by Lynne Graham
‘I want you to have a medical examination so that the relevant dates can be checked. Before the baby is born I want to be as certain as I can be that it’s mine,’ Roel drawled with no expression at all.
Her face pinching tight with pained mortification, she backed away from him. ‘You have doubts?’ she whispered and she was appalled that he could even suspect that someone else might have fathered the child she carried.
‘Some women would kill for a tiny percentage cut of what that baby will be worth to you in financial terms,’ Roel contended.
‘Oh…I don’t think any woman would kill to be me just at this moment,’ Hilary mumbled unevenly because, instead of returning to talk, he had returned to annihilate her hopes.
‘Naturally I’ll have DNA testing carried out as a final check after the birth,’ Roel continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m aware that you could have conceived during those two weeks you spent back in London. I think it’s unlikely but I’d be foolish not to seek full confirmation.’
‘Yeah…’ A shadowy attempt at a smile briefly skimmed her tense mouth. ‘Why hesitate when you’ve got yet another golden opportunity to humiliate me?’
‘What did you expect? Approval? I refuse to believe that this pregnancy is an accidental development.’ Scornful golden eyes settled on her. ‘After all, conceiving my child ensures that you will live in luxury for the rest of your life.’
‘You’re not being fair to me. If you don’t have any faith at all in me, how can I ever hope to prove that you’ve got me wrong?’ Hilary slung at him in growing distress.
‘But I haven’t got you wrong—’
‘Only today you were telling me that you accepted that I was never a gold-digger—’
‘Before the latest revelation persuaded me otherwise—’
‘How could I possibly have known that I would fall pregnant after one week with you?’ she argued passionately. ‘This is not how I would have chosen to have my first child. Why would I want to curse my baby with a reluctant father who hates me?’
‘I’m not reluctant and I don’t hate you—’
Hilary threw up her hands in frustration. ‘All your anger stems back to the fact that when you had amnesia I kept you in the dark about our marriage—’
‘You lied to me over and over again—’
‘I didn’t think I was doing any harm…so I got a bit carried away, so I was living my dream—’
‘Now you’re finally telling me the truth,’ Roel sliced in with derisive satisfaction. ‘You were so seduced by my lifestyle you didn’t care how low you had to sink to enjoy the benefits—’
Hilary vented a bitter little laugh. ‘For your information my dream was a fairytale marriage with a guy who treated me like an equal…yeah, how pathetic of me to put you into a scenario like that! The guy who wouldn’t even give me a date when I was begging for it! But then it was my fantasy and not yours, so I—’
‘Santo cielo! You made me live your stupid fantasy,’ Roel grated with raw accusation.
Hilary lifted her head high and her eyes shone bright as jewels. ‘Oddly enough, you seemed perfectly happy living in my fantasy…’
Roel went as rigid as if she had hit him. She paled, defiance leaking from her. The silence simmered like poison on the boil. Black fury glittered in his ferocious gaze.
‘Let’s concentrate on the baby,’ Roel said glacially.
With difficulty Hilary focused her weary mind back to the all-important task of dissuading Roel from his conviction that she had set out to become pregnant. ‘Please listen to me. When I slept with you, I didn’t consider consequences. I’ve never had to worry about birth control before. I was heedless and foolish but nothing worse.’ She sent him a look of appeal. ‘You didn’t think either.’
His lean, strong face clenched in disagreement. ‘That first night, I checked the cabinet by the bed for condoms,’ he revealed drily. ‘I have always visited my lovers in their homes to retain my privacy. But you were my wife. Understandably the absence of contraception in my bedroom encouraged me to assume that you were taking care of that requirement.’
‘The idea of precautions didn’t cross your mind after that?’
Roel elevated a sardonic ebony brow. ‘Contraception was scarcely in the forefront of my concerns. I had amnesia and a wife who was a total stranger.’
‘As I recall…you found that angle more of a turn-on than a problem,’ Hilary dared to remind him, desperate to break through his polished shield of self-command and penetrate his reserve.
‘I chose to trust you. That was a mistake and, like all my mistakes, I expect to pay for it,’ Roel spelt out with brutal cool. ‘But you have to live with me knowing you for exactly what you are. A little schemer who got into my bed to turn a substantial profit!’
‘If you don’t get out…’ Hilary framed unsteadily, rage and self-loathing and pain combining into a combustible flame of wretchedness inside her, ‘I’m going to scream at you like a fishwife and physically attack you!’
Treating her to a sizzling appraisal, Roel scooped her up into his arms before she could even guess his intention. ‘Stop dramatising yourself—’
‘Put me down!’ she launched at him furiously.
‘No. It’s late. You look exhausted and you should be asleep—’
‘I’ll go to bed when I—’
‘Why do you think I came back tonight?’ Roel demanded with an icy clarity that made her stop struggling and go limp in his arms.
‘I don’t know…’
‘You’re my wife and you’re carrying my child. I hope that, no matter how angry I am, I know better than to risk your health.’
Superior bastard…she hated him! She shut her wounded eyes tight. She wanted to scream at him but knew he would read loads and loads of clever things out of being screamed at. Quiet as a mouse, she let him settle her back into bed. He handled her as if she were a pane of glass with a hairline crack running through it. She remembered his wild, explosive desire out on the terrace only hours earlier and she almost wept: he had just covered her up as though she were his great-great-great-grandmother. For the first time he slept away from her and she felt that rejection like a knife in her breast. He wasn’t just spelling out the reality that she had no emotional hold on him, he was putting her at a physical distance as well.
The next morning they flew back to Switzerland. An hour into the flight, she abandoned her proud attempt to pretend that she watching the film she had selected. Roel was working. She hovered within a couple of feet of him and he ignored her.
‘OK…I’ve got the message,’ she proclaimed shakily. ‘You just wish I’d vanish like the evil fairy!’
Lean, dark face grim and impatient, Roel lodged unimpressed dark golden eyes on her.
Hilary planted her hands on her hips. ‘Don’t look at me like I’m an attention-seeking child,’ she told him hotly. ‘If I’m getting on your nerves to that extent, go ahead and divorce me!’
Roel rose upright, graceful as a prowling jungle predator, and towered over her in the most intimidating fashion. Dense black lashes lowered over his hard, glittering gaze. ‘I was wondering how long it would take you to make that demand. Sorry to disappoint you, but you don’t qualify for the get-out-of-gaol-free card yet, cara.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘No separation, no divorce. You’re staying in Switzerland where I can watch over you.’
Hilary thought it was interesting that, no matter how greedy and wicked he was determined to believe she was, he could think of no greater punishment than keeping her in Switzerland with him. The ache in her heart subsided a little and a tiny charge of hope flared. Perhaps she had been guilty of expecting too much too soon from him.
‘How do you really feel about the baby?’ she plucked up the courage to finally ask.
‘I was planning on one eventually,’ Roel conceded grudgingly with the same amount of emotion as he might have expended when voicing a desire to acquire a
new set of cuff-links. ‘Now it’s coming sooner rather than later. I’ll adjust…I have no choice but to do so.’
Her delicate features tightened and her nails bit sharp crescents into her palms. She returned to her seat. She would give him time. He was very stubborn, very cynical in his suspicions. He needed more time. He needed her understanding. She loved him so much. He would come round, wouldn’t he?
But to what extent would Roel ever come round to accepting Hilary Ross, hairdresser, as his wife? And how long would her tenure last? He seemed to think it was his bounden duty to keep an eye on her while she was carrying his baby but he could well be planning on divorcing her straight after the birth. For all she knew he had already worked out the legal ins and outs of such timing.
He had never accepted her as his wife. Could she blame him for that? He had never asked her to be his wife and live with him and he had certainly not invited her to conceive his baby! It was important that she faced facts and the facts were painful, she conceded miserably. Roel felt trapped. Roel preferred his freedom.
If she sunk her pride all over again and was truly humble until things settled down, what was the most she could hope to receive from the guy she adored? That he would bed her again when he felt like sex? Throw her the odd piece of very expensive jewellery when she performed really well between the sheets? And would he always be rubbing her nose in her mistakes? Making her feel small and cheap and like nothing? Was she really prepared to let that happen?
CHAPTER TEN
THE following morning, Roel took Hilary to see a consultant gynaecologist.
Roel disconcerted Hilary by asking loads of complex questions. The gynaecologist was delighted to answer him with a great deal of scientific detail. Hilary felt like a womb on legs. She was hurt that Roel felt able to reveal his first show of interest in their baby to a third party but not to her. Then she wondered dismally if he had simply been putting on an act for the sake of appearances.
In the three endless days that followed, Hilary became more and more unhappy. Roel was heading in to the Sabatino Bank practically before the sun came up and returning late in the evening. He did not eat a single meal with her, nor was he making the smallest effort to ease the tension between them. But he phoned her twice a day to ask how she was. That seemed to be about as intimate as he was prepared to get for the communicating door between their bedrooms remained rigidly closed. His frigid politeness chilled her.
On the fourth morning she got up at the crack of dawn. After a sleepy shower and a hurried effort to make herself presentable without either looking suspiciously overdressed or unsuitably sexy, she hurried downstairs to the dining room to join Roel for breakfast.
Lean, strong face taut, Roel studied her with frowning force. ‘What are you doing up at this hour?’
‘I wanted to see you. It was either breakfast…or a forbidden interruption to your working day.’ A determined smile on her soft tense mouth as she attempted to make that weak joke, she looked at him hopefully.
Stunning dark golden eyes rested on her kimono-style dressing gown and his wide, sensual mouth took on an almost infinitesimal curl. Made of the finest silk, the garment covered her from throat to toe with a modesty that he considered highly deceptive. Her tiny waist was defined not just by the wide sash but also by the glorious contrast of the burgeoning swell of her lush breasts above and the ripe sweet curve of her hips below. He set down his coffee cup with a jarring rattle. Hilary helped herself to toast from the buffet table, her heart pounding like a drum. She was tormentingly aware of his intent scrutiny and of the sizzling tension in the atmosphere.
‘I…’ The tip of her tongue snaked out in a nervous flicker to moisten her lips as she turned back to face him and mustered the courage to rise above her pride and not count the cost. ‘I’ll miss you—’
‘Dannazione! I don’t want to hear it!’ Tossing aside his morning paper, Roel sprang upright. Scorching angry derision fired his scrutiny and she gazed back at him wide-eyed, her lips parted in complete disconcertion.
‘I’m not falling for it. Not even if you clamber on the table and dance like Salome! Been there, done that, don’t require the postcard as a reminder when we’ll be inundated with christening mugs in a few months’ time!’ Roel launched at her with withering bite. ‘When I want you, I’ll let you know.’
Tears of angry humiliation prickled at the back of her eyes. She listened to the limo drive off. Right, well that was that, then. He could get stuffed, she thought in an agony of swelling emotion. He needn’t think he could get away with treating her like some slut who would do anything to get him back into bed! She should never have accompanied him back from Sardinia. That had been a crucial miscalculation. He had made his contempt clear and she had been too much of a drip to accept that their marriage, such as it had been, was over.
But before she left Switzerland pride demanded that she clear her own name and made Roel see just how wrong he had been about her. Pacing up and down her bedroom, she decided that there was really only one way of achieving that end. She would have a proper legal agreement drawn up that would prove once and for all that she had no mercenary intentions. Furthermore she knew just the guy to approach. Paul Correro would be overjoyed to see her sign away all right to the Sabatino billions and she would leave Switzerland with her dignity intact.
When she arrived at the lawyer’s smart offices later that morning, she was ushered straight in to his presence. She was surprised that Paul was able to see her immediately and initially taken aback when he greeted her with an anxious look and actually thanked her very much for coming.
‘Anya wanted to visit you and Roel and apologise but I fouled up to such an extent with you that I thought it would be wiser to let the dust settle first,’ the blonde man confessed heavily. ‘I threatened you and I frightened you. Believe me, that is not how I usually treat women—’
‘I’m sure it’s not,’ Hilary said soothingly.
‘When Roel realised that it was my fault that you had disappeared into thin air, he hit the roof and I don’t blame him—’
‘That wasn’t your fault—’
‘Don’t try to make me feel better,’ Paul groaned. ‘I interfered in something that I should have stayed well back from. In retrospect it was obvious that there was a whole dimension to your relationship with Roel that I knew nothing about. But I went galloping in arrogantly convinced I was coming to his rescue. Roel needing rescue?’ He loosed an embarrassed laugh. ‘As if…’
‘Wires got crossed. That’s all. It’s all over and done with now. Actually I came to see you today about something entirely different,’ Hilary confided, striving to mask her unhappiness with a façade of calm. ‘I need a lawyer to write up some legal stuff for me and to do it fairly quickly.’
When she gave a brief outline of her requirements, Paul could not conceal his dismay. ‘A document of that nature would present me with a conflict of interests. I can’t represent you and Roel. You need independent legal advice.’
Stiff with discomfiture, Hilary got up from her chair. ‘OK.’
‘Off the record…’ Paul Correro hesitated and then pressed on with open concern. ‘As a friend, and I would hope that some day you will be able to regard me in that light, I would advise you against following this route. I’m very much afraid that Roel might misunderstand your motives and be hurt.’
On the drive back to the town house, Hilary conceded that Paul was a very nice bloke. He was the polar opposite of Roel and therefore totally incapable of appreciating how a male of Roel’s ice-cold intellect and emotional reserve operated. No matter how hard she tried she could not think of Roel and the concept of hurt in the same statement. In her opinion, Roel had shown himself inviolable. She was the one who kept on getting hurt.
Now she was asking herself why she had decided to go to such elaborate lengths to disprove Roel’s conviction that she was a gold-digger in the first place. Why did she still care? He didn’t love her. He thought the very worst of
her. Even the sight of her at his breakfast table offended him. It was hard to believe that just a few days ago she had been so happy with him. Even harder to accept that she had believed this was a rough patch that they could survive.
The trouble was that, when it came to Roel Sabatino, she had always been willing to settle for too little. And, deservedly, too little was what she had received. There came a time, though, when she had to be mature enough to stand up for herself, take account of her own needs and bow out of a destructive relationship.
Roel would never tell Emma the truth about their marriage. Indeed, she marvelled that she had ever swallowed that outrageous threat whole. Although he did his utmost to hide it, Roel was very honourable, but he would never parade that reality because he saw it as a weakness. Perhaps she had seized on that threat as an excuse to be with Roel when she’d been desperate to have that excuse. But now it was over and she was lifting her pride back out of the closet where she had hidden it. He was an unhealthy addiction and it was time she got over him.
The car phone buzzed. It was Roel and the very sound of his rich, dark, accented drawl was sufficient to tip her teeming emotions over the edge. ‘Please don’t ask me how I’m feeling because I know you don’t really care,’ she heard herself condemn. ‘I’m leaving you and I hope that you and your precious money live happily ever after!’
She sent the phone crashing down and trembled, shaken by what had erupted from her own lips. But it was the truth and he had deserved to hear it. He had flung her love back in her teeth for the last time. She was going to pour all her love over their child instead. The phone buzzed. She ignored it. Her mobile phone sounded out its tune and she switched it off. There was nothing more to say.
Half an hour later she was in her bedroom packing when the door crashed back on its hinges and framed Roel. ‘You can’t leave…I can’t go through that again!’ he swore with vehement force.