Page 26 of Her Diamond Deal with the CEO

It.

That hurt, appallingly. Not just that he didn’t believe her but that he was rejecting his baby, her baby, their baby and a bud of defiance blossomed inside her as her hands moved protectively over her still-flat stomach.

‘I never said it was. In fact, I don’t want it to be. I don’t want anything to do with you. I want out of this stupid, farcical marriage.’ Not that there was much to get out of. She had signed an NDA and a prenup and Jack had given her an upfront payment, which she would return if it meant waitressing every night for the rest of her life. But neither of them had wanted to put the sordid transactional details of their arrangement in writing.

His beautiful face creased into something angular and ugly. ‘You took the words right out of my mouth.’

He spun round and stalked out of the bathroom.

Ondine stared at the space where he had been standing, anger surging through her as hot and ungovernable as the hunger that had briefly flared between them and she stormed after him but he was already at the bottom of the stairs and then he disappeared from view.

Her head was spinning as if she were drunk, and then she felt wave after wave of nausea and she turned and stumbled back into the bathroom and threw up.

CHAPTER FIVE

WRENCHINGOPENTHEFrench windows, Jack strode purposefully across the lawn. Or that was what someone watching him might have thought. In reality he felt like a drunk man doing a field sobriety test, and the truth was he had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there.

All he knew was that he couldn’t spend another second in that bathroom with Ondine and her lies and duplicity.

And that was another reason to hate her, he thought savagely, glancing back at the house.

The Walcott family owned several properties. But Red Knots was different from all the rest. Since he could remember, he’d spent part of every summer there and, for him, it was a place of simple, unthinking calm. A refuge from the uncomfortable truths of the past and the failings in the present.

It held a special place in his grandfather’s heart too. John Walcott had met his wife, Candace, in Martha’s Vineyard. Like Ondine, she was working as a waitress. The difference was that for John and Candace it was love at first sight. And they were still in love, holding hands and gazing into one another’s eyes like loved-up teenagers in every single photo he’d ever seen of them. Right up until when his grandmother died the year before he was born.

He hadn’t told Ondine that. He hadn’t wanted her to get the wrong idea. To imagine that their relationship might one day blossom into something more substantial, more permanent.

But now that had happened anyway, right under his straight, patrician nose. Thanks to Ondine’s duplicity, what had started out as a quid pro quo transaction was now a Gordian knot of nightmarish outcomes.

He breathed out shakily. His body was still ringing with the shock of what she had just told him. She was lying to him, of course. She must be lying. He had used a condom,hell, he always used a condom. It couldn’t be his baby.

But what if it was?

He felt his chest tighten as Ondine’s voice echoed inside his head.

‘You’re the last man on this planet I’d choose to impregnate me. Do you really think I’d want some arrogant, entitled trustafarian brat like you to father my child? Because I don’t.’

A spasm of pressure he chose not to identify squeezed his heart.

How he lived, how heneededto live, was not compatible with parenthood. It wasn’t even compatible with long-term relationships. That was why he’d ended up in this ridiculous sham marriage in the first place. A marriage that was supposed to be a solution to his problems, not an additional problem to solve. A marriage he had impulsively entered into knowing only half the facts.

The sound of waves broke into his thoughts and he realised that he had made his way to the jetty. Beside it, the launch bobbed jauntily on the water, her smooth fibreglass hull bumping gently against the wood in time to his heartbeat.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. He hadn’t been near the sea since that morning all those weeks ago and, looking at it, he felt his body tense. Ondine had pulled him from that same water, breathed air into his lungs. She had saved his life.

Now, though, she seemed more intent on derailing it.

His mouth thinned. It wasn’t fair. He had taken precautions. So, why was this happening to him?

His shoulders tensed against the warm breeze because he knew why. He had taken too much at face value. Focused on the big picture rather than examining the details. He had looked at Ondine and seen an opportunity. A woman who needed money. And because he had money to spare he’d thought that put him in charge.

He’d thought the same about that deal with the Canadians. The one that had ended with an expensive settlement and his removal from the board. Apparently, he hadn’t learned his lesson.

Gritting his teeth, he glanced up at the serene blue sky. Was that what this was? Was all of this the balancing of some vast cosmic quadratic equation of which he was just a component? It certainly felt like it. He felt insignificant, wound up, powerless.

Just like when he was a child being ferried back and forth between his parents’ homes. Grudgingly welcomed then passed back with almost tangible relief as if he were a low-ranking card in Chase the Ace.

His hands balled in his pockets.

---