Читать книгу Welcome to Mills & Boon - Jennifer Rae - Страница 15

CHAPTER SIX

“OUT HERE AGAIN?”

Looking up, I smiled when I saw my stepfather in front of the pink bougainvillea of the garden.

“I had the morning off,” I replied. “Jason’s coming to pick me up in an hour.”

“Always so busy.” Howard gave a mock sigh. “I should have gotten you to work as a zombie when I had the chance.”

“Sorry.” My smile lifted to a grin. “You’ll have to ask my agent now.”

The web series had been as good a launch as Jason had thought it would be. In just four-and-a-half months, I’d started to have a real career. I wasn’t a movie star like Madison—not even close—but it turned out I had lots of friends who were anxious to see me succeed for no other reason than that they liked me. I had already expanded into commercials, doing character roles and bit parts on television shows. It was enjoyable at times, at other times mind-numbingly boring. If it wasn’t quite the ecstatic dream I’d thought it would be, it at least had given me something to do after I left my real dream behind in London.

Or to be more accurate, he’d left me.

“Must be hard to be so popular,” Howard grumbled. Then, as he looked around, a smile spread across his tanned, wrinkled face. “You’ve made the garden come to life again. It’s exactly how Hannah had it.”

“Thanks.” I leaned back on my haunches, brushing dirt off my gardening gloves as I surveyed the red and yellow roses. At nearly seven months’ pregnant, my belly was so large now that I had to brace myself so I didn’t lose balance and topple over.

For the past four-and-a-half months, since I returned to California, I’d lived in my childhood bedroom at Howard’s house, a white colonial in Beverly Hills. Whenever I wasn’t working, I spent time in my mother’s old garden behind the house. In April, I’d enjoyed feeling the sunlight on my face, and now it was late July, I relished the cool shade.

I was home, I told myself. I didn’t let myself think about Cornwall anymore, or how happy I’d been at Penryth Hall.

I looked up gratefully at my stepfather. “Thanks for letting me stay here so long. When I asked to visit, you had no idea I’d be moving in permanently,” I added, only half joking.

“Listen.” He reached out to pat my shoulder. “Every single day I have you here, with a grandbaby on the way, is a blessing.” Howard looked wistfully at the roses. “You’ve started a new career, a new life,” he said gruffly. “Your mother would have been so happy about the baby. And so proud of you, Diana.”

I felt a lump rise to my throat. “Thanks, Howard.”

Funny to think now that I hadn’t always liked him. I hadn’t wanted anyone to replace my dad, and the two men were so different. My dad had been quiet and studious, caring and careful. Howard Lowe was brash and loud, and never afraid to yell—especially at actors—or start a fight.

But beneath his bluster, Howard had loved my mother more than life, and he’d taken me under his wing from the beginning, when I was a sad eleven-year-old, bookish and quiet compared to his own daughter Madison, the result of his earlier short marriage to an actress.

Swallowing, I looked from the pinks and reds and yellows of the roses, to the more exotic flowers beneath wide cypress, pine and palm trees. “You’ve been so kind to me. I feel bad, with Madison giving you the silent treatment for it....”

He made a dismissive gesture. “Who’s to say she is? She’s busy in Mongolia. And if she’s mad that I’m letting you stay here, she’ll have to get over it. We’re family.”

I shook my head. “She’ll never forgive me for ruining her relationship with Jason.”

“Hush. If it was so easy to ruin, it wasn’t much of a relationship.” He patted my arm. “I’m glad you’re here, Diana. Don’t rush into leaving. Especially with Jason Black. I don’t think much about a man who keeps changing his mind which sister he wants to marry.”

“Howard, you know Jason and I are just friends!”

“Sure, I know that. I’m just not sure he does.”

I sighed. After we’d wrapped the web series, Jason had taken me out often, whenever he had time off from the superhero movie he was filming in Century City. After the scandal of last year, the paparazzi had a field day with this latest development, and they’d followed us constantly, photographing us doing boring things like drinking lattes at a café. Last week we’d been on the cover of multiple celebrity gossip magazines. Madison Lowe Love Triangle, one headline screamed. Madison’s Pregnant Stepsister Strikes Back with Baby Daddy Jason Black!

I’d writhed when I read it. So much for trying to avoid the paparazzi, and maintain a dignified silence.

“Just tell everyone it’s mine,” Jason had urged. “It will be, after we’re married.”

“We’re not getting married, Jason,” I’d said, rolling my eyes. “We’re friends. Just friends.”

But did he really accept that?

I sighed in irritation, remembering. “Love is a suckers’ game,” I grumbled to Howard.

I suddenly realized who I was quoting. I didn’t love Edward anymore. Instead, I’d become him.

“Okay, okay.” Howard held up his hands. “Whatever. I’m staying out of it. But look.” His expression turned ferocious, his gray eyebrows bushy and fierce. “I don’t know what the deal was with your baby’s father, or why you decided it would be a mistake to tell him about the pregnancy....”

“I don’t want to—”

“Yeah, I know you don’t like to talk about it. But take it from an old man. Life is short. It passes by in a blink. Even if the guy’s every kind of jerk, he at least deserves a shot at knowing his kid.”

I wished I’d never told Howard so much. Edward had made me love him as I’d never loved anyone. He’d filled me with his child. He’d made me so happy.

But he hadn’t wanted me. He hadn’t wanted any of it. Love. Children. Happiness.

Bluebirds soared above my mother’s garden, singing as they lifted higher into the cloudless blue sky. Something caught in my throat, and I looked away. “He told me he didn’t ever want a child. I was doing him a favor.”

“People can change. Sometimes for better than you can imagine. He deserved the chance.” He looked at me and said softly, “Your mom would have said the same.”

I gave a soft gasp. Bringing Mom into it was punching below the belt.

Not that I actually had a belt anymore. Unthinkingly, I put my hand over my swelling body. It was a good thing that long dresses were in style, because now I was in my third trimester, none of my regular clothes fit me anymore. Not even the stretchiest yoga pants.

“He had his chance.” I slowly rose to my feet. “He threw my love back in my face. I’m not giving him the chance to do it to her.”

“He hurt you. I get it.” My stepfather’s rheumy eyes met mine in the bright, unrelenting California sunshine. “But take advice from an old man who loves you. Grab your chance at love when you can. Because right now, you think there will be endless chances.” His throat caught. “There won’t. You used to know that, until he turned you hard and cynical. When I think of the sweet kid you were, I’d like to punch Edward St. Cyr in the jaw.” His bushy gray eyebrows lowered ferociously. “If I ever meet him—”

The hinge of the garden gate squeaked. I looked up. “Jason—”

But it wasn’t Jason. Looking across the dappled sunlight of the garden, my heart was suddenly in my throat.

Edward stood across the green grass, in front of the bright pink flowers. Sunlight illuminated his dark hair, and luminous, deep blue eyes.

“Is it true?” He lowered his gaze to my pregnant belly. “You’re pregnant?”

My breath caught.

Edward took a step toward me, and another. His eyes devoured me, as if he’d been dreaming of me for months and could hardly believe I wasn’t a dream now.

“Is it mine?” he said quietly. “Or Jason Black’s?”

I trembled, my hands shaking.

“Yours,” Howard said helpfully.

I turned on him in outrage. “Howard!”

“Oh, c’mon.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s not as if you were going to lie. At least not for long,” he amended, looking at me more closely.

“You’re meddling,” I accused.

“I’m saving you some trouble. You can thank me later. Excuse me.” My stepfather walked toward the garden gate. He stopped in front of Edward. “About time you showed up.” He rubbed his jowly chin thoughtfully. “I actually owe you a punch in the jaw—”

“Howard!” I cried.

“Later,” he said hastily, glancing back at me, and he let himself out the gate. Leaving us alone.

Edward and I stared at each other across the soft green grass. He had a five-o’clock shadow on the hard edge of his jawline, and shadows beneath his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in days. And he’d never looked so beautiful to me. Never, ever.

Except I didn’t care about him anymore. I didn’t. And I wouldn’t. I took a deep breath. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here...” Edward seemed uncharacteristically uncertain. His gaze lowered to my belly, the shape of which was clearly visible beneath my cotton maxi dress. “I saw a picture of you online. The article said Jason Black was your boyfriend but...”

“I’m due in September.”

He did the math quickly in his head, then his lips twisted downward. “So I’m the father.”

I looked down at the grass, the color of emeralds, lush and spikey. “Sorry. Yes.”

He shook his head. “How is it possible? We were so careful—”

“Not careful enough, apparently.”

“You knew you were pregnant when you left London, didn’t you?” His voice was deceptively quiet. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”

“I did you a favor.”

“A favor?”

“You didn’t want a child. You were very clear.” My teeth chattered with emotion. I wrapped my arms around my body, which was suddenly shivering in the bright July sunlight. “You didn’t want a child, and you didn’t want me.”

He came closer to me. “So you took your revenge?”

I shook my head fiercely. “I wanted to tell you about the baby. I tried! But the moment I told you I loved you, you ran out of the house in terror!”

He gritted his teeth. “Don’t you dare try to—”

“You said you wanted a clean break!” In spite of my best efforts to stay calm, my voice was shrill. “You said you never wanted to see me again! I tried to tell you, but you ran out of the house rather than listen to me! Don’t you remember?”

Edward sucked in his breath. Then he came closer in the dappled sunlight, until he stood inches away from me. “Is that why you turned to Jason—because I wouldn’t listen?” He moved closer. “Or was he the one you really wanted all along?”

“I wanted you.” My voice was flat. “I told you. I was in love with you. I loved you as I’ll never love anyone again.”

He blinked.

“Loved.”

“Past tense.” I shook my head. “Loving you nearly killed me. You rejected me. Abandoned me,” I whispered. “I couldn’t bear for you to reject her, too.”

He exhaled, as if he were breathing toxic fumes. Then his eyes flew open. “Her?”

I nodded. “I’m having a little girl.”

His face filled with wonder and he reached towards me. “We’re having a girl....”

I jerked back before he could touch me. “We’re not. I am. I can support us now.” My eyes hardened. “We don’t need you.”

Pain flashed across his handsome face, then the lines of his cheekbones and dark jawline tightened. “You’re not even giving me a chance.”

“I tried that already.”

He gritted his teeth. “I didn’t know you were pregnant.”

“You told me straight out you never wanted a child. Never. Never ever.”

“People can change.”

“What are you trying to say, Edward?” I clenched my hands at my sides. “Are you saying now I don’t need you, now I don’t even want you, you suddenly want to be part of our lives?” I tossed my head. “Forget it!”

His expression hardened. “Because you now have what you really wanted all along—an acting career, and Jason Black?”

“Leave him out of this!”

He set his jaw. “Has he asked you to marry him?”

I looked away.

“He has, hasn’t he?” Edward’s voice hit me like a blow. “So you could forgive him for sleeping with your stepsister? But not me for letting you go?”

“Look,” I said acidly, glaring at him. “I don’t know what kind of spiritual breakdown you’re going through—seems a little early for a midlife crisis, isn’t it? But keep us out of it.”

“She’s my daughter.”

“Just biologically.”

“Just?” he said incredulously.

“You can’t be responsible for a houseplant. You said so yourself!”

“I could change.”

“Don’t.”

My single cold word hung in the air between us. He took a deep breath, looking down at me.

“What happened to you, Diana?” he said softly.

I lifted my head. “Don’t you know? Can’t you tell? The naive woman you knew died in London.”

“Oh my God...” he whispered, reaching towards me. Wild-eyed, I backed away. He straightened, setting down his hands at his sides. “All right, Diana,” he said quietly. “All right.”

Blinking fast, willing myself not to cry, I walked away from him. My knees felt weak. I sank into a marble bench hidden amid a cool, shadowy copse of trees. But he followed, standing a few yards away.

I looked at him in the sunshine, in front of the brilliant colors of my mother’s roses.

“You were right all along,” I said. “I should have listened to you when you tried to tell me. Love is a suckers’ game.” I looked away. “The only way to win is not to play.”

He took a single staggering step back from me. Then, with a deep breath, he held himself still. As if he were trying to hold himself back from—from what?

Clenching his hands at his sides, Edward came and sat beside me, on the other end of the bench, careful not to touch me.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I never wanted you to learn that from me.”

“You helped me out. Made me grow up.”

“Let me tell you something else now.” Sunlight brushed his dark blue eyes, and I saw the depths, like a brilliant sparkling light illuminating the deepest, darkest ocean. “I never should have let you go.”

My lips parted. I stared up at him in shock.

He gave me a sudden crooked smile. “From the moment you left, I knew I’d made the greatest mistake of my life. In fact,” he said in a low voice, “it was no life at all.” He leaned forward. “I came to California to try to win you back.”

I stared at him, stricken.

I could hardly believe Edward was sitting in my mother’s garden in Beverly Hills. Sitting beside me on the marble bench Howard had given her one year for Mother’s Day.

“You want me back?” I breathed.

He nodded. “More than anything.”

We all create our own garden, Mom used to say. Gardening was a lot like life, in her opinion. Sure, plants depended on sun and soil, but the most important thing was the gardener. What choices did she make? Did she hack off roses with a dull blade? Did she overwater the ivy? Did she let wisteria grow wild, until it overran the walls, blocking all light in an insurmountable thicket of twisted vine? The garden you had showed the choices you’d made. What you’d done with the hand nature dealt you.

Now, Edward was offering me a choice I never imagined I’d have. He wanted me back?

I thought of the months of anguish I’d endured after London. He’d nearly destroyed me. I couldn’t live through another broken heart. I couldn’t.

My shoulders tightened. No. I lifted my chin. I’d finally stopped loving him. It was going to stay that way.

“We all make choices we have to live with,” I said quietly. My eyes glittered as I looked at him. “I’ve moved on. So should you.”

“Have you?” He straightened on the bench. And his jaw tightened. “You seem to forget one thing. I’m the baby’s father. I have rights.”

I stiffened. He was threatening me now?

“So it’s like that, is it?”

He took a deep breath. “I don’t want to fight you, Diana. It’s the last thing I want. I came here to tell you I was wrong.”

“Funny.” Turning away, I gave a hard laugh. “Because I’ve decided you were right, ending our affair like you did. A long-term relationship just brings pain. Friends with benefits—that’s the only way to go.”

“Is that what you have with Jason?” he said roughly.

I shrugged. “More or less.”

“Well, which is it? More—or less?”

“More friendship, less benefits.”

“How much less?”

Gritting my teeth, I grudgingly admitted, “None.”

He relaxed slightly. He leaned forward. “Diana, don’t you want our child to have what you had—two parents? A real home?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “In a perfect world...”

“She can have it. All you have to do is say yes.”

I lifted my chin. “What are you asking me, exactly?”

“I’m asking you, you little fool,” his eyes glittered, “to marry me.”

I was dreaming. I sat in shock beside him on the cool marble bench. Above the palm trees, I heard the birds singing as they crossed the blue sky. A soft summer wind blew through the flowers, causing the scent of roses to waft over me like an embrace. The only sound was the bluebirds, and a hummingbird and the lazy buzzing of the bees in the dappled sunlight.

“What did you say?” I whispered.

Edward stared down at me, his dark eyes intense. “I want to marry you.”

I drew back.

“I don’t understand.” I put a hand to my head, feeling dizzy. “Everything you said in London—you swore you’d never want a wife or child—”

“It’s all changed.”

“Why?”

“You’re pregnant with my child.” He looked at me. “And I want you, Diana. I’ve never stopped wanting you. From the moment you left, I’ve hungered only for you.”

I gave an awkward laugh. “You’ve had other lovers....”

“No.”

My jaw dropped. “It’s been four months!”

“I only want you,” he said simply.

My heart was pounding. I tried desperately to bring it under control. “You didn’t come to California because you wanted me.” I lifted my chin. “You only came when you found out I was pregnant.”

He clawed back his hair. “I was waiting for you to call me. I thought you would.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “You thought I would call you—after what you said to me?”

“Women always try to win me back.” A rueful smile curved his lips. “But not you.”

I took a deep breath, remembering what it had cost me. I’d felt so alone and heartsick when I’d returned to California. For weeks, I’d cried myself to sleep—then was tormented in dreams, as hot memories of our nights together forced themselves upon me when I was sleeping and helpless to fight them.

“Your pregnancy just gave me the reason to come find you. It forced me to do what I’d been afraid to do. To ask you,” he said, lifting his gaze to mine, “to come back to me.”

Against my will, a shiver rose from deep inside me. A shiver deeper than fury and stronger than pride.

I stubbornly shook my head.

“I want you,” Edward said, his handsome face intent on mine, making me tremble with sensual memories. His gaze fell to my lips. “I need you, Diana.”

“Just missing sex...” My voice came out a croak. I cleared my throat. “That isn’t a good enough reason to marry someone.”

“I don’t want to marry you for sex.” He sat up straight on the park bench, and I was reminded of how powerful his body was, how much larger than mine. “I want us to be wed. So our child can have a childhood like yours. Not a childhood like mine.”

I swallowed, remembering his loneliness then, how his mother had abandoned him when he was ten, and his father had ignored him, except when he could be used as a weapon against his ex-wife. Even the beloved gardener who’d taught him to fish had abruptly left. Boarding school at twelve. A horrible cousin. An empty castle. With only a paid housekeeper to care. That was Edward’s childhood.

“You don’t need to worry.” I briefly touched his shoulder. “Our baby will always be safe and loved.” I cradled my hands over my belly. “I promise you.”

“I know.” His eyes met mine. “Because I’ll be there.”

I glared at him. “Edward—”

Reaching out, he deliberately put his larger hand over mine, gently on the swell of my belly. I gasped when I felt him touch my hand for the first time, felt the weight of it resting protectively over the child we’d created. “I’m not going to let her go.” He looked at my belly with a trace of a smile on his lips. Then he looked up at me. “Or you.”

My mouth went dry.

“But I don’t love you,” I choked out, as if those magic words were a talisman that could make him disappear. “I’ll never love you again.”

The words seemed suspended in the air between us. Then he smiled. Moving closer to me, he cupped my cheek.

“Friends with benefits, then.”

“And marriage?”

“And definitely that.”

“I won’t let you do this,” I said, trembling beneath his touch. His fingertips stroked softly down my cheek, tracing my full lower lip. My breasts, now lush and full with pregnancy, felt heavy, my nipples hard and aching. I breathed, “You can’t just come back, after the way you broke my heart, and force yourself into my life!”

“You mean I have to earn it.”

“Well—yes—what are you smiling about?”

“Nothing.” He lifted his chin. “I’m not afraid. I know exactly what to do.”

“You do?”

“Yes.” He slid down the bench until he was right against me. I felt him close to me, so close, and I shivered with heat in the cool shade of the garden. “I’ll do whatever it takes to earn back what I’ve lost.”

“You can’t.” I swallowed. “Yes, you’re my baby’s father. There’s nothing I can do about that. But that’s all. I’ll never open my heart—or my body—to you again. I won’t be your friend. I won’t sleep with you. And I definitely won’t marry you.”

He pulled me into his arms. “We’ll see....”

My heart beat fast as he held me against the warmth of his body. I heard the intake of his breath, and realized he was trembling, too. That was my last thought before he turned me to face him. And he lowered his mouth to mine.

He kissed me hungrily, and when his lips touched mine, in spite of my cold anger, I could not fight it. When he kissed me, the colors of the garden whirled around us, pink bougainvillea and green leaves and palm leaves glowing with sun, flying wild into the sky. And against my will, I kissed him back.

Just a kiss. One last kiss of farewell, I told myself. Before I sent him away forever.