The Contract by Marsh, Nicola (read aloud books .txt) 📕

through her hair and stare into her eyes. “You know how I feel about you and I want this baby more than anything. Can we start over?”

Fear lanced through her as he placed a hand on her belly. Hell, what had she been thinking? This had to be some kind of act; he’d come in here, thinking he could blind her with sex and a few well-chosen words and she would fall back into his arms. No way.

She pushed against his chest, hard and he staggered back, ridiculous surprise on his face. “It’s finished, Steve. Now get the hell out of my life.”

Dazed, he stared at her as if she’d gone mad. “But what about the baby?”

She should have known. That was all he cared about, producing an heir to inherit granny’s fortune. If he’d plied her with apologies, with whispered words of reassurance or professed his undying love, she may have wavered.

However, her calculating husband had sealed his fate, his words reinforcing the fact he saw her as an incubator and nothing else. Her head spun as a wave of unbearable pain washed over her. She needed to escape, now.

In that moment, she knew how to get rid of the man who stood in front of her, breaking her heart and shattering her dreams all over again.

“There is no baby.”

Though she wasn’t religious, she said a silent prayer, wishing she wouldn’t go to hell for telling such a monstrous lie.

His shattered expression had her gripping the shelf behind her for support. “What?”

She turned away on the pretence of finding a tissue, unable to meet his stare. “I made a mistake. Turned out the stress of opening this place made me skip a period. No big deal.”

He made a strange strangled sound and she looked around, shocked at the bleakness spreading across his face. “You’re wrong.”

“About what?” Tears welled as he continued to stare at her, his devastation more than she could handle right now.

“Everything.” His mouth screwed in a disapproving line, his voice hoarse and strained. “About it not being a big deal there’s no baby, about how I feel about you, about our marriage. You’re wrong about it all.”

She took a steadying breath, needing to drive him away once and for all, before she broke down completely. She tilted her chin up and forced herself to look him directly in the eye.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Steve, but this baby-making factory has closed as far as you’re concerned. Better luck next time. As for our marriage, you know I only married you for the money. Anything else you interpreted was pure fantasy. No hard feelings, huh?”

The man of her dreams cast a final horrified glare in her direction and walked out of her life.

Ten

Steve signed the final document, handing over full control to Amber for the shop and popped it into an Express postbag. He didn’t want any links to the woman who had breezed into his life like a cyclone and left behind a similar path of destruction. Besides, the shop had been her baby from the start.

Baby.

He didn’t think it could still hurt this much after three months, yet the mere thought of what he’d had and lost made his palms sweat. He’d pinned his hopes of saving their marriage on their unborn child, though Amber had other ideas. The minute she’d told him there was no baby, he’d known his chances of convincing her he loved her were non-existent. His one, tenuous link to bind him to her had dissolved with her bombshell, along with his hopes to present his gran with a great-grandchild before she died.

And then she’d sealed his fate with her comment about marrying him for money. Damn, that had hurt.

He’d deluded himself, believing she felt a similar spark as he had at the beginning, when it had been his wealth that had attracted her all along. She was just like his mother, out for everything she could get. And he despised her for it. Hell would freeze over before he loved a woman like that.

So he’d done the only thing possible and thrown himself headlong into his business, working maniacal hours and avoiding contact with everybody other than colleagues and clients. He rang his gran weekly, though he hadn’t plucked up the courage to tell her the truth yet. It would devastate her and she had enough to cope with at the moment.

As for his mother, she hadn’t spoken to him since their confrontation at the Convention Centre. Why would she, when he’d dashed her dreams of inheriting and subsequently squandering Ethel’s millions?

He sealed the postbag, handling it like a bomb about to detonate. This was it, no more contact with Amber until he served her with divorce papers in nine months time, a year to the day since their separation. He’d circled the date in red on his calendar, in case he forgot.

Fat chance. There wasn’t a day that went by he didn’t think about her, wondering what she was wearing, who she was seeing and driving himself crazy in the process.

A knock on the door brought his attention back to the present. “Come in.”

Luke Saunders, one of the criminal lawyers from the Sydney branch of Byrne and Associates, stuck his head around the door. “Got a minute for an old mate?”

Steve waved him in. “Hey, Saunders. What are you doing here?”

“I was in the area. Thought I’d drop in and see what you’ve done up here.” They shook hands and Luke surveyed the office. “Not bad, Rockwell. Not bad at all. So, how’s business?”

“Can’t complain.”

“I hear you’ve been inundated. Burning the midnight oil, huh?”

“Byrne been opening his big trap again?”

Luke nodded. “He did mention something about