The Pregnancy Shock (9 page)

The mattress gave as he slid out of bed and she flipped over with anxious eyes. ‘Where are you going?’

‘The shower, then to my room to take care of the contraception.’

For a couple of minutes, Billie lay on the bed as though she were welded to it. Shock was sinking in fast and filling her with apprehension and doubts. Although she had sworn that she would never be foolish enough to sleep with Alexei, she had just done so. In fact she had taken part in a shameless sexual romp that was indefensible for, while she might love him, he did not love her. What price now her long-held secret belief that she was somehow morally superior in her restraint to her mother? That she was different? More sensible, more steady? Shame drenched her in a
tide of drowning regret. As far as Alexei was concerned now, she would just figure as one more in a long line of willing bed partners…

‘Billie?’ Alexei called, startling her.

‘What?’

‘Come and join me,’ Alexei urged impatiently.

In the shower?
In no immediate hurry to extend her sexual education, Billie slid uneasily off the bed and padded into the en suite, snatching up a towel from the doorway and holding it against herself.

‘Drop the towel,’ Alexei exclaimed, making her jump as he rammed back the glass door to survey her with a raised brow of enquiry.

Her heart was beating frantically fast as her fingers released the towel and he smiled, a slow burning smile that turned her heart inside out. Later she had no recollection of moving forward to join him in that glass cubicle. He soaked her hair and ran the soap over her voluptuous figure with lascivious thoroughness. As he teased her she became less self-conscious and was still giggling when she watched him pull on trousers over his boxers.

Alexei extended a lazy hand. ‘Want to come with me? We could spend the rest of the night in my room.’

Thinking of all the women he had entertained there and the household staff who would soon register her presence in their employer’s bedroom, Billie shook her head, her amusement killed stone dead in its tracks. It would be like announcing their intimacy and the news would go round the island faster than the speed of light. Lauren would smirk at her as if she had known all along that her daughter was a fool. ‘I’ll wait here for you.’

‘Lazybones,’ Alexei mocked, tugging on his shirt and thrusting his feet into his shoes.

Bare-chested, his hair spiky from the shower and with a heavy growth of black stubble on his handsome face, Alexei resembled a very sexy pirate. Her heart pounded as hard as if she were running a marathon. The instant he stepped out of the bedroom into the adjoining reception room that formed part of the guest suite she was gripped by a strong sense of loss. Soon it would be dawn, soon the night would be over—would what they had just shared die along with the night hours? Filled with dismay by that enervating suspicion, Billie scrambled out of bed, pulled on her wrap and went after him.

As she left the bedroom she heard Alexei vent a startled curse in Greek and then there was a noise she didn’t recognise, followed by silence. She hurried to the door that opened out onto the pool area and stared in horror at the sight of Alexei lying flat on the concrete, apparently having fallen down several steps. Her handbag lay on its side just outside the door. Oh, dear heaven, he had tripped over it!

‘Alexei!
Alexei?
’ she cried, kneeling down beside him and registering that he was unconscious.

Rising swiftly, she went to phone for help when a groan emanated from Alexei. Quick as a flash, she rushed back to his side. He was sitting up, clutching his head.

‘Alexei? Are you all right?’

‘Billie?’ He focused on her with clear difficulty, a dazed aspect to his eyes. ‘What happened?’

‘You tripped and fell.’

Alexei levered himself upright, brushing down his
clothes, and even though he was swaying he began walking back in a wavering line towards the main house.

‘You should lie down for a minute.’ She hurried ahead of him to open the door he was heading for and rested her hand on his arm before he could pass her. ‘Let me call the doctor.’

‘The doctor? What are you talking about?’ Alexei countered flatly, frowning down at her restraining hand. ‘I don’t need a doctor.’

‘You knocked yourself unconscious for a couple of minutes and it’s always advisable to consult a doctor in those circumstances,’ Billie pointed out anxiously, withdrawing her hand after the look he had given her. Only minutes ago he might have been sharing a bed with her, but her gesture had clearly struck him as too familiar by far. ‘A head-scan might be a good idea as well.’

‘Stop fussing, Billie. I’m not in the mood.’ Alexei raked the black hair back off his face in a gesture of exasperation. ‘My hair’s damp and I’m not wearing any socks. I must have gone for a swim. That’ll teach me to drink—I don’t remember and I might have drowned myself.’

Billie frowned and looked down at her bare feet. He thought he had gone swimming? He didn’t remember. ‘What’s the last thing you recall?’

‘Talking to Marina after the funeral,’ he breathed tautly. ‘I don’t want to think about all that right now.’

‘I know, but the fact that you can’t remember everything means there’s something wrong. You’re confused,’ Billie stated tightly.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Alexei derided. ‘I’m not a child and I’m not confused either. I had a few drinks too many
and now I’m paying the price for it. No offence intended, Billie, but right now I’d prefer my own company.’

A painful flush washed her heart-shaped face as if he had slapped her. That colour slowly waned to leave her pale as she looked steadily back at him. There was nothing there in his lean, hard-boned visage: no tenderness, intimacy, or even awareness that anything might be lacking. He had forgotten her as easily as one forgot a bad dream or something trivial. And, on a Drakos male’s terms, a fleeting sexual episode
was
of the utmost triviality.

‘Goodnight,’ she said shakily. ‘But I still think you ought to see a doctor.’

Already halfway across the salon, Alexei was no longer listening. For several minutes, Billie simply stood there, barefoot and naked but for a thin wrap. For the space of that time she couldn’t believe that he had forgotten her and walked away with no intention of coming back. She imagined following him into his bedroom, telling him that he had made love to her, but what use would that be if he could not even recall the incident? Wouldn’t she look pathetic? As if she was chasing after him?

But wasn’t it downright dangerous that he was refusing to seek medical attention? He had hit his head hard enough to lose consciousness, however briefly. Obviously he had sustained an injury. It had been early evening when she saw him talking to his great-aunt, Lady Marina. He was suffering from a loss of memory but evidently convinced that, rather than amnesia caused by a head injury, an alcoholic blackout was at fault.
Was it all right to leave him alone to go to bed? Anxiety fingered down her taut spine.

Billie knocked on Alexei’s bedroom door. She was about to repeat the action when it flew open.

‘What?’ Alexei demanded curtly.

‘Are you sure you’re okay? No headache? Nausea? Dizziness?’ she prompted.

‘Go back to bed and stop fussing round me like a mother hen!’ he urged with unhidden impatience.

Tears stinging her eyes at that label, which was about as far removed from sexy or desirable as could be, Billie did as she was told. Tomorrow morning though she would ring the village doctor and tell him about Alexei’s fall.

Her bedding carried his scent and she buried her nose in a pillow and cried. Was it ridiculous to wonder if his forgetfulness regarding that crucial few hours could be subconsciously deliberate? Maybe he had forgotten about going to bed with her because he didn’t want to remember that it had happened. And maybe fate was giving her a second chance, for what he didn’t recall she didn’t have to worry about. Now she could just go on as if nothing had happened, with the added comfort of not having to fret about what he thought of her for sleeping with him in the first place. Her job was safe.

But no matter how hard Billie worked at putting a positive spin on his inability to recall their short-lived intimacy, she failed to find solace in the fact. And the fear that he might have suffered a more serious injury than he was willing to consider destroyed her ability to sleep. So great was Billie’s concern on that score
that she phoned the village doctor as soon as the surgery opened and Dr Melas agreed to come up to the villa and check Alexei out…

B
ILLIE
was so tense that even the shallowest breaths were rattling through her lungs at too fast a rate. Lean, strong face set in grim lines, Alexei was seething with her and every inch a Greek tycoon in his proud bearing.

‘You overstepped the mark. You skirt it all the time but today you went too far,’ Alexei delivered in a tone of rebuke and command that was still raw-edged with anger. ‘This is your last warning. Nobody is indispensable, so, if I once gave you the impression that you were, wipe that assumption from your mind. For what I pay you, I could find someone else equally efficient—’

‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you could,’ Billie inserted, her skin clammy with nervous perspiration, for he had never before spoken to her in such a tone or studied her with such censure.

‘Don’t interrupt me when I’m speaking!’ Alexei launched down at her crushingly.

Billie buttoned her mouth up tight and gritted her teeth. She could feel the tears building up behind her eyes, tears
of chagrin and hurt and shock at being treated like a lowly office junior who had messed up spectacularly.

‘I did not need or wish to consult Dr Melas this morning. And even had I needed to, it was for me to make that decision,’ Alexei imparted succinctly. ‘You wasted the good doctor’s time. You lack perspective with regard to your role as an employee.’

Billie swallowed back angry defensive words and said with a determined lack of emotion, ‘I was genuinely concerned about your health.’

Alexei dealt her a cold appraisal that cut her to the bone. ‘That’s way beyond your remit.’

‘Yes. It won’t happen again,’ Billie told him woodenly.

Her colour high, she walked straight-backed back through the general office past the business team, who must have heard Alexei raise his voice to her, and returned to her office. Her only consolation was that Dr Melas had called in to talk to her before he left to stress that, although he had got nowhere with Alexei either, she
had
done the right thing in phoning him. He too wanted Alexei to see a neurologist and have a scan. Of course, wasn’t Alexei just being his usual nonconformist self? Too stubborn to play safe and too convinced of his superhuman health and higher intelligence to take advice from lesser mortals? So that was the end of that road. She had overstepped her boundaries. For the moment, Alexei had forgotten their hours in the guest-suite bed. Would he ever remember? And did she even want him to?

His father’s sudden death had left a couple of important business deals wide open and Alexei went straight
to New York with his team to handle the fallout the next day. He stayed there for over a week, putting in workaholic hours, and followed it up with a similar week in London. Being left alone on the island shook Billie, as Alexei rarely left her behind. Her assistant, Kasia, had crumpled under the pressure of working for Alexei and had used her position as a springboard into a less taxing job elsewhere. Billie had yet to hire a replacement. Convinced that a break from her usual routine would do her good, she set off on a quarterly visit to a number of Alexei’s European properties, where she checked out problems, new staff and authorised essential maintenance. She was in Venice, at his ancient palazzo, when Alexei decided to take some time off and cruise the Caribbean in his yacht,
Sea Queen.
He invited friends on board and several long-distance photos of gorgeous bikini-clad women appeared in the newspapers. Billie’s heart sank like a stone and when she found herself poring over those pictures with a magnifying glass to see if she recognised any of the faces, she realised that jealousy and fear were eating her alive.

Yet how could she fear losing what she had never had? There was no commitment and no security in being a one-night stand. She’d had her moment and it had lasted for even less time than she might have hoped. And even while she scolded herself for being so foolish, she recognised that she already had a much more serious issue to worry about: her menstrual cycle had stopped dead in its tracks and her period was overdue.

That reality struck horror into Billie’s bones. Furthermore, there was no way she could go down to the
village pharmacy and purchase a pregnancy test or visit the doctor without the fear that her movements might become public knowledge. While she trusted Dr Melas, she had less faith in the other surgery staff with access to medical records. Juicy gossip on the island had a way of bypassing all the rules of confidentiality and travelling faster than the speed of light. For that reason, Billie caught the ferry to Athens and bought her pregnancy test there, carrying it out in the privacy of the small hotel room she booked for the night. The result was positive.

In complete shock she sat on the side of the bed and studied the test wand, her green eyes darkening with panic and pain.
Now what?
Nothing would ever be the same again, she acknowledged sickly. The child of a single parent, who had often mourned the lack of a father in her life, Billie was utterly devastated by this positive confirmation. From her teen years, she had prided herself on her common sense and the restraint she had utilised to ensure that she did not make the same mistakes as her mother had. But, even so, in spite of her awareness of the pitfalls of an unplanned pregnancy, here she was, just like Lauren, alone and pregnant by a man who had made no commitment to her. Her life was suddenly going badly wrong and it was all her own fault for sleeping with Alexei. Billie was appalled by her predicament.

And practising a conveniently short memory in respect of Alexei’s amnesia would no longer be possible:
he
had made her pregnant. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she rocked back and forth in an unconsciously selfsoothing
motion while shame, self-loathing and regret flooded her. She had thought she was so clever, but she hadn’t been half clever enough when it came to looking out for herself and her own interests. They had both been very foolish that night in letting passion triumph to the extent of running the totally unnecessary risk of her conceiving. Now, unhappily, it was evidently time to pay the piper and her reputation, her entire career, were dead in the water. Everyone would think that Alexei had always used her as a convenient body in his bed between affairs and just as many would think she had contrived to fall pregnant with an eye to the main chance. Mortified by that prospect, she breathed in deep. He was due back on Speros the next week and she would have to tell him. What choice did she have?

That it might not be that clear-cut a question became clear during the subsequent days. Panos phoned her from the yacht to ask her to transfer some computer files that were required.

‘Not that I really think we’re likely to need them with the boss otherwise occupied,’ her colleague groaned.

‘What’s he occupied with?’ Billie prompted as her fingers flew nimbly over the keyboard while she searched out the requested files.

‘Not what,
who,
’ Panos corrected wryly. ‘There’s a new, demanding lady on board
Sea Queen
and all of a sudden business is taking a back seat. We won’t be back tomorrow. The cruise is being extended.’

In response to that announcement, Billie’s heart started thumping very, very fast, her skin turning clammy. Of course she had guessed that Alexei would
soon find a new woman but the reality of it actually happening hurt like hell. In fact she felt as if someone had knocked her chair over and sent her to the floor with a bone-jolting crash. ‘Who is she?’

‘An old flame, but one from well before my time—tall and blonde, with the looks of a supermodel…Calisto Bethune, recently divorced,’ her colleague supplied.

Already winded by that metaphorical crash, now Billie felt as if she were being brutally kicked. She recognised that name, recalled the gossip. Calisto was possibly the only woman alive who had ever passed over Alexei in favour of another man and now it seemed she had returned to take a second bite from the same apple. Gripped by an awful obsessive need to know more, Billie got busy on the Internet and checked out Calisto. Now the childless ex-wife of a Swiss electronics tycoon, she was truly gorgeous, with a perfect face and a perfect body and a similar heritage to Alexei’s own as she was from the upper echelons of Greek society.

Back on Speros that night, Billie phoned her aunt, Hilary, in the UK and talked until she was hoarse about what she had done and how it had all gone hideously wrong. As the sad tale unfolded Hilary made sympathetic sounds and exclamations that allowed Billie to feel that she was no longer quite as alone as she felt.

‘I’ve been worrying about something like this happening for a long time,’ her aunt confessed ruefully. ‘You’re in love with Alexei Drakos and were probably putting out encouraging signals. An opportunistic male like him was certain to take advantage at some stage and the night of the funeral was a given…’

‘I just wanted to
be
there for him…’

‘Well, don’t be too tough on yourself. Plenty of women have dreamt that same dream as you.’ Hilary sighed with something less than tact. ‘But what’s done is done. Now you need to decide what you want to do and you have to spell out what happened that night to Alexei. Embarrassment shouldn’t come into it. You and that baby you’re carrying need support.’

But in the days that followed, nausea began to surface when a certain smell or taste made Billie’s newly sensitive tummy roll and sent her rushing to the cloakroom. She came no closer to the answer of what to do next: to try to make such a revelation to Alexei on the phone struck her as out of the question, but the prospect of flying out to the yacht to break such news with his latest lady in residence seemed even more inappropriate. Increasingly, references to Calisto Bethune began to appear in the gossip columns and were soon accompanied by photos of what was referred to as the ‘loved-up couple’. Billie saw a photo of Alexei and Calisto walking hand in hand, both of them tall, beautiful and coolly fashionable, and she thought sickly that the pair looked so well together that they might have been a match made in heaven.

Barely twenty-four hours after Billie had pored with agonised eyes over that picture, wondering if she had ever seen Alexei look so relaxed, he returned to the villa, having flown himself home in a helicopter. He strode into the office, black hair tousled by the breeze, his lean, dark, devastating face intent. There she was at her desk, her bright head inclined to her computer
monitor, and as she glanced up, emerald-green eyes flying wide with surprise, a faint flush of pink warmed her porcelain skin. One look and she was metaphorically on her knees, desire quivering through her slight body in a guilty surge of awareness, heat bursting at the heart of her while her breasts swelled in response to the incitement of his presence.

‘I didn’t intend to stay away so long. I confess that I didn’t want to come back to an empty house,’ Alexei admitted abruptly. ‘There are too many memories here.’

‘Yes, of course there are,’ Billie agreed in Greek, chiding herself for not making that same deduction from his unusually long absence; it had to be a challenge for him to walk into what had been so much his parents’ home and relive their absence all over again. ‘But concentrate on the good times.’

Alexei studied her with shrewd dark eyes, acknowledging that he had missed that bright, optimistic spirit of hers that refused to acknowledge negative outcomes. He was equally quick to recall their less than positive parting. ‘I was too hard on you at our last meeting. You meant no harm.’

Her heartbeat thudding like a heavy pulse at the foot of her throat, Billie stood up. ‘No, I was out of line,’ she said awkwardly.

Alexei could feel the wall of cool withdrawal in her and wondered what was wrong. She didn’t hold onto spite—at least she never had before. Her candour and relaxation around him were qualities he cherished and rare indeed among the women he met and worked with. Yet, for all the fact that she looked unexpectedly small
and fragile, her eyes were evasive, her stance unnaturally stiff and her voice expressionless.

‘You’re almost as close to me as a relative, so why shouldn’t you be the first to know? I believe I’ve met the woman I might marry,’ he told her with a sudden shimmering smile of satisfaction.

It was a body blow and the shock was so great that Billie did not know how her trembling legs contrived to keep her upright. For so long she had deemed Alexei unobtainable with the wild free spirit of a male who might never want to settle down. Yet what could be more natural than that, having lost his family, he should be set on creating a new one to fill the void in his life? She had to force her gaze to remain on him. Exotic high cheekbones sun-burnished, dark black-lashed eyes bright as bronze, he had never looked more gorgeous. Or more out of reach. He hadn’t just moved on, he had jumped ship into a new galaxy.

Marriage?
He was planning to marry Calisto Bethune? Her semi-prepared opening speech about the accident by the pool and the prior episode in the guest suite was just blown out of the water by that declaration. She tried to be happy for him, she tried so hard, for what could be healthier than his new desire to commit to a single relationship? But there was a silent scream of pain and rejection inside her that would not be silenced. She carried his baby in her womb and, whether she had the right or otherwise, it was an agony for her to appreciate that he had had another woman in his bed and that he had fallen in love with her. Sex she thought she could bear because she was accustomed to
bearing that knowledge from the sidelines of his life, but the concept of him loving one of his female entourage was more than she could stand.

‘Congratulations.’ Billie was pale as milk and she spoke with a fixed smile while she fought with all her might to conceal and dampen her true feelings of bitter jealousy and resentment. ‘I assume you’re talking about Calisto Bethune. I’m very happy for you both. Have you set a date?’

Alexei released a husky laugh and spread his hands in an immediate silencing motion. ‘I’m not moving quite
that
fast, Billie. We’re back together and that happened quickly enough. That is more than sufficient for the moment.’