Baby By Accident(77)

“How can you work like this?” Lise glanced around, thinking perhaps he had company and they needed some cover to have a private conversation. “You’re alone?”

“Si. Very alone.” He didn’t move and for some reason, his voice sounded ominous.

“I know what’s wrong with you.” Shaking off the foreboding stirring in her blood, she stepped forward, trying to remember where the light was on his desk. She wanted to see his face when she made her confession of love.

“You have often pointed out what is wrong with me.”

A huff of exasperation escaped her. “Turn on the light.”

“Your wish is my command, Princesse.” His accent no longer sounded sexy and toe-curling. Now it sliced through the words, giving them a hard, tough edge. Her nickname dripped with the old, biting sarcasm.

The light on his desk flashed on.

With a gasp, she took a step back.

His eyes burned with the old hate. The hate she’d thought forever gone. His face was pale, stony, taut with cruel anger. His mouth was a grim slash of fury across his face. But his body was all lazy grace. Dressed in a black T-shirt and midnight-dark jeans, he lounged back in his chair, his hands draped over the arms as if he had not a care in the world.

This wasn’t something wrong. Wrong meant a mistake, a misunderstanding. Something that could be fixed with her words and explanations.

This was worse. This was a death.

Rushing past the thought, the paralyzing thought, she croaked, “What is it? Tell me.”

“Interesting reading.’ Languidly, he flipped a sheaf of papers her way. “I applaud you.”

She didn’t move. Moving would mean she’d find out why something was dying inside her.

His mouth grimaced in a savage smile. “Why am I surprised you do not wish to read the report? You already know the contents, undoubtedly. You were the one who initiated this, after all.”

Lise stared him in the eye, trying to find the person who’d lovingly kissed her and loved her in his bed. The man who tenderly cared for her and her baby as they made their way to Italy. The man who she adored with every atom in her being.

He was no longer there. There was nothing in his eyes of golden love and soft, green tenderness. There was only brutal, black death looking at her.

“What do they say?” she whispered.

For the first time, his indolent body tensed. “Do not play with me.”

Apparently, she’d have to look for herself if she were to know and understand this death happening in her and around her. The connection between them, the connection that had zipped and zapped from the moment they’d met—the one she’d come to cherish and relish—the connection was severed. She felt the cord of it now, defeated and destroyed. It coiled inward, wrapping around her heart. And he did nothing to reach into her and make the connection come to life again between them.

Weeping at his feet would do no good.

She stepped forward and grabbed the papers.

The silence was deafening as she scanned the details. Drank in exactly what was going on. Figured out what had made her husband turn to stone.

Sue for divorce. Equitable distribution of property. Primary custody.

“Where did you find these?”

He stared at her. With intimate hatred.

“My email.”

“I realize now why you paused before giving me your permission. You should not have been so trusting,” he sneered. “It is not a good idea to alert your enemy to your plans.”

“You are not my enemy.” You are my love.

“I have always been your enemy.” His eyes blazed. “I was just stupid and forgot that fact for a while.”

Her brain clicked and clicked as she watched her husband retreat farther and farther.

You were absolutely right not to sign a prenuptial agreement with that brute.

Don’t worry. I will make sure you’re okay.

Check your emails.

Her mother had been extremely busy. This was the only possible explanation.

“I didn’t do this.” Slapping the papers down on the desk, she struggled to find more words, desperate for him to believe.

“Really?” A sardonic dark brow lifted. “The email was addressed to you. From your solicitors.”

“I did not—”

“The cover letter clearly says at your direction.”

“That’s not what—”

“I commend you.” He stood, all liquid fluidity, all masculine prime. Leaning down, he grabbed a small suitcase off the floor. “You took me by complete surprise. But after reading through your proposal, I find myself accepting.”

“You said there’d be no divorce, remember?” She frantically scrambled in her head to find some sense, some words to reach him. Some way back to what they’d found these past months. “Where are you going?”