Modern Romance August Books 1-4. Кейт Хьюит

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ or the high-voltage excitement of his sexuality.

      Furthermore after a month of living with Leo round the clock she could no longer credit the belief that he had blackmailed her into marrying him.

      ‘When you threatened my uncle and aunt’s careers, you were bluffing, weren’t you?’ Grace condemned very drily.

      Leo rocked back in his chair, lashes low over gleaming dark eyes. ‘I was wondering how long it would take you to work that out.’

      Temper hurtled through Grace like a rejuvenating blast of oxygen. ‘You mean you wouldn’t have done it?’

      ‘Of course I wouldn’t have done it. I’m not an unjust man. Your uncle gave you a home when you needed one and I respect him for that because I doubt very much that he received much support from your aunt.’ Leo studied her. ‘But from certain things you have let slip quite without meaning to, I think your aunt should be burnt at the stake as a witch...and possibly your cousin with her.’

      That cool rundown of her upbringing snuffed out Grace’s annoyance as though it had never been and provoked an involuntary laugh from her lips. ‘Oh...dear.’

      ‘But in one sense you have done me a favour. Your position in your uncle’s family closely resembled Bastien’s when my half-brother and I were children and that has enabled me to see that Bastien was often excluded, set apart from my parents and I by his birth and parentage and made to feel like an outsider,’ he imparted grimly. ‘It was wrong when that was done to you and it must follow that it was equally wrong when it was done to him.’

      Grace nodded, impressed by that deduction and his willingness to admit fault on that score. The level of animosity between Leo and his brother had disconcerted her. She suspected they never met without one trying to score points off the other.

      ‘Sadly, that reality won’t make me like Bastien but it is why I was ready to allow you to believe that I would blackmail you into marriage. I was prepared to use any weapon you put within my reach,’ Leo confessed wryly. ‘I could not bear our child to experience the isolation which you and Bastien suffered as children. I don’t ever want a child of mine to feel like an outsider. And if you and I hadn’t married that is what he or she would have ultimately been.’

      ‘So, I’m supposed to forgive the blackmail threats because your goal was the greater good?’ Grace fielded very drily although grudging amusement was tugging at her lips. ‘With that kind of reasoning you could excuse murder, Leo.’

      A wolfish grin slashed Leo’s darkly handsome face. ‘But you like being married to me?’

      Grace rested her chin down on the heel of her hand and gave him an enquiring look. ‘And why do you assume that?’

      ‘You sing in the shower, you smile at me a lot...you even jump me in bed occasionally,’ Leo husked soft and low, dark golden eyes pure burnished gold with wicked amusement and that innate bold assurance that she found so outrageously compelling.

      Grace didn’t quite know how to react to that unexpectedly personal list of her mistakes. For smiling at him all the time was a dead giveaway of the kind of feelings he didn’t want her to have and she didn’t want to reveal. But it was a challenge to hide the simple truth that he made her happy, indeed happier than anyone had ever made her feel in her entire life. Because while he might not love her, he did care and he seemed to find her irresistible. Did she really need more than that from him? All that lovey-dovey stuff and wedding rings proudly worn on male fingers would really just be the icing on the cake, she reasoned: lovely to have but not strictly necessary.

      ‘You won’t be getting jumped tonight,’ she warned him, her lovely face flushed and self-conscious.

      And Leo laughed uproariously as he so often did with Grace, who teased him and came back at him verbally in a way no other woman ever had and who was nothing short of dirty dynamite in his bed. Oh, no, Leo had no complaints on the marriage front. In fact, Leo was delighted with his bride.

      He walked her back to the car and noticed a guy on a motorbike twisting his head rather dangerously to get a second look at the figure Grace cut in a pale pink cami top that showed rather more cleavage than Leo liked and a clinging white skirt that enhanced her curvy behind and show-stopping legs. His mouth flattened while he wondered when Grace would start looking more pregnant and less curvy and sexy. He could hardly wait for the day. It offended him when other men studied his wife with lascivious intent.

      Grace was glad of the breeze that cooled her as they walked into the castle because she was feeling uncomfortably warm. ‘I need a shower,’ she sighed, starting up the stairs.

      ‘Me too,’ Leo husked with a roughened edge to his dark deep drawl.

      Grace was moving towards the bathroom when Leo spoke again and in a sudden tone of urgency. ‘Grace...your skirt...you’re bleeding!’

       CHAPTER NINE

      COLD SHOCK AND dismay filled Grace as she looked down at herself. In the bathroom she frantically peeled off her clothes.

      ‘You can’t have a shower now...you should lie down!’ Leo tried to remonstrate with her.

      ‘Don’t be silly,’ Grace argued shakily. ‘If I’m having a miscarriage there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.’

      Leo stepped out of the bathroom to call Dr Silvano and then went back in, battling an angry, aggressive urge to snatch Grace bodily out of the shower and force her to lie down but very much afraid that coming over all caveman would only upset her more. He tried to wrap a huge towel round her when she came out, hovering even when she shouted at him to leave her alone. Grace rebelled by stepping back out of view to take care of necessities but he was still waiting with the towel when she emerged again.

      ‘You’re so cold,’ he groaned.

      ‘Shock,’ she said, teeth chattering while she struggled to make herself face what felt like an impossible challenge and slid her arms into a towelling robe. ‘You know one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage during the first trimester and I’m only eight weeks and a bit along...’

      ‘Hush,’ Leo incised, bundling her up into his arms and carrying her over to the bed before rattling through drawers in search of the nightdress she requested. ‘Are you in a lot of pain?’

      She winced. ‘None...whatsoever.’

      ‘You’ll still have to go into hospital. Diavelos...I should’ve taken you straight there!’ Leo breathed, pacing the floor at the end of the bed, rigid with tension and regret.

      ‘No hospital, Leo. I think I’d freak out on a gynae ward surrounded by pregnant women and newborns.’

      ‘You’d be in a private room and don’t be so pessimistic,’ Leo censured. ‘It may not be what you fear.’

      Grace said nothing. She lay as still as an upturned statue staring up at the ceiling. Crazy thoughts tormented her. Was this to be her punishment for thinking that she could give her baby up for adoption? Was this her punishment for not properly valuing the gift she had been given? It seemed that Dr Silvano had been right when he’d expressed the opinion that a mother-to-be suffering from nausea and sore breasts could indicate a more stable pregnancy. СКАЧАТЬ