Irini!
She sounded hysterical. Maddie’s heart went into overdrive, constricting her breathing.
‘I can give him a message,’ she managed, more or less evenly. Had Dimitri broken the news that he was going to stick with his marriage? Was that why the other woman sounded so manic?
A series of what sounded like curses in her own language almost split Maddie’s eardrum, then, on a wild crow of spite, ‘I phoned Alexandra this afternoon. She tells me you’re pregnant. So don’t come the high and mighty with me! The moment you’ve given birth you’ll be yesterday’s wife—I warned you, remember?’
Speechless, Maddie felt the colour drain from her face. Was he still putting his love for Irini first? It couldn’t be true. She wouldn’t let it be true!
Aware for the first time of Dimitri’s presence at her side, his questioning frown, she handed him the receiver and sagged back against the wall, fighting a tide of nausea as she heard him say tersely, ‘Where are you calling from? Here in Athens?’ He fell silent, listening intently to what the other woman was saying, those wide shoulders tensing. Then, ‘I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes. Do nothing. Promise me? Let me hear you say it!’
Her breathing shallow and fast, her skin turning clammy, Maddie struggled to come to terms with what she had heard. Irini had called, and as ever he would drop everything to go to her, be with her. The undeniable fact dealt her a body-blow, left her in mind-numbing shock.
The pain around her pelvis stabbed wickedly, and white-hot horror engulfed her at that precise moment. Was she about to lose her precious baby? It mustn’t happen! She wouldn’t let it!
Opening her mouth to alert him to the alarming possibility, she closed it again as he turned to her, his voice sounding as if it were in an echo chamber. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go. Don’t wait dinner for me.’
He mustn’t! She needed him! But he was already turning towards the open doorway again. Maddie blurted the first thing to come into her head. ‘Don’t go—I need you!’ Panic accelerated her heartbeat. He must put her first, he must!
But he turned back to face her, and she was sure he wasn’t actually seeing her. He couldn’t wait to leave. ‘I have to. Irini needs me. She’s threatening—’ He caught the words back between his teeth. ‘One day I’ll tell you why, I promise. But not now. I don’t have time for this. I’m sorry.’
That did it. Cleared her brain. When Irini called he had no time for his wife. Ice-cold now, her mind crystal-clear, she stated, ‘Leave now and I’ll take the other option you mentioned. I’ll leave this marriage.’ And she meant it, even though she felt her knees might buckle beneath her at any moment.
While there had been hope that they had a chance of finding happiness together she had been willing to do everything in her power to make it happen. But she would not be second best to that hateful woman for the rest of her days!
Dimitri went still. ‘I don’t accept ultimatums. Know that about me. I made a promise. I’m not about to break it.’
The ice in his tone chilled her to the depths of her being, and then he lobbed over his shoulder, already walking away from her, ‘If you can make such childish threats then our marriage can’t count for much, can it? Think about it. We’ll talk later.’
Her brain buzzed and fizzed with dizziness, and blackness claimed her just after she watched him walk out through the door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DIMITRI left Maddie’s gynaecologist with a terse word of thanks and strode out of his office, where he’d been given a reassuring update on her condition, and along the length of the wide hospital corridor to the private room where Maddie had been for the last two days.
Hating him? Lying there, frightened for their baby, fuming because he hadn’t been at her side?
Or planning to carry out her threat to walk away from their marriage as soon as she was back on her feet?
He would never understand what went on inside her head! Until that ultimatum she’d thrown at him—in an inexplicable fit of pique, or so he had supposed at the time—everything had been more than fine between them as far as he knew.
As far as he knew!
His jaw clenched. The hidden thing! Her untold initial reason for asking for a divorce.
He had categorically refused to hear her tell him those reasons. Stubbornly not wanting to know, and just as stubbornly believing that he had no need to know something that might be a constant source of distaste and sorrow in the new start he had determined they embark upon.
Something on the lines of a greedy plan to gain her freedom and take him to the cleaners at the same time? A scenario his aunt had immediately hit on, and one that he, albeit reluctantly, had almost accepted, unable to see any other.
He hadn’t wanted to know, had hated the thought of having to accept that the woman he adored saw him as little more than a gold-plated meal ticket.
Head in sand, or what?
His fault!
And now that she was again threatening to end their marriage, it, whatever it was, had to be forced out into the open.
At least she hadn’t lost the baby. And, according to her doctor, provided she took things easily for the next two or three weeks, the remainder of her pregnancy should proceed without a hitch.