He took her to the nearest hospital. They were both totally stunned when a pregnancy test was carried out and came up with a positive result. Before Prudence could even deal with the knowledge that she was almost two months pregnant, she learned that she was losing her baby. Ashen below his bronzed skin, Nik listened with hollow, dark eyes when the gynaecologist opined that the very lack of symptoms that might have initially warned Prudence of her condition might well have indicated an unstable pregnancy. No, he assured her kindly, he did not think that she could have done anything to change what was happening. After that there was nothing to do but let nature take its course.
When it was all over she lay in her private room, staring sightlessly at the wall. She must have fallen pregnant the very first time she slept with Nik. Her most cherished dream had come true with the man she loved, but she had not had the chance to enjoy the fact even briefly.
‘I wish we’d known,’ Nik breathed thickly, gripping her hand in his. ‘It feels so wrong that we didn’t know until it was too late.’
‘No,’ she agreed numbly, staring at the wall at the foot of the bed.
‘I am to blame for this situation. We made love and I chose not to protect you-’
‘I said I wanted a child,’ she said dully, not understanding how he was to blame. She had conceived and would have been overjoyed had she still been pregnant. But now she had miscarried and all such talk only reminded her of her loss and her disappointment.
Nik closed both hands round her limp fingers and expelled his breath in a ragged hiss. ‘I’m so sorry…you will probably never understand how much.’
He had stayed with her throughout. He had been strong for her, supportive, everything a husband should be. But only a few days back he had admitted that he didn’t really want a baby with her. Of course, had he realised that there was the slightest risk that she might be pregnant he would never have admitted that. But he had admitted it and she could not forget his candour. And, naturally, he could not forget it on such a day either. After all, Prudence conceded wretchedly, he was a very decent guy.
‘I let my pride come between us…’ Nik bit out in a driven undertone.
That was a startling enough announcement to make Prudence turn her head on the pillow to look directly at him. ‘How?’
Nik studied her with bleak, dark eyes. ‘I wanted you to have my child. But I wouldn’t admit that when the sentiment wasn’t returned.’
Her throat thickened. She turned her head away again and squeezed her eyes tight shut on the tears threatening to well up and overflow. He was trying to comfort her by demonstrating his sympathy and understanding of her feelings. He was really, really good at that, she acknowledged inwardly. He always knew exactly what to say. But she did not want him telling her lies out of pity or out of guilt. Why should he feel guilty because he had said he didn’t want a baby? Lots of guys of Nik’s age and lifestyle would feel exactly the same.
‘I think I want to sleep,’ she murmured flatly.
‘Go ahead…I won’t disturb you.’
The silence stretched.
‘I’d like to be on my own,’ she muttered tightly.
‘But I don’t think you should be, pethi mou.’
‘Just go home,’ she told him stonily. ‘Don’t you have any work to do?’
The silence thundered. The door closed. She flipped over and focused on the chair he had vacated. She had wanted him to go but, just as swiftly and unreasonably, she wanted him back. The thickness in her throat became great gulping sobs and she rolled back and buried her face in the pillow.
Three days later, Nik picked her up and took her back to Oakmere. She changed the subject whenever he tried to talk about the miscarriage…
It was six weeks since Prudence had returned from hospital. She could hear a phone ringing in the abbey’s cavernous entrance hall. The housekeeper answered it before she could reach it and brought the phone to her.
‘Am I speaking to Prudence Angelis?’ an accented male voice enquired heavily. ‘The granddaughter of Theo Demakis?’
She frowned. ‘Yes…why?’
It was her grandfather’s lawyer, Gregoly Lelas. He was calling to inform her that the older man had died very suddenly that morning from a massive heart attack. Shock engulfed Prudence in a sickening tide. She had always cherished the secret hope that Theo Demakis would come to regret his treatment of her and wish to get to know her as a member of his family. But now it was too late, forever too late because he was gone.
As her pale profile pinched tight, Nik strode into the room. ‘What has happened?’
‘My grandfather’s dead,’ she mumbled sickly.
CHAPTER NINE
‘HOW DO YOU feel?’ Nik settled Prudence into a seat on his private jet with as much care as he would have utilised had she been an invalid.
‘I’m perfectly fine.’ Her even white teeth clenched on that declaration. She was convinced that if he asked her one more time how she was, she would scream! Such prolonged, exaggerated solicitude struck her as quite unnecessary. She was not suffering any physical discomfort or weakness now. Ironically she felt healthy as a horse.
When they were airborne, Prudence studied a wildlife magazine and struggled to seem unconscious of Nik’s steady regard.
‘You’re not speaking to me…’ Nik murmured.
‘Of course I’m speaking to you. I’m not a child, for goodness’ sake!’
‘I don’t know you like this. It’s like you’re surrounded by barbed wire.’
‘We are on our way to a funeral. Excuse me for not feeling chatty,’ Prudence whipped back at him stiffly from behind her magazine.
Nik left his seat and sank down in the one beside her. ‘We can get through all this…but we have to talk.’
Prudence threw aside the magazine in a temperamental display that she could not suppress. Her emotions all felt as though they were perched on a knife edge. Nik starred at the heart of a welter of conflicting responses. She wanted him to be close, and yet, on another level, she could not resist the urge to push him away and snipe at him. With an unsteady hand she smoothed down the skirt of the elegant black suit she wore. ‘Not now, please…’
‘I lost a child, too…’ Nik breathed in a raw undertone. ‘Don’t shut me out, thespinis mou.’
As she sprang up to take refuge in the sleeping compartment, Nik caught her hand in his. ‘What?’ she gasped, eyes over-bright and stinging and avoiding the golden challenge of his.
‘We can share more than a bed,’ Nik told her with disconcerting candour.
Her face flaming, she pulled her fingers free and fled. He had held her through the nights since she’d lost the baby without touching her, while her shameless body tingled and heated to the hard, muscular embrace of his. Had he known how much she longed for him? Here she was, barely speaking to him, and yet that craving for him refused to cease! Her hands curled into tight fists. He was right. There was a barrier between them but it was a much more basic barrier than he appreciated.
Of course, she was not still blaming him for his candour on the score of parenthood a few days before she lost the baby, she thought unhappily. She w
as not so stupid or short-sighted that she would hold spite on such a score. No, in the aftermath of her miscarriage, she had come to appreciate that she was hurting so badly because she had set herself up for that hurt. Unrequited love was a recipe for disappointment. Worst of all, she was obsessively in love with Nik and she always had been. But when they were just friends she’d had enough distance to keep her pride and her common sense and independence. In short she had learned to get by without Nik very nicely. After their marriage blessing, however, everything had changed and, with it, her aspirations.
Even so, it wasn’t fair to blame him for not loving her. He had never offered love. He still did romance as if he had been born to it and had the right move and word for every occasion. Three weeks of being treated like a goddess in their Tuscan hideaway had left her floating on air, so the return to solid earth again had been understandably tough. Nik was never going to love her and she had to learn to live with that. They could be really close in other ways, she reasoned fiercely. Pride was making her push him away but she did not want to destroy their marriage; she did not want to lose him. Half a loaf still felt better than no bread at all.
‘I had a nap…I’m feeling better,’ she hastened to assure Nik with a determined smile as they moved through Athens Airport. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so out of sorts.’
‘The experience you’ve had, you’ve been a saint,’ Nik pronounced, his charismatic smile making her heart bounce like a tennis ball.