by Lucy Monroe
"Ne. That too."
Again with the Greek. It always came out when he was feeling things strongly and with her, thankfully that was a lot. She'd spent more time learning Greek this time around, so she would understand him when he lost his English, particularly during the more intimate moments of their marriage.
"So, if I was pregnant again, that would be okay with you?" she asked softly, peeking up at him through her lashes.
He stared down at her, his cerulean eyes filled with wonder. "You are pregnant again? I thought we were waiting."
"Apparently my IUD fell out and I didn't even know it." Her gynecologist had told her that it happened, infrequently, but it did happen. Chloe still found it difficult to believe.
Only the proof was in the pregnancy test results and the ultrasound they'd done in the office to confirm the string hadn't just gotten lost, but the IUD was gone.
"How is that possible?"
"It's rare, but my doctor said it happens."
"Did she warn you it could happen?" Ariston frowned. "I do not remember her doing so."
"Um, no. She doesn't make it a habit of telling her patients about every remote possibility and side effects of the things she prescribes."
"You're quoting her, aren't you?"
"I am."
"We'll be finding a different doctor for you."
Chloe didn't argue. She hadn't particularly enjoyed the gynecologist's condescending attitude in the face of Chloe's shock. But that wasn't important right now.
What Chloe needed to know was how her husband felt about the news. They'd agreed to wait and she'd broken that agreement.
Unwittingly, but she'd still broken it. "Are you happy about the news?"
"How can you doubt it?" His blue gaze was so warm and approving, she couldn't doubt his sincerity. "Another wonderful little girl like Helena, or another pistol like our Mateo could be nothing but a delight for us."
The rest of the tension Chloe had been feeling all day, disappeared. She never should have worried how he'd react to the news. Ariston loved their family and plans to wait, or not, he would always be thrilled about adding to it.
He brushed her hair behind her ears in a familiar gesture that still sent little frissons of pleasure through her. "Are you happy?" he asked.
"I am." She nodded, to emphasize her words, a smile breaking over her face as Chloe allowed herself to bask in the knowledge she was carrying Ariston's child again. "I didn't think I wanted another baby so soon, but Takis…he loves babies. I love being a mom."
"You are a wonderful mother."
She smiled, leaned up and kissed him. "Thank you. You're not so bad in the papa department yourself."
"I believe this news deserves celebration."
"What do you have in mind?" she teased, knowing perfectly well he wasn't talking about toasting with the sparkling fruit juice he plied her with during pregnancy.
"I think you know."
She laughed joyously as he swept her into his arms and carried her upstairs to their bedroom. Their lovemaking was intense and filled with a sense of elation.
Like they'd found peace and a reason to celebrate more than her revealing they were going to have another child. They'd found answers about Helena too. Those answers didn't mean everything was going to be fine going forward, they meant that Chloe and Ariston would have help and their daughter would have lots of people affirming that she was wonderful just the way she was.
As it should be.
Kayla & Andreas
from Kostas's Convenient Bride (May 2018)
(a Prequel)
Six years before "Kostas's Convenient Bride"
Kayla darted around her apartment. Andreas was going to be there any minute and she wasn't ready for their date. She'd had a final test in her C++ class today. Taking the test was more of a formality as 75% of her grade depended on the program she'd been working on all fall semester and had turned in two days ago. It wasn't a complicated program, but it was elegant. She could program C++ in her sleep.
Still, she hadn't wanted to be late for her final exam after a night spent in Andreas Kostas' arms, so she'd skipped doing her breakfast dishes and they cluttered the sink. Continuing to ignore the undone dishes, she quickly tidied the books spread out over the two crates with a board across she used as a coffee table for her aged used sofa. Nothing glamorous in her college experience, but that was going to change when she graduated.
Kayla was building a life for herself and she could barely believe that Andreas Kostas was part of it. The best part.
She'd loved him since the beginning, but he didn't want to hear the words. She was no more keen to say them, so that was all right. She found it nearly impossible to trust people, but Andreas had used his overwhelming sensuality and charm to sneak past the barriers she kept around her heart.
And while she might love him, that didn't mean Kayla was all that eager to make herself vulnerable telling him so.
The sound of a firm knock on her hollow door had her rushing to let Andreas in.
He stood there in a suit, all six-feet-four-inches of him looking way too gorgeous, his green gaze narrowed and stern. "You did not wait and look through the peephole, Kayla-love."
"I knew it was you." Warmth suffused Kayla and it wasn't because he was chastising her over an old argument.
She adored when he called her Kayla-love. It was probably the closest she would ever get to him admitting his feelings for her. He maintained that theirs was a friendship, with sexual benefits.
Amazing, mind-blowing, out of this world, sexual benefits.
"How could you be certain without looking?" He was still harping on the door thing.
She rolled her eyes. Wasn't it obvious? "You have your own knock."
"I knock on the door like everyone else."
"Andreas, you don't do anything like everyone else. It's just not in you to be less than more."
"That makes no sense. "
"On the contrary, it makes perfect sense." Sometimes she just argued with him for the pleasure of seeing his green eyes spark with emotion.
Any emotion, even annoyance.
"Did you want to change before we go?" he asked.
From another guy, Kayla would have taken offense that her bargain basement scoop necked peach t-shirt, grey hoodie the same color as her eyes and well-worn denim wasn't good enough. But even though he came from the super wealthy Greek Georgas family, Andreas wasn't like that. Not even a little.
If he was asking her about changing, he had a reason.
His neatly pressed suit and perfectly knotted silk tie implied they weren't eating at one of their usual haunts.
"Are we going someplace special?" she asked. "To celebrate the end of the term?"
While Kayla still had another semester before she got her degree, Andreas would be finished with his MBA this one. She wasn't sure he had plans to walk in June at the graduation ceremony, but she hoped he would. She wanted to cheer for him. He deserved acknowledgement for graduating at the top of his class, if from no one else, than from the school he was graduating from and from her.
"We can celebrate another successful semester, yes, but I have something important I need to discuss with you, about our future. It deserves a special venue."
What was he talking about? Something important? He couldn’t mean what it sounded like. "Where are we going?" she asked, doing her best to hide her confusion.
He named a restaurant on the top floor of a building in downtown Portland known for its amazing views and even more impressive food. She'd always wanted to go there and he knew it, because she'd let it slip a couple of months back.
To her, it was the pinnacle in romantic spots.
Kayla's heart nearly stopped as the implications penetrated her mind. No, it couldn't be that. He couldn't want to talk about what she was thinking. He'd been so adamant theirs was just a friendship with benefits, nothing more.
But what else? "That is special," was all she said. "I guess I'll
put on a skirt." And try to get her breath back before she hyperventilated.
He followed her into the tiny nook that served as her bedroom, her clothes stacked neatly in plastic bins, her bed a double with no headboard. Kayla’d had a single, but then she'd met him, and she'd saved her money for a bed he would share with her.
Andreas hands landed on her shoulders. "Our reservations aren't for another hour, I can have them pushed back."
She turned around to face him, making no effort to get out of his personal space. "Why would we want to do that?" she asked, all provocation, her hands already mapping his muscular body.
The fact she had the freedom to touch this man was one of the greatest joys of her life.
"Oh, I can think of a few reasons." There was a desperate quality to his kiss, like he was imprinting himself on her, or imprinting her taste on himself.
Either way, she went pliant against him, giving him full access to her mouth, to her body. To anything he needed.
She could trust this man. He would never take more than she should safely give.
Not like other people. People who had hurt her, dismissed her, made her feel like she would never have her own place in the world.
But Andreas just proclaimed her place was with him and she believed him.
He touched her everywhere, stripping her clothes away from her body, caressing her with knowing hands that had long since learned her sexual hot buttons. Now, he used them without compunction, driving her desire higher and higher.
She went after his shirt, yanking it over his head with little concern for wrinkles or the pristine tie he'd been wearing with it. She'd tugged that off first, tossing it over her shoulder.
The incendiary kiss went on and on, their tongues dueling, their lips moving against one another with a quality of emotion she'd never felt from him before. He stripped her. She did her best to return the favor, letting out a curse when his slacks gave her trouble.
He laughed, moving his mouth down her neck, nipping at her now bare shoulder. "Impatient?"
"I'm already naked. You aren't yet!"
He undid the buckle on his belt with a deft flick of his wrist, then shucked his slacks and sexy black underwear in one movement.
Andreas reached around her, grabbing her buttocks and lifting her body against his. "I need you."
"You have me."
He carried her to the bed, where he proceeded to blow her mind with his touch and his mouth on her body.
He surged up, reached down to the floor and grabbed his tie. "Will you let me?"
"You want to tie my hands?" She couldn't think what else he'd want to do with it.
"I want to give you immeasurable pleasure."
Kayla couldn't even begin to think about letting another lover have her so vulnerable. But with Andreas? "Oh, yeah, I want it."
He made a comfortable figure eight loop around her wrists and then guided her hands above her head. "Keep them there."
"If you say so."
His gaze sparkled like the deepest emerald with pleasure. "I do."
Kayla had no idea how hard it would be to keep her hands where they were instead of touching her lover, or using them to pull him to her.
Her body was slick with sweat, her nipples hard and aching from being sucked on and played with, her most intimate flesh hot and wet and ready for him.
"Come on, Dre! I need you."
"I love when you shorten my name like that. No one else does."
"You wouldn’t let them."
"You're special, Kayla-love. You're my person."
Oh…oh…man...he was going to ask what she'd been thinking earlier. They'd been together for two years, he never talked about the future, but that was going to change tonight, she just knew it.
Her thoughts splintered into a cascade of sparkling light behind her eyelids when he put his mouth on her, right where she was aching the most.
Her climax came roaring through her, making her buck under him, bringing forth a primal scream she made no effort to stifle. Andreas wasn't done with her yet, though. He wiped his mouth on the sheet and then moved up the bed, kissing her along the way, taking a highly sensitive nipple into his mouth and first suckling, then nibbling, then suckling again.
The pleasure that had left her body limp began to build inside her again, this time in tsunami proportions. He surged inside her just as she came for the second time and rode her through the pleasure, forcing her body to a third, impossible orgasm that locked every one of her muscles, and nearly took her consciousness it went so deep.
Finally, he came as well, her name on his lips, his hold on her nearly bruising.
He fell beside her, the dark hair at his temples wet with sweat. "I think we'll have to wait for tomorrow for that special dinner."
She could wait. Knowing it was about their future. She could wait.
#
The next night, Kayla slid into her seat at the linen covered table, the ambient lighting giving the expensive restaurant a soft glow. Andreas moved back around the table and took his own seat, his expression solemn.
"You've been quiet since you picked me up." Kayla smoothed the napkin over the skirt of the apricot dress that hugged all her curves. She'd found it in resale shop and loved the way it made her feel sexy and feminine. "Are you nervous?"
She couldn't imagine it. Andreas Kostas didn't do nerves. Or fear. Or self-doubt. Or any other normal human weakness that plagued her so much.
"This, what I want to talk to you about. It is very important. My future, our future depends on your answer."
The air disappeared from the spacious restaurant, leaving Kayla gasping. "You don't mean…you're not asking…"
"Now, don't go getting worked up, Kayla." He jumped up and came around the table, cupping her face in both his hands and breathing with her until she was calm enough for him to return to his seat. "This is nothing to have an anxiety attack over."
"It's not?" It sounded pretty serious to her. Their future depended on her answer.
She tugged at one of her kinky black curls, a nervous gesture she'd never quite been able to rid herself of.
He reached across the table and took her hand in his, the difference in the skin tones showing his Mediterranean roots and her biracial ones. Not that she knew the origin of hers, having been abandoned by her mother at age three with no clear memories of the woman, or Kayla's father, if she'd ever known him at all. Kayla had no idea which of her parents had donated the genes that gave her tight, curly black hair, a café-au-lait skin tone and eyes the color of slate.
Andreas tightened his hold on her hand, his green gaze going oh so serious. "You know I've been building my investment portfolio so I could start a business."
"Yes." He had things to prove to his Greek family, the one he'd rejected when he'd gone back to using his mother's surname.
And he'd spent the all of his college years living almost as frugally as she did so he could build up the capital to start his own business. His father had paid for Andreas' school, but he had refused to accept anything else from the Georgas clan. She knew that one day, he planned to pay his father back for the tuition investment, as well.
He let go of her hand, but leaned forward, across the table, his jaw clenched with emotion. "I need your help to make my vision a reality."
"Whatever you need." How could he doubt it? Not only were they lovers, but he was the closest thing to family she was ever likely to have.
His smile was brilliant and maybe even a little relieved. He had been nervous! "I know you mean that. I've never had a friend like you, Kayla."
"You said it. I'm your people. You're my people too." She didn't have anyone else. The only foster mom that had ever cared had died when Kayla was in high school. She'd been alone ever since, until she met Andreas and he pulled her into his life.
"I want you to go into business with me."
"Wait. What?" Business? "I'm a programmer."
"A brilliant one. The project you did for your
PEARL class is the beginning of what could be the most effective cyber computer program any corporation has ever seen."
"I don't have any money to go into business with you." Some months she didn't have money for food, not that he ever let her go without.
Andreas always made a way to make sure Kayla had what she needed, and he never crushed her pride to do it.
No wonder she loved him.
"You provide the program and I'll do the rest."
"The rest is a lot." Hiring people. Setting up an office. Selling the program that wasn't yet ready for this kind of plan, so that meant financing a development phase. "That's not anything like an equal partnership."
"No, it won't be," he agreed unapologetically. "I'll pay you a salary and give you five percent of the company and as much time as you need to develop the program before we take it international."
He had thought this through and while he was being fair, he wasn't offering Kayla her dreams on a platter.
"Straight to the world markets, huh?"
"Naturally. I cannot outclass Georgas Shipping without taking risks."
Finally, she understood. This was the important thing, their future, he'd wanted to talk to her about. Not marriage. Not them. And while she was painfully disappointed, he was still talking about building a future with her in it.
"So, this business thing. That's what you wanted to talk about tonight?" she clarified.
"What else? It's our future, Kayla. I promise you, you will never regret taking me on as a business partner. I will make sure you are always provided for."
She had no problem believing that. "What about us?"
Things shouldn't change between them, but a sliver of unease made its way down Kayla's spine at the look on his handsome, young face.
"Unfortunately, last night will have to be our final time in bed together. We cannot mix business with a sexual relationship." He looked truly regretful.
That didn't help the shards of pain piercing her heart right then. "Is that one of your rules, like no long-term commitment?"
His eyes widened at her tone. "It is, yes. I know what I'm talking about. Sexual partners are temporary, but business partners are in it for the long haul."
