One Night to Risk It All - Page 43
“I have screwed everything up. When the press find out...well, when the press find out, I’m not going to be their princess anymore. They love me, sure, but they love Ajax and the wayward woman will always be the villain. My father will be so disappointed that I...that I didn’t learn. Leah’s had to marry someone she doesn’t love because of me. I’ve messed up everything. I have...no reason at all, in all the world, to keep doing what’s expected of me. Or rather to start again. I’m ruined,” she said, laughing. “Utterly ruined. And there’s no point even trying to backpedal. To try and legitimize myself by marrying my baby’s father when it won’t change the circumstances. My father can’t pay anyone off and make this go away.”
“So you’re ready to go and face the press then?”
“I am absolutely not,” she said. “I...I want you to know that no matter what...whether I was pregnant or not, press or not, whether you had come or not...I wasn’t going to marry him.”
“Is that the case?” he asked, his voice rough.
“Yes. I can’t. I...I can’t. But that doesn’t make me brave. I would still be hiding, without the baby. I’m a coward, and I feel totally fragile and I want to hide out for a while and figure out...what all this means. See what...what happens with the pregnancy.”
“Do you have any reason to believe you’ll miscarry?” he asked. He looked disturbed by the idea, which was strangely touching. It was easy to imagine he was digging in and doing the right thing because of his past experience, but he almost seemed to want the baby. Almost seemed like he would be sorry now if it didn’t happen.
And she felt a little bit shocked by the revelation that she would be sad if something happened. That she wanted the baby, no matter the circumstances.
“No. Not any reason beyond statistics. I mean...they happen, don’t they?”
“I suppose. But it hardly seems right to plan for one.”
“I’m not. I’m just being cautious.”
“I have to go back to New York for the work week. I have several clients I need to meet with and it has to be done in person.”
“Why can’t you Skype them or something?”
He leaned against the door frame, arms crossed over his broad chest. “I’m new in town still. Comparatively. That means I have to play by other people’s rules sometimes.”
“You must hate that.”
He smiled that wicked, enticing smile. “I hate rules. But you have to play the game. And the game has been good to me so far. It’s how I’ve earned my money. It’s how a kid from a brothel ended up being a billionaire.”
“Well, have fun in New York,” she said. She didn’t want to probe deeper. Didn’t want to find out more about him. Didn’t want him to seem so human.
“You aren’t going to come?”
“Was I invited?”
“Of course. You want to stay here then?”
She did, weirdly. She should go home and face the music. Her father. Everything. But she wasn’t ready for that yet. She wasn’t ready to share her and Alex’s...relationship? Whatever it was, with her family. When she told her family she was pregnant, she would have to confess that she’d had that little indiscretion and she wasn’t ready to tell them yet.
Source: readsnovelonline.net