Project: Runaway Bride Read online

  “Do you mind if I ask where she is?” he asked, matching her steady tone.

  For the first time, indecision crossed the younger woman’s face. Then she gave a growl of frustration.

  “Fine. She went to see Paul. I tried to talk her out of it, at least temporarily, and even offered to go with her. But she insisted and said it was something she had to do alone.”

  Reid could feel his ire beginning to rise again. His fingers curled at his sides. He’d hoped to catch her before she “patched things up” with the bastard, though what he’d planned to do or say to keep that from happening, he didn’t know.

  He sucked a great gulp of air into his lungs, letting it out slowly at the same time he forced his hands to relax.

  In a low voice that almost didn’t sound like his own, he said, “Will you tell me where he lives so I can go talk to her? Hopefully before she makes a monumental mistake.”

  Zoe tipped her head in the other direction. After a second, she asked, “Will you promise not to hurt her?”

  He leaned back as though he’d been punched, eyes going wide. “I would never lay a hand on her,” he responded. Passionately. Sincerely. With more than a hint of affront.

  “There are a lot of ways to hurt someone,” Zoe said quietly. “Not all of them leave bruises.”

  If her question caught him off guard, that comment jolted him right down to the soles of his Italian-leather oxfords.

  “You’re right. And I promise,” he said softly. “I’ll do my level best not to hurt her.”

  It took another couple tense minutes for her to decide, but then she straightened, uncrossed her arms and rattled off the address of Juliet’s ex-fiancé. The man Reid was going to try really hard not to put in traction.

  * * *

  As Juliet stepped out of the house, tugging the door closed behind her, the only thing she could think was that she had overdressed for the occasion. She’d wanted to look nice, but not too nice. Definitely not suggestive in any way, but not too casual or uncaring, either.

  She’d opted for a cute little sundress from her sister’s summer collection and a pair of burnt-orange espadrilles—not Zoe’s creation, she had to admit—that matched the giant poppies on the dress’s skirt. It was something she would have worn to the shop or out to lunch, or even just to work in the loft’s design studio on a day when she was feeling bright and sunny.

  But today, it had been a waste of time to try to look even halfway presentable. A total waste of makeup, as Zoe would say.

  The click of the latch at her back carried a weight of finality, yet it didn’t bother her. She didn’t particularly care.

  And that was good. Better than good. It was a relief. Her ticket to freedom, really.

  With a smile slowly spreading across her face, she took the three wide steps in front of her with a bit of a bounce and walked down the brick walk to the tree-lined street of the cozy, upscale neighborhood that had nearly become her home.

  Stepping off the curb, she rounded the hood of her car with every intention of climbing in and driving back to her parents’. Maybe stopping at their favorite bakery along the way to pick up a cake or pie or a dozen of the shop’s giant specialty cookies because she suddenly felt like celebrating.

  But at the last minute, she raised her head and stumbled to a halt. Across the street, with the nose of his Mercedes pointing in the opposite direction of her own car, Reid stood there, leaning against the driver’s side of the glossy black vehicle.

  “Reid,” she breathed in surprise. Maybe the day hadn’t been such a waste of makeup after all. “What are you doing here?”

  He pushed away from the car, letting his crossed arms drop, and strode in her direction.

  “I came to see for myself,” he said.

  His cool tone was the first sign she had that this probably wasn’t going to be a warm and fuzzy meeting. Which was a shame, because she’d actually been in a good mood, verging on almost warm and fuzzy, only a few seconds ago for the first time in a long time.

  Her shoulders slumped a bit and her voice was resigned when she asked, “See what for yourself?”

  “This.” He tipped his head toward the sprawling colonial behind her. “That you couldn’t wait to get back to your fiancé, even after you promised you wouldn’t. Even knowing you’re pregnant with my child.”

  Juliet opened her mouth to respond. She was ready to snap at him, to tell him that—pregnant with his child or not—he had no right to track her every move, to confront her at every turn, to accuse her of crimes she hadn’t committed.

  Then she paused, a sudden sort of serene realization washing over her.

  “You’re never going to trust me, are you?” she asked quietly, making it more of a statement than a question, since she already knew the answer. “After everything that’s passed between us—baby or no baby, ex-fiancé or no ex-fiancé—you’re always going to suspect me of something. You’re always going to be waiting to interrogate me because you think I’ve been up to something behind your back.”

  She shook her head, gaze flicking toward the ground as a wave of sadness spilled over her. She hadn’t envisioned a happily-ever-after future with Reid any more than she could see herself crawling back to Paul and being happy with him for the next fifty years.

  But she and Reid were going to share a child. They were going to be in close, regular contact, probably for the rest of their lives. It would have been nice if those interactions could have been friendly and polite.

  It seemed that wasn’t going to be the case, though, and that hurt more than she would have thought.

  “For the record,” she told him, “I never promised not to see or speak with Paul again. But I can promise you that we’re not getting back together. Even if I were interested—which I so completely am not—” she gave a roll of her eyes “—I doubt Paul would be any more. At least judging by the fact that he had another woman naked in his bed when I arrived. And not for the first time. Apparently he’s been seeing other women all along. He took great satisfaction in pointing out that he’d been willing to marry me for appearances’ sake, but he’d certainly never intended to give up his extracurricular activities.”

  Reid’s eyes widened a millimeter, and Juliet was inordinately pleased that she’d been able to shock him with that piece of information.

  “That’s right,” she continued. “It looks like we’ve both moved on. And it’s for the best, believe me. But I needed to apologize for what I did to him that day at the church. My actions were unacceptable, and even though he didn’t deserve me, he didn’t deserve that, either.”

  For long, drawn-out moments, there was nothing but tense silence between them. She didn’t hear crickets, but there were a few birds in the trees whose chirping she could make out clear as a bell.

  And then Reid exhaled, the sound drowning out the birds as he lowered his head and drove his fingers through his short, dark hair. After a minute, he lifted his gaze to hers. “You know, I promised your sister I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said carefully. “Looks like I broke that vow right off the bat.”

  Juliet’s heart gave a little lurch, but he didn’t give her time to respond.

  “I feel awkward having this conversation in front of your ex’s house,” he began, scowling slightly and then shifting from one foot to the other. “Is there someplace else we could go where we’d have a bit more privacy?”

  There weren’t a whole lot of options, given that they were both a state away from their respective homes.

  “We could go back to my parents’ house,” she told him.

  He curled his lip and wrinkled his nose at her suggestion, as though he’d caught a whiff of something that smelled unpleasant.

  “Yeah, but your sister is there,” he reminded her, letting her know exactly what he found so distasteful about her suggested location. Well aware of Zoe’s temper and what she could be like when she got a pebble in her shoe, Juliet almost chuckled.

  “We can enter through the bac
k and go straight up to my rooms. No one even needs to know we’re there.”

  He didn’t look completely convinced, but finally gave an unenthusiastic nod. Leaning around her, he opened her car door and held on to the frame as she slid in behind the steering wheel.

  “I’ll follow you back,” he said while she fastened her seat belt and pressed the ignition button that started the engine with a purr.

  “Drive carefully. And no taking any wrong turns—you know I’ll just track you down again,” he added before closing the door and crossing the street to the driver’s side of his Mercedes.

  Thirteen

  His care and concern surprised her after the way he’d first approached her. But if there was anything she knew for certain about Reid, it was that he hid his true solicitous nature beneath a hard, surly shell.

  With Reid sticking close to her rear bumper, she led them out of Paul’s neighborhood and back to the even more upscale area that housed a number of multimillion-dollar estates, her family’s being one of them. She drove up the long, curved drive but bypassed the house entirely, coming to a stop on the far side of the extended garage where her father kept his prized 1967 Corvette coupe and 1962 Shelby Cobra under lock and key. There was no chance of anyone discovering her or Reid’s car parked in the rear.

  Cutting the engine and stepping out of the BMW, she waited for Reid to do the same. As he approached, she turned and walked up the short path that led to the back of the house. They entered and climbed a set of rear stairs to the long, empty hallway that led to the suite of rooms that had been hers all while she was growing up.

  Through the first doorway was a sitting room that at one time had been decorated in bright pinks and purples, with posters of her favorite heartthrobs on the walls. It still amused her that her parents had been all right with their three daughters doing pretty much whatever they liked with their rooms, as long as the rest of the house remained Better Homes and Gardens picture-perfect. And that included Zoe’s less-than-charming décor from her goth and emo phases.

  Lily’s and Juliet’s teen preoccupations had thankfully been a bit more mainstream and less difficult to cover over later with fresh paint and wallpaper. The room they were in now was painted a lovely, much more mature peach with elements of cream. The sitting area also contained a love seat that faced a television and entertainment center, and an armchair surrounded by bookshelves.

  Through the second, inside door was her bedroom, which still contained a canopy bed and a walk-in closet that held clothing choices that ranged from her preteens to some of last year’s best Zaccaro designs. She just hadn’t gotten the chance to go through and weed things out for donation yet. And frankly, there were some items that held childhood memories she wasn’t ready to dispose of at all.

  But Reid didn’t need to see that portion of the suite in order to say whatever it was he felt still needed to be said between them. Setting her handbag on the seat of the armchair, she turned back to face him just as he closed the door behind them with a click.

  “Is this private enough?” she asked.

  He took a minute to look around before his gaze returned to focus on her.

  “This will do,” he remarked. “It’s a nice room. And you’re pretty good at sneaking in without anyone noticing. Did you used to slip out a lot when you were a kid?”

  Juliet’s mouth curled in a quick half smile. “I wasn’t nearly as bad as Zoe was. She was the incorrigible one, to be sure.”

  Almost as though their minds were running on a similar track, her smile disappeared and they both grew serious at the same time.

  Reid cleared his throat.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said, picking up the conversation where they’d left off in front of Paul’s house. “I didn’t trust you.”

  Oh, my. So that was what it felt like to be sucker punched.

  She wondered why people were so caught up on the idea of honesty, and why she’d been so all-fired eager to ask for it from him. Sure, it sounded good in theory, but damn it, sometimes the bald, unadulterated truth just plain hurt.

  Swallowing back the painful emotions that threatened to swamp her, she braced herself, waiting for whatever else he had to say—that she might or might not want to hear—or for him to say nothing more at all.

  Maybe this was it. Maybe it was just “I don’t trust you,” end of story, have a nice day and he would turn around and walk away. Part of her hoped he would do exactly that. It would be so much less excruciating than to pick, pick, pick at the scab like they were doing now.

  Another part of her, though, wanted him to say something, almost anything else, just so he would stay a few minutes more. As soon as they parted ways, she had a feeling their relationship was going to change drastically. To never see each other again or see each other only on the days of their custody agreement when they met to pick up or drop off their child.

  New memories would be created to crowd out and cover over the ones from the past. Indifference or possibly even animosity would replace passion, attraction, affection.

  She, for one, had been well on her way to love. She didn’t think she could have admitted that before now, but there it was. The truth, finally, staring her in the eye. Funny that she hadn’t been able to see it until it was too late.

  Pulling her out of thoughts that were quickly heading in a “poor me” direction, Reid reached for her hands, taking them in his own. Her head lifted in startlement.

  She’d thought they were working on their goodbyes, not something that would lead to touching. But the minute his skin touched hers, tingling started at her fingertips and moved forward until it spread throughout her entire body.

  “I didn’t trust you, Juliet,” he said again, “but that’s because...I couldn’t. I didn’t realize until recently that I don’t trust much of anyone. Maybe that’s why I got into the private-investigation business to begin with.”

  He let his arms drop, taking hers with them so that they formed a sagging bridge between them.

  “I’ve never talked about this before, never told anybody else,” he began in a low voice.

  His gaze was on her, but he didn’t meet her eyes, as though he were uncomfortable about the subject at hand and concentrating hard on the words that came out of his mouth. Juliet remained perfectly still and silent, surprised enough that he was opening up to her, and not wanting to do anything to cause him to stop.

  “There was another woman, a very long time ago. She got pregnant, and I did the right thing—I asked her to marry me. But it wasn’t out of guilt or duty, not really. I wanted to marry her. To be a family, a father.”

  He swallowed, the Adam’s apple riding up and then down again at the center of his throat, and his toffee-brown eyes were glossy with old memories and past disappointments.

  “I thought that was what was going to happen,” he went on, “but instead, Valerie said she didn’t want to be a wife or a mother. She left town and I never heard from her again. It wasn’t until years later, when I started digging around, that I discovered she’d had the baby after all. And married another man. So apparently, she wasn’t all that opposed to the idea of being a wife and mother, she just didn’t want to be those things with me.”

  Juliet’s eyes widened, her mouth going dry with shock.

  Reid had another child?

  Oh, she’d heard the rest, about the other woman he’d been involved with, but she didn’t particularly care about his old girlfriends. They’d both had past relationships; she’d been engaged when they met, for heaven’s sake. But as long as those relationships stayed in the past—for both of them—they didn’t concern her.

  But the fact that he already had a child with a woman who had walked out on him and never bothered to tell him he was a father... That was...monumental.

  She thought back to the night he’d told her they should get married after the doctor had confirmed that she was, in fact, pregnant and realized suddenly what it must have cost him to make such an offer. No, he had
n’t exactly asked or done the hearts-and-flowers, on-bended-knee proposal thing, but considering that he’d been down this road before, it must have been beyond difficult for him to discover that another woman he’d been intimate with had become pregnant with his baby and then volunteer to “do the right thing,” not knowing if she would go through with it or pick up and run just as the last woman had.

  If Juliet had known, had had even a clue, she would have handled the situation so much differently.

  “You...” she began, but then had to stop, shake her head in disbelief, swallow and begin again. “You have a child already? How old? A boy or a girl? What’s his or her name? Do you see him...or her?”

  Once the questions started, they just sort of poured out in a jumble. It was too much to ask all at once, and surely more than he wanted to share at this moment, but she couldn’t help the rampant curiosity coursing through her veins.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head again. It was so much to absorb when she hadn’t expected to even see him again in the very near future.

  “No, it’s all right,” he responded gravely. “I should have told you before.”

  Taking a breath, he said, “A son. Ten years old. His name is Theo.” He paused for a moment as pain tightened the corners of his mouth. “But I don’t see him, no. Valerie doesn’t even know I looked them up. She has no idea I know she had the child and married another man.”

  “Oh, but Reid...” Juliet stepped closer, squeezing his hands in her own. “You deserve to meet him, to spend time with him, to be a father to your son. And he most certainly deserves to know you. He may have a father figure in his life, but he doesn’t have his real father, and every child has the right to that.”

  Reid’s fingers flexed around hers, and for the longest time he said nothing. From the granite set of his jaw and brightness of his gaze, she suspected he was fighting back some rather ragged, overwhelming emotions.

  And as much as she wanted to know everything, wanted to help him reunite with his firstborn—if that was what he needed, and if there was anything she could actually do to facilitate such a reunion—she didn’t want to push him. Not here or now.