Suddenly the conversation around him stopped and a familiar scent reached his nostrils. His companions were looking at someone behind him and he turned around slowly. His eyes widened incredulously.
Rose stood before him in the same black dress she’d worn the first night they’d met. It shimmered and clung to every curve, and to the small proud swell of her belly. Dimly he recognised that it had grown bigger in just the space of a week, and the knowledge made him feel as if something was slipping a mooring inside him.
Her hair was down, she wore no make-up, yet she was luminous. Ethereal. His fey enchantress. His betrayer.
His voice sounded hoarse to his ears. ‘What are you doing here?’
She came closer. ‘I need to say something else.’
Aware of the spike in interest around them, Zac said tersely, ‘Now is hardly the time to continue this conversation.’
He saw the pulse at the base of her neck beating hectically and his own blood throbbed in response.
‘Now is as good a time as any.’
Zac was aware of the keen interest of everyone around them and took Rose’s arm in his hand, pulling her away from prying eyes and flapping ears.
He walked her over to a quieter spot and let her go. ‘Well? What’s so important it couldn’t wait?’
She took a deep breath, which made her breasts rise against the dress. Distracting.
‘I need you to know that there was always so much more to this for me—from the first night we met. The last thing I wanted to do was betray you...or derail your life... Even when I knew I was being unconscionably selfish in going back to your apartment with you that day, I told myself that you’d make sure we were protected. I thought I could take a sliver of what you were offering and then walk away and never see you again. It would be my secret, to hold tight forever.’
She gestured to the dress with a jerky movement.
‘I just wanted to try and show you that the girl you met that night was the girl you thought I was. Unbelievably naive and gauche. But I was caught up in something I didn’t know how to navigate. And yes, there was an agenda, but I hated every moment of the deception.’
She grabbed his hand then and placed it over her small belly. He could feel her trembling.
‘The truth is that I fell in love with you, Zac, and I don’t regret for a second that we’re having this baby, no matter how it came about, because for me this baby will be born out of love.’
* * *
This baby will be born out of love.
For a second Zac’s chest swelled with something that felt scarily euphoric. And then he remembered... No matter what she said, this baby had been conceived in deception. And treachery. The fact was that she was pregnant, so she could say what she liked. She had him trapped.
A memory surfaced of how reverent he’d felt when he’d touched Rose that afternoon she’d come back to his apartment. It had been like nothing he’d ever experienced before. How awed he’d been by her apparent honesty...
But she hadn’t been remotely honest... She’d known exactly what she was doing. And at no point had she attempted to come clean.
Rose had had the last week to think things through, and Zac had to concede that she was nothing if not enterprising. He took his hand from under hers and ignored the way that small hard swell had evoked a need in him to protect. It was a need to protect his unborn child from her.
Coolly, he said, ‘I don’t appreciate this public stunt.’
Rose frowned. ‘It’s not a stunt.’
Zac lifted a hand. ‘Please—I don’t want to hear it.’
She took a step back and looked at him. ‘You still don’t trust me.’
He emitted a half-laugh. ‘Trust? You think a public declaration of love and remorse will convince me to take leave of my senses altogether?’ He shook his head. ‘You really don’t have to do this, you know. It’s overkill. Once you sign the contract put together by my legal team I’ll make sure you’re comfortable for the rest of your life. You’ve realised that as the baby’s father I was always going to win in any battle against my grandmother and you’re just switching your allegiance. I get it. I recognise someone bent on survival because I’ve been there too.’
Rose just looked at him. He could see the light in her eyes dimming. The light of hope, it occurred to him, bizarrely, and for a moment he almost forgot and reached out to grab her. She’d gone so pale...
But then she took another step back and smiled woodenly. ‘You have to admit it was worth a try,’ she said.
It felt as if something was cracking in Zac’s chest. Something that had no right to exist. Because it meant that on some level he still had a fatal weakness for this woman and that a part of him had wanted those words to be true.
Ridiculous.
As a five-year-old boy Zac had impulsively hugged his grandmother one day, only to have her push him away so hard he’d fallen and hit his head on a table.
She’d stood over him and said, ‘Don’t ever touch me like that again—do you hear?’
He had to force a smile now, because it didn’t come easily. ‘It’s always worth a try, Rose.’
And then he turned and walked back into the crowd, and hated that it was the hardest thing in the world not to look back and see her face.
When he finally returned to the group he’d been with before and did look back, she was gone.
* * *
As Rose packed her things a short while later, in the apartment beside Zac’s, she was still in a state of something like stoical numbness. The fact that she’d gone there in that dress, in public, and had all but prostrated herself at his feet had meant nothing. Changed nothing.
She’d told him how she felt and it had been like a scene in a sci-fi movie, with bullets bouncing off an invisible membrane, uselessly.
The fact that she’d so weakly taken the opportunity to let him give her an out, by agreeing with his accusation that it was just an act, was something she was not going to beat herself up over now. She had a lifetime for that.
Her child would be her main focus now. And her father.
She took a last look around the room. The black dress was draped across the bed and this time she wouldn’t be taking it with her, because it was the last reminder she wanted. Then she picked up her bag and walked out.
CHAPTER TEN
‘IT LOOKS LIKE she’s telling the truth, Zac. Her father’s operation is tomorrow. And there’s been no other transfer of funds that we can find. It’s literally just the hospital costs. We’ve no reason to believe her father is involved in any way.’
Zac sat in his chair in his office, hands steepled under his chin. With a mounting feeling of vague dread in his belly he said, ‘Okay, thanks, Simon. Will you see to it that all the costs are taken care of?’
‘Of course—and do you still want to go ahead with the contract you outlined?’
‘Yes, as soon as possible.’ Even though that made him feel uneasy now too.
‘Consider it done.’
When the call was terminated Zac stood up and went over to the window, feeling restless. On edge. He could see the Statue of Liberty. And the Brooklyn Bridge. It was from here that he had overseen his resurrection. And yet now the sense of accomplishment he usually felt didn’t fizz in his veins.
All he could see was Rose’s face last night, when that light had dimmed in her eyes and she’d said in a brittle voice, ‘It was worth a try.’
When he’d returned to his apartment there had been no trace of her apart from the faintest lingering of her scent. Even that had had an effect on him. Enough to make him come up with some half-baked excuse to go to the adjoining apartment and knock on the door.
When there’d been no answer the concierge had let him in and Zac had prowled the rooms, as restless as a panther. She hadn’t been there either. All the clothes he’d bought her had been hanging up neatly. And the black dress had lain across the bed in the master suite. A mocking reminder of the lengths she’d gone to.
Panic mixed with anger had roiled in his gut. Suspicion had mounted that she’d gone back to his grandmother’s, figuring she could battle him for custody from there, but then he’d seen a piece of paper on the table by the door with his name on it.
Zac, thank you for the offer of the apartment but I’ll be more comfortable at home in Queens. I’m going to be with my father at the clinic until after his operation, and then, when he comes home, I’ll help him recuperate, if all goes well.
As you didn’t want to see me anyway, I’m sure you can’t find fault with this. I’ll be in touch once the baby is born to let you know everything is okay, and perhaps then we can discuss plans to go forward.
In the meantime you can send the contract, or any other correspondence to my Queens address.
Rose
Just thinking of the letter now made Zac feel sicker. And he hated it. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d said he wanted? For her to all but disappear from his life?
She’d offered him the perfect out, and once she signed the contract he was having drawn up he’d be able to rest assured that his child would be brought up a Valenti. He would have what he wanted and he could get on with his life... So why did he feel so antsy? And why did he keep thinking of what she’d said about the night they’d met?