problem with my pregnancy. I don’t understand what you mean, Nikos.’ She kept replaying his
words in her head, and slowly, slowly, they made an appalling kind of sense. Dealt with the
problem of yourpregnancy! Her knees sagged and she dropped down onto the sofa. ‘You can’t
mean…you can’t think…’ She felt as though an iron band were tightening around her chest,
squeezing the oxygen from her lungs. ‘You can’t think that I would—’ she could hardly bring
herself to utter the words ‘—get rid of the baby?’
‘Why not?’ His eyes were black and dead. ‘It’s what my first wife did.’
‘ No.’ What he was telling her was too terrible to comprehend, and she closed her eyes, feeling utterly incapable of dealing with the pain that ravaged his face. ‘You must be wrong,’ she said
jerkily. ‘Surely your wife wouldn’t have done that… I wouldn’t do that,’ she said in a stronger voice as she got unsteadily to her feet and crossed the room towards him. He stood immovable
and grim-faced, and she saw him tense in rejection when she came close. But she did not care.
Nothing mattered except that he should understand their child was safe.
She took his hand and held it over her stomach, and stared up at him, her eyes locked with his.
‘Our baby is here inside me, and only fate will decide if it will be born safe and well in seven
months’ time. But I will do my best to nurture and protect it, and I would never, ever do anything
to harm it. Please, Nikos, you must believe me,’ she said shakily when he remained still and cold
as a marble statue. ‘I didn’t say I hated being pregnant this morning.’ Colour stained her pale
face as she remembered how she had been ill in front of him. ‘I meant that I hated being sick
while you were there. I was… embarrassed for you to see me like that. Morning sickness isn’t
very glamorous,’ she muttered.
At last he moved, as if blood once more ran in his veins rather than ice. ‘You could not help
being sick,’ he said harshly. He stared at his handon her stomach, and curved his fingers slightly
as if he could somehow cradle the child within her. Slowly he lifted his eyes to her face and felt a jolt of shock when he saw her tears falling in a silent stream down her cheeks. ‘I thought—’ He
broke off. ‘You were so miserable this morning, and you seemed to resent being pregnant. When
I learned from Stavros that you had disappeared, and then realised the lengths you had taken to
get away from him, I believed there could only be one reason why you would make such an
elaborate deceit. My past experience coloured my judgement, and I jumped to the wrong
conclusion,’ he said stiffly. He took his hand from her stomach and swung away to stare bleakly
out over the city. ‘Forgive me.’
His tone told her that he did not care whether she did or not.
Kitty stared at his rigid shoulders, and bit her lip, wondering if she dared voice the questions
circling in her head. ‘Did your first wife really…?’
‘Abort my child?’ He finished the question for her, his voice now flat and utterly devoid of
emotion. ‘Yes.’ He had never spoken of it before, but he suddenly found the words spilling from
him. ‘I had told Greta of my family history and she knew I would never abandon my child as my
father had done. I don’t know if Greta’s pregnancy was a genuine mistake, or if she missed her
contraceptive Pill deliberately, but when I learned she was expecting my baby I immediately
offered to marry her.
‘I was devastated when she told me soon after our marriage that she had suffered a miscarriage,’
he continued grimly. ‘She knew I wanted the child, but I discovered later that she had set her
sights on marrying a millionaire, and once she had achieved her goal the child was no longer
necessary. When our marriage crumbled because of her drug addiction, and she knew I intended
to divorce her, she wanted to hurt me, and she told me that she had had an abortion.’
No wonder his heart was buried beneath impenetrable layers of granite, Kitty thought, aching
with sadness for him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and simply hold him, but she
knew he would reject her, and now she understood why. His trust and faith in humanity had not
just been shattered, but utterly and cruelly destroyed beyond repair.
‘Where is Greta now?’ she asked huskily.
‘She died two years ago as a result of her drug habit.’
There was not a shred of pity in his voice. He had stated that he had married his first wife after