IT was early dawn and surfers bobbed like black dots across the water’s surface, waiting to catch their wave. Ryan wanted to be out there with them. One with the ocean. Fluid in body and mind. At peace with the world around him.
Not today though.
Nothing gelled. Nothing fit or flowed or felt right and hadn’t since he’d left Claire the day before. He’d been banking on the demands of the job—conference calls and a backlog of work that was the result of all the time he’d been making for Claire—to keep his head clear. But it hadn’t worked and Claire had lingered at the edge of most every thought.
He’d planned to call her today though. To make sure she was okay and come to some decisions about their future.
That’s what he’d planned before the predawn call from his Boston-based assistant.
Now it was barely five-thirty and already he’d spent half an hour on the phone. The news wasn’t good. And the timing couldn’t be worse.
“Look, Denis, I haven’t talked to Dahlia in months.” And he was kicking himself, hard, for not having followed up with her after that last missed call. “What exactly do we know?”
Papers shuffled from across the country, the noise somehow reassuring within the waiting silence currently surrounding Ryan. “Nothing more than I’ve already told you. It’s tabloid fodder. She declined wine with dinner and made a couple suggestive statements to the press. But this is Dahlia we’re talking about. She’s always stirring up something for publicity.”
Ryan didn’t need to be reminded, having been a part of her publicity plan on and off for the better part of a year. Rubbing a hand across the tightening muscles of his neck, he closed his eyes. “You said she’s in L.A.?”
“Yes, they’ve been shooting this week.”
“Okay, I’ll get in touch with Dahlia myself. Clear my morning through…hell, make it three this afternoon.”
Hanging up, Ryan let his head fall back against the chair. A pregnancy. Of all the damn things in the world, it had to be that. It wasn’t likely true, and even less that the baby would be his…but there was the possibility. He needed answers and he needed them fast. Depending on what Dahlia said, any decision about a future with Claire might not be his to make. Claire had demonstrated that already.
Ryan set his napkin aside. “You’re positive?”
Laughter bubbled free of Dahlia Dawson’s full, internationally recognizable smile as amusement lit her eyes. “Of course I’m sure. Do you really think I wouldn’t know who’d gotten me pregnant?”
He hadn’t known what to think, but relief washed over him that Dahlia was confident she did.
Leaning into him, she caught his face in the cup of her palm. Outwardly the gesture was intimate tenderness, but inwardly it was like so much with Dahlia. Staged.
He hadn’t minded the occasional lack of authenticity when they’d been dating. In fact, at times, it more than suited his needs. He’d had the soft press of a stunning woman at his side, the charming company and dazzling conversation, without any actual risk of a messy entanglement.
Sure, there had been plenty of unscripted time too. Behind closed doors, she relaxed into who she really was. Gave up the pretense and posing. Mostly. But they’d never connected to the point where all boundaries could be dropped.
There had been just enough between them to make a casual relationship go the distance. It was only when casual stopped working and Dahlia began to want something that went deeper than he’d been able to offer, they went their separate ways. He had hurt her. But not the way he would have if they’d continued.
Dahlia was better for it. Beneath the show of calculated motions and measured laughter, she was lit with a glow from within. One that couldn’t be manufactured. “You’re happy now?”
The smile that split her face in that moment was one he’d never seen before. It was genuine, carrying emotion too great to be contained. Her gaze dipped to the slight swell of her belly, pushing his thoughts to Claire and the ache that had settled deep in the middle of his chest.
“I am.”
Damn, that was good to know. It’s what he’d wanted for her. “You deserve it, sweetheart.”
“Goodbye, Ryan.”
Taking her hand from his cheek, he gave it a gentle squeeze.
Walking from the restaurant, the light reprieve of relief and satisfaction evaporated and a heavy weight settled over his shoulders. He needed to call Claire.
Even though the anger hadn’t ebbed, his thoughts hadn’t particularly cleared, he needed to hear her voice.
Only, a call from the office was already coming through.
“We’ve got a problem with the Lake deal,” was Denis’s efficient greeting. “I’m holding a conference call for you now.”
The Lake deal again. Details dropped into place as he mentally shifted focus, his stride lengthening as he headed for his car. “What have you got for me?”
Denis delivered the points of update in bulletlike fashion, leaving Ryan wondering if the deal he’d been working for the last six months could be resuscitated after apparently being shot to hell in the last day. But already his mind was spinning toward solutions, reevaluating the risk to reward and settling on the answer. Yes.
Calling Claire was out. Thirty seconds to tell her he didn’t have time wouldn’t be doing either of them any favors. But without even a goodbye he had to do something.
“Denis, shoot an email to Claire letting her know I’m going to be tied up with this, probably through the night. I’ll call her when I have a chance.” One more day might give him the perspective he needed to make some decisions. For now, though, he needed one hundred percent of his focus to salvage this deal. “Okay, conference me in.”
Claire blinked at the celebrity headline, let her focus slip to the photo beneath.
Ryan gazing tenderly into the elated face of Dahlia Dawson, who in turn cupped his strong jaw with her palm. It was an intimate moment between two people caught unawares by the press. Two people making plans for a future.
WEDDING IN THE WORKS FOR EXPECTANT PARENTS BRADY AND DAWSON
She closed her eyes, as if that would be enough to make her forget. Somehow make it less real.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
Three nights ago Ryan had been in her bed. Holding her against his heart and telling her that, if only for that night, he was her husband again. It hardly seemed possible that as he’d searched her body for signs of the child they’d lost, another was already growing within Dahlia’s womb.
Nausea roiled within her. She’d never had a chance.
She’d been bound for heartbreak from that first day in Rome.
No, that wasn’t right. It could have been different. She might have been able to escape with minimal damage…if she’d remembered what they were engaging in was only an affair. If she hadn’t begun to wonder about more…think maybe, this time, there was enough right—
She’d been an idiot.
Holding up the paper she forced herself to see reality.
Ryan looked happy. The smile on his face was relaxed. Satisfied. As though he had exactly what he wanted.
A child. His child.
He’d made such a great show of avoiding commitment all these years—but maybe, like her, he’d been telling himself the things he couldn’t have were things he didn’t want.
Memories of their past slipped like filmy overlays to the present. To another pregnancy. Another lifetime.
God, he’d been so happy. Stunned for all of a quarter of a second when she’d told him the news. She’d been terrified—so afraid of what he’d say, what he’d want.
What he wouldn’t want.
To that point everything between them had been perfect. She’d believed he loved her. But they’d only been together for a matter of months and a pregnancy could change everything.
It had changed everything. First in the most incredible way and then in the most devastating. Within days she’d lost her parents, within months she’d lost Andrew, and within a year Ryan. But in those initial moments, it had been bliss. Ryan’s frozen expression cracking into the widest of grins as he pulled her into his arms, off her feet, and spun her around laughing.
He’d told her it hadn’t been the way he’d planned it, but he’d always seen a family as part of his life, he’d just thought he’d have to wait. He saw her pregnancy as the gift he got to open before Christmas morning. And then he’d asked her to marry him.
Now, pressure bit at her eyes, tightened her throat around a well of emotion too great to swallow down. Ryan didn’t have to wait anymore for the gift so cruelly snatched back from his fingers. A gift Claire could never give him.
Praying to God this child was born without a single complication, she fisted her hand and jammed it against her lips, trying to stifle the sound of choked despair.
The phone was ringing again. Sally, not Ryan.
She’d have to pick up eventually, but today there was only one call she was going to take. The one from Ryan where he told her they were over and this divorce and settlement they’d been dragging their feet on would need to be resolved in short order.
The absence of that call meant only one thing. He didn’t know about the article. The man’s protective drive toward her bordered on obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Or at least it had.
But that would inevitably change with this reversal of roles too.
Dahlia would become his wife. The woman who carried his baby. And if he’d been protective of Claire— A weak laugh escaped her, slipping through her fingers and echoing down the empty hall where she’d slumped against the wall upon opening the morning paper—Dahlia would be lucky if he let her leave the house encased in Bubble Wrap.
Whereas Claire…well, he’d always care about her, but she had become that other woman with whom “it was over.”
Over. The word shifted restlessly in her mind, unwilling to settle or take root.
But denial wouldn’t change the fact that it was where they had been heading from the first.
Regardless of the detours made along the way, that final destination should never have been in question. Claire should never have allowed herself to get in so deep. It had been stupid and careless to leave herself open to this kind of vulnerability when, in truth, Ryan had never given her one word of encouragement that the relationship would go anywhere but to divorce.
What kind of fool was she that after all the years it had taken to climb out of that dark abyss, the moment she was finally free she threw herself down right back at the ledge by slipping into love with the man who’d told her flat out the limit on what he could offer.
She’d willingly exposed that most tender part of her heart again, and look where it left her. Staring down into those same dark depths.
She wouldn’t give in. Not this time.