“What's not going to happen?” I turned around and looked at him. He looked so blissful lying on the bed. His hair was messy, and he was naked under the covers. He was absolutely beautiful. The lights were off, and I wished they were on. I wanted to remember this. It was going to be the last time, for real this time. This image of him, in bed, happy and satisfied was how I wanted to remember him. I was just about to ruin it. He was a dream come true, but I couldn't have him. He could be someone else's dream come true, not mine.
“You need to go back to London now, this isn't going to work. I'm not ready for this kind of relationship.”
“Come on babe, this again?”
“Don't call me babe. I can't do this now and don't make me ask you again.”
“We agreed that we were going to date and work it out.”
“That's what we've been doing, and it's not working out.”
His eyes were wide, he was completely confused. I was running hot and cold on him and I hated myself for it. I needed to put an end to this game even if that meant being cruel. He deserved to be free.
“Eddy, what are you talking about?”
“I'm sorry. I really am, but I don't want to do this with you anymore.”
Niall clambered out of the bed. I hurried to get my shoes on. I didn't know how long I could last being in the same room with him.
“Eddy, can we at least talk about this? What happened? What did I do?”
He didn't do anything. He was perfect. He was handsome and generous and kind, and I loved him, but he could never be mine. That just wasn't the case between us. I wish that it was, but it just couldn't be.
“Niall, I swear to God. Why are you still here? You followed me here all the way from London after I told you this very same thing. What else do you want me to say to you? How else can I say it to you? Go back. It's over.”
“So that's it?”
“That's it. I wish you the best of luck and I'm sorry that you came all the way here just for it not to work out in the end. Goodbye.” I turned around and I walked out. Tears were streaming down my face as soon as I got to the door and I was crying by the time I was outside. Once I was inside my car, sobs from the depths of my soul ripped out of me. I cried my eyes out. I felt pain like I had never felt before. I hated it. I wanted to run back in there and tell Niall that I loved him, and I didn't mean a single word that I said. I had spent the last five years thinking about him too and being with him was the only thing I wanted.
But it couldn’t happen. This was the end. I would heal from this eventually, when? Who knew, but at least now I had started the process. I was doing the right thing. Nothing in my body or mind told me that I was, but it had to be. It had to be.
29
Niall
I was awake but I didn't want to open my eyes. I knew that Eddy wasn't lying next to me. I knew that trying to text or call her would be useless. I knew that going over to the estate would be even more useless. Last night had really happened, hadn't it? I could remember it far too clearly. Was this what heartbreak felt like? I hated it.
I wanted to go to her. I felt like if I did, if we had one chance to talk again, something would be different but how could I do that when she was pushing back so hard? I had to accept it. It was finally over.
So what? Was I just supposed to give up?
It just didn't feel like the right thing to do. Things between us felt and finished. Something, I couldn't even say what it was because I didn't know, but something was telling me that things weren't right. The only way they would be right was when we were back together but how the hell was I going to swing that?
Maybe she was right about needing to go to London for a while. I could always come back. It didn’t even have to be London. A little circuit around the Med maybe. Head to Dubai or Singapore. Just somewhere I could clear my head. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be happening here. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere. I knew where she was. Some time to let the dust settle and then we could get a good feel of how things were. I looked around the room, dimly illuminated by the weak sunshine. I would actually miss this place a little bit. I thought about getting out of bed and finally getting packed when I heard a knock at the door.
Speak of the devil? I got out of bed and pulled on my underwear then went to answer the door. Could it really be her? I swung the door open, then deflated.
“For fuck's sake,” I said. I couldn't hold back a laugh. There was Patrick Bridges, my father, standing there in a Brioni suit and crocodile skin shoes at a fucking tavern in Belshire village. How in the world? He looked me up and down with his usual look of disapproval.
“Why aren't you dressed?” I had a better question. Why did he keep showing up at my rooms first thing in the morning when I woke up and act shocked when I wasn't dressed yet?
“Good morning to you too, father,” I said. “How did you find me?”
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” He barged into the room pushing past me. He looked around in disgust. “What is this place? Why are you staying here?”
“Is there something you came here to say, father? As you can see, you interrupted me during some very important business.”
“Important business my foot. You insulted Lisbeth and then you tried to run away. She told me all about the woman that you followed here. I can't believe your behavior, Niall. I know I raised you better than this.”
“You didn't raise me at all father. Now, why are you here?”
“I'm here to stop you from making a mistake.” The only mistake I had made was letting him in, and technically I hadn't even done that. He had barged in unannounced. He couldn’t have gotten up here without meeting Ben somewhere. I had to tell him not to let this madman near me again.
“Lucky me. You got here in the nick of time.”
“Surely you know the truth about the baroness. She's flat broke. She's a gold-digging widow who only wants you for your money since her husband drank theirs all away.”
“Father, I never took you as one to gossip.”
“I'll be damned if you are fraternizing with that woman.”
I laughed. It was hilarious that my father thought he could dictate my dating choices. I really didn't know where he got off doing that. First Lisbeth, now Eddy. “Is that all you came to tell me?”
“You must return to London at once and you are going to marry Lisbeth Lane.”
“Me and Lisbeth had this conversation already, she knows that it's not going to happen.”
“She’s a good woman, Niall. She's from a good family. She'll make a good wife.”
I snorted. All that might have been true, but I wasn't interested. She was ready to be a wife, but it wouldn’t be mine. “Weren't you just talking about gold diggers, father? Lisbeth only wants me for my title. I don't know what you call that, but I call it gold-digging.”
“Lisbeth is not gold-digging; she's marrying someone of her own stature. She has no need to dig for gold. She's a woman of means herself. Now this other woman that you've chased into the countryside…”
“What about her?” I challenged him. I wanted him to say something about Eddy. The way things stood between my father and me, I was not above fighting him to defend the woman I loved; physically or otherwise.
“She's in dire need of money. In a few months she’s going to be homeless. Landing a man like you would be the jackpot for her. She's obviously tricked you into believing that she's after something else. Somehow you’ve tricked yourself into believing you have something more to offer than that.”
I felt my fists clenched. “Thank you for your concern father, you show it so rarely but you're wrong about Eddy.”
“Is that her name? I know a whore when I see one.”
I rounded on the man, getting into his personal space. If it did come to blows, I was giving him plenty of time to apologize first but if he didn't, I was finishing this fight. “Never speak about her again.”
“Or what? Why are you defending trash like that?”<
br />
“I'm in love with her, father. Perhaps that's not an emotion you can get in touch with, so I don’t have any expectation that you’ll understand. In addition to that, your judgment of her means less than nothing to me. I don't know what you've come here to do, but what you will not do is slander the baroness in my presence.”
He looked like he was going to hit me. I wanted him to so that I could hit him back. He was so angry I could feel it radiating off of him. There was something else there too, anxiety. He was worried about something. My mind went back to Lisbeth and her family. The reason that he wanted us to get married was to pay off some sort of debt. What was it? It had to be something huge. My father had tracked me down like a microchipped hound in order to try and force me into wedding. Something big was eating at him.
“What did you do to the Lane family?” I asked him.
“Excuse me?”
“Why are you so intent on Lisbeth and me getting married?”
“Your duty is to get married, not to ask questions.”
“If you expect me to get married, I expect to be told why. Why her? Tell me or accept that it will never happen.”
He retreated, taking a couple of steps back and looking down. “It's true. Something happened between me and the Lanes. My feeling was that it happened so long ago, it shouldn't matter anymore, but that isn't how things like this blow over. I made a grave mistake.”
“What?”
“I had an affair.”
The admission both did and didn't surprise me. Men like him were always having affairs. The stories were a dime a dozen. Plenty of the wealthy socialites running around London were currently or had formerly been mistresses to men like my father. What angered me was the fact that he cheated on my mother.
“Well done. Was it worth it?”
“It was with your nanny.”
Not only was he a cheater, he was also a cliché. Perfect. “Did Mother know?”
“I ended things when she found out. I hoped that we would have a clean break, but that wasn't the case. Of course, we let the woman go and replaced her, but I ended up learning shortly after, that she took her own life. She had a child however who had been left orphaned after she died. A daughter.”
“Lisbeth,” I said finishing the story on my own. “How did you find all of this out? Who told you? Did you maintain a relationship with the woman even after breaking it off?”
“No. Her family found a suicide note and she revealed everything in it. They threatened to make it public unless I can offer them something in return.”
By something in return, he meant me. He meant my life in return for the one that he had seemingly played a part in ending prematurely. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was just getting worse and worse. He cheated on my mother, being sloppy enough to get caught, then the woman in question had taken her own life. He had wronged the Lane family and they were right to ask for retribution but only someone as selfish as my father could come up with a solution like this. Force his only child into a marriage that he did not want in order to protect his reputation, so it didn't become public knowledge that he was a disgusting lout who pressured his staff into sex.
“So, this is the mess you've dragged me into.”
He shrugged, trying to look dignified even though he had just humiliated himself. “You wanted to know the truth. Now that you do, we can expedite the wedding.”
I shook my head. “Oh no. That won't be necessary. I will not be marrying into a family that is trying to blackmail you.”
“Niall, without the marriage they will expose me.”
“I don't know why you believe that is my problem father. I don't know why you expect me to sympathize with you when you coerced a member of your staff into sleeping with you while you were married and then now that there are going to be consequences for your actions, you're not man enough to face them.”
He scowled at me. “You've never made me proud,” he said.
“Good. I never intended to.”
He left. Now that his secret was out and he was at the end of his rope, there was nothing more he could do. I wasn’t marrying Lisbeth and I felt nothing. I had no intention of falling on that sword for my father. If the news did get out about what he did to Lisbeth's mother, and I hoped that it did, he deserved every bit of public shame that came his way. It was morally repugnant to sleep with somebody who worked for you. For all I knew, he could have given her an ultimatum, submit to him or lose her job. Even if he didn't say it or make the threat verbally, it was definitely implied. I felt a shiver run over my skin. I couldn't believe my father was that man, but at the same time, I was glad that I was very little like him.
After taking a shower and eating, I remembered that I was making plans to leave the village. It didn't feel like the time to do that yet. Something very powerful was telling me to stay even though Eddy's words were still ringing in my head from last night. I decided to take a walk. It was a clear day and the fresh air would do me good as far as coming to a decision. Walking down the street I saw a familiar flash of red. It was a woman walking towards the shops with a little boy at her side. Riley and Eddy’s housekeeper, Prue. I waved hello to get her attention. We had only met once, but she seemed to recognize me.
“Is that you, Arden?” she asked.
“Just call me Niall. How are you this afternoon?”
“Very well. You?”
“Good, good. Where's Eddy?”
The little boy was tugging on Prue’s arm for them to leave. “The two of us snuck out of the house. She's taking a nap at the moment. Riley wanted some black licorice and I had promised him previously that we would get some.”
Black licorice? Interesting. I was the only person that I knew who actually enjoyed it. I had liked it since I was a kid.
“Is that right? Well, I happen to love black licorice,” I said looking down at the boy. He looked up at me grinning. He had blue eyes and red hair. The red hair was his mother's, definitely. I had seen some pictures of his father and, let's just say the boy was lucky he took after Eddy. Four years old, what was I like at that age?
A car coming down the road couldn't have hit me as hard as the realization that came looking at the boy. He was four years old. Eddy and I had had our first meeting five years ago. A sweat broke over my skin. No, it couldn't be.
“Mr. Niall? Are you all right?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes, yes fine. Come. I'll buy that licorice for you.” I followed them into the store, staring at the back of Riley's head, looking at the boy who could have been my son.
30
Edwina
I jumped myself awake. What time was it? I looked out the window. I had just intended to rest my eyes for a bit, but it looked like I had nodded off. I checked my phone for the time. It had almost been an hour. Well, we weren’t doing that again. I had had a rough time getting to sleep the night before but nothing to justify sleeping the day away. I had things to do.
I went downstairs looking for Prue and my son. Walking into the kitchen I found a note that they had gone into the village to get Riley some sweets. I pursed my lips. As long as he wasn’t spoiled for dinner in a couple of hours then I was okay with it. I went to the sitting room. It was bare save for a maroon Persian carpet. It was one of the furnishing pieces that I actually liked. The decorating in the house had been done before I moved in and was very old fashioned, but I was fond of the carpet. I had planned on keeping it for when things got better which was why I still had it.
Things, however, had not gotten better. The money from Niall was only going to get us so far and by that time, who knew what else would be happening. I wanted to say that I’d have a job by then. That I’d still have the estate as a home and still be in possession of most of my things but that might not be the case either. The carpet was going to be worth more to me elsewhere, having been exchanged for money than it would where it was. I started on one side and began rolling. When I could afford the expense, I would get another one. I felt l
ike Ben at the tavern might have some use for it. If he didn’t then he would at least know someone who would buy it off of me. Thinking about Ben at the tavern, I thought of Niall. He was likely on his way back to London now, if not there already.
Last night was awful. I wished that it never happened. It was the right thing in the long run but right now it just hurt so much. I tried not to think about it. I got the carpet rolled up and pulled it out of the sitting room. Standing in the entryway, I heard the sound of a car come up to the house. I looked over my shoulder at the door. Just then, someone pounded the other side, knocking. I paused. Who was that? I went and pulled it open, freezing to the spot.
Niall.
“Niall what are you…”
He didn’t let me finish, barging inside. “Niall, what on earth is going on?”
He stared me in the face. “Is Riley my son?”
I felt my knees go weak. “What?”
“You heard me. Stop playing games. It’s a yes or no question. Is Riley my son?”
I was just hanging on. With just that question, Niall pushed me off the ledge and I was in freefall. I didn’t know what to say. The answer was yes, of course, but my mind was still looking of ways to conceal the truth. I cleared my throat, the sound coming out like a strangled laugh.
“Why would you think such a thing?”
“I just saw them, Riley and Prue.”
“And that’s proof of what exactly?”
“Prue said she was buying him black licorice,” he said. “I loved black licorice at his age.”
“Is that supposed to be proof? So what?”
“It isn’t proof. It just made me think about how strangely, he looks just like I did when I was a child,” he said. His hand went into his pocket and then he was brandishing his phone at me. I took it and looked at the image displayed. I would have said it was a picture of my son if I didn’t know better. It was a picture of him at Riley’s age. My stomach dropped. I could say it was another coincidence but part of me didn’t want to. The lies were so tiring. I had been running from Naill all this time and he had never asked about the boy. I owed him this truth at the very least, if I wasn’t going to give him anything else.
Admit You Love Me: A Secret Baby Romance (Irresistible Billionaires Book 2) Page 18
