Along Came Twins...

by Rebecca Winters

  She didn’t doubt he was telling her the truth. His sincerity reached that vulnerable spot inside her.

  “Leand—” She’d started to say his name, but it got muffled as his hungry mouth came down on hers. He began kissing her with growing urgency, as he’d done on their wedding night. For a moment it was déjà vu. Without effort he swung her around and carried her to his bedroom. Before she knew it they were tangled in each other’s arms on top of the bed, and she found herself clinging helplessly to him.

  “I love you, Kellie. More than you can imagine. Let me love you. I need you, agapi mou.”

  Here she was again, succumbing to her needs and his. Though he’d relieved her of her false assumptions to do with Petra, there was still so much to deal with, she didn’t dare let this go any further. She knew herself too well. To allow herself to be blinded by passion and make love with him might satisfy the ache inside her for the moment. But it wouldn’t solve the things that were still wrong outside this bed.

  When he lifted his head so she could breathe, Kellie took advantage and rolled away. She got to her feet, wobbling horribly. He lay there looking devastated. “Why have you pulled away from me?”

  She held on to his dresser for support. “I’m glad you told me about Petra. It has helped a lot. I do love you, Leandros. That will never change, but—”

  “But Karmela is still the big impediment.” His eyes flashed a gunmetal-gray as he got off the bed.

  Kellie took a deep breath. “It isn’t just Karmela. I think that until we’ve finished with therapy, we should concentrate on our problems and not sleep together. I can’t forget that Frato will be here in a little while, and I have to admit I’m frightened.”

  “Why?” he demanded. “Because you haven’t told me the truth? Or is it because you finally divulged a secret he asked you not to tell me, and you fear repercussions?”

  She clasped her hands together. “I would never lie to you. I’m just afraid of what it might do to your friendship after he’s confronted. A rift between the two of you could hurt your family in ways that make me ill to contemplate.”

  “Because you’re afraid they’ll blame you?”

  “Deep down I suppose I am.”

  Leandros’s eyes glittered in pain. “No rift could be more deadly than the one between you and me. I’ll go to any lengths to fix it.” She believed him—otherwise he wouldn’t be going to therapy with her. “If it alienates my cousin and me, or my family, so be it. I’m going down to the beach for a swim. Do you want to come with me?”

  “Yes,” she said, making a snap decision that seemed to surprise him. “I’ll go in the other bedroom and change into my suit.”

  Over the past few months, before she’d gone back to Philadelphia, he’d become used to her turning him down. But as Olympia had pointed out, there was a lot Kellie had kept from Leandros. She realized now she’d done so out of fear. Unfortunately, it had combined with his hurt pride to help contribute to the serious problems in their marriage. His determination to put it back together at any cost made her cognizant that she needed to play an equal part in this.

  Throwing a wrap over the white bikini he’d given her on her twenty-eighth birthday, four months ago, she joined him at the front door and they walked down the steps to the beach.

  “Ooh, this sand is almost hot.”

  Leandros eyed her up and down after she removed her wrap. His gaze focused on her stomach, which was getting thicker, but so far wasn’t protruding. “Then let’s get you in the water quick.”

  “Oh no, you don’t!” she cried, and started running toward it, barely escaping his arms, which would have picked up her again. Kellie was a good swimmer and took off, not worried about the depth, since it was fairly shallow for about a hundred feet. He came after her like a torpedo and circled her, preventing her from going out any farther.

  “You need to be careful now that our little unborn babies are starting to make their presence known.”

  Kellie treaded water. “You noticed?” she teased, feeling playful in a brand-new way, because therapy had opened up a dialogue, and she no longer felt threatened by Petra’s specter.

  His white smile turned her heart over. “You’re no longer concave. I love your new shape.”

  “I’ll hold you to that when I need to be carted around in a wheelbarrow at seven months.” After the words flew out of her mouth, she realized her mistake. They might not be together in seven months, or even in one more month.

  He moved closer, catching her around the hips. The next thing she knew he’d turned her body so her back was against his chest. A voluptuous warmth filled her as moved his hands over her stomach, exploring her until her senses leaped. “I’ve got the world in my arms,” he whispered, kissing her on the side of her neck.

  Kellie was so filled with chaotic emotions, she couldn’t talk.

  “When you told me you were expecting twins, you made me the happiest man alive, not only for me, but for you. I’m here for you in every way.”

  “I’m happy for you, too, Leandros. No man ever tried harder to become a father. You never let me give up. For that you have my undying gratitude.” His touch had reduced her to pulp, so she was slow to realize she could hear a helicopter coming close to the estate. “That will be Frato!”

  “So it is, but we’ll beat him. Let’s keep our personal business to ourselves.”

  “I agree.”

  Leandros pulled her with him to shore, then picked her up again and carried her up the steps into the villa, without taking an extra breath. “I’ll meet the helicopter and walk him down here. That should give you enough time to change.”

  He lowered a hard kiss to her mouth before he took off out the front door to greet his cousin. She pressed fingers to her lips, which still tingled as she watched him leave. He wore black swim trunks that rode low on his hips.

  He looked magnificent.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LEANDROS WANTED A LOT MORE than his wife’s gratitude as he approached the pilot’s side of the helicopter. He waited until Frato started to climb out before he told Stefon to stay put. “My cousin will be needing a ride back to Athens, but I don’t know the time. You go ahead and use the guest cottage. He’ll ring you later.”

  After the pilot nodded, Leandros walked around the other side. Six feet tall, his cousin was still in a business suit. His dark curly hair and brown eyes proclaimed him a Petralia. Leandros’s coloring differed because he’d inherited his mother’s gray eyes.

  “You made good time, Frato. Thanks for dropping everything to get here so fast. As you can see, I was taking a swim.”

  “Your phone call made me nervous, so I came as soon as I could. I didn’t know you were going to vacation at home.”

  “My plans are subject to change from moment to moment.”

  Frato stopped walking long enough to look at him. “That sounded cryptic. What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I want to know. But let’s go in the house first. You need to get out of this heat and shed your jacket.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were setting me up,” he said with a nervous laugh.

  His cousin was a quick study. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think maybe that was a guilty conscience talking,” Leandros replied.

  Frato stopped at the front door. “You are setting me up!”

  When it unexpectedly opened, revealing Kellie, his jaw went slack. She’d arranged her damp, golden hair in a loose knot and changed into jeans and a summery, blouson-type top in a delicious shade of ice-blue. Pregnancy had made her radiant. “Hello, Frato.” She kissed him on both cheeks. “Come in and let me fix you something cool while Leandros gets dressed.”

  “You’re back!” His cousin more or less staggered into the living room. “I had no idea.”

  She nodded. “Do you want a fruit drink or something stronger?”

  “Nothing for me.” He removed his jacket and tossed it over one of the chairs.

  “Then
please sit down. It’s good to see you.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Leandros disappeared to get dressed. In under a minute he returned, wearing shorts and a sport shirt he was still buttoning. “You’re sure you won’t have a drink?”

  Frato shook his head. “I know you when you’ve got something important on your mind. Why don’t we just get to the point.”

  Leandros stood in front of his cousin, who’d taken a seat on one end of the couch. Kellie sat on the other. The moisture on Frato’s upper lip wasn’t all due to the heat. Leandros detected nervous tension.

  “Today I learned of a confidence you shared with Kellie at our wedding. You told her not to tell me. Do you recall what I’m talking about?”

  His cousin looked mystified. “I’m afraid I don’t. If you say this happened the night of your nuptials, I remember doing more drinking than usual.”

  “I could smell the alcohol.” Kellie spoke up. “You took me aside to congratulate me. Then you told me some things that were very disturbing, before you asked me to keep it to myself. I honored your wishes until this morning, Frato, but I have two regrets. One, that you ever told me anything, and two, that I kept it from Leandros for so long.”

  “Refresh my memory.” Frato could be obstinate when he wanted.

  Leandros listened as she repeated verbatim what she’d told Olympia. The room went an unearthly quiet after she’d finished. Frato got a sick look and moved off the couch to gaze out the window with his back toward them.

  “Has it all jelled yet?” Leandros asked in a quiet voice.

  His cousin continued to say nothing. Leandros moved closer. “So it’s true what you told Kellie?”

  Frato finally wheeled around with a tormented look in his eyes. “I meant no harm, Leandros. I swear it.”

  Anger raged inside him. “How would you know if Karmela had feelings for me before I married Petra?”

  “Because she told me!” he blurted.

  “How intriguing. Why would she tell you?”

  “Because I’ve always been crazy about Karmela.” That was news to Leandros. “There’ve been a few things in our lives I haven’t told you. Especially after she refused to go out with me. When I pressed her for a reason, she said she’d been in love with you since she was a teenager on the island.”

  “Then it was a fantasy of her own infantile imagination.”

  “Several girls had a crush on you. But unlike them, she never got over it.”

  After Karmela’s performance the other night, Leandros knew it was true. “Then what purpose did you think it would serve to run to my brand-new wife and alarm her?”

  Frato’s head reared back. “Because you were so oblivious. I was in love with her, but it did no good while she had her heart set on you. When she found out you were marrying Kellie, she told me that one way or another, she was going to get pregnant with your baby. In her mind she assumed that when it happened, you’d have to get a divorce and marry her.”

  “Surely you could see she was delusional then,” Leandros exclaimed. After her appearance at the office, he realized Petra’s sister had a problem that had needed a psychiatrist a long time ago. He was appalled at his own lack of vision, but Kellie had seen it. She’d been the one hurt by Karmela at the very beginning of their marriage.

  “All I saw was a woman who’d had to live in Petra’s shadow. I figured that if I bided my time, she would eventually turn to me. But when I saw how she kissed you at the wedding, I couldn’t take it and started drinking.”

  So Frato had noticed that kiss, too. Leandros hadn’t remembered anything but his love for Kellie.

  His cousin turned to her. “I felt I had to warn you about what was going on. It was because I liked you and was afraid for you.”

  “Afraid for my wife?” Leandros bit out.

  “Yes.” He turned back to Leandros. “Karmela always seemed to have you wrapped around her little finger. It looked like she could do no wrong in your eyes. From my vantage point you let her get away with whatever she wanted.”

  “So you assumed I’d welcome my own sister-

  in-law into my bed?” Leandros was livid.

  Frato’s brow rose. “I didn’t know, did I?”

  “Good grief! What’s happened to you? Where’s the cousin I grew up with?”

  “You got the woman you wanted! Life was easier for you.”

  Leandros couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I was going to wait to tell Kellie everything until I’d talked to you. But now this can’t wait. Though you don’t deserve an explanation, I’m going to give you one.

  “When Petra and I started seeing each other, she asked me to be kind to her sister. She worried that Karmela would start feeling abandoned and alone after we got married. Now that I have certain information I didn’t have two years ago, I’m convinced Petra knew her sister was very disturbed, but she was afraid to tell me.

  “As a favor to her, because she was so concerned, I agreed we would let Karmela come and go from the penthouse like she was part of the family. But I never liked it.”

  Frato gesticulated with his arms. “Then you understand it was an act she put on for Petra, to win her sympathy and get closer to you.”

  “I agree and I’m convinced.” It was all making an ugly kind of sense. “Now I need the answer to another question. If you were so worried I might take advantage of the situation, then perhaps you’d like to tell me and Kellie a couple of things. Why did you beg me to let her come to work under Mrs. Kostas? And why didn’t you want anyone to know it was your doing?”

  Kellie’s shocked cry was music to Leandros’s ears. He prayed his wife was taking all this in.

  “Because that favor was for me,” his cousin insisted. “Karmela never left me alone about coming to work for the company, but I wanted it to look aboveboard, and that meant the decision had to come from you.”

  A scowl broke out on Leandros’s face. “I thought you said she wasn’t interested in you.”

  “In the beginning that was true. But I’m not a quitter. It had been a long time since your wedding to Kellie. About eight months ago we started seeing each other and one thing led to another. Since she came to work in your office, things have been really good behind the scenes,” he admitted.

  “What happened to Anya?”

  “I only see her from time to time, but that’s all over now.”

  Leandros wondered if he’d ever really known his cousin.

  “I have more news and might as well let you in on it, since it’s going to get out pretty soon,” Frato continued. “Karmela and I are going to get married.”

  “You what?”

  “Shocking to you, isn’t it,” he muttered. “Don’t you know that’s why I took you up on your offer and bought the penthouse? In five years I’ll have it completely paid off. She loves it there because it feels like home to her.”

  Kellie’s stunned gaze flew to Leandros. By now she’d gotten to her feet. “There’s something you need to know before you make a mistake that could ruin your life, Frato,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The night before Leandros flew me back to Philadelphia, a month ago, Karmela came to the penthouse uninvited. You see, she’d heard the gossip about us getting a divorce, and thought I’d already left for the States.

  “What she didn’t know was that I’d been sick that night and had to go to the E.R. Leandros brought me back to the penthouse. While we were there, Karmela walked in as if she lived there. I could tell she was shocked to see me, but she covered it well and said she’d brought papers from the office for Leandros to look over and sign.

  “Did she tell you about that visit? I can give you the exact date and time. Before you marry her, you’d better find out the truth!”

  Frato got that bewildered look on his face, one Leandros had seen many times in their childhood. “Since Petra died, I’ve never given Karmela permission to come to the penthouse,” Leandros told him. “If I were you, I’d ask her about t
hat night. If she can satisfy you that she had a legitimate right to use my private elevator and walk in on me unannounced and unexpected, then it appears you’re the one living in an oblivious state.”

  His cousin got off the couch again and started pacing.

  “Frato,” Kellie said in a kindly voice. “I’m very sorry, but it’s clear to me Karmela has been using you all this time to get to Leandros. That’s why she wanted to come to work at his office. She hasn’t given up on this fantasy of hers, and needs professional help. If you marry her, you’re in for so much pain, you can’t imagine.”

  While his cousin digested everything, Leandros made a decision. “Why don’t you stay overnight on the island with your family? If Karmela is expecting you at the penthouse, tell her you had business that kept you longer than planned. Tomorrow you need to call her into the office and tell her you have to let her go.”

  Frato hung his head. “I can’t fire her.”

  “Then you want me to do it? I’d rather it came from you.”

  His cousin looked terrified. “I can’t. Leandros—if you insist on this, I’ll lose her!”

  “We don’t have a choice here. Though this is going to be painful for you, I have more news. Do you know where she was at eleven two nights ago?”

  “Yes. She said she had to work late, and didn’t get back to the apartment until midnight.”

  “She told you a lie, Frato. While I was working at my desk, she came into my office with a tray of food.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  It was now or never if Leandros was going to get through to him. “I have no idea how long she’d been in the building, but everyone else had gone home at quitting time. I asked her to leave, but she seemed to think it was some sort of game.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She acted like a rebellious teenager, wanting to know my business. First she cast disparaging remarks about Kellie. Then she pulled tears about how much she knew I missed Petra, and that she wanted to help me. I believe she’s ill, as ill as she was at my wedding to Kellie, but I didn’t realize it then. She’s gotten sicker with time. I came close to removing her physically from my office before she finally left.”