Then there was what she had overheard Giannis’s mother say. ‘Have you told Ava everything about you?’ What had Filia meant? What secret about himself had Giannis kept from her? And why did his mother disapprove of her only son?
The throbbing music was pounding in Ava’s ears and she felt hot and then cold, and horribly sick. The flashing disco ball hanging from the ceiling was spinning round and round, making her dizzy, and she was afraid she was going to faint.
‘Ava.’ Suddenly Giannis was standing in front of her, his chiselled features softening as he studied her. ‘What’s the matter, glykiá mou?’
His voice was husky with concern, and Ava despised herself for wishing that she could ignore the rumours she had heard about him. But why would the party guest have made up lies about Giannis?
‘Migraine,’ she muttered. ‘I get them occasionally and the bright disco lights are making it worse. If you don’t mind I’d like to go to bed and hopefully sleep it off.’
‘I’ll take you back to our room and stay with you,’ he said instantly.
‘No, you should remain at the party and celebrate winning your business deal.’
Giannis swore softly. ‘The deal isn’t important.’
‘How can you say that, when it was the reason we have pretended to be engaged?’
His smile made Ava’s heart skip a beat, despite everything she had heard about him. ‘Our relationship may have started out as a pretence but I think we both realise that the spark between us shows no sign of fading,’ he murmured. He frowned when she swayed on her feet. ‘But we won’t discuss it now. You need to take some painkillers.’
She needed to be alone with her chaotic thoughts, and she was relieved when she saw Stefanos beckon to Giannis from across the room. ‘I think you are needed. I’ll be fine,’ she assured him, and hurried out of the ballroom before he could argue.
Later that night, when Giannis quietly entered the bedroom and slid into bed beside her, Ava squeezed her eyes shut and pretended to be asleep. And the next morning when she rushed to the bathroom to be sick he was sympathetic, believing that a migraine was the cause of her nausea. His tender concern during the helicopter flight back to Athens added to her confusion. It seemed impossible that he could be involved with the criminal underworld.
Her father had given the appearance of being a loving family man and she had adored him, Ava remembered bleakly. She had been devastated when details of Terry McKay’s violent crimes were revealed during his trial. For seventeen years her father had hidden his secret life from her. In the one month that she and Giannis had pretended to be engaged she’d learned virtually nothing about him, except that he was a good actor.
A car was waiting to drive them from Athens airport to the city centre. On the way, she persuaded Giannis to drop her off at a pharmacy, making the excuse that she needed to buy some stronger painkillers for her headache.
‘I wish I didn’t need to go to the office but I have an important meeting.’ He pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘Take the migraine tablets and go to bed,’ he bade her gently.
One lie always led to more lies, Ava thought miserably when she bought a pregnancy test and hurried back to the penthouse apartment. Her hands shook as she followed the instructions on the test. She still clung to the hope that her late period and bouts of sickness were symptoms of a stomach upset.
The minutes went by agonisingly slowly while she paced around the bathroom. Finally it was time to check the result. Taking a deep breath, she looked at the test and grabbed the edge of the vanity unit as her legs turned to jelly. Her disbelief as she stared at the positive result swiftly turned to terror.
She was expecting Giannis’s baby. But who—and more importantly what—was Giannis Gekas? Was he the charismatic lover who she had begun to fall in love with? Or was he a criminal who hid his illegal activities behind the façade of a successful businessman and philanthropist?
Feeling numb from the two huge shocks she had received in the space of twenty-four hours, Ava placed a trembling hand on her stomach. It seemed incredible that a new life was developing inside her and she felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness for her baby. She would have been worried about telling Giannis of her pregnancy before she had heard the rumours about him. This was the man, after all, who had insisted that he did not have a heart.
Now the prospect filled her with dread. Supposing he was a man like her father—a criminal and a liar? A cold hand squeezed her heart. What if her ex, Craig, was right and there was a criminal gene that her baby might inherit from both parents? Ava was the absolute opposite of her father, and she had spent her adult life subconsciously trying to atone for his crimes in her job supporting victims of crime. She would bring her child up to be honest and law-abiding, but would Giannis share her ideals?
She sank down onto the edge of the bath and covered her face with her hands. Even if she could bring herself to ask him outright if he was a criminal, he was bound to deny it. She did not know if she could trust him—and for that reason she dared not tell him that she was having his baby.
* * *
Giannis let himself into the apartment and walked noiselessly down the passageway towards the bedroom. He had a ton of work to do following his successful bid to buy Markou Shipping, but he’d been unable to concentrate during his meeting with TGE’s board because he had been worried about Ava. She had looked pale and fragile when he’d left her at the pharmacy and he felt guilty that he had not taken care of her. His conscience pricked that he should have brought her home and stayed with her while he sent his housekeeper out to buy medication for Ava’s migraine.
He did not understand what had happened to him over the past month. His plan that Ava should pose as his fake fiancée had seemed simple enough. But they had become lovers and, more surprisingly, friends. He had even taken her to Spetses, although he’d never invited any of his previous mistresses to Villa Delphine, which he regarded as his private sanctuary. He’d told himself that the trip to the island was to promote the pretence that they were engaged but, instead of staying for a weekend as he’d intended, they had spent two weeks there. He had even found himself resenting the few hours each day that he’d had to get on with some work because he’d wanted to spend time with Ava, at the pool or the beach or—his preferred option—in bed.
She was beautiful, intelligent, sometimes fierce, often funny and always sexy. It was little things, Giannis mused. Like the way she ate a fresh peach for breakfast every morning with evident enjoyment, licking the juice from her lips with her tongue. Or how she migrated over to his side of the bed in the middle of the night so that when he woke in the morning she was curled up against his chest, warm and soft and infinitely desirable.
Theos, he was behaving like a hormone-fuelled teenager, Giannis thought impatiently as he felt the aching hardness of his arousal. He opened the bedroom door quietly, not wanting to disturb Ava if she was asleep. But the bed was empty. He recognised the suitcase standing on the floor as the one she had brought with her from London. A passport was lying on top of it. The wardrobe doors were open and he could see hanging inside were the dresses that the personal shopper in Paris had helped Ava choose.
Something was not right and he felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as Ava walked out of the bathroom and froze when she saw him. She carefully avoided his gaze and Giannis’s eyes narrowed. He leaned nonchalantly against the door frame and kept his tone deliberately bland. ‘Are you going somewhere, glykiá mou?’
‘There is no need for you to refer to me as your sweetheart now that you have secured your deal with Stefanos.’ She finally glanced at him and he wondered why she was nervous. ‘I managed to book a seat on a flight to London leaving this afternoon.’
Icy fingers curled around his heart. ‘You need to get back to the UK in a hurry? How is your headache, by the way?’ he said drily.
A pink stain swept alon
g her cheekbones. ‘It’s much better, thank you.’ She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and Giannis fought the urge to walk over to her and cover her mouth with his. ‘I thought that now you have persuaded Stefanos to sell his company to you, there is no point in me staying in Greece. I really want to go back and focus on my career.’
Anger flickered inside him and he wanted to tell her that there was every bloody point. They were good together—in bed and out of it. Not that he had any intention of admitting how much he enjoyed her company. This inconvenient attraction he felt for her—he refused to call it an obsession—would fade. He just could not say exactly when.
‘I thought we decided at Stefanos’s party that there was no reason for you to return to the UK immediately.’
‘You decided. You didn’t ask me what I wanted.’ She glared at him. ‘It sounds familiar, doesn’t it?’
What the hell had happened to have brought about a dramatic change in Ava’s attitude? Giannis searched his mind for clues that might explain why she was speaking to him in a cool voice that echoed the wintry expression in her grey eyes. Before they had gone to meet Stefanos she had responded to him with an eagerness that made his heart pound. But he noticed how she stiffened when he walked towards her.
She had acted oddly, almost secretively, when she’d shot out of the car and hurried into the pharmacy earlier, he remembered. Maybe her edginess was because it was a certain time in her monthly cycle. Relieved that he had found a likely explanation, he relaxed and murmured, ‘I have a suggestion. You are not due to begin your new job in London for nearly another month. Why not stay in Greece until then? And when you return to England we could still meet up. I visit London fairly regularly for business, and I could rent an apartment for us.’
‘Are you asking me to be your mistress?’
Giannis hid his irritation. Had she been hoping for more? For him to suggest that they make their fake engagement real, perhaps? Women were all the same, always wanting more than he was prepared to give. With a jolt of surprise he realised that he was not completely opposed to the idea of having a conventional relationship with Ava.
He shrugged. ‘Mistress, lover—what does it matter?’ He stretched out his hand to stroke her hair and his jaw hardened when she shrank from him. They could play games all day, he thought grimly. He had a sudden sense that he was standing on the edge of a precipice and his gut clenched with something like fear as he prepared to leap into the unknown. ‘What matters is that I don’t want this...us...to end—yet. I need to know what you want, Ava.’
He thought she hesitated, but maybe he imagined it. She picked up her suitcase and said in a fierce voice that stung Giannis as hard if she had slapped him, ‘I want to go home.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
A BLAST OF bitingly cold January air followed Giannis through the door when he strode into TGE UK’s plush office building in Bond Street. He disliked winter and London seemed particularly gloomy now that the party season was over. Even the festive lights along Oxford Street had lost some of their sparkle.
He had spent a miserable Christmas with his mother, swamped by guilt, as he was every year, because he knew he was the cause of her unhappiness. For New Year he had stayed at an exclusive ski resort in Aspen. But as the clock had struck midnight he’d made an excuse to the sultry brunette who had hung on his arm all evening and returned to his hotel room alone.
Maybe he was coming down with the flu virus that was going around, he brooded. He was rarely ill, but it might explain his loss of appetite, inability to sleep and a worrying indifference to work, friends and sex. Especially sex.
When Ava had handed him the pink sapphire heart ring before she’d walked out of his apartment in Athens without a backward glance, Giannis had assumed that he would have no trouble forgetting her. He’d thought he had been successful when he’d danced at the New Year’s Eve party with the brunette whose name eluded him. But when Dana?—Donna?—had offered to perform a private striptease for him he had thought of Ava’s long honey-blonde hair spilling over her breasts, her cool grey eyes and her fiery passion and he had finally admitted to himself that he missed her.
There were a few unopened letters on his desk and he frowned as he flicked through them. His secretary at the UK office had been rushed into hospital with appendicitis shortly before Christmas. The temp who had replaced Phyllis should have opened his private mail and forwarded anything of importance to him. It was obvious that some of the envelopes contained Christmas cards, but as it was now the second week in January he was tempted to throw them in the bin. Exhaling heavily, he opened a card, glanced at the picture of an improbably red-breasted robin and turned it over to read the note inside.
The handwriting was difficult to decipher and he was surprised to see the name ‘Sam McKay’ scrawled at the bottom of the card. Giannis remembered that Ava had said her brother had struggled at school because he was dyslexic.
Dear Mr Gekas
I wanted to say thanks for letting me off about the damage done to your boat. It was desent of you. Sorry about you and Ava not getting married. Its a shame it didnt work out and about the baby.
Happy christmas
Sam McKay
Baby! Giannis reread the note twice more and tried to make sense of it. Whose baby? He looked at the date stamp on the card’s envelope and swore when he saw that Sam had posted it on the fifteenth of December—more than three weeks ago.
He could hear his heartbeat thudding in his ears as a shocking idea formed in his brain. Could Ava be pregnant with his baby? If so, then why hadn’t she told him? The blood in his veins turned to ice. What the hell had Sam meant in his badly written note when he’d said that it was a shame about the baby? Had Ava suffered a miscarriage? Or had she...?
Giannis swallowed the bile that rose up in his throat. The memory of when Caroline had told him that she was no longer pregnant still haunted him. He had felt as if his heart had been ripped out, but Caroline had regarded her pregnancy as an inconvenience.
He stared at Sam’s unsatisfactory note and sucked in a sharp breath when he thought back to the day three months ago at the apartment in Athens when Ava had acted so strangely. Had she known that she was pregnant but had decided that a baby would not fit in with her career?
Theos, he was terrified that history was repeating itself. First Caroline, and now Ava. Something cold and hard settled in the pit of his stomach. He had lost one child, but if Ava was expecting his baby he would move heaven and earth to have a second chance at fatherhood.
Giannis picked up the phone on the desk and noticed that his hand was shaking as he put a call through to his secretary’s office. The temp answered immediately. ‘Cancel all my meetings,’ he told her brusquely. ‘I’ll be out for the rest of the day.’
* * *
There was a ‘sold’ sign outside the terraced house in East London where, four months ago, Giannis had taken Ava to collect her passport before they had flown to Paris. If she had already moved away he would find her, he vowed grimly as he walked up the front path and hammered his fist on the door. If she was pregnant and hoped to keep his child from him, she would discover that there was nowhere on earth she could hide.
The front door opened and Ava’s eyes widened when she saw him. She quickly tried to close the door but Giannis put his foot out to prevent her.
‘What do you want?’ she demanded, but beneath her sharp tone he sensed her fear. Of him? He ignored the peculiar pang his heart gave and used his shoulder to push the door wider open so that he could step into the narrow hallway.
‘I want the truth.’ He handed her the Christmas card he’d received from her brother. Looking puzzled, she read the note inside the card and flushed.
‘I haven’t explained to Sam that I pretended to be your fiancée so you would drop the charges against him,’ she said stiffly. ‘I suppose he thinks I’m upset that our engagement
is over—which I’m not, of course.’
‘Only one part of your brother’s note interests me,’ Giannis told her coldly. ‘Is the baby that Sam refers to my baby?’ He watched the colour drain from Ava’s face and felt dangerously out of control.
‘I don’t have to tell you anything. And you have no right to force your way into my house.’ She backed up along the hallway as he walked towards her.
‘Were you pregnant when you left Athens?’
Instead of replying, she spun round and ran into the sitting room. Giannis was right behind her and he found that he had to squeeze past numerous boxes. Evidently the contents of the house had been packed up ready to be loaded onto a removals van. He came out in a cold sweat, thinking that if he had not read Sam’s note for another few days he would have been too late to confront Ava.
‘Answer me, damn it,’ he said harshly.
Ava was cornered in the cramped room and she grabbed a heavy-based frying pan from one of the packing boxes. ‘Stay away from me,’ she said fiercely, waving the frying pan in the air. ‘I’ll defend myself if I have to.’
Giannis forced himself to control his temper when he heard real fear in her voice. ‘I’m not going to harm you,’ he growled. ‘All I want is your honesty. I have a right to know if you had conceived my child.’
After several tense seconds she slowly lowered her arm and dropped the frying pan back into the box. Her teeth gnawed on her bottom lip. ‘All right...yes. I had just found out that I was pregnant when I flew back to London.’
Giannis stared at her slender figure in dark jeans and a loose white sweater. Her honey-gold hair was tied in a ponytail and her peaches-and-cream skin glowed with health. She looked even more beautiful than he remembered. But she did not look pregnant. Surely there would be some sign by now? When his PA in Greece had been expecting, her stomach had seemed to grow bigger daily.
Wed for His Secret Heir Page 11
