The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

he was right on that score...’

      ‘Leo? You’ve met Leo?’ Grace exclaimed, inviting the older man to sit down at the table she had vacated.

      ‘He came to see me at the surgery last week and told me that you’d only recently found out what happened between your mother and I. By the way, I’m very sorry for your loss,’ he told her with quiet sympathy. ‘I wasn’t sure this was the best time for me to meet you but your husband thought it might cheer you up.’

      ‘My loss?’ Grace repeated uncertainly, her brow indenting as she struggled to work out how such a misunderstanding could have taken place. ‘But I didn’t have a miscarriage...I’m still pregnant.’

      Her father gave her a perplexed look, clearly confused.

      ‘Did Leo tell you I had miscarried?’ Grace asked abruptly and when he nodded, everything fell into place for Grace and she finally realised that she had totally misinterpreted Leo’s silence about her health and threatened miscarriage. Evidently, her text had gone astray and, having failed to receive it, Leo had assumed the worst and had then tactfully avoided any reference to pregnancy or babies. ‘My goodness,’ she whispered in shock, appalled to appreciate that Leo had been walking round London in ignorance of the reality that he was still going to be a father.

      She explained the misunderstanding to her own father while trying to come to terms with the knowledge that, even divided as they currently were, Leo had still sought out her father and gone to see him for what could only be for her benefit.

      ‘Are you saying that your husband still doesn’t know that you didn’t lose the baby?’ he commented in consternation. ‘You should go and phone him right now!’

      ‘Leo’s due back tonight and I’d prefer to tell him face to face,’ Grace admitted with an abstracted smile, hoping that he would believe it was the very best news. ‘I gather it was Leo who persuaded you to come to Italy and meet me?’

      ‘I needed very little persuasion. I have waited over twenty years for this opportunity,’ Tony Roberts pointed out with a wry smile. ‘I assumed that you would hate me because your mother did. I didn’t even know Keira had a brother in London. I never met any of her family because she didn’t get on with them. I also had no idea that your mother had died when you were eleven. Had I known I would have asked if you could come and live with me instead of your aunt and uncle.’

      Josefina brought out a tray of coffee and biscuits and Grace chatted to her father, satisfying her curiosity about his side of the family tree and asking about his three children and his wife. Tony had been so excited about the chance to meet his long-lost daughter that he had gone straight to his partners in the surgery where he worked and requested time off to fly straight out to Italy for the weekend. Grace was doubly touched, overwhelmed by her father’s eagerness to meet her and stunned by the effort Leo had gone to on her behalf. Leo cared about her happiness, she realised, warmth filling her heart. Only a man who cared about her would have taken the trouble to set up such a meeting.

      Morning coffee stretched into a leisurely lunch out on the terrace and the sunny afternoon sped past fast as father and daughter got to know each other, registering their similarities in outlook and interests with acceptance and pleasure. As the daylight faded, Tony took his leave, only then confiding that his wife, Jennifer, was waiting for him back at his hotel. Grace invited the couple to come for dinner the following evening and she watched the older man drive off in his hire car with genuine regret. She suspected that he would have been a lovely supportive father to have when she was younger and then she told herself off for concentrating once again on the negative rather than the positive. She decided it was wiser to be grateful for the enjoyable day she had spent in her father’s company and was already looking forward to meeting her three younger half-siblings when she returned to London.

      She prepared for Leo’s return with care, donning a green dress with elaborate beadwork round the neckline and elegant heels. Hearing the helicopter come in to land, she breathed in deep and crossed her fingers for luck. He would probably still be angry with her because he hadn’t received her text and she had behaved badly at the hospital. She was still brushing her hair when Leo entered the bedroom.

      ‘I phoned Josefina and asked her to put dinner back an hour because I knew I was running late,’ he told her, pausing directly in front of her to gaze down at her with shrewd dark golden eyes. ‘How have you been?’

      ‘Good, really good. Leo...I sent you a text from the hospital but I don’t think you got it,’ Grace said uncomfortably. ‘I owe you an apology for some of the stuff I threw at you.’

      ‘You were very distressed.’

      ‘It wasn’t the right time or place to spring all that on you,’ Grace muttered guiltily. ‘I was in a bad frame of mind.’

      ‘Understandably,’ Leo cut in, stroking a long soothing forefinger along the taut line of her compressed lips. ‘You’re very tense. What’s wrong?’

      Grace backed away a few steps to clear her head. That close to Leo, her very skin prickling with awareness and the familiar scent of his cologne teasing her nostrils, she found it impossible to concentrate. ‘If you’d got that text you’d have known that there’s nothing wrong,’ she told him with a wary half-smile. ‘You were right and I was mistaken. I was being too pessimistic. The second scan picked up our baby’s heartbeat the following morning.’

      Leo froze, his ebony brows pleating in bewilderment. ‘You mean...you’re saying...?’

      ‘That I’m still pregnant and everything looks fine. Feeling a bit sicker, mind you,’ she burbled, suddenly shy beneath the burning intensity of his appraisal.

      ‘You haven’t lost the baby? Truly?’ Leo pressed, striding forward, dark eyes alight like flames.

      ‘Truly,’ she whispered shakily as his arms closed tightly round her and she leant up against him for support. ‘Sometimes I’m a terrible negative thinker, Leo. I only realised you didn’t know about the baby when my father came to see me today. I thought possibly you hadn’t mentioned the baby on the phone because you had changed your mind about certain things.’

      ‘Well, I have changed my position on some stuff,’ Leo stated in a driven undertone and then he startled her by swinging her up into his arms and spinning her round in a breathless rush. His charismatic grin lit up his lean dark features. ‘That’s the most wonderful news, meli mou! I didn’t quite grasp how much I wanted our baby until I believed he was lost.’

      ‘You’re making me dizzy...put me down,’ Grace urged, perspiration beading her short upper lip. With a groan of apology he settled her down at the foot of the bed where she lowered her head for a minute to overcome the nausea and dizziness the sudden spinning motion had induced.

      ‘Are you all right?’ Leo demanded, crouching at her feet and pushing up her face to see it. ‘You are pale. I was an idiot. I just didn’t think about what I was doing.’

      Grace’s nebulous fears about how Leo would react to her news had vanished. Leo was being so normal. There was no distance in him at all and he had been genuinely overjoyed to learn that she was still pregnant. That was not the reaction of a male who was considering the possibility of reclaiming his freedom with a divorce. Relief quivered through her slim, taut frame.

      ‘I’m fine, Leo. I just get a little dizzy if I do anything too quickly. I’ve also been sick a couple of times,’ she explained prosaically. ‘It’s like my body’s finally woken up and realised it’s pregnant.’

      ‘It’ll settle down,’ Leo forecast cheerfully. ‘How did things go with your father today?’

      ‘What made you go and see him?’ Grace asked instead.

      ‘Well, I knew you wanted to meet him and I thought it would give you something else to think about,’ he paraphrased a shade awkwardly. ‘Grace—I’ve never felt so helpless in my life as when I believed you were losing our baby...’

      ‘Me