Playing the Dutiful WifeExpecting His Love-Child

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘That is how you feel?’

  His voice seemed to be coming from far away, and his question confused her. Because she did know how she felt. Millie knew as she stood there before him that she loved him, and that was what was killing her. Being close to him and knowing she couldn’t really have him—that this distant, remote, yet at times incredibly emotive man, couldn’t give her the piece of him that she needed.

  ‘You feel trapped?’ Levander pushed.

  And she nodded—because trapped was how she felt. Not by the situation, but by her feelings. She realised then that, as impressive as Levander’s reasons were for a hasty marriage, if she didn’t love him, didn’t want him with every fibre of her being, she’d have walked away—would have made it on her own.

  Would have managed just fine.

  ‘Come!’ Waltzing back into the bedroom and not even knocking, Nina called to Levander. ‘We need to get to the airport, and Millie should get a good night’s sleep.’ Over her shoulder, unwittingly for once, Nina hurled another knife. ‘Enjoy your last night of freedom!’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ANTON, FOR ALL that he wasn’t family, made a very good mother of the bride—spoiling her rotten, policing everyone. And there were plenty to police. The hairdresser, the manicurist, the dressmaker, the make-up artists…

  Artists!

  Millie needed two, apparently. One for her face and the other to concentrate solely on her décolletage—to even out her fading tan and ensure her cleavage was spectacularly arranged.

  Anton even made a fuss of Annika, Millie’s very stunning bridesmaid and half-sister-in-law to be—who, given Millie was about to share her surname, actually opened up a touch as the room buzzed with the frenzy of getting her ready.

  Finally, when Anton had shooed everyone out and it was just the three of them, he gave Millie the biggest of smiles, then promptly burst into tears. ‘You look ravishing.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Now, I’m going to race over to Luigi’s and get just a smidgen of product put through my hair—and you, honey…’

  ‘I know.’ Millie shivered at the prospect of ringing her parents. ‘Maybe I should ring them after the wedding…’

  ‘No.’ Anton was insistent. ‘They’ll want to wish you luck. You know you have to do this—by the time you’re done I’ll be back. Look after her, Annika,’ Anton called, flying out of the door.

  ‘Maybe it would be better to wait?’ Annika gave a sympathetic smile and said absolutely the wrong thing. ‘You might ruin your make-up.’

  She didn’t want this.

  Tears were filling her exquisitely made-up eyes and she blinked them back, staring at her reflection and trying, for the thousandth time, to tell herself that everything was okay.

  She was marrying the man she loved.

  Marrying the father of her child.

  Standing in her stunning wedding dress, with a packed church waiting to share in this most special moment.

  So why did it feel as if she were walking to the gallows?

  It was just homesickness, Millie told herself. If only her family could be here… But that didn’t fit—because, as much as she missed them, it wasn’t actually her family she needed today…

  It was Levander…

  Or rather his love.

  Fiddling with the huge diamond on her ring finger, she recalled their lovemaking, tried to hone in on the magic they shared. But no matter how much she tried, how much she wanted to convince herself, at the end of the day it was the baby they were marrying for…

  But was it enough?

  ‘Your family must be very proud,’ Annika attempted as Millie tried to hold down the single glass of water she’d managed that morning. ‘Believe it or not, my father is proud too.’

  ‘Believe it or not?’ Millie frowned. ‘Why wouldn’t he be proud of Levander?’

  ‘He is proud of Levander. I was talking about…well you two…’ Annika was still going on, frowning at Millie’s pale reflection and without invitation adding another dash of blusher. ‘Even though you’re not perhaps who we’d have first chosen it has all worked out well—Papa has got his wish and more.’

  ‘His wish?’

  ‘Last night it was made official,’ she prattled on, less reserved without her mother around. ‘My father always said that the Kolovsky empire would go to the first of his children who gave him a grandchild. And we all knew that he wanted that person to be Levander—the son he would give anything to make happy. Levander has been a driving force in the company and Papa is desperate for him to stay on. That night when you two met, when I was pleading with Levander to grant father his wish, he was so adamant the answer was no….’ She smiled down to Millie’s stomach. ‘Who knows how Levander’s mind works?’

  Not she. Millie’s hands went to her stomach, held the tiny life that might not have been such an accident after all, and wondered if Levander, in his own dark way, had somehow decided to claim what he thought he deserved.

  ‘Maybe he will get to see his grandchild too…’ Annika said, her eyes following Millie’s hands. ‘You should have a scan.’

  ‘I’ve had one.’

  ‘Find out this time…’ Annika stood back to admire her handiwork, to check that the bride they all so desperately wanted was passable enough—was good enough to take the family name. Millie felt like slapping her. ‘Let’s just hope we can tell Papa he is getting a grandson…’

  Annika’s mobile rang she turned her back. ‘Hold on a moment… Levander—what does he want?’

  To make his father happy.

  The biggest, most difficult, most terrifying decision of her life was suddenly made incredibly simple.

  She could almost have accepted him marrying her for the baby—marrying her out of duty—but the thought that he had engineered the situation in order to please his father, or worse to inherit the Kolovsky empire, filled her with horror.

  Maybe she was an old-fashioned girl after all, Millie decided. Because the only thing she could marry for was love.

  ‘I’ll just be a moment…’ Annika gave Millie a worried smile. “Everything is okay—you just keep on getting ready.’

  As Annika fled to the bedroom Millie could hear her shouting, hear yet another Kolovsky argument breaking out, but she didn’t even notice. The second the bedroom door closed, Millie pulled off her headdress, yanked the beastly dress down and pulled on her jeans, slipping on some runners and grabbing her purse.

  As Levander had said, it wasn’t a prison… All she had to do was open the doors and press the lift button, then walk calmly out through the hotel foyer. Every waiting camera was on the lookout for a blushing bride in white, not a pale woman in jeans.

  Walking along the tree-lined street, she didn’t look back—not once. She just willed herself to be calm, to keep on walking, until she hit the main road—and boarded a tram that clattered past, not knowing where it was taking her and not really caring.

  * * *

  ‘End of the line, love.’

  She hadn’t even noticed the tram had come to a stop, her mind lost in a whir of thoughts—trying and failing to picture Levander’s face when he found out his bride wasn’t coming, Anton’s hysterics when he got back to the hotel to find her gone, the shock of the guests, the blitz of headlines, her parents’ reaction…

  Maybe she should have just gone through with it, Millie begged of herself as she stepped off the tram and stood shivering on the street. The bright winter sun that had held so much promise this morning was now shrouded in grey, and a bitter wind was skimming the Tasman and blowing across the bay.

  St Kilda.

  Where their rollercoaster ride had started—the last stop on their first date, on that magical tour of Melbourne. But somehow the world was a greyer, bleaker place without Levander beside her.

  As she headed into the café, where they had sat and talked for hours, it was as if a curtain had lifted and the scenery had been changed. Happy families were at every table: children pl
unging long spoons into deep glasses of ice-cream, young, beautiful couples wading through the papers and idly watching the world go by, unaware of the seamier clientele that would frequent it later.

  Sitting at a corner booth, Millie ordered coffee, clasped her hands around the vast mug and wondered if she’d ever be warm again—wondered how she could go back and face them all.

  And she’d have to.

  Her passport, her clothes…

  Oh, God, what had she done? Maybe she should have just gone through with it. Certainly she should have spoken to Levander. But how—how could she…?

  How could she tell him that the autonomous, principled man she’d fallen in love with didn’t match up to a man who would make a baby to appease his father—however high the stakes?

  ‘I am sorry.’ His rich, deep voice broke into her racing thoughts, and her eyes darted up to where he stood over her. ‘May I sit?’

  She couldn’t speak, so instead she nodded, bracing herself for a vitriolic outburst Levander style. She was bemused at the hesitancy in him, stunned when he took her mug of coffee from her and held her hands, before taking a deep breath and finally talking.

  ‘I am sorry—sorry to shame you. But it is not your shame, it is mine—remember that. I will tell everyone.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Millie frowned. His apology was completely unexpected, and she was unable to look at him—just stared at his fingers entwined around hers, utterly perplexed by what he was saying and flailing for a response. ‘It isn’t about shame, Levander. It’s… I just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t marry you knowing—’

  ‘Pardon?’ He interrupted her stumbling explanation—and for the first time she managed to look at him, saw the confusion in his eyes that mirrored her own.

  ‘I didn’t mean to run away—I wasn’t planning it. I just…’

  ‘You jilted me?’ She winced at the phrase, but the question in his voice made no sense—and what made even less sense was the tiny flicker of a smile playing on the edge of his lips. ‘You jilted me?’

  ‘Why do you think I’m here?’ She glanced to the large clock on the wall, and then back to him. ‘Why, when we should be walking out of the church arm in arm around now, am I sitting in a café in St Kilda, bawling my eyes out?’

  ‘Because I jilted you.’ His shocking words halted her. ‘Because half an hour before you were due to leave for the church I rang Annika and told her I couldn’t do it to you—couldn’t force you to be my wife…’

  ‘You jilted me?’ It was so appalling, so embarrassing, she could barely get her head around it. ‘I was left at the altar…?’

  ‘Ah…’ Levander shook his head. ‘Apparently you were never going to make it to the altar…’

  And she realised then why he’d given that strange smile when she’d made her stumbling explanation. The humiliation she’d thought she’d inflicted on him, the embarrassment, the shame she’d thought she’d wreaked on another human being, eradicated now. Millie actually managed a shocked giggle as she remembered Annika shouting on the phone as she’d sped out of the room.

  ‘Can I ask why?’ Her smile faded as he confronted her, the real issues bobbing back up to the dark surface. ‘Why you chose not to marry me—why you think you and our child would be better off without me?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Millie sobbed. ‘I won’t… It’s just… Annika told me about your father—that she had begged you to have a child the night we met.’

  ‘My whole family has begged me to procreate for years now.’ Levander shrugged. ‘Why does that shock you? You heard us talking that night…’

  ‘I didn’t hear that,’ Millie gasped.

  ‘Millie, I am loath to give him even a few more years’ work from me—do you really think for one minute I would sign away my life for him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Millie admitted. She was crying now—crying in a way she only had since she’d met him. From the day she’d left his arms and headed back to England, from when the pregnancy test had proved positive, since he’d invaded her world and stripped her bare, inflamed her raw emotions till everything was in Technicolor—every thought, every feeling, more intense somehow. ‘I don’t know if I was just looking for an excuse not to marry you…’

  ‘Would you believe that I am not trying to appease my father if I tell you that last night I spoke with him? We went out, and he offered me—’

  ‘I know about that.’ Millie shivered. ‘I know that the first child to produce a Kolovsky heir gets the prize…’

  ‘I declined. It is a ridiculous idea. How could I solely inherit when I have two brothers and a sister?’ He took in her shocked reaction. ‘I told him that I would continue to work for him—but only if I can do it from London.’

  ‘London?’ Millie blinked at him. ‘You were prepared to move to London?’

  ‘I still am.’ He stated it as if it was obvious. ‘I was hoping when I said it that we would be doing it together, as a proper family, but now I accept that is not possible. However, I still want to be the best father I can be—and I cannot do that from Australia. Even if we are not together, I know you will treat me fairly.’ He looked at her stunned face and explained a touch further. ‘I trust you, Millie.’

  And for someone with his past, Millie realised that trust was almost better than love. Not that it helped right now—not that it helped when the man of your dreams was telling you the reason that he couldn’t actually bring himself to marry you. But later it would. Millie knew that later, when she replayed this conversation, somehow the fact that after all he’d been through he actually trusted her might be just enough sustain her in the end.

  ‘I woke up this morning and I realised I trust you—that marriage is not needed for the sake of our child. I know that you will put our baby’s interests first—that I do not have to force myself into the picture to be there.’

  ‘Because you are there.’ Millie trembled. ‘Whether we’re married or not, friends or not, you will always be this child’s father. Always.’

  ‘I know that now. I know you would never keep me from my child. Not like—’ He stopped himself then, and even though she was drowning in her own grief, choking on her own feelings, something in his voice reached her.

  Her forehead creased into a frown. ‘Levander—things were different then. It wasn’t like now, when you can pop on a plane—they thought you were safe, they thought…’ Her voice petered out as she looked beyond his effortless beauty, beyond those brooding eyes, and right into his very soul. She saw not pain, not bitterness or regret, but raw, unbridled agony.

  The dawning suspicion, when it came to her, was so utterly devastating that her first reaction was to recoil, to close her eyes and block out what she could see written in his eyes.

  ‘He knew, didn’t he?’

  ‘No.’ Levander closed his eyes, pulled back his hand. But Millie wasn’t about to let go, grabbing it back and holding tightly. ‘He didn’t know anything.’

  ‘She did, though…’ Millie whispered. ‘Nina knew, didn’t she?’

  ‘Don’t go there—it is not worth the pain.’

  ‘Whose pain?’ Millie asked angrily, protectively. ‘What about your pain?’

  ‘If my family were to know—if my father ever found out what she did… Annika, Iosef…’ He dragged in a breath. ‘They cannot know—it would finish him.’

  ‘It won’t finish me.’ Somehow her voice was firm. ‘You said you trust me.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  He swallowed so hard it was if he was choking. ‘What I told you before—all of it is true except…’ His eyes found hers then, his hands held hers, gripping them tightly as he told her the truth—the real truth this time. Not the Kolovsky version, but the truth of a little boy who had seen far, far too much. ‘The day before I went to the baby house we went to my father’s—Nina answered; she was pregnant. I remember that, and I remember my father wasn’t home. My mother told Nina how sick she was. I remember because it was the first ti
me I realised that my mother was actually dying—she was coughing and crying, and she told Nina her family could not afford to have me when she was gone…’ He faltered for a moment, so Millie held his hand tighter.

  She preferred the old version. Life had somehow been easier when she’d thought him bitter and jealous. The appalling truth was more than anyone should have to bear.

  ‘Nina didn’t care. I just remember them arguing. My mother was crying so hard she could barely breathe, and then Nina shooed us away as if we were gypsies come begging.’

  Some agonies were just too big for tears. Life was so unbearable at times that to break down and merely cry would almost be an insult. Millie wanted to howl—wanted to scream at a world that had been so cruel. Rage was churning in her—a rage so strong it almost propelled her from her seat, to find Nina, to tell Ivan… But somehow she held it in check—she knew it couldn’t possibly help him.

  ‘Does she know…’ She tried to keep the hatred from her voice. ‘Does she know you can remember?’

  ‘The day I found out you were pregnant I told Nina. Now she has to live with her fear. We all have to live with our mistakes. Last night you said you should be careful what you wish for…’ A mirthless smile ghosted his lips, and his English was less than perfect as he struggled to tell her more about his past. ‘When my mother took me to dom rebyonka, the baby house, she told me it would not be for long—that I was to be good and wait, and that my father would come and get me. I don’t know if she went back to speak with him again. I don’t really want to know. But every night I looked out of the window and I wished—I wished for him, for a family, and later as I got older I wished too for money, and I wished for beautiful women. I got every last wish. Compared to those poor bastards still there, I have nothing to complain about.’

  ‘Oh, but you do.’

  She got it then—as much as anyone who hadn’t lived his life possibly could. Since she’d found out she was pregnant she’d wondered if she was up to being a mother—the mother she wanted to be—if she could provide for her child the happy, secure childhood her own parents had given her. But for Levander there were no happy memories, no foundations on which to build. Just a much too late glimpse of family was all he had known. A family fractured by his very presence. His arrival had split the family, caused his half-brothers’ anger and blame, his father’s guilt, his stepmother’s fear.