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Jane returned her friend’s embrace. Tightening her arms around the much taller woman, she said, “I love you too.” Then she eased up onto her toes and kissed Abby’s cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With Abby finally relenting her nanny duties and leaving the house, Jane stripped out of her underwear and climbed into the shower. Then, slapping her hands against the wall, she finally let loose the scream that’d been building from the moment she’d realised she’d been duped.
It erupted from deep inside her, tapped into that well of shit she kept buried and hidden from the world, and bounced off the bathroom tiles like a pinball. But the sound did nothing to relieve her grief or diffuse her rage.
It did little more than make her throat raw.
Her cloak of apathy well and truly shaken off, Jane’s emotions trampled her like a herd of startled elephants. She laughed in disbelief, cried in resolution, screamed again and vowed bloody vengeance. She beat her small fists against the tiles, then scrubbed every inch of her body ten times, the feeling of being unclean sticking to her like a bug on flypaper.
How could I have been so stupid?
She used to scoff at women who fell for smooth-talking conmen and their scams, was always so assured of her intellectual superiority, so certainshe’dnever get caught in their nets.
Yeah, no one had ever accused Jane of being humble.
Bossy, abrasive and conceited, sure, but never humble.
Well look who’s choking down a big ol’ piece of Humble Pie now!
Tired of working two jobs and finally in a financially secure position, Jane had been so damned eager to branch out on her own, to start her own business.
To prove she was more than just Alec Melville’s daughter.
She’d trained at Le Cordon Bleu, for fuck’s sake, and she was going to show the world what she could do.
After Christmas she’d attended every culinary business function, industry luncheon and meet-and-greet cocktail hour she could beg, borrow or steal an invitation to, not once entertaining the idea of failure, because for Jane—for aMelville—failure wasn’t an option.
No, she came from a very long line of overachievers and knew the value of success, and yet here she stood, her ambition crushed, her bank accounts emptied, her bubble burst.
A failure.
And it was no one’s fault but her own.
Never trust a man who promises the moon.
But she’d done it anyway.
Stupid, Jane.
As she stepped from the shower, she clutched her stomach and pressed her hand to her mouth, then dashed to the toilet, arriving just in time to throw up without making a mess on the floor. When her stomach was empty, she slumped in a heap on the tiles and scrunched up her nose, the delightful aftertaste of stomach acid and coconut cake souring her mouth and throat.
“Morning sickness, my arse,” she muttered as she struggled back to her feet and rinsed her mouth out. “Morning, mid-morning, afternoon, evening, middle-of-the-fucking-night sickness is more like it.”
Staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, Jane hardly recognised the stranger looking back at her. With her face clean of make-up, her freckles stood stark against her naturally pale skin, as did the dark circles under her eyes.
She looked as exhausted as she felt.
Standing sideways, she smoothed her hand over her belly. The doctor had said she was around three months along, edging into her second trimester. Due to her naturally slender figure, her stomach was already rounding out, enough to confirm who the father was. His family only did one size.
Big.
Jane had managed to hide her pregnancy for the most part under winter clothes and extra layers, so much so that not even Abby had noticed, but her best friend had known something was up. When she’d finally caved in and told her about the baby, her friend wasn’t surprised. A little pissed off Jane hadn’t told her sooner, but not surprised.
“Two guesses who the father is,” she’d said, one brow raised and lips pursed in a knowing look, practically daring Jane to deny Abby’s brother was involved somehow.
She hadn’t. “One guess actually. Sam always uses protection.”
And Rafael Bennett didn’t.
