Читать книгу One Night Of Consequences Collection - Ким Лоренс, Annie West - Страница 38
ОглавлениеKIRA had been back at the Chateau for an entire month—enough time to reevaluate her staff and replace those untrustworthy sorts. The number was few, and those who had stayed exhibited the loyalty she’d always hoped to inspire.
Work filled her days, and the wonder of going into her second trimester warmed her lonely nights.
But her heart bled for André, for the loss of what they’d held in their grasp and for the crippling pain of letting it go. She’d been too afraid of following in her mother’s footsteps to fight harder for their love. For believing that they could surmount any odds.
So she dreamed he’d stride into the Chateau as before, and take her back to his island. As days turned into weeks, she knew that wasn’t going to happen.
André wasn’t coming back to her—and why should he?
She was a Bellamy. She’d told him she never wanted to see him again.
He’d taken her words to heart—words she’d spoken in anger, words she wished she could call back.
Anger boiled in Kira like a storm-tossed sea. She couldn’t accept that he wanted nothing to do with the innocent life they’d created. Wouldn’t believe it—not until he told her so.
And if that were the case… Then she’d love her child enough for both of them.
Kira smiled and pressed a hand on the tiny bulge of her belly. For the first time today she’d felt a fluttering there, the wings of an angelic butterfly making itself known.
Her baby.
Hers and André’s.
It pained her to think that his hatred had poisoned him so, that it had killed their love.
But he’d never said he loved her. Never said he wanted her in his life. Even if he had told her in so many words that he would fight for what he wanted.
He didn’t want her.
Maybe for him it had just been lust. What else explained how he had cut her and their child from his life?
He’d had his revenge, his say.
But she hadn’t. She wanted closure.
And she desperately wanted to see him, touch him, kiss him. She loved him. That would never change.
She pinched her eyes shut, almost feeling his touch, his scent, his potent power sweeping her away.
Yes, she wanted André. Ached for him still.
Countless nights she’d picked up the phone, then talked herself out of ringing him. She wouldn’t chase after him. She wouldn’t grovel and beg, no matter how much she ached for him. But she had to talk to him once more. Just once.
So that night she put the call through. But Otillie answered, because André wasn’t in residence. He was miserable, the older woman claimed, and begged her to come back.
“Monsieur—he does not eat. Does not sleep,” Otillie said.
Kira gripped the phone tighter, torn over what she wanted to do and what she had vowed not to do. “I don’t know—”
“Please, Mademoiselle Montgomery. Come home.”
Home. How odd that she’d begun to think of the island as just that. She pinched her eyes shut again, debating whether to listen to her head or her heart.
Her baby made the decision for her, giving her the tiny kick she needed.
“Expect me in a few days,” she said.
Kira brimmed with excitement as she dashed to the pharmacy to replenish her prenatal vitamins, worrying about André, eager to see him soon.
The handsome face commanding the cover of one of the tabloids changed her mind.
She picked it up, stared at the image, her blood chilling.
The photographers had captured André at various clubs and functions on the Riviera. Pictured him with a gorgeous woman on his arm. The headlines were disgustingly similar. Which beauty would win the billionaire’s heart?
The fact he’d replaced Kira confirmed he’d never really cared about her at all. He’d fallen into the jet-setting lifestyle he’d supposedly despised. That told her she’d really never known him at all.
No wonder he wasn’t eating or sleeping. He didn’t have time!
She threw the tabloid down and marched from the store.
André Gauthier had cut her out of his life with surgical precision. It was past time she did the same. Time would heal this awful ache that stayed with her day and night, robbing her of sleep, of peace of mind. But she knew that the hole he left in her heart would never be mended, even after she did what she must do. Why did love have to hurt so much?
André stared pensively out the window of his private jet, anxious to set down, annoyed he was arriving in Las Vegas a week later than he’d intended. Exhaustion tormented every fiber of his being, having spent the most miserable month of his life throwing himself into work at his Riviera hotel—work he’d neglected when he’d decided to abduct Kira and take her to Petit St. Marc.
Kira. His heart gave a painful kick. He missed her more than he’d thought possible. Regret, fear and stubborn pride had kept him from calling her as he’d longed to do.
All his life he’d secretly feared he’d fall victim to a consuming passion like his parents had. To the eyes of a young boy, his parents’ heated fights and explosive ardor had been something to avoid.
He hadn’t realized a man could love that deeply, that intently. That a woman could become so much a part of him that losing her was more painful and traumatic than losing an arm or leg, that she pulsed through his blood and gave him life. That she filled his heart and gave him hope.
He’d believed by walking away from her that he’d done the right thing, for she was Edouard Bellamy’s daughter. To admit he had lost his heart to her would mean his enemy had won.
But he’d been wrong.
When he’d walked away from Kira he’d lost the best thing that had ever happened to him. He’d been a fool to believe her mother’s claim that Edouard was Kira’s father, to let that probability poison him.
The woman had sold her daughter to Bellamy. Why? Was Bellamy her father? Or the wealthiest former lover that her mother had been able to con?
André had to know the truth, which was why he’d charged his detective with digging deeper into her past. But the answers he sought eluded him still.
What did it matter anyway? If Bellamy was her father, then he would find a way to deal with it. He could not alter the fact any more than he could rearrange the sun and the moon—any more than he could change the past.
The past was just that—the past.
His future was with Kira.
She was his woman. The mother of his child. He’d do anything to gain her favor and forgiveness. To win her heart.
She’d resist him out of hurt pride at the very least. But he’d captured her heart before. He would do it again. Only this time he’d never let her go.
The sun was just starting to graze the expanse of glass and steel stretching down the Las Vegas strip when André walked into the Chateau Mystique. Unlike before, he marched straight to the front desk and announced that he must speak with Kira immediately.
“Your name, sir?” the clerk asked, the image of poised efficiency that he himself demanded in all his own hotels and resorts.
“Gauthier. André Gauthier.”
The clerk’s eyes widened a fraction, to hint that she recognized his name. “One moment, please,” she said, and hurried off into the manager’s office, situated at the end of the long cherrywood counter topped with rich pink granite.
Before André could stew about the wait, the door to the office opened and the clerk motioned him in. “This way, sir.”
“Thank you.”
André’s gut tightened, his heart thudding far too fast as he strode to the door. He knew what he must say, what he wanted to tell Kira. But he wasn’t poetic, and he had certainly lost his patience.
He’d simply blurt it out, then take her in his arms and kiss her. Everything else would fall into place then.
She’d forgive him for being a high-handed ass. Maybe not today, but soon.
She’d agree that they would get married immediately, for he couldn’t bear to wait any longer.
She’d take him in her arms and ease this terrible ache that had filled him since he’d left her in the hospital, for she was the most loving, most genuinely good woman he’d ever met in his life.
André closed the door to afford him and Kira privacy.
Only Kira wasn’t in the room. A young, dignified man rose from behind the desk to greet him, his smile polite yet wary.
“How may I help you, Monsieur Gauthier?” the man asked.
André didn’t mince words—didn’t have the time or the patience to jump through hoops. “I must speak with Kira Montgomery immediately.”
The young man let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Montgomery isn’t here.”
André inhaled deeply and blew it out in frustration. Fine. He would wait.
“When will she return?”
“I don’t know,” the manager said. “She left a week ago and told me not to expect her back anytime soon.”
He hadn’t anticipated that. The Chateau meant the world to Kira. She wouldn’t leave it indefinitely unless something pressing had come up.
Fear lanced through him. Mon Dieu, the baby!
“Is she all right? Where did she go?” André asked.
The manager stiffened, his smile replaced by a professional mask. “I can’t divulge that.”
André gritted his teeth. Loyalty could be an annoying quality in employees. “Then tell me how I can contact her.”
The manager gave a wry laugh. “Sir, I was left with strict orders that Miss Montgomery was not to be disturbed, unless there is a pressing problem at the Chateau that I can’t handle.”
André slammed both palms on the table and leaned forward, crowding the young manager’s space, ready to beat the truth out of the cheeky man if he must. “I am André Gauthier, and I demand to speak with Miss Montgomery. Now, where the hell is she?”
“She mentioned being homesick,” the manager said. “Before you ask, she didn’t divulge where her home happened to be.”
That couldn’t be. The Chateau was her home. “You are sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
He stormed from the office, so angry at himself he could have bellowed his rage. She shouldn’t be traveling in her condition.
And just where was home? England? The boarding school where she’d spent the bulk of her life?
The possibilities were endless. The fear that he could lose her seeped into his bones, rattling his confidence, shaking his world.
His hand shook as he called his investigator. “I need to know where Kira Montgomery has gone on holiday.”
“I’ll get right on it,” his private detective said. “As for the paternity issue—Bellamy was cremated. Blood type can reveal if it was possible for him to have been her father, but it won’t prove conclusively if he actually is.”
“Forget it, then. Just find Kira.”
He stormed from the Chateau and arranged to return to Petit St. Marc. He’d wait there, worry, throw himself into work to keep from losing his mind.
But, no matter how long it took, he’d not give up finding her and making her his.
André stormed into his house, barely acknowledging Otillie waiting at the door, her face wreathed in an effusive smile.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Gauthier,” she said. “Comment allezvous?”
“Exhausted,” he said. As well as angry, and worried sick, and in no mood for pleasantries.
He strode to the stairs just before that subtle floral scent snared him, that silken string of remembrance bringing him up short. Just like he’d been tormented in his dreams. Only this was real. Kira!
He whirled, scanning his house, alert, hoping to hell that he hadn’t finally gone mad and imagined her. “Where is she?”
Otillie laughed. His opinionated Carib housekeeper, who’d taken a dislike to Kira when she’d barged into his house months ago, who’d been furious with him for going after her and bringing her here, was laughing with great pleasure.
“Mademoiselle is in the salon,” she said at last.
Heart beating savagely against his ribs, André crossed the hall in six long strides. He stopped in the doorway and leaned against the jamb, simply because he wasn’t sure his legs would carry him the rest of the way.
For a long moment he drank in the sight of Kira curled on his sofa, looking radiant and inviting in his home. Their home.
Mon Dieu, what a fool he’d been. She’d told her staff she was going home. She considered Petit St. Marc home. Thought his house was hers. That had to be a good sign.
She was here with him at last—had returned to him of her own accord. All would be well.
But, no, she was frowning at him now, looking wary. Unapproachable.
His blood pounded with the need to touch her, kiss her, love her. At this moment he felt every inch the pirate, rugged and ruthless, uncouth and unashamed of grabbing the spoils of war. For this fabulous English rose was his booty.
He’d wanted her the first time she barged into his office. He’d taken her, believing she was involved in the cutthroat war he’d waged with Bellamy. He’d continued to take her even when doubts had encroached.
She’d deserved so much more than the cold life meted out to her by Bellamy. She certainly hadn’t deserved André’s hostility, his constant doubts over her innocence, his refusal to give her anything but physical love.
Oui, he was unworthy of her. That was why he’d walked away from her that day in the hospital.
But he couldn’t let go of her. He, who’d vowed never to let a woman embed herself in his heart and soul, caught himself thinking about her during his days, dreaming about her during the long, lonely nights.
He loved her. The admission came hard for a man who had vowed never to fall victim to that crippling emotion. But refusing to admit it crippled him more, for he was haunted by her smile, her touch, her love.
No, he couldn’t let her go. Not now. Not ever.
He pushed away from the doorway and strode to her, stopping when he reached her side. His fingers curled into fists, trembling, for he knew if he touched her he’d tumble her back on the sofa and caress her everywhere. Make love to her, here, now, without a modicum of finesse.
“Marry me,” he said.
Her eyes bugged and her inviting lips parted. “What?”
A gruff sound of impatience rumbled in his throat. “You look beautiful. You are pregnant with my child, mon amour. Marry me.”
She flushed, her body stiffening, putting up a wall he hated, one that would geld him should he attempt jumping it. But he would jump it.
“I was pregnant a month ago, when you rushed me to the hospital, yet you didn’t offer marriage then,” she said.
Touché—a direct hit. Damn, but he was doing this badly. “I was an ass.”
“And now you’re not?”
He drove his fingers through his hair, frustrated, trembling like a schoolboy, tasting fear and despising it. For if he said the wrong thing she’d never marry him.
Mon Dieu, was this the tangled emotion that had gripped his father? That had made him act the fool with his mother?
“I am the father of your child,” he said. “The man you love.”
“True.” She stared at him a long, uncomfortable moment. “But you hate all Bellamys. You’ve spent considerable time and money to destroy Edouard’s dynasty and ruin Peter. Need I remind you that I am Edouard Bellamy’s daughter?”
“I hate Bellamy, not you. Never you, mon amour.”
She squirmed, seeming to grow more nervous by the second. “You say that now, but what about a month from now? A year?”
“I’ve treated you badly. Us badly.” He knelt at her side and laid a hand over her stomach, trembling as heat shot from her into him, feeling their bond clear to his soul. “What must I do to convince you that I want you as my wife, as the mother of my child? That I wish to grow old with you?”
Her gaze softened, her lips trembling into a smile as she reached out and cupped his jaw in her hands, her touch seeping into his skin, his blood, his heart. “I want to believe you, but blood is telling, André. I have to be sure you will not resent me because I am a Bellamy, because our baby has the same blood.”
“Our child is Gauthier,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her once, twice. How had he lived without kissing her the past month?
“And part Bellamy,” she said, pulling back.
He sighed, hating the caution still banked in her expressive eyes, hating that he was responsible for putting it there, dreading how she’d accept his last confession. “Maybe yes, maybe no. I had my investigator attempt to prove you are Bellamy’s daughter, but without Edouard’s DNA it’s impossible to determine.”
“We’ll never know, then,” she said. “There will always be that doubt.”
“Only if you let uncertainty torment you.” He cupped her face in his hands and stared into her eyes, his own shining with a warmth and affection that she’d only seen in her dreams. “Ma chérie, everything you know and believe about yourself is the same.”
“I’m afraid to hope.”
“So was I. Which is why I had to look in here for the answer.” He thumped a fist on his heart. “I realized that I’d fallen in love with you even when I thought you were Edouard Bellamy’s puppet, and I continued to long for you even when I was sure you were Peter’s mistress. When I thought you’d conspired to ruin me I still loved you. It nearly drove me mad to admit that despite what I believed of you I wanted you as my lover, my wife.”
“Oh, André, you love me?”
“Eternally. You are in my blood, my skin,” he said. “My heart pounds for you. Marry me, mon coeur. Be mine forever.”
“Yes,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him back.
André pulled her against him, pouring his heart and soul into the kiss, his hands roaming her back, her slightly thicker waist, her small belly where their child thrived. “We will marry next week.”
“Why the rush?”
“Need you ask?”
He caressed her belly, pleased by the mound there now. His throat felt thick, his heart was thudding too loud.
His woman. His child. He’d considered them his before, but the depth of what that meant hadn’t hit him until he’d nearly lost her.
“I don’t want a big wedding,” she said. “Something quiet.”
“Oui, intimate. We can marry here.”
“I’d love that.” She kissed his cheek and sighed, a contented sound that rumbled in him as well. “I love you.”
“Mon amour.” He trailed kisses up her neck, addicted to the taste of her skin, her scent, her love. “Mon coeur.”
“I need to learn French,” she said.
“We will start now. Repeat after me. Je t’aime, avec tout mon coeur.”
She did, saying each word slowly, carefully. “What did I just say to you?”
“I love you,” he said, “with all my heart.”
She smiled, blinking rapidly, her love for him shining in her eyes. “It’s true.”
He kissed her, a soft lingering kiss that dragged a sigh from her. “I love you, Kira Montgomery. That’s all that matters. You are mine and I am yours and we have created our own family.”
She smiled and felt her heart melt, felt a sense of home and harmony envelop her. For he was right. She’d found her family in his arms, her future in his heart.
As long as they had each other, nothing else mattered.
After five months of having a protective husband indulge her with his attention and his passion—until the latter had proved too great a risk—and after enduring a killing backache for the past few days, Kira made a speedy trip back to the hospital on Martinique.
As before, André insisted on holding her as the captain drove the Sans Doute at breakneck speed. This time she was able to see the love and worry in her husband’s eyes, and her heart melted all over again.
This time, instead of nearly losing her baby, she gave birth to Antoine Louis Gauthier. The nearly nine-pound boy had his father’s piercing dark eyes and beautifully sculpted mouth, but he had inherited her broader nose and auburn hair.
Her heart overflowed with love as she trailed a finger along her son’s plump cheek, hardly able to believe that their small family circle had been completed.
Family. She could scarce believe her new life was real.
She had prayed she’d one day have a family all her life, but she’d never dreamed that she’d have a husband who openly adored her. That she’d deliver a healthy child to complete that circle of love.
Family. Never again would she live on the fringe of her relatives, the unwanted child nobody spoke of.
For her husband wanted her. And now she and André had a son. She was certain Antoine would be spoiled rotten by his adoring parents.
He’d never doubt he was loved. Wanted. Cherished.
André sat on the bed, his eyes glittering with adoration. “My son has a healthy appetite,” he said, as she nursed Antoine for the first time.
“He’s his father’s son.”
“Oui, he is.”
A proud smile curved André’s sensual mouth. Her husband no longer guarded his emotions around her, a fact that had allowed them to draw closer.
“He’s beautiful,” André said. “Thank you, mon coeur.”
She smiled, thankful, and so happy that she couldn’t stop tears of joy from spilling from her eyes. This was contentment. This was love.
He shifted closer to her and their son. “It has been too long since I was part of a family.”
“Having a family is a whole new world to me, but then so is marriage and being a wife and a mother. It takes getting used to.”
“Regrets?” he asked.
“None.” She smiled, understanding this complex man who guarded his heart so well, loving him, wanting him. “It’s been too long since you kissed me.”
“Then I must remedy that, mon coeur,” he said, his eyes glistening with love as his head dipped to hers.
