AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Do not take if pregnant or taking the birth control Pill.
Frowning, she read the leaflet inside the box and discovered that the tablets could decrease the effectiveness of hormonal contraceptives. She hadn’t mentioned to her GP when he’d prescribed the Pill that she used the over-the-counter herbal remedy which was reputed to help with mood swings. With a sense of dread she checked the calendar on her phone and realised that her period was ten days late.
She had been so absorbed in her life with Jace that she’d lost track of time. But she couldn’t be pregnant, Eleanor reassured herself. Medications and even herbal remedies always came with a long list of contraindications, and the likelihood that the Pill hadn’t worked properly was probably minuscule.
Over the next few days she tried to put the idea of pregnancy out of her mind, telling herself that she was worrying needlessly and her period was bound to start soon. But it didn’t, and on the fifth day after Jace had gone to Australia, Eleanor drove to a village further along the coast to buy a test from a pharmacy. Few people at the Pangalos Beach Resort or the local area on Sithonia knew she was Kostas Pangalos’s granddaughter, but everyone recognised her as Kyriá Zagorakis, wife of the wealthy new owner of the Pangalos. She did not want unfounded rumours that she was pregnant to circulate.
Early the next morning she stared disbelievingly at the blue line on the pregnancy test and checked the instructions again.Positive. Feeling numb, she sat on the edge of the bath, aware of her heart beating frantically in her chest like a trapped bird. Needless to say, this was not what she or Jace had planned to happen.
Jace! How would he react to the news? She was quite sure he did not want a baby. He did not want her to be his wife for any longer than was necessary to convince his mother that he had settled down to a life of domestic bliss.
He phoned mid-morning while she was at the office trying to concentrate on a financial report. It was some time in the evening in Perth, and he was about to go out to dinner with a business client. Jace sounded a million miles away and for once Eleanor was glad when he rang off at the end of their stilted conversation. She had decided not to give him her momentous news until he returned to Greece, although it was tempting to take the coward’s way out and tell him over the phone rather than face to face. Her secret burned inside her, and she must have sounded odd because twice Jace asked how she was feeling.
Later that afternoon her secretary informed her that the lawyer had arrived. However, the man who entered the room was not the elderly lawyer Vangelis Stavridis, who Eleanor had met when she had signed a prenuptial agreement before her marriage. The young man who shook her hand introduced himself as Orestis Barkas, a junior member of Jace’s legal team.
‘There are a lot of documents regarding the planning application that require your signature,’ he said, putting a large file on the desk. He rolled his eyes. ‘Greek bureaucracy! Your husband has already checked the paperwork and signed it. I can see that you are busy and there is no need for you to read it all; just sign at the bottom of each page.’
Eleanor grimaced at the pile of papers, but her grandfather had taught her to read every detail before she signed her name and she picked up the first document. Some while later she was only halfway through the pile and heartily bored of the intricacies of building permits and energy performance regulations. The young lawyer was becoming fidgety.
‘Seriously, you only need to skim through the pages. Jace is happy with everything.’
‘I’m sure he is.’ She had the odd sensation of hearing her blood thundering in her ears as she reread the typed paragraphs which stated that in the event of her divorce from Jace he would become the sole owner of the Pangalos Beach Resort. Eleanor would be unable to contest the agreement or change her mind once she had signed the document.
Somehow, she managed to hide her distress from the lawyer. ‘Why don’t you leave the paperwork with me and I’ll have the documents couriered over to you when I’ve signed them?’ she suggested.
‘Are you feeling unwell?’ her secretary asked when Eleanor stumbled through the door into the outer office a few minutes after Orestis Barkas had left.
‘Actually, I’m not feeling too good.’ It was the truth. There was a sharp pain beneath her breastbone where her heart had shattered and a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. ‘I’ll go back to the villa and try to sleep it off.’
She didn’t cry. Couldn’t. She was frozen inside and wandered aimlessly from room to room in the villa, ending up in the bedroom that she had shared with Jace for the past months. She pictured him sprawled on the bed, the sheet draped low over his hips and the bulge of his arousal a tantalising invitation. God, she loved the way he made love to her. He never made any secret of his desire for her and the possessive gleam in his eyes when he thrust his hard shaft deep inside her had given her hope that love could take root in even the stoniest heart.
But Jace’s heart was a lump of granite. The damning document she’d found slipped in among the planning application paperwork was proof that he only wanted the hotel. Sure, he enjoyed taking her to bed, but he was unlikely to be pleased about the consequences of their passion.
Eleanor realised that she had not given any thought to the baby she was carrying. Her pregnancy seemed unreal, but in a little less than nine months she would have the responsibility of bringing up a child on her own.
Jace’s name flashed on her phone and with a heavy heart she read his text.
It’s midnight here and I’m about to go to bed. I wish you were with me, pouláki mou. When I come home we need to talk.
Indeed they did. She stepped outside onto the terrace and looked up at the stars that were starting to appear as dusk deepened to night. Tears blurred her vision and the starlight fractured as if she were looking into a kaleidoscope. Her phone pinged with another message from Jace, but she did not read it.
She had trusted him. Worse than that, she had fallen in love with him. There was no point denying it to herself any more. He had dismantled her barriers one by one and she had been powerless to resist him.
Fool. She had dared to hope that this time things would be different. But for Jace it had always been about the Pangalos and revenge. Fury swept white-hot through her and she lifted her arm and hurled the phone into the pool, watching it sink to the bottom before she collapsed onto the cold marble tiles and let her tears fall.
Eventually, when she was cried out, she knew she must go to bed and try to sleep for the baby’s sake. But in the bathroom she discovered that there was no baby after all. The dull ache low in her stomach had intensified to a painful cramping and she was bleeding. An Internet search on her laptop revealed that early miscarriages were fairly common, and there was no need for her to call a doctor unless she bled heavily.
Eleanor felt bereft. It was no good telling herself that it was probably for the best. A baby would have been a link with Jace. She felt as if she were on an emotional rollercoaster. Jace’s second betrayal was even more devastating than the first time he’d tried to trick her out of the Pangalos. The positive pregnancy test had been a shock. But now there was no baby and she had nothing.
Jace’s business trip to Perth had been frenetic, and the long flight home had seemed endless. But he felt energised by the prospect of a shower, a stiff whisky and Eleanor beneath him. He reversed the order in his mind and smiled to himself as the helicopter prepared to land in the grounds of the villa.
He’d managed to cram a week’s worth of meetings into six days so that he could catch an earlier flight back to Greece. The trip had been successful, and he’d finalised a number of deals that would ensure Zagorakis Estates’ expansion into Australasia. But his mind was not on business as he pictured Eleanor’s delight when he arrived home unexpectedly.
She never held anything back in her response to him, and his body tightened as he imagined kissing her soft mouth and cradling her gorgeous, pert breasts in his hands. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever have enough of her delectable body. But it wasn’t just sex that he’d missed while they had been apart, he acknowledged. In the middle of important business meetings he’d found himself remembering how Eleanor’s eyes lit up when she smiled, and the tender way she stroked the back of his neck when he lay lax on top of her in those mindless moments of utter relaxation after they’d made love.
Jace had also missed Eleanor’s business acumen. They had become a team running the Pangalos, and more and more he respected her quick brain and her management skills, to the point that he was considering offering her a place on the board of his property development company. She had inherited her grandfather’s instinct for recognising a brilliant deal and it was easy to see why Kostas Pangalos had made Eleanor his successor.
Jace frowned, unsettled by his train of thoughts. How had he allowed his relationship with his temporary wife to develop into friendship, a partnership and a closeness that had nothing to do with sex? Guilt snaked through him as he wondered what his father would have made of his marriage to Kostas’s granddaughter. The two men had been bitter enemies and Jace had grown up hating Kostas. But he did not hate Eleanor. Far from it. He raked his hand through his hair and refused to examine in depth how he felt about her. She was his wife, and right now things were good between them, so why complicate the situation?
