with her, whereupon she immediately stopped crying. ‘Speaking of arrogant bastards—’ he directed the words at Maddie ‘—you’ll never guess who rang me this morning.’

‘If I’d never guess,’ Maddie countered, ‘then perhaps you should save me the trouble of trying and just tell me.’

‘Miles MacMillan,’ he announced. ‘You probably don’t remember him, either of you, but he was at Julian’s house-warming party round about this time last year. The night we got engaged, Carolyn. He’s British and was out here at the time to plan the opening of a Sydney branch of his family’s finance company. Julian was having dealings with him.

‘Anyway, apparently he’s come back for another six-month stint in Australia and wants to buy a weekender within easy commuting distance of Sydney. Since he’d already seen the South Coast area and liked it, he contacted Julian, who told him about that house I’d nearly finished building at Stanwell Park—the one where the owner went bankrupt, bringing things to a halt. He’s driving down to have a look at it this afternoon, and if he likes it, he’s going to buy it.’

‘I don’t remember him at all,’ Carolyn admitted. ‘There again ... I did have my mind on other things that night.’ And she winked at her husband.

‘Wicked woman,’ he rebuked, but softly, lovingly.

‘I remember him only too well,’ Maddie said sharply, and Carolyn and Vaughan’s heads whipped round to stare at her.

‘No, I did not seduce him,’ she added.

Though it wasn’t for want of trying....

‘But he’s not the sort of man one easily forgets,’ she went on. ‘If one’s eyes were not already full of stars, that is.’ Her droll tone belied the squirming in her stomach as her mind flashed back to that night.

Miles MacMillan....

Vaughan was right when he called him an arrogant bastard, though Maddie doubted he was a bastard in the literal sense of the word. Not like herself. Miles MacMillan was blue-blooded through and through. If asked, he could undeniably trace his British ancestry right back to the dim dark ages, and there would not be a single entry from the wrong side of the blanket.

None in writing, anyway.

He was upper class through and through. Upper class, upper crust and up himself!

That said, he was also the most maddeningly attractive man Maddie had ever seen, Tall, dark and handsome, with superb bone structure, a squared jawline with a Cary Grant dimple, steely grey eyes and a perversely sensual mouth totally at odds with his coolly controlled air of haughty superiority.

Maddie had found him downright irresistible from the moment she’d spotted him across Julian’s living room, standing all alone, dressed in an impossibly stuffy pin-striped suit, not a hair out of place on his dark, well-shaped head, his aristocratically chiselled nose high in the air.

When she’d swanned toward him in her semi-transparent black chiffon dress, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. Understandable, considering her seeming lack of underwear—the skin-coloured teddy she was wearing did give the illusion of nakedness underneath.

Maddie had foolishly believed he’d been hers for the taking that night, especially once she found out he wasn’t married.

How wrong she was!

Oh, yes, he’d been interested, in a sexual sense. She’d been too long on the end of male desire not to recognise the signs. But as much as he’d been aroused by her, he’d also been faintly repelled, she decided later, his ambivalence towards her making him run hot and cold all night. She wondered afterwards if he’d been unable to make up his mind whether to risk his reputation—or perhaps his soul?—by responding to such a shameless creature’s advances.

When she’d boldly asked him home for a nightcap, he’d stared at her as though she’d suggested something really depraved. He’d declined politely in a voice reminiscent of Queen Victoria’s we-are-not-amused remark, added a curt good-night, then decamped, leaving Maddie in a most unusual state of hurt, humiliation and anger.

Never before had a male prey of his ilk escaped once she set her sights on him. And never before had a man made her actually feel cheap.

But Miles MacMillan had. He’d made her feel lower than the lowest, vilest, slimiest reptile.

Unaccustomed as she was to rejection and humiliation, Maddie had taken some time to get over the incident. Now Miles MacMillan was coming back into her line of fire, and she didn’t know if she was excited by that prospect or terrified of it.

Both, she suspected.

‘Does Mr. MacMillan know about my business association with you, Vaughan?’ she asked archly. ‘Does he realise that if he engages your services, he also gets the services of Miss Madeline Powers, interior designer extraordinaire?’

She could not quite recall what she had told their British visitor about herself that night. His cryptic responses had rattled her somewhat. But she rarely prattled on about herself on first meeting with a member of the opposite sex, concentrating on him instead. Presumably he knew nothing about her job, not to mention her passion for painting nude portraits. She usually didn’t bring that up till the second meeting.

‘I haven’t mentioned you to him yet,’ Vaughan admitted. ‘But I doubt there’ll be any problem. Wealthy men don’t like doing their own decorating, unless they have some female in tow who needs to be pleased. Which there isn’t. No wife, fiancée or live-in girlfriend with him. I asked.’

‘So our esteemed Mr. MacMillan is still unattached,’ Maddie drawled. ‘How interesting.’

Carolyn groaned. ‘She’s off on the prowl again, Vaughan. Do you think you should warn this poor Miles person?’

Vaughan laughed. ‘The not-so-poor Miles is well able to take care of himself. If Maddie is silly enough to set her cap at his head, then she’s the one who needs warning. Men like Miles don’t lose their heads to any woman. They don’t have it in them. They have ice in their veins instead of blood, and computer chips where their hearts should be.’

Carolyn shuddered. ‘I don’t know what you see in men like that, Maddie.’

‘Neither do I,’ she returned airily. ‘But it’s been the same with me as long as I can remember. Still, it’s not as though I want to marry any of them. It’s strictly on a love ’em and leave ‘em basis.’

‘Sure is. Once they fall in love with you, you leave them,’ Carolyn muttered. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of soliciting this Miles person to be the father of the baby you’ve decided you want all of a sudden.’

Surprise sent Maddie’s black eyes rounding. The thought had never crossed her mind. But now that Carolyn had mentioned it ...

Why, Miles MacMillan would be the perfect candidate! Not only did he have the.brains, beauty and breeding she was looking for, but he was only staying in the country six months.

No doubt after his exile in the colonies was over, he would wing his way back to merry England, where he would eventually marry some peaches-and-cream-complexioned lady, raise an heir or two in the image of his own stuffy self and end up in . Who’s Who and the House of Lords!

Or was it Commons? No, no, she was the one who was common. Spencer had said so the other night, and Spencer would know, the hypocritical creep!

‘Vaughan, say something to stop her,’ Carolyn said in a panicky voice. ‘I can see it written all over her face. She’s going to seduce that man. I just know she is!’

‘What Maddie does in her private life is her business,’ Vaughan pronounced stolidly. ‘Besides, you don’t honestly think she’d take any notice of me if I tried to stop her, do you?’

Carolyn sighed. ‘I suppose not.’

Maddie didn’t defend herself, because Vaughan was right. There wasn’t a man alive who could stop her from doing what she wanted to do. Men, she’d decided from a very early age, would never play a controlling role in her life. Never!

But seducing Miles MacMillan was more a fantasy at that moment than a reality. Frankly, as perfect a sperm donor as the man might be, Maddie wasn’t about to put herself in a position to be humiliated yet again. Rejection was no good for the soul, or her self-esteem.

‘Don’t worry your pretty little head, Carolyn, love,’ she said. ‘I do not have my sights set on Miles MacMillan. He didn’t want to have anything to do with me last time we met, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him now, except in a business sense. So when is his lordship due, Vaughan? Is he coming to the office or are you meeting him on site?’

‘He’s coming to the office.’

‘What time?’

‘Around two.’

‘Bring him along to meet me then. Best we make sure he’s agreeable for me to do his decorating right from the start.’

‘You think he might object?’

Maddie shrugged. ‘It’s on the cards.’

‘He damned well wouldn’t want to. You’re the best interior decorator for miles. I’ve got no intention of having my perfectly splendid design ruined by a ghastly decor. I’ll make it abundantly clear when he arrives that if he wants one of my houses, he gets you, too!’

Maddie smiled and batted her eyelashes at him. ‘My champion.’

‘I’m not your champion, and you know it. I’m selfish to the core where my work is concerned. Object to you, indeed,’ he scorned. ‘He won’t object when I’m through with him, believe me!’

CHAPTER TWO

MILES didn’t know what to make of the situation or this possible complication. It had never occurred to him that Maddie might be having a thing with her business colleague. The investigator hadn’t brought up any such possibility, but how else could one explain Slater’s overly protective attitude towards her?

He stared at the man as he pointed out for a second time that he and Miss Powers were an inseparable team.

‘You buy a Vaughan Slater home, then it comes decorated by my partner. Take it or leave it!’

The aggressive tone suggested he feared Miles might not take it, which was ironic. Little did he know the only reason Miles was buying one of his — damned homes was that Maddie came with it.

Not that the man wasn’t a good architect. He was, if a little unconventional. Miles had thought Julian’s home quite incredible when he’d seen it last year. Made of steel and concrete and glass, it clung to a mountainside overlooking Wollongong, giving -it a panoramic view of the city below and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Miles knew he wouldn’t suffer—either financially or comfort-wise—from buying a Vaughan Slater home.

‘That’s fine by me.’ It was a huge understatement, delivered quite coolly while he sized up this highly unexpected competition.