A Ring for the Greek's Baby Read online

  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.

  ‘You look awfully pale.’

  He slanted her a wry look. ‘You should talk.’

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked the weary-looking receptionist.

  ‘My...er...fiancée needs to see a doctor,’ Loukas said.

  Fiancée?

  Emily rounded her gaze on him and mouthed, ‘What the hell?’

  The receptionist glanced at Emily’s bandaged finger. ‘For your finger?’

  ‘That and...something else,’ Loukas said, pulling at his shirt collar as if it was too tight.

  Emily moved closer to the reception window. ‘I didn’t want to come in but Loukas insisted.’

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’ the receptionist asked.

  ‘I’m...pregnant.’

  ‘Are you bleeding?’

  ‘No.’

  The receptionist handed Emily a form on a clipboard and a pen dangling on a string. �
��Fill out the patient details and someone will be with you shortly.’

  Emily sat beside Loukas and painstakingly filled in the form, but she was conscious of him sitting there in a state of barely disguised agitation. He shifted his feet, crossed and uncrossed his ankles. Pushed them back underneath the chair, only to bring them out again. He rubbed at the back of his neck. He loosened his tie. Then he sat forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

  And so he should sweat. What was he thinking, pulling that ‘my fiancée’ stunt on her? Did he think she’d be too embarrassed to correct him?

  Then why didn’t you correct him?

  I was too embarrassed.

  You could correct him now.

  In front of all these people in the waiting room?

  Better do it sooner rather than later.

  Emily anchored the pen under the clip on the clipboard with a resounding click and placed it on the vacant seat on her left. ‘Can you sit still, or is that your conscience niggling at you?’

  He swivelled his head to look at her. ‘I hate hospitals.’

  ‘Well, maybe if you hadn’t told the receptionist we’re engaged, you wouldn’t be feeling so rotten.’ She kept her voice at a stage whisper because she was conscious of the other patients sitting nearby. ‘But I suppose you only did that because you knew I’d be too embarrassed to make a scene. But once we get out of here I’m going to give you a piece of my mind.’

  He glanced at the clock on the wall and gave an exaggerated eye roll. ‘If we ever get out of here.’

  Emily winced at the time that had already elapsed. Where had the last hour and a half gone? ‘I hope it won’t be too long. You can go if you like. I can catch a cab after I’m—’

  ‘No. I’m staying with you and that’s the end of it.’ He jerked his sleeve up to glance at his watch, presumably to check if the one on the wall was lying, and then sat back against the plastic chair with a thump. ‘How long is “shortly”, for God’s sake?’

  ‘I once waited six and a half hours for a splinter in my foot to be removed when I was ten,’ Emily said. ‘My mum left me for most of it to go to an astrology workshop. I got the nurse to call her when I was done.’

  Loukas turned to look at her, his brows drawn together in a tight frown. ‘Are you close to her?’

  Emily shrugged and shifted her gaze to stare at the linoleum on the floor. ‘Aren’t all girls close to their mums?’

  ‘Have you told her about the—’

  ‘Not yet. But she’s not the maternal type, so the prospect of being a granny won’t have her rushing off for a pair of knitting needles any time soon.’

  Emily suddenly noticed that the two women sitting opposite them in the waiting room were glancing in their direction. The woman on the left nudged her friend and pointed at Loukas. Emily wasn’t game enough to look at Loukas but she sensed him stiffening in the chair beside her. She sank a little lower in her chair, wishing she could disappear before the women asked for verification. How much had they heard of her conversation with Loukas? She’d kept her voice low, but what if they’d overheard her talking about their ‘engagement’ or the baby? She wasn’t used to being examined. Was this what Loukas had to live with? The constant scrutiny of his private life would be torture for someone as reserved as him.

  The woman’s companion pulled up something on her phone screen and seemed to compare it to Loukas. ‘It’s Loukas Kyprianos all right,’ she said, loud enough for half the waiting room to hear. ‘The Greek billionaire friend of Draco Papandreou. Did you hear the girl with him say she’s pregnant? Quick—take a photo.’

  The click of the camera phone was as loud as a rifle shot.

  Loukas didn’t move. Emily cast him a covert glance but his features were schooled into an impassive mask, except for a tiny muscle in his jaw that was twitching as if it was being randomly zapped by an invisible electrode.

  The woman who had taken the photo spoke again. ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t do what his jerk of a father did when he got his young girlfriend pregnant.’

  ‘Yeah, I read about that. Awful business, wasn’t it? But the girl got paid a fortune for that interview. Good on her, I say. Who wouldn’t want to be compensated after what that lowlife put her through?’

  What awful business?

  Emily’s ears weren’t just out on stalks but on scaffolding and in a high-wire harness too. What had Loukas’s father done to his pregnant girlfriend? He sounded like an absolute cad. Was that why Loukas was making such a big deal about marrying, so no one would think he was anything like his disreputable father?

  The nurse called Emily’s name at that point and Loukas stood and guided Emily out of the waiting room with brisk efficiency. ‘What happened with your—’ she began.

  ‘Later.’ The word was clipped out through white, tight lips and he led her into the cubicle to wait for the doctor.

  The curtain twitched aside and a doctor came, who did a double-take when she saw Loukas. ‘Oh, my God, Loukas? Fancy seeing you here.’

  Was there anyone in the whole of London who didn’t know who Loukas was? Emily glanced at him to see if he was as excited as the young doctor but his face was blank. ‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’ he said.

  The doctor’s smile faded a little. ‘We had a drink together at a charity function last year here in London. Don’t you remember? Maida Freeman’s my name. We were going to catch up later but I got called away to an emergency. I was on call.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Story of my life.’

  ‘Of course I remember,’ Loukas said with a polite movement of his lips that didn’t involve his eyes or his teeth.

  Dr Freeman turned to Emily. ‘Such a small world.’

  Not small enough if I’m going to run into a host of his ex-or would-be lovers.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I didn’t want to bother anyone but Loukas insisted on—’ Emily began.

  ‘Emily fainted this evening. Twice,’ Loukas said. ‘She’s...pregnant.’ He swallowed audibly between the two words.

  ‘That’s quite common in early pregnancy,’ Dr Freeman said. ‘Dizziness, light-headedness, fainting, nausea and vomiting, as the hormones do their thing. I’ll get the nurse to do some obs and we’ll take some blood to make sure you’re not anaemic.’ Her gaze honed in on Emily’s bandaged finger. ‘What happened to your finger?’

  ‘I cut it on some broken glass.’

  The doctor’s gaze seemed to sharpen. ‘How are you feeling about the pregnancy?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Emily asked.

  ‘Was it planned or...?’

  ‘Not planned but very much welcomed,’ Loukas said, reaching for Emily’s good hand and holding it within the warm cage of his.

  Welcomed?

  Emily did her best to disguise her shock.

  But then the doctor looked between Loukas and her and, finally settling her gaze on Loukas, smiled again. ‘I’m really happy for you, Loukas. I’m sure you’ll make an excellent father.’

  Unlike your own.

  The doctor didn’t say it out loud, probably because she was too much of a professional, but the words seemed to hover there in the silence all the same. Emily felt as though she were on stage in a play on opening night, but having been given the wrong script. She didn’t know anything about Loukas other than he was Draco Papandreou’s best friend. She didn’t know what his favourite colour was. She didn’t know what books he liked to read or what movies he watched. She didn’t know what political persuasion he had or anything about his childhood other than his parents had divorced when he was a kid. And she had learned that from Allegra.

  ‘How long have you been a couple?’ Dr Freeman asked.

  There was another beat of silence. ‘We’ve been keeping it a secret for a while,’ Loukas said before she co
uld answer. ‘I met Emily through my best friend from university.’

  The doctor smiled again. ‘Ah yes, he got married recently, didn’t he? I read about it in the press. I guess you two will be getting hitched too, now you’re going to be parents?’

  ‘We don’t—’ Emily began.

  ‘Yes,’ Loukas said, squeezing Emily’s hand. ‘The plans are already afoot.’

  ‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ the doctor said. ‘I’m a bit old-fashioned in that way. I reckon kids need to know their parents are committed enough to marry each other. It gives them a sense of security, in my opinion. Now, let me have a look at that finger of yours.’

  The doctor examined the wound and ordered an ultrasound to make sure there was no further debris. The machine came in on a portable trolley with a radiology attendant. ‘Just the hand at this stage,’ the doctor said. ‘It’s a little early to see the baby unless we do a vaginal ultrasound. If we weren’t so busy tonight I’d order one for you.’

  ‘No, that’s okay,’ Emily said. ‘I’ll wait until later.’

  The hand was given the all-clear and the radiology staffer wheeled the trolley out. A nurse came in and took blood while the doctor saw to another patient in the next cubicle. There wasn’t enough privacy to talk to Loukas but Emily sent him a speaking look. If he thought he could railroad her into marriage, then he was in for a big surprise.

  The doctor came back a short time later with a bottle of iron supplements and an information sheet for maternal health and maternity services. ‘You’re all good to go. Have plenty of rest and try to eat small meals when you can. If the nausea and vomiting increase or become chronic, then see your GP as soon as you can.’ She smiled again at Loukas. ‘You did the right thing, bringing her in. It shows how much you care about her. Believe me, I see all types in here, and the behaviour of some fathers-to-be towards their partner would make your hair fall out.’

  ‘Thanks for taking care of her,’ Loukas said. ‘I appreciate it.’

  * * *