‘It was the guilt that pushed her into depression. And whatever had happened, I would never have wanted her to…’ Her voice trembled. ‘We were sisters. And as for the baby—well, I don’t believe that a child should be held responsible for the sins of his parents. My sister is dead. You can’t bring up a baby, so I will have him. He will have a loving home with me as long as he needs one.’
‘So you’re proposing to love and care for your husband’s bastard, is that right?’
‘Don’t ever call him that.’ Her eyes blazed. ‘And, yes, I’m intending to care for him. He’s three months old. He’s helpless.’
Curiously detached, Leandro looked at her. She wasn’t classically beautiful, he mused, but there was something about her face that was captivating. ‘So you have forgiven your sister.’
‘I’m working on it.’ She caught her lip between her teeth. ‘I understand the effect you have on a woman. Even that Hollywood actress was willing to humiliate herself to spend a night with you. Tell me one thing—why, when you have a reputation for not committing to a woman, did you marry me?’
‘Frankly?’ Leandro lifted his eyes from his scrutiny of her soft lips. ‘At this moment I have absolutely no idea.’
‘You really know how to hurt. You treated our marriage lightly.’
‘On the contrary, you’re the one who walked out at the first obstacle.’
Her shoulders sagged, as if she was bearing an enormous weight. ‘If you’ve said everything you wanted to say, I’d like to take the baby.’
‘As usual you are being quite breathtakingly naïve. For a start there is a pack of journalists on my doorstep. How do you think they’re going to react if you leave here clutching the baby?’
‘I think it would reflect very badly on you. But you don’t care about that, do you? You never care what people think about you. If you did, you wouldn’t behave so badly.’
Leandro pressed the tips of his long fingers to his forehead, his control at breaking point. ‘We’ll talk about this in a minute,’ he snapped. ‘For goodness’ sake, go and use the bathroom. You’re soaking wet. And next time use the front door, like my wife, instead of creeping through the garden like a burglar.’
‘Whatever you say, you wouldn’t have wanted those headlines any more than I did.’
Leandro sent her a brooding glance, marvelling that the male libido could be such a self-destructive force. ‘The headlines will stop when they realise there is no story.’
She didn’t appear to register his words. Certainly she didn’t question his meaning. ‘As soon as I’m dry, I’ll take him away. We’ll both be out of your life.’
Leandro watched in silence, allowing her to delude herself for a short time.
His wife was back.
And he had no intention of letting her walk out again.
CHAPTER TWO
NUMB with misery, Millie stood in front of the mirror in the huge, luxurious bathroom. She didn’t reach for a towel. She did nothing to improve her appearance. She simply stared at herself.
No wonder, she thought numbly. No wonder he’d strayed.
Leandro Demetrios was six feet two inches of devastatingly handsome, vibrant masculinity and she was—she was, what?
Ordinary.
She was just so ordinary.
Staring at her wild, curling hair, she reflected on how long it had taken her each day to straighten it into the tame, sleek sheet that everyone expected. And even with the weight she’d lost during the misery of the last year, her breasts were still large, and her hips curvy.
No wonder he’d chosen her sister.
Trying not to think about that, Millie ran the tap and splashed cold water on her face. One thing about already having lost your husband to another woman, she thought, was that you no longer had to pretend to be someone different. She could just be herself. What did she have to lose?
Nothing.
She’d already lost it all.
But life kept throwing boulders at her, and she had a whole new challenge ahead of her. She had to put aside all her dreams of having her own baby, and instead love and nurture the baby that had been the result of her husband’s affair with her sister.