His Brand of Passion (10 page)

‘Hello, Zoe.’

She turned in surprise to see the man in question standing in the doorway of the art room. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I thought I ought to see where you worked.’

She smiled, unaccountably thrilled that he’d made the effort. ‘Well, here it is.’

He took a step into the room, seeming to dominate the space, and glanced around at the child-sized tables, the buckets of markers and crayons, the spills of glitter and paint. ‘Any breakthroughs today?’

‘It’s more about little steps.’

He nodded. ‘I’d agree with that. I saw you working with that little boy.’ He nodded towards the table. ‘He seemed sad.’

‘He is sad. Life’s been tough for him lately.’

‘And the drawing’s helping?’

‘I think so. It helps him to accept the way things are, and that it’s okay to be sad.’

He nodded slowly. ‘That’s a big one, isn’t it?’

Her heart lurched; she knew how difficult it was for Aaron to talk about his emotions. With a smile to show she was sort of teasing, she gestured to the tub of crayons. ‘You could have a go.’

‘Maybe I should. It seems to work.’ He didn’t move and Zoe waited, sensing he wanted to say something more. ‘Zoe, I don’t think I handled our conversation well this morning.’

‘You don’t?’

‘I only mean to say…I
will
try.’

He gazed at her, looking both vulnerable and determined, and Zoe’s heart squeezed. ‘Try what?’ she asked softly.

‘Try to make this work between us. I’m not—I don’t think
I’m capable of loving someone. I’ve never…’ He shook his head with a touch of the old impatience. ‘That’s never been a part of my life. But I want to make a marriage between us work. I want to make you happy, if you agree.’

‘Oh, Aaron.’ She blinked back sudden tears. His reluctant confession and barely made promise should hardly have moved her to tears, but it did, because she knew how much such intimacy cost him. How much he meant it.

‘You’ve already decided, haven’t you?’ he said, and she knew from the flatness of his tone he thought she was turning him down.

‘Yes, I have.’ Zoe took a breath. ‘I’ll marry you.’

‘You will?’ Aaron looked so slack-jawed that she let out a trembling laugh.

‘Surprise.’

‘I—I thought you’d hold out,’ he said. ‘For love.’

‘I’ve been holding out for love for ten years and I haven’t found it yet.’

‘I didn’t think you were one to give up.’

I’m not
. No, she could not think like that. She absolutely could not think like that, not if she wanted to have any chance at all of making this work. She needed to accept just how little Aaron thought he could give. She smiled and arched her eyebrows. ‘Are you trying to convince me
not
to marry you?’

‘No.’ He took a step towards her. ‘No, of course not. I’m just surprised.’

‘Good surprised, I hope?’

‘Yes.’ He took another step towards her, and then another, and then he stopped, like he couldn’t go any farther, or maybe because he felt he’d gone far enough.

A kiss would have been nice, Zoe thought. A touch. But Aaron stood on the other side of the room and just stared. ‘We’ll work out the details,’ he said and she rolled her eyes.

‘Just another business contract?’

‘There are some similarities.’

She laughed, or tried to, because the tangle of emotions had knotted in her chest and suddenly it hurt to breathe. To think. What had she done? What had she agreed to, committing her life to this man?

‘Well, we have time,’ she finally managed. ‘I’m just over two months along. We don’t have to rush.’

‘No, of course not.’ He cracked a smile then, a real one. ‘But I’m glad, Zoe. Thank you.’

And just like that the knot dissolved and her heart started to melt. Dear Lord, she was in trouble.

But trouble felt good, she decided later that night as she slept once more in Aaron’s arms. He’d surprised her by asking her to sleep with him again, and she’d accepted with rather alarming alacrity.

Still, she slept better than she had in weeks, only to wake in the middle of the night, the room drenched in darkness, a stabbing pain deep in her middle. She curled her legs up to her chest and then gasped as the pain knifed her again, worse than ever before.

Aaron stirred, his arms tightening around her. ‘Zoe?’ he murmured sleepily. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No!’ she gasped as pain knifed through her again. Something was wrong. Something was really, really wrong. ‘Aaron…’

He was up immediately, the covers rucked around his waist as he went to switch on the light. Zoe’s vision swamped and she thought she might vomit. Aaron stared at her, his face stark-white, his hand already reaching for the phone.

‘Aaron!’ she gasped again, and that was all she could manage as she fell back against the pillows, unconscious.

‘I
T WAS AN
ectopic pregnancy.’

Aaron stared at the rumpled-looking doctor and tried to make sense of the words. ‘Ectopic,’ he repeated. He’d heard the word before, but he didn’t know what it meant. All he knew was the last four hours had been hellish, from the moment Zoe had woken up in his arms, gasping with pain, and then fallen unconscious.

The call to 911, the ride to the ER in an ambulance, the endless wait in a fluorescent-lit waiting room—all of it had felt like a mindless blur until now, when he was finally going to find out what had happened to Zoe—and to his child.

‘An ectopic pregnancy is one in which the embryo implants outside of the uterus,’ the doctor explained. ‘In this case, in Miss Parker’s fallopian tube. the tube ruptured, and we had to operate to remove the damaged tube as well as the embryo.’

The embryo
. Aaron blinked. He meant the baby. Their baby was gone. Swallowing, he asked the question he knew mattered most. ‘Is—is Zoe all right?’

‘She’ll be fine,’ the doctor said with a tired smile. ‘She’s lost a lot of blood, and we’re giving her a transfusion. She needs rest to recover, but she will. In a few weeks, a month, she should be fine.’

A
month?
Aaron passed a shaky hand over his face. ‘May I see her?’

‘She’s sedated, but you can have a look in if you like. If you come back tomorrow, she should be awake and able to receive visitors.’

Aaron nodded and wordlessly followed the man down a long corridor to a hospital room. Zoe lay in bed, looking pale and small and so unbearably fragile. Her lashes feathered against her cheeks, and her breathing was slow and even, but faint, so faint.

Aaron reached out a hand to the wall to steady himself. He felt as if his whole world had shattered, exploded, in the course of a single night.

He barely remembered the ride back to his apartment; his mind was numb, blank. He stepped inside the penthouse and felt its emptiness, which he knew was ridiculous because Zoe had only been living with him for a short while. He was used to being alone. He
liked
being alone.

Except now he found he didn’t. Now he found he felt empty and wretched,
lonely
. This was what loneliness felt like, he thought as he poured himself a double shot of whisky. It felt as if his whole world had collapsed around him and there was absolutely nothing left.

He tossed back the whisky and strode towards his study. Sleep would not come tonight. He powered up his laptop and stared resolutely at the screen. At least now he could focus on work; he could remain alone, he could do what he needed to do. He need never see Zoe again.

The thought made emptiness swoop through him, air whistling right through the place where he should have had a heart.

Eight hours later Aaron was back at the hospital, gritty-eyed and dressed for work. He’d bought some flowers; originally the florist had suggested a subdued bouquet of white chrysanthemums, but Aaron didn’t want flowers meant for grief, and he didn’t think Zoe did either. He chose lilacs, like
the ones in her painting. He’d stared at it this morning as he’d drunk cold, black coffee, looked around his apartment and realised how she’d made it a home. Their home. The thought made that empty space inside him ache.

Now he stood in the doorway of her room, the bouquet in hand, words bottling in his throat. She was sitting up in bed, the hospital gown emphasising the sharp bones of her clavicle. Her face was turned away from him.

‘Zoe.’ He spoke softly, but he could tell she’d heard him. She stiffened slightly, but didn’t turn towards him. He took a step in the room. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Fine.’ She faced him then, her face pale so the spattering of freckles stood out on her nose and cheeks. She smiled and shrugged, jolting Aaron out of his cautious approach. ‘Why wouldn’t I be fine?’

‘A lot of reasons, I would think.’ He put the bouquet on the table next to her. ‘These are for you.’

‘They’re very pretty. Thank you.’

He gazed at her and tried to figure out what was going on in her head. He had no idea. Her eyes were dark and fathomless, her smile fixed. She folded her hands in her lap across the starched sheets.

‘Admittedly, I feel a bit weak,’ she told him. ‘But overall I’m okay. And, really, this is probably the best outcome, don’t you think?’

‘Don’t say that.’ He spoke with instinctive sharpness, a gut-level reaction.

‘Why not? We were making the best of a bad situation, Aaron, and now we don’t have to.’

He shook his head, the tightness in his chest taking over his whole body, making it impossible to speak. Finally he managed a few words. ‘You wanted this baby.’

‘Even so. You said it yourself—my life wasn’t really set up for a baby. I wasn’t really sure how it was going to work.’

You were going to marry me
. He just shook his head. ‘Zoe…’

She cut him off, her voice turning hard. ‘There’s no point pretending that this isn’t the best thing for both of us.’

He stared at her helplessly, because even though he knew there might be truth to her words he didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel it at all. ‘Don’t say that, Zoe,’ he said quietly and she lifted her face to stare at him with a blankness that made him ache all the more.

‘Why not? It’s true.’

‘It’s not true.’ His voice was a low throb. ‘I might have said we were making the best of a—a situation, but you’re still grieving. And I wish this hadn’t happened.’ He sat down next to her and reached for her hand. She pulled away. ‘Zoe, please.’

‘Do you?’ she asked dully. ‘Do you really wish this hadn’t happened, Aaron?’

He blinked, cut to the quick by her question even as he recognised its validity. ‘Of course I do. You almost
died
, Zoe.’

‘And the baby? Aren’t you a little bit relieved that you don’t have to deal with that anymore?’

‘No.’ He blinked hard and swallowed past the tightness in his throat. ‘No. Zoe, whatever you think, I’m not that heartless, I swear.’

She lowered her head, her hair falling forward to hide her face. ‘The doctor told me I might not be able to have any more children.’

He froze, fresh grief sweeping coldly through him. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say. ‘There must be ways,’ he finally managed.

‘Maybe with IVF, but I have a lot of scarring. The whole reason this happened in the first place was because of a burst appendix I had when I was thirteen.’ She spoke dully, as if none of it really mattered. ‘All the scarring
severely limits
my
fertility, according to the doctor.’ She held her fingers up in claw-like quotation marks, a horrible smile twisting her face.

‘We can think about that later,’ Aaron said steadily. ‘The important thing now is to get you feeling better.’

‘I’ll never feel better.’ Her voice tore on the words and she turned away from him. Aaron felt his control slipping away from him, if he’d had it at all.

‘You will, Zoe, with time and rest. You
will.’
He took a deep breath and decided they both needed to focus on practicalities for a moment. The emotion in the room was palpable and thick, choking him. ‘The doctor has said you need to rest for at least a couple of weeks.’

‘I know. I can go to Millie and Chase’s.’

‘I have another idea.’ She just stared, her face as blank as ever. ‘I thought a change of scene might be—welcome. Get away from everything here. You could spend a few weeks on St Julian’s. It’s my family’s private island.’

‘In the Caribbean? I know. It’s where Chase and Millie met.’

‘Right.’ He’d forgotten that. ‘I have a private villa on the grounds of the resort. You could stay there, enjoy some sunshine, recover.’ She didn’t speak and Aaron continued awkwardly, ‘I could stay with you for a few days. I’d have to get back to work eventually, but I could take some time off.’ Still nothing. ‘Zoe?’

‘Fine.’ She turned to face the window. ‘Who am I to turn down a free vacation?’

‘All right.’ He felt gratified yet uneasy, because he knew Zoe had to be drowning in an ocean of grief. He didn’t know how to access it, how to help her. He felt like he was drowning himself. ‘I think you can be discharged tomorrow, so I’ll arrange a flight.’

‘Fine.’

‘All right.’ He hesitated, wanting to say something more,
something of the grief inside him that he didn’t like to probe too deeply, didn’t even really understand. She was still stubbornly looking away from him, and with a little sigh he headed for the door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

No response. Yet as he started walking down the hall some impulse made him turn around, head back. As he came round in the door he saw Zoe holding the bouquet of lilacs to her face, her eyes closed, and something in him twisted. She let out a ragged sob, and without even thinking he started towards her, his arms outstretched.

‘Zoe…’

She looked up, her eyes sparkling with both tears and fury. ‘Go away,’ she hissed. ‘Leave me alone, Aaron.’ She turned away again and, both shocked and hurt, Aaron dropped his arms. Without another word, he turned and left.

Hold it together
. It was her mantra, her prayer.
Hold it together, because if you don’t you will completely fall apart and there might be no getting you back together again
.

Drawing a deep breath, Zoe shoved the bouquet back on the bedside table. She blinked back the tears that had risen so readily to her eyes and felt a cold calmness seep through her once more. Good. This was what she needed. She was glad Aaron had gone. She needed him to leave her alone, because she could not keep it together with him near her, trying to be kind.

Twenty-four hours later, still feeling weak, achey and incredibly tired, Zoe boarded Aaron’s private jet for St Julian’s. They had barely spoken since he’d picked her up at the hospital and taken her in his limo to the airport, and Zoe was grateful for the reprieve. His attempts at kindness felt like salt in a raw wound, every smile or worried frown hurting her.

It hurt that he was now practically giving away the kindnesses and thoughtfulness she’d craved when she’d been pregnant
and planning to marry him. And why? Because of his wretched sense of duty—or a labouring guilt?

Either way, she couldn’t stand it. Her only defence was to feel numb, empty, even though she knew all those awful emotions—grief, rage, despair—lurked underneath that emptiness, like freezing water under the thinnest ice, and she did not dare touch the surface for fear those tiny hairline cracks would appear and she would drown in the depths below.

She’d become like Aaron, afraid of her own emotions. Hiding from them, because it was the only way she could cope.

‘It’s about a four-hour flight,’ Aaron said as he took her elbow to help her manage the stairs up to the plane. ‘There’s a bedroom in the back,’ he added as she stepped inside, distantly amazed by all the luxury: leather sofas, teak coffe tables and a sumptuous carpet that came up nearly to her ankles. She could hardly believe she was on a private jet…and she didn’t even care. ‘Do you want to rest?’

Zoe nodded. Rest was good. Rest meant sleep, which meant not talking, not even thinking. ‘Yes, thanks. I’m still feeling pretty wiped out.’

‘Of course you are,’ Aaron murmured and, still holding her elbow, he led her to the bedroom in the back with a king-sized bed and en suite bathroom.

‘It’s like a hotel,’ Zoe managed as she sank onto the silk duvet. ‘A hotel in the sky.’

‘And perfect for moments like these,’ Aaron said lightly. ‘Let me help you.’

She watched, surprised and yet still numb, as he sank to his knees in front of her. ‘You don’t have to,’ she began as he slipped off her shoes.

‘I want to,’ he said in a low voice, and she wondered what this was. Atonement? Did he feel guilty, as if somehow he’d brought this on her, on both of them? He hadn’t wanted their baby, and now they didn’t have it anymore.

Illogical, she knew, and yet it was a thought that had crept into her mind all too often. With effort she slid her legs up onto the bed. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You keep saying that.’

Because, if I keep saying it, maybe I’ll believe it. Maybe it will be true
. ‘I just want to sleep.’

‘Okay.’ She watched as Aaron peeled back the duvet and then, before she could protest, he lifted her as gently and easily as if she were a doll and placed her beneath the covers, tucking them over her with a tenderness she hadn’t even known he possessed. She wished he didn’t, because he was making everything so much harder.

She turned her face away, felt the starchy coolness of the pillow against her cheek, and closed her eyes.

‘I’ll let you sleep now,’ Aaron said. ‘I’ll wake you up before we land.’

And then he was gone, the door clicking softly shut, and Zoe let herself tumble into blissful oblivion, the only thing she wanted now.

When she woke the room was dim, the curtains drawn against a blazing blue sky. Although she couldn’t see him, Zoe could feel Aaron’s presence in the room, knew he was watching her. She blinked, stirred, and he leaned forward, coming into her vision.

‘We’ll be landing in about half an hour.’

She nodded, and she felt Aaron’s cool fingers brush a wisp of hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear.

Instinctively she turned away. ‘Don’t.’

‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’

Your kindness hurts me
. She could hardly say that, couldn’t explain even to herself why it did. Only that Aaron’s thoughtfulness, his sudden sensitivity, felt like a knife twisting in her gut, in her heart.

‘Do you want something to eat or drink?’ Aaron asked when she hadn’t replied to him.

‘Tea,’ Zoe managed and closed her eyes again. ‘Please.’

Aaron brought her tea a few minutes later and left as soon as he’d handed it to her, which made Zoe feel both relieved and disappointed. How, she wondered, was she going to manage the next few days with him? Even those first days in his apartment hadn’t been as awkward, as painful, as this.

Perhaps she should have gone to Millie and Chase’s, yet even now that prospect made her insides sour. After her argument with Millie, she could hardly bear to slink back to her, a screw-up yet again. She knew Millie would have been kind, understanding, and would have never even have thought ‘I told you so’. Yet even so…