Hearing that his mother had been diagnosed with stage four cancer was the only time he’d come close to feeling that helpless again. In Rachel’s dorm room that long ago night, he’d shaken his head over and over, as if he could will away what she had told him; keep it from being real. But the abortion had been real. She’d dug out the clinic bill when he’d demanded proof. He’d cried all over that sheet of paper.
“Before you think that I’m trying to make up for what I lost, let me assure you, I’m not. I have been avoiding—rather successfully, I might add—relationships since that night. Until you. When I met you, Kimber, everything changed. My heart changed. Because of you. Working down that list—”
The voice mail beeped, signifying the end.
“Shit.” His finger was hovering over the Call button when Angel appeared in his peripheral. He turned and saw her saddened expression. She took the phone from him and sank into the plastic lawn chair next to his.
“I didn’t know about Rachel,” she said.
He nodded. “It sucked.”
“You never told any of us.”
Aiden and Sadie crept out behind her. Landon wasn’t sure how much they’d heard, but he waved at the empty chairs, gesturing for them to sit.
“You were high school kids,” he said to Angel and Aiden. “And it wasn’t the type of story I wanted to worry Mom and Dad with. I was trying to make them proud.” He shook his head.
“This explains so much,” Angel said.
He pointed at his phone. “I think you came out here about two minutes too late.” What had he done? He ran his hands through his hair and propped them on the back of his head, looking up at the star-pocked sky, then back at his family. “She’s going to hate me for that.”
Sadie was the only one who spoke.
“I wouldn’t if I was her,” she said. “I’d love you for it.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kimber dropped the box into the chute next to the serve-yourself shipping center. She’d neglected getting the package in the mail over the weekend, which was what had brought her here on Monday morning before she headed in to work.
She’d hated missing Lyon’s birthday party Saturday, but she wouldn’t miss the opportunity to send him a gift. In this case, a “real” Superman costume complete with cape, and a replacement copy of Man of Steel. No doubt he’d wear his DVD out soon enough.
Much as she’d wanted to be there for the party, the implications of seeing Landon, his entire family, and discussing their awkward situation were too great. Besides, she and Landon were supposed to be practicing distance.
And she missed Lyon. She would have loved to see his face light up as he opened his gifts, would have loved to watch him blow out the candles on his Superman birthday cake. And she would have loved to see Landon standing behind him, arms crossed over his impressive chest, a proud smile on his face.
Picturing him made her mouth water. She could see him in a T-shirt snuggled around his biceps, in shorts that cupped his rear end.
Wait. She wasn’t supposed to be fantasizing about Landon.
Stupid pregnancy hormones. Yes, she was back to blaming them for her every impulse. Speaking of, she was starving. She glanced at the clock on her phone. Ten a.m. She’d eaten breakfast at eight. At this rate, she’d gain a hundred pounds growing a seven-pound baby.
Not that she was eating her feelings or anything, she thought miserably, walking a block to a café. An array of pastries: Bagels, scones, muffins, and donuts were lined up beneath the glass case. Sinful, tempting.
And buy-one-get-one-free. Bonus.
She ordered a donut and a muffin and told herself the latter would cancel out the former. Liar. But then she’d gotten good at lying to herself, hadn’t she? She had almost convinced herself she was happy with the arrangement she and Landon had made. And she was on her way to believing she didn’t miss laughing with him, talking to him, waking up next to him, or making love to him on every piece of furniture in his house. A few more months of delusion and she might also con herself into believing she could survive natural childbirth.
She picked a table by the window and dunked the teabag into a mug of hot water. Not the same as coffee. Not by a long shot. But even if it was “okay” according to some websites (and her mother) for pregnant women to have a cup of coffee a day, she didn’t want to risk it. The life growing inside of her had become real over the last several weeks.
Maybe because her apartment was now filled with baby furniture. Cramped, but it had all fit. She’d expected to feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment after she’d stuffed her tiny space. She didn’t. What she felt mostly was bone-tired. Fatigue was the houseguest who wouldn’t leave, settling in and joining her at the least convenient times. She’d fallen asleep in the storeroom yesterday, for Pete’s sake. Ridiculous.
Kimber had never been the kind of girl to dream of being pregnant, but she’d assumed that when and if she was, the father of the child would be in her life. Landon had tried to be in her life, in the most demanding way. At the time that’d upset her, but now… now that she was dealing with things alone…
If she had overreacted, it was too late to take back now. This wasn’t the kind of situation where she could conk herself on the head and say, “Oops, my bad.” Not that anyone said “my bad” anymore anyway.
The ugly truth was her apartment was too small. And he’d been right. The stairs were inconvenient—had been since she’d moved in. Exhausted at the end of a long day, the trek was like scaling the side of a mountain. And Hobo Chic, the store she’d fought to keep on Meringue Avenue, the store that had started out as her passion, her living, breathing dream, had turned into something else. She enjoyed working there, but the place wasn’t the end-all-be-all it used to be.
The baby had taken the store’s place… along with the sketches she drew on the nights she was unable to sleep. She’d been creating new clothing designs and dreaming up a new venture in the process. Her own clothing line. A store on Michigan Avenue.
It’d have to be a slow-build. Like, really slow. Maybe after she bought Mick out she could increase her clientele at Hobo Chic, sell the store at a profit…
Sure and then I’ll win the lottery, and ride a unicorn into the sunset, she thought grimly. The fantasy of moving her store, having her own clothing line, and raising a child was… well, a fantasy.
Babies were expensive. Even babies of millionaires. And she refused to ask Landon for more than his fair share. She was no gold-digger. She wouldn’t ask him to provide her with a lifestyle she hadn’t earned. Didn’t deserve.
I never should have pushed him away.
The thought was so out of left field, she choked on her tea. She waved at a neighboring table when they looked on with concern. “I’m fine,” she croaked.
But she wasn’t fine. She was an idiot. She’d ignored her heart, ignored her feelings. All because… because she was trying to be someone she wasn’t. Because she’d allowed her past to predict her future. She’d ignored every instinct she had about Landon. And why? Because she’d failed in the past? But this situation was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She’d never been pregnant, and she’d never known anyone—never loved anyone—the way she loved Landon.
He’d been a recurring thought, looping her brain every day. Maybe because half of him grew inside of her. Of course she’d think of him. If she hadn’t been pregnant, she wondered if they would have stayed together? Yes. They would. There was too much connection, too much desire, too much joy between them to walk away.
So why did she insist on walking away when they shared something as epically life-changing as a child? Because she’d screwed up, that’s why.
Picking a corner off the muffin, she chewed forlornly, no longer hungry. When he’d come to her house, she’d shoved him away. Demanded an agreement. An arrangement, she thought with a wince. And he’d been there… why? Why had he come to her apartment?
She sipped her tea and thought back to the
night he’d climbed her stairs and tried to kiss her. After she’d refused him, she’d steered the conversation and, like the captain on the Titanic, had gone down with the ship. Landon may have taken charge when it came to drafting their agreement, but only because she’d asked. He’d looked downright resigned while doing it, she recalled with a stab of certainty.
What if… she shouldn’t think it… but she did anyway. What if he came there that night to say he loved me?
She loved him. No doubt about it. All the pragmatic and practical arguments she’d been making were forced. That had been her, trying to be someone she wasn’t. She wasn’t practical or pragmatic. Why hadn’t she trusted her heart? Just one more time?
She’d denied her feelings, denied the man she loved. And why? Because she was a modern-day woman who had a baby in her belly? A baby that wouldn’t be there if not for Landon. A baby that was as much his as hers. A baby he’d been so terrified of losing that he’d agreed to a rigid, black-and-white arrangement at her behest.
What have I done?
And what would that arrangement look like to their child? She’d been concerned over becoming an embittered housewife, but now what would she look like? A woman going robotically through the motions each time she talked to Landon? Denying their emotional connection—her love for him? Did she really want her child seeing her as some emotionless robot?
And what if she wanted a second child? What if she wanted a brother or sister for the baby growing in her womb? Could she really date again? While the man she loved was in the same town, sharing custody, and making her long for his touch each and every time she saw him? No way.
Kimber shoved her food away and stared into her cooling, flavorless tea. She’d made a horrible mistake, and all she could hope for was that Landon would be magnanimous enough to hear her out. Would he consider giving her another chance to make things right between them? She hoped so.
Her phone chimed: e-mail. She tapped the screen and read the message, confused for a handful of seconds.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Voice mail
Dear Ms. Reynolds:
Please read this before you open the attachment.
You may recognize my name, you may not. I’m Landon’s cousin/business partner who lives in Ohio. Last night, he seems to have gotten incredibly inebriated and called my secretary Keena by mistake. The voice mail was meant for you. I debated sending it, and I’m still not entirely sure you want to hear a slurring speech of undying love from my eldest cousin, but in the end, I can’t not forward it on. It’s here, in the attachment. Sounds like he got cut off at the end, but I’ll leave it up to you to call him and hear the rest.
For what it’s worth, Landon is a good guy. He’s about as hardheaded as I am when it comes to women, but his heart’s in the right place. I was lucky enough to find the woman who was willing to wait out my stupidity. On the chance you might be that woman for Landon, I didn’t want to deny you the same opportunity.
We’re a thick bunch sometimes.
Sincerely,
Shane August, CEO August Industries
Kimber’s thumb hovered over the attachment as she digested Shane’s e-mail. She reread it, stopping to think about what “a slurring speech of undying love” might sound like.
She was about to find out. There was no way she wouldn’t open it now. She wanted to hear what Landon had to say. Drunk or not. She clicked the attachment and brought the phone to her ear.
“Kimber. Hi, it’s Landon…”
* * *
His head pounded harder this morning than it had Sunday morning. And Sunday’s hangover had been a whopper. Probably wasn’t a good idea to drink last night, too, but he figured why not? He’d made a grievous error—not letting Kimber know how he felt—followed by another grievous error. The phone call where he had. Maybe if he kept drinking, he’d kill off enough brain cells that one day he wouldn’t be able to remember doing either.
He’d held out hope she might hear his message and call him, but his phone stayed silent all day Sunday. No messages. No calls. Just a silence that spoke louder than anything she could have said to him. She may not hate him, but she didn’t love him. And she hadn’t appreciated his profession being soaked in thirty-year scotch.
Imagine that.
He remembered the gist of what he’d said in that voice mail: I love you, I miss you. Even though he’d spoken it through a throat burning from Macallan Limited Release, the sentiment had demanded a reply. But she hadn’t replied.
Which he took to mean she didn’t care. That was the only reason not to call back. If the opposite of love was apathy, it wasn’t hard to reason that Kimber felt nothing but indifference toward him. Maybe he was better off spending his nights drunk and alone in his enormous and lonely penthouse. Maybe he should get a dog.
“Mr. Downey?” his secretary’s voice came over the speakerphone in his office.
“Yeah, Cindy.” He grabbed his head with his hands to stop the throbbing in his skull. Speaking made his brain ache like he’d shouted instead.
“I have a Ms. Reynolds here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment but—”
“Send her in.” He stood from his desk, knocking his chair with the backs of his legs and rolling it several feet from his desk. He raced across the room to his private bathroom, shocked by the man staring back at him from the mirror. He looked like hell. If hell had been subjected to freezer burn, then microwaved. He dampened his fingers and ran them through his hair, swishing mouthwash around his teeth at the same time. By the time he’d stepped into his office and slid his glasses back onto his nose, Cindy opened the door.
She ushered Kimber inside, and he nearly buckled at the sight of her. Seeing her was like walking into the bright sunshine after a long day under fluorescent lighting. She practically burst with light… the pregnancy glow.
He wanted to drop to his knees, bury his head into the folds of her green dress, and beg them both—Kimber and the baby—for a second chance. Melodramatic? Maybe. But he’d do anything—anything—to get her back. He’d give up his business and his penthouse. Move into her teeny little apartment and become a stockroom boy for Hobo Chic if he had to.
Because nothing else mattered. Not his career. Not his top-floor penthouse. He’d worked hard to craft a perfect façade of a life. Then Kimber had come into it, and left, proving the life he’d worked so hard to build as flimsy as a matchbook house. One that had gone up in flames the second she walked out of it.
Cindy shut the office door and Kimber gestured to the couch. “Mind if I sit? I’m exhausted.”
“Please,” he said, holding the crumbling walls of his heart together with both hands. Maintaining as usual. Mr. Control. Sometimes he hated that about himself.
She patted the cushion next to her and he sat, obediently. Tired of not saying what was on his mind he blurted, “I want to touch you so badly.”
She smiled, her eyes shining. There was something in them that was real and warm, and not the least bit indifferent. A spark of hope lit within him. Tentatively, he reached for her face.
She leaned into his palm and floored him with her next four words. “I love you, too.”
He simply stared at her, mouth ajar for several seconds. When he finally got his tongue to cooperate, he said, “You heard my message.”
“I didn’t get it until this morning. I came straight here.”
What? He blinked, digesting that bit of information. “I thought you heard it and were ignoring me.”
She shook her head. “I heard it and cried in the middle of a café over a half-eaten muffin.”
He pulled her close, and relief washed through him when her arms locked around his neck. “The one time I didn’t listen to my heart,” she whispered against his ear, “and it was right.”
He held her tighter, not a hundred percent certain he wasn’t having a very vivid, alcohol-induced dream.
“I
may have apologized for saying ‘I love you’ that first time, but it was the truth. Crazy as it sounds, part of me just… knew.”
He loosened his hold on her just enough to focus on her bright green eyes. “I don’t care if you keep your store where it is.” He wanted to make sure she understood he was not trying to cage her. This was her life, their life. “I don’t care if you stay in your apartment. I mean, I do care, but only because I don’t want you away from me for another second.” He gave her a watery smile. It was true, he didn’t. And telling her felt undeniably right. Throat choked with emotion, he managed to hold back the tears when he said, “Please don’t shut me out. We can move in together later. Or I could move in with you.”
A bemused twinkle lit her eyes. “You’d move into my five-hundred-square-foot loft?”
“It has everything I need.” He kissed her, savoring the feel of her lips for what felt like the first time in forever. “You.” He palmed her tummy. “Our baby.”
She grinned, and he thought it might be the most beautiful sight in the world. “But I love your place. The bedroom, the shower,” she said, ticking off rooms on her fingers. “Your desk.” She lifted one eyebrow and gave him a saucy smile.
“You’re teasing me at a time like this?” But he couldn’t help smiling back at her. He had a vivid memory of those rooms. They’d made love in each of them during the week when he’d been too blind to see what was right in front of him.
“I remember.” He palmed her hair and rubbed the silken strands between his fingers, kissing her when she tipped her chin. “I remember every breath,” he said. “Every sound.” He kissed her again.
“Do you remember the balcony?” she whispered against his lips.
“I remember you.”
She caught his face in her hands, keeping her soft, pink lips just out of reach. “I remember you,” she repeated. “We could make a few new memories at my place. You know, before I move in with you.”
The Millionaire Affair (Love in the Balance) Page 24