His Rules: Ludlow Nights - Book1 (A Ludlow Nights Romance) (20 page)

Sitting across the large desk in Anastacia's spacious office, Christopher Rucker closed his eyes.

Nearly twenty-four years had passed since he'd seen her, but he remembered the exact moment he'd handed his daughter into her mother's arms with complete clarity. He remembered the unique scent of his baby girl fresh from the bath, the quick infectious giggle showcasing two milk teeth, the jet curls - whisper soft - the huge blue eyes that had stared into his, filled with trust and an unconditional love.

Those memories were so vivid and so clear that when Christopher opened his eyes again he was almost convinced he was looking at his ex-wife, Alicia. His heart took a wild leap into his tight throat. A leap that was part shock, part fear.

But standing behind her desk, shoulders rigid, and staring right through him, was Anastacia.

How could he possibly forget Alicia, he wondered, when he had only to look at Anastacia to see her?

Dear God, she'd turned into a beautiful young woman.

Without asking permission, Christopher rose to the wet bar in the corner of the office and poured two Cognac from a crystal decanter into crystal glasses.

He wasn't surprised that his hands, his legs, were not quite steady.

Shock, he told himself.

"I don't know what to say to you. For years I've practiced what I'd say when we met..."

He wished he could walk right over to her, touch her, take her in his arms and just hold her close. But he knew she would reject him. He wished he could just be alone, to bury his face in his hands, to weep for everything she had lost,
they
had lost. But that would be pitiful behaviour by a father in front of his daughter.

Christopher wished he could go back to that moment twenty-three years ago and do something... anything... to stop Alicia leaving that room with his child. But that was an impossible dream.

This moment, right now, was reality.

And reality hurt.

Anastacia angled her head, stared up at him.

It was a look that singed him down to the marrow.

"I want to know why you left us."

His hand jerked, splashed liquid on the table, if he didn't tell her truth he'd lose her. But he knew, as much as it pained him, that the truth was going to hurt her.

"Of course you do. You want the truth."

"Truth?" The sting of tears she'd been driving back flowed perilously close to the surface. "You have no idea how much my mother suffered. How much I..." She shook her head.
Suffered
, in his mind he finished the sentence for her.

He offered her a glass, but she shook her head. He took a sip because he needed the burn deep in his belly to melt the ice, needed something to stop the terrible shaking of his hands. Again he sat in front of the huge desk that sat between them. The gulf that had opened between them was as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.

Now he wondered if anything he could say or do would ever bridge that divide.

"You do not have to listen to what I have to say, if you don't want to," he told Anastacia.

"It depends on what you have to say."

Her arms folded, her hip cocked, and her chin rose.

She was the living image her mother, so much so that his fingers tightened on the crystal glass. The tiny and delicate build, the dark curls raining down her back, her clear skin flushed with anger and pulled tight across delicate cheekbones. Many women looked fabulous when their temper was high. Alicia had looked amazing. So did Anastacia.

She was her mother reincarnate.

Except for her eyes.

Her eyes were his.

"And I warn you now that if you disrespect or demean my mother I will throw you out."

His daughter was a fighter and loyal to the bone.

So he was between a rock and a hard place.

Lie to his daughter and be unable to live with her loathing and disdain.

Or tell the truth and lose her.

Christopher went with the latter.

"Your mother lied to you. I never walked away from you. And as you can see, I'm very much alive."

"You divorced her."

"Yes."

"Why?"

He sighed.

The sound sounded too weary to his own ears.

"Please, Anastacia, sit down."

With a reluctance that squeezed his heart, his daughter sank to the ergonomic chair behind her desk and folded her arms, crossed her legs. One little foot tap, tap, tapped in an agitated fashion.

He opened a briefcase and took out a large envelope and pushed it across the desk.

She stared at it as if it was an improvised explosive device.

"What's that?"

"Photographs. Of your mother and I. When we met, our wedding, your birth."

Her smooth brow creased as her hand stretched out to take the envelope. She emptied the pictures over the desk, trembling fingers sliding the photographs and separating them. For a never-ending moment she simply stared before selecting two. One of his wedding day and one of him and Alicia smiling and deliriously happy holding the new born Anastacia.

"You were both so terribly young. You really are my father. A part of me still believed this whole thing was a big mistake."

"We were madly in love. I believe first love is an irresistible force. I married your mother in the face of fierce opposition. My parents did not approve."

"They didn't like my mother."

He shook his head.

"My parents believed we were too young and not ready or mature enough to look after a baby. But I was earning decent money. We lacked for nothing."

"So, if you were both madly in love and lacked for nothing... why did it go wrong?"

"Your mother had a very... difficult and complicated childhood. When she was four, her parents abandoned her with her grandmother. A woman who was cold, withheld affection but didn't spare the rod from her only daughter. And she repeated the same mistakes with her granddaughter. When I look back at the girl Alicia was, I realize she never really stood a chance. Her behaviour was erratic. Too high one minute and depressed the next. I loved her deeply, Anastacia, you need to understand that. She had a wildness in her, a recklessness that I found exciting. All I wanted was for her to be happy. Of course we were both shocked to learn she was pregnant. She was seventeen and I was eighteen. We married the day she turned eighteen and six months later she gave birth to you."

He decided not to tell her about the living hell of her delivery, how he nearly lost his wife and his baby, about the dark postpartum depression Alicia sank into after the birth. In those days the illness was not understood and many women lacked the support they badly needed.

"We were young. We liked to party. But once we had you, the partying stopped. I was playing in the first team and training hard and playing at weekends. Alicia found being alone with a new baby difficult to cope with. And she started drinking. Heavily.

"You were four months old and one afternoon I returned home early. You were crying and the house was empty. She'd left you in your cot. I found out later she'd left the house at nine-thirty in the morning to meet girlfriends for an early brunch. You were hungry, dirty and screamed when I changed your soiled nappy. Your little bottom was raw and bleeding and you were whimpering in pain. I didn't know what to do so I phoned my mother. I tried to contact Alicia. At one point I thought she'd been in an accident. I was worried sick. But then I learned she was in a wine bar in town drinking and partying with her girlfriends. I packed my bags, your bags, and I took you and left to stay with my parents. God knew I needed the support. And I got a lawyer."

His daughter's vivid blue eyes never left his.

She was pale.

Too pale.

"What happened?" she whispered.

"Alicia got herself a lawyer, too. A Rottweiler. The divorce was vicious. Your mother was beyond furious, promised to make me pay for taking you, for destroying her life. Thanks to the Rottweiler the divorce and my fight for you grabbed media attention. I won't go into the gory details. Suffice it to say that I lost custody. According to the judge, a baby needs its mother more than it needs its father. The day I handed you over to Alicia was the worst day of my life. If I could go back in time and had to do it all again, I'd flee with you and leave the country. I never saw you again. Didn't know if you were alive or dead. Until I saw the picture of you with Olivier Conti and knew you were mine. I read your name and I was certain of it."

"Did you try to find me?"

He closed his eyes and rubbed abstractedly at the aching point between his brows.

"Every day for all these years. The police were not interested. And private detectives couldn't find you. It was as if you and your mother had disappeared from the face of the earth. I had no idea she'd changed her name, your name. I had no idea she lived at the other end of the country. I had no idea she'd re-married..."

The silence in the room was so loud he imagined he could hear a butterfly breathe.

"She won. She won custody of me." His daughter stood and moved to the window to stare down into the street. "She made up her mind to tell me you had abandoned us. She said you were a first division footballer who like to party, didn't want responsibility. And then there were... other woman. And then she decided to tell me you were dead."

His eyes flew open, found hers, and Anastacia read heartbreak and dismay and a bitter regret.

What a terrible, horrible, mess.

"Nothing that I have imagined could prepare me for learning from Nico how hard life has been for you," he said with a sincerity that touched her heart.

Brain reeling, Anastacia held her head in her hands.

"I don't understand how she could have done this to us."

Both of them, she realized bitterly, were victims of a wicked spite and of a terrible revenge.

Victims of a woman who'd lied.

A woman who, Anastacia knew, had been mentally ill.

Christopher rose and at last put his hands on his child.

Gently, he took her wrists, bringing down her hands so he could look into swimming eyes in a devastated face.

"Don't hate me. If I could have spared you this, I would. But I loved you, Anastacia. You were my life. And we have missed out on so much together. Please find it in your heart to give us a chance to get to know one another."

In a move that felt right, she laid her head on his shoulder.

"No. I don't hate you." But too many ideas, too many images spun crazily in her mind. She couldn't think straight. "I need time to think. I don't even remember you."

"You were just a baby, too young and too vulnerable."

At this moment she felt vulnerable, her emotions too raw, too open.

"There are things, questions, I want to ask you, but I can't seem to hold on to a single one."

"Why don't you come home with me, meet your family."

Meet your family.

She had a family?

How tempting it would be to give in.

But she couldn't do it.

What if his wife hated her on sight?

What if her half-sisters were unfriendly, or even worse, jealous?

At the moment Anastacia knew that a single act of unkindness might break her apart.

"No, thank you for asking, but I need to go home." She pulled back before she changed her mind. "I need to be alone for a while. And your family must be wondering where you are."

"They understand."

She couldn't help but meet those eyes that were so much like her own and read a love there that threatened to shatter her shaky composure.

"They know about me?"

He nodded. "Of course. They've known about you for over twenty years. Maria has been an incredible support during the dark times. She's thrilled we've finally found you. She even 'phoned Nico to ask him about you. Your past."

The flash of guilt in his eyes, quickly hidden, had her frown.

Guilt was the last burden he, her father, needed to carry.

And the last thing she needed was pity.

"Let me make it clear, no one needs to feel sorry for me. It will seriously piss me off. Yes, there were hard times, but there were good times, too. I'm an adult. I'm no longer a child. And I have a pretty good life these days." To lighten the mood, she battled hard to send him a cheeky grin. Unaware that the smile didn't reach her eyes. "Nico is a challenge at times, but he's a good boss."

His mouth curved as his eyes gentled.

"I was convinced this day would never come. I didn't know how to approach you. When I realized you were employed by Nico, I flew to Ludlow Hall on that same day. He thinks the world of you. And I owe him a debt of gratitude I can never repay."

This time her grin reached her eyes.