The Jeep stopped at the camp. The heat was already almost beyond endurance, the air thick with the dust thrown up by their convoy of vehicles. Getting stiffly out, Lily wondered whether she was strong enough to face what lay ahead.
She bent her head, closing her eyes for a second and running her tongue over dry lips.
But she had found the strength to walk away from the tower yesterday morning.
If she could do that, she could do anything.
CHAPTER FOUR
London, six weeks later.
‘CONGRATULATIONS, Miss Alexander.’
Lily looked uncomprehendingly into the smiling face of the doctor. She had come here expecting an explanation for why she had felt so awful since picking up a stomach bug on her trip to Africa just over a month ago, but Dr Lee looked as if he was about to tell her she’d won the lottery, not contracted some nasty tropical disease.
She frowned. ‘You have the test results back?’
‘I have indeed. I can now confirm that you don’t have malaria, yellow fever, hepatitis …’ he let each sheet of flimsy yellow lab paper drift down onto the desk between them as he went through the sheaf of test results ‘… typhoid, rabies or diptheria.’
Lily’s heart sank.
It wasn’t that she wanted a nasty tropical disease, but at least if she knew what was causing the constant, bone-deep fatigue, the metallic tang in her mouth that made everything taste like iron filings, then maybe she could do something about it. Take something to make it go away, so she could start sleeping at night instead of lying awake, hot and breathless, fighting the drag of nausea in the back of her throat and trying not to think of that other night. Of Tristan Romero.
She shook her head, trying to concentrate. That was another thing that was almost impossible these days, but with huge effort she dragged her mind back from its now-familiar refuge in a twilit tower, a moon-bleached bed …
She had to put that behind her. Forget.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. If all the tests have come back negative, then what—?’
‘Ah, not quite all the tests show a negative result. There was one that has come back with a resounding positive.’ Dr Lee folded his hands together on the desk and beamed at her. ‘You’re pregnant, Miss Alexander. Congratulations.’
The walls seemed to rush towards her, blocking out the bright September sunshine outside, compacting the air in Dr Lee’s very elegant consulting room so that it was too thick to breathe. Lily felt the blood fall away from her head, leaving a roaring, echoing emptiness, which was filled a few seconds later by the distant sound of Dr Lee’s voice. She was aware of his hand on the back of her head.
‘That’s it … just keep your head down like that, there’s a good girl. This sort of reaction isn’t uncommon … Your hormones … Nothing to worry about. Just give it a moment and you’ll soon feel right as rain …’
Rain.
The memory of the lake at Stowell in the misty pre-dawn light rose up from the darkness inside her head; the rain falling in shining, silvery sheets on a landscape of pearly greyness. She remembered the musical sound of it, a timeless, soothing lullaby as she had held Tristan, stroking the tension from his sleeping body, while all the time, unknown, unseen, this … secret miracle had been unfurling within her own flesh.
‘There. Better now?’
She sat up, inhaling deeply, and nodded. ‘Yes. Sorry. The shock …’
Dr Lee’s face was compassionate, concerned. ‘It wasn’t planned?’
‘N-no,’ she stammered. ‘I don’t understand. I’m on the pill.’
‘Ah. Well, the contraceptive pill is pretty good, but nothing gives a one-hundred-per-cent guarantee, I’m afraid. The sickness bug you picked up in Africa could have impaired the pill’s effectiveness, if that was quite soon after …’ He cleared his throat and left the sentence tactfully unfinished.
Mutely Lily nodded.
‘In that case it would tell me that it’s still very early days,’ he said gently. ‘There are many options open to you, you know.’
Lily got clumsily to her feet and held onto the back of the chair for support as the meaning of his words penetrated her numb brain.
Options.
‘Think about it,’ Dr Lee said with professional neutrality. ‘Talk it over with your partner, and let me know what you decide.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t have a partner. He’s not … He wouldn’t …’ She stopped, her mouth open as she tried to articulate the degree of Tristan Romero’s absence from her life without making herself sound like a cheap tart. I barely know him … I don’t have his number and he made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t want to hear from me again … It was meant to be sex without strings. A one-night stand.
Oh, God, maybe she was a cheap tart. She remembered the hunger with which she’d pushed him back on the moonlit bed and taken him in her mouth; remembered the despair that had sliced through her like forked lightning when he’d said they shouldn’t go any further, that he had no contraception, and the desperation with which she had assured him it was safe.
‘This is nothing to do with him.’ Her knuckles were white as she gripped the back of the chair. ‘It’s not his fault, or his responsibility.’
Dr Lee’s eyebrows rose. ‘Miss Alexander—’
‘It’s mine. My fault, my responsibility. My baby.’ The words sounded strange and unfamiliar, but as she spoke them the same peculiar, illogical sense of peace that she had felt that night in the tower, in Tristan’s arms, came back to her, shivering through her whole body like a delicate meteor shower. She lifted her chin, meeting the concerned gaze of the doctor with a determined smile. ‘It’s my baby. And I’m keeping it.’
‘A call for you, Señor Romero.’
Tristan looked up irritably from the computer screen. ‘Bianca, I told you I did not wish to be disturbed.’
‘Lo siento, señor, but it is Señor Montague. I thought you would wish to speak to him.’
Tristan gave an abrupt nod as he reached for the phone. ‘Sí. Gracias.’ He swung his chair round so that he was looking out over the Placa St Jaume and the sunlit grand façade of the City Hall opposite. The Banco Romero de Castelan was one of the oldest and most well established in Spain, and its main offices were in a grand and prestigious building in the heart of Barcelona. It was beautiful, but oppressive. The sun had moved across the square, so that the high-ceilinged rooms with their echoing marble floors were in deep shadow from lunchtime onwards, although that wasn’t the only reason Tristan felt permanently chilled when he was here.
‘Tom.’
‘At last. You’re impossible to get hold of,’ Tom grumbled good-naturedly. ‘Were you in the middle of ravishing some innocent from the accounts department or something? Your secretary seemed remarkably reluctant to let me speak to you.’
‘You pay too much attention to the gossip columns,’ said Tristan acidly. ‘I’m working. Believe it or not, banks don’t run themselves. Bianca was under strictest instructions not to let any calls or any visitors through, so I don’t know how you persuaded her.’
‘It’s called charm, old chap. It’s what those of us who can’t get women into bed merely by glancing at them have to rely on. Which one is Bianca? The dark haired one with the cleavage you could get lost in?’
Tristan grinned reluctantly. ‘No. Redhead, looks like Sophia Loren, although since you’re soon to be a married man I hardly think it’s relevant.’ His smile became a little stiffer as he said, ‘How is your lovely bride-to-be?’
‘Oh, you know; beautiful, sexy … and suddenly totally preoccupied with flower arrangements and bridesmaid dresses. I tell you, it’s a whole new world. In my darker moments I have actually found myself thinking that your commitment to anonymous, emotionless one night stands might not be so insane after all.’
‘At last you’ve seen the light,’ Tristan said dryly. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind, you know.’
Tom laughed. ‘Oh, it is. Far too late. I�
�m at the mercy of forces way beyond my control—namely Scarlet and my mother. My mother’s decided that we have to have an engagement party and as best man I’m afraid you have to be there. That’s why I was phoning—can you manage the last Saturday in September? Scarlet thinks that a small dinner at Stowell will be the least alarming way for her family to meet mine.’
Tristan glanced at his BlackBerry. Parties in Madrid and Lisbon, a business dinner in Milan and an invitation to spend the weekend at the island retreat of some friends were already filled in.
‘What if I said no?’
‘Then we’ll make it October.’ Tom sounded completely unconcerned. Leaning back in his chair, pushing a hand through his hair, Tristan stifled a sigh, recognising that he wasn’t going to be able to get out of this one easily, but not willing to examine the reason why he wanted to.
‘I’ll try,’ he said curtly. ‘But one of the projects is at a difficult stage at the moment. You know what it’s like. I can’t promise anything.’
‘No. Of course not. You never can.’ Across the miles Tristan heard the quiet resignation in Tom’s voice. ‘You are the undisputed world champion of not promising anything and not committing yourself. But pencil it in and try to be there if nothing more important comes up.’
‘I’ll get back to you,’ Tristan said coldly. Cutting the call, he stood up, staring for a moment at the phone in his hand as Tom’s words echoed reproachfully through his head.
Every one of them was true, of course.
He swore, slamming his fist down on the polished wood of the desk from which generations of Romeros had run their banking empire, exploiting their name, consolidating their power and their fortune, regardless of who they destroyed in the process. And he was as cold and ruthless as the rest of them. He never allowed himself to forget that or to believe any different, whatever he did by way of atonement. His blue-tinged blood ran thick with the sin and corruption of his forefathers. Of his father. The only way in which he differed from them was that he was honest about it.
Honest.
Honest enough to admit that he was beyond redemption. Honest enough to know that he was best alone.
He gave a short, harsh exhalation of laughter. OK, so while he was being so unswervingly truthful he might as well admit to himself the real reason that he was so reluctant to go to Tom’s party. Back to Stowell. Because, he thought in self-disgust, she would be there.
Lily Alexander.
The girl with the skin that smelled like almonds, and felt like velvet.
The girl who had caught him at a low ebb, and got past his defences in a way that had never happened before.
And wouldn’t happen again, he thought, steeling himself. What did it matter if she was there or not? He would treat her in exactly the same way he treated every other woman he had slept with and discarded. With distant courtesy. And then he would walk away.
Lily’s throat was tight and her fingers nervously pleated the rose-coloured silk of her dress. ‘A small dinner party to celebrate your engagement,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what you said on the phone. Scarlet, just look at all this …’
She looked anxiously around Stowell’s grand hall, where a steady stream of people in evening dress were drifting in through the vast doorway and indulging in an orgy of air-kissing. ‘It’s like a scene from Georgette Heyer.’
Scarlet laughed and tucked her arm through Lily’s, drawing her close. ‘I know, I know. Ridiculous, isn’t it? We were supposed to be keeping it really small, but in the end I just couldn’t bear to leave anyone out, so we’ve ended up inviting virtually everyone we know.’
Lily felt her heart perform an agonising twist-and-plummet motion inside her chest.
‘Everyone?’ She slicked her tongue over lips that were suddenly dry and stinging. ‘Tom’s friends too?’
‘Oh, yes, he’s worse than me. He’s invited just about everyone he ever went to school with, and his entire family.’ Scarlet dropped her voice. ‘My poor parents are completely out of their depth. You will look after them, won’t you, Lily?’
Lily nodded, for a moment unable to speak due to the huge lump of cement that seemed to have lodged in her chest. ‘Of course,’ she managed at last. ‘It’ll be lovely to see them.’
That much was true. When Lily was growing up Scarlet’s parents had provided her with everything from home-cooked meals to help with schoolwork and advice about boyfriends, and numerous other things that her own mother had been utterly ill equipped to give her. As Scarlet gave her arm a squeeze Lily found herself wondering what Mr and Mrs Thomas would make of her current predicament.
‘God, I’ve missed you,’ Scarlet was saying. ‘You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you.’ In spite of the diamonds that glittered at her throat and her very sophisticated swept-up hairstyle, she suddenly looked very uncertain, and Lily was reminded of when they were teenagers, worrying about whether anyone would ever kiss them. ‘Just because I’m getting married, things between us won’t change, will they? We’ll still be best friends? Still tell each other everything?’
Lily hesitated, swallowing back the guilt that choked her. ‘Of course.’
Sliding her arm free of Lily’s, Scarlet grabbed a couple of glasses of champagne from the tray of a hovering waitress. She thrust one into Lily’s hand and clinked her own against the rim. ‘Here’s to us … to friendship that nothing can shake.’
A hot tide of nausea instantly erupted inside Lily’s stomach as her newly heightened senses picked up the sweet-sharp scent of alcohol and rebelled against it. God, why hadn’t she brought a ready supply of ginger biscuits to keep the sickness at bay? She felt the sweat break out on her upper lip as her throat tightened convulsively.
‘Lily? Are you all right? What’s wrong?’
Mutely Lily shook her head. In front of her Scarlet’s face was a blur of concern and regret sliced through her. For the first time since she was ten years old she was keeping something from her best friend and it didn’t feel right. But how could she possibly break the news that she was pregnant when she hadn’t even told Scarlet about what had happened that night?
So much had happened so quickly, she thought wearily. She hadn’t told Scarlet about Tristan simply because she hadn’t had a chance. She’d gone straight to Africa the day after the costume ball, and when she’d returned it had been to find Scarlet starry-eyed and utterly preoccupied with her engagement to Tom Montague. He’d proposed, she told Lily dreamily, at the culmination of the firework display at the party.
Somehow Lily hadn’t felt it was tactful to mention what she had been doing at that precise moment …
‘I didn’t think you looked well,’ Scarlet was saying now as she put her arm around Lily’s shoulders and guided her towards the door. ‘In fact, you haven’t been yourself since you got back from Africa. I think it’s more than just being affected by the stuff you saw there. You need to see a doctor and get some blood tests done or something.’
‘I have,’ Lily muttered weakly. They had reached the wide stone stairs in the entrance hall and as they slowly began to descend the cool air from the open doors to the courtyard touched her face and dispersed the suffocating feeling of nausea a little. She took a deep breath, realising that she couldn’t really put off telling Scarlet any longer, but not quite knowing how to say it. Pausing to lean against the balustrade at the foot of the stairs, she turned her face towards the doorway and felt the chill September breeze lift her hair.
Scarlet shot her a worried look. ‘And? What did he say?’
‘Nothing. I mean, I’m not ill.’ She faltered, unable to meet Scarlet’s eye and looking over her shoulder as she began hesitantly, ‘The thing is, I’m—’
She stopped, her mouth open. The crimson walls of the great room billowed and swayed and the vaulted ceiling seemed to rush towards her as someone came in through the huge doors from the blue evening outside. For a moment she thought it was her mind playing tricks on her, conjuring up the image of the tall, effortl
essly elegant figure, the perfect, impassive face, in the same way that someone lost in the desert might imagine a verdant oasis in the distance. But then he looked up and she was plunged straight into the pools of his eyes.
This was no mirage.
Frowning, Scarlet turned her head in the direction of Lily’s gaze. ‘Oh, Tristan’s here. Tom’ll be pleased,’ she said vaguely before turning her attention back to Lily. ‘So, what did the doctor say it was, then? The old “too much travel, too much work” thing again? Lily?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Lily’s voice had dried up to a husk of a whisper. Tristan was coming towards them, one hand loosely thrust into the pocket of his trousers. Every beautiful inch of him, every relaxed, graceful movement declared his utter self-assurance and complete ease, while she felt as if her insides were slowly being fed through a paper shredder. She wondered whether she might actually be about to pass out cold. The idea of blissful oblivion was remarkably appealing.
‘Congratulations, Scarlet.’ Tristan spoke gravely as he bent to kiss each of Scarlet’s cheeks. ‘Tom is a very lucky man. You look radiant tonight.’
There had been times in the past eight weeks when Lily had managed to convince herself that her mind was exaggerating the power of Tristan Romero de Losada Montalvo’s attraction. During the blank hours of those sleepless nights the memory of his cool, moonlit perfection had taken on an almost mythical quality, mingling as she slid into restless, fragmented sleep with the story he had told her about the moon goddess and Endymion, until she could no longer distinguish reality from fantasy, dreams from memories.
But she had exaggerated nothing, and the beauty of his chiselled angel’s face shocked her afresh. She flattened herself back against the stone balustrade, both dreading and burning for the moment when he would turn his attention to her, certain that the secret she carried within her body was written all over her face.
‘Tristan!’
Tom’s triumphant shout echoed from above, and Lily felt a mixture of frustration and relief as the spell of anticipation was broken. A second later Tom was clattering down the stairs towards them, a lopsided grin on his face. ‘You’re hardly over the threshold and already you’re kissing my fiancée. Have you no respect for the sanctity of marriage?’
Hot Nights with a Spaniard (Mills & Boon M&B) (Mills & Boon Special Releases) Page 19
