The CEO Takes a Wife(30)
“So don’t accuse me of something I haven’t done.”
For a moment he looked as if he would argue, then remorse flashed across his face and he expelled a deep breath. “Yes, you’re right. You made no such promise.” He pushed back his chair and stood.
She reached out and put her hand over his. “Alex, please don’t go. I mean, we really do need to talk about…” she hesitated “…about what you mentioned on the plane.”#p#分页标题#e#
He stilled, then gave a jerky nod of his head and sat back in his chair. “Go ahead.”
Her stomach was churning, but she had to proceed. “Alex, I need to say this. I have to make it clear to you that…” She swallowed. “Why I can’t have your child.”
“So you don’t like children then? Is that the problem?”
“I love children,” she said in a ragged whisper, pain and despair wrapping around her heart. “Alex, I want children more than anything and if I could, I would love to have your child.”
A lump rose in her throat. She had to say it, had to put an end to his hopes. “Only I…can’t. I’m infertile. I’ve been told I’ll never have a child.”
Eight
A lex felt the bottom fall out of his world. Up until this moment he had had no doubt Olivia would come around and have his baby.
She was staring at him with pain-filled eyes.
He was shaken to the core by that look, by her words. “Tell me.”
She swallowed hard. “I had an ectopic pregnancy when I was married to Eric,” she began, and something turned inside Alex at the thought of Olivia pregnant to another man. Something fierce and primal rose in his throat. Something he firmly pushed aside.
“My tubes were damaged…irreparably.” She took a deep breath. “So it’s not that I won’t have your child, Alex. It’s that I can’t.”
He heard every word she said, but he still had to ask, “You’re sure there’s nothing to be done?”
She frowned. “The doctor did say it was highly unlikely rather than never.” She gave a dismissive shake of her head. “But he was just being kind. He meant never. I know he did.”
Alex’s heart started to race. “Was he a specialist?”
“No.”
“So there’s still some chance?”
She swallowed. “Not really. I was told at the hospital that the damage was too extensive. I have no need to question that.”
He wasn’t so sure. Doctors weren’t infallible. Hospitals made mistakes. But he’d let that be for now.
“Does your mother know all this?”
Her eyes softened. “Yes, and she was a great help when I needed her. She surprised me.”
“I’m glad.” His estimation of Felicia rose. Thank God Olivia had had someone to help her through it all.
Her lips gave a wry twist. “Unfortunately, Mum thinks it’s like in the movies and that it’s all going to magically right itself.”
His brow furrowed. “Does she give you a hard time about it?”
“Not at all. We usually don’t mention it. But I know she still hopes to be a grandmother one day.” Her eyes moistened and she blinked rapidly. “I wish I could give her that grandchild but I can’t.”
Emotion swelled inside him and he wanted to pull Olivia into his arms and comfort her, but suddenly he needed to get out or risk being the one who needed comfort. His chest felt tight with a strange anguish.
He quickly got up from the table. “Thank you for telling me, Olivia. I have to go out now.” He needed thinking time.
Alone.
“Yes,” she said, as if she understood.
He strode to the door and quietly left the suite, not knowing where he was going until he walked into the bar downstairs. He wanted to get blind drunk and forget the pain rioting through him.
Dammit, he wasn’t used to feeling so much, so deeply. Usually he managed to keep everything under control but that was difficult when it was in his face like this. He didn’t like feeling so vulnerable where Olivia was concerned, so weak and so bloody powerless.#p#分页标题#e#
And he wasn’t just thinking about himself either. He was thinking of Olivia. And, hell, he hadn’t even begun to think about the problem of an heir and his inheritance.
Okay, so he’d decided from the start that he wasn’t letting his father force him into producing a child. Yet all at once he felt guilty on his brothers’ behalf. And that was crazy. Why feel bad when he’d had no intention of fulfilling the second part of the ultimatum anyway? His brothers hadn’t known about any of it, but they wouldn’t have expected him to sacrifice himself for them on the marriage altar, let alone add a baby to the mix.