Carole Mortimer - After The Loving

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Cover

Title Page After the Loving Carole Mortimer www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

‘CONGRATULATIONS, Bryna,’ Frank Stapleton beamed at her. ‘By my calculations you’re just nine weeks pregnant.’

The fingers that had been rebuttoning her blouse after the examination began to shake. Pregnant? My God, she thought, that possibility hadn’t even occurred to her when she had made the appointment to see the man who had been her doctor ever since she came to London eight years ago. Pregnant? She couldn’t be!

‘I’ll give you an initial prescription for the usual vitamins,’ her doctor continued briskly. ‘I’m sure you can be relied upon to be sensible during these early weeks—good diet, a healthy amount of exercise, are very important at this stage. You——’

‘Are you sure?’ Her voice broke with the tension his diagnosis had put her under. ‘I meant,’ she hurried on at his frowning look, ‘I always thought—well, I wouldn’t want to—to tell anyone unless I’m one hundred per cent sure.’ She hoped she didn’t look—or sound—as anxious as she felt to have him tell her he couldn’t be completely sure that his diagnosis was the right one. At any other time in her life she would have been overjoyed with the news, and she knew Frank was aware of that, but she couldn’t be pregnant now.

Frank gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Believe me, Bryna, there’s no doubt. It’s amazing how many women ask me the same thing when I tell them the good news,’ he teased. ‘Even though they’re usually pretty certain of what my diagnosis will be before they come here.’

The last was said cajolingly, but she hadn’t known, hadn’t even guessed that the results of the tests the doctor had taken the previous week would reveal that this was the reason her body had decided to play tricks on her. All the experts claimed that emotional tension could cause the same result, and God knows she had been through enough of that recently!

‘Now as soon as you can I want you to get along and see a good obstetrician,’ her doctor advised. ‘I can give you the name of one if you would prefer——’

‘There’s no rush, is there?’ She was still too numb to think about things like that.

‘I shouldn’t leave it too long, Bryna,’ the doctor smiled, moving to sit on the edge of his desk. ‘You and the baby will need the best of care during the next seven months.’

Pregnant. It still didn’t seem real to her. It couldn’t be happening to her now !

She studiously finished buttoning her blouse so that the doctor shouldn’t see that he was more pleased by the news than she was, and picked up her bag ready to leave once she was fully dressed, a blush darkening her cheeks as the doctor raised surprised brows. She gave him a quick smile. ‘Unlike those other ladies who came to you, I have to admit to being a little—surprised,’ she revealed shakily. ‘You must realise why.’ She looked at him dazedly.

‘Of course I do,’ he patted her hand. ‘And as soon as you’re feeling a little less shocked I want you to give me a call so that we can talk about that. The only thing you need to know now is that you’re in excellent health and I’m sure you’re going to have a perfectly normal pregnancy.’

Nothing had been normal in her life the last few weeks, and her pregnancy could only make things worse. Its existence already did that.

‘Thank you.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I am a little dazed,’ she admitted tremulously. ‘I—I’ll call you later today,’ she added shakily, clutching her bag in front of her. As if a few hours were going to make any difference to the shock she had just received!

Frank nodded, smiling warmly. ‘I’m sure you’re bursting to tell someone your good news.’

By ‘someone’ she knew he meant the baby’s father. And that was where the problem lay.

‘Yes,’ she gave a tight smile. ‘Well, thank you, and——’

‘Don’t thank me, Bryna,’ he gave her a teasing smile. ‘I had nothing to do with this miracle, you and the baby’s father managed this all on your own!’

The trembling hadn’t stopped by the time she had walked through the reception area and waiting-room, across the car park, unlocked her car door, and sat inside, her head resting on the steering-wheel.

Pregnant! Years ago she had dreamt about this day, of knowing her child was growing inside her. Then her parents had broken the news that, owing to an emergency operation during puberty, she would probably never be able to have a child of her own.

It had been a bitter blow, days of crying, weeks of cursing fate for doing this to her, months of self-recrimination as she tried desperately to convince herself she was still a woman worth loving, years of telling herself she could still live a full life, her years as a model doing a lot for her self-esteem. And now, somehow, when she had only fleetingly glimpsed the happiness she could have, she found she was pregnant. With Raff’s child.

Raff. He was the last person she could tell about the life they had created between them.

She put her hand protectively on her stomach. Her child.

Dear God, how she wanted it!

But she would lose Raff if she had the baby.

She was losing him anyway.

The last thought came unbidden, but she knew it was the truth even as she tried to deny it. Each day Raff faded a little more away from her, until eventually he would tell her it was over between them. She was only surprised he hadn’t already done so; she had lasted much longer than his affairs usually did.

It still surprised her to realise she was the mistress of Raff Gallagher, a man who wielded much power in the City, both monetarily and personality-wise. The first moment she had seen him she had known he was a power to be reckoned with. But she certainly hadn’t expected to become his mistress within a matter of days!

He wouldn’t want this child she carried, she had no doubt of that. Raff had made it clear from the first that he was offering her no more than any of the other women he had had in his life the last ten years: passion and consideration, and the truth when he no longer felt either of them for her any more.

How could she tell the man who had made it clear he offered no commitment that they had made the biggest commitment of all, that of forming another life from their desire for each other? Once again she acknowledged that she couldn’t tell him. Which gave her only a matter of weeks with him before the child physically began to show on her slender figure.

Why bother to count in weeks when she knew Raff could end it in days? Maybe even today.

‘So will you talk to Daddy about it?’