Bound By Marriage(27)

"I thought-" She shook her head, furious at herself for having once  again fallen for a man who'd only ever existed in her imagination. And  this time, she'd gone far beyond girlish infatuation.

Horror drenched her at the thought of how close she'd come to declaring  her love to someone who didn't want it and would throw it back in her  face if she gave it to him. Wrapping her arms around her body, she told  herself not to break down, not here, not now. "But men like you don't  change, do they?"

"Why would you expect me to?"

Gabe's question from the night before echoed in Jess's mind as she sat  on the steps to what had once been her home. However Randall Station no  longer occupied that place in her heart. She'd accepted Angel in a way  not even Gabe realized.

But it wasn't enough.

Touching the wood of the beloved home she'd thought she'd sacrifice  anything to save, she shook her head. "Not my baby." Her child would not  be held hostage to this place as she'd been, would not be forced to  grow up alone and isolated in order to keep the Randall heritage safe.

And who had she been keeping it safe for but the life in her womb? Yes,  it would break her heart to walk away, leaving her parents' legacy to  the mercy of the developers. But that she could survive. What she'd  never survive, what she'd never forgive herself for, was if she stood by  and allowed her child to be torn from her arms in order to fulfill  Gabe's inexplicable change of heart on being a father.

"I'm sorry, Daddy." She put a hand over her abdomen. "I'm sorry for not  keeping my promise but I know you'll understand." A breeze whispered  through the air to trail across her face, flicking away the single tear  that had escaped her determination to be strong.

She'd been such a fool, first in thinking that she could survive a  marriage based on nothing but business, and second, in seeing Gabriel  Dumont as her very own knight in shining armor. He was no knight, not a  man who'd ever be willing to give her what she most needed.

Perhaps the ability to love had been cut out of him long before the  fire, his heart permanently damaged by witnessing his father's  brutalization of his mother. Perhaps he'd lost it that night when Angel  became an inferno that swallowed everything he'd ever loved. Or perhaps  it was her he couldn't love.

She didn't know the answer, but she did know that her child wasn't going to suffer for her stupidity.

Rising she walked down to the SUV and started it up. As she drove away,  she allowed herself only a single backward look in the rearview mirror.  Tears threatened to burst the banks of her control, but she resisted  pulling over until she was out of sight of the house. Then she stopped.  And let the tears come.

She was calm again by the time she reached the place that had become her  new home. If there was one thing she didn't want, it was for Gabriel to  see her as weak or pitiful. She was no longer that broken girl who'd  begged him to save her home. Finally, she'd grown up.                       
       
           



       

Still, she was glad he hadn't yet come in when she entered the house.  Going up to her bedroom, she packed a suitcase and carried it to the  bottom of the stairs before heading to her studio. There, she began  putting the bare essentials into a small bag. She'd get Mrs. C. to ship  her her paintings after she found somewhere permanent to stay.

"What the hell are you doing, Jess?"

Closing the bag, she looked up at the man who'd become the center of her  life in a few short months. "I'm leaving you." The pronouncement  sounded shockingly blunt, but she knew no other way to make it without  betraying the depth of her pain.

Green eyes glittered beneath the shadow thrown by the brim of his hat.  "If you think this stunt will make me chase after you, you don't know  me."

She drew in a ragged breath. "I don't expect that. We had a deal. I'm  reneging with full awareness of the consequences." Tucking her hair  behind her ears, she folded her arms and met his gaze without flinching.  "I know you'll sell Randall Station. I'm not going to ask you to stop.  It's legally yours."

"Your first payment under the pre-nup doesn't come due until we've been married two years."

She should have expected the cold-blooded response but there remained a  foolish emotional softness in her, something that insisted on seeing the  invisible scars on his heart, and that bled at his lack of feeling for  her and their child. "I don't want your money." It inadvertently came  out like the most severe kind of rejection.

"It'll take me a while but now that I have a source of income, I'll pay  you back for L.A. Don't worry about maintenance for the baby, either. It  hardly seems fair when you'd rather I wasn't pregnant."

"Don't be absurd, Jess." White lines bracketed his mouth. "I'm not having it said I threw my pregnant wife out on the street."

She picked up the bag with her art supplies. "Fine. Support the child,  that's your right, but I don't want anything else from you."

He blocked the doorway. "Why the sudden about-face? You were perfectly happy with this arrangement a year ago."

She could have lied, but that no longer seemed an option. Maybe she'd  had enough of hiding things, or maybe she was hoping for a last minute  reprieve from a man who knew no such thing as mercy. Whatever it was,  she told him the absolute truth. "A year ago, I didn't love you."





Chapter 17





There was no reprieve.

Gabriel went silent after her confession and it took everything she had  not to give voice to the anguish inside of her. Instead, she let him put  her suitcase into the trunk of the SUV and when he asked where she was  going, said, "I'll call you when I get there."

In truth, she had no idea of her destination. All she knew was that she  had to leave. Driving aimlessly toward Kowhai, she thought about going  to Merri Tanner, but disregarded the idea a second later. Merri was her  good friend, but Mr.

Tanner was Gabe's. It wasn't fair to put them in the middle of her and Gabe's problems.

In the end, she simply kept driving until night fell and tiredness  forced her to check into a motel. Sleep was a long time coming. It was  during those dark, lonely hours that she finally accepted the  inescapable fact-she could no longer live in or around the Mackenzie  Country.

Because in spite of its wide open sky, it was too small a community.  She'd be unable to avoid hearing news about Gabe, unable to avoid  running into him at area events. And she needed to forget him, needed to  find a way to live without her heart.

Getting up early the next day, she drove straight to Christchurch  Airport. After parking the car in the airport lot, she called Angel  Station and left a message on the machine telling Gabe where it was.

Her second call was to another man.

Gabriel hung up the phone, trying not to crush the receiver in his hand.  Jess hadn't called him. If the man she'd run to hadn't felt compelled  to let him know that his wife was safe, he wouldn't even have known  where she'd gone after she left the car at the airport three days ago.

Picking up the address he'd been given, he shoved it under a paperweight  and tried to concentrate on checking some invoices. Jess had left him  and she'd done it with a clear head. There was nothing to discuss-they'd  had a deal and she'd broken it, though he knew he was to blame for  that. He should have never tried to get her pregnant. Of course he'd  support her as well as the child. He wasn't a man who ran from his  responsibilities.

The pen snapped under the force of his grip, splashing ink across the  invoices and staining his fingers a deep blue. Swearing, he threw the  broken pieces into the trash and went to wash his hands. Afterward, he  found himself walking not toward his study, but toward Jess's studio. He  hadn't gone near that room since the day she'd walked out, but now he  flicked on the light and began looking at the paintings she'd left  behind.                       
       
           



       

Pride rushed through him at the depth of her talent. Her rural and city  scenes were stunning but it was in portraiture that her skill became  truly apparent.

Life stories told in brush strokes on canvas, each paid painstaking  homage to her subject-from a youthful Corey who was a cheerful sketch,  to a laughing Mrs.

C. in the kitchen.

The one of Damon was stacked with the others, a silent reiteration of  what she'd said that night at the hotel. Jess had grown up, leaving  behind both her innocence and her childish love for a man who'd never  been good enough for her.

And now she'd left her husband, too.

A year ago, I didn't love you.

Letting the portrait drop back to rest against the wall, he left the  studio. But he couldn't escape the soft whispers of a feminine voice  that insisted on speaking to him.