His Final Bargain

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘Good idea.’ He gave her an appreciative smile and reached for his phone. He frowned as the call went through to message bank. He sent her a text but there was no response.

  ‘She’s probably turned her phone off,’ Marella said.

  ‘Did she say where she was intending to shop?’

  Marella pursed her lips for a moment. ‘I think she said something about going to Queen Square.’

  He frowned as he put his phone back in his pocket. Queen Square was where the world-renowned UCL Institute of Neurology was situated. He’d driven past it a couple of times on previous trips to London. Great Ormond Street Hospital was close by. Why was Eliza going there? Sure, there were plenty of shops in the Bloomsbury district, but why had she told Marella she was going to Queen Square of all places?

  Leo saw her from half a block away. She was standing talking with an older woman in her fifties outside the UCL Institute of Neurology. The older woman looked very distressed. She kept mopping at her eyes with a scrunched up tissue. Eliza was holding the hand of a gaunt young man in his late twenties who was strapped in a wheelchair, complete with breathing apparatus and a urinary catheter that was just visible under the tartan blanket that covered his thin, muscle-wasted legs.

  Leo felt as if someone had thrown a ninety-pound dumb-bell straight at his chest.

  Her fiancé.

  He swallowed against a monkey wrench of guilt that was stuck sideways in his throat. Her fiancé was a quadriplegic. The poor man was totally and utterly incapacitated. He didn’t even seem to be aware of where he was or whom he was with; he was staring vacantly into space. Leo watched as Eliza gently wiped some drool from the side of the young man’s mouth with a tissue.

  Oh, dear God, what had he done?

  Why hadn’t she told him?

  Why the hell hadn’t she told him?

  He didn’t know whether to be furious at her or to feel sorry for her. Why let him think the very worst of her for all this time? It all made horrible sense now that he had seen her fiancé with his very own eyes. It wasn’t a normal relationship. How could it be, with that poor young man sitting drooling and slumped in his chair like that? Was that why she had taken the money he had offered her? She had done it for her fiancé.

  His gut churned and roiled with remorse.

  He had exploited her in the worst way imaginable.

  Leo turned back the way he had come. He needed time to think about this—to get his head around it all. He didn’t want to have it out with her on the street with her fiancé and his mother—he assumed it was his mother—watching on. He took a couple of deep calming breaths but they caught on the claws of his guilt that were still tearing at his throat.

  Eliza had turned down his marriage proposal because she had honoured her commitment to her fiancé. It took the promise of in sickness and in health to a whole new level. She hadn’t done it because she hadn’t loved him. His instincts back then had been right after all. He had felt sure she had fallen in love with him. He had felt sure of it last night when she had danced in his arms on the balcony and made love with him with such exquisite tenderness.

  He had felt his own feelings for her stirring beneath the concrete slab of his denial where he had buried them four years ago.

  He thought back to all the little clues she had dropped about her fiancé. If only he had pushed a little harder he might have got her to trust him enough to tell him before things had gone this far. Was it too late to undo the damage? Would she forgive him?

  His heart felt as if someone had slammed it with a sledgehammer.

  What did it matter if she did or not? She was still tied to her fiancé. She still wore his ring, if not on her finger then around her neck.

  Close to her heart…

  Eliza got back to the hotel a little flustered at being later than she’d planned. Samantha had taken the news hard, as she had expected. There was no magical cure for Ewan. No special treatment or miraculous therapy that would make his body and mind function again. It was heartbreaking to think of Samantha’s hopes being dashed all over again. What mother didn’t want the best for her child? Wasn’t Leo the same with Alessandra? He would move heaven and earth to give his little girl a cure for her blindness, but it wasn’t to be.

  Samantha had been so upset Eliza had found herself promising to spend the rest of the summer break with her and Ewan once she got back from Italy. Even as the words had come out of her mouth she had wished she could pull them back. She felt as if she was being torn in two. Leaving Leo for the second time would be hard enough, but this time she would be leaving Alessandra as well.

  Could life get any more viciously cruel?

  Eliza opened the door of the suite and Leo turned to face her from where he was standing at the window overlooking the view. Her heart gave a little jolt in her chest. She had hoped to get back before he did. ‘I’m sorry I’m late…’ She put her handbag down and put a hand to her hair to smooth it back from where the breeze had teased it loose. ‘The shops were crazily busy.’

  His eyes went to her empty hands. ‘Not a very successful trip, I take it?’

  Her heart gave another lurch. ‘No…no, it wasn’t…’ She tried to smile but somehow her mouth wouldn’t cooperate. ‘Where’s Alessandra?’

  ‘With Marella in the suite next door.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t mind me having a bit of time to myself.’ She couldn’t quite hold his gaze.

  ‘I seem to remember telling you before that you are not under lock and key.’ He wandered over to the bar area of the suite. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Um…yes, thank you.’

  He handed her a glass of chilled white wine. ‘Shopping is such thirsty work, sì?’

  Eliza still couldn’t read his inscrutable expression. ‘Yes…’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘How did your meeting with the bursar go?’

  ‘I’ve decided to bankroll your project.’

  She blinked at him. ‘You…you have?’

  ‘I read your proposal in detail.’ His expression remained masklike. ‘There are a few loose ends that need tying up, but I think it won’t take too much time to sort them out.’

  Eliza forced her tense shoulders to relax. Was there some sort of subtext to this conversation or was she just imagining it? It was hard to gauge his mood. He seemed as if he was waiting for her to say something, or was she imagining that too? ‘I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing. I’m not sure why you’re doing it.’

  ‘You can’t guess?’

  She flicked over her dry lips with her tongue. ‘I’m not foolish enough to think it’s because you care something for me. You’ve made it pretty clear from the outset that you don’t.’ Apart from last night, when it had seemed as if he was making love with her for the very first time.

  There was a silence that seemed to have a disturbing undercurrent to it. It stretched and stretched like a too thin wire being pulled by industrial strength strainers.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Leo asked.

  ‘Tell you what?’

  He let out a stiff curse that made her flinch. ‘Let’s stop playing games. I saw you today.’

  Her stomach clenched. ‘Saw me where?’

  ‘With your fiancé. I assume that’s who the young man in the wheelchair is?’

  ‘Yes…’

  His frown was so deep it joined his eyebrows like a bridge over his eyes. ‘Is that all you can say?’

  Eliza put her glass down before she dropped it. ‘I was going to tell you.’ She hugged her arms across her body. ‘I would’ve told you days ago but you forbade me to even speak his name out loud.’

  ‘That is not a good enough excuse and you know it.’ He glared at her, but whether it was with anger or frustration she couldn’t quite tell. ‘You could’ve insisted I listen. You could’ve told me the first day I came to see you. For God’s sake, you could’ve told me the first night we met. And you damn well should’ve told me the night I proposed to you.’


  ‘Why?’ She tossed him a glare right on back. ‘What difference would it have made?’

  ‘How can you ask that?’ His tone was incredulous. ‘I wanted to marry you. I still want to marry you.’

  Eliza noticed he hadn’t said he loved her. He just wanted a wife and a stepmother for his daughter. Wasn’t that what the press had said? ‘I’m not free to marry you.’

  He came over and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Listen to me, Eliza. We can sort this out. Your fiancé will understand. You just have to tell him you want to be with someone else.’

  She pulled out of his hold and put some distance between them, her arms going across her middle again. ‘It’s not that simple…’ She took a breath that tore at her throat like talons. ‘It’s my fault he’s in that chair.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She looked at him again. ‘I ended our relationship. He left my flat upset—devastated, actually. He was in no fit state to drive. I should never have let him go. It was my fault. If I hadn’t broken our engagement that night he would still be a healthy, active, intelligent, fully functioning man.’ She choked back a sob. ‘I can’t even tell him I’m sorry. He doesn’t have any understanding of language any more. He’s little more than a body in a chair. He can’t even breathe on his own. How can I tell his mother I want to be with someone else after what I’ve done to her son?’

  ‘You didn’t tell her you’d broken off the engagement?’ Leo asked with a puzzled frown.

  Eliza shook her head. ‘When I got the call, she was already at the hospital. She was shattered by what the doctors had told her about his condition. He wasn’t expected to make it through the night. How could I tell her then?’

  ‘What about later?’

  ‘I couldn’t…’ She took another shaky breath. ‘How could I? She would think—like everyone else would—that I was trying to weasel my way out of a life of looking after him. It would be such a cruel and selfish and heartless thing to do.’

  ‘Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself? Would you have expected him to give up his life if you had been the one injured?’

  Eliza had thought about it but had always come up with the same answer. ‘No, because he would never have broken up with me without warning. He would have prepared me for it, like I should’ve done for him. We’d been together since I was sixteen. It was wrong of me to dump it on him like that. He loved me so much. And look at what that love has cost him. It’s only fair that I give up my future for him. I owe him that.’

  ‘You don’t owe him your future,’ Leo said. ‘Come on, Eliza, you’re not thinking rationally. His mother wouldn’t want you to give up your life like this. Surely she’s told you to move on with your life?’

  Eliza gave him a despairing look. ‘I’m all she has left. She lost his father when Ewan was a little boy. Now she’s as good as lost him, too. How can I walk away from her now? I’m like a daughter to her and she’s been like a mother to me. I can’t do it. I just can’t.’

  ‘What if I talk to her? I’ll make her understand how it’s unfair of her to expect so much of you.’

  Eliza shook her head sadly. ‘You’re so used to getting whatever you want, but sometimes there are things you just can’t have, no matter how hard and desperately you wish for them.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ he asked. ‘I have a child I would do anything on this earth to help.’

  ‘I know you would and that’s exactly what Samantha is like. She’s a wonderful mother and a wonderful person. It would devastate her if I was to go away and live with you in Italy.’

  ‘What if we moved to London? I could work from here. It would be a big adjustment but I could do it. There are good schools for the blind here. Alessandra will soon adjust.’

  Eliza pulled her emotions back into line like a ball of loose yarn being wound up rapidly and tightly. ‘I can’t marry you, Leo. You have to accept that. Once the month is up I have to come back to my life here. I’ve already promised Samantha to spend the last couple of weeks of the holidays with her and Ewan.’

  ‘You do have a choice. Damn it, Eliza, can’t you see that? You’re locking yourself away out of guilt. It’s not going to help anyone, least of all your fiancé.’ He sent his hand through his hair again. ‘I suppose that’s why you took the money. It was for him, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask for more?’

  ‘I was uncomfortable enough as it was, without exploiting your offer.’

  He gave an embittered laugh. ‘Let’s say it how it was. It wasn’t an offer. I blackmailed you. I can never forgive myself for that.’ He moved to the other side of the room as if he needed the distance from her to think.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ Eliza broke the silence. ‘I’ve handled this so badly. I’ve made it so much worse.’ She took a deep shuddering breath as she finally came to a decision. ‘I’m not going to go back with you to Italy tomorrow. It wouldn’t be fair to Alessandra. It will make it so much harder when the month is up.’

  He swung around to glare at her. ‘What…you’re just going to walk away? What about the contract you signed? Are you forgetting the terms and conditions?’

  ‘If you decide to act on them, then I’ll have to face that if and when it happens.’

  ‘I’ll withdraw my offer for your project. I’ll tell the bursar I’ve changed my mind.’ His jaw was clenched tight, his eyes flashing at her furiously.

  Eliza knew it was risky calling his bluff but she hoped he would come to understand this was the best way to handle things—the cleanest way. ‘Will you say goodbye to Alessandra for me? I don’t want to wake her now. It will only upset her more.’

  His look was scathing. ‘I never took you for a coward.’

  ‘It has to be this way.’

  ‘Why does it?’ His eyes flashed at her again. ‘Are you really going to stand there and deny that you love me?’

  Eliza steeled herself as she held his gaze. ‘I have never said I loved you.’

  A muscle flicked in his cheek and his eyes hardened. ‘So it was always just about the money.’

  ‘Yes.’

  His lip curled mockingly. ‘And the sex.’

  She gave him her best worldly look. ‘That too.’

  He sucked in a breath and moved to the window overlooking the leafy street below. ‘I’ll have Marella send your things to you when we get back.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Eliza moved past to collect her things from the suite.

  ‘I won’t say goodbye,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve both said all that needs to be said.’

  Except I love you, Eliza thought sadly as she softly closed the door as she left.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ELIZA SPENT THE first week with Samantha and Ewan in Suffolk in a state of emotional distress so acute it made her feel physically ill. She couldn’t sleep and she could barely get a morsel of food past her lips. Every time she thought of Leo or Alessandra her chest would ache as if a stack of heavy books was balanced on it. But she had no choice but to keep what she was feeling to herself as Samantha was still dealing with her heartbreak over the hopelessness of Ewan’s situation.

  But towards the middle of the second week Samantha seemed to pick herself up. She had even been out a couple of times in the evening while Eliza sat with Ewan. She hadn’t said where she was going or whom she was going with and Eliza hadn’t asked. But each time Samantha returned she looked a little less strained and unhappy.

  ‘Darling, you don’t seem yourself since you came back from the nanny job,’ Samantha said as she watched Eliza push the food around her plate during dinner. ‘Is everything all right? Are you missing the little girl? She’s rather a cute little button, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she is. And yes, I do miss her.’

  ‘What a pity she’s blind.’ Samantha picked up her glass of lemonade. ‘But that’s not the worst thing that can happen to a person, is it?’

  ‘No…it isn’t.’

>   ‘I would’ve loved a daughter,’ Samantha said. ‘Don’t get me wrong—I loved having a son. No mother could have asked for a better one than Ewan. And I’ve been so fortunate in having you as a surrogate daughter. I can’t thank you enough for always being there for me and for Ewan.’

  Eliza put her cutlery down and gripped her hands together on her lap underneath the table. It had been brewing inside her for days, this pressing need to put things straight at last. She could no longer live with this terrible guilt. She wanted to move on with her life. She could no longer deny her love for Leo. Even if he didn’t love her, surely she owed him the truth of her feelings. ‘Samantha…there’s something you need to know about that night…I know it will be hard for you to hear and I don’t blame you for thinking I’m just making it up to get out of this situation, but it’s my fault Ewan had the accident that night.’

  The silence was long and painful.

  ‘I broke off our engagement,’ Eliza continued. ‘Ewan left my place so upset he should never have got behind the wheel of that car. I should never have let him leave like that. I’d bottled up my feelings for so long and then that night I just couldn’t hold it in any longer. I told him I didn’t love him any more. He was devastated.’ She choked back a sob. ‘I know you can’t possibly forgive me. I will never forgive myself. But I want to have a life now. I want to be with Leo and his little girl. I love him. I’m sorry if that upsets you or you think it’s selfish but I can’t live this lie any more. I feel so wicked to have accepted the love you’ve given so freely and so generously when all this time I’ve been lying to you.’

  Samantha let out a deep uneven sigh. She suddenly looked much older than her years. She seemed to sag in the chair as if her bones had got tired of staying neatly aligned. ‘I suppose it’s only right that you lied to me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Samantha gave her a pained look. ‘I’ve been lying to you too for the last few years.’

  ‘I don’t understand…’ Eliza frowned in puzzlement. ‘What do you mean? How have you lied to me? I’m the one who covered up what happened that night. I should have told you at the hospital. I should have told you well before this.’