One Night...Nine-Month Scandal

So, although he was slow, there was clearly nothing wrong with his memory. Alekos gritted his teeth. Everything that happened today appeared to be designed to make him feel bad. ‘Kelly needed a doctor?’

‘She was very shocked. And the press were savaging her.’

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Feeling as though he’d been slugged in the stomach by a blunt instrument, Alekos drew his eyebrows together, shaken by that graphic description. ‘She should have ignored them.’

‘How? You’re six-foot-three and intimidating,’ the doctor said calmly. ‘I don’t think Kelly has ever been rude to anyone in her life. Even when she was struggling with what had happened, she was still polite to me. Leaving her to the mercy of the press was like throwing raw meat to sharks.’

Wincing at the analogy, Alekos felt as though he was being slowly boiled in oil. ‘I may not have handled it as well as I could have done.’

‘You didn’t handle it at all. But that doesn’t really surprise me. What surprised me was the fact that you’d asked her to marry you in the first place.’ The doctor closed his case with a hand wrinkled with age and exposure to the sun. ‘I remember you coming here to stay with your grandmother as a child. I remember one summer in particular, when you were six years old. You didn’t speak for a month. You had suffered a terrible trauma.’

Feeling as though someone had tipped ice down his shirt, Alekos stepped back. ‘Thank you for coming so promptly,’ he said coldly and the doctor gave him a thoughtful look.

‘Sometimes,’ he said quietly, ‘when a situation has affected someone greatly, it helps to examine the facts dispassionately and handle your fears in a rational manner.’

‘Are you suggesting I’m irrational?’

‘I think you were the unfortunate casualty of your parents’ dysfunctional relationship.’

His emotions boiling, Alekos strode towards the bedroom door and yanked it open. ‘Thank you for your advice,’ he said smoothly, controlling himself with effort. ‘However, what I really need to know is how long you expect Kelly to remain unconscious.’

‘She isn’t unconscious.’ The doctor’s tone was calm as he picked up his bag and walked towards the door. ‘She’s lying with her eyes shut. I suspect she just doesn’t want to speak to you. Frankly, I don’t blame her.’

‘Open your eyes, Kelly.’

Ignoring his commanding tone, Kelly kept her eyes tightly shut.

She was going to lie here in this safe, dark place until she’d worked out what to do.

He didn’t want children. It was just like her dad all over again, only worse.

How could she have been so completely and utterly stupid? How could she not have known?

‘Just because you’re not looking at me, doesn’t mean I’m not here.’ His voice rang with exasperation and something else: remorse? ‘Look at me. We need to talk.’

What was there to talk about?

He didn’t want kids and she was pregnant. As far as she could see, the conversation was over before it had even begun.

What was she going to do?

She was going to have to raise their child completely on her own.

Overwhelmed by the situation, Kelly screwed her eyes up tightly, wishing that she could magic herself back to her tiny cottage in Little Molting and lock the door on the world.

Through the haze of her panic she heard him say something in Greek. The next minute he’d rolled her onto her back and lowered his mouth to hers. Rigid with shock, Kelly lay there for a moment, and then the tip of his tongue traced the seam of her lips, his kiss so gentle that she gave a despairing whimper.

Sensation shot through her and she opened her eyes. ‘Get off me, you miserable—’ She thumped her fists against the solid muscle of his shoulders. ‘I hate you, and I hate your horribly shiny floors. I hurt on the outside and the inside.’

Alekos grabbed her fists in his hands and pressed them back against the pillows. ‘I thought you were nonviolent.’

‘That was before I met you.’

His answer to that was to lower his head again and deliver a slow, lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth. ‘I’m sorry you fell. I’m sorry you hurt yourself.’

Kelly tried to turn her head away but his hand held her still. ‘You hurt me far more than your floor. Stop doing that—stop kissing me. How dare you kiss me when this whole situation is so horribly complicated and impossible and—get off me!’