Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: January Books 5 - 8 - Кейт Хьюит, Jane Porter - Страница 19

CHAPTER NINE

MAX HAD BARELY said a word to her the next morning, other than to insist they return to London. He had work to do and plans to finalise for Angelina’s party, but she knew it was what she’d said. Why had she spoilt what could have been a perfect few days with those three words that Max couldn’t say, much less be told?

She’d spent the day resting while Max worked, and as the afternoon had darkened into evening a light dusting of snow had fallen over London. She’d stood by the expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out over the city as the flakes had twisted downward in a crazy dance, feeling ever more confined, ever more trapped. Finally she couldn’t tolerate it any longer, desperate to slip away for just a short time from the confines of Max’s apartment, from the brooding silence that emanated from him louder than any thunderstorm.

She crossed the polished wooden floor of the living space toward Max’s study. The desk lamp shone a bright circle of white light over the desk and onto Max. He hadn’t noticed her and she used her brief advantage, taking in the dark hair, now reverted to its natural dark unruly curls. He sighed, dropped his pen onto the papers he’d been poring over and pushed his fingers roughly through those dark curls and her own tingled as she remembered doing the same at the cottage.

A dart of pain shot through her heart at the memory of the last time she’d looked into this room, of the papers he’d refused to sign to acknowledge the divorce she’d filed for the day of their first anniversary, unknowingly carrying his child. They seemed to be back at the beginning again, but she loved this man and after their special night together she knew she could never love anyone else. But her love wasn’t enough and when she walked out of his life at the end of the year she knew that no other man could ever replace him, that she would be bringing up their child alone. That thought saddened her, not just for their son or daughter, but because something haunted Max, stopped him from caring, from loving. It hurt like hell to know that she hadn’t been able to change that, to reach him.

‘I’m going out for a walk.’ That got his attention. He looked up from his desk as she stood in the doorway, not trusting herself to get closer as the need to stand behind him and wrap herself around his shoulders in a loving embrace surged forward.

‘It’s snowing.’ The sharpness of his retort only fired the anger within her, but he hadn’t taken his gaze from her. She could feel it burning into her.

‘I’m not asking you to come, just telling you I’m going.’ Instantly she became defensive. It was her default protection mode and right now she needed it more than ever. She needed to protect her heart.

Without another word she turned and left him to his brooding, grabbing her coat as her defensive barrier folded around her, around her heart. He might have a penthouse apartment with views of the Thames, but she needed fresh air and freedom. Was he this controlling with Angelina? As that thought settled in her mind like the tiny flakes of snow drifting in the air, trying hard to be something more than the light dusting of sparkly white on the ground, she burst out of the tall and commanding apartment block he called home and took in a big lungful of cold air.

‘Damn you, Lisa, I haven’t got time for this.’ Max’s curse sounded behind her and she turned to see him, buttoning up his coat as he walked toward her, looking anything other than happy to be out in the cold winter evening.

‘Then don’t,’ she retorted hotly, adamant this was one thing she was going to get her way with. ‘I grew up in London. I’ll be fine.’

‘I am not about to allow my pregnant wife to walk around alone in this weather. In the dark. What kind of husband do you think I am?’

‘One who doesn’t love his wife.’ She threw the accusation back at him so quickly she didn’t even have time to think it through first.

She didn’t wait for a reply and began to walk along the embankment pathway, the trees twinkling with lights and the glow of lights from the city reflected in the water. Beneath her boots the snow was slippery and in her haste she briefly lost her footing and slid but quickly regained her balance.

Max was beside her in an instant, taking hold of her arm. ‘I suggest you slow down if you must continue with this madness.’

She walked a few more steps and stopped, looking from the white pathway as it sparkled under the lamplight to Max. ‘And what would that madness be? Taking a walk in my condition?’

He spoke over her before she had a chance to finish. ‘Of course it would.’

‘Or is that madness loving you?’ The words came hurtling out, dragging out all her pain on a cold breath, which seemed to linger in the air between them, waiting for an answer.

‘I have told you, Lisa, I can’t love. It’s not you, it’s me.’

‘Oh, isn’t that the perfect excuse? One every man who doesn’t want to be with a woman uses.’ Anger sizzled in every word.

‘It’s not an excuse,’ he said wearily. ‘It’s the truth.’

‘The truth?’ she fumed. Did he even know what that was?

He moved closer to her, his height towering over her, dominating everything. ‘I don’t want to be the man my father was. I don’t want to risk hurting you—hurting our child.’

Lisa’s heart thumped in her chest, so loud she was sure it was echoing around London, sure everyone would hear it. She’d found a chink in Max’s tough armour and he’d let her slip through, opened up and was finally on the brink of admitting what his demons were. Demons that made loving impossible for him.

She moved closer to him. ‘Just because your father did that to you, to your mother, it doesn’t mean you will be like him.’

* * *

The softness of Lisa’s voice nearly killed Max as he stood looking at her, vaguely aware of other people walking in the early evening darkness passing with a cursory glance at them but he couldn’t take his eyes from Lisa’s.

‘This hasn’t got anything to do with my father.’ Even now when she was making it all so easy for him, he couldn’t truly own his failings, couldn’t admit that unlike Raul, who had found love and happiness, he never would. He was cast from the same mould as his father.

‘You have to let the past go, Max. You can’t live within its shadow for ever and I more than most know that. There are plenty of shadows in my past, plenty I’d like to ignore or run from, but I can’t, because I love you.’

He moved away from her, needing the space to think, to gather the turmoil of emotions that had somehow escaped. He crossed the footpath to lean on the stone wall, looking out over the darkness of the moving water. ‘You can say it as many times as you like, but it won’t change anything, Lisa. I am who I am because of my past and I can’t change that.’

She joined him by the wall, looking at him, trying to force him to look at her. He didn’t want to, didn’t want to look into her gorgeous green eyes and see the love in them. Keeping himself at an emotional distance had worked while he was bringing up Angelina. He’d never admitted to himself or his sister that he loved her. That was what had kept her safe, kept her in his life.

But Lisa wasn’t Angelina. She wasn’t the baby sister he so wanted to hate for being his mother’s choice in a decision that she later paid for with her life. Lisa was his wife, the woman he’d thought he could enjoy passion and desire with, be a husband to, all without giving his heart. That fatal commitment that always made a person leave him, his life. He’d long since been secure in the notion that if he didn’t engage his emotions he couldn’t be hurt—couldn’t hurt anyone.

‘It doesn’t have to define you, Max,’ she said softly, too softly. He looked down at her, noticing she wore less make-up than usual. She’d stepped out from behind the façade of bright, bubbly and in-control Lisa to tell him how she really felt and he’d thrown it back at her—again.

‘We never talked of our past before we married, did we?’ He turned his attention back to the water and somewhere in the distance the eerie sound of sirens pierced the night, as if the truth of all she’d said was piercing his armour, cracking it open and exposing the young child who still lingered within, hurt and afraid.

‘Maybe neither of us were ready to share those secrets.’ She spoke so softly that he almost didn’t hear her. He sensed her moving closer, felt her arm against his and he clenched his jaw hard as need for her began to bubble to the surface once more. ‘But it’s not too late.’

Was she right? Could he do that, tell her why he’d been a hard and dominating brother to Angelina and why he could no longer look his stepfather in the eye, knowing he’d been the one to stand back and allow his mother to make such a momentous decision? Could he tell Lisa that he wanted to love her, wanted to love his child, but that he didn’t trust himself not to hurt her? That he couldn’t stand it if she left him once he’d opened his heart to her.

‘It won’t change anything, Lisa.’

‘But I’m willing to take the chance, Max—for our baby, not for me.’

He turned to face her once more. ‘Why would you do that? Why stay with a man who can’t love you and maybe can’t even love his child?’

‘You know my past now, Max. You know why I want a father for my child, one who will always be there, not one who turns up and uses his child to get at me. I would rather be a single mother, completely on my own, than put my child through that.’

She was doing what his mother had done. Sacrificing herself, her needs for those of her child, albeit for very different reasons. ‘Why? You saw where I grew up when my mother and I moved to Madrid after my father walked out.’

‘It has nothing to do with where I’d live.’ She looked at him, imploring him to understand. ‘It’s because I want to be a better mother than mine was. I want to care and love my child, to give it all it needs and that includes a permanent father. But only you know if I can manage that last part.’

He looked at Lisa, at the way her lovely red hair moved in the light wind, at the rosy glow the cold was bringing to her pale cheeks. He knew so little of her past. Was that where everything had started to go wrong? They’d allowed passion to rule, never words.

‘You’ve never really mentioned your mother.’

‘Because she never wanted me, never cared for me in any way. I was completely left to my own devices and if one good thing has come out of seeing my older stepbrother constantly being sought out by the police, it’s that I decided to lift myself out of that rut. Not to be the girl from the wrong side of town. I studied hard at school and later got my degree with honours in physiotherapy. My mother hates that I did well in life. She is constantly looking for ways of bringing me back down.’

His heart ached for Lisa, who like Angelina hadn’t known a mother’s love, but it still didn’t make it any easier for him to let go of his emotions, to feel love, much less show it. If anything the expectations she’d just heaped on made it harder.

‘She would really do that?’ He thought of the hard and unyielding woman he’d met just one week before he’d married Lisa and knew without a doubt that she was capable of that. Life had made her tough, taught her to inflict hurt, but how far would she go to teach her daughter a lesson for bettering herself? How could any mother want to do that?

‘She would, but can we forget this now? All of it and move forward? We are having a baby together, Max, and I don’t want to do it alone, but I will if I have to.’

He pulled her into his arms, sympathy rushing over him for the open vulnerability in her face. ‘You won’t be doing it alone, not while I have breath in my body.’

He meant every word. He would be there for her and for his baby. Lisa hadn’t asked him now for love, hadn’t said that was what she needed as he’d made his promise, one similar to that his mother had extracted from him. He’d promised his mother he’d look after Angelina and he had; for the last twenty years he’d been there for her, ensuring she had all she physically needed. He could do that for his child, couldn’t he?

* * *

Lisa closed her eyes and sank into Max’s embrace. He’d shared his secrets with her, opened up to her. Now, at last they could move forward, become a family and bring up their child together. It was all she’d ever wanted and with the exception of Max’s love she had it all.

She looked up into his face and the sadness in his eyes made him look so different—real. He’d lost that hard edge that gave him the command of total control. Was this the real man?

‘It’s cold out here.’ She snuggled tighter against him, anything to stop herself saying something stupid, like I love you. She could never let those words past her lips again.

‘Now you’ve noticed.’ He laughed, looking and sounding more relaxed than he’d ever done. Was it because he’d unburdened his past, confided in her in a way she’d only ever dreamt possible? ‘Shall we go back?’

‘No, let’s walk a while. The cold is invigorating.’

He kissed her so gently she was sure it tasted of love and as her body began to hum with desire she wished she’d asked him to take her back to his apartment, to his bed. The kiss intensified as the stirrings of passion began to boil higher and she kissed him back, deeply and passionately.

Inside her mind she was shouting to him. I love you, Max, with all my heart.

She continued the kiss, wanting to stop the words from tumbling from her mouth, and as the fury of passion threatened to spill over, like a dam about to be breached, she wanted to show him with the kiss how much she loved him.

He pulled away from her slightly, the cold night air tingling on her lips, still warm and bruised from the ferocity of his kiss. ‘It’s a damn shame I can’t lure you into my bed instead of walking in this weather.’

Pleasure and heat rushed around her as his desire filled eyes that held hers, calling her into his bed in a way she was powerless to resist. ‘On second thoughts—’

His brow raised in amusement. ‘Yes?’

‘That sounds a much better idea—and warmer.’

He took her hand and led her back along the embankment footpath, retracing their steps. ‘I can guarantee it will be warmer—a lot warmer.’

* * *

Lisa woke late the next morning to find the bed cold and empty beside her, but memories from last night warmed her as the fire at the cottage had done. She’d poured all her love into last night’s lovemaking, had tried so hard to show him what she wanted him to know without a word passing her lips. Were those three words really necessary?

If she could silence them, show her love with every caress and kiss, every gesture and thought, did it mean that Max was doing the same? Was her Christmas cottage a way of showing he loved her? What about the brilliant diamonds? Were they a token of his love and not the sordid conclusion she’d jumped to? Did he love her and not even know it yet?

Hope surged through her as she dressed and went in search of Max. He loved her and as soon as he’d wrestled the demons of his past into submission he would tell her as well as show her.

‘How are you this morning?’ he asked when she looked into his study, to find him busy with paperwork as usual. The concern in his voice touched her and pushed the hope a little higher as she walked in and stood by the window, looking out at London nestling beneath a toneless grey sky, where the promise of snow still lingered.

‘Good, thank you. I seem to be escaping the sickness now.’ It was the first time she’d thought about it, noticing that it was only when things weren’t good between them that she felt ill.

‘That’s good to hear, because I’m looking forward to seeing you in that black dress at Angelina’s party tonight.’ He smiled wickedly at her, stood up and walked over to join her. Standing behind her, his arms winding round her, he pulled her against him, kissing her neck. ‘And to taking it off again when we get home.’

‘Maximiliano Martinez, you are unbelievably bad.’ She wriggled round in his embrace and wound her arms around his neck, loving the intimacy of the moment.

He kissed her lightly on the lips, pushing her hair from her face until it fell behind her shoulders. ‘Would you prefer I don’t say things like that?’

She shook her head and he kissed her again, but this time the shrill ring of her mobile phone cut dead the rise of passion. ‘That, I think, is your phone.’

‘I will be back to finish this in a moment.’ She slipped from his embrace with a smile on her lips.

‘Promises, promises,’ he called after her as she rushed to retrieve her phone from her bag.

The word mother flashed on the screen and with a sinking heart she answered the call.

‘So you are back with Max.’ Her mother’s harsh voice shattered all the soft, gentle emotions the exchange with Max had just created. The warm sensation his words had stirred in her froze.

‘Yes, Mother, I am.’ Lisa bristled with indignation. Why couldn’t her mother ever be happy for her? Why did every achievement she made, every choice she followed, have to be questioned and torn apart?

‘I saw it all in the papers. He’s now a very wealthy man, heir to an impressively large fortune—no wonder you went back to him.’

‘Mother,’ Lisa snapped, and wished now her mother had had the nerve to say this to her face, to stand in front of her and accuse her daughter of being as shallow and mercenary as she herself was. ‘I’m not like you.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ Lisa walked to the windows that looked out over the dark, fast-moving waters of the Thames, not wanting Max to hear their exchange. After last night’s discussion as they’d walked, the last thing he needed to hear was her cold anger toward her mother.

‘Pregnant, then?’

Lisa couldn’t answer and rested her forehead against the cool of the glass as the nausea she’d just thought she was avoiding came back at her with a vengeance. Her mother’s vengeance.

‘So, you are pregnant.’ Her mother’s jubilant righteousness echoed out of the phone.

‘I haven’t even answered you.’ Lisa defended herself just as she’d always had to do when her mother was in one of these moods. The kind that usually ended up destroying everything she’d wanted or worked for. Well, it wasn’t going to happen this time. This time she wouldn’t try and keep anything a secret from her mother; this time she would tell her everything and hope that satisfied her.

‘Your silence says it all, darling.’ The endearment was said in a sickly tone, reminding Lisa of the wicked witches in the children’s films she’d always loved to watch when she was younger. She’d never thought her own mother would take on that role though.

‘Yes, I’m pregnant. Max and I are back together. I’ve got what you have never had, Mother, or should I say what you’ve never respected yourself enough to hang around for.’

‘So you still think a man like Max can love you, give you all those foolish dreams of happy ever afters, like those silly films you used to watch?’ Lisa blinked in shock. Her mother had noticed that she had always been consumed by them as a child, before home life had got so tough, so miserable she’d been forced to roam the streets with a gang of well-known troublemakers.

‘I love Max and that’s enough for me. I’m not the same as you.’ Behind her she heard a noise and turned, phone held to her ear, and looked at Max. She saw his armour reinforcing itself, saw him retreating from the place she’d finally made him reach, the place where her love could reach him. How long had he been standing there and how much had he heard?

She watched Max walk away, heard her mother’s voice. ‘Then I shall leave you to make the most of your love nest, because it won’t last.’

‘Goodbye, Mother.’ Lisa ended the call and dropped the phone onto the smoked glass of the coffee table, the clattering noise an ominous sound. She wanted to go after him, wanted to find out what he’d heard, because a one-sided conversation would have sounded pretty damning. It would have made her seem as calculating as, only last night, she’d confessed her mother was.

She was walking after him even before she realised she was doing it and stood once more on the threshold of his domain.

‘Save it, Lisa.’ He glared at her and she knew he’d heard it all. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

‘No, Max, I won’t.’

He drew in a deep, angry breath. ‘Stop trying to force me to love you.’

‘I’m not,’ she said softly, knowing the last part of the conversation he’d overheard would have sounded exactly like that.

He stood taller, his glitteringly angry eyes fixing her to the spot. ‘There will be no happy ever after here, Lisa, so stop looking for something that doesn’t exist.’

‘Damn you, Max,’ Lisa hurled at him as the pain of his words spiked her anger. ‘I already know there isn’t such a thing, at least not with you. All I want is what is best for my child. And maybe that is not you.’

He moved from behind his desk and came so close she could smell his aftershave, but this time she fought hard not to let it unbalance her, to set off the sparks of desire. ‘Then I suggest you leave.’

‘Oh, I intend to.’ She turned to walk away, anything to prevent the sting of tears from falling, but Max caught her arm.

‘But not until our deal is over, Lisa. Not until midnight on New Year’s Eve.’

‘I’m leaving now. Right now.’ She defiantly glared up at him.

‘Angelina is expecting us at her twenty-first birthday party this evening and we will be there, Lisa—together.’