Page 86 of Bride Under Contract

Only as much as she wanted things wrapped up, Grace wasn’t done. ‘I do have another question.’

‘Of course.’

‘What happens if I am pregnant?’

‘Have you had a positive test?’ Jonathon asked.

‘No.’

‘Well, let’s not deal in hypotheticals.’

‘Let’s,’ Grace said.

Carter closed his eyes. Because while he could sort out the financials, where the rest was concerned he had no answers.

He knew he had to sort out his head.

‘Excuse me.’

He stood and let his lawyer deal with that question—exactly the way he would have done three weeks ago, before everything had changed.

They were in there for a full forty minutes, and he saw her pale face when she came out.

‘Grace...’

She brushed past him. ‘I’m going to have tea up in the suite.’

She could barely look at him.

But it was nothing she didn’t already know.

Carter didn’t want a baby.

All decisions on a pregnancy would be hers. She’d be provided for financially. If she continued with the pregnancy the baby’s way in life would be paved with gold.

Everything he’d told her from the start.

Except she knew him now, and had thought he was better than that.

She couldn’t keep it in, turning back on her new heels at the last moment.

‘At least my father made some attempt.’

She took a breath, trying to get her head around Jonathon’s breakdown of the figures around Carter’s complete abdication of responsibility.

‘Not you, though. Not one piece of that black heart...’ She shook her head, her temper rising, and hit her fist into her palm. ‘Hit and run.’

‘Grace...’

He knew she was hurting, but he didn’t want to offer any solution, or tell her he was heading into the jungle and hoping to fix that black heart.

He honestly didn’t think there were any answers there, but he would try. He’d bury the teething ring, wish his family peace, or whatever, but he just didn’t see that going back to hell would work...

How many times and how many ways had he said it over the decades and years?

He. Did. Not. Want. Love.

Now it was staring him angrily in the face, and he was just a bit angry too.

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