But what if it wasn’t just a little weight gain? What if she was growing thick around the midsection because she was carrying Leonidas Stathakis’s baby?
She gasped audibly, pushing out of the cubicle, and ran the taps, staring at herself in the mirror as the ice water ran over her fingertips.
Surely it wasn’t true? It was just a heap of coincidences. She had a tummy bug and her weight gain was attributable to the fact she was chained to a desk for twelve-hour days. That could also account for her recent exhaustion.
That was all.
Nonetheless, when she left the office much later that day, still feeling unwell, Hannah ducked into a pharmacy around the corner from the Earl’s Court flat she’d rented a room in.
She’d do a pregnancy test. There was no harm in that—it was a simple precaution.
In the privacy of her the bathroom, she unsealed the box, read the instructions, and did precisely what they said. She set an alarm on her phone, to tell her when two minutes was up.
She didn’t need it, though.
It took fewer than twenty seconds for a second line to appear.
A strong, vibrant pink, showing that she was, indeed, pregnant.
With Leonidas Stathakis’s baby.
‘Oh, jeez.’ She sat down on the toilet lid, and stared at the back of the door. Her hand curved over her stomach and she closed her eyes. His face appeared in her mind, unbidden, unwanted, and unflinchingly and just as he had been for months in her dreams, she saw him naked, his strong body and handsome face so close to her that she could breathe him in, except he was just a phantom, a ghost.
But not for long.
It shouldn’t have happened. Despite the fact she’d torn his note into a thousand pieces and left it scattered over the marble bench-top of the luxurious penthouse kitchen, his words were indelibly imprinted into her mind.
Well, regardless of his regret, and the fact he hadn’t respected her enough to say that to her face, she’d have to see him again.
There was nothing for it—she had to face this reality, to tell him the truth.
And she would—when she was ready.
Hannah checked the name against the piece of paper she clutched in her hand, looking around the marina with a frown on her face.
There was some event on, Capri Sailing Week or some such, and the whole marina was bursting with life. Enormous boats—or ‘superyachts’, as she’d been told they were called—lined up like swans, so graceful and imposing in the evening sun.
She knew from the search she’d done on the Internet that Stathakis Corp owned a boat that took part in the event. She also knew that Leonidas and his brother came to the event annually on their own ‘superyacht’. Photos had shown her a suntanned Leonidas relaxing on the deck, casting his eye over the race.
She’d closed out of the images as quickly as she could.
She didn’t need to see him again. Not like that.
This was going to be quick, like ripping off a plaster. She’d tell him she was pregnant—not that she’d really need words. At more than five months along, she was quite visibly carrying a baby.
She’d been so tempted just to call him. To deliver the news over the phone and leave it at that, just as he’d written her a note instead of having the courage to face her the next morning.
But it was cowardly and she wasn’t that. They were having a baby together—she couldn’t ignore the ramifications of their night together and nor could he. At least she knew that, no matter what happened next, he’d regretted that night.
He’d regretted it, he wished that it hadn’t happened, and he’d treated her with complete disdain and disrespect, skulking out in the middle of the night, leaving a note! It wasn’t as if she’d have begged him for more—they’d both agreed to it being one night only. It was the salt in the wound of him vanishing, not even bothering to say goodbye.
That was the man she was having a child with.
She grabbed hold of that thought; she needed to remember that.
The Stathakis yacht was the biggest in the marina, and it was pumping with life and noise. Her eyes skimmed the yacht, running over the partygoers moving around with effortless grace, all scantily clad, from what she could see. Music with a heavy beat sounded loud and somehow seductive, so something began to beat low in her abdomen. There were staff, too, their crisp white shirts discernible even at a distance, the trays they carried overflowing with champagne flutes.
She narrowed her eyes, lifting a hand and wiping it over her forehead. She was warm—the sun was beating down, even now in the early evening, and she’d been travelling since that morning.
She was tired, too, the exhaustion of the first trimester not giving way in the second.
She moved closer to the yacht, mindful on her approach that security guards stood casually at the bridge that led to the deck.
As she approached, one of the men spoke to her in Italian. At her blank expression, he switched to Greek and then, finally, English. ‘Can I help you, miss?’
‘I need to see Leonidas Stathakis. It’s important.’
The security guard flicked his gaze over Hannah, his expression unchanging. ‘It’s a private party.’
She had expected this resistance. ‘If you tell him my name, I’m certain he’ll want to see me.’
The guard’s scepticism was obvious. ‘And that is?’
‘Hannah. Hannah May.’ Her voice was soft, her Australian accent prominent.
The guard spoke into his walkie-talkie, the background noise of the party coming through louder when he clicked the button at its side. She discerned only her own name in the rapid delivery of information. Then, he clicked the walkie-talkie back to his hip.
‘He says you can go up.’
‘Thank you.’
Nerves were jangling inside her, doubts firing in her gut. Maybe she should turn around. Go back to London, or even Australia, far away. Call him with this information. Or not. She had no idea. She just knew suddenly the thought of coming face-to-face with Leonidas filled her with ice.
She was going to be sick.
‘Miss? Are you okay?’
But she’d come all this way. She’d grappled with this for weeks now, she’d faced the reality of being pregnant with Leonidas’s baby, trying to work out the best way to tell him. She had to tell him—there was nothing for it.
‘I will be.’
Yes, she would be. She needed simply to get this over with. The faster the better. ‘This way?’ she prompted, gesturing towards the boat.
‘And to the left.’
Hannah’s smile was tight as she surveyed the crowd, not particularly relishing the idea of weaving her way through so many people. ‘Thank you.’
She stepped onto a platform and then went up a set of polished timber and white stairs. At the top, another guard opened a section of the boat’s balustrade, forming a gate. The noise was deafening up here. She braced herself for a moment, frozen to the spot as she recognised at least a dozen Hollywood celebrities walking around in a state of undress. Men, women, all in their bathers, suntanned, impossibly slender and toned with very white teeth and enormous eyes.
Hannah stared at them self-consciously,