Page 62 of Bound by Their Christmas Baby

Gabe shifted his attention to Abby’s face and then looked away again. ‘I’ll come to New York,’ he said with an attempt at detachment. ‘I’ll see him often. You should be where you’re happy.’

She swept her eyes shut, acknowledging that he was doing this for her. That he wanted to spare her pain, and so was sending her away. She acknowledged that even when her heart was breaking, both for herself and their son.

‘If that’s what you want,’ she said, cuddling Raf close. ‘Would you like to…?’ She held their son towards Gabe and he made a guttural noise of pain before taking the boy from her and pulling him to his chest. He turned his back on Abby but she could see from the way his torso was moving that he was struggling to bring his own emotions under control.

She stood behind him, wishing more than anything on earth that she’d said nothing to him. That she’d simply married him and made the best of what they had. Sex, a baby they both loved and a future that could have been anything they chose. Maybe, just maybe, he’d been wrong. Maybe one day he would have learned to love her, despite what he thought now. And would that have been enough? Could she have spent her life waiting, hoping, wondering?

‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘We should go.’

He didn’t speak on the drive to the airport and nor did Abby. Every time she formulated what she wanted to say, she took one look at the determined set of his features and remembered that Gabe Arantini wasn’t a man who did anything he didn’t want. Gabe didn’t want Abby’s love. It had terrified him, and so he was disposing of her.

When they arrived at the airport he brought the car to a stop at a private terminal and turned to face her. ‘Abby?’

She waited, her heart suspended, needing to hear what he was going to say, needing it with all of her being.

‘I’m sorry for bringing you to Italy. When you told me about Raf, I reacted without thinking. I had no right to displace your life as I did. No right to manipulate you into an engagement that was so obviously wrong.’

She bit down on her lip and her huge eyes held his for several devastating moments. ‘I’m sorry I fell in love with you,’ she said softly.

He shook his head and reached for her cheek, cupping it with his hand. ‘Don’t be. I don’t deserve your love—I don’t want it—but that doesn’t mean it’s not an incredible…privilege.’

She sobbed then, because it made no sense and because she wanted him to understand something she couldn’t even explain.

‘Text me when you land,’ he said, pulling away from her and opening his door. He came around to her side and opened it before returning to the rear of the car and removing Raf. ‘And if you need anything. Anything at all.’ His eyes burned her with their intensity; Abby could no longer look at Gabe.

It hurt too soul-destroyingly much.

* * *

It was her engagement ring that did it.

He found it on her side of his bed—not that she’d ever used the bed as her own. She’d come to him each night and they’d made love, but she’d acted like a guest in his room. A guest in his castle, and his life.

He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, but it was no good. The bed smelled of her, of them. He swore sharply and sat up straight, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. It hadn’t even been a week—how was he meant to do this?

Every time he closed his eyes he saw her as she’d been at the airport. Her face so pale, clutching Raf. His child, and the mother of his child, boarding a flight to take them halfway across the world.

He’d sat in his car and watched the plane lift off, imagining them settling in for the flight, wondering if Abigail was nervous or relieved? Relieved to be leaving him, relieved to be free of his threats and control?

He groaned and stood, pacing out of his room towards his study. He poured himself a measure of Scotch but cradled the glass in his hand, looking at the door against which they’d made love.

A glimmer of hope flashed in his belly. She’d been worried about falling pregnant. Might she have? Might she, even now, have his baby in her belly? Would that change her mind? Surely then she’d marry him?

With rich self-disgust he threw the Scotch back, burning his mouth with the alcoholic acidity. Was he really so desperate to secure his family that he’d wish her to be pregnant when she so obviously hadn’t wanted that? Was he such a despicable man?

She’d called him honourable; she’d been wrong.

He’d ruined Abigail’s life. She’d given him the chance to be involved with their baby; she’d needed his help. Help he could have given to her easily. He should have given it to her. When he’d seen the way she was living, and comprehended how alone she was in the world, he could have made everything better. Instead, he’d strong-armed her into agreeing to marriage and moving to Italy, and all because it suited him to have her here.

And yet the thing that terrified Gabe most of all was the certainty that he would do it all again, simply because he knew that at each step of the way he’d been desperate for whatever he could get of her.

It had started as hate, hadn’t it? Maybe even revenge?

No. Never revenge. Just…inexplicable, all-controlling desire. Something heavy sat low in his gut. He’d wanted her. He’d seen her in New York and after a year without women—no, not women—a year without Abigail specifically, he’d lost his mind. He’d been determined to make her his once more. So why had he treated her as he had? Why had he embarrassed her at work, and told Rémy to fire her? Why hadn’t he let her explain properly—all the words he knew she needed to say, and had told her he didn’t want to hear, even when he’d been aching for her to give him something that would eradicate the pain of her betrayal?

But it hadn’t really been a betrayal. Oh, she’d come to him intending to steal Calypso’s secrets, but it was out of desperation and love for her father. Knowing Abigail as he did now, he didn’t doubt her version of events. She would never have gone through with it.

But he would have.

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