Lincoln’s features were set in stone. ‘If you leave, the deal is off. I’ll withdraw my financial support for your label.’
Elodie brushed past him to go back to the master bedroom and collect her things. ‘Do it. See if I care. I’ll find someone else.’
‘Where are you going? Talk to me, for God’s sake.’
She swung around to face him. ‘Tell me what you’re feeling right now.’
He frowned so hard his eyebrows met above the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m angry you’re running away again without talking this through. You’re acting like a spoilt child.’
‘I’m not being childish this time. Last time I was running away from myself more than I was running away from you. I couldn’t even face up to the truth about myself back then, so how could I tell you? But I’m telling you now. I can’t be with you because we don’t want the same things out of life. You essentially want a six-month fling with me. Do you think I can’t hear the clock ticking on our relationship? You put timelines on all your relationships because every woman you’ve cared about has left you. Your birth mother...your adoptive mother. And it’s why you won’t let your housekeeper go in spite of her appalling behaviour towards me in the past.’
‘We can extend the time. I’m fine with that. We can keep it open and—’
‘And what? A year on, two years or more, I’ll still be waiting for you to fall in love with me. I’m not doing it, Lincoln. I want out. The pregnancy scare has jolted me into reality. My reality. Which is that I deserve to be loved for me. Just me.’
‘Is this because I asked if the baby was mine?’
‘No. You had an absolute right to ask that question under the circumstances. The press have made me out to be a female version of a playboy.’ She sighed again, and added, ‘I’ve spent years of my life pretending I don’t care what people think of me, but deep down I do care. I’ve always cared. But I’ve buried those feelings so deep down they come out in other ways—such as in stupid and impulsive behaviour.’
‘I don’t want you to leave.’ There was a raw quality to his voice. ‘Stay a little longer. You might see things differently once you’ve got over the shock of thinking you were pregnant.’
Elodie went up to him and placed a hand on his lean jaw. ‘Here’s the thing that’s shocking. A part of me wanted to be pregnant.’
He blinked a couple of times, his Adam’s apple rising and falling. ‘Then you can get pregnant. We’ll stop using condoms and—’
She placed her finger over his lips, blocking the rest of his speech. ‘No. Listen to me. I’ve worked so hard to form my own label. It’s almost within my grasp and I can’t let anything stop me now. If I have a baby with someone it will be in a couple of years, not now.’ She lowered her hand from his face and stepped back with a sad smile. ‘It’s time for me to leave. I know you don’t want things to end this way, but I think it’s for the best. Please send my best wishes to Nina. I’ll pop a letter in the post for her.’
‘This is crazy, Elodie. You’re not thinking clearly and—’
‘It’s not just about the pregnancy scare. Elspeth and Mack’s wedding really got to me as well. I’m so envious of what they have together. I fooled myself into thinking we could be like them, but it’s not possible. I see that now. And I saw it seven years ago.’
‘I suppose I should be grateful for the luxury of watching you pack up and leave this time.’ The stinging sarcasm in his tone was unmistakable.
‘You can watch me if you like. But I’d like us to part on better terms.’ She took another few steps towards the bedroom before stopping and turning around again. She took off her wedding and engagement rings and handed them to him. ‘Here—just in case anything goes astray again.’
He didn’t even glance at the rings. ‘I don’t want them.’
Elodie closed her fingers over the rings. ‘I’ll leave them on the hall table, like last time.’
But he had already turned and walked away, and she didn’t know if he had heard her or not.
***
Even if Lincoln hadn’t heard the sounds of Elodie leaving his house, he knew he would have sensed the exact moment she’d gone. The house was different without her. The energy, the atmosphere faded away to a bland nothingness.
He considered moving to another bedroom, so he didn’t have to be reminded of her, or going to a hotel for a while. He didn’t want to smell the lingering trace of her perfume or picture her lying in his bed with her red-gold hair spread all over the pillow. To be tortured by every memory of their month together living as man and wife.
To say he was blindsided was an understatement, but the pregnancy scare had thrown him right out of kilter. He still couldn’t get his still spinning head wrapped around the negative result. He’d got himself so worked up, so focussed on doing the right thing by Elodie and the baby, it had taken him a while to realise there was no baby.
But it wasn’t only the pregnancy scare that had thrown him. He hadn’t been expecting her to walk out—not before their time was up. He was the one who was supposed to call time on their relationship, not her.
There was no way of keeping Elodie married to him unless he said the words she wanted to hear. His feelings for her were complex, and messy, and he didn’t like thinking too deeply about them. They got him tied up in knots—gnarly knots that pulled on his organs to the point of pain. She made him feel out of control—not just in terms of passion but in terms of vulnerability.
To openly confess to loving someone you had to accept that they could hurt you, leave you, sabotage you...humiliate you. And hadn’t Elodie done all that? He had spent the last seven years trying to block every thought of her from his mind. She fancied herself in love with him, but how could he be sure it wasn’t just because of the financial help he had given her for her label? A gift of money had a way of triggering all sorts of strong feelings.
He walked past the hall table and saw her wedding and engagement rings lying there. He picked them up, staring at them for a long moment.
How could one woman wreak such havoc in his life? What gave her the power to make his gut churn at the thought of never seeing her again? Or, worse, seeing her with someone else? Someone else who would father her future baby. The baby she’d decided she wanted in the not too distant future.
He tossed the rings back on the table and turned away. Maybe a month in a hotel would be a good idea.
A hotel a long way from London.
***