Page 57 of His Wedding Day Revenge

Jane was so caught up in her emotions that she barely registered the stricken expression on his face.

‘I loved you and I wanted...’ She inhaled, her chest lifting. ‘But I believe, I know, that I deserve more than you are able, or willing, to give me. But all that is irrelevant. I can’t give you babies, Draco, no beautiful babies, no heirs. So let’s just say goodnight because this is getting so very, very tiring.’

With perfect timing the baby’s bereft cries filled the room.

Jane looked at Draco one more time, drinking in the fabulous features, the man that she loved and always would, and turned away. The heart couldn’t always have what it wanted. Sometimes reality got in the way.

It took her a good half an hour to settle Mattie and when she returned to the book-lined living area she knew without calling out that she was alone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘SOITISall right for us to travel.’

Marco, who had dropped in every day since they had been discharged, nodded his confirmation. ‘If you think that is a good idea?’

‘Is that a medical opinion?’ Maybe he had read things into Draco’s absence or maybe Draco had discussed the situation with him. What had he called it? she wondered bitterly. Awkward?

‘No, not at all, it is a friend’s opinion. And as a friend I say that you should not be carrying this news alone. You should tell him.’

‘Tell who?’ she said, feigning ignorance.

He raised a brow and said quietly, ‘I was at the wedding.’

‘Oh!’ She swallowed. ‘I didn’t know, but I need to be where I don’t feel so isolated.’ She looked around the luxurious space they had stayed in for the last week.

It would have been easier if it had been an anonymous hotel but everywhere she came across signs of Draco’s occupation: the book he’d been reading with its page marked, a scribbled note on a desk in his bold handwriting, the elusive scent of the male fragrance he used, the rows of freshly laundered shirts hanging in a wardrobe, which she had quickly slammed shut.

She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t go back to the palazzo. The only option was to go home.

‘I really need to think. I need to get my own head around it. I will tell him before I go,’ she promised, her hands crossed across her chest. ‘God, I can hardly believe it myself. Is it real?’

‘It is real and you will do brilliantly. There is no medical reason your pregnancy will not go smoothly. And now I am speaking as a doctor.’

Draco’s PR people were deliriously happy about an article written in a major financial journal praising his role in translating knowledge into strategies for driving forward a business model for a green revolution that had been picked up by multiple media outlets across the globe.

They had been confused by his lack of enthusiasm, but they did not recognise the irony. Draco was not deliriously happy. He was not happy at all.

Draco’s two days of self-exile had made him realise that he was the architect of his own misery. He’d guarded his heart since childhood, not because it was smart or clever and definitely not wise, but because he was a coward!

People spoke of him as the man who had everything—he was living the dream. But he had been too much of a coward to even admit he had a dream.

A woman who was beautiful and smart had wanted to be with him and she had run away because she thought his only use for her was as a baby incubator. The shame he felt was intense.

It had taken more guts for her to run away than any he had ever shown. Jane had so much love to give and he had thrown it back in her face.

Jane hadn’t run away. He was the one who had been running away all his life from feelings he was afraid to own.

Without Jane he had nothing.

Would she listen to him? He had no idea but he would try and he would never stop trying.

Later that morning, after Marco had left, Jane went online to book a flight. She had just completed the booking and was trying to work up the courage to call Draco when she heard a noise.

It made her pause because since her arrival she had barely registered that she was not alone in the building, if you discounted the formal person who appeared every day asking her to state her requirements.

In a brief moment of whimsy she had thought about requesting hair that didn’t have a will of its own or the ability to not say the wrong thing at the wrong time...or maybe that was the right thing.

Though in the end she had been gifted her greatest wish.

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