How much had he seen? From the look on his face when she’d exited the shower, everything.
Vicky quickly dressed in a worn sweatshirt and jeans then padded down the stairs and into the main floor. Reflections from the fireplace danced off the polished stone floor, filling the main room with a warm, inviting glow.
Christiaan stood with his back to her. His palms braced against the mantel, he stared into the fire. The jeans and polo shirt someone at the hospital had loaned him clung to his frame like a second skin.
Her gaze drifted over her husband’s thick dark hair, wide shoulders, and taut back. It took all her strength not to walk over and encircle his waist with her arms then drop a few strategically placed kisses on his neck to announce her presence.
Never would she have imagined him here, in this setting, with her.
“Damn,” slipped out quietly.
Christiaan spun around to face her. Vicky’s legs nearly buckled as she gazed at the strong, handsome face of her soul mate. The glow from the fire accentuated his high cheekbones. His tousled brown mane fell across his gorgeous blue eyes in the most sensual manner. His perfectly sculpted jaw shown lightly dusted with day-old beard. She ached to feel the stubble against her cheek as she kissed his soft, warm, inviting mouth.
“You need to go.” Before I do something I’ll regret.
“Not yet. The doctor said you needed to get something in your stomach before taking any more painkillers.”
Vicky glanced at the stone sofa table. A silver sauce pan on a trivet between two place settings. On the right sat a basket of rolls. On the other side, her teapot and two cups.
“The table’s set for two.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I’d rather eat alone.”
“But I’d rather not.”
“You know, you’re bullheaded.”
“My wife called me that many, many times.”
Me.
He raised a hand. “Could we call a temporary truce? The sooner you eat, the sooner you’ll feel better. The sooner you feel better, the sooner I leave.”
Good point.
“Truce.” She headed for the table.
Or tried to. Maybe she’d moved too fast. Maybe she was woozy from the Demerol. Maybe her mind had finally given up. Whatever the reason, she was falling. Forward. Toward the floor.
This is going to hurt.
Christiaan caught her.
“Whoa,” he said. “You’re not as fine as you think you are.”
Hmm… He smelled tasty. Very tasty. Vicky held on, tightly.
The heat of his body seared her emotions. His nearness overwhelmed her. She steadied herself against his chest. The distinctive scent that was Christiaan permeated her senses.
“Allow me.” He swooped her up into his arms. Vicky peered into her husband’s eyes as he carried then gently eased her onto the couch. The electricity of his touch made her respond powerfully. The intense look in his eyes made her ache.
“Th-thanks,” she offered with a smile. Fighting her undeniable need for him was getting harder by the minute.
Christiaan sat down in the highback chair opposite her then lifted the pan lid. A mouthwatering aroma caught her nose.
“Mix up some vegetables, brown rice, and curry powder and you’ve got what I believe you Americans call ‘pot luck’,” Christiaan explained. “Hope you like it.”
He piled food on her plate and gestured to eat. “Mevrouw, dinner is served.”
“Not bad,” Vicky said after trying a mouthful. “When did you learn to cook?”
He laughed as he served himself. “Early in our marriage, Bri encouraged me to embrace the culinary arts after I set fire to the kitchen trying to make breakfast one day.”
Vicky smiled at the memory. To prove he wasn’t a spoiled rich boy, he’d vowed to make eggs and toast without the help of the estate’s cook. Instead, he proved that bread burns when toasted at the highest setting and eggs don’t cook when the burner is set on four hundred degrees.
“Well, I’m sure she would be impressed with tonight’s meal.” Quite impressed.
“I bet she would.” His face grew somber. “If she were here.”
She is. Mijn liefste, she is.
They ate quietly, the crackling fire the only sound breaking the silence. Christiaan appeared visibly upset at the mention of Brianna.
Vicky shook her head. The Demerol was clouding her judgment. For a second, he sounded sincere. Like he’d cared for Brianna?
Not Astrid. Me.
“Does the Baroness share your newfound fondness for the culinary arts?” she asked.
“God, no.” He laughed. “My stepmother’s idea of cooking is ‘Christiaan, dear, tell Cook they’ll be twenty for dinner’.”
“No, I meant your wife... the current Baroness.”
“My stepmother is the current Baroness.”
Vicky could barely breathe as the statement’s truth permeated her mind and heart. She set her fork down before she dropped it. He was supposed to remarry. He was supposed to marry Astrid.
Wasn’t that why he got rid of me?
Nevermind he was supposed to marry Astrid in the first place. Astrid was the one his stepmother said would carry the next van Laere heir. Astrid was the one he kissed on the balcony.
Astrid had left with Christiaan on his business trip the day after his birthday party. Astrid had answered the telephone in his hotel room. Astrid had stood next to him outside the Amsterdam police station when the TV news cameras ambushed him. They both smiled when a reporter asked, “Is it true Lady Astrid is the next Baroness van Laere?”
“You’re… not… married?” Vicky asked.
“No. I’ve loved only one woman in my life,” Christiaan answered, gaze locked on his plate. “And I lost her.”
The raw emotion that bled from those words tore through Vicky. The sincerity. The genuineness. The honesty. All a stark contrast to the monster she’d feared for the last eight years.
“But... the wedding band... on your finger...” Their rings were family heirlooms. She’d just assumed the band signified his remarriage to Astrid.
“I’ll always be married to Bri… and only Bri.”
No. No. No! You wanted me dead. I saw you. I heard you.
“So... you... didn’t… murder...” Disbelief and shock made the words wedge in her throat.
“Nee! I did NOT murder my wife!” Christiaan’s blue eyes darkened like angry thunderclouds. He jerked the gold chain out from under his shirt. Hanging from it was a small ring with white gold leaves intertwined around the band.
My wedding ring.
She’d left it in her car the day after their big fight. He’d refused to take her calls all day, making her so mad she’d yanked it off her finger and threw it in the cup holder. She’d thought about it later, but by then it was too late.
“Do you really think I could wear my wife’s ring if I’d had her murdered?” Christiaan cried out, his voice strained with pain. “Potverdomme, it’s all I have left of her.”
The wind whooshed out of Vicky, like someone had kicked her in the stomach. This was a man very much in love with his wife. He missed her. He mourned her.
Her. Me.
Reality gripped her heart like a cold hand.
My God. What have I done?
“I loved Bri.” Christiaan sighed then buried his head in his hands. “That damn explosion shredded all our dreams. For God sakes, we were starting a family!”
“What?” Vicky stared at him with disbelief. “What did you say?”
He raised his head and looked directly into her eyes.
“I was going to be a father!”
Christiaan’s breath hitched as the emotional pain of losing his son mixed with the strange blessed relief to share a secret he hadn’t shared with anyone. Not even Baz.
“You knew you were going to be a father?” Vicky asked, then began to nibble on her lower lip.
“Yes, I knew about the baby.” Christiaan no
dded. “The politie—police—told me. They explained it was routine in an investigation to review medical files.” He expelled a slow exhale. “A doctor performed a pregnancy test shortly before her death. It was one of the few personal details I was able to keep out of the press.”
Vicky sat perfectly still, her eyes darting left and right like searching for a way to put her thoughts into words.
She’s trying to find a polite way to say “Enough! Now you’re getting a little too personal.”
And he was. Why, he couldn’t understand. But telling these things to Vicky seemed.... right.
Christiaan stood and walked to the fireplace. “We’d been trying for years to have a baby.” He stared into the dancing flames, the heat warming his cheeks. “Specialists, herbalists, acupuncture, everything. You name it, we tried it. By the time of the accident, I’d given up all hope.” He paused to steady his voice. “She died carrying our child. Our son.”
“So… it really was an accident, wasn’t it?” Her voice faded as she pushed a hand through her hair.
“Yes. A plain... simple... devastating... accident.” Tears stung his eyes. “A gasoline leak onto a hot exhaust. When they told me her car had exploded, I expected them to say she was all right. That she’d lent her Jag to someone. Then they found her body and her...” A jolt of grief ripped through him at the memory of identifying the only recognizable remains of Bri… her wedding band. He’d immediately had a gold chain made to match and wore both ever since.
“Her body?” Vicki said in a broken whisper.
“Not all of it.” His mind burned at the thought of how little of Bri he’d had to mourn with.
“Why did the press call it murder?”
Christiaan spun around, his back to the fire. “Because that’s what they do,” he shot at her. “Isn’t that what you and your people counted on when you prompted that reporter to dig into Bri’s death?”
“I’m so sorry,” Vicky murmured, pressing her hands to her face. “I should have done something. I should have said something. I should have never believed you…”
Christiaan’s stomach clenched watching her wilt. She didn’t deserve the brunt of his anger. Her actions were motivated to protect something extremely precious to her. He had no room to talk. He’d been willing to steal her sobriety to save his company.
“No, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault the press has no scruples. Eight years ago, they cried murder as soon as they learned the police had questioned me. Of course, the authorities talked to me. It was a formality. The police always ask the spouse questions, especially when that spouse has ties to the Dutch royal house.”
“But the trouble in your marriage…,” Vicky said, her voice low and somber. “That was real, wasn’t it?”
She must sense my anguish. Christiaan sank down onto the warm hearth, his body slumped in despair.
“Yes,” he answered, pain etched into every word. “We were going through a rough patch, but I didn’t realize the depth until she was gone.” He’d punished himself for the ignorance ever since. Bri had needed him, and he wasn’t there.
“You loved her very much.” Vicky tapered those smoking gray eyes on him.
“From the moment we met.” He smiled at that memory. “I asked her to marry me only three days later.” After much pleading, cajoling, and blatant begging.
“Why her? You were the most eligible bachelor in Europe.”
Christiaan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled against his chin. “Bri was beautiful, brilliant, and brassy. So different than the women usually throwing themselves at me because of my title and money. After we married, she gave up her job as a reporter to travel with me on business.”
He studied Vicky’s curious expression. She stared at him with such intensity, waiting for the next chapter of his tragic romantic tale. Sadness darkened her eyes. The emotion warmed his heart.
“I must sound like a real sappy—what do you Americans call it—chick flick?”
“Yeah,” she answered, almost in a whisper.
Christiaan expelled a deep breath. “A chick flick with no happy ever after. Everything began to fall apart after we decided to try having a baby. The doctor advised Bri to stop traveling, so she spent more time at the estate... with my family. Big mistake.”
Tears sparkled her cheeks.
“She tried fitting into the hogere kringen—high society—but she never had a chance. They were never going to accept her, especially when my family refused to. Bri was the complete opposite of the childhood friend they’d hoped I’d marry. My father and especially my stepmother never missed a chance to remind Brianna she was not ‘our kind’.”
His voice changed to a high, shrill female tone. “‘Brianna, dear. One simply does not discuss politics or religion at dinner.’ ‘Brianna, dear. When one is in conversation, one’s eyes should not dart around the room to see who else is there. One should give her undivided attention to the person.’ ‘Brianna, it’s acceptable to be nice to the staff, but someone of our station never mixes with them.’ ‘Brianna, dear. Stop those tears. A van Laere does not show emotion.’” Christiaan’s voice returned to normal. “She never had a chance.”
“And turned to food for comfort,” Vicky said, gazing past him into the fire. “And alcohol.”
He weighed her with a critical squint. “How’d you know?”
“You mentioned it on the mountain,” she explained.
“Ah… yeah.” He nodded. “At the time, I didn’t really get any of this. I couldn’t understand why she overate, why she drank a lot. I didn’t realize the pressure my family placed on her to fit in, to produce an heir, all the stuff they seemed to think was important. I was too busy with my own pressures like keeping the family business together. I was the fourth-generation van Laere at the helm. Conversion to a European Union economy hit us hard financially, but that didn’t stop my father and stepmother from spending ridiculous amounts of money. It was all I could do to keep the company and my family’s finances afloat.”
“Really?” She glanced at him, then averted her eyes.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Nobody knew what was going on. That’s the van Laere motto. ‘Never complain. Never explain.’ Bri and I fought... a lot. At first behind closed doors, then...”
“In public.”
Christiaan nodded. He guessed she knew firsthand what he was talking about. She’d probably fought drunk in public with her loved ones.
“Bri created quite a scene at my last birthday party before she died,” he explained. “I don’t know where she got the alcohol because she’d instructed the staff not to serve her. But somehow, she managed to find a bottle of Scotch and drown herself in it.”
“Sobriety is not something you can just turn on and off like a faucet.”
Christiaan shivered as a sense of déjà vu nudged him. “Funny, that’s what Bri said to me that night.”
“It’s... it’s something we learn in AA,” Vicky said. “That’s how it is for an alcoholic.”
“And a workaholic, too.” He pointed to himself. “Only Bri didn’t want to listen. She said I loved work more than her. The funny thing is, I’d already started cutting back. We’d made a deal earlier that year. She’d stop drinking if I promised to stay home more. I was in the process of setting things up so I could stop traveling. I just needed to finish one last project. This one.” Christiaan dropped his head to stare at the floor. “Then I lost her… and none of it mattered anymore.”
He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound of the crackling fire behind him. The memory of that last night haunted him. He could still hear the yelling, the accusations spewing from both their mouths. If only he could do it all over again, talk to Bri again, he’d make it right. He’d love her like he should have.
“I’m sorry Bri,” he whispered to only himself. “I’m so sorry.”
“Are you okay?”
Christiaan took deep breaths until he was ready to look at Vicky in the eye. Those depthless
, smoky pools peered back at him with an intensity that surprised him. Intrigued him.
Scared him.
He’d just bared his soul to this woman. Why?
“I’m fine.” He tried proving it by clearing up the dishes. As he lifted hers, he dropped a tea cup on the flagstone floor. Shattered pieces flew everywhere.
“Potverdomme!”
If he wasn’t such a pragmatist, he’d have thought the mishap symbolic. Christiaan carefully carried the rest of the dishes into the kitchen and stacked them in the sink. He returned to the scene of the crime to find Vicky, broom in hand, rounding up the stray shards into a tiny pile.
“I sure hope that wasn’t a family heirloom or something.”
“It was.”
Christiaan’s heart sank.
“For somebody, I imagine.” She smiled. “I bought it at a thrift shop.”
He smiled right back. Wet droplets glistened on her long dark lashes, making her eyes twinkle.
He wanted to reach over and finish the kiss they’d started on the dance floor. How odd. He’d met this woman less than a week ago, but felt like he’d know her his entire life.
Could he be falling in love with her? Why her? Why now?
Vicky grabbed a dustpan from a nearby closet. She knelt down and struggled to sweep the broken pieces into it.
“Here, let me help.” Christiaan reached for the pan. His hand connected with hers and stayed there. The heat between them was palpable, burning hotter than the fire ten feet away.
Maybe it was the knight-in-shining-armor thing, saving her on the cliff. Maybe it was the peeping-tom bit, watching her pleasure herself in the shower. But right now, this knight would sell his soul to carry her upstairs and show her how much pleasure he could give her in the shower. The image of her wet, naked, and coming burned into his brain.
“But what about the divorce?”
H-e-l-l-o reality. “What?”
“Divorce.” Vicky looked at him quizzically. “The press mentioned divorce.”
“Some sleazy attorney said Bri had talked to him about one, but he never produced evidence to that fact. And the innuendo that I thought death was cheaper than divorce was just that... innuendo. They said the same thing about my father thirty-five years ago.”
'Til Death Us Do Part Page 12