Project Runaway Bride(47)

He was also getting a second chance to be with Juliet, which he’d wanted all along.

But the ache was sharper now. Vast, throbbing, worse than ever. And somehow he couldn’t see it going away or getting better over time. This time, he was pretty sure the trauma was permanent.

Because—as it had clearly taken him much too long to acknowledge, even to himself—she mattered to him. With or without a baby between them, it was Juliet who’d strolled in and changed the status quo. She’d changed him—inside and out.

A beat passed. Another flicker of light across the surface of his scotch. Another jolt of heat from his throat to his stomach as he threw back the liquor and contemplated pouring another.

He’d thought he could forget her, put the fevered passion of their affair behind him and go back to his normal, quiet life. The problem was, he didn’t want to put it behind him this time or pretend it didn’t bother him. He didn’t want to let Juliet go or see his child only on weekends.

To hell with that, all the way around. A baby, it turned out, was just the justification he needed to turn this situation on its head.

Glass clinked as he set his drink none too gently on the table at his elbow and climbed to his feet.

Juliet had walked out on him twice now, and both times he’d let her go.

She wasn’t going to get a third chance.

* * *

When Reid showed up at the door of Juliet’s loft, he was as sober as a judge and wasn’t about to put up with any bull. He’d had a meeting early that morning that hadn’t gone very well, and now this.

He probably should have put it off another day or two. Or at least another few hours, until he was in a moderately better mood. But he was dressed to impress—charcoal slacks and suit jacket, light blue shirt and dark blue tie, all pressed and polished and professional—and figured putting his best foot forward with Juliet wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

Raising his hand, he rapped his knuckles against the dark gray of the reinforced-metal door. He waited and was about to knock again when it opened.

He’d expected Juliet or one of her sisters to answer, but instead, Reid found himself standing face-to-face with Lily’s fiancé, Nigel Statham. Reid had had a number of interactions with the man because of his involvement in the investigation into the theft of Lily’s designs. The theft had come from inside the California branch of the U.K.-based Ashdown Abbey, which the Statham family owned and Nigel was currently running.

Reid certainly hadn’t anticipated seeing the man here, though. And from the looks of it, Reid was interrupting something.

Nigel’s shirt was untucked and had clearly been rebuttoned with haste and a lack of precision, leaving the tails uneven. The fact that they were untucked at all was telling enough, given what he knew of the straitlaced Brit.

Reid cleared his throat, feeling suddenly awkward and intrusive. The chances of Juliet being at the loft while her sister and her sister’s fiancé were in the middle of...what they were obviously in the middle of was unlikely. But since he was here and had already stepped in it, it would have been even more peculiar not to go ahead and ask.

“Hey,” Reid said. “Sorry to, um... Yeah, sorry.” He let the apology drop with a man-to-man shrug of the shoulder.

“I came to talk to Juliet,” he continued. Then, already knowing the answer, he said, “I don’t suppose she’s here.”

“No,” Nigel responded. “It’s just...”

He trailed off as Lily came to stand at his side. Her hair was mussed, and her buttons were in no better shape than her fiancé’s.

“Just the two of us,” Nigel finished.

Reid nodded in understanding.

“I don’t think Juliet wants to see you right now,” Lily told him quietly.

To his surprise, she didn’t sound defensive or angry. Even her expression was soft, almost sympathetic.

“She’s been through a lot,” Lily added. “She needs some time to herself.”

“I know,” he replied, digging deep for a modicum of calm. After all, Lily wasn’t the Zaccaro he had big, fat issues with. “But I need to talk to her.”

Lily lifted her gaze to her fiancé. They exchanged a glance, Nigel finally lifting a shoulder as if to say it’s your call.

Reid frowned, his voice harsher than he intended when he said, “She’s carrying my child. Don’t you think that buys me a little consideration?”

Nigel’s arm went around Lily’s waist and he tugged her protectively close, making Reid feel like a first-class heel. Judging by the confusion on the other man’s face, he didn’t know any of the details behind Reid and Juliet’s relationship, but without a doubt he was going to step in and back Lily no matter what.