Best Modern Romances Of The Year 2017. Maisey Yates

felt so sick because Max wasn’t a very good actor. He was appalled by the idea of her being pregnant and he couldn’t hide it. A tight band of pain seized her chest and she could hardly breathe for hurt and disillusionment. How could she have been so naïve as to credit that Max would welcome a baby that would undoubtedly disrupt his life even more than she had done? Max had given up his freedom to marry her and possibly he had hoped that he would eventually regain that freedom, but the birth of a child would make that process a great deal more complicated.

      Max released his breath in a rush. ‘You took me by surprise.’

      ‘Obviously,’ Tia pronounced tightly, focusing fixedly on his scarlet silk tie, refusing to meet his eyes and see anything else she didn’t want to see because it hurt too much.

      Yes, she had accepted that he wasn’t in love with her, but she had trustingly believed that he would welcome fatherhood even if the planning or the timing weren’t quite ideal. But that had been a false hope because she had judged Max all wrong. Max just didn’t want a child, which was a much more basic issue. Suddenly she was in a situation she had never ever envisaged and flinching in horror from the ramifications of what she was discovering. How could she possibly stay married to a man who didn’t want their child?

      Even her own parents had not been that set against becoming parents. Her father would have been quite content to be a father if her mother had stuck around to take care of her, while her mother had been content to be a mother as long as her husband was a wealthy businessman based in London. When Paul Grayson had announced his plans to become a missionary and work in some of the poorest places on earth, Tia’s mother had been aghast and the baby she’d carried had simply become an inconvenient burden tying her down to a life she had very quickly learned to loathe.

      ‘We’ll discuss this later,’ Max breathed in a driven undertone. ‘Discuss how to handle it.’

      Handle it? What did he mean by that? And what was there to discuss? A pregnancy didn’t come with choices as far as Tia was concerned. A cold shiver snaked down her spine as Max turned to address a man who had hailed him. Was he hinting at the possibility of a termination? Surely he could not credit that she would even consider such an option?

      The evening wore on with Tia seeking out her grandfather’s company and sitting with a group of much older men. But she remained hyper-aware of Max’s every move and glance in her direction. He looked forbidding, his high cheekbones taut, his beautiful mouth compressed. It struck her as a savage irony that Max should seem as unhappy as she was and that that reality could only drive them further apart. He should have been more honest with her when he proposed, she thought bitterly. He should have admitted then that he didn’t want a child in his life. He had been prepared to marry her to throw a mantle of respectability over the possibility that she might be pregnant, but evidently even then he must have been hoping that she would fail to conceive.

      Shortly before they left because Andrew was grey with exhaustion, her grandfather gripped her hand firmly in his. ‘Do you have any idea how much I regret not standing up to my son when he put you into that convent?’

      ‘It was his decision, not yours,’ she responded gently.

      ‘I should’ve fought him, offered him money for his good works in return for you,’ Andrew sighed wearily. ‘But he was my son and I wanted him to come home and I was afraid to take the risk of arguing with him.’

      ‘I was fine at the convent. I am fine,’ Tia pointed out quietly.

      ‘You’re a wonderful girl,’ Andrew assured her as they waited indoors for the limousine to arrive.

      ‘And I have a little secret to tell you,’ Tia whispered, suddenly desperate to give her news to someone who would appreciate it.

      Her grandfather responded to her little announcement with a huge smile and he squeezed her hand with tears glistening in his blue eyes. ‘Wonderful,’ was all he could say. ‘Wonderful.’

      ‘Congratulations,’ Andrew told Max when he swung into the car with them. ‘Our family will continue into another generation.’

      For once Max experienced no inner warmth at being included in Andrew’s family and his lean, strong face remained taut, his hard jaw line clenched. He was furious with himself. He knew his lack of enthusiasm had hurt and distressed Tia. He had allowed his emotions to control him, filling him with a fearful sense of insecurity. Man up, his intelligence urged him with derision. Be an optimist, not a pessimist. If he put his mind to it, surely he was capable of being a good father?

      ‘I’m very tired,’ Tia admitted at the foot of the stairs. ‘Perhaps we could talk tomorrow.’

      ‘You go on up to bed,’ her grandfather urged cheerfully. ‘Max and I will have a nightcap to celebrate.’

      ‘You’re not supposed—’ she began.

      ‘One drink,’ Andrew specified with a wry grin. ‘Surely even the doctor would not deny me that on a special occasion?’

      Tia mounted the stairs, striving not to relive Max’s reaction to her pregnancy. She fingered her pendant with its ninety-odd diamonds as she removed her jewellery. A diamond for every day she and Max had been together. She had thought that that was so romantic but obviously it had just been a gesture, the sort of gesture a man made when he wanted to look like a devoted new husband. That newly acquired cynicism shocked her, but what else was she to think?

      Tia clambered into bed and, in spite of her unhappy thoughts, discovered that she was much too tired to lie awake. She slept, waking as dawn light broke through the curtains to find Max shaking her shoulder.

      Max gripped her hand, which struck her as strange and she frowned up at him. ‘What’s wrong?’ she framed.

      ‘You have to be very brave,’ he breathed with a ragged edge to his dark deep voice.

      Tears were shimmering in his liquid dark eyes and that fast, she knew. ‘Andrew?’ she exclaimed.

      ‘He passed away in his sleep during the night. A fatal heart attack. I’m sorry, Tia...’

      A sob formed in Tia’s tight throat. She didn’t think she could bear the pain. Max and Andrew together had been her support system but Max had let her down the night before and now Andrew was gone as well. In a world that now seemed grey, she wondered how she could go on and then she remembered her baby and knew that she had more strength than she had ever given herself credit for.

CHAPTER EIGHT

      TIA SAW HER MOTHER, Inez, seated inside the church and almost stumbled on the way to the front pew.

      ‘What is it?’ Max murmured.

      ‘My mother’s here,’ she framed, dry-mouthed.

      ‘Well, Andrew was her father-in-law for a while,’ Max conceded. ‘Perhaps she felt a need to pay her respects.’

      But the former Inez Grayson, now Inez Santos, was not a religious, respectful nor, for that matter, a sentimental woman. And her presence at Andrew’s funeral shook her daughter, who had not seen her parent in almost ten years. The past few days had turned into a roller coaster of grief, disbelief and anger for Tia. Max had kept his distance, using another bedroom after telling her that he didn’t want to ‘disturb’ her. Tia had run the gamut of frightening insecurities. Was her pregnancy such a turn-off that he didn’t want to be physically close to her any longer? Or did Max need privacy to come to terms with his own grief at the loss of the man who had done so much to support him when he was young and vulnerable? And, moreover, who had expressed his confidence in Max to the extent of making him CEO of one of the largest business concerns in the UK.

      It would be typical of Max to choose not to share that grief with her. He was much more likely than she was to wall up his feelings and hide them, particularly when he was already very much aware that he was not actually related to his former mentor except by marriage. It hurt her that yet another event