by Lynne Graham
Grace sat up in horror. ‘What?’
‘Breaking you in probably strained it,’ Leo retorted with deliberate curtness because it was just one more unexpected development that he didn’t want.
‘It...burst?’ Grace whispered. ‘But I’m not on the pill—’
Leo grew even more rigid in his bearing. ‘Shouldn’t you have taken that precaution before you embarked on a one-night stand?’
Grace just ignored him; she didn’t have to talk to him just because she had slept with him. In fact now that the main event was over she decided that she should ask for a boat back to the marina. Or would that be running away?
‘May I use the bathroom?’ she asked with careful politeness. ‘And then possibly you could organise me a lift back to the marina?’
Leo moved to let her into the bathroom but his temper was now on a short fuse. Wham, bam, thank you, sir. Well, a woman had never treated him like that before but there was always a first time and maybe that was healthy for his ego. But the recollection that it had been her first time stopped his building aggression in its tracks. She didn’t know what she was doing. She wasn’t as much quiet as she was secretive and, flipping mentally back through the time he had been with her, he reckoned she had to be as innocent as a newborn lamb when it came to the nastier things in life. Perspiration beaded his upper lip when he thought of what might have happened to Grace had she gone off so casually and trustingly with some of the seedier individuals he had met on his travels.
‘I want you to stay the night. I’ll take you back tomorrow,’ he stated.
‘This is a one-night stand...you don’t get to tell me what to do!’ Grace flamed back at him with spirit.
‘You’re not doing so well right now when it comes to looking after yourself,’ Leo pronounced drily.
In the space of a moment, Grace travelled from a mood of silent resentment to one of raging rancour and sooner than betray herself by spitting out something inappropriate, she slammed the bathroom door on him. Who did he think would look after her but her own self if she was unlucky enough to conceive after that contraceptive accident? It was none of his business that she had come on holiday without planning to have sex with anyone and she wasn’t taking the pill because she hadn’t wanted to bombard her body with hormones before she was even sexually active. On the other hand, should she have foreseen the possibility that she might suddenly change her mind as she had done this very evening? Grace stood below the shower in a daze counting the days of her cycle, soon realising that the condom could not have failed at a worse time.
Leo swore vehemently beneath his breath and went off to use another shower. Why was she angry with him? Accidents happened, although it was the first time he had found himself in such a situation. Even as a teenager, Leo had never had unprotected sex because he knew all too well the cost of such carelessness. His half-brother’s birth to his father’s mistress had been a painful lifelong commitment for Anatole Zikos and his wife and son.
Grace emerged from the bathroom wrapped in the white towelling robe she had found hanging there. It was huge on her but she had rolled up the sleeves and wasn’t sorry to be covered to her ankles. The intimacy she had naively sought suddenly struck her as having come at too high a price and she was more self-conscious in the aftermath than she had been beforehand.
‘I thought you’d be hungry,’ Leo remarked with a casual movement of his hand pointing out the catering trolley that had appeared. ‘I don’t know what you like so I ordered a selection.’
‘You have someone in a kitchen cooking for you at four in the morning?’ Grace exclaimed in astonishment while being grateful for the distraction provided by the food. Wandering barefoot over to the trolley, she lifted the covers to inspect the mouth-watering options on offer. Her tummy gave a hungry growl, hopefully concealed by the clatter of the coffee jug lid she lifted and dropped again. In silence she helped herself to coffee and a plate of elaborate supper bites.
It was ironic though that since meeting Leo she had never been more aware of his compelling presence than she was in that charged silence. He had changed into jeans and a blue T-shirt, his black hair tousled, shiny and damp from the shower, his lean, darkly handsome face shadowed by dark stubble. Apprehensive though she was about the risk of consequences, she had to admit that Leo still looked amazing and the epitome of every fantasy she had ever had about a man.
‘I have a doctor on call, if you want—’
‘No.’ Grace leapt straight in before he could say it because the morning-after treatment that could stop a pregnancy developing was not a choice she was willing to make. Even though a pregnancy would damage her chances of qualifying in medicine. ‘That’s not an option for me.’
‘I had to make the option available,’ Leo murmured without any perceptible reaction. ‘When are you flying home?’
‘The day after tomorrow.’ Grace sat down in an opulent armchair.
‘I will want your address and phone number. This is not a situation I would treat lightly.’ Leo served himself with coffee, betraying all the awkwardness of a male who wasn’t used to waiting on himself and who had rather expected his companion to take on the role of hostess.
Grace allowed herself to look at Leo for only the second time since she had left the bathroom. Whether she liked it or not, he had gone up in her estimation.
‘If you give me your contact details, we won’t need to discuss this any further. I only need to add the assurance that if there is any...er...development, I will provide you with my full support.’
‘Yes.’ Grace almost shrugged because she knew words were cheap. Leo was saying the right things but only he and his conscience could know how reliable he would be in such trying circumstances as those of an unplanned pregnancy. After all, her own father had talked her mother out of the termination she had decided on when she had fallen pregnant as a student. Grace’s father had promised her mother that he would marry her and help her raise their child and then he had run off with another woman and left Keira Donovan literally holding the baby. That had been in the days when being an unmarried mother had still been a real stigma and a source of family shame.
Leo settled a notepad and pen down on the table beside Grace. She printed her address and phone number and returned the pad to the table. As she did so, she yawned. ‘I’m sorry, I’m very sleepy...’
‘It’s late...go to bed,’ he murmured quietly.
Grace thought of the hassle of arriving back at the marina before dawn, finding her way back to the apartment block and then sitting in Reception until Stuart took his leave. ‘I’ll stay...at least you have a bed.’
‘A bed?’ Leo queried, recognising her exhaustion in her pale face and heavy eyes.
Grace climbed into the bed still clad in the robe.
‘I wasn’t going to touch you again,’ Leo remarked drily.
‘Obviously I’ve offended your ego and I’m sorry,’ Grace mumbled.
As she closed her eyes Leo peeled off his own clothing, although he retained his boxers and slid into the other side of the bed, dousing the lights. ‘What did you mean about having a bed?’
‘Our apartment is only one bedroom and my cousin met a man the first day,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve been sitting up in Reception most nights so that she can be with him—’
‘That’s outrageous!’ Leo cut in.
‘No, it’s not. Jenna’s family paid for her to go on holiday with her best friend.’ Briefly she explained. ‘Now that she’s met Stuart, I’m surplus to requirements.’
‘Surely her parents would be furious if they knew how she was treating you?’
‘What Jenna wants, Jenna gets,’ Grace muttered drowsily, her voice trailing down in volume. ‘It’s always been that way. She’s the daughter, the little princess...I’m the niece they took in out of the kindness of their heart.’
‘But to make such distinctions between two children in the same family!’ Leo began angrily until it dawned on him that Grace had fallen asleep.
A moment later, the echo of his own words still ringing in his ears, he realised that there were remarkable similarities between Grace’s situation with her cousin and his own non-relationship with the half-brother he hated. Yes, in his home too, the same distinction had been made in favour of the legitimate firstborn son, Leo. For the first time Leo was recognising an angle that he had never even considered before: Bastien’s side of the story. Was it really so surprising that Bastien had always seemed to seethe with resentment as a child and had matured into a fiercely competitive and aggressive male? He was sobered by the unfamiliar thoughts afflicting him, and it was a long time before Leo fell asleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘NO, PLEASE DON’T tell me it’s been great!’ Grace urged Leo with a rueful laugh as, ever gracious, he saw her into the speedboat that would whisk her back to the real world, rather than the fantasy in which she had ordered her own personal perfect breakfast directly from Leo’s personal chef.
‘Why not?’ Leo demanded, strangely unsettled by her apparent good humour at leaving him.
‘Because you know it’s been a disaster for you from start to finish but you’re too polite to say it. I was absolutely not what you expected,’ Grace pointed out bluntly, taking a seat in the launch.
Leo, rarely put out of countenance, felt heat sear his cheekbones and thought that she really was extraordinarily unusual for her sex, when she said exactly what she thought and felt without chagrin, revealing not an iota of the vanity he had believed that every woman possessed. ‘I will be in touch—’
‘Not necessary,’ Grace cut in briskly as if he were a five-year-old importuning a busy teacher.
His strong jaw line clenched. ‘I will decide what’s necessary,’ Leo delivered, losing patience.
From the upper deck, Leo watched the launch convey Grace back to the marina. He was assailed by a vague sense of something unfinished...of regret? His jaw set hard as granite. He had almost asked her to stay with him until it was time for her to fly home. Why? She had spoken the truth, after all: it had been a disaster. Instead of an experienced woman and a sexual marathon he had landed a virgin and then there had been the mishap with the condom. His teeth gritted together. When he had registered that for some inexplicable reason he was in no hurry to see Grace leave, his blood had run cold on the suspicion that he was feeling more than he was willing to feel for any woman, and from that point on he had been keen to see her depart. Yet the sound of her sobbing his name in orgasm still echoed in his ears and his body hardened as he remembered all too well the tight, hot feel of hers. From his point of view, although there had been too little of it, the sex had been stellar. In fact there had been something oddly, dangerously addictive about Grace Donovan and getting rid of her fast had been absolutely the right action to take!
* * *
Three weeks after that day, Grace did a pregnancy test in the bathroom of her aunt and uncle’s home.
Her nerves were shot to hell and her mood had been on a steady downward slope for days when her menstrual cycle had failed to kick in on the expected date. Unfortunately pregnancy tests were very expensive and Grace had forced herself to wait until there was little risk of the test providing her with a potentially false result that would require yet another test to be done. And now she was bracing herself for the moment of truth even while her training had already provided her with good reason to be afraid. The very last thing she had required earlier that week was a blatantly impatient text from Leo Zikos asking for news that she did not yet have, so she had simply ignored it.
Her breath hissed in her dry throat when she studied the result: positive. Hell roast the wretched man, she thought ridiculously, why couldn’t he have been sterile? Instead they were both young and healthy and the odds had not been in their favour. Pregnant! Fear and no small amount of horror made Grace break out in a cold sweat because nobody knew better than her how very hard, if not impossible, it would be for her to complete her medical studies with a child in tow and no supportive partner. Suddenly she was furious with herself for not having protected her own body better simply because she had failed to foresee the need. She had assumed that she would always be in total control and Leo Zikos with his stunning dark eyes had shown her different. But at what cost?
Leo...stray thoughts and recollections of Leo had littered the past weeks while Grace had struggled to put the entire episode behind her and continue as normal. She had discovered that she had a softer, dreamier side to her character that she had never suspected. Well, so much for that, she thought cynically, stuffing the pregnancy-test paraphernalia back into the plastic bag to be discreetly dumped. Would she tell Leo? Undoubtedly she would tell him...eventually but not until she had decided what to do. Right at that minute she had more to worry about than taking time out to contact a male who had nothing other than money to offer her in terms of support. She suspected that Leo would expect her to have a termination and when she refused to give him a ‘tidy’ conclusion to the development he would be furious and resentful of her decision.
Would he be the exact opposite of the father she had never met? Grace wrinkled her nose, not wanting to think along those lines. She was too intelligent not to be aware that her mother had fed her daughter a steady diet of her own martyred bitterness. Sadly, Grace had been too young to be told such things, too innocent to be anything other than deeply hurt by an absent father who had never felt the need to look for his eldest child. Her father had other children now; she knew after finding him on Facebook that she had half-siblings with the same red hair, the children of the woman he had married after deserting her mother. Yet her father had pleaded for Grace to be given the chance of life before she was even born and how could she do any less for her own baby?
Grace adored babies, but she had believed that the opportunity to have children lay far, far away in her future. And now that everything had changed she was struggling not to think in either personal or sentimental terms about the baby. After all, after her own chequered experience as a child she knew that the best possible option for her baby would be an adoption by two parents with a stable home and everything Grace herself was currently unable to provide.
Didn’t she owe her child the very best possible start in life? What on earth could she give in comparison? Her own mother had frankly struggled to cope with the weighty responsibilities of being a single parent. Keira Donovan had often resented her daughter, blaming her for the loss of her youthful freedom. There had always been a shortage of money for necessities and Grace had often been left in the care of unsuitable babysitters. Most telling of all, Grace was painfully aware of how much she herself had longed to have a stable father figure when she was a child. She was terrified of failing her own child the way her mother had failed her. But while her brain reminded her of all those distressingly practical facts, a more visceral response to motherhood deep down inside her was agonised by the concept of handing her baby over to someone else to raise.
The locked door rattled. ‘Grace? Are you in there?’ It was her aunt’s voice, sharp and demanding.
Lifting the bag, Grace unlocked the door and prepared to step past the older woman.
Instead Della Donovan laid her hand on Grace’s arm to prevent her from walking away. ‘Are you pregnant?’ she demanded thinly.
Bemused by the question when she had not shared her concern with anyone, Grace stiffened, her brows lifting in a startled arc. ‘Why are you asking me that?’
‘Oh, that could be my fault.’ Jenna sighed with mock sympathy, pausing at the top of the stairs. ‘I was behind you in the checkout at the supermarket and I couldn’t help noticing the test...’
Grace lost colour. ‘Yes, I’m pregnant,’ she admitted stonily.
Her aunt, alw
ays a volatile woman, immediately lost her temper. By the time she had finished shouting, threatening and verbally abusing her niece for her morals, Grace knew where she stood and that she could no longer remain in her aunt and uncle’s home. Della had said things about Grace and her late mother that Grace knew that she would never forget. White as paper and numb with shock in the aftermath of that upsetting confrontation, she went into her room, phoned Matt and pulled out her suitcase; there was nothing else she could do. Her life, the life she had worked so hard to achieve, was falling apart even faster than she had feared, she acknowledged with a sinking heart.
* * *
At the outset of that same week, Leo had texted Grace but she hadn’t replied and he was tired of waiting and waking up in the middle of the night wondering...
In little more than two months’ time he was getting married and Marina had made him more than aware of that fact by calling him to ask his opinion on various questions of bridal trivia that he couldn’t have cared less about. Nothing more important had entered those conversations and it had convinced him that he was the only one of them with doubts.
Sadly, even the smallest doubt had not featured in Leo’s original blueprint for his future. He fixed on a goal, made decisions, brought plans to fruition and that was that. He didn’t do wondering about what if! He understood perfectly why he had ended up with Grace Donovan that night. He had been angry with Marina and full of misgivings about what their future together might hold. Regrettably, however, that still did not explain why Grace had hit him like a torpedo striking his yacht below the waterline. It did not explain why she had given him the most incredible sexual experience of his far from innocent life to date or why given the smallest excuse he would have repeated that night.
Consequently, he had checked out who Grace Donovan was while he waited to hear from her and what he had learned from that comprehensive investigation had only made him more confused. Her early childhood had been appalling and her adolescence not much kinder. It was a credit to her strength of character that she had achieved so much, regardless of those disadvantages. Yet there was still so much he didn’t understand. Why would a young woman as well-informed as a fifth-year medical student not take extra contraceptive precautions? And why had she avoided telling him what she was studying? He had also taken on board the reality that an unplanned pregnancy would probably wreak greater havoc on her life than it would on his.
