Lusty Billionaires Bundle(116)
His shoulders slumped, his face looked haggard. “It will always come back to this, will it not?” He turned away.
And suddenly she was out of bed, vibrating with rage suppressed for months while pain and despair held sway. “Don’t you turn your back on me, you bastard!”
He spun around. “What did you call me?”
“Nothing worse than what you called me that day at Chez Renée,” she accused.
“I called you nothing that day.”
“You called me a whore!”
He looked shocked. “I did not say this.”
“Yes you did. That damn jeweler’s box said it for you!”
“I bought the bracelet before my grandfather’s heart attack. I had meant it as a gift to express my affection…then in my jealousy it became something else.”
So, it had been a bracelet. She’d never looked. “You expect me to believe that, after what you said that day?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I do not expect you to believe anything I say. You did not trust me before I betrayed our love, how can you possibly trust me now?”
In the red mists of fury surrounding her, she doubted her hearing, but she could have sworn he’d said he’d betrayed their love. She shook her head, trying to clear it.
“As I thought.” He stood there in silence for several seconds. “Is there anything more you wish to say?”
She slowly jerked her head to one side in a negative. She’d said enough.
He braced himself, as if for a blow and then nodded. “I cannot sleep here tonight next to a woman who hates me. I cannot hold you in my arms knowing you suffer my touch for the sake of our son.”
She felt her heart contract like a vise had been clamped onto it and was being slowly tightened. “I don’t hate you.” As for suffering his touch, how could he think that?
His eyes said he did not believe her.
He went into the dressing room and came out wearing a robe. “I’ll sleep next door in the guest room.”
She wanted to beg him not to go, but her tongue would not form the words. His hand was on the door handle when she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about the second promise?”
“I knew you would believe I had only come after you to keep it. I needed you to believe I wanted you for myself.” Then he opened the door and was gone.
I needed you to believe I wanted you for myself. You never trusted me. You lied to me. You hate me. Dimitri’s words ran like an unending refrain through her head. Such a love I can do without.#p#分页标题#e#
Love. He had said he had betrayed their love. She knew it. While she’d been screaming her invective at him, he’d admitted he had loved her. Did he still love her? Could he after the way she’d rejected him over and over again since he found her in New York?
She still loved him.
She did love him, but she hadn’t acted like it. Not when they’d been together in Paris and not since his resurgence in her life. She had withheld her secrets, herself and her trust. What kind of love was that?
The only kind of love she’d known—conditional and with limits. Her limits had been born of fear, but they had damaged Dimitri as much as her mother’s limits had hurt her. Alexandra felt that knowledge clear to her soul. She had wanted to receive unconditional love, but she hadn’t been willing to give it. Was it too late?
She went toward the dressing room with one purpose in mind. She flipped on the light and started sifting through her lingerie. There had to be something, then she remembered and started looking for white gossamer. Dimitri had bought it for her their second week together. It was a flowing nightgown with a princess cut and yards and yards of gossamer fabric that fell from the gathered waistline below her breasts. The wide straps accentuated the delicate curve of her shoulders and it had reminded her of a wedding dress…a see-through wedding dress.
It was one of the few gowns that would fit over her pregnant stomach. She slipped it on, her mission firmly in her mind. To be on the safe side, she pulled a robe on over it as well. No telling who might be wandering around in the hall outside her door to witness her state of dress. Security cameras at the very least.
She sifted through her cosmetic bag until she found a hatpin she used to unstop clogged tubes of make-up. She walked over to Dimitri’s dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer. The pregnancy test was still there. With it and the hatpin clutched firmly in her hands, she left the bedroom.
Dimitri had said he was going to be next door in the guestroom. The door to the room on the right of their bedroom suite stood open. The door to the left was closed. She walked toward it. She tried the handle. It turned in her hand and she breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t had a grandfather with tremendous foresight see that she was taught how to pick a lock.