Evan led her through the room, circulating among the gathering guests. The crowd consisted of Lassiters and members of the local chamber of commerce, interspersed with a few celebrities and a smattering of media. Jenna received many compliments on her floral displays and, from the number of business cards she was given and was asked for, would be rushed off her feet with work in the coming weeks. Things were really looking up, she thought, as everyone was invited to take their seats.
Evan showed Jenna to a seat at a table near the large stone fireplace in the center of the restaurant. The placeholder next to hers showed Dylan would be seated on her right, and Evan slid into the chair at her left. It took some time for the room to settle into quiet and for everyone to be seated. The lighting dimmed until only a podium near the front was well lit. She smiled through the gloom as Marlene and her date, Walter Drake, whom Jenna had also met at Hannah and Logan’s engagement dinner, sat down opposite her.
Dylan took the floor, introducing his new Lassiter Grill team with pride. Jenna squirmed with excitement. Any minute now he’d be closing up the official business and inviting her to join him to share their news—their happiness—with everyone assembled. It felt odd, after so many years of keeping her head down and struggling to remain unnoticed, to be looking forward to being the center of attention. But as she watched the man she loved with all her heart standing there in front of everyone, she knew she could do anything in this world as long as he was by her side.
She thumbed the engagement ring he’d given her two days ago, and felt a swell of love build inside. She’d never been happier than she was right at this moment.
Dylan wound up the formal section of the evening, thanking everyone for being there, and asked if there were any questions from the floor. He smoothly fielded a number of questions relating to the restaurant before the tone began to swing toward a more personal note.
“Dylan, you’ve been spending a lot of time in Cheyenne lately. Aside from the restaurant, is there something or someone else responsible for that?” one of the female reporters asked with a sugary sweet tone.
Dylan nodded his head. “I’ve been seeing someone, yes, that’s true.”
The same reporter asked, “Are you going to tell us who that someone is?”
Fee, standing slightly to one side of Dylan, whispered something in his ear. He nodded and addressed the reporter.
“Jenna Montgomery. Many of you will know her already. She’s responsible for the stunning floral designs here tonight.”
A prickle of unease crept across Jenna’s skin. That was it? Nothing about their engagement? She thought tonight was when he’d wanted to make the announcement. To shout it, loud and proud, that they were getting married and having a family together.
A different voice, a man’s this time, rang out.
“Is it true that Jenna Montgomery is pregnant with your child?”
How on earth had some journalist heard about the baby?
Dylan kept his composure. “That is true,” he answered smoothly as if the news was of no consequence.
The same man persisted. “Are you and your family aware that the woman carrying your baby is the same Jenna Montgomery who faked terminal cancer to help her father swindle nearly a quarter million dollars from a fund set up in her name eleven years ago?” the reporter persisted.
The room exploded in an uproar. Jenna felt the world tilt and a sensation like icy cold water ran through her veins. Through the haze of terror in her mind she heard Dylan’s voice asking for calm. As the room once more fell quiet, Jenna found herself—like pretty much everyone else there—hanging on a thread waiting to find out what he would say.
“Yes, I am aware of Jenna’s past and of the unproved charges against her.” He paused and whispered something to Fee, who went immediately across the room to two men standing to the side in dark suits. Together with them, she walked toward the reporter who had asked the questions. Dylan turned his attention back to the assembly as the reporter was quietly ushered from the restaurant. “Now, if there are no more questions, let’s enjoy dinner.”
An eerie silence filled the room like a vacuum as all eyes turned to Jenna. Across the table, Marlene looked at her in concern, a question in her eyes that Jenna had no wish to answer right here and now—or ever, if it could have come to that. She wanted nothing more than to run, and glanced around the room for the nearest exit, feeling like a cornered creature with nowhere to hide. Beside Marlene, Sage Lassiter’s eyes bored into her as if he could see right through her to the woman he’d thought she was all along.
Her gaze flittered past them all, frantic to find a compassionate face, but everyone simply looked at her in a blend of shock or accusation. Here she was, a viper in their midst. Someone they’d accepted, welcomed—someone they really shouldn’t trust.
Eventually, she looked at Dylan, silently begging him to believe in her. To know that she had been an innocent party in all that had happened. She should have told him long before. Her silence now made her appear complicit. Finally, his eyes met hers and she felt every last glimmer of hope for a future together fade into nothing. In his gaze she saw no trace of the teasing lover who’d shared her nights, nor the conscientious and caring soul who’d paid such devoted attention to her this past week. No longer was he the man who’d determinedly suggested marriage and then cajoled her into love—into believing in a time ahead where they could be happy together, be parents together.
A shudder rippled through her body, numbness taking her over until it was a struggle to draw in a deep enough breath. This was her worst nightmare. Her darkest, most shameful secret had been exposed to everyone here. People she admired and had come to trust. People who had come to trust her. Now that trust was crushed to smithereens, her hard-won reputation scattered to the corners of the county. She’d truly thought she’d managed to put all that behind her, but now, well, nothing could ever be the same again.
Dylan’s eyes flicked from hers to someone else nearby, and seconds later she heard Felicity Sinclair’s voice in her ear.
“Come, let me take you home. This can’t be good for you or for the baby,” she said in her capable, no-nonsense manner.
“Th-thank you,” Jenna said gratefully, rising to her feet as Dylan continued to field a melee of questions from the media who’d been asked to cover the opening.
Fee guided her past the beautifully dressed tables—tables Jenna had helped decorate herself, in excited preparation for tonight—and the accusatory stares of the people gathered here punctured her as though each one was a spear of loathing. She couldn’t believe how her world had turned on a dime, from one filled with joy and expectations to one where the future once again appeared bleak and lonely.
It seemed like forever, but eventually they were at the front of the restaurant and out the main doors. Fee ushered her immediately into a waiting car. Jenna didn’t even stop to wonder how the woman had arranged for the driver to be there so quickly. Instead, she sagged against the seat, locked in a cocoon of loss, as Fee slid into the seat beside her and instructed the man to take them to Jenna’s home.
Fee’s hand slipped into hers. “Take a deep breath, Jenna. And another. Okay? Leave it to Dylan. He’ll take care of everything.”
How could he take care of everything? Why would he even want to? Jenna squeezed her eyes shut, but his image still burned there, especially the look on his face just before Fee had led her from the restaurant. The numbness that encased her slowly began to recede—replaced instead by a tearing pain deep inside her chest.
“It’s going to be okay,” Fee soothed. “You’re out of there now.”
Sure, they were out of there, but nothing was ever going to be okay again. Jenna had seen the questions in Dylan’s eyes, the hurt and mistrust that had replaced the warmth and the love she’d already grown accustomed to seeing in him. Inside she began to mourn wha
t they would never be able to share again.
She should have known better than to hope, known better than to reach out and take what he’d offered her so tantalizingly. She thought about all she’d undoubtedly lost. His trust, their future, his family. She would miss it all. Would she ever be able to look at him again and not see the accusation in his eyes? The knowledge that, of all the things she’d shared with him, that piece of her past was the one she should have shared first?
A discreet buzz came from Fee’s delicate evening bag and she slid out her phone.
“Yes, we’re on our way to her house.”
Jenna could make out a muffled male voice at the other end.
“She’s okay, for now. I’ll stay with her until you can come, just to be sure.” Fee popped her phone back into her bag. “Dylan will be over as soon as he can get away.”
Jenna nodded, but knew it wouldn’t make any difference. What they’d had would be gone now. A man like him—a family like theirs—didn’t need the notoriety that being with someone like her would bring. She’d known that all along, and yet she’d foolishly dared to dream it could be different.
Now, she knew, it would never be.
Fourteen
Dylan parked at the curb outside Jenna’s house, leaving the driveway clear for the limousine that remained parked in the drive. He nodded to the driver as he walked past and up to the front door.
Fee opened it before he could knock.
“How is she?” he asked, his voice tight.
“She went to lie down as soon as we got here. Do you want me to head back to the Grill now?”
“If you don’t mind. I guess you’ve probably already worked out a strategy to cope with any fallout over tonight?”
Fee smiled. “Of course. Leave it to me. This will blow over, you know. It won’t affect the Lassiter Grill Corporation. If anything, the notoriety might even be good for you.”
It might not affect the company, but it certainly affected everything else that was important to him, he thought as he escorted Fee out to the limousine. He watched as it drove away, and then turned and went back inside Jenna’s compact home.
She was standing in the living room when he got inside. He was shocked to see how her dark eyes stood out in her eerily pale face. She hadn’t changed from the gown she’d been wearing tonight, and it looked crumpled. His eyes drifted over her graceful shoulders, over the fullness of her breasts and lower, to where his baby nestled inside her. His gut twisted.
“Are you all right?” he asked, concern for her and the baby uppermost in his mind.
“A bit upset,” she said, her hand fluttering to her belly. She gave a humorless laugh. “Actually, a lot upset.”
He wasn’t surprised. It had been a shock for him, too. First of all to discover that secret in her past, and then to have it laid out in front of everyone at the opening tonight.
Why had she kept it hidden from him? She could have told him at any time over the past few days, especially once she’d agreed to plan a future together. Did she honestly think that if she was an innocent party, he’d have felt any differently about her? Hell, she’d been so young she had to be innocent. Even if she’d participated in the scam, surely she would have been compelled to do so by the one person who was supposed to have been taking care of her.
Unless the real answer was all too damning. In general, people didn’t hide the truth—which left an alternative that Dylan found distinctly unpalatable.
“It is true?” he asked. Everything depended on her answer.
“What part, exactly?”
He bit back the frustration that threatened to overwhelm him. How could she be flip about this? How could she continue to avoid telling him what he needed to know?
“All of it? Any of it?” He bit out the questions.
“There is some truth to it,” she said softly, ducking her head.
“So you were involved.”
Something passed across her face, something he couldn’t quite define.
“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin and meeting his scrutiny. “I was involved, but not voluntarily. I didn’t know what my father was doing.”
Could he believe her? He wanted to, but all the evidence, especially her silence on this very matter, suggested he shouldn’t.
And it still didn’t answer the question why she hadn’t told him.
“What about me?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What am I to you?”
“Dylan!” She sped across the carpet to stand directly in front of him, placing a hand on his chest. “You know what you are to me. You’re my lover, the man I want to marry. You’re the father of my baby. The man I love.”
It sounded so sincere, and yet there were still shadows in her eyes. Truths that couldn’t be told because maybe they weren’t truths, after all. The questions that had been tumbling around in his mind all day were as irrational now as they’d seemed when they’d first evolved in his brain. Yet they still spewed forth from his mouth before he could have time to weigh them properly.
“Did I come across to you as an easy mark? Is that what it was? Did you see me at the rehearsal dinner setup and target me then? Or maybe the idea came to you later, when you discovered you were pregnant. Was that it?”
He saw her flinch beneath his onslaught. Felt her pull her hand away from his chest, and in its place felt coldness invade that part of him where his heart had beat steadily for her.
“I can’t believe you’d think that of me,” she said, her eyes wide with horror.
“Seriously, Jenna? We agreed, only two nights ago, no more secrets. What am I supposed to think?”
She stiffened her shoulders. “I can’t tell you what to think. Look, perhaps it would be in the best interests of everyone concerned, especially your family and the Lassiter brand, if we didn’t see one another again. I won’t stand in your way when it comes to access to the baby, I promise you that. It’s what I expected to do from the first, anyway.”
She took one step back, then another, her fingers frantically working off the engagement ring he’d chosen with all the love he carried for her in his heart. She dropped the ring onto the occasional table beside her.
“Take it,” she said bluntly, determination overlaying the anguish that still reflected in her eyes. “Just take it. I don’t want it anymore.”
He looked at the ring sitting on the table—its beauty an empty symbol of all his hopes. He scooped it up and put it in his suit pocket and turned and walked away.
“Fine. Since you still can’t be honest with me, I’ll go,” he said bitterly. But nothing was fine at all. At the door he hesitated and turned back to face her. “You know what the worst thing about all of this is?”
She stared back at him, mute.
“The worst thing is that you wouldn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. I love you, Jenna. I really thought you’d learned to love me in return. Last chance. Tell me the truth.”
She shook her head, her arms wrapping around her body, her cheeks glistening with the tears that ran freely down her face. Every instinct in his body urged him to go to her, to take her in his arms and to tell her that they could still work this out. That everything would be okay.
“Please,” she said, her voice thick and choked. “Let yourself out.”
She wheeled on her feet and fled down the hallway toward her bedroom. A second later he heard the door slam in finality. Raw pain, the likes of which he’d never known before, clawed viciously through him. Somehow he managed to walk out the door and get to his SUV. He sat there in the dark, staring at her house for a full five minutes, before starting the car and driving away.
Anger bubbled up from beneath his agony. Why couldn’t she just tell him? Why couldn’t she share that part of her that had
now effectively driven them apart? Dammit, she’d chosen doing what was right for his family—even the Lassiter brand—over sharing the truth with him. What about his feelings? Didn’t she care about them? Didn’t she care that she’d let them both down?
Somehow he drove back to the restaurant, where the opening night party was still in full swing. He slid in through the rear entrance, but Sage caught him when he was in his office, about to put Jenna’s ring in the safe.
“You all right?” his brother asked.
“No, I’m not all right,” he growled, one hand swinging open the safe’s door while the other closed in a fist around the ring in his pocket. It cut into his palm and he welcomed the pain. It matched how he felt inside. He flung a glance at his brother. “So, are you going to gloat? Tell me you were right all along?”
Sage shook his head. “You didn’t see her face when that reporter threw that question at you. She looked as if her entire world had blown up.”
“Her fabricated world, you mean,” Dylan said bitterly.
“No,” Sage said firmly. “Her real world. Maybe I was too hasty in showing you that report. Maybe we should have delved a bit deeper first. I agree,” he said in response to his brother’s snort of disgust, “it was my idea. But, Dylan, you didn’t see how tonight affected her. Give it a few days. Go back to her. Talk it out.”
He shook his head. “Not going to happen. She doesn’t want to see me anymore.”
He pulled his fist from his pocket and uncurled his fingers from around the ring, exposing the glittering piece before hurling it into the back of the safe and slamming the door shut.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Dylan. You deserved to know the truth. But think on this. If she really was what those articles say she is, she’d still be wearing that ring.”
EXPECTING THE CEO'S CHILD Page 13