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“But you told me everything—didn’t you?” At his trembling nod, she gave him a slow-rising smile. “There are no more secrets between us. Now you’ve trusted me that much, maybe things can be different. We can be different.”
“I don’t want you to be different, Emmie. You’re sweet and good. I won’t have you throwing your love away on someone without a heart. I’m not going to drag you down.” His gaze fell to their son. He said softly, “Or him.” He turned away. “Good-bye.”
“Theo!”
At the agony in her voice, he froze. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t look back and see her imploring face. If he did, he knew he’d never have the strength to leave. But he had to. For Emmie. For his son. He pressed his fingertips against his eyes.
“Forget the prenup,” he whispered. “You can have anything you want. Money, cars, houses. Just take it. Everything I have is yours—”
His voice caught, and he fled the room. He didn’t look back. Stumbling down the hall, he couldn’t wait for the elevator so ran down ten flights of stairs. At the ground floor, he knocked the exit door against the wall in his desperation to escape. Staggering into the street, he hailed a yellow cab, feeling like he was going to die.
Knowing that the best part of him just had.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THEOSTAREDDOWNat the divorce papers that had just been delivered overnight to his Paris office. Along with Emmie’s diamond engagement ring.
Emmie hadn’t gotten a high-powered attorney to fight for her rights, as she should have done. These papers looked like something she’d printed off the internet. She didn’t ask for the penthouse or any other residence. She wanted no alimony, not even the million dollars the prenup had entitled her to. She asked only for two things: child support, which he was already legally required to pay. And the used minivan he’d bought on impulse in Queens.
Closing his eyes, he exhaled. It was so Emmie. She wouldn’t protect herself, so he’d do it for her. He’d tell his own shark of a lawyer to give her more than she’d asked for. Far, far more.
It had been two months since he’d left her in the hospital, and though he’d immediately returned to Paris and tried to bury himself in work, he still felt her absence, every second, every moment. For the first few days after he’d abandoned her, she’d tried to call and left messages. Then she’d abruptly stopped. Emmie finally must have accepted what they both knew to be true.
But he hoped she was happy. God, how he prayed she was, her and his son. He’d almost reached out to Wilson, the penthouse’s butler, just to confirm Emmie and the baby were all right. But he hadn’t. He was barely holding on as it was. He had to make a clean break.
Theo was looking at that clean break right now. Holding it in his hands. All he had to do was forward the divorce papers to his lawyer in New York to get the ball rolling.
Divorce.It was what Theo had wanted. Wasn’t it? So why didn’t he feel at peace? Why did he feel like punching the wall?
“Stop—wait—you can’t go in there,” his elderly secretary protested in French.
“Try and stop me,” came the pert response in the same language, and suddenly the door to his private office was flung open, and his sister strode in. Sofia’s eyes lit up when she saw him. “Thank heaven I caught you. I need you to take my present with you.”
What was she talking about? He stared at her as his secretary came in, clearly discomfited.
“I’m sorry,monsieur, she—”
“It’s all right, Gertrude.” Theo gestured for his secretary to close the door. After she left, he lifted an eyebrow at Sofia. “You couldn’t call first?”
“I tried that. You always ignore my calls when you’re at work.”
Through the window, he could see the gray rain over Paris, the eternal traffic around the Arc de Triomphe. “I call you back eventually.”
“You take too long.” With a tsk, Sofia sat down in the hard chair across his desk. “And even then, you’re too busy to talk. Sensible people go out to dinner with friends and enjoy life. You just work, exercise and sleep!”
“That is how I enjoymylife.” But even as Theo spoke those words, he knew he was lying. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed anything. Even Paris’s famous cuisine tasted like ash in his mouth.
“Nobody could enjoy the life you live. Spending two months away from your wife and child! It’s lucky for you I’m here to make sure you’re not utterly miserable.” His little sister smiled at him, and for a moment he almost smiled back.
He’d never intended to have a regular relationship with Sofia. But since she’d returned to Paris last month, after a summer traveling the world, she’d absolutely refused to take his hints that he’d prefer to be left alone. No. She showed up at his hotel room and suggested a stroll through the Jardin du Luxembourg. She’d twice phoned him in a panic, once claiming her date had abandoned her and later that her purse had been stolen, and when he arrived in a rush, he’d found her smiling like a cat with a canary feather hanging from its mouth, standing in front of a chic restaurant, where she’d gotten them reservations. “It’s the only way you’d come,” she explained. As if that excused it!
For the last two months, no matter how hard Theo tried to push her away, Sofia had persisted.
“That’s love.”
He heard the words as if Emmie had spoken them in his ear.
Theo sucked in his breath. No. He couldn’t let himself think that way. Not now. Not after everything he’d done—
