by Lynne Graham
The young, chatty doctor wanted Max to have a hospital scan but Max was as immovable on that score as concrete laced with steel. For some reason, he didn’t like hospitals and he didn’t like scans. After considerable pressure from the worried doctor, who was equally convinced that Max had concussion from the blue-black bruising and the swelling that was visible when his hair was parted, Max agreed to attend the hospital the following morning. Discussing the treatment Max required, Tia saw the doctor out of the suite.
‘Tia...’ Max called almost as soon as she was out of his sight.
Breathless, Tia sped back and studied him, wondering what was normal for Max because the doctor had asked her that question when telling her to look out for abnormal behaviour. But how much did she know about the man she had just slept with? Next to nothing, came the answer. Ashamed of that reality, Tia reddened.
‘I can’t simply lie here in bed like I’m ill!’ Max bit out in frustration.
‘You have to. You’re very dizzy and if you fall I couldn’t get you up on my own,’ Tia pointed out sensibly, her practical nature taking charge. ‘It’s midnight anyway and it’s only for a few hours.’
‘I don’t go to bed at midnight like your grandfather. In fact I’m used to late hours and little sleep,’ Max murmured drily, studying her from below the lush black fringe of his lashes, barely contriving not to flinch. There she was: his beautiful downfall, the film-star beauty ruffled but no less appealing, golden hair tumbled round her heart-shaped face, blue eyes sparkling. She had a sort of effervescent glow about her. Knowing that he was about to douse that glow didn’t improve his mood.
‘Tia... I didn’t use protection,’ he divulged in a harsh undertone of self-blame.
‘What do you mean?’ she prompted uncertainly.
Max groaned out loud, for that naïve question said it all as far as he was concerned. He had taken cruel advantage of her innocence, he conceded grimly. ‘I assume that thump on the head left me disorientated. I didn’t use contraception with you.’
Belated comprehension striking her, Tia froze and her complexion turned pale and clammy. ‘Oh,’ she framed in dismay.
‘As I’m regularly tested there is no risk of disease,’ Max assured her, his intonation brusque. ‘Believe it or not, I have never before had sex without using protection. Obviously one doesn’t want consequences...’
‘Consequences...you mean, me getting pregnant,’ Tia gathered, her brain still struggling to handle the deeply unwelcome surprise he had dealt her.
How could she have been so foolish? She had got so carried away that she hadn’t even considered the risk of pregnancy and the acknowledgement that she could be that irresponsible was even more of a shock.
‘Clearly that’s a risk,’ Max spelt out flatly, having watched her pale and flinch from that reality. ‘We’re both young and healthy. There could definitely be consequences.’
Only that morning, Tia had wakened in the convent, still naïve and ignorant about matters that other young women took for granted at her age. Now all of a sudden it felt as though she was being subjected to a frightening crash course on what adulthood demanded and she was appalled by her carelessness. She had forgotten all common sense, everything she had been taught about how to look after herself and stay safe. She couldn’t even recall how many years it was since she had been assured that purity was the only certain way to avoid an unplanned pregnancy. So informed, her classmates had giggled and exchanged superior glances while whispering remarks about modern birth control. But, Tia told herself unhappily, her hindsight and regret came a little too late to the table to be helpful. It was done; wrongly or rightly, it was done.
‘We’ll have to get married,’ Max informed her without hesitation. ‘Immediately. In this situation where I was entrusted with your care, it’s the only possible remedy. Your grandfather trusts me. If there’s the smallest chance that you could be pregnant I need to marry you now.’
In silent disbelief, Tia stared back at him. Perspiration beaded her brow. That was the moment that Tia registered that, not only did she not want to be pregnant, but she also didn’t want to be married either. No, not even if Max resembled a Renaissance prince and took her to heavenly heights in bed. What Tia had dreamt of for so many years, what she had always craved was...freedom and independence. And nobody needed to warn her that there was little wriggle room for freedom in either matrimony or motherhood.
CHAPTER FIVE
BENEATH MAX’S INTENT, measuring gaze, Tia had lost all her natural colour and her bright eyes veiled as she studied the highly polished wooden floor instead of him. He realised instantly that Tia was not receptive to the idea of marrying him and it was a shocking wake-up call for a man who had spent years on the social scene being relentlessly pursued by ambitious young women in search of a rich husband. Tia had slept with him but she didn’t want to marry him.
It was a revelation and it hit Max’s ego hard because, he realised angrily, he had placed too much importance on her obvious attraction to him. Very possibly right now she did not feel much different than he did after a one-night stand. She might have enjoyed herself but that didn’t mean she was eager for a repeat.
‘You have a very expressive face,’ Max murmured grimly.
‘That’s why I’m trying not to look at you!’ Tia protested with emphasis. ‘Mother Sancha always knew what I was thinking almost before I did. It’s just...what you said about getting married startled me. I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘As I see it, we don’t have much of a choice,’ Max intoned, his delivery bordering on curt in tone. ‘Bringing you home to Andrew unmarried and pregnant would be a disaster, possibly more for me than you I’ll admit. I fully believe that your grandfather would forgive you for anything but he has higher expectations of me...and I’m not a member of his family.’
The gruff note on which he completed that very honest little speech unexpectedly touched Tia’s heart. For possibly the first time she appreciated that, while he might not be a relative, Max was undeniably fond of Andrew Grayson.
‘I have no idea how you even know my grandfather or what your relationship with him is,’ Tia reminded him uncomfortably. ‘Do you work for him? Are you a neighbour? A friend?’
Max breathed in deep, already inwardly monitoring what he was willing to tell her and all the many things that he planned to take to the grave with him. ‘I was born in a small Italian village. My background is poor and rather sleazy,’ he admitted starkly. ‘When, for reasons I won’t go into, my parents were no longer able to look after me, my mother’s sister, Carina, who worked in England for Andrew, agreed to give me a home. She became my guardian when I was twelve. Your grandfather generously paid for my education. I lived under his roof during the holidays, not as a guest, though, but as the housekeeper’s nephew in the housekeeper’s apartment.’
Tia was taken aback by all that he revealed, having assumed that Max came from much the same sort of privileged and financially comfortable background as her father. Her lashes fluttered rapidly as she absorbed that new information, for it did put a different complexion on their situation. Clearly, Max felt he owed Andrew Grayson a debt for his kindness and did not feel that he could afford to rely on the older man to forgive or overlook any mistakes he made. Did Max think that getting entangled with Tia counted as a mistake? Suddenly, she was very much afraid that that was exactly how he viewed their passionate encounter.
‘Everything that I am today I owe to Andrew’s generosity,’ Max confessed harshly. ‘I don’t want to do anything that distresses him. He’s eighty and he’s...’ unusually he hesitated ‘...frail.’
‘Our getting married could distress him,’ Tia suggested.
‘No. Don’t forget that Andrew is from an earlier generation of men. He still sees marriage as the best source of happiness and security for a woman,’ Max told her flatly.
‘So, you’re willing to marry me simply on the off chance that I could conceive,’ Tia recapped. ‘I understand that but I would pr
efer a husband who wanted to marry me for a more conventional reason like love.’
‘I won’t lie to you,’ Max murmured in a tone of frustration. ‘I can’t offer you love. I was only in love once in my life when I was very young and I hated the effect it had on me. But I can promise to be caring and supportive...and, assuming it’s a normal marriage, faithful.’
Inwardly reeling from that declaration, Tia plonked herself down in a corner armchair and gazed back at him. Her body still ached from his possession and that spur of recollection sent a snaking coil of heat down into her pelvis when she studied his lean, strong face. She respected his honesty even if she didn’t like his embargo on love because she strongly suspected that, given sufficient time, she could fall for Maximiliano Leonelli like a ton of bricks. After all, he was offering her almost everything that she would eventually want...only she hadn’t wanted to find it quite so soon after leaving the convent.
She should have thought of that reality before she’d shared her body with him, she reflected guiltily, should have thought of who he was and who she was and how her grandfather might react to that intimate connection. But she hadn’t thought one sensible thought since Max had exploded into her safe little world, she conceded. He was lean and dark and beautiful and his sophistication and charisma had stolen her wits. She suspected that from the outset she had been behaving rather like an infatuated teenager, all overexcited and encouraging, wildly impulsive while never counting the cost. Or even considering the question of repercussions. What if she were to conceive a child?
Wasn’t that the real bottom line? Wasn’t she being horribly short-sighted and selfish when she thought regretfully of the freedom she had planned to embrace in England? The putative career choices and socialising she had dreamily envisaged? In their own way, weren’t such aspirations rather similar to the single-minded selfishness that had persuaded her own parents to abandon her? A dependent baby hadn’t fitted in with either her father or her mother’s plans. Once their marriage had broken down, Tia had become an unwelcome inconvenience to Paul and Inez Grayson. Was she to take the same attitude to her own baby, were there to be one?
Everything strong and ethical in Tia cried out against that attitude. If there was to be a baby, that baby’s needs should be placed central and first, not sacrificed to her self-interest. She would behave better than her parents had, she told herself urgently. She could make sacrifices if necessary and rearrange her own priorities if she became a mother. But naturally all of that would be easier to do if she had the father of her child by her side to help. Whether she liked to admit it or not, Max’s proposal could be a lifeline and one that she would very much need if she had a baby.
‘Can’t we wait and see if we have anything to worry about first?’ Tia asked, her colour high.
‘I don’t think we should risk your new life in England starting out under a cloud,’ Max admitted truthfully. ‘Your grandfather would be upset if we had to suddenly confess all and get married in a hurry. We could get married here in Rio and return to England as a couple. It would be easier.’
‘But it could also be quite unnecessary. I may not be pregnant,’ Tia pointed out uncomfortably.
‘And if that proves to be the case, we can reconsider our situation at a later date, free of all other concerns,’ Max stated with an almost imperceptible wince, thick lashes dropping down on his eyes to shield them from the strong light, his chiselled jaw line clenching at even the prospect of her conceiving.
Scolding herself for her preoccupation, Tia rose to switch off the lamps, so that the only light entering the bedroom was shared from the reception room next door in a wide triangle that plunged the bed and Max into semi-darkness.
‘Thanks,’ he sighed.
Tia drew in a decisive breath. ‘I’ll marry you if you honestly believe that that’s the best option we have. I don’t want to do anything to upset my grandfather either. After all, without his intervention, I would still be at the convent.’
Relieved by her assent, Max relaxed his wide naked shoulders and rested back on the pillows. ‘Use my room and go to bed now. It’s ridiculous that the doctor told you to sit here and keep me awake all night. Believe me, without my migraine medication I’m in too much discomfort to fall asleep.’
‘I’m not leaving you alone,’ Tia answered stiffly. ‘If I’m going to be your wife, it’s my duty to look after you.’
‘Don’t kill me with enthusiasm,’ Max quipped, cringing behind that humour at the label of ‘wife’ but far more unnerved by the prospect of a pregnancy.
After all, Max had never planned to have a child. Ever. He didn’t want to pass on what he saw as his murky genes. He didn’t want to face the challenge of being a father when his own had been such a monster. All he had ever wanted was a reasonably peaceful, solitary and successful life. But between them Andrew and Tia had tripped him up, thrusting a giant spoke into his structured and controlled existence, throwing up worries and vulnerabilities he had never had to face before. He didn’t want to brood about that misfortune though. Life was always challenging, he reminded himself impatiently. And most men would not consider a very beautiful, very sexy wife a burden...
Why did he have to be different? But he knew the answer, didn’t he? Born of violence, he didn’t want to take the risk of forming a permanent relationship with a woman or having a child of his own because he could never quite trust himself, could he?
As his ever vigilant and distrustful aunt had often reminded him, ‘Who knows what you’ll be like when you grow up? I can only do my best with you but blood can tell in the next generation, and I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that your father was a brute and your mother was delusional.’ It had been one of Carina’s favourite speeches and it had ensured that Max never once forgot his sordid start in life.
Unaware of her future husband’s bleak thoughts and falling far short of her duty of care as a potential wife, Tia dozed off, exhausted by the day she had had. When she wakened it was late into the morning and she was no longer in the chair, she was lying on the bed with a cover thrown over her, and Max was nowhere to be seen. Assuming he had returned to his own room, she went for a shower, revelling in the refreshing beat of the water against her skin, so very different from the weak lukewarm trickle that had purported to be a shower at the convent. Reluctant to put on her crumpled clothing again, she made use of the fleecy robe on the back of the door and emerged, stilling when she saw Max, fully dressed and apparently restored to normality, in the bedroom doorway.
‘Can you get dressed quickly? I’ve ordered breakfast for you but we’re running late for your appointment.’
‘I have an appointment? Where?’ Tia walked barefoot over the polished floor, fighting to keep her voice level and her expressive face still because her mouth had run dry and her heart was pounding. Clothed in a light grey suit that exuded the exclusive expense of personal tailoring, Max, from the smooth olive planes of his exquisite bone structure to the deep-set drama of his black-fringed golden eyes, was simply breathtaking.
‘One of those women’s grooming places,’ Max proffered. ‘I had my PA organise it for you yesterday because I thought you would enjoy the experience. They’ll do your nails and stuff like that.’
Tia nodded, a jolt of happy anticipation bringing a sudden smile to her tense mouth. At the party the night before in the company of much better groomed women she had been mortifyingly conscious of her unstyled hair, the ugly callouses on her hands and her short nails. Although she had been raised to believe that vanity was a sin, when she had still been at school with Maddie she had experimented with make-up just like every other girl there. Once Maddie had moved on with her life beyond school, however, Tia had had nobody to share those little vanities with.
‘I will enjoy it. Have you been out?’
‘I went for the hospital scan first thing,’ Max admitted, surprising her. ‘I have concussion, which will heal on its own. I feel fine.’
Tia wanted to slap
him for not waking her and allowing her to accompany him. Concussion and he just shook the injury off as though it were nothing? Wasn’t that taking macho male denial of weakness too far?
‘I’m relieved that you got checked out but surprised because you seemed so against it last night.’
‘I don’t like hospitals but I’m not stupid. I’ve had concussion before and it was more serious on that occasion.’ Max shrugged a dismissive shoulder while watching her pull various garments to consider from the wardrobe. ‘Wear the blue dress. It’ll highlight your eyes,’ he advised, striding back into the other room.
Clad in the blue dress, Tia slid her feet into light sandals. She rubbed her pale cheeks to lend her wan reflection a little colour. She looked tired, not her best and she marvelled at Max’s undeniable energy after his accident the night before. He’d had concussion before? Had he got into a fight with someone or been involved in a car accident? Frustratingly there was so much she didn’t know about Max Leonelli and she wanted to know more.
An astonishing array of dishes greeted her in the room next door. Teddy had been released from his kennel for an hour and he was standing guard below the table, growling every time Max moved, but when he saw Tia he raced to greet her in a tail-wagging, doggy-licking surge of happiness.
Wryly watching the delighted reunion taking place a few feet from him, Max waved an eloquent hand over the food. ‘I didn’t know what you liked so I ordered a selection.’
‘But this is so wasteful,’ Tia whispered instinctively. ‘I won’t eat half of this.’
‘This is your life now,’ Max countered with level assurance. ‘You have the luxury of choices. You don’t have to make do any more.’
With a guilty sigh, Tia lifted a plate and served herself. ‘It’ll take a lot of getting used to.’
‘It does,’ he agreed. ‘It was like that for me when I first arrived in England. But you’ll soon adapt. We’re getting married in forty-eight hours.’
