Count Toussaint’s Pregnant Mistress by Kate Hewitt Read Free Book Online

back towards her sleeping form and whispered a single word: ‘Goodbye.’
    Then he stole from the room, so quietly that in her sleep Abby didn’t even stir.

CHAPTER FOUR
    A BBY woke slowly, languorously, a sleepy warmth still spread over her like a blanket.
    ‘Excusez-moi…’
    Abby jerked upright, shock drenching her in icy ripples. A maid stood at the foot of the bed, her eyes downcast, a duster held in one hand.
    Abby clutched the sheet to her chest—her naked chest. She didn’t have a stitch on; she looked around with a gnawing desperation for Luc. He was nowhere to be seen.
    He was gone.
    She felt it, just as she’d felt the connection—electric, magical—between them last night. This felt much worse—a consuming emptiness that told her he’d left like a thief in the night, before they’d even…She bit back the thought and its accompanying sob. She didn’t need to look down at the floor to see only her clothes strewn there, so carelessly, so obviously, to know he was gone. His departure echoed emptily inside her.
    She glanced back at the maid who had raised her eyes to gaze at her with sly speculation that made Abby’s whole body flush. From somewhere she dredged the last remaining shreds of her dignity and stared haughtily at the maid.
    ‘Vous pouvez retourner dans quelques minutes…’
    The maid nodded and disappeared from the room. Abby heard the lift doors swoosh open and knew she was alone.
    Completely alone.
    She choked back the sudden grief that threatened to swamp her. Why had he left? He’d gone to buy birth control, for heaven’s sake, and then he’d just left her here—why? Had he had second thoughts? Decided she wasn’t worth the effort? Would he ever be back? This was his room, after all; perhaps he would return. Surely…?
    Abby slipped from the bed, wrapping the sheet more firmly around her as she stalked through the suite looking for clues, promises that he would be back, that he’d just slipped out for coffee.
    But of course he hadn’t. In a place like this, coffee would have been delivered, along with warm croissants and the newspaper. She and Luc would have lounged in bed, drinking coffee and feeding each other croissants while they shared interesting bits of news they’d read. Then they would have made love as they’d meant to, had been about to, last night, slowly, languorously, taking their time…
    Except of course they wouldn’t, now, because he was gone. It was a fantasy, just as last night had been a fantasy. What she’d felt had been a fantasy.
    False.
    Fairy tales didn’t happen. They were lies masked as bedtime stories, and she’d been a fool to believe in them—in him—for one moment.
    Abby walked through the living room where they’d sat and talked, looking for—what? A scribbled message, a scrap of paper, anything to show her he hadn’t left so abruptly, hadn’t snuck out while she’d been sleeping with false promises of his quick return. Anything to show her last night had been real, that he’d felt as she had.
    There was nothing.
    Luc had taken every shred of evidence with him, as thoroughly and mercilessly as a criminal erasing his clues. The bureaux were empty, the cupboards bare.
    He was utterly, utterly gone.
    Still wrapped in a sheet, Abby sank on the edge of the bed, her mind spinning, desolation skirting on the fringes of her mind.
    She couldn’t break down, not here, not now.
    Not yet.
    She took a deep breath and willed herself to think clearly. He was gone; she needed to accept that. She needed to get out of here.
    She glanced down at her evening gown, still lying on the floor in a pooled heap of silk. That was all she had to wear, and the thought of walking through the lobby of the hotel in last night’s clothes made a fresh flush creep across her body once more as her head bowed in shame.
    How could he have done this, have left her? After everything? And yet nothing. She’d been aching with desire, her body desperate to join with his,