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I can’t help it!
He glanced at her. ‘I’m not hurting you too much?’
‘No...’ Emily looked at his mouth, the way it curved around his words, the way the stubble surrounded it, making her fingers ache to reach up and trace it.
He went back to work on her finger, gently removing the shard of glass and cleansing the wound with another wash of antiseptic. He reached back to the cupboard for a plaster and a small crepe bandage, which he placed on her finger. ‘There you go,’ he said with another heart-stopping, upward movement of his lips. ‘Good as new.’
Emily was so dazed by his almost-smile and his closeness she didn’t register what he was doing for a moment. It was only when he stepped past her to place the plaster and bandage wrappings in the metal pedal bin next to her that her heart came to a screeching standstill. She quickly blocked him from accessing the bin, as if she were guarding the Hope Diamond. ‘D-don’t put it in there.’ She held out her good hand, not one bit surprised it was shaking. ‘I’ll take it and put it in the bin in the kitchen.’
One of his eyebrows rose like a question mark. ‘Why not this bin?’
She forced herself to hold his gaze, her heart beating so hard it was as if there were panicked pigeons and a handful of hummingbirds trapped in her chest. ‘This one’s...erm...full.’
His eyes moved back and forth between each of hers. ‘What’s wrong? You seem a little jumpy.’
‘I’m not jumpy.’
Probably shouldn’t have answered so quickly.
He reached out his hand and trailed the backs of his bent knuckles down the slope of her cheek, making every nerve fizz and whizz. His eyes went to her mouth, lingering there as if he was reliving every time he had kissed her that night a month ago. ‘Why do I make you so nervous?’
Emily swallowed loud enough to hear it. ‘I’m n-not nervous...’
Loukas inched up her chin, the pad of his thumb moving in slow mesmerising circles, his eyes holding hers. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about that night. How good it was between us.’
She sent her tongue out to moisten her lips that were as dry as the crepe bandage on her finger. ‘Isn’t it always good between you and your lovers?’
He gave a shrug but there was no hint of arrogance about it. ‘Mostly. What about you?’
Emily tried but failed to suppress a snort. ‘I can count my previous lovers on half a hand. My mother’s had more sex than me. She’s still having more than me.’
He continued to look at her without speaking, his eyes holding hers as if he found her fascinating. But then, maybe a twenty-nine-year-old almost-virgin was something of an enigma to him.
‘She’s a relationships therapist,’ Emily said into the silence. ‘She teaches people how to have better relationships by working on their sex lives. Ironic that her daughter’s sex life is practically non-existent.’
Here you go again. Telling him all your stuff.
So? I need to break the ice a bit. I can’t just tell him he’s going to be a dad without a bit of a lead up.
You are so unsophisticated!
His hands came to settle on her waist, his eyes sexily hooded. ‘Maybe I can help you with that.’
The warmth of his hands seemed to be travelling right through her clothes, through every layer of her skin, sending electric pulses down her nerves until they were twitching in excitement. Her inner core registered his proximity like a scanner recognises a code. It was as though she were micro-chipped for him and him alone. Her intimate muscles were clenching, contracting, wanting.
‘I haven’t had a lot of luck with men,’ Emily said. ‘I had one lover before my ex, but it hardly counts, as it was over before I blinked. I was with Daniel seven years so it’s left me a little out of the game, so to speak.’
Argh! What are you doing? You’re making yourself sound like some sort of relationship tragic.
But I don’t want him to think I’ve been jumping every man I meet.
His hands went from her waist to skim up her arms and rest on her shoulders. His eyes had a lustrous depth to them that reminded her of a bottomless lake. ‘You haven’t had a lover since Daniel? Apart from me, I mean?’
‘No. I dated a few times but it never came to anything. I suspect that was why I was so...so enthusiastic when you kissed me outside my room,’ Emily said. ‘I hope I didn’t shock you.’
Loukas brushed his thumb over her lower lip. ‘You delighted and surprised me.’
That’s me. Full of delightful surprises.
She stretched her lips into a rictus smile. ‘Erm...there’s something we need to discuss...’
‘I’m not in this for the long haul, Emily.’ His mouth had an intractable set to it. ‘I want you to be clear on that right from the outset. I’m only here in London this week, so if we have a fling that’s all it will be. A fling. Nothing else.’
‘I understand that. It’s just there’s some—’
‘I want you.’ His voice hummed in her core as deep as a bass chord.
Emily placed her hands flat against his chest, her hips bumping into his, sending a shockwave of tingly awareness through her body. She couldn’t think when he was this close. Her body went on autopilot. Wanting. Craving. Hungering. Her breasts tingled with the memory of his touch, the heat and fire of his lips and tongue and the sexy scrape of his teeth. He was so magnetic. So irresistible. So tempting her inner core was contracting with little pulses of lust, as if recalling the sexy thrust of his body within hers.
How could she possibly be thinking about sex at a time like this? But it seemed her body could only think about sex when Loukas was within touching distance. His chest was hard and warm under her hands, the clean, laundered scent of his shirt filling her nostrils. The length and strength of his thighs so close to her own reminded her of how those muscle-packed legs had entrapped hers in a tangle of sheets, taking her to a sensual heaven she hadn’t known existed. Her body remembered everything about that encounter. Remembered and begged for it to be repeated. The drumming of her pulse echoed in her core, making her aware of every inch of her body where it was in contact with his, as though all the nerves on those spots had been supercharged.
His mouth came down to hover above hers, his warm, minty breath sending her senses reeling. ‘Tell me you want me.’
‘I want you, but there’s...’ Emily stepped back from him, using what little willpower she had left, but she stumbled over the pedal bin behind her left foot and it tipped over and spilled its contents in front of his Italian-leather-clad feet.
An unpinned grenade would have had a similar effect.
Loukas’s face drained of colour as if he were the one with morning sickness. He stood frozen for a moment. Totally statue-like—as if someone had pressed a pause button on him. Then he swallowed.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Each one of them was clearly audible in the pregnant silence—no pun intended. Emily watched as if in slow motion when he bent to pick up not one, but seven test wands. He examined the tell-tale blue lines, the wands clanking against each other like chopsticks.
His eyes finally cut to hers, sharp, flint-hard with query. ‘You’re...pregnant?’
He said the word as though it was the most shocking diagnosis anyone could have. Up until a few hours ago, she had thought so too.
Emily wrung her hands like a distraught heroine from a period drama, wincing when her damaged finger protested. ‘I was trying to tell you but—’
‘Is it mine?’ The question was a verbal slap.
She double blinked. ‘Of course it’s yours. I—’
‘But we used condoms.’ The suspicion in his voice scraped at her already overwrought nerves.
‘I know, but condoms sometimes fail, and this time one must have—’
‘Aren’t you on the pill?’ His brows were so tightly drawn above his eyes it gave him an intimidating air.
‘I—I was taking a break from it.’ Emily could feel tears welling up. The concentrated smell of her spilt perfume was making her feel queasy. Her fingertips were fizzing as if her blood were being filtered through coarse sand. The tingling sensation spread to her arms, travelling all the way up to her neck, making it hard to keep her head steady. The room began to spin, the floor to shift beneath her feet as though she were standing on a pitching boat deck. She reached blindly for the edge of the bathroom counter but it was like a ghost hand reaching through fog. Every one of her limbs folded as if she were a marionette with severed strings. She heard Loukas call out her name through a vacuum and then everything faded to black...
* * *
‘Emily!’ Loukas dropped to his knees in front of her slumped form, his heart banging against his chest wall like a bell struck by a madman. Her face was as white as the basin above her collapsed form, her skin clammy. He brushed the sticky hair back from her forehead, his mind still whirling with the news of her pregnancy.
Pregnant.
The word struck another hammer-like blow to his chest. A baby. His baby. How had it happened? He was always so careful. Paranoid careful. He never had sex without a condom. He never took risks. Never. How could he have got her pregnant? It had been a bit low of him to suggest it wasn’t his, but panic had blunted his sensitivity.
A father?
Him?
Why hadn’t he asked her about contraception? If he’d known she wasn’t on the pill, or using a hormone implant device, he would have taken extra caution. He couldn’t be a father. He didn’t want to be a father. He had never planned to be a father. Panic drummed through him like wildebeests in stampede. He tried to picture himself with a baby and his mind went blank, his chest seizing with dread, vice-like. His intestines knotted as though they were being sectioned by twine.
No. Not him. Not now. Not ever.
He looked at Emily’s slumped form and another dagger of guilt jabbed him. Hard. He had done this, upsetting her to the point of collapse. She had been trying to tell him something but he’d been so intent on squaring up their fling he hadn’t given her a chance. No wonder she had acted so nervous and on edge.
She was pregnant.
With his baby.
What was he going to do? What was the right thing to do? Hands-off provision for his child seemed a little tacky somehow. There was no way he could walk away from this. He would have to be involved with his child as he wished his father had been for him. He would have to be responsible for the child. To provide for and protect it. The thought of protecting a child was enough to make Loukas break out in another prickly sweat.
How could he keep a child safe?
He had got Emily pregnant. Some would call it an accident, a freakish trick of fate, or destiny or whatever, but he blamed himself. He had slipped up. He had done what he had sworn he would never do.
He was to become a father, unless she chose to get rid of it.
He allowed the thought some traction, but as escape hatches went it wasn’t one he felt comfortable with. It would be Emily’s decision, certainly, but he hoped she wouldn’t feel pressured into it because of their circumstances. He would have to make it clear he was okay with her keeping it. More than okay, even if he harboured more doubts than a sceptics’ conference. Not doubts about keeping the baby—doubts about himself as a father.
His own father had insisted a recent partner have an abortion after she’d fallen pregnant, and when she’d refused he’d summarily dumped her. The young woman had subsequently attempted suicide and lost the baby as a result. She had recently been paid a large sum of money by a gossip magazine for a tell-all interview about how Loukas’s father had caused her so much distress. The interview, by association, had put the spotlight on Loukas and the way he conducted his relationships, especially now he was attracting more media attention than ever before.
But there was no way he would ever put that sort of pressure on any woman. Emily’s pregnancy was a shock, a surprise and an inconvenience, but there was a tiny human life in the making, and he would not do or say anything to compromise that development, nor the mental health of its mother.
He was angry with himself for putting Emily in this situation. Furious. Ashamed. Deeply, thoroughly ashamed that he had acted on impulse and slept with her when normally he would have steered clear of an unworldly woman like her. He’d been the one to make the first move. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her, much less his hands. He had foolishly thought he could have a one-night stand and walk away. He should have walked away from her at her bedroom door at Draco’s villa—that was what he should have done.
What had he been thinking, sleeping with a cute little homespun girl like her? She wasn’t his type and he certainly wasn’t hers. He wasn’t a rake, but he was no altar boy either. It had been a night of out-of-character madness and now it had come to this. A life had been created that would link them together for ever.
How could he walk away from this? This was his doing and he would have to face it even though it was like facing his worst nightmare. Panic wrapped steel cords around his chest, squeezing the very breath out of him. Sweat broke out over his brow. The roots of his hair prickled as if ants were playing hide and seek on his scalp.
Why couldn’t he press replay on his life and do everything differently? How many times had he wished that? Every time he saw his sister’s damaged body he wished he could turn back time. Now he had another regret to hang on his conscience. But, unlike with his sister and mother, whom he kept at a respectful distance, given the dreadful impact he’d had on their lives, he could not so easily distance himself from his own child.
A child who would grow up and call him Daddy. A child who would look up to him. A child who would expect certain things of him—things he wasn’t capable of giving. How could he be trusted with a child’s welfare when he had already ruined one innocent child’s life?
Emily groaned and slowly opened her eyes. She looked at him blankly for a moment and then she captured her lower lip with her teeth and lowered her gaze. ‘I’m sorry...’
‘No.’ His voice caught on the word and he had to clear his throat to continue. ‘I’m the one who’s sorry. Are you okay? Shall I get you a glass of water?’
She made to get up and Loukas helped her into a sitting position to allow time for her blood pressure to go back to normal. ‘I’m fine. I just need a minute.’
‘Should I call a doctor?’ He began to reach for his phone but she put a hand on his arm.
‘No, I’m fine, really.’ Her hand melted away from his arm and went back to her lap. The sound of her fingertips flicking against each other made him realise how nervous she was.
‘Have you seen a doctor at all?’
She shook her head. ‘Not yet. I wanted to do a few tests first.’
Loukas glanced at the seven test wands, wondering how many more she’d planned to take.
When he looked back at her she gave him a self-deprecating grimace. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Overkill.’ After a moment she added, ‘We can do a paternity test if you’d—’
‘No,’ Loukas said, surprising himself with the strength of his conviction. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
Her eyes shimmered and her throat rose and fell over a swallow. ‘Thank you for believing me. It means...a lot...’
He brushed his hand over her hair and then tucked a couple of strands back behind her ear as if she were six years old. She gave him a tremulous movement of her lips that loosely could have been described as a smile. ‘You can’t be very far along,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it too early to be sure one way or the other?’
‘The tests are pretty accurate these days. They can pick up the slightest change in hormonal activity within a few days of conception.’
‘What do you plan to do?’ As soon as he asked it he wished he hadn’t phrased it quite that way. It sounded as if he considered the baby to be a problem to be removed. Eradicated. Deleted like an incorrect digit in a code.
Her eyes took on a determined spark, her normally plump mouth now a tight line. ‘I’m keeping it, so please don’t try and convince me otherwise, because I don’t need your help. I’m perfectly able to do this on my own. I just thought you should know, that’s all.’
‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t suggesting you should get rid of it,’ Loukas said.
She angled him a look that reminded him of a detective nailing a suspect. ‘Weren’t you?’
He released a jagged breath. ‘I can’t deny I’m a little shocked by the news. More than shocked. If I’m not acting with the sensitivity and enthusiasm of a normal father-to-be, then you’ll have to forgive me. I never planned to be a father.’
Emily clambered to her feet, brushing off his offer of assistance. ‘Then why haven’t you had a vasectomy? Then you could rule a line under the subject permanently.’
He’d thought of it. Several times. He hadn’t avoided it out of cowardice, or squeamishness, or out-dated notions on masculinity. He didn’t know what it was but something had made him shy away from the decision to render himself infertile. ‘I haven’t got around to it yet.’
‘Maybe you should before someone else ends up pregnant.’
Loukas was ashamed he hadn’t yet thought of what this was like for her. Sure, she’d said she wanted marriage and kids, but he’d got the impression she wanted them in that order. Marriage first. Kids later. Having a child was a huge responsibility for a woman under any circumstances—a life-changing responsibility. ‘Emily...are you okay with this? With being pregnant?’
Her eyes fell away from his as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. ‘I wasn’t at first. I was in denial until I did the seventh test. I didn’t want to be like my mother. Pregnant outside of marriage to a guy she had a one-night stand with. It was like a nightmare.’
‘And now?’
