Betsy found herself strangely touched by that uncharacteristically frank admission but it did not silence her. ‘No, you just ran—’
Nik’s green eyes flared with macho male defensiveness. ‘I did not run—’
‘Take it from me...you ran as if I was a one-night stand you regretted. Only a week ago you were divorcing me. How can you go from that level to suddenly saying you want to be married to me again?’ she prompted shakily.
Nik paced restively in front of the fire because he hadn’t expected so many questions or the barrier of resistance she was engaged in raising between them. But she wasn’t screaming at him, which he deemed a plus and an improvement. ‘You have to start somewhere—’
‘But all that’s changed is that I’m pregnant,’ Betsy reminded him, trying not to listen to the opening and closing of doors in the hall and the sound of voices and noise that accompanied Nik’s possessions returning to what had once been the home they shared. She was traumatised and trying not to show it. Not for the first time, Nik’s conduct had stunned her into silence. He had stopped the divorce, returned to her... But why? She didn’t understand. ‘I can’t believe that you care that much about a baby you never wanted—’
Nik tensed. ‘Believe,’ he urged. ‘I also care about you and I want to be here for both you and the baby now and in the future.’
‘It’s an amazing turnaround,’ Betsy told him numbly. ‘I don’t know how I feel about it.’
Nik hunkered down athletically again at her feet and reached for both her hands in an unusual demonstration for a male who was normally very reserved. ‘Be pleased. I want to come home, glikia mou. I suppose I’m asking you for a second chance...’
It was so humble, so unlike the proud, fiercely independent male she knew that tears stung the backs of Betsy’s clear eyes. She stared at him, her gaze locked to the sleek, dark, fallen-angel beauty of his lean, taut face and she could literally sense how keyed up he was waiting for her to agree. It meant a great deal to him; she could feel that. And she thought that only a male of Nik Christakis’s complexity could think it was normal to move back in with the wife he was divorcing without even talking the idea over with her in advance. There had always been something about his sheer lack of emotional intelligence that pierced her heart deep as an arrow. He was so clever but so out of touch with ordinary things that she took for granted and she had always recognised that eccentric quality in him, right from the night of his equally startling wedding proposal, which had also come out of nowhere at her.
‘I’m not sure I could trust you again,’ she told him honestly. ‘So much has happened...and the other women—’
‘I haven’t slept with anyone but you.’
Betsy was astonished until she recalled him falling on her like a hungry wolf and it was that recollection that convinced her that he was telling the truth. ‘Even so, you’ve been photographed out and about with a lot of other women—’
‘But I’ve only been with you,’ Nik declared afresh. ‘I only want to be with you.’
Betsy lifted uncertain fingers and traced his darkly shadowed jawline, fingertips brushing the stubble already formed there. She wondered what she was doing. But she was realising that her supposed hatred of Nik had only provided a useful bolster to her pride and her survival, and that when she went looking for its strength to stiffen her spine with resistance, it was mysteriously absent. She didn’t hate him; she wanted him back. Did that make her the biggest female fool in the Western world? Was she crazy to even consider reconciling with a guy who arrived with a removals van as if eight months of separation and all the bitter turns and twists of the divorce proceedings had never happened?
‘But you never wanted a baby,’ she heard herself remind him hoarsely.
‘A child is a big responsibility,’ Nik said seriously, evidently indifferent to the reality that he already had responsibility for a vast business empire and thousands and thousands of employees round the world. ‘And children are very vulnerable. That was why I never wanted the responsibility of protecting one.’
Betsy didn’t follow his reasoning. He seemed to be thinking of some kind of doomsday scenario in which a child could get hurt, but she could see that he was deadly serious and for that reason she nodded as if she totally understood what he was saying. ‘And that’s why you had the vasectomy?’ she prompted.
Nik nodded in silence, having given the explanation that he had already worked out beforehand. He wished he could have come up with those words eight months earlier when it might have saved them both a lot of grief. But at the time, in shock at her discovery that he had had a vasectomy, he had thought he could only tell her the truth and that was an option he could not even contemplate, would never contemplate.
Betsy searched his lean dark face, noticed the shadows below his eyes, the indented lines of extreme tension bracketing his mouth, and tried to think straight. But with no warning whatsoever, emotional overload and exhaustion were together hitting her like a freight train hurtling downhill. ‘I can’t give you an answer right now,’ she told him shakily. ‘I need to think about it and I think I need to lie down for a while...’
Rigid with dissatisfaction at that response, Nik backed away as Betsy levered herself upright and then, without a jot of warning, her eyes rolled up in her head and she just dropped where she stood without a sound. Betsy had fainted. There was something seriously wrong with her. Nik, usually ice cool in a crisis, experienced an intense wave of panic as he scooped her up and strode out to the hall again, where their housekeeper, Edna, was supervising the removal team.
‘Oh, dear, has Mrs Christakis fainted again?’ Edna prompted in a mild tone of acceptance as she moved towards him.
‘Again? You mean this has happened before?’ Nik pressed in consternation.
‘Some women are prone to it in early pregnancy,’ the older woman told him calmly. ‘We all watch out for her as best we can.’
Nik pictured Betsy fainting as she crossed a road and falling beneath the wheels of a car. He saw her tumbling downstairs and breaking her neck. Even when he envisaged her falling and simply bruising herself he felt sick, and determined that it wasn’t going to happen any more. Having a baby could kill her, he reflected in horror. He couldn’t have her fainting all over the place; it was too dangerous, too risky. He needed proper medical advice and somewhere to keep her safe.
Betsy drifted back to consciousness to find that she was lying across Nik’s lap in the back of a limousine. ‘Where on earth are we going?’ she whispered, her fingers fluttering up to brush her clammy brow. ‘I did it again, didn’t I? Sometimes if I stand up too fast I pass out. Sorry if I gave you a fright. I’m just so tired—’
‘I’m taking you to see a doctor—’
‘That’s not necessary—’
‘When you’re ill I decide what’s necessary.’
‘But I’m not ill. I’m only pregnant,’ Betsy countered gently, recognising his concern and his stress level. Nik did not like the unexpected. In the same way she knew that every piece of furniture he had taken with him would be returned to pretty much the same position it had occupied eight months earlier. He had a thing about familiar order and structure, which had once thoroughly irritated her because she liked to move stuff around and try it in different places. But then everyone had their little quirks and preferences, she conceded ruefully.
‘I think you need to rest,’ Nik spelt out.
Her nose was almost buried in his shirtfront and the musky, sexy scent of his skin was so familiar it made her eyes prickle with tears. Her fingers clenched round the front edge of his jacket and she lowered her lids. She loved him but that didn’t mean she could live with him again or raise their child with him. It would mean a return to being a business widow because he would always be travelling, unavailable when she needed and wanted him. It would be lonely and thankless because he wouldn’t appreciate how