Page 30 of Penniless Cinderella for the Greek
Or it might be a baby. For the first time Savannah actually allowed herself to think about what that meant. She’d hoped to have a family one day, but she’d assumed she would meet the right man and marry him before children came along. Life rarely went to plan, and she might be pregnant with Dimitris’s baby. The idea evoked an unexpected fierce tug of longing in her.
Dimitris was scowling as if an accidental pregnancy was her fault. Her temper flared. It took two people to create a child.
If there was a baby.
In an instant she’d gone from it being a possibility to believing it was true—because she would love to have Dimitris’s baby. She had been falling in love with him over the weeks they had spent together, working, laughing, making love. But the fantasy she’d built up in her mind that he would come to love her was crumbling before her eyes.
‘Theós!’He dropped the pregnancy test on the counter as if it had burned him. ‘You had better go back to the villa and do the test.’ His jaw clenched. ‘I’ll meet you in a few minutes, and if it’s positive we’ll have to discuss what to do.’
Discuss what to do?Savannah watched Dimitris stride over to the sink and shove his burned hand under the tap. She bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. If she was pregnant she would have her baby, there was no question in her mind. Dimitris could do what he damned well liked. But his attitude told her that he wouldn’t want to be involved with his child. He had looked appalled at the prospect of her having his baby.
With a low cry she ran out of the studio. He expected her to go to the villa to do the test, but she was certain she was pregnant. She had all the symptoms—sensitive breasts, nausea and a missed period. She couldn’t face giving Dimitris the proof of her pregnancy that would make him furious. She wanted to be alone, but there was nowhere for her to go except down to the secret beach. Dimitris wouldn’t look for her there.
Savannah tried not to look at the sheer drop over the cliff. She had climbed down to the beach with Dimitris a few times, but he always went first and guided her down the steps. Her fear of heights was irrational, and it had started when she was thrown from her horse. She was angry that the incident when she’d been a child still affected her.
She remembered how nervous she had been at the prospect of taking her horse over a set of jumps in the riding ring. But her father had been keen for her to compete, and unusually he had come to watch her. In her imagination she’d pictured herself making a clear round over the jumps and her father proudly applauding when she’d received a rosette. Instead she had lost control of her horse and when she’d been lying on the ground, humiliated and tearful, her father had yelled at her and told her she was a disappointment.
‘Savannah, what the hell are you doing?’
She glanced over her shoulder and saw Dimitris at the top of the cliff. Her eyes were blurred with tears, and she missed her footing and found herself falling through the air. It happened so quickly that she didn’t have time to scream. She had been two-thirds of the way down the cliff, and she banged against rocks before landing heavily, face down on the sandy beach.
‘Theós!Savannah...’ Dimitris sounded odd. She heard him run down the steps, but she was too winded to speak and tell him she was okay. She was aware that various places on her body hurt, and she kept her eyes closed while she tried to get over the shock of what had just happened.
‘Savannah.’ Strong arms gently turned her over and she opened her eyes and saw Dimitris’s haggard face. He expelled a ragged breath. ‘I thought...’ He shook his head. ‘Never mind what I thought. Are you hurt?’
She moved gingerly. ‘My hip hurts. I must have knocked it against the rocks.’
He pushed her skirt up to her waist, and even though she’d bounced down the cliff Savannah felt a familiar curl of heat in her belly when he ran his hands over the tops of her legs. ‘You have some nasty grazes on your hip and thigh, and more grazes on your arms and shoulder.’
He lifted her carefully into his arms. His face showed no emotion, but a nerve flickered in his cheek as he carried her up the steps. Dully, she thought that if there had been a baby there might not be one now because of her stupid behaviour.
Dimitris carried her all the way back to the villa and put her in the car. The hospital was a short distance away, and when they arrived he scooped her up and strode into the accident and emergency department.
She was glad that the doctor spoke English. He first checked that she wasn’t suffering from concussion. ‘Your grazes and bruising are not serious, but the pain in your hip might indicate a fractured bone and it will be necessary for you to have an X-ray.’ He wrote a few notes and glanced at Savannah. ‘I must ask if there is any possibility that you could be pregnant.’
She dared not look at Dimitris, standing next to her hospital bed. ‘Yes.’
‘In that case it will be best if you do a pregnancy test before we can continue with an X-ray. The chance of radiation affecting an unborn child is very small, but if you are pregnant there are extra safety measures we can take to minimise the risk.’
Dimitris stared out of the hospital window. His car was below in the car park, an attention-grabbing scarlet speed machine that was even better than the poster of a sports car he’d stuck on his bedroom wall when he was a boy growing up in a deprived part of London. He’d promised himself that one day he would make his fortune and own the car of his dreams.
He wouldn’t be able to cart a baby around in the Ferrari, and the boot was too small to fit a pram in.Theós!He forced back a wild laugh. How could there be a baby? He had never considered having a child. A baby would require responsibility, commitment, and love—everything that Dimitris had successfully avoided all his adult life, with the one exception of his sister.
He guessed that the frantic thud of his heart was a sign that he was in shock. When he’d seen Savannah tumble down the cliff he’d experienced the same sickening terror that he’d felt in the car, seconds before it had ploughed headlong into the lorry. When he’d raced down the cliff steps he’d expected to find Savannah’s crumpled and lifeless body on the beach, and his relief that her injuries appeared not to be serious had evoked a stinging sensation behind his eyes. He’d suppressed his emotions, something he was so good at, and focused on getting her to the hospital as quickly as possible.
Dimitris pinched the bridge of his nose as the emotions he’d felt on the beach pushed through his defences. When Savannah had told him that she might be pregnant it had felt like a bomb had exploded and his life would never be the same again. He hated the sense of not being in control, and of events happening that frankly scared the hell out of him.
He heard a slight noise behind him and swung round as Savannah walked into the room. His gut clenched at the sight of the large purple bruise on her shoulder and more bruises and grazes on her arms and legs. But it was the wounded expression in her eyes that hurt him the most because he knew he was responsible. To say he had not reacted well to her possible pregnancy would be an understatement.
‘What is the result of the test?’ he asked tautly.
‘I had a blood test because pregnancy in the first weeks can be detected earlier than with a urine sample. We’ll know the result in a few minutes.’
‘I don’t understand how it could have happened. We were always careful.’
‘Don’t worry, Dimitris. If I am pregnant you won’t have to be involved.’
Her scathing tone scraped his raw emotions. ‘If you are pregnant I am already involved. I won’t shirk my responsibility for the child.’
