Читать книгу The Mistresses Collection - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 13

THREE WEEKS LATER, Emmie ripped open a pregnancy-testing kit during her break at the café and pulled out the instruction leaflet. Her heart was beating as fast as a drum, sheer tension slicking her taut face with a sheen of perspiration. After all, she was already homeless and pretty much jobless and she most definitely did not need to be pregnant into the bargain. Admittedly, she had sore breasts and was feeling sick round the clock. But so what? It was a bug she had picked up some place, a stupid bug, she told herself frantically.

At the same time, in the considerably greater comfort of his office in the City, Bastian was tossing aside his phone after contacting Emmie’s mother, Odette Taylor. That had proved to be a fruitless call. Evidently Emmie had moved out without leaving a forwarding address and her fond parent neither knew nor cared where she had gone. That was the point when Bastian realised that he had hit a brick wall. Of course, he hadn’t expected to learn that Emmie had already left his employ when he arrived back in London but he still had to see her, had to check she was all right. He owed her that consideration at least, Bastian reasoned grimly, and as far as he was aware his PA, Marie, was the only member of his staff who had got to know Emmie in any depth. He called the efficient brunette in and after a couple of going-nowhere minutes of tactful probing lost patience and simply admitted that he wanted to contact Emmie.

Back in the tiny café staffroom, Emmie scanned the test wand again with swimming eyes. She wanted to sob and scream like a little child for the pregnancy test had proved positive and for a couple of shameful minutes nothing less than terror controlled Emmie. A baby…she was going to have a baby and the pregnancy was already making her as sick as a dog! She felt awful, truly awful! And yet she couldn’t contemplate a termination because she was all too well aware that had Odette had that option, neither she nor her sisters might ever have been born. Didn’t her baby deserve love and appreciation? She could not reject her child simply because the timing didn’t suit, the pregnancy was unplanned and she had no supportive man in the picture. Emmie released her breath on a dismissive hiss on that latter score. With the single exception of Kat, neither Emmie nor her siblings had enjoyed the advantage of a caring father in their lives.

‘It’s getting busy out here!’ her boss called through the door to bring her break to an early conclusion.

Emmie straightened her overall, locked her bag away again and returned to work. She had no choice now but to go home to her sister, Kat, she reflected guiltily. At present she was sleeping on a friend’s sofa and she wasn’t earning enough at the café to pay rent and eat at the same time. Kat ran a guesthouse in the Lake District and would probably be glad to have help with the cleaning and catering, Emmie thought, striving for a more positive angle than a daunting image of herself being forced to run home like a helpless teenager, who couldn’t cope with the adult world. Of course she could have approached her sister Saffy for assistance: Saffy owned an apartment in London. But the prospect of asking for help from her very much more successful twin was too humiliating for Emmie. She could not imagine the shrewd and worldly-wise Saffy ever making such a basic mistake as to fall accidentally pregnant. In short Emmie literally cringed at the idea of having to admit to her twin how very badly her own move to London had gone for her.

Bastian was able to pick Emmie out from across the café. She wore a candy-pink overall that was a little too short for such a leggy young woman and she looked incredibly pale. Maybe she just wasn’t wearing make-up, he reasoned, taking a seat in a booth while still studying her tall slender figure. Her head turned, treating him to a flash of dazzling blue eyes, luscious pink lips parting to show a glimpse of the oddly enticing gap between her two front teeth. His body, recently proven to be woodenly impervious to the charms of more available women, reacted with an instant arousal that set his teeth on edge. Emmie saw him and stilled in obvious dismay. Bastian smiled regardless, shifted lean brown fingers in fluid invitation, mentally willing her to move in his direction.

The potent pull of Bastian in the flesh was so powerful that Emmie felt as if she were being yanked across the floor by a force stronger than she was. She approached him reluctantly, notepad in hand, mouth dry, every muscle strained taut. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘When do you finish?’

Emmie collided with dark golden eyes as compelling as chains snaking out to entrap her body. She supposed there was no avoiding what had to be faced. He had a right to know about the pregnancy. His preference for Lilah did not enter the equation because that was personal, his personal business. All that should really matter to Emmie was that she was carrying his child; however the shock of that discovery was still rippling through her like the aftermath of an earthquake. ‘My shift ends at ten.’

‘I’ll be waiting.’ Without further ado, Bastian sprang up and strode outside: decisive, impatient, stubbornly practical, she affixed ruefully. She knew he would have demanded she leave right now in the middle of her shift had he believed he could bully her into doing so.

When she emerged from the café at closing time a limousine was parked by the kerb.

‘Miss Marshall?’ the driver asked out of the window before getting out to whip open the passenger door for her. Emmie swallowed hard, struggled to suppress the nausea in her stomach, and climbed in. She was disconcerted by the discovery that the limo was empty and asked Bastian’s driver where he was taking her.

‘I’m to drive you back to Mr Christou’s apartment.’

Emmie pushed her weary head back against the headrest. She didn’t care at the moment where she was going, was only grateful that she did not have to walk there. If she had to make her big announcement, it was better to do so where they would not be overheard or interrupted. How would he react? Would he be angry, resentful, bitter? Would he offer to pay for a termination or even suggest adoption as an alternative? The driver escorted her into a luxury block of apartments and, tucking her into a lift, pressed the correct button for her.

Bastian impatiently paced the wooden floor of his elegant lounge. He was convinced that he knew what she was going to tell him: he had suspected the truth the minute her strained eyes had met his. Three weeks ago, Emmie had been considerably more cheerful and calm and he could not credit that escaping her harpy of a mother had left her in such low spirits. Now Bastian, who was confident that he excelled at solving problems, was bent on working out how he could best turn an apparent negative into a positive.

A man in a suit had the door of Bastian’s apartment standing open for her arrival when she stepped out of the lift into a stylishly decorated hallway. Crossing it, Emmie tightened the sash on her raincoat and dug her nervous hands into her pockets, pushing her shoulders back as she entered the dimly lit apartment, noting the long expanses of window that denoted a penthouse, the clean lines of sleek contemporary furniture and the same lack of clutter that distinguished Bastian’s office. Even on that level they didn’t suit each other, Emmie mused, for she was a great hoarder of sentimental bits and pieces.

Bastian strode forward. ‘Take your coat off. Make yourself comfortable,’ he urged huskily.

Emmie flicked a glance at his lean, darkly handsome face and the lustrous brilliance of his dark, thickly lashed eyes and turned pink and uncomfortable. He was spectacularly good-looking and had the most colossal impact on her every time she saw him. Heat flickering like an uneasy flame low in her pelvis, she undid her coat, shrugged it off, sat down, and pressed her knees and her hands together like a child urged to be on her very best behaviour. ‘It’s not good news,’ she told him awkwardly.

Bastian’s gaze roamed across her flawless face and down over the elegant lines of her willowy figure with instinctive appreciation. There was something special about her and he still didn’t know what it was but it was a quality that shouted at him every time he saw her. ‘That depends on how you look at it.’

‘I’m pregnant,’ Emmie delivered curtly. ‘And no matter how you look at it, it’s a problem. I don’t want a child right now when I’m only at the start of my career and yet I couldn’t live with having an abortion just because it’s a case of bad timing—’

‘I could take the baby,’ Bastian interrupted.

Thoroughly taken aback by that suggestion, Emmie lifted her head and stared back at him with bright blue eyes of disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious?’

‘Why not? I was prepared to get married to have a family. How is this situation different?’

‘If you had married, you would have had a wife—’

‘Don’t be prejudiced. I would make an excellent single father. Certainly, I know all the things a father shouldn’t do,’ Bastian proffered with brutal honesty. ‘My father was an appalling role model.’

‘So was mine…er—’

‘All I’m saying is that if you don’t want the baby, I do—’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t want it!’ Emmie protested, dismayed by his attitude and suddenly feeling ridiculously protective of the new life forming inside her. And yet on another level, she respected him for his unexpected willingness to get involved and take responsibility. ‘I think it’s just that I don’t know what to do now.’

‘We don’t have to make any serious decisions for months yet,’ Bastian pointed out soothingly.

‘I do want my baby,’ Emmie started to confide but her tummy was rolling about like a ship on a stormy sea and she was forced to leap back upright. ‘Where’s the cloakroom?’ she gasped in dismay.

Luckily, she made it there in time and was sick for the second time that evening. Afterwards, limp and drained, she leant across the vanity unit to freshen up and peered at her bloodshot eyes and extreme pallor in the mirror. She looked like death warmed over, she conceded painfully.

‘Should I call a doctor?’ Bastian greeted her right outside the door, which embarrassed her. ‘Take you to a hospital?’

‘No, I assume this is what the books call morning sickness, only it seems to strike me at all hours of the day,’ Emmie told him morosely, rubbing her cheeks on the recollection of how pale she had looked and then wondering why she was bothering…as if that were going to make a difference and transform her from a humble waitress clad in an ugly overall into a sexually appealing woman! Why on earth would she even want to appeal to him now?

‘I didn’t think you would be affected by anything of that nature this early,’ Bastian remarked.

‘That makes two of us, but I already feel pretty sick most of the time.’

‘Where are you staying at the minute?’ Bastian asked.

Emmie reddened and sat down again. ‘How did you know I’d moved out of my mother’s flat?’

‘I tried to contact you there.’

‘She was still trying to get me to accept bookings from her clients,’ Emmie admitted reluctantly. ‘I had no choice but to leave.’

‘I thought she would continue to put you under pressure. Where are you currently staying?’ he asked again.

Emmie admitted she was sleeping on a sofa at a friend’s house. ‘There’s not much else I can do. I’m not earning enough to pay rent,’ she admitted stiffly, mortified by the difference in their financial situations but determined to be as honest as she could be.

Bastian’s face tensed, his wildly sensual mouth compressing into a taut line. ‘That is something I can help with. I own several apartments for the use of employees flying in from abroad. You can move into one of them.’

Emmie frowned. ‘I couldn’t possibly—’

‘Of course you can,’ Bastian cut in firmly. ‘I’m responsible for the situation you’re in. It’s the least I can do.’

Emmie swallowed hard on the pride threatening to choke her. The prospect of sleeping on a sofa for another night had little appeal and she couldn’t possibly inconvenience her friend by staying with her for much longer. Being homeless was frightening, Emmie acknowledged wretchedly. The security of a roof over her head would give her a much-needed breathing space, which she could use to decide what to do next. ‘OK, but I’m only agreeing because I don’t have any other option.’

Bastian pulled his phone out and spoke to someone at length in his own language. ‘The place will be fully stocked for your use by the time we arrive,’ he asserted. ‘Give me the address where you have been staying and I will arrange to have your belongings conveyed to the apartment for you.’

He made everything sound so easy. Although she could not help being impressed she also knew that nothing could have better illustrated the vast gulf between them—the extent of his wealth and power versus her poverty and lack of influence. Only that did not mean she had to be weak or meek, she reflected, tilting her chin. But sometimes accepting a helping hand when life was tough was the most sensible move.

Two hours later, Bastian gave Emmie a tour of the apartment he had offered her. It contained every luxury she could think of, from a stock of DVDs and a power shower to a fridge freezer stocked with every necessity. ‘I’ll be very comfortable here,’ Emmie remarked carefully. ‘But you have to promise to tell me when you need it for someone who works for you.’

Dark golden eyes accentuated by luxuriant black lashes focused on her intently and her heart hammered hard beneath her breastbone. ‘Right now, your needs are more important. Let’s face it, that’s my baby you’re carrying,’ he traded levelly. ‘Naturally you’re my first priority.’

The possessive note of that comment about the baby disconcerted her. Her soft pink lips parted. ‘Is that really how you feel? Do you like children?’

‘Never really thought about it. I don’t dislike them,’ Bastian declared pensively. ‘But the child you have, whether it’s a boy or a girl, will be my heir.’

‘Even though we’re not married?’

‘It will still be my child with my blood in its veins.’

There was something rather basic and territorial about that statement and Emmie was even more surprised. She recognised that he had not only adapted to the idea of becoming a father but had also warmed to the prospect.

‘To be blunt, I’ve never been in a hurry to get married,’ Bastian admitted drily. ‘Watching my father screw up matrimonially four times over soured me on the institution.’

‘I can understand that. So you think that having a child without having to tie yourself down to marriage might actually suit you better?’ Emmie queried, keen to understand his point of view.

‘Only time will answer that question. In the morning I’ll make enquiries and organise an obstetrician for you,’ Bastian continued. ‘You must have proper medical care.’

‘You can be very…bossy.’ Emmie selected the label with care, because in spite of the shock news she had given him he had been remarkably kind and considerate and she didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

A wicked grin that was the very essence of masculine charisma sliced across Bastian’s beautifully shaped and stubborn mouth. ‘You could say that being dominant comes naturally to me, glyka mou. Or even beware of Greeks bearing gifts,’ he teased.

‘Needs must when the devil rides,’ she quoted, her gaze compulsively welded to that grin, and she was as short of breath as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the atmosphere.

‘I’m not the devil. I only want to do what’s best for you,’ Bastian told her thickly, staring down at her with smouldering golden eyes.

Emmie felt her treacherous body react to his proximity and the husky, sexy note in his deep voice. Her nipples tingled, awareness washing through her in an exhilarating overload of sudden sexual energy. But this time, Emmie fought what she was feeling to the last ditch. She stepped hurriedly back from him, her cheeks burning as she deliberately turned her head away from him to avoid eye contact. She was hugely attracted to him but could not forget his renewed intimacy with Lilah on the night of his sister’s wedding. Although there had been no reference in the gossip columns to a reconciliation between Bastian and his former fiancée, Emmie didn’t want to risk getting more deeply involved with a man already entangled with another woman. Wasn’t it worrying enough that she was pregnant by him? The last thing she needed now was to let her overwrought emotions persuade her that she was in some way attached to Bastian Christou.

‘Emmie…’ he breathed thickly, stroking a fingertip very lightly over the back of her hand, making her quiver and long to twist round and hurl herself into his arms like a lovesick fool. But she wasn’t lovesick and she wasn’t a fool, she told herself fiercely.

‘Let’s not complicate things,’ Emmie pleaded in a charged undertone. She found him almost impossible to resist but there was such a thing as common sense and it was way past time she exerted it over her more self-destructive promptings. And going to bed with Bastian again would definitely come under the heading of destructive, she thought painfully.

Bastian closed a strong hand to her shoulder and turned her back to face him. Diamond-bright dark eyes locked to hers enquiringly. ‘We’re already complicated.’

‘Exactly, and you’re helping me out here, which I’m very grateful for,’ she said shakily. ‘But—’

His winged black brows drew together. ‘Just as you didn’t expect diamonds, I’m not expecting any kind of reward for helping out,’ he told her drily.

Discomfited at the way he had interpreted her statement, Emmie reddened. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

Bastian had her cornered in the hall, his lean, powerful body squarely planted between her and the front door. ‘Then what did you mean?’ he pressed.

Emmie jerked an awkward shoulder in the tense silence that had fallen. ‘I know you slept with Lilah the night of the wedding—’

Bastian lifted a frowning black brow, dark eyes widening in surprise. ‘No, I didn’t—’

‘She was in your room the next morning.’

‘But I wasn’t,’ Bastian riposted with hard emphasis. ‘I spent the night at my grandfather’s and we sat up playing poker until the early hours. I lost a packet to the wily old buzzard too. If Lilah was in my room she was there uninvited. Think about it, Emmie. Do you think I’m such a fool that I would hire you to keep her at bay and then get back into bed with her again?’

Emmie didn’t know what to think. ‘She even knew that I was leaving the island—’

‘Anyone in the house could have given her that information as I made the arrangements for your departure with my staff before I left the night before.’ Bastian frowned down at her and slowly shook his handsome head. ‘Obviously Lilah would have wanted you to think that I had been with her and she knew that I was spending the night at Theron’s. I can’t believe you fell for it.’

Mortified by that assessment, Emmie said nothing. The doorbell buzzed and Bastian yanked the door open. The suitcase she had taken to her friend’s house was carted over the threshold. ‘Is this all that you have?’ Bastian asked in surprise.

‘No, I left some stuff boxed up at my mother’s,’ Emmie admitted wryly.

‘I’ll sort that out for you as well,’ Bastian declared, carrying the case into the bedroom and then striding back to the front door with an air of relief. ‘I’ll phone you tomorrow…check that you’re all right.’

And that fast he was gone and Emmie was left blinking at the space he had occupied and guiltily suppressing a strong sense of disappointment. Her bringing up the subject of Lilah and falsely accusing him had evidently stifled any desire on his part to make their relationship more intimate, she registered ruefully. Had he truly spent that night at his grandfather’s house?

‘There are two heartbeats,’ the obstetrician informed Emmie. ‘You’re carrying twins.’

‘Twins?’ Emmie listened transfixed to the galloping pace of her babies’ heartbeats. She was only eight weeks into her pregnancy and was amazed at how much could already be seen on a scan.

‘I think this is why you’ve been feeling so sick. Severe nausea is more common with a twin pregnancy,’ the older man informed her.

Emmie rested her head back down and wondered how Bastian would react to the news. The prospect of two babies unnerved her, raised as she had been on horror stories of how hard her mother had found it to cope with twins. Her heart sank as a rather more practical concern struck her: how many years would it be before she could hope to earn enough to afford childcare for two children? And if she couldn’t earn enough, how would she ever get her independence back? Was she destined to live off Bastian’s largesse for years to come?

For the present, Bastian was keeping her and Emmie wasn’t comfortable with that arrangement, no matter how often he pointed out that the baby that was putting her out of commission with nausea was as much his responsibility as hers. During the past two weeks while Emmie struggled to cope with the almost constant sickness, which even medication had failed to banish, Bastian had become a surprisingly regular visitor. He would call in to check up on her on his way home, sometimes he would order in food for them both and stay a while and on two occasions he had sent the limo to pick her up and bring her back to his penthouse to enjoy a meal cooked by his housekeeper. The new relationship they had forged had limits though, Emmie acknowledged tautly. Bastian would ask her how her visit to the obstetrician he had engaged had gone but he wouldn’t accompany her or make his questions too personal. In the same way he had made no further attempt to renew the intimacy they had so briefly enjoyed.

Spending time with Bastian on a platonic basis, however, was torture for Emmie and she was thoroughly ashamed of that truth. It was as though, having been programmed to react to him once, her body could not learn how to block the signals of attraction. She had to consciously will herself not to stare at him, not to lean closer, indeed not to touch him in any way. It disconcerted her that even feeling unwell couldn’t stifle the strong sexual feelings Bastian still awakened in her.

Before she could lose her nerve she texted her news to Bastian, reasoning that that was less emotional than telling him face to face.

‘Had scan. We’re having twins,’ ran her text.

And the text was sent before she could think better of using that royal ‘we’ as if they were a couple, rather than two very different people attempting to find common ground as potential parents on the strength of an accidental pregnancy.

Twins? An unholy grin of satisfaction illuminated Bastian’s lean dark features in the midst of the meeting he was chairing. He totally forgot what he had been saying while texting back a one-word response. Emmie was having two babies and he thought that was terrific news. He had been a lonely only child for more years than he cared to count but his child would have company and a sibling to play with. He left the meeting to instruct Marie to send Emmie flowers. He saw the flash of surprise in his PA’s face when she heard the name and realised where Emmie was living and frowned, wishing he could bring the relationship out of the closet. Unfortunately, Emmie didn’t want people gossiping about them and preferred to stay in the background of his life while totally ignoring the reality that a child could not be hidden indefinitely.

Bastian, however, didn’t want to stage an argument with Emmie and lay down the law. How could he when she was getting so thin he would do almost anything to persuade her to eat a decent meal? Her doctor had given her medication but it had yet to provide a cure. Before his very eyes the constant sickness was wearing her health down, stripping away her delicate curves, giving her face a pinched look. Concealing his concern, respecting the boundaries set by someone else went against the grain with Bastian, but he continually told himself that it would all be worth it for the end result.

After all, all his life he had dreaded the idea of getting married, fearing that he would somehow repeat his father’s mistakes. He had deemed Lilah a safe choice, only realising what a nightmare she could be after they had parted. Conversely, Bastian choosing to stay single and childless would devastate his grandfather, who was obsessed with the continuation of the family tree. But, quite unexpectedly, Emmie was giving Bastian the best of both worlds: a child without the risk and the restrictions of marriage. Theron would be shocked that Bastian’s children were illegitimate but Bastian was convinced that however he felt the old man would not ignore his great-grandchildren’s arrival into the world.

‘Fantastic…’ ran Bastian’s text and it came back too fast in response to Emmie’s announcement to be a polite fiction.