Mail-order Bridegroom Part 81

Still, Kate was loath to believe otherwise as long as she had a chance.

And she thought she did, until the day that Nestor Stephanos Adropolis made his appearance in the world.

It was the day after New Year's. Sophia had awakened before dawn with a

faint backache. She hadn't wanted to bother anyone, she told the familylater, so she'd waited until the vague ache had escalated into contractionsfive minutes apart. Then she woke her husband.

"You have to come now! Now!" Stephanos was frantic when Kate picked up the bedside phone.

TO be right there. "

"Tell him to relax," Damon said loud enough for his brother-in-law to hear.

"I'll tell him that when you're having your first," Stephanos said roughly to Kate.

"Get over here now."

"We will," Kate promised in her best soothing voice and hung up.

"Come on. It's time."

Sophia, for all that she began her labour quickly, got most of the way there,

then slowed down. Kate, at home with the girls, waited by the phone for what

seemed like hours until, at last, the call came at five that evening.

"It's a boy," Stephanos told her, and he sounded exhausted enough to have given birth himself.

"Congratulations," Kate said.

"How's Sophia?"

"Tired. Fine, but tired. We both are. We'd thought about having you bring

the girls up tonight to see him, but I think it would be better if you wait until tomorrow."

"Of course," Kate agreed, though she was eager to see the baby herself.

"Damon will bring you the Polaroids."

"He was there?"

"Waiting in the hall the whole time. You didn't imagine he'd let the next generation arrive without him, did you?" Stephanos teased.

"No," Kate said.

"Of course not."

Stephanos was right, of course. The baby would matter a lot to Damon.

As much as he might grumble about his mother and his sisters and their problems, he was always right there to solve them or at least to lend moral support. Kate had often thought about what a good father he would be. She tried to imagine a child they might have, then stopped. It was far too tempting.

Damon came bearing Polaroids and Chinese take away The girls were so excited to see photos of their new brother that they only picked at the sweet and sour pork. It took Damon's most determined stern father look to get them to settle down and eat.

"You won't be able to go see him tomorrow," he told his nieces, 'if you don't eat a good dinner and get plenty of sleep tonight. "

The girls calmed down enough to eat. After an hour of television and three bedtime stories, they allowed the light to go out. Eventually they even slept, leaving Damon and Kate alone together.

For days it seemed they'd done nothing much more than pa.s.s in hallways and chat inconsequentially over meals. There'd been nights of pa.s.sion, of course, but the closeness Kate had sensed building between them seemed to be eluding them now.

She told herself that it would pa.s.s. She knew Damon had a lot on his mind with the problems in Montreal, and she knew more work than ever was falling on his shoulders, especially since Stephanos was preoccupied with his wife and new arrival.

But ever since her conversation at the ice rink with her brother-in-law, Katehad told herself that it would work out, that she had reason to hope.

Damon loved her.

Now she came back into the living-room to find Damon concentrating on amagazine.

"He's lovely, isn't he?" she asked, carrying the pictures as she came backfrom checking on the girls.Damon glanced up briefly."Wrinkled and red, actually." His dismissive tone surprised her.She laughed."All babies are. They improve."

Damon shrugged.

"Good thing." He went back to his magazine as if it were far more interesting than she was.

Deliberately Kate sat down on the sofa next to him, edging close, hoping he would put his arm around her and draw her into an embrace, hoping that Nestor's birth would spark a paternal instinct in Damon, would make him want sons of his own with her.

He stiffened slightly, then stood up and rubbed a hand against the back of his neck, leaving her alone on the couch.

"I've got work to do," he muttered.

"All those hours at the hospital. . ."

He didn't even look at her, just crossed the room and grabbed his briefcase which was still by the front door.

"I'll use Stephanos's study."

When Stephanos came home about ten he was still there. Kate listened to herbrother-in-law, bubbling and eager to talk about his new son.She smiled, praised, said all the right things. Then she went to bed in the guest-room where she and Damon had agreed to spend the night.

Damon was still working.

It was past midnight when he came in, but she hadn't slept; she'd thought.

And she was still thinking as she watched him strip off his clothes in the dark and slip into bed beside her.

"Damon?" she touched his arm.

He tensed for an instant, then turned to her, took

her into his arms and kissed her. It was a hungry kiss. Almost, Kate would have said, a desperatekiss.

And then he loved her, shattered her. . and then he slept.

She saw Nestor Stephanos the next afternoon. He was wrinkly and red andvery, very beautiful. Simply seeing him made her ache with maternallongings. She sat beside Sophia's bed and held him in her arms and cooeddown at him, marvelling at the way his dark eyes tried to focus on her, atthe way his tiny hand gripped her finger so fiercely. She looked over at Sophia and smiled.

"He's gorgeous!"

Kate looked up to see Helena, Pandora and a dark- haired woman she didn'tknow standing in the doorway. Behind them, looking at her, was Damon. He ushered them in as Helena looked at the unknown woman with grandmotherlydisdain.

"Of course he is, Eleni," she said.

"How could you possibly think otherwise?"

The dark-haired woman, obviously the Eleni that Stephanos had mentioned,laughed and crossed the room to stand by Kate and smile down at her and thebaby.

"May I?"

Reluctantly Kate gave him up, watching as the other woman cuddled the babyclose.

"Isn't he precious?" Eleni asked.

"Don't you wish you had one of your own, Damon?" She slanted a glance at herfriend's brother.

And Kate, looking at Damon, saw an expression on his face that she'd neverseen before: a wistfulness, a hunger that sent a shaft of yearning rightthrough her.

And then he looked at her and something happened. The wistfulness faded, thehunger died. His expression closed. He shrugged.

She couldn't lie to herself any longer. She couldn't pretend that their marriage would ever be more than the sham Damon had offered her at the first.

No matter what she'd begun to hope, they had a marriage of convenience, nothing else.

The pa.s.sion, the s.e.x, the joy they'd taken in each other's bodies was physical release and nothing more. Of course he'd taken her when she'd been willing. He was a man, wasn't he? Men were quite willing to share s.e.x without love.

And, despite what Stephanos had claimed, he didn't love her.

If he did, he wouldn't withdraw from her. He would talk to her, share with her, confide in her. He wouldn't brush her off and walk away.

He wouldn't pretend un interest in children when it was clear he wanted some of his own.

What was even more clear was that he didn't want them with her.

Did he want them with Eleni?

Kate didn't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Certainly he'd looked enchanted at the sight of Eleni holding the baby.

But it really didn't matter whether it was Eleni or some other woman that he some day fell in love with. It only mattered that he didn't love her.

It was cowardly, and she knew it, but she couldn't live the lie any longer.

She waited three days, until the Barlowes' nanny Charlotte was back on her feet and able to cope. Then she called Mrs Partridge back from East Hampton and settled her in with Sophia, the twins and a far less red and wrinkled Nestor. It was nothing more or less than what she'd intended to do all along, she told them and herself.

She kissed the baby and hugged the girls. She smiled. She waved.

"You're not leaving forever," Sophia said.

"You're only going home to Damon."

Kate smiled again as she backed out of the door and blinked back the tears.

She did go home to Damon's, but only long enough to leave him a note.

Then she packed her bags and left.