The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

woman ever had and who was nothing short of dirty dynamite in his bed. Oh, no, Leo had no complaints on the marriage front. In fact, Leo was delighted with his bride.

      He walked her back to the car and noticed a guy on a motorbike twisting his head rather dangerously to get a second look at the figure Grace cut in a pale pink cami top that showed rather more cleavage than Leo liked and a clinging white skirt that enhanced her curvy behind and show-stopping legs. His mouth flattened while he wondered when Grace would start looking more pregnant and less curvy and sexy. He could hardly wait for the day. It offended him when other men studied his wife with lascivious intent.

      Grace was glad of the breeze that cooled her as they walked into the castle because she was feeling uncomfortably warm. ‘I need a shower,’ she sighed, starting up the stairs.

      ‘Me too,’ Leo husked with a roughened edge to his dark deep drawl.

      Grace was moving towards the bathroom when Leo spoke again and in a sudden tone of urgency. ‘Grace...your skirt...you’re bleeding!’

       CHAPTER NINE

      COLD SHOCK AND dismay filled Grace as she looked down at herself. In the bathroom she frantically peeled off her clothes.

      ‘You can’t have a shower now...you should lie down!’ Leo tried to remonstrate with her.

      ‘Don’t be silly,’ Grace argued shakily. ‘If I’m having a miscarriage there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.’

      Leo stepped out of the bathroom to call Dr Silvano and then went back in, battling an angry, aggressive urge to snatch Grace bodily out of the shower and force her to lie down but very much afraid that coming over all caveman would only upset her more. He tried to wrap a huge towel round her when she came out, hovering even when she shouted at him to leave her alone. Grace rebelled by stepping back out of view to take care of necessities but he was still waiting with the towel when she emerged again.

      ‘You’re so cold,’ he groaned.

      ‘Shock,’ she said, teeth chattering while she struggled to make herself face what felt like an impossible challenge and slid her arms into a towelling robe. ‘You know one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage during the first trimester and I’m only eight weeks and a bit along...’

      ‘Hush,’ Leo incised, bundling her up into his arms and carrying her over to the bed before rattling through drawers in search of the nightdress she requested. ‘Are you in a lot of pain?’

      She winced. ‘None...whatsoever.’

      ‘You’ll still have to go into hospital. Diavelos...I should’ve taken you straight there!’ Leo breathed, pacing the floor at the end of the bed, rigid with tension and regret.

      ‘No hospital, Leo. I think I’d freak out on a gynae ward surrounded by pregnant women and newborns.’

      ‘You’d be in a private room and don’t be so pessimistic,’ Leo censured. ‘It may not be what you fear.’

      Grace said nothing. She lay as still as an upturned statue staring up at the ceiling. Crazy thoughts tormented her. Was this to be her punishment for thinking that she could give her baby up for adoption? Was this her punishment for not properly valuing the gift she had been given? It seemed that Dr Silvano had been right when he’d expressed the opinion that a mother-to-be suffering from nausea and sore breasts could indicate a more stable pregnancy. Her eyes prickled. It was inconceivable to her that only an hour earlier she and Leo had been laughing and carefree, utterly unaware of what lay ahead.

      She was moved from the limo into the small hospital in a wheelchair and taken to a small side ward. Somewhere in the background she could hear Leo talking in low-pitched urgent Italian and thought numbly of how useful his gift with languages could be. A few minutes later she was moved yet again and this time she was transferred to a room where there were no other patients. Leo helped her into bed and the fraught silence between them worked on Grace’s nerves until a radiographer entered with a portable scanner. Grace lay still while the gelled probe moved back and forth over her tummy, her attention locked to the small screen, her hopes and dreams slowly dying as what she prayed for failed to appear. The operator excused herself and reappeared some minutes later with a doctor, who spoke English. He broke the news that the machine had failed to detect the baby’s heartbeat but that the procedure would be repeated the following day to ensure that there was no mistake.

      ‘I don’t see why we should wait twenty-four hours to get a confirmation.’ Leo breathed harshly, his bone structure rigid below his bronzed skin.

      ‘It’s standard procedure to wait twenty-four hours and check again,’ Grace chipped in.

      ‘I’ll organise an airlift to a city hospital, somewhere with the latest equipment,’ he began.

      The doctor said that it would not be a good idea to move Grace again and that air travel at such an early stage of her pregnancy only heightened the likelihood of miscarriage.

      ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Grace declared, turning her face into the wall because she could not bear to continue looking at Leo.

      It was over. Why was he making everything more difficult by fighting the obvious conclusion? Most probably she had miscarried and everyone in the room with the exception of Leo could accept that. A second check tomorrow was very probably only a routine precaution.

      But then she was not cut from the same cloth as her husband, she acknowledged heavily. Leo was rich and powerful and accustomed to his wealth changing negatives into positives but sadly there was no way to do that in the current situation. Her baby had died without ever learning what it would be like to live. A great swell of anguish mushroomed up through Grace and a choked sob escaped her as she gasped for breath and control.

      Leo sat down on the side of the bed and gripped her clenched fingers. ‘We’ll get through this,’ he rasped, his eyes burning and pinned to her pale, pinched profile as he flailed around mentally striving to come up with words of comfort.

      ‘It just wasn’t meant to be,’ Grace said with flat conviction.

      ‘Some day there’ll be...another chance,’ Leo completed tightly.

      ‘Not for us.’

      Leo ignored that assurance. He wasn’t about to get into an argument. Grace was devastated, probably barely aware of what she was saying and Leo, struggling to master the tightness in his chest and the yawning hollow opening up inside him, was realising that he was devastated too, much more devastated than he had ever expected to be in such circumstances. ‘Let’s not be pessimistic. Tomorrow...’

      ‘It will only hurt me more to hold onto false hope!’ Grace snapped back at him, her head flipping, vibrant red hair spilling across the pillows, pale sea-glass eyes distraught and accusing.

      Leo’s eyes stung, frustration flaring through his lean, powerful frame because he wanted so badly to fix things and knew that he couldn’t. ‘It was my baby too,’ he murmured in a roughened undertone.

      ‘I know...that’s all you ever cared about. Believe me, I don’t need reminding,’ Grace framed jerkily, turning away again to present him with her slender back.

      Leo paled and sprang off the bed to head for the chair in the corner. ‘Try to get some sleep. I’ll stay with you.’

      Grace sat up with a sudden start, grief and regret weighing her down to the extent that she felt as if she were drowning in inner turmoil and unhappiness. She pushed the pillows back behind her and studied him in his pale grey exquisitely tailored suit that glimmered like dull silver below the stark hospital lights. His blue-black hair was tousled, his strong jawline rough with dark stubble, his stunning eyes unusually bright with emotion. Of course he was upset; she knew he was upset. After all, much as he might wish to be, he wasn’t a block of unfeeling wood. Unfortunately, Grace had already looked beyond their loss to become painfully