Road to Seduction (Kimani Romance) (15 page)

No, she wanted to snarl.
I don’t forgive you. I can’t have children practically because of you. I’ll never forgive you
.

But then she thought: what was the point? He was sorry, she was sorry, and it was over. Life went on and she couldn’t waste any more time being bitter. Nor would she introduce her infertility into this already painful discussion. Al didn’t know and he felt bad enough as it was. And she couldn’t handle everything else.

“It’s okay.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, but she didn’t want to take them back.
Surprise, surprise.
Her sudden anger was waning, as fleeting as a tropical summer storm now that she’d had the chance to vent.
This was good,
she thought. This was right. This was unfinished business from her old life that she needed to address. She could do this. “
Really
. It’s okay. I just needed to say my piece, and I needed to hear you apologize and mean it.”

A choked sound—half laugh, half sob—rose up out of Al and he grabbed her hand. “Thank you.” She resisted the urge to pull away even though she felt lighter and better. “Thank you.”

This wasn’t so bad, really. They’d been close once and, although they’d never be close again, she didn’t want to hate him or even feel nothing for him. All of her intimate conversations with her mother had led to this.

“I mean it,” she said. “I wish you and your wife the best—”

He started glowing again, brighter this time. “You’re not going to believe this, Izzy, but—”

A sickening pit opened up in the depths of her belly because she somehow knew what was coming: agony of the worst kind. The one thing she couldn’t deal with—not now, not with this man, not with the yawning emptiness inside her that would never be filled with Eric’s child.

“No,” she said, feeling dizzy.

There was a limit to how much she could absorb…how much she could forgive…how much Al should expect of her. What he was going to say would push her well past that limit, possibly all the way into insanity.

No, no, no. Please, God, no
.

Snatching her hand free, she shook her head to stop him but it was too late because the words were already coming and her ears were already listening.

“—Lana’s pregnant. We’re going to have a little girl next month.”

“Oh, my God.”

The unstoppable words spewed from her mouth in an awful screech and she struggled to keep her legs under her and hang on to Zeus’s leash. For one awful second her heartsickness crossed over into light-headedness and she bent at the waist, certain she would faint.

She had a distant awareness of Al’s cry of alarm and his hands wrapping around her, holding her up. And then there was a shout from a new voice followed by a splash.

Her dimmed vision cleared enough for Eric, looking wild eyed and frantic, to come sprinting into view. She had the nonsensical thought that he must really be upset to run through the waves and get sand and salt water on his expensive shoes and pants because Eric hated messes, especially on his clothes.

“What did you do to her, you son of a bitch?” Sneering and growling, Eric shoved Al out of the way, looking as though he’d like nothing better than to dismember the smaller man with his hands and teeth.

“I didn’t do
anything
.” Al’s jaw flapped helplessly. “We were talking—”

But Eric had already dismissed Al and pulled Isabella into his arms with surprising tenderness. “Izzy. Are you okay, Sunshine? What happened?”

Isabella was feeling stronger now, and with the strength came embarrassment. What just happened here? She was making a scene because Al could have children and she couldn’t? What was wrong with her? And now Al would go back to the reception and tell everyone what’d happened, and soon all her friends would think she was cracking up. Maybe she
was
cracking up. But they didn’t need to know that.

“I’m okay.” Pulling free of Eric’s resisting arms, she swiped at her eyes and was dismayed to discover that her cheeks were wet. She hastily blotted her face with her palms. “I just…I’m a little tired—we’ve had a long trip—and I have…you know, a migraine. But I’m fine. Please don’t make a scene, okay? I just need a little rest.”

Al nodded, looking relieved, but Eric wasn’t so easily convinced.

“Izzy,” he began.

“Fine,”
she repeated, more firmly this time. “Why are you here?”

Eric’s expression cooled and hardened. Closed off and locked her out. He held up his cell phone, which she’d been too upset to notice until now. “The jet’s coming for us in about an hour. We need to get to the airport if we want to make it back for Andy’s baptism in the morning.”

A
baptism
. Isabella looked skyward in desperation, praying for the strength to get through a baptism and wondering how many more pregnant women and babies God was going to send her way this weekend.

“Yeah, okay,” she said. “Give me a minute.”

Eric muttered something she couldn’t quite hear, although she caught the gist and shot him a glare, which he ignored. Turning to Al, she smiled and spoke with sincerity because a precious
new baby was coming into the world and Al seemed to have grown into a man who would make a wonderful father.

“I’m really happy for you and your wife. Please give her my best wishes.”

Al leaned in to kiss her cheek and she stiffened, teetering on the edge of a full crying jag. “And you have my best.”

“And you’re going to have my foot up your ass if you touch Izzy or make her cry again,” Eric told Al, baring his teeth in a snarling abomination of a smile.

“Eric.”
Isabella reached for his hand lest she needed to keep him from tackling Al to the ground and pummeling him to dust.

Eric tensed and jerked free.

Al, who should have known better than to provoke Eric at this dangerous juncture—Eric was obviously holding himself in check only by the thinnest margin—shook his head and tightened his jaw.

“You never liked me, man. Did you?”

“No,” Eric said flatly. “Never did, never will.”

Al glared and lingered, as though he wanted to state his case for not being as big a jerk as Eric thought he was, but then Al’s one ounce of good sense finally kicked in and he left well enough alone.

Muttering darkly, he turned and walked off toward the reception, and Eric focused all his considerable energy on Isabella.

“What happened, Izzy? What’d he say to you?”

Staring up into Eric’s worried face, hearing the husky urgency in his voice and feeling his tentative touch on her cheek, Isabella couldn’t.

She just…couldn’t.

There was no way she could explain things to Eric right now, pretend that she was okay when she wasn’t or even reassure him that she would soon be okay. All those things required much more effort than she could muster.

“I…can’t.” She stepped away from his touch. “I can’t do this now.”

“We have to do it.”

“But not now, Eric.”

These words got exactly the kind of negative reception she’d expected. Eric stilled except for a telltale darkening of his expression and the rhythmic pulsing in his jaw. For several endless beats he stared past her at the surf, apparently collecting himself. When he looked back at her, his voice was soft but his eyes were fierce.

“You spend five minutes with that guy, and now I can’t touch you?”

“Not right now, no.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you still in love with him? Is that it?”

“No,” she cried. “
God, no
. Why would you think that?”

“Because the only other thing that could’ve upset you this afternoon is me telling you I love you.” His strangled voice dropped until it was barely audible over the waves. “And I can’t stand the thought of you crying because I want to marry you.”

The need to reassure him when he was so hurt and vulnerable was too powerful for her to ignore. “That’s not it.”

“What is it then? I know you’re hiding things from me. Don’t deny it.”

The long list of things she needed to explain scrolled through her brain and it was all she could do not to sink to her knees in the sand and howl like Zeus did when she put him in his crate.

It would be a relationship-ending conversation. She knew that. Eric would look at her with new eyes and want nothing to do with her. Maybe the best thing to do would be tell him tonight on the plane and have him stop in Cincinnati so she could go straight home. He wouldn’t want to take her to the baptism after this.

“We can talk on the plane and then you could drop me off in Cincin—”

“No,”
he said flatly, his face turning to stone. “You said you’d come to the baptism. And anyway we’ll be sharing the plane with some of my execs so we won’t have any privacy.”

“Okay.” Tears burned the backs of Isabella’s eyes, but she would not let them fall. She was Mama Jo’s daughter and she
was strong and could get through the baptism and dealing with Eric’s family and telling Eric. She had to get through it. “Can we talk tomorrow, then? After the baptism?”

“
Tomorrow?
Is it that bad?”

She couldn’t bring herself to add to the flare of panic she saw in his face, so she said nothing.

He seemed to glean the worst. “You’re scaring me to death, Isabella.”

“I don’t mean to.”

They stared at each other, time suspended. Zeus played at their feet, frantically digging in the sand looking for a scurrying yellow crab. Above them, on the deck, lanterns glowed and the faint strains of music—” Unforgettable,” she thought—began.

Finally Eric let out a long, harsh, serrated breath. “We have to go.”

“Okay.”

He didn’t move and in his dark eyes she saw emotions as changeable and turbulent as the crashing waves ten feet away. It hurt to see him so upset and know she’d done this to him, but she couldn’t—
simply could not
—tell him her deepest secrets and then spend all day tomorrow with his family pretending nothing was wrong.

“Please.” Swallowing hard, he held out a hand. “I need to touch you.”

Isabella hesitated, but not for long. She needed his touch and needed the illusion that their trip was still fun and they were still lovers. Even if it was just an illusion, she needed it.

She stepped into his open arms.

They clung to each other and she didn’t know whose need was greater or whose touch was the most desperate. All she knew was that for these last few seconds, on this beautiful beach under this exquisite sunset, she wanted to gather a little of his strength and imprint what it felt like to have his love on her memory and body.

His hands settled up under the hair at her nape, anchoring her to him while he kissed her cheeks and whispered fiercely in her ear.

“I love you, Isabella.
Love you
. There’s nothing you can’t tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll understand. I promise you.
Promise
you.”

Poor Eric,
she thought, digging her fingers into his shoulders to keep him close and teetering between hysterical laughter and hysterical sobs. He’d never make such a futile promise if he had any idea what she needed to confess.

E
arly the next morning, Eric was standing in his grandmother’s library at Heather Hill, staring out the glass doors at the pool—seeing nothing and wallowing in his miserable thoughts and fears—when a voice spoke behind him.

“What are you doing here?”

Andrew.
Eric winced because he hadn’t heard any footsteps and it was too damned early to deal with Andrew, especially considering the horrendous night he’d had. After saying a quick goodbye to the newlyweds, he and Izzy had left the reception, sped to the airport, hopped on the Lear and shared the flight back to Columbus with a couple of WarnerBrands executives. There’d been no opportunity to talk even if he’d been able to convince Izzy to abandon her clam routine and open up about what was troubling her.

Then, to his further dismay, she’d refused to go back to his house with him even though she always stayed there when she visited, insisting instead on spending the night at the cottage here at Heather Hill. Her obvious need to get away from him was a sickening blow to his ego from which he hadn’t recovered.

What the hell had happened? Eric’s disoriented brain still whirled with confusion, as though he’d just stepped off one of those stupid spinning carnival rides. Ten minutes alone on the beach with Al, and Izzy had become a different person. Aloof, quiet, hurting…walled off in some dark place where Eric couldn’t reach her. Unwilling even to spend the night under the same roof with him, much less let him make love to her.

And he, whipped punk that he was, had elected to sleep in his old bedroom here at the mansion rather than travel the five minutes to his own house and sleep in his own bed.
What if Izzy needed him?
he’d thought.
Hah
. There’d been no peep from Isabella, no whimper, no sign of her continued existence other than the warm glow of a lamp visible behind the closed shutters at the cottage. For all he knew she’d escaped to Mexico during the night.

Now here he was, running on fumes from another sleepless night. Oh, but there was more. On top of everything else, he now had to deal with his family, starting with Andrew. Scowling, Eric turned away from the view of the sparkling aquamarine waters of the Olympic-sized swimming pool.

“What am I doing here?” he echoed. “You might recall that
you
asked me to drop everything I was doing and cut my Florida trip short so I could be here for
your
son’s baptism.”

But Eric’s irritation died as soon as he saw who Andrew had with him. Baby Andy, who was about a year old now and as adorable as ever, was slung over the shoulder of Andrew’s navy suit jacket, chomping on one of those colorful chewy toy things that he held in his chubby little hand.

The poor child wore the unfortunate starched white suit of a baby about to be baptized and Eric wondered if they’d be able to keep it clean long enough for the ceremony. Behind Andrew trailed his adopted son, Nathan, who was now about ten years old.

Nathan wore a miniature version of Andrew’s dark suit, and his black shoes were shined to a sleek finish. Instead of a red power tie like Andrew’s, Nathan wore the bow tie with the
Star Wars
logo on it that Eric had given him at Christmas.

The boy had his head bent low and his face scrunched up over his beeping, chirping handheld computer game. Without watching where he was going, Nathan wandered to the nearest sofa, stopped when he bumped his shins against it, turned, and collapsed on it. Never once did his fingers stop flying over the game.

Eric grinned, his bad mood dissipating.

The kids were really something. Eric had always liked children, but these two were clearly exceptional.
His
children—God willing and assuming he had a major breakthrough with Izzy and convinced her to marry him—would be like this: smart, adorable and irresistible.

All his life he’d known that one day he’d have children and add to the Warner family tree, unfortunate though it was. But for the first time he felt that ache of longing in his chest. That raw need to make love with the woman he loved, to watch her belly swell and see her nursing his child. That primitive desire to hold his child in his arms and teach it, protect it.

Eric could even see the blurry outline of his and Isabella’s future baby. She’d—he didn’t know how he knew their first child would be a girl—have Isabella’s pretty brown skin and eyes and the same lush pouty lips. Maybe his height, but maybe not, and it didn’t really matter either way.

All those platitudes he’d always heard from expectant parents—
We don’t care what the baby looks like, we just want a healthy child
—now seemed like the wisdom of the ages. A healthy child and a loving wife was all Eric wanted or needed from his life. Could the universe offer a man any greater blessing? For the first time he felt impatient and realized he was ready for the adventure to begin, ready for that next, and most important, chapter of his life.

So, yeah, he wanted children. In the meantime, he’d enjoy these two.

“What’s up, man?” Eric rubbed his hand across Nathan’s skull trim, shaking the boy’s little head until it wobbled. “What’s the good word?”

“No good word.” Nathan didn’t tear his gaze from the game
but raised one hand long enough to receive Eric’s high five. “Andy can pull himself up now. And he tried to eat my baseball mitt.” Nathan stuck his tongue out in a disgusted scowl.
“Gross.”

Laughing, Eric shook Andrew’s hand and reached for the baby. “Come here, little guy.
Come here
.”

“What I meant was,” Andrew said, passing the baby along and then sitting on a loveseat, “what are you doing here
now?
I thought you were meeting us at the church in an hour.”

“Yeah, well. Change of plans.”

Big upsetting change of plans, but Eric didn’t want to dwell on that, especially with little Andy in his arms. He balanced the baby’s sturdy weight on his hip and Andy stopped chomping on his rubbery toy long enough to give him an intent blue-eyed stare that was a miniature copy, down to the heavy straight brows, of his father’s.

No need for any paternity tests here, Eric thought; Andy was his father’s son, no question. The baby studied Eric with the keen intelligence that was to be expected of any child of Viveca’s and Andrew’s, and then, apparently deciding that Eric was, in fact, okay, gave him a wide, dimpled smile featuring four tiny but perfectly square teeth—two on top, two on the bottom—like Chiclets.

Some answering chord of emotion squeezed Eric’s heart hard. Laughing, he leaned in to kiss Andy’s fat cheek, and Andy seemed to think that was the funniest thing that had ever happened in his young life. Giggling and delighted, he offered his toy to Eric, who pretended to take a loud bite. Andy screamed with laughter.

The drumming of high heels in the hall announced the coming of a woman, and they all looked around to see Viveca stride in looking beautiful, as always. She’d done something with her hair and it was longer and straighter now, but that wasn’t the only different thing about her. Her blue dress emphasized the generous curve of her bosom and, below that, the small but unmistakable curve of a baby bump.

Seeing the direction of Eric’s gaze, she grinned and
shrugged—
What can you do?
—and they both laughed. Eric pulled her in for a hug against his baby-free side. Viveca was one of his favorite people in the world and unmistakably the best thing that had ever happened to Andrew in his life.

“Another boy,” she told him.

“For crying out loud, man,” Eric said to Andrew over the top of Viveca’s head. “Can’t you give this poor woman a chance to catch her breath?”

“That would be a negative.” Andrew gave Viveca a swift proprietary glance—the look was filled with immense satisfaction, like a cat that’d jacked a milk truck—but had the grace to flush. “And that’s enough of you hugging my wife. I told you to get your own.”

“I’m working on it,” Eric muttered before he could stop himself.

Andrew looked around with surprise.

“Uh-oh,” Viveca murmured, perching on the arm of Nathan’s sofa. “You’ve done it now, Eric.”

Eric had already figured that out from Andrew’s laser-sharp gaze, which was now riveted to his face. Eric tried not to fidget although he couldn’t stop his cheeks from heating. Andrew’s eyes narrowed and a shrewd, sly smile, the kind that was always a precursor of trouble, crossed his face.

“Oh no,” he said on an annoying laugh. “So
that’s
what the two of you were yakking about on the phone.”

Eric and Viveca shot each other furtive glances, saying nothing, and then Eric concentrated on Andy, who was now purposely dropping his toy on the nearest side table so Eric repeatedly had to pick it up. None of this deterred Andrew, who now looked positively gleeful.

“Isabella making you jump through a few hoops, is she?” Andrew shook his head in a mock-regretful way that made Eric want to tackle him to the floor and acquaint the side of his face with the antique Persian rug. “Want me to talk to her for you?”

“No,” Eric said, making a rude gesture. “I want you to go—”

“Children,”
Viveca quickly interjected, clapping her hands
over an oblivious Nathan’s ears. “There are
children
in the room.”

Andrew laughed and held out a hand to his wife, who got up and moved to his love seat. The two of them settled together until they were practically in each other’s laps, with one of Andrew’s hands around Viveca’s shoulders and the other on her belly.

Eric felt renewed irritation. “Why don’t you two get a room?”

One of Andrew’s heavy brows rose with smug amusement. “Given your rotten mood,” he drawled, “I can only assume that things are not going well with you and the lovely Isabella. Did you blow it already?”

“No,” Eric snapped. He supposed this was karma coming back to bite him in the ass since Andrew was teasing Eric the way Eric had teased Andrew last year, when he and Viveca had hit a rough patch. “We’ve just got a few things to work out.”

This time it was Viveca who narrowed her eyes at Eric. “You didn’t—”

“No.”
Eric glowered, not bothering to hide his annoyance. His increased volume earned him a perplexed and vaguely worried frown from Andy. Eric soothed him by rubbing his back, and then lowered his voice. “
I
haven’t done
anything,
so don’t start accusing me.”

“She’s not still leaving…?” Viveca asked.

“Leaving?”
Andrew looked from Viveca to Eric. “Where’s she going?”

There was a long pause during which Eric wished he’d cut out his own tongue with pinking shears rather than open this whole topic for discussion with Andrew. “Johannesburg. To teach.”

This, finally, seemed to kill Andrew’s amusement. “Shit, man,” he said, pity creeping across his face. “You’ve got a serious problem.”

“Who’s got a problem?”

They all looked around to see the owner of this new voice, Arnetta Warner, the family matriarch, sweep in from the hallway. Today the Silver Fox wore a bright blue suit along with
her usual strand of fat gumball pearls, and held a pair of white gloves and a hat that seemed to have a peacock’s worth of feathers hanging from it.

Close on her heels came Franklin Bishop, the man who’d started out a thousand years ago as the butler and was now concierge, personal assistant, manager and occasional confessor to the entire Warner clan.

“Good morning, Grandmother.” Eric balanced the baby, leaned in to kiss the cheek Arnetta tilted up for him and shook Bishop’s hand. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes-I-did!” Arnetta, who lost all sense of decorum whenever her great-grandson was in the room, grinned at Andy, shook his chubby little hand, and spoke in the singsong voice that people couldn’t help adopting when addressing a baby. “Yes-I-did-sleep-well!
Yes-I-did!
”

Andy laughed and reached for Arnetta, who happily, though gingerly, took him. “Andrew,” she said, her voice crisp now, “where is this boy’s blanket? I don’t want to get drool on my suit before—oh, here it is.”

Bishop passed her a yellow blanket. Arnetta sat next to Nathan, kissed the top of his head, and then arranged Andy on her lap. Andy immediately twisted at the waist, reached for Arnetta’s pearl necklace, and tried to put it in his mouth. Arnetta pulled the pearls away and turned to Eric.

“If the problem you were referring to is Isabella’s dress for church,” she said, “I’m happy to loan her one of my suits. That dress she had on last night when you got here was a little, ah, colorful, dear.”

Eric tried not to be too irritated at this doting grandmother, but he just couldn’t manage it.
What was it with this family?
Appearances were always far more important than anything else. Better to be a couture-clad witch, for instance, than a kind soul who shopped the sales at Macy’s. Better to maintain a miserable fifty-year marriage than put the family through the scandal of a divorce. The content of your character didn’t matter around here as long as you looked like you belonged.

“I loved that dress,” Eric said flatly. In dire need of fortification, he headed for the granite-topped bar in the corner. “I love it that Isabella always dresses like a flower garden exploded on her. I love Isabella. I want to marry Isabella. Bloody Mary, anyone?”

“Eric.”
Too scandalized to maintain her baby voice, Arnetta turned to track his progress across the room. “You can’t drink before
church
—”

“With the kind of morning I’m having?” Eric splashed vodka in a tumbler and topped it with tomato juice and hot sauce. Normally he drank very little and never in the morning, but on a day like this, such measures seemed basic and essential. “God will understand.”

“—and what’s this nonsense about marrying Isabella? Why on earth would you want to marry a kindergarten teacher from Greenville, North Carolina, when you can do so much better?”