Project: Runaway Bride

by Heidi Betts

  “And now you’re breaking up with me.”

  “What do you want from me, Reid? I told you from the beginning that we couldn’t let this get serious. What would people think if they found out I’ve been spending all this time with you when I still haven’t made it public that I broke the engagement with Paul? As far as my friends and family are concerned, they’re just waiting for the invitations to arrive.”

  “So you’re ashamed to let anyone know you’re involved with me,” he bit out with no small amount of bitterness.

  “No!” With a huff, she put her hands on her hips. “For heaven’s sake, it doesn’t have anything to do with you. Not really. It’s...the timing, and...everyone’s expectations.”

  She paused and took a deep breath, her chest lifting beneath his unbuttoned shirt and the silky material of her camisole. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, almost apologetic.

  “My entire life, I’ve always done what my parents asked me to, what they expected of me. Zoe has always been a wild child, Lily is a free spirit, but I was their ‘good little girl.’ Maybe because I’m the eldest, I don’t know. But you have no idea how hard it was for me to work up the courage to quit my job in Connecticut and move here to work with Lily designing handbags. I was terrified of disappointing my mom and dad. And even though they accepted the decision, I don’t think they were very happy about it, which just made me feel more guilty.”

  She sighed. “I haven’t even told my parents yet that I called off the wedding. They’re going to be furious, and can you imagine how much worse it will be if they find out I’ve been playing house with you while I’m supposed to be preparing to walk down the aisle with Paul?”

  Shaking her head, she wiped her palms nervously down the outsides of her bare thighs. “I’m sorry, but I can’t deal with it. If things were different... If we’d met and started our little tryst months after Paul and I were history, it wouldn’t be so bad. But I can’t deal with them doing the math and figuring out that we hooked up before my broken engagement was even cold...or worse yet, the truth—that the engagement wasn’t quite as broken as it should have been when we started seeing each other.”

  Her hands stopped moving against her thighs and she crossed her arms, hugging herself. He watched the muscles of her throat roll as she swallowed. “Maybe later, after things settle down,” she said barely above a whisper, “we could reassess and start seeing each other again. We could try for normal instead of sneaking around.”

  Reid scowled, remaining deathly still where he sat on the floor for fear of what he might do if he stood up. “Don’t do me any favors.”

  The color leeched from her face. “Please don’t be like that. You knew this is how things would end,” she told him quietly, her light blue eyes apologetic but determined. “And I don’t want to spend our last moments together fighting.”

  It was the please that did it. The please that got him to bite his tongue. To remain silent instead of raging about the bad decision she was getting ready to make or the kick to the gut she’d delivered just as he was prepared to bare his soul and ask her to stay with him. Good thing she’d stopped him before he’d put that foot in his mouth, wasn’t it?

  The silence that filled the room was so heavy it was almost painful to bear. But he knew if he opened his mouth to say anything, it would be something he’d live to regret. So he kept his lips pressed tight, teeth clenched so hard he was afraid they might snap.

  After a while, when she realized he wasn’t going to say anything more, Juliet dropped her arms, shoulders following suit as she sighed. Without a word, she shrugged out of his shirt and draped it carefully over the back of the armchair, then lowered her chin and padded quietly out of the room.

  For all he knew, she’d been pregnant even then. Looking back, he shouldn’t have let her go. He should have gone after her, continued to fight, hashed it out with her once and for all until she saw reason and decided to stay with him.

  But he hadn’t. He’d stood there in the study, listening as she climbed the stairs to the bedroom, where she’d gotten dressed and collected the few items she had at his place, then come back downstairs and walked out.

  Out of his house, out of his life...but never quite out of his mind. Or his heart.

  * * *

  What little light reached him from the lamp on his desk glinted off the amber liquid in the highball glass in his hand as he shook off the clinging bleakness of the memory. Reid turned it this way and that, playing with the different facets and angles.

  Having Valerie walk out on him all those years ago had been painful. He’d felt as though the rug had been yanked out from under him because he’d let himself make plans. Plans to marry her, settle down, start a family. All in the natural order, things going along as he’d always expected them to.

  But even then, the worst part had been the loss of his child. A child he’d never met, but who’d still left a tiny hole in his soul when he was taken away. He hadn’t known for years that the child had been born and was out there somewhere, being raised by another man. But that only changed the sense of loss; it didn’t necessarily make it better or worse.

  Now, though, there was an ache in his chest that just wouldn’t go away. It had started the night Juliet told them they were through and walked out of his life...he’d thought forever. The moment he’d realized she was no longer going to be in his life. Filling his house with her soft voice and feminine laughter. Giving him something—someone—to look forward to at the end of the day, somebody significant to talk with and confide in about more than business and the weather.

  The ache was still there when he’d tracked her down at her family’s lake house, though he’d done his best to hide it, ignore it, spackle over it so the pressure didn’t weigh him down and keep him from functioning.

  Then she’d told him she was pregnant, and the steady throb had changed to something warm and comforting. Almost like...hope. He was getting a second chance at all those things he’d given up on so many years ago.

  He was also getting a second chance to be with Juliet, which he’d wanted all along.

  But the ache was sharper now. Vast, throbbing, worse than ever. And somehow he couldn’t see it going away or getting better over time. This time, he was pretty sure the trauma was permanent.

  Because—as it had clearly taken him much too long to acknowledge, even to himself—she mattered to him. With or without a baby between them, it was Juliet who’d strolled in and changed the status quo. She’d changed him—inside and out.

  A beat passed. Another flicker of light across the surface of his scotch. Another jolt of heat from his throat to his stomach as he threw back the liquor and contemplated pouring another.

  He’d thought he could forget her, put the fevered passion of their affair behind him and go back to his normal, quiet life. The problem was, he didn’t want to put it behind him this time or pretend it didn’t bother him. He didn’t want to let Juliet go or see his child only on weekends.

  To hell with that, all the way around. A baby, it turned out, was just the justification he needed to turn this situation on its head.

  Glass clinked as he set his drink none too gently on the table at his elbow and climbed to his feet.

  Juliet had walked out on him twice now, and both times he’d let her go.

  She wasn’t going to get a third chance.

  * * *

  When Reid showed up at the door of Juliet’s loft, he was as sober as a judge and wasn’t about to put up with any bull. He’d had a meeting early that morning that hadn’t gone very well, and now this.

  He probably should have put it off another day or two. Or at least another few hours, until he was in a moderately better mood. But he was dressed to impress—charcoal slacks and suit jacket, light blue shirt and dark blue tie, all pressed and polished and professional—and figured putting his best foot forward with Juliet wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

  Raising his hand, he rapped his knuckles a
gainst the dark gray of the reinforced-metal door. He waited and was about to knock again when it opened.

  He’d expected Juliet or one of her sisters to answer, but instead, Reid found himself standing face-to-face with Lily’s fiancé, Nigel Statham. Reid had had a number of interactions with the man because of his involvement in the investigation into the theft of Lily’s designs. The theft had come from inside the California branch of the U.K.-based Ashdown Abbey, which the Statham family owned and Nigel was currently running.

  Reid certainly hadn’t anticipated seeing the man here, though. And from the looks of it, Reid was interrupting something.

  Nigel’s shirt was untucked and had clearly been rebuttoned with haste and a lack of precision, leaving the tails uneven. The fact that they were untucked at all was telling enough, given what he knew of the straitlaced Brit.

  Reid cleared his throat, feeling suddenly awkward and intrusive. The chances of Juliet being at the loft while her sister and her sister’s fiancé were in the middle of...what they were obviously in the middle of was unlikely. But since he was here and had already stepped in it, it would have been even more peculiar not to go ahead and ask.

  “Hey,” Reid said. “Sorry to, um... Yeah, sorry.” He let the apology drop with a man-to-man shrug of the shoulder.

  “I came to talk to Juliet,” he continued. Then, already knowing the answer, he said, “I don’t suppose she’s here.”

  “No,” Nigel responded. “It’s just...”

  He trailed off as Lily came to stand at his side. Her hair was mussed, and her buttons were in no better shape than her fiancé’s.

  “Just the two of us,” Nigel finished.

  Reid nodded in understanding.

  “I don’t think Juliet wants to see you right now,” Lily told him quietly.

  To his surprise, she didn’t sound defensive or angry. Even her expression was soft, almost sympathetic.

  “She’s been through a lot,” Lily added. “She needs some time to herself.”

  “I know,” he replied, digging deep for a modicum of calm. After all, Lily wasn’t the Zaccaro he had big, fat issues with. “But I need to talk to her.”

  Lily lifted her gaze to her fiancé. They exchanged a glance, Nigel finally lifting a shoulder as if to say it’s your call.

  Reid frowned, his voice harsher than he intended when he said, “She’s carrying my child. Don’t you think that buys me a little consideration?”

  Nigel’s arm went around Lily’s waist and he tugged her protectively close, making Reid feel like a first-class heel. Judging by the confusion on the other man’s face, he didn’t know any of the details behind Reid and Juliet’s relationship, but without a doubt he was going to step in and back Lily no matter what.

  Reid could respect him for that, but if he had to reach out and shake Juliet’s sister to get the information he needed, then he would do it. Or at least get as far as he could before Nigel put him on his ass. Which was no less than he would do if their situations were reversed.

  He tried once more for the calm and reasonable approach. Meeting Lily’s blue eyes, which were just a couple shades lighter than Juliet’s, he let her see his sincerity and quite frankly, his need.

  “Please,” he whispered.

  A few seconds passed, and then she let out a sigh.

  “She’s not here, in New York,” Lily said. “She and Zoe went to Connecticut to visit our parents. And I think Juliet wanted to patch things up with Paul.”

  Twelve

  Reid gripped the steering wheel, his speed hovering well above the legal limit. The prospect of getting pulled over wasn’t even a blip on his radar, however.

  His blood pressure was too high, his mind cluttered with what Lily had told him back at the loft.

  So Juliet wanted to patch things up with Paul, did she?

  His teeth gnashed together so hard he expected them to turn to dust.

  What had happened to her declaration that she was through with that misogynistic jackass? Or that said jackass wouldn’t want anything to do with her now that she was pregnant with another man’s child?

  Then there had been Lily’s parting shot and reminder that she didn’t think Juliet wanted anything to do with him at the moment. That she needed some space, needed some distance, wanted to be alone. Translation: she wanted to stay far away from him.

  Well, too damn bad. They’d had an understanding of sorts. In addition to saying she was done with the ex-fiancé, she’d claimed he would have total access to his child and full disclosure on the pregnancy.

  Taking off without warning to parts unknown—aka Connecticut—was a breach of that accord, as far as he was concerned.

  He hadn’t bothered arguing with Lily or filling her in on his so-called agreement with her sister. It was none of her business, and she was never not going to be on her sister’s side about every little thing, anyway.

  He’d left Lily and her fiancé to whatever they’d been doing before he knocked on the door and headed back to his car, loosening and stripping off his tie in angry jerks along the way.

  Crossing town to his office, he’d avoided stopping to converse with anyone, bypassing employees and cubicles until he could close himself in behind his desk and look up the address for Juliet’s parents’ home in Connecticut. It would have been easier to simply ask Lily for it, but then she would have called Juliet and told her he was on his way, and he didn’t particularly want her to have advance warning of his arrival. He also could have called and asked his personal secretary for the information, but hadn’t particularly wanted anyone in the office knowing what he was up to or asking questions about his absence later.

  Jotting the address on a slip of paper, he exited his office again, telling Paula to clear his schedule “for a while” before taking the elevator downstairs and climbing back behind the wheel of his Mercedes. He entered the Zaccaros’ address into his GPS and took off, amazed he didn’t chew through his seat belt and half the dashboard before he managed to make it out of the city.

  Now there were only mere tenths of a mile left until he reached the Zaccaro estate, and his internal temperature hadn’t lowered a single digit. He was all but steaming from the ears.

  He also had no idea what he was going to say to Juliet when he saw her, he just knew he needed to get his temper under control before that happened. He was not her ex, and he was never going to be, no matter how furious or frustrated he might get with her.

  Pulling up the long, circular driveway, he came to a stop several yards from the front of the sprawling white house with its black shutters and pristine, brightly blooming flower beds.

  He cut the engine and sat there for a while, waiting for some sense of Zen tranquility to wash over him. Which, of course, didn’t happen. The best he could manage was a slow, even inhale and exhale and a small amount of mental clarity.

  Go to the door, lay things out for Juliet in straightforward, no-nonsense terms. Let her think it over, and if his point of view didn’t work for her, go to court and fight for his right to see his child.

  It wasn’t his first choice by a long shot, but he wasn’t going to sit back and watch the same thing happen with Juliet and the son or daughter she was carrying that had happened with Valerie and the son he hadn’t even known had been born until years later. Not when what he felt for Juliet was a thousand times stronger than anything he’d ever experienced with Val.

  He got out of the car and crossed the paved drive to the redbrick front porch with its tall white pillars on either side of the door. His footsteps were the only sound other than a gentle breeze blowing through the nearby trees until he raised a hand and pressed the doorbell. He heard the muted chime from inside the house, and wondered at the intense pounding behind his rib cage as he waited for someone to answer.

  Once again, he was prepared to find Juliet on the other side, and once again he was confronted by a different Zaccaro sister instead. This time, it was Zoe. She was smiling when she opened the door, but the minute
she saw him, her blue eyes went ice-cold and her mouth turned down in a frown that was only one short trip away from a glare.

  He blew out a breath and thought, Here we go again.

  “Hello, Zoe,” he said by way of greeting, making sure to keep his tone low and almost sickeningly polite. The last thing he needed was to give this sister more reason to be wary of or upset with him and go into full gatekeeper mode. He had enough negatives stacked against him already, thank you very much.

  She didn’t respond, merely crossed her arms over her chest and tapped the toe of one of her glittery stacked heels. She was a little underdressed for visiting her folks, he thought, taking in her tight dress and the amount of skin left bare both above and below the slinky material.

  But of course she hadn’t asked for his opinion, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to give it. Not when he was trying to make nice and extract information from a woman who was quickly taking on some of the less attractive characteristics of an out-of-control pit bull.

  “I’m looking for your sister, Juliet,” he said, as though any part of that explanation for his presence was actually necessary.

  “I know who you’re looking for,” she snapped, the tapping of her foot growing faster and louder. “I just don’t think she wants to see you.”

  Reid’s jaw clenched, molars fusing together as he fought to hold on to his temper. He was getting really tired of hearing that.

  He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring as he counted to ten. Through his teeth, because he just couldn’t get them to part that much, he said, “Would you please tell her I’m here and let her make that decision on her own?”

  Zoe’s eyes narrowed. She looked him up and down, freezing him with her snooty-rich-girl stare.

  Finally, she seemed to relax the slightest bit. Her arms loosened, her self-designed daZZle heels stopped clicking against the foyer floor and she tipped her head to one side.

  “She’s not here right now,” Zoe said softly. “She went out for a while.”