Chapter Eleven #2
‘Never lied to me?’ A sudden burst of fury propelled her from the wall to cross the dressing room floor and wrench the jumpers from his arms. She hurled them to the floor.
‘You promised you would love me forever,’ she cried.
‘What was that if not a lie? You promised there would never be anyone else for you, another lie, and then you threw me away as if I never meant a damn thing to you.’
But this only made his visible anger turn darker. ‘So this has all been revenge? All these years and you’ve been harbouring revenge?’
‘You broke me, Xavi. You didn’t just break my heart, you broke me. You threw me away like an unwanted toy without any warning, and then days later jumped into bed with Ellen.’
He kicked a jumper so hard it flew through the air and landed on the far wall. ‘I told you before, I never slept with her! Nothing ever happened with Ellen.’
‘She sent me a time-stamped photo of you asleep in her bed three days after you dumped me!’
‘I don’t care what she sent you. Nothing happened. She had a party at her house, and I went along and drank a bottle of whisky and passed out. I was so drunk I didn’t know it was her bed until I woke up the next morning to find her sharing it.’
‘Then why didn’t you say that when I asked? Why lie?’
‘The question was about sex, not sleeping arrangements. I never had sex with her. I could have told you I’d passed out in her bed, but I was trying to convince you to marry me, not rake over poisonous old ghosts.
Hell, Beth, don’t you think ending our relationship affected me, too?
Ending us almost damned near killed me.’
She threw her hands in the air and laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, I’ve heard everything now. You were like a freaking robot with its humanity wiped out.’
‘And why do you think I had to be like that? It’s because it was the only way I could do it—I had to switch myself off. My brain knew it had to be done but my heart didn’t want to let you go, and I only went to that damned party to drink myself into oblivion so I could try and forget you.’
‘You didn’t need to forget me! I was at my grandfather’s praying to every deity in existence for you to come back to me!’
‘We were over, Beth! I wasn’t going back to you.
Ending us hurt us both, but it was necessary, and for you to hold on to your resentment over it for all these years is just warped when you moved on long before I did.
Even if I had screwed Ellen that night, that doesn’t excuse what you’ve done.
You married me under false pretences for revenge so you could take control of the business for yourself and push me out, and all for something you thought happened that didn’t happen eight years ago?
’ His face twisted with loathing. ‘You sicken me. Take your cases and get out of my home, and prepare yourself for a fight because I am not going to let you get away with your treachery.’
‘You don’t seriously think I did all this because of Ellen, do you?’ she demanded, angry heat suffusing her from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.
‘Who knows what goes on in your twisted mind. You brought her up, not me.’
‘As an example of what I believed was another of your lies, but it changes nothing else and it doesn’t change what you did to me, and all that crap about you drinking yourself into oblivion because of how much you were missing me?
Utter bullshit. If you’d felt a fraction for me of what I felt for you, you would never have let me go.
You didn’t even try to keep us together, just excised me from your life like you were ripping off a plaster, and as for that crap about us being too young to know what we were doing before—I’m only three years older now than you were then!
You used our ages and the business as an excuse to get rid of me then, just as you’re using what Paul told you earlier as an excuse to do the same now.
Look at you, packing my stuff for me and telling me to leave and not even attempting to listen to me.
You want me gone, just like you did before, except this time you get to pin it all on me. ’
‘It is all on you,’ he snarled, leaning his darkly furious face right into hers.
‘You married me to destroy me, and I’m not going to listen to another word that comes out of your lying, treacherous mouth, so take your stuff and get the hell out of my home.
The next time I see you will be in court because this is war. ’
The room was spinning furiously around her, dizzying her as the truth slapped her around the face.
There was no saving them. Xavi had already been looking for a way out. This was just the excuse he’d been looking for.
All the anger and fight drained out of her as the truth slapped her a second time.
There was nothing left to fight for.
There never had been.
Xavi hadn’t played her for a fool. She’d played herself.
Pain gripping her heart in a vise, she stumbled onto the armchair next to her dressing table and hugged her arms tightly.
Her voice was a distant ringing in her ears as she dully said, ‘Yes, I wanted to destroy you. I wanted to take your precious company away from you and hurt you the way you hurt me.’ Even though her eyes were struggling to focus, she could see the contempt etched on his features, a contempt that tightened the vise until she could hardly breathe.
‘I never moved on, Xavi. I never got over you. I tried so hard, but I just couldn’t do it.
I tried to sleep with other men, but they left me so cold I couldn’t go through with it.
I’ve carried you with me every minute of every day since we parted, not just you but our…
our…’ She had to swallow hard to say it. ‘Our baby.’
His head reared back as if she’d slapped him.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Eyes wide, the colour draining from his face, he just stared at her.
‘I was pregnant, Xavi,’ she whispered, saying the words aloud for the very first time. ‘Don’t you remember how we were trying for a baby?’
‘But…’ His voice was hoarse. ‘You’d only come off the pill that month. It was too soon…’
She shook her pounding head. ‘No. We were one of the lucky ones. It happened straight away for us. I took the test when you were in Milan, and I was the happiest person alive. I was having your baby, the child we both wanted, and that it happened so quickly was, for me, proof that it was meant to be and that we were meant to be.’
He sank onto the dressing stool. ‘You didn’t tell me.’ His voice was barely audible.
‘I wanted to see your face when I told you. I imagined your happiness…’ Tears were stinging the backs of her eyes, and she fought desperately through their burn. ‘I had all these fantasies of how it would play out, but then you came back and you…you…you…’
The tears finally spilt out, splashing down her cheeks in a torrent.
‘I thought you would come back to me,’ she sobbed, her chest heaving as she drew her knees up to hold herself tightly. ‘I didn’t—I couldn’t—believe you meant it. But you didn’t come back, and I lost it five days later.’
He dragged his hands down his face and expelled a long breath. His eyes were shining when he whispered, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I would have done, but nature took the decision out of my hands.’ After grabbing a handful of tissues from the box beside her on the dressing table, she blew her nose and tried harder than ever to get the rest of her words out.
‘When I lost the baby, what could I do but go home to England and try to pick my life up and start again? And I did try, I really did, and I succeeded in many ways, but the pain never left me, and when you made your proposal at my grandfather’s wake, it all opened up again.
I hated you for asking that of me almost as much as I hated you for excising me from your life the way you did.
One minute we were trying for a baby and dreaming of a big white wedding, the next…
’ She lifted her hands in the air and flicked her fingers.
‘Poof. Gone. You threw me away without even checking if our wish had come true.’
‘Dios…’ It was like he’d aged a decade in a stroke. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘So am I.’ She pulled air into her ragged lungs and wiped her nose.
‘So now you know everything. I agreed to marry you so I could destroy you.’ A wave of sadness that was close to unbearable rose inside her.
She met his stare. ‘I knew when we exchanged our vows that I couldn’t go through with it, but I’d already set the wheels in motion.
I meant to pull the brakes when we got back from our honeymoon, but then I got ill and…
’ She closed her eyes and sniffed back more tears.
‘By the time I knew probate had been granted, everything had happened. If you want to fight me then fight me, but there is nothing to fight about. I’ve already set the wheels in motion for half the extra shares I bought to be transferred into your name.
It should go through on Monday.’ She nearly managed a smile as she locked back onto his stare. ‘All equal again.’
Lifting his gaze to the ceiling, his chest rose slowly and deeply.
‘You know, since you left for New York, I’ve had the most awful intuition that history was going to repeat itself, and now it has, in all possible ways.’ She took a long breath and gathered what remained of her strength. ‘Xavi, I’m pregnant.’