One Night...Nine-Month Scandal

‘Because you haven’t packed neatly.’

‘Life is too short to fold stuff neatly!’ Incredibly stressed, Kelly took her frustration out on the suitcase by ramming it shut. ‘Life is too short for a lot of things, and being with you is one of them. I wish I’d never sold your stupid ring, I wish I’d never come to Corfu in my gap year and I wish I’d never walked across your stupid floor!”

Alekos looked at her in confusion. ‘That was all in the wrong order.’

‘I don’t care if it was all the wrong order. Having your baby after we’ve split up is the wrong order, too! Everything in my life seems to happen in the wrong order. Most people think then act.’ Planting her bottom on the lid, she managed to snap the case shut. ‘I act then think, and if that’s not the wrong order I don’t know what is.’ Numb with misery, horrified with herself for losing it, Kelly flopped onto the edge of the bed, aware that Alekos was watching her with the same degree of caution he might show an unexploded bomb.

‘You are very upset, and I can understand that, but you are forgetting that when I said those things to you I did not know you were pregnant.’

‘What difference does that make?’

‘I was not trying to hurt you.’

‘That makes it worse. That shows you truly meant what you said, which puts us in a bit of a fix.’ Kelly stood up and hauled the little case off the bed, closing her eyes as a sudden attack of dizziness assailed her. ‘Get out of here, Alekos, before I kill you and hide your body under an olive tree.’

‘You should not be lifting heavy weights.’

‘Fine—I’ll drag your body there. I won’t lift it.’

‘I meant the suitcase.’ He breathed, and she pushed her hair out of her eyes, feeling foolish.

‘Oh; right. I knew that. Obviously. But the suitcase is on wheels. I can push it all the way to Little Molting if I have to.’ Grabbing the suitcase, she vowed never, ever to get involved with any man again—especially not a fiercely bright Greek man whose superior intellect made her feel the size of a grain of sand. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that he didn’t want children? Why hadn’t she spotted that?

And what was she supposed to do now?

She was having a child he didn’t want. She should have nothing more to do with him. His declaration should have killed her feelings stone dead.

But it hadn’t.

She was still crazy about him. She loved him as much now as she had four years ago.

Wishing that love could be switched on and off as easily as her iPod, Kelly wondered what he was going to have to do to her before she fell out of love with him.

Had she no self-respect?

Was this how her mother had felt when she’d realised that she was having the baby of a man who had no interest in being a father?

Alekos said something in Greek and jabbed his fingers through his hair. ‘I blame myself for not even thinking that you might be pregnant.’ His voice was hoarse as he struggled with the word. ‘But it didn’t occur to me. We didn’t—I mean, we did, but it was just the once. That time on your kitchen table.’

Kelly flinched. ‘Romantic, wasn’t it?’ Her sarcasm was met by taut silence and then he cleared his throat.

‘I made you pregnant on that one occasion?’

‘So it would seem. Let’s hope our child never asks how, or where, he was conceived.’

He dragged his hand over the back of his neck. ‘I assumed you were using contraception.’

‘Well, I wasn’t. Pass me those shoes, please.’

‘Shoes?’ Distracted, Alekos followed the direction of her finger and retrieved a pair of abandoned fuschia-pink stilettos from under the bed. ‘You shouldn’t wear those with your problem with walking.’

‘I don’t have a problem with walking.’ Kelly opened the case gingerly and fed the shoes in one by one, trying not to let any of the contents escape. ‘I have a problem with your floor.’

‘Why weren’t you using contraception?’ Dark lashes lowered over his eyes as he focused on the part of the conversation that interested him.

‘Because I didn’t need it. It seems I’m genetically programmed to give myself only to the lower forms of life. If there’s a decent, honest, family-loving man around, I go blind. Now you can go and beat your chest and do all the other things you cave-dweller, alpha males do.’ Kelly was about to reach for her case again when a strong, brown hand covered hers. She stared at his hand and swallowed. ‘Don’t touch me. What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’m doing the things we cave-dweller, alpha males do,’ he drawled. ‘Like lifting heavy weights. If you want it lifted, I’ll lift it.’