Читать книгу His Pregnant Mistress - Carol Marinelli - Страница 8

‘WE’D really rather keep you in.’ A rather impatient-looking doctor stared at her notes. ‘At least for a couple of days until your blood pressure comes down.’

‘It’s hardly likely to come down here,’ Mia replied through gritted teeth, wishing they would all just leave her alone, that she could get in her car and drive back to her home to pore over the day’s events in her own surrounds. ‘Once I’m home I’ll be fine.’

‘What if you’re not?’ The doctor stared at her coolly over his glasses. ‘You don’t live locally, Ms Stewart; you live two hours out of Cairns in the mountains. It’s all very well for you to take risks with your own health, but bear in mind that you’re seven months pregnant. Arguing over a couple of days’ admission…’

‘Who’s arguing?’

Thank God they’d taken the blood-pressure machine off her arm, because if her reading had been high before, as Ethan’s dry tones filled the rather small cubicle Mia was sure it would be up through the roof about now. His heavy cologne mingled with the sickly antiseptic smell, his height, his presence dwarfing everything, and even the rather terse doctor seemed to take on rather more courteous tones as he addressed Ethan.

‘I was just explaining to your wife, sir—’

‘She’s not my wife,’ Ethan corrected, totally at ease as the doctor’s eyes swivelled nervously to the notes in his hands.

‘Well, your partner, then. I was trying to explain that it’s imperative she stay in hospital for a couple of days for the baby’s sake…’

‘She’s not my partner either,’ Ethan said with a slight edge. ‘She’s a friend.’

‘I’m most certainly not!’ Mia retorted. ‘A passing acquaintance would be a more apt description.’

‘Prickly, isn’t she?’ Ethan smiled and if the doctor wasn’t already gay he was certainly heading for conversion because he practically melted on the spot as Ethan turned his black eyes to him. ‘What exactly is the problem, Doctor?’

Mia’s horrified expression at Ethan’s rude intrusion should have been enough to stop the doctor in his tracks, but given both men’s backs were practically to her she lay instead welling with indignation as they proceeded to discuss her as if she weren’t in the room.

‘Her blood pressure’s high and according to her blood work she was slightly dehydrated when she arrived as well as underweight. We just want to keep her here for a couple of days to make sure everything’s progressing normally with the pregnancy.’

Mia was about to respond but held back when Ethan’s calm, measured tones appeared to support what she’d been saying.

‘What if she agreed to come back tomorrow for a check-up? Surely her own home would be the best place for her to rest?’

‘Normally, yes, but given she lives a two-hour drive away it’s out of the question. She needs to be resting, not driving a car along winding mountain roads, and if something goes wrong help isn’t easily at hand.’

‘Fair enough.’ Ethan nodded. ‘Don’t worry, Doctor, I’ll soon talk her around.’

‘You will not!’

Remembering, finally, that Mia was actually the patient, the doctor actually managed to address her. ‘I’m waiting for your GP to call through with your antenatal history, but in the meantime I want you to lie there and relax, and perhaps your “passing acquaintance” might be able to talk some sense into you.’

‘I’ll do my best!’

Alone with Ethan the fire seemed to die within her. Impossibly shy and confused, she stared again at her fingers, utterly refusing to look up, to be the one to break the oppressive silence, but, when it was clear Ethan had more staying power than her, finally Mia relented.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ Ethan quipped. ‘I should be halfway down a bottle of whisky by now and regaling tales of Richard’s and my supposedly happy childhood…’ His voice trailed off and if she’d looked up she’d have seen his face soften slightly. ‘When I got back to the hotel I heard a woman had collapsed at the funeral. The words “blonde” and “pregnant” kind of narrowed the field.’

‘You didn’t need to come.’

‘I know,’ he admitted, ‘but I was worried about you.’

‘It’s a bit late to be worried about me, Ethan!’ She could hear the bitterness in her own voice. ‘Seven years too late, actually. You lost all right to worry about me when you walked, or rather flew, out on me without a backwards glance. You lost all right to worry about me when you arranged to have my father sacked two days later…’

‘He wasn’t sacked,’ Ethan retorted. ‘I distinctly remember signing the cheque—’

‘He was sacked!’ Mia broke in, her voice choking with emotion at the memory of her father’s strained face, the utter devastation as he’d slumped in his chair that afternoon, told Mia that after twenty years of devoted service the Carvelles had accused him of theft. ‘And worse, he was expected to be grateful that you hadn’t called the police…’

‘He was fiddling the books, Mia…’ Ethan’s voice was pure ice, his stance unequivocal, but seeing her lie back on the pillow, the swell of her stomach beneath the white sheet, witnessing firsthand the utter exhaustion and devastation on her proud face as she lay struggling to hold it together, he chose to relent.

‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’

‘Which I am.’

‘Not according to the doctor,’ Ethan pointed out, but his voice was gentler now. ‘He seems to think that you’re not well at all.’

‘This isn’t your problem.’

‘I know.’

‘In fact…’ Mia’s voice gave an involuntary wobble but she quickly recovered ‘…this has absolutely nothing to do with you.’

‘Thank God,’ Ethan muttered, flashing a malevolent smile, just to show he was still in control. ‘So I take it you want me to go?’

Mia nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Ethan leaving was the last thing she wanted, but it was safer, so very much safer this way.

‘I’ll let the rest of your visitors in on my way out, shall I?’

‘The rest of my visitors?’ She stared at him nonplussed, simultaneously kicking herself as she realized she’d fallen directly into his trap.

‘I thought as much,’ Ethan said with a note of triumph. ‘There’s not exactly a queue of concerned visitors outside, waiting to drive you home. What about the baby’s father?’

She could feel the sweat beading on her forehead, feel its icy rivers trickling between her breasts, her pale cheeks flushing as Ethan’s eyes bored into her, running a tongue over impossibly dry lips as she carefully chose her words.

‘He’s not in the picture any more.’

His breath hissed out, the longest silence followed by the sharpest of words. ‘Another “passing acquaintance”, I presume.’

‘Much more than that.’ She stared at him, eyes glittering in pain, honesty a breath away but she held it in.

‘So tell me, Mia, are you planning to drive yourself home?’

‘Of course. I’m fine!”

‘Not according to this you’re not.’ Picking up her chart, he skimmed his eyes down it; not like a normal person, though, Mia noted. Normal people squinted at charts upside down, made sure no one was looking as they tried to decipher what had been written, but Ethan Carvelle, damn him, was holding the chart and reading it authoritatively as if he were the blessed consultant. ‘It says here that you’re underweight, dehydrated and your blood pressure’s way too high.’

‘Of course it’s high.’ Mia’s voice was rising now. ‘I’ve spent the last few months driving up and down the mountains every day to visit Richard as well as trying to keep the gallery going…’

‘Gallery?’

‘My old studio. The one my father…’

‘The one where we…’ His voice trailed off as he apparently realised the danger in pursuing that line of questioning. The fact they had first made love there had no bearing on today. Could never have any bearing now.

‘It’s a gallery now,’ Mia said instead for him. ‘And the reason my blood pressure is up is because, not only have I been neglecting it of late, not only am I way behind with some paintings I’ve been commissioned to do, I’ve also just lost my best friend in the whole world…’ her voice wobbled, the tiniest, most irrelevant of problems surfacing now, an attempt perhaps to drag her mind away from the true preposterousness of her situation ‘…and to top it all I’m on a two-hour park in the middle of the city…’

Tears started then, horrible, uninvited tears that she didn’t want him to witness, that she didn’t want to stoop to, but, seeing him there, another layer of emotion on top of her hellish day was all too much and the tension, the utter, unbearable tension that had been holding her together, snapped then, whipping her reserve away as sobs drenched her fatigued body. Ethan was over in a second, pulling her into his arms and holding her tightly. It was the only place on earth she wanted to be, the only place she had ever truly belonged. And even though it was wrong, even though it could surely only complicate things, right here, right now she needed him. She wanted those strong arms to hold her and needed just a fraction of the strength that was Ethan Carvelle. Even though it was only transitory, and for all the wrong reasons, she allowed herself the indulgence of being held by him, of just letting go and leaning on him for a tiny while.

‘I don’t pretend to know a thing about art—’ his voice was low and deep and comforting ‘—and I know I don’t mean a thing to you compared to Richard…’ She inhaled his scent, dragged on his strength, even moved her head a fraction in denial. Nothing could ever replace Richard, but Ethan was everything to her, always had been, and always would be, but sensibility prevailed, holding her back at the final moment, keeping in what could never, ever be said. ‘But if a car needs moving, then I’m your man.’

The flash of humour was so unforeseen, so unexpected, it toppled her over the edge. Clinging on for dear life, she found herself letting go, really letting go, perhaps for the first time in seven years.

‘Let it out, Mia.’ His face was buried in her hair, her cheek against his chest feeling every breath he took as his heart hammered against her. His elusive scent she had chased for seven years filled her nostrils, and he was all she needed, everything she needed and maybe, just maybe, now she could tell him.

‘Ms Stewart?’ The doctor was back, an unwelcome intrusion, and Mia stiffened, but still Ethan held her…still she clung on. ‘I’ve just spoken to your GP on the telephone; he’s filled me in a bit on your history. I’m very sorry—I didn’t realize that it was the baby’s father you buried today…’

Mia felt Ethan tense in her arms. His breathing stilled for an impossibly long time, then tripped into overdrive as he broke away. But as he lay her back on the pillow not a flicker of his expression relayed his reaction to the news as her anguished eyes searched his. ‘Perhaps given the circumstances…’ the doctor droned on, utterly oblivious to the bombshell he had just dropped, impervious to the mounting tension in the room ‘…home might be the best place for you. I’d prefer if we let the drip finish, though, so we can ensure that you’re adequately rehydrated, and I want you back here tomorrow or at your local GP’s to have that blood pressure checked.’

‘Thank you,’ Mia croaked, dreading what she might see, yet looking for some type of reaction, trying to fathom Ethan’s take on the news he had just heard, but his expression gave away nothing.

‘Naturally, someone should drive you home.’

‘I will.’ Ethan’s voice was supremely calm. ‘How long till the drip finishes?’

‘An hour or so,’ the doctor answered.

‘Give me your keys.’ Rummaging under the trolley, he pulled out her handbag and tossed it beside her. ‘I’ll go and fetch your car for you.’ He shot her a black look. ‘At least it will be one less thing for you to worry about.’

‘But you don’t know which one it is,’ Mia answered, flustered, but Ethan didn’t deign a response, just took the keys without another word to her, saving all his icy venom for the poor doctor.

‘I’ll be back within the hour, Doctor. And for the record, Ms Stewart is grief-stricken, she’s clearly in no fit state to discharge herself, so I strongly suggest that if she isn’t here when I return you’ve made damn sure your medical indemnity insurance is fully paid up.’

The doctor was no match for Ethan’s stern glare and scuttled gratefully out. Ethan stood, silently staring—and suddenly Mia didn’t want Ethan’s take on this, didn’t want to hear his reaction to the news that had just been imparted. Pleating the sheet between her fingers, she stared down, feeling the anger, the incredulity emanating from Ethan, could feel the disdain blazing from his eyes even though she couldn’t bring herself to look at them.

‘Sweet little Mia,’ he said finally, his voice like the crack of a whip. ‘You should add the word “con” to your job title, Mia! Well, you might be able to fool the doctors, your friends, hell, even a few journalists into believing your half-baked story, but it’s the twenty-first century, Mia. You can’t just pass Richard off as the father because it suits your bank account.’

‘I’m not trying to pass the baby off.’ Finally she dared look at him. ‘This is my baby, Ethan. In fact, I never intended for you or your family to find out. It was you who came here, remember; you who chose to ride roughshod and stand over me while the doctor was here.’

‘Bull.’ His voice was menacingly quiet, his head slowly shaking in sheer disbelief. ‘If this is Richard’s baby, how come we don’t know? Why on earth wouldn’t he tell us?’ When she didn’t answer he pressed on relentlessly. ‘If this is my brother’s child, why aren’t there provisions for it in his will?’

‘Because there wasn’t time, and, as much as I didn’t want you to know, I’m not going to deny Richard now. I’m not going to pretend it’s not his child just to make you feel better. But for your information I was always going to raise this baby alone; it was how we planned it!’

‘What?’ Incredulous eyes snapped to hers.

‘I was going to bring up the baby alone, whatever happened to Richard. I always intended to be the sole carer…’

‘Who needs a man in their life?’ he jeered. ‘What the hell’s the point of rotting up a kid with a male perspective on life? Is this one of your half-baked hippy schemes that you roped Richard into, Mia? One of the trendy bandwagons you decided to jump on board…’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t fool me for a moment, Mia Stewart. You had this planned down to the last detail, didn’t you? This was your last little stab at the Carvelle fortune.’ She opened her mouth to argue but he overrode her in an instant. ‘Well, bring it on, Mia.’ The hands that beckoned her were anything but welcoming, his unusually pale face savage in the fluorescent hospital light. ‘Bring it on, because I’m ready for you—more ready than you’ll ever know.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ In an instinctive gesture her hands cradled her stomach, pulling her knees up, protecting the one thing on God’s earth that was hers and hers alone. ‘You don’t scare me, Ethan, and as hard as it may be for you to believe your wealth doesn’t intimidate me either. I don’t want a cent from the Carvelles.’ She let out a low, mirthless laugh. ‘I don’t want them anywhere near me, in fact, but I will not deny this child its father. I will not lie here and tell you it’s not Richard’s child just to make things easier for me. This is Richard’s baby and I’ll never be ashamed of that fact.’

Something in her voice seemed to reach him, something in the proud jut of her chin, the glittering anger in her eyes halted his angry retort. His eyes drifted down to her stomach, staring at the firm mound under the sheet, one hand moving to his face, covering his mouth for a second. Then he closed his eyes and for an appalling moment she thought he was going to break down, that the impervious mask that was Ethan Carvelle was about to slip, but he recovered quickly, dragging his eyes back to her, repeating a question that she still hadn’t answered, but from the hoarseness in his voice, the slight grey tinge creeping into his features, Mia knew his world had been rocked, knew he was actually starting to believe that the baby she was carrying might be Richard’s.

‘Why didn’t we know?’ His voice was raw and he cleared his throat, fixing her with his black stare, but it wasn’t quite so assured now. ‘If what you’re saying is true, why the hell didn’t Richard say anything? He never even implied you were anything more than friends…’

‘During one of your weekly phone calls?’ Mia retorted nastily, but she was beyond caring now, the implication that she was in this only for the money too abhorrent not to reciprocate with harsh words of her own. ‘Or perhaps he should have included it in one of the regular emails you fired to each other…’ Seeing the pain in his eyes, she realized she’d gone too far; the day of Richard’s funeral was hardly the time to point out the void between them, the tragedy of a relationship reduced to stilted birthday and Christmas cards. And, Mia thought reluctantly, given the rapidly unfolding circumstances, given the Carvelle name and all its implications, Ethan’s reaction was probably merited.

It wasn’t his fault that she loved him.

‘I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.’ After the longest pause she found her voice.

‘It’s the truth.’ Ethan shrugged.

‘But this really was a very much wanted baby.’

Maybe Mia’s gloves were off, but Ethan’s were still firmly tied on, every word a painful punch to her already fragile soul.

‘Please.’ His voice was dripping with sarcasm as he hit her while she was down. ‘So wanted that none of his family even knew about it, so wanted we didn’t even know he was dating you, so wanted that a baby wasn’t even on the agenda till he was dying…’

‘He wasn’t supposed to die!’ Agony rasped in every word, her strained voice overriding his powerful one on emotion alone, forcing a quiet, forcing him to stop his tirade to stand stock-still as Mia continued. ‘He wasn’t supposed to die,’ she said again, but Ethan remained unmoved.

‘He had cancer, Mia. The doctors gave him eighteen months, two years at most. So what the hell was he doing having children? What the hell was he doing bringing a child into the world he would surely never be there to watch grow up? It just doesn’t add up.’

‘We don’t all live by your rules, Ethan; we don’t all walk around with a mental calculator weighing up the pros and cons, checking for longevity and distant projections. Richard knew he might never see his child grow up and I knew it too, but it was a risk we were prepared to take…’

‘You really talked about it?’ His voice told her the preposterousness he felt in her actions. The incredulity in his eyes as he stared back at her only distanced him further, yet she ached to reach him, to drag him beside her, to reach an understanding while somehow avoiding the truth.

‘We talked about it for weeks, Ethan, for weeks.’

‘So it wasn’t an accident, a one-night stand…’

‘This was a wanted baby, Ethan.’

‘Oh, I bet it was,’ Ethan hissed. ‘It’s what you’ve been wanting for years, isn’t it, Mia?’

‘Ethan, please, you don’t understand…’

‘Don’t I?’ Ethan snapped, his face menacingly close as the doctor melted away. ‘Save the tears, Mia. You’ve got what you wanted, or most of it.’

‘Meaning?’

‘You couldn’t quite manage to hook the Carvelle surname for yourself, but you’d use a dying, confused man to ensure you snaked your way in somehow. But you’ve picked the wrong family, Mia. If you think for one second my parents are going to be the pushover Richard clearly was, then I’m about to burst your bubble, darling…’ His lips sneered around the word, no sentiment intended as he spat the endearment. ‘They’ll wrap you up so tightly in legal red tape you’ll be pulling your pension before you see a single cent for your efforts.’

‘You bastard.’

‘No.’ Ethan shook his head, his eyes glittering with rage, his face taut, his breath hot on her cheeks, his hand moving to her stomach and holding the swollen flesh for a moment, shuttering his eyes for a second as if it physically hurt to touch her, to feel the life within her. ‘That’s what this little one is; that’s the level you’d stoop to, to get what you want.’

‘This was never about money.’

‘Good,’ Ethan quipped, ‘because you’ll die waiting before my parents come around. No smiling, cooing baby will melt their cold hearts.’

‘I don’t need the Carvelles’ money,’ Mia hissed. ‘I have a life, a home, a career I’m proud of and I’ll do just fine on my own.’

She thought that was the end of it, almost thought she’d seen the last of him, that Ethan would walk off now, but still he stood, his eyes narrowing as he stared down at her.

‘So what now?’

‘You get on with your life and I’ll get on with mine,’ Mia snapped, but even as the words came out she sensed their futility, knew that now Ethan knew it was Richard’s child she was carrying he couldn’t just walk away. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, Ethan,’ she said more softly. ‘I don’t expect you to understand what Richard and I shared, but all I ask is that you believe me when I say that this had nothing to do with money and everything to do with love. He wasn’t supposed to die…’ Tears brimmed in those aquamarine pools, and the colour was so vivid, so reminiscent of the beautiful land she inhabited, for a tiny second there he felt as if he had come home.

Home, not just to the tropical paradise of Cairns, where lush green trees reached for a sky that blended with the ocean, but home to the capricious, captivating spirit of Mia, and so alien was the feeling that welled inside him, so physical the pain that suddenly gripped him, it took a second for Ethan to register it as need. A need so pure he could feel it, a yearning almost for the balmy, safe haven he had found all those years ago, for the time spent in each other’s arms and minds, when the world had seemed at peace, when there was nothing he wouldn’t have done for her; and he ached, ached to reach over to catch the splash of tears that rolled down her cheeks, to pull her in his arms and make her world safe.

But he couldn’t.

Couldn’t allow himself to fall under her spell again, couldn’t go through it again and expect to come out the other side. He had to be strong here, had to remain impervious to her charms, hold onto his head and forget about his heart.

‘But he did die,’ Ethan said finally. ‘Richard did die, Mia, and if you’re telling the truth, if this is his child, then we’ve got a hell of a lot to talk about!’

She could feel the tiny hairs rising on the back of her neck, the chilling feeling that suddenly everything had become impossibly complicated, finally admitted to herself that today wasn’t going to bring closure, that things had, in fact, just started.

‘Wait here,’ he ordered, jangling her car keys in his pocket and pinning her with his eyes. ‘I’ll go and get your car, but don’t even think about discharging yourself and jumping in a taxi, Mia. Believe me, I’ll find you.’