If you’re that keen, you’ll find me at the gym tomorrow morning at seven.’ He finished the call without another word and left her staring into space.
How was she supposed to tell a guy that cold and unfriendly that she was carrying his child? He was not going to be happy about that. Even when they had still been together, Andreas would not have been happy about that. How much worse would it be to break such shattering news now that they were apart? It had been a long time since they had broken up as well. What male was likely to be even remotely prepared for such an announcement weeks and weeks after the relationship had ended? How could he be so cruel as to demand that she come to the gym where he trained at practically the crack of dawn? He knew the one thing she had always hated was getting out of bed early.
Andreas enjoyed extensive private facilities at an exclusive sports club and visited it several times a week. He had a fitness room at his town house but rarely managed to use it. He had once explained that the club offered him the advantage of sparring with an instructor and training without distractions.
As Hope walked past the limousine in the car park his chauffeur acknowledged her with a polite inclination of his head. What did it matter where she was when she made her announcement? she was asking herself ruefully. His office would not have been any more suitable and she would not have felt comfortable at the town house, which he had never invited her to visit even when they had been together. Furthermore, it was foolish to suspect that some slight was inherent in his suggestion that she meet him at his club. After all, Andreas had very little free time and she had to accept the reality that she no longer enjoyed special status in his life.
The weathered older man presiding over Reception asked to see proof of her identity and then told her where to find Andreas. Smoothing damp palms down over the long black wool coat she wore, Hope pushed back the swing door on the gym.
Clad in black boxing shorts and a black vest, Andreas was pounding a speedball with so much energy that he remained unaware of her entrance. She had always been madly curious about exactly what he did at the sports club. Now she remembered him telling her that he had boxed at university. Her attention clung to him. He looked drop-dead gorgeous, she thought helplessly. Every lean, muscular and bronzed line of his long, powerful physique emanated virile masculine strength. She missed looking at him, being with him, touching him, talking to him. She even missed the pleasure of being able to think about him without feeling guilty.
‘Andreas…’ she croaked.
Although she would have sworn he could not have heard her above the racket of the speedball, his hands dropped down to his sides immediately and he swung round as though his every sense had been primed for her arrival. Veiled dark deep-set eyes with the brilliance of black granite inspected her from below inky, spiky lashes.
It was a bad moment for Andreas. He had picked the club with care. He had thought it an inspired choice of venue where Hope was unlikely to linger or stage an emotional scene. But there she was, garbed in a big black coat and reminding him very much of how she had looked in his overcoat in the barn when they had first met: all silky soft blonde hair and huge bright eyes above that ripe pink unbelievably kissable mouth. That was Ben Campbell’s territory now, came the thought, and he went rigid. He hung onto that alienating awareness and welcomed the return of the cold, bitter aggression that slaughtered at source any suggestion of sexual desire.
‘So…’ Andreas murmured, secure again in his emotion-free zone and cold as a polar winter. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Well, it’s not something you can help me with exactly,’ Hope declared in an odd little breathless voice that made her want to wince for herself. Without warning the entire opening speech she had planned to make had vanished from her memory. Her brain now seemed to have all the speed and creative enterprise of a tortoise trapped upside down.
Andreas discovered that like a schoolboy he was picturing her naked below the coat. Angry colour outlined his proud cheekbones and his beautiful mouth curled. He was well rid of her, he decided furiously. He loathed the effect she had on him. ‘I haven’t got much time here,’ he reminded her flatly. ‘But maybe you just came here to look at me.’
‘No, I came here to tell you something that I find very difficult to say,’ Hope advanced jerkily.
‘At this hour of the day I’m not in the mood for a guessing game!’ Andreas derided and he stripped off the fingerless mitts and flexed long, lean brown fingers.
Hope tried a limp smile. ‘Actually I do wish you would guess but it’s not the sort of thing you’re likely to think of on your own. Although you always look on the dark side of things, so I suppose that ought to provide some guidance.’
Exasperated golden eyes lodged to her anxious face, Andreas murmured dryly, ‘What’s the matter with you? You never used to have a problem getting to the point.’
‘That was back when you looked at me as if I was still a human being instead of a waste of space!’ Hope dared, appalled to find that without even the tiniest warning her eyes were suddenly ready to overflow with tears.
Andreas was in the act of pulling on boxing gloves but he stilled and shot a stern look of gleaming golden enquiry at her. His stomach had performed a back flip and he had broken out in a sweat. ‘Are you ill? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’
‘No…not, not at all,’ she asserted, taken aback by that dramatic flight of fancy on his part.
Relief washing over him, Andreas dragged in a long, deep breath to refresh his lungs. He strode towards the leather punchbag. ‘Then talk before I run out of patience,’ he urged.
‘I’m pregnant.’
Andreas froze two feet away from the punchbag. Stunned by her declaration, he did not turn his arrogant dark head. ‘If that’s a joke, it’s in bad taste and I’m not laughing.’
‘I wouldn’t joke about something like that.’
Andreas discovered that he could not make himself look at her again. He believed he already saw the whole scenario and what he assumed could only leave a very nasty taste in his mouth. Bitter anger slashed through his wall of determined indifference and reserve. Hope had fallen for Campbell. He had come to terms with that. But that Campbell should have stolen her and used her and ditched her again when she proved to be inconveniently fertile enraged Andreas. He did not trust himself to speak. If he spoke he knew he would make comments that she would consider cruel and wounding and that those words would ultimately prove to be of no profit or consolation to either of them.
How the hell could she have been so stupid? Hadn’t she learned anything while she was with him? Of course, she had been able to trust him to look after her, Andreas reflected grimly. She had not had to look out for herself. That was just as well because, in his considered opinion, when shorn of his protective care she had all the survival power of a goldfish swimming with piranhas. She gave her trust indiscriminately. But Campbell had been a very poor bet. He was a spoilt and immature playboy with too much money and no sense of responsibility.
Was it so surprising that Hope should have come back to him for support? What did she want from him? Or expect? Advice? It would be very biased. Money? Suddenly, Andreas was grateful that she was fully covered by her coat. He did not wish to see the physical evidence of her pregnancy. Theos…she had another man’s baby inside her womb! The very concept of that filled him with antipathy and another even more powerful reaction that he flatly refused to acknowledge. Out of disgust and denial rose rage and frustration. An image of Campbell and his pretty-boy looks before him, Andreas pounded the leather punchbag with fists that had the impact of blows from a sledgehammer.
Paralysed to the spot ten feet away, Hope surveyed Andreas with a sinking heart. He was furious and fighting it to stay in control. He was saying nothing because he was too clever to risk saying the wrong thing. She watched him fall back from the punchbag and pull off and discard the boxing gloves. Raking blunt fingers through his short damp black hair, he swore half under his breath and peeled off his sports vest to let the air cool his overheated skin.
‘I need a shower,’ he breathed grittily.