Park Avenue Scandals. Maureen Child

her feel any better.

      When the silence stretched on, Julia broke first. “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?”

      He folded his arms over his chest, cocked his head to one side and asked, “Why come to me with this?”

      “Because it’s your baby I’m carrying,” she argued, and knew the moment she’d said the words it had been the wrong tack to take.

      “Don’t start that again,” he said, lips so grimly compressed it was a wonder any words at all had escaped his mouth. “Let’s stick with the facts, shall we?” He pushed away from the desk and started to prowl the room.

      Julia’s gaze fixed on him as he moved, his long legs making great strides, his footsteps soundless on the thick carpet. Diffused sunlight speared through the tinted windows, and the sounds of the city were so muted as to be nonexistent. It was as if she and Max were the only two people in the world.

      How unfortunate that they weren’t friends.

      “The way I see it,” he said, stalking the perimeter of the room, making her turn to keep him in sight, “you’re pregnant and you don’t want the world to know it just yet.”

      “True.” Julia took a breath, held it for a second, then blew it out. “If this person makes good on his threat—” She broke off, unwilling to put into words the fears that had chased her since opening that damned envelope.

      “You’ll be fodder for the gossips for months.”

      “Years,” she corrected darkly. “My child would hear the whispers and I can’t let that happen.”

      “Eventually, you’ll be faced with this problem, anyway,” he pointed out.

      “I’ll think of something,” she said, hoping to convince herself, as well as Max. “But I can’t let this get out now. Not yet.”

      “And the reason you’re not going to the father of this child?”

      She glared at him. Did he honestly believe she was the kind of woman who would be pregnant with one man’s child while telling another that he was the father? His features were twisted into a sardonic smile that let her know it was exactly what he thought. “He won’t believe me,” she said.

      “Ahh. So I’m not the only man in your life with a low tolerance for lies.”

      She jerked as if he’d slapped her. What had she been thinking, coming to him? She’d deliberately walked into the lion’s den, asked him to open his mouth, then set her head inside it so she could allow him to bite it off!

      “You know what?” Julia muttered, turning for the door. “This was a mistake. I see that now. Just … never mind. Forget I was here.”

      He caught her before she could reach out and grab the doorknob. His grip on her upper arm was firm, unshakable. Still, she tried. When she failed, though, she lifted her gaze to his, gave him a glare that should have frozen him solid on the spot and said, “Let me go, Max.”

      “I don’t think so.” Instead, he turned her around, steered her to his desk and gave her a gentle shove into one of the leather chairs. “We’re not through talking.”

      She tilted her head back to give him another dirty look. “Oh, I think we’ve said everything there is to say.”

      “Well, you’re wrong,” he told her, and sat down in the chair beside hers. Bracing both elbows on his knees, he locked his gaze with hers and said, “Bottom line it for me, Julia. Why’d you come to me?”

      Her posture got even straighter, if possible. Her chin lifted and she gathered up what little dignity she had left and wrapped it around her as if it were an ermine cloak. “I don’t have enough readily available cash to pay this person. I thought maybe you could loan it to me.” When he didn’t say anything to that, she hurriedly added, “I’ll pay you whatever interest you think is fair and—”

      “No.”

      She blinked at him. “That’s it? Just ‘no’?”

      “Paying a blackmailer’s never a good idea.” He sat back in his chair, propped his right foot on his left knee and idly tapped his fingertips against the arm of the chair. “You think a million will satisfy this person? No. Once you pay, you’ll be forced to keep paying.”

      “Oh, God.” Perfect posture forgotten, Julia slumped into her own chair. How had this happened? Who was behind this and why? What had she ever done to make someone act so viciously? And what was she going to do?

      “The way I see it,” Max said softly, as if plotting out a response even as he spoke, “your only choice here is to make your secret not worth telling.”

      “Excuse me?” Julia looked at him. His green eyes were narrowed, his strong, hard jaw tight and his mouth hardly more than a grim line. This was not a man to take lightly. This was the face of the man who’d taken Wall Street by storm. A modern-day warrior who’d slain his would-be competitors by leaving their financial bodies littered in his wake.

      This was Max Rolland.

      The unstoppable force behind Rolland Enterprises.

      And Julia had the distinct feeling she was about to find out firsthand what it was like to have Max the Marauder going into battle on her behalf.

      “All you have to do is marry me.”

      Did he actually say those words?

      She couldn’t be sure. It was as if the whole world had suddenly stopped and tilted weirdly on its axis. If there was one thing she hadn’t expected, it was a proposal.

      “Are you— Did you— Why would you—” Not a good sign. She couldn’t even string a complete sentence together.

      He smiled at her and the smile was cold and calculating and didn’t even approach his eyes. “Surprised?”

      “Uh … yes,” she admitted. “That would be a good way to put it.”

      “You shouldn’t be.” Standing up again, Max moved to the wet bar across the room, poured himself a cup of coffee and then asked, “You?”

      “No, thanks.”

      “Right.” He nodded to himself and smiled. “No caffeine for you. Don’t know how you’ll manage.”

      “I’ve got bigger things to worry about at the moment. And why should I have expected you to propose marriage to me? You don’t even believe that this is your baby.”

      He took a sip of coffee, then walked back to where he’d left her. Looking down at her, he said, “No, I don’t. But that’s not the issue anymore.”

      She choked out a laugh. “What is?”

      “You can’t pay the blackmail. I won’t pay it. I’m guessing you don’t want your family to know about this pregnancy yet, either, am I right?”

      More right than he knew. Julia got a cold chill just imagining breaking the “unwed mother” news to her parents. They’d once stopped speaking to her for six months because she’d dated a musician briefly.

      The Prentices weren’t exactly your average American family. She and her parents had never been close—which made one question why she cared what they thought of her life choices. But even if Margaret and Donald Prentice were cold and mostly uncaring, they were the only family Julia had. And now, more than ever, she couldn’t afford to lose touch with that one fragile thread of connection.

      “Yes,” she whispered, ducking her head because she couldn’t meet his eyes when she said it. “You’re right.”

      “And the actual father of this child is no longer in the picture.”

      Wryly, she muttered, “You could say that.”

      “Seems to me, the one option open to you is marrying