Chapter Twelve: No Promises
1043 Words
Evangeline
"I take it you do not plan to take up the offer of keeping that child?"
"How about we talk about what that phone call was about?" Every instinct screamed at me to make a run for it, to get out of there as fast as I could.
Something wasn't right. And I wasn't going to stick around long enough to find out.
Dane looked at me like he thought I didn't have my head screwed on right.
"Why should we talk about that?"
"Was that call about me?" I retorted. "Am I the project that has been finished? Done? Is this ridiculous situation a grand scheme spearheaded by you?"
I was shocked at my own words, at the audacity that poured through every visible pore in my body.
This wasn't me. This new Evangeline who could suddenly stand toe to toe with somebody. Who was unafraid of speaking her mind.
I could see it in Dane's eyes too. The fleeting shock at the audacious question.
"The conversation with Mother is nothing you should concern yourself about."
"Well, it sure is something I should concern myself about if I'm going to be living here."
Dane's gaze sharpened, and he rose to his feet, towering over me. I had no choice but to tilt my face to meet his gaze.
Dane's expression looked like it had been carved out of stone. I watched him take a step towards me, those bottomless eyes looking as though they had every intention of swallowing me in their orbit. Whole.
"I do not play games, Evangeline."
"Neither do I, Dane," I answered without flinching. And even though my heart picked up speed as Dane took another predatory step towards me, I refused to back away or down.
"You have no intention of keeping the child you've borne for your stepfather. So why do you think anything I do concerns you?"
I opened my mouth to argue, but no words fell out. Because as much as I hated to admit it, Dane was right. Why concern myself with his business when I had every intention of leaving?
I sighed. "You're right," I grudgingly admitted. "Now that we've both established that we will never be on the same page, I guess it's time to leave."
"Good," Dane muttered, walking towards the door and pushing it open with ease.
I frowned down at his long, tapered fingers that continued to hold the door open for my exit.
"Is it programmed to open at your own hand?"
"Quit stalling, smarty. You have a clinical appointment to follow through on."
I looked up at Dane, but his face remained inscrutable. I turned to the door that was still held open, realizing that I was allowing myself to be carried away by the tides of my own emotions.
"Maybe it's too soon to make a decision," I heard myself say, unable to believe the words were coming out of my mouth.
I waited and waited for Dane to say something. When the silence became too much to bear, I looked up, my pulse fluttering at the realization that Dane had been studying me, and those distractingly long hands were no longer holding the door.
Maybe he wasn't going to kick me out?
My chest suddenly swelled with hope.
"I do not do well with confusion, Evangeline. I won't keep you under my roof on the basis of maybes."
"I'm not confused. I'm just taking my time."
Those dark eyes grew impossibly darker, and my heart picked up an erratic beat.
"Okay, maybe I'm confused. Maybe I'm afraid of going through with a decision that might cost me something for the rest of my life. So what?"
The large expanse of the living room was suddenly cast into a silence so complete that the only thing that could be heard was the harsh sound of my own breathing.
Dane's dark eyes bored into mine, forcing me to stay put. But I dragged my eyes away, too affected by the guilt swirling inside of me, too afraid that if I held eye contact long enough, he would read my jumbled thoughts and see how messed up I had become by the guilt that had grown too heavy to carry.
"I made a mistake, Dane," I forced myself to admit. I continued, softer this time. "I do not plan to keep the consequence of my regretful mistake."
I looked towards the open door, trying to force down the lump that had tightened in my throat, making it impossible to breathe.
And then, as if my mind was bent on punishing me more cruelly, the image of Gavin's face flashed before me — that smarmy smile he had worn as he watched me straddle him.
It would have been so easy to blame it on the alcohol, but I knew the darkness that I had carried in my heart from the moment I had watched Luke board that plane without saying goodbye.
I had wanted to ruin Mother the same way she ruined me. The alcohol had only handed me the courage to do the one thing I'd been thinking about for weeks.
"I am not one to be swayed by emotions, Evangeline. I laid out the rules on our way here. You keep the baby, and take the freedom that caring for your mom had never been able to afford you."
"And when the child is born, then what?"
"Then we hire the best hands to bring them up like the Calder they are. You're carrying Gavin's seed, Evangeline. The one thing Gavin's possessions and assets had never been able to get him."
"So you want me to keep Gavin's heir, even though that would kill off the slightest chance of you ever taking over Gavin's legacy."
Without taking his eyes off me, Dane nodded. And something fell into place within me.
Dane wasn't doing this for himself. Gavin had kicked Dane off his will and publicly declared him his illegitimate son.
Yet even in death, Dane continued to do right by him. That single act was enough to make me trust Dane implicitly.
If forcing me to keep Gavin's heir was going to cost him everything, then what reason was there not to trust him?
- Writer
