Postcards From…Verses Brides Babies And Billionaires. Rebecca Winters

in like an unwanted viper. If this had happened just a week later, and it had had the most unthinkable consequences, she and Nikolai would have been married. What would he have done then, married to a woman who no longer carried the child he’d made a deal for?

      ‘You have been doing too much,’ he said sternly. ‘Rest is what you need.’

      ‘Maybe we should call off the wedding.’ She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to see the truth in his eyes. She’d been rejected by her father before he’d even seen her and then again as a teenager. For him marriage and fatherhood wasn’t what he’d wanted in life and she knew it was the same for Nikolai; he’d made that more than clear. She couldn’t trap him into something he didn’t want but neither could she deny her baby the chance of knowing its father. A heart-wrenching decision, born out of the panic of the moment, grew in her mind. Who should she be true to—her child or herself?

      ‘If the doctor agrees you are well and can come home, that will not happen.’ There wasn’t a drop of gentleness in his voice. The man who’d become more gentle and loving each night had gone and the cold, hard man who’d walked out on her in Vladimir was back.

      ‘But this isn’t what you want.’ She hated the pain that sounded in her voice, hated the way she still clung to the hope he could one day love her.

      ‘What we want is irrelevant.’ He looked down at her, his dark eyes narrowed with irritation. ‘It’s what is best for the child, Emma. We will be married.’

      Nikolai fought hard against the invading emotions as he helped Emma to sit up. This was more than the physical pull of sexual attraction that had surrounded them since the day they’d first met in Vladimir. This was something he’d never known before. Something he’d been running from since the night he’d made her his.

      He cared, really cared, not just about the child who was his heir but about the woman he’d created that child with. When had that happened? When had lust and sexual desire crossed the divide and become something deeper, something much more powerful than passion?

      He had no idea when, but all he knew was that it had happened. He looked down at Emma, her face full of uncertainty, and knew without doubt that he cared for her. And it scared the hell out of him. Caring caused pain.

      ‘We will take Emma for a scan now.’ The nurse’s voice snapped him back from that daunting revelation. A scan? Would he be able to see his child? Now?

      ‘Is there something wrong?’ The quiver in Emma’s voice reached into his heart and pulled at it, making him want to hold her hand, give her reassurance. Making him want to love her. But how could he do that when he didn’t know how to deal with the emotions that were taking over? Or even exactly what they were?

      ‘Is there?’ he demanded of the nurse.

      ‘Everything is fine,’ she said with the kind of smile meant to dispel any doubts. ‘We just want to reassure both of you.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Emma’s reply called his attention back to her and he looked down at her, noticing, as he had done several times in recent days, how pale she was. Should he have done something sooner? Guilt ploughed into him. He’d pushed her too hard, not taken enough interest to see how tired she’d become. He’d risked his baby.

      His baby.

      Those two words crashed into him and for a moment he couldn’t draw a breath. Then he felt Emma’s hand on his arm, the sympathetic touch almost too much. He didn’t deserve that from her.

      A short time later, and with no recollection of how he’d got there, he was in a small room with Emma. She lay on the bed, the soft skin of her stomach exposed as the nurse pressed the scanner probe against her. He noticed her hand was clenched as it held her top out of the way, as if she feared the worst. He watched as the nurse moved the probe, trying to get a clear image on the screen. He wouldn’t have been able to tell Emma was pregnant with his child, her stomach was flat, but the first image filled the screen and he knew the machine didn’t lie.

      In his mind he tried to add up how many weeks’ pregnant she was. How many weeks was it since they’d had the most amazing night which had had such far-reaching consequences. Before he could work it out, the nurse’s voice broke through his thoughts.

      ‘There we are. Baby at ten weeks.’

      He looked at the screen, not able to take his eyes from it. The fuzzy image had a dark centre and in that darkness was his baby. Small, but unmistakable. He couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but stare at it.

      A tense silence filled the room as the nurse continued to move the scanner around, losing the image briefly. He couldn’t look at Emma, couldn’t take his attention away from the screen that showed him the secret of his baby.

      ‘And everything appears normal,’ the nurse added as she paused once more, showing an even clearer image. ‘See it moving and its heart beating?’

      Fierce protectiveness rose up in him like a rearing horse and he knew in that tension-filled moment he would do absolutely anything for his baby. He would go to the ends of the earth for him or her. It would want for nothing and he would love it unconditionally.

      Love.

      Could he love it? Could he give it the one thing his father had never given him? The one thing which terrified him?

      Finally he looked at Emma as she watched the screen, a small tear slipping down her cheek. Did he love her? What was the powerful sensation of crushing around his chest and the lightness in his stomach each time he saw her or thought of her? Was it love? Had he fallen in love with a woman who could never love him? A woman whose heart was already elsewhere?

      Emma looked at the screen and tears began to slide down her cheeks. They were in part tears of happiness: her baby was well. She’d seen it move, seen its little heart beating. But those tears of happiness mingled with tears of pain. Nikolai had been silent throughout. He hadn’t uttered a word, had barely moved, and she could no longer look at him. Was he now seeing the reality of the deal he’d made?

      She glanced up at him now as the nurse completed the scan and then left them alone. No doubt she thought she was giving them private time to be happy together, but then she didn’t know the truth.

      The truth was that Nikolai didn’t want this baby. He’d stood stiffly by her side, his hard gaze fixed rigidly on the screen as the first images of their child had appeared. Now he couldn’t move, couldn’t look her in the eye.

      The elation that filled her from seeing the baby, from knowing it was well, cooled as the tension in the room grew to ominous levels and she wished the nurse hadn’t left. At least then she might have been able to avoid the truth.

      ‘You must rest,’ Nikolai said, his voice deeper and more commanding than she’d ever known it. Was he blaming her? Was he even now thinking she was as uncaring as her mother had been?

      ‘I—I think we should at least postpone the wedding.’ She stumbled over her words as his fiercely intense gaze locked with hers. If she could get him to agree to postpone it then it would give them both time to decide if it really was the right thing to do. She loved him but couldn’t marry him, tie him to her, if there was never going to be a chance that he would one day feel the same for her.

      ‘No, but you won’t need to worry about anything. I will arrange for your final dress fittings to be at the apartment.’

      He moved away as she sat up and slipped off the bed, but she felt more exposed than she had that morning she’d first woken in his bed. It was as if he knew everything about her. She knew he didn’t, knew that she still guarded her fear of rejection—his rejection. Her father had rejected her. Richard had too, just by refusing to see her as anything other than a friend, and the last thing she wanted was to