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have children.
Such a stark and sorrowful phrase; she knew just how much. And yet comingfrom
Jace… the
words didn’t make sense. They couldn’t. Then in a sudden flash of remembrance she recalled the moment she’d told Jace she was pregnant, and how he’d stared at her so blankly, his jaw slackening, his eyes turning flat and then hard. She’d thought he’d been surprised; she’d had no idea just how stunned he must have been. Infertile.
Impossible.
It had to be. ‘You must be mistaken.’
    ‘I assure you I’m not.’
    Eleanor shook her head, speechless, disbelieving. ‘Well, neither am I,’ she finally said. ‘Mistaken, that is. I was a virgin when we got together, Jace, and I didn’t sleep with another man for—a long while.’ She swallowed. Years, in fact, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. ‘You were the only candidate.’
    Jace smiled, the curving of his mouth utterly without humour. ‘The facts don’t add up, Ellie. Someone’s lying.’
    ‘I’ve told you not to call me that.’ She turned away from him and stared blindly out at the Hudson River, its murky black surface just visible under the city lights. ‘Why does someone have to be lying, Jace? What if you’re mistaken?’ She turned around. ‘Did you ever—even once—think of that?’
    ‘I’m not!’ The words came out in a roar, and she stilled, surprised by the savagery.
    ‘How can you be—?’
    ‘Trust me,’ he cut her off, the two words flat and brutal. ‘I am. And if I can’t have children, there must be another—’ he paused, his mouth curving in an unpleasant smile ‘—candidate.’
    Eleanor cocked her head, curiosity and anger warring within her. ‘Is it easier for you to believe that?’
    ‘What the hell do you mean?’
    She shrugged, a little unnerved by Jace’s anger but still refusing to be cowed. ‘You prefer believing I was unfaithful to you rather than the idea that you could be wrong, that it’s a mistake—’
    ‘It’s not a mistake!’ Jace leaned forward, lowered his voice to a savage whisper. ‘It’s
impossible!
    Eleanor blinked, discomfited by his intensity. ‘How did you find out you were infertile at such a young age?’ she asked slowly. ‘Most men don’t find out until they’re married and run into trouble with conceiving, don’t they—’
    ‘I had mumps. A lingering infection, and it made me sterile.’
    ‘And you were tested—?’
    ‘Yes.’ He bit off the word, his lips pressed together in a hard line.
    ‘But…’ Eleanor shook her head, genuinely bewildered. ‘Why? Why would you be tested at such a young age?’
    Jace turned away from her. He drove his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunched, the position one of defensive misery. ‘My father wanted to know,’ he said gruffly, his back still to her. ‘I’m an only son, as was he. The male line dies out with me.’
    Eleanor didn’t reply. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, for suddenly everything was making horrible sense. No wonder Jace was so sure he couldn’t be the father. No wonder he’d been so hurt. No wonder the whole idea of a pregnancy?a baby—that wasn’t his would be an affront, an abomination.
    The male line dies out with me.
    For a boy from a traditional Greek family, that had to be very hard indeed.
    Regret replaced anger, and it hurt far more. She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. ‘Well, perhaps you should get yourself tested again. Because I assure you, Jace, the baby was yours. Why would I lie now? What point would there be?’
    Jace was silent for a long, tense moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he finally said. ‘God help me, I don’t know.’ Eleanor stared at him, his back to her, his head bowed, and she wondered what he must be feeling now. Could he accept he wasn’tinfertile, that he’d been living with an incorrect diagnosis for his entire adult life?
    Would
he?
    It would be hope and tragedy mixed together, for what was lost, for what now could be—
    But not