One
2183 Words
John is a Handsome smart Good looking business man. His past of Alize.
She is a mother of one kid one day when he saw her he was shocked who is the father of your baby, Alize? She
Holding her six-month-old baby on her hip, Alize had been
smiling with pride and pleasure across her family’s -old
farmhouse lit with swaying lights and filled with neighbors and friends for her
sister’s evening Engagement. Now, pushing up her black-rimmed glasses,
Alize faced her younger sister with a sinking feeling in her heart.
Who is the father of your baby?
People rarely asked that question anymore, since Alize always
refused to answer. She’d started to hope the scandal might be over.
“Will you ever tell?” Beny’s face was unhappy beneath her veil. At
nineteen, her sister was an idealistic new bride with romantic dreams of right and
wrong. Deny deserves a father.
Trying to control the anguish in her heart, Alize kissed her son’s
dark hair, so soft, and smelling of baby shampoo. She said in a low voice,
“We’ve talked about this.
“Who is he?” her sister cried. “Are you ashamed of him? Why
won’t you tell?”
“Beny!” Alize glanced uneasily at the reception guests around
them. “I told you… I don’t…” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know who he is.”
Her sister stared at her tearfully. “You’re lying. There’s no way
you’d sleep around like that. You’re the one who convinced me to wait for true
love!”
The people closest to them had stopped pretending to talk, and were
now openly eavesdropping. Family and friends were packed into the
farmhouse’s warren of rooms, walking across creaking floors, having
conversations beneath the low ceilings. Neighbors sat on folding chairs along the walls, holding paper plates of food in their laps. And probably listening. Alize
held her baby closer. “Beny, please,” she whispered.
“He deserted you. And it’s not fair!”
“Beny,” their mother said suddenly from behind them, “I don’t
think you’ve met your great-aunt Gertrude. She’s traveled all the way from
New York. Won’t you come and greet her?” Smiling, Leo reached for her
grandson in Alize’s arms. “She’ll want to meet Deny, too.”
“Thank you,” Alize whispered soundlessly to her mother. Loe
answered with a loving smile and a wink, then drew her younger daughter and
baby grandson away. Alize watched them go, love, choking her. Leo was
wearing her nicest Sunday dress and bright coral lipstick, but her hair had grown
gray and her body slightly stooped. The past year had left even her strong
mother frailer.
The lump in Alize’s throat felt razor-sharp as she stood alone in the
crowded room. She’d thought she’d put the scandal of her pregnancy behind her,
after she’d returned to her northern New village pregnant, with no
job and no answers. But would her family ever get over it? Would she?
Three weeks after she’d left, she’d been shocked to
discover she was pregnant. Her burly, overprotective father had demanded to
know the name of the man. Alize had been afraid he might go after Jhon with an ultimatum—or worse, a shotgun. So she’d lied and said she had
no idea who her baby’s father might be. She’d described her time in Italy as one
gigantic shagfest, when the truth was that she’d had only one lover her whole
life. And even that had been for a single night.
One precious night…
I need you, Alize. She still felt the violence of her boss’s embrace
as he’d pushed her back against his desk, sweeping aside paperwork and
crashing the computer to the floor. After more than a year, she could still feel the
heat of his body against hers, the feel of his lips against her neck, his hot brutal
kisses against her skin. The memory of the way John had ruthlessly
taken her virginity still invaded her dreams every night.
And the memory of the aftermath still left a shotgun blast in her
heart. The morning after he’d seduced her, she’d tearfully told him she felt she
had no choice but to quit her job. He’d just shrugged. “Good luck,” he said. “I
hope you find what you’re looking for.”
That was all he gave her, after five years of her love and devoted
service.
She’d loved her playboy boss, stupidly and without hope. It had
been fifteen months since she’d last seen John’s face, but she could not forget it, no matter how hard she tried. How could she, when every day she saw those
same dark eyes in her child’s face?
Her tears in the little white clapboard church an hour ago hadn’t just
been from happiness for Beny. Alize had once loved a man with all her heart,
but he hadn’t loved her back. And as the cold December wind whipped through
their valley, there were still times she imagined she could hear his dark,
deep voice speaking to her, only to her.
Alize.”
Like now. The memory of his low, accented voice seemed so real.
The sound ripped through her body, through her heart, as if he were right beside
her, whispering against her skin.
Alize.”
His voice felt close that time.
Close.
Alize’s hands shook as she set down her glass of cheap champagne.
Lack of sleep and a surfeit of dreams were causing her to hallucinate. Had to be.
It couldn’t be…
With a deep breath, she turned.
Jhon stood before her. In the middle of her family’s
crowded living room, he towered over other men in every way, even more, darkly
handsome than she remembered. But it wasn’t just his chiseled jawline or his
expensive Italian suit that made him stand out. It wasn’t just his height or the
strength of his broad shoulders.
It was the ruthless intensity of his black eyes. A tremble went
through her.
Jhon…?” she whispered.
His sensual lips curved. “Hello, Alize.
She swallowed, pressing her nails into her palms, willing herself to
wake up from this nightmare—from this incredible dream. “You can’t be here,”
she whispered. “As in here.”
“And yet I am,” he said. “Alize.”
She shivered at the sound of her name on his lips. It didn’t seem
right that he could be here, in her family’s living room, surrounded by friends
and family eating potluck.
Jhon owned a vast international
conglomerate that bought and shipped steel and timber across the world. His life
was filled with one passionate, single-minded pursuit after another. Business.
Adrenaline-tinged sports. Beautiful women. Alize’s lips turned downward.
Beautiful women most of all. So what was he doing here? What could he possibly have come for
unless…unless…
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother disappearing down
the hall with her baby.
Trying to stop her hands from shaking, Alize folded her arms
around the waist of her hand-sewn bridesmaid’s dress. So John had come to
Green Hill Farm. It didn’t exactly require a c***k team unit to find her here.
They had lived here for One hundred years. It didn’t mean he knew about
Deny. It didn’t. He couldn’t.
Could he?
John lifted a dark eyebrow. “Are you glad to see me?”
“Of course I’m not glad.” She bit out the words. “If you recall, I’m
no longer your secretary. So if you’ve come five thousand miles because you
need me to go back to Italy and sew a button or make your coffee—”
“No.” His eyes glittered at her. “That’s not why I’ve come.” He
slowly looked around the house, which was decorated with strings of pink lights
and red paper hearts along the walls, and candles above the fire in the old stone
fireplace. “What’s going on here?”
“A wedding reception.”
He blinked, then came closer to her, the wooden boards creaking
beneath his feet. Alize’s eyes widened as the shadows of firelight shifted across
the hard angles of his face. He was so handsome, she thought in bewildered
wonder. She’d forgotten how handsome. Her dreams hadn’t done him justice.
She could see why so many women chased after him all over the world…and
why he was the despair of them all.
“And just who—” his black eyes narrowed into a glower “—is the
bride?”
She was bewildered at the sudden harshness of his tone. “My little
sister. Beny.”
“Ah.” His shoulders relaxed imperceptibly. Then he frowned.
“Beny? She’s not much more than a child.”
“Tell me about it.” Alize looked down at her bridesmaid’s dress. In
the gleam of the fire and pink lights swaying above, the pale pink gown
appeared almost white. She looked up suddenly. “Did you think it was me?”
Their eyes locked in the crowded room.
John said quietly. “Of course I thought it was you.”
The idea of her having the time or the interest to date, let alone
marry, some other man-made her choke back a laugh. She smoothed her
bridesmaid’s gown with trembling hands. “No.” So there is no one important in your life right now?” he asked, in a
casual tone belied by the way he held his body in absolute stillness. There was
someone important in her life. She just had to get Jhon out of here before he
saw Deny. “You have no right to ask.”
“Sim.” He paused. “But you’re not wearing a ring.”
“Fine.” Alize’s voice was painfully quiet as she looked down at her
feet. “I’m not married.”
She didn’t have to ask if John was married. She already knew the
answer. How many times had he told her he would never, ever take a wife?
I’m not made for love, I’ll never have a little housewife
cooking my dinner in a snug house every night as I read books to our children.
John moved closer, almost touching her. She was dimly aware of
people whispering around them, wondering who this handsome, well-dressed
a stranger might be. She knew she should tell him to leave, but she was caught in
the power of his body so close to hers. Her gaze fell on his thick wrists beneath
sharply tailored shirt cuffs, and she trembled. She remembered the feel of that
strong body on hers, the stroke of his fingertips….
Alize.”
Against her will, her eyes lifted, tracing up his muscular body, past
his broad shoulders and wide neck to his brutally handsome face. In the
flickering shadows, she saw the dark scruff along his jaw, the scar across his
temple from a childhood accident. She saw the man she’d wanted forever
and had never stopped wanting.
His eyes burned into her, and memories poured through her. She felt
vulnerable, almost powerless beneath the dark fire of his glance.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said in a low voice. He smiled, and
the masculine beauty of his face took her breath away. Their fifteen months apart
had made him only more handsome. While she…
She hadn’t seen the inside of a beauty salon for a year. Her hair
hadn’t been cut for ages, and her only makeup was lipstick in an unflattering
the pink shade that she’d worn at Beny’s insistence. Her dowdy dishwater-blonde
hair had been hurriedly pulled back in a French knot before the ceremony, but
now fell about her shoulders in messy tendrils, pulled out by Deny’s chubby
fists.
Even as a girl Alize had always tended to put herself last, but for since
she became the single mother of a baby, she wasn’t even on the list. Taking a
shower and shoving her hair back into a ponytail was all she could manage most
days. And she still hadn’t managed to take off all the extra weight from her
pregnancy. Nervously, she pushed up her black-framed glasses. “Why are you staring at me?”
“You’re even more beautiful than I remembered.”
Her cheeks went hot beneath his gaze. “Now I know you’re lying.”
“It’s true.” His dark eyes seared her. He wasn’t looking at her as too if
he thought she was plain. He was looking down at her as if he…
As if he…
He turned away, and she exhaled.
“So this is Beny’s wedding reception?” He glanced around the
room with something like disapproval on his face.
Alize thought their home looked nice, even romantic for a country-
style winter wedding. They’d scrubbed it scrupulously clean, tidied away all the
usual clutter, and decorated their hearts out. But as she followed his gaze, she
suddenly saw how shabby it all was.
- Writer
