by Metsy Hingle
Unable the bear the cheery sunshine spilling through the windows, Kim went from room to room and yanked closed all the drapes in the apartment. Then she retreated to her bedroom, where she turned off the telephone ringer and left her dress on the floor where it fell. She crawled beneath the covers, curled up into a ball and began to sob. She sobbed deeply, her chest shaking with the depth of her grief.
She grieved because there was no baby growing inside her, because there would never be Justin’s baby growing inside her. She grieved for what the two of them might have shared and never would. And she grieved because there would be no Justin in her life. Not even from a distance as he had been before, because she couldn’t possibly remain at Connelly Corporation now. As she thought of all the dreams that would never come true now, she continued to cry until there were no more tears left. And when the tears finally stopped, she slept.
When Kim awoke, the apartment was in total darkness and there was a pounding inside her head. Sitting up, she felt almost drunk, and it took a few minutes to orient herself. A glance at the bedside clock told her it was past eleven o’clock at night. She’d obviously crashed, Kim reasoned. No wonder since she’d gotten little sleep the previous night at Justin’s place.
Justin.
Suddenly the memories came slamming back. Justin giving her the engagement ring, asking her to marry him. Then today, her finding out there was no baby, that she hadn’t been pregnant at all. Pain sliced through her like a jagged blade, making her ache all over again.
The pounding started again, and she held her head. Finally she realized the pounding was at her door. Scrambling from the bed, she began flipping on lights and made her way to the front door.
“Kim!” Justin shouted, as he beat against her door.
“You sure you don’t want me to call the police? That’s what they do on the detective shows,” Lucy Brown informed him.
“Lucy, I—”
Kim opened the door. “Justin? What on earth—”
Justin caught her by the shoulders and nearly lifted her off her feet. “Are you all right?”
Taken aback by the wild look in his eyes, it took her a moment to find her voice. “Yes,” she finally managed, stunned to see him looking such a wreck. His tie was askew, stubble darkened his cheeks and his hair looked as if it had been styled with a pitchfork.
Before she could ask him what was wrong, he muttered, “Thank God.” Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. The desperation in his kiss surprised her, because she couldn’t imagine anything that would cause him such distress.
“I don’t suppose there’s any point in calling the police now,” Lucy said.
Justin ended the kiss, but his eyes never left Kim’s. “No, no point,” Justin told the older woman. “Thanks, anyway. I think I’ve got things under control now.”
“Looks like it to me,” Lucy commented, then disappeared into her own apartment.
“Are you all right? Were you in some kind of an accident? Did something happen at the office? Is that why you left early?”
He fired the questions at her, and Kim wasn’t quite sure where to start to answer. So she said, “I’m all right. And nothing happened at the office. Not the way you mean. I just needed…I needed to come home.”
“But I called you here. I left at least half a dozen messages and then the machine stopped picking up. If you were here, why didn’t you answer the phone?”
“You’d better come inside, Justin. We need to talk.”
The knot that had formed in Justin’s stomach when he’d called the office and learned that Kim had left early took on the proportions of a boulder. Now that the worst of his fears—that she’d been injured or in some terrible accident—had been dismissed, he could see that something else was wrong. Seriously wrong. Even without the benefit of growing up under the same roof with three sisters, he’d been in the world long enough to know that when a woman said “We need to talk,” whatever it was she was going to tell him, he wasn’t going to like.
He followed Kim inside, spied her purse and keys lying on the floor beside her shoes. She was always so neat and orderly, it seemed out of character for her. Just as her leaving the office early without any explanation had been totally out of character for Kim. Justin noted the droop in her shoulders as she walked over to the table and switched on the lamp. And that feeling that something terrible had occurred increased tenfold.
“I know it’s late,” she said, turning around to face him. “But would you like a drink? Or maybe some coffee?”
Justin strode over to her, tipped her face to the light and swore. Dark smudges lay like bruises beneath her eyes, and her cheeks were streaked from what he suspected were dried tears. “I don’t want a drink or any coffee. I want to know what’s wrong. What’s happened?”
“I went to see my doctor today,” she told him in a voice that seemed devoid of life.
His heart, already in a vise, suddenly felt as though someone had reached inside him and squeezed it even tighter. “Are you all right?” he asked, and led her to the couch to sit down, but continued to hold her hand. “Sweetheart, why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”
“I’m not sick,” she informed him, and tugged her fingers free.
He dropped his gaze to her stomach, noted the way she was hugging her arms around her middle. “The baby?” he asked, his heart in his throat. “Is something wrong with the baby?”
“There is no baby.”
Justin felt as though he’d been coldcocked. A dozen different emotions hit him at once, savaged him. “Did you…” He swallowed, worked through the red haze of fury and tried again. “Did you terminate it?”
Kim’s head jerked up, and for the first time since he’d walked into the apartment, there was a spark of life in her eyes. “There was no baby. I was never pregnant.”
“But the pregnancy test—”
“Was wrong,” she said. “One of those one-in-a-zillion or whatever the figure is that’s wrong. I’m not pregnant. I never was.”
Stunned, Justin was barely aware of Kim standing and walking over to retrieve her purse from the floor. He continued to sit there on her couch as he tried to digest what she’d told him.
There was no baby. There never was a baby.
So why did he feel this sudden sense of loss?
Because he had begun to think of himself as a father, he realized. He had begun to think of himself as a husband—of him and Kim and their baby as a family.
“I was going to call you tomorrow and give you the good news. And return this.”
Justin looked up to where Kim now stood before him, holding out the engagement ring he had put on her finger the previous night. He rose, looked into her eyes. “Is it good news, Kim?”
“Sure,” she said. “You offering to marry me when I thought I was pregnant…it was very noble of you, Justin. A lot of men in your position wouldn’t have been willing to take responsibility and sacrifice their freedom. It meant a great deal to me that you were willing to. But now,” she said, her voice catching, “it’s not necessary. So I’m returning the ring.”
It was that catch in her voice and the shimmer of fresh tears in Kim’s eyes that gave Justin hope. He stood, but made no attempt to take the ring she held out to him. “I thought you liked the ring.”
“I did. I do,” she amended.
“Then why are you giving it back?”
She squinched her brows together the way she did when she was trying to work out a puzzling problem. “Didn’t you hear me? There’s no reason for us to get married now.”
“Sure there is. When two people love each other, when they want to spend the rest of their lives together, getting married is generally what they do. At least that’s what my parents did. And I figure if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us.”
“You love me?”
“Yes,” Justin told her, realizing it was true. “And unless I’m mistaken, you love me, too. Don’t you?”
Kim nodded.
Taking the ring from her, he took her hand. “So will you marry me, Kim Lindgren? Will you be my family? Make babies with me? Grow old and gray with me?”
“Yes,” she told him.
He slid the ring onto her finger, kissed it. “I love you, Kim.”
“And I love you,” she said, and offered her mouth to him.
Justin kissed her deeply with all the love in his heart. And when he lifted her into his arms and asked her where the bedroom was, she showed him.
Much later as he lay in bed with the woman he loved in his arms, Justin’s stomach grumbled. “That reminds me. You still owe me dinner.”
Laughing, Kim raised herself up on one elbow. “I seem to recall offering to fix you a snack a few hours ago, and you insisted all you needed was to hold me, that you didn’t need food.”
“What can I say? My heart says one thing, but my stomach says another. Right now the stomach is winning the battle, and it’s none too happy that I skipped dinner.”
“You never did say what happened that caused you to be so late.”
Justin frowned. “Alexandra came back to town this evening, and I went by to see her.”
“You told her about Robert.”
“Yes,” Justin said, his jaw tightening as he thought of the other man.
“She must have been devastated.”
“She was upset. I mean, she has to feel like a fool, seeing how Marsh has been using her.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine how she must feel,” Kim told him. “She must be terribly hurt.”
“I guess. But I’m not sure if it was her heart that hurt so much as it was her pride.”
“Did she say what she’s going to do?”
“I know what she should do,” Justin informed her. “She should dump him and be grateful she found out what a low-life he is before she married him.”
“But I take it that’s not what Alexandra plans to do.”
Justin sighed. “She said she wanted to talk to Marsh first before she makes any decision.”
“Well, you’ll know soon enough. The wedding is only three days away.”
“Two,” Justin corrected, and pointed to the window where the sun was beginning its rise. He looked at Kim, thought of the new life they were beginning. “I’d like you to come with me this morning and tell my parents our news. And as much as I want to shout out to the world that you’re going to be my wife, we probably should wait until we see what Alexandra is going to do first.”
“Justin, how do you think your parents are going to feel about this? About us?”
“Sweetheart, they’re going to love you as much as I do.”
Justin had been right, Kim realized as Emma and Grant gave her a hug the next evening upon their arrival at the family’s Lake Shore home. His parents had seemed thrilled over their engagement when they’d told them the news the previous day. But not wanting to steal any of the limelight from their daughter, they had agreed with Kim and Justin to keep the news quiet until after Alexandra’s wedding.
“I can’t believe she’s still going to marry the guy,” Justin told Kim as he brought her a glass of wine. “You’d think that after I told her what he tried to do to you she’d have given him the boot. Instead she’s going to marry him tomorrow. There’s got to be something I can do to make her see it’s a mistake.”
“You’ve done everything you can. It’s your sister’s decision, Justin. Not yours.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m tempted to have the guy shanghaied and shipped to Daniel in Altaria so she can’t marry him.”
Kim placed a hand on his arm. “Your brother Daniel has enough worries.”
“You’re right,” Justin said, and squeezed her fingertips. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”
“Not in the last five minutes.”
Emma came over to them. “I can hardly wait to tell Lilly and Tobias your good news,” she told them.
“I hope they’ll be pleased,” Kim said, somewhat nervous at the prospect of telling Justin’s grandparents about their engagement.
“They’ll be thrilled. Just as Grant and I are thrilled,” Emma assured her.
“Emma, what on earth is keeping Alexandra?” Lilly demanded as she made her way over to them.
“I’ll send Ruby to check on her,” Emma offered, and escaped to dispatch the housekeeper to see what was keeping Alexandra.
“Grandmother, let me help you to your chair,” Justin offered.
“Quit fussing over me,” Lilly told her grandson. “Just because I have to use this cane doesn’t mean I’m addle-pated. Why don’t you go get me a sherry while I talk to your young lady?”
Lilly turned her deep-blue eyes on Kim. “So, Kimberly, are you in love with my grandson?”
Taken aback by the woman’s candor, Kim hesitated a moment. But there was no mistaking the sharp mind behind those eyes. “Yes, I am.”
She nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer. “How do you feel about babies?”
Kim nearly choked on her wine. “I like them.”
“Good,” Lilly said, and smiled.
“Miss Emma.” Ruby came rushing down the stairs and headed for Justin’s mother.
“Now, I wonder what has her all aflutter,” Lilly said.
“Ruby, for heaven’s sake. What is it? What’s wrong?” Emma’s voice held concern.
“It’s Miss Alexandra. She’s gone.”
“Gone?” Emma repeated.
Ruby held out a sheet of paper. “She left a note. She says she’s sorry, but there isn’t going to be any wedding, and that she’s going away for a while.”
“My poor baby,” Emma said as she took the note from Ruby, read it and passed it on to her husband.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Tara asked as she entered the room. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“It’s Alexandra,” Kim explained. “She’s gone. She left a note saying that the wedding is off.”
“It’s my fault,” Justin told his family, and relayed his conversation with Alexandra the previous evening.
“I always knew that guy was a louse,” Tara said. “Alexandra’s better off without him.”
“I agree,” Justin told them. “I’ll admit I wanted her to dump Marsh, but I never meant to hurt her.”
“I’m sure your sister knows that,” Emma assured her son.
“The truth is, I thought she took it pretty well,” Justin advised his family. “I mean, I thought it was more a question of her pride being hurt than her feelings. She didn’t act all broken up when I told her what Marsh was up to.”
“Of course the girl wasn’t broken up,” Lilly interjected. “Any fool with eyes in his head could see that the girl wasn’t in love with that scoundrel Marsh.”
“I think your grandmother’s right,” Emma replied.
“Of course, I’m right. All a body had to do was see them together to know that they weren’t in love with each other,” Lilly informed them.
“Tell me, Grandmother,” Tara began, a sly look in her eyes. “Just exactly how do two people look when they’re in love with each other?”
“The way you and that Paige boy used to look at each other. The same way your brother and his young lady look at each other now.” She shifted her gaze to Justin and Kim. “All you have to do is see the way that boy looks at her to know he’s in love with her.”
“You’re right, Grandmother,” Justin said laughing. “I am in love with her.”
“And I love him,” Kim replied, seeing no point in denying it since she’d already told the lady.
“So what do you intend to do about it?” Lilly asked her grandson.
“I’m going to marry her,” Justin informed his grandmother.
“Soon, I hope. Your grandfather and I are getting tired of waiting for more great-grandchildren.”
“As soon as I can,” Justin replied.
“And those great-grandchildren?” Lilly prompted.
“We intend to get to work on t
hem right away.”
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Metsy Hingle for her contribution to the DYNASTIES: THE CONNELLYS series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6868-9
AND THE WINNER GETS…MARRIED!
Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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*Right Bride, Wrong Groom
*Right Bride, Wrong Groom
*Right Bride, Wrong Groom