Celia heard the genuine concern in his voice and relaxed. He might never love her, but he would love their child, of that she was one hundred per cent sure.
‘It’s okay.’ She laughed, relaxing. ‘I’m pretty new to this as well. I only recognise the symptoms as and when they occur!’
‘Okay...so tiredness and easily full...’
‘Leandro, the meal was enormous.’
‘What other signs and symptoms should I be on the lookout for?’
‘I think pregnant women can sometimes get a little over-emotional.’ Celia laid some groundwork just in case she needed it to come to her rescue in the future.
‘I don’t think that’s confined to pregnant women,’ Leandro drawled. ‘Perhaps I should download a book...’
‘You would download a book on pregnancy just to find out what you should look out for?’
‘Amongst other things...’
‘I thought you only read work-related tomes and heavy-duty biographies for light relief?’ she teased.
‘You make me sound like a bundle of laughs.’ He looked at her with an easy grin.
The bright lights of the hotel were ahead of them and suddenly she really did feel tired even though she’d been buzzing all night.
‘It’s nice that you want to actually read a pregnancy manual. I can’t think that many guys would be interested in doing that.’
‘Like I keep telling you, I’m not like many guys and, besides, that’s what we’re all about, isn’t it?’
Celia stilled and then was glad for the distraction of the car stopping and the doors being opened by the uniformed porters outside and then hurrying inside the hotel, out of the sticky night-time heat.
‘I mean,’ Leandro picked up when she’d hoped he might just have left it off, ‘this isn’t about us, this is about the baby we’ve made together, so it’s only right that I find out as much as I can about the business of pregnancy and giving birth and what I will be required to do. It’s new to you and it’s new to me as well.’
For once, she wasn’t desperate to get her clothes off when they entered their suite of rooms and, strangely, he seemed equally reticent.
She felt sticky and ever so slightly depressed and when she excused herself to go have a bath, he nodded without demur.
‘Get you something cold to drink?’ he offered, once again the very essence of kind consideration and reminding her, without even having to try, that this was first and foremost what he was about. Her welfare was his concern because she was carrying his baby. ‘The apricot juice is excellent. You might find it refreshing. It’s been a long evening, perhaps too long given your condition.’
Celia smiled tightly. Irritation surged through her. She knew she was being unfair, but she was still smarting from his casual reminder that what they had was all about the baby yet to be born. None of it was abouther. He fancied her for the moment but essentiallyshedidn’t matter.
And the fact that he was now treating her like a piece of porcelain made her even more irritated.
Was this how she would be treated as time wore on and the sex dimmed?
‘Apricot juice would be...lovely...’
‘Sure you’re okay?’
Celia bit back a sarcastic retort that would get neither of them anywhere and might even start erecting the sort of invisible barriers she would later find difficult to dismantle.
‘If this doesn’t work out between us, Leandro...what happens next?’
‘Whoa. Where didthatcome from?’ His brows knitted and his dark eyes were a little cooler now, a little more watchful and bemused.
Celia shrugged and looked away.
‘I thought we had a good time tonight,’ he said slowly.
‘We did.’