Nine Months to Redeem Him

by Jennie Lucas

  And Edward acted as if I weren’t there, holding his arm tightly. Finally, my pride couldn’t take it.

  “Excuse me,” I murmured, forcing my hands off his arm. “I need a drink.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” Edward said politely, as if I were a stranger, some old lady on the subway.

  “No.” I held up my hand. “I, um, see someone I need to talk to. Excuse me.”

  Was that relief I saw in his eyes as I walked away?

  Awkwardly, I glanced toward Victoria St. Cyr and her friends standing by the dance floor. Turning the other way, I headed toward the buffet table. At least here I knew what to do. Grabbing a plate, I helped myself to crackers, bread, cheese—anything that promised to settle this sick feeling in my belly.

  Was there any point in telling Edward I was pregnant, when it was clear he was already thinking up excuses to end our relationship?

  “It won’t last.”

  Victoria stood behind me, with two of her friends.

  I stared at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t mind her,” one of the friends said. “She’s not used to seeing Edward with a girlfriend.”

  Girlfriend made it sound like we were exclusive. Which we weren’t. Well, obviously I was not dating anyone else. Was he?

  My breath caught in my throat as I suddenly looked at all his late nights in a brand new light. The nights he hadn’t even come home, when I’d assumed he was at work...could he have been with someone else? He’d never promised me fidelity, after all. I hadn’t received a single word of commitment or love. In fact, he’d promised me the opposite.

  “I wouldn’t say I’m his girlfriend,” I said thickly.

  Victoria pounced. “What are you then?”

  “His, um, physical therapist.”

  They all stared at me, then burst out laughing.

  “Oh, is that what they’re calling it now,” one said knowingly.

  “It’s true.” At least it used to be true. “Edward was in a car accident in September...”

  “That’s right.” Victoria St. Cyr looked at me thoughtfully. Diamond bangles clacked over the music of the nearby quartet as she held up her hand. “Doesn’t that all make you worry?”

  “What?”

  “Edward’s accident.” She sighed. “He was so in love with that American maid who worked at a nearby house.” She looked me over insultingly. “She looked rather like you, in fact. When she fell pregnant, he helped her leave London and flew her all over the world for a year. But when she had the chance to marry the father of her baby, she dropped Edward without a thought.”

  “The other man was a Spanish duke,” her friend added, as if that explained everything.

  “Edward actually tried to blackmail her into leaving her new husband—and her baby. Fortunately, the car flipped down the hill. But if the Duke and Duchess of Alzacar had pressed charges, Edward would be in jail.” Shaking her head, she said coldly, “He should be in jail. Rupert should be CEO.”

  Did she think this new knowledge would devastate me? “I know all that,” I said coldly, though I was shaking. “And you’re wrong. Whatever mistakes Edward made in the past, he deserves to lead St. Cyr Global. He’d never sink a billion-pound deal like his cousin tried to do.” I drew myself up. “He’s twice the man your husband is.”

  Victoria stared at me dangerously.

  “Your loyalty is adorable,” she said softly. “But let me offer you a little friendly advice.”

  Friendly? Right. I said guardedly, “Yes?”

  “I understand your attraction. Truly, I do. The night I met Edward, I wanted him so badly, I would have done anything to get into his bed. Anything.” Her lips pursed. “Luckily I met Rupert before any damage could be done.”

  “Your point?”

  Her thin lips curled. “Edward is poison for women. You’ll see. He keeps a lover just long enough to use her body and break her heart before he tosses her in the rubbish bin. How long have you two been together now? Two months? Three?” She shook her head with a pitying sound. “You’re long past your sell-by date. Here.” She pushed a card into my hands. “Call me when you need a shoulder to cry on.”

  And she swept past me grandly, her entourage trailing behind her.

  Numbly, I looked down at the embossed card. It was like a business card, only gilded and elegant and clearly for society. It was the craziest thing I’d ever seen.

  Crumpling the card into a ball, I shoved it in my purse. Even living among the sharks of the entertainment industry hadn’t prepared me for this. Edward’s family was awful. No wonder he’d been a sitting duck for the first reasonably kindhearted person he met—that American girl he hadn’t wanted to let go. Because he loved her so much.

  While he was ready to dump me for a white lie I’d told, just because I’d wanted so desperately for him to think the best of me.

  Turning blindly from the buffet, I ran into a brick wall. Edward was standing behind me. I wondered how long he’d been there.

  “Having a good time?” he asked, his face inscrutable.

  “No,” I choked out.

  “It might be better with champagne.”

  “I don’t want any.” I looked up at his handsome face. Was he already trying to figure out how best to end our relationship? How to let me down easy, and without a fuss?

  I wanted him to love me. I wanted him to hold me close and never let go. Everything he’d told me—from the beginning—would never happen. Stupid. So stupid!

  My voice was nearly a sob. “I just want to go home.”

  For a long moment, Edward just looked at me. All around us in the ballroom, beautiful, glamorous people were laughing and talking, celebrating, and a few had started dancing to the music from the quartet. But as he looked into my tearful eyes, for a split second it was as if the two of us were alone again. Just like at Penryth Hall.

  “All right,” he said quietly. Taking my hand, he pulled me from the ballroom, stopping for my coat. His driver collected us at the curb.

  The streets of London seemed darker than usual. The rain had stopped, and the clouds had lifted. The night was frosty and soundless.

  We walked into his dark, silent house after he punched in the alarm code. I started to go up the stairs. He stopped me.

  “I never told you,” he said huskily, pulling me into his arms, “how beautiful you looked tonight.”

  My heart went faster. “I did?”

  “The most beautiful woman there by far.” Pulling me closer, he twirled a long tendril of my hair around his finger and murmured, “I was glad when you left to get a drink, because the other men were flirting with you so indecently I thought I’d have to punch them.”

  “They were flirting with me?” I said dumbly. I had no memory of any of this alleged flirting, or of any of the men who’d surrounded us. I just remembered clinging to Edward’s arm like a silent idiot.

  “Any man would want you.” His hand traced up my shoulder, my neck. “You’re the most desirable woman I’ve ever known.”

  “More than the woman you loved in Spain?” I heard myself blurt out.

  His hand grew still. His ice-blue eyes met mine. “Why do you say that?”

  I swallowed. But I couldn’t back down now. “Victoria told me you took care of her for a year, helping her when she was pregnant. After she married someone else, you still loved her. You wouldn’t let her go. You were willing to die for her.” I stopped.

  “So?” He spoke without apology, and without explanation. As if he owed me neither. It made my heart turn to glass.

  I took a deep breath. “Is it true she looked like me?”

  His dark eyebrows lowered. “Victoria said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was guessing.” His lips creased in a humorless smile
. “She never met Lena. But it happens she’s wrong. You look nothing alike.”

  I exhaled. Then I shivered. Lena. So that was the other woman’s name. “What made you love her so much?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why do you keep pushing?”

  “Because I...”

  I froze.

  Because I wanted to know what special quality this woman had had, that had made Edward love her so much, when he couldn’t even love me a little. Had she been pretty? Had she been wise? Was it the sound of her voice or the scent of her perfume?

  I wanted to know because at my deepest core, I yearned for him to love me the same way. I yearned for him to want to be with me. To stay with me. Raise a child with me.

  I was in love with him, and wanted him to love me back.

  My infatuation with Jason had been nothing, a schoolgirl crush, compared to what I felt for Edward, the man I’d healed, the man I’d shared a home with, the man who’d teased me and encouraged me and demanded I follow my dreams. The man who’d taken my virginity and shown me what physical love could be. The man whose child I now carried deep inside me.

  I was in love with Edward.

  Desperately.

  Stupidly.

  “Diana?”

  I took a deep breath. “I was just curious, that’s all.” I gave him a weak smile. “After hearing Victoria talk about her. What made Lena so different?”

  “Different?” Moonlight from the window caught the edge of his face, leaving his eyes in shadow. “Lena wasn’t different. She was ordinary, really. But she acted helpless, as if I were the only one who could save her. She made me think...I could be her hero.” His cruel, sensual lips twisted up at the edges. “Me. Isn’t that hilarious? But I almost believed it. I took care of her for months, asking nothing in return. Until she suddenly left me for the Spanish bastard who’d abandoned and betrayed her.”

  “That’s it? She acted helpless?” I could be helpless, I thought wildly. I felt helpless right now, looking at him, fearing there was nothing I could do to make him love me or want our baby.

  He shrugged. “I thought I deserved her. That I’d earned her.”

  I blinked. “You can’t earn someone’s love. That’s not how it works.”

  He gave a harsh laugh. “I’ve heard the words I love you from so many women...”

  “You have?” I whispered. No one had ever spoken those words to me, except for my family.

  “...but words are meaningless. Cheap. Women have said it after they’ve only known me a few hours—in bed. They barely knew me at all. They were just trying to trap me, to make me do something I didn’t want to do. To own me.”

  “You mean, make you commit?”

  “Exactly.” He gave me a crooked grin, then looked away. “But I always imagined love to be an action, not a word. If I loved someone, I wouldn’t say it, I’d show it. I’d take care of her, putting her needs ahead of my own. I’d put my whole soul into making her happy....” He cut himself off with a harsh laugh, clawing back his hair. “But what the hell do I know? I’ve never found love like that. So I gave up on it. And I’ve been happier ever since.”

  “I don’t believe that,” I said softly, looking at the stark emotion in his eyes. “I’m sorry that woman hurt you, but you can’t live the rest of your life closed off from love.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said flatly.

  Clutching my hands into fists at my sides, I whispered, “Do you still love her?”

  He choked out a laugh. “Love her? No. It all seems a million years ago. I was a different person then. I’m leaving them to it. The Duke and Duchess of Alzacar are happy together, with their fat, happy baby, happily married in their big castle in happy, happy Spain. I wish them every happiness.”

  His voice had an edge to it. A darkness. I searched his handsome face. “You’re sorry you tried to kidnap her...Aren’t you?”

  “I’m sorry I ever let myself care in the first place,” he said coldly. “I should have known better than to think I could be any woman’s hero. It’s not in my nature. Now...I know who I am. Selfish to the core. And glad. My life is completely within my control.”

  Looking up at him, my glass heart broke into a thousand shards, each of them sharp as ice. “So you’ll never have a wife—no child—no family of any kind?”

  “I told you from the beginning,” he said harshly. “Those are things I do not want. Not now. Not ever.” With a deep breath, he took a step toward me. Gently, he cupped my cheek with his hand. “But I do want this. You. We can enjoy each other. For as long as the pleasure lasts.”

  His palm was warm and rough against my cheek, and I suddenly felt like crying. “It could be more. You have to know—”

  He was already shaking his head grimly. “Don’t do this to me, Diana. Let this be enough. Don’t ask for more than I can give. Please. I’m not ready to let you go. Not yet—”

  Pulling me tight against his hard-muscled body, he kissed me passionately in the shadowy stairwell of the Kensington townhouse.

  I knew I should stop him, to force him to listen, to tell him the two things that were causing such anguish—joy, terror, desperate hope—in my heart.

  I loved him.

  I was pregnant with his baby.

  But I was scared the moment I told him, our relationship would end. He’d see me and the child I carried both as unwanted entanglements. Because he’d already made up his mind about what he wanted. And what he didn’t want.

  He wasn’t going to change.

  Holding him tightly, I returned his kiss. Tears streaming unchecked down my cheeks, adding salt to the taste. His lips gentled as he pressed me back against the wall of the stairwell. My head fell back as he kissed down my throat. I gasped, trembling, caught between desire and the agony of a breaking heart. How could I realize I loved him, only to lose him the same night? Blood rushed in my ears like a rhythmic buzz.

  Edward pulled away with a curse, and I realized the buzz was actually his phone ringing. But who would call him so late? A business emergency? A secretary?

  A mistress?

  No. Surely not. But we’d never promised fidelity. He’d promised only pleasure.

  “It’s not me,” he said shortly, looking at his phone.

  Frowning, I reached down for my tiny purse that had dropped to the floor, and saw it was actually my new phone ringing. But other than Edward, the only person who knew the number was my stepfather, who’d just wrapped up production in New Mexico.

  I stared down at the caller ID.

  “It’s Jason,” I breathed.

  “Black?” Edward’s scowl deepened. “Why is he calling you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Has he done it before?” he bit out, almost unwillingly.

  I shook my head. “Something must be wrong... Oh my God.” Images of Howard or Madison hurt flashed in front of my terrified eyes. Turning away, I answered anxiously, “Jason?”

  “Diana?”

  “Why are you calling me?”

  “I’m in California... I got the number from Howard.”

  “What’s happened? Is someone hurt?”

  “Yeah. Someone’s hurt.”

  I held my breath.

  “I am,” he said quietly. “I made a horrible mistake.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean, you made a mistake?”

  Edward had been glowering beside me. But at this, he turned on his heel without a word. I watched him stalk up the staircase. Was he mad at me for answering a call in the middle of our kiss? But that wasn’t fair. He was the one who’d picked up his phone first.

  “I shouldn’t have cheated on you,” Jason said on the phone. “I should have known we’d get caught. Even at night, there’s always people around the Eiffel Tower. I have so many regrets.
I should have...” His voice trailed off. “You know Madison and I broke up.”

  “I know,” I said gently.

  He exhaled. “Is there any way you can ever forgive me?”

  “Sure.”

  He paused. “Really?”

  I realized somewhat to my own surprise that I’d forgiven and forgotten long ago. The way I felt for Edward now, all the angst over Jason seemed a million years ago. It didn’t matter. As Edward had said—I was a different person then.

  “I forgave you a long time ago....” I said quietly.

  “Oh?” he said hopefully.

  “Because I’m in love with Edward now.”

  “Oh,” he sighed.

  I changed the subject. “But is there any chance that you and Madison...?”

  “Nah. She disappeared to India when we broke up. Now I heard she’s in Mongolia doing some independent film, out on some steppe in the middle of nowhere, no makeup trailer, no catering, getting paid at scale.”

  “Seriously?” That didn’t sound like her at all.

  “Crazy, right? Must be a nervous breakdown or something. At least, that’s what I suggested when I was interviewed last week for People magazine.”

  He was giving interviews about Madison, suggesting she’d had a nervous breakdown? I didn’t approve of that at all. I thought of Edward, waiting for me upstairs. “If that’s all you called about...”

  “No. Here’s why I called. I’m costarring on a web series. It’s just a side project, a spin-off to promote my movie sequel coming out next summer. But the lead actress just ducked out an hour ago to go back to rehab.” He paused. “I thought of you.”

  “You...what?” I said faintly.

  “Don’t get too excited. The pay is next to nothing. But the movie has a large cult following, and good visibility. So even though it’s just on the web, it could help you get the attention of agents....”

  As he continued to speak, I stood in the dark foyer, swaying. I felt lightheaded.

  “...and you wouldn’t even have to audition. I have that much pull, at least.” He paused. “Diana? You still there?”