by Lynne Graham
‘I’m sorry that you had that experience-’
‘Talk’s cheap!’ Molly sizzled back at him. ‘But I don’t want any child of mine to suffer that kind of rejection.’
‘There won’t be a child. Let’s tackle trouble if it comes, not look for it in advance,’ Leandro advised drily.
‘But what are you going to do if I am pregnant?’ Molly spun away, her voice shrill with her angry distress, for she knew that the fragile foundations of her security would be utterly destroyed by the advent of single parenthood. She worked unsocial hours in a casual job without prospects. There was no room for childcare in her tight budget, no supportive family circle to help out and she knew all too well how hard it was to raise children alone, for hadn’t her birth mother failed dismally at the same task?
‘We’ll tackle that when and if it happens. Are you always such a pessimist?’ Leandro enquired with silken derision, exasperated by her angry attack over the risk of something that he was convinced was unlikely to happen. ‘Such a tragedy-queen?’
A furious flush lit Molly’s cheeks at that crack and she stepped forward. ‘How dare you?’ she snapped. ‘This is my life we’re talking about in the balance, not yours. So I want to know where I stand. Why shouldn’t I? I’m pretty sure that the best you’ll offer me in a tight corner will be the cash for a termination!’
His lean, darkly handsome face clenched with distaste. A storm of outrage roared through Leandro. ‘How dare you make such an assumption?’ he demanded in a seething undertone. ‘That is not how I would behave.’
‘Well, whatever!’ Molly shot back at him, her furious distress undiminished by that assurance. ‘Let’s hope we never have to explore that predicament.’
Leandro had had more than enough drama for one morning and he refused to be the ongoing target of her resentment and disdain. His lean, strong face was etched into forbidding lines and his stunning eyes were hot with indignation. ‘When are you planning to take responsibility for your own behaviour? And stop trying to blame me for it?’
Mortified colour washed Molly’s face, for he hit right home with that rejoinder. ‘Right now, all I want is for you to leave-’
‘Don’t worry,’ Leandro derided. ‘I have no desire to stay.’
Just at that moment the bedroom door opened and framed Jez’s broad, solid frame. He stared at her and Leandro with frowning blue eyes. ‘Why are you shouting, Molly? What’s going on in here?’
‘Leandro was just about to leave,’ Molly snapped.
‘I’m Jez Andrews, Molly’s friend,’ Jez addressed Leandro while at the same time taking up a protective stance beside Molly. ‘I think you should do as she asks and go now.’
Leandro was taken aback by the sudden appearance of another male and aggressive instincts threatened his rigid self-discipline. He was quick to recognise the possessive light in the younger man’s expression. Annoyance and suspicion slivered through Leandro, for it was not only obvious that Molly and Jez lived below the same roof but also that they were on familiar terms with each other.
‘You know how to get in touch with me if you need to,’ Leandro drawled in a tone of pure ice.
Molly was frozen where she stood until she heard the slam of the front door. Then she crumpled and tears rained down her face. Even while she fought to get a grip on herself, all the pent-up emotions of recent days were taking their toll and overflowing. Unused to her crying, Jez wrapped his arms round her in an awkward hug.
‘Who on earth was that bloke?’ Jez demanded when she had calmed down a little. ‘And what’s he got to do with you?’
After that, the whole story came tumbling out because Molly was so unnerved by the fear that she might fall pregnant she just had to get her feelings off her chest there and then. Before her reddened eyes, Jez’s expression grew more and more censorious. Although he said nothing and uttered no criticism, his surprise at her behaviour spoke volumes and pierced her pride. He was, however, a good deal more vocal when it came to Leandro.
‘A girl like you doesn’t belong in a limo.’ Jez saw her wince and hastened to add, ‘A bloke with that kind of money could only be messing around with you because he’s bored with his own kind.’
Jez had a shrewd streak about people that Molly respected. ‘Imagine asking me to be his mistress, though!’ she framed with a humourless laugh. ‘Do I look the ornamental type?’
‘I wish I’d thumped him,’ Jez growled, unamused. ‘You can do a hell of a lot better than him-’
‘Not if I fall pregnant,’ Molly interposed with a shiver of fear. ‘If I end up with a baby my whole life and my prospects go right down the tubes. I’ll never stop struggling to survive.’
‘Let’s hope for the best,’ Jez advised stonily, his face tightening while he considered that possibility. ‘You know, I always used to think that eventually you and I might get together.’
Molly settled dismayed eyes on him, for it had never occurred to her that he might look on her as anything other than an honorary sister. ‘But we’re friends-’
‘Yes, well.’ Jez shrugged defensively. ‘Why shouldn’t friendship be the first step in something more? We get on well. We know each other right through. There’d be no nasty surprises. It would have made a lot of sense.’
‘Don’t say any more,’ Molly urged unhappily, for she had never once considered Jez in that light. ‘All you’re doing is reminding me that getting involved with Leandro was like giving way to a sudden attack of madness.’
‘No point beating yourself up about it,’ the heavily built blond man pointed out in a tone of practicality. ‘That won’t change anything.’
Molly attended two craft fairs that weekend and the sale of several pieces of pottery lifted her spirits. As the following week wore on her mood steadily declined when her menstrual cycle failed to deliver the reassurance she sought. She was working long hours and her usual energy seemed strangely absent. She began feeling incredibly tired at about the same time as she started feeling nauseous and off her food. Anxiety took her over then, because she feared the worst and the shadows below her eyes deepened while she lay awake at night fretting. She was planning to go out and buy a pregnancy test when Jez persuaded her to go to the doctor instead to get a more reliable diagnosis.
The doctor was very thorough and he assured her that there was no doubt that she was carrying her first child. Although Molly had believed she was prepared for that possibility, she was devastated when her biggest fear was confirmed. Jez phoned her from his workshop to ask the result and she gave it in a deadened voice, staring at her reflection in the hall mirror while she tried and failed to imagine her slender body swollen with pregnancy.
A baby, a real living, breathing, crying baby, would be looking to her for total support in less than nine months’ time. A termination wasn’t an option for her. Her own mother had given her the chance of life in equally unpromising circumstances and Cathy had done her best, even if her best hadn’t been that great. Could she herself do any less for her own child? She dug out Leandro’s business card and decided to send him a text message, because she really couldn’t face speaking to him just at that moment and when they had parted on such bad terms.
‘I need to see you URGENTLY.’
In the conference room of the Carrera bank where he was involved in a meeting, Leandro read the message and appreciated the appeal of the block capitals. He was convinced that she had discovered that she was not pregnant and now wanted to tell him that she was sorry for making such a fuss. He walked into his office to phone her.
‘Join me for dinner tonight,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll send a car to pick you up at eight.’
Molly winced at the prospect of breaking her news over a dining table and then scolded herself for caring about such a triviality. He was as much to blame as she was for the development, so why was she getting all worked up at the prospect of telling him?
When Jez came home from work, he joined her in the kitchen. ‘How do you feel?’ he enquired
awkwardly.
‘Like I want to kick myself for being so stupid,’ she told him truthfully.
‘Have you told him yet?’
‘I’m telling Leandro tonight-not that I expect that will make much difference to my plans-’
‘You already have plans?’ Jez queried.
‘Just getting on with life as best I can,’ Molly muttered dully.
Jez reached for her hand where it was clenched on the edge of the sink. ‘But you don’t have to do it alone…’
Molly looked up him uncertainly. ‘What do you mean?’
Jez breathed in slow and deep. ‘I’ve thought hard about this since we had our conversation, so take a minute and think about it before you say no. I’m willing to marry you and bring up the kid as my own-’
Molly was astonished by that suggestion. ‘Jez, for goodness sake, I wouldn’t let you sacrifice yourself like that-’
‘I want to help, Molly. Together we could make a good team,’ the blond man reasoned earnestly. ‘I’m not expecting you to love me but, in time, I’m sure we’d become closer.’
Tears were clogging Molly’s throat and she was too choked up to speak. His generosity was almost too much for her to bear. She grasped both his hands in hers and squeezed them to express her feelings. But for the first time she didn’t feel she could say anything she liked to Jez because she now knew that he thought of her as more than a friend and cherished hopes that she could not fulfil. She loved and trusted him, but she wasn’t attracted to him and felt that anything other than platonic friendship would be doomed by that fact.
‘You’re too kind for your own good,’ she told him chokily and she went off to get dressed, feeling more than ever as though her security was breaking up beneath her feet. How could she possibly remain living in Jez’s home now? It wouldn’t be fair to him if she stayed on. He was too involved in her life and it wasn’t healthy. He was less likely to make the effort to meet someone else while she was still around, she acknowledged unhappily.
Dead on the hour of eight, a uniformed chauffeur rang the bell to tell her that the limousine was waiting for her…
CHAPTER FIVE
LEANDRO watched Molly cross the restaurant. Male heads turned and followed her progress. Her dress was unremarkable, fitted enough to hug her rounded breasts and just short enough to reveal shapely knees and accentuate the high heels she favoured to combat her diminutive height. But the men didn’t stop looking and neither did he. Maybe it was that eye-catching waterfall of jet-black curls, the enormous emerald green eyes and that full quivering pink mouth that he only had to look at to get hard and ready. A woman hadn’t affected him that way since the teenage years when fantasy had driven his hormones and that simple fact still annoyed the hell out of him.
‘This is a really fashionable place,’ Molly remarked unevenly, striving not to stare at him and allow his magnetic attraction to influence her. But he looked drop dead gorgeous in a light grey suit and sky blue silk tie and her heartbeat quickened to a trot and her pulses quickened even before she sat down at the quiet corner table.
‘I often eat here in the evening. It’s quicker than ordering food in,’ Leandro responded. ‘You look beautiful, querida.’
Stiff as an iron bar trying to bend, Molly rearranged the salt and pepper and shook her head in immediate disagreement. ‘No, I don’t. I assumed you’d want to eat somewhere quieter, the sort of place we could talk.’
Talk? Leandro did not like the ominous sound of that word. His needs and wishes were the height of masculine simplicity: he wanted to feast his eyes on her and take her home with him at the end of the meal. Her cloaked appraisal, however, set his even white teeth on edge and made him commence their meal with a leading question. ‘Isn’t it time you told me about Jez?’
Alerted by the tough edge to his tone, Molly lifted her head from the menu she was studying. ‘Why do you think that?’
His dark eyes were hard as granite. ‘You’re obviously on very familiar terms with him. How does he fit into your life?’
‘He’s my best friend,’ Molly confided. ‘He owns the house so he’s also my landlord.’
Leandro had never had much faith in platonic male and female friendships and his conviction that Jez had a more personal interest in Molly was not dispelled by that explanation. ‘He behaved more like a man guarding his turf and warning off the competition-like a boyfriend.’
Uneasy colour warmed her cheeks. It bothered her that Leandro had only had to meet Jez once to immediately question the calibre of their friendship. Was that a tribute to Leandro’s shrewd grasp of human nature? Or a sign that he was the jealous type? ‘Jez is very fond of me,’ she said defensively, ‘but there’s never been anything else between us. We’ve known each other since we were in foster care together as kids.’
‘I thought you were adopted,’ Leandro countered.
‘Not for very long. I was older-there weren’t many takers. An older couple who already had a son took me because they wanted a daughter. My adoptive father died of a heart attack six months after I moved in,’ Molly explained ruefully. ‘My adoptive mother got very depressed and decided she had enough to handle without taking on an extra child. I was back in foster care by the end of the year.’
Leandro could only think of his own privileged childhood. He had been encouraged to believe that, as heir to a massive estate and centuries of proud heritage, he was the most important little person in the household. Long, lonely stretches at boarding school had contrasted with an excess of luxury and attention during the holidays.
‘That must have been hard on you,’ he remarked.
Molly lifted and dropped a thin shoulder. ‘I survived. I’m quite a strong character, Leandro. I don’t think you see that in me.’
Leandro measured the resolute angle of her pointed chin and the light of challenge in her clear gaze and vented a sardonic laugh of disagreement. He wondered how he had contrived to stumble on one of the very few young women in Europe who wouldn’t snatch at the opportunity to have a billionaire make all her material dreams come true. ‘Don’t I?’ he traded drily. ‘I find you very argumentative.’
At that inopportune moment the waiter appeared to pour the wine. Annoyed by Leandro’s censure, Molly put a hand over her glass and requested a soda and lime instead. When they were alone again, she snapped, ‘I am not argumentative!’
‘I don’t stage rows in public places,’ Leandro delivered with contemptuous cool. ‘Raise your voice again and I walk out of here.’
‘I really could throw something at you at this moment,’ Molly confided in a shaken undertone; she was taken aback by the sizzling strength of her annoyance.
‘Don’t try that either,’ Leandro warned her with a freezing glance that chilled her fury with the efficiency of a bucket of ice.
‘In my experience, most men walk the other way when things get difficult,’ Molly rejoined with a scornful shift of her dark head.
‘I’m incredibly tough.’ His strong jaw line hardened while his brilliant dark golden eyes lit on her like burning flames. ‘Your problem is that you want me but you can’t handle it, gatita.’
‘That is absolutely not true!’ Molly protested, staring back at him in as frozen a manner as she could contrive while desperate to get the dialogue back on track.
‘The truth can hurt,’ Leandro drawled smooth as silk, thick black lashes low over his acute gaze.
Molly shifted like a butterfly stabbed by a display pin. ‘Haven’t you already guessed why I contacted you?’ she pressed, the tip of her tongue stealing out to moisten her plump lower lip.
That little play with her tongue sent an erotic thrill arrowing straight to Leandro’s groin. ‘You were keen to reassure me that you’re fine and we have nothing to worry about?’ he suggested.
Molly tensed at that unfortunate misinterpretation. ‘No, I’m not fine in the way that you mean.’
The waiter reappeared to take their order while Leandro wondered what on earth she was ta
lking about because he could not believe that she might be pregnant.
‘Meaning?’ he prompted.
Molly could not comprehend why he was being so obtuse. ‘Isn’t it obvious? I saw a doctor today, Leandro. I’m going to have a baby!’
Leandro studied her in brooding silence, transfixed by that staggering claim. He had almost but not quite come to terms with the suspicion that he was infertile and would never father a child. He had planned to go for tests some time and find out for sure. Molly’s announcement hit him like a bolt from the blue and stunned him. His lean, darkly handsome face clenched and he paled as he studied her, marvelling at her words while wondering what she could possibly hope to gain from a lie.
‘All right, so you’re shocked. Well, so was I, but there’s no doubt and no mistake. I am very definitely pregnant,’ Molly spelt out, enunciating each word of that affirmation with care.
Leandro veiled his stunned eyes. Was it possible that he could father a child? It was true that Aloise had failed to conceive, but his late wife had also refused to pursue the matter with her gynaecologist. Could one random night turn his world upside down? Could Molly’s tiny frame be carrying his baby? For a split second, a primitive leap of satisfaction and relief lanced through him that he was not, after all, unable to ensure the continuation of the family name. Squashing that leap of satisfaction, he surveyed her with impenetrable dark eyes, fierce tension thrumming through his big, powerful body. If she did prove to be pregnant, he would have to marry her for the baby’s sake. He could see no other solution to the situation. Unfortunately, Leandro was in no hurry to marry again. One taste of freedom, he reflected grimly, and then it was gone. It was a shame that he hadn’t made the most of his liberty while he still had it.