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I had a miscarriage.
She heard him curse, felt firm fingers digging into her biceps as the cacophony in her head became deafening. And she stepped over the edge to let herself fall.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHAT THE—?
Dane leapt forward as Xanthe’s eyes rolled back, scooping her dead weight into his arms before she could crash to earth.
‘Is Ms Sanders sick?’ Mel appeared, her face blank with shock.
‘Her name’s Carmichael.’
Or, technically speaking, Redmond.
He barged past his PA, cradling Xanthe against his chest. ‘Call Dr Epstein and tell him to meet me in the penthouse.’
‘What—what shall I say happened?’ Mel stammered, nowhere near as steady as usual.
He knew how she felt. His palms were sweating, his pulse racing fast enough to win the Kentucky Derby.
Xanthe let out a low moan. He tightened his grip, something hot and fluid hitting him as his fingertips brushed her breast.
‘I don’t know what happened,’ he replied. ‘Just tell Epstein to get up there.’
He threw the words over his shoulder as he strode through the office, past his sponsorship and marketing team, every one of whom was staring at him as if he’d just told them the company had declared bankruptcy.
Had they heard him shouting at Red like a madman? Letting the fury he’d buried years ago spew out of his mouth?
Where had that come from?
He’d lost it—and he never lost it. Not since the day on her father’s estate when he’d gone berserk, determined to see Xanthe no matter what her
father said.
Of course he hadn’t told her that part of the story. The part where he’d made an ass of himself.
The pulse already pounding in his temple began to throb like a wound. He’d been dog-tired and frantic with worry when he’d arrived at Carmichael’s vacation home, his pride in tatters, his gut clenching at the thought Xanthe had run out on him.
All that had made him easy prey for the man who hadn’t considered him fit to kiss the hem of his precious daughter’s bathrobe, let alone marry her. He could still see Charles Carmichael’s smug expression, hear that superior I’m-better-than-you tone as the guy told him their baby was gone and that his daughter had made the sensible decision to cut all ties with the piece of trailer trash she should never have married.
The injustice of it all, the sense of loss, the futile anger had opened up a great big black hole inside him that had been waiting to drag him under ever since he was a little boy. So he’d exploded with rage—and got his butt thoroughly kicked by Carmichael’s goons for his trouble.
Obviously some of that rage was still lurking in his subconscious. Or he wouldn’t have freaked out again. Over something that meant nothing now.
He’d been captivated by Xanthe that summer. By her cute accent, the sexy, subtle curves rocking the bikini-shorts-and-T-shirt combos she’d lived in, her quick, curious mind and most of all the artless flirting that had grown hotter and hotter until they’d made short work of those bikini shorts.
The obvious crush she’d had on him had flattered him, had made him feel like somebody when everyone else treated him like a nobody. But their connection had never been about anything other than hot sex—souped up to fever pitch by teenage lust. He knew he’d been nuts to think it could ever be more, especially once she’d run back to Daddy when she’d discovered what it was really like to live on a waterman’s pay.
Xanthe stirred, her fragrant hair brushing his chin.
‘Settle down. I’ve got you.’ A wave of protectiveness washed over him. He didn’t plan to examine it too closely. She’d been his responsibility once. She wasn’t his responsibility any more. Whatever the paperwork said.
This was old news. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference now. Obviously the shock of seeing her again had worked stuff loose which had been hanging about without his knowledge.
‘Where are you taking me?’
The groggy question brought him back to the problem nestled in his arms.
