The Owner of His Heart

by Taylor, Theodora

  Nathan went still. “What do you mean by ‘again.’”

  Andrew studied his tuxedo lapel, unwilling to meet Nathan’s eyes. “I mean that kiss you saw ten years ago. It wasn’t Layla and me kissing. It was me kissing Layla, trying to convince her not to dump me, in order to be with you.”

  Nathan’s fists clenched. “You let me believe all this time that she’d chosen you?”

  Andrew raised his hands. “Don’t cause a scene,” he warned. “I already have to explain to everyone why I have a black eye. And if you hit me again, my offer to be your best man comes off the table.”

  “You let me leave her in that hospital all alone, believing she didn’t want me?” Nathan continued. “Do you have any idea how much I loved her, love her now?”

  “Obviously I didn’t, or I would have told you,” Andrew answered. “And I can’t believe you’re trying to make me feel guilty for not helping you to steal my girlfriend.”

  “I didn’t steal her. I loved her more than you did, and she loved me back. She chose me.” Nathan said. Saying the words aloud filled him with a new wonder. He had spent all this time being bitter, but she had chosen him both then and now.

  “Funny, that’s kind of what she said.”

  Before Nathan could press him for further details, Kate came rushing toward them. “I saw Layla coming in, and I got everything reset up for the proposal.” Kate frowned, looking over both shoulders. “But where is she?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Nathan said.

  “She must still be talking to Mrs. Sinclair—I mean Diana,” Kate said, correcting herself with a glance toward Andrew. “I saw them go into the library together after Layla arrived. Diana looked upset and I think Layla was trying to comfort her.”

  They all exchanged knowing smiles. “Mystery solved,” Nathan said. He cut his eyes toward his brother. “I’m going to have delay my proposal because my future wife is too busy comforting your future ex-wife.”

  Andrew shrugged. “Well, you know Layla. Maybe even better than I do at this point.”

  Nathan’s phone vibrated in his tux pocket. After pulling it out, he checked the caller ID and saw it was Spencer Greeley. Maybe he had a break in the case.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Kate and Andrew. He walked away without waiting for their answer. At that point nothing was a bigger priority than keeping Layla safe. “Do you have something?” Nathan asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Sterling answered. “But I wanted to call you just in case. I finished going through the names on the sign-in sheet at Ms. Matthews’ physical therapy center and one jumped out at me. Did you know your sister-in-law went into Layla’s center a couple of times for physical therapy? Apparently, she’d sprained her wrist playing tennis.”

  Nathan’s mind began putting two and two together, even before the detective had come to his conclusion. “Diana was there the day Layla was first threatened?”

  “Yeah, she was. Might just be a coincidence, but I’m going to hack her credit card records to see if she’s bought any cans of spray paint lately.”

  But something was already telling Nathan what those records would reveal. Diana had lied. She had pretended to not even know who Layla was when she’d stopped by the mansion looking for Andrew. But Nathan was now certain Diana knew exactly who she was and had been threatening her accordingly ever since seeing her at the physical therapy center. He dropped the phone and started pushing through the crowd toward the library.

  ***

  Inside the library, Layla tried to calm the screaming panic inside her mind and talk to Diana. “Diana, I know you think you saw something significant out there, but let me assure you, there is nothing between Andrew and me. I’m in love with Nathan.”

  “It doesn’t matter who you’re in love with,” Diana said, coming around the desk. “He’s in love with you. And if I can’t have him, you can’t.”

  “I don’t want him. Seriously, I’m in love with Nathan.”

  Diana lips trembled into a bitter smile. “That’s what you said ten years ago when you found me in Andrew’s room.”

  Layla blinked, trying to process this new piece of information, even as a previously blocked memory unfolded in front of her mind’s eye. “You were there,” she whispered, remembering. “I came to deliver that note, and I found you in his room going through his things. I didn’t know who you were, but I knew you didn’t belong there.”

  “I was only trying to gather some information. I wanted to know who this girl was he’d been dating, and see if there was any way I could snatch him back from you.” Diana said. “So I snuck in past the servants and I went into Andrew’s room.”

  Layla shook her head. “Snatch him back from me? He broke up with you before he ever met me.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Diana said.

  She had said the same words that night long ago, Layla now remembered, with that same crazed look in her eyes. Then she’d grabbed a Swiss Army knife off of Andrew’s desk and came running toward her.

  Layla’s flight instinct had taken over at the sight of the knife bearing down on her and she’d run, only managing to get out one scream before she missed the step and went tumbling face forward down the stairs.

  “It was you I was running from,” she realized out loud.

  “Yes, it was me, and I wish you had died. Then you wouldn’t have come back to town to ruin my marriage,” Diana said with venom in her voice. “Am I supposed to believe your return to Pittsburgh at the same time Andrew disappeared was just a coincidence?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to believe,” Layla said. “Because that’s exactly what happened. I’m not in love with Andrew. In fact, when I came up to his room, I was just there to deliver an apology, because I had already broken up with him.”

  “I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you! I don’t believe!” Diana screamed like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. “All you do is lie. You pretend to be this innocent girl, but you stole Andrew from me twice.” She cocked the gun.

  And Layla began to feel real despair. This woman was going to kill her, for real this time, and before she had a chance to tell Nathan how she really felt and why she had chosen to go to the party with Andrew as opposed to him.

  She had always had a thing about breaking promises and now she couldn’t escape the irony. She had broken her promise, just once, and now she would be paying for that broken promise with her life.

  Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. “Okay, if you’re going shoot me, no matter what, let me just say this. I love Nathan Sinclair. My heart belongs to him and it always will. If this ends badly for me, please let him know I said that.”

  Then Layla surprised her by running toward her and grabbing hold of the gun’s barrel.

  ***

  It felt to Nathan like the crowd grew thicker as he got closer to the library door, as if they were purposefully trying to keep him from Layla, his heart, his soul, the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  His father had always kept a revolver in a locked drawer in his desk. After inheriting the house, Andrew had not only kept the gun, but had also made a big deal of leaving it in the drawer, claiming that’s what their father would have wanted.

  Nathan knew Diana knew it was in there, and he felt sick with fear for Layla. He shoved people aside left and right, and cursed himself for never telling her how he truly felt, for never saying those three words during their two months together: I love you. He had been such a fool. He could only hope he wasn’t too late.

  Finally, he reached the library door and was just about to turn the knob, when a gunshot rang out on the other side of it.

  EPILOGUE

  FOR SOMEONE who hadn’t thought she knew anyone when she first returned to Pittsburgh six months ago, it now seemed to Layla like she was most popular girl in town. Over 300 people had been invited to their wedding, and a few local media outlets, in the hopes that this would provide a natural clo
se to the Diana Sinclair attempted murder/accidental suicide story, which continued to be an ongoing news cycle item four months later. Just about everyone had RSVP’d yes.

  “It’s a zoo down there,” Carol said, returning to the master suite of the Sinclair mansion, where Mark and Jacob had set up the pre-wedding bridal base camp. Carol had insisted it was her duty as Layla’s maid of honor to be nosy and go peak over the landing’s banner to do an informal head count. “Did you invite the whole city?”

  Layla laughed, which didn’t please Mark, who was trying to apply the last of her makeup. “No, just everyone Sinclair Industries has ever done business with and the entire Matsuda board. I’m happy they all fit in the foyer for the ceremony.”

  A shadow passed over Layla’s face. Many of their wedding guests had attended the Sinclair ball four months ago.

  As if reading her thoughts, Carol said, “I wonder if they’re here to celebrate your big day or to return to the scene of the crime?”

  Layla decided to shrug it off. “I’m just happy they came.”

  Carol shook her head, “I can’t believe you’re still staying so positive after what happened to you.”

  Truth be told, Layla couldn’t believe it either. She could still see Diana laying in a pool of blood, the light in her crazed eyes fading as she choked to death on her own blood. Sometimes she woke in the middle of the night, screaming for someone to call an ambulance just as she had the night Diana had accidentally shot herself while trying to wrestle the gun back from Layla. But it had been too late for Diana at the ball, and she’d met the same fate again and again in Layla’s nightmares.

  Luckily the last ten years had taught her to be grateful for anything she could actually remember. Even the bad stuff.

  “A wedding seems like the perfect way to cleanse what happened here,” Layla said. “Maybe it will bring everyone some measure of peace.”

  Carol came over to her hair and makeup chair and gave Layla’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “I just hope that fiancé of yours appreciates what a good woman he found in you.”

  “Trust me, he does,” a voice said behind them.

  They all turned to see Andrew standing in the doorway.

  Layla smiled at him. “Mark, can you give me a second?”

  “Sure,” Mark said. “It’s not like you have a big event we’re trying to get you ready for or three-hundred guests waiting for you downstairs. We have all the time in the world.”

  Gently ignoring his sarcasm, Layla got out of her seat and walked over to Andrew. He gave her floor-length strapless wedding dress an appreciative once over. “You look beautiful, Layla.”

  “Thank you, but what are you doing up here? Shouldn’t you be with Nathan?”

  “I tried to explain to him you were perfectly all right and probably wouldn’t get cold feet, but he sent me to make sure anyway.” Andrew shook his head. “Said it was in my job description as the best man. But seriously, do you have cold feet? Because I’m ready and willing to take to you to Montana with me.”

  Layla chuckled. “No cold feet. They’re very warm in fact. I can’t wait to become Nathan’s wife.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Well, damn. Never let it be said that I didn’t try to give you an out.”

  Though his tone was joking, Layla knew this couldn’t be easy for him. And she didn’t think it was a coincidence Andrew had turned in his resignation only a couple of weeks before their wedding, announcing he’d decided to take up permanent residence at his ranch in Corral Springs, Montana and would no longer be living in Pittsburgh when they returned from their Fiji honeymoon. He’d even signed over the deed to the mansion to them.

  Layla wrinkled her nose. “I still can’t imagine you as a rancher. I mean, Nathan said you used to be really outdoorsy, but this seems like it’s taking it a little far.”

  Andrew’s eyes grew sad. “I can’t stay here, not after what happened with Diana. And especially not after what she tried to do to you. It was all my fault.”

  Layla smoothed a hand over his cheek. “No it wasn’t, Andrew. You were right to leave her. Diana was obviously unstable and at a deeper level you must have sensed that. You had no way of knowing she’d come after me. None of us even knew she knew me. She did a very good job of covering her tracks.”

  Andrew shook his head. “Still.”

  Layla gave him an understanding nod. “I know. We both have issues with guilt. Go to Montana. A few of my patients have taken long trips after they’re done with physical therapy. I really hope it helps you to heal.”

  Andrew paused, looking like he was going to say something important, but instead opting for “Me too.” He pasted a smile on his face. “Ready to get married to someone who isn’t me?”

  Layla remembered the way Nathan had gathered her into his arms when he found her crouched over Diana’s body, screaming for an ambulance. “Don’t look,” he said, when she tried to turn back to see if there was anything else she could do.

  “She’s gone. Look at me, Layla,” he’d said. "I love you. I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you. No more contracts. I don’t care about the pre-nup. I just want to spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you.”

  And those words had brought her out of her hysteria. “I love you, too,” she’d said.

  A more formal proposal with the emerald ring had come a few weeks later during intermission at the first show of the opera’s new season. But Layla would always think of her real proposal happening when Nathan snapped her out of her screaming fit by telling her he loved her, that he had never stopped loving her, that there would be no more contracts between them.

  “I am definitely ready to get married,” she told Andrew.

  “Not before we finish your make-up, young lady,” Mark said from his position at the makeup chair. “Now get back over here.”

  ***

  Four hours later, a limo dropped Nathan and Layla at The Renaissance, a swanky hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh. “Congratulations, Mrs. Sinclair,” the driver said, handing her out of the vehicle.

  Layla barely got a chance to say thank you, before Nathan took her hand from the driver and swept her into the hotel.

  “You didn’t say thank you,” Layla said, rushing to keep up with him as he strode across the lobby toward the elevator banks.

  “I texted Kate on the way over to double his tip and thank him for me. You’re not moving fast enough.”

  “I’m in heels,” she pointed out. “And you’d rather text someone else to thank him than take the time to do it yourself?”

  He scooped her off her feet. “If it means I shaved a few seconds off of getting you out of this wedding dress, then yes, I’d much rather do that.”

  He didn’t put her down again until they reached the room where he deposited her on the bed with a playful toss.

  “What is with you and throwing me into beds, Mr. Sinclair.”

  He flipped her over and unzipped her dress. “Well, Mrs. Sinclair, I love you in this wedding dress, but I love you even more naked.”

  He had the dress off of her in seconds. And the time for joking soon came to end when he thrust into her from behind, his hips pumping into her in a blur of need. “You shouldn’t have told me you weren’t wearing any panties. You’re lucky I didn’t take you at the reception in front of all our guests.”

  Layla moaned, thrusting her butt backwards, trying to take as much of him as she could, her own need wild and unhinged, as the sweetest sensation built inside of her womb, clenching her sex around his cock.

  “So tight,” Nathan said, pounding into her. “It’s like you were designed for me, sweetheart.” The orgasm hit them both on a crashing wave, washing over them, as Nathan’s seed spilled into her.

  “We made it,” he said against the nape of her neck, his voice filled with awe. “You’re finally mine.”

  “Now and forever,” she said with a breathless laugh. “I love you.”

  “I love you.” He pulled out and turned h
er over so she could see the sincerity in his eyes. “I love you now and forever. And I’m never going to let another day go by without telling you how much I love you. I promise you that.”

  Layla’s answering smile lit up her entire face.

  She believed he would keep that promise. She really did.