A Ring for the Greek's Baby

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Emily pulled out of his hold and got off the bed. ‘I’m sorry, Loukas, but I can’t go on with this a moment longer.’

  A frown made a map of lines across his forehead. ‘What are you talking about?’

  She met his gaze head-on. ‘This marriage you’re proposing. I’m not comfortable with it. Not any of it. I don’t care if it’s a small ceremony or a big one. I don’t care if no one is there, or every relative and person we know and half of Greece is there. The one thing that should be there and won’t be is your love for me.’

  He made to reach out to her but she held up her hand like a stop sign. ‘No. Don’t try and talk me out of it. You’re the one who talked me into this ridiculous plan in the first place. I should never have agreed to it. I’m going back to London. Our engagement is over.’

  A muscle clenched at the side of his mouth as if he was trying to control an involuntary tic. ‘This is crazy. You’re not thinking straight—’

  ‘That’s exactly what I am doing,’ Emily said. ‘I’m thinking how wrong it is to bring a child into a relationship that has a clock ticking on it. Who does that? It’s not what I want for my life. I want the fairy-tale; I’m not ashamed of wanting it, either. It’s what most people want—to be loved. I stayed in a loveless relationship for seven years. Every one of those years I lived in hope, wishing things would get better, but they never did. I can’t afford to give up any more of my life to a relationship that isn’t working for me.’

  ‘I told you from the start what I was prepared to give you,’ he said. ‘I haven’t made promises or pretended things I don’t feel. I want to be involved in my child’s life. I don’t want my child to be punished because of my mistake.’

  That was how he saw his relationship with her—as a mistake. Loukas had offered her a one-night fling and it had come with consequences. Consequences he had been prepared to take responsibility for but with conditions she couldn’t accept. Not now she loved him. She knew he felt wretchedly guilty about the accident, but it didn’t mean he had to punish himself for the rest of his life, denying himself normal human feelings in a quest to right the wrongs of the past. Who had control over love anyway? It happened no matter what you did to avoid it. She hadn’t expected to fall in love with him, it had crept up on her. Each kiss, each touch, each time he made love to her, the feelings had blossomed and grown until she could no longer ignore them.

  Emily shook her head at him. ‘That’s the kicker right there. You see me as a mistake. That’s how you see our baby. An accident you’re now dutifully dealing with, just like you dutifully deal with your mother and sister. I don’t want to be dealt with dutifully, Loukas, I want to be dealt with devotedly. I deserve it and so do you.’

  His expression was as stony as one of the ancient walls of the Old Town they had walked past a few days ago. ‘You say you love me, so why are you leaving?’

  ‘Because in the long run it will hurt you if I stay,’ Emily said. ‘It will hurt me and it will hurt our baby too. I won’t stop you being involved. You can come to the twelve-week scan, if you like, and of course the birth, if you want to.’

  His hands were shoved in his trouser pockets as if he was determined not to touch her, although she sensed there was a struggle going on inside him, for a tiny muscle in his jaw was working overtime. ‘What about the press? They’ll hound you for a statement.’

  Emily started packing her things but her hands wouldn’t seem to co-operate. She couldn’t fold a thing but had to scrunch her clothes into creased balls. She would not cry. She would not cry. She must not cry. The tears welled in her eyes but she stoically blinked them away. Her chest ached as though someone had wrenched apart her ribcage and torn out her heart but she continued to snatch her belongings from wherever she had last left them: her watch from the bedside table. Her phone charger from the power point next to the bed. Her make-up bag from the bathroom. She worked like an automaton—a robot programmed to complete a task. But inside she wanted to throw herself to the ground like a hysterical child and pummel the floor with her hands and heels.

  Why don’t you love me? Why? Why? Why?

  ‘I would never say anything bad about you,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll simply tell them the truth. I’ve changed my mind about marrying you, but we will be co-parenting our child, and look forward to its birth, like any other parents.’

  ‘Leave that,’ he said, jerking his head towards the things she’d thrown in a jumble on the bed. ‘I’ll get Chrystanthe to pack them for you.’

  She looked at the pile of clothes and the jewellery he’d given her and swallowed a thick knot in her throat. ‘I can leave the jewellery and the box. You might like to give it to someone—’

  ‘Take it,’ he said, turning away as if it no longer concerned him what she did.

  In the end she took the box but not the jewellery. She left the ring and earrings on the bedside table, locked the box with the little key to keep the lid secure and slipped it into her handbag while he had his back turned to her.

  ‘I need to get a flight,’ Emily said, brushing her hair back with her hand, suddenly a little overwhelmed at what she was doing. This was the problem with not being single for so long. You didn’t know how to do stuff any more. When was the last time she had booked a flight for herself? Daniel had always done the flights when they’d gone anywhere. It had been his job, just as it had been his job to take out the garbage and empty the dishwasher. Even the flight to Allegra’s wedding had been booked for her by Draco. She fought down the panic.

  Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. You can do this.

  She glanced at Loukas and saw he already had his phone out. What did that mean? That he was keen to see her go?

  ‘I’ll book you a flight,’ he said in a curt, business-like voice, which she took as a sign she was doing the right thing by leaving. If he loved her he would have been on his knees begging her to stay. He would have been smothering her with kisses and caresses, telling her he couldn’t live without her. He certainly wouldn’t be whipping out his phone to book her on the next available flight.

  She kept her expression composed but inside she was screaming, Don’t let me leave!

  Emily didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to Chrystanthe because it was the housekeeper’s night off. She scribbled a short note, thanking her for everything, and left it propped on the kitchen counter while Loukas carried her bag out to the car.

  The drive to the airport was painfully silent.

  Even to the point where Loukas helped her check in to the private jet he’d organised, she hoped he would say something. Anything. But it was as if he was seeing to the departure of an acquaintance. He didn’t touch her. He barely even looked at her and, when he did, his expression was as locked down as hers.

  When it was time to board, she held out her hand but he coldly ignored it. ‘Really?’ he said with a cutting edge to his voice.

  Emily dropped her hand along with the last of her hopes. Her heart was so heavy it felt as though it were towing the jet she was about to board. Couldn’t they at least part as friends? How were they supposed to be parents of their child if they could barely speak to each other? ‘I’ll let you know the date of the scan.’

  ‘Fine.’

  She searched his face for a sign that he was finding this as difficult as she was but there was nothing there. It was as if he had wiped every emotion from the hard drive of his personality. There wasn’t even a flicker on the screen of his face. ‘Goodbye, Loukas.’

  He didn’t answer.

  Emily turned and walked down the boarding corridor, but when she glanced back for one last look at him he had already gone.

  * * *

  Loukas walked out of the airport before he created a scene. Anger, disappointment and some other nameless emotion were boiling inside him in a toxic mix the like of which he had never quite experienced before. The
sense of powerless was overwhelming. He wanted to pick Emily up and carry her fireman-style back to his villa—to give her no choice but to stay with him. He could be ruthless when he needed to be, but her confession of love had stunned him.

  Why had she had to throw that in the mix? Surely it was just fanciful on her part? Good sex did that to women. To be fair, it did it to men too. But just because the sex was great didn’t mean he was in love with her. He had never been in love with anyone. Her confession shouldn’t have surprised him so much. She was an affectionate and giving person. Loving came naturally to her. She didn’t have to think about it. Guard against it. Block it. It wasn’t that he wasn’t capable of love. He loved his mother, his sister and his friends but in a remote and hands-off way. Getting close to someone didn’t come naturally to him. Maybe it was the way his personality was wired, or maybe it was because of the trauma he’d gone through with his parents’ acrimonious divorce and custody battle, not to mention the harrowing guilt he felt over the accident with his sister.

  Loving someone scared the hell out of him.

  It scared him to be that vulnerable. The odds of losing someone escalated the more you cared about them. The odds of hurting them were even worse.

  He remembered how he used to lie in bed at night as a small child listening to his parents argue bitterly. The sense of insecurity had been sickening but he had always comforted himself that no way would his mother ever leave him. His father, yes, but never his mother.

  He still remembered the day when his father had taken him roughly by the hand and all but dragged him to the waiting car. Loukas had fought against the tears, not wanting to make it any worse for his distraught mother but, more importantly, not wanting to let his father know how upset he was at leaving his mother behind. His father would have enjoyed that too much. He would have relished in the pain and suffering he was inflicting. Loukas had schooled his features into a mask, just as he had done just now with Emily. But he could still picture his mother running after the car, her hands reaching out to him, her hair flying in disarray about her tear-ravaged face.

  Such intense emotion had terrified him then and it terrified him now. He sought refuge in anger because anger was something he could control. He could lock it down and tie it up like a wild animal. He could wait it out. Let it cool off before he looked at it again.

  What had Emily been thinking, offering her hand to him like some mild acquaintance? They’d had smoking-hot sex together. They’d made a baby together, for God’s sake. How dared she reduce their relationship to an impersonal press of hands at a gate lounge? She had no right to do this when he’d offered her more than he’d offered anyone.

  He didn’t want to hurt her but how could he pretend to feel things he had never felt for anyone? That was why he had given her the get-out option on their marriage. He had never promised her ‘for ever’.

  He wasn’t that person. He could never be that person.

  He wondered now if he ever had been.

  CHAPTER NINE

  EMILY HAD BEEN back in London a week when the doorbell rang. Her heart leapt as if it were bouncing off a trampoline. Could it be Loukas? Had he changed his mind? Did he love her after all? She had heard nothing from him other than a brief text to make sure she’d got home safely. She had thought about texting him, especially since she couldn’t find the little key to the jewellery box, but she didn’t want him to think she was using it as an excuse to contact him. The key probably had been lost at the security checkpoint at the airport or when she’d dug out tissue after tissue from her bag on the flight home.

  But in a way the box symbolised her despair over Loukas’s inability to love her. His heart was as locked as that box. Day after day had gone by and she had watched her phone with bated breath, hoping the next time it rang it would be him. But he never called.

  She rushed to the front door of her flat but her heart sank to her feet when she opened it. ‘Oh... Mum... I can’t talk right now...’

  ‘I just got back from my eight-day yoga retreat and turned on my phone to read your engagement’s been called off! What’s going on?’

  Emily found it hard enough dealing with everyone else’s disappointment, let alone her own, so she had only sent the text the day before because she hadn’t wanted her mother to counsel her as if she were one of her clients. She had told Allegra about her decision to leave Loukas as soon as she’d got back home and, while Allegra was concerned and sad for her, she knew Loukas well enough to know it was pointless hoping he might change.

  She couldn’t stop her bottom lip from trembling. ‘Oh, Mum. My life is such a terrible mess.’

  Her mother stepped inside and closed the door then, after a brief hesitation, held her arms out. ‘Tell me everything.’

  Emily stepped into her mother’s hug that for some reason didn’t feel as stiff and awkward as normal. She sobbed her way through the story of the last few days. ‘He was only offering to marry me out of a sense of duty. But I love him. How could I marry him, knowing he doesn’t love me back?’

  Her mother patted her back and made soothing, cooing noises as though she were settling a fractious baby. ‘You can’t. You did the right thing in putting an end to it.’

  They moved to sit together on the sofa and her mother kept handing her a steady supply of tissues. ‘It’ll be okay, poppet. You’ll get through it.’

  ‘But I’m so unhappy!’

  ‘I know, I felt like that when I broke up with my fiancé. I literally wanted to die.’

  Emily lifted her head out of her hands to stare at her mother. ‘Your fiancé? When were you engaged?’

  Her mother gave her a sad, twisted little smile. ‘It was a couple of months before I went to the music festival. His name was Mark. We were madly, passionately in love—or at least, I was. He clearly wasn’t. We were getting married but then he broke it off a week before the wedding. He married another girl a few weeks later. She was from money—heaps of money. I didn’t take it well. I kind of...lost myself there for a while.’

  She let out a long sigh. ‘Drugs, sex, rock and roll—you name it. But then, getting pregnant with you turned my life around. Sort of.’ She squeezed Emily’s hand. ‘I know I’m not the best mother in the world. But after Mark broke my heart I couldn’t settle to anything for long. I lived with a constant fear of it being snatched away from me. So I became the one who moved on before someone could do that to me again. I even kept you at arm’s length because I was frightened I might lose you too.’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ Emily hugged her mother close. ‘I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me about him before now?’

  Her mother eased back to look at her. ‘I was ashamed of being such a naïve fool over him. How could I have not known he was not as invested in the relationship as me? One minute we were planning the wedding, and then the next I was calling everyone to say it was off. It was the most embarrassing thing, having to hand back all those presents. For years I only had to look at a wedding dress and I’d want to throw up. It infuriated me that I hadn’t seen what was right before my eyes. That’s why I was so worried about you and Daniel. I could sense he wasn’t the one for you. I want you to be happy. I want you to have the “for ever” love I can’t seem to find no matter how hard I try.’

  Emily frowned. ‘But I thought you were happy with your footloose and fancy-free lifestyle?’

  Her mother let out a puff of air. ‘Why do you think I teach all this couples’ intimacy stuff? Because I’m rubbish at it in my personal life.’

  Emily’s shoulders drooped. ‘Yeah, well, it seems I’m not too great at it, either.’

  ‘So the sex wasn’t good?’

  She couldn’t believe she was discussing her sex life with her mother. ‘No, it was amazing. It was the one thing we were good at—better than good. Perfect.’

  Her mother shifted her lips from si
de to side in a thoughtful manner. ‘If only I’d met him and seen him with you I could have told you for sure if he was the one for you. Body language doesn’t lie.’

  ‘I already know he’s the one for me,’ Emily said, taking another tissue and sighing deeply. ‘Thing is, he doesn’t think he’s the right one for anyone.’

  Six weeks later...

  Loukas was glad his work called him away to the States for a few weeks because he was sick to death of his housekeeper casting him How-could-you-have-let-her-go? looks that grated on his nerves like a file on a bad tooth. He was doing his best not to think about Emily so he didn’t appreciate Chrystanthe reminding him at every opportunity that he hadn’t gone after her.

  What would have been the point? She had made up her mind. He would only be lying to her if he got her back by telling her what she wanted to hear. That was the sort of thing his father would do. She had made her decision and he had to respect it. At least she was allowing him access to his child, but it stung a little that he wasn’t there twenty-four-seven so he could see the changes in her body as the baby grew. Was she still nauseous? Did she still feel faint? What if she was sick and needed help? Who would she call? She didn’t seem all that close to her mother, in spite of her words to the contrary.

  He had thought about calling or texting but he hadn’t trusted himself not to plead with her to come back. He wasn’t the sort of man to beg. That was a lesson he’d learned a long time ago. He’d once begged his father to take him back to his mother. He’d been sent to his room and only allowed out once he’d apologised for being ungrateful. He had stayed in his room for two weeks, only coming out for meals and bathroom visits. His begging had given his father even more power over him and he had sworn he would never allow anyone to do that to him again.