His Suitable Bride

by Cathy Williams/Abby Green/Kate Walker

  Isandro disappeared into his office after the police had been and gone. He’d sat by her side throughout the interview, and Rowan had felt his tension growing as she’d related the events. Undoubtedly he must blame her to some extent. How could he not?

  After playing with Zac until his nap, Rowan retreated to the walled garden of the private patio outside her room. Under the shade of a huge tree she was trying to read, but gave up when she realised how futile it was. Her cheeks burned again, and her insides twisted in embarrassment when she thought of last night. What was going to happen now?

  She would have to call that estate agent and see if he had found anything yet. One thing was clear: she needed to leave as soon as possible. No doubt Isandro would allow her a little grace, considering what had happened, but she couldn’t take advantage of that. She was too volatile around him, barely able to control herself.

  The divorce would most likely be through quickly—Isandro would want to be free to get on with his own life, possibly even remarry. The sooner she made the break, got some distance, the sooner she could start to claw back some control … get on with things. Rowan’s fists clenched unconsciously in rejection of her thoughts.

  She heard the shrill ring of her mobile phone from inside her room and hurried in to get it. Her heart thumped a little erratically as she realised exactly who it must be. Her past reached out ghostly tentacles to claim her, and she brushed off a feeling of foreboding.

  As she’d expected, it was a call to remind her of her appointment. She hung up, and hugged her arms around herself, suddenly feeling cold. At that moment she wished she had someone to turn to, someone who would share her concerns, her worries. For a fleeting moment she wondered wistfully what it might be like to be loved, completely and deeply, by someone like Isandro … to be supported.

  Just then a knock sounded at her door. She opened it, and the object of her thoughts and fantasies was standing there, looking grim. She clutched the door. No doubt this was it. He wanted to talk about the arrangements.

  ‘Can you come down to my study? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said faintly, feeling sick.

  In the study, Isandro told Rowan to sit down on the leather couch by the wall-to-ceiling shelves, but she shook her head minutely. ‘If it’s okay, I’d prefer to stand.’

  He went and picked up a file from his desk and came to stand in front of her. A long moment stretched as he just looked at her, as if he was trying to figure her out, and Rowan’s nerves screamed.

  ‘How is your mouth?’ he asked then, innocuously.

  Rowan blinked and had to forcibly ignore an image of his head coming towards her, and a kiss so light she almost hadn’t felt it. She touched it gingerly. ‘Fine … much better.’

  Her hand dropped. ‘What … what did you want to talk about?’

  He glanced at the file in his hand and looked up, a harsh glitter in his eyes. He held it up. ‘This is the result of the investigation I’ve had done into your whereabouts for the past two years.’

  He knew? The thought set panic racing through her. This wasn’t what she’d expected. She shook her head, as if to clear it. Had she heard right? ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about … You investigated me?’

  He nodded grimly. ‘A little after the fact, I’ll admit, but I didn’t do it at the time because of extenuating circumstances: namely becoming a single parent, and shortly afterwards a stock market crash that threatened the livelihood of millions in Europe.’

  The market crash that woman had mentioned at the party …

  As if he had read her thoughts, he said, ‘The crash that you appear to know nothing about.’

  Rowan wanted to sink onto the couch behind her, but wouldn’t. She wasn’t sure she was ready for where this was inevitably headed, especially in light of her recent phone call. Feeling cowardly she played for time.

  ‘I’m not sure I know where you’re going with this.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ He tapped the file against an open hand. ‘Do you want to know what my investigators found out?’

  Rowan gave a little half-shrug and shook her head at the same time. No, she didn’t want to see the facts of her life laid out in a file. Especially if—

  ‘Here—have a look.’

  He handed her the file, and with her heart palpitating in her chest Rowan opened it out. It was empty. Not one piece of paper. Relief mixed with something else raced through her.

  He started to pace, and finally rested a hip against the edge of his desk, arms crossed formidably over his broad chest. He quirked a brow. ‘I think I’m ready for your explanation, Rowan. Because unless you’ve been sitting on a mountain top in India meditating for two years, you haven’t popped up anywhere in the world. And, believe me, we’ve searched.’

  She could well imagine he had.

  This was it. The moment of truth.

  She carefully put down the file and went to stand by the window, looking outside for a long time, praying for courage. When she turned around Isandro was just watching her, his expression guarded, not a hint of warmth, anything. This was it. She had to tell him. He above anyone deserved to know.

  ‘You haven’t found any trace of me because when I walked out of the hospital that day I cut up all my cards, any trace of paperwork. I used my middle name, Louise, and my mother’s maiden name, Miller. I moved my inheritance to a Swiss bank account and withdrew cash as I needed it.’

  Rowan knew she was talking, and looking at Isandro as she did so, but she felt removed, as if she were watching herself from a long distance. She gripped the back of a chair that was in front of her.

  ‘That still doesn’t tell me where you’ve been. It just tells me how you evaded detection.’ His voice was flat. Grim.

  Rowan breathed and swallowed painfully, tried to say the words as dispassionately as possible. But she could feel her fingers digging into the chair-back. ‘I was in France—a small town just outside Paris. I’ve been there since the day after I walked out of the hospital. In a clinic.’

  She saw Isandro frown, and felt a cold sweat break out on her brow. She prayed for the fortitude to see this through. She closed her eyes for a second and opened them again. Took a deep breath.

  ‘It was … is … a cancer clinic.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ISANDRO stood from the desk. Rowan felt shaky and lightheaded, as if she was going to faint. She took deep breaths. He came close and gripped her upper arms, pulled her round to sit in the chair.

  ‘Explain.’

  Rowan looked up a long way and said weakly, ‘Can you sit down, please? You’re making me dizzy.’

  He pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her, his whole body screaming tension. She focused on his eyes, which were a more intense blue than she’d ever seen before. She willed him to believe what she was about to say. She knew she wouldn’t be able to bear it if he laughed or told her she was making up a story.

  Shakily, she tucked some hair behind her ear. ‘When I was seven months pregnant I went for a check-up. I’d been feeling more tired than usual … run down. I’d got a couple of colds …’

  Isandro frowned, something flashing into his head. ‘You had all those nosebleeds …’

  Rowan nodded slightly, surprised that he remembered. At one point she’d been having two or three nosebleeds a week. ‘That … they were a part of it too.’

  Isandro looked at her. She had seemed more poorly in the latter months of her pregnancy. He had put her increasing distance down to that. He nodded at her to continue, feeling curiously numbed, as if already protecting himself from something.

  ‘Dr Campbell did a routine blood test and sent it to the lab. She called a couple of days later and asked me to come in and see her. You … you were meant to be going to New York for the week-long conference and you got delayed by a day.’

  Isandro nodded again briefly. He could remember coming back from that trip and finding Rowan cool and distant.
That had been the start of it. And he could also remember the pain of leaving that townhouse behind, the loneliness that would creep up on him during trips away, surprising him with its force … surprising him with its presence.

  ‘When I went back to see Dr Campbell she had another doctor with her …’ She took a deep breath. ‘A visiting consultant haematologist, Professor Erol Villiers …’ Rowan looked away for a moment and pressed her lips together before looking back. ‘They told me that they’d found something in my blood. AML. It’s an acute form of leukaemia.’

  No matter how much she said it, or how quickly, the terror of that moment would always be with her.

  She watched Isandro for his reaction, but he was unmoving, impassive. She recognised shock. Feeling claustrophobic, Rowan stood and walked back to the window, crossing her arms. It was easier to move, to not be so close, under such scrutiny.

  ‘They wanted me to start an aggressive cycle of chemotherapy straight away, but I refused.’ She heard Isandro stand behind her and turned around.

  He was shaking his head. ‘Why did you refuse?’

  It was almost a relief to have him react. ‘Because it could have harmed the baby. There was a risk of premature labour … malformity. There was no way I was going to put him at risk. I wouldn’t do it then and I wouldn’t do it now, if I had to choose again.’

  ‘But …’ Isandro turned away and paced back and forth. He couldn’t even begin to articulate a coherent response. His brain, normally able to function at a level that left most people in the dust, now refused to operate.

  ‘Just let me finish. I know … I know it’s a lot.’

  He stood facing her again, a raw intensity in his eyes.

  ‘Because I refused to have the chemotherapy I knew I was severely reducing my chances of survival. But …’ She shrugged. ‘The most important thing was delivering Zac safely. That was all I cared about.’

  ‘To the detriment of your own health?’ He was incredulous.

  Rowan nodded. ‘And in case you’re worried there was never any risk to Zac from my diagnosis. Not then, not now …’

  Isandro looked grim, but Rowan continued. ‘They wanted to start me on chemo straight after Zac was delivered, and I knew what was likely to be involved—how invasive it was going to be, how debilitating, with no guarantee of any success. Even so, Professor Villiers asked me to go to his specialist clinic in France. He was interested in my case as this type of cancer in pregnancy is rare.’

  Rowan rubbed her hands up and down her arms. ‘My own mother died of breast cancer when I was five. I remembered her treatment, the pain, the degradation … I didn’t want to put Zac through bonding with me even for a short time, only to have me … taken away from him. I knew he’d be safe with you. You were so happy at the thought of a son …’

  She reached out and held onto the back of the chair again like a lifeline.

  ‘I meant it when I told you that I hadn’t ever expected to see you or Zac again. I truly didn’t have any hope for the future. The doctors warned me that it would most likely have spread too far, too fast. Going to France was somewhere for me to go … to be …’

  To die.

  The unspoken words hung in the air.

  ‘So what happened?’ Isandro asked flatly.

  Rowan knew that the last thing he’d have expected was to be faced with having to feel any kind of sympathy for her. So she made her words as clipped and impersonal as possible, hiding the acute pain of what she’d endured.

  ‘They started me on the chemotherapy anyway, but as they had expected it didn’t precipitate a remission. It was too late.’ Self-consciously she touched her hair. ‘This … my hair fell out. And the scar you noticed … it was from an intravenous line for fluids.’

  Isandro was still unmoving. It made something contract protectively inside Rowan. But she went on. She had to.

  ‘The only other possible option we hadn’t explored was a bone marrow transplant. That’s because it can’t happen without a donor match. As all my close family were dead it was more or less ruled out, and time was running out …’

  She crossed her arms tight across her chest, locked in the memories. ‘But a few weeks after I arrived a perfect match became available within the clinic itself. It was from one of the registered voluntary bone marrow donors who happened to be related to a patient … however, it was going to be an extremely risky operation.’

  ‘Why didn’t you contact me then, if there was a chance?’ Isandro’s voice was unbearably harsh, and Rowan flinched slightly as it brought her back into the room. She looked at him unswervingly.

  ‘Because even at this point there was only a fifty-fifty chance. Less. You with all your money and influence could not have improved on that. And after a bone marrow transplant you’re kept in isolation for up to a month, possibly longer, very prone to infections. Visitors are kept to a minimum.’

  She paled. ‘I contracted at least three infections. Even if the transplant is successful, and you survive the infections, there’s every chance the new marrow could be rejected by the body months down the line. Don’t you see?’ she beseeched him. ‘What would have been the point?’ Her voice cracked ominously but she forged ahead, ‘I hadn’t expected to survive that far, and I couldn’t have borne not being able to see Zac, being separated by two doors in a quarantine area …’

  Isandro stuck his hands deep in his jean pockets and then took them out again. His fists were clenched. Rowan looked so vulnerable and defenceless standing behind the chair. A surge of emotion broke through the awful numbness and instinctively he moved towards her. But then abruptly he stopped again. He felt … he felt as if he was being torn in two. Like nothing else he’d ever experienced. He wanted to go over to her and crush her to him, hold her in his arms and never let her go. And yet … much to his utter shame … he couldn’t. Not yet. Couldn’t even hold her, because he was afraid of what might erupt out of him if he did. Unbeknownst to him, his face suddenly looked drawn and lined.

  ‘And the note?’

  Rowan flushed. ‘That was to ensure you didn’t come after me. I was hoping to dent your ego, your pride …’

  She saw a flare of something in his eyes, but it died away, because he had to acknowledge that she’d been right. And that irked him beyond belief.

  She looked down at her hands. ‘I’d written other letters to you and to Zac. Letters to be sent … explaining everything. Saying sorry. I wouldn’t have wanted Zac to grow up thinking the worst of me.’

  ‘Yet you’ve let me do that for nearly two months now?’

  Her conscience struck her. She looked up again. Not telling him had been the only thing holding her fragile control together. ‘I did try to tell you a couple of times … it wasn’t the easiest subject to bring up. That day I bumped into you in London was literally my first day back from France. I truly had no idea that hotel was yours.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘It really was fate … circumstance.’

  Isandro remembered his towering rage that day, remembered that she had indeed said something about wanting to explain. He remembered the other night, his cruel words, her reaction … but how could he have known this? He could feel himself retreating somewhere inside. That numbness was spreading through him again, and he welcomed it because it was removing him from feeling.

  ‘I wanted to write you a letter through my solicitor and explain everything before we met, so that you might understand. That’s why I was meeting Mr Fairclough.’

  Isandro paced away and then back again. His brain finally seemed to click into gear. Every line in his body was rigid with tension. ‘Why didn’t you tell me when you found out? For God’s sake, I know it was just a marriage of convenience, but you were carrying my child. I would have supported you no matter what. You shouldn’t have had to go through that on your own.’

  Rowan turned away from the anger in his voice, the censure. She still had to protect herself. ‘I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d side with the doctors and force me to
have the chemo. I can’t explain how I felt … all I know is that Zac’s health and safety were paramount to me. I didn’t want you to feel … obliged to care for me. To feel you had to do the right thing—which could have possibly harmed Zac but given me a better chance.’

  She turned back and her eyes were defiant. ‘I made a decision to deal with it on my own. To put Zac first and then deal with it myself.’ Her voice didn’t hold even a thread of self-pity. ‘I’ve always been on my own, Isandro. It’s what I’m used to. And I never … never expected to be here, explaining all of this to you.’ Her voice shook with quiet intensity. ‘I would never have walked away from Zac that day if I had believed there might be a chance … you have to believe me.’

  He did. He did believe her. The pain was etched on her face even now. In her eyes. It was the pain he’d glimpsed before. That urge to take her in his arms almost overwhelmed him with its force, but was crushed down by the weight of guilt, heavy and pervasive.

  When his investigators had turned up precisely nothing on Rowan’s whereabouts he knew something had happened. This had been compounded by her behaviour since they’d met again in London. Her obvious devotion to Zac, her love for him. He hadn’t mistaken the emotion she’d shown around him those first few days, weeks. When he’d thought it had been an act.

  He realised now how overwhelming it must have been for her, her intention to live nearby … he couldn’t ignore the facts any longer. She just wasn’t the person who had left that callous and flippant note.

  But what did this mean?

  His head reeled. More than reeled. It was spinning off into space with all these facts. He was beginning to feel so many things that he had to keep a lid on his emotions. He took refuge in attack, hating himself because he knew well it was directed at the wrong person, but he was unable to stop. He asked ascerbically, ‘Did you not think I’d support you?’

  She was white as snow, her eyes two huge pools of violet in her face. The gash on her lip was stark, and made something clench in his chest, his heart.