Читать книгу Greek Affairs - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 34

KATIE had looked pale and fragile against the white of the hospital bed-linen, her eyes an impossible shade of blue. The image stayed in Alexi’s mind as he paced outside in the corridor.

They were giving her a scan and she had refused to have him present. He’d been about to insist, but something about the pleading way she had looked at him had stopped him.

So now here he was, pacing outside the room like some draconian father-to-be.

A nurse left the room without glancing in his direction and then hurried back in a few moments later.

He didn’t think he could bear this.

He raked a hand through his hair. He’d made so many mistakes, he realised suddenly—he’d been blind and stupid …

‘If I lose the baby then our marriage is over, isn’t it, Alexi?’ Katie’s words played over and over through his mind like a broken tape-recording.

What the hell was he doing, waiting out here? He needed to be with her.

The door opened and the doctor came out. ‘You can go in now. She’s very tired so take it easy on her, OK?’

Katie watched as he walked towards the bed. She had never seen him so drawn, and her heart twisted with pain.

She remembered when he’d found her tonight—when he’d pulled her out of that car and wrapped her within the strength of his arms. She remembered how safe she had suddenly felt—until she’d remembered that she wasn’t safe at all … that without the baby she was nothing to him.

She swallowed hard. She hadn’t wanted him in the room when the doctors were running their tests, because she’d felt if they told her that their baby was dead she couldn’t handle it—that she needed to prepare herself before she could face him. That she needed every piece of inner strength to deal with what had happened.

‘Alexi, it’s—it’s OK.’ She whispered the words tremulously. ‘There is still a heartbeat. Our baby’s still fighting—she’s still alive.’

For a moment there was a look of intense relief on his face, a look that melted her heart. ‘I’m sorry I kept you outside—I just …’ She bit down on her lip. ‘I just couldn’t handle your disappointment, Alexi … not along with everything else.’

He sat down on the side of her bed and reached for her hand.

‘It’s still touch and go, though,’ she told him, trying to sound brave. ‘They need to do more tests—they say the next twenty-four hours will be crucial.’

His hand tightened on hers.

‘But at least I’m in the right place now.’ She tried to sound positive. ‘At least there is a chance now.’

‘Yes, at least there is a chance.’ For a moment his eyes raked over the beauty of her face, drinking her in. He noticed how even though she was so pale, and obviously in turmoil, her chin was tipped up and the old determination was back in her eyes.

‘God, Katie, can you ever forgive me …?’ he whispered suddenly.

‘Forgive you?’ She looked at him in puzzlement.

‘For trapping you into this marriage.’ He said the words so softly she could hardly hear him. ‘For making you rush into something that you really didn’t want—’

‘Alexi, I want what is best for our baby!’ Her eyes widened. ‘I need what is best for our baby.’

She said the words with such anguish that his heart twisted savagely.

‘I know.’ He cut across her fiercely. ‘I know you’ve put our child’s happiness above your own.’ He shook his head. ‘I can see it in your eyes. I can sense it sometimes just in the quietness of a moment when I glance at you—’

‘Alexi, don’t—’

‘And I’ve been such an idiot!’ He cut across her firmly. ‘I realised something tonight.’ He stroked a hand down over the side of her cheek. ‘Katie, I realised that, as deeply devastated as I would be at losing our baby, it would be nothing beside the pain of losing you …’

For a moment Katie wondered if she had misheard him.

‘I love you, Katie.’ He said the words huskily, his voice raw and almost broken.

She had never heard him sound like that before, and it made the tears well up even more inside her.

‘Am I dreaming this?’ she asked uncertainly, and he smiled.

‘You’re not dreaming, and I think I probably loved you from the first moment we met. Do you remember in the shipping office, surrounded by all those damn files and business plans?’

‘Of course I remember,’ she whispered. ‘But I don’t think you fell in love with me—you let me go … you let me walk away …’ Her voice trembled now as she remembered the end of their affair.

‘Yes, and I was stupid, Katie!’ His voice was fierce for a moment, his eyes burning into hers. ‘I was so tied up in the past that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me!’

‘You were still in love with Andrea.’ She nodded. ‘I realise that now.’

He looked at her in surprise. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth, Katie. I wasn’t still in love with Andrea. I got over that years ago!’

‘I don’t think so.’ She shook her head.

‘Katie.’ He took hold of her other hand. ‘I was badly burnt by Andrea. Yes, I did love her when we married. I was … besotted, I suppose is the word.’

Katie nodded and tried not to look like that hurt her … but it did. It hurt so much. ‘And you are still not over her.’

‘Believe me, Katie, I’m over her.’ His voice was grim for a second. ‘But you are right in one way. My experience with Andrea did cloud my judgement of the future. I never wanted to feel like that again.’ He stared at her. ‘Never wanted to put myself on the line like that again, because it was too painful.’

Katie nodded. She knew how that felt. ‘What happened between you?’ she whispered. ‘What happened in your marriage that made you feel like that?’

For a moment she didn’t think Alexi was going to answer her. ‘You mean apart from the fact that she had an abortion without telling me?’ He shrugged, and Katie knew he was trying to play things down, but she could see the pain in his eyes now. ‘She didn’t even tell me she was pregnant. Just booked herself into some clinic and told me she was away on a photo shoot.’

Suddenly Katie remembered his anger when she’d told him she was pregnant—remembered that look in his eye when he thought she’d been hiding it from him—and everything started to fall into place.

‘Alexi, I’m sorry—and I got it so wrong, didn’t I, when I accused you of never wanting children.’

‘It’s not your fault, I should have told you.’ Alexi shrugged. ‘It’s just not something I wanted to talk about to anyone.’

‘I can understand that,’ she said softly. ‘And the gossips made a kind of Chinese-whispers thing out of it and got it the wrong way around.’

‘Better than them knowing the truth,’ Alexi murmured. ‘I tried to understand her reasons, Katie—I really did,’ he grated unevenly. ‘And I forgave her. It is a woman’s prerogative—it was her decision ultimately—but the fact that she couldn’t even talk about it to me …’ He shook his head. ‘Apparently she had been offered a modelling contract that would launch her into the big time. And it was all she ever wanted.’

There was silence between them for a moment. ‘Anyway, we put it behind us and carried on,’ Alexi said with a sigh. ‘I still wanted so much to make the marriage work, and I understood her need for a career. But there came a point where I realised I just couldn’t go on.’ His eyes met with hers. ‘Because it seemed Andrea would do anything to get that career—and that included sleeping with anyone to further it.’

Katie saw the flare of fierce anger in his eyes, but also the pain, and she understood suddenly his reluctance to love again—to put his heart on the line. Understood his pride and the walls he had built around himself.

‘Alexi, I’m so sorry—I didn’t realize.’

‘How could you, when I couldn’t even mention her name without reinforcing the need inside me to keep emotions under tight control?’ He shook his head and then his eyes softened as he looked at her. ‘And all the time I had someone like you in my life—someone gentle and loving, someone who’d been through so much herself and would even put her life on hold just for her child’s happiness.’

‘Alexi, I—’

‘No, let me say this, Katie—I realise you didn’t want to marry me, but please—please let me try to make this work. Let me try to make things right, and even—God forbid that we lose this child—please don’t let it break us apart. Because I couldn’t bear that—I really couldn’t.’

‘Alexi, I have to tell you something.’ She wiped the tears away from her face and looked at him through shimmering eyes. ‘I’m not as altruistic as you seem to think.’

‘You’re not?’ He looked at her doubtfully as if he didn’t believe a word of that, and she smiled.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I married you because I was expecting our child. But most of all, I married you because I loved you. I’ve always loved you.’

For a moment he looked at her as if he could hardly believe what she was saying to him.

‘You’re not feeling trapped?’

‘Oh, Alexi, I just wanted you to feel the same way. It was tearing me apart, loving you so much and thinking that those feelings would never be returned.’

Suddenly she found herself wrapped in his arms, held tightly. ‘Katie, forgive me … I love you so much.’

He turned his head and kissed her, and for a moment Katie just clung to him, kissing him with every ounce of love and passion in her soul.

‘Tell me again,’ she whispered as he pulled back. ‘Tell me how much you love me.’

‘Let me see …’ He smiled playfully. ‘Only to the sun and back … and maybe once around again.’