Читать книгу The Greek Bachelors Collection - Rebecca Winters - Страница 21

CHAPTER TWELVE

ALEK FELT THE clench of pain around his heart—icy-cold and constricting. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He was powerless to help her and even if he’d been capable of helping her—it seemed he wasn’t going to get the chance to try. Ellie didn’t want him in the ambulance with her, or so one of the paramedics told him, a faintly embarrassed look on his face as he didn’t quite dare look him in the eye.

For the first time in his adult life, Alek discovered the feeling of powerlessness. He couldn’t insist on doing things his way, or overrule what was happening by the sheer force of his personality or financial clout. He was being forced to accept the bitter facts. That Ellie was sick and their baby’s life was in danger. That she was being rushed through the London streets with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring and she didn’t want him anywhere near her.

A bitter taste stained his mouth.

Who could blame her?

He drove to the hospital as quickly as he could but his usual unerring sense of direction failed him and he found himself lost in the maze of hospital corridors, until a kindly nurse took pity on him and showed him the way to the unit. His heart was in his mouth as he approached that white and sterile place. And still they wouldn’t let him see her.

‘But I’m her husband,’ he said, wondering if the words sounded as fake as they felt. What right did he have to call himself her husband? Was that why the ward sister was fixing him with a disapproving look? Had Ellie blurted out the truth to her in a moment of weakness, begging the nurses not to allow him anywhere near her—this man who had brought her nothing but pain?

‘The doctor is with her right now.’

‘Please...’ His voice broke. It sounded cracked and hollow. Not like his voice at all. But then he’d never asked anyone for anything, had he? Not since those air-conditioned nights in his father’s miserable fortress of a house, when he’d lain awake, the pillow clasped tightly over his head but too scared to cry. To the background sound of the night herons which had called across the island, he had silently begged an uncaring god to bring his mother back to him. And then, just like now, events had been completely outside his control. Things didn’t happen just because you wanted them to. He saw now that maybe the reason he’d always turned his back on relationships was because, ultimately, he was unable to control them and that control had become his security in an uncertain world. His heart slammed against his ribcage. Or maybe it was just because, until Ellie, he’d never had a real relationship with anyone.

He looked into the ward sister’s eyes. ‘How is she?’

‘She’s being stabilised right now.’

‘And...the baby?’

His voice cracked again. He hadn’t expected that question to hurt so much, nor for it to mean as much as it did. When had been the critical moment that this unborn life had crept into his heart and taken residence there? The world seemed to tip on its axis as the woman’s face assumed an expression of careful calm—as if she was attempting to reassure him without raising false hopes. He guessed she must have been asked that question a million times before.

‘I’m afraid it’s too early to say.’

He could do nothing but accept her words and he nodded grimly as he was shown into a waiting room which looked onto an ugly brick wall. There was a stack of old magazines on a chipped table and—all too poignantly—a little heap of plastic bricks piled in one corner, presumably for any accompanying children to play with.

Children.

He hadn’t wanted any of his own—that had always been a given. He hadn’t wanted to risk any child of his having to go through what he had gone through. But now, suddenly, he wanted this baby so bad. He wanted to nurture the child that the baby would grow into.

I will never abandon my baby or hurt or punish him, he thought fiercely. He will know nothing but love from me—even if I have to learn how to love him from scratch.

He closed his eyes as the minutes ticked by. Someone brought him a cup of coffee in a plastic cup, but it lay untouched in front of him. And when eventually the doctor came into the waiting room with a ward sister beside him—a different one this time—he sprang to his feet and felt the true meaning of fear. His hands were clammy and cold. His heart was pounding in his chest.

‘How is she?’ he demanded.

‘She’s fine—a little shocked and a little scared, but she’s had a scan—’

‘A scan?’ For a second he felt confused. He realised that he’d been thinking in Greek instead of English and the word sounded alien to him.

‘We needed to check that the pregnancy is still viable, and I’m delighted to tell you that it is.’

‘Still viable?’ he repeated stupidly.

‘The baby is fine,’ said the medic gently as if he were speaking to a child. ‘Your wife has had a slight bleed, which is not uncommon in early pregnancy—but she’s going to have to take it easy from now on. That means no more rushing around. No horse riding.’ He smiled gently, as if to prepare him for some kind of blow. ‘And no sex, I’m afraid.’

They took him to Ellie’s room, where she lay on the narrow hospital bed, looking almost as white as the sheets. Her eyes were closed and her pale fringe was damp with sweat, so that her dark, winged eyebrows looked dramatic against her milky brow.

She didn’t stir and, mindful of the doctor’s words, he sat down noiselessly in the chair beside the bed, his hand reaching out to cover hers. He didn’t know how long he sat there for—only that the rest of the world seemed to have retreated. He measured time by the slow drip of the intravenous bag which was hooked up to her arm. And he must have been looking at that when she eventually woke up, because he turned his head to find her grey eyes fixed steadily on him. He tried to read the expression in them, but he could see nothing.

‘Hi,’ he said.

She didn’t answer, just tugged her hand away from his as she tried to sit up, reaching down to touch her belly, her gaze lifting to his in agonised question.

‘The baby?’

He nodded. ‘It’s okay. The baby’s fine.’

She made a choked kind of sob as she slumped back against the pillows, her mouth trembling in relief. ‘I didn’t dream it, then.’

‘Dream what?’

‘Someone came.’ She licked her lips and paused, as if the effort of speaking was too much. ‘They were putting something cold on my stomach. Circling it round and round. They said it was going to be okay, but I thought...’

He felt completely inadequate as her words tailed off and he thought: You have only yourself to blame. If you hadn’t pushed her away, if you hadn’t tried to impose your own stupid rules, then you would be able to comfort her now. You’d be able take her in your arms and tell her that everything was going to be all right.

But he couldn’t do that, could he? He couldn’t make guarantees he couldn’t possibly keep. Promises she’d never believe. All he could do was to make sure she had everything she needed.

‘Shh,’ he said in as gentle a voice as he’d ever used and she shut her eyes tightly closed, as if she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze any longer. ‘The doctor says you’re going to have to take it easy.’

‘I know,’ she said as tears began to slide from beneath her lashes.

They kept her in overnight and she was discharged into his care the following day. She tried refusing his offer of a wheelchair, telling him that she was perfectly capable of walking to the car.

‘They said to take it easy,’ she told him tartly. ‘Not to spend the next six months behaving like an invalid.’

‘I’m not taking any chances,’ came his even response, but his tone was underpinned with steel. ‘And if you won’t get in the wheelchair, then I shall be forced to pick you up and carry you across the car park—which might cause something of a stir. Up to you, Ellie.’

She glowered but made no further protest as he wheeled her to the car, and she didn’t say anything else until they were back at the apartment, when he’d sat her down on one of the squashy sofas and made her the ginger tea she loved.

She glanced up as he walked in with the tray. Her expression was steady and very calm. She drew a deep breath. ‘So what are you intending to do about your brother?’

His throat constricted. She’d gone straight for the jugular, hadn’t she? ‘My brother?’ he repeated as if it were the first time he’d ever heard that word. As if he hadn’t spent the past twenty-four hours trying to purge his mind of its existence. ‘It’s you and the baby which are on my mind right now.’

‘You’re avoiding the subject,’ she pointed out. ‘Which is par for the course for you. But I’m not going to let this drop, Alek. I’m just not. Before I went into hospital, we discovered something pretty momentous about your—’

‘I don’t have a brother,’ he cut in harshly. ‘Understand?’

Frustratedly, she shook her head. ‘I understand that you’re pig-headed and stubborn! You might not like the journalist, or the message she left—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Why would she lie?’

He clenched his hands into fists and another wave of powerlessness washed over him, only this he could do something about. ‘I’m not prepared to discuss it any further.’

She shrugged, a look of resignation turning her expression stony. ‘Have it your own way. And I’m sure you’ll understand that I’m no longer prepared to share my bed with you. I’m moving back into my own bedroom.’

Alek flinched. It hurt more than it should have done, even though it came as no big surprise. Yet something made him want to try to hang on to what they had—and briefly he wondered whether it was a fear of losing her, or just a fear of losing. ‘I know the doctor advised no sex, but I can live with that,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t sleep together. I can be there for you in the night if you need anything.’

She stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. ‘I can call you if I need anything, Alek.’

‘But—’

‘The charade is over Alek,’ she said. ‘I’m not sleeping with a stranger any more.’

He looked at her in disbelief. ‘How can we possibly be strangers, when you know more about me than anyone else?’

‘I only know because I wore you down until you told me—and it was like getting blood from a stone. And I understand why. I realise how painful it was for you to tell me, and that what happened to you is the reason you don’t do intimacy. I get all that. But I’ve also realised that I want intimacy. Actually, I crave it. And I can’t do sex for sex’s sake. I can’t do cuddling up together at night-time either. It’s too confusing. It blurs the boundaries. It will make me start thinking we’re getting closer, but of course we won’t be and we never will.’

‘Ellie—’

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s important that I say this, so hear me out. I don’t blame you for your attitude. I understand why you are the way you are. I think I can almost understand why you don’t want to stir up all the emotional stuff of reuniting with the brother you say you don’t have—I just can’t live with it. If I were one hundred per cent fit, I think I’d be able to get you to change your mind about wanting to stay with me until after the baby is born. Because I think we both recognise that’s no longer really important, and I hope you know me well enough to realise that I’ll give you as much contact with your child as you want.’ She gave a sad sort of smile, like someone waving goodbye to a ship they knew they would never see again. ‘Ideally, I’d like to go back to the New Forest and find myself a little cottage there and live a simple life and look after myself. But obviously I can’t do that, because the doctors won’t let me and because you’re based in London.’

‘Ellie—’

‘No. Please. Let me finish. I want you to know that I’m grateful to be here and to know you’re looking out for me and the baby, because this is all about the baby now. And only the baby.’ Her voice was trembling now. ‘Because I don’t ever want to get physically close to you again, Alek. I can’t risk all the fallout and the potential heartbreak. Do you understand?’

And the terrible thing was that he did. He agreed with every reasoned word she’d said. He accepted each hurtful point she made, even though something unfamiliar was bubbling inside him which was urging him to challenge her. To talk her round.

But he couldn’t. One of the reasons for his outstanding achievements in the world of commerce was an ability to see things as they really were. His vision was X-ray clear whenever he looked at a run-down business, with the intention of turning it around to make a profit. And he realised that he must apply the same kind of logic now. It was what it was. He had destroyed any kind of future with the mother of his child and he must live with her decision and accept it. She was better off without someone like him, anyway. A man who couldn’t do feelings. Who was too afraid to try.

A pain like a cold and remorseless wind swept through him.

‘Yes, I understand,’ he said.