‘Everything else is normal?’ the doctor queried. ‘When was your last period?’
Rachel frowned. Since she had been on the pill her periods were so light that they often only lasted for a day and she never made a note of them. Her last pill-free week had been three weeks ago, but now that she thought of it, she could not recall needing to buy tampons for ages.
‘I think I might have missed a couple,’ she said slowly, puzzled rather than concerned. ‘But the same thing happened last year, and it turned out that I was anaemic.’
‘Well, I can arrange a blood test. And it might be an idea to do a pregnancy test—just to rule it out,’ the doctor murmured when she caught Rachel’s shocked expression.
‘I can’t be pregnant,’ she said forcefully. ‘I’ve never, ever forgotten to take a pill.’
She repeated the statement to the surgery nurse when she handed in her urine sample. ‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,’ the nurse replied soothingly. ‘Take a seat in the waiting room and the doctor will call you in to discuss the result in a few minutes.’
Rachel tried to ignore the nervous flutter in her stomach. Of course she wasn’t pregnant. She’d lost weight over the past weeks rather than gained it and was thinner than ever. It was true that she was more tired than usual, and had been for weeks, but that wasn’t surprising when she had been sleeping badly—her dreams regularly haunted by Diego.
It was just a blip in her cycle, she reassured herself. But the grave expression on the doctor’s face when she walked into the consulting room filled her with dread.
‘It must be a mistake,’ she croaked minutes later, so utterly devastated by the news that she was expecting Diego’s baby that she could barely speak.
‘Did you have a stomach upset at any time?’ the doctor queried. ‘Being sick can reduce the effectiveness of the pill—as can certain antibiotics.’
Rachel shook her head but the reference to antibiotics triggered a memory. ‘I was bitten by a horse,’ she said slowly, ‘and at the casualty unit I was given a course of antibiotics to prevent the wound infecting. That couldn’t have led to me falling pregnant—could it?’ she asked desperately.
‘I’ll check with the hospital to see which antibiotics you were given, but it’s the most likely reason. More important is the fact that you are definitely pregnant, and I’m going to arrange for you to have a scan to determine when you conceived.’
When you conceived … The words thudded in Rachel’s brain. It was now the end of September, and she had ended her affair with Diego on Ladies’ Day at Ascot, which this year had been the nineteenth of June. That meant that she must be nearly four months pregnant—possibly more, she thought sickly, remembering how she had been bitten by Earl Hardwick’s horse and started the course of antibiotics on the day after she had made love with Diego for the first time.
‘I don’t look pregnant,’ she said desperately, staring down at her flat stomach.
‘A scan will tell us more,’ the doctor said firmly.
And it did. Four days later Rachel stared disbelievingly at the grainy image on the screen while the nurse pointed out her baby’s heartbeat and explained that she was eighteen weeks pregnant.
‘The baby is only six inches long at the moment. There’s plenty of time for you—and he or she—to grow,’ the nurse said cheerfully when Rachel—still clinging to the forlorn hope that it could all be a mistake—pointed out that she did not have a bump or any other visible signs that she was pregnant.
How hadn’t she known? she wondered as she lay in bed in the caravan that night, her mind whirling. She felt as though her body had let her down by withholding the usual signs of pregnancy. But the signs had been there, she acknowledged grimly. It was just that she’d put her uncharacteristic tiredness and mood swings down to the fact that she was in love with a man who lived on the other side of the world and wanted nothing more to do with her.
The doctor had told her that taking the pill during the early stages of her pregnancy would not have harmed the baby. She had also quietly pointed out to Rachel that if she did not wish to continue with the pregnancy they would have to act fast. Rachel’s response had been immediate—she could not contemplate a termination—but she felt neither joy nor excitement at the prospect of having a child.
‘Tell the father, and give his name to the Child Support Agency if he refuses to cough up with some money,’ her mother advised when, in sheer desperation, Rachel phoned her. ‘Bringing up a kid alone is tough, I can tell you.’
Liz Summers could offer no practical help. She had left her third husband for an Irish artist and was moving to Dublin, taking Rachel’s twin half-sisters with her, and she had made it clear that she did not view the prospect of being a grandmother with any enthusiasm. Rachel shuddered at the idea of asking Diego for money. She did not want anything from him, but he had the right to know that she was expecting his child, she acknowledged heavily. The only trouble was she had no idea how to contact him. She knew he owned a ranch, but Argentina was a big country.
Eventually her brain clicked into gear and she found the number of his polo school in New York on the Internet but, when she phoned, the receptionist refused to give his address in Argentina, and instead took Rachel’s name and promised she would pass on the message for him to phone her. But he didn’t ring, and as the weeks passed Rachel stopped rehearsing how she would break the news that she was expecting his baby and faced up to the fact that she was five months pregnant; she would not be able to continue with her job at the stables for much longer—or keep her place with the British Show Jumping Team—and that a cramped caravan was not a suitable place to bring up a child.
It was raining in Gloucestershire—sheeting rain that teemed down the car windscreen faster than the wipers could clear it. Diego’s mouth compressed as he negotiated the winding lanes leading to Hardwick Hall, and not for the first time he wondered what he was doing here when he could be on a plane to Argentina.
He had recently been in Thailand, competing in a series of polo matches, and he missed the heat and sunshine. Back home, the temperature in Buenos Aires would be thirty degrees centigrade, but here in England the display on the car dashboard was registering a measly three degrees and the late November sky was a dismal slate grey. A series of business meetings in London had necessitated him staying at his Thames-side apartment for the past couple of weeks, evoking memories of the last time he had been there with Rachel, and his curiosity to know why she had tried to contact him had finally got the better of him.
He drove straight past the entrance to the Hardwick estate. The groom he’d spoken to when he had phoned the stables had explained that Rachel no longer worked there, but that she was still living in the caravan on Irving’s farm. Why had she left Hardwick and the job he knew she loved? he brooded. And where did she now keep her horse?
Diego frowned, irritated with himself for his interest. From the moment he’d walked into his apartment after the day at Ascot and found her gone, he had dismissed her from his mind, furious—and, if he was honest, piqued—that she had been the one to end their affair. It was a novelty he had not enjoyed and he’d felt a certain amount of satisfaction when the receptionist at his polo school in New York had passed on a message that a Miss Rachel Summers had requested that he should phone her.
It was almost two months since Rachel had tried to contact him, and he had been too busy travelling to polo competitions around the world to return her call. But, to his annoyance, she had lurked in his subconscious. Had she called because she wanted to resume their affair? He was about to find out, Diego thought grimly as he drove through the farmyard and up the muddy track.
The caravan looked even smaller and older than he remembered. Maybe she had decided that being the mistress of a multimillionaire wasn’t so bad after all, he brooded cynically. Not that he had any intention of taking her back. But, to his intense irritation, he could not control the sudden quickening of his heartbeat as he walked up the car
avan steps and rapped on the door.
‘Hello, Rachel.’
Rachel was suffering from a flu virus. For the past three days she’d had a pounding headache, a sore throat and aching limbs, and her temperature must be sky high, because now she was hallucinating.
‘Diego?’
She could barely comprehend that he was here, and she was horrified by the effect his sudden appearance was having on her. Her heart was pounding and she felt breathless and dizzy, but none of these symptoms were the result of her pregnancy—or the flu virus, she acknowledged dismally.
The sight of him after all this time seared her soul. He was even more gorgeous than she remembered, his tanned skin gleaming like polished bronze and his silky dark hair brushing his shoulders. She wanted to touch him, felt a desperate urge to throw herself against his chest and have him close his arms around her and hold her safe. But when had she ever been safe with Diego? she asked herself bitterly. He was the reason that every one of her dreams had turned to dust.
‘What do you want?’ she croaked.
Diego frowned and glanced over her shoulder at the packing boxes and the pile of clothes that littered the floor. ‘To talk to you,’ he said tersely. ‘Can I come in? This is obviously a bad time, but I’m flying home tomorrow.’
The last thing Rachel wanted to do was invite Diego into her caravan, and their ‘talk’ was likely to be explosive, she thought grimly, but the rain was soaking his hair and shoulders and dully she stepped back to allow him inside. It was amazing how much clutter she’d collected over the last five years, she thought ruefully, hastily shifting a pile of old riding magazines so that he could sit down.
Even sitting, Diego seemed to dominate the tiny living space. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and Rachel felt a fierce tug of longing as her eyes skimmed his black designer jeans and the superbly cut tan leather jacket that he wore over a black fine-knit sweater. He looked as incongruous as he had done the first time he had visited her caravan and, as she recalled the passion that had flamed between them on that occasion, colour flooded her pale cheeks.
But there was no hint of the feverish desire that had burned in his amber eyes that day. He was looking at her with an expression of faint distaste that grew more marked as his gaze moved down from her lank hair, scraped back in a ponytail, to her voluminous sweatshirt. His eyes were cold and hard. Rachel had forgotten how autocratic he could look and she was suddenly glad that the sweatshirt concealed the still quite small bump of her pregnancy.
‘Why are you here?’ she mumbled, her voice thick with cold.
‘I received the message you left with the Ortega Academy in New York that you wanted to speak to me,’ Diego replied laconically. ‘Was it something important?’
Rachel gave a harsh laugh, her temper flaring at his patent disinterest. ‘Do you care if it was? I called you two months ago.’
His eyes narrowed at the accusation in her voice. ‘I’ve been busy.’
She recalled the newspaper photo of him surrounded by the promotional models and felt sick. ‘Yes, I imagine you have.’
‘From the look of it, so have you,’ Diego commented, glancing at the packing boxes. ‘Can I take it you’ve finally decided to move to somewhere more habitable?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with living in a caravan,’ Rachel said tightly, infuriated by his scathing tone. ‘It’s just that it’s not a suitable place to bring up a baby …’
Every muscle in Diego’s body tensed. His heart had frozen into a solid block of ice on the day Eduardo had died, and he had believed that nothing could ever touch him or stir his emotions. Now, as a torrent of feelings swept through him, he realised that he had been wrong. He was astounded by Rachel’s startling statement but, to his surprise, his overwhelming reaction to the news that she was carrying another man’s child was one of gut-wrenching disappointment.
The silence between them simmered with tension. This was not how Rachel had ever envisaged telling Diego that she was expecting his baby, she acknowledged wryly. The words had spilled out of her mouth and the moment she’d uttered them she’d stiffened, waiting fearfully for his reaction. His expression was unfathomable, but after a few moments he gave a faint shrug and got to his feet.
‘I see,’ he murmured coldly. ‘Well, I think that’s my cue to leave.’ He turned towards the door but then glanced back at her, his lip curling in a look of utter contempt. ‘You didn’t waste much time hopping into another man’s bed, did you, Rachel? Who is the father, by the way—your red-haired stable-boy? Tell me, did you get together with him after you walked out on me, or were you sleeping with both of us at the same time?’
Rachel flinched at his deliberate crudity and a curious numbness seeped through her body. She had never kidded herself that Diego would welcome the news of her pregnancy, but he was looking at her as though she was the lowest life-form on the planet. She licked her suddenly dry lips and forced her throat to work. ‘It’s not Alex’s baby,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s yours.’
Anger coursed through Diego’s veins like molten lava. What kind of a fool did she take him for? ‘How can you possibly be carrying my child when we split up months ago? If your boyfriend won’t face up to his responsibilities, that’s your problem. It has nothing to do with me.’
Rachel had been so shocked by Diego’s furious denial that he was the father of her baby that her brain temporarily ceased functioning. But, as he pulled open the door and she realised he was actually going to leave, she jerked back to life. Anger burned inside her, turning the ice in her blood to fire. Trembling with rage, she gripped the hem of her sweatshirt and dragged it over her head, and felt a swift spurt of satisfaction at the undisguised shock in his eyes when he stared at her swollen stomach.
‘This is your baby, Diego,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m seven months pregnant. I didn’t even know until I was almost five months, and when I found out, I tried to contact you. I thought you had a right to know.’
Diego shook his head, his eyes glacial. ‘I don’t believe for a second that I’m the father. And if you think I’m going to pay out for another man’s child, think again.’
‘Alex is my friend. We have never been lovers,’ Rachel cried angrily.
Diego threw her another look of withering scorn and strode down the caravan steps. ‘Then you must have trapped some other poor fool,’ he snarled. ‘But I tell you now, querida, you’re not dragging me into your web of deceit.’
He was going—marching across the field and leaving footprints in the mud. Rachel stared disbelievingly at his retreating form and for a few seconds she thought—let him go and good riddance. But then the baby kicked and she automatically put her hand on her stomach and felt the hard bulge of a tiny foot or elbow. It wasn’t the baby’s fault that it had been conceived by sheer fluke. Yet Diego had turned his back on his child, had utterly rejected the possibility that he was the father. Anger surged through her once more and she gripped the edge of the door frame, peering through at the rain that fell relentlessly from the leaden sky.
‘You are the father, Diego. It couldn’t be anyone else because you’re the only man I’ve ever slept with.’
He carried on walking without altering his pace, but then halted abruptly and swung back to stare at her, his face as cold and hard as if he had been hewn from granite. ‘What did you say?’ he queried in a dangerously soft tone.
‘The first time we made love … I was a virgin,’ she faltered.
‘Liar.’ The single word cracked through the air like a gunshot. ‘I would have known,’ he added arrogantly before he swung on his heel and disappeared down the track.
CHAPTER EIGHT
RACHEL was lying. She had to be. He had not been her first lover. Diego stared moodily out of the hotel window at the wintry landscape. He hated England at this time of year—cold, grey and as dismal as his spirits. He was due to catch a flight to Buenos Aires later today and he was impatient to be on his way but, to his fury, he could not forge
t the image of her standing in the doorway of her dilapidated caravan, crying out to him that he was the father of her child.
The waitress who had served him at dinner last night sashayed over to his table and smiled at him. He noted that she had unfastened the top three buttons of her blouse, and when she took out her pad to take his order she deliberately leaned close to him.
‘Would you like the full English breakfast, Mr Ortega? Bacon, sausage, egg, fried bread …’
Diego’s stomach churned. He hadn’t slept last night and this morning his appetite was non-existent. ‘I’ll just have more coffee, thank you.’
‘Are you staying long?’ The waitress looked at him guilelessly from beneath her lashes. ‘I could always show you around, if you like.’
The girl was pretty and blonde, and eight months ago he would probably have been sufficiently interested to take up her offer. Now, all he could think of was another blonde with big cornflower-blue eyes that had watched him when she’d thought he hadn’t noticed.
When he had first arrived at Hardwick, Rachel had been feisty and hot-tempered, but she had also been shy and wary and had gone to great lengths to hide her awareness of him. She had responded to him when he had kissed her with a passion that had inflamed his desire, but when he had taken her to bed that first time he had been faintly surprised by her hesitancy, he recalled grimly.
Santa Madre! Was it possible he had taken her virginity that night? And, in return, had he given her a child? He frowned, remembering his frustration when he’d realised he did not have any protection—and the sweet flood of relief when she had assured him she was on the pill. He had been so hungry for her that he had ignored the voice of common sense in his head reminding him of his golden rule that contraception was his responsibility.
Clearly she had lied to him, but it did not necessarily follow that he was the father of her baby, he reminded himself darkly. She could have had other lovers after him. It was possible that she was less than seven months pregnant. But as he pictured her swollen belly, clearly outlined beneath the clingy top she had been wearing under her sweatshirt yesterday, he acknowledged with a heavy sense of finality that her pregnancy was well advanced.
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