The Virgin's Secret

by Abby Green

  He walked to her workspace and opened the door. Everything was cleaned away, all the tools and leftover metals and gems in neat piles and rows. She’d left it all, and a note.

  Dear Leo, I’ve left everything out so that it’ll be easy to take away and dismantle. I know it might seem a little weird to say this after everything that happened, and all the circumstances, but thank you for everything. All the best, Angel.

  Leo crumpled up the note and stood for a long moment with his head downbent. And then, with an inarticulate roar of rage, he swept an arm along the top of the workbench, sending tools and metals and gems flying. Tiny diamonds winked up at him mockingly from the floor.

  Three months later

  Angel’s lower back ached. She put her two hands there and stretched, arching backwards. She was pregnant, and just beginning to show. The growing thickness of her middle had become a little bump practically overnight. The day after her final conversation with Leo she’d had some spotting, which she’d believed to be her period when in fact it hadn’t been. It was only when she’d missed her next period that she’d got worried and had her pregnancy confirmed.

  ‘You should sit down, lovey—take the weight off your feet.’

  Angel smiled at Mary, the woman she worked with in the little tourist café in the grounds of the abbey of her old school in the west of Ireland. ‘I’m not about to go into labour because of a little lower back pain.’

  The older woman, whom Angel had known since she’d started at the school all those years before, when Mary had been the cook there, smiled fondly. ‘No. Maybe not. Well, in that case you can see to the latest arrival—some man on his own. I’d say that’s it for the day, then. The last tour are pulling out of the car park now.’

  Angel picked up her notepad, and a tray to clear off any dirty tables while she was out. She was looking forward to getting back to the tiny house she shared with a niece of Mary’s and having a long hot bath. As she walked out into the dining area the evening sun glinted for a moment, so she couldn’t see anything.

  When she emerged more fully she had the impression of someone tall and dark standing up, a chair scraping back on the floor just before she saw him properly. But she didn’t have to see him. She knew.

  Leo. Tall and imposing and dark and gorgeus. Leo.

  Angel felt faint. Her blood was draining downwards in a rush and everything tilted alarmingly.

  In a second she was in a chair. Leo was crouching down, looking up at her, and Mary was there too, fussing. ‘Are you all right, Angela? I knew you shouldn’t be on your feet for all that time. Honestly, you’re so stubborn.’

  Angel had a moment of panic, afraid Mary would say too much, and put out a hand. ‘Mary, I’m fine, honestly. I just got a shock, that’s all. I know this man…he’s an old friend of mine.’

  The astute Irishwoman looked from Angel to Leo and summed the whole thing up in an instant. Angel saw the cogs whirring behind the bright blue eyes.

  Mary directed her questions at Angel. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to leave you alone?’

  Angel nodded, even though she felt like clinging onto Mary and begging her to stay. She couldn’t. She had to face the father of her child.

  ‘I’m fine, Mary, really. You should get home.’

  ‘But what will you do? You’ve no car, and your bike is at home.’

  ‘I’ll take care of her getting home.’

  Leo spoke for the first time, and the effect on Angel was nothing short of cataclysmic. Mary left with much huffing and dark looks directed at Leo, but finally they were alone. Leo stood up. He was dressed in jeans and a dark top, dark coat.

  Every part of her tingled, as if she’d been frozen numb for a long time and was being brought slowly back to life. She was glad of the voluminous apron, which covered her tiny bump and her secret.

  He whirled around then, and those dark flashing golden eyes that haunted her dreams made her breath catch.

  ‘Angela?’

  Angel explained, because it was easier than letting her mind implode. ‘When I came here to school the nuns didn’t think Angel was a suitable name, so they insisted on calling me Angela. Mary worked there, at the abbey, so she calls me Angela too.’

  ‘You have a bike? You cycle to work here on those roads?’

  Angel nodded again, noticing that there were lines of strain around Leo’s mouth. That couldn’t possibly be—

  She answered quickly, to stop her mind going down dangerous avenues. Indulgent avenues. ‘Yes. I know they’re a bit intimidating, but once you’re used to them—’

  ‘Intimidating? Those roads are downright suicidal!’

  The look on his face, all at once censorious and something else, made Angel stand up. The shock of seeing him here was finally beginning to wear off. How could he come in here and talk about banal things, as if nothing had happened?

  ‘Leo, you’re hardly here to discuss the Irish roads. How did you find me?’ Why did you come looking for me?

  He raked a hand through his hair, and Angel noticed that it had grown longer. In fact he looked altogether more dishevelled. He swung away and then back, his eyes intense on hers. ‘It took nearly a month of constant badgering to persuade your sister to tell me where you were.’

  Angel sat down again, her legs turning to jelly. She’d stayed in Athens for about a month after leaving the villa, and when Leo had made no effort to come after her it had killed something inside her, despite all her best intentions. Despite knowing it was completely irrational to have hoped for that, because she’d left, basically telling him she wasn’t interested.

  She bit her lip and looked up. ‘I…hadn’t planned on coming here, but once I found out—’ She stopped. It was too bald to just come out with the most monumental thing that had happened to her. She’d always planned on telling Leo she was pregnant with his baby, but once she’d got some distance, got her wits together, and had decided the best way forward. She hadn’t expected to face him so soon. But how would he take the news when she’d heard him say what he had to Ari? That conversation was still etched into her brain.

  She turned her head away. It hurt to look at him and acknowledge him being here.

  Leo came down in front of her and turned her face back to him. There was a tortured expression in his eyes. It made Angel’s insides quiver dangerously.

  With a sinking feeling Angel knew that now was the time. Distance hadn’t healed her hurt or clarified things; it had made it worse.

  ‘Found out what, Angel?’

  She felt a delicate fluttering, as if their baby was already siding with its father, demanding she tell the truth.

  ‘I’m pregnant, Leo.’

  For a long moment nothing happened. Neither one of them moved. And then Leo did the last thing Angel had expected. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it had something to do with a horrorstruck expression or disbelief.

  He reached around behind her neck and pulled the apron over her head. Then he pulled her forward and opened the apron at the back. His big hands on her made Angel’s pulse quicken, her breathing catch.

  ‘Leo, what are you—?’

  But he just stopped for a moment and put a finger to her mouth. ‘Shh.’

  Then he pulled the apron away, and her bump was bared in all its tiny proud glory, revealed in her figure-hugging black stretchy top. Leo put his hands over it, fingers stretching out around the sides. Angel held her breath, her eyes widening at seeing him like this, prostrate at her feet.

  The feel of his hands on her belly was bringing up so many emotions. Angel looked at Leo, and she could see a look of wonder come over his face. She shut down the impulse to indulge in a dangerous fantasy.

  ‘Leo, why did you come here?’

  He shook his head, his hands still on her belly. ‘How can you ask that? You should have told me, Angel.’

  Shame lanced Angel. Leo being disappointed was so much worse than Leo being all arrogant and demanding. She hung her head. �
�I didn’t know until about two months ago, and then when I found out…’

  The moment she’d found out about the pregnancy hormones had taken over, and the thought of bumping into him, or seeing him with a new woman, had been too much to bear. So, like a coward, she’d run to the farthest place she’d known.

  Angel lifted her head, feeling some fire come back. She couldn’t think with Leo looking at her so closely, touching her. She stood up with effort, dislodging his hands, and stepped away. Instantly she felt bereft.

  ‘Look, Leo, our relationship was never about a happy-ever-after, even if you did want me to stay on as your mistress. I overheard your conversation with Ari Levakis in your office.’ Angel waved her hand in agitation, aghast she’d let that slip out so easily. ‘What I heard doesn’t matter. The thing is, I knew that things would come to an end eventually.’

  Her eyes flicked to him, but he looked stonily impenetrable. Angel was so emotional at the moment the smallest thing could set her off. ‘Look, Leo, if you’ve come just to ask me to be your mistress again—’

  He crossed his arms and sent a pointed look to her belly. ‘I think that we’ve gone beyond that point now, don’t you?’

  She reacted from a deep desire to self-protect. ‘Leo, I won’t have you think that just because I’m pregnant I’m going to submit to some sort of marriage of convenience. I know from what I heard you tell Ari that you’d no plans of settling down with me—I can only imagine how the thought of having to settle down with a Kassianides must turn your—’

  ‘Angel, stop talking.’

  Angel stopped. Emotion wasn’t far away. Leo’s arms dropped and he came closer. Angel would have backed away, but a table was behind her. She put up a hand. ‘Leo, please don’t…’

  ‘Don’t what, Angel? Touch you? I can’t help it if we’re in the same room. What else? Don’t come after you? I can’t help that either. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to find you.’ His voice was rough.

  Angel’s heart started beating very rapidly. ‘Leo, stop this. Don’t think you’re going to get the package now, just because you’ve found me and I’m pregnant and it’s all convenient. That’s exactly what I don’t want.’

  Leo seemed to ignore what she’d said, and reached out to loosen the pin holding her hair up. She hadn’t had it cut in months and it had grown longer, falling heavily around her shoulders.

  ‘You seem to be doing enough thinking for the both of us.’

  He was twining a piece of her hair around his finger, and Angel felt curiously paralysed. He came closer, until she could feel her belly touching him. A fire started down low, preparing her body for him in a way that she hadn’t felt for long weeks.

  ‘When you left me, Angel Kassianides, I went to a dark place.’

  Angel looked up, mesmerised despite herself. ‘You did?’

  Leo nodded and grimaced. ‘I came home from New York, found your note and you gone. I trashed the jewellery workshop and promptly flew back to New York for a month, where I spent far too much time in a dingy Irish bar.’

  He laughed again mirthlessly. ‘Then, even though I couldn’t even look at another woman, I thought I was over you, I came back to Athens and proceeded to be such an ogre that I made Calista cry, fired countless employees, and currently Ari and Lucy aren’t talking to me.’

  Angel gasped. ‘They’re not?’

  Leo shook his head, still twirling Angel’s hair around his finger. ‘It was only after those two torturous months that I finally allowed myself to admit to my hurt that you’d chosen to walk away rather than stay with me. And then I had to convince your sister to tell me where you were.’

  Angel took a breath, feeling as if she was stepping into a void. ‘But, Leo, you weren’t asking me to stay. You were telling me what you’d give me if I’d stay. It was conditional.’

  Leo stopped playing with her hair and looked at her properly, and for the first time Angel saw the vulnerability in his eyes. ‘I didn’t have the guts to ask you to stay just because you wanted to. I was too terrified of you saying no, because I’d never given you a choice in the first place. I thought my only option was to try and force you into it.’

  Angel shook her head; something very fragile was beginning to bloom in her heart. ‘To be honest, I probably still would have walked away.’ Angel could see the effect of her words on Leo, the tightening and closing of his face, the dimming in his eyes, but before he could retreat into some protective shell completely she took his hand and held it to her breast, under which her heart beat fast.

  ‘Not because I didn’t want to stay. Because I wanted to stay too much.’ She shook her head and felt tears well. She didn’t care any more. She couldn’t keep it in. Not with their baby growing in her belly. ‘I love you, Leo. I fell in love with you so hard that it knocked me for six. I couldn’t bear the thought of staying with you only until you grew bored and decided to take a new mistress, or a wife.’

  Leo gave a groan that sounded like a man on death row being given a reprieve. He reached out and pulled Angel into him, wrapping his arms tight around her. A great big sob was coming up from deep down inside Angel, and the enormity of it all was hitting her. Leo pulled back, and was blurry in her eyes, and she felt his hands come to her face, thumbs already catching the tears that were falling.

  ‘Oh, Angel, my sweet Angel, don’t cry—please don’t cry. You can’t cry, because I need to hear you say what you just said again.’

  Through her gulping sobs Angel got out, ‘I…love…you…Have done for ages…’ She ended on a wail. ‘And I’m really happy I’m pregnant with your baby.’

  Leo wrapped his arms tight around her again, and all he said was, ‘So am I…so am I…’

  When her crying turned to hiccups Leo led her back to a chair and knelt down before her again, and made sure she’d taken a drink of water. Angel felt raw and open. As if her beating heart was lying there between them, telling him how vulnerable she was. He’d said all sorts of things, and patently he wasn’t upset about her being pregnant, but he hadn’t said that he cared for her…

  ‘Angel, what you heard that day outside the office—’ Leo grimaced and looked shamefaced ‘—was me being an absolute coward. The truth is that the moment I saw you by the pool that night I wanted you. And then afterwards, when I found out who you were, and then saw you sneak into the house…’

  He tried to explain. ‘I’d just decided to come home to Athens, and the enormity of what our family had been put through was still so fresh in my head…and suddenly you were the enemy. It changed everything.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s no excuse at all, but when I thought you were about to walk away I remembered Dimitri Stephanides. I was determined to use anything I could to bind you to me. So I used Delphi and Stavros’s marriage, completely misunderstanding the reason why it was so important to you.’

  Leo caught her hand and kissed it. ‘When Ari confronted me that day about you he caught a raw nerve. I was just realising that what I felt for you went so much deeper than desire. My whole life I’ve blocked out emotions, avoided intimacy, terrified of my world falling apart the way it did when I was a kid. I couldn’t articulate any of that to him, and when he was all protective of you I lashed out, because I was jealous. Jealous of him feeling like he had some right to protect you from me…’

  Leo put his hands back around Angel’s belly, and she covered his hands with hers. He looked up, his eyes blazing.

  ‘My childhood fears were nothing compared to what it was like to contemplate trying to live without you. Angel, I love you, and I love this baby. And I want you to come home with me and marry me and be my wife.’

  She opened her mouth but he stopped her, as if anticipating something.

  ‘And it’s not just because you’re pregnant.’ He bent his head and pressed a kiss to her belly. He looked up. ‘It’s because I can’t live without you, and if you don’t come back home with me then I’m going to move here to be with you, because I’m not leaving
your side ever again.’

  Angel bent forward and took Leo’s face in her hands. Her heart was so full she felt it could burst. ‘The evening you stepped out of that pool you stole my heart, and I haven’t been the same since. Ask me again.’

  ‘Only if you kiss me first… God, Angel, I’ve missed you so much.’

  With her heart in her mouth, Angel bent forward and kissed Leo sweetly, tenderly, until he wrapped one hand around the back of her head and pulled her closer, and the kiss quickly developed into something else much hotter.

  Breathless, Angel pulled back. ‘Ask me again.’

  Leo’s eyes burned, and his hand on her belly was like a brand. ‘Angel, will you marry me? Because I love you more than life itself and quite simply can’t function without you.’

  ‘Yes, Leo, I will, and I want to go home with you.’ Angel thought of something then, a dark cloud on the horizon. She bit her lip and Leo, immediately concerned, said, ‘What is it?’

  Angel’s hands tightened on Leo’s. ‘Your father…he must hate me. He can’t possibly welcome this.’

  Leo smiled. ‘Do you know that I always assumed my father had chosen Olympia to be his bride out of logic and respect, a reaction to my mother’s histrionics? It was the one thing I admired him for, and the reason I always thought I’d be able to stay away from messy emotions. But I was wrong. He loves Olympia, he never loved my mother, and that was the problem. I never saw that, though, until recently. He’s an old man, he’s got his lifelong wish to be at home. He’s quite happy to bury any ill feeling between our families, and certainly doesn’t hold you responsible.’

  Relief burst through Angel, but even so she said, ‘You’re not just saying that?’

  Leo smiled. ‘No, I’m not just saying that. Now, can we get out of here and go home?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Angel stood up and let Leo help her into her coat. The Irish early autumn weather was making itself felt, with rain starting to spatter and grey clouds rolling overhead when they walked outside.