Читать книгу Modern Romance October 2019 Books 5-8 - Annie West - Страница 15

A WEEK AFTER leaving the island, Leonidas awoke in a cold sweat. He stared around the hotel room, his heart hammering in his chest.

Hannah.

He’d been dreaming of Hannah, the woman he’d met on Chrysá Vráchia. He’d been dreaming of her, of making love to her. His body was rock hard and he groaned, falling back onto the pillows, closing his eyes and forcing himself to breathe slowly, to calm down. To remember his wife.

And nausea skidded through him, because he knew he would never forget Amy. But for those few moments, when he’d lost himself inside Hannah, when he’d pierced her innocence, and possessed her so completely, he had felt…

He had felt like himself.

For the first time in many years he had felt like a man who was free of this curse, this guilt, this permanent ache.

He had lost himself in Hannah and, just for a moment, he had lost his grief.

He swore under his breath, and pushed the sheet back, his heart unable to be calmed. Leonidas walked to the plush kitchen of his Hong Kong penthouse, pressing a button on the coffee machine.

He watched it brew, an answering presentiment of disaster growing inside him.

‘Do you need me to talk to him?’

Leonidas focussed on sounding normal. But in the month since leaving Chrysá Vráchia, he’d had a growing tension, balling in his gut, and nothing he did seemed to relieve it. It was guilt, he knew. Guilt at having betrayed his vows to Amy. At having broken the vow he made himself, that Amy would be the last woman he was intimate with.

The limousine slid through Rome, lights on either side.

‘Yeah, sure, that’s even better,’ Thanos responded with sarcasm. Leonidas’s younger brother shook his head. ‘Kosta Carinedes will take one look at you and see Dad. Sorry.’

Leonidas winced—the physical similarities between himself and Dion were not news to him. ‘So how are you going to convince him to sell?’

‘He wants to sell,’ Thanos murmured, tilting his head as the car slowed at a corner and paused near a group of beautiful women wearing skimpy shorts and singlet tops. ‘He just doesn’t want to sell to us.’

‘Because of Dion?’

‘Because of our name,’ Thanos conceded with a nod. ‘And because I am, quote, “a sex-mad bachelor”.’

At this, Leonidas laughed, despite the bad mood that had been following him for weeks. ‘He’s got you bang to rights there.’

Thanos grinned. ‘Hey, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being sex-mad. We can’t all live the life of a saint like you.’

Leonidas’s expression shifted as though he’d been punched in the gut. He was far more sinner than saint, but he had no intention of sharing his slip-up with his brother.

‘Offer him more money,’ Leonidas suggested, cutting to the crux of the matter.

‘It’s not about money. This is his grandparents’ legacy. They built the company out of “love”,’ he said the word with sardonic derision, ‘and he won’t sell it to someone who’s constantly in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.’

Leonidas shrugged. ‘Then let it go.’

‘You’re kidding, right? I told you what this means to me? And who else is interested in buying it?’

Leonidas regarded his brother thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Luca Monato. And I know you two hate each other. But this is just a company. Let him have it, buy its competition and drive him into the ground. Far more satisfying.’

‘It might come to that. But I’m not done yet.’

‘What else can you do? I hate to point out the obvious, but Kosta’s right. You’re a man whore, Thanos.’

Thanos laughed. ‘And proud. You could take a couple of pages out of my book. In fact, why don’t you? I’ve got a heap of women you’d like. Why don’t you call one of them? Take her for dinner and then back to your place…’

Leonidas turned away from his brother, looking out of the window of the limousine as Rome passed in a beautiful, dusk-filled blur. He thought of Hannah, his body tightening, his chest feeling as if it were filling with acid. ‘No.’

‘You cannot live the rest of your life like this,’ Thanos insisted quietly, his tone serious now, their banter forgotten. There weren’t many people on earth who could speak plainly to the great Leonidas Stathakis, but Thanos was one of them, and always had been. Side by side they’d dealt with their father’s failings, his criminality, his convictions, the ruin he’d brought on their fortune and the Stathakis name.

Side by side, they’d rebuilt it all, better than before, returning their family’s once-great wealth—many times over. They were half-brothers, only three months apart in age, and they’d been raised more as twins since Thanos was abandoned on their doorstep by his mother at the age of eight. Their insight into one another was unique.

Leonidas understood Thanos as nobody else did, and vice versa. Leonidas knew what it had done to Thanos, his mother abandoning him, choosing to desert him rather than find a way to manage his dominant character traits.

‘What would you do?’ Leonidas drawled, but there was tension in the question. Tension and despair.

Thanos expelled a sigh; the car stopped. Thousands of screaming fans were outside on the red carpet, here to catch a glimpse of the A-list Hollywood stars who’d featured in the film of the premiere they were attending.

‘I can’t say. I get it—you miss Amy. What happened to her and Brax—do you think I don’t feel that? You think I don’t want to reach into that prison cell and strangle our father with my bare hands for what he exposed you to? But, Leonidas, you cannot serve her by living half a life. Do you think Amy would have wanted this for you?’

Leonidas swept his dark eyes shut, the panic in his gut churning, the sense of self-disgust almost impossible to manage. ‘Don’t.’ He shook his head. ‘Do not speak to me of Amy’s wishes.’

But Thanos wasn’t to be deterred. ‘She loved you. She would want you to live the rest of your life as you did before. Be happy. Be fulfilled.’

‘You think I deserve that?’

‘It was our father’s crimes that killed her, not yours.’

‘But if she hadn’t met me…’ Leonidas insisted, not finishing the statement—not needing to. Thanos knew; he understood.

‘It’s been four years,’ Thanos repeated softly. ‘You have mourned and grieved and honoured them both. It’s time to move forward.’

But Leonidas shook his head, his time on Chrysá Vráchia teaching him one thing and one thing only: it would never be time. He had failed Amy during their marriage, in many ways; he wouldn’t fail her now.

‘Tuna salad, please,’ Hannah said over the counter, scanning the lunch selections with a strange sense of distaste, despite the artful arrangements. In the four months since arriving in London and taking up a maternity-leave contract as legal secretary to a renowned litigator, Hannah had grabbed lunch from this same store almost every day.

Her boss liked the chicken sandwiches and she the tuna. She waited in the queue then grabbed their lunches and made her way back to the office as quickly as she could.

There was a wait for the lift and she stifled a yawn, sipping her coffee. Her stomach flipped. She frowned. The milk tasted funny.

‘Great,’ she said with a sigh, dropping it into a waste bin. Just what she needed—spoiled milk.

But when she got to her desk and unpeeled her sandwich, she had the strangest sense that she might vomit. She took one bite of the sandwich and then stood up, rushing to the facilities. She just made it.

It was as she hovered over the porcelain bowl, trying to work out whether she was sick or suffering from food poisoning, that dates began to hover in her mind. Months of dates, in fact, without her regular cycle.

Her skin was damp with perspiration as she straightened, staring at the tiled wall with a look of absolute shock.

No way.

No way could she be pregnant. Her hand curved over her stomach—it was still flat. Except her jeans had felt tight on the weekend, and she’d put it down to the sedentary job.

But what if it wasn’t just a little weight gain? What if she was growing thick around the midsection because she was carrying Leonidas Stathakis’s baby?

She gasped audibly, pushing out of the cubicle, and ran the taps, staring at herself in the mirror as the ice water ran over her fingertips.

Surely it wasn’t true? It was just a heap of coincidences. She had a tummy bug and her weight gain was attributable to the fact she was chained to a desk for twelve-hour days. That could also account for her recent exhaustion.

That was all.

Nonetheless, when she left the office much later that day, still feeling unwell, Hannah ducked into a pharmacy around the corner from the Earl’s Court flat she’d rented a room in.

She’d do a pregnancy test. There was no harm in that—it was a simple precaution.

In the privacy of her the bathroom, she unsealed the box, read the instructions, and did precisely what they said. She set an alarm on her phone, to tell her when two minutes was up.

She didn’t need it, though.

It took fewer than twenty seconds for a second line to appear.

A strong, vibrant pink, showing that she was, indeed, pregnant.

With Leonidas Stathakis’s baby.

‘Oh, jeez.’ She sat down on the toilet lid, and stared at the back of the door. Her hand curved over her stomach and she closed her eyes. His face appeared in her mind, unbidden, unwanted, and unflinchingly and just as he had been for months in her dreams, she saw him naked, his strong body and handsome face so close to her that she could breathe him in, except he was just a phantom, a ghost.

But not for long.

It shouldn’t have happened. Despite the fact she’d torn his note into a thousand pieces and left it scattered over the marble bench-top of the luxurious penthouse kitchen, his words were indelibly imprinted into her mind.

Well, regardless of his regret, and the fact he hadn’t respected her enough to say that to her face, she’d have to see him again.

There was nothing for it—she had to face this reality, to tell him the truth.

And she would—when she was ready.

Hannah checked the name against the piece of paper she clutched in her hand, looking around the marina with a frown on her face.

There was some event on, Capri Sailing Week or some such, and the whole marina was bursting with life. Enormous boats—or ‘superyachts’, as she’d been told they were called—lined up like swans, so graceful and imposing in the evening sun.

She knew from the search she’d done on the Internet that Stathakis Corp owned a boat that took part in the event. She also knew that Leonidas and his brother came to the event annually on their own ‘superyacht’. Photos had shown her a suntanned Leonidas relaxing on the deck, casting his eye over the race.

She’d closed out of the images as quickly as she could.

She didn’t need to see him again. Not like that.

This was going to be quick, like ripping off a plaster. She’d tell him she was pregnant—not that she’d really need words. At more than five months along, she was quite visibly carrying a baby.

She’d been so tempted just to call him. To deliver the news over the phone and leave it at that, just as he’d written her a note instead of having the courage to face her the next morning.

But it was cowardly and she wasn’t that. They were having a baby together—she couldn’t ignore the ramifications of their night together and nor could he. At least she knew that, no matter what happened next, he’d regretted that night.

He’d regretted it, he wished that it hadn’t happened, and he’d treated her with complete disdain and disrespect, skulking out in the middle of the night, leaving a note! It wasn’t as if she’d have begged him for more—they’d both agreed to it being one night only. It was the salt in the wound of him vanishing, not even bothering to say goodbye.

That was the man she was having a child with.

She grabbed hold of that thought; she needed to remember that.

The Stathakis yacht was the biggest in the marina, and it was pumping with life and noise. Her eyes skimmed the yacht, running over the partygoers moving around with effortless grace, all scantily clad, from what she could see. Music with a heavy beat sounded loud and somehow seductive, so something began to beat low in her abdomen. There were staff, too, their crisp white shirts discernible even at a distance, the trays they carried overflowing with champagne flutes.

She narrowed her eyes, lifting a hand and wiping it over her forehead. She was warm—the sun was beating down, even now in the early evening, and she’d been travelling since that morning.

She was tired, too, the exhaustion of the first trimester not giving way in the second.

She moved closer to the yacht, mindful on her approach that security guards stood casually at the bridge that led to the deck.

As she approached, one of the men spoke to her in Italian. At her blank expression, he switched to Greek and then, finally, English. ‘Can I help you, miss?’

‘I need to see Leonidas Stathakis. It’s important.’

The security guard flicked his gaze over Hannah, his expression unchanging. ‘It’s a private party.’

She had expected this resistance. ‘If you tell him my name, I’m certain he’ll want to see me.’

The guard’s scepticism was obvious. ‘And that is?’

‘Hannah. Hannah May.’ Her voice was soft, her Australian accent prominent.

The guard spoke into his walkie-talkie, the background noise of the party coming through louder when he clicked the button at its side. She discerned only her own name in the rapid delivery of information. Then, he clicked the walkie-talkie back to his hip.

‘He says you can go up.’

‘Thank you.’

Nerves were jangling inside her, doubts firing in her gut. Maybe she should turn around. Go back to London, or even Australia, far away. Call him with this information. Or not. She had no idea. She just knew suddenly the thought of coming face-to-face with Leonidas filled her with ice.

She was going to be sick.

‘Miss? Are you okay?’

But she’d come all this way. She’d grappled with this for weeks now, she’d faced the reality of being pregnant with Leonidas’s baby, trying to work out the best way to tell him. She had to tell him—there was nothing for it.

‘I will be.’

Yes, she would be. She needed simply to get this over with. The faster the better. ‘This way?’ she prompted, gesturing towards the boat.

‘And to the left.’

Hannah’s smile was tight as she surveyed the crowd, not particularly relishing the idea of weaving her way through so many people. ‘Thank you.’

She stepped onto a platform and then went up a set of polished timber and white stairs. At the top, another guard opened a section of the boat’s balustrade, forming a gate. The noise was deafening up here. She braced herself for a moment, frozen to the spot as she recognised at least a dozen Hollywood celebrities walking around in a state of undress. Men, women, all in their bathers, suntanned, impossibly slender and toned with very white teeth and enormous eyes.

Hannah stared at them self-consciously, this world so foreign to her, so foreign to anything and anyone she knew. These people were his friends?

There was a loud noise, a laugh, and then the splashing of water. She turned, chasing the interruption, to see a handsome man standing above the pool, a grin on his chiselled face. It wasn’t Leonidas, but she recognised him nonetheless from the few photos she’d pulled up while trying to find out how to contact Leonidas.

Thanos Stathakis, the playboy prince of Europe, all golden and carefree, and surrounded by a dozen women who were quite clearly vying for a place in his bed. She pulled a face, straightened her spine and began to cut through the party.

She didn’t belong here. She didn’t want to be here. She just needed to tell him and get out.

‘Miss May?’ A woman wearing a crew uniform approached Hannah, a professional smile on her pretty face. ‘This way, please.’

Hannah nodded stiffly, falling into step beside the woman, almost losing her footing when she saw a Grammy award–winning singer breeze past, laughing, arm in arm with the undisputed queen of talk-show television.

Hannah stared after them, her heart pounding. She felt like a fish way, way out of water. The crew member pushed a door open and Hannah followed, grateful for the privacy and quiet the room afforded.

‘Would you like anything to drink, miss?’

Hannah shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’

She waited until she was alone and then scanned the room, her eyes taking in the obvious signs of wealth that were littered without care. The yacht was unlike anything she’d ever seen, the last word in luxury and money. Designer furniture filled out this room, a television the size of her bed on one wall, and through the glass partition a huge bedroom with a spa against the windows.

Leonidas’s bedroom?

Her pulse picked up a notch and on autopilot she wandered towards it, her heart hammering against her chest as she pushed the door open.

Yes. She couldn’t say how she knew, only there was something in the air, his masculine, alpine fragrance that instantly jolted her senses.

She backed out quickly, as though the very fires of hell were lining the floor in there.

She had to do this. She would tell him, and then leave, giving him a chance to digest it, and to consider her wishes. This would be over in minutes.

Minutes.

She waited, and with each moment that passed her nerves stretched tighter, thinner, finer and more tremulous, so, five minutes later, she honestly thought she might pass out.

She was on the brink of leaving the room and going in search of Leonidas herself when the door burst inwards and he strode into the room, wearing only a pair of swimming shorts, and a look that—in the seconds before surprise contorted his expression—showed his impatience with her arrival.

He was partying.

He was probably the centre of attention, being just as fawned over and celebrated as his brother. Jealousy tore through her, but Hannah told herself it was outrage. Outrage that she’d been agonising over the baby they were going to have while he’d slipped out of bed and gone back to his normal life as though it had never happened.

If she’d held even a single shred of hope that he might be glad to see her, it disappeared immediately.

‘Hannah.’ His eyes roamed her face and then dropped lower, until he was staring at her stomach, and she felt the force of his shock, the reverberation of his confusion. It slammed into the room, slammed against her, and if she weren’t so consumed with her own feelings she might almost have felt sympathy for him.

‘Yes.’ She answered the unspoken question, her voice slightly shaky. ‘I’m pregnant. And you’re the father.’