Carole Mortimer - The Balfour Legacy

‘I thought…’ Stupidly, she was blushing now. ‘I got a pain during the night and I started bleeding.’ The night he hadn’t been there—when his absence had seemed to emphasise that there was nothing between them but an enforced captivity while they waited to discover whether or not they were going to be parents. ‘I thought it was my period. It was only when I’d been home for a couple of days that I realised that it wasn’t.’

‘But you weren’t going to bother to tell me about it?’

‘Of course I was! I just needed it to be confirmed first.’

‘Or was it something more than that?’ he demanded, his heart beating now with a slow and steady kind of dread. ‘Did you go to the doctor for something other than confirmation?’

It took a moment or two for his meaning to register and, when it did, Kat thought she really might be sick. Swallowing down the bile which had risen in her throat, she stared at him. ‘How…how dare you suggest such a disgusting thing?’ she spat out, trying now to rise from her subordinate position on her knees. But her rage was so intense that she half stumbled and Carlos automatically put out his hand to support her. ‘Get away from me!’ she flared.

He took no notice, just made sure that she was steady once more and then strode over to the window, looking out at the manicured beauty which was Kensington Gardens—seeing the glitter of the Round Pool in the distance, trying desperately to assemble his thoughts into some kind of order.

It was several moments before he had composed himself enough to turn round and, when he did, it was to see that Kat was sitting in the centre of a huge, overstuffed sofa, looking impossibly fragile. And in that moment, he could have kicked himself for the whiplash quality of his words. What kind of a brute was he, he wondered disgustedly, to harangue a woman who was newly pregnant?

‘Can I get you something?’ he questioned in a hollow voice. ‘Something to drink?’

‘I feel sick.’

Quickly, he found a bathroom at the end of one of the long corridors and tipped out a pile of rose petals which had been cluttering up a porcelain bowl and then took it to Kat. On further exploration of the apartment, he discovered a high-tech kitchen, where he made a pot of ginger-and-lemon tea, because he remembered reading somewhere that ginger was good for nausea.

She was still sitting where he’d left her, the towel on her lap, the porcelain bowl empty at her side. And suddenly he looked beyond her painted face and saw the vulnerability in her huge eyes.

‘I’ve made you tea,’ he said quickly, as he put the tray down.

She looked up, telling herself again that she must be strong. Carlos hadn’t broken any promises. He’d never claimed to feel anything for her. She certainly couldn’t demand love from him because she was carrying his baby. And she must close the floodgates on her love for him. He mustn’t know about it. It wouldn’t be fair—because then, wouldn’t she be burdening him with unnecessary guilt as well as a baby he’d never planned?

‘I didn’t run away,’ she told him tiredly. ‘I honestly thought my period had come, so there was no reason to stay. We’d already decided that.’ And he had done nothing to stop her leaving, had he? That had been the bottom line. Even now, he was only here because he had to be—not because he wanted to. ‘But I’d just had some kind of bleeding—apparently, it’s not unusual in the early stages of pregnancy.’

‘But you’re okay?’ he demanded urgently.

‘I’m okay.’

‘And…the baby? The baby is okay?’

‘The doctor tells me that everything’s fine.’

‘Thank God ,’ he breathed.

And for the first time, Carlos began to take in the enormity of what she had just told him. A single fact that had the power to change his life for ever. He was going to be a father . Placing a delicate mug of steaming tea into her unprotesting hand, he realised that his baby was growing beneath her heart even now—deep in her belly.

He wanted to reach out and touch her—to place the palm of his hand on her still-flat belly, as if to reassure himself that his child really was in there. But he felt as if he had forfeited the right to do any such thing, his bitter accusations driving a wedge between the two of them. And he wondered now if his father had bequeathed him something of his own cruelty—whether or not he was fit to be a father to her child.

He flinched. ‘You know that there were photographers hanging around outside when I arrived and that it’s only going to get worse?’

‘But why ?’ she wailed, letting her hormones get the better of her. ‘Why can’t they just leave me alone?’

His body tensed. ‘It is the joint legacy we share, Princesa . One which is bread and meat to the ever-hungry media,’ he said bitterly. ‘The ex-matador and his scandalous heiress.’

At that moment the telephone began to shrill and, putting her tea down on the table, Kat leaned over and picked it up. It was her father.

‘Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on, Kat?’ he began ominously.

Kat opened her mouth to start explaining when it suddenly hit her that she didn’t have to . She didn’t have to do anything. Not any more. Maybe in the past she had run away from her responsibilities—and maybe her father’s set of Rules had helped her see her life in a different light. Or maybe Carlos had. But she wasn’t running now. Even if she wanted to—which she didn’t—running was no longer an option. She was going to be a mother. She was going to have Carlos’s baby and she was going to have to learn to stand on her own two feet. And that meant that the rest of the Balfours were really going to have to butt out and leave her to get on with it.

Without thinking about it, her fingers of one hand drifted to her stomach and she let them rest there—almost protectively—looking up to see a sudden flare of light in the ebony eyes which were fixed on her.

She turned her lips back to the mouthpiece. ‘Actually, I don’t really want to talk to anyone at the moment, Daddy,’ she said steadily.

‘But—’

‘No buts. I’m fine.’ She listened to her father for a minute, acutely aware of Carlos’s intense scrutiny. ‘Yes, he’s here. With me. No, Daddy. No. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days. Yes. I promise.’

Slowly, she replaced the receiver and Carlos saw the wariness in her eyes as she regarded him—as if expecting him to start interrogating her again. His mouth hardened. And maybe she had good reason to think that.

The phone began to ring once more and, seeing her eyes close wearily this time, Carlos snatched up the receiver, his eyes narrowing as he listened. ‘Yes?’

‘Carlos! It’s Tania Stephens here,’ came the throaty voice of a woman. ‘I’m the one who left my bikini on your yacht and wondered if you’d just like to—’

‘No comment,’ he snarled, slamming it down again, and when it began to ring again almost immediately he took it off the hook. Was this what it was going to be like? he wondered. With the phone ringing and the press clamouring and Kat getting bigger. Living out her pregnancy in the middle of the city, with that cold and unapproachable air about her while the media-hungry world closed in.

There was a solution to the problem which lay before them, he realised slowly. But only if Kat would agree to it—and that was by no means certain. ‘I can find you somewhere safe to stay,’ he said slowly. ‘Somewhere the press won’t bother you.’

She looked up. ‘Where?’

‘That’s up to you, Princesa . I can give you several options. I have places pretty much all over the world you can choose from.’