Читать книгу Modern Romance August 2018 Books 5-8 Collection - Ким Лоренс, Julia James - Страница 19

CHAPTER NINE

FOR A FEW seconds Ava could not breathe, and there was an odd rushing sensation in her ears. Giannis had not said that he wanted to marry her, she noted. And why would he? All he wanted was the baby she carried, and she was simply a necessary part of the equation.

‘You’re crazy,’ she said flatly. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

He pulled up a footstool and sat down in front of her, so close that it would be easy to stretch out her hand and touch the silken darkness of his hair—easy and yet impossible.

‘What is the alternative?’ he asked levelly. ‘Even if we came to an amicable agreement about shared custody, a child needs stability, which I can provide in Greece at Villa Delphine. I could buy a house for you in England and we could send our child back and forth between us like a ping-pong ball—Christmas with you, first birthday with me, and so on. But that wouldn’t make me happy, I don’t think it would make you happy and I’m certain it would not be a happy childhood for our son or daughter.’

Ava couldn’t argue with his logic. Everything Giannis said made sense. But her emotions weren’t logical or sensible; they were all over the place. She tensed when he took hold of her hand and rubbed his thumb lightly over the pulse thudding in her wrist.

‘Like it or not, you and the baby are my responsibility and I want to take care of both of you.’ He met her gaze and the gleam in his dark eyes sent a quiver of reaction through her. ‘Our relationship worked very well for the month that we pretended to be engaged,’ he murmured.

It would be too easy to be seduced by his charisma and fall under his spell, but if she was going to survive him she had to be strong and in control. ‘We did not have a relationship—we had sex,’ she reminded him tartly.

The word hung in the air between them, taunting Ava with memories of their wild passion and Giannis’s body claiming hers with powerful thrusts.

‘Don’t knock it, glykiá mou,’ he drawled. ‘You enjoyed it as much as I did.’

Hot-faced with embarrassment, she dropped her gaze from his amused expression and wondered what he was thinking. Her pregnancy was not really showing yet, but she was conscious of her thickening waistline which meant that she had to leave the button on her jeans undone. Before Giannis had met her, he had slept with some of the world’s most beautiful women—and she doubted his bed had been empty for the past months that they had been apart.

‘So, do you expect it to be a proper marriage?’ she said stiffly.

His eyes narrowed. ‘I do not expect anything, certainly not intimacy, unless you decide it is what you want.’

She should feel relieved by Giannis’s assurance that he would not put pressure on her to consummate their marriage, but Ava felt even more confused. He was a red-blooded male and celibacy would not be a natural state for him. But perhaps he intended to find pleasure elsewhere. For her own protection she needed to ignore the chemistry between them while she was still unsure if she could believe his insistence that he was not a criminal.

Giannis stood up and offered her his hand to help her to her feet. ‘What is your answer?’

She ignored his hand. ‘I need time to consider my options.’ Her tone was as cool as his. They could have been discussing a business deal instead of a decision which would affect the rest of their lives. But her pregnancy had already had a fundamental effect, and it occurred to her that, whether or not she accepted his proposal, they would be linked for ever by the child they had created between them.

‘Do not consider them for too long,’ he said as he ushered her out of the drawing room and across the hall to the dining room. ‘I intend for us to be married well before the baby is born.’ The implacable note in Giannis’s voice warned Ava that the only option he would accept was her agreement to become his wife.

* * *

‘The gel will feel cold, I’m afraid,’ the sonographer said cheerfully before she squirted a dollop of thick, clear lubricant onto Ava’s stomach.

Ava tried to suck her tummy in as the sonographer smeared the gel over her bump. She was intensely conscious of Giannis sitting beside the hospital bed where she was lying for the ultrasound scan. Her top was tucked up under her breasts and her trousers were pushed down low on her hips, leaving her stomach bare. From her angle, looking down her body, her stomach seemed huge, which was hardly surprising after she had spent the past couple of weeks enjoying Giannis’s housekeeper’s wonderful cooking, she thought ruefully.

‘I understand you need to eat for two,’ Joan had said cheerfully when Giannis announced that he and Ava would be getting married as soon as it could be arranged. The wedding could not take place until twenty-eight days after they had given notice at the local register office.

The bright lights in the scanning room made the pink sapphire ring on Ava’s finger sparkle. This time her engagement was real, and her heart lurched at the thought that very soon she would be Giannis’s wife.

She had accepted his proposal the day after he had asked her to marry him—following a sleepless night when she’d faced the stark choice of having to believe him or Stefanos Markou’s nephew. On a practical level she knew that Giannis was determined to be a father to his baby and she concluded that she would be in a better position to safeguard herself and her child if she was married to him.

‘You can choose a different ring if you would prefer not to wear this one,’ he’d said when he had returned the pink sapphire heart to her.

Ava had slid the ring onto her finger and told herself that she hadn’t missed it being there for the past few months. ‘It seems fitting to keep the ring that you gave me while I was your fake fiancée, seeing as our marriage will be one of convenience,’ she’d said stubbornly, determined he would not know how much she had missed him.

His eyes had gleamed dangerously but he’d said evenly, ‘Whatever you wish, glykiá mou.’

What she had wished was for him to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless so that she could pretend they were lovers back on Spetses—before rumours, doubts and her pregnancy had driven a wedge between them. But Giannis had walked out of the room and she’d felt too vulnerable to go after him and make the first move to try to break the stalemate in their relationship.

She pulled her mind back to the present as the sonographer moved the probe over her stomach. ‘If you look on the screen, here is Baby’s heart—you can see it beating. And this here is one of Baby’s hands...and just here is the other hand...’ The sonographer pointed to the grey image on the screen. ‘You can make out Baby’s face quite clearly.’

Ava caught her breath as she stared at her baby’s tiny features. She felt Giannis squeeze her fingers. She’d already had a scan at twelve weeks, to accurately date her pregnancy, but this was his first experience of seeing his child and she wondered how he felt now that the baby was a tangible reality rather than something they had spoken about.

The sonographer spent several minutes studying the baby’s vital organs and taking measurements. ‘Everything looks absolutely as it should do,’ she said at last. ‘I understand that you have decided to find out the baby’s sex.’

‘Yes,’ they both replied at the same time.

The sonographer smiled. ‘You are going to have a little boy. Congratulations.’

Ava tore her eyes from the image of her son—her son! Blinking back tears of pride and joy, she glanced at Giannis. Her heart turned over when she saw a tear slide down his cheek as he stared intently at the screen. He dashed his hand over his face and when he turned to her he showed no sign of the fierce emotion she had witnessed although, when she looked closely, his eyes were suspiciously bright.

‘Now we know what colour to paint the nursery,’ he murmured.

She nodded, unable to speak past the lump that had formed in her throat. Whatever happened between them, she knew now, without doubt, that Giannis would love his son and would never be parted from him. Which meant that somehow they would have to make their unconventional marriage work.

Another thought slid insidiously into her mind as she remembered her ex’s scathing comments when she had admitted to him that her father was the infamous East End gangster, Terry McKay. Craig had decided against marrying her for fear that their children might grow up to be criminals like their grandfather.

Of course there was not a ‘criminal’ gene, Ava tried to reassure herself. But she couldn’t forget what Stefanos’s nephew had told her about Giannis being involved in organised crime. If the rumour about him was true, and if there was such a thing as a ‘criminal’ gene, what would the future hold for the baby?

In the car on the way back to Milton Grange neither of them spoke much. Ava’s thoughts were going round and round in her head and she did not have the energy to try to breach the emotional distance that existed between her and Giannis. His playboy reputation when she had first met him had made her believe that he was not capable of feeling strong emotions, but that was patently not true, she realised as she remembered the tears on his face when he had seen the scan images of his baby son.

When they arrived at the house he went straight to his study, citing an important business phone call that he needed to make. The cold, grey weather at the end of January did not encourage Ava to go out for a walk, and instead she made use of the heated swimming pool in the conservatory.

She hadn’t got round to buying a maternity swimsuit, and the bikini that she’d bought from a boutique on Spetses barely fitted over her fuller breasts. But no one was going to see her, and the midwife had said that swimming was a good form of exercise during pregnancy. The water was warm and she swam several laps before she climbed out of the pool and wrung her dripping-wet hair between her hands. A sudden blast of cold air rushed into the conservatory as the door opened, and her heart gave a jolt when Giannis strode in wearing a towelling robe.

‘You said you would be working all afternoon,’ she muttered, feeling heat spread over her face as he stared at her ridiculously small bikini that revealed much more of her body than she was comfortable with. She was tempted to run across to the lounger where she had left her towel, but she couldn’t risk slipping on the wet tiles.

‘I was bored of working and decided to come and swim with you.’ He shrugged off his robe and Ava roamed her gaze hungrily over his muscular chest covered in black hairs that arrowed down his taut abdomen and disappeared beneath the waistband of his swim-shorts.

‘Well, I’ve got out of the pool now.’ Her flush deepened when she realised the inanity of her statement.

‘I can see that,’ he mocked her softly. But as he walked towards her his smile faded and his dark eyes glittered with a feral hunger that confused her.

‘Stop staring at me.’ She tried to cover the gentle swell of her stomach with her hands but could do nothing to disguise the fact that her breasts were almost spilling out of her bikini top. She felt exposed, knowing she looked fat, and sure that Giannis must be comparing her to all the gorgeous women who had shared his bed in the past.

He halted in front of her and she noticed a nerve jump in his cheek. ‘How can I take my eyes from you when you take my breath away?’ he said thickly.

Ava bit her lip. ‘I was slim the last time you saw me in a bikini.’ She had nearly said naked, but memories of when they had lain together, skin on skin, their limbs entwined and their bodies joined would only add fuel to the fire burning inside her.

‘You look incredible.’ Dark colour winged along his cheekbones. ‘Can you feel the baby move?’

‘I’ve felt flutters rather than kicks at this stage but the midwife said that the baby’s movements will become stronger as he grows bigger.’

Giannis was focused on her bump. ‘May I touch you?’

She gave a hesitant nod. It was his baby too, and she could not deny him the chance to be involved in her pregnancy. But when he placed his hand on her stomach and stretched his fingers wide over its swell she trembled and hoped he had no idea of the molten heat that pooled between her thighs.

‘There, did you feel that?’ She caught hold of his hand and moved it slightly lower on her stomach just as a fluttering sensation inside her happened again.

He drew an audible breath. ‘Theos,’ he said in an oddly gruff voice. ‘Between us we have created a miracle, glykiá mou.’

Standing this close to him was creating havoc with her emotions. She needed to move away from him and break the spell that he always cast on her. But it was too late, and she watched helplessly as his dark head descended.

‘Giannis,’ she whispered, but it was a plea rather than a protest and the fierce gleam in his eyes told her that he knew it. His breath warmed her lips before he covered her mouth with his and kissed her the way she had longed for him to kiss her, the way she had dreamed about him kissing her every night since she had left Greece.

She couldn’t resist him. It did not even occur to her to try. He was the father of her unborn child, the man she was going to marry, and she wanted him to make love to her. Even the knowledge that love played no part in their relationship did not matter at that moment, as desire swept like wildfire through her veins. She had been starved of him and she pressed her body up against his, closing her eyes as she sank into the sensual pleasure of his kiss.

His hand was still resting on her stomach, and she held her breath when he moved lower and ran his fingers over the strip of bare skin above the waistband of her bikini bottoms. She willed him to slip his fingers beneath the stretchy material and touch her where she ached to be touched. She wanted him to push his fingers inside her, and incredibly she felt the first ripples of an orgasm start to build deep in her pelvis before he had even caressed her intimately.

Tension of a different kind ran through her as she faced up to where this was leading. How could she give herself to Giannis when she had doubts about him? In many ways, it had been easier to have sex with him while she had pretended to be his fiancée because she’d assumed that their relationship would end at the same time as their fake engagement. But now she was going to be Giannis’s wife—if not for ever then certainly until their child was old enough to be able to cope with them separating. If she made love with Giannis she would reveal her vulnerability that she was desperate to hide from him.

But then suddenly it was over as he wrenched his mouth from hers. She swayed on her feet when he abruptly snatched his arm from around her waist. He swore as he swung away from her and dived into the water.

Ava watched him swim to the far end of the pool and wondered if he had somehow been aware of her doubts. A more likely explanation for his rejection was that he found her pregnant shape a turn-off. Giannis had been attentive because she was carrying his child, but he’d made it clear that he did not want her.

At least she knew where she stood with him, Ava told herself as she dragged her towel around her unsatisfied body to hide the shaming hard peaks of her nipples. He was marrying her to claim his baby. And she had agreed to be his wife because she feared that he would seek custody of their son—not immediately perhaps, but she couldn’t bear to live with the threat hanging over her.

* * *

Why the hell had he come on to Ava like a clumsy adolescent on a first date? Giannis asked himself furiously as he powered through the water. He heard the conservatory door bang, signalling her departure, but he kept on swimming lap after lap, punishing himself for his loss of control.

Since he had seen the grainy scan images of his child he’d felt as if he were on an emotional rollercoaster. Ava’s pregnancy had seemed unreal until the moment the sonographer had pointed out on the screen the baby’s tiny heart beating strongly. In that instant he’d realised that nothing—not money or possessions or power—were important compared to his son.

Back at the house he’d paced restlessly around his study, unable to concentrate on a financial report he was supposed to be reading. Work had always been his favourite mistress, the area of his life where he knew he excelled, but—just as when he had taken Ava to Spetses—he had wanted to be with her instead of sitting at his desk.

Walking into the pool house and seeing her in a tiny bikini had blown him away. Pregnancy had turned her into a goddess and he had been transfixed by her generous curves—her breasts like ripe peaches and the lush swell of her belly where his child lay. He’d wanted to touch her and feel a connection with his baby, and when he’d felt the faint movements of a fragile new life a sense of awed wonder had brought a lump to his throat. Something utterly primal had stirred in his chest. His child. His woman. He would die to protect both of them, he acknowledged.

Had he kissed Ava to stake his claim? With savage self-derision he admitted that he’d felt a basic need to pull her down onto a lounger and possess her in the most fundamental way. Desire had drummed an insistent beat in his blood and in his loins. He had forgotten that she did not trust him—although he should not be surprised by her wariness after he had threatened to take her child, he thought grimly.

He had kissed her for the simple reason that he could not resist her, but when he’d felt her stiffen in rejection he knew he had no one to blame but himself. When he’d persuaded her—or pressurised her, his conscience pricked—to marry him, he had promised himself that he would be patient and wait for her to come to him. Instead he’d behaved like a jerk, and in truth he was shocked that she had got under his skin to the degree that she dominated his thoughts and disturbed his dreams.

It would not happen again, Giannis vowed as he climbed out of the pool. He would control his desire for Ava because too much was at stake. He had discovered that he wanted more from her than sex. He wanted everything—her soft smile and infectious laughter, her cool, incisive intelligence and her fiery passion. And he wanted his child. Even if he failed to win all that he hoped for, he would have his son.

* * *

By the middle of February a thaw had turned the winter wonderland of snow and ice to grey slush, just in time for the wedding which was to take place in the private chapel in the grounds of Milton Grange. Not that Ava cared about the weather when her marriage to Giannis would be as fake as their engagement five months earlier had been.

Since the incident by the pool they had maintained an emotional and physical distance from each other. The closest contact they’d had was when their hands had accidentally brushed as they’d passed each other on the landing, on the way to their separate bedrooms.

She was thankful that the wedding would be a small affair. It had been arranged at short notice, and both her mother and Giannis’s mother were on holiday in the warmer climes of the southern hemisphere and could not attend. Her best friend Becky was coming, and Sam had promised to be there. Ava was looking forward to seeing him—although if her brother had not been partly responsible for damaging Giannis’s boat she would not now be pregnant and about to marry a man who had become so remote that sometimes she wondered if the close bond she had felt between them on Spetses had been in her imagination.

But the problem was not only Giannis, she acknowledged. Her trust issues meant that she found it difficult to lower her guard. And now her father was once more in the forefront of her mind.

It had started with an email she’d received from an author who was writing a book about East End gangs and had discovered that Ava was Terry McKay’s daughter. The author wanted to ask her about her childhood growing up with her notorious gangster father.

She sent a message back saying that she never discussed her father. But Ava knew she could not stop the book being published. People were fascinated by crime, and even though she had changed her name to Sheridan there was always a chance that she would be revealed as Terry McKay’s daughter.

It would be unfair for Giannis to find out about her father in a newspaper article or book review, her conscience nagged. She ought to tell him the truth about her background before she married him. Especially as she had come to believe that Stefanos’s nephew had lied about Giannis having links to a criminal organisation.

But she could not forget Craig’s suggestion that her children might take after her criminal father, and she was fearful of Giannis’s reaction. Would he reject her and his son? Maybe she should just keep quiet and hope that he never discovered her real identity. Tormented by indecision, she withdrew into herself—which did not go unnoticed by Giannis.

‘You’re very pale, and you have barely spoken a word all day,’ he commented during dinner on the evening before their wedding. He frowned. ‘Do you feel unwell? The baby...’

‘I feel fine, and I’ve felt the baby kicking and I’m sure he is fine too,’ she was quick to reassure him. She knew that Giannis’s obsessive concern about her health was because he cared about his child. But how would he feel if he was to learn that his son’s genes came from a very murky pool? She pushed her food around her plate, her appetite non-existent. ‘It’s just pre-wedding nerves.’

He gave her a brooding look from across the table. ‘There is no reason for you to feel nervous. I have told you that I will not make demands on you,’ he said tersely.

If only he would! Ava wished he would whip off the tablecloth, plates and all, and make hot, urgent love to her on the polished mahogany dining table. Sex would at least be some sort of communication between them, rather than the current state of simmering tension and words unspoken.

There had been times over the past weeks when she had caught Giannis looking at her with a hungry gleam in his dark eyes that made her think he still desired her. But then she remembered how he had wrenched his mouth from hers that day by the pool, and her pride would not risk another humiliating rejection if she made the first move.

She went to bed early, giving the excuse that she was tired, and ignored his sardonic expression as he glanced at the clock which showed that it was eight o’clock. Surprisingly she fell asleep, but woke with a start from a dream where she was standing in the church with Giannis and someone in the congregation halted the wedding and denounced her as a gangster’s daughter. The look of disgust on Giannis’s face stayed in her mind after she had opened her eyes and her stomach gave a sickening lurch as she jumped out of bed and, without stopping to pull on her robe, ran down the hall to his room.

‘Ava.’ Giannis was sitting up in bed, leaning against the pillows. The black-rimmed reading glasses he wore only added to his rampant sex appeal and in the soft light from the bedside lamp his bare chest gleamed like bronze, covered with whorls of dark hairs. He dropped the documents that he had been studying onto the sheet and sat bolt upright, concern stamped on his handsome face. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I can’t marry you,’ she blurted out.