by Diane Saxon
Oh God, she’d lost everything. Everything because she’d been too shocked to speak out, too proud to beg. She’d never seen him so angry, never seen anyone angry enough for shock waves to bounce off the hotel room walls.
Unable to understand at first, she’d simply stared at him in disbelief. Try as she might, it had taken her some time before it had sunk in, and even then, she couldn’t understand how he could believe it of her.
She’d told him she loved him last night, and he’d called her a prostitute this morning.
She’d done things with Mac she’d never done with another man in her life, and she would never have dreamed of doing them without love. She’d poured her heart out to him, given him her body, taken his. She thought she had been professing her love, and he’d believed she was doing it for money.
Shaking her head, she stared out of the window and touched her fingers to her trembling lips, desperate not to break down and sob.
Eleven years ago, naïveté had made her believe he would come after her. Maturity made her understand differently now. The only contact she was ever going to have with Mac in the future was through his lawyer.
Worse still, he had the power to take her little boy away from her. The two things she had loved unwaveringly for the past eleven years, and they were both going to be lost to her.
She’d harbored the shameful secret he had paid to be rid of her from his life. Humiliated, she had hugged her secret, keeping it close and safe, and was proud of the private knowledge she had not let it defeat her. Wounded before, she had risen above it, raised a wonderful child, and lived her life.
And with the knowledge she alone had proof of her innocence came the dawning realization Mac had never known about the money.
In tune with the pounding of the train, sound rushed through her head; a frisson of disbelief tingled from the top of her scalp and spread through her entire body, giving her hope.
Until today, she suddenly realized, he hadn’t known about the check. Astral Heaven had lied eleven years ago. And she’d lied again today. It hadn’t been Mac who had paid her off but his agent. Without his knowledge.
She gave a watery smile as she stared at her reflection in the window as the train raced through a tunnel. She gazed at herself as tears filled her eyes and hovered, scalding hot, refusing to fall.
Breathing slow and deep, she calmed herself. She had the proof. She was going to put it right.
Mac was innocent.
So was she.
* * * *
Racing through her empty house, she dashed to her wardrobe, fell to her knees, and grabbed blindly at the storage boxes stacked neatly at the back, throwing them wildly out of the way. With shaky fingers, she grasped the small, black-and-gold patterned Chinese box he had given her for her eighteenth birthday.
She stared at the closed lid and the memories gushed, stealing her breath and almost knocking her backward with the power of them.
Her fingers traced along the beautifully etched gold leaf as her heart swelled with pain.
She squeezed her eyes closed as tears leaked from behind her eyelids, leaned back against her bed as she stretched out her legs. It had been years since she’d opened the box. Her heart box, as she’d dramatically named it at the age of eighteen. She’d believed it contained her heart then, and she had secured it away from any more hurt. Protected it.
She knew better now; she’d loved again since. There was no love like the one you felt for your child. But she’d never given her heart to another man. It was still contained within the box.
Reluctant to open it, she stared for a long moment and then gently eased the lid off and gasped as the pain almost overwhelmed her.
Emeralds. He’d bought her emeralds, he’d said to complement her eyes, but they had been so much deeper and darker than her own coloring; there had been no flecks, no flaws in the stones.
She held the tiny, white leather box containing them in her hand. It was still immaculate after eleven years of never being opened. The engagement ring with its three large, perfect emeralds winked at her as she drew in a painful breath. She’d made a conscious effort never to look. She’d put the memory to the back of her mind just as she’d put the box to the back of the wardrobe.
With trembling fingers, she reached out, plucked the ring from the box, and slipped it on. It had been a little loose when she was eighteen, and the weight of the stones had made it slide around until the emeralds were on the underside of her finger. It fit to perfection now. She stretched out her arm, extended her hand, and watched the play of filtered sunlight shoot pale green sparks in a light pattern.
In the silence she stared.
*
“Marry me?” His hushed voice seduced her. His lips traced their way across her temple as she leaned against him. She drew back, excited, thrilled. In the dark, wrapped in his arms, it had seemed such a possibility. She stroked his jawline.
“I can’t marry you, Mac.” He opened his mouth to protest; she hushed him by placing her fingers, gently against his warm lips. “Not yet.” She smoothed her thumb over his lower lip, her heart swelling with joy. “I have to go to uni, Mac. I really want to be a vet.”
His eyes glittered in the shadows, his disappointment palpable. He sighed, his breath brushing featherlike across her cheek. He rested his forehead against hers.
“I know. You can. I won’t try to stop you doing what you want.” He placed a soft kiss on the end of her nose, her cheekbone, her ear. “I love you, Zoe. I want us to get married.” Delicious heat swamped her as his gravelly voice broke with passion.
An upstairs light flared, chasing back the shadows, but Mac pushed her farther into the dark recess of the doorway.
“Shh…Dad’s going to hear, he’ll be down in a moment.” Panic made her voice high-pitched, and she breathed in slow and steady to try to contain it. “He said to say good night ten minutes ago.”
Mac smiled against her cheek. He captured her lips with his, held her hand, and slipped something onto her finger.
“Think about it. We can keep it secret for now.” He squeezed her fingers and pushed a small box into her palm.
He took her shoulders and turned her in the direction of the door, gave her a little nudge. Unable to resist, she turned back and watched as he started to run along the dirt track away from the house. He stopped and turned at the edge of the shaft of light and gazed straight at her. “Zoe,” he called, his deep voice resonating. “I love you.”
*
Pain tore through her chest. She clasped her hands together and squeezed her eyes shut. He had loved her.
She’d allowed Astral to convince her he had no feelings for her. Stupid. Young and stupid and gullible. She was none of those things now, and she knew with certainty he’d had nothing to do with it.
She swiped a finger across her cheek, felt the wetness, and then scrubbed. Impatient and done with tears, she wiped them from her face with the cuff of her sleeve. Blew out a breath and gave herself a moment.
She shifted the weight of the little box, stretched out her fingers, and picked up the crumpled check. Her own bloodstains had turned rusty brown and faded. But the memory hadn’t. All those years ago she had been idealistic. Sighing, she wondered if she would do the same thing now. Knowing what she knew.
She slid the ring off her finger. She wouldn’t allow her heart to ache as she looked at the emeralds for a moment longer before she placed the ring gently back in the white box and replaced the check, side-by-side with her son’s birth certificate.
Mind resolved, she breathed deep. If he accompanied Ryan tomorrow, she would run out to the car and ask him to spare her a few moments. He owed her that much, surely?
* * * *
The black limousine drew slowly to a halt, its tires crunching over the gravel. Ryan burst out of the passenger door and raced down the track toward her, flinging himself into her arms.
Painful relief swamped her as she hugged him close. Thankful beyond belief Mac had kept
his word.
“Mum, Mum. We had a great time, Dad took me on a boat on the Thames and…and…” She stroked his black hair back from his eyes, watched as the limo tried to turn, and knew she only had a short time to get there.
“Is your dad in the car?”
“Yeah, yeah. He said he couldn’t stop, he had an appointment with his lawyer back in London.”
Her heart jittered. “Ryan, go into the house. I want a quick word with Mac. You can tell me all about it in a minute.”
His eyebrows twitched.
“I really missed you, Mum.”
She gave him a reassuring smile and touched his cheek. “Me too. Go on in now. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She took off, ran like she hadn’t run in years as the limo completed its turn. She reached the gate, her fingers fumbled with the catch; she flung it open, raced down the track, arm waving, and twisted her ankle as her foot slipped down a pothole.
Breath heaving, she watched as the limo glided serenely away.
She was going to have to find another way.
* * * *
The following morning, the notification arrived. He must have had his lawyers working around the clock to get it ready. She left the special delivery envelope until Ryan had gone out with his grandfather on the lake, and then she cautiously peeled it open.
Two million he was willing to pay. Two million for full custody of his son—and he’d take him to live in America. Full custody. It was worse than she thought.
When they arrived back, she was waiting, envelope in her hands and the small black Chinese box by her side.
“Ryan, go and get a shower, and I’ll take you for pizza.” As Ryan raced up the stairs, she met her father’s eyes.
“Dad, we need to talk.”
Chapter 11
He had no idea why he had agreed to meet with Emory Chance. He really liked the old boy, but he imagined he wanted to talk about custody of his grandchild. Mac ground his teeth; he wasn’t going to be moved on his decision, though. Zoe could send her father if she wished, but it wouldn’t change his mind.
Emory sat in a high-back chair in the outer sanctum of the penthouse suite. His arthritis seemed to bow his back more than usual, but Emory’s eyes were sharp and hard.
“Sit down, son.”
Mac’s lips twitched. Emory was the only person who had ever called him son. His own father had never even called him son.
“Does Zoe know you’re here?” He lowered himself into the spindly chair opposite, felt it creak in protest at the weight of his body, and hoped it would hold out.
“No.”
He nodded. Waited for the old man to speak.
“I’ve not come to plead with you about my grandson. I know you’re doing the wrong thing for him. In time, you’ll also come to know.” Emory shifted to a more comfortable position. His face grim, he continued. “He needs his mother, and you could ruin his life by dragging him away from her. They’ve always had each other, and he will hold it against you. Maybe not today, but in the future, he will.”
Mac swallowed. He knew it was the truth, and he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be far into the future when the kid decided he wanted to be with his mother again. But Mac chose to ignore it. Saw it as a kind of test. Two million was a hell of an amount to turn down. He wanted to know how much it would take to sell her soul. To sell her son.
The sharp cough had him snapping his attention back to Emory.
“But it isn’t why I’m here. Zoe doesn’t know. If she did, she would probably lynch me. What I tell you is between you and me. What you choose to do about it will be on your conscience.” Emory leaned forward, took a sip of water from the glass in front of him. His hand trembled. His eyes were filled with anger and pain.
“Eleven years ago, Zoe returned from London. Hurt, bleeding, pregnant. She showed us the check. By the end of the week, her mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.”
Mac felt his chest tighten and realized the pain Emory had suffered, was having to dredge up and suffer again.
“I’d already negotiated to sell the farm. We wanted the money to support Zoe through veterinary school. The farm was too big, and she wouldn’t have wanted to run it anyway. So we sold it, together with all the land bar four acres and the lake. We’d moved within a month, and her mother died the following month.”
He paused, the effort obviously too much as he stared at Mac.
“I want you to know this. I want you to understand where Zoe got the money to complete her veterinary course.”
Mac watched as the old man got slowly to his feet, pulled a small black-and-rose Chinese box with gold leaf design from a plastic bag, and placed it on the elegant Victorian table in front of Mac.
He met Mac’s eyes and nodded, his mouth pursed. Disappointment tinged his voice.
“The money wasn’t from you. Somebody lied to you. But it wasn’t my daughter. You should have known her better then, but you were just a boy and she was still a child. You should be old enough to use your judgment wisely now, or you’re not the man I believe you to be.”
He turned and made his stiff-legged way out the door, leaving Mac alone to stare at the familiar little box.
He ran a cautious finger across the cool lacquered top. Remembered the day he had given it to her. The day they had made love for the first time. The day she’d given him her virginity. Pride and testosterone had surged through him until he’d wanted to beat his chest and howl at the moon.
There hadn’t been another time since that he’d felt the same. He’d been so desperately in love with her she’d turned him stupid and blind.
Carefully, he slipped the lid open and sucked in his breath as the memories rushed out to meet him. He rubbed his chest to stop it from hurting, closed his eyes, and tried to drum up the courage to reach inside.
Emeralds glowed up at him as he flipped open the lid of the little white-leather ring box, and picked the tiny ring out. It barely fit over the end of his little finger. He leaned his elbows on his knees, held the ring up, and remembered how much he had paid for it. His entire first paycheck. Several thousand. Yet she’d refused to wear it, wouldn’t marry him. He’d forgotten; over the years he hadn’t given the ring a thought. Yet the memories glowed up at him now like it was yesterday.
Doubt crawled into the back of his mind. If she’d needed money, why hadn’t she sold it? Why had she kept it?
He dipped his fingers into the box once more, picked up a folded piece of paper, and unraveled it.
Shock froze him as he stared at Ryan Cormack Swann Chance’s birth certificate. Silence stretched out in front of him like a long, lonely road. She’d never tried to say Ryan wasn’t his son. She’d put his name on his birth certificate. There had been no need to demand DNA so he could fight her for custody. No wonder she had dug her heels in.
What an insensitive son of a bitch she must have thought he was. The kid was obviously his. Looked just like him. Yet he’d demanded blood tests.
He laid the birth certificate on the table in front of him, reached into the box, and picked up a wrinkled piece of paper, placed it next to the birth certificate, and pulled out the photograph covering the bottom of the box.
Despite everything, he smiled. He remembered the day Zoe’s mother had taken it. They were on the jetty, and he had carried Zoe as far as he could, but her long arms and legs had been flailing about, her skinny frame too heavy for him. His chest had barely begun to fill out then, his own gangly limbs uncoordinated. They were desperately in love and laughing like loons.
He could barely breathe through the pain in his chest, the constriction in his throat. He’d been wrong. All along, he’d been wrong.
He picked up the crumpled piece of paper and smoothed it out over his knee. Died inside as he stared at the uncashed check for fifty thousand pounds. Dirt and what could possibly have been rusty old blood smeared across it, both front and back.
The woman he had loved all his adult life had loved him back.
* * * *
His shoulders filled the doorway as his eyes narrowed on the woman he had placed his trust in for too many years. He’d never realized how much control he had allowed her to take. It was his fault. Dishonesty and manipulation were hers.
Cold fury held him motionless as he watched her place her phone on her desk and raise her eyes to meet his. Awareness and fear filled hers. He could have been satisfied and left it there, but he needed to hear it.
He walked toward her, silent; placed the dirty, wrinkled check on her desk in front of her and raised an eyebrow. Her small gasp of recognition burned his soul.
“Astral, you have three minutes to tell me the truth. Every word of it, before I fire you.”
* * * *
It wasn’t in his nature to hold on to his anger, but if his muscles didn’t relax soon, he thought they might just vibrate long and hard enough to blow his entire body apart.
As he approached the trailer, Flynn was leaning against the open door, arms crossed over his chest; his keen eyes never missed a trick. He pushed himself away from the door and picked up a small flight bag, threw it onto his shoulder.
“Ready?”
Mac raised an eyebrow. His brain, normally sharp as an arrow—currently focused on his own life events—stumbled to a bleary halt.
“What?”
Flynn sighed.
“Fucking actor. Get your stuff. We’re flying to Germany today to do the car chase scenes. Remember?”
He didn’t. He scrubbed his face with his hands and felt his shoulders sag.
“Flynn…”
“You need thinking time. But if it’s woman trouble, don’t ask me. I’m shit when it comes to women. Now, get your gear. Three days should give you enough time to figure out what you need to do to put things right.”
Mac stepped into the trailer and opened the cupboard to retrieve his rucksack, already prepped by his assistant. At least she’d been on top of things.
“How come you think it’s me who needs to put things right? Why can’t it be her fault?”
Flynn snorted.
“You’re a man. You fucked up.” Flynn’s hard fist connected with his shoulder and had him reeling back a step. The guy might be half his size, but he knew how to pack a punch. “Put it right, Mac. She’s a keeper.”