‘I don’t aspire to sleep with virgins,’ Aristide informed her with scorn. ‘And between the expired protection and your virginity, you’ve pretty much got the market covered when it comes to suspicious circumstances.’ He studied her with hard dark accusing eyes as if they had not been as intimate as two people could be only minutes earlier.
His attitude in the aftermath of that intimacy was like a slap in the face, only she suspected it hurt more than the slap would’ve done. ‘I didn’t realise,’ she said with determined dignity, ‘that being a virgin was a hanging offence.’
‘You could’ve told me. A normal woman would’ve warned me but you chose not to and that silence, combined with the expired safeguard, would make any man doubtful of your motivation!’ he condemned angrily.
Tabby raised a dark blonde brow. ‘I’m afraid I can’t imagine what possible motivation I could’ve had other than the obvious…having sex with you,’ she completed coldly, getting her armour on now, beginning to recover from her rude awakening to his opinion of her.
‘You’re not that naïve, nobody is, not these days!’ he shot back at her. ‘I’m a very wealthy man and I refuse to be a target for women who wish to enrich themselves at my expense—’
Tabby’s rarely roused temper flared up in white-hot flames of fire inside her chest because she had had more than enough of his toxic assumptions about her character. ‘Oh, if that’s what you’re worried about, I can free you of your fear,’ she assured him almost sweetly. ‘I’m getting married in seven weeks to a man who’s… I assume…just as rich as you. I don’t need to trade my virginity like a commodity, Mr Romanos, or run the risk of pregnancy to entrap any man. Rather an old-fashioned accusation that, don’t you think? In fact if the contraceptive mishapwereto result in consequences, I’d be the one in a serious fix!’
Aristide listened in growing disbelief. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing! She was getting married, she was engaged to marry some other man in a few weeks and yet she had lethimtake her to bed? None of that made sense to him. If she was engaged, why had she still been untouched? He was shocked, appalled, and he was so angry as he pulled on clothes that he was shaking with the force of his emotions.
‘So, you’re a cheat as well as everything else,’ he breathed tightly.
‘Goodnight, Mr Romanos. Can’t say it’s been nice because, like other men I’ve met, you’re not quite what you seem to be on the surface,’ Tabby fired back at him with hot cheeks and a strong desire to push him fully clothed into the nearest weed-clogged pond.
‘I’ll take you home…’ Aristide addressed her rigidly turned back as she reached the front door.
‘No, thanks.’ And with that calm retort, Tabby walked out of his penthouse apartment and finally felt able to breathe again.
‘Tabitha…’
She turned her tousled head and arrowed glacial blue eyes back at him as she awaited the lift.
‘If thereshouldbe consequences—’
‘Forget it,’ Tabitha murmured pleasantly. ‘I wouldn’t come begging to you if I was down to my very last penny andstarving. That’s a promise.’
Aristide strode back indoors and closed the door quietly when he wanted to slam it. What the hell was Tabby Blessington playing at? Well, he intended to find out. Pulling out his phone, he texted her name and address to the private investigation agency he used and requested a full report on her. He was angry, frustrated and, yes, there was dissatisfaction too at the manner in which he had discovered her true nature. She had cheated on her fiancé with him. Acknowledging that reality, he told himself that he should be grateful to be made so swiftly aware of her capacity for deceit.
Tabby travelled home on the Tube, had a shower and went straight to bed. She longed to phone her twin and tell her what had happened but she cringed at the image of her having made an outsize fool of herself. There she had been, all sentimental and romantic about Aristide Romanos in spite of the fact it was only meant to be a one-night stand. No, she decided, she would take those short-lived girlie dreams to the grave with her. She hadaskedto be hurt, she told herself with self-loathing, she had turned out to be much more vulnerable than she had ever believed herself to be.
And why, when he had insinuated that she was after him for his money, had she responded with the news that she was due to marry another rich man in seven weeks? Why hadn’t she foreseen that he would naturally assume that she was a faithless cheater into the bargain? He hadn’t wanted to be her first lover either. There was something insulting about that, but it would be perfectly understandable if he simply preferred more experienced partners. And she had naïvely supposed that he wouldn’t notice her innocence!
No, Aristide had been a disaster, but at least she had accomplished her goal. She squirmed in her bed, still aching, telling herself it served her right. She would probably confess all to Violet in a few months, once the crushing humiliation of her encounter with Aristide had faded a bit.
And the condom had let them both down. She had to worry about that as well, she reminded herself. But she brushed off that concern because she literally could not even begin to imagine being pregnant. Why borrow trouble when she was in a big enough mess as it was with a stranger bridegroom-to-be to meet at the altar in only seven weeks’ time?
Chapter Three
TURNING FULL CIRCLEback from those memories and returning to the present, Tabby stared down at that positive pregnancy test and tossed it in the bin. The deed was done, the wondering at an end and full reality had set in.
That very same morning she had had an appointment with her future husband’s lawyers to sign the pre-nup. She had forged her sister’s signature in Violet’s usual scrawl and shame covered her from head to toe because she had let her twin down badly. She was the single one of the two of them, free of dependants and a business, and naturally it would have been easier for her to make that commercial alliance. Now Violet, with the baby daughter she was adopting and a very demanding bakery, was about to be thrown in at the deep end to marry Tore Renzetti instead and, of course, Tabby felt terrible about that. Her unfortunate sister would be forced to make many more compromises than would have been demanded of Tabby, whose life had been more fluid and free of responsibility.
Tabby followed that act up with a visit to her twin, needing to confess her sins as soon as possible. She greeted her twin’s childminder, Joy, who was also Violet’s tenant, who told her that her niece, Belle, was down for a nap, having eaten. Tabby told Joy that she could leave early, leaving Tabby free to pace the floor in the tiny lounge.
Before Violet had even adjusted to her unannounced visit, Tabby had to dart off to the bathroom in haste where she was sick, an ever increasing reminder of her condition, she reflected unhappily.
‘It’s not a bug,’ Tabby revealed tautly when she reappeared, her lovely face troubled and embarrassed. ‘I wouldn’t be visiting if I had anything contagious. No, the truth is that I’m pregnant.’
‘Pregnant?’Violet gasped in disbelief. ‘Buthow? I mean—’
‘Not a virgin any more,’ Tabby cut in somewhat bitterly. ‘You have to remember me saying that there was no way I was going into this marriage a virgin and staying that way for another three years!’
‘So, if you’re pregnant, who’s the father?’ Violet asked worriedly.
Tabby grimaced. ‘Someone I met at work who I believed was just passing through. I thought he would be perfect as I’d never see him again but the birth control let me down.’
