The Purest of Diamonds(63)

                ‘Well, yes, she did, actually.’

                He had to confess, it would hardly be the first time his grandmother had acted impetuously. She was probably visiting her own doctor in London when she thought of Leila, and had wanted some company on the flight.

                There was a wistful look in Leila’s eyes that told him she wished things could be different, almost as if she wished he would beg her to stay. He had been so fixated on the birth, he hadn’t given much thought to the future. He supposed now he had imagined Leila getting on with her life as he got on with his after the birth of their child. They would live separate lives, and only meet up when they handed their child over for a visit—

                Dios! Just the thought of that made him sick. The idea of handing a child back and forth, like a parcel—

                Leila’s eyes were full of tears as if she was waiting for him to say something that would make things right between them, but his life had been built on objectivity, not emotion, and he didn’t have any answers she’d want to hear.

                ‘You always knew we had to get on with our lives at some point, Raffa. I haven’t even had my first scan yet.’

                ‘Well, you can have that here.’

                ‘I’ve already booked one in Skavanga. I could send you a photograph.’

                Shaking his head, he said a flat, ‘No.’ Why bother? What use was a photograph to him?

                Leila deserved stability, security and a storybook ending with a man who could feel emotion. He couldn’t offer her that. As always when emotions threatened, ice had already closed around his heart. And even if he let her go, he could still control every aspect of the birth, but from a distance.

                ‘Bon voyage, Leila,’ he said coolly. ‘As you so rightly say, you’ll only be a short plane ride away.’





                                      CHAPTER ELEVEN

                SHE HELD OUT until Raffa left the room and then she crumpled. So much for self-determination. Someone should have warned her how much it sucked. Did Britt feel like this after one of her storming tirades? Did Eva fold like a wilting leaf with ice flowing through her veins instead of blood? When her sisters acted steely, was it all a sham?

                The temptation to return to being the quiet little mouse was overwhelming. She might have done, had it not been for the child growing inside her, the child who depended on her to get things right. There was never going to be a good time to leave Raffa. And she’d learned a lot while she’d been here. She’d changed, discovered her own seam of strength. Maybe it had always been there, but quietly.

                Raffa, with all his talk of the ‘top men for the job’, wanting to control every element of the birth, had put everything in perspective for her. She had grown to love him, and now she couldn’t love him more, but she had no expectation of him loving her back. She doubted Raffa even had the capacity to love. His reaction when she had offered to send him a photograph of the scan had been proof enough of that.

                It was that thought that broke her, and, like a wounded animal, she buried her head in her arms and bayed her frustration into the empty, uncaring room. But even that was an indulgence. She had to be strong for the baby, and so standing up she faced the brutal truth. Would an aristocrat like Don Rafael Leon seriously consider progressing a relationship with Leila Skavanga, a small-town girl who worked in a mine beyond the Arctic Circle, whose father had been a drunk and whose mother had been his punchbag?

                * * *