A Ring for the Greek's Baby

What about in half an hour? Later that night? The following morning? Who was going to take care of her, to watch over her, to make sure she didn’t faint and hurt herself? He couldn’t leave her like this. What if she had a fall? She could end up with a brain injury or worse. She was his responsibility now. The knowledge cemented his decision to marry her. How else could he keep a close eye on her if he lived in another country, or even a few streets away? No. This was the only way forward. ‘Do you want to lie down? Here, I’ll carry you.’

He scooped her up and carried her to her bedroom. It looked like someone had ransacked the room or got dressed for a night out in the middle of a hurricane. The wardrobe was open and a variety of clothes strewn about, some on the end of the bed, others draped over a chair and more on the floor. The dressing table was scattered with make-up detritus: brushes, pots, hair products and a hair straightener. He laid her slight figure on the bed.

She lay back, folded her bandaged hand over her forehead and closed her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry about this.’

Loukas took her good hand and stroked her slender nail-bitten fingers. ‘Don’t be silly. It’s not your fault.’

It’s mine.

CHAPTER THREE

IN THE END Loukas decided against calling an ambulance. But, as soon as Emily’s dizziness passed, he insisted on taking her to hospital. Hospitals were not his favourite places, with their palpable sense of urgency. The lights, the sounds, the smells, and the nerve-jangling scream of sirens as the ambulances came rocketing into the receiving bay, made his heart threaten to beat its way out of his ribcage. It brought back the memory of the afternoon when his sister had been rushed to hospital, clinging to life.

But he wanted Emily checked out.

She, however, was not so keen on the idea.

She stood with her arms folded and her heels dug into the carpet beside her bed as if someone had glued her to the floor. ‘But I don’t need to go to hospital.’

‘You fainted twice in the space of half an hour,’ Loukas said. ‘I’m not leaving you on your own until I get you checked out. What if you fainted in the middle of the night and hit your head and got a brain injury?’

She pouted like a small, obstinate child. ‘You’re being ridiculous. First suggesting marriage and now a trip to the emergency department. The staff will think I’m crazy. Pregnancy isn’t a disease, you know.’

‘I want that finger checked out,’ he said, trying another tack. ‘It needs to be looked at under ultrasound in case there are any fragments in there. If you got blood poisoning it would be disastrous for the baby.’

Her face suddenly fell. ‘Oh...’

He held out his hand and she silently slipped hers into it. He closed his fingers around her hand, privately marvelling at how small it was compared to his. But everything about her was tiny. He felt like a giant next to her. She barely made it up to his shoulder in heels and he could just about span her waist with his hands. Not that he would be able to do it once her pregnancy started to show. He still couldn’t get his head around the fact she was pregnant. Inside her womb his DNA was getting it on with hers and making a baby.

His baby.

The thought of bringing a child into the world that he would be totally responsible for made his head pound with dread. What if he screwed up? It wasn’t easy being a parent even when you planned to be one. He had no idea how to be a father. He was hopeless at familial relationships. He kept people at a distance. Even the people who mattered to him he kept at arm’s length.

That was why casual relationships worked so well for him. There were no emotional expectations. No closeness. No bonding. No one got hurt. What if he hurt his child? Not physically, but emotionally? Didn’t kids need close emotional bonds with their parents to thrive and reach their full potential? He had been close to his mother until his father got sole custody of him in a bitter divorce, only to dump him in an English boarding school when he got tired of being a single parent. After years of living so far away from his mother, Loukas hadn’t been able to rebuild the relationship to the way it had been before. He knew it hadn’t been his mother’s fault. She had done everything in her power to make him feel loved and wanted.

It was he who was the problem.

He’d never wanted to be that vulnerable again. To need someone so much, only to have them ripped away from you. He had taught himself not to need. These days the only needs he had were physical, and he dealt with them efficiently and somewhat perfunctorily, which was probably why the sex with Emily had stood out in a long list of impersonal hook-ups. Stood out so much he could still feel it in his body, the erotic echo of it moving through his flesh like aftershocks if he so much as touched her.

But, while marrying her would solve one problem, he was too well aware it could stir up others. He would offer commitment but not love. The concept of loving someone made all those childhood demons come back to haunt and taunt him: you love them, you lose them. You love them, you hurt them. He would be committed for as long as their marriage lasted but he would not—could not—promise anything else.

Loukas tucked Emily into his car and made sure she was comfortable before he took his place behind the steering wheel. ‘I haven’t finished with the topic of marriage,’ he said, glancing at her as he turned over the engine. ‘It’s the best option going forward.’

She flicked him an irritated glance. ‘You know what? I’m going to ignore that. I did not hear you say the M word.’

Loukas had never felt more serious about something. It was the perfect solution and he wasn’t going to back away from it. ‘We’ll make a formal announcement after we get you checked out.’

‘You can’t force people to marry you, Loukas. You just can’t do that.’

Don’t be so sure about that.

* * *

Emily was embarrassed about turning up at Accident and Emergency when there was essentially nothing wrong with her. The waiting room was full of sick and injured people much worse off than her, but Loukas had insisted, and had all but bundled her into his top-of-the-range hire car, casting her worried glances all the way to hospital as if she was going to expire right there in front of him. Not only had he insisted on taking her to hospital, but he’d also returned to the subject of marriage with a steely determination that was a little terrifying, to say the least. Surely he wasn’t serious? She hadn’t had the energy to argue with him back in the car. The nausea and dizziness had made it impossible for her to string two lucid thoughts together, and the thought of marrying Loukas Kyprianos was a thought a long way from being lucid.

But, when they walked into the reception area, it looked as if Loukas was the one who was ill. He went a ghastly grey colour and his hand where it was holding hers became slick with sweat. ‘Are you all right?’ Emily asked, glancing up at him.

‘I’m fine.’ He spoke the words through lips that barely moved, as if he was trying to conserve energy.