Constantinou's Mistress (20 page)

‘Then how do you know that you can't have children, Nick?'

‘Because,' he said, sighing heavily and staring at the tips of his fingers, ‘when I married Gina I wanted to start a family straight away, but nothing happened. Eventually she went to the doctor and was told that ev
erything was fine with her. And I…well, I went too. I was told that I…I did not have what was necessary.'

‘The doctor told you this?'

‘Well, Gina went in to collect the letter and she reported it back to me. Very faithfully. She knew that there was no way that I would want to read it in black and white so she remembered precisely what was contained in it.'

‘She lied.'

Nick's head shot up and he narrowed his eyes on her. ‘What?'

‘She lied,' Lucy said simply. ‘Because I am carrying
your
baby, Nick, and that's all there is to it. Robert and I have never slept together.'

A thread of hope began to unfurl in the pit of his stomach and he fought against the temptation of being seduced by it.

‘Of course, there's only one way of finding out the truth, if you're brave enough to do it, and that's to go back to the doctor and have another test done.' In the ensuing silence Lucy thought back to what else he had said and a slow smile curved her mouth. ‘You mean you would have chosen to support me, even thinking that…the baby wasn't yours?'

Nick looked at her defiantly and his defiance took years away from his face. What she saw was an uncertain boy, holding his breath, daring to say things he would rather not have said, and her heart wanted to explode.

‘Is it my fault that I fell in love with you?'

‘You love me?'

‘There you go again,' he muttered, and she took a few steps forward until she was close enough to touch him,
and touch him she did, running trembling fingers through his dark, springy hair, tilting his face up to hers.

‘Take the test, Nick. The baby is yours and I love you back.' The sob that had been trying to escape since she had spun around in the street an hour earlier and set eyes on him again finally found its way out. ‘I think I was born to love you and I haven't stopped, even when you threw me out of your office and called me everything under the sun. I adore you and I don't want you to have any doubts that this is your baby.'

Easier said than done, he thought two days later as they waited for the doctor to stick his spectacles on and read the short letter he was holding. Lucy squeezed his hand and he squeezed hers back, albeit half-heartedly.

‘Well,' Dr Thomas said, peering over the rims of his narrow reading glasses, ‘this is as conclusive as anything you could hope for.'

‘That I am…?'

‘As fertile as any red-blooded man could hope to be. In fact, my boy, fertile enough for you to become a donor should you ever want to. I have no idea how you could have imagined that you couldn't have children.' He removed his spectacles and dangled them loosely from one hand. ‘You could go ahead and have dozens.'

‘Dozens!' Nick turned to Lucy the minute they were outside. ‘Dozens! I can father dozens of children if I want!'

‘Whoa!' She grinned at him and nestled into the crook of his arm, barely wanting to tear herself away to step into the taxi that whizzed them off to his apartment.

‘What I don't understand,' she said thoughtfully as they walked into his sitting room, ‘is why Gina would lie.' She knew all about their marriage, knew that she
would never be living in the shadow of a woman he could not forget.

‘Because it suited her to have this trump card to hold over me,' Nick said grimly. It was hard to feel angry, though, because he was so bloody happy. ‘She relished being able to fall back on that final insult whenever there was an argument. She knew what my response would be, that I would walk out of the house because there was nothing to say when she accused me of being less of a man than she had hoped.' He went to sit by her and pulled her onto his lap so that her head was resting on the arm of the sofa and she was stretched out in front of him. Just the smallest of bumps proclaimed the baby growing inside her, and he rucked up her shirt so that he could place his hand there.

‘I was crazy to believe her,' he said, ‘and even crazier not to believe you when you told me about the pregnancy.'

‘It was understandable. Suddenly you felt you could no longer trust me.'

‘Yet I couldn't stop loving you. I couldn't turn that off like a tap.' He ran his hand up to caress her breast, which was fuller and heavier now, the nipple larger and darker and more prominent. He stroked the stiffened bud and smiled when she released a little sigh of pleasure.

‘There's only one thing left for us to do,' he murmured, and Lucy looked drowsily at his dear face.

‘Does it involve the bed?'

‘That too. But, no, I was more thinking of marriage, and sooner rather than later.'

It was something she hadn't broached, knowing how he felt about that ultimate step after what he had been
through, and her heart swelled at the love darkening his eyes when he looked at her.

‘How soon, my darling?'

‘As soon as possible?'

‘I'll get on to it right now…'