Unwrapping the Playboy / The Playboy's Gift. Marie Ferrarella

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      “Leave who?” he demanded. Was she talking about the father of her baby? Had he pushed her away when she told him she was pregnant? And why did that thought hold not the slightest bit of satisfaction for him? She’d left him and Erik had left her. That was supposed to be poetic justice. So why wasn’t it? “Leave Erik?”

      She stared at him. “No, leave you.”

      “Then why did you?”

      “Because I had to.” Her voice throbbed with anguish. “I didn’t want to see your anger or your pity.” She pressed her lips together again, trying not to cry. “I couldn’t deal with that.”

      “You’re going to have to be a little clearer than that, Lilli.” She looked as if she wanted to flee, he thought. He knew he couldn’t hold her against her will, but nonetheless, the idea was tempting. More than anything, he wanted her to make him understand why things had turned out the way they had.

      Every word cost her. She didn’t want to look back into the past, into the abyss of mistakes that had been made. “I didn’t leave you because I was going to Erik. I left you because of Erik.”

      “Clearer,” he instructed again, stone-faced.

      The breath Lilli let out was shaky. “I was pregnant.”

      Kullen’s expression hardened. Every time he thought of Lilli with that worthless bastard … when their own relationship hadn’t gone beyond heated kisses, at her request, a request he’d respected ….

      “We’ve already established that,” he said.

      She didn’t know how to tell him. She’d blocked all thoughts, all memory of events for so long. “The day you asked me to marry you was the best and the worst day of my life.”

      The word worst jumped up at him, lit in glaring neon lights. “Nice to know I’ve still got it,” he said sarcastically.

      She pushed on, knowing that she had to make him understand. She was afraid that he would stand by his word and not help her if she didn’t tell him everything. But, oh, it was so hard.

      “It was the best day because I found someone good, someone who could make me forget. Someone I loved.” He looked at her sharply. She pushed on. “And the worst day because I found out I was pregnant.”

      As her words pierced his heart, he came to the only conclusion he could. “You mean you were seeing Erik Dalton while we—”

      “No,” she retorted. “Erik happened before I met you and there was no ‘seeing’ involved, no dating, if that’s what you mean.”

      Lilli stopped, momentarily too emotional to continue because she was reliving the horrible incident that had all but destroyed her life and turned her entire world upside down.

      She looked as if she was going to bolt.

      Not until you finish telling me. Kullen gently put his hands on her shoulders. He could literally feel her anguish, could sense her being torn between telling him and keeping silent.

      “Tell me,” he urged quietly.

      The war within her was reflected in her eyes. And then, she squared her shoulders, as if she were about to go into battle.

      When she finally spoke, her voice was firm, quiet. Almost oddly removed.

      “My first year in law school, I forced myself to accept an invitation to a frat party. I was so terribly shy and I knew I had to make an effort to get out of my shell.” A sad smile played along her lips. “I mean, who wants a painfully shy lawyer, right? There were a lot of people at the party….” Her voice trailed off.

      “Including Erik?” he prodded.

      She nodded. “Erik was there. He seemed nice, attentive.” Every word took effort to say. “Almost sweet.” A rueful sound accompanied the description. “Somewhere in the middle of the evening, he suggested that we go somewhere more private, get a ‘real’ drink.” She stopped.

      “And you went with him?” He’d always pictured her being innocent, but never naive.

      Lilli raised her chin defiantly. “No, I didn’t. I told him I had to get back home because I had a paper I needed to finish for Monday. He told me he could get a paper on any topic under the sun, and that shouldn’t interrupt the good time we were having.”

      She shrugged helplessly, wishing she could change the rest of the narrative. Wishing that it had never happened. But that would mean she’d have to wish away Jonathan and she could never do that.

      “I told him I wouldn’t feel right about that. That I needed to earn my grade. He laughed and said I was a rare person. I left the party and went home. None of the other girls I lived with were there.” She paused for a moment, taking a shaky breath. “He followed me. When the doorbell rang, I thought one of my roommates had forgotten her key. But it was Erik. He pushed his way in….” Her voice broke.

      The horror of the situation suddenly hit Kullen with the force of an anvil dropping on his head. He called himself seven kinds of a jackass. Here he’d been feeling sorry for himself for loving her, and all along she’d been a victim.

      “He raped you?” Kullen asked, struggling to contain his outrage.

      She drew her lips together in a thin line, then nodded.

      He stared at her, stunned. “Why didn’t you report him to the police?”

      “Because I was ashamed.” It was so hard not to cry. Talking had sharpened all the edges of the incident. She could feel them all pricking her flesh again. “It would have been just my word against his. People saw him at the party talking to me. Walking me out to my car. They’d think that the sex was consensual and that I cried rape after the fact because he wouldn’t allow himself to be blackmailed.”

      It seemed too fantastic for words, but Kullen was acutely aware of the dead man’s reputation. “Is that what he said?”

      She nodded, avoiding his eyes. “He told me it was my fault. That I’d asked for it and that I couldn’t expect a guy to shut down after I ‘got his engine going.’” She drew in another shaky breath. “All I wanted to do was forget that it ever happened.” She smiled at Kullen and it all but broke his heart. “You almost made me forget. And then I found out I was pregnant—”

      “Why didn’t you tell me?” He would have taken care of her—after he’d beaten that scum to a pulp.

      “Because I didn’t want you to look at me with disgust, or pity—”

      “So letting me think that something was wrong, that you’d rather run away and disappear than marry me, was better?” he demanded. She made no answer. “Didn’t you know me any better than that?”

      She wasn’t going to cry. Please, God, don’t let me cry. “At that point, I didn’t know anything except that what I had once hoped for was now completely out of reach. I had a child on the way. A child I didn’t want.”

      “There were options,” he told her quietly. Not options that he would have chosen for her, СКАЧАТЬ