A Tangled Affair

by Fiona Brand

  Her quietness had carried over into the evening. He had debated having her stay in their suite and rest, but in the end he had allowed her to come on the cruise for one simple reason. If he left her behind, she might not be there when he returned.

  Lucas recognized Alan Harrison, a London buyer and the last straggling guest.

  He paused to shake Lucas’s hand. “Lilah Cole, the name on everyone’s lips. You might have trouble holding on to her now, Atraeus. I know Catalano jewelry in Milan is impressed with her work. Wouldn’t be surprised if they try and spirit her away from you.”

  Lucas clenched his jaw as Carla stiffened beside him. “That won’t happen for at least two years. Lilah just signed a contract to take on the Medinos retail outlet as well as head up the design team.”

  “Medinos, huh? Smart move. Pretty girl, and focused. Got her in the nick of time. Another few days and you would have lost her.”

  Carla waited until Harrison had gone then gently detached herself from his hold. “You didn’t tell me you had renewed Lilah’s contract.”

  There was no accusation in her voice, just an empty neutrality, but Lucas had finally learned to read between the lines. When Carla went blank that was when she was feeling the most, and when he was being weighed in the balance.

  Two years, and he hadn’t understood that one crucially important fact. “I offered her the Medinos job a couple of days ago. If I’d realized how much it would hurt you I would have let her go. At the time removing her to Medinos for two years seemed workable, since I’ll be running the Sydney office for the foreseeable future and we’ll be based here.”

  “You did that for me.” There was a small, vibrating silence and he was finally rewarded with a brilliant smile. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Grinning, he pulled her into his arms.

  * * *

  Carla slipped out of her heels as she walked into their suite. Her feet were aching but she was so happy she hardly noticed the discomfort.

  Lucas had finally crossed the invisible line she had needed him to cross; he had committed himself to her, and the blood was literally fizzing through her veins.

  Maybe she should have felt this way when they had gotten engaged, but the reality was that all he’d had to do was say words and buy a ring. As badly as she had wanted to, she hadn’t felt secure. Now, for the first time in over two years, she finally did.

  The fact that he had arranged for Lilah to work in Medinos because they would be based in Sydney for two years had been the tipping point.

  He had made an arrangement to ensure their happiness. He had used the word they. It was a little word, but it shouted commitment and togetherness.

  Two years in Sydney. Together.

  Taking Lucas by the hand, she pulled him into the bedroom, determinedly keeping her gaze away from the bedside bureau where she had concealed the package that had arrived that morning. “Sit down.” She patted the bed. “I’ll get the champagne.”

  He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over a chair before jerking at his tie. “Maybe you shouldn’t drink champagne.”

  “Sparkling water for me, champagne for you.”

  “What are we celebrating, exactly?”

  “You’ll see in a minute.”

  He paused in the act of unbuttoning his shirt. “You’re pregnant.”

  The hope in Lucas’s voice sent a further shiver of excitement through her. Not only did he want her enough that he had bought her a wonderful surprise gift, he really did want their baby. Suddenly, after weeks, years, of uncertainty everything was taking on the happy-ever-after fairy tale sparkle she had always secretly wanted.

  Humming to herself, she walked into the kitchen and opened a chilled bottle of vintage French champagne. The label was one of the best. The cost would be astronomical, but this was a special moment. She wanted every detail to be perfect. She put the champagne and two flutes on a tray and added a bottle of sparkling water for herself. On the way to the bedroom, she added a gorgeous pink tea rose from one of the displays.

  She set the tray down on the bedside table as Lucas padded barefoot out of the bathroom. In the dim lamp-lit room with his torso bare, his dark dress trousers clinging low on narrow hips, his bronzed, muscular beauty struck her anew and she was suddenly overwhelmed by emotion and a little tearful.

  Lucas cupped her shoulders and drew her close. “What’s wrong?”

  She snuggled against him, burying her face in the deliciously warm, comforting curve of his shoulder. “Nothing, except that I love you.”

  There was a brief hesitation, then he drew her close. “And I love you.”

  Carla stiffened at the neutral tone of his voice then made an effort to dismiss the twinge of disappointment that, even now, with this new intimacy between them, Lucas still couldn’t relax into loving her.

  She pushed away slightly, enough that she could see his face and read his expression, but she was too late to catch whatever truth had been in his eyes when he had said those three little words.

  Forcing a bright smile, she released herself from Lucas’s light hold, determined to recapture the soft, fuzzy fairy-tale glow. “Time for the champagne.”

  Lucas took the bottle from her and set it back down on the tray.

  He reeled her in close. “I don’t need a drink.”

  His head dipped, his lips brushed hers. She wound her arms around his neck, surrendering to the kiss as he pulled her onto the bed. Long seconds later he propped his head on one elbow and wound a finger in a coiling strand of her hair. “What’s wrong? You’re like a cat on hot bricks.”

  Rolling over, Carla opened the bureau drawer and took out the courier package. “This came today.”

  The heavy plastic rustled as she handed it to Lucas. Instead of the teasing grin she had expected, Lucas’s gaze rested on the courier package and he went curiously still.

  A sudden suspicion gripped her.

  Clambering off the bed she took the package and ripped at the heavy plastic.

  “Carla—”

  “No. Don’t talk.” Tension banded her chest as she walked out to the kitchen, found a steak knife in the drawer and slit the plastic open. A heavy, midnight-blue box, tied with a black silk bow, the jeweler’s signature packaging, tumbled out of layers of Bubble Wrap onto the kitchen counter.

  Not an oblong case that might hold a necklace, or a bracelet. A ring box.

  Lucas loomed over her as she tore the bow off. Maybe it was a set of wedding rings. Lucas wanted an early wedding. It made sense to order the rings from the same place they had bought her engagement ring.

  “Carla—”

  She already knew. Not wedding rings. She flipped the jewelry case open.

  A diamond solitaire glittered with a soft, pure fire against midnight-blue velvet.

  Fingers shaking, she slid the ring onto the third finger of her right hand. It was a couple of sizes too small and failed to clear her knuckle. The bright, illusory world she had been living in dissolved.

  The ring had never been meant for her. The elegant, classic engagement ring had been selected and sized with someone else in mind.

  Lilah.

  Fifteen

  Carla replaced the ring in its box and met Lucas’s somber gaze head-on. “You weren’t just dating Lilah to facilitate making a clean break with me, were you? You intended to marry her.”

  Lucas’s expression was calmly, coolly neutral. “I had planned to propose marriage, but that was before—”

  “Why would you want to marry Lilah when you still wanted me?” She couldn’t say love, because she now doubted that love had ever factored in. Lucas had wanted her, period. He had felt desire, passion: lust.

  “It was a practical decision.”

  “Because otherwise you were worried that when Constantine and Sienna tied the knot you might be pressured into marrying me.”

  Impatience flashed in his gaze. “No one could pressure me into marriage. I wanted you. I would have married you in
a New York second.”

  Realization dawned. “Then lived to regret it.”

  “I didn’t think what we had would last.”

  “So you tied yourself into an arrangement with Lilah so you couldn’t be tempted into making a bad decision.”

  His brows jerked together. “There was no ‘arrangement.’ All Lilah knew was that I wanted to date her.”

  “With a view to marriage.”

  “Yes.”

  Because she wouldn’t have gone out with him otherwise. Certainly not halfway across the world to a very public family wedding.

  Hurt spiraled through her that Lucas hadn’t bothered to refute her statement that marrying her would have been a bad decision. And that he had so quickly offered Lilah what she had longed for and needed from him.

  Throat tight, eyes stinging, Carla snapped the ring box closed and jammed it back into the courier bag. She suddenly remembered the odd behavior of the manager of Moore’s. It hadn’t been because their engagement was so sudden, or because of the scandal in the morning paper. The odd atmosphere had been because Lucas had bought two engagement rings in the same week for two separate women.

  Blindly, she shoved the courier bag at Lucas. “You were going to propose to her here, at this product launch.” Why else would he have requested the ring be couriered to the hotel?

  Carla remembered the flashes of sympathy in Lilah’s gaze on Medinos, her bone-white face outside of Lucas’s apartment when the reporter had snapped Carla and Lucas kissing. Lilah had expected more than just a series of dates. She wouldn’t have been with Lucas otherwise.

  “You were never even remotely in love with Lilah.”

  “No.”

  Her head jerked up. “Then, why consider marriage?”

  His expression was taut. “The absence of emotion worked for me. I wasn’t after the highs and lows. I wanted the opposite.”

  “Because of Sophie Warrington.”

  “That’s right,” he said flatly. “Sophie liked bright lights, publicity. She loved notoriety. We clashed constantly. The night of the crash we argued and she stormed out. That was the last time I saw her alive. I shouldn’t have let her go, should have stopped her—”

  “If she wasn’t your kind of girl, why were you with her?”

  “Good question,” he said grimly. “Because I was stupid enough to fall for her. We were a mismatch. We should never have been together in the first place.”

  Carla’s jaw tightened. “You do still think I’m like her,” she said quietly. “Another Sophie.”

  His expression was closed. “I…did.”

  The hesitation was the final nail in the proverbial coffin. Her stomach plummeted. “You still do.”

  “I’ve made mistakes, but I know what I want,” Lucas said roughly.

  “Me, or the baby I might possibly be having?” Because if Lucas still didn’t know who she was as a person, the baby seemed the strongest reason for marriage. And she couldn’t marry someone who saw his attraction to her as a weakness, a character flaw. She stared blankly around the flower-festooned room. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep.”

  Stepping past Lucas, she walked into the bedroom and grabbed a spare pillow and blanket from the closet.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To sleep on the couch.”

  “That’s not necessary. I’ll take the couch.”

  She flinched at the sheer masculine beauty of his broad shoulders and muscled chest. She had fallen in love with a mirage, she thought bleakly, a beautiful man who was prepared to care for her but who, ultimately, had never truly wanted to be in love with her. “No. Right now I really would prefer the couch.”

  His fingers curled around her upper arms. “We can work this through. I can explain—”

  She went rigid in his grip. The pillow and blanket formed a buffer between them that right now she desperately needed because, despite everything, she was still vulnerable. “Let me go,” she said quietly. “It’s late. We both need sleep.”

  His dark gaze bored into hers, level and calm. “Come back to bed. We can talk this through.”

  She fought the familiar magnetic pull, the desire to drop the pillow and blanket and step back into his arms. “No. We can talk in the morning.”

  * * *

  A familiar cramping pain low in her stomach pulled Carla out of sleep. A quick trip to the bathroom verified that she had her period and that she was absolutely, positively not pregnant.

  Numbly, she walked back to the couch but didn’t bother trying to sleep. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how much she had desperately needed to be pregnant. If there was a child then there had been the possibility that she could have stayed with Lucas. Now there wasn’t one and she had to face reality.

  Lucas had broken up with Sophie when she had aborted his child. He had also proposed marriage when he had thought she could be pregnant. For a man who had gone to considerable lengths to cut her out of his life, that was a huge turnaround. She could try fooling herself that it was because he loved her, even if he didn’t quite know it, but she couldn’t allow herself to think that way. She deserved better.

  Now she knew for sure she wasn’t pregnant. There were no more excuses.

  Her decision made, she opted not to shower, because that would wake Lucas. Instead, she found her gym bag, which was sitting by the kitchen counter and which contained fresh underwear, sweatpants, a tank and a light cotton hoodie. She quickly dressed and laced on sneakers. Her handbag with all her medications was in the bedroom. She couldn’t risk getting that, but she had a cash card and some cash tucked in her gym bag. That would give her enough money and the ID she needed to book a flight back to Sydney. She had plenty of medication at home, so leaving the MediPACKs in her purse wasn’t a problem. She would collect her handbag along with the rest of her luggage from Lucas when he got back to Sydney.

  Working quickly, she jammed toiletries into the sports bag. She paused to listen, but there was no sound or movement from the bedroom. She wrote a brief note on hotel paper, explaining that she was not pregnant and was therefore ending their engagement. She anchored the note to the kitchen counter with the engagement ring.

  Picking up the sports bag and hooking her handbag over her shoulder, she quietly let herself out of the room.

  Within a disorientingly short period of time the elevator shot her down to the lobby. The speed with which she had walked away from what had been the most important adult relationship of her life made her stomach lurch sickly, but she couldn’t go back.

  She couldn’t afford to commit one more minute to a man who had put more creative effort into cutting her out of his life than he ever had to including her.

  * * *

  A small sound pulled Lucas out of a fitful sleep.

  Kicking free of the tangled sheet, he pushed to his feet and pulled on the pair of pants he’d left tossed over the arm of a chair.

  Moonlight slanted through shuttered windows as he walked swiftly through the suite. His suspicion that the sound that had woken him had been the closing of the front door turned to certainty when he found a note and Carla’s engagement ring on the kitchen counter.

  The note was brief. Carla wasn’t pregnant. Rather than both of them being pushed into a marriage that clearly had no chance of working, she had decided to give him his out.

  She had left him.

  Lucas’s hand closed on the note, crumpling it. His heart was pounding as if he’d run a race and his chest felt tight. Taking a deep breath, he controlled the burst of raw panic.

  He would get her back. He had to.

  She loved him, of that fact he was certain. All it would take was the right approach.

  He had messed up one too many times. With the double emotional hit of discovering that he had intended to propose to Lilah then the shock of discovering that she wasn’t pregnant, he guessed he shouldn’t be surprised that she had reacted by running.

  Like Sophie.

  His
stomach clenched at the thought that Carla could have an accident. Then logic reasserted itself. That wouldn’t happen. Carla was so not like Sophie he didn’t know how he could have imagined she was in the first place.

  But this time he would not compound his mistake by failing to act. He would make sure that Carla was safe. He would not fail her again.

  He loved her.

  His stomach clenched as he examined that reality. He couldn’t change the past; all he could do was try to change the future.

  Sliding the note into his pocket along with the ring, he strode back to his room to finish dressing. He pulled on shoes and found his wallet and watch. The possibility that he could lose Carla struck him anew and for a split second he was almost paralyzed with fear. Until that moment he hadn’t understood how necessary Carla was to him.

  For more than two years she had occupied his thoughts and haunted his nights. He had thought the affair would run its course; instead his desire had strengthened. In order to control what he had deemed an obsession, he had minimized contact and compartmentalized the affair.

  The strategy hadn’t worked. The more restrictive he had become in spending time with Carla, the more uncontrollable his desire had become.

  She wasn’t pregnant.

  Until that moment he hadn’t known how much he had wanted Carla to be pregnant. Since the out-of-control lovemaking on Medinos, the possibility of a pregnancy had initiated a number of responses from him. The most powerful had been the cast-iron excuse it had provided him to bring her back into his life. But as the days had passed, the thought of Carla losing her taut hourglass shape and growing soft and round with his child had become increasingly appealing. Along with the need to keep Carla tied close, he had wanted to be a father.

  Pocketing his keys, he strode out of the suite. Frustration gripped him when he jabbed the elevator call button then had to wait. His gaze locked on the glowing arrow above the doors, and he scraped at his jaw, which harbored a five-o’clock shadow.

  Dragging rough fingers through his rumpled hair, he began to pace.

  He couldn’t lose her.

  Whatever it took, he would do it. He would get her back.