Читать книгу Satisfaction - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 12

‘WOULD you mind coming in to see me, please, Rebecca?’

Vanessa’s cool voice came down the line and Rebecca gripped the receiver with knuckles which were suddenly snow-white. ‘But my flight isn’t due to leave until this evening,’ she protested.

‘I know that. I have your flight schedule right here in front of me.’ Vanessa’s voice was now positively icy. ‘And I’d really like to see you straight away.’

Rebecca stared at the phone—as if her boss were suddenly going to leap out of it and confront her here, in the supposed sanctuary of her own home, instead of demanding she turn up at the airfield hours early. But deep down, hadn’t she been expecting a summons exactly like this?

The wonder of it was that it hadn’t come sooner.

A lot had happened in the weeks since Xandros had walked out of her apartment after making love to her—and left her lying on the floor feeling cheap and used and heartbroken. She had crawled off to bed and sobbed as if her heart were breaking into a thousand pieces.

It had been a few days before she’d discovered that Xandros had stopped flying with Evolo airline—had terminated all his bookings abruptly and dramatically. The first she’d heard were Vanessa’s mutterings of discontent in the office and Rebecca had prayed that her face wouldn’t colour up and give away the fact that there might be a reason for his decision and that she was it.

But it had been a few weeks later that Rebecca made the most terrifying discovery of all. Even now she could scarcely believe it—but the doctor had confirmed it, and now she had to deal with it as best she could.

And how the hell is that going to be?

Grateful for the concealing uniform jacket, Rebecca pinned her already-too-tight work-skirt and slapped on far more make-up than usual as she prepared herself for the inevitable showdown. Didn’t they say that make-up was a mask? And didn’t she need some kind of camouflage to help her hide her true, see-sawing emotions of terror and despair?

Through the glass of her office, Rebecca could see Vanessa talking animatedly into the phone and when she glanced up and saw her a look of utter fury contorted her face. Putting the phone down, she beckoned to Rebecca to come in.

‘Shut the door,’ were her first words.

Rebecca pushed the door to. ‘You wanted to see me,’ she said, noting that Vanessa hadn’t asked her to sit down, and she was left was standing there, like a naughty child who had been sent for by the angry head-teacher. And isn’t that accurate? taunted the now-familiar voice of her guilty conscience. Don’t you deserve everything you’re about to get?

‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Rebecca,’ said Vanessa coldly. ‘You must realise exactly why you’re here.’

How much did the steely blonde know? Rebecca played for time. ‘I think—’

‘No, that’s the bloody problem—you didn’t think, did you? You just let yourself get carried away and broke the cardinal rule of not sleeping with the clients!’

Vanessa’s eyes narrowed into spitting shards and Rebecca thought that there was more to her rage than an employer’s justifiable anger. Hadn’t Xandros himself hinted that Vanessa had once made a pass at him? And hadn’t he said it in the tone of a man for whom such behaviour was an occupational hazard? Rebecca flinched, wondering just who might be coming on to him now.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘What the hell did you think was going to happen?’ Vanessa cut off Rebecca’s apology with a slicing movement of her perfectly manicured hand. ‘Didn’t you realise that people would notice you making cow’s eyes at him, even though you were trying to hide it? Were you stupid enough to think there was some kind of future in it? Did you really think that a man like Alexandros Pavlidis was going to offer you anything other than a quick, convenient screw?’

‘I … I don’t have to listen to this, Vanessa.’

‘Oh, but you do, Rebecca, you most certainly do. You’ve not just lost me one of my most prestigious customers—but all the possible associates he might have brought with him! The least you can do is hear me out!’

‘But there’s nothing left to say, is there?’ asked Rebecca, her heart beating fast, intuition telling her that Vanessa still hadn’t worked out the worst part of the whole situation.

‘There’s plenty to say!’ stormed Vanessa. ‘You’ve made my organisation look unprofessional and you’ve only helped to further ruin the reputation of cabin crew everywhere!’

‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry,’ said Rebecca again. ‘Really I am—but Xandros was so persistent…and I…I …’

But Vanessa’s face went red with rage. ‘Oh, was he? Well, in my experience men are never persistent unless they get the green light from a woman.’ She slammed her pen down on the desk. ‘And let me tell you something else—and that is that you’ll never work in this industry again. I’ll make sure of that. Now get out.’

There was one hazy segment of her mind which made Rebecca wonder if you could be kicked out on the street in this day and age. Until she reminded herself that what she had done would rightly be defined as gross misconduct, which was a sacking offence. And what would she prefer: to walk out of here now and never see anyone from Evolo again—or to work out her notice and really give them something to talk about?

‘I’ll have my uniform sent back,’ she whispered.

‘Dry-cleaned, if you please,’ said Vanessa sharply.

All the way home, Rebecca felt like an alien who had just landed from outer space and was masquerading as a human. As if she didn’t belong—not anywhere. She needed someone to turn to, but who could you turn to at a time like this?

Her widowed mother had remarried and gone to live in Australia. How could she ring her up and say: Mum, I’m going to have a baby with a man I never expect to see again?

She couldn’t possibly tell any of the friends she’d made through work, could she? Vanessa would probably accuse them of fraternising with the enemy and it might put their own jobs on the line. And although her two best girlfriends were always there for her, both were busy with their careers and neither of them lived in London. If they had done, then maybe her terrible news would have all come tumbling out over a cup of coffee—but the truth of it was that she felt oddly ill at ease about telling anyone.

Especially when you haven’t even told the father!

Rebecca shivered. The hot August sun was beating down on her head, but inside she felt as if someone had replaced her blood with ice cubes as the undeniable words rattled round and round in her head.

I’m going to have a baby. That was the reality.

With no man, no job and no prospects. That was reality, too.

Rebecca stood stock-still as a red London bus swept by, the faces on it all blurred as one question kept going round and round in her head. What the hell was she going to do?

There weren’t really a lot of options open to her.

Surreptitiously, her hand crept to her belly. It was bigger, definitely bigger—but no one else had noticed. Not yet. Because Vanessa would surely have leapt on that if she’d thought that Rebecca was carrying Xandros’s baby.

Xandros’s baby. She shivered. Her Greek ex-lover was going to be a father and he didn’t know. No one knew, but soon it would become all too apparent—and then what?

Then what?

She went home and carefully removed her uniform before putting on a summer dress—turning to look at herself from every angle in the mirror which stood in one corner of her tiny bedroom. The dress was filmy—it hinted at the body beneath instead of hugging it. To the uninformed eye, she looked just like a healthy and curvy young woman—with no clue to the new life which was growing within.

Among a clutter of bangles in a half-open drawer she caught a glimpse of something shiny. A stab of pain catching her unawares, she saw the silver and amber earrings which Xandros had given her that last, fateful night.

Had they been intended as a farewell gift? She thought so. In the end it had worked out differently from the way she suspected he must have planned it. Their relationship had ended dramatically—but the fact that it had finished hadn’t come as a complete shock to her, had it?

But now there was a huge and lasting consequence to their liaison and she needed to be as grown-up about it as she had ever been in her life. Because Xandros might not have chosen to create a new life in those circumstances —she certainly wouldn’t have done—but it was a done deal now. This baby existed and didn’t he, as the father, have the right to know about it?

Of course he had a right. Rebecca had adored her own father—how terrible if she had been denied a relationship with him simply because he and her mother had not been together.

Yet deciding to tell him was one thing, actually doing it was another matter—especially after she had her twelve-week scan, when she knew that she really could not delay it for a second longer. A letter seemed so impersonal—and this was most definitely about a person. Several times she picked up the telephone and put it down again. How could you tell a man like Xandros something as momentous as this over the phone?

But it was more than that. A long-distance call could conceal so much, no matter how good the connection. And what if he refused to take her call—what then? Something was driving her on and she wasn’t sure what it was, knowing that she wanted—no, needed—to see his face when she told him. Was it a perverse desire to see the truth in his eyes, no matter how hurtful—would that help free her from her feelings for him once and for all? Or just some need to take some control back in a life which seemed to have run off the rails in so many ways?

Once she’d made her mind up, Rebecca set things in motion very quickly—and somehow it was comforting to have things to occupy her. As if, by concentrating on the logistics of going to see him, it took her mind off the future. She booked her flight to New York, found a hotel and rang her mother.

‘You might as well take a half-empty suitcase,’ her mother said, on a very crackly line from New South Wales. ‘The shopping in New York’s supposed to be terrific value.’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Rebecca, trying to sound ‘normal’. Yet shopping was the last thing she felt like doing—even though she supposed a sensible person might scour the stores for pregnancy clothes. But, inevitably, money was tight. She had signed on with a temp agency, and although they had been providing as many office jobs as she cared to do it didn’t exactly pay her a fortune and she needed to hang onto every penny she could until she was no longer able to work.

Rebecca hadn’t been to America for years—when she’d worked for Evolo she’d done mainly short-haul. But she loved flying and would normally have savoured the experience—had not the significance of her trip made her unable to sleep or to concentrate on any of the films on offer.

Now that she wasn’t being paid for by the airline she discovered there was no such thing as a cheap hotel in the middle of the city and the small room she’d ended up with was clean, but soulless. There were fake flowers in a vase and an enormous TV dominating the limited space. But at least the shower worked and afterwards she felt one hundred per cent better.

She lay down, intending to shut her eyes just for a moment—but when she opened them again she realised that it had been a lot longer than that. The artificial light which was streaming in through the small window showed that she had been asleep for hours and a glance at her watch confirmed it. It was almost ten o’clock at night!

Rebecca’s heart sank. She had been planning to go to Xandros’s place of work and just ask to see him—without giving him time to think up some reason why he shouldn’t. But now she could see that she hadn’t really been thinking straight—or did she really think that a man in Xandros’s position would be instantly accessible to the general public?

At Evolo, she had worked with enough powerful people to know that they were always protected. Whether it was night or whether it was day, she would still need Xandros to give his permission if she wanted to see him. There was no way she would ever have been able to burst in on him, unannounced—not unless she was planning to hang around the entrance to his offices like some tramp waiting for a handout. And how undignified would that be?

Rebecca flinched. Well, there was no way she was going to postpone the inevitable—not for a moment longer. The sooner she had done her duty, then the sooner she could go away.

But it’s ten o’clock at night—what if he’s with another woman?

Then she would just have to face up to it—because that, too would be reality.

Her hair was all rumpled where she’d slept on it while it was damp, but there was no time to redo it. And this wasn’t some kind of beauty contest. Rebecca had very firmly banished from her heart and her mind the idea that Xandros would take one look at her and realise what a fool he’d been. Because life wasn’t like that—and even if it was she had been growing her self-respect in the intervening weeks. And there was no way she wanted a man who treated her like a sexual commodity, the way Xandros had done—even if she had gone along with it at the time.

Applying only a little make-up, she tied her hair back and put on the floaty dress. Then she pulled her phone out and tapped out his number with a trembling finger.

It rang for so long she thought it was going to go straight to messages but at last there was a click, and he said in his distinctive accent, ‘Yes?’

Her name must have come up on the screen because she heard the wariness in his voice and it made her want to weep. If only she could have put the phone down. But she couldn’t. She sucked in a deep breath.

‘Xandros? Hello, it’s me. Rebecca. Am I disturbing you?’

He didn’t answer that. Staring out at the bright glitter of lights on the skyline with narrowed eyes, Xandros thought how to respond to her question in a thousand different ways. He hadn’t expected her to ring him—and he didn’t particularly want her to. But his curiosity was aroused—and he wondered what had made her swallow her pride to get in touch with him. ‘How are you, Rebecca?’

That was quite a difficult one to answer. ‘I need to see you.’

Need? A pause. ‘But I’m in New York.’

‘Yes, I know. So am I.’

This time the pause was so long that Rebecca actually thought he might have hung up on her. To her surprise he didn’t demand to know just what she was doing in New York—but maybe that shouldn’t have surprised her. He was many things, but never predictable.

‘Where exactly are you?’ he questioned.

She read out the address from the top of the laminated room-service menu which was lying on the bedside table. ‘Do you know it?’

Did he know it? Ah, the exquisite irony of life! Briefly, Xandros closed his eyes. He remembered staying in that self-same area when he’d first arrived in the city—presumably for the same cost-cutting reasons as her—and thinking how the fabled streets of New York were certainly not paved with gold. He had seen homeless people, and hungry ones, too. He recalled his sense of shock—and his determination, too—that one day he should conquer this great city. Within weeks, he had found himself a job to help support him through college—and had never been back there since. ‘Can you come here?’ he questioned silkily.

‘Where?

‘I’m in the office.’

Rebecca stifled her instinctive sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t cosying up to whoever must have replaced her by now. ‘That’s late,’ she commented.

His mouth hardened. He wanted to tell her that the hours he worked were none of her damned business. Why the hell was she here? Deliberately, he injected his voice with steel. ‘I will send a car for you,’ he said.

And the cool note in his voice reminded Rebecca of another stark reality of the situation. They were ex-lovers. There was no fondness for her in Xandros’s heart. And even less when he discovers what you are about to tell him. ‘No, I’ll take the subway—’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Rebecca,’ he cut in, with an impatient click of his tongue. ‘It’s late and I’ve said I’ll send a car. The driver will ring you when he’s outside.’

Rebecca recognised that there was no sense in arguing with him—and that to do so would be fairly stupid, under the circumstances. Why turn down his offer of safe transport in a strange city at night?

‘Thanks,’ she said, and put the phone down quickly.

And, besides, she was beginning to feel rather peculiar and she couldn’t quite work out whether that was because she was pregnant or slightly jet-lagged or because she hadn’t eaten since early on in the flight.

So eat something!

Her burgeoning body craved food and she had no desire to faint in front of him. Raiding the mini-bar like a guilty teenager, she ate chocolate, some pretzels and a glass of juice and worried how much they would charge her for the pleasure of eating junk. And then her phone began to ring and she felt a little like someone going to face their own trial.

A dark limousine was waiting outside with a uniformed driver holding open the door for her. She sat back on soft leather as the powerful car negotiated the streets—so new to her and yet strangely familiar from years of having seen them on TV programmes—but Rebecca wasn’t really paying attention to them. She was too wrapped up in choosing her words as carefully as possible.

But how did you tell someone who was so definitely in your past that you were carrying part of his future?

The car stopped outside a vast, towering building lit mutedly save for the very top of it, which shone as brightly as a planet. A young woman stood waiting by the entrance, her tumble of dark curls and striking scarlet dress suddenly making Rebecca feel very pale and unexciting. Who was she? she wondered—hating herself for still caring as the brunette opened the car door.

‘Hi. I’m Miriam.’ The woman smiled, her teeth gleaming like a dentistry advertisement. ‘Xandros asked me to come and meet you. He’s upstairs in his office.’

‘Thanks,’ said Rebecca, feeling more than uptight now as a glass lift sped upwards. He hadn’t come to fetch her himself, had he? And how, she wondered, had Xandros explained her sudden appearance to this woman Miriam? Was this his girlfriend—sent down to fetch her so that there could be no possible misunderstandings? Or was she a powerful man’s gatekeeper—would she expect to sit in on what was probably going to be the most difficult conversation of Rebecca’s entire life?

Well, she was going to have to assert herself. She was not going to have an audience while she stumbled to tell him. If he wanted he could tell Miriam later, once Rebecca had gone.

She was taken into a large and very beautiful office, dominated by a giant desk on which lay a few large sheets of drawings in various stages of development, and a pot full of pens and pencils. Apart from that, the room was completely bare of adornment—with no pictures on the walls or trinkets on his desk. At first, Rebecca didn’t see Xandros, but then she sensed rather than heard him behind her and she turned to find him at the far end of the long room, watching her—and she could not help the instinctive shiver of awareness that felt midway between fear and desire.

‘That will be all, Miriam,’ he said.

Well, she didn’t sound like a girlfriend. ‘Is that your secretary?’ asked Rebecca hopefully when the other woman had closed the door behind her.

‘She’s another architect, actually,’ drawled Xandros, noticing her flinch at the unmistakably caustic note in his voice—but what did she expect? He had no idea why she was here today—whether it was all part of some sophisticated game-plan. Was that why she had jumped in and ended the relationship before he’d had a chance to do so? As a kind of emotional one-upmanship—a clumsy effort to try to make him commit to her? But if so, it had backfired spectacularly—and she was just about to find that out.

She had made him feel … what? Trapped and irritated by her growing neediness and her desire to want to read all the secrets of his heart? Yet along with that he had felt oddly out of control, too. Hadn’t it been a relief to be free of her strange, sensual power—even if he had found himself sometimes missing the passion of her embrace? Hadn’t he terminated his contract with the airline because he had no wish for repeated contact with her or the temptation of her continuing allure? Those violet eyes and the silky hair like dark honey, which had trickled through his fingers so sweetly.

‘Won’t you sit down?’

‘Thank you.’ Despite the food she’d taken from the mini-bar Rebecca’s knees were trembling and she sank into a leather chair with relief.

‘You would like a drink? Some water, perhaps?’

She shook her head, feeling as if she were on a job interview—praying that her composure would not leave her at a time when she had never needed it more badly. ‘No, thank you.’

Xandros stared at her, waiting for some kind of explanation for her appearance, but she had bent her head and was studying her clasped fingers intently—as if they were about to reveal something fascinating. And suddenly he was irritated. What the hell was she doing here? ‘So?’

Rebecca looked up, braving herself to meet the expression on his face. How best to say it? The carefully chosen words she had been silently rehearsing on the way over suddenly seemed as inadequate as someone trying to staunch the flow of a burst dam using their finger. There is no ‘good’ way to say this, Rebecca—so just say it.

‘I’m pregnant, Xandros.’

He didn’t move, or react—grateful, if such a word could be used at such a time, for the enigmatic exterior which had never let him down.

Rebecca’s voice wasn’t quite steady as she searched his face. ‘Did you hear me, Xandros? I said—’

‘Ne, I heard you.’ Inexplicably, he found himself thinking of Notus—the great south wind of Greece which brought with it the storms of summer and autumn—and what greater storm than this to have exploded in his life? A baby—by a woman who meant nothing to him? Yet still his face gave nothing away. Meeting her violet-blue eyes with nothing but stony question, he said: ‘Are you certain?’

For one moment she wondered if she should draw his attention to the slight swelling of her belly until she remembered that she had come here because she had felt it was the right thing to do. She was not going to be made to feel the guilty party. He might not have planned this, but neither had she.

‘Yes, I’m certain. I did a test and now the doctor has confirmed that they …’ As his head jerked up she swallowed. ‘Yes, they,’ she whispered, meeting the blazing question in his black eyes. ‘It’s twins. I’m expecting twins, Xandros. Around the middle of January,’ she finished hoarsely.

Twins. The word dropped into his consciousness like a stone falling into water from a great height and Xandros experienced a sensation of anger and pain so strong that it momentarily took his breath away.

Twins.

Hot, unwanted emotions washed over him—trying to take him back to a childhood he had buried and forgotten. A mother who had left him. A father who had never been there. A brother to whom he was joined for ever—whether he liked it or not. A brother he had fought with. Two men who had allowed time to deepen the rift between them.

Xandros scowled, recognising that in a way this was Rebecca’s salvation—nature cleverly ensuring that he wouldn’t question her about the paternity of her unborn. Yet for some reason that question had simply not occurred to him. Because her very neediness during their time together had convinced him that she would not have taken another lover—despite his occasional streak of jealousy? Or just his natural arrogance assuring him that it would be a long time before she would allow another man to touch her as he had touched her?

But the image disturbed him.

Twins.

He stared at her. ‘You are quite sure of this?’

Did he think she was testing him out? Telling herself that it was shock which was making him snap the question out like an interrogator, Rebecca nodded.

‘Yes. Testing procedures are very sophisticated these days. They can do a check between nine and—’

‘That’s enough!’ He silenced her with an automatic raise of his hand, the imperious gesture telling her that he was simply not interested in the detail. That he needed time to think.

Xandros walked over to one of the large windows where the radiance of countless lights illuminated the night sky of New York, his adopted city. During the day, he sometimes went along the corridor to a smaller office where the light was soft and muted—because sometimes he found the urban magnificence of the skyline all too distracting, especially when he was working. But for now he welcomed the distraction from this momentous piece of news.

What the hell did a man do in a situation like this?

Eventually, he turned around. She hadn’t moved and her frame looked curiously fragile within the soft, tooled leather of the chair. Her amazing hair was tied back with a simple piece of ribbon and he thought that she certainly hadn’t gone to town on an outfit designed to impress him. He saw the goose-bumps on her slender arms and supposed that she wasn’t really used to the air-conditioning.

‘Say something!’ said Rebecca urgently, because she could bear his brooding silence no longer.

‘What do you want me to say, agape mou? That we will all live happily ever after and that I will marry you?’ He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Because I have no intention of doing that.’

It hurt, of course it did—she would have had to have been made of wood for it not to have done—but she didn’t react. One thing Rebecca had told herself was that no matter what he threw at her, no matter what the provocation—there was no way she was going to storm out of here.

They would deal with this like adults—or rather she would. So she kept her face as calm as possible instead giving into the temptation of saying: I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth! She even managed a shake of her head and a bland smile. After all, she supposed that he could have denied paternity—and surely that would have been far more insulting than him refusing to marry her?

‘Marriage? Good heavens, no. That’s not why I’m here,’ she said calmly.

‘Really?’ Ebony brows were elevated in thinly veiled disbelief. ‘Then why are you here?’

‘Strange as it may seem, Xandros, it gives me no pleasure to fly all the way over when I’m feeling slightly queasy and then be met with insult and accusation. I’m here because—as the father—I feel you have a right to know about it.’

For the first time he reacted outwardly, swearing softly and emphatically in his native tongue and it was her use of the word father which provoked it—because somehow that made it more real than the disconnected terms of babies and pregnancies. If his hands weren’t his livelihood, he might have smashed his fist against one of the walls. But he lashed out with words instead.

‘Okay, so you’ve told me. Pretty expensive and protracted way of doing so. You came all this way to tell me that? You didn’t think of ringing?’

It would give too much away if she confessed that she’d wanted to see his expression when she told him. He might think she’d been holding out for a remarkable about-turn—as if he would pull her into his arms and tell her he’d missed her, and that having her carrying his babies beneath her heart was like a dream come true.

And hadn’t there been a tiny part of her which hadn’t ruled out that thought—even though it had flown in the face of all logic? That the man who had everything might realise that none of it mattered when compared to these miraculous new lives they’d created? But there could be no mistaking the lack of emotion on his proud and beautiful features. She had wanted an answer to her silent question and it was written there—in stark detail.

Slowly, Rebecca began to rise to her feet, her heart suddenly heavy.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded.

‘Home. Well, back to the hotel. I have done what I came for.’

His black eyes narrowed. ‘But nothing has been decided.’

‘There’s nothing to decide, Xandros. That isn’t why I’m here. You are now in full possession of the facts and my conscience is clear.’

‘Well, mine is not!’ he thundered. He raked his fingers back through his ebony hair. ‘I will pay!’ he announced.

For a moment she completely misinterpreted what he meant and her trembling hand shot out to grab hold of the chair-back. ‘P-pay? What are you talking about?’

He stilled. ‘What do you think? For your upkeep. For the children’s—’ Briefly, the word froze in his throat. ‘For their upkeep, once they are born,’ he continued. ‘And you will need money to support yourself until that happens. I assume you won’t be allowed to fly after a certain point? Isn’t that what usually happens?’

She opened her mouth to tell him that she was not allowed to fly now—that she had lost her job because she had broken the rules—but did she want to come across as some kind of victim? No, she did not. In fact, it was imperative that she didn’t. From now on she needed to be strong and independent—not just for her own sake, but, more importantly, for the sake of her babies. Babies. Rebecca shivered. If the idea of twins had come as a shock to Xandros, it had troubled her even more. He was used to two of everything, while she was a complete novice. How on earth was she going to manage?

‘I didn’t come here to ask you for money,’ she said.

‘Maybe not, but I am a wealthy man—we both know that.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘I want you to take what I am offering. In fact, I insist upon it.’

And as Rebecca looked into his eyes she realised that Xandros needed to give her something concrete—like money. That way he could wash his hands of all responsibility. Because he hadn’t expressed the wish she had secretly prayed for—to want to play some part, no matter how small, in his children’s lives.

She shook her head. ‘You aren’t in any position to insist on anything, Xandros,’ she said.

Fleetingly, he thought it ironic that, with Rebecca in this new and physically vulnerable state, he had never seen her look or sound quite so strong and focussed. But maybe this was what she had wanted all along, despite her protests—something to tie her to him.

‘But this is not a battle of wills, Rebecca,’ he said softly. ‘It is what is known as making the most of a bad situation. You live in that tiny place, which some might consider too small even for one. How the hell do you expect to be able to cope with, not one, but two new babies there—had you thought about that?’

‘What do you think?’ She had thought of little else. This would be a good cue for hysteria, Rebecca thought as she stared at him in disbelief—but she could not allow herself the indulgence of such a useless emotion. She registered the critical way he had dismissed her apartment. To think how hard she’d worked on it—hoping to impress him with her little home—and all the time he had felt nothing but contempt for it! Didn’t he realise that not everyone was as fortunate as he was?

But it was her sheer short-sightedness which troubled her most. That she could have made so bad a judgement about a man. How could she have possibly thought that she loved him—when he had a heart of stone which made a mockery of the hard warmth of his body?

Rubbing her shivery arms with her hands and wishing she’d brought some kind of jacket, she fixed him with a look which told him that, although her self-respect might have taken a bit of a battering, she would repair it as best she could, but without any help from him.

‘I’ll manage somehow,’ she said, her voice low but dignified. ‘I may not be rich, but you can be sure that I’ll love these babies, Xandros. I’ll love them with all my heart—and I don’t want anything from you. Do you understand that?’

His eyes narrowed as they met in a silent clash with hers, but unexpectedly her fervent words pierced him. She had said that she would love them—but he knew only too well that being a mother did not guarantee loving your children. When she realised that he meant what he said about not marrying her—would she still feel the same? Or might she then see adoption as a sensible solution?

‘I understand perfectly,’ he said. ‘But whether you want help or not, you’re getting it. I will pay money into an account for you—what you choose to do with it is up to you. In return, I ask that you keep me informed of your progress during the pregnancy. Is that understood?’

She stared at him. ‘You mean you want to be involved?’

He hardened his heart against her violet eyes. ‘I meant I want a progress report,’ he said, as if he were talking about the construction of one of his own projects. ‘I wish to know when they …’ He swallowed then, despite his determination to feel nothing. ‘I want to know when you give birth. Will you do that for me?’

‘Yes.’ The word was little more than a lost sigh in that great big office space and Rebecca stood up. If she didn’t feel so emotionally and physically vulnerable, she would have left quietly and gone in search of the nearest subway. But she couldn’t face it. ‘I’d like to go now,’ she said, in a low voice. Before she did something unforgivable, like breaking down into a cascade of choking sobs in front of him.

Xandros could see the trembling of her lips. Once he would have kissed that tremble away, but now he could not—for that would dishonour them both. Their relationship was over—they both knew that.

He suspected what she really wanted of him—what was probably expected of him—but he could not give any kind of emotional commitment to these unborn children. Far better to promise nothing than to fail to deliver. And didn’t he come from exactly the right kind of background to walk away from a child? Didn’t abandonment run deep in his veins?

Hidden by the shafts of his powerful thighs, his fists clenched in anger. ‘My driver is waiting,’ he said tightly. ‘I will take you down to him.’