The Marriage Betrayal (12 page)

The older woman could not conceal her dismay and concern. ‘Oh, Tally,’ she sighed unhappily. ‘What will you do?’

Tally closed her hands together. ‘I’m going to have the baby. Mum had me in similar circumstances,’ she pointed out.

‘Your parents were engaged and your mother still hoped that there would be a marriage.’

‘Sander and I aren’t together anymore,’ Tally admitted reluctantly.

‘But you’ll have to tell him about the baby …’

‘What are you two whispering about?’ a third voice interposed from the kitchen doorway. ‘What baby?’

Tally glanced up in lively dismay to see her mother standing there clad in a floaty black negligee and matching nightdress.

‘Tally’s pregnant,’ Binkie explained very quietly as she rose from the table. ‘I’ll leave you to talk.’

‘Pregnant!’
Crystal exclaimed furiously. ‘By Sander Vola kis?’

Tally nodded. ‘I haven’t told him yet.’

Crystal winced. ‘Oh, darling, you’re so naïve. You won’t see him for dust when you do tell him.’

Tally jerked a stiff shoulder. ‘It’s his baby too and he should know. Unfortunately we’ve broken up.’

‘Just wait until your father hears about this!’ Crystal almost seemed to savour the idea of telling the older man about his daughter’s condition, her green eyes gleaming with a touch of malice.

Tally frowned. ‘Why on earth would you tell my father?’ she demanded in embarrassment. ‘I don’t want him told. It’s none of his business.’

When she thought about it, Tally felt no concern about Crystal sharing the news of her conception. As far as Tally was aware, Anatole’s hostility towards Crystal, the mother of his illegitimate daughter, had not abated one whit over the years and her parents very rarely spoke to each other.

‘You’re too young to be landed with a baby.’ Crystal sighed. ‘You should consider a termination.’

‘I’ll consider all my options,’ Tally muttered purely for the sake of peace. She went up to her room and texted Sander to tell him that she needed to see him urgently. There was no diplomatic way of breaking such news and the sooner it was done, the better, she thought unhappily. He would be anything but pleased; she knew that already thanks to his candour at the outset of their affair. But deep down inside, she nourished a little kernel of hope that his reaction to her announcement would be more generous than he had given her reason to expect …

H
IS
lean, darkly handsome features brooding, the banked fire of his anger illuminating his dark eyes to smouldering gold, Sander released his breath in a slow hiss when his PA indicated that Tally had arrived. He was glad he had told her to come and see him at his office. The businesslike surroundings would keep the meeting brief and to the point. After all, what was there left to say? Her walkout at the club had outraged him. He had brought friends into the VIP area to meet her, only to find that she had departed, and her peremptory text that delivered judgement without a hearing had only exacerbated his mood.

Tally had put on leggings, pumps and a long line T-shirt in a berry colour to face Sander. She wanted to look normal, not as though she had made a special effort, and yet she had spent over an hour on her hair and her make-up and had changed clothes three times over, before finally looking in the mirror and conceding that absolutely no power on earth was ever going to give her teeny tiny Oleia’s cute doll-like proportions or her flawlessly pretty face. She knew she was jealous and that made her feel mean-spirited.

Stepping inside the spacious office, she focused on Sander. He was as gorgeous as a spectacular sunset,
she reflected dizzily, all sleek dark Mediterranean good looks and height and muscular power drenched with buckets of pure sex appeal. He was lounging back against the edge of his desk in an attitude of relaxation, no doubt staged to look super-cool and controlled. That masculine stance and stubborn, insolent attitude were
so
Sander that Tally could have screamed with vexation. She was not so easily fooled as she could read the tension in his broad shoulders and the angles of his high cheekbones, not to mention the compression of his lower lip. And his pretence of cool simply gave her a horrendous desire to slap him and tell him to give her a real human reaction. But, no doubt, she would soon receive exactly that from him when she told him about the baby.
Their
baby, she adjusted thoughtfully, and she felt horrendously guilty for the little blossoming spark of pride and pleasure that the acknowledgement evoked.

‘I don’t know what you’re doing here,’ Sander murmured cruelly, and it was cruel because he believed that she had contacted him again because she had thought better of her headstrong decision to ditch him out of hand. His attention pinned to her, he veiled his gaze, but not before he had noticed the proud swell of her beautiful breasts and recalled the strawberry flavour of her succulent mouth. Willing his libido back under control, Sander looked directly at her, mentally censoring out his awareness of her most sexy attributes.

‘Well, it’s nothing to do with what happened at the club that night,’ Tally declared straight off, keen to make that point for the sake of her pride. ‘You behaved badly
and I’ve got nothing to add to what I said in my text!’

A surge of irate colour accentuated the hard line of Sander’s cheekbones and his golden eyes positively
flashed at the schoolmistressy tone she had utilised on him. ‘You acted like a drama queen.’

‘No, your behaviour didn’t give me a choice. A drama queen would’ve made a scene there and then. I chose not to,’ Tally pointed out, staring back at him and registering that he was rigid with anger and scarcely able to credit that she was daring to challenge him again. But she wasn’t surprised he was furious because she had only truly realised that evening at the club that Sander had probably often got away with treating women badly. He was very rich and very good-looking and very much in demand. Easy come, easy go. New, exciting lovers were always on offer to him. Many of those women doubtless took whatever he dished out, eager to please and hold his attention at any cost, but that was not Tally’s way.

Strong and proud as she was, Tally was constitutionally incapable of overlooking the kiss Sander had shared with Oleia Telis unless he was able to excuse or explain it in some way, but it was obvious that Sander was in no mood to offer any explanation of his conduct. However, the recollection of his behaviour still cut through Tally like a knife, hurting like hell.

‘You walked out on me just because Oleia was flirting with me. She was far from sober and she’s one of my oldest friends.’

‘I didn’t see you pushing her away.’

The wilful curve of his wide sensual mouth had never been more obvious. ‘I’m not a eunuch and you don’t own me.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Tally agreed in an attempt to draw the aggression he exuded out of the atmosphere; it was doing neither of them any favours. ‘But that’s not why I asked you to see me …’

‘You want me back,’ Sander pronounced with
unassailable
assurance and the urge to slap him grew so unbearable that her hand actually tingled with longing.

‘No,
no
, I don’t,’ Tally insisted and she knew she was lying because, in spite of everything, including the fact that she was furious with him, she
did
want him back. The gentler side of her nature accepted that she still loved Sander and wanted to be with him, but reason intervened to crush such inexcusable thoughts to dust.
Not unless he grovelled
, and she knew Sander well enough to know that grovelling was not on the cards.

‘So, what are you doing here?’ Sander enquired with the galling air of a male who knew exactly where she was coming from and, for an instant, she felt as guilty as though the conception were entirely her fault because he had no idea what she was about to tell him.

Tally sucked in a jagged breath that jarred her taut throat muscles. ‘I’ll come straight to the point. I saw my doctor yesterday. I’ve just discovered that I’m pregnant.’

The ensuing silence spread like an oil slick, heavy, suffocating and dark.

‘How pregnant?’ Sander finally asked baldly.

‘About six weeks,’ Tally advanced breathlessly.

Sander gazed straight back at her from below spiky black lashes, his expression blank, though the pallor of shock spread visibly beneath his bronzed complexion. From the instant she’d delivered her text, he’d accepted that their relationship was over for good and now he felt utterly betrayed. ‘Clearly it was a mistake for me to trust you to such an extent.’

‘I didn’t wilfully arrange for this to happen, Sander,’ Tally protested in an emotional surge, her green eyes full of concern and distress. ‘I
was
guilty of assuming that there was no risk of pregnancy from the instant
I started taking contraceptive pills. I confess I didn’t even read the leaflet I was given—I thought I knew it all already.’ She grimaced expressively at her stupidity. ‘It took my GP to explain that certain things can reduce the effectiveness of the pill and—’

‘You’re wasting your breath. If you’re pregnant I can join up the dots for myself. Conception 101,’ Sander derided, his raw indignation etched in the tautness of his strong facial bones and the edge of his intonation. ‘I also assume that you’re planning to have this baby.’

‘Yes.’

‘Naturally.’

Sensitive to his tone, Tally stiffened defensively. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘That raising my child gives you the excuse to live at my expense for the best part of the next twenty years, so naturally you will want to go ahead and give birth,’ Sander extended with barely concealed scorn. ‘Conceiving my child was an astute financial move to make, a definite investment in the future.’

Her face flamed as though he had slapped her. Contempt and cynicism had licked round every syllable of that little speech. ‘We both took risks, Sander. Believe me, I didn’t plan this and I abhor the idea of living at your expense for the next twenty years!’ she slung back at him with unhidden resentment.

‘A rich man is always a target for this kind of scam—’

‘This is not a scam. For the last time, this is not some sort of attempt to defraud you of your hard-earned cash!’ Tally launched at him wrathfully. ‘It was an accident and right now I’m not any happier about my having conceived than you are. After all, this baby is going to have a much bigger impact on my life than on
yours!’

‘I trusted you,’ Sander grated, hard dark eyes welded to her in condemnation, and it was clear that he had not accepted a word she had said as truth. ‘I should have known better. A girl from my own world would have too much class to pull a stunt like this!’

‘Who the heck do you think you are to speak to me like that?’ So much angry resentment was roaring up through Tally that she could hardly contain it and that snobbish crack about her more humble station in life was the last straw. ‘Your assumptions about me are
so
wrong. My parents broke up while my mother was pregnant and I never really had a relationship with my father because there was so much bad feeling between them. I’m the last woman in the world who would want to have a child in similar circumstances because I know the damage that growing up without a father did to me.’

‘Obviously I will do what is right for you and the child and support you both,’ Sander ground out with grim finality. ‘Of course I will.’

‘Damn you …’ Tally gasped strickenly, pierced to the heart by his businesslike attitude towards an issue as deeply personal as their future child. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this between us. You should know me well enough to know that I would never have planned this.’

Sander raised a sleek ebony brow, dark golden eyes still smouldering with displeasure and suspicion ‘Should I? I didn’t think you would surprise me with news like this but I was wrong on that score. What else might I have got wrong about you?’

Devastated by that admission of distrust, Tally felt her eyes sting and she opened them very wide to hold back the tears. ‘Only a few days ago we were happy—’

‘And now we’re not. That’s life,’ Sander cut her short
with a sardonic bite that tore her sentimental comment
to shreds. ‘I do appreciate that you came here to give me this news face to face. But if you’ve said all you need to say I can’t see that we have anything more to discuss at the moment. The legal firm I use here in London will handle this situation for me. I will pass on your details and they will be in touch.’

Tally was devastated by his outlook and the very obvious fact that he was determined to keep her at arm’s length. ‘I thought that I knew you better than this.’

‘You knew I didn’t want a child or even a serious girlfriend right from the start of our affair,’ Sander reminded her without hesitation.

‘Sometimes life trips you up … sometimes it’s nobody’s fault when things don’t go the way you planned them,’ Tally countered, enraged that he was blaming her for a development that she would never have willingly chosen. ‘But the unexpected—the baby—will only be a disaster if we make it one—’

‘Save the cheesy platitudes for someone who will welcome them,’ Sander advised with icy hauteur. ‘My lawyer will contact you.’

Pale as death, Tally walked back to the door. ‘I don’t appreciate being treated like some kind of confidence trickster.’

‘And I don’t appreciate being forced into becoming a father,’ Sander retorted in a flat rejoinder.

A week after that encounter, Sander was surprised to learn from his PA that Anatole Karydas had demanded a meeting with him.

Although his father often did business through Anatole—for Anatole was a renowned mover and shaker—Sander had only met the older man in passing
and he didn’t like what he knew about Anatole’s dodgy business methods. Anatole was, however, a very influential wheeler-dealer with fingers in lots of different pies. He was also a notoriously bad-tempered bully, feared by his employees and his competitors for never forgetting a mistake or a slight.

‘Volakis …’ Anatole grunted in acknowledgement as he came in, a small portly figure with sharp dark eyes and an unmistakeable air of pomposity. ‘I believe you met my daughter at Westgrave Manor a couple of months ago.’