The abuse she’d suffered—and yes, it was abuse—incensed him. On top of that, he was disturbed to realize how little experience she really had with relationships. She needed more than respect. She needed to be handled with tenderness.
He didn’t have a capacity for that. Inadequacy chipped at him as he recognized how he was likely to disappoint her. In his mind, the baby had been the one who needed his protection. Fliss would provide the love their child needed, and Saint would try not to be the same sort of cold bastard his own father had been. Somehow, they would rear a contributing member of society.
Fliss was more vulnerable than he’d realized, though. It was hitting him that she would need more from him than orgasms and an introduction to some top designers. She would need things he might not have within him to give.
Maybe he shouldn’t marry her. He might’ve regarded love as a drug that wore off and left you with a horrific hangover, but she seemed to believe in it. She’d thought his parents should have divorced so they could find it.
That meant that at some point, she might expect him to let her go so she could marry someone else who—
The clench of rejection was so strong inside him, he twitched, causing her to drew a small, startled breath.
“It’s okay. Go back to sleep,” he whispered, securing her closer while pressing a kiss to the point of her shoulder.
She sighed and relaxed, but he lay awake a little longer, pondering that soar of feral possessiveness in him. Why? It wasn’t about the baby. It wasn’t even about sex.
Although sex with her was next level. And bareback sex? He would revel in that as much as she was up for. Still, as powerful as his orgasms were, that wasn’t the only reason he was obsessed with her. He’d been preoccupied with her from the time he’d left her in London three months ago, thinking about her daily. He had read the gossip stories to know where she had turned up—needing to know she was alive at least. He had wanted to know if she was reading her cards and communing with her grandmother.
He had wanted to know how much of what she’d shown him of herself was real.
That was an uneasy admission. Especially because she was literally in his arms, in his bed, and he was so sexually gratified he ought to be catatonic, but there was a nagging sense of tenuousness keeping him awake.
Every relationship ran its course, whether it was a friendship or someone he hired or a liaison with a woman. He was always aware the association would end, even in the earliest stages of meeting someone new. He could see it as clearly as he saw the person he was meeting.
With Fliss, he hadn’t seen the end. He hadn’t had time in that initial flurry of lovemaking. Then he’d tried to force the ending, which had sat crooked inside him until he’d seen her again. He still couldn’t see the day when they would part for good.
Because of the baby, obviously. Their child would keep her in his life forever, no matter what happened between them.
That was a strange, new concept. The only lifetime relationships he had were with his parents, and those were thorny as hell.
Was that why he always foresaw an end point? Because he liked walking away from people when things got difficult?
It was better than the alternative—sticking it out to stick it to the other person. Wasn’t it?
Saint was still thinking about that the following day, when he left Fliss in Willow’s capable hands at his New York penthouse and entered the boardroom. He was using a tablet to bring the remote board members into the meeting when his father arrived.
“You’re on time at least,” Ted Montgomery muttered. “Why are you doing that? Where’s your assistant?”
“Good God, Dad. If I’m not capable of connecting a video chat, I have no business working here, do I?” He said into the microphone, “Can everyone hear me? Shall I start the presentation?”
“We’ve all seen the slides,” his father dismissed. “I’m more interested in why you hared off to London. It wasn’t in your schedule two days ago.”
“I was rearranging some things so we can have dinner with Mother tonight.”
“We?”
“It’s been added to your calendar.”
His father’s cheek ticked. “What does she want?”
“I called it. One way or another, we’ll need to debrief on what happens today.” Saint was being deliberately cryptic as he held his father’s challenging gaze.
On their way out of London, Saint had had a private nurse take samples for a lab. The paternity results ought to be available by the time he sat down with his parents tonight. Before he shared that news, he wanted to know where he stood at Grayscale.
“Shall we get to the vote?” he asked.
His father made an impatient noise and sat, then flicked his hand at the CFO to speak.
“Order champagne tonight,” the CFO said with her warmest smile. “We wouldn’t have asked you to the meeting if we weren’t prepared to back you. We’re particularly pleased to see how you have shifted the conversation around your personal life. This gives us the confidence that when the time comes, you’ll lead Grayscale well into the future.” She cut a careful glance toward Ted. “Until that time, we see the value in this new direction you’re taking. I move that we support Saint’s proposal.”
“Second,” someone murmured.
The vote was carried and the approval minuted.
“Excellent. No backsies, right?” Saint directed that to his father.
“I’ll have Xanthe draft a press release,” the CFO assured him. “It will go out this afternoon.”
“Thank you.” Satisfaction and a rush of pure adrenaline for the challenge washed through him. Saint had done so much preliminary work in anticipation of this, he only needed to open the gates and let the horses loose.
His usual single-mindedness was fractured, though. Weirdly, his first instinct was to call Fliss and tell her I did it, even though he’d only given her the bare bones of what he’d hoped to accomplish this morning. He had never been one to brag, having learned as a child that there was no point. His father took an attitude that excellence was the bare minimum. He had never been proud of anything his son had done.
Ted would be livid tonight, which was why Saint deliberately kept any mention of Fliss and her new place in his life to himself. It was dirty pool, but once the board’s support of his project was publicized, it would be a lot harder for them to reverse course.
It would be hard for his father to reverse course once he learned about the baby, but even if it all went to hell in a handbasket...
Saint would hate that. He really would, but Fliss and the baby were his priority now—which was such a lurching departure from his usual way of thinking, he didn’t know how to feel about it.
He shook hands with each of the board members, accepting their congratulations as he left them to finish their quarterly meeting.