‘In spite of all the time we were together in Italy, you said not a word about the fact that you were using contraception,’ Nik ground out in the rushing silence.
‘I didn’t think about it, not properly,’ Prudence said defensively. ‘I’ve just been so busy being happy with you-’
‘Really…happy?’ Nik framed in his slick, dark drawl that could be so incredibly sardonic in tone. ‘It was a great act. You wanted a baby, but there was no damned way you were about to risk that baby being mine!’
‘That’s not true and I wasn’t acting-’
‘A couple of months ago, you were willing to go to a sperm bank and choose a stranger to father your child…but I wasn’t good enough-’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ she gasped. ‘I just wasn’t ready to talk about this with you-’
‘You weren’t going to tell me at all. Do you think I don’t realise that?’
Prudence was so tense that her spine was hurting. ‘You’re not being fair, Nik-’
‘How fair were you?’ Nik countered in a wrathful undertone, his impassive façade starting to crack to reveal his cold, seething anger. ‘How fair were you being when you let me believe that we were trying to start a family? I wanted that child for your sake. I could have waited. I didn’t want a child until I realised that that was your biggest dream. Is this how you repay me for trying to give you what I thought you wanted? With lies and deception?’
And that was the precise moment that Prudence truly grasped how much damage she had done to their marriage and she was horrified. The halter she had had on her own emotions snapped beneath that pressure. ‘What choice did you give me at the beginning? I had no idea what to expect from you,’ she protested. ‘You forced me to make our marriage real and I had to protect myself as best I could. I had to think ahead-’
‘Theos mou…was everything we shared a complete con?’ Nik launched at her rawly. ‘Were you just pretending to be happy as well?’
Her sense of panic increased, for she felt as though she was being boxed into an ever tighter corner. ‘No, of course not. But I didn’t know how things were going to turn out between us before we went to Italy and that’s why I started taking birth-control pills. I couldn’t take the risk of falling pregnant. If I’d had a baby with you, it would have given you even more of a hold over me.’
‘You could have told me that upfront-’
‘I didn’t think about it at the beginning and, by the time I did, it seemed too awkward and controversial-’
His lean, powerful face had hardened. ‘Maybe it gave you a kick to put one over on me.’
Prudence was too worked up to pick and choose her words. ‘Yes, once or twice it did…’
Beneath his bronzed skin, Nik lost colour at that unexpected admission. He rested raw dark eyes on her, aggression leaping from every taut inch of his magnificent body. ‘You are not the woman I thought you were-’
Prudence felt her tummy flip as if she was teetering on the edge of a dangerous chasm. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have admitted that and I’m certainly not proud of it but I have feelings, too. I was very angry with you at the start, but I was scared as well-’
‘Scared?’ Nik interrupted wrathfully. ‘You have never in your entire life had cause to be scared of me!’
‘How about when you told me my animals could go hang if I didn’t agree to give our marriage a trial?’
Nik shrugged an elegant shoulder and spread expressive lean brown hands in denial of that reminder. ‘It was just an empty threat, part of the negotiations. I knew right from the start that you would give in. Believe me, I would never have allowed any harm whatsoever to come to your animals.’
‘I’d like to say that I believe you, but I can’t. You’re not the world’s most compassionate person, Nik. Once I wouldn’t accept that side of you. I idealised you and it was very foolish of me,’ Prudence confided unhappily. ‘After all, your reputation always said you were a bastard…and when I crossed you, I discovered that you were much more callous than I had ever wanted to appreciate.’
In receipt of that ringing indictment of his character, Nik had gone very still. He was shocked; he had enjoyed her romantic view of him as almost perfect. A very faint darkening of colour demarcated the slashing line of his fabulous cheekbones and then it faded, leaving him unusually pale. ‘That’s not how I am-’
‘It’s the only way you know how to be. You’re tough and incredibly domineering, Nik. You just lay down the law, you demand, you expect-’
Nik rested brilliant dark eyes of reproach on her. ‘That is not how I behaved in Italy. That is not how I treat you, thespinis mou.’
The hostility in the air and the taste of her own fear for the future scared Prudence but she refused to back down. ‘I agree…but that still doesn’t change how this marriage started out last month. Why are you trying to ignore the facts? You coerced me into doing what I didn’t want to do…just as my grandfather once did…and there was no way I was going to sit back and take that again!’
‘That’s not an excuse for taking contraceptive pills to ensure that you didn’t have my baby,’ Nik condemned roughly, his Greek accent raking round every syllable of that abrasive comeback.
‘Everything’s changed since I took that decision.’
‘But my sins have come back to haunt me. Some would say that is very appropriate and deserved,’ Nik said quietly.
‘I wouldn’t…’
But Nik was no longer focusing on her. His striking gaze seemed to be looking inward and the sombre cast of his features struck a chill into her bones.
‘Don’t be like this-’
Nik rested brooding dark eyes on her. ‘How else do you expect me to be?’
Prudence moved towards him and made a tiny placatory gesture with one hand, before hurriedly squeezing her fingers together and letting her hand drop back to her side. In such a mood he would reject her and all bravery deserted her in the face of that prospect. ‘Don’t think that I don’t appreciate that you’ve had to be tough to survive,’ she told him awkwardly. ‘Your whole family depend on you and I know that you had to be a hard-hitter to break away from my grandfather and still stay in business.’
Nik bit out a harsh laugh, for she had not the slightest idea that once again he was fighting to stand firm against the might of Demakis International. But that was how it should be in his opinion: it was his duty to protect her from such worries. He cherished the memory of her happiness in Tuscany. ‘Is this my wife making excuses for me for being a bastard? Don’t waste your time. I’m not ashamed of what I am.’
Prudence could feel the hostile distance in him and that was when she realised how much damage had been done to their marriage. He was Greek and he was very proud. At the end of the day, family meant everything. She knew that the belief that she did not want his child must have cut deep. ‘I didn’t want to tell you about the pills, because I knew they would create a stupid misunderstanding.’
Nik shrugged a broad shoulder with magnificent cool. ‘What’s to misunderstand? As I said, I didn’t want a child until I made the error of assuming that you were desperate for one. Keep taking the pills with my blessing,’ he urged. ‘Look, I have to go into the office. A lot has been happening on the business front while we were sunning ourselves in Italy.’
Dismay and disappointment assailed Prudence. Just when she had given him her trust, just when she was ready to openly admit to him how very much she wanted to have a child with him, Nik had withdrawn the possibility and shut the door in her face. Even worse, his use of that
word ‘desperate’ in relation to her feelings about babies sealed her lips on any protest. She did not want to figure as desperate in Nik’s eyes, not when he made it so plain that he had only ever been willing to consider fatherhood for her benefit.
‘Is that really how you feel?’ Prudence prompted tightly, with tears burning the backs of her eyes and her throat aching.
Nik opened the door. ‘How else would I feel?’
In considerably less demand than a sperm bank, he thought to himself in answer to that question when he was safely on the other side of the door. He wanted to punch a hole in the wall. He needed to vent the explosive emotions attacking his usually clear thinking processes. That violent urge shook his view of himself, but Prudence had deceived him and he had fallen for it hook, line and sinker. His destructive thoughts raged on: how did he know that she had ever planned to use a sperm bank to have a child? Had he given her the divorce she had so badly wanted, would he then have discovered that Leo Burleigh was destined to become the father of her children? A sperm bank? Prudence, who was so conventional? Had that ever been a credible tale?
Once again, it seemed, he had underestimated his wife. She had seen through the façade and realised that he was a callous bastard. Nik raked long brown fingers viciously through his black hair and then studied his hand with a frown, for it had developed a slight tremor. What was the matter with him? At a time when he was fighting for survival in business he needed all his wits and his strength. Never had he been unequal to a challenge, he reminded himself fiercely. At best he had been on trial during their honeymoon. At worst Prudence was planning to walk out on him for another man. Why else would a woman who had been so keen to have a baby now guard so carefully against the possibility?
By the time Prudence got dressed and went off in pursuit of Nik, it was too late: he had gone. Panic threatened to take her over. She lifted the phone to call him and then hesitated. Wouldn’t it be wiser to wait until he came home? She could then talk to him with calm and sense. At present, she acknowledged, she felt neither calm nor sensible. In fact, she felt frantic and tearful and furious and hurt and terrified. Nik had been honest: he didn’t want a baby. She thought it was wonderful that he could admit that while censuring her for practising birth control. But the reflection was of little consolation to her. What really mattered to her was that she had hurt his pride and disappointed him and she blamed herself bitterly for not being more honest with him in Italy.