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‘No, it’s fine, Milly, I’ll get the next train home from Gare du Nord.’
It was what she’d intended to do anyway, before she’d been waylaid by Brandon Cade...and an apology she had never expected. Followed by a mind-blowing kiss she totally should have declined.
She gripped the phone, suddenly remembering the man was listening to every word. Had she mentioned Ruby’s name?
‘Honestly, sis, you don’t have to come home. You should stay and enjoy yourself.’ Milly’s voice lifted with excitement. ‘I saw the pics last night on the Internet. You looked fabulous, by the way. Where did you get that dress? And how the heck did you get an invite to the Durand Ball from Brandon Cade? I thought you were just interviewing him.’
‘Um, I told you, it’s a work assignment.’ She interrupted Milly’s stream of consciousness. Milly didn’t know Cade was Ruby’s father. No one knew. But Milly did know she had been dismissed from her job at Cade Inc when she’d got pregnant.
‘Well, I hope you told him about the crappy way his HR department treated you?’ Milly said, then chuckled. ‘Although, to be fair, I don’t think I’d have wanted to talk shop with him either. He is flipping gorgeous.’
‘Right, Milly.’ She sighed, her neck prickling at the thought Cade was listening to everything. ‘I need to go, so I can pack and get to the station. And I should get off the phone in case the doctor is trying to call back.’ She wanted to quiz Milly about her daughter’s condition, but she didn’t want to mention Ruby’s name in front of Cade.
A sick feeling dropped into her stomach as she ended the call.
She’d created this situation with all her lies and evasions. Her decision not to tell Cade the truth five years ago. And all her bad choices in the last twelve hours.
She stuffed the phone into her bag with shaking fingers. He stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of his sweat pants, observing her with an intensity which only made the guilt and panic more acute.
‘I really do have to go now,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Who’s Milly?’
‘She’s my sister, and she’s not well,’ she said, hating herself even more for yet another lie. ‘I need to get back to London.’
He didn’t challenge the latest lie and her panic eased. She hadn’t mentioned Ruby during the call, or he surely would have asked who she was too.
But, even as the relief washed over her, the nausea in her gut churned. She would have to tell Brandon Cade of his daughter’s existence. Not today. Ruby’s illness was a reprieve of sorts—not least from their latest insane kiss. But she would have to tell him soon.
She’d had no right to keep Ruby from him. All the reasons for her continued silence had collapsed in the last half hour like a pack of dominoes. Especially once she’d discovered he had never intentionally destroyed her career.
She hadn’t wanted to accept his apology at first, hadn’t even wanted to believe it was sincere. But she’d been hopelessly naïve to believe he’d even cared about her enough to go to the trouble of having her blacklisted.
What on earth had she been expecting from him all those years ago? A declaration of undying love after a half-hour hook-up in a nightclub office?
She could see now her decision never to tell him about his child had been cowardly, spiteful and wrong, on so many levels.
She still had no idea how he would react to the news. It was possible he would not want to acknowledge Ruby. He might also accuse her of using her child to extort money out of him... But telling Brandon Cade the truth wasn’t really about how he would react, but what Ruby deserved.
Something she had never acknowledged.
Ruby deserved to have a father who knew about her existence. And a mother who didn’t shy away from the tough choices because of her own cowardice.
Once she returned to London—and made sure her baby was okay—she was going to face up to all the consequences of that night, the way she should have faced up to them five years ago.
‘You’re close to your sister?’ he asked with a curious expression on his face—not so much scepticism as confusion.
‘Yes, very,’ she said. At least that wasn’t a lie.
She scooped her heels up off the carpet where she’d dropped them during their clinch. Humiliation washed over her again, as she slipped on the jewelled slippers, at the thought of how close she’d come to sleeping with him again. Of giving in to desire and letting his touch, his taste, his demands override all her priorities.
‘I’ll see myself out,’ she said, and made a dash for the door.
He didn’t try to stop her. Perhaps he had come to his senses about their latest moment of madness too.
She swallowed down the stupid lump of regret as she headed down the corridor to her own suite. The next time she saw Brandon, she needed to be in a lot better control of herself. So she could do the right thing at last for her little girl.
Twenty minutes later, though, as Lacey dashed into the hotel lobby, having showered and changed into the power suit she’d worn the day before, she discovered nothing was ever simple where Brandon Cade was concerned.
