“A cupcake.”
Grunting, he rolled his eyes. “No.”
“It can be an evil looking cupcake, with a skull and crossbones on it, if that would make you feel better. All the other world domination guys would want one, I bet, when you showed it off at y’all’s next plotting-to-take-the-world-over meeting. Is there food at those things? I could make you a really evil lunch to take.” She giggled at her own joke.
He clenched his jaw. Yet another reminder of what he’d be losing once he sent her away. Her view of him and his world. Her acceptance of his life and all that had been done to him and his brother, without treating him differently or with pity.
“Can you take me to Scotland tomorrow? Ivan said you have a few houses there that you let families stay in to keep them safe.”
“He told you this?”
She smiled up at him, all at once mysterious and playful. “You’re not the only one that has ways of making people talk.”
Dear God, she was truly frightening and completely perfect for him. Maybe he should be selfish and keep her with him after all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sebastian adjusted his tie and turned his attention to the woman he loved lying in his bed as she ate breakfast. Breakfast he’d served her this morning.
He’d waited as long as he could, as long as he would allow himself to be selfish, but in the end his love for her and his sense of duty to do right by her won out. “I’m sending you back to Holland Springs today?”
“What do you mean?” Daisy choked out.
He fiddled with his cufflinks, then shrugged into his suit jacket and buttoned it like it was his only defense against her look of disbelief and horror. “The Board voted last night. I’m back in as President. Your services are no longer needed as the requirements of the contract have been filled.”
She threw her napkin down. “I don’t believe you.”
Walking to his dresser, he grabbed the iPad and handed it to her, watching as she read the article. Watching as her face went pale, then red and then pale again.
It gutted him completely. He was empty inside and now he wouldn’t have her love to fill up the space.
The article confirmed everything he had said. The Board had voted, citing a major deal with a Hong Kong based company, as the major swaying point. Not once was his engagement to her mentioned. It was as if she didn’t exist. Oh, except for the last line about him being repeatedly seen in the company of an American girl, the cousin of his brother’s wife.
Cruel, harsh, to the point, and utter rubbish.
“You never really needed me at all,” she said finally.
“So it seems.” He took the iPad away and set it on the dresser again. “I’ve a meeting in Madrid this afternoon at five. You’ll need to be at Heathrow by one. I’ve arranged for Ivan to take you.”
“I could go with you. I said I could stay longer and—”
“No.” He sat down on the bed beside her, longing to touch her. “There were conditions placed on the vote. One: that I agreed to never attempt to dismantle the company again.”
“And two?”
“I’m to break things off with you and pursue Kate once more, for the connections her family has in Germany.” He rubbed the back of his neck just as she began to chew on the inside of her cheek. Dammit.
“What about tearing up the stupid contract? What about—” Her mouth snapped shut.
Getting married and having lots of babies, he finished saying in his mind. “I think with all of the heightened emotions surrounding the pregnancy, my mother’s appearance, and this entire fake fiancée idea, that perhaps we let our emotions get out of hand.
Her face flushed as her eyebrows raised, but she didn’t say anything.
“You get to keep the money we agreed to, since I’m the one in breach.” He tried to give her some cheeky smile, but he couldn’t, not when it felt like he was carving his heart into pieces. “Shouldn’t be too hard to manage, without me, eh? You’ll go back to your life, without the Earl of Obnoxiousness at your side, and I’ll go on with mine.”
Turning her head, she stared across the room, at the beautiful view from his window. The gorgeous estate lake glittered in the morning sun. In the middle sat a small island with a stone gazebo. There was a small dock to the right of it. He would have liked to have taken her there, had a picnic, and made love to her under the sun.
“Daisy, are you okay?” he asked and she turned her attention back to him.
“No, I am not okay. I am the exact opposite of okay.” She chewed harder on her cheek. “You’ve taken everything from me: my best friend and the man I love—just like Glen. Just like every man I’ve dared to love.”
He had. He was exactly like that ass, but he could justify his actions to himself because it was for her good, not his. There was nothing good in sending the woman he loved away. There was nothing good in sending the woman who made him smile and accepted him for who he was away.
It was madness. He was mad. He was dying inside.
“What about the baby?” she finally asked.
“I’ll have my lawyers draw up a contract for us that spells out visitation and child support. Of course, the child will live with you the majority of the time. It should live with its mother. Don’t you agree? “The child. Not our child. Not our baby. It. How heartless he sounded. Well, he had learned from the best.
“Yay for more contracts.” She smiled bitterly. “Although, I totally agree with this one.”
He drew back, golden brows bunching together. That was not the answer he expected, although he knew he deserved it. Perhaps he thought she would fight harder and call his bluff. “You do?”
“Yep. You, Kate, and Romanov Industries deserve each other. I bet that ménage thing y’all will have going on will make headlines.” She picked up her fork and speared an asparagus. “Since we’re all about confessions this morning, I have one of my own. I got an email from my lawyer this morning while you were downstairs. Turns out, I don’t need your money after all. The insurance company made a mistake. I’ll have the money reversed to your account.”
She was the worst liar he’d ever met. Not meeting her eyes, he glanced around the room. “You could keep it, for a stake in your venture with Isabella. I’ve never owned a part of a catering business before.”
“I have no desire for any part of me to be owned by you. Ever.”
“But you will allow me to pay child support,” he said.
“Is that all you want to be in our child’s life—a paycheck?”
Hell no, but their child deserved better than him for a father. “It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s what’s best for you.”
“And Romanov Industries,” he quickly added. He stood and placed his hands behind his back. “I’ll be off. Thank you for letting me be a small part of your life.”
“That’s it?” she cried as he began to stride away. “The only thing you have to say to me, before you walk out, is thank you?”
He paused at the door, his hand going to the frame. His knuckles whitened and his head bowed. “The jewelry from last night is yours to keep, all of it.”“I don’t want your damn jewelry,” she said sharply.
“It’s yours anyway. Perhaps…perhaps we’ll see each other at the wedding and of course, when the baby is born. If you want me there, that is,” he said, and then he left the room, the door shutting softly behind him.
He knuckled an eye, the lump in his throat suffocating. He couldn’t catch his breath. Closing his eyes, he made himself take a breath. And another. Then a third before he finally could see straight and actually walk out the house and out of Daisy’s life for good.
The fork Daisy had been holding clattered to the tray. The same tray that he’d placed across her lap this morning, bringing breakfast to her with a smile and a kiss. He’d helped her out of all the jewelry she’d slept in and placed it back in the wooden box, then headed to the shower.
Like a fool, she’d sat in bed, eating breakfast and exhaling dreamy sighs about him between bites.
She flexed her fingers, pain shooting through the joints. Her heart pinched so hard in her chest that she gasped and rubbed the heel of her other hand against it.
Closing her eyes, she fell against the pillows and tried to make sense of it all. But she couldn’t. Eventually the pain ebbed and the sun rose higher in the sky. She set the tray aside and rose from the bed, shoving her arms into his robe and cinching the sash tight, as if it was all that held her together. Which wasn’t far from the truth.
A maid came to her room and began to pack. Daisy kindly but firmly told her in no uncertain terms that the box of jewelry had to stay here as well as the contents.
Ivan appeared at the door. “We need to leave in twenty minutes, Countess.”
She blinked at the word and glanced down at her ring. It shone bright in the sun, a reminder of her time with him. Of when he had thought of her and had tried to be more than what he was. In the end, he’d been right—business mattered more to him than anything else.
Twisting the ring off her finger, she placed it on the dresser and gave Ivan a wobbly smile. “Please, call me Daisy.”
It took her only fifteen minutes to shower and dress. She sat in the back of a dark Mercedes as it wound its way down a perfectly maintained drive. Ivan turned on the main thoroughfare, the car picking up speed. As they got closer to his house, the urge to stop and take a keepsake of her fairy tale time there overwhelmed her. Though in nine months she’d have a permanent keepsake of their time together.
“Ivan, do we have enough time for a quick stop at The Rectory?”
“Da, Coun—Daisy.” He grimaced in the rearview mirror. “He’s not there.”
“I don’t want to see him,” she said, meeting gaze. “Will you stop, please?”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he slowed near the entrance and turned into the drive. The gate opened and the car pulled through. Ivan stopped near the front entrance and Daisy got out. For a moment, she leaned against the car and took everything in. The leafy vines climbing up the front, the profusion of flowers that bloomed everywhere. The front door with its heart-shaped knocker.
For a little while, this had been their home. Tears slipped down her cheeks. For a little while, she had deluded herself.
She started for the door, surprised to find it unlocked.
Looking back at Ivan, she asked, “Is it safe for me to go in?”
He nodded once.
Opening the door, she stepped inside and slapped her hand over her mouth. It had been destroyed. Holes the size of a man’s fist peppered the drywall. Furniture lay in shambles, pieces and parts strewn everywhere. A sledgehammer lay propped against the stairwell.
“Ivan,” she shouted, finally finding her voice.
He came running through the door, his heavy footsteps echoing. “I’m here.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Romanov.”
“He did this?” She carefully made her way to the kitchen, but it remained pristine. Nothing out of place, not even the towel she’d left by the sink. The pot of African Violets remained where they’d been, to the right of the sink, where Sebastian liked them. Automatically, she moved them to the center, where she preferred them.
“After you left. He ordered us out, but Boris remained behind.”
Of course he did. Ivan had to protect her.
She wandered through the rest of the house, her heart sinking with each step, each room worse than the one before it. She saved the art studio for last. Despite thinking that her heart couldn’t get any lower, it dropped to her feet.
His studio looked as if a bomb had gone off in it. All of his paintings had been slashed, paints dumped, and the fainting couch—oh God—the fainting couch sat outside, its charred remains a violent gash against the gorgeous garden.
She whimpered, letting her head hit the glass with a soft thud. She pressed her palm against the pane. So many painful memories had overshadowed the new ones they’d created. Or maybe those were false memories.
Maybe the entire thing had been a dream.
Or a beautiful nightmare.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Daisy had been home all of six days when her lawyer had contacted her about a serious buyer for her business. They wanted to purchase the rights to The Sweet Spot and operate a bakery in Charlotte.
She met Isabella for lunch at the park to discuss the offer. The two of them sat on a wrought iron bench, sharing a sandwich and cold pasta salad.
“Do you think I should take the deal?” Daisy asked after catching her best friend up on everything.
“I don’t think I want to own a bookstore,” Isabella said. “Nothing I used to want to do appeals to me now.”
“We’re pitiful right now,” Daisy replied.
“At least we’re pretty,” Isabella joked.
Daisy said nothing for a moment, and Isabella gave her a what-are-you-hiding-from-me look. “I’m pregnant.”
Isabella’s tawny eyes widened. “Oh God,” she croaked. “What can I do? What do you need?”
Daisy laced her fingers with her best friend of seventeen years and said, “I need a friend.” Then she collapsed against her shoulder and sobbed while Isabella held her.
“I will always be your friend, no matter what,” Isabella said after Daisy had cried herself out. “I love you like a sister.”
Daisy smiled. At least she still had that. No one could buy her best friend’s love.
***
“You did the right thing, Ms. Barnes,” her lawyer said, adding it to the stack of papers she’d already read over. “Now you’re debt free.”