her of how much she needed him. It made her less and less confident of him shifting to accommodate her needs. He still had control, as he had always done. Nothing had changed, except the depth to which she could be hurt all over again.
The phone rang a little later in the morning and Aldana came out to the pool where Emelia was doing some laps and handed her the cordless receiver. ‘It is the doctor,’ she said, leaving the receiver on the table next to the sun lounger.
Emelia got out of the pool and quickly dried her hands on her towel before she picked up the phone. ‘Hello? This is Emelia Mélendez speaking.’
‘Señora Mélendez, I have some results for you from the blood tests I took,’ Eva Garcia said.
Emelia felt her stomach shuffle like the rapidly thumbed pages of a book. ‘Y-yes?’
‘You are pregnant.’
Emelia’s fingers clenched the phone in her hand until her knuckles became white, her heart thumping like a swinging hammer against her breastbone. ‘I…I am?’
‘Yes,’ Dr Garcia said. ‘Of course I am not sure how far along. It can’t be too many weeks, otherwise I am sure the doctors who examined you after your accident would have noticed. You had an abdominal CT scan at some stage, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said, still reeling from the shock announcement. ‘It was done to check for internal bleeding but it was all clear. But how can I be pregnant? I was taking the Pill, or at least I assume I was. I don’t really remember that clearly.’
‘Perhaps you missed a dose here and there,’ Dr Garcia suggested. ‘It is very easy to forget and with these low dose brands it can create a small window of fertility. If you can remember when your last menstrual period was, I can calculate how far along you might be.’
Emelia thought for a moment. ‘I think it might have been about three or four weeks before the accident. I remember I got a stomach virus right after. I couldn’t keep anything down for forty-eight hours.’
‘That would have been enough to render the Pill ineffective,’ Dr Garcia said. ‘But if, as you say, your last period was well over a month ago, you had probably fallen pregnant before you went to London. It is still very early days, but that doesn’t mean you are not having all the symptoms. Some women are more sensitive to the hormonal changes than others.’
Emelia wondered how much her headaches and nausea were the result of the accident or of the early stages of pregnancy. She wondered too if her decision to leave Javier had been an irrational one brought on by the surge of hormones in her body. She could recall being more emotional than usual, her frustration at his absence escalating to blowout point when he’d come back just as the newspaper article had appeared, showing him with the nightclub singer. She was almost thankful she couldn’t remember that ‘ugly scene’ as he called it. She was almost certain she would have been as wanton and needy as ever. It would not have helped her cause, saying with one breath she wanted out and begging him to pleasure her with the next.
‘Well, then,’ the doctor continued in a businesslike manner, ‘I’d like you to start some pregnancy vitamins and we can make an appointment now if you like so we can organise that ultrasound.’
Emelia ended the call a minute or two later, her head spinning so much she had to sit down on the sun lounger.
Pregnant.
She placed a hand on her smooth flat abdomen. It seemed impossible to think a tiny life was growing inside there. What would Javier say? she wondered sickly. Would he think she had ‘accidentally’ fallen pregnant? He was so cynical, she couldn’t see how else he would react. But she didn’t for a moment believe she had done it on purpose. Yes, she had become increasingly unhappy about taking the Pill, but she would not have deliberately missed a dose. She had wanted Javier to commit to bringing a child into their relationship. Foisting one on him was not something she had thought fair. It was a joint decision that she had longed he would one day be ready to make, but now it seemed neither of them had made the decision—fate, chance or destiny had made it for them.
She spent the rest of the day in an emotional turmoil as she prepared herself for facing Javier. She would have to tell him. She couldn’t possibly keep it from him. He had a right to know he was to become a father, even if it was the last thing he wanted to be.
She heard him arrive at eight in the evening. Each of his footfalls felt like hammer blows to her heart as he made his way into la sala where she was waiting. She stood as he came in, her hands in a tight knot in front of her stomach.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, coming over to her. He brushed his knuckles down the curve of her cheek. ‘You look pale, querida. You haven’t been overdoing it, I hope.’
She gave him a nervous movement of her lips that sufficed for a smile. ‘No, I spent most of the day by the pool. It was hot again today.’
He pressed a soft kiss to her bare shoulder. ‘Mmm, you are a little pink here and there.’ He met her eyes again. ‘You shouldn’t lie out there without protection. Did you put on sunscreen?’
Emelia lowered her gaze from his. ‘I did have some on but it must have worn off while I was in the water.’
He tipped up her face, studying her with increasing intensity. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked. ‘You seem a little on edge.’
She took a breath but it caught on something in her chest. ‘Javier…I have something to tell you…’
A frown pulled at his brow. ‘You’ve remembered something else?’
She bit the inside of her mouth. ‘No, it’s not that. I…I got a call from the doctor.’
His eyes narrowed slightly and his voice sounded strangely hollow. ‘There’s nothing seriously wrong, is there?’
Emelia gave him a strained look. ‘I guess it depends on how you look at it.’
‘Whatever it is, we will deal with it,’ he said. ‘We’ll get the best doctors and specialists. They can do just about anything these days with conditions that had no cure in the past.’
She couldn’t quite remove the wryness from her tone. ‘This isn’t a condition you can exactly cure, or at least not for a few months.’
‘Are you going to tell me or am I supposed to guess?’ he asked after a slight pause.
Emelia could feel his suspicion growing. She could see it in his dark eyes, the way they had narrowed even further, his frown deepening. She took another uneven breath. ‘Javier, I’m pregnant.’
The words fell into the silence like a grenade in a glasshouse.
She saw the flash of shock in his face. His eyes flared and he even seemed to jolt backwards as if the words had almost rocked him off his feet.
‘Pregnant?’ His voice came out hoarsely. ‘How can you possibly be pregnant? You’ve been on the Pill for the whole time we’ve been together.’ He cocked his head accusingly. ‘Haven’t you?’
Emelia wrung her hands, deciding there was no point in pretending she was invincible any longer. ‘I was sick about a month or so ago. I didn’t tell you. I had some sort of stomach upset. I think that would
