Bought: The Greek's Baby(48)

Now what was left?

Even though she’d regained her memory, she wasn’t the same woman anymore. Nor was she the happy, bright, naive girl she’d been before her memory had returned.

She almost wished she were. Eve closed her eyes, missing the happy, optimistic, loving person she’d been before. That she’d been with him. She missed loving him. She even missed hating him.

But it was all over now.

Her eyes swam with tears, causing the spring countryside to smear in her vision like an impressionist painting.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, placing her hand on her mother’s gravestone. “I couldn’t destroy him like I thought.”

She knelt, brushing earth off the gray marble angel before placing half the daisies on her grave. “I’m going to have his baby any day now. And I forced him to promise to stay away from us.” She gave a harsh laugh. “I guess I never thought he’d stay so true to his word. Perhaps he’s not the liar I thought.” She wiped the tears that left cold tracks down her cheeks, chilling beneath the brisk spring wind as she said softly, “What should I do?”

Her mother’s grave was silent. Eve heard only the sigh of the wind through the trees as she stared down at the words on the gravestone.

Beloved wife, they said. She glanced at her stepfather’s gravestone beside it. Loving husband.

Her stepfather had loved Bonnie since they were children. Then she’d met a handsome Yank in Boston who’d swept her off her feet. But John had still loved her—so much he’d taken her back willingly when she was widowed, even adopting her child as his own.

But her mother had never stopped loving Dalton—who had never loved her back with the same devotion.

Were all love affairs like that? One person gave—and the other person took?

No. Her throat suddenly hurt. Sometimes love and passion could be equally joined, like a mutual fire. She’d felt it.

The desire between Eve and Talos had been explosive, matched. She’d been so lucky and she hadn’t even known it. For all her adult life, she’d been focused on the wrong thing. On revenge. On regaining a memory that had ultimately caused her nothing but grief.

A bitter laugh stuck in her throat.

She’d pushed away the stepfather who had loved her, spent time with people she didn’t care about, learnt about fashion and flirtation and revenge. And for what? What did she have to show for it—for all her lost youth?#p#分页标题#e#

Nothing but the graves of the people who’d loved her, some money she hadn’t earned and a coming baby who had no father. Nothing but an empty bed and no one to hold her on a cold winter’s night.

“I’m sorry, John.” She leaned her forehead against her stepfather’s gravestone, placing a handful of the first daisies of spring on the earth. “I should have come home for Christmas. For every Christmas. Forgive me.”

Hearing a robin’s song from the nearby trees, she felt oddly comforted. She rose to her feet, rubbing her aching back and belly as she straightened.

“I’ll try to come back soon,” she said softly. “To let you both know how we get on.”

And with one last silent prayer over those two quiet graves, she started to walk back home.

Home, she thought, looking up at the Craig estate on the other side of the hill. A funny way to describe this place. The only place she’d ever thought of as home had been her family’s old Massachusetts farmhouse.

At least until recently, when every night she dreamed of a villa on a private island in the Mediterranean that was a million shades of white and blue…

She took a deep breath.

With her eyes wide open, she was left in darkness and shadows. She didn’t know who she was anymore. She didn’t know what to believe in.

She missed her old faith.

She missed him.

Eve felt her baby give a hard kick in response to the emotion racing through her. She felt another pain in her lower back as she wiped her tears fiercely. But obviously Talos hadn’t missed her. If he had, he would have followed her here, promise or no promise. He wouldn’t have stayed away from his wife and unborn child, searching for some stupid proof when their baby was due any day!

Don’t make me do it, Eve. She heard the echo of his anguished voice. Anything but that.

She felt a sharp pain through her womb. With a gasp, she stumbled across the driveway and up the steps to the side door.

“Is that you, Miss Craig?” the housekeeper called from the kitchen.

Miss Craig. As if her marriage had never happened. As if she’d actually followed through on her ridiculous threat to divorce him. Hearing her maiden name still choked her—even though she was the one who’d insisted on it. “I’m fine.”