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‘That brunette?’ Cleo was horrified because the woman had possibly been the most stunning woman Cleo had ever seen, with a mass of tumbling silky black hair, cut-glass cheekbones, huge sultry brown eyes and a slender figure straight out of a fashion magazine adorned with legs as long as rail tracks.
‘Yes,’ Ari confirmed. ‘If her claim is true, I will have to make amends for having asked her to leave my office. I cannot risk being on poor terms with her now.’
‘No...of course not,’ Cleo muttered sickly, sick to the stomach at the prospect of his having an ongoing relationship with the woman and merely reaching a new high of misery at his explanation.
‘It was only one night—’ Ari gritted with startling abruptness.
Cleo jerked up a hand to silence any such recollections and directed a blazing glance of reproach at him. ‘No, no details,please!’ she slung back at him in condemnation.
‘You are not handling this in an adult way,’ Ari rebuked her.
‘I wonder how adult you would feel were I to tell you that I was pregnant by another man a few weeks after we had married. That is thenearestapproximation I can make to your current position,’ Cleo framed bitterly.
‘In no way would that be the same, but I would accept it because you are my wife. Such things happen, Cleo, whether we want them to or not. Sometimes, nature or fate is in control, not us. Anyone who has sex must recognise such contingencies,’ he bit out in a savage undertone.
Contingencies—the same word the lawyer had used at one point, Cleo dimly recalled, nicely sidestepping all more personal and intimate references to the child that was to be born. She recognised that Ari was now furious with her, as though she were the one who had brought this nightmare down on them, and that infuriated her. But it also scared her because she knew she loved him, and she didn’t want this child to fatally damage their relationship. He expected her to stand by him and shewouldstand by him because she loved him...but that didn’t mean she had tolikeit.
Still in a state of passionately rejecting their plight, Cleo resolved to go home for a visit. A trip to Scotland made sense, she reasoned. Her mother would talk sense to her and calm her down, drag her out of the turbulent feelings and urges that she could not afford to direct at Ari.
She needed time away from him to deal with the situation and come to terms with their altered future.Stand up and grow up, she told herself irritably, thoroughly ashamed of the emotions she was drowning in. She was so jealous, so bitter at the concept of another woman carrying Ari’s child, particularly a woman as very beautiful as Galina was. No normal woman, she consoled herself, would want a Galina on the sidelines of their life, particularly not as the mother of an all-important eldest child.
Ari would be in regular contact with Galina from now on. He would be looking after the mother of his child, being supportive...and how could she fault him for that? Wasn’t that what a decent man was supposed to do? Step up and accept full responsibility? Do whatever was in his power to support the expectant mother?
Gripped by yet another wave of anguish, Cleo fled upstairs to their bedroom to pack an overnight bag. She didn’t pack anything more than jeans and tops. She wanted to be anonymous.
Ari filled the doorway. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he gritted incredulously.
‘I’m going to visit Mum...only for a few days,’ Cleo responded stiffly. ‘I think it would be the best thing for us both to have some space from each other for alittlewhile.’
‘The first bump on the road that we hit, you abandon ship and run!’ Ari slashed back at her furiously.
He was losing his English. He would never have mixed up clichés like that in a normal mood. His beautiful eyes were scorching gold with anger and her tummy flipped and the breath shortened in her throat, making her chest feel tight. ‘It’s not like that,’ she argued vehemently. ‘I have to have some time alone, but I’m coming back.’
‘Bully for you!’ Ari bit out angrily. ‘That makes me feel a whole lot better!’
‘I’ll get the train—’
‘No, you won’t. You’ll fly there,’ Ari countered squarely. ‘As my wife, you have security needs. When are you planning to return?’
‘Just the rest of this week...back Sunday,’ Cleo promised, thinking fast because they had a visit scheduled with Lucy only a day later.
Ari dealt her an angry fulminating appraisal. ‘I don’t agree with this tack. Walking away doesn’t deal with this... It’srunningaway,’ he condemned.
‘No, it’s not,’ Cleo protested, turning away from the disturbing image of him in the doorway, all lean and dark and beautiful and absolutely everything that she loved. Tears prickled her eyes in a stinging lash. She didn’t want to go, but she didn’t want to stay either and say the wrong things, and she was terribly afraid that, in the resentful frame of mind she was in, she would totally say thewrongthings to him. And he definitely did not deserve that, she reckoned wretchedly.
Nothing more was said. Cleo went to the airport, climbed on board the jet for the short flight and worked at drying the tears trickling down her face. She felt betrayed...but was thathisfault? Or the fault of her ingrained habit of distrusting men? She supposed it had begun when her mother first poisoned her view of her father and had settled in hard after her infatuation with Dominic had been destroyed by his seeming lies. But then Ari had come along, and Ari was very honest and just about perfect, she reflected miserably. He hadn’t pretended that he had fallen miraculously in love with her. He had asked her to marry him for Lucy’s benefit. That was a praiseworthy act for his niece’s welfare, but it was also an act and a level of honesty that increasingly cut Cleo to the quick. Loving Ari had made her more sensitive.
How did one trust a man with a woman like Galina when he didn’t love his wife? Galina was ten times more beautiful and sexier than Cleo would ever be, and once she had Ari’s child, she would have magnetic appeal for him. Cleo knew that. Ari set a deep value on blood ties and he would be very keen to spend time with his child. Only witness what he was willing to do for his half-brother’s daughter! What might he wish to do for hisownchild with Galina? Wasn’t there a very strong chance that what had initially attracted him to Galina would revive once he saw her with his child? And wouldn’t it make sense that he could want to eventually marry Galina for the sake of his own flesh and blood?
And where would Cleo be then? Hispracticalchoice? Not the woman he loved, who could at least have felt secure in that love at such a testing time. Cleo didn’t have that stability, that sense of safety, to ground her in their relationship. As a result, that first bump in the road that he had mentioned had been a complete car crash for her...
‘Cleo...nothing’s perfect.’ Lisa Brown sighed at the kitchen island of the house attached to the pub that she and Cleo’s stepfather ran. ‘Not life, not people, not marriage. You can’t blame Ari because he burst your fantasy bubble... He’s right. These things do happen, whether we want them to or not. I thought you loved him—’
‘I do!’ Cleo proclaimed uncomfortably.
‘Then why are you here with me?’ the older woman prompted gently. ‘He must be upset about this as well and you have to sort this out with him. Can you live with this child being a part of your life as well? It’s that basic.’
‘Maybe the DNA test will reveal that it isn’t his kid,’ Cleo opined, looking hopeful.
