The Baby Secret

CHAPTER ONE

The doctor's examination was not rough, but Victoria's tenseness still made it uncomfortable and she breathed a sigh of relief when it was over and the little man said, 'You may get dressed now, Miss Brown.'

'Thank you.' She was too taut to smile.

Once seated in front of the doctor's desk, the brilliant Tunisian sun outside the window mocking her gnawing anxiety, the dark-eyed, gentle-faced elderly man stared at her for a few moments before he said, his voice, with its heavy accent, faintly embarrassed, 'Miss Brown, what made you think you were ill?'

Victoria stared back at him, her vivid blue eyes apprehensive as she answered, 'I…I told you. I haven't been feeling too well, sick and dizzy, and lately it's got worse. I've been feeling very tired too, and… Oh, just generally ill. And then when I started to get constant nausea and couldn't keep anything down…'

'Yes, I see.' He cleared his throat loudly and her apprehension increased tenfold. 'Miss Brown, to the best of my knowledge you appear perfectly healthy,' he said quietly, 'but you do realise—?' He stopped abruptly, moving one or two papers on his desk before adding, 'You do understand you are expecting a child?' He raised his dark eyes to her shocked face.

Victoria stared at him, too stunned to react.

'Miss Brown?' The doctor was clearly finding it awkward.

'I'm not… I can't be…' She looked at him in total confusion. 'I can't be,' she whispered bewilderedly, her eyes huge.

'With your permission I would like to do a pregnancy test,' Dr Fenez said gently, 'just to confirm things, but I am sure that I felt a twelve-to-fourteen-week uterus. Now, you say you have only missed one menstrual period?' he asked briskly.

'Yes.' Victoria nodded dazedly. 'Although…'

'Yes?' he asked encouragingly. 'You have thought of something?'

'The last two weren't normal, now I come to think about it. Hardly anything…' She couldn't believe this; he had to be wrong.

'That can happen with a first pregnancy—the body takes time to settle into its new role. I take it this is your first pregnancy?' he added carefully, his face bland and professional.

Victoria nodded, her mind racing. Pregnancy? Her first pregnancy! She had considered various possibilities over the last few weeks, from nervous tension to a growth of some kind, but not this particular kind of growth, she thought with a slight touch of hysteria. She couldn't be; she just couldn't. They had only done it once. That would be too unlucky, wouldn't it?

'Dr Fenez?' She spoke out what was on her mind. 'Can you get pregnant the first time you…?' She waved her hands helplessly.

'Of course.' The little doctor nodded briskly, hiding his concern and surprise at the position this beautiful slender young woman in front of him was in. Not that it was the first time he had come across such a situation—in his long and varied career he had seen many things, especially in the last decade or so as western values had crept into his beloved country—but this girl was different somehow. She hadn't seemed the type. But then there were no types, he reminded himself silently—his own family was proof of that. Look at Kailia, his sister's child—pregnant at sixteen and married within two weeks. His sister had nearly gone mad.

The pregnancy test confirmed the doctor's diagnosis. Victoria was most definitely pregnant, at least three months, the doctor thought, so if she would like to check the date of her last normal period…?

The sun was high in a sapphire-blue sky when Victoria stepped out of the big white-washed building into the fierce heat of a Tunisian summer day, and she stood for a moment, gazing blankly around her, as she tried to gather her scattered wits. She was pregnant. She was pregnant. With Zac's child.

She ought to be feeling horrified, upset, desperate, she told herself bewilderedly as she began to walk slowly along the dusty pavement, pulling her big straw hat over her sleek blonde hair as she did so. But she didn't. She just felt amazed, totally astounded…but pleased. She paused, glancing up into the crystal sky as she searched her heart Yes, she was pleased. She was. This baby would be all that was left of a love that had consumed her with its passion, but it was a million times more than she had dreamt of right up to a few minutes ago. Zac's baby… She didn't realise she was crying until the sun scorched the rivulets running down her cheeks, and then she brushed her face hastily, walking more briskly as she made her way home through the busy, crowded streets.

The little white domed house Victoria was renting was cool and shaded as she stepped through the front door, the mosaic tiles cold beneath her feet as she kicked off her flat leather sandals and padded through to the tiny kitchen at the rear of the property, where all was quiet and tranquil and breathed peace.

When she had first come here all those weeks ago now, she had been like a wounded animal seeking a hiding place in which to lick its wounds, she thought soberly, pouring herself a glass of the home-made lemonade she kept in the fridge. And the quiet little house, with its uncluttered plain interior and horseshoe-shaped stone steps leading down to the small, slightly sunken garden of sun-drenched grass surrounded by eucalyptus, orange and lemon trees and palms and flowering shrubs, had been like balm to her soul. She would have gone mad if she had had to stay in England another day. She would never forget the overwhelming relief she had felt when she had boarded the plane at Heathrow airport.

She drank the refreshingly cold and tart drink straight down and then poured herself another glass, carrying it through into the sitting room and opening the French doors into the garden before she sat down in the old rocking chair at the side of the windows. It was her favourite spot in the fierce heat of the day when even the shaded garden was too hot for her pale English skin, and she had sat for hours staring out into the brightly spangled vista, her mind going over and over the last whirlwind months since Zac Harding had blazed into her life.

She hadn't done that so much in the last few days, she thought now, shifting slightly in the cushioned seat as the cramp-like pain she had been experiencing on and off for the last weeks made itse

lf known. Her mind seemed to have become numb, frozen almost. Perhaps one could only take so much grief and pain without losing one's sanity? Certainly every time she had pictured Zac with Gina she had felt she was going mad.

Zac Harding. She shut her eyes tightly, but still the tall, lean figure was there in front of her. Raven-black hair just touched with grey, dark, glittering eyes set in a handsome, aesthetic face that was all male—he had a presence that was devastating.

She had first seen him across a crowded room—the oldest cliché in the world, she thought with tired wryness— and from the moment their eyes had met she had known she would never meet another man who would stir her the way he did. It wasn't just his smouldering good looks, stunning though they were, or the aura of wealth and power that surrounded him. She would have been able to resist that—she had in the past, hadn't she? She'd come from a privileged background and had known other men just as wealthy and influential as Zac. But he was different He had a magnetism, a dark, sardonic sensualness that was lethal, and women went down before it like ninepins. She'd gone down before it…

But he had told her she was special. And, fool that she was, she had believed him. Victoria's soft mouth tightened and she opened her eyes wide before shaking her head at her own stupidity. How could she have been so naive, so simple and trusting? she asked herself disgustedly. And it wasn't as if she hadn't been warned either. Everyone had said she was crazy to believe that Zac Harding could ever settle for one woman. And in the final event he hadn't; she had been proved wrong and everyone had been able to nod their wise heads and tut-tut as her world had fallen apart around her ears. The few that knew, that was.

A sharp knock at the front door of the small, two-bedroomed house brought her out of her reverie like a douche of cold water. In the whole of the two months she had been here she had had no visitors, apart from William Howard who was an old and dear friend of hers and who owned the property, and he had popped over on two occasions from England just to make sure she was all right He had offered her the use of his holiday home in the first dark days of her split with Zac, and she had accepted gratefully, needing desperately to get away from all that was familiar.

It had been a matter of principle that she pay rent for staying at Mimosa—the cottage was so named for the beautiful blossom in the surrounding trees in February and March—but William's parents were due for a visit at the end of June, so Victoria only had another few days in her small sanctuary.

She had been dreading the return home and all it would entail, but now… Victoria's hand rested protectively on her stomach for a brief moment on her way to the front door. Now she had a reason to be strong, a reason to pull herself together and concentrate on the future. And she would do it by herself—-she would ask help of no one; she would forge her own destiny and carve out a place for herself and her child. Other women did it—within her own circle there were one or two friends who, by circumstances or design, were both mother and father to their children, but oh… She paused a moment before opening the door. She would have given the world for it not to be this way.

'Hello, Victoria.' Zac's voice was quiet and silky-smooth.