The Boss's Baby Affair(49)

Candace was no longer so sure she wanted to hear whatever he was about to tell her. Lifting her hand from his arm, she said, “Nick—”

“You accused me of being a coward. You can damn well listen, then you can judge.”

Nick took the wine out of the ice bucket. Before he could pour any into her glass, Candace shook her head. She suspected that she needed to be one hundred percent sober for the coming conversation.

Instead of pouring himself wine, Nick placed the wine back in the bucket. “My wife was a photographer. She took photos of flowers and had them blown up onto canvases—”

“Yes, I know. They’re very popular. I bought one of her works at a gallery exhibition.” For her mother’s birthday—the last one they’d celebrated before the accident. The photograph had been expensive, but it had been worth every cent. Her mother still loved it. “That’s how we met.”

Then they’d met again when Jilly had bumped into her at the hospital visiting a friend’s premature baby. That was the first time Candace had glimpsed the other woman’s yearning for a baby. They’d bumped into each other several times after that and Candace had been touched by Jilly’s concern for her friend’s baby.

“Well, we have that in common. It’s how I met her, too. I was contracted to landscape her father’s garden—I’d already built up a successful string of garden centers. Jilly was taking photos of some of the flowers when I came to check the landscaper’s plans for the garden. She started to talk to me, and before I knew it I was being invited to lavish parties at the Perry residence with promises of securing more lucrative landscaping work, and somehow I became her regular date.”

Candace could visualize the scene. Nick, strong, handsome, so full of drive and energy. “She fell in love with you.”

He shook his head. “You’re making romantic assumptions. She fell in love with the vision of what she thought she could mold me into.”

Mold Nick? He must be joking! Anyone could see that this was a man who knew his own mind. This man was no one’s toy.

“She couldn’t get what she wanted, so like a spoiled little girl she told her father I’d seduced her and refused to marry her. Desmond and I had an angry stand-off and I told him that he, and his daughter, could go to hell. He told me that he would make sure I would marry his Jilly.”

The white line around Nick’s mouth warned her there was more. “What happened?”

“Bertha and Henry’s bank loan was called in. Desmond stepped in and bought the center. Then Henry discovered that Desmond, the bank manager and a developer had cooked up a scheme to establish a high-density housing development on the land. He and Bertha were devastated.”

She stared at him aghast. “You’re joking!”

“I wish I were. He’d found my Achilles’ heel. Desmond is a very wealthy man. The banker involved was an old friend of his who held all Desmond’s bank accounts.”

“You could’ve reported the banker.”

“For what? Bertha and Henry were too old to still be in debt for such a large amount, even though the value of the land more than covered the debt. But it could be argued that it was a sound business decision.”

“It was immoral.”

“Sure.”

He smiled at her, and a chill settled in Candace’s stomach. “There’s more to the story, isn’t there?”

“Bertha and Henry were evicted from the house on the property. The shock caused Henry to have a heart attack. I went to see Desmond full of sound and fury. Desmond told me that I could stop it all.”

“How?”

“By marrying his daughter. But he didn’t intend to make it easy for me—he wanted me to pay for not marrying her earlier. In return for agreeing to marry Jilly, he would sell Bertha and Henry’s garden center to me at a ridiculously inflated price. He resented me. He made it quite clear that things would only get worse for Bertha and Henry if I didn’t accept his deal. They would lose not only the garden center, but also the home where they’d lived for forty years. Desmond also intended to humiliate the old couple by having them declared bankrupt. The center would be sold and developed—” Nick stopped, an agonized expression on his face “—God, he’s so predictable.”

“Oh, Nick…” Candace could see it all. Jilly desperate for the man of her dreams, Desmond wanting to get his way at all costs, and Nick wanting the best for the elderly couple who had given him a chance in life. “How tragic.”

“I had no choice… I couldn’t risk Bertha’s happiness and Henry’s health. It brought Henry and Bertha a future together. It was worth it. Now she has her job in the garden center—which she loves.” He shrugged. “So I married Jilly. Part of the deal, in addition to a brutal repayment schedule, was that I gifted stock in Valentine’s to Jilly in our prenuptial contract—a tangible hold over me for good behavior.” His mouth slanted. “I had right of first refusal on buying those shares back once the full price for the Williamses’ business was paid or Jilly and I had a baby—whichever came first. But she died before I made the final payment.”