Bound to the Greek by Kate Hewitt Read Free Book Online

for her. Eleanor swallowed past the tightness in her throat, closing her eyes as if that could blot out the pain. The memory. Never for her.
    Jace drew in a ragged, desperate breath, his head still bowed, his back to Eleanor. He felt the rage course through him, consume him, and he didn’t trust himself to speak.
    The baby was his.
Could
be his. Except in his gut—perhaps even in his heart—Jace knew the truth. He saw it in Eleanor’s eyes, dark with remembered pain. The baby was his.
    He wasn’t infertile.
    And all he could feel was anger. All he could think of was the waste. His life, his family, his father. Everything had pointed to his failure as a son, as a man. He’d lived with it, let it cripple him, let it guide and restrain his choices, and for what?
    For a lie? A
mistake!
    The realisation made him want to shout to the remorseless heavens, to hit something, to hurt something. Someone.
It wasn’t fair.
The cry of a child, and yet it bellowed up inside him, the need so great he clamped his lips together and drew another shuddering breath.
    Eleanor, he knew, would never understand. How could he explain how utterly sure he’d been of his own infertility, so that he’d been able to walk away without once considering that she’d been telling the truth? He’d always been so certain that even now he wondered. Doubted.
    It can’t be.
    And yet if it was…
    Too many repercussions, too many unspoken—un-thought?hopes and fears crowded his mind, his heart. Hepushed them down, unable to deal with them now, to consider what they meant, what changes to both the present and future—and, God help him, the past—they would require.
    The baby was his.
    The baby was his.
    He had a child.
    Jace whirled around again, the movement so sudden and savage that Eleanor gasped aloud and took a step towards the window.
    He crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed her by the shoulders, his face thrust near hers. ‘Where is the baby? If it
is
my child—’
    Eleanor closed her eyes. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want Jace here, stirring up memories, regrets,
pain,
and for what? Yet she knew he had a right to know. She swallowed again. Her throat was so very tight. ‘Was,’ she whispered. ‘It was.’
    ‘What—what are you talking??’
    ‘It
was
your child,’ she explained very quietly, and the fierce light that had ignited in Jace’s eyes winked out, leaving them the colour of cold ash.
    ‘You mean…’ his hands tightened on her shoulders ‘… you had an abortion.’
    ‘No!’ She jerked out of his grasp, glaring at him. ‘Why don’t you just leap to yet another offensive assumption, Jace? You’re good at that.’
    He folded his arms, his expression still hard. ‘What are you saying, then?’
    ‘I had a… a miscarriage.’ A bland, official-sounding word for such a heart-rending, life-changing event. She turned away from him so he wouldn’t see the naked pain on her face. She felt the thickness of tears in her throat. ‘I lost the baby.’ She swallowed.
My little girl,
she thought,
my precious little girl.
    Jace was silent for a long moment. Eleanor stared blindly out of the window, trying not to remember. The screen, thesilence, the emptiness within. ‘I’m sorry,’ he finally said, and she just shrugged. The silence ticked on, heavy, oppressive. ‘I’m sorry,’ Jace said again, the word raw, and Eleanor felt again the thickening of tears in her throat. She swallowed it down, reluctant to let Jace enter her sorrow. She didn’t want to rake it up again; she didn’t even want him sharing it. She was still angry. Still hurt.
    ‘I’ll still have to be tested,’ he continued, ‘to make sure—’
    ‘That the baby was yours?’ Eleanor filled in. ‘You still don’t believe me?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Just when would I have had this other affair, Jace? I spent every waking—and sleeping—moment with you for six
months.’
    ‘You don’t understand—’ Jace began in