Had he changed? Could he see past her grief-stricken words spoken in terror and desperation so long ago and move forward with compassion? Or would he shut down, hide behind his compulsion to control every situation?
This time he had to try to reach out to her first. Her heart depended on his compassion.
…
“Arguments spinning out of control are your area of expertise. All I did was try to give you what I thought we both wanted. Another baby. Guess I was wrong.” Zach turned away. “Shut down operation for the day. We’ll pick up the pace tomorrow. Make sure everything’s completed in time for the fundraiser.”
Kennedy’s stomach clenched when she heard his detached, back-to-business-as-usual tone. A void stretched between them, but still she tried to reach across the divide to give him a way to cross over her heart’s bridge.
“We have to talk about what happened the day we broke up,” she said.
“I haven’t got time to waste on old arguments.” Zach lifted his leather coat and shrugged it on. “Nor do I need to cope with another one of your manic outbursts.”
Every molecule inside her body chilled to subzero temperatures. Zach the Judge and Jury had returned in full force, and her only defense was to remain calm or explode. Otherwise they’d repeat the same argument, and she refused to be accused of overreacting again.
“I don’t have any desire to deal with your unwillingness to hear me out.” She rubbed the heel of her hand against her chest. “For once, listen to me without planning your response while I speak.”
He slanted his gaze across her body. “What’s the point? We promised to park the past where it belonged. This was a temporary arrangement that we agreed wouldn’t last.”
Her heart crystallized to ice. Zach’s retreat into his corporate shell obliterated Kennedy’s dreams. Where was the man who had exposed his heart to her? Where had the Zach gone who had shared his deepest wounds? She wanted that man to be in this room with her. Not this emotional robot.
He moved to step around her, but she caught his sleeve. She would not let him just ignore her this time. She would not let him run away from the pain. And she would not let him leave without hearing her out.
“We have to talk about Brianna.”
The lines in his face deepened and his eyes glistened. “I loved her from the moment you told me you were pregnant. I wanted her as much as I wanted you.”
She held his gaze. “I miss her, too,” she said quietly.
“Then why did you tell me you never wanted her?” he demanded.
Sorrow banded around her chest, popping the nails she’d hammered into the coffin holding her grief. After all the time they’d had to reconnect, to know each other again, Zach tenaciously gripped onto what had happened five years ago and rammed her with his anger. Had he forgotten everything he’d learned about her these past few weeks? Was she still to blame for her grief driving them apart?
A great sob welled inside her and pushed against her breastbone. All her anguish wracked through her in a tidal wave of tears she’d swallowed for years.
Tears she’d told him she’d finished shedding.
They clogged her throat, filled her eyes. “I couldn’t go through that kind of loss again.” If he could be the man she’d shared her bed with these last two weeks, maybe they had a chance to save their hearts.
“I thought we were happy.” Zach held her shoulders and closed the scant distance between them. “The pregnancy pushed us faster along the path, but I wanted to marry you. I wanted to try again. But you refused to listen to me. All along I believed you wanted a family, but you lied to me.”
A white-hot, searing pain pressed behind Kennedy’s eyes. She’d survived the lonely emotional desert once. But right now, with the memory so vivid, her courage to face another march through those arid, never-ending sorrows evaporated.
She blinked rapidly and tears trailed down her cheeks. “I meant it when I said I wanted a full house of sticky-fingered boys and tough-as-nails girls. But by the time I realized the baby’s movements had stilled, it was too late. And I endured the worst of losing the pregnancy alone.”
He shifted his jaw. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there in the beginning, but I moved mountains to be with you. I know I almost didn’t make it in time. But I was there when she was born. At the end, I was holding you. And I would never have left you alone during another pregnancy after the hell we went through.”
They’d induced labor while Zach had been on route back to the United States. She’d delivered Brianna just moments after he’d rushed into her hospital room. Their baby had arrived into the world still and cold and blue.
Kennedy struggled to control her racing pulse. She had to tell him the truth now if only to exonerate herself for the lie she’d given as an excuse five years ago.
“That’s just it, Zach. You thought we could have another baby, but it wasn’t possible.”
His brows lifted and he released his grip. “Why not? We were young, healthy, fertile. Everything was fine. Brianna was healthy up until the third trimester. Did you take on too much heavy work? Risk losing her by overextending yourself? Because there wasn’t any reason for me to believe you’d miscarry when I boarded the plane for Milan.”
His veiled accusation eviscerated her to her very core. “A part of my heart died when I saw the ultrasound and didn’t hear her heartbeat in the doctor’s office.” She clutched her abdomen and moved away. “I don’t need you to blame me for losing Brianna. I had plenty of time alone to lash myself with my doubts. Only you weren’t ever home long enough to hear them.”
“You shut down. You turned into an Ice Queen.”
“That’s because three days after I lost Brianna you went on another business trip.” The room’s temperature dipped. Outside the wind howled and keened. “You used your father’s company directives as an excuse to escape our horrible reality.”
He combed his fingers through his hair. “You changed. You weren’t the same person I’d fallen in love with.”
“How could I be?” she demanded. “You wanted me to replace Brianna with another baby right away. Babies aren’t like business deals that you can barter or trade, Zach. And even worse, you refused to hear my reasons for wanting to wait. And why it was important for me to be ready to face the possibility of losing another child.”
“Just because you had one bad pregnancy didn’t mean that you’d have another one.”
“That’s what you think because you believe you know everything.” She massaged her temples, suddenly weary. “But there’s one thing you forgot to examine when you fell in love with an only child.”
“So you don’t have brothers or sisters.” He planted his feet in a wide stance. “I’ve got half-siblings who still like to treat me like I’m trailer trash—you’re lucky you’re an only child.”
“My parents wanted a house full of children. But my mother couldn’t easily carry pregnancies to term.” Kennedy inhaled a deep breath, then released it slowly. “And she didn’t bother to tell me the problem was genetic until after we lost Brianna.”
He jerked his head back, then shook it slowly as he digested her words. He moved closer, his brows furrowed. “There have been advances in medicine.” Zach’s eyes focused sharply and pinned her with their intense determination. “I’ll find the best doctors money can buy. We’ll go to the top fertility clinics. I can make this all go away. We can have everything we’ve always wanted.”
Everything inside Kennedy that loved Zach shattered to a million pieces. Once again Zach thought he had all the answers. He hadn’t heard her. Not at all. All the memories of what they had once known and all the hopeful dreams for their future lanced deep and splintered her soul.
She couldn’t live with herself if she chose to subjugate her wishes to Zach’s overwhelming need to control every outcome of her life without consulting and understanding her feelings.
Kennedy removed her engagement ring. “I can never go back to that naïve girl’s place a
gain. Until you understand that I need control over my life, we have no way to bridge the distance that separates us emotionally.” She placed the emerald in his palm and closed his hand over it. “We have nothing to bind us anymore.”
Chapter Seventeen
Zach’s lungs constricted and his heartbeat seemed to stop for an instant. How could Kennedy reject the idea of building a family with him after all they’d been through these past weeks? He’d trusted her with his most closely guarded secrets. And in the process, he’d lost his grip on his heart.
She’d made a fool out of him once more. “You’re right.” Zach squeezed the ring until the edges cut his skin. “You’ll never be the woman I loved five years ago because you buried your heart alongside our daughter.”
The color drained from her face and she pressed her fist to her lips. “I thought you’d started to care for the woman I’ve become,” she whispered through her closed hand.
He tucked the ring inside his pocket and worked his jaw. He had to remove emotions from the equation. Never again would he allow her to make a mockery of him. “You were wrong,” he said. “You promised me once that you’d never hurt me again, but then I only have myself to blame. At least this time there won’t be a baby forcing you to stay with me.”
She dropped her hand from her mouth and raised her chin ever so slightly. “Unless you have business you want me to attend to, I’ll get out of your way.”
“Excellent idea.”
“I’ll move your stuff out of the suite and have it settled into another room until after the benefit. After that, I expect you’ll head back to New York.” She swept around him and toward the office door. “Good-bye, Zach.”
She left Zach alone without turning around to look at him one last time. Which suited him just fine, he thought, when he returned to his desk to rifle through the rest of the day’s paperwork and contractual obligations.
And then he saw the picnic basket she’d arranged for him and something inside him snapped.
They could have had everything again if Kennedy hadn’t been so resistant and unwilling to bend. He swept the basket off the desk, heard the contents crash to the floor as he zipped his leather jacket to his neck.
A long ride was what he needed.
Thirty minutes later, he’d ridden harder and taken the highway’s curves faster than the speed limit in a frenzied attempt to erase Kennedy’s face before she’d given him back his ring. But speed and risk failed to carve away the vision of her glistening eyes, or swipe away the hurt he had seen behind her pale mask of rigid determination to sever their ties.
Spent, unwilling to go back to the empty suite that awaited him, Zach pulled off the main road and drove to the hot springs. He cruised to a stop and kicked out the V-rod’s stand, then removed his helmet. After hooking it on the handlebar, he swung off the bike and walked toward the renovated site.
His chest constricted. Kennedy had gone to such lengths to bring the hot springs to life. Where once bushes had overgrown and taken the land hostage, there now stood pristine buildings of cedar and stone.
Zach stepped onto the natural pathway Kennedy’s crew had installed a week ago. Had it only been seven days since he’d believed they might have a chance? Clouds hovered over the mountain range and dipped low in the horizon, mirroring the emptiness in his gut.
A breeze kicked up and slapped his cheeks raw, but he trudged onward to the refurbished gazebo, which was located next to a majestic oak. Winter’s wild winds had stripped the mighty tree’s decaying remnants and exposed its outstretched branches.
An old, sick feeling settled deep in the pit of his chest. This place used to embody all his hope for the future, but now nothing remained. Zach veered off the new path and marched resolutely over the old trail, crunching over the skeletal foliage until he reached the grandfather of the forest.
He lowered himself next to the tree and rested against the trunk’s broad base. Here snow had fallen, melted in the daylight, and had iced over again to form a lacy white cover over bits of browned leaves and tiny acorns. The expanse reminded him of a baby’s blanket crocheted by loving hands.
His vision blurred and the pressure behind his ribs increased. When Kennedy had tested positive for pregnancy, he had been shocked, but the news had only accelerated him down a road he’d wanted to ride. But he’d lost his chance to know his mother’s namesake. He’d never see his little girl take her first steps or hear her first words.
The hot springs gurgled and bubbled just beyond the gazebo. Steam rose into the shadows now falling across the ground. For the first time in years he wished he could be with his mother again. He longed for the comfort of her arms wrapping around him. She’d know how to sweep the agony slashing through the walls of his chest with her words of wisdom.
But his mother was gone. And now he was achingly alone. More alone than he’d ever thought possible. Zach banged his head against the tree, welcoming the jolt of pain hammering against his skull. He had nothing left and nowhere to go. All he could do was return to the vast emptiness of his corporate life in New York.
More than five years ago he had everything. He remembered the first time he’d made love with Kennedy. The sweet taking of her innocence and the passion igniting between them after they’d buried a time capsule at the base of this very tree. They’d filled the container with letters, photos, and trinkets. Then they’d made a pact to wait ten years before opening the box and checking the contents.
He blinked and his cheeks grew warm with the hot track of his long unshed tears. Tears for a beautiful baby he’d only held for a fleeting moment while listening to Kennedy sobbing uncontrollably as they grieved their loss together. And the tears they had shed together when she’d whispered her agonizing pleas for him to fill her arms with their child.
The world spun around and he felt the forest floor slip from under him. Something powerful punched him low in the gut. He’d forgotten how much Kennedy had wanted Brianna. His rage about the unfairness toward the universe taking such a tiny life from them. And the impotence he’d experienced afterward when Kennedy had retreated behind a wall of sorrow.
He had wanted to fix things immediately. But nothing he’d tried had cracked through the despair separating him from Kennedy. So he’d done the only thing he knew how to do. He’d retreated into his father’s world.
In doing so, he’d abandoned Kennedy to cope with their unbearable and unthinkable devastation alone.
His selfishness and pride had underpinned every wrong decision he’d made in the aftermath. He’d been blinded by his failure to protect his child and his woman just as his father had failed Zach’s mother years before. All along he’d believed he was the better man. But in those days afterward, he’d been more like his father than not. And while he had anesthetized his broken heart with a business trip, Kennedy had hers savagely gouged by her mother’s revelation.
When he’d returned with his plans to make a new baby, he’d made it so easy for Kennedy to boot-kick him out of her life. He bulldozed over her objections with his bright ideas and vision to start a new family. And today he’d repeated the same selfish mistake. He’d never once considered her feelings, or how she’d been unable to fathom his optimistic plans because she’d been too emotionally brittle.
Twice he’d shattered the one woman who had the ability and the strength to give him what he needed most. Love. A wail ripped through his entire torso and his agony echoed into the depths of the blackening forest.
He’d lost everything all over again.
Chapter Eighteen
Days after she’d walked away from the only man she’d ever loved, Kennedy pulled on her warmest jacket and stepped outside to clear her head. Thirty minutes later, after tromping through the woods that surrounded the lodge, she couldn’t bring herself to go back inside. She preferred the chilly exterior to the emptiness that waited for her in the suite.
A shiver crept along her spine. Tomorrow the resort would host the ALS fundraiser. Michael ha
d made it through the crisis, but no one could be sure if he’d be well enough to travel. If Michael couldn’t give his speech, then the plans for the benefit palled. The wind kicked up, swirling brown leaf remnants around her feet.
She kicked a stone and watched it skip over the winter-packed dirt.
Gray overcast the sky’s low hanging clouds, and the stark, dreary grounds reflected the carnage in her heart. After she’d packed Zach’s belongings and sent them to his new room, she’d gone to his office with the key card. There she’d discovered the contents of the picnic basket on his floor.
An hour later, she’d heard the telltale roar of Zach’s motorcycle in the distance. She’d half-expected him to return and beg her for another chance. After all, he never took no for an answer if he thought he had a chance to win.
But he had left the resort. And she’d never been lonelier.
Tears pricked behind her eyes, and her throat felt scraped raw. She still loved him. No matter how much she’d tried to erase him from her brain, she couldn’t stop the yearning inside. But unless Zach could accept her without condition, she couldn’t be with him.
She deserved to be loved no matter what decisions she made about her body. Even if they ran opposite to Zach’s will.
Kennedy tugged her coat around her and raised her chin as she walked into the lodge. Smoke curled in the lobby’s fireplace, scenting the air. People laughed and chattered as they sat in plush seating areas scattered around the grand fireplace. Servers wove around the tables and leather chairs, their trays filled with their new chef’s culinary creations and steaming mugs of hot chocolate.
Everything she and Zach had strived to create had come to life in this once ramshackle lodge. She hoped Shannon and Paul Sullivan would be able to appreciate the changes when—if—they arrived at Sweetbriar Springs with Michael for the fundraiser.
The Maverick's Red Hot Reunion (Entangled Indulgence) Page 16