foreseen the possibility that she might suddenly change her mind as she had done this very evening? Grace stood below the shower in a daze counting the days of her cycle, soon realising that the condom could not have failed at a worse time.
Leo swore vehemently beneath his breath and went off to use another shower. Why was she angry with him? Accidents happened, although it was the first time he had found himself in such a situation. Even as a teenager, Leo had never had unprotected sex because he knew all too well the cost of such carelessness. His half-brother’s birth to his father’s mistress had been a painful lifelong commitment for Anatole Zikos and his wife and son.
Grace emerged from the bathroom wrapped in the white towelling robe she had found hanging there. It was huge on her but she had rolled up the sleeves and wasn’t sorry to be covered to her ankles. The intimacy she had naively sought suddenly struck her as having come at too high a price and she was more self-conscious in the aftermath than she had been beforehand.
‘I thought you’d be hungry,’ Leo remarked with a casual movement of his hand pointing out the catering trolley that had appeared. ‘I don’t know what you like so I ordered a selection.’
‘You have someone in a kitchen cooking for you at four in the morning?’ Grace exclaimed in astonishment while being grateful for the distraction provided by the food. Wandering barefoot over to the trolley, she lifted the covers to inspect the mouth-watering options on offer. Her tummy gave a hungry growl, hopefully concealed by the clatter of the coffee jug lid she lifted and dropped again. In silence she helped herself to coffee and a plate of elaborate supper bites.
It was ironic though that since meeting Leo she had never been more aware of his compelling presence than she was in that charged silence. He had changed into jeans and a blue T-shirt, his black hair tousled, shiny and damp from the shower, his lean, darkly handsome face shadowed by dark stubble. Apprehensive though she was about the risk of consequences, she had to admit that Leo still looked amazing and the epitome of every fantasy she had ever had about a man.
‘I have a doctor on call, if you want—’
‘No.’ Grace leapt straight in before he could say it because the morning-after treatment that could stop a pregnancy developing was not a choice she was willing to make. Even though a pregnancy would damage her chances of qualifying in medicine. ‘That’s not an option for me.’
‘I had to make the option available,’ Leo murmured without any perceptible reaction. ‘When are you flying home?’
‘The day after tomorrow.’ Grace sat down in an opulent armchair.
‘I will want your address and phone number. This is not a situation I would treat lightly.’ Leo served himself with coffee, betraying all the awkwardness of a male who wasn’t used to waiting on himself and who had rather expected his companion to take on the role of hostess.
Grace allowed herself to look at Leo for only the second time since she had left the bathroom. Whether she liked it or not, he had gone up in her estimation.
‘If you give me your contact details, we won’t need to discuss this any further. I only need to add the assurance that if there is any...er...development, I will provide you with my full support.’
‘Yes.’ Grace almost shrugged because she knew words were cheap. Leo was saying the right things but only he and his conscience could know how reliable he would be in such trying circumstances as those of an unplanned pregnancy. After all, her own father had talked her mother out of the termination she had decided on when she had fallen pregnant as a student. Grace’s father had promised her mother that he would marry her and help her raise their child and then he had run off with another woman and left Keira Donovan literally holding the baby. That had been in the days when being an unmarried mother had still been a real stigma and a source of family shame.
Leo settled a notepad and pen down on the table beside Grace. She printed her address and phone number and returned the pad to the table. As she did so, she yawned. ‘I’m sorry, I’m very sleepy...’
‘It’s late...go to bed,’ he murmured quietly.
Grace thought of the hassle of arriving back at the marina before dawn, finding her way back to the apartment block and then sitting in Reception until Stuart took his leave. ‘I’ll stay...at least you have a bed.’
‘A bed?’ Leo queried, recognising her exhaustion in her pale face and heavy eyes.
Grace climbed into the bed still clad in the robe.
‘I wasn’t going to touch you again,’ Leo remarked drily.
‘Obviously I’ve offended your ego and I’m sorry,’ Grace mumbled.
As she closed her eyes Leo peeled off his own clothing, although he retained his boxers and slid into the other side of the bed, dousing the lights. ‘What did you mean about having a bed?’
‘Our apartment is only one bedroom and my cousin met a man the first day,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve been sitting up in Reception most nights so that she can be with him—’
‘That’s outrageous!’ Leo cut in.
‘No, it’s not. Jenna’s family paid for her to go on holiday with her best friend.’ Briefly she explained. ‘Now that she’s met Stuart, I’m surplus to requirements.’
‘Surely her parents would be furious if they knew how she was treating you?’
‘What Jenna wants, Jenna gets,’ Grace muttered drowsily, her voice trailing down in volume. ‘It’s always been that way. She’s the daughter, the little princess...I’m the niece they took in out of the kindness of their heart.’
‘But to make such distinctions between two children in the same family!’ Leo began angrily until it dawned on him that Grace had fallen asleep.
A moment later, the echo of his own words still ringing in his ears, he realised that there were remarkable similarities between Grace’s situation with her cousin and his own non-relationship with the half-brother he hated. Yes, in his home too, the same distinction had been made in favour of the legitimate firstborn son, Leo. For the first time Leo was recognising an angle that he had never even considered before: Bastien’s side of the story. Was it really so surprising that Bastien had always seemed to seethe with resentment as a child and had matured into a fiercely competitive and aggressive male? He was sobered by the unfamiliar thoughts afflicting him, and it was a long time before Leo fell asleep.
‘NO, PLEASE DON’T tell me it’s been great!’ Grace urged Leo with a rueful laugh as, ever gracious, he saw her into the speedboat that would whisk her back to the real world, rather than the fantasy in which she had ordered her own personal perfect breakfast directly from Leo’s personal chef.
‘Why not?’ Leo demanded, strangely unsettled by her apparent good humour at leaving him.
‘Because you know it’s been a disaster for you from start to finish but you’re too polite to say it. I was absolutely not what you expected,’ Grace pointed out bluntly, taking a seat in the launch.
Leo, rarely put out of countenance, felt heat sear his cheekbones and thought that she really
