The Unexpected Baby

His cool voice slid over her. ‘I’m glad you agree I’m right.’ He took the empty glass from her nerveless fingers and watched the last of the wine drain away.

Elena shuddered. She hadn’t heard him follow her, and the coldness of his voice made her feel as if a wave of icy water had washed over her. How could he have forgotten everything they’d been to each other so completely and so callously?

Yet hadn’t she, over this last endless week, been trying to do the same?

It was probably the only way, she conceded now, and turned away from him. ‘Of course you were right. But you’re not always, and you’d do well to remember that.’ And he could ponder that, or not, as he chose. He had refused to hear her side of the story, walked all over her attempts to explain. She wasn’t going to put herself in the position of being humiliated all over again. ‘Why don’t you go and entertain Catherine? Leave me to make supper.’

There were things she needed to say to him, but they would have to wait. Right now she wanted him and his icy voice and his tight-boned face well away from where she was. Her emotions had been in a mess ever since she’d discovered she was pregnant, and his return—with Catherine—had sent them skittering around, completely out of control.

She couldn’t handle it, and didn’t even want to have to try.

But Jed had other ideas. ‘She’s on the patio, soaking up the sun and the rest of the wine. She’s not as young as she was and travelling tires her.’

‘Then she shouldn’t have come!’ Elena bit out as she swung round to face him. ‘What do you think I felt like when I saw you arriving together? The least you could have done was phone and warn me!’ The moment the words were out she wished she could swallow them back. The poor woman had only made the journey to reassure herself, remind herself that there were things to be happy about. This situation with Jed had got her so she didn’t know what she was saying or thinking.

‘I didn’t know you were so selfish.’ Cold eyes raked her with glittering dislike. ‘But then there were other things you made sure I didn’t know.’ His mouth twisted bitterly, his eyes continuing a brutal assessment. ‘You look a mess. Freshen up while I make a meal. And behave yourself in front of Catherine. If you upset her I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.’

Elena stalked out before she exploded. By the time she reached the relative sanctuary of her room her heart felt big enough to belong to an elephant, big enough to burst. How dared he treat her as if she were scum? How dared he?

She kicked her shoes into a corner, dragged the faded old cotton skirt and gardening shirt from her quivering body and stamped into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, wrapped in a towel, she knew what she had to do. For her unborn child’s sake she had to stay calm. And to have any hope of achieving that she had to be careful not to sink to Jed’s level, not to say vile and hurtful things, and not—most definitely not—rant and rave and throw things!

She chose a fitted silk sheath that ended a couple of inches above her knees and left her lightly tanned arms bare. The colour matched her eyes and the fabric clung to every curve. Soon now she’d start to bulge, and have to wear tents, and after the birth she’d probably turn matronly—so if she wanted to look on the cool side of sexy while she still could, who was there to stop her? Certainly not her pig of a husband.

To counteract the sexy length of leg on view, the way the silk of her dress lovingly caressed the curve of breast, tummy and thigh, she pulled her hair back from her face in a elegant upswept style and touched her wrists with old-fashioned lavender water.

Cool and sexy, both. And if the enigma annoyed the man she wished she’d been sensible enough not to fall in love with, tough.

‘My goodness—you do look lovely!’ Catherine said as Elena joined her on the patio, where Jed was putting a selection of salads down on the table.

‘Thank you.’ Elena managed a smile as she sank into the padded seat next to her mother-in-law. She knew Jed had turned from what he’d been doing to look at her, but refused to meet his eyes. She’d been on the receiving end of too many contemptuous looks coming from him to go looking for more.

‘Believe it or not, I used to have a shape! Then the boys arrived, and that was that!’ Catherine’s eyes twinkled at her, and Elena thought, My God, one day she’s going to have to know she’s going to be a grandmother. Sam’s child.

She pressed the tips of her fingers to her temples. How would the older woman take the news? It seemed that every t

ime she took a breath another problem popped up. The decision she and poor dead Sam had taken was creating unbelievable ripples—

‘I nodded off for a few minutes, I’m afraid, what with the sun and the wine and the worry of flying on my own for the very first time,’ Catherine was confessing, unaware of Elena’s boiling thoughts. ‘Or I would have changed for supper. Should I trot along and tidy up now?’

‘No.’ She didn’t want to be left alone with Jed. She still felt too raw to cope with any more of his hurtful comments. He’d disappeared back into the kitchen, but he could be back at any moment. The negative had come out too quickly, too harshly. Making a conscious effort, Elena smiled. ‘You’re fine as you are, really. I’d much prefer you to stay and chat!’

And chat she did, and was still at it when Jed finally appeared with a dish of pasta dressed with olive oil and garlic. ‘We seem to be running low on provisions,’ he commented mildly, not making it sound like a criticism for his mother’s benefit. ‘So we’ll make do with pasta and salads, OK?’

It would have to be. Elena hadn’t bothered to shop, hadn’t felt like eating during the last nightmare week, and his lumping them together, making them a ‘we’ made her disproportionally annoyed.

‘Scandalous, isn’t it, Catherine?’ Her smile was as cool as the way she was wearing her hair, as cool as her cologne. ‘We couldn’t bring ourselves to venture out into the real world, even for food.’

She did look at Jed then, saw that her taunt had rubbed salt into an open wound, watched his mouth tighten, his jaw clench, saw raw pain in his eyes and told herself she didn’t care. He could dish out hurt but he couldn’t take it. At least he could take it, she amended as she watched him hand dishes to Catherine, but he sure as hell didn’t like it.

‘Well, now,’ his mother commented comfortably, blissfully unaware of undertones. ‘That discussion I told you I needed.’ She dabbed olive oil from her mouth with a soft paper napkin. ‘As you know, Elena, your mother helped me organise your wedding reception, and I persuaded her to stay with me at Netherhaye while you were working back here before the wedding and Jed was tying up loose ends, as he called it, all over the place. And, to cut a long story short, we grew very friendly in a very short space of time. Now...’ She glanced at her son. ‘I don’t know whether I’m jumping the gun, but I rather hope you two will make Netherhaye your home, bring up your children there as your father and I did. It’s been in the family such a very long time.’

Elena caught the warning glint of steel in Jed’s smoky eyes and bit down hard on her lower lip, dragging it back between her teeth, holding back a cry of denial as Catherine went on, ‘I certainly don’t want to rattle around there on my own, and, despite intruding on you here for a few days, I’m of the opinion that newly weds don’t want to find a parent lurking around every corner, cramping their style. So, either way, I’ll be moving to somewhere very much smaller.’

Elena registered Jed’s harsh inhalation and wondeed if he was inwardly applauding his mother’s decision. It would make things easier for him, wouldn’t it? They wouldn’t have to play at happy couples very often; he could trot her out on social occasions then pop her back in her box and forget all about her.

Over her dead body!

‘Are you sure about that, Ma?’ Jed asked, leaning forward slightly, the better to judge his parent’s true feelings in the dwindling evening light. ‘I don’t want you to think you have to make a snap decision, or that Elena and I wouldn’t be happy to have you live with us.’