It pained her to think that his hatred had poisoned him so, that it had killed their love.
But he’d never said he loved her. Never said he wanted her in his life. Even if he had told her in so many words that he would fight for what he wanted.
He didn’t want her.
Maybe for him it had just been lust. What else explained how he had cut her and their child from his life?
He’d had his revenge, his say.
But she hadn’t. She wanted closure.
And she desperately wanted to see him, touch him, kiss him. She loved him. That would never change.
She pinched her eyes shut, almost feeling his touch, his scent, his potent power sweeping her away.
Yes, she wanted André. Ached for him still.
Countless nights she’d picked up the phone, then talked herself out of ringing him. She wouldn’t chase after him. She wouldn’t grovel and beg, no matter how much she ached for him. But she had to talk to him once more. Just once.
So that night she put the call through. But Otillie answered, because André wasn’t in residence. He was miserable, the older woman claimed, and begged her to come back.
“Monsieur—he does not eat. Does not sleep,” Otillie said.
Kira gripped the phone tighter, torn over what she wanted to do and what she had vowed not to do. “I don’t know—”
“Please, Mademoiselle Montgomery. Come home.”
Home. How odd that she’d begun to think of the island as just that. She pinched her eyes shut again, debating whether to listen to her head or her heart.
Her baby made the decision for her, giving her the tiny kick she needed.
“Expect me in a few days,” she said.
Kira brimmed with excitement as she dashed to the pharmacy to replenish her prenatal vitamins, worrying about André, eager to see him soon.
The handsome face commanding the cover of one of the tabloids changed her mind.
She picked it up, stared at the image, her blood chilling.
The photographers had captured André at various clubs and functions on the Riviera. Pictured him with a gorgeous woman on his arm. The headlines were disgustingly similar. Which beauty would win the billionaire’s heart?
The fact he’d replaced Kira confirmed he’d never really cared about her at all. He’d fallen into the jet-setting lifestyle he’d supposedly despised. That told her she’d really never known him at all.
No wonder he wasn’t eating or sleeping. He didn’t have time!
She threw the tabloid down and marched from the store.
André Gauthier had cut her out of his life with surgical precision. It was past time she did the same. Time would heal this awful ache that stayed with her day and night, robbing her of sleep, of peace of mind. But she knew that the hole he left in her heart would never be mended, even after she did what she must do. Why did love have to hurt so much?
André stared pensively out the window of his private jet, anxious to set down, annoyed he was arriving in Las Vegas a week later than he’d intended. Exhaustion tormented every fiber of his being, having spent the most miserable month of his life throwing himself into work at his Riviera hotel—work he’d neglected when he’d decided to abduct Kira and take her to Petit St. Marc.
Kira. His heart gave a painful kick. He missed her more than he’d thought possible. Regret, fear and stubborn pride had kept him from calling her as he’d longed to do.
All his life he’d secretly feared he’d fall victim to a consuming passion like his parents had. To the eyes of a young boy, his parents’ heated fights and explosive ardor had been something to avoid.
He hadn’t realized a man could love that deeply, that intently. That a woman could become so much a part of him that losing her was more painful and traumatic than losing an arm or leg, that she pulsed through his blood and gave him life. That she filled his heart and gave him hope.
He’d believed by walking away from her that he’d done the right thing, for she was Edouard Bellamy’s daughter. To admit he had lost his heart to her would mean his enemy had won.
But he’d been wrong.
When he’d walked away from Kira he’d lost the best thing that had ever happened to him. He’d been a fool to believe her mother’s claim that Edouard was Kira’s father, to let that probability poison him.
The woman had sold her daughter to Bellamy. Why? Was Bellamy her father? Or the wealthiest former lover that her mother had been able to con?
André had to know the truth, which was why he’d charged his detective with digging deeper into her past. But the answers he sought eluded him still.
What did it matter anyway? If Bellamy was her father, then he would find a way to deal with it. He could not alter the fact any more than he could rearrange the sun and the moon—any more than he could change the past.
The past was just that—the past.
His future was with Kira.
She was his woman. The mother of his child. He’d do anything to gain her favor and forgiveness. To win her heart.
She’d resist him out of hurt pride at the very least. But he’d captured her heart before. He would do it again. Only this time he’d never let her go.
The sun was just starting to graze the expanse of glass and steel stretching down the Las Vegas strip when André walked into the Chateau Mystique. Unlike before, he marched straight to the front desk and announced that he must speak with Kira immediately.
“Your name, sir?” the clerk asked, the image of poised efficiency that he himself demanded in all his own hotels and resorts.
“Gauthier. André Gauthier.”
The clerk’s eyes widened a fraction, to hint that she recognized his name. “One moment, please,” she said, and hurried off into the manager’s office, situated at the end of the long cherrywood counter topped with rich pink granite.
Before André could stew about the wait, the door to the office opened and the clerk motioned him in. “This way, sir.”
“Thank you.”
André’s gut tightened, his heart thudding far too fast as he strode to the door. He knew what he must say, what he wanted to tell Kira. But he wasn’t poetic, and he had certainly lost his patience.
He’d simply blurt it out, then take her in his arms and kiss her. Everything else would fall into place then.
She’d forgive him for being a high-handed ass. Maybe not today, but soon.
She’d agree that
