“For how long?” Adam asked, echoing Annie’s question of hours earlier.
“I will liaise with your doctor. When your doctor and I feel you are ready, you may come out.”
“But Juanita …”
“Will be looked after,” he assured Adam.
“What will you tell her?” Adam’s voice was notching into whiny territory and it made Kyle’s blood boil.
“That you’re an alcoholic,” Kyle said seriously. “And when you come out and have faced the truth of your situation, you may tell her whatever you wish.”
“I don’t want to go away,” Adam snivelled, throwing the scotch back and wincing as it burned his back palette.
“I’m sure you don’t. But this is a far pleasanter option than prison,” Kyle pointed out. “And if you don’t go to the car waiting downstairs, I’ll call the police myself.”
“And so if I go to rehab, you’ll let this go? You won’t press charges?”
“It’s a criminal matter, not civil,” Kyle contradicted coldly. “And you technically didn’t steal from me, so much as tens of thousands of my employees.” He let the words sink in. “But yes. I’ll sort things out with the money so long as you go along with this.”
There was no need for Kyle to let Adam know that the money had been remunerated at the time of discovery. Without the threat of criminal proceedings hanging over his head, Adam would have been far less malleable.
“Go now, Adam.”
“Right now? I don’t even get to say goodbye to Juanita?”
“I’ll call her,” Kyle promised crossing to the door.
Adam let out a long slow breath and finally nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it.” As though he had any choice! He followed behind Kyle and at the door, stopped to give his brother-in-law a look of gratitude.
“I’m …”
“Don’t say sorry,” Kyle snapped impatiently. “I’ve heard that from you before. Just go and get your head right.”
Adam held his hand out and Kyle shook it for Annie’s sake alone.
8
Her eyes blinked open at the sound of the door opening and she shifted her bleary eyes to the clock across the lounge area. It was hard to make out the exact time, but somewhere after midnight.
She must have fallen asleep on the sofa somewhere in the last chapter of her book. She pressed her lips together and swallowed a few times; she was groggy.
“You’re home,” she mumbled, sitting up and scraping her hair out of her eyes with her hands.
“Yeah.” He stared at her for a long hard moment.
Annie stood, walking quickly across to him. “What happened with Adam?”
Something inside of him snapped. Hatred. Hatred and rage that she could care so much for a worthless piece of trash like Adam Smith when she’d been happy enough to leave him – her husband. Jealousy for her unswerving devotion for the man who deserved nothing.
“Your brother’s going to be fine,” he snapped for the second time that night, only this time it felt damned good. “Well, as fine as a psychopath like him can be.”
“Kyle,” she chastised, appalled at the force of his rage.
“He’s the definition of one, Annie.”
She swallowed. There was no sense getting bogged down in an argument about her brother. “What did you say to him?”
“I told him that if he stepped out of line again I’d have no hesitation reporting him.”
She nodded. “And what did he say?”
“Nothing ground-breaking.” He waved a hand in the air dismissively. “The usual sort of crap you’d expect from someone like him.”
Annie twisted her hands together in front of her abdomen. “I hope he’s learned from this.”
“He will this time.” Kyle shifted his weight. “He’s gone to an addiction treatment facility.”
“He has?” She blinked up at him. “What for?”
“To address this compulsion. Hopefully to learn to see sense. I don’t think he’d have much chance of staying on the right side of the law without some kind of intervention.”
“I can’t believe you convinced him!” She gasped.
Kyle’s smile was grim. “Apparently I’m excellent at getting people to do what I want.”
A frown tugged at her lips. “In the case of my brother, an ultimatum was more than fair.”
His eyes narrowed. He studied her in the pale glow cast by the lamp and felt a twisting in his gut. The silence arced between them like an unbreakable thread.
Finally, he lifted a hand to her cheek. “Let’s go to bed.”
Annie’s heart lurched. Of course she could have said ‘no’. She could have told him that she didn’t want him to come near her. But it would have been a lie. For as angry as her husband made her, as wrong as she thought their marriage was, she knew that she felt an equal swelling of desperate need and desire for him.
It had been so long since he’d touched her how she needed to be touched. In the Dark Days, when she’d faced the grief of losing their child alone, all she’d wanted was to feel his strong arms around her, holding her up. She’d coped without him, but only because she’d had to.
“Thank you.”
His expression was impossible to read. “For what?”
“For dealing with Adam.” She swallowed convulsively. “I really didn’t know if you would. When I came to you the other day, I mean.”
Sadness ripped through him. A small part of his brain was shouting at him to tell Annie that everything had already been fixed, well before she’d arrived. That he could never let Annie’s brother go to prison if it meant hurting Annie. But damn it, pride, resentment and ego kept him from giving her the information that would have meant so much to her.
“For your sake, I hope he’ll turn a corner.” It was a grim statement, and Annie could tell that Kyle didn’t hold out much hope Adam’s behaviour would improve.
“I hope so for Juanita’s sake.” Annie clarified, putting a hand on Kyle’s chest. She could feel his warmth and it was like heaven. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, as though his power could travel along her fingertips, into her arm and right to her soul.
“Yes,” he agreed, unable to look away from his wife’s beautiful face. She was so fragile. Desire warred with compassion. His body was wound like a coil, desperate to possess her. To feel her take him and to see the way she fell apart when he moved within her. But her sadness ached to be erased, and without her asking him to, Kyle understood what she needed.
He wrapped his strong arms around her body and brought her to his chest. He held her with her head against his chest and he breathed with her.
Annie brought her arms behind his back and linked them together.
For all their disharmony, nothing ever felt so good and right as when they were like this.
I love you. The words burned in her mouth, whispering in her soul, begging her to speak them aloud. For she felt it. She knew she did love him. That she hadn’t left him because she didn’t love him, but because she didn’t know how to handle that love. Her dependency on a man who would always be a lone-wolf had terrified her.
That wasn’t his fault.
It wasn’t hers either. It was just a fact of life that no amount of trying could overcome.
“Let’s go to bed,” she said softly, her heart breaking for the impossible situation they were in.
Kyle didn’t relax his hold around her. He pressed a kiss against her hair and held her tight. “These last six months,” he said and then paused, his voice low and thick. “I’ve thought of you every day.”
Her eyes burned with tears. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. “I had to leave.”
“Why?” He ran his fingers over her hair.
“I wasn’t happy,” she said finally, after a long search of her feelings. It was the statement that best summed up her decision.
“I didn’t realise.”
“No.” She nodded. “We’re so different, you and I. I should have underst
ood. Our marriage was doomed from the beginning. Great sex isn’t enough.”
“But it wasn’t just sex. We were in love.”
She inhaled deeply, relishing his beautiful scent and stirring ancient need within her soul. “If we were, we would have found a way to make it work.” She lifted a hand to his cheek and leaned back a little in the circle of his arms.
“I should have listened to you,” he admitted, surprising them both. “I was arrogant. I didn’t want to believe there was anything wrong with our marriage. That I wasn’t what you needed.”
She nodded, but she knew her voice would be scratchy with emotion. After a moment to compose herself, she smiled. It was a smile that broke his heart for it was brave and beautiful all at once. “I don’t want to think anymore, Kyle. Whatever we were… whatever we are … we both know the one place we never had problems was in bed.” She stroked his cheek. “I just want to feel that now.”
He searched her face.
“Can you make me forget, Kyle? Please? Just make me forget everything?”
Alarm bells were screeching loud and clear now. What had he missed? What did his wife so desperately need to forget?
“Please.” Her voice shifted down a notch lower. “Make love to me like you used to.”
His chest twisted. He felt every single muscle in his body jerk in response. This would be a temporary fix; it would make them both feel an overwhelming sense of relief. But it wouldn’t address the underlying problem. Kyle wasn’t sure he knew how to do that but he would have given his last dollar to try.
9
Kyle stared at the Manhattan skyline with a scowl etched across his handsome face. The buildings glistened in the weak afternoon sun, and snow created furrows of white beyond his window, making it look as though angels from heaven were dousing the city in confetti.
What was Annie doing, he wondered, picturing her in his home. Was she staring out at the city like him? Was she smiling at the beautiful snow, as she’d done in the early days of their marriage?
He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw, remembering how perfect it had been to sleep with her again. And again. And again. A week of the most passionate nights of his life, and the coldest, loneliest days. Coldness was nothing new to Kyle Anderson; he should have been used to it by now. But coldness from Annie was a new and unyielding beast.
His gut twisted like he’d been knifed as he pictured her as she’d been that morning. She’d cinched her robe tight around her waist and her face had been pale and gaunt looking. It had only been a week, but Kyle had been hoping she would begin to show signs of improved health. That her body might slowly take on the curves he’d always loved. Her eyes had barely met his.
Despite the nights they shared and the dependency of their bodies, they were more estranged than ever before.
She was his wife; he was her husband, but in reality, they were now strangers.
And the knowledge could almost have made him scream. The first time his phone buzzed, Kyle didn’t hear it. It took Maria three presses of the intercom before Kyle roused himself from his reverie and lifted the phone.
“Yes?” His voice was curt, his tone impatient.
“Ky, I’ve got a Juanita Smith here to see you?”
His frown deepened. “Send her in.”
He hadn’t seen Juanita in a year; the sight of her heavily pregnant frame squeezing through his door was a surprise indeed. He stood and moved to put a hand under her elbow.
“Hi Kyle,” she said, her smile lopsided. “How are you?”
“How am I?” He repeated, allowing her to press a kiss against his cheek. “Fine. And you? Are you as uncomfortable as you look like you must be?”
She laughed and nodded.
“Please, have a seat,” he gestured to the sofas but she shook her head.
“I can’t stay long, and it would take a forklift to get me out of there.” She ran her hands over her belly in a way that made something lodge in Kyle’s heart. What would it be like if Annie were pregnant? Watching her grow fat with his child was something he’d never thought about. Only her insistence now that she desperately didn’t want to risk falling pregnant had sparked the opposing desire within him.
“I just had to pick up some papers for Adam,” she explained hurriedly. “And seeing as I was here, I thought I’d drop this to you for Annie.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out an envelope. It was dogeared in each corner.
She grimaced as she passed it to him. “I meant to give it to her last time we caught up but I completely forgot,” Juanita explained.
“What is it?” He prompted, running a finger over the front. It bore the emblem of a nearby hospital
“Not sure,” Juanita smiled. “It’s happened once before with that place. Their admin systems must be a shemozzle. I guess it’s because she’s registered under her maiden name.”
Kyle nodded, his eyes latching to the front of the envelope. Annabelle Smith. He hated that. Why did she do it?
“Anyway, I guess it’s too hard for them to process our separate names and addresses… probably doesn’t help that we have the same birth dates too.” Juanita shrugged. “You’ll give it to her?”
“Of course.” He put the envelope onto the desk as though it wasn’t burning impatience through his soul. Was his wife sick after all? Was that what she needed him to help her forget? “How’s Adam?”
Juanita’s face flashed with pain. “He’s okay. He seems … different somehow. A bit quiet.”
Kyle nodded.
“But I guess it’s for the best.” Only the way she said it made Kyle think that actually, she didn’t believe any such thing.
“Anyway,” she forced a smile to her face. “I’ve got an appointment with my doctor.”
He nodded distractedly and walked her to the door. When had Annie been in hospital and why were they writing her?
“Give my best to Adam,” he said generously.
“Thanks, Kyle. Thanks for everything.”
He nodded, watching as she waddled towards the bank of lifts and then turned to pass one final wave in his direction.
Kyle returned it before shutting the door, moving with a swift economy of movement back to his desk and the letter at its centre. He ripped the back off the envelope in his haste to reveal its contents then lifted the paper out.
It was a bill, and the date on it showed that it had been sent only a month earlier.
With a frown, he tried to make sense of the codes that had been used, but it was all hospital jargon. He crossed to his desk and fired his laptop to life then loaded a google browser.
Careful not to mis-type any of the letters, he entered them into the browser along with the name of the hospital and waited impatiently.
Seconds later, a link flashed in front of him. He clicked on it and blinked hopelessly at the words that swum in front of his eyes.
982-ki3p9: Gynaecological services (termination, D&C).
Luc had been staring at the piece of paper for several minutes as though he could intuit something beyond the accusatory billing code if only he looked long enough.
Kyle sipped the foam off the top of his beer, his eyes focussed across the room.
“Jesus,” Luc groaned finally, lifting enormous eyes to Kyle’s face. “She had an abortion?”
Kyle dragged a hand over his eyes. “Yeah. Apparently so.”
“I just can’t believe it. Not of Annie. Are you sure…?”
“Look at the invoice,” he snarled then regretted it instantly. “Sorry. It’s just floored me completely.”
“I can imagine.” Luc pressed the paper down. “And you’re absolutely sure that this bill wasn’t sent by mistake?”
He nodded. “I called the hospital to make payment. They were only too happy to confirm the billing code over the phone.”
“Have you talked to her?”
Kyle shook his head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea yet.” His body was thrumming with pent-up emotion. Anger, grief, hatred. �
��When I think of the ringer she’s put me through this last fortnight, making me feel like I failed her in every way during our marriage yet she was sitting on this.” He groaned. “How could she do it?”
Luc lifted his beer and took the head off it. “She must have had a reason. Maybe there was something medical? Maybe something was wrong with the baby and it wouldn’t have survived?”
Kyle made a grunting sound. “That’s clutching at straws.”
“No, that’s why you need to talk to her. The Annie you know and love would never have had an abortion simply because you guys were having issues.”
“Having issues?” Kyle almost choked on his beer. “She was suing me for divorce. She was going to wrap up our marriage and toss it in the trash without so much as a goodbye.” He groaned. “A baby would have been pretty inconvenient.”
“Can you hear what you’re saying?” Luc demanded. “You love this woman, and not just because she’s gorgeous and she adores you. You love her because she’s a great person. You love her because she’s kind and sweet and smart and funny. Annie would never have just gone and had an abortion because she decided on a whim not to have a baby. That’s not Annie.”
Kyle squeezed his hand around his glass. “But she did. There’s the proof.”
“Yeah, but there must have been a reason.”
“Like what? Come on, Luc. You know as well as I do that no matter what she was told by doctors – even if your fanciful theory’s right – she should have talked to me. I should have been included. That was our child. Ours.”
“Unless …” Luc shook his head. “Nah, forget about it.”
“Unless what?”
“Unless it wasn’t yours,” Luc pondered quietly. “What if there’s more going on here than you realise? What if she didn’t just up and leave. What if she met someone else and that’s why she wanted the divorce. I mean, she’s put the hospital bill in her maiden name …”
Marrying for his Royal Heir & The Terms of Their Affair (Clare Connelly Pairs Book 7) Page 24
