‘Of course I have!’ Guilt made her defensive and she glowered at him from under her lashes. This was all happening so fast. It seemed to her that after a life that had dragged on and on and on, everything had sped up the minute this man appeared on the scene. Their affair, her job, her hurt when she had discovered how he had manoeuvred her to get what he wanted, then the pregnancy. Now this.
‘You barely touched your food tonight, I noticed.’
‘Can you blame me? I was feeling just a tiny bit nervous about what I had to say to you!’
‘Aside from anything else, you need supervision if you’re not going to eat properly.’ He opened the fridge, which was almost as bare as the cupboard.
‘Supervision? Now you’re being absurd. And will you please close that fridge? It has a habit of conking out if the door’s held open for too long!’
Dominic shut the fridge very quietly, leant against it and gave her a long, hard look. ‘Well, that says it all about this place. Your landlord ought to be reported. In fact, I’ve a good mind—’
‘All right! I’ll move back to the apartment. I’m sure Liz wouldn’t mind…’
‘You’re coming with me and tomorrow we’re going to go shopping. For a ring. Then we’re going to arrange for a registrar. Then you’re going to phone your parents and explain everything and I’ll call mine.’
‘I haven’t even told Frankie,’ Mattie whispered. She might have missed the morning sickness but, thinking about it, she had been feeling very fragile recently. Prone to tears. That probably explained why she had spent every night crying since Dominic had disappeared from her life. No, of course it didn’t.
But she was feeling very fragile now. Her head drooped and she rested it wearily on the table.
She was hardly aware of Dominic until she felt his hand stroke her downturned head. It felt strangely soothing. Then she heard him pull up a chair until he was sitting right next to her.
‘What a mess,’ Mattie said, twisting her head so that she was still draped on the table but looking at him now.
‘Why do you find it so upsetting that you haven’t told Frankie?’ Keep it light, Dominic thought, unthreatening. But just the mention of that loser’s name was enough to arouse a raw anger inside him. At a time like this, the last person he wanted her thinking about was her ex-boyfriend.
‘It didn’t even occur to me,’ Mattie admitted.
Dominic felt the temptation to smile broadly. He adopted a serious, compassionate expression and continued to smooth her hair, her wonderful silky, fair hair that looked like spun gold between his long brown fingers.
‘Why should it? Your mind’s everywhere at the moment. I’m surprised you can think coherently at all.’
‘I suppose.’ She straightened up. Her eyes looked huge, like great big green pools, shimmering with un-shed tears.
An unwelcome thought hit him like a physical blow to the head. What if, now that she had the virtue of comparison, she was beginning to think that what she had felt for Frankie had been love after all? That real love, the icing-on-the-cake kind of love, that she didn’t feel for him? He knew he could be arrogant and yes, he supposed, selfish. What if she had begun to wonder whether her ex-boyfriend’s laziness and who-gives-a-damn attitude might just be preferable to a monster who had made the mistake of trying to arrange her life to suit his purposes, which was how she thought of him?
Pain and uncertainty sliced through him like a knife and his jaw tightened. They added to the long list of alien feelings that had transgressed over those character traits which he had hitherto taken for granted, his iron self-possession, his talent for focus, his knowledge that he had his life utterly under his control.
‘Well,’ he stood up, impatient with himself, ‘no point sticking around here. Let’s go.’ Dark, coolly determined eyes looked at her.
Mattie stood up as well but her mouth was stubbornly set in a line. ‘I’ll come with you, Dominic. But no rings and no arranging for a registrar.’
‘We’ll see.’ He turned on his heel and headed for the door, en route collecting the suitcase he had earlier packed.
Discretion being the better part of valour, Mattie refrained from embarking on another fruitless argument with him. For the moment, she would go with him to his apartment and she would make sure to sleep in the spare bedroom. Tomorrow she would say what she had to say, make her compromises and clear out because she was desperately afraid that if she didn’t she would end up doing just what he wanted her to do. Not because she believed that marrying him was the only option, but because the thought of just spending the rest of her life with the man she loved was so alluring.
It was all too easy for her mind to race ahead to a scenario that had her trying to make him fall in love with her, enslaved by his natural charm, then watching as her efforts gradually began to repel him as she became as much of a nuisance as his last woman who had made the mistake of becoming obsessive.
Discovering the part he had played in getting her that job had brought her up short, and she knew that she had to cling to what she had learnt from the experience or risk going under.
Only when she was lying in her own bed an hour later did she begin to feel the strain.
She had got what she wanted, the spare room and solitude, but her victory seemed empty. And temporary. He had allowed her her little stand but for how long? He had pointedly not returned to any conversation about marriage, but she knew that in the morning he would resume his onslaught. And he hadn’t touched her. Maybe he was saving that up as his trump card, knowing that she would melt in his arms just the way she always had.
The questions drove her crazy. She felt like someone poised to defend herself only to discover that the opponent was nowhere to be seen, especially when the remainder of the weekend was spent without further mention of rings or marriages or registrars.
They spent Saturday shopping. No jewellery stores but instead in clothes shops for her. She would need looser clothes, he assured her with a display of old-fashioned conventionality that would have been touching had she not been so busy protecting herself from getting drawn into the powerful net he was weaving around her.
He insisted on taking her to the food hall at Harrods, determined to find out whether she had any cravings, until she reluctantly ended up laughing at his suggestions. But still, he made sure to buy endless delicacies. He was convinced that she had been foolishly starving herself because her supplies of food at the flat had been so pathetic.
And none of his concern was feigned. After the initial shock of her revelation, Dominic was surprised at how easy he found it to accommodate the thought of a child in his life. A child and a wife. Because she would be his, even though he knew that trying to force her hand as he had done to start with would serve no purpose whatsoever.
Had he forgotten just how spirited she was? She could be as stubborn as a mule and his mistake had been to think that she would docilely listen to his reasoning and do his bidding. Simply because he was so desperate for her to do so.
Surely he would be able to show her that life with him would not be the ordeal she anticipated? For someone whose life had been grounded in harsh reality, who had battled against all odds to achieve what she had achieved, she seemed to nurture sweetly romantic visions of love and marriage. And the vision didn’t include him. Not yet.
He would have suggested going to see his country house the following day but they would have needed more than just a mere day there and there was no way he could spend longer, as he was going to be out of the country for the better part of the following week.
Mattie felt relieved and disappointed at this. Relieved that she would have some time to herself to decide just exactly how she was going to deal with the problem. Disappointed because, like it or not, she had lapped up his solicitous attention for two solid days.
He had been the epitome of the perfect father-to-be and to his credit he had not uttered a single word of recrimination about the sorry mess she had landed him in.<
br />
She wondered whether, by extension, she was supposed to see his performance as proof positive that he could be as agreeable a husband as he had been potential daddy.
If so he was mistaken, because every woman deserved love and love was the one word patently missing from their conversations.
‘I trust I’ll return on Thursday to find you here…’ Dominic said with what she detected as warning in his voice as he was about to leave for work on the Monday morning.
‘Well, I certainly won’t be able to return to my flat, considering you collared the landlord, terrified the poor man by implying you would have inspectors on his back if he didn’t do something about the state of the building and then told him that he’d seen the last of me.’ Standing by the door, dressed for work herself, Mattie fought a tremendous urge to reach towards him and kiss those lips that had made a point of keeping away from her all weekend.
Maybe he was already tired of her, physically. Maybe the thought of her pregnancy had put him off her body. But no. He must have read her mind because he leant forward and placed his mouth on hers, a gentle kiss that was soon ignited into a burning, hungry flame.
Mattie found herself weakly clinging to the lapels of his jacket, pulling him towards her so that she could feel his probing tongue invade every inch of her.
She was shaking like a leaf when they finally drew apart. Trembling as though this were the first time they had touched. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, her body remembered his and wanted him back.
She turned away and Dominic was very tempted to pursue her before she had time to retreat, but he was playing a waiting game now, waiting for her to come to him.
Hell, how he wanted to touch her. Her breasts had become fuller now that she was pregnant and he could see them pushing against the grey wool jumper she was wearing.
Having her under his own roof for the past two nights, knowing that she was sleeping in a bed only metres away from where he was, had tested him almost to the point beyond endurance. Every time he had closed his eyes his head had filled with images of her and how she had squirmed sensuously in his arms, opened herself up for him, played her own games with his aching, responsive body.
Well, on Thursday he would be back and enough of all her procrastinations. He had been patient long enough and he knew that, for all her talk, she still wanted him as much as he wanted her. That single kiss had told him as much. Yes, she saw him as manipulative and her fierce independence reacted against that and yes, she had made it clear that, whatever she felt for him, love was not part of the equation, but she was carrying his child and he would marry her. By nature he was not a man capable of seeing his goal and then not doing something about attaining it. He had given her two days of space, during which time he had done his utmost to neutralise his responses to her on the premise that if she didn’t fear him she would begin to see the logic of his arguments and would come to him willingly. Or as willingly as possible, given how she felt about him.
It hadn’t worked. He could carry on pandering to her, allowing her to sleep in the guest room as if impervious to the glaring irony that, in the solitude of her single bed, she was pregnant by the man who was sleeping in the room next door. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Dominic wondered how long the charade would continue. Giving her ample time to get used to handling the situation with him there in a frankly supporting role.
And then would the day come when she just packed her bags and left so that she could continue what he had allowed but in the privacy of her own place? No. The answer was simple. Marriage, a shared bed, a life with him; all else could be sorted once those things were in place.
He left the apartment in a more contented frame of mind than he had felt for weeks.
Mattie, closing the door behind him, was far from contented. Every instinct in her rose up in fury at the way he smoothly, effortlessly and without much thought laid down his laws and expected complete obedience. So why did his obnoxious and ridiculous demand that they be married still dangle in front of her eyes with a niggling attraction?
She had said all the right things, laughed at his suggestion, pointed out how Victorian his thinking was, refused point blank to be coerced into a marriage that would be nothing short of a sham, but she couldn’t carry on living with him here because if she did he would end up steamrollering over her objections. Love would make a fool of her yet again.
For the first time since she had joined the team, Mattie found that she was distracted at work. She volunteered to do some of the most intensely laborious work, just so that she could bury her head in ledgers and give her mind free rein to go where it wanted.
Was it too late to run away? she wondered. ’Course, she couldn’t; Dominic would find her and his rage would know no bounds. In any case, he was her baby’s father and she could never run away from that moral obligation to her unborn child.
But she could leave his apartment. He was away until Thursday. Plenty time for her to pack her bags and go. Not to her own apartment, which was tinged with his handprint. Which only left one place. Frankie’s.
At six-thirty, washed, changed and with the tiny black phone cupped in her hand, Mattie felt almost guilty as she made the call to Frankie. And as soon as she heard his voice down the end of the line, it hit her that the one thing she couldn’t do was return to his house. That house, Frankie, all they had shared, now belonged to another world. She had taken giant strides since then, for better or for worse, and there was no going back.
But it was wonderful hearing his voice, especially in her fragile state of mind. On an impulse, she invited him over, deciding right there and then that she would tell him about her pregnancy when she saw him. Face to face. He wouldn’t be able to tell her what she should do, but he wouldn’t try and gloss over the uncomfortable reality either. One thing about Frankie was his simplicity when it came to dealing with situations. He had been unhappy and so he had taken to the booze, they had not been getting along and so he had avoided her. In the end, his solutions were far from commendable, but his bluntness now would cheer her up.
And she hadn’t seen him for ages, could barely superimpose his face over Dominic’s harsh, beautiful features.
When, forty minutes later, he arrived Mattie pulled open the door to someone whose image had faded from her mind so completely that it was almost like looking at a stranger. Frankie was shorter than she remembered and the good-looking face that had made her sixteen-year-old heart beat with girlish infatuation was almost bland compared to Dominic’s aggressive good looks.
But then she blinked, smiled and a wave of affection rushed over her as she took in the indecisive way he was hovering and the small bunch of flowers languishing in one hand which he must have bought on the way over.
‘You look bloody good, Mats.’ He grinned and looked around Dominic’s lavish apartment. ‘All this high living suits you. Here, brought you these.’ He thrust the flowers into her hands and gave the apartment another once-over with admiring eyes while she went to fetch him a lager.
‘Off the booze, love.’
‘You’ve given up drinking?’
Frankie looked sheepish as he followed her into the kitchen, dropping his bomber jacket on one of the chairs along the way. ‘Had to. Couldn’t get a job any other way, could I? After you did a runner and left me with all the bills to pay.’
Mattie swung around to find that he was grinning at her and she raised her eyebrows in a question.
‘Yep. Got a job, would you credit it? Me! Old Bill down at the pub fixed me up with one of his suppliers and now I don’t drink the stuff, Mats, I sell it.’ He sat on one of the chrome and leather high stools at the counter. ‘Somehow being surrounded by all that booze has kind of taken the glamour away. Now I just try and drink on weekends.’
‘Off the booze. Got a job…mind me asking how come it never occurred to you to do that when I was around?’ But she could see that his change in lifestyle suited him. He looked better. Had put on a little weig
ht and there was a contentment about him that hadn’t been there before.
And she was very happy that she had contacted him, felt guilty that she had not done so sooner. In fact, it hadn’t occurred to her at all. Dominic had taken over her thoughts, her life and she had had nothing left over for anyone else.
The fact that Frankie’s life seemed so sorted out made her feel even more hopelessly drained of all direction. She made them both some coffee, sat across the counter from him on another stool and found herself pouring her heart out.
Everything. No holds barred. She needed to tell someone and strangely enough, after all that time when their communication had drizzled away into arguments or stony silence, Frankie was actually listening to her, nodding, making all the right noises.
‘So what am I going to do?’ she asked, realising that she had managed to finish her cup of coffee and that she needed to stretch her legs. She stood up, scoured the fridge for some mineral water and then turned to look at Frankie questioningly.
‘Marry the geezer. Don’t see the problem myself, but then you always were as stubborn as a mule, Mats. You get something in your head and you can’t find your way around it.’
‘I should leave. I know I should, Frankie.’ She poured some water into a glass and then swirled the glass around, peering in as though hopeful that the answers to her questions might be found somewhere there. Like a fortune-teller gazing at tea leaves and expecting to see the future in them.
‘Why? And go where?’
Mattie shrugged and sighed.
‘You can’t go back to your rented place and anyway, be realistic, Mats, a man like that ain’t going to let you live in squalor when you’re having his baby. I mean, cock an eye at this lot!’
‘That’s just it, Frankie. He can’t buy me and he doesn’t love me so I need to get away.’
‘No, you don’t.’ He sighed. ‘Remember how we used to live, Mats? Running around like little vagrants? No treats, second-hand school clothes? Why choose that for a nipper when you can have the best?’
The Greek Tycoon's Secret Child Page 15
