For Pleasure...Or Marriage?

Emotion scythed through her, each stroke cutting her from her knees.

Oh, God, Markos—Markos.

Her eyes hung on him, each feature searing on to her brain. For an endless, reeling moment she was helpless to do anything but stand there, her brain trying to make sense of what her eyes were seeing.

Then, like a blow to her stomach, his words felled her.

‘You little bitch! You two-timing, cheating bitch!’

For a moment she just went on staring, uncomprehending. His face was contorted, she could see, and fury was blazing in his eyes.

Her brow furrowed.

‘What?’

Of all the things Markos might have said to her, what he had just hurled at her made absolutely no sense.

Yet her response seemed merely to infuriate him more. Fury seared in his eyes again.

‘Don’t give me that!’ he snarled. ‘I want to know one thing only—and, Christos, you had better tell me! Who is he? Just damn well tell me that—who is he?’

Incomprehension paralysed her. She could only stand there, hands clutching around the edge of the table, shockwaves jolting through her.

His face contorted.

‘Don’t try and blank me. Just tell me who it is! And don’t even think of trying to protect him because I swear to God I’ll find out, and when I do—’

‘Who?’

She could see his jaw clench, his entire body taut as a bow.

‘What the hell do you mean, who?’ he hurled back, his eyes like stabbing knives. ‘The man you cheated on me with! The man who got you pregnant!’

CHAPTER NINE

THE WORLD SEEMED to stop. She could feel it grinding to a halt in the few fleeting seconds it took for his words to penetrate.

And, when they did, the shock she had felt up to then was as nothing, nothing at all. Disbelief, absolute and overwhelming, electrocuted her.

Blindly she felt for the back of the chair tucked under the table. Blindly she jerked it out, knowing with an overriding sense of protection for the child she carried that she must, must sit down before she fell down. She collapsed onto it, her heart hammering against her throat, hot and cold washing up and down through her body.

The world began to darken around the edges.

Instinctively she let her head sink down to her knees, forcing herself to try and take slow breaths. Equally instinctively her hand curved over her abdomen, sheltering the baby within.

‘What—? Vanessa? Vanessa!’

There was fear in his voice, sudden, raw, completely negating the fury of a moment ago. He took two urgent strides towards her and crouched down beside her.

‘Vanessa!’

She took a last, achingly slow breath, and lifted her head. The darkness receded, and there was just Markos instead. For one long, endless moment her eyes met his.

Then, swallowing deliberately, she said, ‘I’m all right. I’m—all right.’

She straightened up. Abruptly, as if such closeness were too disturbing, Markos took a step back. His expression was a mix of emotions.

‘Do you want me to call a doctor?’