style="font-size:15px;"> ‘What the hell do you mean?’
She shrugged, a little unnerved by Jace’s anger but still refusing to be cowed. ‘You prefer believing I was unfaithful to you rather than the idea that you could be wrong, that it’s a mistake—’
‘It’s not a mistake!’ Jace leaned forward, lowered his voice to a savage whisper. ‘It’s impossible!
Eleanor blinked, discomfited by his intensity. ‘How did you find out you were infertile at such a young age?’ she asked slowly. ‘Most men don’t find out until they’re married and run into trouble with conceiving, don’t they—’
‘I had mumps. A lingering infection, and it made me sterile.’
‘And you were tested—?’
‘Yes.’ He bit off the word, his lips pressed together in a hard line.
‘But…’ Eleanor shook her head, genuinely bewildered. ‘Why? Why would you be tested at such a young age?’
Jace turned away from her. He drove his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunched, the position one of defensive misery. ‘My father wanted to know,’ he said gruffly, his back still to her. ‘I’m an only son, as was he. The male line dies out with me.’
Eleanor didn’t reply. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, for suddenly everything was making horrible sense. No wonder Jace was so sure he couldn’t be the father. No wonder he’d been so hurt. No wonder the whole idea of a pregnancy—a baby—that wasn’t his would be an affront, an abomination.
The male line dies out with me.
For a boy from a traditional Greek family, that had to be very hard indeed.
Regret replaced anger, and it hurt far more. She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. ‘Well, perhaps you should get yourself tested again. Because I assure you, Jace, the baby was yours. Why would I lie now? What point would there be?’
Jace was silent for a long, tense moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he finally said. ‘God help me, I don’t know.’ Eleanor stared at him, his back to her, his head bowed, and she wondered what he must be feeling now. Could he accept he wasn’t infertile, that he’d been living with an incorrect diagnosis for his entire adult life?
Would he?
It would be hope and tragedy mixed together, for what was lost, for what now could be—
But not for her. Eleanor swallowed past the tightness in her throat, closing her eyes as if that could blot out the pain. The memory. Never for her.
Jace drew in a ragged, desperate breath, his head still bowed, his back to Eleanor. He felt the rage course through him, consume him, and he didn’t trust himself to speak.
The baby was his. Could be his. Except in his gut—perhaps even in his heart—Jace knew the truth. He saw it in Eleanor’s eyes, dark with remembered pain. The baby was his.
He wasn’t infertile.
And all he could feel was anger. All he could think of was the waste. His life, his family, his father. Everything had pointed to his failure as a son, as a man. He’d lived with it, let it cripple him, let it guide and restrain his choices, and for what?
For a lie? A mistake!
The realisation made him want to shout to the remorseless heavens, to hit something, to hurt something. Someone. It wasn’t fair. The cry of a child, and yet it bellowed up inside him, the need so great he clamped his lips together and drew another shuddering breath.
Eleanor, he knew, would never understand. How could he explain how utterly sure he’d been of his own infertility, so that he’d been able to walk away without once considering that she’d been telling the truth? He’d always been so certain that even now he wondered. Doubted.
It can’t be.
And yet if it was…
Too many repercussions, too many unspoken—un-thought—hopes and fears crowded his mind, his heart. He pushed them down, unable to deal with them now, to consider what they meant, what changes to both the present and future—and, God help him, the past—they would require.
The baby was his.
The baby was his.
He had a child.
Jace whirled around again, the movement so sudden and savage that Eleanor gasped aloud and took a step towards the window.
He crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed her by the shoulders, his face thrust near hers. ‘Where is the baby? If it is my child—’
Eleanor closed her eyes. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want Jace here, stirring up memories, regrets, pain, and for what? Yet she knew he had a right to know. She swallowed again. Her throat was so very tight. ‘Was,’ she whispered. ‘It was.’
‘What—what are you talking—?’
‘It was your child,’ she explained very quietly, and the fierce light that had ignited in Jace’s eyes winked out, leaving them the colour of cold ash.
‘You mean…’ his hands tightened on her shoulders ‘… you had an abortion.’
‘No!’ She jerked out of his grasp, glaring at him. ‘Why don’t you just leap to yet another offensive assumption, Jace? You’re good at that.’
He folded his arms, his expression still hard. ‘What are you saying, then?’
‘I had a… a miscarriage.’ A bland, official-sounding word for such a heart-rending, life-changing event. She turned away from him so he wouldn’t see the naked pain on her face. She felt the thickness of tears in her throat. ‘I lost the baby.’ She swallowed. My little girl, she thought, my precious little girl.
Jace was silent for a long moment. Eleanor stared blindly out of the window, trying not to remember. The screen, the silence, the emptiness within. ‘I’m sorry,’ he finally said, and she just shrugged. The silence ticked on, heavy, oppressive. ‘I’m sorry,’ Jace said again, the word raw, and Eleanor felt again the thickening of tears in her throat. She swallowed it down, reluctant to let Jace enter her sorrow. She didn’t want to rake it up again; she didn’t even want him sharing it. She was still angry. Still hurt.
‘I’ll still have to be tested,’ he continued, ‘to make sure—’
‘That the baby was yours?’ Eleanor filled in. ‘You still don’t believe me?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Just when would I have had this other affair, Jace? I spent every waking—and sleeping—moment with you for six months.’
‘You don’t understand—’ Jace began in a low voice, but Eleanor didn’t want to hear.
‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand how you could think for a moment that I was unfaithful to you. But even if you did, because I suppose you must have had some kind of trust
