Bedded for Passion, Purchased for Pregnancy

by Carol Marinelli

  Staring out of the window, she saw Port Phillip Bay stretched like a horseshoe, and her eyes scanned the familiar landmarks that lined it: Brighton Pier, then along to Mentone, and ever on till they came to rest, as they always did, on the gorgeous tip at the end that seemed to be reaching out to embrace Queenscliff. The jagged edge that contained within it her family home.

  This wasn’t, as first she had thought, Zarios’s home within a hotel.

  This—despite its luxurious furnishings, despite the impressive artwork that lined the walls—was just a hotel room. A room that when Zarios left would be painstakingly prepared for the next well-heeled guest to stay.

  Emma’s eyes were so thick with tears that she could hardly make out her home now—but even if it was being sold in two weeks, even if her parents had gone way too soon, even if she was indebted to Zarios, still she was richer than he had ever been.

  Even if she’d mourn them for ever, at least she’d had a family, and at least she’d had a home.

  Which were two luxuries that Zarios had never been afforded.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘IT’S just a dream, Emma.’

  By unspoken consent it was the only time he held her. When nightmares crept in, so, too, did his hand, bringing her back to reality and then holding her for the rest of the scary night. It had never been discussed, and for that Emma was grateful. She was just surprised each and every night by just how nice he could be when he wanted—by the remarkable tenderness he offered at these times, and the infinite patience he was capable of.

  But only at night.

  Their first week together had passed in a blur of endless social functions as Melbourne’s elite toasted the happy couple. Her days, though, had been long and lonely, while Zarios attacked his formidable workload, leaving Emma to rattle around the Presidential Suite like a marble in a tin.

  Stretching in bed now, Emma glanced at the clock, her head pounding after another restless night.

  ‘Morning!’

  Emma jumped as she padded through and saw him at the table, dressed and ready for his day, lazily drinking coffee and flicking through his usual mountain of post.

  ‘Sorry.’ He grinned at her startled expression. ‘Were you hoping I’d already gone?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Emma gave him a sweet smile, buttering some toast even though she didn’t feel like it, shaking her head as Zarios picked up the coffee pot.

  ‘I’ll have tea.’

  ‘Since when?’ Zarios frowned. ‘You always have coffee.’

  ‘We’ve only been engaged for a week,’ Emma pointed out.

  ‘Full of surprises.’ Zarios grinned again, but there was a glint to it which she chose to ignore. ‘So, what are you doing today?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘The tickets have arrived for next Saturday’s ball—which reminds me.’ Zarios glanced up. ‘You need to get something to wear.’

  ‘I have a wardrobe full of new things to wear,’ Emma retorted, but Zarios wasn’t listening. He just took a rather loud slurp of his coffee, which set Emma’s teeth on edge.

  ‘Sorry, darling!’ Zarios said, which told her he wasn’t. ‘That’s the awful sort of habit that should only slip in once you’re safely married.’

  ‘Which we’ll never be!’ Emma said, pouring her tea and adding a heaped spoon of sugar. She watched as Zarios ripped up an engagement congratulations card, which she could only assume was from his mother, and carried on with the rest of his mail.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know…’He slurped his coffee again, and Emma realised that he was toying with her. ‘When are you paying me back again?’

  ‘Next Monday,’ Emma answered coolly—refusing to rise to whatever bait he was dangling, picking up a newspaper and reading the headlines.

  ‘Good!’ Zarios said, watching as she turned the pages, still too new to the game to be bored with the novelty of seeing her name in print. ‘What are they saying about us today?’ he asked.

  ‘The usual…’ Emma rolled her eyes. ‘I’m your rebound from Miranda, a decoy for the board…’ She scanned the words, more interested really in the picture. But it was the same one again! Zarios, Emma had fast realised, was always two steps ahead—the unexpected tenderness he had displayed outside the jewellers had been captured on film, and though he had denied it when Emma had confronted him, she was quite sure he had manufactured the whole thing just so that he could be photographed wiping away her tears of happiness and, as the paper had reported, sealing the deal with a kiss.

  ‘This is a better picture of you…’ Still reading his mail, almost distracted, he handed her another tabloid, neatly folded at an open page. Emma felt her insides turn to liquid. ‘I think you’re going into The Casino gaming rooms—I thought it must have been before last week, but your hair’s already done. There’s a small piece about you…’ He wasn’t pretending to be distracted now. He was staring over at her, his face loaded with contempt. ‘It mentions that you looked as if you were crying when you came out…’

  Zarios wasn’t just two steps ahead, Emma realised, he was a whole street in front. This, Emma knew as she scanned the offensive article, was the real reason he was joining her for breakfast. She’d gone to The Casino looking for Jake. After numerous failed attempts to get through to him panic had gripped her, and Emma had headed to the one place she knew she might find him.

  ‘I know how this must look…what you must think.’ Emma ran a worried hand through her hair. ‘But I don’t have a problem—’

  ‘Well, I do,’ he interrupted darkly. ‘I deal in people’s money, in their investments, their savings…My fiancée staggering out of the gaming rooms isn’t quite the image I’m hoping to portray.’ She squirmed at his implication. ‘I don’t want your excuses, and I don’t want your reasons—just know that I will not be shamed. Zarios D’Amilo’s fiancée does not have a gambling problem—there will be an apology in the newspaper tomorrow. Don’t make me call in any more favours again. Do you think you can stay away for one more week?’

  When all she managed was a rigid nod, he said, ‘Good. Don’t think as my wife you will have access to limitless funds to feed your filthy habit.’ Picking up his briefcase he turned to go, but thought better of it. ‘I’m assuming that will be the case? I mean,’ he added nastily, ‘people don’t usually come out of a casino crying when they’ve won!’

  ‘You’re so quick to think the worst…’ She didn’t have to justify herself to him—didn’t have to beg his understanding or forgiveness for a crime she hadn’t even committed. ‘You’re so sure that everyone’s out for your precious dollar!’

  ‘Remind us both again—exactly why are you here, Emma? Even before we got into this you told me yourself that was the only thing you wanted from me!’

  ‘After you had gone back to her!’ Tears stung her eyes as she veered towards the truth. ‘You slept with me and then went back to her, Zarios. What did you want me to say? Congratulations? I hope the two of you will be happy—or the three of you, or whatever made you deem it necessary to just walk away?’

  ‘Leave it, Emma…’ Zarios warned, but she wasn’t listening.

  ‘You hurt me, Zarios, and I said those things to hurt you.’

  ‘That morning…’His usually swarthy face was pale, his jaw so quilted with tension she could see the effort it took for him to form words. ‘It was never my intention to go back to her. Miranda told me…I found out that she was…’ He shook his head hopelessly. ‘Leave it, Emma,’ he said again.

  Oh, but she wouldn’t.

  ‘She was pregnant?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she have an abortion?’ Emma flailed in the dark for an answer. ‘Or lose the baby?’

  ‘I’ve told you!’ Zarios roared. ‘There was no baby.’

  ‘So it’s true, then?’ Over and over she’d tried to fathom an excuse for him—told herself that the papers had got it wrong, that the man she happened to love really wasn’t that much of a bastard.

  Excep
t he was.

  ‘I have every right to say those hateful things.’ Through pale strained lips she told him her truth. ‘I have every right to hate you—because you threw away what we had for no good reason. And Miranda has every right to hate you, too.’

  ‘Leave her out of it.’

  ‘Just as you did,’ Emma spat, ‘when she couldn’t provide you with children. Well, guess what, Zarios? You don’t deserve them!’

  Always Zarios had the last word—always there was a retort or a scathing reply—but not this time. His face was as white as chalk apart from his black angry eyes. He didn’t even pick up his briefcase. He just walked towards the door. And if it hadn’t been 8:00 a.m.—if she hadn’t seen that he had been perfectly lucid just moments earlier—from his stagger Emma would have sworn he had been drinking.

  ‘Zarios!’ She called out to him but it was too late. The door had closed behind him without so much as a slam.

  Emma was shaking—not just at the venom of her words, but at the effect they had had. She could feel nausea rising, and barely made it to the bathroom in time. Crouching, hugging the bowl, she was more sick than she had ever been in her life. The anger that had been aimed at him was now aimed somehow at herself, at her fury for not being able to accept that he wasn’t the man she wanted him to be, was sure he could be.

  After rinsing her mouth, Emma made her way back to the lounge, reading again the article that had led them to this row. Heading for the bin, she picked up the card he had tossed away.

  The English wasn’t great, but Emma was touched at the effort the woman had made.

  Emma and Zarios,

  It was with happiness I received the good news of your engagement.

  Emma, I hope to meet you soon, to share in your joy.

  Mamma xxx

  What joy?

  Emma stared at her luxurious surrounds and realised then that they counted for nothing—the trappings of wealth had done nothing to fade his scars.

  Did Bella have any idea what she’d done?

  ‘Well, that was a lot easier.’ Blushing and uncomfortable, she attempted a smile as she closed his office door behind her. ‘Your assistant didn’t even ask me to take a seat.’

  ‘What are you doing here, Emma?’ His face was grey now rather than white.

  ‘You forgot your briefcase!’ she said brightly, dangling it on her finger. It was a pathetic excuse and they both knew it. ‘Damage control, too…’ she attempted. ‘I thought it might look better if I show my face.’

  ‘My staff knows better than to believe what they read in the newspaper—and, as I said, there will be a retraction and an apology printed tomorrow.’

  ‘Do they work?’ Emma sniffed. ‘Because if they do, I’d like to try…’

  ‘Let’s just leave it.’

  ‘I’m sorry for what I said this morning—about you not deserving children.’

  ‘Can we forget about that, please?’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘I just did.’ He flashed a very on-off smile and Emma would have given anything to go back, anything to have him tease her or goad her—anything rather than this great aching distance that gaped between them.

  ‘I thought we could go for lunch—’

  ‘I have meetings.’ Zarios didn’t even let her finish. ‘Why don’t you go shopping…?’

  ‘I don’t want to go shopping.’ If she sounded petulant, it was from the embarrassment of having him politely refuse the olive branch she was offering.

  ‘You need an outfit for the ball next Saturday. Our company is the major sponsor, and we will both be in the spotlight—it is an important event!’

  ‘So what’s the charity?’

  ‘Scusi?’

  He often did this, Emma had started to realise. If he was playing for time, his excellent English would curiously slip.

  ‘Che cosa è la carità?’ Emma said sweetly, in her phrasebook Italian, and Zarios raised an eyebrow. She then asked again. ‘What’s the ball in aid of?’

  ‘A children’s charity…’ Zarios answered evasively, but there was just a hint of a smile on the edge of his lips as she played him at his own game. ‘I assume. So, when did you start to learn Italian?’

  ‘This morning,’ Emma admitted. ‘I knew you had no idea what the ball was in aid of.’

  ‘Well, I will graciously concede the point.’ He picked up his pen, wordlessly dismissing her, but Emma couldn’t let it go.

  ‘I was thinking…’ she attempted. ‘Tonight, when you get home, maybe instead of going out we could stay in…’ She was blushing to her roots, as nervous as a teenager attempting her first flirt. ‘We could order something nice from room service…’

  ‘Sounds nice…’ she could hear the but coming even before he actually uttered it ‘…but I have to work late.’

  ‘Zarios, I’m trying to say sorry here—’

  ‘Emma, please…’ He stood up to conclude their meeting, just as he had done the first time she was there. ‘I have to get on.’

  The only difference was that this time, when she walked through the foyer, the receptionist didn’t call her back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HE WAS driving way too fast.

  For such a dangerous bend of road, Zarios should be crawling along, but instead he took each curve at breakneck speed, taking his hands off the wheel to fiddle with the radio station. Emma shrank back into the passenger seat, trying to tell herself that he did this every day, that he knew every last turn on the cliff road. She knew that every sharp breath she took just incensed him further, only she couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘You drive, then.’ Zarios slammed on the brakes so violently that the car screeched to a halt. ‘If you think you can do so much better…’ He held his hands up in a supremely Latin gesture then climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind him, leaving Emma to take the wheel.

  She could do this.

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, checking the twins were safely strapped in, Emma gave Harriet and Conner a reassuring smile. ‘We’ll be there soon.’ They didn’t answer, just blinked back at her, their eyes huge and trusting.

  She could do this, Emma told herself again, then gently pressed her foot on the accelerator—only Zarios’s car was way more powerful than her own, and she might just as well have stood on the pedal, because the car was lurching forward, shooting like a bullet from a gun, and there was nothing she could do. Her foot was jammed on the pedal as they shot over the edge and the salty ocean seemed to rise to claim them. The twins were screaming in terror and there was the sound of a baby crying, too. Emma attempted the same, only her voice was frozen within her, the building scream unable to get out…

  ‘Emma.’

  As she sat bolt-upright, dragging in air, she felt his arms wrap around her, his deep voice reassuring her, telling her again, as he had these past nights over and over, that she was safe.

  ‘You’re dreaming.’ He pulled her back beside him, wrapped himself around her and stroked her arm. ‘It’s just a dream; you’re safe, go back to sleep.’

  Except she couldn’t.

  She hadn’t seen him since their strained meeting in his office, hadn’t even been aware of him climbing in bed beside her, but she was infinitely grateful that he was there. Her body trembled in the darkness as she wished that he would touch her, make love to her, take her away from her desperate thoughts for just a little while. But he’d been as good as his word and hadn’t pressured her.

  Even if sometimes she wished he would.

  ‘You should see a doctor.’ It was the first time they’d discussed her nightmares—the first time he’d done anything other than hold her.

  ‘I don’t want to take tablets.’

  ‘Maybe just for a week or two,’ Zarios pushed. ‘You’re pale, you’re exhausted—please, just go to the doctor and tell him you’re not sleeping.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  Her heart was slowing down now, her breathing settling, and he lay spooned behind
her, held her till he was sure that she was asleep, his fingers coiling and then releasing a strand of her hair. He was resisting the urge to bury his head in it, or to wake her and demand that she stop wasting her life.

  It was none of his business, Zarios reminded himself.

  Whatever mess she was in—well, it was hers. In a little less than a week they would both walk away and never have to see each other again.

  It killed him to even think about it.

  He held her fragile frame against his, wanted to wrap himself like a shield around her and discount everything he had learnt today.

  What had that counsellor on the helpline he had rung said?

  That addicts were cunning and manipulative…Zarios’s eyes were shuttered for a moment. He found it so easy to discount the brutal summing-up, when he was holding her in his arms.

  He had been told that she first had to admit to the problem before Zarios could do anything to help.

  ‘Emma?’ She stirred into semi-wakefulness as he rolled onto his side and stared down at her. ‘Nothing’s ever too big that you can’t tell me.’

  He smiled as her groggy eyes tried to focus on his.

  ‘If there’s something worrying you it’s better to face it.’

  ‘I know,’ she mumbled.

  ‘And,’ Zarios ventured on, ‘if I can do anything to help, I will.’

  ‘Even after this morning?’ Her sleepy voice begged.

  ‘Especially after this morning. Emma.’ He was playing with her hair again, but this time it was her fringe, pushing it out of her eyes, feeling the damp stream of tears on her cheeks. He’d have given anything to lower his head and kiss her—would at that moment have given anything for her…

  Which was the reason he didn’t.

  Pressure from any quarter, according to the counsellor, was the very last thing she needed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN