by Maya Blake
The notion that in another time or place I’d have liked to get to know this stranger whose baby I carried hit me hard.
I was busy pushing the thought away when I heard his deep, low tones. He stood at his desk, speaking in rapid-fire Greek. Done, he returned to the window and stood there for an age.
When he turned around, every inch of his body brimmed with purpose. ‘You mentioned that you saw a doctor?’
‘Yes...after I took the pregnancy tests.’
‘And?’
‘Everything’s fine so far.’
‘This probably won’t come as a surprise to you, but to me the possibility of an offspring is not...unwelcome.’
The depth of yearning in his low, deep voice rocked me to my core, softening a knotted place inside me I hadn’t registered until his words loosened it. Truth be told, I hadn’t allowed myself to think beyond delivering the news. Because when it came down to it, Neo had plenty of other options beyond having a baby with the woman who’d brought chaos into his life. If he was willing to accept—
‘If it’s mine, that is. And at this point I’m hard-pressed to be convinced it is.’
The soft place hardened, strangled tight by his words. ‘You really believe I’d lie about something like this?’
The yearning receded slowly, forced back by the power of his scepticism. And something else. Something dark and grave that took complete control of him, hardening his face into a rigid, implacable mask.
‘I’m a wealthy, influential man. Anyone with a competent internet connection can see for themselves what any association with the Xenakis family represents. Believe it or not, you won’t be the first woman to attempt to saddle me with a paternity claim. Even when the likelihood is remote.’
He believed it. He truly believed he was infertile.
Despite the anguish dredging through me, a tiny voice urged reason. Urged me to see this from his point of view. How many headlines had I caught from my mother’s gossip magazines that shouted about a celebrity vehemently denying alleged paternity? How many women had attempted to scam rich men by dangling a baby in their faces?
I was wasting my time.
Neo wouldn’t believe even if I shouted until I was blue in the face.
I rose. ‘Your hang-ups are your problem, not mine. I have a plane to catch, so I guess it’s goodbye, Mr Xenakis.’
He moved with impressive speed. Before I could take my next breath, Neo had arrived before me.
‘That’s it? You came to deliver the news and now you’re just going to head to the airport and return home?’
I dredged up a smile. ‘Let me guess. This is where you expect me to make some sort of demand? Maybe ask for financial support or a McMansion to live in while I carry your child? Well, sorry to disappoint you. I want nothing from you.’
The faint colour tingeing his sculpted cheekbones told me I’d hit the nail on the head.
‘Did you not hear me when I said I want this baby?’ he asked.
‘No, what I heard was you hedging your bets on the off-chance that I’m telling the truth. When you decide whether you want to believe me, I’m sure Wendell will be able to find me—’
‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘That is most definitely not how this is going to work.’
‘What’s that supposed to—’
We both froze when déjà vu arrived in the hideously embarrassing form of my stomach giving the loudest growl known to humanity.
He muttered what sounded like an incredulous Greek oath under his breath. ‘Tell me you haven’t been neglecting to eat?’ he bit out.
Heat consumed my face. ‘I’m in the throes of a spectacular experience called morning sickness. Anything I eat before a certain time rarely stays down.’
He frowned. ‘Surely there’s a remedy for that?’
I shrugged. ‘If there is, they haven’t found it yet.’
His frown intensified. ‘So the answer is what...? To starve yourself?’
‘I don’t do it deliberately, you know. My flight here was at an ungodly hour this morning.’
An exasperated puff of air left his lips as he glanced at his watch. ‘It’s now past noon. Does this mean you haven’t eaten all day?’
‘I tried to eat something on the plane.’
His lips twisted in distaste. ‘Budget airline food?’
‘We can’t all afford to travel on private jets, Mr Xenakis.’
‘Neo,’ he drawled. ‘Call me Neo.’
‘I’m not sure I want to call you anything, to be honest.’
‘If the child you carry is truly mine there’s one title you won’t be able to deny me,’ he stated with stone-rough gravity, just as a discreet knock sounded on the door.
He responded in Greek, and a moment later an impeccably dressed middle-aged woman entered, holding a package which she handed to Neo. Without glancing my way, she discreetly retreated.
He studied me for a moment, then reached into the bag. Although I suspected what the contents were, I was still shocked when he took out the oblong package.
‘You sent out for a pregnancy test?’
‘With the full intention of accepting any offence it might cause you, yes,’ he stated simply, his fingers tight around the box. ‘Will you take the test?’ he asked, his tone containing a peculiar note I couldn’t fathom.
There was something going on here. Something beneath the surface that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Again, questions surrounding the reasons why he believed he couldn’t father children crowded my brain.
Resolutely, I pushed them away and accepted the status quo. For now. ‘Only to prove I’m not a liar.’
I held my hand out for it but he hesitated, his jaw working for several seconds before he said, ‘You should know that this is merely a preliminary test to confirm your pregnancy. A test for paternity will be necessary when the time is right.’
My hand dropped, something hot and sharp lancing my chest. ‘You really are something else—you know that?’
‘Ne, I’ve been told.’ His stance didn’t change.
‘If you think I’m going to harm my baby just so your suspicions can be satisfied, you can think again.’
Emotion, heavy and profound and almost sacred, gleamed in his eyes. ‘So you’ve made up your mind? You intend to keep it?’ he rasped, his voice shaken.
‘You think I flew three and a half hours on a cramped middle seat, next to a passenger with a rabid aversion to good personal hygiene, to tell you I’m pregnant, only to go back and get rid of it?’
Neo’s gaze dropped to the hand I’d unconsciously jerked up to cradle my still-flat stomach.
‘You think I don’t have other things to do? I have a life to be getting on with. A mother who needs me to take care of—’ I shut my mouth, but it was too late.
The moment his eyes narrowed I knew he was about to pounce on my unguarded revelation. ‘Your mother needs taking care of? What’s wrong with her?’ he demanded sharply.
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘I beg to differ. If this baby is mine—’
I swatted the rest of his words away. ‘Enough with the ifs. Here—hand it over. I’ll take your precious test.’
Grim-faced, he held out the pregnancy test. I took it, then followed the tall, imposing body that hadn’t diminished one iota in the drop-dead-gorgeous stakes in the last two months down a wide private hallway adjoining his office to a sleek, dark door.
The bathroom was another stylish masterpiece—naturally. Gleaming surfaces held exclusive toiletries, polished floors echoed my nervous tread and the wide mirror faithfully reflected my wan features.
I diverted my face from it, hurried into the cubicle and took the test.
A little over three minutes later, I stepped out.
He stood, square and true, five feet from the door
, his gaze piercingly intent on the stick in my hand. For a single moment—knowing what this meant even if he doubted me, knowing I was perhaps about to change Neo Xenakis’s life—something moved in my chest.
Then he ruined it by holding out an imperious hand for the test.
I handed it over.
His gaze dropped to it and he swallowed hard.
He seemed to rock on his feet—a fascinating feat to watch, especially for a toweringly powerful man like him. He didn’t speak, only held the stick as if it was a magic wand that had the potential to deliver his most heartfelt wish.
Afraid I would succumb to softening emotions again, I hurried to speak. ‘As you can see, it indicates how many weeks along I am. I can give you the date of my last period too, if you want?’
It was meant to be sarcastic. It fell far short simply because I wanted him to believe me. Wanted to take away his doubt once and for all.
Because I wanted to hurry to the part where, despite the evidence, he’d conclude that fatherhood wasn’t for him after all. That this was a mistake. That I wasn’t worthy to carry his child.
He didn’t respond immediately. When he lifted his gaze his eyes were a stormy, dark grey, the pupils almost black. ‘This is sufficient for now,’ he finally said, his voice gravel rough.
Then he turned and walked away.
CHAPTER FIVE
I COULD BARELY walk beneath the staggering evidence of what I held in my hand.
Confirmation that there was a child, possibly my child, shook through me with every step back to my office. The circumstances astounded me. Seemed almost too good to be true—the stuff of big-screen melodramas.
Had the woman who’d brought desolation to my door returned with redemption, despite my threat to her the last time she’d been in my presence? Despite the medical evidence I’d been provided with to the contrary?
What were the chances of lightning striking twice? Was I setting myself up for the same kind of betrayal Anneka had dished out so callously?
My jaw gritted, my stomach churning with the need for one hundred percent certainty.
I sucked in a calming breath, recalling what rash decisions had led me here in the first place. My fingers tightened around the stick. Not that I regretted it...if it was truly happening.
A bolt of euphoria threatened to overwhelm my calm. Brutally, I suppressed it. Rationalised it.
As Sadie had pointed out, the kit I’d asked my trustworthy assistant to purchase was the highest quality, giving an estimation of gestation. The test announced Sadie was more than three weeks pregnant.
Surely she knew how powerful I was? Knew that any information provided could be easily verified by my security team? Would she be so foolish as to toss out falsities that could catch her out?
A throat was cleared huskily behind me, making me aware I’d reached my desk, opened the secure thumbprint-accessed drawer that held confidential documents and was in the process of dropping the stick into it. I needed that connection, this visual evidence that maybe, just maybe, I’d defied science and the odds.
Again, stunned awe shook through me. A child. My child. But just as swiftly, a less effervescent emotion rose. A little desperate, and a lot dismaying.
The thought struck me that I had no true compass as to how to be a father. I’d gone straight from boarding school to boardroom, my spare moments spent watching my grandfather struggle to hang on to the company, and subsequently witnessed my father and Ax embroiled in a cold battle for the helm of the company.
I’d used my time on the sidelines efficiently—learned everything I needed to excel in my field.
Those lessons hadn’t included how to be a father.
‘Now that we’ve established that there’s a pregnancy, are we done here?’ she asked.
Done here? Was she joking? ‘No, we’re not done. Far from it.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means I intend to be involved in this baby’s welfare every step of the way. Beginning now.’
I forestalled the questions brimming in her eyes by making a quick phone call.
The moment I was done, she approached.
Shock born of the earth-shattering news she’d delivered had partly blocked off the stunning effect of her appearance. Now, with the flood dammed and a plan of action swiftly slotting into place in order to secure what she insisted was mine, I couldn’t stem my reaction to her.
The white sundress was a cheap and simple design, but on her it looked anything but. The scooped neckline gave a tantalising glimpse of the perfect breasts that seemed to have swelled a size bigger with her pregnancy. And her skin, now her temper had subsided, glowed with an additional translucence that triggered wild tingles in my fingers with a need to trace, to caress... Christos, to lay my lips against that pulse before stealing another taste of those rosebud lips, currently caught between her teeth as she watched me.
I bit back a growl as my gaze rose to that final monument to her beauty. Two months on, her hair had grown longer, the ponytail she’d caught the heavy tresses into almost down to the middle of her back.
The hunger to set it free, to lose myself in the exotic scent of it, powered through me.
‘Explain what that means. Precisely. Because less than twenty minutes ago you were almost apoplectic about my perceived deception.’
I forced myself to throttle back this insane arousal that fired up only with her.
It wasn’t for lack of trying that I’d remained dateless since that night in London. Hell, I might even have cursed Sadie Preston a little for the sudden urge to set my useless little black book on fire because not a single woman listed within sparked the kind of flame she did with a mere look.
‘You have to be aware that I intend to take every precaution with you?’
Her wary glance confirmed that notion was becoming clear to her.
‘I’ve told you I only came here to give you the news—which I could’ve done by phone if you hadn’t blacklisted me.’
While the accusation grated a little, I couldn’t allow it to dissuade me from forging ahead. ‘From this moment forward consider that status reversed. You will have access to me day or night.’
Curiously, her breath caught, and I glimpsed something that looked like excitement in her eyes—which, perversely, triggered a stronger chain reaction within me.
Her trite reply attempted to disguise her reaction. ‘Others might find that offer beyond tantalising, but I don’t think much communication between us will be necessary after today...’
Unbidden, my lips twisted in genuine amusement, causing her words to trail off.
‘I fail to see what’s funny.’
Wonder. Apprehension. Raw anticipation. Panic. The cascade of emotions was threatening to send me off balance.
‘You’re carrying my child, Sadie. A Xenakis.’
Her eyes widened. ‘So you believe the baby is yours?’
Betrayal’s curse bit hard—a timely reminder to exercise caution. But for now I needed to buy myself time. After the accusations I’d hurled at her, and her reaction, these negotiations needed to be handled carefully while still keeping her under scrutiny. Because I didn’t intend for history to repeat itself.
‘In utero paternity tests carry unacceptable risks. We will wait until the baby is born.’
‘And how do you know that?’
I clenched my gut against the searing reminder of how wrong I’d been before, how blind trust had almost decimated me.
‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re in agreement that the health of this baby is the priority.’
She frowned. ‘I don’t need you to tell me that.’
‘Then you’ll stay a little while longer? Have lunch with me?’
Her eyes widened, then grew suspicious. ‘Why?’
‘You nee
d to eat, do you not?’
Memory darkened her eyes and swept the most becoming blush across her skin. She was recalling what had happened after our last meal together. When her long lashes drifted down to veil her expression, I forced back the wild need to nudge her chin up, to see the evidence of the chemistry that heated the very air around us.
‘Doesn’t mean I have to eat with you,’ she murmured.
For some absurd reason I bit back another smile, and the urge to keep tangling with her spiralled through me.
‘I won’t sully your meal with my presence, if that is your wish.’
Surprise jerked her gaze back to me. ‘You won’t?’
‘I have a few more business matters to deal with. You can eat while I take care of them.’
The knock on the door at that moment drew her suspicion.
‘You’ve already ordered lunch, haven’t you?’
I shrugged. ‘On the off-chance that you’d agree to stay, yes.’
‘There’s nothing “off-chance” about anything you do, but nice try,’ she sniped.
As she headed to the sofa and I returned to my desk, my smile turned resolute. She had no idea how accurate her words were. How meticulously I intended to seal her completely into my life.
If this child was mine—and, Christos, I would burn the world down if I’d been fooled for a second time—then nothing in all existence would stop me from claiming it.
For two hours I attempted to ignore her disquieting presence, to concentrate on laying the groundwork for what needed to be done. But with every appreciative bite of the meal I’d had my chef prepare for her, with every stretch of her voluptuous body as she shifted on the sofa and every flick of her hair over her shoulder, my body reacted with visceral hunger.
A hunger I cursed with every breath for messing with my concentration and control. For being neither circumspect nor discerning about the kind of woman it wanted.
First Anneka, with her wide-eyed innocence that had hidden a grotesquely flawed character. Now this green-eyed siren, who should be the last woman to pique my interest and yet fired me up with one simple defiant look.
