* * * * *
She stayed away—not long, she thought, but someone was shouting, and she swam back to find out who was making all the noise. She opened her eyes to find herself stretched out on the couch in the manager’s office, her head pillowed on Victor’s lap, his fingers curled around her shoulder, holding her in place. Jean was yelling into the phone.
“No, we aren’t going to drive her to the hospital, you drone! We’re not going to move her! We need an ambulance right now!”
“Tell them she’s pregnant,” Victor interrupted.
“Noooo, now means now, not twenty minutes from now.”
“Tell them they have to be very careful with her,” he said, ignoring Jean’s shushing gestures. “Tell them—”
“What’s going on?” Ashley asked fuzzily, honestly confused by all the commotion. She tried to sit up but Victor’s fingers tightened on her shoulder and he held her in place.
“Don’t try to get up yet, honey. How do you feel?”
“Tremendously embarrassed. What’s all the noise? And let me up, I’m fine now.”
“No,” he said stubbornly. “You’re not getting up until the EMT’s get you on the stretcher.”
“Hang up, Jean,” she said loudly. Jean glanced over and Ashley was touched at the naked relief on her friend’s face.
“Never mind,” she said, and hung up with a bang. She rushed around the counter and knelt by the couch. “Oh, Ashley, how do you feel? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, or I will be as soon as Vic lets me up.”
“She needs an ambulance,” Vic said loudly, and was ignored by both women.
“Ashley, what happened?”
She opened her mouth to answer and then she remembered exactly why she had fainted. Her gaze flashed back to Victor, whose jaw was tight with worry. She wrenched her shoulder out of his grip and he let her; she sat up very slowly. “I had a surprise, that’s all,” she muttered. “And I haven’t had lunch yet. When did you tell him?”
“Tell him what?”
“Shame on you,” Victor said quietly. “Jean would never betray you to me. Derik told me, of course.”
“Told you what?” Jean asked, exasperated.
But Ashley was nodding in tired resignation. Yes, of course Derik had told. Had she really thought she’d fooled him?
“I’ve known for over a week,” he went on, and she wanted to clap her hands over her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear any more. She resisted the urge. The time for willful denial was finished. “I kept waiting for you to call…come to see me…something. But you didn’t call and you didn’t come. You never told me. Did you do it to punish me?” The question was almost offhanded, but oh, the look in his eyes.
“Oh, shit,” Jeannie said, finally catching on.
The manager poked her head in. “Is the ambulance coming?”
“No,” the three said in unison. Ashley tried to stand; Victor stubbornly caught her hand and pulled her back down.
“Victor! Enough.”
“Rest,” he said implacably.
“I’m feeling better now, thanks,” she explained to the manager. “I’m just hungry.”
“It was the amount of the security deposit, that’s what did it,” Jean said loudly. “She couldn’t take it.”
“Quiet,” Ashley said sternly. She turned to Victor. “You want to talk?”
He gave her A Look, then abruptly stood and scooped her up. “Give me the key,” he told Jean, ignoring Ashley’s surprised squawk. “We need some privacy.”
“The hell! Put me down!”
“I’ll go with you,” Jean said hurriedly, opening the door. Victor strode through, and Ashley was so astonished she let herself be carried. “Sort of like a chaperone.”
“Terrific,” he muttered. They waited for the elevator in silence. Ashley kicked futilely, but he didn’t put her down.
* * * * *
They stood in the living room and looked at each other. Jeannie was outside, her ear doubtless mashed flat against the door. The better to listen in on you with, my dear, Ashley thought wryly.
Victor broke the silence first. “I made you pregnant.” It wasn’t a question.
“Actually, I prefer the term ‘knocked up’.” He didn’t crack a smile and she regretted being flip. “Yes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Wh—” My, my, the questions were certainly coming thick and fast. She shook her head to clear it. “Keep the baby, of course.”
He smiled, clearly relieved. “That’s—I’m glad. Thank you. When are you due?”
“August.” She sat on the floor, cross-legged. He looked down at her for a moment, then did the same. They were ten feet apart.
“Ashley, why didn’t you tell me?”
“How could I? ‘Victor, I never want to see you again and by the way, I’m pregnant with your child.’ Ha!”
“You were never going to tell me?” He sounded horrified, which made her feel small. Which made her mad.
“No. I wasn’t.”
“But why?”
“Because it was my problem, that’s why! And I didn’t need you in my life trying to fix things, trying to run my life with your money, trying to make everything easier on me.” She spoke with vicious sarcasm and he flinched from her tone. “Like you wanted to before.”
“But it’s my child, too,” he said stubbornly. “I can appreciate that the…circumstances…might have made things difficult for you, but that was no reason to keep me out of it. To deny me my own child.”
“I did what I thought I had to. Just like you did.” The words fell like actual weights, and Victor bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t speak right away. He didn’t want to frighten her, though at that moment he could easily have strangled her. She had been planning on bearing his child in secret, raising it the same way, when she knew he wanted children more than just about anything. It was hard for him to believe she could be so cruel.
“Victor, what happens now?”
More than a little startled at her brusque tone, he asked, “What do you mean?”
Her gaze was clear and her face was expressionless. “Nothing has changed, Victor. I still won’t see you. We aren’t going to be together. I had hoped never to see you again, but the baby makes that impossible. So how do we deal with this?”
“Stop it!” He heard the pain in his tone and was furious to give so much of his feelings away, furious but helpless against it. “Ashley, I love you. We’re going to be parents. I want to marry you and raise the baby with you.”
Her eyes, coolly blue, opened wide. “Marry? How can I marry someone I won’t ever have sex with?”
“You’re not going to let that one time dictate—”
“One time was plenty,” she assured him bitterly. “I won’t marry you. It’s unfortunate that despite everything you did, I’m still attracted to you.”
“It’s not just attraction, it’s—”
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But that’s just physical, I can deal with that. Join a support group, take a pill, something,” she muttered.
“I’m not a disease,” he said dryly.
She ignored that. “We aren’t going to live happily ever after. I’ll share custody of the baby with you, but that happens after he’s born. For now, everything in my note still stands. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want you to call, I don’t want anything to do with you, or your money.”
He could feel his eyes welling with tears but forced them back with sheer willpower. “Ashley,” he said, and for a wonder his voice was perfectly steady, “I’m telling you I love you and I want to marry you, raise a family with you.”
“God, Vic, will you stop? Why are you making me say these things? Believe it or not, I don’t want to hurt you, but you’re making me hurt you. We’re done, you and I. Find Crystal, see if she wants you again. God knows you were calling her name enough that night. It’s clear who’s really on your mind these days. Goodbye.”
She ran out, slamming the door and nearly knocking Jeannie into the wall. It was done, it was said. And if that didn’t send him away, her spoiled bitch-brat impersonation, nothing would.
My job now, she told herself grimly, is to try to never recall the look on his face when I said those awful, awful things.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It took him the rest of the day to recover from the conversation. It was strange how he had gone from being so happy to so utterly miserable.
He would just have to prove himself to her, he knew. He had shattered her trust and that would have to be remedied. It might take years. And it wouldn’t happen at all if she didn’t let him into her life. Now he had to make up for an event he had no memory of. He had to prove that he wouldn’t try to take over her life, her baby’s life, that he cared nothing for Crystal, and he had to prove that she had nothing to fear from him physically.
“I don’t see how you can do it if she doesn’t want you around,” Derik said.
They were working out at the dojo, and had been going hard at it for almost two hours. It was the only thing that helped. If his body was physically numb, he was too tired to feel the pain Ashley was willfully causing him.
Willfully—he pushed that thought away. She was protecting herself as best she could, as she had all her life. If she saw him as something of an enemy now, that was his fault, not hers, and his mistake to rectify.
“I’ve got an idea,” he told Derik. They were dressing with the slow care of men who were so exhausted they could barely stand. “About the only thing I’ve come up with. I think she’ll go along with it, but it will just make her more wary of me, at least in the beginning.”
He told Derik, whose mouth was hanging open by the time he finished. “Victor, you can’t! She’s only afraid of you now, a little spooked around you, but if you do that, she’ll hate you. Hell, I might hate you!”
“What choice do I have? She won’t let me into her life at all right now—every time I’ve seen her it’s been an accident or because I sought her out. It’s never been the other way around and it’s never going to be the other way around. It’s worse now than it was a month ago. It’s almost as if…” He trailed off. It was almost as if she was frightened all over again by their chemistry, by the fact that they made each other burn. Did she see lovemaking as a surrender of pride, of face? Did she feel that if she was in a sexual relationship with him that would mean he’d won?
Perhaps she felt ashamed, physically wanting the man who had forced her and called her another woman’s name. He could understand that.
“It’s the only thing I can try,” he said again. “And…beyond everything else, she doesn’t have any money. She’ll need help and she won’t ask for it. If the baby gets sick, she can’t afford…I can’t let the baby…I have to help her. Have to make her let me help her.”
Derik shook his head in commiseration while they finished dressing. Derik looked distinctly unhappy, and Victor empathized. Derik had probably hoped the happy ending would have happened by now.
He remembered how he’d felt when Derik told him he was pretty sure Ashley was pregnant. Shock, then tentative happiness. He was going to be a dad! It was, literally, a dream come true. And, almost as good, here was a way back into her life. Here was a way he could prove to her that she had chosen wisely, that he could be a worthy husband. He waited a week, hoping she’d call, more hurt and disappointed as each day passed with no word from her. Running into her at the apartment complex was pure chance—or was it? Jean had recommended he check there for vacancies, he remembered with growing excitement. He had told her he was selling the condo and she had mentioned Stormgarden Estates.
He smiled and shook his head. All along he’d had an ally, and he’d never realized.
Despite Jean’s possible assistance, the dilemma of how to deal with Ashley’s fear and distrust remained. As Derik pointed out, his plan would make her even more wary of him, but time was his enemy, and he couldn’t let Ashley hide herself away out of pain.
“How are you going to get her to even meet with you so you can lay it all out for her?” Derik asked, unlocking his car.
“I’ve already set it in motion. She’ll come to see me, all right, and she won’t be pleased.”
“At least you’ll start off on the right foot,” Derik said, rolling his eyes. He gave thanks for the hundredth time that he wasn’t in love with any of his lady friends.
He dropped Victor off at his office and went home, wondering what Vic had pulled in order to get Ash to lower her shields and agree to see him.
He found out the next day. Ashley was waiting for him outside his dojo, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk. He was pleasantly surprised but, as he got closer, saw she was well and truly pissed. She stomped up to him and growled, “When does Victor get here?”
“I don’t kn—”
She grabbed his collar and pulled him down so their faces were about three centimeters apart—a good trick since he was quite a bit taller and heavier—and snarled, “You know, all right.”
“Aaggh!” Jesus, she sounds just like the girl in Exorcist. “Let go of me or I’ll scream.”
She didn’t seem terribly worried. Nose to nose, she bit off each word. “Thanks to our mutual pal Mr. Lawrence, there’s precious little you don’t know. And thanks so much for ratting me out, by the way. My pregnancy was none of your damned business.”
She released him carelessly and he coughed, rubbing his throat, looking at her with new appreciation. Petite, drop-dead gorgeous, strong as an ox, and not afraid to kick ass on occasion. What a woman!
“He’s my friend,” Derik said simply, swallowing hard to make sure she hadn’t ruptured any blood vessels in his throat. “That made it my business.”
“Whatever. I’ll wait for him out here.”
“What’s up?” he asked curiously.
She gave him a look of such sizzling scorn that he had to fight the urge to step back. “Like you don’t know all about it.”
“I don’t.”
“Whatever.”
He dropped his gym bag and spread his hands, trying out his most disarming smile. “Look, you’re not just going to hang around out here, are you?”
Immune to his charm, she didn’t even look at him. “Go away.”
“It’s only forty degrees. Come inside where it’s warm. I’ll even buy breakfast.”
“Leave me alone. Don’t you have some other woman’s life to meddle in?”
He held on to his smile. “How about we put on head gear and I’ll let you slap me upside the head for a while? Inside where it’s warm?”
She looked awfully tempted—he imagined she’d like to do it without the protective clothing. “Go away. I’m not speaking to you.”
“We’ve been talking for two minutes,” he pointed out.
“Will you just go inside and let me alone?” she cried. “I don’t want to talk to you, all right?”
He shook his head. “And tell Vic I let the woman carrying his kid stay out here and freeze to death, while I was toasty warm inside? Do you think he’d let me get all the words out of my mouth before he stomped me like a roach?”
That brought a ghost of a smile to her face. He wondered if his words, or the visual image of him getting stepped on, had amused her.
“Look, I’m going over there…" Pointing to the Bagel Bar. "…to get us some hot chocolate and bagels for breakfast. And we can either eat them outside or go in where it’s warm. But either way you’re stuck with me, so you might as well be comfortable.”
“You’d have to buy me bagels for the rest of my life to make up for what you did,” she said stonily.
“Done,” he said promptly, and laughed at her startled look. “Don’t go away, okay?”
She sighed. “Wait up, I’ll tell you what I want. You’d probably buy me something vile like a Veggie Surprise.” She fell into step beside him.
He groaned. “Tell me you’re not one of those barbarians who puts sli
ces of fish on their bagel.”
“Ah, smoked salmon. Otherwise known as orange gold,” she said, and almost smiled again.
* * * * *
When Victor got to the dojo twenty minutes later, he was pleasantly surprised to see Ashley and Derik sitting on one of the workout mats, eating breakfast. He nodded inwardly. So, Ashley wasn’t holding a grudge because Derik had, well, ‘tattled’, for want of a better word. That was promising. If she wasn’t the type to hold grudges under normal circumstances, maybe she—
She saw him and hastily swallowed what she was chewing, the better to start yelling at him. “I don’t understand you!” she cried by way of greeting, wadding her napkin and throwing it at him, then jumping to her feet. “You know I want to be left alone, but you persist in all this—this patented Victor Lawrence bullshit!”
“What’s wrong now?” Derik asked, appalled.
“Do you want to discuss this in priv—”
“He paid off my credit card balance,” she said accusingly, in the tone of someone saying, ‘He shot my dog’. “Eight grand! Imagine my surprise when I saw the balance due section and saw a big blank box staring up at me!”
“Whoa,” Derik muttered, gathering up napkins and cream cheese. “I’ll leave you two alo—”
“I am telling you for the last time,” she said through gritted teeth, “that I don’t want to see you, don’t want your money, don’t want—”
“I don’t care,” he said pleasantly, which brought her up short. Not for long; a few seconds later she was yelling again.
“Take the money back!”
“Nope.”
“Do it, Victor.”
“You do it if you think it’s as easy as that. They’ve got their money, they’re not going to give it back. It’s a done deal, Ashley. By the way, they were getting ready to sic a collection agency on you. Tsk, tsk.”
She could feel herself flush with humiliation, and for a moment she thought she would faint from sheer rage. Derik noted this with some alarm and stood up and took a step closer to her. When she spoke, it was through gritted teeth; he could barely understand her. “Cancel. The. Check.”