* * *
Rose sat in the back of the chauffeur-driven car as they crossed the bridge onto the island of Manhattan. It wasn’t as if she’d had a choice when that scarily taciturn man had turned up at her place of work and said, ‘I’m here to take you to Mr Valenti.’
She’d known that this meeting was inevitable. She guessed she’d known it as soon as she’d had the confirmation of her pregnancy about two months ago.
And, if she was completely honest with herself, she’d known far sooner than that—because they’d made love again that night, in the half-light of the moon, in the hazy, dreamlike moments between sleeping and waking.
Rose might have believed it to have been a dream if it hadn’t been for the indelible memory of the pulsing strength of Zac’s climax inside her. When she’d woken again as dawn had been breaking, she’d weakly tried to convince herself that it had just been a dream.
But it hadn’t.
And, as terrified as she’d been to contemplate the fact that the night would have repercussions, she’d also felt an immediately fierce sense of acceptance and protectiveness for her unborn child—even before she’d missed her first period and her fears had become real.
Still, it had taken all of her guts and courage to go and have the pregnancy confirmed, because she’d had a very strong sense of foreboding that as soon as someone else knew about it she would be putting her child in some kind of perilous danger.
At no point—even when the pregnancy had been confirmed—had it occurred to her to go and tell Mrs Lyndon-Holt. Her only thought had been how she would eventually tell Zac. The fact that she now possibly had a way to save her father was something she hadn’t allowed herself to contemplate, because she had known she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she used her unborn child as some kind of bargaining chip...and her father would never want his own flesh and blood used in that way either.
It had brought home to her just how distraught she’d been even to consider that this might be a solution to her problems in the first place.
But she hadn’t had to worry about going to see Mrs Lyndon-Holt because the woman had ambushed Rose. Just as she had before, and just when Rose had finally felt she was off the woman’s radar after not seeing her in months.
Far from not being on the woman’s radar, Rose discovered she had been very much on it. She hadn’t figured on the ruthlessness of the woman, or her vast influence. And now everything had been taken out of her hands in the worst way possible.
In the back of that same sleek black limousine, parked on a quiet Queens street, Mrs Lyndon-Holt had swiped through photo after photo on a sleek tablet. The pictures had documented Rose and Zac leaving that luncheon function and walking through Central Park. They had shown the moments by the subway, when Rose had obviously made her fateful decision to stay. And then they’d shown her leaving his apartment the following morning as dawn had broken, looking dishevelled and with a mortifyingly dreamy and wistful look on her face. Wistful because she’d believed she’d never see him again.
There was no need for any photos of what had happened in the intervening hours. It was glaringly obvious.
And since then her every move had been followed. Mrs Lyndon-Holt had merely waited until Rose had passed the danger zone of early pregnancy before pouncing.
When Rose had tried to get out of the car the woman had restrained her with a brittle but surprisingly strong hand. Rose had looked back at her, feeling numb all over.
‘Are you forgetting so easily about your payment?’
Rose had answered with a coolness that had belied the fear she’d felt, ‘I don’t want anything from you.’
The other woman had just smiled malevolently. ‘Perhaps not you or the baby right now—but your father could do with some help, couldn’t he? Or are you just going to let him die, knowing that you could have saved him if it wasn’t for your stubborn pride? Do I need to remind you that you signed a non-disclosure agreement? Which means you can never tell anyone about what we agreed? And don’t for a second think that my son will welcome this news. It’s common knowledge that he has no desire for a child. So you see, Rose, I’m really all the hope and support you have right now. All I have to do is make one call and your father will have a chance to live to be a very old man.’
Rose had gone hot and then cold all over. As if she needed to be reminded of that conversation she’d overheard in the bathroom that fateful night. Zac Valenti was the last person she could turn to.
And her father...
Jocelyn Lyndon-Holt was right in some sick way—how could Rose live with herself, knowing she’d denied her father a chance to be well again?
A sense of futility had sunk deep into the pit of her being. And the realisation that through her own choices and actions she was now trapped—for better or worse.
And just like that, without having to say another word, Mrs Lyndon-Holt had had Rose exactly where she wanted her.
With ruthless precision, Rose’s father had been transported to an upstate specialised medical facility, where he was due to undergo the preparation required before he had a potentially life-saving and prohibitively expensive operation in a couple of weeks. He’d believed the explanation that Rose had given him: that it was down to the fact that Mrs Lyndon-Holt felt charitable towards an ex-employee. Rose’s insides had curdled at the deceit.
She stared out of the car window now, dry-eyed but aching inside. A kind of resolve had solidified inside her once she’d realised she had to see this thing through.
She had been unutterably selfish, believing she could take something that should never have belonged to her— a night with Zac Valenti—and now she had to face the consequences of her actions. And if her father was the one who might profit from it all by regaining his health, then that would have to be the thing that would make this worthwhile.
That and the new life growing in her belly. A life that she would never regret making, no matter what happened from this moment on. Whether or not her child did inherit a vast fortune was neither here nor there, because Rose had never set out to profit personally from the agreement with Zac’s mother, no matter what she’d signed.
But she couldn’t blame someone else for her own actions.
She just knew she would lay down her own life to protect her baby from any harm, and she vowed now that he or she would not suffer because of her actions, whatever she had to do to ensure that.