The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

had sex twice without a condom,’ Bastien told her grimly. ‘I’m regularly tested and I’m clean, so there is no risk of an infection. I’m merely trying to calculate the odds of conception.’

      Lilah’s whole body turned cold at the threat of an unplanned pregnancy. She hadn’t noticed the lack of contraception—had been as lost in passion as he must have been. That acknowledgement stung, because she knew how important it was to take precautions and protect herself from such consequences.

      Ashamed that she could have been so reckless and immature as to overlook such necessities, she answered his questions about her menstrual cycle and watched his frown steadily darken.

      ‘Obviously you could conceive. You’re young, fertile...naturally there’s a good chance.’ His beautiful mouth compressed hard. ‘We’ll get married as soon as I can get it organised.’

      ‘Married?’ Lilah parrotted in a strangled shriek, sitting up in bed with a sudden jerk, her eyes awash with disbelief as she stared back at him.

      His unfathomable dark eyes glittered. ‘You need to know that whatever happens I’m there for you, and a wedding ring is the only security a man can offer a woman in that situation.’

      ‘People don’t rush off and get married simply because of a contraceptive oversight,’ Lilah whispered shakily. ‘That would be crazy.’

      ‘I know exactly what I’m doing. My first child was aborted when I was only twenty-one,’ Bastien explained, shattering her with that flat statement of fact. ‘I refuse to risk a repeat of that experience.’

      Lilah was poleaxed. ‘But...but I—’

      ‘So we’ll get married. And if it transpires that we have no reason to stay married we’ll get an equally quick divorce,’ Bastien assured her smoothly, as though such a fast turnaround from marriage to divorce would be the most natural development in the world.

      ‘But we can’t just get married on the off-chance that I might be pregnant,’ she muttered incredulously.

      ‘If you have conceived we’ll be married and you’ll be less tempted to consider a termination,’ Bastien pointed out with assurance. ‘We don’t need to publicise our marriage in the short term, or drag anyone else into our predicament. We’ll have a private wedding.’

      Stunned, Lilah flopped down flat again, exhaustion rolling over her like a hefty blanket. It was all too much to take in. The shocking revelations of his past and the sheer impossibility of their future.

      ‘We’ll argue about it in the morning,’ she countered in a daze. ‘You’re thinking worst-case scenario.’

      ‘No, I’ve already lived the worst-case scenario,’ Bastien contradicted with an edge of derision. ‘And that was losing the child I wanted because the woman concerned decided that she didn’t.’

      Lilah winced, recognising the edge of bitterness in his dark deep drawl. She wondered who that woman had been, while marvelling at how much Bastien was revealing about himself. He had a deep, sensitive side to his nature that astonished her. For the first time she wondered what it had felt like for him—a man who wanted a child with a woman when the woman did not feel the same. Her heart ached for him. Clearly he had grieved that loss, but he had also interpreted the termination as a personal rejection and a humiliation, which struck her as even more sad.

      Without comment she watched him stride lithely back to his own room, utterly unconcerned by his nudity. But why would he be concerned? an inner voice asked. When you were that perfectly built and physically beautiful you had to be aware of the fact.

      She stretched out in the big bed, wondering why she wished he had stayed...wondering why what he had told her had left her feeling bereft and unsettled.

      Had he loved the woman who had chosen not to have his child? Why did it bother her that Bastien might once have cared deeply for another woman? Evidently back then Bastien had not been quite as emotionally detached and untouchable as he was now. He had cared...he had been hurt. Why did that touch something deep down inside her and wound her? It couldn’t be jealousy... It couldn’t possibly be jealousy.

      She didn’t care about Bastien in the smallest way, Lilah assured herself agitatedly. Bastien Zikos was simply the man she’d slept with to fulfil her side of their agreement to be his mistress. That was all he wanted from her. And all she had ever wanted from him was that he reopen the factory and re-employ her father.

      Honesty urged Lilah to admit that she was lying to herself. Two years earlier, when she had first met Bastien, she had very quickly begun developing deep feelings for him—but his sole reaction to her had been superficial and sexual. And nothing had changed since then, she reminded herself doggedly. Even if she was pregnant—even if she agreed to marry him—nothing would change between them. If she hadn’t got to Bastien on a more meaningful level when they first met it was extremely unlikely that anything more would develop the second time around.

      But how dared he simply assume that if she had conceived she would automatically want to consider a termination? He had no right to make that assumption—no right to try and take control of that decision either.

      Too tired to lie awake agonising about what might never happen, Lilah ultimately dropped off to sleep.

      * * *

      The next morning that entire conversation with Bastien about getting married seemed surreal to Lilah. She was still deep in her bemused thoughts when she went downstairs for breakfast.

      Bastien watched Delilah cross the terrace, a lithe, slim figure in a turquoise playsuit that showcased her tiny waist and long slim legs. She looked very young, with her black curls rippling loose round her shoulders. He watched her sit down and settle anxious sapphire-blue eyes on him.

      Clad in tailored cream chinos and a black T-shirt, Bastien was casually seated on the low wall bounding the terrace, with a cup of coffee in his hand. His bronzed sculpted features smooth shaven, his lean, powerful body fluidly relaxed, he exuded poise, sophistication and an absolute charisma which stole Lilah’s breath from her lungs.

      A tiny muscle low in her pelvis clenched and her face coloured hotly as she became uncomfortably aware of the damp flesh between her thighs.

      ‘I’ve been thinking, and I believe you’re worrying about something that’s unlikely to happen. It’s not always that easy to get pregnant,’ Lilah told Bastien quietly, keen to distract him from looking at her too closely because Bastien was far too astute at reading women. ‘It took my stepmother months to conceive.’

      ‘I’m not about to change my mind about marriage as a solution, Delilah,’ Bastien warned her, secretly amused and impressed that she lacked the avaricious streak that would have made many women grab at the chance to marry him. ‘While the arrangements are being made—there’s a lot of paperwork involved in getting married in France—we’ll continue here as normal. My lawyers are drawing up a pre-nup as we speak—’

      Lilah poured her tea and groaned. ‘You’re really serious about this...’

      ‘It may not seem immediately obvious to you in our current relationship,’ Bastien remarked in a roughened undertone, watching her nibble at a croissant with unconscious sensuality and gritting his teeth as he hardened in response, ‘but if you do prove to be pregnant I have a lot to offer as a husband and a father...’

      Who was she? Lilah immediately wanted to know. Who was the evil witch who had made Bastien feel worthless at the age of twenty-one when he had been little more than a boy?

      ‘I know that, Bastien,’ she said quietly. ‘Who was the woman who had the termination?’

      Bastien grimaced. ‘This long after the event, there is no need for us to discuss that.’

      Lilah tilted her chin. ‘If you want me to marry you in these circumstances I have a right to know the whole story.’

      ‘Her name is Marina Kouros.