Jewels (57 page)

And when they got to Paris, Julian asked Yvonne gently if anything had happened to upset her.

“No.” She shrugged. “I was just bored.” But when he tried to make love to her that night, she resisted.

“What’s wrong?” He persisted in asking her, she had been so enthusiastic about it the night before, and now suddenly she was so cool. She was unpredictable all the time, mercurial, but he liked that. Sometimes he liked it best when she resisted him, it only made her more exciting. He reacted that way to her resisting him now, but this time she wasn’t playing.

“Stop it … I’m tired … I have a headache.” She had never used that excuse before, but she was still annoyed about the performance the night before, with Sarah acting like she owned the world and threatening them, and Phillip grovelling to her like a child. She had been so angry, she had slapped him afterwards, hard, and he had gotten so excited they’d made love again. They hadn’t left the stables until six o’clock that morning. And now she was tired and annoyed that all of them were so affected by their mother. “Leave me alone,” she repeated to him. They were all nothing but mama’s boys, and their damn snob of a sister. She knew that none of them approved of her. But she didn’t care. She was getting what she wanted. And now maybe she’d get more of it, if Phillip did what he said he would, and came to see her from London. She could still use her old studio on the Île Saint Louis, or go to the hotel where he stayed, or make love to him right here in Julian’s bed, if she wanted, no matter what the old bitch said. But she was in no mood for any of them just then, least of all her husband.

“I want you now…” Julian was teasing her, excited by her refusal, and sensing something animal and strange, like a predator who had somehow come too near him. It was as though he sensed someone else’s scent on her, instinctively, and he wanted her now to make her his again. “What’s wrong?” he kept asking, trying to excite her with his deft fingers, but she kept him away this time, which was rare for her.

“I forgot to take the pill today,” she said, and he whispered huskily as he brushed against her.

“Take it later.” But the truth was that she had run out the day before, and now she wanted to be careful for a few days. She’d had enough abortions to last a lifetime, and the one thing she didn’t want was brats. Julian’s or anyone else’s. And when he pressed her about it eventually, she was going to quietly go and get her tubes tied. That would make things easier, but for right now things weren’t quite that easy. “Never mind the pill.” He played with her, and turned her over to face him, and then as he did, just as his brother had the night before, he was overwhelmed with desire for her, just as men always had been, since she was twelve and she began to learn just exactly what it was they wanted. She knew what Julian wanted now, but she didn’t want to give it to him. She preferred torturing him. She lay with her legs open, and her eyes wide, and if he came near her, she was going to hit him. But he couldn’t stop himself by then. She had pushed him too far, denying him, and lying there, naked and lovely, with her legs apart, her body calling to him, while she pretended not to.

He took her quickly and hard, and she was surprised by the force of it, as she shuddered with pleasure, too, and then afterwards groaned at how stupid she had been. But she always was and this time she was really angry.

“Shit!” she said, as she rolled away from him.

“What’s wrong?” He looked hurt, she was behaving very strangely.

“I told you I didn’t want to do it. What if I get pregnant?”

“So?” He looked amused. “We have a baby.”

“No, we don’t,” she spat at him. “I’m too young … I don’t want a baby now. We just got married.” She wasn’t ready yet to tell him more than that, and she knew how much he wanted children.

“All right, all right. Go have a hot bath, or a cold shower, or a douche or something, or take the pill. I’m sorry.” But he didn’t look it as he kissed her. He would have liked nothing better than to get her pregnant.

But three weeks later, he came home unexpectedly in the afternoon, and found her retching over the toilet.

“Oh, poor baby,” he said, helping her to bed. “Is it something you ate, or flu?” He had never seen her so sick, as she looked at him with eyes filled with hatred. She knew it too well. It was the seventh time for her. She’d had six abortions in the last twelve years, and she was going to have another one this time. She got sick from the first moment, the first hour, and she always knew, as she did this time.

“It’s nothing,” she insisted, “I’m fine.” But he hated to leave her again, to go back to the office. He made her soup that night, and she threw that up too. The next morning she wasn’t much better, so he came home early without warning to take care of her. She was out when he answered the phone, and the receptionist at her doctor was calling to confirm that her abortion was the following morning.

“Her
what?
” he shouted into the phone. “Cancel it! She won’t be there.” He called his office then, cancelled the rest of his afternoon, and waited for her. She came back at four, and she was in no way prepared for his fury when she walked back into the apartment.

“Your doctor called,” he explained, and she looked at him, wondering if he knew, but only for an instant. After that, there was no doubt at all as to what he knew or how he felt about it. He was livid. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

“Because it’s too soon … we’re not ready for it … and …” She looked at him and wondered if he’d believe her. “The doctor said it was too soon after the abortion Klaus forced me to have.”

He almost bought it for an instant and then he remembered. “That was last year.”

“I haven’t fully recovered yet.” She started to cry. “I want our baby, Julian, but not yet.”

“Sometimes these choices aren’t ours to make, and we have to make the best of it. I don’t want you to have an abortion.”

“Well, I do.” She looked at him stubbornly. She wasn’t going to let him talk her out of it. Besides, this was no time for her to be pregnant. Phillip was coming over to see her and she didn’t want a big belly now, or a baby at the end of it, or any of it. She wanted it out of her body, now, or at the very least by the next morning.

“I’m not going to let you do this.” They fought about it all night, and he refused to go to work the next day, for fear that she’d go to her doctor, and then when she realized how serious he was, she really got nasty. She was fighting for her life, or she thought she was, and she cut him to the quick as he listened.

“Listen, dammit, I’m going to get rid of it no matter what you do … it probably isn’t even your baby.” Her words stunned him, like a knife to his heart, and he backed away from her as though he’d been shot, unable to believe her.

“Are you telling me this is someone else’s child?” He stared at her in horror and amazement.

“It could be,” she said, without expression or feeling.

“Do you mind if I ask whose? Has that little Greek shit been back again?” He had seen him twice before they were married and he knew Yvonne thought he was very sexy. But suddenly she thought it was all a big joke. His baby was probably actually the next Duke of Whitfield, not the son of the second son at all, but the son of His Grace, the Duke of Whitfield. She started laughing until she couldn’t stop, she was hysterical, and then, beside himself, he slapped her “What’s happening to you? What have you been doing?” But she had given up by then, she knew that she had lost with Julian the moment she refused to have his baby. There was nothing more to get from him now. The game was over. It was time to concentrate on Phillip.

“Actually”—she grinned evilly at him—“I’ve been sleeping with your brother. The baby is probably his, so you don’t need to worry about it anymore.” But as Julian stared at her in horror and grief, he sat down on the bed and started to laugh at the same time he started to cry, as she watched him.

“That’s really very funny.” He wiped his eyes, but he was no longer laughing.

“Isn’t it? Your mother thought so too.” She decided to tell him everything now. She didn’t care. She had never loved him. It had been good for a while, but now they both knew it was over. “She found us in the stables at the château. Fucking.” He reeled at the word she used and the image it conjured.

“My mother knows about this?” He looked horrified. “Who else knows? Does Phillip’s wife?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I suppose we should tell her if I’m going to have his baby.” She was taunting him with that, because she wasn’t going to have anyone’s child, unless, of course, Phillip agreed to divorce Cecily and marry her, then she might agree to have his baby. It was called marrying up, and as an incentive, she might agree to have the baby.

But Julian was looking at her with broken eyes. “My brother had a vasectomy years ago, because his wife didn’t want any more children,” he said tonelessly. “Did he tell you that? Or didn’t he bother?” Julian knew just when it had happened and that it was his child. It had happened the night she had forgotten to take the pill and he had forced her. But then something else occurred to him, and he looked up at her with anger and hatred. “I don’t understand how you could do this to me, or why. I would never have done something like this to you.” He wouldn’t have because he was a decent person. “But I’ll tell you one thing now and you’d better believe me. If you married me for my money, you will not get one red cent from me unless you have this baby. If you get rid of it, I’ll see that you never get a penny from me, or my family, and don’t fool yourself, my brother won’t help you. That child inside you is a person, a real life … and it’s mine. And I want it. You can leave after that. You can go to Phillip if you want. He’ll never marry you. He hasn’t got the guts to leave his wife. But you can do anything you want, and I’ll give you a decent settlement. Maybe even a big one. But kill my baby, Yvonne, and it’s all over. You’ll never see a penny from me. And I mean that.”

“Are you threatening me?” She looked at him with such hatred that it was hard to believe he had ever thought she loved him.

“Yes, I am. I’m telling you that if you don’t have that baby, if you even accidentally lose it, I’m not giving you one cent. Keep it, have it, give it to me, and you can have a divorce from me, and a settlement … with honors. … Is that a deal?”

“I’ll have to think about it.” He walked across the room toward her, feeling violent about a woman for the first time in his life, grabbed her long blond hair, and pulled it. “You’d better think fast, and if you kill my baby, I swear I’ll kill you.”

He threw her away from him, then, and left the house. He was gone for hours, and he drank and cried, and when he came back he was so drunk he had almost forgotten what he was upset about, but not quite. And in the morning, she told him that she would go through with it, and have the baby. But she wanted a settlement from him first. He told her he’d call his lawyers as soon as he got to the office. But he made it clear to her that he wanted her living with him, she could move into the guest room, but he wanted to know that she was taking care of herself, and he wanted to be there when she had the baby.

She looked at him venomously and spoke in a hard, vicious tone that left no doubt in anyone’s mind how she felt about him, or his baby.

“I hate you.”

And she hated every single moment of being pregnant. Phillip came over to visit her for the first few months, but eventually after Christmas it just got too awkward. She was no fun for him then anymore, and the situation was too complicated. He didn’t mind Julian knowing what he was about, in fact he rather liked it. But he knew his mother did as well, and he didn’t want to run into her. He told Yvonne they’d go for a holiday in June after she had the baby. And she hated Julian even more after that. As far as she could see, he had ruined everything, and was costing her everything she wanted. She wanted Phillip more than anything in life, and she wanted to be his duchess. He had said he might leave his wife eventually, but just then it wasn’t the right time as her mother was very ill, and she was deeply upset, and with the baby. … He urged her to wait and stay calm, and hearing that only made her more hysterical and angrier at Julian. And then she began calling Phillip every day, taunting him, teasing him on the phone, in the office, at home, at all the most awkward moments possible, reminding him of the things they’d done, and suddenly he was begging for her again, throbbing, pounding, aching, and he could hardly wait till June. She had made him crazy for her again, and now the wait till June didn’t seem quite as painful. They spoke on the phone every day, usually several times, and always sexually, as she told him the things she was going to do to him when they went away after she had the baby. It was what Phillip wanted from her, and he loved it.

She and Julian barely spoke to each other. She had moved to another room, and she looked almost as bad as she felt. She threw up for six months, and then began again two months later. Julian thought that half of it was her resentment and her anger. And he saw the constant calls to Phillip on his bill, but he said nothing. He had no idea what would happen between them and he tried to tell himself he didn’t care, but he did, the whole experience had been incredibly painful. And the only thing that cheered him was the baby she had agreed to have and give him. She wanted no custody, no visitation rights, no claim on the child at all. The baby was Julian’s entirely. For a mere million dollars. Play or pay. And he agreed to pay it
After
she had the baby.

He had only one conversation with his mother about the whole affair, if only to explain to her why he would be selling some of his stock in the company. Paying off Yvonne was going to completely wipe out his savings, but he knew it was worth it.

“I’m sorry I got myself into this mess.” he apologized to Sarah one day, which she told him was absurd. It was his life, and he owed her no apologies and no explanations.

“You’re the only one who’s been hurt by it. I’m just so sorry it all happened,” she told him.

“So am I … but at least I’ll have the baby.” He smiled ruefully, and went back to the cold war in his apartment. He had already hired a nurse for the child, set a room aside for it, and Isabelle had even promised to come from Rome to help him. He had no idea how to care for a child, but he was willing to learn. Yvonne had already said she was going straight from the hospital to her own apartment. Their deal would be complete then. And her bank account a million dollars richer.