Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

He needed to pull back from Tia; he knew that. He knew that he needed to pull back and give her space. In a few months’ time without Andrew around Tia might decide she wanted her freedom and there would be little point him craving then what he could no longer have. Was that why he had to have her every night? Why going one night without her fel

t like deprivation of the worst kind? Her hunger matched his though, he reminded himself stubbornly. The need was mutual. And being hooked on sex wasn’t that dangerous a weakness, was it?

Tia caught at his sleeve. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she whispered, needing to share, wanting him to demonstrate the same joy that had been growing in her since she’d first learned that she was carrying their first child.

She had wasted so much energy tormenting herself with doubts and insecurities while all the time her deep abiding pleasure at the prospect of becoming a mother was quietly building on another level. She was going to have Max’s baby and she was happy about that development and, now that the opportunity had come, she suddenly couldn’t wait to share her news.

‘We’ve got official photos first,’ Max warned her.

So, they posed and smiled with Andrew to mark the occasion and then, Andrew safely stowed in the company of old friends, Max began to introduce her to what felt like hundreds of people. She set her champagne glass down and quietly asked the waiter for a soft drink while she waited for her moment to tell Max about their child.

The moment came during a lull in the music when everybody was standing around chatting and, for the first time, they were miraculously alone. ‘Remember I said I had something to tell you?’ Tia whispered.

Lashes as dark and lustrous as black lace lifted on level dark golden eyes and he lifted his chin in casual acknowledgment. ‘I’m listening.’

‘I’m pregnant,’ Tia told him baldly.

And beneath her gaze Max turned paper pale below his bronzed skin, his facial muscles jerking taut to throw his hard bone structure into shocking prominence. ‘Are you serious?’ he pressed in disbelief. ‘How can you be? You were clear—’

‘No. We thought I was and we were wrong.’

Max was shattered and struggling to hide the fact. She had conceived? Although his brain knew better, he had always subconsciously supposed that a pregnancy was unlikely after a single sexual encounter. He had simply assumed it wasn’t going to happen, had been convinced by the evidence that they were safe from that threat and he had relaxed. And now that she was cheerfully assuring him that it had happened he had no prepared strategy of how to behave to fall back on in his hour of need. And it was his hour of need, Max registered sickly as an image of his thuggish father’s face swam before his eyes and momentarily bereft him of breath. Like a punch in the gut, he had once seen his father’s hated image every time he closed his eyes to go to sleep, his father, his bogeyman, the memory of brutality that had haunted him since the dreadful night his mother had died.

‘But you can’t be sure yet,’ Max assumed, grasping hopefully at straws. ‘Surely it’s too soon to be sure? You’ll have to see a doctor.’

‘I saw a doctor this morning. It’s official. I’m pregnant. For goodness’ sake, it seems I’ve been pregnant all along,’ she divulged shakily. ‘We’ll be parents in six months’ time.’

Tia felt so sick because Max wasn’t a very good actor. He was appalled by the idea of her being pregnant and he couldn’t hide it. A tight band of pain seized her chest and she could hardly breathe for hurt and disillusionment. How could she have been so naïve as to credit that Max would welcome a baby that would undoubtedly disrupt his life even more than she had done? Max had given up his freedom to marry her and possibly he had hoped that he would eventually regain that freedom, but the birth of a child would make that process a great deal more complicated.

Max released his breath in a rush. ‘You took me by surprise.’

‘Obviously,’ Tia pronounced tightly, focusing fixedly on his scarlet silk tie, refusing to meet his eyes and see anything else she didn’t want to see because it hurt too much.

Yes, she had accepted that he wasn’t in love with her, but she had trustingly believed that he would welcome fatherhood even if the planning or the timing weren’t quite ideal. But that had been a false hope because she had judged Max all wrong. Max just didn’t want a child, which was a much more basic issue. Suddenly she was in a situation she had never ever envisaged and flinching in horror from the ramifications of what she was discovering. How could she possibly stay married to a man who didn’t want their child?

Even her own parents had not been that set against becoming parents. Her father would have been quite content to be a father if her mother had stuck around to take care of her, while her mother had been content to be a mother as long as her husband was a wealthy businessman based in London. When Paul Grayson had announced his plans to become a missionary and work in some of the poorest places on earth, Tia’s mother had been aghast and the baby she’d carried had simply become an inconvenient burden tying her down to a life she had very quickly learned to loathe.

‘We’ll discuss this later,’ Max breathed in a driven undertone. ‘Discuss how to handle it.’

Handle it? What did he mean by that? And what was there to discuss? A pregnancy didn’t come with choices as far as Tia was concerned. A cold shiver snaked down her spine as Max turned to address a man who had hailed him. Was he hinting at the possibility of a termination? Surely he could not credit that she would even consider such an option?

The evening wore on with Tia seeking out her grandfather’s company and sitting with a group of much older men. But she remained hyper-aware of Max’s every move and glance in her direction. He looked forbidding, his high cheekbones taut, his beautiful mouth compressed. It struck her as a savage irony that Max should seem as unhappy as she was and that that reality could only drive them further apart. He should have been more honest with her when he proposed, she thought bitterly. He should have admitted then that he didn’t want a child in his life. He had been prepared to marry her to throw a mantle of respectability over the possibility that she might be pregnant, but evidently even then he must have been hoping that she would fail to conceive.

Shortly before they left because Andrew was grey with exhaustion, her grandfather gripped her hand firmly in his. ‘Do you have any idea how much I regret not standing up to my son when he put you into that convent?’

‘It was his decision, not yours,’ she responded gently.

‘I should’ve fought him, offered him money for his good works in return for you,’ Andrew sighed wearily. ‘But he was my son and I wanted him to come home and I was afraid to take the risk of arguing with him.’

‘I was fine at the convent. I am fine,’ Tia pointed out quietly.

‘You’re a wonderful girl,’ Andrew assured her as they waited indoors for the limousine to arrive.

‘And I have a little secret to tell you,’ Tia whispered, suddenly desperate to give her news to someone who would appreciate it.

Her grandfather responded to her little announcement with a huge smile and he squeezed her hand with tears glistening in his blue eyes. ‘Wonderful,’ was all he could say. ‘Wonderful.’

‘Congratulations,’ Andrew told Max when he swung into the car with them. ‘Our family will continue into another generation.’