a tornado. Her heart raced and each breath she took became deeper. He was killing her love, shattering any hope she had harboured. Despite the turmoil her mind was in, the irrational sway of emotions, she flung the words he wanted to hear forcefully at him. ‘I’m pregnant, Nikos. I’m pregnant with your child.’
‘Why have you come all this way, Serena? What exactly do you want from me?’
He stepped closer, towering over her, intimidating. She hated the way her breath caught in her throat, hated the way her body longed for his even as his icy words splintered around her.
‘I don’t want anything from you. At least not from Nikos the fisherman—but that isn’t you, is it?’ She lifted her chin, aiming for defiance—which was far from the uncertainty she was fighting so hard to conceal.
His eyes narrowed and he pierced her with a fierce stare. ‘How much?’
Serena’s mind swam with confusion. What was he talking about? ‘How much what?’
She backed away, unable to deal with the close proximity of his body. How had she ever thought coming to the island was a good idea? She’d wanted to tell him face-to-face to convince herself that any hope of more was futile, knowing it would be the only way to prevent that what if feeling.
‘Money.’
He spat the word at her so venomously she stepped back even further, until the backs of her legs met the large rock she’d been sitting on whilst waiting for him. She’d never thought telling him would be easy, but this was totally unexpected. Did he think she was here just for financial gain?
‘I don’t want your money.’ Her head began to swim and giddiness threatened, but she couldn’t stop now. Not until she’d told him everything. ‘All I wanted to do was tell you in person and leave.’
She looked up at him, wishing things were different—that he hadn’t lied, that he hadn’t said the words that still replayed over and over in her mind. ‘You will tell me.’ The insistent way he’d delivered them had left her in no doubt that fathering a child was the last thing he wanted.
She took in a deep and silent breath and thought of her sister, and the heartbreak she and her husband had been through each time IVF had failed. It seemed so unfair to find out that she’d become pregnant so easily when her sister was breaking her heart, wanting a child. It was just too cruel, and it had left her unable to say anything to her family, let alone confide in her sister. The only person she’d told was Nikos. And right now he was making her feel alone and isolated.
Her time with Nikos had been nothing more than a holiday romance—one of many for him, she was sure. But for her it had changed everything—for ever—and he’d just confirmed her worst fear. He was going to turn his back on her and his child.
She briefly closed her eyes against the torrent of emotions that coursed through her. Pain induced by Nikos, infused with the ever-present hurt of knowing she’d been an unexpected addition to her family, forcing her parents to stay together. If only Nikos felt something for her everything might be different, but that was evidently a hopeless dream. She should walk away now—for her baby’s sake, if not hers.
‘You think you can tell me I am about to be a father and then just leave?’
He moved away from her, towards the ebbing tide, and turned to look out at the sea. His broad shoulders were tense, but she was glad she wasn’t under his scrutiny any longer.
I don’t know what to do. The words screamed inside her head as intense pain stabbed at her heart. She pressed the pads of her fingers to her closed eyes. Going down that line of thought now wouldn’t accomplish anything.
Guilt boiled inside her—as if she’d stolen something from her sister. Especially as she knew there wouldn’t be any more IVF for her after the last treatment. Her sister and her husband didn’t have any savings left.
‘How can we raise a child, Nikos?’
Her words were a tremulous whisper as she moved to stand beside him. The rush of the waves suddenly sounded loud on the beach as she looked at his profile. Not for the first time, she wondered who this man was.
Images of the handsome man she’d had an affair with filled her mind as she looked away and out across the sea. The setting sun was almost gone from the sky. But she didn’t see its beauty. All she saw was Nikos, the man she’d given her heart to, believing she loved him and that he might love her. During those long, hot days his dark hair had gleamed beneath the sun and his blue eyes had filled with desire each time they’d met.
He had been everything she’d ever dreamed of and more, sweeping her away so fast she’d given up her teenage dreams of waiting to find her true love before discovering the pleasure of intimacy with a man. She didn’t regret one moment of that decision. She’d loved Nikos—until he’d looked at her with his condemning eyes on that last night.
He didn’t respond and instinctively she reached out to him, touching his arm. As he turned and looked at her she saw his face wore an expression of pain, and she had the unexpected urge to throw herself into his arms, to be held tight and told everything was going to be okay. Because deep down it was what she wanted—what she needed. To be loved by only this man. But the man she loved didn’t exist.
Instead she stood as tall and proud as possible, finding strength she hadn’t realised she had left. ‘We can’t, Nikos. Not together.’
* * *
‘What are you saying, Serena?’ Nikos all but stumbled over his words as the implications of what she’d said almost silenced him. The reality of the situation had hit him hard, taking away the ability to speak.
Memories of the day his mother had left and questions from his past rushed forward. He tried hard to prevent them from colliding with the present, but he couldn’t shake them off. His father had cursed her, saying he should never have married an English girl, and Nikos had stood alone, ignored and forgotten by each of them. Then his mother had left, her cruel parting words ringing in his ears.
If his father had still been alive he could have found out more about the mother he barely remembered. As a teenager he’d been angry when he’d learnt that her career had been more important than her marriage and her young son. So when she’d made contact on his sixteenth birthday, saying she’d never meant to hurt him, he’d blocked her from his life. He didn’t want to open that door again.
He clenched his hands into tight fists. Fury carried through the years raged inside him, but he pushed it back. He had to keep calm.
That letter from his mother had made him vow never to marry. He had no intention of making the same mistake as his parents. But that vow also denied him the possibility of being a father.
Something shifted inside him. Serena was carrying his child. He took in a deep, steadying breath. He was going to be a father. Fate had altered his life decision and no matter what Serena did or said he would be a father to his child in every way. His past would not write his child’s future. His child would not experience the heartache he’d known and he’d do everything in his power to achieve that.
‘Neither of us can give this child what it needs.’
Her voice was soft, with a definite and unyielding firmness. He looked down at her, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t comprehend the cool and composed words that had slipped easily from her mouth. She was writing off her child as easily as his mother had done.
An icy-cold chill slipped down his spine and the image of the woman before him combined with that of the fair-haired woman in the tatty photograph he’d kept hidden away since he’d been given it by his grandmother. It was his mother—but as far as he was concerned it was just the woman who’d given birth to him. He’d locked it away, out of sight and out of mind, hating her too much to acknowledge her as his mother.
Serena blinked rapidly and he thought he saw a glimmer of moisture, the smallest hint of tears. He narrowed his eyes, assessing