His Pregnant Mistress. Carol Marinelli

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СКАЧАТЬ the minister’s voice welcomed the congregation on this sad day.

      And though the minister’s words were well delivered, though it was Richard that had brought her here today, it was Ethan that held her attention, Ethan whom she stared at as the congregation shuffled to a stand, realizing, not for the first time, just how different Ethan was from his younger brother whom they were here to mourn. Richard, pale-skinned with light auburn hair, so vulnerable and fragile; the absolute antithesis of this confident, jet-haired swarthy-skinned, imposing man standing tall at the front of the church, easily a head above the rest. The only sign of emotion in his impassive face was that his jaw clenched in stony silence as the rest of the congregation started to sing, one hand held behind his back, the knuckles white with tension against his immaculate suit, and as an age-old hymn she’d heard a million times before filled the sacred space only now did she really hear it for the first time, each and every word seeming to dredge through the remnants of her soul. And only now did she really feel it, begin to understand it: the timeless wonder of love, the everlasting promise of peace, and as the words soared skywards, as her tears fell downwards, all Mia could think, all Mia could wish at the loneliest moment of her life was that the man who stood so distant and aloof at the front of the church didn’t still touch her so.

      She wished with her whole heart that the seven years that had passed since she had seen Ethan Carvelle could have rendered him less impressive, less authoritative…less beautiful.

      She had known today would be hard, but it wasn’t just saying goodbye to Richard that was on her mind. She had said her farewells to him weeks ago. Expended most of her grief in painful stages as day by day the cancer that had ravaged his body had taken him piece by piece, like a beautiful statue being slowly dismantled, his short-term memory fading first, followed closely by pride as his functions had decreased. Yet all that Mia could deal with, even the agony of watching his sparkling humour slowly slip away, watching as he’d struggled to make a point, to finish a joke, hadn’t come close to the tragedy of his vacant eyes, which one black morning, had failed to recognize her. A mouth that hadn’t smiled as she’d entered his sun-drenched room in the hospice. Mia had known then that for Richard, her dear, kind Richard, it was over. She had said goodbye to him then, her mourning commencing that very day for the wonderful man who the doctor had gently told her would never now return.

      Today was a formality—the end of the tragic end.

      She had hoped it would be the same when she saw Ethan.

      That seeing him after all this time would bring some closure. That the seven years of pain she had suffered after Ethan’s cruel rejection would somehow now abate. That finally after all this time she could really move on with her life.

      But watching Ethan as he left his pew and walked towards the front of the church, Mia felt her breath trap in her throat, her legs finally still—cold shock setting in as all over again, as if for the very first time, she witnessed his beauty face on.

      He seemed taller if that were possible, his shoulders wider, and the years had treated him kindly. His hair, still jet-black, was cut shorter than it had been seven years ago. The last gasps of the youthful twenty-three-year-old she had witnessed in those unforgettable weeks they had shared were gone for ever now, replaced instead with a savage maturity that quite literally took her breath away. And not just Mia’s—the whole church descended into utter silence, every face turned to his commanding figure. Ethan held the packed church in the palm of his hand—not just because he was Richard’s brother, not just because his surname happened to be Carvelle, but because the mere sight of him, the very presence of him demanded respect. He could walk into a bar on the other side of the world, order a drink in that measured, clipped voice and every head in the place would turn, every woman would sit up straighter, and every man stand up taller.

      He paused before he started his reading, staring down for a fraction of a second. Mia watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down, waiting in tense silence as a man used to public speaking prepared himself for the most difficult speech of his life. Seeing the hands that had once tenderly held hers gripping the lectern, proud, tall and commanding as his deep voice delivered the reading, it was as if each word shot an arrow to her already bleeding heart. And it was more than she could bear to watch, sheer torture to see what she could never now have, so she dragged her eyes away from the object of his outer beauty, trying to remember the cruelty within, focusing on her own tightly clasped hands, her fingers interlaced over the soft swell of her stomach, chewing her lip as tears flooded her cheeks, watching as her knees again started to jerk up and down as if dancing to their own private tune as his deep, measured tones ripped through her, every last word the antithesis of the treatment he had dished out to her.

      The faith he had shattered, the hope he had destroyed; a fresh batch of tears welled in her eyes as finally the reading turned to what Ethan clearly couldn’t give, his voice searing through her as he delivered his final words…

      “‘Meanwhile these three remain: faith, ho…”’ His deep voice wavered and then halted, a tiny cough as he cleared his throat and the beat of a pause dragged on mercilessly, the congregation shuffling uncomfortably as Ethan forced himself to continue.

      “‘Faith.”’ He dragged the single word out, paused a second too long again and Mia found herself mouthing the next word silently to herself, bitterly recalling the hope there had once been, the hope that had surrounded the conception of her child, a future for Richard they had hoped to ensure. But as the pause went on her mind turned again, drifting back along the painful, familiar path she had followed for so long: the road to Ethan. Dragging her eyes up, she recalled the hope that had surrounded them all those years ago, those stolen, balmy weeks when the world seemed to have paused for a while, when they had stood on the threshold of tomorrow, glimpsed a future that might just have been kind, and despite the pain he had caused, despite the agony he had put her and her father through, at that moment she felt for him, felt her heart go out to this strong, proud man as he stood alone at the front of the congregation, for once faltering and hesitant. She felt no joy in watching him suffer, took no pleasure in his pain. His eyes flicked to hers, and for the first time in seven years their eyes met, and it was as if it were just the two of them in the church, as if the years that stretched behind them had somehow melted away and she was in his arms again, the closeness they had once shared somehow captured in that gaze. In an instinctive show of support Mia gave him a tiny nod, told him with her eyes he was doing okay. Like a parent at a school play she willed him to carry on speaking, and it worked, Ethan’s eyes holding hers as he finished the reading.

      “‘Faith, hope and love… And the greatest of these is love.”’

      Determinedly avoiding her gaze now, he made his way back to his seat, and for Mia the rest of the service passed in a blur. Her tears dried up as finally the crowd moved outside. She took in huge gulps of the humid mid-morning air, blinking at the sunlight as her high heels crunched in the gravel, the congregation slowly working the line, shaking hands with the Carvelles before they headed for the crematorium—a private cremation the order of the day for the Carvelle family. Shutting out friendship, discounting outsiders in their usual closed-rank way; it probably never even entered their heads that in the last few months Mia had spent more time with Richard than the whole lot of them combined.

      She could argue the point, if she were that way inclined. Point out that, like it or not, she was very much family now; that the swell of her stomach beneath her black dress meant she had every reason to join them.

      But she didn’t.

      Instead she murmured her condolences, shook hands with the endless faces, and braced herself to kiss the cheeks of Richard’s mother as one would for touching a snake. Mia stared into the cold blue eyes of a woman who, though she had borne two sons, didn’t have a maternal bone in her body.

      ‘Miss Stewart.’ Her lips twisted around the two words, as СКАЧАТЬ