LITMIR.BIZ

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I felt—I don’t know what I felt. Upset, at the loss of the baby. I mean, by then I’d come to think of it as a baby, you know? Not a collection of cells.” He shook his head. “Once I got past that, what I felt, to be honest, was relief. Now we could end the relationship.”

      “Except, she didn’t want to end it.”

      Damian gave a bitter laugh. “You’re smarter than I was. She became hysterical. She said I’d made promises, begged her to spend her life with me.”

      “But you hadn’t.”

      “Damned right, I hadn’t. The only thing that had drawn us together was the baby. Right?”

      “Right,” Lucas said, although he was starting to realize he didn’t have to say anything. The flood gates had opened.

      “She seemed to plummet into depression. Stayed in bed all day. Wouldn’t eat. Went to her obstetrician—at least she said she’d gone to her obstetrician—and told me he’d advised her to get pregnant again.”

      “But—”

      “Exactly. I didn’t want a child, not with her. I wanted out.” Damian took another swallow of brandy. “She begged me to reconsider. She’d come into my room in the middle of the night—”

      “You had separate rooms?”

      A cold light flared in Damian’s eyes. “From the start.”

      “Sure, sure. Sorry. You were saying—”

      “She was good at what she did. I have to give her that. Most nights, I turned her away but once…” A muscle knotted in his jaw. “I’m not proud of it.”

      “Man, don’t beat yourself up. If she seduced you—”

      “I used a condom. It made her crazy. ‘I want your baby,’ she said. “And then—”

      Damian fell silent. Lucas leaned forward. “And then?”

      “And then,” Damian said, after a deep breath and a long exhalation, “then she told me she’d conceived. That her doctor had confirmed it.”

      “But the condom—”

      “It broke, she said, when she—when she took it off me—” He cleared his throat. “Hell, why would I question it? The damned things do break. We all know that.”

      “So—so she was pregnant again.”

      “No,” Damian said flatly. “She wasn’t pregnant. Oh, she went through all the motions. Morning sickness, ice cream and pickles in the middle of the night. But she wasn’t pregnant.” His voice roughened. “She never had been. Not then, not ever.”

      “Damian. You can’t be sure of—”

      “She wanted my name. My money.” Damian gave a choked laugh. “Even my title, the ‘Prince’ thing you and I both know is nothing but outdated crap. She wanted everything.” He drew a deep breath, then blew it out. “And she lied about carrying my child to get it.”

      “When did you find out?”

      “When she died,” Damian said flatly. He drained his glass and refilled it. “I was in Athens on business. I phoned her every night to see how the pregnancy was going. Later, I found out she’d taken a lover and she’d been with him all the time I was gone.”

      “Hell,” Lucas said softly.

      “They were on Long Island. A narrow, twisting road on the Sound along the North Shore. He was driving, both of them high on booze and cocaine. The car went over a guardrail. Neither of them survived.” Damian looked up from his glass, his eyes bleak. “You talked about grief before, Lucas. Well, I did grieve then, not for her but for my unborn child…until I was going through Kay’s papers, tying up loose ends, and found an article she’d clipped from some magazine, all about the symptoms of pregnancy.”

      “That still doesn’t mean—”

      “I went to see her doctor. He confirmed it. She had never been pregnant. Not the first time. Not the second. It was all a fraud.”

      The two friends sat in silence while the sun dipped below the horizon. Finally Lucas cleared his throat.

      “I wish I could think of something clever to say.”

      Damian smiled. “You got me to talk. You can’t imagine how much good that’s done. I’d been keeping everything bottled inside.”

      “I have an idea. That club of mine. Remember? I’m meeting there with someone interested in buying me out.”

      “So soon?”

      “You know how it is in New York. Today’s hotspot is tomorrow’s trash.” Lucas glanced at his watch. “Come downtown with me, have a drink while I talk a little business and then we’ll go out.” He grinned. “Dinner at that place on Spring Street. A pair of bachelors on the town, like the old days.”

      “Thank you, my friend, but I wouldn’t be very good company tonight.”

      “Of course you would. And we won’t be alone for long.” Another quick grin. “Before you know it, there’ll be a couple of beautiful women hovering over us.”

      “I’ve sworn off women for a while.”

      “I can understand that but—”

      “It’s what I need to do right now.”

      “You sure?”

      Inexplicably an image of the woman with green eyes and sun-streaked hair flashed before Damian’s eyes. He hadn’t wanted to notice her, certainly didn’t want to remember her…

      “Yes,” he said briskly, “I’m positive.”

      “You know what they say about getting back on the horse that threw you,” Lucas said with a little smile.

      “I told Nicolo almost the same thing a year ago, the night he met Aimee.”

      “And?”

      “And,” Damian said, “it was good advice for him, but not for me. This is different.”

      Lucas’s smile faded. “You’re right. Well, let me just call this guy I’m supposed to meet—”

      “No, don’t do that. I’d like to be alone tonight. Just do a little thinking, start putting this thing behind me.”

      Lucas cocked his head. “It’s no big deal, Damian. I can meet him tomorrow.”

      “I appreciate it but, honestly, I feel a lot better now that we talked.” Damian held out his hand. “Go have your meeting. And, Lucas—Thank you.”

      “Para nada,” Lucas said, smiling. “I’ll call you tomorrow, yes? Maybe we can have dinner together.”

      “I wish I could but I’m flying back to Minos in the morning.” Damian gripped Lucas’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself, filos mou.”

      “You do the same.” Lucas frowned. Damian looked better than he had a few hours ago but there was still a haunted look in his eyes. “I wish you’d change your mind about tonight. Forget what I said about women. We could go to the gym. Lift some weights. Run the track.”

      “You really think it would make me feel better to beat you again?”

      “You beat me once, a thousand years ago at Yale.”

      “A triviality.”

      The men chuckled. Damian slung his arm around Lucas’s neck as they walked slowly to the door. “Don’t worry about me, Reyes. I’m going to take a long shower, pour myself another brandy and then, thanks to you, I’m going to have the first real night’s sleep I’ve had in months.”

      The friends shook hands. Then Damian closed the door after Lucas, leaned back against it and

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