AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But when the lift doors closed behind him, she walked to the window, and the tears came. They streamed down her face as the choking sobs queued up in her throat.
She rested her hand on her belly, where Cade had touched her for the last time.
Stroking the place where their baby grew.
Not theirs.Hers.
‘You’re not his any more,’ she whispered, out loud to the empty apartment. ‘You’re mine. He doesn’t want you, but I do.’
But even as she said the words, she knew a part of this baby would always be his, just like the foolish part of her heart which she’d opened to him—after convincing herself she wouldn’t. After knowing she shouldn’t.
The part of her heart he’d discarded all too easily.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Labor Day
Helberg is yours. I concede the bet. Give my best to Charley.
CADESTAREDATthe text which had just appeared on his phone from Adam Courtney as he stood in the locker room of the club. He swiped sweat off his brow—caused by the hour he’d just spent on the treadmill—attempting to keep his focus on business. And not Charlotte.
In preparation for his meeting in ten minutes with her brother to declare the winner of the bet—which now wasn’t happening.
Courtney had thrown in the towel, just like Zane a month ago. Cade had won the bet.
He should be contacting his finance team, setting the wheels in motion to snap up the rest of the Helberg shares. No other viable buyers had appeared since the three of them had made the bet on the Fourth of July. He was clear to finish the takeover.
Helberg was his.
But instead of the elation he should be feeling, he felt hollow. Empty. And more alone than he’d felt even as a kid when he’d had no one.
He sat down heavily on one of the locker room benches. He could hear a couple of the other guys who were there on a vacation day, talking about Cornell’s college football team and their chances for the new season, the showers running, a nineties rap anthem playing on the speakers.
But all he could really hear was Charlotte and the last words she’d said to him—hopelessness and confusion in her voice.
What is going on? You have to tell me. You’re starting to scare me.
So he’d told her. Not the whole truth, but enough of the truth so she would know he couldn’t be a parent. He couldn’t even be a partner to her.
And it seemed like she’d got the message, because she hadn’t contacted him in the days since.
Give my best to Charley.
The offhand comment in Courtney’s text seared his brain. Dating Charlotte had won him Helberg. Weird, it hadn’t even occurred to him until this moment that she had given him this victory.
Give it up, man. This is what you wanted, what you worked for. All these years. You can’t go back and change who you are, who you’ve become for her...or for the baby.
He forced himself to switch the phone on and texted his EA. His fingers shaking.
Tell finance to finish the Helberg buyout.
But as he switched the phone off and headed into the showers, the sense of triumph, the validation he should have been feeling, never came. And the hollow ache in his gut became a black hole.
Four days later
Charley stared up at the stunning Art Deco tower which housed the Courtney Collection as the cab she’d taken from the airport sped back into the afternoon traffic. Twenty-five storeys ofluxury, elegance, and class, with her brother Adam’s penthouse offices at the top.
Funny to think she’d never visited him here. Just another example of what a coward she’d always been. The truth was, she really didn’t want to be here now. She felt so fragile and wounded and pathetic, and it wasn’t as if she and Adam had ever had a particularly close relationship.
