Really bad choices, Natalie.
Wearing only her bra and underwear, she pulled her suitcase from under the bed, anxious to get away now. Feeling stupid and discriminated against. Feeling really, really hurt and disappointed, because yes, a very misguided part of her had thought he might like her enough that it wouldn’t matter that she was a mother. It wasn’t as if she was asking for marriage and a father for her child. Just a bit of companionship without being labeled or dismissed.
“What are you doing?” he asked, hand on the door latch.
She was obviously packing, but didn’t see the point in being sarcastic about it. There was no reason to have a fight over this. She’d kept a secret and he was reacting exactly as she’d expected. Now they were done. It hurt, stung like hell actually, but there was nothing she could do to fix it, so she accepted it.
“Natalie,” he said, demanding she respond.
“I’ll get a room for the night, then make my own way to Lyon tomorrow,” she said in as level a tone as she could manage. The nice people at her credit card company would be thrilled to extend her the cash. “You don’t have to give up your room or your weekend.”
“This was the last room. You’re not walking down the street in the middle of the night with your luggage. I’m leaving. Stay here.”
She turned, finding him with one hand still on the door latch, the other clenched so tightly around his dangling jacket his knuckles showed white. His face was all taut angles, his shoulders as stiff as iron, his will for her to do as he said practically resounding off him like rings of a bell.
“I want to leave,” she said, not happy with the way her voice came out all papery and husky, but rejection did that to a person. She realized she was shivering and grabbed her long-sleeved undershirt off the floor to struggle into it. She found a pair of jeans in a drawer and shot her legs into them, then had to bounce on her feet to shake her butt into the seat of them. The rest of her clothes went from the drawer as an armload that got dumped into the suitcase.
“Natalie, stop.” He was suddenly right beside her, tall and broad and reaching toward her.
She jerked away, pivoting to confront him. “I’m making this easy for you,” she said with razor sharpness. “Stop making it hard for me.”
“I have a right to be shocked,” he said with a fling of his hand toward her phone. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d act like this. Think differently of me,” she blurted with a pointed, significant look. She couldn’t hold his stare, though. Shame washed over her. All the guilt of denying her daughter weighed into her, slumping her shoulders so she skulked around him and into the bathroom to gather her things there.
Demitri listened to her clatter together all the millions of bottles and compacts and tubes she’d scattered across the tiny vanity since they’d arrived. His heart was pounding and a sick knot churned in his gut. Nausea had arrived with his realization that she had a child. Confusion and panic—yes, he was in a state of panic—had him desperate to walk out and pull himself together. Get away from whatever this was.
But she wouldn’t be here when he was ready to come back.
That should be a relief. It should be exactly what he wanted because, damn it, that was how he coped best. Walk away. Pretend it hadn’t happened. Leave the devastation for someone else to clean up. But she wanted to leave, and he was stuck to the floor, aware he didn’t want her to go.
She wasn’t the flirty, gamine, sometimes-nerdy single woman he’d thought he was maneuvering into a long-term position as his mistress. While he’d been delighting in finding a woman who had attained the perfect combination of being interesting while remaining disinterested in deep commitment, she’d been hiding that she actually carried the most indelible responsibility possible.
He was completely flummoxed as to how to proceed.
She came out of the bathroom and brushed by him without looking at him, almost as though she was too ashamed. I knew you’d think differently of me.
He was seeing her differently, but not in a bad light. It was more... Hell, he didn’t want to examine any of what he was thinking or feeling. Face forward and keep moving was his motto. He never looked back and self-examined.
Scratching a hand through his hair, he watched her struggle to zip the poorly packed case and the word burst out of him. “Stop.”
She only set her chin and worked to press and joggle the zipper tab with more determination.
“Natalie, would you give it a rest for a minute and just tell me—”
“What?” she demanded, quarter turning from the case and folding her arms, pure belligerence in her tone. “Tell you why I’m in Europe pretending to be a single woman who can have affairs?”
“You’re not single?” That lit his fuse with a burn so deep and hot, he stopped breathing.
“No, I am. I’m single,” she assured him with a widening of her eyes that told him she’d seen the switch inside him and was alarmed by it. “I meant about not mentioning Zoey. That I’ve been acting as if I don’t have any obligations when I actually have a five-year-old.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “But I did tell you that first night that this is just a fantasy. A chance to live in a way I could never touch in my real life.”
He told his muscles to relax as he watched self-consciousness flicker across her face. She met his eyes with a small plea for understanding in hers.
“I’m not proud of that. Or of hiding her from you. Heck, leaving her for three weeks with my mother-in-law has been eating me up, but that, at least, was for the sake of my career. It’s actually what Gideon talked to me about that day you saw us.”
She flicked another glance at him before she continued in a rush, as if she’d been dying to get this off her chest.
“Twice before this I couldn’t take a special assignment because Zoey was too young for me to leave her. I was almost passed over for this one and wrote Adara an email about how it feels like discrimination when a married man with a child my daughter’s age would be chosen without any hesitation, but I wasn’t. She arranged for me to have this spot and asked for my input on rewriting the policies so they’re more supportive to single-parent employees. They want to encourage everyone trying to advance in the company, especially if they’re caregiving at home, because poverty doesn’t help anyone in that situation.”
Demitri nod-shrugged, vaguely aware of a discussion about that at board level, but it was so beyond his sphere of interest he’d let his siblings run with it. It wasn’t the most impactful detail now.
“Your daughter is five? How old are you?” He’d guessed her to be twenty-five or six, but to have a daughter that old, she must have been a baby herself when she got pregnant.
She tucked her chin. “Twenty-four.”
He couldn’t help the way his brows lifted in shocked dismay.
“There was a party the night we all graduated high school.” She shrugged. “My brother had just died and I was...” Her shoulder hitched defensively. “I’m not proud of that, either, but it happened and we got married because that’s what you do, right? I wanted someone to take care of me, but Heath wasn’t interested in taking care of either of us. He barely takes care of himself.” She combed impatient fingers through her hair. “I shouldn’t say it like that. I mean, he’s not going to let Zoey play with matches or anything,” she grumbled. “But he doesn’t hold down a real job. ‘Flash cards and dental appointments can be done another day, let’s go fishing instead’ is his attitude. He loves her and will always keep her safe, but I can’t count on him when it comes to the day-to-day stuff.”
The baleful darkness in her tone hit Demitri below the belt, bludgeoning him with the knowledge that he’d never been someone to count on, either.
“And this wasn’t... I wasn’t looking for someone to take care of me here,” she rushed to add, indicating the room with a circle of her finger. “Skiing the Alps is nice, but I learned to live without any sort of frills a long time ago. I’m actually good with taking care of myself and Zoey. One of the reasons I don’t date is because I don’t want the hassle of trying to fit someone else’s needs into our lives. We’re solid, and even when I focus on my career it’s really about her. Better income translates to more opportunities for her, a better education down the road. I’m trying really hard to make decisions that are best for her. But then I had this little spell of time here to think about myself for a change.”
She smiled with pained truth.
“You live single and carefree every day,” she pointed out. “You probably don’t realize how alluring the lifestyle is. Parenting and mortgage payments are not glamorous. And look at how you’ve reacted. You thought I was superhot when you thought I was single and now you’re turned off because I’m a mom. I wanted to feel hot and fun for a change.”