by Julia James
With a shake of his head, Nikos waved away the glass of champagne being proffered by the stewardess in First Class, oblivious of the admiring look the attractive brunette had thrown his way. He was oblivious to all females now. Only one in the world mattered to him—the one he was trying to find—the one who was somewhere...wandering the face of the earth...
What if she’s met someone else by now?
That was the fear that bit at him—gnawed at him in the night, when his body ached for Mel to be in his arms...
But he wouldn’t let himself think like that—he wouldn’t. He would hang on to the purpose he’d set for himself: he would find her and put to her the one thing he needed to say.
The one thing it was most vital to him that she knew.
Some twelve hours later Nikos strode out of the long-haul terminal at Heathrow. His car was humming at the kerb and he threw himself in, barely greeting his driver. Flicking open his laptop, he loaded his emails. A surge of triumph welled in him—there was the email he’d been longing to see.
It was from his investigators and it was headed with the magic words: Subject located.
Yes! He all but punched the air even as his finger jabbed at the screen, opening the email. His eyes seized on the words and he started to read.
And then, inside his head, all hell broke loose.
* * *
Mel stepped out on to the pavement, hefting her suitcase out over the doorstop of the flat she had been staying in. It felt heavier than it had used to feel. Maybe the weakness she felt was to do with early pregnancy? Her mind was a blank—it was the only way she could keep going.
She’d booked a flight from Luton to Malaga, and now she had to get to Luton. But first she had a medical appointment. At a clinic that the counsellor at the pregnancy advisory charity had recommended to her and then made an appointment with.
The appointment letter was in her hand and she stared at the address again, trying to decide whether to take a bus or make for the Underground. The bus would be slower, but it would avoid her having to lug her suitcase down the tube station escalators.
She opted for the bus—she’d have enough suitcase-lugging to do once she got to the airport, and then at the other end in Malaga. She’d have to find somewhere to stay the night there...maybe a few days...until she could sort out accommodation and get her head around the new life she was going to make for herself.
One that was going to be so very, very different from what she had thought it was going to be.
But her mind was made up. There was no changing it now.
My baby—my decision. The only way it can be.
The heavy stone was still in her stomach, weighing her down, pushing the ever-present sense of nausea into her gullet. But it wasn’t the physical impact of her pregnancy that was making her feel like this—feel as if she was being crushed to the ground...
She turned to start walking along the pavement towards the bus stop at the end of the road. Her feet dragged as if she was wearing shoes of lead.
The car braking sharply as it slewed towards the kerb made her head whip round. Recognition drew a gasp of disbelief from her. And then dismay.
Raw, shattering dismay.
Nikos was leaping from the car, charging up to her.
Dismay exploded in a million fragments—shot to pieces by the tidal wave of an utterly different emotion that surged across every synapse in her brain, flooding it with its totality.
Nikos! Nikos—here—in the flesh—in front of her—alive and well and real!
Not the hopeless memory in her head that was all he’d been these last endless weeks since she had walked away from him in Bermuda.
But real—oh, so real. How he’d suddenly appeared on the street like this she didn’t know—didn’t care. She knew only that a searing flash of joy was going through her.
Then that searing flash of joy was gone—shot to pieces in its turn.
Her arms were clamped in steel. His voice speared into her in fury.
‘You’re not doing it. Do you understand me? You’re not doing it. I’ll never let you do it. I don’t care what the law says—I will never let you do that!’
Rage was boiling from him, burning in his eyes, and his face was twisted with anger as his words struck into her. She could only stare at him, not understanding...
Nikos saw the incomprehension in her face, layered over her shock at seeing him, and it maddened him yet more.
‘How could you even think of it? How could you?’
The paper in her hand fluttered from her fingers to the ground. Automatically she tried to bend her knees to pick it up, but Nikos was still pinioning her and she couldn’t move. He saw her movement and his eyes went to the letter on the ground. With a snarl he seized it himself, staring at it. His face whitened.
‘Thee mou...’ His voice was hollow. ‘You’re going there now—aren’t you? Aren’t you?’
From somewhere—she didn’t know where—she found her voice. It was strained, as if it was being pulled unbearably tight.
‘I didn’t want you to know,’ she said.
But it was too late now—the written proof of her medical appointment had revealed everything to him.
Another snarl broke from him. ‘No! You were going ahead with it without even telling me, weren’t you?’
Greek words burst from him—ugly and accusing. She didn’t know what he was saying—only that it contained fury. Sickness rose in her. Dear God, she had been right in her decision not to tell him.
She made herself speak again as he stood there, the betraying letter in his hand, his face contorted with fury.
‘It...it seemed the best thing to do, Nikos. I...I didn’t want to involve you in any of this...’
‘Involve me?’
He stared at her as if she’d spoken in an alien tongue. Then a sudden, sickening realisation hit him. His hand, which had been still clamped around her arm, dropped away. He took a step back.
‘Is it mine?’
Three little words—but in them a wealth of accusation. She paled, and he heard his voice going on, cutting at her with slashing words.
‘It’s a reasonable question to ask. After all, I picked you up easily enough, didn’t I? Maybe you got a similar offer when you went off to New York without me? Maybe he’s the guy who got you pregnant?’
She gasped as if he had struck her. ‘No!’ she cried, the word tearing from her in rejection.
Emotion leapt in his eyes. ‘So you admit it’s mine? You admit it—and yet here you are, with the evidence of your damnable intentions in your hand, and you were going to say nothing to me—nothing!’
She shut her eyes, misery overwhelming her. ‘I told you—I thought it would be for the best. It wasn’t an easy decision, Nikos—truly it wasn’t.’
More Greek broke from him, dark and furious. ‘You never wanted to be pregnant, did you? Don’t tell me otherwise, because I won’t believe it.’
Her features convulsed. ‘No—I didn’t want to be pregnant,’ she said, the words torn from her. ‘When I realised it seemed...it seemed...’
Nikos supplied the words. ‘An end to your freedom?’ His voice was heavy, crushing.
‘Yes. Pregnancy seemed...seemed the last thing I wanted...’ She spoke faintly, as if the words could barely be spoken.
He turned her appointment letter over in his hand, his eyes never leaving her. ‘And so you decided to regain your freedom,’ he said, and now his words were not just heavy and crushing—they were swords, stabbing into her, strike after strike, pitiless and condemning. ‘You decided to end the pregnancy.’
He saw her whiten like a sheet. The blood drained from her face. Inside him, unbearable fury lashed. Fury and something so much more.
All she wants is to get rid of the
baby we created between us. It means nothing to her but a burden, a curb on her freedom!
And that was why she had bolted. Because surely she must have known that the moment he knew she was carrying his child there could be only one outcome?
For a second—just a fraction of a second—he felt his heart leap within him.
Mel—back with him. Back with him and bringing with her a gift even more precious than herself.
He felt his lungs squeezed, the air crushed from them.
But she didn’t want that—didn’t want him. And she had never wanted his baby.
Instead she wanted what she was set on doing now. What that starkly condemning report had told him. The report that had informed him she had been spotted entering a high street charity for a walk-in consultation.
The comment in parentheses had been unemotional.
We would advise our client that this particular charity is supportive of pro-choice options for women with unplanned pregnancies.
In a single sentence he had read heaven—and hell.
She was staring at him now, still as white as a sheet. She felt the words he’d thrown at her sear into her brain like a burning brand of accusation. Her mouth opened. Words were desperate to take shape, to fly across the gaping space between them, to counter the dreadful accusation he had hurled at her.
‘Nikos! It isn’t like that. It—’
But he was cutting right across her, stopping her speaking.
‘Don’t try and defend it. You can call it what you like, but we both know the truth of what you are planning to do.’
The terrible words were like knives, slashing at her. She could not bear to hear them. She gave a cry, backing away as if he had struck her physically. Features convulsing, she thrust past him, out into the roadway.
She had to get away—oh, dear God, she had to get away.
There was a screech of brakes, a hideous sound of squealing rubber. And then, as if in some horror movie slow-motion, Nikos saw the car hit her...saw her frail, fragile body crumple like paper and fall to the tarmac.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HE WAS THERE in an instant—a heartbeat. The space of time between living and dying. He was yelling—he could hear himself yelling—but it was as if it were someone else. Someone else yelling as he saw that fragile figure crumple to the ground. Someone else yelling like a madman for an ambulance.
Because he was on his knees beside her, horror in his face, his eyes, in his whole being.
Let her be alive! Dear God in heaven, let her be alive. It’s all I ask—all I beg! Anything else—anything else at all—I can bear. But not that—oh, not that!
It was all that consumed him in the eternity it took for the ambulance to arrive.
She had a pulse—it was his only desperate source of hope—but she was unconscious, inert, scarcely breathing, still as white as a sheet.
I did this to her. I did it. The punishing accusation went on and on in his head.
The paramedics tended her, phoning ahead to the hospital that they were bringing her in, checking the car’s driver for shock and whiplash.
Nikos piled into the ambulance with her. ‘Is she going to be all right? Please God, tell me.’
But the ambulance crew were adept at tragedy, and only gave platitudes to him. There could be no answer to that question until she was in A&E...
Time stopped...time raced. Time blurred.
When the ambulance arrived at the hospital the emergency team fell to work. Nikos hung on to the doorjamb of the resuscitation bay and prayed—prayed with all his strength.
‘Just tell me!’ He was beyond coherence.
One of the doctors looked up. ‘Looks like only bruising, lacerations—no sign of internal damage...no lung damage,’ he reeled off. ‘One cracked rib so far. No skull trauma. Spine and limbs seem OK, though she’ll need a scan to check thoroughly.
‘And she’s coming round...’
Nikos swayed, Greek words breaking from him in a paean of gratitude. Mel’s eyes were flickering, and a low groan sounded in her throat as consciousness returned. Then, as her eyes opened fully, Nikos could see her expression change to one of anguish when she saw all the medics clustered around her.
‘My baby,’ she cried. ‘My baby! Oh, please—please don’t let my baby be gone. Please, no—please, no!’
Immediately the doctor responded, laying a calming hand on her arm.
‘There’s no sign of a bleed,’ he said. ‘But we’ll get you up to Obs and Gynae the moment you’ve had your scan and they’ll check you out thoroughly. OK?’
He smiled down reassuringly and Mel’s stricken gaze clung to him. Then, before Nikos’s eyes, she burst into crying. ‘Thank God. Oh, thank God,’ he heard her say.
Over and over again...
And inside him it felt as if the world had just changed for ever.
‘Thank God,’ he echoed. ‘Thank God.’
But it was more than the life of his unborn child he was thanking God for—so, so much more...
Then the emergency team were dispersing, and a nurse was left to instruct that Mel be wheeled off for a scan and then up to Obs and Gynae. Once again Nikos was prevented from accompanying her, and frustration raged within him. He needed to be with her—needed her to be with him.
After an age—an eternity—he was finally told that she was in Obs and Gynae and that her scans, thankfully, had all been clear. Again, Nikos gave thanks—gave thanks with all his being.
He rushed up to the obstetrics and gynaecology department, heart pounding...
There were more delays there—more being kept waiting, pacing up and down. He focussed on one thing, and one thing only—getting to Mel. And then finally—finally—he was allowed to see her.
She was in a side ward, blessedly on her own. She was conscious still, but her face was pale—apart from the grazing on her cheek from where she’d collapsed on the tarmac after the impact. Her face whitened yet more as the nurse showed him in.
He rushed up to her—then stopped dead.
The expression on her face had stopped him in his tracks. She was looking...stricken.
He felt a hollowing out inside him. Horror washed through him again as he saw in his head that nightmare moment when the car had struck her and she’d crumpled like paper.
Then another emotion seared through his head.
His eyes fastened on her, desperate to read in her gaze what he absolutely, totally had to know. He heard in his head her terrified cries down in A&E.
‘My baby,’ she’d cried—and he could hear her cry still. ‘My baby! Oh, please—please don’t let my baby be gone. Please, no—please, no!’
Relief, profound and infinitely grateful, had ripped through him that at that moment—at that moment of extreme danger to her baby—she had realised she wanted it. Realised how precious it was. How precious she was.
‘I nearly lost you—I nearly killed you...’
He took a jerking step towards her. Saw her expression change.
‘Oh, God, Mel—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ The words burst from him.
Words shaped themselves on her lips. Were uttered with difficulty and strain and a terrible emptiness. ‘You thought I wanted to kill my baby.’
It wasn’t an accusation, only a statement. But it came from a place he didn’t want to exist.
He swallowed. ‘I know—I know you don’t. I heard you, Mel. I heard your terror when you came round—you were terrified for your baby.’
He saw her hand move slightly, unconsciously, to lie across her abdomen. Sheltering. Protective.
Emotion stabbed within him. ‘Mel, I—’
His voice was jerky, but hers cut right across it.
‘How could you think that, Nikos? How could you?’ Her
eyes were piercing—accusing. Horrified.
A rasp sounded in his throat. ‘You said yourself that you didn’t want to be pregnant. That it would be an end to your freedom.’ He took a ragged breath, memory searing through him. ‘And I kept remembering how you told Fiona Pellingham that you didn’t want a baby now—’
Her face worked. She acknowledged the truth of what he’d just said—knew she had to face it. ‘That was my first reaction, yes—but it wasn’t the only one, Nikos. Truly it wasn’t. But it was so...so complicated.’
Complicated... Such a weak, pathetic word to describe the searing clash of emotions that had consumed her as she’d stared at that thin blue line on the pregnancy testing kit.
They were there still, consuming her. Anguish churned inside her that Nikos should think...should think...
He was staring at her. ‘You were on your way to an abortion clinic—I saw the appointment letter.’
Her face contorted. ‘It was an antenatal appointment. That’s all it was! To have a check-up before I fly to Spain tonight. How could you think it was for anything else? How could you?’
She took a shuddering breath.
‘My old GP is miles away, and I’d have had to wait days for an appointment. So the woman at the charity made an appointment for me at a mother and baby clinic.’
He was staring at her still. Still not making sense of things. ‘It’s a pro-choice charity,’ he said, his voice hollow. ‘They arrange abortions for women who have pregnancies they don’t want.’
Her features were screwed up. ‘Yes, they do, Nikos. But they also help with all the other alternatives, as well. Like single-parenting—raising a baby alone.’ Her expression changed again. ‘How do you know I went to that charity?’
He took a deep breath. This wasn’t the way he’d thought it was going to be—this moment of finding her again. Shock still reverberated through him—shock upon shock. He remembered the terror as he’d read the report that had totally changed everything—for ever. It had given him the most wonderful gift he could imagine—and threatened to tear it from him in the same moment.
Mel—carrying his child.
Mel—wanting to destroy their child...