His Suitable Bride(117)

‘I’m not sure I know where you’re going with this.’

‘Neither do I.’ He tapped the file against an open hand. ‘Do you want to know what my investigators found out?’

Rowan gave a little half-shrug and shook her head at the same time. No, she didn’t want to see the facts of her life laid out in a file. Especially if—

‘Here—have a look.’

He handed her the file, and with her heart palpitating in her chest Rowan opened it out. It was empty. Not one piece of paper. Relief mixed with something else raced through her.

He started to pace, and finally rested a hip against the edge of his desk, arms crossed formidably over his broad chest. He quirked a brow. ‘I think I’m ready for your explanation, Rowan. Because unless you’ve been sitting on a mountain top in India meditating for two years, you haven’t popped up anywhere in the world. And, believe me, we’ve searched.’

She could well imagine he had.

This was it. The moment of truth.

She carefully put down the file and went to stand by the window, looking outside for a long time, praying for courage. When she turned around Isandro was just watching her, his expression guarded, not a hint of warmth, anything. This was it. She had to tell him. He above anyone deserved to know.

‘You haven’t found any trace of me because when I walked out of the hospital that day I cut up all my cards, any trace of paperwork. I used my middle name, Louise, and my mother’s maiden name, Miller. I moved my inheritance to a Swiss bank account and withdrew cash as I needed it.’

Rowan knew she was talking, and looking at Isandro as she did so, but she felt removed, as if she were watching herself from a long distance. She gripped the back of a chair that was in front of her.

‘That still doesn’t tell me where you’ve been. It just tells me how you evaded detection.’ His voice was flat. Grim.

Rowan breathed and swallowed painfully, tried to say the words as dispassionately as possible. But she could feel her fingers digging into the chair-back. ‘I was in France—a small town just outside Paris. I’ve been there since the day after I walked out of the hospital. In a clinic.’

She saw Isandro frown, and felt a cold sweat break out on her brow. She prayed for the fortitude to see this through. She closed her eyes for a second and opened them again. Took a deep breath.

‘It was … is … a cancer clinic.’





CHAPTER ELEVEN


ISANDRO stood from the desk. Rowan felt shaky and lightheaded, as if she was going to faint. She took deep breaths. He came close and gripped her upper arms, pulled her round to sit in the chair.

‘Explain.’

Rowan looked up a long way and said weakly, ‘Can you sit down, please? You’re making me dizzy.’

He pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her, his whole body screaming tension. She focused on his eyes, which were a more intense blue than she’d ever seen before. She willed him to believe what she was about to say. She knew she wouldn’t be able to bear it if he laughed or told her she was making up a story.

Shakily, she tucked some hair behind her ear. ‘When I was seven months pregnant I went for a check-up. I’d been feeling more tired than usual … run down. I’d got a couple of colds …’

Isandro frowned, something flashing into his head. ‘You had all those nosebleeds …’

Rowan nodded slightly, surprised that he remembered. At one point she’d been having two or three nosebleeds a week. ‘That … they were a part of it too.’

Isandro looked at her. She had seemed more poorly in the latter months of her pregnancy. He had put her increasing distance down to that. He nodded at her to continue, feeling curiously numbed, as if already protecting himself from something.

‘Dr Campbell did a routine blood test and sent it to the lab. She called a couple of days later and asked me to come in and see her. You … you were meant to be going to New York for the week-long conference and you got delayed by a day.’

Isandro nodded again briefly. He could remember coming back from that trip and finding Rowan cool and distant. That had been the start of it. And he could also remember the pain of leaving that townhouse behind, the loneliness that would creep up on him during trips away, surprising him with its force … surprising him with its presence.

‘When I went back to see Dr Campbell she had another doctor with her …’ She took a deep breath. ‘A visiting consultant haematologist, Professor Erol Villiers …’ Rowan looked away for a moment and pressed her lips together before looking back. ‘They told me that they’d found something in my blood. AML. It’s an acute form of leukaemia.’