by Debra Webb
Her heart rate climbed so rapidly she felt lightheaded. “Is he here?”
“Of course he’s here,” Beckman said in that same condescending tone he’d used with her the first time they met.
She moistened her lips and gulped in a lungful of air. “What does he want from me? It’s—”
“Just a simple answer,” he said, cutting off the hysterical tirade she’d been about to launch.
Resigned to her fate, she nodded.
Beckman slipped from the vehicle, smoothly rounded the hood and opened her door. She climbed out awkwardly, her movements jerky. Her body didn’t want to cooperate with the orders her foggy brain issued. Whatever the man had to say to her, she had no choice but to face it. She had allowed this to happen. Had assumed his daughter’s identity, he had a right to demand an answer.
Abruptly a new possibility barged into her racing thoughts. What if he held against her the fact that she had known what his daughter was up to in Vegas in time for it to be stopped? That’s what she should have done. She should have demanded that Beckman listen to her in the first place and she should have told him everything.
Just look at all the damage that had resulted from her stupidity.
Beckman opened the back door of one of the buildings and ushered her inside.
He paused near a small cluster of folding chairs stationed in the short corridor. “Sit.” He motioned to the chair. “He’ll be ready to see you in a moment.”
She didn’t bother responding. What was the point? Forcing her knees to bend, she settled on the edge of the nearest seat, praying for a bolt of lightning to end her misery, or for an earthquake to split the ground open so that it could swallow her up. Anything to get this over with. Beckman entered a door to her right, closing it soundly behind him.
What felt like minutes but was probably only seconds passed as her anxiety climbed higher and higher. She kept shifting in the chair, looking both ways as if expecting an attack from one side or the other. She listened…strained to hear any kind of sound. Nothing. It was as if she were alone.
The same door Beckman had gone through opened once more. John stepped into the corridor, his gaze instantly seeking hers.
Equal measures of relief and uncertainty grabbed her by the throat. A part of her was so thankful to see him, but another part, the more rational side, realized that this was the moment she had dreaded.
This was the end.
“I want you to understand that I have to do this,” he said softly as he settled into a chair next to her.
She managed a shaky smile. “I’m sorry,” she told him, holding back the tears, determined not to make this any messier than it already was.
He frowned, looked strangely confused. “Why would you be sorry?” He took her hand in his. “I know this is sudden, but I know it’s the right thing to do.” He put his free hand against his chest. “I can feel it right here.”
Now Amy was the one confused. She shook her head and tried to reason out what he meant. “I don’t understand.”
He smiled and her heart stuttered. “I’m asking you to consider being my wife and the offer has absolutely nothing to do with the merger of our two companies. If that doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.” He nodded his head resolutely. “I decided once and for all last night that I wasn’t going to let that be the deciding factor in our happiness. This—” he looked directly into her eyes “—is about us.”
Stunned, she could only stare at him.
“Now.” He stood, pulling her up with him. “Come with me.”
Amy followed, too dumbfounded to do otherwise.
They went through the same door Beckman had entered what felt like forever ago. Amy blinked and looked again, certain she couldn’t be seeing what she thought she saw.
John waved his arm to indicate the room at large. “Take your pick. Whatever you want.” He smiled down at her with love in his eyes. “I love you, Gina, but I don’t expect you to make a decision now. I want you to take the engagement ring of your choice back home with you today and give my proposal as much consideration as you need to. And when you’re ready, you can give me your answer.”
She wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him that she loved him too and that she didn’t have to think about it. She would be happy spending the rest of her life being his wife.
But he hadn’t asked Amy Wells to marry him. He hadn’t even told her he loved her. This was all for Regina Winterborne and she wasn’t even here.
John chuckled. “Well, don’t look so depressed,” he scolded, his tone teasing.
Something buzzed in the ensuing silence. Beckman, who stood not far away along with another man, reached into his jacket pocket. “Excuse me,” he mumbled as he withdrew his cell phone. He hurried to the far side of the room and quietly answered the call.
Amy stood frozen like a statue, her heart breaking, the tears that had been threatening all morning rising like a tidal wave behind her lashes.
JOHN didn’t get it.
She stared up at him as if she might burst into tears any moment. What had he done wrong?
Then suddenly he knew.
She didn’t feel the same way.
God almighty. What a fool he was. His expression fell. He’d obviously misread everything. The way she looked at him. The enthusiastic, almost desperate, way she’d made love with him. How could he have been that wrong?
“John…I’m not…who you think I am,” she said brokenly.
“John.” Nate came up beside him and offered his cellular phone. “I think you’re going to want to take this.”
John blinked, torn between demanding to know what she meant and asking what the hell Nate thought was so damn important that it couldn’t wait until he’d wrung a more enthusiastic reaction to his proposal of marriage from the woman he loved.
Too overwhelmed to make a proper decision he snagged the phone and jammed it against his ear. “What?” he barked.
“What the hell have you done?”
It took a moment for John to recognize the voice through the confusion and growing disillusionment currently fogging his brain. “Winterborne?” The enraged voice had certainly sounded like Edgar Winterborne.
“What did you do to send my daughter running back here?” the man demanded. “She’s locked herself in her room and refuses to come out.”
This was crazy. “What do you mean she came running back there?” John demanded back at him. That was impossible. He was looking at her. He blinked again. And she looked as if the whole world had suddenly fallen in on her. Why had his proposal caused such a devastating effect? If she really didn’t feel the same way all she had to do was say no. But he still couldn’t believe that his instincts about her…about them…had been that far off the mark.
“What do you think I mean, you son of a bitch? She’s devastated. What did you do to her?”
A short, strained laugh burst from John. “Mr. Winterborne, your daughter is standing right in front of me. The only damn thing I’ve done that seems to have unsettled her is ask her to marry me.”
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Calhoun,” Winterborne warned. “Maybe you’re on drugs or you’ve lost your mind, but my daughter is here with me. She’s in her room.” Some of the fury seemed to drain from his voice. “I can’t get her to open the door. I can hear her weeping in there, but she refuses to let me in. I don’t know what to do.”
The sincerity in the man’s words slammed into John’s gut like a battering ram. He was telling the truth. There was no reason for him to lie in the first place. His daughter was there, in Chicago, with him, crying her eyes out over Lord only knew what.
His focus cleared and his eyes locked on the woman standing before him. “I’ll get back to you,” he muttered and closed the phone, almost crushing it in his fist. “Who are you?” he asked the stranger staring back at him.
“John, I hope you’ll let me explain.”
“Oh, that would be helpful,” he fired b
ack with a choked laugh. Why hadn’t he seen this coming? The signs had been there. “Somebody needs to fill me in on what the hell is going on!”
This was the moment Amy had dreaded. Not facing the truth. Not accepting the responsibility for what she’d allowed to happen. What she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of was the hurt and confusion in his eyes. Emotions she knew would quickly change to anger and then hatred.
She sucked in a ragged breath and steeled herself. “It started out as a mistake.” Taking her time, her throat very nearly closing with emotion at times, and her mouth so dry she could scarcely form the words, she told him how she had come to be here posing as Regina Winterborne.
When at last she’d finished her full confession, unbelievably without breaking down completely, she didn’t ask him to forgive her because she didn’t deserve it. She had only one thing to ask of him.
“Please don’t hold my poor judgment against the agency,” she pleaded. “This was my idea completely. Victoria doesn’t even know I’m here. Had I delivered the report as instructed, the mistake would have been cleared up immediately and none of this would have happened.” When he continued to stare mutely at her, she licked her dry, trembling lips and added, “I accept full responsibility for everything.”
He gave his head a little shake, the frown of confusion deepening. “You let me believe you were Regina Winterborne all this time…” He searched her face, looking for some sort of reasonable explanation she knew he wasn’t going to find. Reason had nothing to do with any of this. “We…” He shook his head, with more conviction this time. “And still you let me believe a lie.”
God, here it came. “Yes,” she admitted. He didn’t have to say the words. She knew he was referring to their time in Dallas at his office…the lovemaking.
He swiped a hand over his face, suddenly looking anywhere but at her. “I can’t believe you…this just isn’t possible.” He stared hard at her. “How could you do this?”
There it was, the bitterness that would harden into hatred.
“I was wrong. I didn’t know—”
“I’ll tell you how she could do it,” Beckman roared. “She saw the opportunity to snag herself a rich husband and she went for it,” he accused brutally. “That’s why you asked me all those questions on the flight. You were working out your strategy.” He shook his head and then stabbed a finger at her. “You’re a gold digger. That’s what you are!”
Amy’s entire being shattered at his hurtful accusations. Despite her fierce hold on her emotions, a single, humiliating tear rolled down her cheek. She swung her head side to side in denial of his horrible accusation. “No,” she argued. “That’s not what happened.”
Beckman glowered at her. “That’s exactly what happened,” he snapped. “I’ll see that you’re dismissed immediately by your employer and—”
“That’s enough,” John cut him off, his tone harsh.
“I won’t let her get away with doing this to you, John,” Beckman assured him. “I’m certain the Winterbornes will want to file a suit of their own.” He turned back to Amy. “You’re in very serious trouble, Miss…Miss…whoever you are.”
“I said enough,” John warned, his voice lethal.
Nate seethed in silence, but his glower remained in full force.
John gathered his scattered wits and allowed his gaze to settle on…the woman who waited silently for whatever was to come next. His newly recovered composure almost slipped from his grasp as he watched a solitary tear slide down her cheek. But the idea that she had lied to him, let him believe in a lie…fall in love with a lie, quickly shored up his crumbling resolve.
“There will be no suit,” he said as much to Nate as to her. “Or any contact with your employer.”
When Nate would have blurted his argument, John silenced him with an uplifted hand.
“I can’t speak for the Winterbornes,” he went on, “but I can speak for myself. I damn sure don’t want this turned into a more public spectacle than it already is.”
She nodded stiffly.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, unable to keep looking at her and keep an objective attitude. How could this be? How could all that he’d believed in and fallen for this weekend have been a lie? When he could look at her again, he continued, “I’ll have the pilot ready the jet to take you back to Chicago.”
Her slender shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you,” she said softly as she took a shaky swipe at her eyes.
She was trying desperately to hold it together. That part he didn’t understand. He would have thought she’d have used the tears and theatrics as a plea for sympathy. But she didn’t. John tamped down the respect that instantly arose.
“Before you go, I want to know your name.” When she’d related her story, she kept saying I or me. Apparently she’d been so upset she hadn’t remembered to identify herself.
“Amy,” she said quietly. “My name is Amy Wells.”
The name filtered through the emotional chaos in his head. Oddly, he mused, the name fit her. But that point was moot. She’d been out to prove herself. She’d had a hidden agenda for every moment they’d shared together. The memories of their lovemaking flashed one after the other before he could stop it. How could she have faked that? Every touch…every kiss had felt so damn real.
He gritted his teeth and reminded himself that it had all been a lie. He wanted to shake her, to demand something more than the explanation she’d given. But what good would that do? Their weekend together would still be a lie.
“I’m calling the pilot,” Nate said as he moved toward the door. “I’ll take Miss Wells to the airfield.”
She flinched at the savagery of his tone.
John wondered at that. How could a woman capable of carrying out this kind of deception be pained by something as harmless as an unkind or facetious tone?
“There’s just one thing I have to know before you leave,” he said when she started to follow Nate, the words out of his mouth before he had time to consider the wisdom of pursuing the issue. He must be a glutton for punishment.
She paused and turned back to him, those big brown eyes wide with trepidation, still liquid with unshed emotion. Despite all that he knew she’d done she still managed to look innocent and vulnerable. Clearly he had lost his mind. But he had to know the answer to this one question.
Emotion welled in his chest. “Was even a single moment of what we shared real to you?”
For three trauma-filled beats he was certain she wasn’t going to answer…then she spoke.
“Not a single moment,” she told him, the words scarcely a whisper but wielding more hurt than he’d imagined possible to feel. “Every moment was real.”
Then she walked away.
By the time her answer had sifted through the hurt and anger exploding inside him, she was gone.
Chapter Eleven
Every moment…
Amy curled up on the sofa and pulled the ancient afghan tighter around her neck, trying to ward off a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature in her tiny Chicago apartment.
She should be at work. But Mildred had insisted she stay home and lick her wounds. Which was exactly all she felt like doing. Amy drew her knees tighter to her chest and rested her cheek atop them. She needed sleep but couldn’t make her mind shut down.
All night long she had lain perfectly still in her bed in hopes of falling asleep but it hadn’t helped. The voices and images wouldn’t hush…wouldn’t go away. She kept seeing John’s face when he’d asked her if any of it had been real. The anger…the hurt. Pain she had caused.
She’d told him the truth before walking away. Every moment had been real. Hard as she tried to push the memories away, they reeled through her mind as well, unhindered by her every attempt to make them go away. The ride they’d taken on the ranch, the picnic…that first kiss. Making love. His heart-wrenching proposal. It was all indelibly ingrained upon her heart, in her mind.
Now she knew what
it felt like to live the fantasy…and to lose it. If she’d had any idea losing would hurt this much, she’d never have taken the risk. How did one recover? The idea of ever falling in love with anyone else was out of the question. Her heart belonged to a man who would never be hers.
New plans for a getaway with the real Regina Winterborne were probably already underway. Beckman would be on top of that for sure. And John…
She sighed. Well, he would simply do what was best for his company. She understood that about him now. He loved his father and his company. The responsibility to do what was right for both weighed heavily upon his shoulders. He wouldn’t let either down, even if it meant spending the rest of his life with the wrong woman.
Amy shuddered at the thought of John and Regina together.
In her heart, John Calhoun would always belong to her.
A belated realization punched Amy in the stomach, making her breath catch.
They hadn’t used a condom. Fear curled around her. How could she have let that happen? She’d always been so careful. She made an exasperated sound at the thought. Yeah, all three times she’d been really cautious, ensuring the use of protection in each incidence.
A new kind of anxiety clawing its way up her spine, she quickly did the calculations for her monthly cycle. A sigh hissed past her lips when she determined that most likely she was safe on that score.
Still, the fleeting thought of having John’s child sent a little tingle through her.
“Idiot!” she muttered.
Yes, she was an idiot for thinking even for a second that she would love to have his child whether she had him or not. That wouldn’t be good for her and it sure wouldn’t be good for the child. Life was tough enough, a child needed every advantage from the beginning. Starting off with even one disadvantage, especially one as big as not having a father, would not be a good thing.
What was wrong with her? Here she was worrying about motherhood when the prospect of marriage was zilch. She should be at work. That’s all there was to it. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about, her mind went immediately to the other possibilities related to not using protection. She closed her eyes and forced the dreadful thought away.
