Project Runaway Bride(48)

Reid could respect him for that, but if he had to reach out and shake Juliet’s sister to get the information he needed, then he would do it. Or at least get as far as he could before Nigel put him on his ass. Which was no less than he would do if their situations were reversed.

He tried once more for the calm and reasonable approach. Meeting Lily’s blue eyes, which were just a couple shades lighter than Juliet’s, he let her see his sincerity and quite frankly, his need.

“Please,” he whispered.

A few seconds passed, and then she let out a sigh.

“She’s not here, in New York,” Lily said. “She and Zoe went to Connecticut to visit our parents. And I think Juliet wanted to patch things up with Paul.”





Twelve



Reid gripped the steering wheel, his speed hovering well above the legal limit. The prospect of getting pulled over wasn’t even a blip on his radar, however.

His blood pressure was too high, his mind cluttered with what Lily had told him back at the loft.

So Juliet wanted to patch things up with Paul, did she?

His teeth gnashed together so hard he expected them to turn to dust.

What had happened to her declaration that she was through with that misogynistic jackass? Or that said jackass wouldn’t want anything to do with her now that she was pregnant with another man’s child?

Then there had been Lily’s parting shot and reminder that she didn’t think Juliet wanted anything to do with him at the moment. That she needed some space, needed some distance, wanted to be alone. Translation: she wanted to stay far away from him.

Well, too damn bad. They’d had an understanding of sorts. In addition to saying she was done with the ex-fiancé, she’d claimed he would have total access to his child and full disclosure on the pregnancy.

Taking off without warning to parts unknown—aka Connecticut—was a breach of that accord, as far as he was concerned.

He hadn’t bothered arguing with Lily or filling her in on his so-called agreement with her sister. It was none of her business, and she was never not going to be on her sister’s side about every little thing, anyway.

He’d left Lily and her fiancé to whatever they’d been doing before he knocked on the door and headed back to his car, loosening and stripping off his tie in angry jerks along the way.

Crossing town to his office, he’d avoided stopping to converse with anyone, bypassing employees and cubicles until he could close himself in behind his desk and look up the address for Juliet’s parents’ home in Connecticut. It would have been easier to simply ask Lily for it, but then she would have called Juliet and told her he was on his way, and he didn’t particularly want her to have advance warning of his arrival. He also could have called and asked his personal secretary for the information, but hadn’t particularly wanted anyone in the office knowing what he was up to or asking questions about his absence later.

Jotting the address on a slip of paper, he exited his office again, telling Paula to clear his schedule “for a while” before taking the elevator downstairs and climbing back behind the wheel of his Mercedes. He entered the Zaccaros’ address into his GPS and took off, amazed he didn’t chew through his seat belt and half the dashboard before he managed to make it out of the city.

Now there were only mere tenths of a mile left until he reached the Zaccaro estate, and his internal temperature hadn’t lowered a single digit. He was all but steaming from the ears.

He also had no idea what he was going to say to Juliet when he saw her, he just knew he needed to get his temper under control before that happened. He was not her ex, and he was never going to be, no matter how furious or frustrated he might get with her.

Pulling up the long, circular driveway, he came to a stop several yards from the front of the sprawling white house with its black shutters and pristine, brightly blooming flower beds.

He cut the engine and sat there for a while, waiting for some sense of Zen tranquility to wash over him. Which, of course, didn’t happen. The best he could manage was a slow, even inhale and exhale and a small amount of mental clarity.

Go to the door, lay things out for Juliet in straightforward, no-nonsense terms. Let her think it over, and if his point of view didn’t work for her, go to court and fight for his right to see his child.

It wasn’t his first choice by a long shot, but he wasn’t going to sit back and watch the same thing happen with Juliet and the son or daughter she was carrying that had happened with Valerie and the son he hadn’t even known had been born until years later. Not when what he felt for Juliet was a thousand times stronger than anything he’d ever experienced with Val.