Mia gasped, her mind burning up in horror at his cavalier attitude. ‘But, Alex—this is abduction!’ She pleaded with him to see the full import of what he was doing. ‘You could be arrested for it! You could go to prison!’
‘Try having a little faith,’ he said.
Faith in what? she wondered deliriously. In him? In what he was doing? ‘Suzanna doesn’t even have a passport!’ she told him shrilly.
His expression didn’t alter by so much as a flicker as he reached into his jacket pocket and came out with something he tossed casually onto her lap.
Two passports. Two new British passports. Her stomach began to quiver, her icy fingers trembling as she made herself open both of them. She stared down at the two similar faces, which were staring right back at her.
One was an adult, the other a miniature version of that adult.
‘H-how did you get this?’ she whispered, picking up Suzanna’s very own passport.
‘With careful planning,’ he replied drily.
‘But …’ Her eyes flickered downwards again, looking at the photograph of her daughter which was a match to the several sets she had tucked away in her bag.
Carol.
The full duplicity of what had been going on around her for the last weeks finally hit her. ‘You’ve all been very busy, it seems,’ she managed to say at last.
‘I am, by nature, very thorough,’ Alex casually attested.
‘Even to the point of getting my father’s written permission for this?’ she mocked,
‘You authorised it.’
‘What?’ She stared at him blankly—only her eyes didn’t remain blank because they were suddenly seeing that blur of forms Leon had got her to sign. ‘Copies,’ he’d called them, ‘in case I mess up.’
‘We will all end up in prison!’ she said wretchedly.
To her absolute fury, he started to grin at her! Mia wanted to hit him! He never smiled at her—never! Yet he chose to do it now, in this dire situation.
‘Oh, stop fretting,’ he told her, leaning forward to take the two passports back and replace them in his jacket pocket before she had a chance to stop him. ‘No one is going to question your connection with Suzanna when she looks so much like you!’
‘It’s still wrong, Alex!’ she flashed back at him. ‘And why go to all of this trouble, anyway?’ she cried. ‘It would all have been sorted out above board in a couple of months!’
To her utter confusion, his face closed up. ‘I am not prepared to deal with that question at this present moment,’ he said abruptly, and got up, his whole demeanour so grimly inflexible that she panicked.
‘But, Alex!’ she choked, jumping up to grab hold of his sleeve as he went to walk away from her. ‘I need you to deal with it right now!’
‘No,’ he said, shook his arm free from her grasp then grimly walked away.
The rest of the long flight was achieved in an atmosphere of severely suppressed tension—suppressed because Suzanna was so clearly delighted with the whole wretched business that it would have been cruel to spoil it for her.
But it wasn’t easy, and Mia retreated behind a cloak of cool repudiation where no one could reach her, except Suzanna.
They landed in Skiathos in the full heat of mid-afternoon, and Mia broke out in a cold sweat which didn’t leave her until they were safely off the airport confines and driving away.
At every turn she had been expecting to see a group of officials bearing down on them to detain them—by order of her father.
But—no. She found herself safely ensconced in the passenger seat of the silver Mercedes, with Alex behind the wheel and Leon and Carol crushed into the back seat, with an excited Suzanna sitting between them.
The child chatted and bounced and asked question after question that, thankfully, the others answered because Mia couldn’t lift her mood to fit the little girl’s.
She felt shut off, bricked in behind a wall of anger, stress and a terrible sense of betrayal. She had begun to let herself like these people—to trust them even, which was no mean feat for someone who had learned a long time ago that trusting anyone was a terrible weakness.
Suzanna trusted them—Mia’s eyes began to water. Suzanna was opening up like a blossoming flower to the warmth of their affection!
The car turned in through familiar gates and swept down the driveway to pull to a halt outside the front veranda.
Car doors opened, and they all climbed out. The sun was hot, the sea was blue and the white-painted walls of the house stood framed by the dense greens of the hillside behind.
‘Is this going to be my new home?’ Suzanna trilled in breathless wonder. ‘Is it truly—is it?’
Mia spun to face Alex across the gleaming bonnet of the Mercedes. ‘If you hurt her with this, I will never forgive you!’ she said thickly, then turned to run into the house.
CHAPTER TEN
ALEX caught Mia in the hall, one hand curling around her slender wrist while the other clamped itself to her waist.
‘Let go of me!’ she protested.
His grip only tightened as he guided her—almost frog-marched her—up the stairs and into her bedroom. The door shut with the aid of his foot. Then he was tugging her round until she was facing him, his arms anchoring her there while she glared through a mist of bright, angry tears into his set face.
‘I am not going to let anyone hurt Suzanna!’ he blasted at her furiously. ‘I am not doing this to hurt you!’
‘Then why are you doing it?’ she spat right back at him.
‘I told you!’ he rasped. ‘I am pulling out of my deal with your father!’
‘But why?’ she repeated. ‘Why, Alex, why?’
He let out a string of rasping profanities, frustration and anger blazing out of his eyes. ‘Because of this!’ he muttered, and caught her mouth with a kiss that knocked her senseless.
When he eventually let her up again for air she could barely stand up straight.
‘I want you, I want our child and I want Suzanna more than I want my island!’ he growled fiercely. ‘Does that answer your question?’
Answer it? It virtually consumed it! He wanted her, really wanted her that badly?
Her face went white, her eyelashes flickering as she started to tremble. Her deeply inbred sense of caution stopped her from believing what he was actually trying to tell her. What his eyes were telling her as they blazed passionately down at her. What her own senses were pleading with her to believe!
‘Don’t faint on me!’ she heard him mutter, and suddenly she was being lifted into his arms. ‘Why is it,’ he rasped as he strode towards the bed, ‘that you either pass out or take my head off whenever I try to hold a meaningful conversation with you!’
He sat her down on the edge of the bed.
‘You are driving me out of my mind!’ he growled, coming down on his haunches in front of her. ‘I cannot get close to you unless I use sex as a damned weapon!’ he ranted. ‘I cannot talk to you without feeling as if I am walking through a minefield of mistrust! And if I actually do manage to get through to you, you do this!’
‘I’m not doing anything,’ she whispered.
‘You are trembling all over!’ He harshly discarded her assurance.
‘That’s because you’re shouting.’
‘I’m not—Damn,’ he grunted, as he caught himself shouting out a denial.
He sighed, lowered his head to run impatient fingers through his silky black hair, then sprang abruptly to his feet and moved right away from her over to one of the windows. He stood there with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets while he stared grimly outside, as if he needed time to recover his unexpected loss of composure.
‘I want you to understand,’ he muttered suddenly, ‘that I have done what I have done because I needed to be sure that you and Suzanna were safe before I made a move on your father.’
‘But why bother going to all this trouble at all?’ she asked, still none the wiser as to why this had all been necessary.
‘In a couple of months we could have had everything! You—your island, me—Suzanna, and my father his precious grandson!’
‘No.’ He refuted her words.
‘Yes!’ she insisted, coming to her feet on shaky legs that did not want to support her. ‘Deciding to renege on your side of the deal now is not going to change the fact that I am pregnant with your son, Alex—which is all my father ever wanted anyway!’
‘No, you’re not.’
Mia blinked. ‘I’m not what?’ she demanded, her bewildered eyes fixing on the bunched muscles of his back.
The big shoulders flexed, his expression when he slowly turned to face her so sombre that she was arming herself for a really bad shock even before she knew she was doing it.
‘You are not carrying my son.’ He spelled it out more clearly.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mia choked, then released a shaky laugh. ‘What do you think this is, Alex?’ she said mockingly, indicating her swollen abdomen. ‘A mirage?’
‘It’s my daughter,’ he replied.
‘What?’
‘Sit down again!’ he barked at her when the colour drained out of her face, his long legs bringing him back to her side so he could push her back on the bed. ‘My God,’ he breathed harshly, ‘I never would have thought such a strong-willed and fiery woman could be this physically frail!’
‘I’m not frail,’ she said in a broken whisper. ‘I’m just shocked that you could say such a thing!’
‘It is the truth.’ He sighed. ‘The scan you had last week shows no male genitalia—’
‘But …’ She was frowning in utter bemusement. ‘Your family only makes male babies!’
‘Not this time, it seems.’ He grimaced.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I d-don’t believe you. You weren’t even there to see the scan!’
‘Your doctor faxed a photocopy to me.’
He did? She blinked up at him, surprised to learn that Alex had taken that much interest in her pregnancy. Then she remembered that she had her own copy of that scan, and she was as sure as she could be that it had not given any indication what sex their baby was!
She began glancing around her urgently, looking for her bag so she could check for herself what Alex was claiming.
He beat her to it, by gently placing his own small black and white print into her shaking fingers. After that she didn’t move—not a muscle or even an eyelash. This photocopy of her scan was different from her own copy. Her baby had moved—and was showing clearly that Alex was telling the truth.
‘Oh, heavens,’ she gasped. ‘How did that happen?’
It was a stupid question in anyone’s books, and he said sardonically, ‘By the usual methods, I should imagine.’ The comment was probably well deserved—except Mia was in no fit state to appreciate it.
It was all suddenly becoming so wretchedly clear to her. What he’d gambled and what he’d lost. What he’d ended up being saddled with when he hadn’t wanted any of it in the first place!
‘Oh, Alex,’ she breathed. ‘I’m so very sorry!’
‘Why should you apologise?’ he drawled. ‘We both know who takes responsibility for the sex of any child.’
‘But your precious island!’ She was barely listening to him.
Suddenly he was squatting in front of her again. ‘Do I look like a man in need of sympathy?’ he demanded. ‘Look at me, Mia,’ he insisted, when she kept her burning eyes lowered to that damning picture, then made her look at him by placing a gentle hand under her chin and lifting it.
His eyes weren’t smiling exactly, but they were not miserable either. And his mouth was relaxed—a bit rueful maybe, and incredibly—
She sucked in a sharp gulp of air, shocked as to where her mind had suddenly shot off to—and at such a calamitous moment like this!
‘I have to confess to being rather pleased to be the first Doumas to father a daughter in over a hundred years,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘I am also pleased,’ he added more soberly, ‘that this unexpected development has saved me from having to find another way of getting your father out of all our lives.’
‘He’s not out of mine and Suzanna’s yet,’ Mia shakily reminded him.
‘But he will be,’ Alex pledged.
‘He’s going to come after her, you know.’
‘I want him to.’ He nodded gravely, then raised his hands to her trembling shoulders. ‘Trust me,’ he urged. ‘Suzanna is safe here. He cannot touch her. I know this absolutely,’ he declared. ‘and by the time he arrives here I will be in a situation to make him know it also!’
Mia wished she could be so sure about that. She knew her father, knew how he responded to insubordination of any kind. She shuddered.
Outside, a sound drifted up from the garden. It was the laughter of a happy child.
A sob broke from her, and the hands on her shoulders tightened. ‘I make you this solemn pledge,’ Alex vowed fiercely. ‘No one—will ever—take that laughter away from her again!’
Tears slid into Mia’s eyes. Alex watched them come, watched her soft mouth begin to quiver, and something painful seemed to rip free inside him. He shuddered. ‘You are so damned vulnerable sometimes it makes my heart ache just to look at you!’
So was he, she realised with a shock that stopped her heart beating altogether. Alex was painfully vulnerable to her vulnerability!
‘Oh!’ she choked—why, she didn’t even know—but in the next moment her arms were sliding up and around his neck, and just as she had done once before without any warning, she buried her face in his throat and clung to him as if her very life depended on it.
How they got from there to kissing feverishly she didn’t know either. Or how they ended up in a heated tangle of naked limbs on the bed. But she knew by the time she took him into her body that something very radical had changed in their relationship because there were no barriers, no resenting the way he made her lose control of herself.
‘I adore you,’ he murmured against her clinging mouth. ‘You crept into my heart, without my even knowing how you did it. Now I cannot seem to take a breath without being made aware that you are there, right inside me.’
‘I know,’ she whispered in soft understanding because he had done the very same thing to her. ‘I love you so much that it actually hurts me to think about it.’
He reacted like a man who had been shot in the chest. He stopped moving, stopped breathing. ‘Say that again,’ he commanded hoarsely.
His eyes were black, his skin pale, his beautiful bone structure taut under stress. Mia lifted gentle fingers to cover those taut cheeks and held those black eyes with her own earnest green ones. ‘I love you,’ she repeated.
He caught the words in his mouth, stole them, tasted them and made her repeat them over and over again until the whole thing carried them off into one of those wildly hot passionate interludes that had always managed to completely overpower them even when they’d thought they hated each other.
‘This is it,’ Alex murmured lazily when they were lying, limp-limbed and sated, in each other’s arms. ‘I will never let you go now.’
‘Do you see me trying to get away?’ She smiled.
‘No.’ He frowned. ‘But—’ A knock sounded at the closed bedroom door.
‘Alex!’ his brother’s voice called out. ‘Frazier is on the phone! You had better get down here!’
‘Well?’ Mia asked anxiously. She was hovering in the doorway of Alex’s study where he stood, leaning against the desk behind him, his dark face lost in brooding thought.
He was dressed in the same clothes she had taken off him earlier, whereas she had delayed long enough to drag on a lightweight dress of cool blue cotton, before hurrying downstairs.
He glanced up and smiled, but it was a brief smile. ‘He is on his way,’ he told her. ‘In flight as we speak.’
Mia shivered. ‘W-when will he get here?’
‘Tomorrow at the earliest.’ he replied, then grimaced. ‘The airport here does not accept inc
oming traffic after dark so he has no choice but to stop over in Thessalonika …’
‘W-what if he brings the police with him?’
‘He is not going to do that.’ He sounded so absolutely certain about it that she was almost reassured.
Except that she knew her father. ‘Alex …’
‘No,’ he cut in, and began to walk towards her, his lean face grimly set. ‘You are not to worry about this,’ he commanded. ‘I know what I am doing.’
In other words, he was asking her to trust him.
But it was no longer Alex she didn’t trust—it was her father. ‘I’m going to find Suzanna,’ she murmured, turning away.
He let her go—which only increased her anxiety. It took real effort to lift her mood to meet Suzanna’s bubbling effervescence as they explored together this wonderful paradise Suzanna was now calling home.
‘You’ve got to believe in him,’ Carol said quietly when she caught Mia in a moment’s white-faced introspection while Suzanna was enjoying her bath, before going to bed in the room she had picked out for herself. ‘Alex is amazingly efficient when he sets his mind on something.’
‘He lost his island.’ Mia smiled bleakly at that.
‘Ah, but that was because it came down to a straight choice between his old dream and his new one,’ Carol explained. ‘The new dream won, hand over fist. If it hadn’t he wouldn’t have given the island up, I can assure you,’ she said. ‘He has astonishing patience, you see. He would simply have kept you barefoot and pregnant until you produced the son he needed to stake his claim on the island.’
Suzanna interrupted them at that moment, dancing out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and looking so blissfully happy that Mia firmly thrust her worries away so she could pretend that everything was as wonderful as the child seemed to think it was.
The call that Jack Frazier was on his way from Skiathos airport came very early the next morning while they were all sitting around the breakfast table, trying to look perfectly relaxed.
Bridal Bargains Page 53
