‘I don’t have any.’ Molly backed away from the bed much as if it was the scene of the crime. ‘What was the conversation you said we had to have?’

Leandro tensed at that timely reminder and then breathed in deep. ‘On the night that we met I didn’t use condoms when we made love. Are you using any contraception?’

Molly stared at him, alarm bells jangling noisily inside her head in tune with startled shock waves of dismay and anger. ‘No,’ she admitted tightly. ‘But I assumed that you did.’

‘I’m afraid not, but I think it’s unlikely that you will conceive,’ Leandro admitted in a calm, dismissive tone of finality that only inflamed her temper more. ‘I assume you have no idea one way or the other as yet?’

‘You assume right and I’m glad to know that you’re not losing any sleep over the risks you took with my body and my future!’ Molly slung at him in furious attack. ‘But the risk of falling pregnant is not just something that I can shrug off and hope for the best about. How could you be so careless?’

His lean, strong face was unreadable, his brilliant dark eyes semi-screened by his luxuriant black fringe of lashes. ‘It took two of us to be careless,’ he reminded her drily.

Molly threw her head back abruptly as though he had slapped her. ‘You’re a lot more experienced than I am. I was in an unfamiliar situation and I just didn’t think of that angle-what’s your excuse?’

Leandro shot her a sardonic appraisal. ‘I don’t make excuses. I made an oversight for which I apologise. If there’s a problem, we’ll face it together and I will give you my full support, but I seriously doubt that that necessity will arise.’

Molly wondered angrily why he was so infuriatingly confident that there would not be consequences. Did he lead a charmed life in which nothing ever went badly wrong for him? He had made love to her three times. Didn’t he appreciate that she was young and fertile?

‘I do not want to be pregnant!’ she told him vehemently. ‘In fact the very idea of it terrifies me-’

‘This is my problem as well,’ Leandro cut in forcefully.

‘But I can’t dismiss it as easily as you appear to. Maybe because I know that the world is not a forgiving place for a child who is born against other people’s wishes, a child whose very existence may cause offence-’

His ebony brows had pleated in a bemused frown as she became increasingly emotional. ‘Qué demonios? What are you trying to say to me?’

‘I’m illegitimate and the result of my mother’s affair with someone else’s husband,’ Molly spelt out grittily, her slim hands tightening into taut fists of constraint by her sides. ‘My mother died when I was nine and my grandmother took charge of my older half-sister and me. My sister was born within a marriage. My grandmother handed me over to social services for adoption because, as far as she was concerned, I was an embarrassment who should never have been born.’

Leandro was more unsettled than he was prepared to admit by that sad little tale. He knew that births had been concealed and most probably worse had happened in his own family’s history over the centuries. He also knew that even in today’s more liberal society, respectability and other people’s opinions still remained his mother’s most pressing concern. She kept his younger sister, Julieta, on a tight social leash, fearful that too much freedom would lead to embarrassing media headlines.

‘I’m sorry that you had that experience-’

‘Talk’s cheap!’ Molly sizzled back at him. ‘But I don’t want any child of mine to suffer that kind of rejection.’

‘There won’t be a child. Let’s tackle trouble if it comes, not look for it in advance,’ Leandro advised drily.

‘But what are you going to do if I am pregnant?’ Molly spun away, her voice shrill with her angry distress, for she knew that the fragile foundations of her security would be utterly destroyed by the advent of single parenthood. She worked unsocial hours in a casual job without prospects. There was no room for childcare in her tight budget, no supportive family circle to help out and she knew all too well how hard it was to raise children alone, for hadn’t her birth mother failed dismally at the same task?

‘We’ll tackle that when and if it happens. Are you always such a pessimist?’ Leandro enquired with silken derision, exasperated by her angry attack over the risk of something that he was convinced was unlikely to happen. ‘Such a tragedy-queen?’

A furious flush lit Molly’s cheeks at that crack and she stepped forward. ‘How dare you?’ she snapped. ‘This is my life we’re talking about in the balance, not yours. So I want to know where I stand. Why shouldn’t I? I’m pretty sure that the best you’ll offer me in a tight corner will be the cash for a termination!’

His lean, darkly handsome face clenched with distaste. A storm of outrage roared through Leandro. ‘How dare you make such an assumption?’ he demanded in a seething undertone. ‘That is not how I would behave.’

‘Well, whatever!’ Molly shot back at him, her furious distress undiminished by that assurance. ‘Let’s hope we never have to explore that predicament.’

Leandro had had more than enough drama for one morning and he refused to be the ongoing target of her resentment and disdain. His lean, strong face was etched into forbidding lines and his stunning eyes were hot with indignation. ‘When are you planning to take responsibility for your own behaviour? And stop trying to blame me for it?’

Mortified colour washed Molly’s face, for he hit right home with that rejoinder. ‘Right now, all I want is for you to leave-’

‘Don’t worry,’ Leandro derided. ‘I have no desire to stay.’

Just at that moment the bedroom door opened and framed Jez’s broad, solid frame. He stared at her and Leandro with frowning blue eyes. ‘Why are you shouting, Molly? What’s going on in here?’

‘Leandro was just about to leave,’ Molly snapped.

‘I’m Jez Andrews, Molly’s friend,’ Jez addressed Leandro while at the same time taking up a protective stance beside Molly. ‘I think you should do as she asks and go now.’

Leandro was taken aback by the sudden appearance of another male and aggressive instincts threatened his rigid self-discipline. He was quick to recognise the possessive light in the younger man’s expression. Annoyance and suspicion slivered through Leandro, for it was not only obvious that Molly and Jez lived below the same roof but also that they were on familiar terms with each other.

‘You know how to get in touch with me if you need to,’ Leandro drawled in a tone of pure ice.

Molly was frozen where she stood until she heard the slam of the front door. Then she crumpled and tears rained down her face. Even while she fought to get a grip on herself, all the pent-up emotions of recent days were taking their toll and overflowing. Unused to her crying, Jez wrapped his arms round her in an awkward hug.

‘Who on earth was that bloke?’ Jez demanded when she had calmed down a little. ‘And what’s he got to do with you?’

After that, the whole story came tumbling out because Molly was so unnerved by the fear that she might fall pregnant she just had to get her feelings off her chest there and then. Before her reddened eyes, Jez’s expression grew more and more censorious. Although he said nothing and uttered no criticism, his surprise at her behaviour spoke volumes and pierced her pride. He was, however, a good deal more vocal when it came to Leandro.

‘A girl like you doesn’t belong in a limo.’ Jez saw her wince and hastened to add, ‘A bloke with that kind of money could only be messing around with you because he’s bored with his own kind.’

Jez had a shrewd streak about people that Molly respected. ‘Imagine asking me to be his mistress, though!’ she framed with a humourless laugh. ‘Do I look the ornamental type?’

‘I wish I’d thumped him,’ Jez growled, unamused. ‘You can do a hell of a lot better than him-’

‘Not if I fall pregnant,’ Molly interposed with a shiver of fear. ‘If I end up with a baby my whole life and my prospects go right down the tubes. I’ll never stop struggling to survive.’

‘Let’s hope for the best,’ Jez advised stonily, his face tightening while he considered that possibility. ‘You know, I always used to think that eventually you and I might get together.’

Molly settled dismayed eyes on him, for it had never occurred to her that he might look on her as anything other than an honorary sister. ‘But we’re friends-’

‘Yes, well.’ Jez shrugged defensively. ‘Why shouldn’t friendship be the first step in something more? We get on well. We know each other right through. There’d be no nasty surprises. It would have made a lot of sense.’

‘Don’t say any more,’ Molly urged unhappily, for she had never once considered Jez in that light. ‘All you’re doing is reminding me that getting involved with Leandro was like giving way to a sudden attack of madness.’

‘No point beating yourself up about it,’ the heavily built blond man pointed out in a tone of practicality. ‘That won’t change anything.’

Molly attended two craft fairs that weekend and the sale of several pieces of pottery lifted her spirits. As the following week wore on her mood steadily declined when her menstrual cycle failed to deliver the reassurance she sought. She was working long hours and her usual energy seemed strangely absent. She began feeling incredibly tired at about the same time as she started feeling nauseous and off her food. Anxiety took her over then, because she feared the worst and the shadows below her eyes deepened while she lay awake at night fretting. She was planning to go out and buy a pregnancy test when Jez persuaded her to go to the doctor instead to get a more reliable diagnosis.

The doctor was very thorough and he assured her that there was no doubt that she was carrying her first child. Although Molly had believed she was prepared for that possibility, she was devastated when her biggest fear was confirmed. Jez phoned her from his workshop to ask the result and she gave it in a deadened voice, staring at her reflection in the hall mirror while she tried and failed to imagine her slender body swollen with pregnancy.