Cally ran her hand protectively over her stomach as she looked across at the higgledy-piggledy rows of umbrellas and easels of the Place du Tertre and cast her mind back to the day she had left. She’d rushed into the pharmacy at Montéz airport as soon as Boyet had dropped her off, desperate to put her mind at rest before catching her flight. And then she had taken the test. Or rather she’d taken three tests, because each time she’d seen the positive result she had scuttled out of the toilet to buy another, convinced that the previous one had to be faulty. Until the sympathetic look of the pretty girl on the till had said it all, and she’d had to acknowledge that the evidence was irrefutable.
That was also the moment she’d realised that sympathetic looks were categorically not what she wanted. She might initially have been in denial about the possibility of being pregnant because of the less-than-perfect circumstances, but accepting that their lovemaking had created a new life growing inside her brought with it an innate joy that was as profound as it was unexpected. So much so that her first instinct had been to turn around and get a taxi straight back to the palace to share the magic of it with Leon. But in her heart she had known that he would hate her for it. He’d probably have accused her of having planned it all along in some attempt to trap him into marriage, and then that look of utter horror would have come over his face the way it had when she’d told him about Toria. Toria, who for all Cally knew could be carrying her baby’s older half-brother or half-sister.
That thought had had her running back to the airport toilets once more—this time with a violent nausea—and was what had convinced her to get on the first plane off the island. Of course, the most obvious final destination would have been England, and her nice, ordered life in Cambridge where she could have sat down and worked out how to go about this whole thing sensibly. But in a moment of hideous clarity she’d seen what would happen if that was what she did. Yes, she probably would have worked out a way to scrimp and save and continue with the bland restorations she’d survived on to date whilst raising a child. But then what? She would have grown into an old spinster, bitter that all those years of hard work and study had counted for nothing, that her only work of note was the Rénards, and that she’d only got to work on those because they happened to have been bought by a man who had wanted to bed her. And, worst of all, she would have remembered those weeks in Montéz as the highest point in her life because nothing in England was ever likely to eclipse them.
So, although it was the most unsuitable time to take a new job in an unfamiliar city, to Cally the possibility of a temporary contract with the Galerie de Ville offered her the chance to prove to herself that she had felt so alive on the island because of the creative challenge, the change of scene. Living in the French capital was bound to equal her experiences in Montéz, if not exceed them, and she would be placated by the knowledge that in years to come, as well as having achieved her dream of working as a restorer in one of the world’s most prestigious galleries, she could look back on that time in her life much more rationally and be better prepared to face the challenges ahead.
But Cally had failed to take into account one very important variable.
Leon Montallier was not in Paris.
And, though she was loath to admit it as she dug into the delicious crépe that the waiter had just placed in front of her, that was the reason she wasn’t even close to the feeling of happiness she’d felt in Montéz. However perfect Paris was on paper, in reality it simply made her realise that everything she had always thought she wanted wasn’t what she wanted at all. Even the new restorations which she was supposed to be enjoying were only vaguely satisfying in the sense that she was using her skills, filling her time. Creatively, the only thing she found herself wanting to do was create another composition of her own. But every time she sat down before a blank canvas she just couldn’t bring herself to begin; it was as if the vast expanse of emptiness represented the contents of her heart.
It was probably for the best, she thought miserably. Yes, she’d thought that landscape she’d done at the palace had been all right at the time, but she was sure if she ever saw it again without the rose-tinted glasses of back then she’d know it was dire. She should have tossed it into the sea before she’d left, she thought, suddenly hideously embarrassed by the thought that by now Leon had doubtless come across it, vaguely recalled the conversation in which she’d told him she never painted her own stuff and concluded there was a good reason why. He’d probably tossed it into the sea himself.
And, as for supposing that once she was on her own the gaping hole he’d opened would close again, she couldn’t have been more wrong. It was irrational, it was hopeless, but the truth was she was in love with him, and there could be no more denying it. Paris had only magnified the very feelings for him which she had come here to try and dispel. Feelings which, as the first few weeks went by, she had hoped would be diminished by the passing of time, but which remained stubbornly unchanged.
Unchanged, all except one thing. Last week she had been practising her French translation by listening to a gossipy radio station when suddenly she’d heard Toria’s name. Apparently she was celebrating the birth of her baby boy—a beautiful, mixed-race baby boy—with her partner, a professional footballer, with whom she was now living in Milan.
It was, of course, an enormous relief to Cally to know that she wasn’t in the running for some hideous Oprah Winfrey show entitled I’m pregnant with the prince’s baby…Me too! But in some ways it made coming to terms with her own actions even harder. For whatever reason—maybe purely to stir up trouble for the man who had curbed her fame—Toria had been the one spinning the lies, and Leon had been telling the truth. Except about where he had been all those mornings, she thought in a bid to continue to think ill of him, but now that just seemed petty. That was hardly a crime—unlike not telling someone they were going to become a parent.
Of course, she’d thought about it ever since. The instant she’d heard the news on the radio she’d seriously toyed with the idea of phoning him, or catching a flight out to Montéz. But every time she imagined his response she lost her nerve. Discovering he was not the father of Toria’s baby only changed things from her perspective, she thought as the waiter cleared her plate. Maybe she could trust him, but it didn’t alter the fact that Leon did not want a child, and that if it hadn’t been for her lust-induced idiocy Leon would not be having a child. So why should he have to feel some burden of responsibility to her and their baby for the rest of his life because of her mistake? She couldn’t bear the thought of that. If he had wanted any further part in her life he would have come looking for her, but he hadn’t.
‘Mind if I join you?’
At the sound of a voice which sounded uncannily like his, Cally’s head flew up so fast she saw spots and knocked her cup flying, the dregs of her coffee heading straight for him across the glossy red-and-white-checked tablecloth. She was just about to jump up and catch it, when he reached forward and stopped it with a napkin that he seemed to produce out of thin air and dropped into the chair opposite in one fluid movement.
‘Leon.’ Her voice came out altogether too breathlessly, part shock at seeing him here, part horror at the realisation that if she had jumped up, he would have seen the evidence of her pregnancy. ‘What are you doing here?’
She shifted underneath the table, suddenly grateful for the cover it offered.
‘One of your colleagues at the gallery told me I might find you here.’
‘Who?’ Cally asked, praying he’d spoken to Michel and not Céline, who was bound to have mentioned that Callie had been coming here every day since she’d developed a peculiar craving for spinach-and-gorgonzola crăpes.
‘A man. I didn’t catch his name.’
‘Michel.’ Cally smiled and breathed a temporary sigh of relief, not noticing the look of displeasure that flitted across Leon’s mouth. ‘Anyway, that wasn’t what I meant. What are you doing here, in Paris?’
Her mind
rewound to what she had been thinking about seconds before he’d appeared out of nowhere. If he had wanted any further part in your life, he would have come looking for you… Was it possible? She examined his face, the face that was etched so clearly in her mind that it was there even when she closed her eyes. It was even more devastating than she remembered, but, if it were possible, even more shuttered too.
‘Why do you think I’m in Paris, chérie?‘ His look was depreciating, and for a second she was terrified he knew. No, he couldn’t.
‘You’re here on business?’ she ventured.
He chuckled, running his finger down the menu. ‘Partly. What are you having?’
Partly. What the hell did that mean? It meant business and pleasure were always inseparable to him, she supposed, that maybe whenever his princely duties took him within a cab journey of an old flame he looked them up out of curiosity. Yes, Leon was the kind of man who would think it was possible to be friends afterwards, because he was never the one who got hurt. ‘Nothing, thank you.’
‘Then why don’t you let me walk you back to the gallery?’
‘Actually,’ Cally backtracked, remembering the benefit of the table, ‘I ought to have something or I’ll be hungry later on.’
Leon gritted his teeth as she pretended to study the menu. The menu from which he had watched her order an enormous lunch less than twenty minutes earlier, and consume with a rapidity that would have made him think she wasn’t earning enough money to feed herself properly if he hadn’t known the truth. The truth that had stared him in the face from the newspaper article Boyet had left for his attention three days ago—the one about the new Rossetti the Galerie de Ville had on display, returned to its original glory by their team of restorers. With photographs.
At first he had been beside himself with fury. She was pregnant, and he knew the child had to be his—for he could accuse her of many things, but looseness was not one of them. Yet she had kept it from him, after all the accusations she had thrown at him about dishonesty and omitting the truth!
But, alongside his burning rage, he had realised that not only had she neglected to tell him, but she had not gone to the papers or come running back to him either. And that puzzled him. Yes, he had come to believe that maybe she wasn’t the kind of woman who would sell her story for her fifteen minutes of fame as he had once believed, but he would have put money on her coming back to try and wangle a marriage proposal out of him. Hell, he had been convinced she would come back for the sex alone, just as soon as her desire for him threatened to consume her the way his desire for her had threatened to consume him so frequently in the weeks since her graceless departure, but to his infinite frustration she hadn’t. So why hadn’t she, even though she now had the perfect leverage?
The discovery that he did not have an answer to that question was the moment that it had occurred to him that, if he was capable of quelling his anger, then maybe, just maybe, she could be the perfect solution to the unpalatable problem which had been plaguing him ever since he’d heard about Toria. Along with the problem of the unbearable ache in his groin which had only increased at the sight of her newly voluptuous curves, he thought, observing her keenly through narrowed eyes and deciding it was time to find out if she really did suppose he was too stupid to notice.
‘I think I’ll have an almond friand,‘ Cally said, hoping it was the smallest thing on the menu. ‘How about you?’
‘I don’t know. How about some answers?’
‘Sorry?’
She tried to avoid his gaze but she felt his eyes bore into her. ‘Some answers,’ he repeated. ‘Like why you haven’t told me that you’re having my baby.’
Cally felt a surge of panic knot itself around her heart. ‘How—how did you find out?’ she asked hopelessly.
‘Not the way I deserved to.’
Her eyelids fluttered down to her cheeks and she nodded shamefully. ‘I should have told you.’
‘So why didn’t you?’
She shook her head and fiddled with the menu, unable to look at him. ‘Because I knew you didn’t want a child, and it’s my fault that you’re having one.’
Leon frowned, not knowing what she meant, but certain he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.
‘That first time—when I said I didn’t need protection—I thought we were talking figuratively. I didn’t realise that…It wasn’t until afterwards that I realised that you were talking about contraception.’
‘So after that you just lived the lie, whilst accusing me of deceit at every opportunity?’
She hung her head.
Leon felt a white-hot anger blaze within him but he forced himself to bite his tongue. If she had come to him with that excuse he never would have believed her, he would have known that it was all part of an elaborate ploy to get him to waltz her down the aisle from the start. But she hadn’t. The fact remained that she’d had the perfect reason to throw in her career and get everything he’d thought she wanted but she hadn’t used it. Which was why, even though he was livid that she’d lied, it was almost possible that this could work.
‘It was an easy mistake to make,’ he forced out, biting his lip.
Cally raised her head in utter disbelief. Understanding. From Leon Montallier.
‘Yes, it was.’
‘And yet you planned to see the consequences through.’
‘Just because it was unexpected does not mean I even thought for a moment about not having this baby,’ she shot back, a fierce and thoroughly arousing maternal protectiveness glowing in her eyes.
‘So what you are saying is since discovering you are to become a mother, your feelings towards the idea of becoming a parent have changed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did it not occur to you that if you had told me I was to become a father my feelings might have altered also?’
Cally watched as the lines of his face softened and her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘I—I suppose I expected you to react in the same way that you did when I told you that Toria was pregnant,’ she said guiltily. ‘But I know now that had nothing to do with you.’
Leon nodded gravely, determined not to invite questions about the real reason for his horrified reaction that day, but Cally was too lost in her own thoughts to notice.
‘So, have they changed?’ she whispered. ‘Your feelings, I mean?’
Leon paused, knowing his answer demanded the utmost consideration, and took a deep breath. ‘You are right that I did not expressly want a child, Cally. Not because of any aversion to the prospect, but because I believe that a child is best brought up by a mother and father who are married. Since I have always been disinclined on that front, by default the prospect seemed unlikely. But life is never quite that—neat.’ He shook his head and turned away the waiter who had approached the table. ‘You are carrying my child.’ He ran his eyes over her face, surprised to find that the words were ready on the tip of his tongue without any of the resistance he had expected. ‘But, even before I knew that, for the past four months I have found myself aching for you in a way that is completely unprecedented—not only to have you back in my bed, but to have you by my side.’
The heavy lashes that shadowed her cheeks lifted in disbelief.
‘I therefore find that my inclination has changed. I wish to marry you, Cally. As soon as possible.’
Cally had to pinch her leg under the table to check that she wasn’t dreaming. Leon Montallier—Prince Leon Montallier, the man who had told her that he found the institution of matrimony categorically intolerable—hadn’t really just said aloud that he wished to marry her, had he?
Yes, she thought. He had. And, impossible though it seemed, he’d said it in such a way that it sounded like the sincerest thing he’d ever uttered. It hadn’t been some overblown, rehearsed proposal that befitted the romantic reputation of his countrymen; it had been a statement, simple and unadorned. It said that, no, this hadn’t been the way he had expected things to go, but now that they had he wanted
to take this chance because he felt what they had already shared could continue to grow. It said that he trusted her, and he was asking her to place her trust in him right back.
Could she? she wondered. Could she really dare to believe in things that she had spent years, and in particular the last four months, forbidding herself to even dream about? Like sleeping with the man she loved every night and waking up beside him every morning. Taking breakfast at the table on the terrace, a table laid for three, maybe one day even four. Cally closed her eyes to stop the visions overwhelming her. Surely those kinds of dreams were too big? Like he said, life wasn’t neat. Even if they could tidy it now, what happened when the swell of unexpected feelings that had hit him with the discovery that he was to be a father diminished, and he remembered that he had never been cut out for family or fidelity after all? Wouldn’t she be doing them both a wrong not to be more cautious?
‘Don’t you think that maybe getting married is a little too rash?‘ she replied hesitantly, focussing on the caricaturist and the small crowd of onlookers on the opposite side of the street, afraid that if she caught his eye he would know that talking him out of this was the last thing she really wanted.
‘No,’ he replied, his voice gentle but firm. ‘And I’m not sure that you do either.’
Cally felt her breath catch in her throat, taken aback to discover that he didn’t need to look in her eyes to know exactly what she was thinking. To know that she was looking for a reason to say no because it felt safer, because that was the answer that her nice, ordered life had got her into the habit of. And she understood that even if they’d been in a proper relationship for a year and had already had a conversation about what they’d call their children one day, saying yes would still feel just as scary because it involved her placing her trust in another human being. Rash was just an excuse.
Prince of Montez, Pregnant Mistress Page 13