Allison Leigh - Fortune's Prince

Self-preservation kept him standing right where he was.

“Yell if you need something,” he added gruffly.

She stopped, nearly at the top of the stairs, and looked back at him. Her hair slid over her shoulder.

Purple shadows, ghostly pale and badly fitting clothes or not, she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and looking at her was a physical pain.

“I need you not to hate me,” she said softly.

His jaw tightened right along with the band across his chest that made it hard to breathe. “I don’t hate you, Amelia.”

Her huge eyes stared at him. They were haunting, those eyes.

“I don’t feel anything,” he finished.

It was the biggest lie he’d ever told in his life.

* * *

Amelia’s knees wobbled and she tightened her grip on the smooth, warm wooden banister. Quinn could say what he wanted, but the expression on his face told another story.

And she had only herself to blame.

No words came to mind that were appropriate for the situation. Even if there were words, she wasn’t sure her tight throat would have allowed her to voice them. So she just gave him an awkward nod and headed up the remaining stairs. Because what else was there to do but go forward?

There was no going back.

He’d made that painfully clear more than once and her coming to Horseback Hollow to see him face-to-face hadn’t changed a single thing.

At the landing, the room he spoke of was obvious. Straight at the end of the hall.

The door was open and through it she could see the foot of a quilt-covered bed.

She pushed back her shoulders despite her weariness, and headed toward it. If she weren’t feeling devastated to her core, she would have gobbled up every detail of his home as she walked along the wooden-floored hallway. Would have struggled not to let her intense curiosity where he was concerned overtake her. Would have wondered how each nook and cranny reflected Quinn. The man she’d fallen head over heels in love with on the foolish basis of a few dances at a wedding reception.

And a night of lovemaking after.

The thought was unbearable and she pushed it away.

She’d deal with that later.

She stopped at the bathroom briefly and shuddered over her pallid reflection in the oval mirror that hung over a classic pedestal sink when she washed her hands. It was no wonder he’d stared at her with such horror.

She looked hideous.

Not at all the way she’d looked the night he’d stopped next to her at Toby’s wedding reception, smiled quietly and asked if she cared to dance. She’d looked as good that day as her gawky self was capable of looking.

But when Quinn took her in his arms and slowly circled around the outdoor dance floor with her to the croon of Etta James, for the first time, she’d felt beautiful. All because of the way he’d looked at her.

Tears burned behind her eyes again and she quickly left the bathroom behind, hurrying the remaining few feet into the bedroom. She shut the door soundlessly, leaned back against it and slid down it until her bottom hit the floor.

Then she drew up her knees and pressed her forehead to them.

He believed their lovemaking had been some sort of last fling for her, before settling down with Jimmy, whom she’d been seeing during the months before she’d spontaneously attended Toby’s wedding. Quinn had accused her of that during that dreadful phone conversation. In the weeks since, he’d obviously not changed his opinion.

So how was she ever going to be able to tell him that she was pregnant?

With his child?

If he accused her of lying about that, too, she wasn’t sure she could survive it.

She sat there, her sorrow too deep for tears, until her bottom felt numb. Then feeling ancient, she shifted onto her knees and pushed herself to her aching feet. The boots she’d borrowed from Molly, one of her mother’s junior secretaries whom Amelia trusted, were too wide and too short. They, along with the ill-fitting jeans and the shirt, belonged to Molly’s teenage brother as had the other set of clothes she’d started out in. They’d been left, shoved deep in the rubbish, at the airport in Dallas alongside the blond wig and the knapsack in which she’d carried their replacements.

She dragged her passport out of the back pocket and set it on the rustic wooden nightstand. Even though Molly had helped with the disguises, neither one of them had been able to think of a way around traveling under Amelia’s own name. Not with security standards being what they were. All she’d come with had been the passport, her credit card and a small wad of American currency tucked among the well-stamped pages of her passport. Molly had insisted on the credit card, though Amelia had wanted to leave it behind. She knew cash was untraceable, while a credit card wasn’t, and she’d stuck to it. The only thing she’d purchased had been the bus fare from Dallas. Once she’d reached Lubbock, she’d hitched a ride with a trucker as far as the outskirts of Horseback Hollow. Then, using the directions she’d memorized from Molly, she’d walked the rest of the way to what she’d hoped was Quinn’s ranch. But in her exhaustion and the darkness she hadn’t been certain. So she’d hidden in the barn, intending to rest until daylight.

Her head swam dizzily and she quickly sat at the foot of the bed, the mattress springs giving the faintest of creaks. She closed her eyes, breathing evenly. She didn’t know whether to blame the light-headedness on pregnancy or exhaustion. Aside from her missed period, she hadn’t experienced any other signs that she was carrying a baby. And if it hadn’t been for Molly who’d suggested that her irregularity might not be a result of stress as Amelia had believed at first, she probably wouldn’t know even now that she was carrying Quinn’s baby. She’d still be thinking she was just stressed over the whole engagement fiasco.

Why, oh, why hadn’t she spoken up when those reporters greeted her at the airport six weeks ago, clamoring for details about her engagement to James? Why had she just put up her hand to shield her face and raced alongside her driver until reaching the relative sanctuary of the Town Car? She hadn’t even dared to phone James until she’d gotten home because she feared having her cell phone hacked again. Even though it had happened well over a year ago, the sense of invasion still lived on.

If she’d only have spoken up, denied the engagement to the press right then and there, she wouldn’t be in this situation now. After the initial embarrassment, James’s situation with his family would have ironed itself out in time.

Most important, though, Quinn wouldn’t have any reason to hate her.

She would have returned to him weeks ago exactly as they’d planned while lying together atop a horse blanket with an endless expanse of stars twinkling over them. Then, learning she was pregnant would have been something for them to discover together.

If only.

Her light-headedness was easing, though she really felt no better. But she opened her eyes and slowly pulled off the boots and socks and dropped them on the floor next to the bed. She wiggled her toes until some feeling returned and flopped back on the mattress.

The springs gave a faint squeak again.

It was a comforting sound and, too tired to even finish undressing, she dragged one of the two pillows at the head of the bed to her cheek and closed her eyes once more.

Things would be better in the morning.

They had to be.

* * *

When there were no more sounds, faint though they were, coming from his room upstairs, Quinn finally left the kitchen where he’d been hiding out. He left the house and walked back down to the barn with only the moonlight for company. He closed the door and even though there’d be endless chores to be done before the sun came up and he ought to be trying to sleep the last few hours before then, his aimless footsteps carried him even farther from the house.