Uncertain Destiny

by Carole Mortimer

  Caroline could see the battle he was fighting with himself, and stood utterly still, barely able to breathe as she waited for the outcome. Since that first time, the baby’s movements had grown stronger and more frequent, but she had never again mentioned it to Justin, accepting his lack of interest. But the expression on his face now told her that he hadn’t been uninterested at all, that he had been—afraid! Strange as it was, unbelievable as it seemed, she could see the naked fear in his silver gaze.

  ‘Justin?’ she prompted dazedly.

  He fell to his knees in front of her, his face buried against the child as it nestled so snugly within her. ‘She thought I didn’t care either.’ His voice was muffled against her body. ‘She thought because I—because I couldn’t cry, that I hadn’t loved them. Or her. I wanted to cry,’ he choked, fresh tears on the hardness of his cheeks, ‘but somehow until I saw you were going to leave, too, I couldn’t seem to! I never wanted to hurt her, Caroline,’ he told her raggedly. ‘I never wanted her to do that!’

  His words were too disjointed for her to know exactly what he was talking about, but she did understand that he was crying now as if he would never be able to stop. And they were cleansing tears. How she loved him; God, how she loved him! They would work something out for their future so that they could be together; they had to.

  ‘Tell me, Justin.’ She smoothed the hair back from his sweat-dampened face, dislodging the eye-patch in the process, gasping slightly as Justin reached up to rip it off completely to throw it across the room, leaving himself completely vulnerable.

  ‘This is what I am, Caroline,’ he choked. ‘Scarred inside and out!’

  ‘Tell me, my love,’ she encouraged again, sitting down on the sofa, Justin at her side as she cradled his head against her shoulder. ‘I love you,’ she reassured him softly.

  He drew in a ragged breath. ‘Penny and I were both twenty-two when we got married. I—I had wanted to wait before having children, but—we took risks.’ He shrugged. ‘And within six months of being married Penny was pregnant. She was only three months along when—when she lost it—’

  ‘Oh, Justin…’ She closed her eyes in pained denial, only now beginning to realise what he had suffered in the past.

  He shook his head. ‘The baby had barely begun to seem real to me when—when it was gone again,’ he said harshly. ‘I was upset, naturally I was, but Penny was devastated. It hadn’t been a planned baby, but as soon as the doctor declared her fit enough Penny wanted to try again.’ He gave a ragged sigh. ‘I wasn’t so sure. The last time had—well, it had frightened me, and this time I was afraid I might lose Penny, too. But she was ecstatic when she found out she was pregnant again, began to plan the nursery straight away, buying things for the baby, as if doing so would ensure nothing went wrong this time. She had the nursery decorated and ready for occupation by the time she was five months along,’ he remembered dully. ‘I tried to tell her she should wait, that it would be best to wait until—until we were sure everything was going to be all right. But by the time she reached her fifth month I had begun to hope, too. At night we would—I used to lie beside her waiting for the movements of the baby, and then Penny and I would laugh at how strong he was.’ He swallowed hard, lost in the memories.

  It was all becoming clear now: Justin’s knowledge of pregnancy, of pregnant women, when he had supposedly never had anything to do with them, didn’t want anything to do with them. Why hadn’t she realised that earlier?

  ‘Penny used to call him our little cub.’

  As Tony had that night Justin had spilt his champagne, and she had thought it might be because he didn’t want to drink a toast to their baby!

  That had also been the night he had first dreamt of Penny, the first time he hadn’t made love to her. But she could see even that differently now, knew how disturbed he had been about learning of Don Lindford’s visit, could see that his distraction had been because he had been worried about her, and that worry had brought forward his nightmares of losing Penny. It even explained his sudden desire for them to go away on a honeymoon; he had been afraid for her when the other man came back. What a fool she had been!

  ‘Penny was just over five months along when the premature labour began,’ Justin continued flatly. ‘They tried to stop it, but nothing could be done. Our son was too small to survive, as small as one of my hands,’ he remembered emotionally. ‘They let us see him, and he—he was perfect in every way, except that he was too small!’ He shook his head, closing his eyes, his cheeks wet once more. ‘Damn it, why couldn’t I have cried then!’ he groaned forcefully.

  ‘They told Penny she shouldn’t risk having any more babies, that more pregnancies would probably end up the same way. Penny begged me to share her pain, for that, and for the babies we had lost, but somehow it was all locked up inside of me and I couldn’t let it out. Instead I buried myself in my work. And then one day, I—I came home from work to find Penny in the nursery she refused to redecorate, a bottle of sleeping pills at her side.’ He spoke distantly. ‘I’ve often wondered if things might have been different if I just could have cried!’

  It was all so obvious now: Justin’s reluctance to love, his decision not to have children; to the extent that he had taken the necessary step to ensure that he never did, his lack of interest in their child once he knew he hadn’t succeeded. He had been afraid to love this child in case it were taken from him, too. She should have made him talk to her earlier, could have shared the pain and anxiety he couldn’t even acknowledge. All those disjointed incidents, Justin’s vasectomy, his comment that children were too vulnerable to love, his refusal to accept her pregnancy; they would all have made sense if she had only sat down and thought about them logically, instead of assuming he was still in love with his first wife.

  ‘Justin.’ She touched his face tenderly. ‘I’m thirty weeks along now; even if I went into labour there’s a very good chance they could save the baby. You do want it?’ she probed gently.

  His eyes darkened. ‘That was something else I felt guilty about. I really wanted this child, right from the moment you told me you were pregnant and I first began to hope it could be mine. I loved Penny, but our babies never quite seemed this real to me.’ He frowned.

  ‘Possibly because you were too young to appreciate the miracle of them,’ Caroline comforted. ‘Also this child—’ she put his hand against her again, a lump in her throat at the tender fascination on his face ‘—this child seemed an impossibility to you.’

  ‘You seemed an impossibility to me,’ he admitted gruffly. ‘After Penny I shut love out of my life, and for twelve years I succeeded. But the first time I looked at you I felt a jolt right where my heart should be. I cold-bloodedly decided it was lust raising its ugly head, and I’ve learnt that the best way to deal with that is to let it take its course. But you wouldn’t let it.’ He frowned. ‘You were determined to remain faithful to Tony, wouldn’t even accept my invitation for dinner until after you had an argument with him. By that time it was more than lust—maybe it always had been,’ he acknowledged ruefully. ‘Once I had made love to you I knew I couldn’t let you go, that I had to hang on to you any way that I could. Even if it meant marrying you. I had no right marrying you believing I was sterile, probably had no right marrying you at all.’ He shook his head. ‘The night you told me you were pregnant I almost collapsed. Then I began to hope for a miracle. And when that miracle became a reality I was so damned scared I couldn’t think straight. What if we lost this baby, too? What if I lost you?’ His face was haunted. ‘It seemed that if I rejected the baby, ignored its existence, then I didn’t have to acknowledge that anything could go wrong.’ He gave a bitter smile. ‘You see what a coward you’ve married.’

  A coward wouldn’t have survived losing the babies and Penny the way that he had, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it hadn’t been because he was cold and unfeeling; that he had loved his wife and children very much. If anything, Justin felt things too deeply, and becaus
e he knew how badly he could be hurt he locked his emotions away inside himself and refused to let them out, conquering them instead of letting them defeat him.

  Allowing himself to love her meant he could no longer do that, but with the vulnerability had come a chance for a new happiness for him. She would make sure he never knew anything else.

  ‘Our child doesn’t think you’re a coward, and neither do I.’ She looked at him with all the love she had for him showing in her over-bright eyes.

  He gave a low groan at her unquestioning acceptance of him. ‘That night Sonia told Tony she would be shouting it from the rooftops if she were pregnant with his child I felt so damned guilty for denying you that pride in our child.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she assured him huskily. ‘The night the baby is born, you can go and shout it from the rooftops. Whatever happens, Justin,’ she told him warmly as his eyes once again became shadowed at the thought of her having the baby. ‘We’ll get through it together, because we love each other.’

  He looked at her uncertainly. ‘You aren’t leaving?’ he said hesitantly.

  ‘Never,’ she promised with feeling. ‘Never, never, never!’ She threw herself into his arms.

  She had been wrong that day she denied that pain could be good; the pain Justin had allowed to flow today had cleansed his heart and soul. They could only go forward from here, would look to the future and not the past. And she would give him a healthy child, someone else to fill the great capacity he had for love.

  ‘Darling, what are you doing?’

  Justin chuckled against her nape. ‘Well, if you don’t know I must have been doing it wrong all these years!’

  Caroline turned slightly to return the intimacy of his smile, her back arching as his lips moved lower, travelling the length of her spine where he had unzipped the gown she had just put on. ‘I thought we were going out for lunch,’ she reminded him faintly, Justin’s touch inciting its usual magic; lunch was the last thing she felt in the mood for now.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ he murmured softly, his fingers playing lightly at the base of her spine. ‘I merely asked Sonia and Tony if they would take the children for lunch so that we could celebrate alone.’

  She turned in his arms, her hands linked behind his head, nuzzling against his hair-roughened chest, damp still from where he had just taken a shower. ‘I assumed we were going out for an anniversary lunch.’ She could hear the accelerated beat of his heart, feel his desire against her.

  ‘I intend having a feast.’ His tone left no doubt as to who he intended feasting on!

  She laughed softly. Four years of marriage hadn’t changed their instant awareness of each other, even their children not doing that: their beloved first-born Katy, two-year-old and already independent Aaron, who was so much like his father, and adorable six-month-old James. All the children openly adored their father, and Justin couldn’t have been a more gentle or caring parent, especially so because he knew what he had already lost. The night Katy had been born they had both cried with happiness, and their wonder and delight in their children hadn’t lessened over the years.

  Sonia and Tony expected their first baby in five months’ time, and Caroline had a feeling that taking Katy, Aaron, and James for lunch today was their way of seeing how they were going to cope as parents. Knowing her mischievous trio, she had a feeling the other couple might wonder what they had let themselves in for with approaching parenthood by the time they picked the children up in a couple of hours!

  The last three and a half years had been happier than Caroline had ever imagined they could be, filled with love and laughter, and most of all with knowing how important she and Justin were to each other, no longer any secrets or shadows between them. Although she would never have wished for it to happen that way, the last remaining shadow to their untroubled happiness had been removed three years ago when Don Lindford had been killed during a knife fight with another prisoner. She hated all kinds of violence, but she loved Justin and her family too much to be genuinely sorry that the man wouldn’t be able to come back and threaten them once again.

  She now had no doubts as to what her destiny was to be: unimagined happiness with Justin and their children, for the rest of their lives.

  As her gown fell softly to the carpeted floor, she knew she and Justin were fated to be destiny’s lovers, for eternity…

  * * * * *

  Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of USA Today bestselling author

  Sharon Kendrick’s next book,

  THE PREGNANT KAVAKOS BRIDE

  The most recent instalment of the Wedlocked! miniseries

  Ariston Kavakos makes impoverished Keeley Turner a proposition: a month’s employment on his island, at his command. Soon her resistance to their sizzling chemistry weakens! But when there’s a consequence, Ariston makes one thing clear: Keeley will become his bride…

  Keep reading to get a glimpse of

  THE PREGNANT KAVAKOS BRIDE

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE WAS EVERYTHING he hated about a woman and she was talking to his brother. Ariston Kavakos grew very still as he stared at her. At curves guaranteed to make a man desire her whether he wanted to or not. And he most definitely did not. Yet his body was stubbornly refusing to obey the dictates of his mind and a powerful shaft of lust arrowed straight to his groin.

  Who the hell had invited Keeley Turner?

  She was standing close to Pavlos, her blonde hair rippling beneath the overhead lights of the swish London art gallery. She lifted her hand as if to emphasise a point and Ariston found his gaze drawn to the most amazing breasts he had ever seen. He swallowed as he remembered her in a dripping wet bikini with rivulets of water trickling down over her belly as she emerged from the foamy blue waters of the Aegean. She was memory and fantasy all mixed up in one. Something started and never finished. Eight years on and Keeley Turner made him want to look at her and only her, despite the stunning photographs of his private Greek island which dominated the walls of the London gallery.

  Was his brother similarly smitten? He hoped not, although it was hard to tell because their body language excluded the rest of the world as they stood deep in conversation. Ariston began to walk across the gallery but if they noticed him approach they chose not to acknowledge it. He felt a flicker of rage, which he quickly cast aside because rage could be counterproductive. He knew that now. Icy calm was far more effective in dealing with difficult situations and it had been the key to his success. The means by which he had dragged his family’s ailing company out of the dust and built it anew it and gained a reputation of being the man with the Midas touch. The dissolute reign of his father was over and his elder son was now firmly in charge. These days the Kavakos shipping business was the most profitable on the planet and he intended to keep it that way.

  His mouth hardened. Which meant more than just dealing with shipbrokers and being up to speed with the state of world politics. It meant keeping an eye on the more gullible members of the family. Because there was a lot of money sloshing around the Kavakos empire and he knew how women acted around money. An early lesson in feminine greed had changed his life for ever and that was why he never took his eye off the ball. His attitude meant that some people considered him controlling, but Ariston preferred to think of himself as a guiding influence—like a captain steering a ship. And in a way, life was like being at sea. You steered clear of icebergs for obvious reasons and women were like icebergs. You only ever saw ten per cent of what they were really like—the rest was buried deep beneath the self-serving and grasping surface.

  His eyes didn’t leave the blonde as he walked towards them, knowing that if she was going to be a problem in his brother’s life he would deal with it—and quickly. His lips curved into the briefest of smiles. He would have her dispatched before she even realised what was happening.

  ‘Why, Pavlos,’ Ariston said softly as he reached them and he noticed that the woman had instantly grown tense. ‘This is a surprise. I wasn
’t expecting to see you here so soon after the opening night. Have you developed a late-onset love of photography or are you just homesick for the island on which you were born?’

  Pavlos didn’t look too happy to be interrupted—but Ariston didn’t care. Right then he couldn’t think about anything except what was happening inside him. Because, infuriatingly, he seemed to have developed no immunity against the green-eyed temptress he’d last seen when she was eighteen, when she’d thrown herself at him with a hunger which had blown his mind. Her submission had been instant and would have been total if he hadn’t put a stop to it. Displaying the sexist double standards for which he had occasionally been accused, he had despised her availability at the same time as he’d been bewitched by it. It had taken all his legendary self-control to push her away and to adjust his clothing but he had done it, though it had left him hard and aching for what had seemed like months afterwards. His mouth tightened because she was nothing but a tramp. A cheap and grasping little tramp. Like mother, like daughter, he thought grimly—and the last type of woman he wanted his brother getting mixed up with.

  ‘Oh, hi, Ariston,’ said Pavlos with the easy manner which made most people surprised when they learned they were brothers. ‘That’s right, here I am again. I decided to pay a second visit and meet up with an old friend at the same time. You remember Keeley, don’t you?’

  There was a moment of silence while a pair of bright green eyes were lifted to his and Ariston felt the loud hammer of his heart.

  ‘Of course I remember Keeley,’ he said roughly, aware of the irony of his words. Because for him most women were forgettable and nothing more than a means to an end. Oh, sometimes he might recall a pair of spectacular breasts or a pert bottom—or if a woman was especially talented with her lips or hands, she might occasionally merit a nostalgic smile. But Keeley Turner had been in a class of her own and he’d never been able to shift her from the corners of his mind. Because she’d been off-limits and forbidden? Or because she had given him a taste of unbelievable sweetness before he’d forced himself to reject her? Ariston didn’t know. It was as inexplicable as it was powerful and he found himself studying her with the same intensity as the nearby people peering at the photos which adorned the gallery walls.