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Her fear of possible pregnancy!
His intention to make coffee and take a cup to her room forgotten, he froze on his feet at the foot of the staircase he’d descended at foolhardy speed.
All his fault.
She’d been all set to cut loose—she’d stated that all too clearly—leave him behind while she made her own life, found her own friends, and now she would be afraid that an unwelcome pregnancy would shatter all her plans for single-woman freedom.
Snapping around, Javier hared back up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Convinced he now knew what her un-Zoe-like behaviour signified, he had the solution. He had to reassure her, remove all her fears and worries at a single stroke.
No question of the divorce she’d said she wanted, of course, that went without saying, but she had to know that if she was carrying his child she would have nothing to worry about. She would get the very best ongoing gynaecological attention that money could buy, and he, personally, would wrap her in cotton wool, cherish her, and the baby when he or she arrived would never know a moment’s neglect if she wanted to pursue her voluntary charity work because top-notch professional nannies would be employed around the clock.
Besides, he thought with a rush of warmth to the region of his heart, he would enjoy the experience of parenting and would take to it like a duck to water.
But whatever his wishes on that subject, Zoe came first and always would and she had to know that. He could not, would not, stand by, say nothing, while he watched her worry herself half to death!
As Zoe climbed out of the bath and wrapped a towel around her body she knew she had to tell Javier and put
his mind at rest.
Today. She could delay it no longer. Keeping the news to herself for five whole days was desperately unfair; she knew that, and didn’t much like herself for such uncharacteristic sneakiness.
Catching sight of her miserably guilty face in the mirror, she looked away quickly. Black bags under her eyes and a complexion the shade of putty she did not want to have to see.
These last days had been torment. Javier had been at his kindest, astonishingly patient and gently affectionate, never seeming to mind when she turned down his invitations to go swimming, sailing, eating at a quayside restaurant where, he told her, the speciality lobster dish was out of this world.
And her eyes actually swam with tears when she recalled his gentleness when he’d asked her if anything was troubling her. The unhidden concern in those smoky eyes had made her heart ache.
She’d almost blurted the truth out then but the arrival of Teresa with the daily fresh provisions, the only few minutes of contact Javier allowed the housekeeper with the so-called honeymooning couple, had stopped her.
There wasn’t going to be a baby.
She’d known that since their first night here. And kept it to herself because her feelings were so horrendously mixed up she didn’t know what they actually were.
On the one hand she had secretly longed to have Javier’s baby and finding out that she wasn’t going to had been a source of really surprisingly deep regret. Yet if she had been pregnant she knew that he would have insisted that they stay married for the sake of their child, and not because he was madly in love with her and wanted her in his life for ever.
Heck no, she knew how his mind worked. He would grit his teeth and do his duty and she wouldn’t have been able to bear the thought that she was an unwelcome albatross around his neck.
And once she told him he could forget the pregnancy scare he would breathe one huge sigh of relief and the status quo would be firmly back in place. And in less than a year, just as soon as she reached her majority and he deemed her fit to handle her huge inheritance, he would consider his duty done and be off out of their marriage at the speed of light, gratefully embracing his new-found bachelor freedom.
Little wonder she was muddled, riven by mixed feelings and terminally depressed.
The moment she was dressed she would find him and confess her sins of omission and have to watch the grin of relief light up his lean and handsome features and know that her mission to get him to fall in love with her had been a complete failure, all her fond hopes vanishing without a trace.
Hopes that had taken a steep nosedive when his behaviour had turned so distant after the night of love-making he had to have considered to be a reprehensible mistake because he had shown absolutely no desire for a repeat performance; hopes that had wriggled their deceiving way into her muddled head during the past few days when he had been so kind.
But ‘kind’ she could do without. It harked right back to his treatment of her during her childhood. A full-grown woman now, she needed more. Much more. And he was patently unwilling to give it.
As she walked out of the bathroom, feeling as if she were about to face a firing squad, the main door to the suite opened with a decisive swing and the love of her life stood there, determination written all over his hard bone structure.
Panic brought her heart jumping up into her throat. As always his sensational looks made her mouth run dry. Clutching at the edges of the slipping bath towel and before her courage deserted her she pushed out a bald, ‘I’m not pregnant.’
For a moment Javier looked poleaxed, his eyes darkening, and it wasn’t a flicker of disappointment she saw there, of course it wasn’t because in the next split second a warm smile was irradiating his unforgettable features.
A smile of wholehearted relief, she decided sickly. He would not now be called upon to do his duty. In a little under a year’s time he would sling his hook, smugly congratulating himself that as far as her well-being was concerned he had done everything that could be expected of him.
The depth of his disappointment shocked Javier for the few moments it took to remind himself he was being utterly selfish. He might want to see her hold his child in her arms, but worrying about the possibility had been making her ill. He had to think of how relieved she must be feeling and not dwell on his own disappointment.
He made himself smile and advanced a step towards the tense little darling, all wrapped up in a towel like a parcel waiting to be opened, her silvery gold hair tumbling in enchanting disarray around her naked shoulders. His voice sounded strangely roughened as he told her warmly, ‘Then from now on you can stop worrying. I know you have been.’
