Billionaire's Pursuit of Love: Destiny Romance Read online

  ‘I have to see him in less than an hour.’ She leant her head against the cool glass of the telephone box.

  ‘Cancel. This man is your son’s father. He has every right to take him any time he wants and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. He’s the father. While you’re in England, don’t meet with this man again.’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘If you want to be in the driver’s seat in this custody battle, you need to get back to Brunei. Especially as you’ve said he’s extremely wealthy and you’re not. What you’re not taking into account is how he will react. Missing ten years of his son’s life could make him angry. How well do you know this man?’

  The lawyer waited for an answer. Shame prevented her from supplying him with one.

  ‘Your son’s father could keep you in this country almost indefinitely,’ he said. ‘A court could order you to surrender your passports and you’ll be trapped in England for months, if not years.’

  A muffled voice sounded in the background on the other end of the line.

  ‘Sorry, Ms Walker, I have to go,’ he said. ‘My next case is here. Good luck. I don’t want to see your name plastered all over the papers.’

  Sarah hung up the phone and left the traditional red English phone box. The sweet warmth from the glorious summer’s evening did nothing to melt the icy fear that had taken up residence in her heart. She’d have to lie by omission through the whole of dinner. She couldn’t leave without that ten thousand dollars.

  She caught the tube to Marble Arch and walked down Park Lane to The Dorchester. She slowed when the hotel came within sight. A smartly dressed doorman stood in front of the revolving doors. Her palms prickled with moisture and she smoothed them down her simple black shift dress. She’d picked up the outfit from a Sydney charity store during her last fundraising visit to Australia. It might be second-hand but it was designer and fitted her just right. She hoped she wouldn’t stand out in all the wrong ways amid the luxury.

  She paused and closed her eyes for a moment.

  You can do this.

  She took a deep breath, and walked quickly to the hotel entrance.

  ‘Welcome to The Dorchester,’ the doorman said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She walked into intimidating extravagance. All shining brass, glass and marble. She found her way to the restaurant.

  ‘Good evening.’ The maître d’ greeted her with eyes that judged every book by its cover.

  She swallowed. You don’t belong here. You don’t belong. You don’t belong.

  ‘Do you have a booking?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah.’ She exhaled slowly to soothe nerves. ‘Yes . . .’ She looked beyond the maître d’ into the restaurant. Everything she saw confirmed her fears. She felt like Cinderella before the fairy godmother’s magic. No jewels. No designer heels. No silky-smooth hair or manicured nails.

  ‘Sarah.’

  She whirled in the direction of the familiar voice. Blake walked towards her, looking magnificent in casual trousers teamed with a simple white polo shirt and navy sports jacket. An unexpected record of relief played on her emotional jukebox.

  ‘Nice of you to show,’ he drawled.

  And just like that they were back to war. She tried to turn away, but before she knew it he was holding her shoulders and kissing her on both cheeks. His touch was more like ownership than affection, but still warmth glowed on her skin where his lips had been. Her mind teetered on a cliff-edge of confusion. But the lawyer’s words hammered through her mind; he could take her son.

  ‘Mr Huntington-Fiennes.’ The maître d’s expression subtly said is she really with you? ‘Ah . . . this way please.’ His smooth professionalism was restored quickly.

  Blake placed his hand on Sarah’s back and guided her through the tables. Sarah noticed several elegantly attired people following their progress towards a wall of curved shimmering lights.

  ‘People are staring at you,’ she whispered.

  ‘No, they’re staring at you. Do you have any idea how stunning you look?’ Blake said.

  She nearly tripped at the shock of the sweet words. What was he up to?

  The maître d’ drew aside a curtain of lights and Sarah walked into wonderland. A sumptuously laid table stood ringed by a luminescent oval curtain, cocooned away from the other diners. Like being surrounded by a waterfall of diamonds and ice. Blake waved away the maître d’ and held out her seat.

  ‘What is this?’ Sarah asked, settling into the comfortable chair.

  ‘Table Lumière,’ Blake said. ‘We’re surrounded by a wall of four thousand five-hundred fibre optics. We can see out but they,’ he gestured to the diners beyond the wall of light, ‘can’t see us. Tonight, I thought privacy was paramount.’

  He took his seat across from her and gifted her with a killer smile. Her resolve melted like steel in a mega-watt furnace. She swallowed and focused on the overwhelming opulence. The hand-cut crystal wine glasses, the exquisitely patterned bone china, the perfectly arranged vase of white roses and the man who could give so much and then snatch it all away.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Blake said, with an expression as trustworthy as his intentions.

  ‘I didn’t have a choice,’ she replied, running her finger down her highly polished knife. ‘Like getting your own way, don’t you?’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  The waiter arrived with the menu and she took time perusing it. The prices! Her dinner alone could cover the cost of her meals at home for a month.

  ‘Any chance we could have fish and chips in the park and you add the cost of this dinner to the cheque?’ she asked.

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘So.’ She snapped the menu shut and placed it on the table. ‘The Sanctuary’s funding . . . how do I —’

  ‘No,’ he said, holding up both hands. ‘I ban that topic of conversation.’

  She stared at him. ‘What? Sorry, the only reason I agreed to come to dinner was to discuss the Sanctuary’s funding.’

  ‘I’ll fine you one thousand pounds every time you mention it.’ He didn’t even bother to look at her but scanned the drinks menu.

  If only he’d look up, she was sure her glare was wild enough to kill. Could the man be any more arrogant? Had he always been this way? Back then?

  The waiter arrived to take their drinks order. Without deference to her, Blake ordered a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Celebrating something?’ she asked, layering on some heavy-lacquered sarcasm.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about me over the years.’

  She’d done more than think about him. She’d tried everything she could to find him. For years she’d held onto the hope that he’d come back. He never did.

  ‘Nope and I’m glad.’ She sat back, trying to look as though she meant it. ‘Imagine wasting my emotional energy on a man who cares so little for the environment.’ This would be the best way to survive the evening. Angsty sparring about global issues.

  ‘I’m confused,’ he said, pinning her with his eyes. ‘You’re the one who lied and I’m the one being roasted.’

  Her heart stilled. ‘Lied?’ Had he found out? ‘What lie?’

  ‘You promised you’d be in touch.’

  Her shoulders relaxed. She needed to get a grip.

  ‘And how do you propose I’d have done that exactly? Telepathy?’ she asked, with hard-worn bitterness. ‘You used me and then you disappeared.’ She wasn’t going to tell him how desperately she’d tried to find him. Begging every employee at his hotel for something. A name. A telephone number. An address. Something. Anything. But when you only have a first name and a six-foot brick wall of privacy policies, all the begging in the world still comes to nothing.

  ‘What’re you talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘You vanished in the middle of the night. It’s not like you were trying to bash down my door.’

  ‘I didn’t know how to find you.’ He reached across the table a
nd took her hand. She tried to pull away. He held it more tightly. ‘I bet you still don’t have a mobile phone. I left a letter for you at your hotel and at mine. You didn’t get either?’

  Unease inched its way up her spine. Her hotel? Ah, that lie. The heady scent of the roses turned sour.

  ‘No.’ She slid her hand from his and gulped down some champagne. ‘How convenient, two letters and I didn’t receive either.’

  ‘That’s not the only interesting aspect of this saga,’ he said, topping up her glass. ‘As soon as I landed back in England, I called your hotel.’ He placed the bottle back in the silver ice bucket. ‘They had no record of you.’

  Breathing got a little harder. She played with the stem of her champagne flute. But there was no way she was going to allow this to be her fault. He was the Houdini who’d left without so much as a thanks-for-the-good-time-baby.

  ‘I checked at your hotel after you didn’t meet me,’ she threw back at him. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I can’t explain that,’ he said simply. ‘But perhaps you can clarify why when I called the newspaper you said you worked for, it too had no record of you.’

  ‘You called the Brunei Gazette?’ Her heart beat harder than a death-metal drummer. She blinked stupidly at him. He’d tried to find her? She averted her gaze to the glowing curtain. Could that really be true?

  ‘Yes, I called the Gazette,’ he continued. ‘No one by the name of Sarah Walker worked there.’ His statement held an edge, sharp and accusing.

  ‘Ah, that. Well, that’s a long story.’

  ‘I’ve got all night.’

  The waiter arrived, outlined the evening’s specials and took their order. It gave her a few minutes to regroup. As soon as the waiter slipped through the curtain of light, she moved the conversation onto safer ground.

  ‘The Sanctuary has a government inspection in eight weeks. We need to raise one hundred thousand pounds to make urgent repairs or we’ll be closed down.’ The words tasted salty and desperate. She hated begging this man. But beggars, choosers and all that. ‘The Sanctuary supports the surrounding community; without us, the local economy will be devastated.’ Her voice wobbled a fraction towards the end of her little speech.

  ‘It’s now nine thousand,’ Blake said.

  She frowned. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You just cost yourself one thousand pounds.’

  ‘You can’t —’

  ‘I did warn you.’ He took a sip of his drink. The crystal sparkled a rainbow, the brilliant dancing colours a disdainful contrast to her situation.

  She dropped clenched fists on the starched linen cloth and shifted forward in her seat. ‘Look, there’s evidence orangutans once lived in the mountains of Brunei. Now it’s estimated there are as few as forty-five thousand individuals on the entire island of Borneo.’

  ‘Eight thousand. I’d quit while you’re ahead.’

  Sarah flung her napkin on the table and stood. ‘This is ludicrous.’ She was banging her head against a thick wall of arrogance.

  ‘If you leave, the Sanctuary will get nothing. Sit down and let’s have dinner.’

  Pure-grade frustration pumped from her heart. She placed both palms on the table and bent over him. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly the most entertaining date I’ve been on for a while.’ He stood and walked slowly around the table. She couldn’t help noticing every smooth movement of his annoyingly sexy body. He held out her chair. ‘Please.’

  She needed to pull it together. She needed to use this opportunity strategically. She dropped into her seat.

  ‘This is not a date.’ She articulated every syllable to ensure the message made it past his huge ego.

  ‘Call it whatever you like.’ He sat. ‘I’m still enjoying it.’

  She didn’t answer and looked deliberately around the room, anywhere but at his handsome, smug face. He couldn’t force her to talk. In fact, the less she talked, the less chance she’d have of slipping up and hurling herself into a legal battlefield.

  ‘When do you go back to Brunei?’ he asked.

  She put her elbows on the table, rested her chin on her hands and stared off into space. She felt his eyes drinking her in. She drummed her fingers on her cheeks to hammer home that all his money, all his good looks, all his flash and show made absolutely no impact. Zero.

  ‘You’re as beautiful as I remember,’ he said, his tone wistful and warm.

  Her eyes committed an unforgivable sin and raced to find his. His striking blue eyes locked on hers, sucking her in with their seductive promise. But she wasn’t a naïve nineteen-year-old any more. She fixed her attention on a point across the room. The seconds ticked by.

  ‘New rule,’ he said. ‘Every minute you don’t talk, another thousand’s gone.’

  She flopped back in her chair and studied him. ‘Were you this annoying back then?’

  ‘Possibly, but you found it endearing.’

  For a moment she was back in that little restaurant they’d discovered not far from his hotel. A world away from the marble monolith where he’d been staying. A single candle had lit their table. They’d feasted on kuih melayu. The memory of sharing those sweet pancakes with the man who loved her so passionately was a permanent imprint on her mind and body. She ran her fingertips across her lips.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she whispered. Why are you back in my life? It had taken years to scrub him from her heart and she knew she’d never really succeeded. ‘Why do you want to have dinner at all?’

  ‘I need to understand why you didn’t call me,’ he said, his eyes catching the lights. ‘I thought we had something.’ Blake’s expression looked . . . vulnerable?

  God help her. She couldn’t hear this, not now. ‘I didn’t know your last name, remember,’ she flung at him. ‘Anyway, you were the one who left. So, it was a fling, pure and simple.’ She imbued each word with dismissive conviction.

  ‘Is that all it was for you?’ His quiet, questioning tone stripped away her emotional armour, sending a lethal missile straight to her heart. She gripped her champagne glass as though the slight flute could save her from the aching confession pushing to the surface.

  ‘It wasn’t for you?’ She’d meant to toss the words. Sling them. Fire, shoot, hurl them, but they came out hopelessly wanting and beseeching.

  ‘Sarah . . .’ He gently stroked his fingers down the back of her hand. Her lungs held her breath prisoner. Time froze. His eyes searched and probed, compelling her to reveal the truth. But the lawyer’s words kept her secret so deeply buried that digging it out would require a bobcat.

  The shimmering veil parted, two waiters entered and the world crashed in.

  ‘Sauté of lobster,’ the waiter announced with a well-trained flourish. He lay down the gastronomic delight. Blake received his roasted duck foie gras. The moment dissipated; became lost in time like their original relationship.

  Sarah picked at her lobster. She’d convinced herself she’d simply been a holiday fling for Blake. He’d got what he’d wanted, then left without a word. She’d been devastated. If only she’d listened to her mother. From a young age, her mother had lectured her on the ways of men. Your father left. Your grandfather left. That’s what men do. And Blake’s disappearance had validated her mother’s doctrine.

  She jabbed her crustacean with her fork. Time to get onto safer ground.

  ‘What did you mean when you said the funds have been redirected?’ she asked. Probably into some new gaming project.

  Blake raised a brow in warning.

  ‘I didn’t mention the S word,’ she clarified. She wouldn’t let him hammer another resource-stripping nail into the Sanctuary’s funding coffin.

  ‘Nicely phrased.’ His tolerant smile said, ‘You may have scored a point but I’m ahead by a million’.

  ‘So, are you increasing the unnecessary packaging on your products or just topping up your own pay packet?’

  Blake sliced off a piece of foie gras, brou
ght it to his mouth and chewed slowly, not taking his eyes from hers. Sarah shifted in her chair. Finally, he swallowed.

  ‘We’re building a mental-health wing at St Peter’s Children’s Hospital,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ Okay, so that was unexpected. So she didn’t own all the territory in altruism.

  ‘Helping children is more in line with our corporate goals, as opposed to monkeys on the other side of the world,’ he said.

  ‘Orangutans,’ she said. ‘There’s a difference.’ She laid down her cutlery. ‘I suppose Hunt-F Tech advertising is going to be plastered all over the hospital.’ She knew she sounded mean and petty, but this evening was going anywhere but where she expected.

  ‘No,’ he said, fixing her with an expression she couldn’t read. ‘There’ll be no reference to the company. The wing is being named after my father.’

  Another surprise. Sarah remembered Blake had been in Brunei on business with his father. Well, Blake was supposed to be on business, but he’d slipped away to spend all his time with her.

  ‘How is he?’ she asked.

  ‘Dead.’ He delivered the word in a hideous monotone. No feeling. No change of expression. No invitation to discuss.

  A shiver ran the length of her spine. ‘Oh, Blake, I’m so sorry,’ she said. She wanted to jump up and hug him and steal away some of his pain. But that would not be a good idea. ‘I know what it’s like to lose a parent.’

  ‘Your mum?’ he asked. Did he remember she came from a single-parent family?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sorry to hear it. She was your only family, wasn’t she? How —’

  ‘Cerebral malaria,’ she interrupted in the mechanical voice she used when speaking of her mother’s death. ‘The Sanctuary had a short-term cash-flow problem. She stopped buying malaria medication for herself to fund the ongoing operation costs. Her death was slow and she was delirious for days before she died. It was . . .’ She shuddered. Her mother had wept continually most of the time she’d been awake and kept saying sorry, over and over and over. When she was lucid, she’d begged Sarah to promise to run the Sanctuary. A promise Sarah had kept every day since.