by Lynne Graham
A few minutes later, Leo stepped into the spacious wet room to join her. ‘What was that all about?’ he asked.
‘What was what all about?’
‘You pushed me away,’ he reminded her, angry dark eyes spelling out how he had reacted to her conduct.
‘That’s what you’ve always done with me afterwards,’ Grace pointed out innocently. ‘Shouldn’t I have done that?’
Leo knew when he was being played, but then he had also never been on the receiving end of such a careless dismissal before. It had stung, it had felt ridiculously like rejection, he reasoned in confusion at his own thoughts. Before he could think any more, he reacted on instinct and closed Grace’s dripping body into his arms below the falling spray.
‘Things change. We’re married now. I think we can afford to be a little more affectionate,’ he declared in a rasping undertone, tugging her even closer.
Grace hid a smile against a broad muscular shoulder. He wasn’t an irredeemable rat, she decided ruefully. Damaged by his parents’ toxic marriage, he had avoided the softer emotions all his life to date. But he could learn by example, yes, and he was one very fast learner, Grace conceded as the embrace became an unashamed hug.
A couple of hours later, they lay naked in a tangle of fur throws in front of the gas-fired logs in the massive fireplace in the main drawing room. As night fell they had become hungry and had raided the fridge to savour the delicacies prepared by Josefina, the housekeeper, who had gone home hours earlier.
‘I thought pregnant women suffered a lot from nausea,’ Leo said abruptly. ‘But you still have a good appetite.’
‘I haven’t felt sick once,’ Grace admitted. ‘A little dizzy a couple of times but that’s all.’
‘I’ve signed you up to see one of the local doctors while we’re here.’
‘That’s unnecessary this early in my pregnancy.’
Leo dealt her a warning glance. ‘Humour me. I have a very strong need to know that I’m looking after you properly.’
But Grace was worried that if she gave an inch, Leo would take a mile. She wondered if he had taken the same managing, controlling attitude to Marina and asked.
Leo rested back thoughtfully on his hands, the hard muscular lines of his chest and stomach flexing taut and drawing her involuntary gaze. ‘I never felt the need to interfere...offer advice occasionally, yes, veto or demand, no. You’re different.’
‘How am I different?’ Grace asked baldly.
‘You’re pregnant,’ Leo pointed out, disappointing her with that comeback.
‘So, if I’m allowed to ask one awkward question...exactly why did you want to marry Marina?’
‘Because I thought she was perfect...’
Grace froze, the colour leaching from beneath her fair skin.
‘Of course, nobody is perfect,’ Leo continued wryly. ‘But I did believe Marina was as near to the ideal as I could get because we had so much in common and were close friends.’
Never ask a question if you aren’t tough enough to accept the answer and live with it, Grace told herself wretchedly. How on earth could she compete with his ideal of the perfect wife? Most especially when that ideal woman was still walking around? Was it possible that Leo felt more for Marina than he had ever appreciated? And that losing her might make him finally realise it? Not a productive thought train, Grace scolded herself, and she suppressed her crushing sense of insecurity with every fibre of willpower that she possessed.
* * *
‘So, why don’t you want these blood tests the doctor has recommended?’ Leo demanded impatiently.
Grace wrinkled her nose. ‘Because there’s nothing wrong with me.’
‘But the doctor—’
‘Dr Silvano is nice but he is a little old-fashioned, Leo. Why should he wonder if there’s something wrong with my hormone levels just because I’m not feeling sick all the time?’ Grace prompted impatiently. ‘A lot of women get morning sickness but there are a lucky few who don’t and I don’t plan to start fussing over myself and worrying without good reason. He’s one of those doctors who prefer to treat pregnancy as an illness and I don’t agree with that.’
Leo surveyed her with unhidden annoyance. Grace went pink and looked across the cobbled square to the playground where small children were running and shouting. In a few years she would have a child of around that age, she ruminated fondly, wishing Leo would not make her pregnancy so much his business. Yet how could she fault a man for caring about her well-being?
‘I’ll go back first thing tomorrow for the tests,’ Grace surrendered with a grimace. ‘Will that make you happy?’
The tightness of his superb bone structure eased and the hint of a smile softened the hard line of his sculpted mouth. They had been in Italy for four incredible weeks and even when Leo annoyed her, Grace still never got tired of simply looking at him, admiring the proud flare of his nose, the downward frown of his brows when anything annoyed him, the pure silk ebony luxuriance of his lashes when he looked down at her with eyes of pure gold in bed.
‘Yes, that will make me happy,’ Leo told her without apology and pulled out his phone to immediately book the appointment.
Grace sipped her bottled water, reflecting that Leo had taught her a master class in the art of compromise and negotiation. His forceful personality and strong views made occasional clashes between them inevitable. He was much deeper and more of a thinker than he liked to show. Clever, shrewd and over-protective as he was, he was also wonderfully entertaining and her every fantasy in bed. He was willing to make an effort as well. Since their wedding night there had been no further flights from intimacy post-climax. She wouldn’t let herself think negative thoughts around him, wouldn’t let herself dwell on the awareness that she loved him and he did not love her. Unlike him, she wasn’t expecting the perfect marital partner.
And in any case, Leo might say that he didn’t do romance but it was remarkable how often their outings were drenched in romantic views, surroundings and meals. He had taken her to see a candlelit religious procession in the streets of Lucca one evening and topped it off with dinner in a rooftop restaurant with the stars shimmering far above them. They had enjoyed a picnic below the ancient chestnut trees that overlooked the vineyards in the valley. With no road noise, no people around and virtually nothing in view to remind them of the twentieth century, it had been timeless and peaceful and she had dozed off, probably because she had eaten far too much from Josefina’s fantastic picnic dishes. There had been sightseeing trips and scenic drives and a couple of casual dinner engagements with friends Leo had, who lived locally.
And then there were the shopping trips and the gifts. Grace tilted her chin, green eyes reflective as she glanced at the gold watch on her wrist and thought about the pearls in her ears and at her throat, not to mention the gorgeous handbag she had foolishly admired in a shop window. Leo was very generous and his giving wasn’t soulless or showing off. If he noticed she lacked something like jewellery he provided it without fanfare and so smoothly it was impossible to politely refuse. No, she couldn’t fault his intellect, his company, his generosity or the high-voltage excitement of his sexuality.
Furthermore after a month of living with Leo round the clock she could no longer credit the belief that he had blackmailed her into marrying him.
‘When you threatened my uncle and aunt’s careers, you were bluffing, weren’t you?’ Grace condemned very drily.
Leo rocked back in his chair, lashes low over gleaming dark eyes. ‘I was wondering how long it would take you to work that out.’
Temper hurtled through Grace like a rejuvenating blast of oxygen. ‘You mean you wouldn’t have done it?’
‘Of course I wouldn’t have done it. I’m not an unjust man. Your uncle gave you a home when you needed one and I respect him for that because I doubt very much tha
t he received much support from your aunt.’ Leo studied her. ‘But from certain things you have let slip quite without meaning to, I think your aunt should be burnt at the stake as a witch...and possibly your cousin with her.’
That cool rundown of her upbringing snuffed out Grace’s annoyance as though it had never been and provoked an involuntary laugh from her lips. ‘Oh...dear.’
‘But in one sense you have done me a favour. Your position in your uncle’s family closely resembled Bastien’s when my half-brother and I were children and that has enabled me to see that Bastien was often excluded, set apart from my parents and I by his birth and parentage and made to feel like an outsider,’ he imparted grimly. ‘It was wrong when that was done to you and it must follow that it was equally wrong when it was done to him.’
Grace nodded, impressed by that deduction and his willingness to admit fault on that score. The level of animosity between Leo and his brother had disconcerted her. She suspected they never met without one trying to score points off the other.
‘Sadly, that reality won’t make me like Bastien but it is why I was ready to allow you to believe that I would blackmail you into marriage. I was prepared to use any weapon you put within my reach,’ Leo confessed wryly. ‘I could not bear our child to experience the isolation which you and Bastien suffered as children. I don’t ever want a child of mine to feel like an outsider. And if you and I hadn’t married that is what he or she would have ultimately been.’
‘So, I’m supposed to forgive the blackmail threats because your goal was the greater good?’ Grace fielded very drily although grudging amusement was tugging at her lips. ‘With that kind of reasoning you could excuse murder, Leo.’
A wolfish grin slashed Leo’s darkly handsome face. ‘But you like being married to me?’
Grace rested her chin down on the heel of her hand and gave him an enquiring look. ‘And why do you assume that?’
‘You sing in the shower, you smile at me a lot...you even jump me in bed occasionally,’ Leo husked soft and low, dark golden eyes pure burnished gold with wicked amusement and that innate bold assurance that she found so outrageously compelling.
Grace didn’t quite know how to react to that unexpectedly personal list of her mistakes. For smiling at him all the time was a dead giveaway of the kind of feelings he didn’t want her to have and she didn’t want to reveal. But it was a challenge to hide the simple truth that he made her happy, indeed happier than anyone had ever made her feel in her entire life. Because while he might not love her, he did care and he seemed to find her irresistible. Did she really need more than that from him? All that lovey-dovey stuff and wedding rings proudly worn on male fingers would really just be the icing on the cake, she reasoned: lovely to have but not strictly necessary.
‘You won’t be getting jumped tonight,’ she warned him, her lovely face flushed and self-conscious.
And Leo laughed uproariously as he so often did with Grace, who teased him and came back at him verbally in a way no other woman ever had and who was nothing short of dirty dynamite in his bed. Oh, no, Leo had no complaints on the marriage front. In fact, Leo was delighted with his bride.
He walked her back to the car and noticed a guy on a motorbike twisting his head rather dangerously to get a second look at the figure Grace cut in a pale pink cami top that showed rather more cleavage than Leo liked and a clinging white skirt that enhanced her curvy behind and show-stopping legs. His mouth flattened while he wondered when Grace would start looking more pregnant and less curvy and sexy. He could hardly wait for the day. It offended him when other men studied his wife with lascivious intent.
Grace was glad of the breeze that cooled her as they walked into the castle because she was feeling uncomfortably warm. ‘I need a shower,’ she sighed, starting up the stairs.
‘Me too,’ Leo husked with a roughened edge to his dark deep drawl.
Grace was moving towards the bathroom when Leo spoke again and in a sudden tone of urgency. ‘Grace...your skirt...you’re bleeding!’
CHAPTER NINE
COLD SHOCK AND dismay filled Grace as she looked down at herself. In the bathroom she frantically peeled off her clothes.
‘You can’t have a shower now...you should lie down!’ Leo tried to remonstrate with her.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Grace argued shakily. ‘If I’m having a miscarriage there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.’
Leo stepped out of the bathroom to call Dr Silvano and then went back in, battling an angry, aggressive urge to snatch Grace bodily out of the shower and force her to lie down but very much afraid that coming over all caveman would only upset her more. He tried to wrap a huge towel round her when she came out, hovering even when she shouted at him to leave her alone. Grace rebelled by stepping back out of view to take care of necessities but he was still waiting with the towel when she emerged again.
‘You’re so cold,’ he groaned.
‘Shock,’ she said, teeth chattering while she struggled to make herself face what felt like an impossible challenge and slid her arms into a towelling robe. ‘You know one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage during the first trimester and I’m only eight weeks and a bit along...’
‘Hush,’ Leo incised, bundling her up into his arms and carrying her over to the bed before rattling through drawers in search of the nightdress she requested. ‘Are you in a lot of pain?’
She winced. ‘None...whatsoever.’
‘You’ll still have to go into hospital. Diavelos...I should’ve taken you straight there!’ Leo breathed, pacing the floor at the end of the bed, rigid with tension and regret.
‘No hospital, Leo. I think I’d freak out on a gynae ward surrounded by pregnant women and newborns.’
‘You’d be in a private room and don’t be so pessimistic,’ Leo censured. ‘It may not be what you fear.’
Grace said nothing. She lay as still as an upturned statue staring up at the ceiling. Crazy thoughts tormented her. Was this to be her punishment for thinking that she could give her baby up for adoption? Was this her punishment for not properly valuing the gift she had been given? It seemed that Dr Silvano had been right when he’d expressed the opinion that a mother-to-be suffering from nausea and sore breasts could indicate a more stable pregnancy. Her eyes prickled. It was inconceivable to her that only an hour earlier she and Leo had been laughing and carefree, utterly unaware of what lay ahead.
She was moved from the limo into the small hospital in a wheelchair and taken to a small side ward. Somewhere in the background she could hear Leo talking in low-pitched urgent Italian and thought numbly of how useful his gift with languages could be. A few minutes later she was moved yet again and this time she was transferred to a room where there were no other patients. Leo helped her into bed and the fraught silence between them worked on Grace’s nerves until a radiographer entered with a portable scanner. Grace lay still while the gelled probe moved back and forth over her tummy, her attention locked to the small screen, her hopes and dreams slowly dying as what she prayed for failed to appear. The operator excused herself and reappeared some minutes later with a doctor, who spoke English. He broke the news that the machine had failed to detect the baby’s heartbeat but that the procedure would be repeated the following day to ensure that there was no mistake.
‘I don’t see why we should wait twenty-four hours to get a confirmation.’ Leo breathed harshly, his bone structure rigid below his bronzed skin.
‘It’s standard procedure to wait twenty-four hours and check again,’ Grace chipped in.
‘I’ll organise an airlift to a city hospital, somewhere with the latest equipment,’ he began.
The doctor said that it would not be a good idea to move Grace again and that air travel at such an early stage of her pregnancy only heightened the likelihood of miscarriage.
‘I’m not going anywhere,
’ Grace declared, turning her face into the wall because she could not bear to continue looking at Leo.
It was over. Why was he making everything more difficult by fighting the obvious conclusion? Most probably she had miscarried and everyone in the room with the exception of Leo could accept that. A second check tomorrow was very probably only a routine precaution.
But then she was not cut from the same cloth as her husband, she acknowledged heavily. Leo was rich and powerful and accustomed to his wealth changing negatives into positives but sadly there was no way to do that in the current situation. Her baby had died without ever learning what it would be like to live. A great swell of anguish mushroomed up through Grace and a choked sob escaped her as she gasped for breath and control.
Leo sat down on the side of the bed and gripped her clenched fingers. ‘We’ll get through this,’ he rasped, his eyes burning and pinned to her pale, pinched profile as he flailed around mentally striving to come up with words of comfort.
‘It just wasn’t meant to be,’ Grace said with flat conviction.
‘Some day there’ll be...another chance,’ Leo completed tightly.
‘Not for us.’
Leo ignored that assurance. He wasn’t about to get into an argument. Grace was devastated, probably barely aware of what she was saying and Leo, struggling to master the tightness in his chest and the yawning hollow opening up inside him, was realising that he was devastated too, much more devastated than he had ever expected to be in such circumstances. ‘Let’s not be pessimistic. Tomorrow...’
‘It will only hurt me more to hold onto false hope!’ Grace snapped back at him, her head flipping, vibrant red hair spilling across the pillows, pale sea-glass eyes distraught and accusing.
Leo’s eyes stung, frustration flaring through his lean, powerful frame because he wanted so badly to fix things and knew that he couldn’t. ‘It was my baby too,’ he murmured in a roughened undertone.