by Diana Palmer
She could imagine Tony doing that. It was oddly satisfying.
“I can’t tell you how sick it made me,” he said after a minute, the torment obvious in his face. “Knowing you could have died, and I would have been responsible,”
“Don’t let your conscience trouble you too much,” she replied. “Tony cared enough to come see about me.”
“Yes.” He studied her face, wondering if it might help his case if he admitted that he’d put Tony up to it. But she looked waxen. Utterly lifeless. She wasn’t the lighthearted, laughing woman he’d known in New York. She’d changed in ways that frightened him. It wasn’t going to be easy, winning back her respect, her trust. But he was going to do it. He was going to show her how much he cared. He was going to court her. Perhaps in time, she could give him once again the love he’d thrown so carelessly aside months earlier. He’d make sure he appreciated its value this time.
Nick’s very presence was sending little thrills up and down her spine, but she schooled her features not to show that pleasure. She owed Phillipe loyalty, if nothing else.
“I’m sorry you had a wasted trip, Nick,” she said as she tugged her hands free and finished her coffee. “But I wish you well. No hard feelings. It’s all in the past now.”
He stared in rigid comprehension as she picked up her purse and left several francs on the table.
“Jolana, please listen to me,” he said, feeling almost angry that he should have to plead with her. Didn’t it mean anything that he’d relentlessly tracked her down, that he’d cared enough to follow her all the way to France?
She lifted her chin and looked across the table at him.
“I did,” she reminded him, glancing past him to where Maurice was coming slowly toward the café. “I even listened to you the night you said you cared for me, that we were going to get married.” She smiled coldly. “I even listened that morning when you came back to tell me I’d been a stand-in for Margery in bed. I made a fool of myself over you, and I came to France half-ready to finish what I started in New York,” she lied, some part of her enjoying the torment that statement produced in his dark face. “But I had friends here, Nick. And I survived. Even if the circumstances would allow it, I wouldn’t be crazy enough to get mixed up with you a second time.”
“Circumstances?” he asked warily.
Jolana stared at him with a malicious smile as Maurice came up to the table, nodded at Nick and bowed his head toward Jolana.
“Comtesse, the car is ready when you are,” he said respectfully.
Nick blinked. His face paled and he dropped his eyes to her hand, where her rings were displayed. The diamond and gold bands told the story, and he went white as a sheet.
“You’re...married,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Oh, quite married,” she assured him. “To Comte Phillipe de Vinchy-Cardin. And there’s something more that you don’t know,” she added, and got slowly to her feet, watching him.
She knew that as long as she lived, she’d never forget the look on Nick’s face, in his eyes, as he saw that she was pregnant. He seemed to have died for an instant.
“Oh, God,” he breathed. There was anguish in his voice. Pure, unspeakable anguish.
“You might congratulate us,” she said, cocking her head to one side. “Phillipe’s very proud of his approaching fatherhood. And I’m rather ecstatic myself. I always wanted a family.”
He couldn’t seem to breathe. All the light went out of his eyes as she walked slowly away in front of Maurice.
Nick sat as if mesmerized, staring after Jolana long after she had gone. The thought of her with another man was too much for him to bear, and he forced it from his consciousness with an almost painful act of will.
“It can’t be,” he growled suddenly, his voice low and filled with determination. “It just can’t be.”
He ordered a whiskey, neat, and drank it down. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t feel capable of running his business. He might as well stay in France for a while. Who was the man Jolana had married? he wondered. He would have to find out something about this Comte de Vinchy-Cardin. Later he would call New York and have his research department at the magazine dig up everything they could about him. But now his mind was fogged with misery and heartache. Jolana, he moaned inwardly. Jolana!
Meanwhile, Jolana was on her way back to the villa, trying her best to hold back the tears she didn’t want Maurice to see. She concentrated on the wildly prolific flowering plants along the way, in gardens they passed. But all she saw, felt, heard, smelled, loved, was Nick. She had had her revenge. It had been sweet, too. But how it hurt to see him again, to hear him whispering that he loved her, that it had been her he wanted, not Margery. But it was too late. Months too late. She was married and pregnant, and she could never be with Nick again.
When they reached the villa, she went straight to her room and cried until her chest hurt with racking sobs. As long as she lived, she’d remember the look on Nick’s face when she’d stood up, wearing Phillipe’s rings and carrying his baby. She wondered if he’d felt as horrid as she had that morning in her apartment. Now there was no hope of going back, as Nick must have seen. Oh, you fool, she whispered. You fool. Why did you have to come after me and ruin my life all over again? How can I let Phillipe touch me now, knowing that you love me and I can never touch you again?
Well, at least she’d have the memory, she told herself. That would be some small comfort in the long years ahead. And there was the baby. Her fingers touched her stomach lovingly. The baby would be her whole life. She could love it as none of the men in her life had really loved her. She sat up and dried her tears. Perhaps Phillipe would be home today. She needed him now more than ever.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BUT PHILLIPE DIDN’T come home that day or the next. Neither did Maureen. And Jolana couldn’t work, so she paced the floor. Never had she felt so miserable or so alone. Knowing Nick was somewhere nearby only made things worse.
It was stupid to go into Monte Carlo again and risk running into Nick. But she couldn’t help it. She decided to have dinner there at the Carlton restaurant. It was almost as if she knew Nick was staying there. It was absurd, but she wasn’t even surprised when he walked into the restaurant.
He was alone. She’d been expecting, dreading, to see a woman with him. But he was wearing a light-colored suit and looking handsome enough to sink a ship or two.
His dark eyes spotted her in her becoming lavender maternity ensemble, as she sat by the window overlooking the palm-lined street. He hesitated, but only for an instant, before he came to stand beside her table.
“Isn’t your husband with you, Jolana?” he asked quietly.
“My husband is in Grasse, for the race,” she said, cocking an eyebrow. “I don’t care to watch, if you must know.”
“He races?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Quite successfully.”
Nick didn’t have to ask that question. He already knew the answer. Indeed, Nick knew a great deal about Phillipe now. He had placed a call to his magazine, and within a few hours their extensive computerized files had supplied him with more than enough information concerning the Comte de Vinchy-Cardin. Most of what he had learned had been fairly common knowledge, but several items had supplied him with facts that few people were aware of. His attention had been riveted when he heard one of the final pieces of information. It was an incomplete report that had been hushed up very carefully and had never made any of the news media. Apparently, on one of his extended trips to the United States, a woman whom Phillipe had been living with in California had claimed to be pregnant by him and had instituted a lawsuit to force him to acknowledge her child.
The case had been dismissed immediately; in fact, it had never come to trial at all. Phillipe had somehow easily proved he had not been guilty. There were no details available, but the reasons for such
a case being dismissed were few: chief among them, Nick knew, was the inability of the accused man to father a child.
Nick had been dazed when he hung up the phone. It had taken several minutes for the meaning of what he had heard to sink in. The child was not Phillipe’s. It was his child whom Jolana was carrying. It was his child but he would never be able to acknowledge it. She must hate him very deeply to keep such a thing from him, he had thought—and she had good reason to.
Nick’s thoughts returned to the present, and he studied Jolana for a long moment. “May I sit with you?”
She shrugged. “If you like.”
He drew out a chair and sat down. It was a hopeful sign, that she’d come into town to eat dinner when she surely had servants at the villa where she was staying. He’d driven by it, impressed by its size. He’d almost stopped, but he was uncertain of his welcome, and he hadn’t really fancied running into her husband.
He ordered a beef dish and a bottle of wine, glancing at her as the waiter departed. “Do you drink wine, now?” he asked, nodding toward her waistline.
“No, I’m afraid to,” she said honestly.
“How does the comte feel about becoming a father so soon after marriage?” he asked pointedly.
She glanced up. “Why, he’s delighted. Or he says he is.” She dropped her eyes to her plate again with a sigh, “I’m not really sure. He seemed shocked when I told him.”
His heart almost stopped. He studied her face with hungry, wild eyes. She didn’t know! She didn’t know that the baby wasn’t her husband’s! Incredibly, Phillipe seemed not to have told her about his sterility!
“He does want the child?” Nick asked suddenly.
“Why, of course!” she laughed coolly. “He’s overwhelmed that he’s to have an heir.”
“Then why the hell isn’t he here, taking care of you while you carry it?” he asked coldly.
She shifted restlessly. “He races.”
“He was off on a cruise just recently, I was told,” he added narrowly, neglecting to mention that he’d pigeonholed a member of the local gentry and all but beat that information out of him. “And he spends a good deal of time in casinos as well, in all parts of the globe.”
Her dark eyes glared at him from a pale face. “My marital problems are no concern of yours!”
“So you admit that there are problems?” he suggested.
She put down her fork. “I won’t sit here and let you upset me...”
“Sit down,” he said gently, touching her arm as she started to rise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Jolana, don’t go.”
Her lower lip trembled as she stared at her plate. Her emotions were haywire, and she didn’t know what she was doing here with Nick anyway. She hadn’t meant to see him again, she hadn’t wanted to. Phillipe would be furious if he knew...!
“Drink some coffee,” he said softly, his voice deep and quiet. “We’ll talk about other things.”
She managed to get some of it down, but her eyes were full of tears.
“He leaves you alone too much,” he said. “You need taking care of. You’re very pale.”
“I’m working on commissions,” she let slip.
“Working?” he exploded.
“I paint, remember?” she demanded. “I haven’t stopped living just because I’m pregnant!”
He started to speak and then caught himself. He was almost certain that she wasn’t painting from choice. He knew the extent of Phillipe’s financial problems. No doubt the man had coaxed Jolana into painting for his posh friends...
“You shouldn’t take chances,” he said finally, pouring a glass of wine. He sipped it. “You mustn’t overdo.”
She glared at him. It hurt to hear him sounding concerned about her. Now, of all times, when he’d killed the possibility of any kind of future between them. Nick, with his obsession for Margery that had driven Jolana out of the country and into a hopeless marriage and pregnancy. She almost hated him for that. Why had he followed her? Why had he come back into her life to torture her?
“Phillipe can take care of me,” she grumbled.
“He could. Why isn’t he?” he growled back. “God, I wish that baby was mine,” he ground out huskily, without meaning to.
Her heart leaped, but she controlled her features. “I’m glad it’s not,” she said with momentary venom. “I think I’d throw myself into the Mediterranean if I thought there was the slightest chance of it being yours!”
He went pale and his gaze fell to his glass. She’d hurt him, then. Good, she thought maliciously. Good, let him hurt, let him know how it felt.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said under his breath. He took a large sip of wine and felt it melt some of the lump in his throat. He hadn’t realized how violent her emotions were, how much she hated him. He’d thought that, because she came into town for dinner, she’d still felt something for him. But obviously it had been only a coincidence. She hated him. He was sure of it now. And he didn’t dare tell her about the child, for fear that she might do something desperate. He felt like crying out with pain. He loved her. She was carrying his child, and he wanted it, he wanted her. And she was married to a man who alternately ignored her and used her to make money, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. Because she hated him even more than her present circumstances. His fingers tightened on the delicate wineglass stem and threatened to snap it.
She swallowed her surge of anger and drank some more coffee. “I have to go.”
He looked up at her, his face drawn, his eyes hungry. “Will I see you again?”
She felt as if her legs wouldn’t hold her. “Don’t,” she pleaded huskily. “Don’t. What happened... It’s over. I have a husband and a baby on the way. I can’t bear this, Nick.”
He caught her hand and pressed its moist palm to his mouth with such urgent fervor that she felt her body ache with response. “Jolana,” he whispered achingly. “Oh, God, I love you!”
She drew in a shaking breath and got to her feet, pulling her hand away. “Go home, Nick,” she pleaded. “It’s too late now. I... I love my husband.”
“Not like you loved me,” he whispered hoarsely, his eyes blazing with remembered passion. “Not ever like you loved me!”
“I’m glad,” she burst out. “He can’t ever hurt me like you did!”
He caught at a breath, and his face grew tormented. “Forgive me.”
“Will that ease your conscience and make you go away?” she asked. “Then I forgive you. Now, please, go away. Leave me to make some kind of future for myself.”
His dark eyes searched hers as he stood respectfully, noticing her regal poise, her beauty as she carried his child. “What kind of future can you have, away from me?” he whispered. “What kind of future can I have without you?”
“You seemed to think at the time that you’d have quite a good one,” she reminded him as the hurt broke through. “I’m sorry Margery didn’t want you, Nick. But it’s much too late to convince me that this isn’t just sour grapes. You just want to show Margery you can do without her. I’m sorry. I can’t help you. Go home and find someone else.”
His eyes darkened as they ran up and down her body. “There’ll never be anyone else.”
She laughed bitterly. “Noble thought. But I’ve grown up since I’ve been in France. There’ll always be someone else. Men aren’t capable of fidelity. God, how well I know that! Goodbye, Nick.”
She turned and walked away, and it dawned on him what she meant. In addition to all his other shortcomings, her titled husband was already straying. Gambling, racing, other women. What kind of life had his stupidity driven her into? He sat back down and poured himself another glass of wine. He didn’t know how he was going to go on living. There had been the hope, always the hope, that he could find her and win her back. But today he had learned that all
the doors were closed, that he was going to have to go through life without his woman, his child. And that it was his fault. How, he wondered, was he going to live with it?
Jolana walked into the house in miserable silence while Maurice put away the car and opened the door just in time to see Phillipe coming down the stairs.
“Did you win?” she asked.
“Yes. First place.” He stared at her darkly. “You were in town. Where? And with whom?”
Here we go again, she thought miserably. She put down her purse. “I was having dinner at the Carlton,” she confessed.
“With whom?” he persisted coldly.
She lifted her chin. “With an American I once knew,” she said. She knew better than to tell him who Nick really was. “A man in whose gallery I exhibited my paintings.”
He glared at her. “Were you lovers?” he challenged.
Gathering her courage, she went close to him. “It was a chance meeting,” she said honestly. “Nothing I planned. He was there, and I was alone. He wanted to discuss an exhibit with me.”
His eyebrows rose. “An exhibit?” He brightened. “That might be profitable.”