by Abby Green
It unnerved him now, how vivid those memories still were.
But if everything Rose had said was true, then why the hell hadn’t she just told him from the start? Of course he would have helped her father. Could he really believe that she’d been all but blackmailed by his grandmother into trapping him with a pregnancy?
All Zac had to do was think of his grandmother’s cold, imperious face and one word resounded in his head: yes.
Rose’s impassioned defence when he’d questioned her intelligence came back now, too, and he felt his chest grow tight. He took this world for granted, but he knew powerful people could be intimidating—and there was nothing more intimidating than the threat of legal action, especially when you couldn’t afford it.
Suddenly the conversation around him stopped and a familiar scent reached his nostrils. His companions were looking at someone behind him and he turned around slowly. His eyes widened incredulously.
Rose stood before him in the same black dress she’d worn the first night they’d met. It shimmered and clung to every curve, and to the small proud swell of her belly. Dimly he recognised that it had grown bigger in just the space of a week, and the knowledge made him feel as if something was slipping a mooring inside him.
Her hair was down, she wore no make-up, yet she was luminous. Ethereal. His fey enchantress. His betrayer.
His voice sounded hoarse to his ears. ‘What are you doing here?’
She came closer. ‘I need to say something else.’
Aware of the spike in interest around them, Zac said tersely, ‘Now is hardly the time to continue this conversation.’
He saw the pulse at the base of her neck beating hectically and his own blood throbbed in response.
‘Now is as good a time as any.’
Zac was aware of the keen interest of everyone around them and took Rose’s arm in his hand, pulling her away from prying eyes and flapping ears.
He walked her over to a quieter spot and let her go. ‘Well? What’s so important it couldn’t wait?’
She took a deep breath, which made her breasts rise against the dress. Distracting.
‘I need you to know that there was always so much more to this for me—from the first night we met. The last thing I wanted to do was betray you...or derail your life... Even when I knew I was being unconscionably selfish in going back to your apartment with you that day, I told myself that you’d make sure we were protected. I thought I could take a sliver of what you were offering and then walk away and never see you again. It would be my secret, to hold tight forever.’
She gestured to the dress with a jerky movement.
‘I just wanted to try and show you that the girl you met that night was the girl you thought I was. Unbelievably naive and gauche. But I was caught up in something I didn’t know how to navigate. And yes, there was an agenda, but I hated every moment of the deception.’
She grabbed his hand then and placed it over her small belly. He could feel her trembling.
‘The truth is that I fell in love with you, Zac, and I don’t regret for a second that we’re having this baby, no matter how it came about, because for me this baby will be born out of love.’
* * *
This baby will be born out of love.
For a second Zac’s chest swelled with something that felt scarily euphoric. And then he remembered... No matter what she said, this baby had been conceived in deception. And treachery. The fact was that she was pregnant, so she could say what she liked. She had him trapped.
A memory surfaced of how reverent he’d felt when he’d touched Rose that afternoon she’d come back to his apartment. It had been like nothing he’d ever experienced before. How awed he’d been by her apparent honesty...
But she hadn’t been remotely honest... She’d known exactly what she was doing. And at no point had she attempted to come clean.
Rose had had the last week to think things through, and Zac had to concede that she was nothing if not enterprising. He took his hand from under hers and ignored the way that small hard swell had evoked a need in him to protect. It was a need to protect his unborn child from her.
Coolly, he said, ‘I don’t appreciate this public stunt.’
Rose frowned. ‘It’s not a stunt.’
Zac lifted a hand. ‘Please—I don’t want to hear it.’
She took a step back and looked at him. ‘You still don’t trust me.’
He emitted a half-laugh. ‘Trust? You think a public declaration of love and remorse will convince me to take leave of my senses altogether?’ He shook his head. ‘You really don’t have to do this, you know. It’s overkill. Once you sign the contract put together by my legal team I’ll make sure you’re comfortable for the rest of your life. You’ve realised that as the baby’s father I was always going to win in any battle against my grandmother and you’re just switching your allegiance. I get it. I recognise someone bent on survival because I’ve been there too.’
Rose just looked at him. He could see the light in her eyes dimming. The light of hope, it occurred to him, bizarrely, and for a moment he almost forgot and reached out to grab her. She’d gone so pale...
But then she took another step back and smiled woodenly. ‘You have to admit it was worth a try,’ she said.
It felt as if something was cracking in Zac’s chest. Something that had no right to exist. Because it meant that on some level he still had a fatal weakness for this woman and that a part of him had wanted those words to be true.
Ridiculous.
As a five-year-old boy Zac had impulsively hugged his grandmother one day, only to have her push him away so hard he’d fallen and hit his head on a table.
She’d stood over him and said, ‘Don’t ever touch me like that again—do you hear?’
He had to force a smile now, because it didn’t come easily. ‘It’s always worth a try, Rose.’
And then he turned and walked back into the crowd, and hated that it was the hardest thing in the world not to look back and see her face.
When he finally returned to the group he’d been with before and did look back, she was gone.
* * *
As Rose packed her things a short while later, in the apartment beside Zac’s, she was still in a state of something like stoical numbness. The fact that she’d gone there in that dress, in public, and had all but prostrated herself at his feet had meant nothing. Changed nothing.
She’d told him how she felt and it had been like a scene in a sci-fi movie, with bullets bouncing off an invisible membrane, uselessly.
The fact that she’d so weakly taken the opportunity to let him give her an out, by agreeing with his accusation that it was just an act, was something she was not going to beat herself up over now. She had a lifetime for that.
Her child would be her main focus now. And her father.
She took a last look around the room. The black dress was draped across the bed and this time she wouldn’t be taking it with her, because it was the last reminder she wanted. Then she picked up her bag and walked out.
CHAPTER TEN
‘IT LOOKS LIKE she’s telling the truth, Zac. Her father’s operation is tomorrow. And there’s been no other transfer of funds that we can find. It’s literally just the hospital costs. We’ve no reason to believe her father is involved in any way.’
Zac sat in his chair in his office, hands steepled under his chin. With a mounting feeling of vague dread in his belly he said, ‘Okay, thanks, Simon. Will you see to it that all the costs are taken care of?’
‘Of course—and do you still want to go ahead with the contract you outlined?’
‘Yes, as soon as possible.’ Even though that made him feel uneasy now too.
‘Consider it done.’
When the call was terminated Zac stoo
d up and went over to the window, feeling restless. On edge. He could see the Statue of Liberty. And the Brooklyn Bridge. It was from here that he had overseen his resurrection. And yet now the sense of accomplishment he usually felt didn’t fizz in his veins.
All he could see was Rose’s face last night, when that light had dimmed in her eyes and she’d said in a brittle voice, ‘It was worth a try.’
When he’d returned to his apartment there had been no trace of her apart from the faintest lingering of her scent. Even that had had an effect on him. Enough to make him come up with some half-baked excuse to go to the adjoining apartment and knock on the door.
When there’d been no answer the concierge had let him in and Zac had prowled the rooms, as restless as a panther. She hadn’t been there either. All the clothes he’d bought her had been hanging up neatly. And the black dress had lain across the bed in the master suite. A mocking reminder of the lengths she’d gone to.
Panic mixed with anger had roiled in his gut. Suspicion had mounted that she’d gone back to his grandmother’s, figuring she could battle him for custody from there, but then he’d seen a piece of paper on the table by the door with his name on it.
Zac, thank you for the offer of the apartment but I’ll be more comfortable at home in Queens. I’m going to be with my father at the clinic until after his operation, and then, when he comes home, I’ll help him recuperate, if all goes well.
As you didn’t want to see me anyway, I’m sure you can’t find fault with this. I’ll be in touch once the baby is born to let you know everything is okay, and perhaps then we can discuss plans to go forward.
In the meantime you can send the contract, or any other correspondence to my Queens address.
Rose
Just thinking of the letter now made Zac feel sicker. And he hated it. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d said he wanted? For her to all but disappear from his life?
She’d offered him the perfect out, and once she signed the contract he was having drawn up he’d be able to rest assured that his child would be brought up a Valenti. He would have what he wanted and he could get on with his life... So why did he feel so antsy? And why did he keep thinking of what she’d said about the night they’d met?
‘I hoped you’d be gone, but then we met... I truly didn’t want to betray you...’
It made him remember how she’d looked when he’d first seen her—as if she’d wanted to escape.
And then how time and time again she’d told him she had to go, only for him to persuade her to stay, beguiling her. Cajoling. Seducing.
Disgusted with himself for ruminating on this, and for allowing doubts to fester, Zac turned around—just as his office door opened with a bang and the last person in the world he wanted to see walked through it, with his assistant in an obvious flap behind her.
‘Zac, I’m so sorry. I told her you weren’t to be disturbed but she wouldn’t listen.’
He managed to say coolly, ‘It’s fine, Daniel. You can leave us.’ He added with an edge as his anger mounted, ‘I think I can manage my grandmother.’
The door closed and Zac looked at the woman who had shoved him aside rather than let him offer her any affection. She was only five foot two, but to Zac as a child she had appeared a giant. Not any more.
A cold, hard hatred settled in his belly. No matter what Rose had done, this woman was the real architect behind the plan. Ever since her husband had died she’d become even more zealous about the family name. As if she could still try to please her dead husband.
Zac folded his arms over his chest and said, ‘To what do I owe the pleasure, Grandmother dearest?’
Jocelyn Lyndon-Holt, clad in a pristine designer suit, was white in the face and vibrating with barely concealed fury. Zac might have enjoyed her agitation if he’d felt more relaxed, but he had a bad sense of foreboding.
She stalked towards him on thin legs and threw down a sheaf of papers on his desk. ‘You can tell that little tart of yours that I didn’t appreciate her visit yesterday, and that she’ll be facing the full might of my legal team if she thinks she can break the contract she signed with me. Not to mention the non-disclosure agreement. Needless to say the press will have a field-day when they discover that she set out to deliberately seduce you for her own gain.’
The dread Zac had been feeling solidified in his gut. He looked down at the sheaf of papers on his desk. Torn-up papers. Legalese language: I the undersigned do hereby agree to... I agree never to disclose...
He looked at his grandmother, his brain locking on to one thing. ‘She visited you?’
The older woman’s too-smooth face couldn’t show her full fury, but it came through in her shaking voice. ‘She had the gall to come into my house and demand to see me—to tell me that she wanted her baby to be a Valenti. She’s a romantic and naive fool indeed if she heard your sob story and now thinks that you can offer her some sort of a happy ending. We both know that doesn’t exist—don’t we, Zachary?’
We both know that doesn’t exist...
Zac felt as if someone had just shocked him back to life... Hadn’t he on some level, ever since he’d learnt about his parents, hoped that it did exist? Hadn’t he based his whole resurrection on some kind of hope for...more?
He hadn’t let himself believe in it in an emotional sense—too cowardly after a lifetime of being denied love—so he’d channelled it into his work. Believing that power would fill the gap of more.
And then he’d met Rose and the gap had opened again—painfully—showing him that he did want so much more, and to believe in purity and honesty. Until he’d found out that she’d betrayed him and he’d felt like an abject fool.
He walked around the desk to his grandmother and bit out, ‘When did she come to see you?’
She glared up at him. ‘That’s all you care about? When you know I can crush you and your reputation to pieces?’
He restrained himself from shaking her. ‘Old woman, tell me now—or, so help me God, I’ll bury the name of Lyndon-Holt so deep that it’ll never be spoken of again or remembered.’
Something of his deadly cold fury seemed to get through to her and she said grudgingly, ‘Yesterday afternoon.’ Her voice became vitriolic. ‘She didn’t even want money, stupid girl. She just wanted her father’s operation to be paid for. I should have known then she was a useless sentimental fool, and I had my doubts—especially when she left her sorry little note saying that she couldn’t go through with it—but then I forced her to meet you again and she actually got pregnant...’
Zac turned to ice. He couldn’t deny the truth any longer. Everything slid into terrifying, horrifying place. Rose really had been just an innocent, scared woman. Very naive, yes, but innocent. Dear God, above all innocent.
He managed to restrain himself from exploding and said frigidly, ‘First of all, she is not stupid. Not even remotely. Second of all, you found a distraught, upset employee and you took advantage of her. You used her sick father’s life to manipulate her. And you have the temerity to judge her?’
Zac’s voice had risen almost to a roar by the end.
Jocelyn Lyndon-Holt’s cold blue eyes narrowed on her grandson. No hint of love or emotion. She said disdainfully, ‘You really are your mother’s son, aren’t you? Repeating history all over again. You’ve fallen for a naive little innocent when you could have had everything, Zachary. There would have been no limit to where you could have ended up.’
Zac just shook his head. He thought of himself looking back to where he’d left Rose in that ballroom the previous evening and seeing nothing but an empty space. He thought of the empty apartment and her note.
‘You’re right, you know,’ he said bleakly. ‘I could have had everything but I let it go. Now, get out of my sight—before I have you thrown out.’
* * *
Rose held
her father’s hand in hers. Tears blurred her vision when he opened his eyes and squinted at her, saying croakily, ‘Roisín, is that you, love?’
She brushed away the tears. ‘Yes, Dad, it’s me. I’m right here.’
He sounded wonderstruck, his eyes clearing. He looked around. ‘It’s over, then? And I’m still alive?’
Rose let out a half-laugh full of relief and gratitude. ‘Yes, it’s over. And, yes, you’re alive. You did amazingly. The doctor said you’ve got another thirty years in you, at least.’
‘Oh, now...’ her father said, with a tired but relieved smile. ‘Sure, what would I be doing with another thirty years?’
She took his hand and put it on her belly. She said emotionally, ‘Well, for a start, you’ll be helping me with Junior and telling him or her all about where they come from.’
‘So it wasn’t a dream, then?’
She shook her head and forced a smile. No, it hadn’t been a dream. It was a bit of a nightmare, actually, now that she’d have to figure out how best to deal with Zac and the inevitable repercussions from having stood up to Mrs Lyndon-Holt. But for the moment things were good. Her father was safe and that was all that mattered. She would worry about the rest later.
Her father frowned. ‘The father, Roisín—’
Rose said quickly, ‘Shh... Don’t be thinking about that now. I’ll tell you about him when you’re feeling stronger.’ She bent and pressed a kiss to his cheek, then pulled back. ‘Get some rest now—you need it.’
It was a sign of his weakness that he didn’t push the subject but just emitted a harumph and slipped back into sleep.
Rose stood up, her muscles aching from sitting by his bed for so long while she’d waited for him to come round from the anaesthetic. She sent him one last look and made sure all his monitors and wires seemed to be functioning okay, then slipped out of the room.
