Page 10 of Bound By Her Shocking Secret

Daniel’s jaw clenched. ‘A daughter I had no idea existed until about an hour ago.’

Mia deflated. He was right. She forced herself to meet that penetrating grey gaze. ‘I did have a miscarriage. I would never have lied about that.’

‘Go on.’

In a rush, Mia explained. ‘It was twins. But I didn’t know that at the time. And they didn’t pick it up in the hospital. I only discovered I was still pregnant about a month later, when I knew something wasn’t right.’

‘So why didn’t you tell me then?’

Because she’d found out on the day of Daniel’s dynastic wedding. The official engagement announcement had come about a week after Mia had miscarried. He’d wasted no time in moving on with his life. And even though the wedding had been a fairly modest affair, and conducted in the office of amairie, it had still made headlines all over the world.

She avoided his eye, feeling as if he could see all the way through her to where her hurt still resided. ‘I wasn’t very well. I had an infection. I almost lost Lexi. To be perfectly honest, the reason I didn’t tell you when I realised I was still pregnant was because I didn’t know if everything would be okay.’

‘Clearly it was.’

Mia nodded, forcing herself to look at him again. ‘Yes, thankfully. As the pregnancy progressed I got healthier, and the birth was without complication.’

‘And your reason for not telling me then was...?’

Mia looked at him, wondering how on earth she could start to try and explain a process that she didn’t even fully understand herself, even though she’d been through it. How to explain how her world had contracted to only her baby and how every day had been a feat of survival and coping and learning how to navigate a new world. A terrifying one. Not to mention the bone-crippling exhaustion. The constant mental fog. She felt it would sound paltry. Weak.

She said, ‘I did think of contacting you a few times, but Paris seemed very far away and I was afraid of what the news would do to your marriage...your wife. The longer it went on the harder it got to make contact, and then when I did try I didn’t get very far.’

He frowned. ‘You haven’t been in Paris all this time?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I moved down to the south of France after we...after I lost the baby. A fresh start. A friend has a small modelling agency down there. I did some catalogue work. That’s where I discovered I was still pregnant and had Lexi. I’ve only been back in Paris a few weeks.’

Daniel seemed to take a moment to absorb this. As the silence grew, so did Mia’s sense of guilt. The full enormity of what she’d kept from the father of her child was hitting her now.

Defensively she said, ‘Based on your reaction to finding out about the pregnancy the first time around, I knew you weren’t likely to be more receptive the second time.’

Daniel wanted to say that that wasn’t fair, but he knew he had little defence against her statement. Mia had turned up in his office about a month after they’d split up, pale and visibly nervous.

Much to his disgust—because usually women...lovers...didn’t linger in his mind or memory when he was done with them—seeing Mia again had precipitated a surge of desire as strong as if they’d never parted. Much the same as when he’d seen her again this evening.

He’d just arranged to have a meeting with Sophie Valois to discuss the proposed marriage, and seeing Mia again in the flesh had made him realise that his decision to go ahead with the meeting with Sophie had had a lot to do with her. Because she’d got too close. She’d got under his skin in a way that no other lover had, prompting him to remember that he didn’twantany emotional entanglements. And that perhaps an arranged marriage was the perfect solution to carving out a life free of such risks.

His parents had been unloving, cruel and dysfunctional, breeding in him a desire never to repeat their mistakes or visit their toxicity on another generation. The grief of losing his sister had almost destroyed him, and guilt for his part in her death had given him a lifelong sense, rightly or wrongly, that he didn’t deserve the happiness that most people seemed to expect and take for granted as their due.

And yet the day that Mia had seen the article about his proposed engagement in the paper, when he’d seen the hurt in her eyes, he’d suddenly resented the guilt and the grief and the darkness that had dogged him all his life. The duty he’d taken on. The responsibilities. A tantalising vision of another kind of life had existed in his mind’s eye for a moment, before he’d reminded himself that he was not that person. He was not the kind of man who could offer an uncomplicated life to Mia. Nor did he want to—no matter how much he’d enjoyed his time with her.

When Mia had robustly denied she’d been looking for anything‘more’, he’d told himself he’d imagined the hurt in her eyes. She was the most independent woman he’d ever met. He’d walked away, vowing never to let another woman get that close again. It had made him yearn briefly for an existence that wasn’t possible for him. It wasn’t his due.

Daniel had spent the next month restoring his sense of control. Realising that while he’d been consumed with Mia he’d taken his eye off the business and that his attention was needed to get it back on track. He’d buried himself in spreadsheets and projections. Meeting new jewellery designers. But nothing had seemed to pierce the numbness.

Until she’d appeared in his office that fateful day. Hair pulled back. Wearing jeans and a soft long-sleeved top. Looking pale.

He’d had to battle a primal urge to haul her against him, to trace every contour of her body with his hands and mouth until she was breathless and pliant in his arms.

His helpless reaction had made him curt. ‘What do you want, Mia?’

Because, ultimately, everyone wantedsomethingfrom him, and in that moment he’d desperately wanted Mia to show him that she was just as avaricious as every other woman he’d ever met—that she couldn’t be all that different.

And then she’d blurted out, ‘I’m pregnant.’

Daniel’s insides had turned to ice.Pregnant. A baby.The very scenario he’d vowed to avoid. In that moment all he’d been able to think about was the cavernous dark chateau where he’d grown up. His mother’s twisted angry face. His father’s endless cold dismissal. And, worst of all, his sister, floating face-down...

He’d said to Mia, ‘How can you be pregnant? We used protection every time we were together.’

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