A Ring For The Greek's Baby

‘I know, but condoms sometimes fail, and this time one must have—’

‘Aren’t you on the pill?’ His brows were so tightly drawn above his eyes it gave him an intimidating air.

‘I—I was taking a break from it.’ Emily could feel tears welling up. The concentrated smell of her spilt perfume was making her feel queasy. Her fingertips were fizzing as if her blood were being filtered through coarse sand. The tingling sensation spread to her arms, travelling all the way up to her neck, making it hard to keep her head steady. The room began to spin, the floor to shift beneath her feet as though she were standing on a pitching boat deck. She reached blindly for the edge of the bathroom counter but it was like a ghost hand reaching through fog. Every one of her limbs folded as if she were a marionette with severed strings. She heard Loukas call out her name through a vacuum and then everything faded to black...

* * *

‘Emily!’ Loukas dropped to his knees in front of her slumped form, his heart banging against his chest wall like a bell struck by a madman. Her face was as white as the basin above her collapsed form, her skin clammy. He brushed the sticky hair back from her forehead, his mind still whirling with the news of her pregnancy.

Pregnant.

The word struck another hammer-like blow to his chest. A baby. His baby. How had it happened? He was always so careful. Paranoid careful. He never had sex without a condom. He never took risks. Never. How could he have got her pregnant? It had been a bit low of him to suggest it wasn’t his, but panic had blunted his sensitivity.

A father?

Him?

Why hadn’t he asked her about contraception? If he’d known she wasn’t on the pill, or using a hormone implant device, he would have taken extra caution. He couldn’t be a father. He didn’t want to be a father. He had never planned to be a father. Panic drummed through him like wildebeests in stampede. He tried to picture himself with a baby and his mind went blank, his chest seizing with dread, vice-like. His intestines knotted as though they were being sectioned by twine.

No. Not him. Not now. Not ever.

He looked at Emily’s slumped form and another dagger of guilt jabbed him. Hard. He had done this, upsetting her to the point of collapse. She had been trying to tell him something but he’d been so intent on squaring up their fling he hadn’t given her a chance. No wonder she had acted so nervous and on edge.

She was pregnant.

With his baby.

What was he going to do? What was the right thing to do? Hands-off provision for his child seemed a little tacky somehow. There was no way he could walk away from this. He would have to be involved with his child as he wished his father had been for him. He would have to be responsible for the child. To provide for and protect it. The thought of protecting a child was enough to make Loukas break out in another prickly sweat.

How could he keep a child safe?

He had got Emily pregnant. Some would call it an accident, a freakish trick of fate, or destiny or whatever, but he blamed himself. He had slipped up. He had done what he had sworn he would never do.

He was to become a father, unless she chose to get rid of it.

He allowed the thought some traction, but as escape hatches went it wasn’t one he felt comfortable with. It would be Emily’s decision, certainly, but he hoped she wouldn’t feel pressured into it because of their circumstances. He would have to make it clear he was okay with her keeping it. More than okay, even if he harboured more doubts than a sceptics’ conference. Not doubts about keeping the baby—doubts about himself as a father.

His own father had insisted a recent partner have an abortion after she’d fallen pregnant, and when she’d refused he’d summarily dumped her. The young woman had subsequently attempted suicide and lost the baby as a result. She had recently been paid a large sum of money by a gossip magazine for a tell-all interview about how Loukas’s father had caused her so much distress. The interview, by association, had put the spotlight on Loukas and the way he conducted his relationships, especially now he was attracting more media attention than ever before.

But there was no way he would ever put that sort of pressure on any woman. Emily’s pregnancy was a shock, a surprise and an inconvenience, but there was a tiny human life in the making, and he would not do or say anything to compromise that development, nor the mental health of its mother.

He was angry with himself for putting Emily in this situation. Furious. Ashamed. Deeply, thoroughly ashamed that he had acted on impulse and slept with her when normally he would have steered clear of an unworldly woman like her. He’d been the one to make the first move. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her, much less his hands. He had foolishly thought he could have a one-night stand and walk away. He should have walked away from her at her bedroom door at Draco’s villa—that was what he should have done.

What had he been thinking, sleeping with a cute little homespun girl like her? She wasn’t his type and he certainly wasn’t hers. He wasn’t a rake, but he was no altar boy either. It had been a night of out-of-character madness and now it had come to this. A life had been created that would link them together for ever.

How could he walk away from this? This was his doing and he would have to face it even though it was like facing his worst nightmare. Panic wrapped steel cords around his chest, squeezing the very breath out of him. Sweat broke out over his brow. The roots of his hair prickled as if ants were playing hide and seek on his scalp.

Why couldn’t he press replay on his life and do everything differently? How many times had he wished that? Every time he saw his sister’s damaged body he wished he could turn back time. Now he had another regret to hang on his conscience. But, unlike with his sister and mother, whom he kept at a respectful distance, given the dreadful impact he’d had on their lives, he could not so easily distance himself from his own child.

A child who would grow up and call him Daddy. A child who would look up to him. A child who would expect certain things of him—things he wasn’t capable of giving. How could he be trusted with a child’s welfare when he had already ruined one innocent child’s life?

Emily groaned and slowly opened her eyes. She looked at him blankly for a moment and then she captured her lower lip with her teeth and lowered her gaze. ‘I’m sorry...’

‘No.’ His voice caught on the word and he had to clear his throat to continue. ‘I’m the one who’s sorry. Are you okay? Shall I get you a glass of water?’

She made to get up and Loukas helped her into a sitting position to allow time for her blood pressure to go back to normal. ‘I’m fine. I just need a minute.’

‘Should I call a doctor?’ He began to reach for his phone but she put a hand on his arm.

‘No, I’m fine, really.’ Her hand melted away from his arm and went back to her lap. The sound of her fingertips flicking against each other made him realise how nervous she was.

‘Have you seen a doctor at all?’

She shook her head. ‘Not yet. I wanted to do a few tests first.’

Loukas glanced at the seven test wands, wondering how many more she’d planned to take.

When he looked back at her she gave him a self-deprecating grimace. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Overkill.’ After a moment she added, ‘We can do a paternity test if you’d—’

‘No,’ Loukas said, surprising himself with the strength of his conviction. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

Her eyes shimmered and her throat rose and fell over a swallow. ‘Thank you for believing me. It means...a lot...’

He brushed his hand over her hair and then tucked a couple of strands back behind her ear as if she were six years old. She gave him a tremulous movement of her lips that loosely could have been described as a smile. ‘You can’t be very far along,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it too early to be sure one way or the other?’

‘The tests are pretty accurate these days. They can pick up the slightest change in hormonal activity within a few days of conception.’

‘What do you plan to do?’ As soon as he asked it he wished he hadn’t phrased it quite that way. It sounded as if he considered the baby to be a problem to be removed. Eradicated. Deleted like an incorrect digit in a code.

Her eyes took on a determined spark, her normally plump mouth now a tight line. ‘I’m keeping it, so please don’t try and convince me otherwise, because I don’t need your help. I’m perfectly able to do this on my own. I just thought you should know, that’s all.’

‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t suggesting you should get rid of it,’ Loukas said.

She angled him a look that reminded him of a detective nailing a suspect. ‘Weren’t you?’

He released a jagged breath. ‘I can’t deny I’m a little shocked by the news. More than shocked. If I’m not acting with the sensitivity and enthusiasm of a normal father-to-be, then you’ll have to forgive me. I never planned to be a father.’

Emily clambered to her feet, brushing off his offer of assistance. ‘Then why haven’t you had a vasectomy? Then you could rule a line under the subject permanently.’

He’d thought of it. Several times. He hadn’t avoided it out of cowardice, or squeamishness, or out-dated notions on masculinity. He didn’t know what it was but something had made him shy away from the decision to render himself infertile. ‘I haven’t got around to it yet.’

‘Maybe you should before someone else ends up pregnant.’

Loukas was ashamed he hadn’t yet thought of what this was like for her. Sure, she’d said she wanted marriage and kids, but he’d got the impression she wanted them in that order. Marriage first. Kids later. Having a child was a huge responsibility for a woman under any circumstances—a life-changing responsibility. ‘Emily...are you okay with this? With being pregnant?’

Her eyes fell away from his as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. ‘I wasn’t at first. I was in denial until I did the seventh test. I didn’t want to be like my mother. Pregnant outside of marriage to a guy she had a one-night stand with. It was like a nightmare.’

‘And now?’