The Greek's Innocent Virgin

by Lucy Monroe

  "Then marry me."

  "I don't have to marry you for you to be my baby's father.'' Only for the baby to carry his name, they did have to marry.

  She hadn't considered that aspect to the situation, but he had and so would their child one day.

  Sebastian released her, setting her away from him.

  The expression on his face was unlike anything she'd seen there before. He looked defeated.

  "So, you refuse to marry me."

  All she had to say was yes and she knew as surely as she knew how to balance an account book that if she said it, he would accept her decision and let her go.

  She couldn't make herself say the word.

  She'd been numb with pain for months, had hidden behind an emotionless wall of self-protection when he kicked her out of his life. But learning of her preg­nancy had started the disintegration of that wall and his arrival back in her life had demolished it. He wouldn't let her ignore him and in forcing her to come face-to-face with his role as the father of her child, she had also faced another irrefutable fact.

  She still loved him.

  She didn't want to, but if his actions the morning after they made love could not kill her love for him, she did not know what would. So she was faced with spending the rest of her life without him, or living with the man she loved, knowing he did not love her.

  It was an untenable choice and not one she could make on the spur of the moment like this.

  The way he had treated her that morning had to be weighed against the gentle way he'd treated her prior to Andrea's death. Also, since coming back into her life in California, he had done his best to be a caring and considerate guy... except his deplorable belief she belonged to him because she was pregnant with his child.

  And then there was how he had planned their wed­ding without her say-so or input. "I don't appreciate having my wedding planned without me even agree­ing to get married, or my opinion being taken into account on the arrangements."

  "Are you saying you would marry me otherwise?"

  "I'm saying I will consider it, but you have to ask me, darn it, and you are not planning my wedding without me."

  A wary hope filled his eyes, making him appear vulnerable and doing more to soften her heart than anything he'd done since coming for her in California.

  "Then, I will court you."

  Rachel walked back into her bedroom, bemused and a little worried by Sebastian's offer to court her.

  Phillippa stood beside the window, her back to the door. The wedding dress, shoes and bouquet were ar­ranged carefully on her bed which had been made. The maids had gone, but the air of expectancy re­mained and the borderline positive thoughts she'd been entertaining about the overconfident man down­stairs fled.

  How dare he leave her in a position of having to tell his mother there would not be a wedding?

  “The music has stopped.'' Phillippa turned, her ex­pression thoughtful.

  "It was a mistake."

  “It is Greek tradition to play the music outside the bride's window on the morning of her wedding."

  "But there isn't going to be a wedding."

  Phillippa's eyes, so like her son's, reflected worry. "Did you and Sebastian argue?"

  How could Sebastian have left her to deal with this?

  "We never made up to begin with."

  "I am sorry to hear that. I had hoped that with a baby on the way, you would find common ground."

  He'd told her that too? "Your son has a big mouth."

  Phillippa's mouth curved in a surprising smile as she moved away from the window. "Not usually, but I believe with you, he is out of his depth and therefore acts out of character.''

  Sebastian out of his depth? Not likely. "Your son is more sophisticated than I could ever hope to be."

  "But you do not hope this, is that not true? You have no desire to pursue the lifestyle your mother sought after so wholeheartedly."

  "I prefer a quieter existence."

  "And Sebastian has very little experience with a woman uninterested in the jet-set lifestyle. He knows nothing of women who possess such innocence and integrity."

  "He does not believe I have integrity."

  Phillippa shook her lovely head. "You are wrong, I think."

  "He thought I lied to him about... About..." She couldn't make herself say it, but Phillippa already knew anyway as her next words confirmed.

  "He regrets doubting you in that."

  "Only because you told him he was wrong."

  "A man does not take his mother's advice unless he wants to, Rachel," Phillippa said wryly.

  "If you say so." Her gaze kept slipping to the wed­ding dress on the bed and finally she went over and touched the sleek satin folds.

  Sebastian had spared no expense. Rachel might not shop top designers, but no daughter of Andrea Long Demakis could reach adulthood without recognizing them.

  "Sebastian was engaged once before."

  The comment so shocked Rachel that her head snapped 'round so she could

  meet Phillippa's eyes. "He was?"

  "Yes. To a woman much like Andrea."

  Rachel's stomach began to churn. Would she never live down her mother's image?

  Phillippa reached out and squeezed Rachel's arm. "I see the best parts of your mother in you, child. You do not share her weaknesses."

  "Sebastian thinks I do." And maybe he was right.

  After all, she could not control her desire for him even when she had every reason to despise him.

  "Nonsense, but he finds trust difficult. The woman in his past burned him very badly and then Andrea came on the scene. She destroyed a man Sebastian loved like a father and my son's cynicism toward women cemented into rock-like certainty. It was very difficult to watch, but I could do nothing to stop it."

  "He had you as an example." Rachel wasn't nearly so understanding about Sebastian's pessimism. It had hurt her too much. "He has to know that not all women are manipulative, status seeking, gold dig­gers."

  "Ne, yes...he had me. However, he was very young when his father died and he does not remember much of my marriage. He knows only that I came from a simple fishing village and married a man twenty years my senior, a man wealthy enough to buy my village and everything in it."

  "He couldn't possibly believe you married his fa­ther for money." It was unthinkable.

  "I do not know, but he has few memories to com­bat his current view of women. My husband, though I loved him very much, was not a demonstrative man. He worked long hours and our age difference meant that we shared few friends or common interests."

  "Yet you loved him."

  "Just as you love my son despite the fact your own lives are so different."

  She wasn't touching that one, not even in a Hazmat suit...it was a concept much too hazardous to her peace of mind.

  Phillippa sighed at her silence. “Although my son's view of women was jaundiced. I had thought he saw something different when he looked at you.

  He was always careful of you, so concerned for your welfare when you were younger."

  "Until Andrea and Matthias died. Then he hated me." She remembered the inferences he'd made in the study the day the will was read. "It was as if when she died, he transferred his dislike of my mother to me." And it had hurt unbearably.

  “He was grieving." Phillippa shook her head sadly. "My son does not express his emotions easily. You were the scapegoat for his pain and I am sorry to say I did not see it until too late."

  "It wasn't your fault."

  The other woman's air of guilt did not diminish. "I tried to play matchmaker, leaving the two of you alone together on the island, hoping privacy and prox­imity would accomplish a fond mother's dreams."

  "You did that on purpose?" Rachel should have realized, but Sebastian wasn't the only one who had been struggling to come to terms with someone's death.

  And she would never have expected Matthias's niece to think Andrea's daughter was a worthy can­didate for wife to her so
n. The Demakis and Kouros families had every reason to want to be rid of Long women permanently.

  "Yes, but my plans backfired."

  "I'm sorry." She hated to see Phillippa looking and sounding so defeated.

  She was a truly kind person and a very caring mother. That counted for a lot in Rachel's book.

  "No, it is I who am sorry. You were hurt through no fault of your own. Sebastian was too emotionally volatile after the funeral to make good relationship choices. I should have known this. I am his mother, but I ignored any trepidations because I did not see how I could throw you two together again. If you went back to the States, I knew you would never re­turn to Greece. You had already made it very clear you wanted a life far removed from that of your mother's. I erred in judgment badly and now you will not even consider marriage to my son."

  "It wasn't your error in judgment that caused the problems between Sebastian and me. It was his."

  "But I explained that."

  "Even if what you say is true and Sebastian's be­havior was spurred by grief." And she wasn't sure she bought that scenario. "I'm not about to marry a man who sets the wedding up without my consent and didn't even let me pick out my own wedding dress."

  The older woman touched it, much as Rachel had done, running her hands along the soft fabric. "It is a beautiful dress."

  "That's not the point."

  "He did not ask you?"

  "He told me and that's not the same thing at all."

  Phillippa's head was averted as she picked up the flowers and smelled them. "Some women might find that romantic."

  "If they were loved, maybe. I found it incredibly arrogant."

  "So, you will deny him his place by your side be­cause he knows his own mind and acts on it?" For the first time, Phillippa's voice echoed with censure toward Rachel and she faced her with a frown.

  "He's going to court me." She didn't know why she'd said it, maybe because she hated to see this woman she admired so much disappointed in her.

  Phillippa's expression cleared and a relieved smile creased her features. "Ah, that is a good thing. He should have thought of that to begin with."

  Yes, he should have, but the truth was a man didn't automatically think to court a woman he was marry­ing solely for the sake of their unborn child.

  Sebastian's intended courtship had a rocky start when he called Rachel into his study later that afternoon so she could sign papers to receive ownership of the is­land villa. His accountant was also in attendance with information on her new money market account, checkbook and a slew of credit cards in her name. Sebastian wanted her taken care of in every way he could devise.

  Not that his efforts on her behalf had done any good.

  Her response to his offer of the villa had been any­thing but positive.

  "I don't want your money, or your house." She pushed the papers away, refusing to sign them, her green eyes dark with anger.

  Why should she be angry he wanted to give her a home?

  "You should have inherited more than the book collection when Matthias died, but I was too angry after the funeral to appreciate that fact. This only makes things right."

  "Matthias was my mother's husband, not my fa­ther. He owed me nothing."

  "I am your child's father. You cannot say I owe you nothing." He mentally dared her to deny his pro­nouncement.

  She glared her defiance at him and did just that. "You owe me nothing."

  "This is not true."

  She jumped up from her chair and paced across the room, stopping in front of a shelf filled with framed photographs of his family. All of the ones with Andrea's image had been removed. He had seen to it.

  Now he wondered if he should have left at least one for Rachel's sake.

  "I am not my mother. When are you going to re­alize that fact?" She spoke with her ramrod straight back to him, her beautiful chestnut hair up in a twist, revealing the vulnerable column of her neck.

  He wanted to walk over there, take her in his arms and press biting kisses on the spot he had discovered was an instant erogenous zone for her.

  "I did not say you were."

  She spun around, ignoring the other two occupants of the study as if they were not there. "Then why give me the house? You don't have to buy access to your child. I already told you that. I would never do to our baby what was done to me.''

  She vibrated with anger and something else, a vul­nerability he did not want witnessed by others. He dismissed his men, including the security guard out­side the door, leaving him alone with Rachel.

  "What do you mean, what was done to you?"

  Her expression turned haunted, her bow-shaped lips going bloodless as she bit them. "My mother took me away from my father when I was a small child. I never saw him again and when I got older she refused to tell me who he was so I could find him."

  Andrea Demakis had been a bitch of the first order. "What of your birth record?"

  "I don't know where it is. She refused to give it to me or tell me where I was born."

  "You could have hired a detective agency."

  She laughed, the sound more bitter and hollow than anything he'd ever heard from her. "That kind of investigation costs thousands and I don't have any­where near your kind of money, Sebastian."

  He considered that. If what she said was true, and he was past the point where he doubted her on the principle she was anything like her mother, then it was another nail in the coffin of his stupidity three months before. "But you want to know your father?"

  "Yes. I remember him loving me."

  The words slammed into Sebastian like a powerful anvil. For all that Andrea had done to his family, she had done infinitely worse to her daughter. No one could ever have accused the self-centered woman of loving anybody, least of all the sensitive woman be­fore him.

  "Yet, he did not seek you out." He could have bitten his own tongue out after speaking.

  Damn it, she did not need a reminder that neither of her parents had cared enough about her to see to her best interests.

  "No. I believe he tried, but I think Andrea made it impossible. I remember being so sure as a little girl that he would come for me, positive that my daddy would never forget me. That kind of trust was not instinctive to me. He had to have earned it."

  Sebastian wondered. She could be right, or the man could have been more like her mother than Rachel wanted to believe. He would find her father and de­termine for himself if reuniting with the man would hurt or heal his woman.

  "Is this why you are so opposed to me taking care of you? Andrea taught you not to rely on anyone."

  "I'm not against it. Not for now anyway. I don't really have a choice, do I?"

  Rachel crossed her arms over her chest as if protecting herself and it made him furious she felt the need to do so with him but it was obvious she did.

  And he knew also it was his own fault.

  "Once the baby is born, I can go back to work, but I wouldn't have called you if I wasn't going to accept your help in the interim."

  The fact she had trusted him to stand by his re­sponsibilities was little consolation at the moment. "You called me solely because you feared for our baby's welfare."

  "Yes."

  Her confirmation gutted him, but he gritted his teeth against saying anything. She had good reason not to want to see him again otherwise, but no matter what he had said, he could not fathom her believing he would permanently let her go after what they had shared.

  "And would I have ever found out about my child if you had not become ill?"

  "I told you, I would not have kept your child a secret from you once it was born. Both of you de­served a chance to know each other."

  He should be grateful for at least that much, but he wasn't. He wanted far more than grudging duty from the woman standing before him, looking so beautiful she made him ache with wanting her.

  "Yet you would have gone through pregnancy alone because you did not trust me to be there for you."

>   He could see the truth in her beautiful green eyes. Given the choice, she would have kept him out of her life completely, even if she had allowed him access to their child. The only difference now was her health and as much as it pained him, he had to be grateful for it.

  "I'm not alone now," she pointed out, as if com­forting him.

  He was not in the mood to be comforted.

  First she had refused to marry him and now she wanted to refuse everything else he offered her. “Nor are you without financial resources if you would but accept them."

  "I didn't get pregnant in order to extort money and houses out of you." Her eyes flashed disdain at him.

  "I never thought you did."