the pregnancy testing kit out of his hands before he realised what it was he was looking at!
Too late. He spun to stare at her. Her heart sank to the soles of her feet. He’d gone white—perfectly, sickeningly white. ‘Why have you bought this?’ he demanded hoarsely.
He might be white, but Claire wasn’t; she was blushing like a schoolgirl. ‘Please give it to me,’ she insisted, holding out a badly trembling hand.
‘Why?’ he barked.
The sheer ferocity of it thoroughly shocked her. Her blue eyes widened in surprise, and she began backing away, cautiously—bewilderedly. Not understanding the need for this depth of anger.
‘Answer me,’ he commanded forcefully. ‘Answer me, Claire!’
‘I w-would have told you,’ she stammered shakily. ‘If—if it w-was positive.’ Was that why he was so angry—because he believed she’d intended to hide it from him? ‘I would have told you, Andreas!’ she repeated shrilly when he actually took a step towards her.
‘I want you out of this house,’ he hissed furiously at her. ‘Within the hour, do you hear me? I want you gone from my sight and I never want to see you again!’
‘But—why are you so angry?’ Claire shrilled, still backing while he paced towards her like a wild animal needing to taste fresh blood. ‘We haven’t used protection once in all the weeks we’ve been making love! Surely you must have considered this a strong possibility?’
‘And I used to get these damned things shoved in my face once a month by my first wife!’ he rasped. ‘For five hellish years, I used to listen to her sob her heart out once a month when the damn things told her what we both already knew! I am infertile, Claire!’ he raked rawly at her—watched her face blanch in shock, and tossed the packet aside in disgust.
The dreadful words held her still and shaking, confusion and horror warring for dominance on her face. ‘I know you said you never wanted children of your own,’ she whispered. ‘But…I feel pregnant, Andreas!’ she cried out pleadingly.
‘So did Sofia,’ he growled. ‘Every single wretched month.’
‘No…’ she breathed, refusing to take on board what he was saying here. ‘I’m not like her—I’m not!’ she insisted as those hard black eyes flicked her a contemptuous look. ‘I love you!’ she cried, saying the words out loud for the very first time in her desperation. ‘I couldn’t hurt you by playing on your feelings like that!’
‘Sofia loved me,’ he replied. ‘She worshipped the ground that I walked upon! She leaned on me—lived for me!’ A harshly grating sound of scornful laughter escaped him. ‘And in the end she even decided to put me out of my misery by killing herself in the name of love!’
That was six years ago, and he still has not recovered from what that final act of rank selfishness did to his soul, she realised.
She was so white in the face now that she began to look like marble. ‘I don’t want to believe all of this…’ she breathed as if in a crazed nightmare.
‘Then make yourself believe,’ he advised her coldly. ‘For I am infertile and this marriage is over. I will not be put through that kind of hell again—not for you—not for any woman,’ he concluded as he strode angrily for the door.
This time he passed through it without any hesitation. The door closed behind him, leaving Claire standing there, trembling from the top of her head to the soles of her feet as she tried desperately to come to terms with all the ugliness and horror that had been unveiled in this room today.
Infertile…
With her head turning on a neck that was too locked by stress to make the movement a smooth one, she stared dazedly at the flat packet now lying on the bed where he had tossed it. What to her had been a silly purchase made in the excitement of the moment was an instrument of torture to Andreas.
She shuddered, hating the very sight of it now, and was about to turn away from it in sickened distaste, when something he had said suddenly stilled her.
Make yourself believe, Andreas had said.
Make yourself believe…
Feeling her heart turn to stone in appalled dismay at what she was daring to consider, Claire picked up the packet.
The fierce roar of a car racing away from the house filled her head as she walked grimly into her bathroom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS very late by the time his car swung back into the driveway. Huddled inside a warm winter coat, Claire was sitting on one of the pale blue upholstered chairs on the front terrace, where she had been waiting for him for what seemed like hours now.
He had to have seen her sitting there because his car headlights had picked her out as he’d driven by on his way to the garages. Yet long, long minutes went by before his tall, dark figure loomed up at her from the inky darkness.
And her first response when she looked up at him was a cold little shiver. ‘Still here, I see,’ he drawled.
‘I needed to ask you a question before I left,’ she explained. ‘So I decided to wait until you got back.’
‘You mean there is a lie we forgot to rake over?’ he mocked.
‘Maybe.’ She smiled a little sadly. ‘I’m not sure…Will you at least sit down and listen?’ she then requested. ‘Only it’s very difficult to talk to someone who is bent on cutting you to ribbons with their eyes while you speak.’
He smiled that smile she hated so much, and for a moment she thought he was going to tell her to go to hell. The tension soared, filling the cool winter night with a hostility that clutched at her throat.
Maybe it did something similar to him, because he released a taut sigh as if attempting to dispel the feeling, then in the next moment was reluctantly dropping down into the chair next to her.
‘Fire away,’ he grimly invited.
But now that she had his attention she found she’d lost the courage to say what she wanted to say. Ironic, really, she mused, when you think how many hours I’ve waited so patiently for this moment.
‘Nice evening?’ she asked, merely as a cover while she got her courage back.
His dark head turned to look at her delicately drawn profile. She looked so pale, her skin seemed to glow ghost-like in the darkness. ‘Is that the question?’ he enquired. ‘Or just an extra one you decided to throw in?’
In other words, he was not going to make this easier for her, Claire noted. ‘I am not naturally a cruel or vindictive person, Andreas,’ she murmured soberly. ‘I did not set out to deliberately hurt you today.’
‘Now that definitely was not a question,’ he clipped.
And he definitely was not going to make this easy. At which point she decided to just hit him with it and wait to see what he did.
‘Have you been making love to me for all of these weeks just for the hell of
