The Stephanides Pregnancy

CHAPTER NINE

CRISTOS was waiting to see Betsy when she emerged from surgery.

He looked shattered: ashen pale beneath his bronzed skin, stunning bone structure rigid, gorgeous eyes bleak with shock and regret. Betsy learned that she could hate him almost as much as she loved him for caring to that extent. He had sincerely wanted their child and he was sincerely devastated when she miscarried. But at the end of the day when all the drama was over what was his disappointment and sympathy worth? Not very much, in her opinion. Cristos would have other children… only she was convinced that they would not be with her.

'I don't want to talk about it…I just want to be on my own and sleep,' she told him numbly when he tried to talk to her in her private room.

He closed his lean brown hand over hers, engulfing her smaller fingers. 'Did you see me on the news with Petrina?' he asked tautly.

Betsy yanked her hand free of his in instantaneous rejection.

'I take it that that's a yes. Please listen to what 1 have to say, pethi mou.'

'I don't want to talk to you!' she ground out.

His forceful energy laced the atmosphere. She could feel him willing her to hear him out. 'You have every right to be furious with me and to feel that I've let you down. But things aren't always what they seem-'

'Do you really think 1 care right now? Do you really think that after what's happened I'm sulking about you not turning up for lunch?' Betsy hurled in tempestuous condemnation. 'Why can't you go away and leave me alone?'

'I won't speak… I'll just sit here with you.'

'I want to be on my own,' she reiterated tightly. 'Right now, we should be together. 1 may not know

what to say… I may be afraid of saying the wrong thing, but 1 do know that 1 want and need to share this with you,' Cristos drawled with dogged determination.

She turned her back on him to stare at the wall. She could not look anywhere near him without recalling Petrina Rhodias clinging to him as if she had every right in the world to do so. There was a clenched fist inside her where her heart had mice been. She wanted to cry but her eyes burned and stayed dry.

'Please just go home and go to bed,' she urged a couple of hours later, unable to bear even his silent presence in the same room for it was a comfort to have him there and she would not surrender to her own weakness. There was no point needing Cristos when he was not going to be part of her life for much longer.

'Don't shut me out like this, agape mou,' Cristos breathed in a roughened undertone. 'It's making me feel as though 1 have lost both of you.'

And he waited and waited with a phenomenal patience that was quite unlike him for some sign of response from her and received nothing. Finally the door slid softly shut on his departure and she wept then, painful noiseless tears that inched down her cheeks like stinging rain. She wept because she loved a truly decent guy, who was still so busy doing what he felt he ought to do for his wife's benefit that he could not yet allow himself to contemplate the fact that there was no longer any reason for their marriage to continue.

When Betsy wakened the next morning, she lay very still and faced how much had changed in the past twenty-four hours. In some respects she was still in shock. She had got so used to being pregnant. Without her even appreciating the fact, the very condition of being pregnant had become a central theme in her life. She had been so careful about what she ate and drank and even more keen to ensure that she took the right amount of exercise and rest. She had read books about pregnancy. She had toured baby shops with enthusiasm, looked at maternity clothes and made plans for decorating a nursery. And now, without warning, all that was at an end. She was no longer an expectant mother and she had not yet come to terms with that cruel reality.

'One of those things,' the obstetrician had told her the day before, giving her statistics that made it dear that early miscarriages were quite common. There was no need for special investigation into the reasons why she had lost her child. Even had she rushed to a doctor when she'd first felt those trifling pangs, she had been assured that it was highly unlikely that anything could have been done to alter the eventual outcome.

Kindly meant platitudes that seemed to take no account of her anguish had followed. She was young:

She was healthy. She should try again soon and put this experience behind her. There was absolutely no reason why her next pregnancy shouldn't be successsful. It seemed that nobody had the slightest suspicion that in certain circumstances a miscarriage could sound the death knell for a marriage as well.

She had just finished breakfast when Cristos reappeared.

'1 saw the tray… you have scarcely eaten enough to keep a bird alive.' He sighed on the threshold, lustrous dark golden eyes somber and concerned.

'1 wasn't hungry. I'll be glad when 1 can get out of here-'

'If you like you can leave as soon as the doctor has given permission,' Cristos was quick to interpose, his approval of that course unconcealed. 'I'd like to have you home again.'

Suddenly evasive, Betsy bent her bright head. 'I'm not just ready yet,' she muttered hurriedly.

Silence lay while he computed her change of heart.

'You have to let me explain what happened yesterday… and to do it effectively 1 have to go back a few more weeks in history,' Cristos advanced.

He would give her no peace until she heard him out. She let her head rest back against the banked-up pillows, her hair as vibrant as a fire against the pale linen.

'When 1 broke off my engagement to Petrina, there was a business as well as a personal dimension to be considered. The Stephanides holdings were on the brink of merging with her father's companies. When we parted, the merger plans went up in smoke. Since then we've been at war in the market-place.'

Betsy was no longer aping relaxation. Stiff with tension, she had sat up. Cristos was telling her that his decision to marry her rather than Petrina had resulted in serious consequences on the business front and she was appalled.

'Why didn't you tell me?'

'What would have been the point? 1 didn't want you worrying about the situation.'

'That's why you've been working night and day,' Betsy registered with a sinking heart. She was thinking how complex it must have been to pull two such large businesses back from the edge of a merger. By that stage both parties would have been well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the other and the resulting battle for supremacy would have been even tougher.

'So who's winning?' Betsy enquired tautly.

'I was but it was not a fight 1 ever wanted. 1 have a great respect for Petrina's father, Orestes. He is one of my grandfather's oldest friends.'

'Oh, no…is there anything that isn't my fault?' Very pale, Betsy slowly shook her head. She felt so horribly responsible. Nothing but trouble had resulted from her pregnancy. An engagement had been broken and two families and two businesses had been tom apart. Even Patras, it seemed, had suffered as the same divisions affected even his friendship with Orestes Rhodias.

'How is it your fault? None of this is your fault!' Cristos exclaimed with fierce feeling. 'I was engaged and playing away. All the responsibility for every wrong thing that has happened since then is mine!'

The sound of such an admission from Cristos twisted like a knife inside Betsy. He had finally got back to basics and acknowledged his own mistake. But what had brought about that miraculous transformation? His loss of Petrina.

'You must not blame yourself for any of this, yineka mou,' Cristos asserted with raw conviction. 'It's all over now. Yesterday, Orestes Rhodias had what he believed was a heart attack. 1 was on the way to meet you for lunch when I received word that Orestes had been rushed into hospital. Although we had not been on good terms, I still wished to pay my respects. I asked one of my staff to contact you and I'm afraid the wrong restaurant was contacted… '

It felt to Betsy as though a hundred years had passed since she had been stood up on that lunch date. 'It doesn't matter.'

'It matters to me, especially with what happened afterwards,' Cristos revealed tautly, reluctant to be any more specific lest he upset her. 'I should have called you myself. I intended to. I believed I would only be twenty minutes late.'

'So what happened?' She did not wish to talk about anything personal.

'Orestes was told that he was suffering from stress and he was so relieved that his heart was all right that he made peace with me. The battle between us is at an end.' Cristos hesitated. 'Petrina arrived at the hospital not knowing whether her father was alive or dead and she broke down when she discovered that it was a false alarm… '

'And, of course, you knowing each other so well, she just naturally felt on you for support,' Betsy filled in, affecting more interest in her nails than in all the hugging and so forth that had gone on at that hospital the day before.

'I didn't like to reject her in front of the television cameras. She was a bit hysterical,' Cristos proffered. 'There was nothing in it.'

Betsy doubted that Petrina would have looked quite so ecstatic without encouragement. She had seen him on camera too and he had not acted as though he were enduring an attack by a hysterical woman. He had been smiling that very special smile of his, that smile that Betsy had come to think of as being uniquely hers.

'It's important that you believe that there was nothing personal about her getting all touchy-feely. I haven't looked at Petrina since I married you…'

Literally! He had not had the opportunity. She would not let herself look at him. She felt explosive and bitter and terribly sad. He didn't love her and without love she should never have married him. In particular she should have been careful not to marry a guy who had been engaged to someone else. That had been asking for trouble.

'I don't know you when you're quiet like this…' Cristos confided tautly. 'I'm not used to doing all the talking.'

If she talked she was afraid that she would start crying. She loved him so much. Walking away would be the hardest thing she had ever done and yet, now that there was no longer to be a baby, she owed him his freedom back.· He had stood by her just as he'd promised. The costs of doing so, she had just learned, had been even higher than she had realised. Ever since he had married her he had been fighting to keep his business empire afloat. Now thankfully that crisis was over, but it was time for her to move on.

Cristos sank down on the side of her bed and entrapped her restive hands in both of his. Stunning dark golden eyes framed by spiky black lashes assailed hers. 'I want to make everything all right for you again and I can't… I feel helpless,' he confided roughly under his breath.

He seemed so sincere, so caring. She wanted to wrap both arms round him and hug him tight. He was upset about the baby. Was it possible that she had misjudged him? Reacted to an overdose of jealous insecurity?

'I've wrecked so many things in your life,' she muttered shakily.

'That's rubbish.' His hands tightened on hers. 'You haven't wrecked anything.'

Then why did he not mention the possibility of their having another baby? Why the heck could he not offer her the one option that would be a consolation and persuade her that he still saw them as having a marriage that had a future? For goodness' sake, why was she so pathetically weak? All he had to do was be kind and sympathetic and she was willing to keep him tied to her for the rest of his days! Did he deserve that? Did he deserve to have to stay married to a woman he didn't love just because she had fallen inconveniently pregnant? After all, there wasn't going to be a baby now.

Hauling her hands back from his, she flipped away from him, no longer trusting herself that close. 'I need time to think about things-'

'What things?'

'About stuff like how I feel,' she mumbled tearfully. Cristos gathered her closed and crushed her against him.

'You're miserable right now… you shouldn't be thinking about anything!'

She wanted to sneak her arms round him but she wouldn't let herself. He was very good at doing the supportive thing but it wouldn't do to read too much into it. She was in no hurry to remember it but Cristos, she reminded herself, was still the guy who had told her that he wasn't looking for love from her. Pulling herself back together again, she told him she was tired and eventually he took the hint and left. He had only been gone five minutes when the phone by her bed rang.

'This is Petrina Rhodias… may 1 visit you?' Betsy tried and failed to swallow. 'When?'

'Now…' The voice was cold, imperious, feminine. '-' Betsy acceded and wondered whether that had been wise. What could Petrina possibly have to say to her? Was there any point in putting herself through a potentially upsetting meeting? But the truth was that Betsy was curious, very curious about the other woman.

By the time, Petrina entered the room, Betsy was seated in the chair by the bed, clad in a white wrap. Petrina was very much the kind of woman who turned male heads, Betsy noted uneasily. Slim and curvaceous with big blue eyes and a wealth of blonde hair, she was as dainty as an elegant doll.

Petrina studied Betsy with unhidden dislike. 'I won't waste your time or mine. When are you planning to let Cristos have his life back?'

'Meaning?'

'Let him have a divorce.'

'If Cristos wants a divorce he only has to ask,' Betsy countered, tilting up her chin.

'He's not going to request a divorce the instant you lose your baby! Naturally he feels sorry for you.' Betsy lost color and compressed her lips. 'Woman to woman,' Petrina said snidely, 'Don't you think Cristos has paid enough yet for the mistake of getting you pregnant?'

Petrina was not a nice person. Betsy felt oddly relieved by that discovery even as she flinched. She wondered if Cristos had ever seen this nasty side of Petrina and knew he would not like it at all. But maybe he loved Petrina. Lovers did not demand perfection. And Petrina had yet to utter any lies. Cristos did feel sorry for his wife and even if he did want a divorce, she too was pretty sure that he would not ask for one while she was still grieving for the child she had lost. Furthermore, Cristos had suffered for his decision to marry Betsy. He had suffered both in his business and in his personal life and had even endured differences with his grandfather.

'Have you nothing to say.’ Petrina derided, her scorn palpable.

'I just want Cristos to be happy,' Betsy muttered, and she wasn't entirely sure about what she was saying. She believed that she ought to mean every syllable of the sentiment she had uttered. But when it came to picturing Cristos with Petrina, she felt gutted and desperate.

'He will be happy with me. He loves me,' Petrina asserted without hesitation.

'And yet you didn't mind that he wasn't faithful. Betsy pressed half under her breath.

The Greek woman settled scornful eyes on her. 'Why should it bother me when he amuses himself with a little slut like you.’

Betsy walked over to the door to spread it wide. 'I think it's time you clambered back on your broomstick.'

But, although Petrina departed, Betsy's mind had been made up for her. If Cristos loved Petrina, he deserved the freedom to choose to be with the other woman and Betsy ought to remove herself from his

path as tactfully as she could. "-

'I think I should go home for a while,' she informed. Cristos when he came in to visit her that afternoon.

His lean, strong face set in taut lines. 'I don't think

that's a good idea at present. You need to convalesce.' 'I can do that in London. I'd like to see my family.' 'Then we'll go together.'

'I'd prefer to go on my own.'

'We've only been married a few weeks,' Cristos reminded her.

'And a very eventful few weeks they've been,' Betsy pointed out tightly.

Cristos lodged at the window and she watched his lean, powerful hands curl into fists and flex loose again. 'I still believe that we should stay together and work through this. We can go away… anywhere in the world that you like, yineka mou.'

Her throat thickened and she would not allow herself to meet his intent gaze.

'Will you stay at our country house in England?' he asked abruptly.

'OK.'

'If you are there 1 can at least be sure that you're being properly looked after.' Suddenly, Cristos sounded as weary as she felt. 'That matters to me.'

'I know…' Her voice was going all wobbly and gruff.

'If 1 let you go, you have to promise to come back to Greece again.'

Her blood ran cold when she tried to imagine making a final visit to discuss the end of their marriage. 'No problem.'

'I'll give you two weeks-'

'That's not long enough,' she muttered. 'I need a month.'

'A month is a long time,' Cristos gritted.

Yes, long enough for him to tire of the role of being a supportive husband with no wife around. A month in which they could both heal and he could start considering the futility of resurrecting a marriage in which they were already living apart. When she came back

… to Greece it would be to agree to the official separation he was almost certain to request. And she would make it easy for him. She would be bright and breezy and he would never ever guess that her heart was breaking…

'I'll phone you every day,' he murmured flatly. Betsy breathed in slow and deep and suppressed her anguish. 'I think we both need more space than that…1 think it would be better if you didn't call.'