The Blackmail Baby
Page 14
She glared up at him angrily, suddenly hating how cool and controlled he looked. For the last three months her life had been horribly out of her control—it wasn’t fair that he could stand there looking so calm.
‘You have to give me time,’ Lorenzo said. ‘I have nothing against the infant, but she has arrived rather abruptly in my life.’
‘She doesn’t have to be in your life—I keep telling you that!’ Chloe exclaimed, scraping her hair back from her face with a desperate gesture. ‘How can you be so heartless? Her mother died!’ she cried. ‘My best friend died, and all you care about is my wish to adopt her baby.’
Suddenly her eyes were swimming with tears and a second later she was weeping.
Lorenzo stepped towards her immediately. Then he wrapped his arms around her sobbing body and gently drew her close. She leant into him instinctively, clinging to him, and finding solace in the familiar strength of his embrace.
She hardly noticed when Mrs Guest lifted Emma carefully out of her arms. A corner of her mind knew that the baby was safe and she closed her eyes, shutting out everything but the solid comfort of Lorenzo’s body. Despite everything, he was her anchor—strong and warm, and exactly what she needed to combat the cold emptiness inside her.
A little while later, when the storm of tears had passed, Chloe opened her eyes and realised that she was cradled against Lorenzo’s chest. He was holding her snugly and she was still clinging to him, her hands tangled tightly in his shirt, deep inside his open jacket. They were sitting on a bench looking away from the house, across an impressive view over the meadows.
For a moment she lay completely still, amazed at how comfortable she felt in Lorenzo’s arms. But then a subtle change came over him—a slight shift in his muscles and a stiffening of his posture—and she knew that he was aware that she had roused.
She sat up slowly, suddenly feeling awkward. She had no idea how long she had wept or how long she had clung on to him. It was embarrassing to have let go of her emotions so completely in front of him.
‘Emma?’ she asked, her voice hoarse from crying.
‘Mrs Guest has her,’ Lorenzo said, realigning his jacket as she pulled away from him and sitting up straighter. ‘She’s fine. But how about you—do you need anything? Some water, maybe?’
Chloe nodded, suddenly realising she was really thirsty, and almost immediately Lorenzo passed her a small bottle of water. It was beaded with condensation and still cold from the fridge, and Chloe took it gratefully.
Presumably Mrs Guest had brought it out for her. It was wonderful to have someone look after her for a change. And it was even more wonderful to sit with Lorenzo, knowing that he’d been there to comfort her.
‘I’m sorry,’ Chloe said. ‘Sorry for causing a scene like that.’
‘You have nothing to apologise for,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Your grief is entirely na
tural and I don’t want you to think you have to suppress it because you are here with me. I can’t imagine how hard the last months have been for you.’
Chloe felt her heart turn over at his sympathetic words. She knew he was sincere, and it touched her deeply.
She turned sideways on the bench and looked at him. His arms around her had felt so natural, and now his clear blue gaze appeared completely open and understanding.
It suddenly seemed vital that they were honest with each other. After the mistrust and discord between them, she longed to find a genuine connection with him. And, as she remembered his impassioned outburst the previous evening, she realised that her actions since their marriage had left him out in the cold.
On the day of their wedding she’d been brokenhearted, and at the time she’d felt that her desperation to get away from him was justifiable. It had been devastating to be told by her new husband that he did not believe in love. But she hadn’t waited for the situation to calm down. She had not given him a chance to explain.
‘You upset me badly on our wedding day, but I’m sorry for how I behaved,’ she found herself saying. ‘For running away without telling you I was going. And for not getting in touch about Emma.’
‘That’s behind us now,’ Lorenzo said.
His tone was clipped, and with a flash of irritation Chloe knew he was never going to admit that her behaviour had had any emotional impact on him. She’d been willing to take a step towards him—but he was not prepared to meet her in the middle.
‘But we still have the future to think about,’ Chloe said. ‘You said last night that you want us to remain married. But, given everything you have said to me—that you don’t love me, that you don’t even believe in love—I don’t know how I can do that.’
She paused, and looked at him utterly seriously. He appeared calm, but she could see a vein pulsing on his temple, and she knew that she was on dangerous ground. But she had to get things straightened out. Her future—and Emma’s future—depended on it.
‘I’m not even sure if you meant it,’ she said carefully. ‘Or if you were just saying it because you were angry with me again.’
Lorenzo stared at her, a spike of annoyance stabbing into his gut and a band of tension tightening across his shoulders.
Chloe was right. The previous evening he had reacted instinctively—striking back at her presumption that she could be the one to call an end to their marriage. But since then he had taken time to reevaluate the situation.
He had originally wanted a wife to provide him with an heir, but he had no faith in marriages based on sentiment and emotion. He wanted a stable, nonmaterialistic woman, who would stand by the commitment of marriage and motherhood, and not abandon her children as soon as the going got tough. Or, even more reprehensibly, sell out if she got a better offer.
Chloe had seemed to be a good candidate—until she ran out on him on their wedding day. But now things were different. She had Emma. And she had demonstrated a tenacity—a commitment to motherhood—that had made him reconsider.