Page 32 of Christmas Baby with Her Ultra-Rich Boss

Ice spooled in his veins. ‘When the accident happened?’

‘Yes. It was my nineteenth birthday. We’d gone out with friends. Heidi wasn’t a big drinker and offered to drive. We were driving back home when we were hit side-on by a drunk driver. We ended up upside down in a ditch.’

Konstantinos was glad she was no longer spooned against him or he feared he really would have crushed her bones at that.

Spreading his palm flat, he slid it round her back and pressed his mouth to her forehead. ‘What injuries did you suffer?’

‘Nothing serious. The other car hit the driver’s door. Heidi was... I thought...’

‘What?’ he encouraged gently, his chest filling with the ice crawling through his veins to guess what she struggled to say.

‘I thought she was dead.’ Lena blew out a choked puff of air and fought back tears as the terror she’d experienced when she’d begged and begged her unresponsive sister to wake up came back to her in full technicolour. ‘I was so scared, Tinos. I couldn’t get to my phone to call for help. It was pitch-black but I could smell blood and I knew it wasn’t coming from me but from her, and I couldn’t release my seat belt and get to my phone. I was hanging upside down and so disoriented and Heidi was upside down, too, like something out of a horror film, and she wasn’t answering me and I could smell her blood and there was nothing I could do...and...’

Dimly aware she was on the verge of talking herself into another panic attack, Lena closed her eyes and moved her face closer to Konstantinos’s neck so she could inhale his comforting scent. ‘The big ship sails on the Alley Alley O,’ she sang to herself, a technique her mother had read about and which, with the therapist’s encouragement, had become the tool Lena had developed to control the attacks. ‘On the last day of September.’

‘How long were you there?’ he asked into the silence.

She breathed in his musky scent again before answering. ‘Only ten minutes or so—the accident was witnessed. But they were the longest minutes of my entire life. It felt like hours. The couple who witnessed it found us but by that stage I’d convinced myself I was going to die there, too, but I walked out of the hospital without a scratch on me.’

‘Not physical scratches,’ he murmured before kissing her forehead. ‘But you were scarred in other ways.’

‘Those scars are nothing. I’m healthy. I can walk. I can do everything for myself. I can feed myself and bathe myself. I can breathe unaided. I’m not prone to infections. I can have children. Heidi will never have any of that, and it makes me want to cry because she’s the one who was always maternal, not me. When we were kids we played mummies and daddies and I always played the role of daddy because she insisted on being mummy. She always knew she wanted to marry and have a family whereas I was always indifferent. Children weren’t even on my radar. Every hope and dream she ever had is dead and still she smiles and keeps cheerful and makes the best of each day, and she insists that I do, too. Remember you asked why I was here and not at home supporting my family?’

He gave a pained sigh. ‘Lena, I am sorry. I should never have said that.’

‘Believe me, it’s nothing I haven’t thought a thousand times. Why should I get to live my dream when Heidi losteverything? But she wanted me to go. Even when the panic attacks were still coming thick and fast she’d nag at me to go.’

‘And your parents?’

‘They wanted me to go, too. The three of them ganged up on me, the line of attack being that as Heidi had lost her health and her dreams, it was only right that I make the most of mine. It was Dad who spotted the advert for a receptionist here—he took it on himself to subscribe to a load of Swedish recruitment websites. Sweden was always my favourite place. I lived for the summers and Christmases we spent here. It was always my dream to live out here in the snow and ride huskies. He made me apply. They all did. They even had a leaving party for me. If Heidi could have jumped out of her wheelchair and helped me pack my suitcase, she would have done.’

‘But you still feel guilt,’ he guessed.

She took a long time to answer. ‘It’s always there. I can never shake it that while I’m living a full life, she’s confined to a wheelchair and completely dependent.’

‘Is that the real reason you haven’t told your family about the baby? Are you afraid your news will hurt her?’

‘I don’t...’ She swallowed. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that. Maybe that’s played a part in it.’

Remembering his trawl through the Ice Hotel staff’s social media accounts and how Lena was mostly absent from the socialising that played such a big part in their off-the-clock lives, Konstantinos would guess it had played more than a part. He could understand her position as general manager would make her feel the need to remain above the wilder behaviour that sometimes gripped them, but she’d only had the role for five months. There was no indication she’d ever joined in the socialising in the way it was embraced by everyone else.

He’d trawled through those accounts seeking evidence that another man could be the father of her baby, he remembered with painful guilt.

‘Tell me something else,’ he said. ‘Is Heidi the reason I’m your first lover since the accident? Am I wrong in assuming it was the accident that stopped you forming relationships?’

‘I’ve only ever had one proper boyfriend,’ she confessed. ‘He ended it when he went off to uni a couple of months before the accident. Once the accident happened I didn’t have the headspace to even think about relationships.’

‘But you’ve been here for four years. You’re beautiful. People are drawn to you. I can’t imagine you’ve been single all this time by choice.’

‘I’ve had offers for want of a better word but I was never interested.’

‘Still pining for your first love?’ For some reason he had to unlock his jaw to ask that.

‘Lord, no.’ For the first time since she’d started opening up to him, there was a lighter tone to her voice. ‘James and I... I hate to admit this but I was really shallow in those days. The only thing I liked about him was his face. He was gorgeous. All the girls fancied him. I cried for a week after he ended it but really, that’s because I was being dramatic. There was no real substance to my feelings for him. I just liked being seen with him.’

‘If it’s pretty faces you like, why end your celibacy with me?’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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