Betrayal (34 page)

She chuckled. How wonderful to realize Noah had done her a favor.

When Brooke reappeared, Penelope was making notes and sketches. Penelope gave her a sympathetic grimace. “I’m sorry. I won’t talk about injuries anymore.”

“I think what you said was the icing on the cake.” Brooke put her hand on her stomach and shook her head at the same time. “I can’t seem to get through one morning without worshiping at the foot of the porcelain god.”

“I’m so sorry.” Penelope meant it. “It breaks my heart to see what you’re going through.”

“Everyone’s different, so they tell me.” Brooke clearly wished she were different. “Before this, I hadn’t been sick since I was twenty and got the Asian flu. Or the chicken flu. Or whatever it was called that year.”

“I don’t like to brag”—Penelope loved to brag—“but when I was pregnant I never felt so good in my life. Right away I knew I had conceived, because all of a sudden I was full of energy. My hair grew inches an hour, and my fingernails were so strong I could hardly trim them. I was running a couple of miles a day, and my work was
good
. It was like being pregnant turned my mind on, and I was
so fabulously creative that—” Penelope stopped in midsentence.

Without even thinking, she was talking about her pregnancy.

Since the day she’d held Mia in her arms, she had never mentioned the experience to anyone until Noah. It had been a private tragedy, a time to be remembered only during the darkest hours of the night, when she cried for what she had lost.

She waited for long seconds. Waited for that grief that tore her apart…

But while Mia’s small, sweet ghost passed through her memories, Penelope was not in tears.

She sighed in relief and an odd kind of regret.

That night with Noah had given her this, too, a kind of peace to cherish.

One week ago, she had passed through a portal into the next stage of her life.

Her sorrow at Mia’s death was part of her. It would always be a part of her.

But it wasn’t all of her, not anymore.

“You lost your baby?” Brooke asked, then rushed on before Penelope could do more than nod. “Last week when you raced out of the design center, I guessed something like that. I should never have dragged you over to decorate the baby’s room.”

“It was the anniversary of Mia’s death. You didn’t know. Anyway, I’m better now.” Although Penelope wasn’t about to tell Brooke the reasons why. “I think that having this job and working with you has helped bring me back to life, because actually, I’m overflowing with ideas for decorating. I feel really good, too. Healthier than I’ve felt for…” She stopped.

She really did feel good. Amazingly good. No… it couldn’t…

“I haven’t felt this healthy since…” Since the last time she was pregnant.

The words reverberated in her mind.

The last time she was pregnant.

She was pregnant.

The shock made her stand tall, frozen in place, unmoving, not breathing.

“Penelope, are you okay?” Brooke grabbed her arm.

The world faded to black.

Penelope stumbled backward into the wall, slid down until her butt hit the floor, put her head between her legs.

Breathe
. She had to
breathe
.

She was pregnant.

Brooke knelt beside her. “It was the shock of talking about your ordeal, wasn’t it? I’ll bet you haven’t been to counseling, have you? You should talk to someone who could help you through your grief.”

Numbly, Penelope nodded.

Brooke put her arm around Penelope. “Why don’t you get in my recliner and rest for a couple of hours? I’d send you home, but as long as you stay in that awful Sweet Dreams Hotel, that’s more of a punishment.”

“It’s cheap. Safe,” Penelope mumbled. “Got a monthly rate.”

“I think you should buy a house right here in Bella Terra and stay.” Brooke sounded as if she were on a crusade. “Prices are down, loan rates are good, you’d have plenty of work, and I know it’s silly, but I keep hoping you and Noah could get back together.”

“A house in Bella Terra. Might have to do that.” Although not for any reason Brooke could imagine. Slowly,
Penelope lifted her head and stared, dazed, into the future. “I have to go to the drugstore.”

“Now? Why? Oh…” Brooke thought she understood. “You’ve started your period.”

“Something like that.” It had been seven days—no, eight—since Penelope had been with Noah. A week was the minimal time for a pregnancy test to be accurate. She could buy the test, do the test, find out the results, stare at the stick, and try to comprehend how this could have happened.…

Not that
she
needed a positive test.

She already knew the truth. She was pregnant.

And Noah, untrustworthy, constantly inconstant Noah, was the father.

She had been grateful to him for abandoning her, and now… this!

“No wonder you fainted. I’m sorry. I don’t have supplies here.” Brooke was sympathetic—and clueless.

Noah couldn’t even stick around until morning.

With a kid, they were looking at a minimum of eighteen years.

All because Penelope had wanted sex to forget the pain caused by the hurtful end of her last pregnancy.

Some kind of cosmic justice was at work here.

But
why
?

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Penelope got slowly to her feet.

What was she going to do about Noah? What was she going to say to him?

Brooke said, “I can run to the drugstore for you—”

“No!”
God forbid.
More calmly, Penelope said, “I mean, no, I can do it. I’d like the fresh air. In the meantime…” How to keep Brooke from volunteering to
accompany her? “In the meantime, maybe you could rest and get over your morning sickness, and when you feel better… I brought samples for the master bedroom curtains and comforter.”

Brooke clasped her hands. “Oh. I can’t wait to see them!”

“You sit in the recliner and I’ll put them on the table at your elbow. We’ll talk about them as soon as I get back. Sound good?” Penelope thought she was talking too brightly and too fast, as if she were distracting a preschooler with a shiny toy.

But she could be allowed her awkward moments caused by surprise and… well, she didn’t know what else she was feeling. But surprise for sure. And alarm, because really, a baby with Noah, the king of the vanishing lovers, could create all kinds of difficult situations.

But inside herself, underneath all the clutter of emotions, she spotted the tiniest, iridescent bubble of expanding joy.

Because… she was pregnant.

She was going to have a baby.

Perhaps her luck had turned at last.

Chapter 54

Dear Penelope, I know you hate me, but please read this. The last eight days have been a pure hell of loneliness. I treated you shabbily—again—and I am ashamed, but I promise you I have my reasons.…

Someone knocked on the door.

Noah stopped typing.

He had specifically instructed everybody at the resort that he was going to work in his office and he was not to be disturbed. And he meant it. He had so little time to get these letters written to Nonna and his brothers… and Penelope.

Hours, in fact.

He glanced at his watch.

Four hours and two minutes until three thirty-seven p.m.

He’d put his will in order. He’d done his best to
prepare the resort to run without him until a new manager could be hired. He’d prepared a list of possible candidates.

Annie and June had left for Far Island, driving down the coast and taking the commuter plane across to the resort. Noah had booked their flights back to Bella Terra for tonight, knowing they would be making the journey and wanting them here for Nonna as soon as possible.

He’d put off writing the letters until the last minute, hoping against hope that he would find the bottle and free the Di Lucas from the constant threat of murder, and himself from a bloody and violent fate.

But this afternoon, the bomb at his throat would detonate.

So whoever was knocking at the door would have to ask for help from someone else at the resort.

He started typing again.

I’ve been searching through the resort with ever-increasing desperation, trying to locate my grandfather’s bottle of wine. The stakes are higher than you know. My brothers have been searching, too, starting at Nonna’s house and working in ever-increasing circles outward.…

Another knock, harder this time.

Did no one at this resort believe Noah when he said, “Leave me alone”?

Actually, they did. Almost everyone who worked at the resort respected his orders, especially for the last two weeks, when he’d been a little, should he say, obsessive and irritable.

And since Brooke had retired from being his right-
hand man and they’d hired a new assistant manager, problems had inevitably popped up.

So actually, if someone was knocking at his door, there was a good chance some kind of emergency had occurred and they really
did
need his help.

But he had no time.

The deathwatch had started.

The next knock on his office door made him want to snarl like a wolverine.

Yes, he had descended to some of kind animal being who snarled and slathered rather than swore like a man.

“Come in,” he yelled.

No one did.

He sighed. Whoever it was had probably fled at the sound of his impatience.

Or not, because whoever it was now drummed at the door with his fingertips.

Fine. Noah would take a few precious minutes to deal with one more emergency. He wouldn’t mind performing a last act that the staff could remember him by: soothe an irate guest, find some lost luggage, straighten out a security glitch.

Going to the door, he opened it.

What. A. Mistake.

Hendrik stood there. Hendrik, grinning, dressed in shiny black leather like some tough biker dude with a fashion disability.

Noah looked him over, insulting him without saying a word. But it was Hendrik, so he had to say the words or the guy wouldn’t get it. “Nice threads. Afraid when I blew up, you’d get brains on yourself?”

Hendrik grinned more widely. “
Ja.
I worried. You know I had to go to San Francisco for these?”

“I’ll bet.”

“The shops here are so provincial!” Hendrik tried to push Noah aside and walk in.

“They really are.” Noah blocked the door. “We don’t have any jewelry shops with ugly man-necklaces.”

Hendrik’s gaze went to Noah’s neck, to the tie he kept tied around his throat to hide the black band of his dog collar. “Still you cover it up. I helped Grieta and Brigetta design the necklace. I thought it looked good!”

Noah sighed. “All your taste is in your mouth. Now go away. You’re not coming in. I’m not spending my last hours on earth with you, Hendrik, so I say this with the Propov familial affection—go to hell.”

“You first.” Hendrik tried again to bully his way in.

Noah grabbed Hendrik’s leather coat and pulled him close, chest-to-chest. “Hang around and I’ll take you with me.” With a slap under the chin, he shoved Hendrik backward into the hall.

Hendrik flushed. “I don’t take that from you, little cousin.” Lowering his head like an enraged bull, he started to charge.

Noah plucked the small pistol out of his pocket and aimed it at Hendrik’s chest. The click of the safety sounded as loud as a shot.

Hendrik skidded to a stop. The look of surprise on his face made Noah want to laugh out loud… if he could have laughed.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now, Hendrik. The police might come and arrest me, but I’ll be dead at three thirty-seven p.m.” Noah couldn’t believe it, but he’d just discovered the bright spot to being a walking time bomb. “So really, tell me—why shouldn’t I shoot your worthless ass right now?”

“I’m wearing a bulletproof vest.”

Noah aimed at Hendrik’s head. “Thanks for letting me know.”

Confusion and then indignation crossed Hendrik’s face, and he sounded affronted when he said, “I came to do you a favor.”

“Really? I thought you came to get into trouble.” Hendrik had come to torment Noah, and Noah had no time. “And you’re doing a fine job of it.”

“I came because I thought you needed pointers on how to use a condom,” Hendrik said in a patently patient tone.

“What?”
What?

“Your girlfriend, the pretty, dark-haired one.” Hendrik made a curving gesture with his hands. “I followed her this morning.”

Noah pulled back the hammer on the pistol. It clicked into place.

“To the drugstore,” Hendrik said so quickly he slurred his words.

“So?” Noah waited, within seconds of shooting the bastard.

Hendrik’s gaze flicked between the eye of the pistol and Noah’s face. “She was buying a pregnancy test.”

Noah froze.

Hendrik waited, and when Noah didn’t move, didn’t speak, he explained, “You know? A pregnancy test? I’ve been following her for a week. You’re the only one she’s fucking.” Hendrik laughed his nasty laugh. “She’s going to have your baby.”

Penelope.
Having a baby.

Penelope.
Pregnant
.

Penelope, alone in a world that included Hendrik, the abusive, lawless stalker.

In a cold, dead voice, Noah asked, “Why were you watching her?”

“She’s pretty.” Hendrik grinned, seeing the stillness in Noah, reading him completely wrong. “You like her, and I thought it would be fun to—”

Noah straightened his arm and aimed right between Hendrik’s eyes.

“Run.”

Chapter 55

H
endrik must have seen something in Noah’s expression that convinced him, because he ran. He raced down the hall, looked back once to see Noah had stepped out to aim again, and took a left. Noah heard him hit the outside door. He yelped as the metal didn’t yield fast enough. Then the door slammed behind him.

Noah stood, still as a statue, and wished he had killed him.

If he had, he would know right now that Penelope was safe.