The Valentine Child Read online

  "This is Val, our son."

  Zoe saw no point in softening the blow. When had Justin ever considered her?

  "I only have your word for that. What kind of an idiot do yon "take me for, Zoe? Discovered how wealthy I am now, is that it?"

  She stared up at him through a mist of pain and rising anger that she did not attempt to hide.

  "No, it's not your money I need, it's you."

  JACQUELINE BAIRD began writing as a hobby when her family objected to the smell of her oil painting, and immediately became hooked on the romantic genre. She loves traveling, and worked her way around the world, from Europe to the Americas and Australia, returning to marry her childhood sweetheart. She now lives in the northeast of England and has two grown-up sons. She enjoys playing badminton and spends most weekends with husband Jim, sailing their Gp. 14.

  Books by Jacqueline Baird

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  ISBN 0-373-11795-7

  THE VALENTINE CHILD

  First North American Publication 1996.

  Copyright© 1995 by Jacqueline Baird.

  All rights reserved. Except for use In any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work In whole or In part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, Including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the Imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  CLS 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in U.S.A.

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  His lips were warm on the tender skin of her throat. Somewhere along the way Nigel had removed his T-shirt and she could feel the heat of his body through her fine silk blouse. She closed her eyes tight and told herself that she was enjoying his kisses. It was Nigel—her friend, her colleague and soon to be her lover.

  They were sprawled across the sofa in Zoe's London apartment, the only sound Nigel's heavy breathing. She felt his fingers at the buttons of her blouse and tensed, then forced herself to relax. Hadn't she planned this? She was twenty, and still a virgin! And now she was finally going to be a woman! So why did she feel sick?

  The thought stopped her cold, and, shoving at Nigel's chest, she said, 'No, Nigel. Get off.' The ensuing tussle was undignified and bordering on the ridiculous. Zoe struggled from beneath his sprawling body but her elbow caught him in the eye, and his yelp of pain was drowned out by the ringing of the doorbell, followed by loud and rapid knocking.

  'Saved by the bell!' Zoe murmured, and dashed across the room. Whoever was calling after midnight was in danger of waking the whole house. Her apartment was one of six in a converted Victorian town house.

  She flung open the door, about to demand what all the urgency was for, and stopped. Her mouth fell open and she brushed a small hand through the tumbled mass of her silver-blonde hair, sweeping it out of her eyes to get a better view. It couldn't be. . . But it was. . . Justin Gifford.

  For a second she saw the old Justin, as he had been before the fatal night of her eighteenth birthday. He was smiling tenderly down at her, his dark eyes filled with some emotion she could not guess at.

  'Justin.' She said his name, and raised her hand as though to touch him, but he brushed past her and into the room. She closed the door and turned around. Obviously she had been mistaken about his tender glance, she thought dryly.

  'So that's what stopped you.' Nigel's voice broke the tense silence. 'You heard the bell.'

  Zoe glanced at Nigel, who was sitting on the sofa, struggling to pull his shirt back on, and then back at Justin.

  The comparison was inevitable. Nigel looked like a flushed, frustrated twenty-one-year-old—which he was. Whereas Justin, at thirty-five, and touching six feet tall, exuded an aura of sophisticated, arrogant masculinity that was undeniable. Certain of his place and power in the world as a top barrister with a glittering future, tipped to be one of the youngest judges ever appointed, he dominated those around him without even trying.

  He was doing it now! Standing in the centre of the room, a long cashmere overcoat draped casually over his broad shoulders. Beneath it a black wool roll-neck sweater moulded the muscular contours of his broad chest, and black denim jeans did the same for his long legs. His night-black hair was, unusually for him, rumpled in disarray and the contempt in his eyes, as he recognised at a glance what had been going on, was unmistakable.

  His gaze swept over her small, dishevelled form and the furious glitter in his deep brown eyes would have made a saint quake. . .

  'Does your lover live with you?' he demanded harshly.

  Zoe tensed, and wiped her damp palms nervously down her jean-clad thighs. She wriggled her bare toes in the deep-pile carpet and straightened her shoulders in a vain attempt to add inches to her diminutive stature. She tilted back her head and looked a long way up into angry eyes.

  'I don't think that is any of your business, Justin. More to the point, what are you doing here at this hour?' She was proud—her voice sounded firm when inside she was trembling. Nigel was not helping any by pulling his shirt down with one hand and knuckling his eye with the other, looking like a drowsy, sated male.

  'I'm making it my business, Zoe.' Justin stepped towards her, his massive frame looming over her. She had nowhere to go; her back was at the door. 'Is that the kind of pipsqueak you prefer?' he demanded scathingly. 'I can't say I admire your taste. Get rid of him. Now.'

  'Nigel is my guest— she spluttered.

  'So he doesn't live here?' Justin cut in, and simply grabbed her arm and swung her behind him while roaring at Nigel, 'You—whatever your name is—get out.'

  Nigel got to his feet. 'Wait just a minute. Who the hell do you think you are? Zoe and I—'

  'There is no Zoe, not for you. Now out, before I throw you out.'

  Zoe had seen Justin angry before, but never like this. 'You'd better go, Nigel,' she said quietly. Justin's hand around her wrist relaxed slightly at her surrender to his request. . .

  'It's OK. Justin is my uncle's partner; I'll be all right,' she assured him, and she was free. Involuntarily she rubbed her wrist as she stepped away from Justin's towering presence, looking, if she did but know it, as if she was wringing her hands in agitation.

  After a token objection Nigel left, and Zoe didn't blame him. She had first met Justin Gifford as a sad and frightened fourteen-year-old who had just lost her actor parents in an air disaster in California. She had been swept from her boarding-school
in Portland, Maine, to be deposited on her only relative, Uncle Bertie Brown, in England.

  She remembered as if it were yesterday. Born and brought up in the States, with an American mother and an English father, she had arrived in what to her had been an alien country, to live in a huge old house, "Black Gables", with an uncle she had never met before.

  She had been curled up on the window-seat in the garden-room, quietly crying, when a deep voice had said softly, 'Are you all right, little girl?' She had looked up into the darkest brown eyes she had ever seen, set in the tanned, attractive face of Justin Gifford. Tall and built like a quarter-back, with the broken nose to prove it, he had swung her on to his lap and comforted her and she had been smitten with her first ever crush on a member of the opposite sex.

  She glanced warily at him; he was positively bristling with rage and Justin in this mood was dangerous. The only other time she had seen him as mad had been the terrible night of her eighteenth birthday party. Justin had arrived at the party with a red-haired woman in tow- Janet Ord—and Zoe had been consumed by jealousy.

  Ever since moving in with her uncle and first seeing Justin she had adored him, even though at twenty-eight he'd been twice her age. Justin had spent many a weekend at the house in Surrey and had always treated Zoe with the greatest kindness. They had talked, laughed and played tennis together.

  Every year a valentine card had arrived at Black Gables for her with the simple message "Thinking of you, from your tall, dark, handsome friend". The postmark had been from London and, as Justin was the only man she'd known in the city, she had hoarded the cards as tokens of his love. In her girlish heart she'd honestly believed that he loved her as she loved him.

  Her birthday party had changed all that. Furious that he had brought a woman with him, Zoe had stayed up until four in the morning waiting for Justin to return from driving Janet home, and then had tried to seduce him.

  A grim smile twisted her full lips at the memory. It hadn't worked. Justin had taken one penetrating look at her, dressed in only a flimsy nightie, and had laughed out loud.

  'Run along to bed, little girl, before you get more than you bargained for,' he had drawled with mocking amusement.

  Instead she had thrown her arms around his neck and pressed her slender body against him, and demanded that he kiss her. She had known he wanted to. . . What followed was engraved in her mind forever.

  'Maybe I will at that,' he had growled as his strong arms had closed around her. His dark head had swooped down, and he'd proceeded to ravage her mouth with hard, passionate kisses.

  At first she'd exulted in his fierce passion but he'd made no concession to her youth or innocence and when his large, strong hands had swept all over her trembling body, and she'd felt the full force of his masculine aggression, she'd been suddenly terrified by the savagery she had unleashed and had cried for him to stop.

  They had not been friends since. Zoe made a point of not being at Black Gables when she knew Justin was arriving for the weekend. It hadn't been difficult—what with studying at art college and moving to her own apartment, she had rarely seen him over the past couple of years.

  'Fasten your blouse, for God's sake!' A deep, grating voice broke into her troubled reminiscences.

  'What. . .?' She glanced down at herself, and felt a tell-tale tide of colour flood her pale face. 'Oh!' she gasped. Her blouse was open to the waist, revealing her firm, high breasts hardly covered by a wisp of white lace. Head bent, with trembling fingers she fastened her blouse. She might not have seen Justin for ages, but she was horrified to realise that he still had the power to make her blush like a lovesick schoolgirl.

  Taking a deep breath, she bravely raised her head, her blue eyes clashing with furious brown ones. 'Is it possible you have some explanation for bursting into my apartment in the middle of the night? Or perhaps you've been drinking?' she prompted with all the hauteur she could muster.

  In the blink of an eye a shutter seemed to fall over his hard face, masking all expression. 'Sorry, Zoe, you're right of course. You're a grown woman; your private life is none of my business.'

  'Big of you to recognise that,' she drawled sarcastically.

  'Cut the sarcasm and sit down. I have some bad news.'

  'News?' And suddenly she was filled with a dreadful foreboding. She should have realised immediately that nothing short of a major catastrophe would have bought Justin to her apartment in the middle of the night.

  She moved towards him; her small hand clasped his forearm. 'What has happened?' Her beautiful face paled; her eyes searched his rugged features. 'Not. . . ?'

  'There's no easy way to say this. Bertie has had a massive heart attack and is in Intensive Care at the local hospital. I'll take you to him.'

  'Will he be OK, Justin?' Zoe asked the question for the hundredth time of the brooding figure sitting beside her on the banquette in the cold waiting-room of the hospital.

  He turned his dark head, compassion in his steady gaze. 'Of course he will be, little one. Your uncle Bertie is a fighter.' And, curving a long arm around her slender shoulders, he drew her into his side. 'Snuggle up and try to rest, hmm?' With his other hand he brushed the tumble of blonde hair from her brow. 'I'll look after you; after all, that's what friends are for.' He smiled softly, giving her shoulder a brief squeeze.

  Comforted by his reassuring words and held against the warmth of his hard body, she forgot the humiliation, the embarrassment that had made her avoid him for the past two years. Instead she lifted her sapphire-blue eyes to his harshly handsome face and said, 'Are we friends again?' And they were.

  Two weeks later, when Bertie was released from hospital a month before Christmas, Zoe willingly gave up her apartment and returned with her uncle to Black Gables, quite happy to commute every day to her job as a graphic artist at Magnum Advertising in London if it meant spending her free time with her uncle.

  Zoe positively danced into the breakfast-room. 'Good morning, Uncle Bertie.' She pressed a swift kiss on the parchment-like cheek of the old man sitting at the pine table. 'You're looking better today,' she said, with a quick smile, though in reality she was worried about him. His once tall, raw-boned figure seemed to be shrinking by the day. His fine head of silver hair appeared lank and somehow lifeless. But she did not betray her worry as she asked, 'Any post for me today?'

  'Yes, two, minx.' He smiled fondly back at her. 'And thank you.' He waved a card, with a big red rabbit sitting in a heart on the front, in her face. 'It was kind of you to think of me.'

  Chuckling, she took the two envelopes he held out to her and, plonking down on the nearest chair, ripped them open. One was obviously from Bertie. 'You're not supposed to sign them, you know, Uncle,' she admonished, and then went dreamy-eyed over the next valentine card: 'Thinking of you, from your tall, dark, handsome friend.'

  She just knew it was Justin and tonight she was going to tell him she had known all along. Finally she was confident enough in herself and her new-found adult relationship with him.

  Over the past months he had been a tower of strength, visiting most weekends, and the rapport he shared with Uncle Bertie had naturally spread to include her again. They had shared the occasional dinner date; Justin had taken her to the theatre, and the ballet and, most important of all, at the end of their evenings out he had always kissed her goodnight, and always left Zoe aching for something more. But tonight Justin was taking her to the Law Society's Valentine's Ball at a top London hotel, and she just knew that tonight would be special.

  'Not going to work today, young lady?' Uncle Bertie's question broke into her happy reverie.

  'No, I have the day off, and I'm going to pamper myself shamelessly because Justin's taking me to the ball.'

  'I see. . .' His watery blue eyes crinkled at the corners.

  'Good. He's a fine young man. You couldn't do better.'

  'I know,' she agreed, with a cheeky grin.

  A dozen hours later Zoe heard Justin arrive as she blotted her lipstick
for the final time. She seldom bothered much with make-up, having a fine clear skin, but tonight she had gone to town and she was delighted with the result.

  Her eyes were huge, her brows and lashes subtly darkened, and a faint touch of colour on her eyelids served to enhance the sparkling blue of her eyes. She had used a light foundation that seemed to make her skin gleam almost translucently. And, daringly, she had coloured her wide, full-lipped mouth in a bright cerise lip-gloss that exactly matched her gown.

  The dress was a romantic dream, she thought happily, floating out of her room and down the grand staircase to where Justin and her uncle waited. Designed in cerise satin, demure cap sleeves set off the plunging, heart- shaped, fitted bodice that nipped her waist and ended in black embroidered points over her hips, then flared out into a wide skirt with an underskirt of frothy layers of black net.

  The assistant in Harvey Nichols had assured her that the nineteenth-century romantic look was all the rage and, when she stopped halfway down the stairs to glance down at Justin, and saw the flare of admiration in his eyes, she knew she had made the right choice.

  Justin—tall, dark and incredibly impressive in a conservative black dinner-suit—moved to the stairs and held out his hand to her. She felt like a princess as he led her down the last few steps.

  'You have grown into an amazingly beautiful woman, Zoe. You look absolutely stunning.' His dark eyes gleamed with admiration and some other emotion that Zoe hoped was love.

  'Thank you, kind sir,' she said prettily.

  A wry smile curved Justin's firm mouth. 'But I knew I should have asked. I'm no good at all at this romance thing.' And, handing her a clear cellophane box, with a shrug of his broad shoulders he added, 'For you. And before you say anything even I know a corsage of red roses will clash with your dress. Sorry. . .'

  'I love them, but you shouldn't have; your valentine card has always been enough for me,' she declared openly, her eyes sparkling with happiness. 'Wait till I get my cape; the corsage will look great on it.'