by Julia James
‘So go back to your gilded life and pick yourself another mistress from all the beautiful women queuing up for you. Make loads more money and spend it however you want, on whoever you want. Sleep with hordes of fantastic females. Have Taki and Stelios trail around after you, picking up your skis and handing you your jacket and paying your restaurant bills and smoothing your path so that nothing irritating ever happens to you, and be happy. Be happy, Markos. Because it’s the life you want and the life you’ve got. And send down your team of highly paid lawyers with all their legally binding documents, and I’ll sign anything you want me to.’
She ran breathlessly to the end and picked up her coffee, taking a large, reviving mouthful, needing the caffeine, fighting off the blackness that was drenching her. He was still standing there, hands on his hips, jacket pushed back, his face stark. A nerve was ticking in his cheek.
He looked as tense as a leashed tiger.
‘You are carrying my child and I have responsibilities to it,’ he said.
‘I relieve you of all of them. Every one.’
‘That is not in your gift. A child needs a father.’ His voice was implacable.
Her eyes flashed, emotion biting through her. She knew she should suppress it, but she couldn’t. Not any longer. Everything about his presence had been stretching her to breaking point, and now she snapped like wire pulled too tight. Her hands clenched around her coffee mug.
‘A father like you?’ Her voice stung. ‘So our baby can grow up knowing that you never wanted him or her to be born, that you first checked that he or she was actually your child and then married me, the woman who’d been your walking, talking sex toy, out of duty, and that you think I trapped you into marriage by getting pregnant against your express instructions?’ The words spat from her. ‘Does my baby need a father like that, Markos? I don’t think so. Some fathers aren’t worth having!’
Her eyes bored into his. For one long, unbearable moment he just stood there as she hurled her judgement at him. His face was stark, as if carved with a knife. The colour had leached from his skin.
Then, without another word, he walked from the room. From the flat. From the house.
From her life.
Slowly, very slowly, she got to her feet. She felt immensely tired, as if weights had been tied to her arms, her legs. She almost stumbled as she carried the half-empty coffee mug back into the kitchen. Beside the kettle the other, untouched mug sat, cooling. Mechanically she poured them both down the sink, washing the mugs and placing them on the draining board. Then she looked out through the kitchen window, out over the tiny patio garden behind.
He’s gone, she thought. This time he’s gone. For good. He won’t come back again.
She tried to feel glad. Knew she must feel glad. Knew that the only sane, rational response to what had happened had to be gladness.
Gratitude.
She was grateful that she’d been able to spell out for him at last what she knew she had been with him—to him. She’d purged it from her so that it was no longer part of her. Now she could move on, take hold of the rest of her life, which waited for her just as she waited for the child she carried to be born.
Her child didn’t need a father who did not want them, had never wanted them. He’d never wanted her for anything more than a mistress.
And now she must only be grateful that he had gone, that she’d relieved him of all responsibility, all duty. His only reasons for wanting to marry her.
But as she stared unseeing over the summer sunlit patio she might have been staring out over an Arctic landscape as desolate as the icy bleakness in her heart.
What have I done? Dear God, what have I done?
The question tore at her like a polar wind, and the answer mocked her as savagely.
‘Well?’
Leo’s voice was expectant, requiring an answer. Markos gave it to him.
‘The baby’s mine.’
His cousin’s expression did not change. ‘And?’
Markos’s jaw tightened. Leo was standing in front of his desk, towering over him. At least he was on his own this time, without the acid-tongued Anna, who was, so Leo had informed him, visiting her grandmother. Leo had just walked in unannounced by Markos’s PA, who had bustled in apologetically behind him. Markos had dismissed her curtly. This was not an exchange he wanted to have. But Leo was not about to get out of his hair—not without answers.
So Markos gave him his answer.
‘And nothing,’ he said tersely.
Leo’s face darkened. ‘What the hell do you mean?’ he demanded.
Anger flashed through Markos’s eyes.
‘Get lost, Leo. This has nothing to do with you!’
His cousin jabbed a finger towards him. ‘Are you telling me that you aren’t prepared to marry her?’ There was scorn and incredulity in his voice in equal measures.
The flash of anger came again, and Markos’s hands clenched over the wide leather arms of his chair.
‘She won’t marry me.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘I heard you, little cousin, but I don’t believe you. Are you sure you actually used the word marriage? You’re so damn allergic to the word maybe you couldn’t even pronounce it!’
‘I spelled it out in letters a mile high. She said no.’
Leo’s expression was blank.
‘Maybe the baby isn’t yours after all, then,’ he said slowly.
Markos’s face hardened.
‘That is not a possibility,’ he said tightly. ‘She was pregnant when she walked out on me.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean the baby is yours.’ Leo’s voice was dry.
Markos’s eyes flashed. ‘Are you saying she was unfaithful to me?’ There was a belligerence is his voice that made Leo look at him hard. ‘Vanessa was already pregnant when she left me—and she knew she was. But she lied to me when I asked her if she was pregnant.’
A frown furrowed Leo’s brow. ‘You asked her if she was pregnant? You mean you already thought she might be?’
The note of accusation was back in his voice again. Once more Markos’s eyes flashed.
‘I had no idea. None!’
‘So how come you asked her then?’ Leo pressed accusingly.
Markos shifted in his chair. He didn’t want this conversation. He didn’t want his damn cousin here standing in front of him interrogating him. And he certainly didn’t want to answer any of his questions.
He threw his head back and glared at Leo.
‘It was the last morning before she walked out on me. She started one of those damn conversations, you know the type—those “Where is our relationship going?” conversations…! And when that happens you know they’re starting to cling, to make demands, to want more than they’re going to get from you. When Vanessa started on me that morning it really got to me. She’d been absolutely no trouble up till then. Everything had been brilliant, the best ever. Damnit, I felt safe with her. She was exactly what I wanted, and I didn’t want it going bad. I didn’t want her spoiling everything. So I—’
He broke off. His cousin was standing there, looking tall, and tough.
‘So you—’he prompted. There was still a hard look in his eyes.
Markos shrugged. ‘So I spelled it out for her. I told her that I was perfectly happy with her, that everything was great the way it was and that was that. She went all quiet—you know, the way women do when they don’t like the message they’ve just received—and then she trotted out the “But what about if I got pregnant?” gambit. So I spelled that out for her, too.’
‘Oh, you did, did you? Run it by me, will you, just for the record.’
Markos threw him a nasty look.
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t done the same in your time, because I won’t believe you. You know damn well how it goes. You tell them that you’re not going to marry them under any circumstances, and if there’s the slightest sign of them trying to get pregnant delib
erately they are O-U-T.’
He was silent a moment, his gaze turning inward. A memory stung at him. The expression on Vanessa’s face while he was spelling it out to her…
‘It was bad timing,’ he said abruptly, banishing the memory. ‘Just bad timing.’
His gaze did not meet his cousin’s.
‘That’s one way of putting it.’ Leo’s voice was dry.
The belligerent look was back in Markos’s face.
‘Look—I had no idea she was already pregnant. She’d just told me she wasn’t. So why in God’s name did she lie to me? It doesn’t make sense, Leo. She must have known I’d stand by her.’
‘Yeah, you’ve been a real tower of strength for her, haven’t you?’ said Leo.
Angrily, Markos jabbed his forefinger aggressively at his cousin.
‘Don’t give me that. I didn’t know she was pregnant, I didn’t know that she thought I was marrying Apollonia Dimistris—’
‘From what you’ve said she didn’t even know about Apollonia when you were doing your supportive spelling-it-out routine on her,’ contested Leo scathingly.
His cousin stared back grittily. ‘That was bad timing, too. That was the reason she walked out the same day—because that damn Constantia got to her before I had a chance to come back and make my peace with Vanessa.’ Markos’s face grew bitter. ‘Theos, if only I had stayed home that day, not gone into the office. But I had no idea—none—that Constantia Dimistris had turned up like a witch!’
‘How come you didn’t find out about that when you were looking for Vanessa?’ Leo challenged. ‘The concierge must have let her in—he’d have taken her name, so he should have told your security people she’d turned up that afternoon.’
An angry look darkened Markos’s eyes. ‘Vanessa wasn’t the only object of Constantia’s bribery. But with the concierge she found a more willing recipient. Since Vanessa told me what Constantia had done I had my people put the third degree on the entry hall staff—she’d handed out a massive bribe. Enough to shut mouths completely that she’d never been to the apartment. She didn’t want me tracing back to her that she’d paid Vanessa to clear out.’ He shut his eyes momentarily. ‘I wish to God I’d known.’ There was pain, as well as bitter anger in his voice. ‘I still wouldn’t have known where Vanessa had gone, but at least I would have had some kind of reason—I’d have got the truth from Constantia about what she’d done. I would have realised why Vanessa thought she had cause to hate me—’
‘You mean, on top of her having cause to hate you because you rejected your baby—’ Leo was merciless again.
Markos’s head flew up. ‘If I’d known Vanessa was already pregnant do you think I’d have said what I did to her that last morning? God Almighty, Leo, just how low do you think me?’
The look on his cousin’s face as he threw his challenge at him was not merciful. Markos’s response was defiantly belligerent.
‘Look, all I knew was that Vanessa had walked out on me, without a word. She just left. I had no idea why—or where she’d gone. She disappeared off the face of the earth. I was sick with worry for her!’ Breath dragged from him, and he went on, eyeballing his cousin. ‘How the hell do you imagine I felt when I saw those photos of her in that in-flight magazine? Finding out she was pregnant because she was modelling maternity clothes?’
‘Upon which, with unerring inaccuracy, you jumped to the wrong conclusion and stormed down to go ballistic on her,’ finished his cousin. ‘Great.’
Markos glared at him.
‘I just knew she was pregnant, that’s all. And of course I never thought it was mine—because I never dreamt that she’d lied to me in the first place! And why the hell didn’t she put me straight, and admit it was mine? Especially after I told her that Constantia Dimistris had done a number on her!’
‘I can’t imagine,’ said his cousin sarcastically. ‘After all, you’d only accused her of walking straight out of your bed into another man’s and getting herself pregnant by him. What woman could possibly take offence at that?’
‘Damn it, do you think I wanted that to be true? Do you think I wanted Vanessa to be pregnant by another man? Thee mou, it crucified me, thinking of her with someone else, carrying his child…’
He broke off, his face contorting.
For a moment there was silence. Then, with the same narrowed look in his eye, Leo spoke.
‘But this time, when you drove down again, you told her you’d been an offensive cretin to make such a foul accusation and it gutted you that she’d felt she’d had to leave you to bring your baby up on her own. You begged her to forgive you for being an insensitive swine, and you humbly asked would she please allow you to marry her and take care of her and the child you’d both created. That’s what you said, right?’
Markos’s jaw tightened.
‘I said we’d get married. That there was no question otherwise now. And she turned me down flat.’
Something worked in Leo’s face.
‘Tell me, little cousin, does it ever occur to you that you are mentally deranged?’ Markos’s expression blackened, but Leo ignored it. Not giving him pause to retort, he went on. ‘You know, any minute now I’m expecting to hear you told her that you’d be married once you’d got a positive DNA test on the baby—’
He broke off, and a Greek expletive issued from him.
‘You did, didn’t you? You told her that you wanted to check paternity before you married her!’
‘Of course I damn well did! Do you think I wanted—?’
He fell silent. A bleak look entered his eyes. ‘I just wish to God those tests had been around before I was born. It would have made life a lot—simpler.’
For the first time since he’d walked into his office his cousin lost the hard look in his eyes.
‘What are you going to do, Markos?’
Markos’s gaze slipped away, so that he was staring out into nothing.
‘I can’t force her to marry me. She wants to bring the baby up on her own. Obviously I’ll create a trust fund for it, even if she doesn’t want me to—and I’ll make sure she’s financially secure even though she says she’s got enough to live on.’
‘And what about the child? The courts would grant you access, at the very least. And you could always apply for custody.’
‘No! God Almighty—do you think I’d do that?’ Markos’s eyes whipped back to Leo’s.
Slowly, Leo shook his head.
‘You might well not get custody,’ he said. ‘Vanessa’s nothing like your mother. Not if she’s going to live a quiet, respectable life as a seaside landlady. And you, Markos,’ he added slowly, ‘you are not your father.’
Dark slate eyes looked back at him, bleak as a winter’s day.
‘No?’ he said, and his mouth twisted suddenly, hard and bitter and painful. ‘Yet that was exactly the description Vanessa gave of me before she threw me out.’
It was night. Night and moonless and starless. Night high over the city, over the dark river flowing below. Night everywhere.
Markos stood motionless. He looked out into the night, hands closed over the high railing of his roof terrace.
Somewhere, hundreds of miles away to the south and west, Vanessa must be asleep, with her baby curled inside her.
So very far away.
His hand clenched more tightly over the cold steel edge. It felt like a cage all around him.
Inside him.
He let go abruptly and turned away, striding inside through the wide open terrace windows, stepping inside the long, luxurious lounge. Instinctively his eyes went to the sofa.
But Vanessa was not there.
She wasn’t there, her eyes warm and glad, holding out her arms to him, waiting for him to come to her, for him to take her hand and kiss her soft, tender mouth.
She would never be there again.
Would never gaze up at him with her beautiful, adoring eyes. Never lie in his arms, her hair like a living flame across the pillows, never give he
rself to the ecstasy he could arouse in her. Never again.
I thought her my mistress but she was never that—never! She was always so much more…
A vice crushed his chest with physical pain.
She was always here. Always with me. Wherever I went, she came with me. She never left me…
But she had. And she would not be coming back. She would live her life, far away from him, not wanting anything to do with him…
The vice crushed again, so he could scarcely breathe.
She doesn’t want me. Not for a husband or a father to her baby.
Again in his mind he replayed her harsh, condemning words, painting a portrait of himself that excoriated him.
Some fathers are not worth having…
And then, into the echo of her denunciation came another voice, his cousin’s. Grim, harsh, but offering a single stark ray of hope.
You are not your father.
For a long, long moment he did not move. Then, with abrupt resolve, he strode into his bedroom. He walked to the closet and stared grimly around.
Somewhere, surely, there must be a suitcase.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
VANESSA SPREAD OUT the rug onto the sand and carefully lowered herself down on to it. Her movements were becoming increasingly ungainly, and the heat made her uncomfortable and restless these days. But after a fortnight of baking temperatures the weather had changed, bringing a refreshing breeze off the Atlantic and a shading haze over the summer sun. As she settled a cushion under her and reached into her beachbag for her book, she felt nothing more than pleasantly warm in her loose blouson top and wide, elasticated cotton cropped trousers.