“Would you please stop that pacing,” Shelley said coming into his office to deliver some documents that he needed to go through. “You’ll wear a hole in the carpet.”

He didn’t bother to reply. He didn’t care about the carpet or the work he needed to do. All he could think about was that Brandi had disappeared into thin air. He couldn’t find her and it wasn’t from lack of trying. His only hope lay in the meeting they were supposed to have this morning regarding the installation of the management software.

He had spent the weekend playing private detective in the hope of tracking her down. He’d tried calling and texting, but she didn’t answer either. He’d even staked out her apartment building, but there had been no sign of her. He went to the hospital in a desperate attempt to talk to her, but instead of Brandi, he found Peyton dressed as some red-headed Disney character that he couldn’t name. She refused to tell him anything except that Brandi had asked her to fill in for her because she wasn’t feeling well. He knew her morning sickness was bad, he’d had a front row seat to it, but was it bad enough to keep her from the thing she loved most?

This appointment was his last resort. He knew of her family but didn’t know them personally, had never been introduced to them. Which was crazy now to think about considering she was carrying his baby. He’d only spoken to her father once and that was when he had manipulated the situation so that he could see her when she’d been avoiding him after they first met. If she didn’t show up to this meeting then that was his next step. He would go to her father and lay everything on the line. He didn’t care if it made him look like a complete fuckwit. He was desperate to see her again and to apologise and to explain. All the things she hadn’t let him do.

The intercom on his desk buzzed. “Your ten o’clock is here,” Shelley told him.

Declan took a deep breath and ran one hand down his tie and the other through his hair. He crossed the office and flung the door open, hoping to see Brandi sitting in the outer office with a thunderous look on her face. Shit, he’d take yelling and hysterics over this black hole of silence any day. But she wasn’t there. It was the same bespectacled guy that had started the installation.

“Come in,” he growled and turned on his heel, not caring if the guy followed him or not.

He strode over to his desk and took his seat. The guy had followed him in and looked nervous. Declan didn’t really care. He was at the end of his tether and going a little crazy with the disappearance of Brandi. All he could think about was if she was okay, was she eating enough, how had the morning sickness been, was she sleeping and did she miss him as much as he missed her? That last one was the one that he needed to know the most. He felt like he’d had a fucking hole ripped out of his chest and he needed to know if she felt the same.

“Mr. Mayfield—” the tech began.

Declan held up his hand to stop the guy from speaking. “I really don’t want to talk about the software,” he said, “I want to know why you’re here and not Brandi.”

The guy gulped and rubbed his hand across his mouth before he spoke.

“Ah, Miss Calloway has taken a leave of absence from the company,” he said.

“What!?” Declan had risen to his feet and leant over the desk menacingly. He hadn’t meant to, it was pure reflex. With a deep breath and a bit of a neck stretch, he sat back down and looked at the guy who had now turned a little pale. Declan cleared his throat. “Do you know why?”

The tech shook his head. “I know she’s been sick—”

“What do you mean?” Declan’s pulse picked up and he gripped the edge of the desk.

“Ah, well, she was, you know, throwing up and stuff.” The guy looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

Declan calmed a bit, but not much. He went from DEFCON 6,000 to about 4,500. The morning sickness, of course. He knew how much she struggled with it. He’d thought that such a thing had always been exaggerated in movies and stuff. Surely being pregnant couldn’t cause such a reaction in the body. He’d been proved wrong. For the incredibly short time that Brandi had been staying at his place he’d seen the truth of what was happening to her body. It had shocked him and worried him. It was also why she had lost so much weight and why she looked so tired and drawn all the time. For it to be so bad that she’d stopped work because of it only made him more anxious for her.

“Ah, Mr. Mayfield, I really don’t know anything else. I’m just here to check that the installation is working properly and that you’re happy with the software…”

Declan flicked a glance at him. The poor guy was here to do a job but he was also the only link he had to Brandi. Peyton had refused to answer his questions, so at least he had a bit more information now. The next step would be talking to her father.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Fine,” he said. “Go down stairs to the reception desk and ask for Janine. She has been working solidly with the software. She can tell you everything you need to know.”

The tech escaped his office in a rush and Declan leant back in his expensive chair and closed his eyes. Why was Brandi being so difficult? He just wanted to talk to her. He just wanted a chance to explain.

He sat forward and reached for his phone. “Shelley,” he said when his assistant picked up, “please get me Colin Calloway on the phone.”

He got up and started pacing again until the call connected.

“Mr. Mayfield?” Colin Calloway, Brandi’s father, said.

“Mr. Calloway,” he replied. Declan took a breath. “I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I really need to speak to Brandi. I had hoped she would be at the meeting we had scheduled this morning but she sent someone else. He told me that Brandi has taken a leave of absence. I wouldn’t ask except that it is vitally important that I speak to her and she is not answering any of my calls.”

There was a long stretch of silence and Declan tried hard not to fidget while he waited.

“You’re the one.”

“I’m sorry?” Declan replied to the cryptic comment.

“My baby girl came home crying and looking like her whole world had collapsed and she wouldn’t tell us anything except that she needed time and a place to stay. Are you the reason she looked like hell?”

Declan exhaled roughly. “Yes, sir, I am. Which is why I’ve been trying to track her down all weekend. I need to explain and to apologise but I can’t do either of those things if she won’t talk to me.”

“Do you love her?”

Declan was taken aback by his blunt question. This was something that his family and the people in his family’s circle never discussed. Love was for the common people, or so he had been told. The Calloways were different. Their status as ‘new money’ set them apart from the very stoic and reserved ‘old money.’ Colin Calloway’s question had never put a finer point on it than right now.

“Yes, sir, I do.” It was the truth even if he hadn’t yet voiced those words to Brandi. “And I’d really like to tell her that.”

There was another long silence and then he heard Colin Calloway sigh. “Be at my house at one o’clock sharp. I’ll make sure my wife lets you in and that Brandi is there to speak to you. Don’t make me regret this.”

“Thank you sir,” Declan said with relief.

Brandi padded softly down the stairs. She could hear murmured voices, but they weren’t distinct enough for her to make out the words or even who was talking. She really didn’t feel up to seeing anyone. Not only had the morning sickness reached a new and atrocious level, but her heart was broken. She missed Declan with aching clarity but he had hurt her so badly that she didn’t think she would ever recover from it. She had been so sure that he was different from everyone else, that he had seen through her outward appearance and into her soul. But he wouldn’t have used her like he did if that was the truth. He wouldn’t have leveraged her against his company, he wouldn’t have used their baby as a bargaining chip.

She walked into the large, sunny kitchen - incongruous to how she was feeling - and came to a standstill. He was here. He was sitting at the large island bench with a cup of coffee before him, talking with her mother. He was fucking here in her parents’ kitchen. Declan fucking Mayfield was here in her sanctuary and her mother was talking to him as if he were an invited guest.

“What the fuck are you doing here,” she growled.

He spun on the stool and looked at her. His eyes ate her up greedily, but she knew it was all an act. She looked awful, she knew that. Her hair was a tangled rat’s nest, there were bags under her eyes and her skin was a pasty grey colour. But still he looked at her like she was some magnificent confection in the bakery window.

“Brandi,” he said and her name on his lips was the breath of a dying man who couldn’t get enough oxygen.

Her mother politely excused herself and Brandi mouthed the word ‘traitor’ as she walked past. Her mother just smiled serenely.

Brandi turned to leave as well, but Declan was out of his seat and gently grabbing her arm preventing her from leaving before she could make her escape. She stilled at his touch. Her body responded in ways that made her angrier. Didn’t her traitorous body realise what this man had done to them?

“Brandi please listen, please let me explain.”

She turned back to him. “What is there to explain?”

“Everything,” he said.

“I heard what you said to Mason. I heard you tell him how the baby and I would save your company as well as give your mother the finger in the process. Is that all we are to you?”

“No, God no,” he said, stepping closer to her.

She breathed in his familiar scent and wanted nothing more than to rest her head in the crook of his neck and let him take care of her. But that wasn’t what he wanted. He just wanted the solution that her being pregnant gave him, something she didn’t yet fully understand. “Why?” she asked. “What is it that we can do for you that you couldn’t do yourself? Why did you need to use us like this?”

“Is that what you think? That I am using you?”

“What else am I supposed to think? I don’t even understand what’s going on.”

He pulled her towards the stools near the kitchen bench. “Come and sit down,” he said. “I will explain everything to you.”

She hesitated for a moment and then went with him. More than anything, she just wanted to understand why.

“Before I can explain what you heard the other night, I need to start at the beginning.” He waited for her nod before he continued. “You know who my family is and what their business is. When I wanted to strike out on my own, they were the only ones who would lend me the money I needed to buy my first hotel. All the other banks and financial institutions refused to deal with me for fear of offending my father.” He shook his head at the unfairness of it. “So I went to my father and applied for a loan. He finally agreed, but as one of the stipulations there was a clause entered into the contract. I needed to marry a woman who was deemed appropriate by my mother or I would forfeit my company. I never expected to ever find someone that I wanted to spend my life with on my own. I had always known that my mother would choose my wife, so I agreed. It seemed such a small thing when I had the birth of my company before me. Everything I had dreamed of was coming true and I didn’t give that clause another thought. I built my business and paid off the loan and promptly forgot that clause. Then I met you. Suddenly that future that I had been so ready to accept was no longer palatable. I wasn’t free to pursue you, but I did anyway because I couldn’t not. Then my father called me into his office to remind me of that clause.”

Declan paused and Brandi wanted to reach out to him and comfort him, but she was still angry and unsure of the part she played in all this. Men wanting her in their life was nothing new. She was only an object to them, an acquisition to be flaunted to other men. So far none of what Declan had told her dispelled that theory. She was just an acquisition to him too. She just happened to be one that his mother didn’t approve of, which only had the effect of making her more desirable to him.

“Surely there was legal way for you to get out of it,” she said.

He shook his head. “My legal team worked on it for weeks but came up with nothing. There was no loop hole. I had signed the contract with full knowledge of the clause. But I was in the process of finding another solution. Brooks suggested we form a shell company to buy The Mayfield Group which would mean that my family couldn’t get their hands on it and I would be free to marry whomever I chose.”

“So what happened?”

“When you fell pregnant, I realised we might not have to go through with that. My mother would not let there be an illegitimate Mayfield running around. She would have accepted us getting married and the clause would be null and void.”

“So that’s why you asked me to marry you?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said, “I asked you to marry me because I want to be with you. I want us to be a family.”

“And yet you would use our baby as a way to get you out of an agreement you made with your parents.”

“No, it’s not like that—”

“It’s exactly like that!” Brandi stood and stepped away from him. “If not, then you would have gone ahead with the sale of the business to your friends.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, standing too. “It’s not like I can just sell my business for some paltry sum. It had to be a genuine transaction, which means that my friends would have to invest a considerable amount of money. I wanted to just make the sale for a dollar, but that would open the deal up to be contested by my father. Everything had to be aboveboard so as not to raise his suspicions. When I discovered another way to keep both you and my company, of course I jumped at it.”

“And our baby was the other way. You heard me tell you I was pregnant and you immediately thought that all your prayers were answered. You don’t care about either me or the baby. We’re just some get-out-of-jail-free card for you and I refuse to raise a child in that environment. Your family is screwed up and I don’t want my child anywhere near that. Now get out!”

“No! None of what you’re saying is true. I love you, Brandi. I love you and I love our baby. When I asked you to marry me, it was because that’s what I wanted. What I still want. I want to marry you. I want to be with you and our child.”

“But you want your company more,” Brandi said sadly. “Show yourself out.”

Brandi walked away from Declan, leaving him standing in the kitchen staring after her. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. She knew if she did, then she would crumble and forgive him and say yes to anything he wanted. But she needed to be strong for herself and the baby. She needed to walk away from him now and never see him again. It was the only way she was going to survive the rest of her life.

The last thing Declan wanted to do right at this moment was meet his friends at the bar and yet, here he was. He was the last one to arrive and as he approached the table, Hunter was showing the others something on his phone.

“It’s not me,” Jonathon complained.

“It says right here, ‘Jonathon Ashby, one of Australia’s most reclusive billionaires, was spotted at the exclusive, star-studded opening of ‘Vibe,’” Hunter read from the phone.

“I don’t even know what the hell ‘Vibe’ is.” He snatched the phone from Hunter. “It doesn’t even look like me.”

Mason took the phone from Jonathon. “It actually does kind of look like you.”

“‘Vibe’ is a new club,” Declan said as he slid into the booth. “Some kind of edgy dance club.”

“Hey man,” Mason said, looking at him with pitying eyes. “How’re you doing?”

Brooks turned to look at him. “You look like shit.”

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh, “thanks for that.”

Brooks smirked. A waitress approached and put a round of drinks on the table. Declan picked his up and took a long draught. Why was he even here? He could just as easily get drunk at home and then he wouldn’t have to answer any questions. He knew his friends meant well, but he really didn’t want to talk about how his life had gone to shit in the space of mere moments. One moment he was telling Mason how much he wanted Brandi in his life and the next she was walking out of it. Even after explaining everything to her, she still walked away. He had no idea how to fix this.

“Trouble in paradise?” Jonathon asked.

“She broke up with me,” he said and downed the rest of his drink, lifting his hand to catch the waitress’ attention so he could order another one.

“She what?” Mason looked about as shocked as Declan felt. He was also the only one who knew that she was pregnant with his baby and that he had asked her to marry him.

“So we won’t need to worry about that clause in my business contract anymore,” he said, his voice dull. “Mother will be pleased.”

The others around the table shared a look, but Declan was more concerned with the new drink that was placed in front of him. He picked it up and took a swig. It hurt too much to think about it. He just wanted to get drunk enough so that he didn’t feel anymore and then maybe he could sleep without dreaming of her. Maybe if he got drunk enough, he wouldn’t wake up reaching for her and then realising that she was no longer in his life. Maybe if he wiped himself out then he wouldn’t have to think about spending the rest of his life married to a woman that his mother picked out because of her breeding qualities.

“You’re just giving up?” This from Jonathon. Jonathon the confirmed bachelor. Jonathon who had mocked them all for falling in love.

“I thought you of all people would be pleased,” Declan snarled.

“Yeah well, maybe I’ve changed my mind,” Jonathon said defensively. “Look around you, son. These three men have proved to us that maybe falling in love isn’t the end of the world.”

“It sure feels like it to me,” Declan said, taking another drink. “It feels like my fucking heart has been ripped out of my chest.”

“And so I say again, you’re just giving up?”

“No, arsehole, I’m not just giving up. I’ve been trying everything I know to try and win her back and she refuses to listen to me or to even see me.”

“So what happened?” Mason asked kindly.

“She overheard us talking the other night,” Declan said, shooting a speaking glance at his friend. “Only she didn’t hear all of it, only the most damaging parts.”

“We can’t help if we don’t know the details,” Brooks said looking between Declan and Mason.

Declan sighed and closed his eyes. Two beers down and the pain was still so acute that he still couldn’t take a full breath without his chest aching. He didn’t know what else to do, but maybe his friends did. Each of them had been through a bit of a rough time before they finally found their happy ending, so maybe they knew something he didn’t.

“What I am about to tell you can’t leave the sanctity of this booth,” Declan said, making eye contact with each one of them. “You cannot tell your significant others and if you won’t agree to that then I won’t tell you what’s going on.”

The others shared a look before turning back to him and nodding.

“I found a way to get around the clause that my mother had written into the contract.”

“Okay,” Brooks said slowly, “and what does that have to do with Brandi leaving you.”

“I asked her to marry me,” he said, “and I was prepared to go through with it, fuck the consequences. It was only when I was telling Mason that I realised that I had the perfect solution.”

“You’re still not making any sense,” Hunter said.

“Just tell them,” Mason encouraged.

“Brandi is pregnant. We’re pregnant.”

Silence descended on the group. He took a breath.

“Brandi is having my baby and I knew that there was no way my mother would allow an illegitimate Mayfield to be running around. She would have approved my marriage to Brandi and the clause would have been null and void.”

“Please tell me you didn’t voice this particular thought out loud in a public setting where she could have overheard you,” Jonathon said.

Declan’s silence was his answer.

“You, son, are a fucking moron,” Jonathon spat.

“I know,” he replied morosely. “It wasn’t the only thing I said. There was all this stuff about how I felt about her, how much I loved her and how happy I was that we were having a baby, but she didn’t hear any of that. All she heard was that the pregnancy would solve all my problems.”

“Shit,” Brooks cursed.

“Did you even try to explain it to her?” Hunter asked.

“Of course I fucking did. I went to her father and he helped me to get in to see her. But even after I explained everything, she still walked away and told me we were over. Now I have no idea what to do or how to get her to forgive me.”

“You need to grovel,” Hunter said and both Brooks and Mason nodded.

“You need to make this right, man,” Jonathon said.

Declan looked at Jonathon with puzzlement. He couldn’t understand his friend’s sudden change of heart regarding relationships. Jonathon had always been a confirmed bachelor, happy to play the field and not get tied down. Now he was whistling a different tune.

“I don’t know how.”

“You need to work out what her main issue is. Is it that you weren’t up front with her from the start, or is it because you weren’t willing to give up your business for her?”

Declan sat back, stunned. Would he be willing to give up everything he’d worked for if it meant having her in his life? These last few days had been hell and he was desperate enough to do just about anything to get her back. Would he willingly walk away from The Mayfield Group for her? The company he had built from scratch?

He drained his glass and lifted his hand to the waitress. He’d need more of these if he was going to answer that question.