To Have and to Hold (10 page)

Bought and paid for.

A stab of unexpected pain bloomed in her heart. When had the truth gained the power to wound her so? She'd known the deal was a cold-hearted one when she'd made it. But suddenly it mattered that she'd sold herself in marriage to a man who'd never see her as a husband should see his wife.

She cursed herself for being a hypocrite even as that thought whispered through her mind. She didn't love Gabe, had always loved Damon. She had no right to complain if her husband, too, had given away his love long before she'd come into his life.

But it mattered. All at once, everything mattered.

* * *

Jess tossed her purse onto the vanity and kicked off her shoes before sitting down on the bed to remove her stockings.

Gabe walked in a second later. “There was a message from Richard Dusevic on the answering machine. He's going to call again tomorrow.”

“Mrs. Kilpatrick already told me what it's about.” She related the details without any of the excitement she'd always thought she'd feel at this moment.

“Congratulations. Do you have enough pieces for a show?” He crossed the carpet to stand in front of her seated form.

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise in primitive warning. “Some of the pieces you stored for me—from before L.A., are good enough, I think. And, I had a lot of time over the past year.”

“You're a determined woman. I'm sure the show will be a success. But Jess,” he used a finger to tip up her chin, “that game you were playing during dinner? Don't ever try it again.”

Shocked at the quiet fury beneath the calm words, she stared at him. “Why not?” Self-preservation went out the window—she'd rather have Gabe's passion, even if it was in the form of anger, than a safe life. It would have been a startling realization had she been able to think logically. “Should I have sat there like a dumb rock while you looked down Sylvie's cleavage?”

He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “No, my
darling
wife, that you can't accuse me of. If I want to see a woman's body, I do it in private. You, however, were putting on quite a show for your friend.”

“Oh, please,” she muttered. “I'm wearing a cardigan! How much more conservative could I get?”

“Right now, I can see straight down to the tops of your breasts and the edges of your bra.” His tone was on the lethal side of dangerous.

Blushing, she resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest. “You have a different vantage point. And that's not what I was getting at.”

“Which was?”

She gripped the edge of the bed. “As you've pointed out on many occasions, you married me because I'd be a nice, easy,
well-behaved
wife who'd do what you wanted. Fine. I'll be that wife,” she promised rashly. “But get one thing straight—I'm not some doormat you can tread on whenever you like, with whomever you please.”

He released her chin and pulled her to her feet by her upper arms. “Be very careful what you accuse me of, Jess.”

The sane woman in her said she should stop, that she was pushing him too far, but she was beyond rational thought. “Tell me, Gabe, is that why you wanted a compliant wife too much in your debt to dare make waves? So you'd be able to have your cake and eat it, too?”

W
hite lines bracketed his mouth. “I'm not the one who parades around wearing my love for another man like some kind of damn holy grail.”

Her head snapped back from the chilling impact of his words.

Tightening his hold on her arms, he almost lifted her off the floor. “Don't think you're going to free yourself to chase after him by pinning false accusations of infidelity on me!”

“Do you really think I'd do something like that?” she whispered, bruised to the core. “His wife's in the hospital and they're about to have a baby.”

“Cut the act, Jess. You were very good to Kayla but how much of that was because of guilt, huh?” Setting her free in a sudden movement, he thrust a hand through his hair. “If Damon walked into this room right this second and asked you to marry him, you'd accept in a shot, pregnant wife or not!”

Blood freezing in her veins, she dropped down to her previous position on the bed. “Get out.” It was a quiet sound. “Leave me alone.”

“That's your response to the truth, turn tail and hide?”

She raised her face, desperate to conceal the tears choking up her throat. “You just gave me a very good indication of what kind of a person you think I am—the kind who'd not only break her own marriage vows, but also ruin the life of a woman and an unborn child. Why would you want to be in a room with me anyway?”

Gabriel was asking himself the same question. Every time Jess got near Damon, she lit up like a damn light bulb. There was no doubt in his mind that if the chance presented itself, she'd always choose the other man. Gabe should have walked away the second he realized that. Instead, he'd married her.

And now he found himself no longer happy about her devotion to Damon, regardless of the fact that it was keeping her from asking things from him he had no desire to give. Worse, he couldn't seem to stay away from her. It was purely the sex, he told himself. Jess was a lover unlike any he'd ever had.

“I married you for things other than conversation,” he said, furious with her both for her love for Damon and the way she'd flirted with that lawyer. “Having sex with you doesn't have to involve liking you.”

Jess went very quiet for an instant. Then she stood and began undoing her cardigan. “Fine. Let's do it and get it over with so I can go to sleep.”

“You think you can keep up that expressionless face after I touch you?” he taunted, pushed to the brink. Bed was the one place where she was utterly
his
. “The second I take you into my arms—”

“I might be in your arms,” she interrupted, streaks of red high on her cheekbones, “but it's not you I'm thinking about.”

Gabe felt every muscle in his body lock. Not trusting himself in the same room as her, he walked out and slammed the door behind him. Damn her. And damn him for being fool enough to think he could escape the curse of the past. He was, after all, his father's son.

* * *

Jess collapsed onto the bed and, muffling her sobs with her fist, tried not to think of anything. But her mind wouldn't stop. She was pregnant by a man who saw her as the worst kind of lying, cheating fraud.

And there was no way out. If she left him he'd sell her family home to the developers without the least hesitation. Gabriel Dumont hadn't reached his position in life by being thwarted. He'd made her his wife and he'd keep her his wife.

But something had changed inside of her. For the first time, she found herself considering an act which had always before seemed impossible—sacrificing Randall Station. Agonizing pain twisted up her body in a silent denial. The station was more than a place, it was the last living memory she had of her parents. On that land, she could imagine they were with her even today, ready to shower her with more love than she knew what to do with.

Sitting by and letting their epitaph be so cruelly cheapened was more than she could bear. And the only way to ensure its safety was to remain in this marriage that threatened to tear her to shreds.

* * *

After what had happened the previous night, Jess was simply craving peace and quiet the next morning, but a phone call altered that.

“Richard,” she said, taking a seat in her studio. “Thank you so much.”

“Don't thank me. You did the work.” He sounded so pleased she could almost see his smile. “I loved every one of your pieces of course, but I think portraits are your strong suit.”

“Yes.” She liked faces, liked capturing the stories told by wrinkles and laugh lines, downturned eyes and flirtatious smiles. “They're what I enjoy the most.”

“Good, because that's the element I want to build the show around.” A small pause. “You have a real gift, Jess.” His tone had shifted, become more intense, charm falling away to reveal the driven man who'd made a name for himself in a very competitive field. “It's true that you have some way to go in terms of the maturity of your style, but the rawness of your work right now has its own strength.”

She felt less nervous now that he'd said that—wholesale praise would have been a little unbelievable coming from a man as notoriously tough as Richard Dusevic. “Strong enough for a show?”

“I wouldn't have made the offer if I'd had any doubts on that score.” A statement so blunt, it could have come from Gabriel. “Your work is honest, brutally so sometimes.

“You don't hide behind affectations or polish and you don't allow your subjects to hide either. I'm going to ask you to paint me, though it scares me what you'll see.”

His words triggered a precious memory.

She'd painted her mother once, a long time ago. Beth Randall had taken one look at that simple acrylic portrait and said, “Jessie, honey, you painted my soul.”

If only she could see her husband as clearly, but he was colored in inky black. Opaque. Unknowable. “Where do we go from here?”

“We'll work together to select the pieces and if at any stage we don't think it's a go, we can delay it. So don't stress yourself. That's my job.”

After the positive nature of that call, she felt considerably more focused, more confident. The feeling stayed with her throughout the day and by the time she sat down to dinner with Gabriel that night, she'd made up her mind to extend an olive branch. They couldn't go on this way, not with so much at stake. It was while she was in the act of bracing herself to break the silence that the phone rang again.

“It's a girl!” Damon cried. “And bloody healthy despite coming three weeks early. She doesn't even need an incubator. Man, this kid was determined to be born!”

“Congratulations.” It would have taken a harder heart than hers to stop from breaking into a smile. “Have you named her?”

“Kayla's thinking it over.”

“What about you?”

A few seconds of silence. “Will you come visit? Kayla said she'd like that.”

Jess paused, then forged ahead. Gabe could believe what he liked—she knew what was in her heart. “Sure, I'll drive down tomorrow.” It'd be an exhausting round trip, but she could use the time alone to clear her head.

“I'll be waiting.”

Disturbed by the tone of that last statement, she pressed the end button and put the receiver beside her plate. “Kayla gave birth. A healthy girl.”

“I'll fly you. It'll be quicker.”

She focused deliberately on the peas on her plate. “You don't have to visit.”

“We'll leave at around seven.”

“Fine.” She chewed with single-minded focus, knowing full well why he was accompanying her. He didn't trust her even in this most innocent of situations.

* * *

Mid-morning the next day found them in the back seat of a taxi going from airport to hospital.

“You're spending a lot of time away from the station.” And Angel was the most important thing in Gabriel Dumont's life.

“It's necessary.”

“I wouldn't say that.”

“Jess, we're not having this conversation here.”

Cheeks flushing at the sharp rebuke, she turned to glance at the passing city scenery, but saw nothing. “I talked to Richard again this morning. He's thinking about scheduling the show for a month from now.”

The taxi rolled to a smooth stop in front of the hospital as she finished speaking. Getting out with the flowers she'd bought at the airport, she waited for Gabe to pay the driver and walk around to join her.

“That should keep you busy,” he said as they headed toward the entrance.

Her fingers squeezed the flower stems. “Like a child with a toy?” Glancing at a signboard inside the doorway, she made her way toward the elevators.

“A child is exactly what you're acting like right now.” He pressed the button to go up.

The elevator opened immediately.

She stepped inside and punched the button for Kayla's floor. “Why? Because I want you to treat me and my work with some respect?”

“Respect has to be earned.”

“Yes, it does.”

Getting off the elevator several excruciating seconds later, they covered the remaining distance without further speech. When they entered the room, it was to discover Damon sitting beside Kayla's bed, his mouth pursed shut. So was hers. And from the looks on their faces, the silence wasn't a good one.

Jess felt like an intruder but the couple brightened at the sight of visitors. She had the disturbing feeling they'd have welcomed any interruption.

“How are you?” she asked Kayla, putting the flowers on the bedside table. “And your baby?”

The brunette's lips curved into a true smile. “She's a darling. Do you want to hold her?”

“Can I?”

“I'll bring her over,” Damon offered, looking genuinely happy.

Jess's heart cried a tear of sorrow when she saw him gather the baby from the crib. As a teen, she'd dreamed such dreams—it had been Damon's child she'd expected to carry, his name she'd expected to bear.

A hand closed over her shoulder, a silent reminder of who she now belonged to. Taking a deep breath, she let Damon put his child into her arms. “Oh, she's beautiful.”

“A wrinkled little nut,” he said, “but she's our nut, aren't you, Cecily?”

Kayla laughed. “That's what we're calling her, Cecily Elizabeth Hart.”

“I love it.” Jess ran her finger over Cecily's tender skin and that quickly, her pregnancy became real in the most emotional sense of the word. In a few months' time, she too would be the nervous parent of a tiny son or daughter. Perhaps that child would have Gabriel's green eyes and her red hair. Wouldn't that be something?

Feeling a sense of intimacy with Gabe that overcame all their disagreements, she turned to him with a smile. “Would you like to hold her?”

His jaw set in a hard line. “No.” It was a quiet but brutal denial that didn't reach Cecily's parents, both of whom were involved in resettling a pillow that had slipped from Kayla's back.

Her eyes widened. She couldn't believe Gabe had turned so cold over this blameless child. She'd always believed that while her husband might be harsh, he'd never be needlessly cruel.

But now she had evidence otherwise.

Attempting to come to grips with this unexpected and unwelcome facet of his personality, she put Cecily into her mother's waiting arms. “She's perfect.” A touch of nausea hit her as she rose from handing over the baby. She had to take several deep breaths to get past it.

Kayla gave her a measuring look before turning to Damon. “Do you think you could get me one of those fizzy orange juices from the vending machine down the hall?”

“Yeah, okay.” Damon glanced across at Gabriel. “I owe you for the other night. Let me buy you a coffee.” His voice was tense but polite. “I think the machine does a less than awful imitation.”

To her surprise, Gabriel accepted the offer. Kayla waited only until the men's footsteps had died away to blurt out, “You're pregnant, aren't you?”

“Do you have radar?” Jess gaped.

“Must be the hormones.” She kissed Cecily's forehead. “How do you feel?”

“In love with him or her, already.” That had become truth mere minutes ago. And it caused a new worry to loom large—if Gabe truly was heartless enough to react so negatively to an infant, what kind of a father would he be? Too late she came to the awful realization that she'd put her baby's happiness on the line along with her own when she'd walked into this marriage.

“I was the same.” Kayla paused, her smile slipping. “Can we be friends, Jess?”

Surprised at the non-sequitor, Jess nodded. “We already are.”

“No, you don't understand.” Sighing, the brunette hugged Cecily to her chest. “I don't know if I can save my marriage with you around.”

The implied accusation hit her like a punch to the jaw. “I'd never break my marriage vows or ask Damon to break his.”