Chapter Four #2
Where the heck was she going to go? Fly through the window? Sprint out through the door to the nearest lift?
She was as weak as a kitten and all the weaker when she contemplated what was now in the process of unfolding.
Her hand snaked down to her stomach with its barely-there bump, not at all noticeable under the layers of warm clothing, the vest, jumper, waterproof gilet and trousers with the helpful elasticated waist.
After nearly four months, Ella had become accustomed to the reality of her pregnancy.
It had taken a while, even though she had known within a month of Jose leaving that she was pregnant.
At first, she had just missed him. There had been a hole in her heart that was wrenchingly painful to endure.
Any repercussions of their love-making hadn’t registered at all and she’d barely noticed that her period was late.
Then she had. About the same time as she’d realised that she’d gone off coffee and noticed that her breasts were tender.
And yet, when she’d done that pregnancy test, held that little stick and saw those two bright lines, she’d still been shocked. She had still felt the blood rush to her face and the race of her pulse.
God, she’d done her best to find him, but she’d had nothing to go on.
She’d given him her mobile number, but it didn’t take her long to realise that the favour hadn’t been returned, and from there all her belief in what they’d had had collapsed like a house of cards.
She’d done the unthinkable and fallen for a guy who had treated her in a way she’d hoped never to be treated again.
He’d disappeared without a backward glance, making sure to leave no footprints in the sand behind him.
She poured her heart out to him and told him stuff she’d never told anyone in her life before.
She’d told him about Steve and his betrayal, and had felt all fuzzy and warm when she’d heard the anger in his sympathetic, horrified reaction.
And what had he gone and done? Had he been any better?
Steve had lied about his intentions. He had dropped her without looking back.
She’d trusted him the way she’d trusted Steve and he had let her down exactly as Steve had.
Was she the common denominator? Was there something inside her that attracted the man who couldn’t be trusted?
Common decency had dictated that she try to locate the man who had fathered the baby she was carrying.
However bitter she had felt at him and his vanishing act, however hurt she had been by the way she had been treated, the guy was still the father of their baby and deserved to know.
In the end, with no leads, she had given up the search and accepted that she would be a single mum. She’d concluded that, even if she managed to track him down, he wouldn’t want anything to do with a baby he hadn’t asked for with a woman he hadn’t wanted in his life for more than a week and a half.
She gathered herself and wriggled upright into a sitting position just as he reached out with a glass of water, which she ignored.
‘So Jose Rivero never existed. Why did you pretend to be someone you weren’t? Was it fun? Was it fun to string me along under a pseudonym? Were you laughing behind my back?’
In the heat of the moment, the horrifying business of the pregnancy faded into the background. Shock had quickly given way to a healthy dose of absolute burning rage at the curdled memory of the hurt she’d lived with for months.
‘Ron Brisk-Hailey mentioned selling the department store some months ago. It was an off-the-cuff idea aired at a dinner party hosted by my parents at their place in Dubai, where Brisk-Hailey lives. The store has been losing money for years and he was propping it up with his personal fortune because it began life as a family concern. He confessed that it was a situation that couldn’t continue indefinitely, and he couldn’t see a way out, because the option to buy everything online, especially after the pandemic, had become overwhelming. ’
‘Carry on,’ Ella said tightly. ‘I’m beginning to see where this might be going but I’d like you to spell it out for me anyway. Just in case I miss any juicy bits out.’
‘He could have put the place out to public tender, but he was sentimental about its heritage and wanted to make sure his employees were well-treated. In turn, I needed to assess just how much the physical building was worth, never mind the value of the plot it stood on. We agreed that there would be no point spooking anyone on the off chance I decided not to go ahead with the purchase. I was ninety-nine percent there but there was still a chance that the missing one percent might break the deal.’
‘At what point did you decide that it would be fun to sleep with me? In your make-believe role of ordinary person having a look around?’
‘It wasn’t my intention to get involved with anyone while I was here.
I came to see what I was getting myself into, establish whether it would be worth the investment—make sure I offered a fair deal but didn’t pay over the odds—and then I was going to leave and let my guys conclude business if I chose to go ahead. ’
‘I don’t even recognise you. You look the same, you sound the same, but you’re a stranger in expensive clothes who thought it was okay to lie to me. Was that because you had so little respect for me—you thought I didn’t deserve the truth?’
‘My hands were tied.’
Ella noted with grim satisfaction the dull flush that stole into his aristocratic face, although who knew whether he had a conscience or not?
‘Then you should have thought twice about getting involved with someone you felt you had to lie to.’
‘It was a two-way street, Ella. We were attracted to one another.’
‘I was attracted to Jose Rivero—who never existed, as it turns out. I wasn’t attracted to Rocco Mancini, a billionaire who was here to spy on everyone.’
‘You’re upset. I get that.’
‘Do you? That’s very big of you.’ Her hand stole to her stomach and she balled it into a clenched fist because right now she had to think about what she was going to do and how she was going to do it.
She felt sick at the thought of what happened next in a situation she had never banked on.
Telling Jose Rivero that she was pregnant had seemed daunting enough.
Breaking the news to this stranger in front of her, a billionaire with an agenda that had never included her, was terrifying.
‘I understand why you’re angry with me, but in actual fact I didn’t have to make this trip. I came because I wanted to see you. And, yes, I didn’t reveal my true identity…what happened between us was one hundred percent genuine.’
‘In the grip of a guilty conscience? Why?’ She tried and failed to mesh the Jose she’d given her heart to, the carefree, sexy man who had held her in his arms, with this powerful, wealthy stranger, looking at her with his head tilted to one side, dark eyes revealing nothing.
It was hopeless.
‘Do you feel guilty about pretending to be someone you weren’t? Or because you knew what an awful upheaval it would be for the department store to be sold to the highest bidder only interested in making even more money for himself?’
‘I know the place means a lot to you, Ella. I know you worked here as a teenager. I know your mother worked here. There’s an affection for it.’
‘I wish I’d never told you any of that.’ More confidences thrown back in her face—yet another reminder of how gullible she’d been.
‘But you did.’ Rocco raked his fingers through his hair and sighed.
He sat forward, leaning towards her. ‘Look, I didn’t come here to explain away the decision to replace this store with something that actually makes sense.
You know as well as I do that the place is losing money hand over fist and has been for a long time.
The edifice will remain the same and it will be renovated to the highest of sustainable environmental standards.
It will be the gold standard for other properties I plan to develop.
As someone who wanted to explore climate change and sustainable lifestyles, you should approve of what I’m doing here. ’
‘Please don’t remind me of all the things I told you that I shouldn’t have,’ Ella retorted with ice in her voice. ‘Vera said that you explicitly asked to see me. Why, if not to give me weasly excuses for what you did?’
‘Weasly?’ Rocco’s dark eyes flashed with outrage and in return Ella shot him a sneering look.
‘That’s right.’
‘No one’s ever called me “weasly” before!’
‘You’re a billionaire,’ she snapped scornfully. ‘Everyone’s probably scared stiff of you.’
‘Except you.’
Ella bristled in silence at this rejoinder.
Their eyes met and tangled, and she felt the slow burn of something unwanted and intrusive.
The memory of how he’d touched her seared through her anger.
It was debilitating and unwelcome because it flew in the face of her bitter disillusionment at how things had turned out.
How could she possibly feel anything for this stranger?
But there was still this jarring, disturbing pull. She hated it.
‘You asked me why I came back here, came back to see you. I returned because I couldn’t get you out of my mind.
I don’t have a guilty conscience about my plans for the store because it’ll be the best thing that could happen to the town.
It’ll bring people in, and they will be a motor for reviving the shops that haven’t been doing well over the years.
Hailey’s isn’t the only place that’s been failing for some time. ’
That all made sense, which was infuriating. The man she’d known had been hot, charming and passionate. The one sitting here in this boardroom was cool, logical and controlled.
But here was the inescapable link: he said that he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind…