LITMIR.BIZ

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would have preferred a warning,’ Leo told her drily.

      ‘I wasn’t expecting that jab of pain. After years of horse riding I assumed there’d be nothing there...my mistake,’ Grace pronounced with dignity. ‘But thanks for the experience. You were very good.’

      Prior to his engagement, Leo had been a legendary womaniser but he felt quite ridiculously put down by Grace’s comment. He sprang off the bed and then a much more pressing matter came to his attention before he could reach the bathroom and he uttered a single crude expletive.

      Grace froze at the sound of that word. When she was a child she hadn’t known it was a bad word because her mother had used it all the time. Unhappily when she had used that word in Jenna’s home, her aunt had screamed at her and put a soap bar in her mouth. She had still been throwing up when her uncle came home. The couple had had a massive row and Grace had never ever used that word again.

      Impervious to her reaction, Leo had strode into the bathroom to dispose of the evidence. He reappeared, bronzed and stark naked in the doorway. ‘The condom broke...’

      Grace sat up in horror. ‘What?’

      ‘Breaking you in probably strained it,’ Leo retorted with deliberate curtness because it was just one more unexpected development that he didn’t want.

      ‘It...burst?’ Grace whispered. ‘But I’m not on the pill—’

      Leo grew even more rigid in his bearing. ‘Shouldn’t you have taken that precaution before you embarked on a one-night stand?’

      Grace just ignored him; she didn’t have to talk to him just because she had slept with him. In fact now that the main event was over she decided that she should ask for a boat back to the marina. Or would that be running away?

      ‘May I use the bathroom?’ she asked with careful politeness. ‘And then possibly you could organise me a lift back to the marina?’

      Leo moved to let her into the bathroom but his temper was now on a short fuse. Wham, bam, thank you, sir. Well, a woman had never treated him like that before but there was always a first time and maybe that was healthy for his ego. But the recollection that it had been her first time stopped his building aggression in its tracks. She didn’t know what she was doing. She wasn’t as much quiet as she was secretive and, flipping mentally back through the time he had been with her, he reckoned she had to be as innocent as a newborn lamb when it came to the nastier things in life. Perspiration beaded his upper lip when he thought of what might have happened to Grace had she gone off so casually and trustingly with some of the seedier individuals he had met on his travels.

      ‘I want you to stay the night. I’ll take you back tomorrow,’ he stated.

      ‘This is a one-night stand...you don’t get to tell me what to do!’ Grace flamed back at him with spirit.

      ‘You’re not doing so well right now when it comes to looking after yourself,’ Leo pronounced drily.

      In the space of a moment, Grace travelled from a mood of silent resentment to one of raging rancour and sooner than betray herself by spitting out something inappropriate, she slammed the bathroom door on him. Who did he think would look after her but her own self if she was unlucky enough to conceive after that contraceptive accident? It was none of his business that she had come on holiday without planning to have sex with anyone and she wasn’t taking the pill because she hadn’t wanted to bombard her body with hormones before she was even sexually active. On the other hand, should she have foreseen the possibility that she might suddenly change her mind as she had done this very evening? Grace stood below the shower in a daze counting the days of her cycle, soon realising that the condom could not have failed at a worse time.

      Leo swore vehemently beneath his breath and went off to use another shower. Why was she angry with him? Accidents happened, although it was the first time he had found himself in such a situation. Even as a teenager, Leo had never had unprotected sex because he knew all too well the cost of such carelessness. His half-brother’s birth to his father’s mistress had been a painful lifelong commitment for Anatole Zikos and his wife and son.

      Grace emerged from the bathroom wrapped in the white towelling robe she had found hanging there. It was huge on her but she had rolled up the sleeves and wasn’t sorry to be covered to her ankles. The intimacy she had naively sought suddenly struck her as having come at too high a price and she was more self-conscious in the aftermath than she had been beforehand.

      ‘I thought you’d be hungry,’ Leo remarked with a casual movement of his hand pointing out the catering trolley that had appeared. ‘I don’t know what you like so I ordered a selection.’

      ‘You have someone in a kitchen cooking for you at four in the morning?’ Grace exclaimed in astonishment while being grateful for the distraction provided by the food. Wandering barefoot over to the trolley, she lifted the covers to inspect the mouth-watering options on offer. Her tummy gave a hungry growl, hopefully concealed by the clatter of the coffee jug lid she lifted and dropped again. In silence she helped herself to coffee and a plate of elaborate supper bites.

      It was ironic though that since meeting Leo she had never been more aware of his compelling presence than she was in that charged silence. He had changed into jeans and a blue T-shirt, his black hair tousled, shiny and damp from the shower, his lean, darkly handsome face shadowed by dark stubble. Apprehensive though she was about the risk of consequences, she had to admit that Leo still looked amazing and the epitome of every fantasy she had ever had about a man.

      ‘I have a doctor on call, if you want—’

      ‘No.’ Grace leapt straight in before he could say it because the morning-after treatment that could stop a pregnancy developing was not a choice she was willing to make. Even though a pregnancy would damage her chances of qualifying in medicine. ‘That’s not an option for me.’

      ‘I had to make the option available,’ Leo murmured without any perceptible reaction. ‘When are you flying home?’

      ‘The day after tomorrow.’ Grace sat down in an opulent armchair.

      ‘I will want your address and phone number. This is not a situation I would treat lightly.’ Leo served himself with coffee, betraying all the awkwardness of a male who wasn’t used to waiting on himself and who had rather expected his companion to take on the role of hostess.

      Grace allowed herself to look at Leo for only the second time since she had left the bathroom. Whether she liked it or not, he had gone up in her estimation.

      ‘If you give me your contact details, we won’t need to discuss this any further. I only need to add the assurance that if there is any...er...development, I will provide you with my full support.’

      ‘Yes.’ Grace almost shrugged because she knew words were cheap. Leo was saying the right things but only he and his conscience could know how reliable he would be in such trying circumstances as those of an unplanned pregnancy. After all, her own father had talked her mother out of the termination she had decided on when she had fallen pregnant as a student. Grace’s father had promised her mother that he would marry her and help her raise their child and then he had run off with another woman and left Keira Donovan literally holding the baby. That had been in the days when being an unmarried mother had still been a real stigma and a source of family shame.

      Leo settled a notepad and pen down on the table beside Grace. She printed her address and phone number and returned the pad to the table. As she did so, she yawned. ‘I’m sorry, I’m very sleepy...’

      ‘It’s late...go to bed,’ he murmured quietly.

      Grace thought of the hassle of arriving back at the marina before dawn, finding her way back to the apartment block and then sitting in Reception until Stuart took his leave. ‘I’ll stay...at least you have a bed.’

      ‘A bed?’ Leo queried, recognising her exhaustion in her pale face and heavy eyes.

      Grace climbed into the bed still clad in the robe.

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