He saw now that he’d been a stupid, emotional fool to be in such a rush to marry her. They both had huge, time-consuming careers; their past had haunted them for years; the press wouldn’t leave them alone. Was there room for love and marriage with so many distractions, responsibilities and conflicts?
“Maybe neither of us has time for a marriage,” he said.
“That’s not fair. This is just a very bad time for me. What if I happened to drop in on you, when you were in the middle of a negotiation and forty people were waiting on your decision?”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? I’ve just realized there’s not room in a marriage for two huge egos and two big careers…along with everything else that’s between us. I don’t like goodbyes, Summer, so I’ll just make a quick exit.”
“You’re not telling me everything,” she said, grabbing his arm to keep him in the room.
“I could say the same thing to you, couldn’t I, sweetheart?”
The last thing he saw was her ashen face as she staggered backward, knocking a wig stand over as she sank down onto her friend’s couch. Her big blue eyes glimmered with unshed tears, and she looked white and shaken. It tore him up to realize he’d hurt her again.
But maybe there had always been too much between them for a relationship to ever work. Maybe he’d let their chemistry blind him. Had he been rushing into marriage because he hadn’t wanted to stop to think about the realities?
On his way out of the theater, he pitched the perfect red roses in the first stinking trash barrel he saw. Then he stepped through the throng of reporters and into the hushed silence of his luxurious limo.
“Take me to LaGuardia Airport,” he said.
Eleven
Summer Wallace Dumps Billionaire For Movie Star.
Summer felt sick to her stomach as she sat up straighter in her bed to turn the page of the newspaper.
She’d tried to phone Zach, but he wouldn’t take her calls. She had to tell him about their lost little girl even if the timing was awful and the news killed whatever remaining tenderness he felt for her.
“When will the thirty-one-year-old actress make up her mind…”
There was an awful picture of Zach and Hugh together. Two more shots showed Zach entering the theater with roses, and there was one of him looking furious as he dumped the gorgeous bouquet on his way out.
Why did the headlines always have to mention her age and remind her that her biological clock was ticking? Why did every headline have to remind her that Zach would never marry her? That she would never have his darling black-haired children.
She felt a rivulet of perspiration trickle down her back. Then a hot sensation of dizziness flooded her. Cupping her hands over her mouth, she lurched to her feet and ran to her toilet where she was violently ill.
When she was able to lift her head, she opened the window and gulped in mouthfuls of sweet, fresh air. Then she put the toilet lid down and sat, holding her head in her hands.
The episode of nausea was the third she’d had this week. Since her stomach was often queasy during rehearsals and she’d been so busy, she hadn’t really thought about it. Until now.
“Oh, no,” she whispered as comprehension dawned.
Slowly she arose and stared critically at the reflection of her white face in the mirror.
She was pregnant. Since she’d been pregnant before, she should have recognized the signs. Her breasts were swollen, and her period was late. She had the oddest cravings at the strangest times. Like that other night when she had to have a corn dog and a tomato and a pickle and nothing else would do. She felt lethargic, different.
Great timing. Just like last time.
Zach had left her. And she hadn’t even told him about their little girl yet. He wouldn’t be happy to learn the truth about their past, nor would he be overjoyed that they were going to have another child.
Then there was the not-insignificant detail that she was starring in a play that was going to open in less than three weeks. One where her character was not pregnant and the director and cast were on the verge of a collective nervous breakdown if things didn’t start coming together soon.
Zach had been swimming laps in his pool behind Thibodeaux House for an hour, so it was time to get out.
He wanted to forget Summer, to go on with his life. So, he’d ignored her calls; ignored the pain he felt at her loss.
He would get through this. He would. Not that it would be easy.
As he toweled off, he heard furious shouts and scuffling out front.
At first he thought it was the press and paid no attention. They’d been stalking him all week, ever since they’d caught him with Jones the day of the interview. Then he recognized the hateful voice.
“Let me through, damn it,” Thurman Wallace yelled at Zach’s security team. “I’ve got something to say to Torr, and I won’t go until I say it.”
Pulling on a shirt without bothering to button it, Zach strode to the front of the house. “Let him in,” he said.
When Wallace stepped through the gate, Zach smelled the hot stench of liquor on the man’s breath.
“Say your piece and leave, Wallace.”
“You think you’re something, don’t you, you arrogant you-know-what, coming back here, to my town, getting everyone on your side because you’re rich… Taking up with Summer again… Using her like a…”
“Watch your language. Say your piece. Then get the hell off my property.”
“It wasn’t all me, wanting to bring those charges. You think she wanted you back then, but she didn’t. She thought you were trash, same as I did.”
“Shut up about her.”
“If she’d cared for you, why did she kill your baby?”
“What the hell did you say?”
“You got her pregnant. I had to send her to New Orleans before she started to show so nobody around here would know about her and ruin my good name.”
“I don’t believe you! Get out of here before I throw you out!”
When Wallace didn’t move, Zach started toward him. “Get out of here now, or you’ll be sorry!”
Wallace took one look at Zach and ran for his life.
Zach sank to his knees and thought about a younger Summer, pregnant and alone in New Orleans. Whatever she’d done, he’d never believe she’d deliberately killed their baby. But she hadn’t told him about it, had she? So, how could he trust her?
All doubt that he had made the right decision in leaving her vanished.
The sudden certainty hurt.
God, how it hurt.
Billionaire And Actress Had Secret Baby!
The ugly headline screamed at Summer, shattering her heart into a million tiny pieces.
Gram had warned her about the awful story that Thurman had sold to the tabloids. In spite of the warning, Summer was still shaking as she laid down a wad of cash for all the newspapers on the rack at the tiny grocery store a block from her apartment.
Folding them, she plunged them into her bag, put her sunglasses back on and ran outside where she dumped them in the first trash bin she saw. It was a hollow gesture since there were hundreds of thousands on similar racks all over the country. Everybody would see them when they were in the check-out lines.
How could Thurman be so filled with hate? How could he have sold such a personally heartbreaking story? She
