Valerie Parv – The Viscount and The Virgin (страница 3)

Under Kirsten’s gentle probing, Natalie had admitted that she had crashed a party to celebrate the viscount’s team winning the championship. When the viscount’s security people had demanded her name, she’d given them a false last name.

According to Natalie, Rowe himself had been watching the party from a shadowed terrace and had said she could stay. Intending to thank him for intervening on her behalf, she’d noticed how distressed he seemed, and they’d started talking, during which she shared with him some of her own deep unhappiness. He’d suggested she join him for dinner after the party and she had never gotten around to telling him her real name. One thing had led to another, and then she was expecting his child. He might well think, Natalie had protested, that she had pretended to be on the pill to trap him into fathering her baby.

He didn’t have to like it, he only had to take his share of the responsibility, Kirsten had insisted. She felt sorry for Natalie for getting herself into such a predicament, but Rowe was entitled to be told.

Natalie sister needn’t have worried. Rowe had already moved on to the next stage of the Formula One circuit and she was told he wasn’t available. He probably had no wish to be bothered by a girl he had used and abandoned on the previous leg, Kirsten assumed. Her sister’s calls were never returned.

Through her contacts at the castle, Kirsten had obtained a postal address for him and insisted Natalie write and tell Rowe she was expecting his child. Natalie hadn’t wanted to send the letter, but Kirsten vowed that she would if Natalie didn’t. So the letter was sent, but no reply came.

Then they’d heard that Rowe had given up racing and had established an event-management organization. With his connections, Kirsten wasn’t surprised that the business was now reputed to be worth a fortune, quite apart from his royal inheritance.

She had debated whether to try to contact him again, but Natalie had stood firm this time, declaring that she wanted nothing to do with a man who ignored the birth of his own child. This time, Kirsten didn’t argue.

As a parent, Natalie hadn’t done much better, Kirsten thought with a wry twist of her lips. When the baby, an adorable little boy, was born, Natalie had been eager to have Kirsten take over most of his care. Natalie returned to the racing scene, making Kirsten glad that Rowe was no longer part of it, and couldn’t hurt her sister with his indifference more than he already had.

Kirsten knew she should have tried to make Natalie more accountable, for Jeffrey’s sake if not her own, but she hadn’t had the heart. Nat had lost so much, with her parents and then being abandoned by her baby’s father. Her sister had had so little time to be young that Kirsten willingly juggled her commitments so she could look after Jeffrey, telling herself that Natalie would settle down and resume her responsibilities if given enough time.

As things turned out, time was something neither of them were granted. Watching a qualifying race before a major event, Natalie had been killed when a tire flew off a car, bounced over a protective barrier and slammed into her.

Jeffrey had been six months old at the time. He was six years old now. Without him, Kirsten didn’t know how she would have survived the grief of losing her sister after her parents. Having the baby to care for meant Kirsten couldn’t afford to indulge her own feelings.

For Jeffrey’s sake she had battled through the dark aftermath of Nat’s death and had doggedly completed her studies by correspondence in time for Jeffrey’s first birthday. Although he was too young to appreciate her efforts, she had baked him a cake with a huge single candle, and they had celebrated together, her pleasure shadowed by memories of loved ones who were no longer with them.

Jeffrey had become her only family, as she had become his. She was the only mother he knew. By his silence, Rowe had forfeited any right to be involved in the child’s life. If he had answered Nat’s letter or shown any interest in Jeffrey at all, Kirsten would have felt duty bound to share the child’s upbringing with him, but he hadn’t called or written. Did he even know that Natalie had a sister who was now a mother to his child in every way that mattered?

He had been retired from racing by then, but he must have read about Natalie’s death, although she probably meant nothing more to him than a one-night stand, Kirsten thought, feeling choked. Her sister had written to him telling him her real name. Would he even remember her, given the number of women he was reputed to have been involved with? He hadn’t shown any interest in whether the child had ever been born, much less whether he had a son or daughter.

Kirsten felt her body begin to heat with remorse. She had actually allowed herself to feel aroused by his blatant appraisal, when he was the last man she should want to have anything to do with. It couldn’t be helped that he was a member of the Merrisand board, and as such, was entitled to demand her deference. She didn’t have to respond as if he was a divine gift to women.

With a start, Kirsten realized that twenty minutes had passed since she’d returned to the office and become lost in her memories. She had eased the new shoes off, and her feet looked red and sore, as indeed they felt. But she had no other shoes in the office, and Rowe was probably pacing the curator’s office even now. He didn’t strike her as a man who appreciated being kept waiting.

Reluctantly, she put the shoes back on and got to her feet, feeling as if her toes were being jabbed with pins. She hoped Rowe would keep this meeting short so she could collect Jeffrey from the Castle School and go home. With the head curator, Lea Landon, in Europe looking after a touring exhibition of treasures from the royal collection, Kirsten was carrying most of the load. She wished that Rowe hadn’t chosen today to put in his appearance.

There would never be a good time, she thought as she made her way to the curator’s office. Rowe’s history with her sister meant she was never likely to welcome his arrival. The sooner she got this meeting over with, the better.

Chapter Two

Rowe Sevrin wasn’t pacing the office, but he was sorely tempted. His reaction to the woman Maxim had told him he would be working with had caught him completely by surprise. He was glad his royal cousin hadn’t been there to see Rowe’s response to Kirsten Bond, or he would never have heard the end of it.

While she was undeniably attractive, he’d dated more than his share of beautiful women in his days on the racing circuit. Rather, Kirsten had an arresting quality that was lacking in more conventionally pretty females. Maybe it was her passion for her subject, but as she talked, he’d been captivated by the way her fine-boned face lit up with a glow that couldn’t be faked.

As a man of strong passions himself, he found such unbridled verve a positive turn-on. He imagined taking Kirsten out and encouraging her to share her passions with him, and found the notion more arousing than he liked. Wasn’t he the one who had vowed to steer clear of romantic entanglements for the time being? Too many of the women he’d dated had coveted the title of viscountess to the point where he had begun to question whether the attraction was him or his royal status.

He gave vent to a sigh of irritation. Why didn’t he admit the truth to himself? He was tired of investing his energy in relationships that went nowhere. At twenty-nine years old, he’d almost given up the notion of finding one woman with whom he could have a home, children, the whole package.

Not that he intended to remain celibate. He wasn’t that far into self-denial. But for now, any relationship he embarked upon would be purely physical by mutual agreement. It was just as well that many women found such liaisons appealing for the same reasons he did. They were happy with the comfort of a physical relationship without the idea that anything more meaningful was involved, making him unlikely to want for bed partners. You never knew, he might even stumble across his soul mate that way. Sometimes the thing you most wanted came to you only when you stopped searching for it.

None of which had anything to do with Kirsten Bond. From the way she had thrown him to the wolves during the tour without even batting a long-eyelashed eye, she was hardly likely to qualify as soul-mate material, so why was he wasting time thinking about her in that way?

She intrigued him, that was why. Not only her energy, but her air of self-possession made her seem much more than a palace employee. She hadn’t been awed by his title. After fending off the candidates for viscountess, he was bound to find Kirsten’s indifference a challenge, but he knew that was only a minor part of her appeal. There was only one solution—get to know her better and satisfy himself that he was seeing more in her than she warranted.

On the curator’s desk was a state-of-the-art laptop computer. Rowe pulled it toward him and called up the castle’s personnel records. Keying in his password got him swiftly past the security screens and he was soon looking at Kirsten’s photo and employment record.