The Sabbides Secret Baby

Jed looked at Phoebe’s downbent head saw the utter devastation she could not hide. The shock and anger that had overtaken him subsided a little. If she was pregnant of course he would take care of her. But first he needed Dr Marcus to confirm the pregnancy and, given he had been away for weeks at a time throughout their affair, he needed to be certain the child was his before he could even consider marrying her—though no child of his was going to be born out of wedlock. Lock being the operative word, he thought cynically…Marriage meant the end of his bachelor days.

He could not deal with Phoebe now. He needed time to think, and he had a breakfast meeting in an hour.

He walked around to where she sat, and laid a hand on her shoulder. He felt her jerk away from him, which angered him again.

‘I have not time for this now,’ he said curtly. ‘I have meetings lined up all day that I can’t miss, and I have to be in Greece by tomorrow evening for my father’s birthday party.’

More important to Jed was the fact his father was retiring. The lawyers had been summoned, and tomorrow night he would be officially installed as the head of the Sabbides Corporation—the firm he had been running unofficially along with his own for the past few years. Not that Phoebe needed to know. His business had nothing to do with her.

‘But don’t worry—I will speak to Marcus before I go. He is an excellent doctor, and discreet. He will take care of your pregnancy, and I will pay for everything, I can assure you.’

She slowly lifted her head and stared at him for a long moment. She wasn’t crying and her usually brilliant blue eyes were oddly blank.

‘I’m not worried—and I’m sure he will,’ she said quietly, and glanced back down at her clasped hands.

‘Good.’ Jed hesitated. He had never seen Phoebe look so subdued. Maybe he should say something. But he didn’t do emotions, and he was still in shock, so he said, ‘I need a shower,’ and strode into the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, after a cool shower, he’d had time to think. Maybe he had been a bit harsh on Phoebe. Either by accident or design it didn’t really matter—she was still a pregnant woman. He dressed swiftly and went looking for her. He found her sitting in the kitchen, with a cup of tea in one hand and stroking the cat curled up on her lap with the other. She loved the damn cat, which barely tolerated him, and for some reason that angered him further.

‘I must leave now. I’ll see you tonight and we can discuss the necessary arrangements.’ Obviously he would set her up with an allowance straight away. As for the rest—once paternity was proved, everything could be organised.

Phoebe put the cup down on the table and glanced at Jed. He was immaculately dressed in a charcoal-grey suit, perfectly tailored to fit his broad-shouldered, long and lean frame, and a white shirt and silk tie. How had she ever imagined he was her boyfriend? she thought, appalled at her own naivety. He’d reached thirty last month, and she had splashed out and bought him a nineteenth-century solid gold seal in the shape of a heart. She had spotted it in an antiques shop, and thought he would see the symbolism in her gift—that she was giving him her heart. How dumb was that? He had never looked past her body, and now he had decided it—she—had betrayed him. He was every inch the successful tycoon, and she had been living in cloud cuckoo land to believe otherwise.

She nodded her head, incapable of speaking to the ruthless, arrogant pig…He had ripped her heart to shreds with his brutally cynical reaction to her pregnancy, cold-bloodedly accusing her of being the worst kind of gold-digger, plotting and planning to get pregnant and get his money. That Jed—the man she loved—could actually think so badly of her told her he had never really known her at all. While she’d thought she had touched his heart, all she had ever been to him was a willing female in his bed. His mistress…

When he had casually told her his good friend the doctor would discreetly ‘take care’ of her pregnancy—as though her unborn child was less than nothing, a blip to be dispensed with in the smooth running of his life—she’d known it was over. Utterly finished.

Jed didn’t want a baby. It was not on his agenda…What kind of cold-hearted man was he that he could even equate a baby with a business agenda? But then business was his life and everything else was peripheral, she realised. A termination was what he was offering her—not the love and the support she had so stupidly expected. His solution was to pay his doctor friend to make the baby go away. Work, money, and the power that went with it were his obsession, and she had been the biggest idiot in the world to think anything different.

Phoebe heard the door shut. Getting to her feet, she walked into the bedroom and fell flat on the bed. With her head buried in the pillow she finally let the tears fall. She cried with pain and grief for a love that never was, and the loss of her innocent illusions, and finally cried herself into a sleep of physical and mental exhaustion.

Phoebe awoke with a start and for a moment was completely disorientated. She glanced at the bedside clock. Three in the afternoon? What was she doing in bed? Then it all came flooding back…

Weakly she lay on the bed, going over and over again in her head every minute since Jed had arrived last night…the passionate lovemaking she had thought confirmed he loved her…Now she realised that to a sophisticated, highly-sexed man like Jed all she had ever been to him was little better than a sex slave, willing to do whatever he asked of her. The past year filtered slowly though her mind, and she was haunted by her own stupidity. All the gifts he had given her were nothing more than payment for services rendered in Jed’s mind.

This morning, when she told him she was pregnant, the real Jed Sabbides—the poker-faced ruthless tycoon—had been revealed to her, and Phoebe shuddered in despair.

Jed’s brutal reaction to her pregnancy appalled her all over again, and suddenly his parting words that he would discuss the necessary arrangements with her tonight replayed in her mind. She panicked.

She did not dare stay. Jed was a powerful personality, and deep down she did not trust herself to defy his obvious intention that she have a termination—because, heaven help her, she could not easily dismiss the love she felt for him, even knowing he was a complete bastard…

She had to leave Jed and the apartment—she had to pack. That was the only thought in her head as she leapt off the bed, heading for the chest of drawers and stumbling over the cat…

Jed Sabbides signed off on his conference call to the other side of the Atlantic. The two o’clock meeting he should have had in New York had been a success—another great financial deal brokered. It was seven-thirty in the evening, and he was finished work for the day. He ran a distracted hand through his thick black hair. He had with difficulty blocked all thought of Phoebe and her astounding news from his mind while working, but now he had no excuse.

He looked up as the door opened and Christina, his PA, walked in. ‘Do you need me for anything else?’

‘No,’ he replied shortly. ‘Go now.’

‘You look tired, Jed. Let me get you a glass of whisky, and I’ll give you a neck massage, if you like—it will help you relax.’

‘The whisky, yes—the massage, no.’ He looked at his PA, surprised she had suggested a massage. He must look worse than he felt, because it wasn’t like her at all. Christina was dark-haired, not unattractive, and super-efficient. He was lucky to have her. There was no fear of Christina getting pregnant by mistake…she never made mistakes. But had Phoebe? he pondered. She was a lot younger, and he was her first lover. Maybe her pregnancy was a genuine accident.

‘Here is your drink.’ Christina placed the glass on his desk, with the bottle beside it, and moved to stand behind him. ‘Are you sure I can’t ease these tense muscles?’ And suddenly her hands were on his neck.

‘No.’ He shrugged his shoulders, dislodging her hands. ‘You leave, Christina, I am fine.’

‘Okay.’ She straightened, but not before—to his surprise—she bent her head to murmur against his ear. ‘Don’t forget we are flying to Greece tomorrow. Try to rest.’

Simple concern, he thought as the door shut behind her, and it reminded him how little concern he had shown for Phoebe’s feelings this morning.

He picked up the glass of whisky and took a healthy swallow. He felt the warmth of the spirit flow down his throat. When had he become such a hard-nosed, cynical devil? he asked himself.

The shock he had felt at learning Phoebe was pregnant and he was about to become a father had worn off, and he was able to think clearly. He had never wanted to marry, but if he was honest he knew at some point in the future he would like a child—an heir to his fortune. He had had a happy childhood, with loving parents and his sister. The strain between him and his father had grown not just over business but over his multiple marriages following the death of Jed’s American mother when he was seventeen. The most recent—number three since his mother—was thirty-five years his father’s junior, and made a play for Jed whenever he went home.

Jed drained the glass of whisky and refilled it from the bottle, and took a swallow. He didn’t trust women, with the exception of his mother and sister, and had never considered marriage. But he knew there was no way he would allow any child of his to be born illegitimate.

Phoebe—the beautiful, sexy Phoebe…Would it be such a hardship being married to her? he asked himself. He was her first lover, and the thought of her with any other man was not one he liked to contemplate. He took another sip of whisky.

Personally, he didn’t believe in love—but he was Greek, and he did believe in the continuation of the family name. If he had to take a wife Phoebe was a good candidate. There was no denying the chemistry between them was fantastic—he had never had such great sex in his life—and he certainly wasn’t keen to give her up. They had been together for over a year, which boded well for the future, and now she was pregnant with his child.

Jed drained his glass, picked up the phone and ordered the limousine he used when he did not want to drive. He got to his feet, his decision made. He would marry her. Surprisingly, he did not feel as trapped as he had first thought.

He glanced at his watch. Eight in the evening. He flicked on his cellphone to call Marcus and arranged to meet him for dinner. He was the one person he could discuss the situation with honestly, and he trusted him. What Jed knew about pregnancy could be written on a pinhead, and though deep down he didn’t believe Phoebe had been unfaithful to him it made sense to check with Marcus when it would be possible to ascertain the fatherhood of a baby. It would do no harm for Phoebe to wait awhile for the wedding.

Leaving the room, he locked the door and took the lift to the ground floor. He said goodnight to the doorman and left the building feeling good.

He would tell Phoebe what he had decided, he thought magnanimously, and he could imagine the look of delight in her expressive blue eyes when she realised he was prepared to make an honest woman of her.

His arrogant confidence lasted over a leisurely meal with Marcus, during which he sought his friend’s advice on Phoebe’s pregnancy and told him his intention to marry her.

When they left the restaurant he told the driver to drop Marcus off first. But his confidence took a hell of a knock when he finally got to her apartment—to find it empty except for the cat and an official-looking note on the hall table.

Phoebe lay flat on her back on the anonymous hospital bed, and stared sightlessly up at the white ceiling. She had cried for hours until she could cry no more, and now all she felt was numb and empty inside. She was oblivious to the noise and bustle which was typical of a Friday night in this London hospital, according to the elderly Dr Norman, the doctor who had treated her. Which London hospital she had no idea, and didn’t care…

All she could hear was the doctor’s voice as he told her she had lost her baby, but not to worry, apparently thousands of women miscarried in the first trimester—it was nature’s way of dealing with a probably unviable pregnancy. But she was young, fit and could have more babies—no problem.

She knew he had been trying to be kind, trying to reassure her, but nothing and no one could ever do that. She put her hand on her flat stomach. She had only known definitely that she was pregnant for ten days, but the instant love and the need to protect her precious baby had been all-consuming.

Well, no more. Her baby was gone, and with the baby had gone her trusting foolish heart. Her life had changed irrevocably, because whatever happened in the future never as long as she lived would she ever forget the horror, the pain and the despair of this day.

The doctor had told her he would keep her in overnight and make an appointment for her to come back next week to have a D&C—dilation and curettage. Or as he’d explained, in layman’s terms have her womb scraped. And then he’d told her to try and rest.

‘Phoebe.’

She recognised Jed’s voice and slowly turned her head. He was standing in the doorway, his immaculate suit not quite so immaculate, his jacket hanging open, with a look of shock and disgust in his dark eyes as he stared at her. She wasn’t surprised. She wondered why she had never noticed until today how cold and ruthless he could be.

‘I spoke to the doctor on my way in. He told me what happened. I am so sorry, Phoebe. But trust me you are going to be fine—I will make sure of it,’ he said adamantly, casting a derisory glance around the room.