The Billionaire Banker(62)

Her alarm goes off at eight a.m. and she dresses hurriedly. She pulls an Alice hairband on, dresses in a long shirt and navy and white trousers. There is no bump yet, but it seems like a good idea to start dressing in loose attire.

She leans against the mirror and fights the nausea. She shouldn’t have agreed to go, but she doesn’t want to make him suspicious. She waves to Mr. Nair and walks out of the building.

The café is only down the street.

As she walks her thoughts wander. What will become of her and the little life growing inside her? She puts her head down and makes a decision.

She steps onto the road and hears a shout. ‘Watch out!’

In that split second, she sees Blake running towards her.#p#分页标题#e#

He is no longer shouting. As if in slow motion she turns and sees a car speeding towards her. But her feet are unable to move. Rooted to the spot. Even far into the future she will remember how she saw everything so clearly it was like looking through a very clean glass. How Blake, his eyes urgent and full of desperate fear reached her and with both hands pushed her with such force that she was thrown backward out of harm’s way.

The car ploughs into him instead. She lies on the ground and watches him flying in the air like a rag doll to land on the other side of the street. Even from her prone position she can see the stream of blood running away from his head into the grey asphalt.

She stands and runs to him screaming. He is lying on his front, but his head is turned in her direction.

‘Are you all right?’ he mumbles vaguely in the direction of her voice, but his eyes seem unable to focus.

‘I’m fine,’ she sobs, and he closes his eyes and falls into some deep, dark place.

Someone has already called the police and the ambulance is quick to arrive. They take him to the nearest emergency room, but Lana is keenly aware that his family will want him to be taken to the best hospital. She takes his mobile and finds Marcus’s number.

‘Hello,’ she says. Her voice is strangely calm. It must be the shock, she thinks.

‘Who’s this?’ comes the suspicious reply.

‘Blake has been in a road accident.’ Her voice shakes on the word accident. ‘He’s been taken to the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth. I just thought you should know.’

‘How bad is he?’

‘It looks like a head injury, but there might be other internal things that I don’t know about.’

‘Are you at the hospital right now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you wait for me? I’ll be right there.’

Lana sits on a chair. She feels numb. There is blood on her wrists and hands. Blake’s blood. Suspended inside her cloud of shock she stares at it blankly. She touches it with a finger. It feels sticky. I’m not dreaming, this is really happening, her brain says. She wipes her hand on her stained navy and white trousers, takes out her own mobile and calls Billie.

Billie is quicker to arrive than Marcus. The sight of Billie’s worried face hurrying towards her undoes her.

‘Oh, Billie,’ she sobs. ‘It was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going. If he had not pushed me out of the way it would have been me that the car hit.’

‘Banker boy threw himself under a car to save you?’

Lana stops crying as she registers what she has not with the shock. But he is cold and unemotional. He hardly ever touches her unless he wants to have sex. Why? Why did he do that?

‘People only do that for the people they love,’ Billie says.‘He doesn’t love me. If you knew what kind of relationship we have you’d never say that. He must have acted instinctively.’

Billie says nothing. Her eyes are on the door. ‘Here comes big brother.’

Lana turns in the direction Billie is looking in. Indeed, it is Blake’s brother; he has the same superior air. He is standing at the door scanning the room. As soon as he spots them he comes over. His surprised eyes slide quickly over the spiders climbing on Billie’s throat, but he addresses Lana, as if he instinctively recognizes the type of woman his brother could fall in love with.

‘I’m Marcus. You must be the one who called me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you. Where is my brother now?’

She points towards the desk. ‘They won’t tell me anything.’

‘What happened?’

‘He pushed me out of the way of a speeding car and took the hit himself.’

Marcus’s face is incredulous. ‘My brother did that?’

Tears began to roll unchecked down Lana’s face. She feels like a fool crying in front of that disapproving stranger, but the tears refuse to stop.