Читать книгу Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 74

ALESSANDRA PRESSED THE button allowing Christian into the building and took deep breaths to compose herself.

It would be the first time she’d seen him in ten days.

They’d spent a couple of days together in Milan, seeing her doctor then a private obstetrician. Both had confirmed that she and the baby were in excellent health. She’d known in her guts everything was well but hearing it vocalised had lifted a weight she hadn’t been aware of carrying until it was gone.

A scan had been taken, a copy of which they had both taken before Christian had left. She’d spent hours gazing at that picture, making out the tiny head and limbs, so imperceptible she had to rely on memory from where the nurse had pointed. Sometimes, gazing hard, everything inside her would constrict, her throat closing so tight that she had to swallow to loosen it. Her beautiful baby. Her and Christian’s beautiful baby.

She hadn’t see him since, all their communication coming via daily text messages and phone calls, during which he filled her in on all the wedding plans. He wanted a Greek wedding so it made sense for him to organise it. She didn’t think she would have been able to handle getting involved anyway. She was having a hard enough time coping with the magnitude of what she’d agreed to.

She’d known Christian since she was twelve and Rocco had brought the Brat Pack—as she privately called her brother and his little gang of university friends—home for a week-long holiday at the family villa. But she didn’t know him.

He drank bourbon rather than his national drink of ouzo. He was a snazzy dresser. His brain was lauded around the world. He was completely self-made. He liked rock music. He’d slept with a quarter of the world’s most beautiful women, the others being shared out between her brother, Stefan and Zayed. He was used to getting his own way. And that was it. The rest was a mystery. She was marrying a stranger.

Dio l’aiuti—God help her—she would have to share a bed with him on occasion.

And, dio l’aiuti, the thought made her heat from the inside.

Ever since that particular aspect of their talk, it had felt as if a glow had been lit inside of her. His lips against her ear, his breath whispering on her skin…the heat it had ignited…

When he entered her apartment, impeccably dressed in a fashionable navy suit and striped pale-yellow tie, her heart made an involuntary skip. It skipped again when she caught his clean, freshly showered scent.

‘My apologies for the delay,’ he said, leaning in to give her the traditional kiss on each cheek.

Two little kisses; two tiny brushes of his lips against her skin, the hint of his warm breath on her…

The lit glow flickered and pulsated low within her, her body responding to his proximity like a bee to a field of pollen.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, stepping away from him and opening her handbag on the pretext of checking her purse. If he looked at her now, he would see the colour she knew had bloomed on her face scorching up her neck.

Christian had been due at her apartment early that morning. He’d called late last night to say he’d been delayed but would make it to her before lunch. She hadn’t been surprised. Men always made promises they had no intention of keeping. They told lies, whether deliberately or not. Even her grandfather, a man she’d thought full of morality, had lied. Only after his death had she learned he’d had an affair decades ago—with her new sister-in-law’s mother, no less. If her grandfather could lie to the wife he loved so much, then what hope was there for anyone else?

The only man she trusted was her brother.

She didn’t want to think what the cause of Christian’s delay could have been.

‘How did it go with the doctor?’ he asked.

‘Good.’ She bit back the question of whether he would attend any further appointments with her. It would save him having to lie. It would save her having to pretend to believe it.

‘Your blood pressure?’

‘Normal. Everything is normal,’ she said, anticipating further questions along the same vein. Feeling more on an even keel and in control of her reactions, she closed her handbag and looked at him.

He was watching her closely. ‘It wasn’t my intention to miss the appointment. There was a crisis at Bloomfield Bank and I had to attend an emergency board meeting.’

‘You don’t have to account for your whereabouts with me.’ She forced a smile. ‘After all, it’s not as if we’re married or anything.’ She couldn’t deny a tiny bit of the cramp in her belly lessened at knowing he hadn’t been with another woman.

He’d given his word not to make a move on her until they married. He’d made no such promise about making a move on another woman.

So long as he was discreet, who he slept with was none of her business.

He laughed, a familiar sound that plunged her back to the meal they’d shared. Of the Brat Pack, he’d always been her favourite, the one she’d privately dubbed ‘the Greek Adonis.’ A woman didn’t need wine goggles to appreciate the strength of his jaw or the dimples that appeared when he gave one of his frequent smiles.

With wine goggles, though, even the most inhibited of females would be putty in his hands. She, the woman who’d thought herself immune to any man’s charms, had been.

He hadn’t even tried. A couple of glasses of champagne on an empty stomach and an aching heart and she’d felt her secret attraction towards him, locked away out of reach, escape and bloom. Like the gentleman he was—and he was a gentleman in the traditional, chivalrous term of the word—he’d walked her home and right up to her door. She’d been the one to kiss him, not the usual two-cheek kiss but one right on his mouth.

The feel of his lips upon hers, the scent of his skin and warm breath…the effect had been indescribable. It had unleashed something inside her, something craven, a side she’d spent years denying the existence of, telling herself she’d rather die a virgin than give herself to a man.

It hadn’t felt like giving herself to Christian. Giving implied bestowing a favour, not the hot mix of desire and need that had made her desperate for his touch.

She could still feel and taste the heady heat of his breath…

But now she was stone-cold sober, her immunity back in its rightful place. Vivid memories might have the power to jolt her senses but they didn’t have the power to knock her off balance. No man would ever have that power. Her body might have a Pavlovian response to him but intellectually and emotionally she was safe.

When they married he could see whoever he wanted. It made no difference to her. All she cared about was her baby. As long as her baby made it safely into this world, nothing else mattered.

Maybe when her baby was placed in her arms, her own place on this earth would make sense.

Maybe then she would lose the feeling she’d carried her entire life that she should never have been born.

Christian sensed a slight change in Alessandra’s demeanour, an almost imperceptible straightening of the shoulders and stiffening of the spine.

She was looking good. She always looked good.

With her long hair loose around her shoulders, she wore faded tight-fitting jeans, a pale-blue cotton blouse unbuttoned to the top of her cleavage, a navy blazer and silver ankle boots with a slight heel. Heavy costume jewellery in shades of red hung round her neck and wrists, large, hooped gold earrings in her ears. Alessandra could wear a sack and carry it off, would still have that beautifully put-together air she carried so well.

Her apartment was the same: chic and beautifully put together, the walls and furniture muted but the furnishings bold and colourful. Giant prints of her work hung on the walls, enlarged, framed covers of Vogue and all the other glossy magazines she’d worked for.

He knew it would be a wrench for her to leave, but a third-floor apartment in the heart of Milan’s fashion district was not a feasible place to bring up a child. He’d raised the subject of her selling it on the phone a few days ago. Her response had been non-committal to say the least.

He’d give her more time to get used to the idea before discussing it again.

‘Are you ready to go?’ he asked.

She nodded, her plump lips drawing together. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

Out in the courtyard at the back of the building, where his driver waited for them, her yellow Vespa gleamed from its parking space. ‘I hope you’re not riding on that thing any more,’ he said, nodding at it.

‘No,’ she answered shortly, getting into the back of the car.

He followed her in, a pang hitting his stomach as he recalled the big beam on her face the one time he’d seen her ride on it—the day of their impromptu date. Another thing pregnancy would force her to give up.

When the car started to move, she turned to look at him, a set look on her face. ‘Christian, let me make one thing quite clear. You are going to be my husband, not my keeper. Do not dictate to me.’

He sighed. ‘Is this about the Vespa?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wasn’t dictating to you. I was satisfying myself that you’re not putting our child’s life at risk by continuing to ride on it, especially here in Milan.’

‘That is exactly what I mean. I don’t need you to tell me the drivers here all approach the road as an assault course that must be beaten—I live here. I might not have a penis between my legs but my brain and rationality work perfectly well.’

‘I never said it didn’t,’ he said, keeping his tone even. ‘But you must appreciate that it is my child you are carrying and it is only right I take an interest in its welfare.’

‘But it is my life. I will not be told what to do.’

‘I am not telling you what to do.’ How he held on to his patience, he did not know. ‘All I’m saying is that having a child changes things…’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ she said, her colour darkening. ‘You think I’m not aware of the responsibility I have to bring our child safely into this world? Do you think I’m not capable?’

‘Alessandra…’ He took a breath and fisted his hands into balls. ‘Will you stop putting words into my mouth? You’re making assumptions.’

Her shoulders hunched before she flopped her head back and took a long breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I have an aversion to being told what to do.’

‘I had already gathered that.’

She cast a sideways glance at him and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her very pretty ear.

‘As well as my aversion to being bossed around, I also have a tendency to get grumpy when I’m worried about something,’ she admitted, her tone now rueful.

‘You’re worried about Rocco’s reaction to our news?’

‘Aren’t you?’

He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

‘Whatever happens with your brother, nothing will change. You and I will still marry. If he gives his blessing, then that will be beneficial, but if he doesn’t then we will handle it together. Okay?’ he added when she didn’t answer, simply sank her teeth into her bottom lip and tugged her hand free from his clasp.

She nodded slowly, and absently rubbed at the top of her hand where his fingers had rested. ‘Rocco is very protective of me. He always has been.’

‘You’re his sister; nothing will change that.’ Christian was doing his best to project a positive frame of mind for Alessandra’s benefit but was under no illusion about how hot-headed her brother could be. He knew that if the forthcoming meeting was badly handled, their friendship would be ruined.

Alessandra’s lungs had closed up.

The intimacy of the cab, the forced proximity…

Worry about her brother’s reaction faded as Christian’s oaky cologne filled her senses, moisture filling her mouth and bubbling low in her most intimate area.

She pressed her thighs together and dragged out a short breath. It wasn’t enough. She needed air.

There was nowhere to hide.

The traffic outside was atrocious. They were still a couple of streets away from the House of Mondelli, where her brother awaited her. If she were on her Vespa she would be there by now, able to weave in and out of the traffic while turning a deaf ear to the tooting horns.

‘Let’s walk the rest of the way,’ she said. She needed air. She needed to breathe. ‘It’ll be quicker.’

Christian nodded and pressed the button to lower the partition, telling his driver to stop the car. As they were already stationary, this required no effort on the driver’s part.

Alessandra immediately felt better out in the balmy spring air. She loved the sunshine; knew it was the reason her grandfather had left her the villa in St. Barts, so she had a bolt hole to escape to when the gloomy Milanese winter set in. She had no idea yet what she would do with the apartment in Paris he had also left her, but the villa would remain hers until she took her last breath. Which, if the Milanese drivers had anything to do with it, could be sooner rather than later.

They made it to the entrance of the luxurious building without being squashed by any moving vehicles and stepped inside. She smiled at the glamorous receptionists and, with Christian by her side, strode past the large rooms homing all the creative minds that made the House of Mondelli such a success, and through to her brother’s office. His door was closed; Gabrielle, his PA, guarded it with her desk like a sentry. She stood to greet them.

Alessandra cast a quick glance at Christian, experiencing the strangest compulsion to grab hold of his hand. He inclined his head and threw a small, encouraging smile. She couldn’t read his eyes.

Taking a deep breath, she rapped on the door and pushed it open.

Rocco was at his desk talking into his phone. A smile formed on his lips at seeing his sister, his eyes pulling into a question at seeing Christian follow her inside and shut the door behind him.

He ended the call and got to his feet, sidling round his desk to pull her into an embrace. ‘You’re looking well, sorellina.’ Little sister.

‘And you’re looking tanned. Good honeymoon?’

‘Perfetto.’

She didn’t think she’d ever seen him so happy. ‘How’s Liv?’

Somehow his face lit up even more. ‘She’s wonderful.’ Rocco moved on to Christian, giving him a bear hug, which he returned. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m here to see you,’ Christian said.

If Rocco heard the serious inflection in his friend’s voice he made no sign of it. ‘Alessandra and I have a lunch date—are you joining us?’

‘Rocco,’ said Alessandra, placing a hand on her brother’s arm to get his attention. ‘Christian is here with me. We have something to tell you.’

Immediately the light in her brother’s eyes dimmed, became wary. ‘Tell me what?’

Christian shifted slightly and placed an arm around her waist. The gesture felt almost protective. ‘We’re getting married,’ he said, his tone serious.

Rocco shook his head as if clearing his ears of water. ‘Married?’

‘Yes. We wanted you to be the first to know.’

Alessandra pressed closer to Christian in a show of unity and forced a breezy laugh. If they could make this look and sound as natural as possible, then Rocco should be accepting of their plans. That was what she’d been telling herself for almost a fortnight. ‘I want you to give me away.’

Rocco laughed with her, although not at his usual pitch. ‘You two are getting married?’

‘Si.’

‘My little sister and my best friend?’

‘Si! Isn’t it wonderful?’

‘That’s one way to describe it. When did all this happen?’

‘We bumped into each other when you were in New York.’ She and Christian had agreed to stick with the truth as much as possible. Neither wanted to lie to Rocco. ‘Christian had come to take you out but, as you were in New York, I talked him into taking me out instead. Then, at your wedding we spent a bit more time together and realised our feelings for each other had changed.’ That was the truth as well. How could someone be just a friend of your brother’s if you were carrying his child?

‘When do you hope to marry?’

‘We’ve decided there’s no point in hanging around so we’ve set the date for a fortnight. We’re marrying in Athens.’

‘That soon?’

Christian’s hand brushed against her back as he pulled away from her and took a step closer to Rocco.

Neither man spoke.

Suddenly she became aware that the atmosphere in the office wasn’t the warm bonhomie she’d intended. It was cold. Icy.

As she looked from her fiancé to her brother, taking in the two sets of lips clamped firmly together, her heart sank.

For all his outward amiability, Rocco hadn’t bought a single word she’d said. And Christian knew it.

‘Are you pregnant?’ he asked, looking at her briefly, his tone casual.

She swallowed, stupidly unprepared for such a question. She placed her arm protectively across her waist.

This time he directed the same question to Christian. There was no denying the menace in his stance. ‘Have you got my sister pregnant?’

Christian drew himself up to his full height. It was like watching two silverbacks square up to each other. Both men were equal in stature, both topping six foot by a good few inches, and both kept themselves in extremely good shape.

‘Yes. Alessandra is pregnant with my baby and we have agreed to marry. We both want to do the right thing by our child.’

‘The right thing by your child?’ Rocco snarled, his face ablaze with fury. ‘What about my sister? What the hell were you doing messing with her in the first place?’

‘I’m not going to lie to you,’ Christian said, his tone calm but with a hint of steel underlying his words. ‘Neither of us meant for this to happen. But it has happened—Alessandra is pregnant with my child and I am going to support them both in every way I can.’

‘So she was another of your one-night stands? Is that what you’re telling me?’

Christian didn’t answer, keeping his gaze fixed evenly on Rocco.

‘You said neither of you meant it to happen, so I will ask you one more time: was she just a one-night stand to you?’

‘Yes.’

If Christian intended to elaborate on his one-syllable answer, his words went unsaid when Rocco’s arm shot out like a bullet.

‘Rocco, no!’ But her scream came too late to prevent her brother’s fist connecting with Christian’s nose, a resounding crack bouncing off the walls on impact.

Christian dropped to the floor with a thump.

Immediately Alessandra fell to her knees beside him. Vivid red blood seeped from his nose.

‘What did you do that for?’ she said, switching to Italian, half-shouting, half-screaming, not looking at Rocco, too busy checking Christian’s vital signs. The pulse in his neck pumped strongly, the only blessing she could cling to. She looked up at her brother, who stood frozen. ‘Don’t just stand there—call for an ambulance.’

Rocco’s broad chest heaved, his face a couple of shades paler than it had been when she’d walked into his office. ‘He doesn’t need an ambulance. He’s already coming round.’

He was right. Christian’s lips were moving.

‘At least get some ice,’ she snapped, somehow holding back the tears.

Not sure if she was doing the right thing or not, she carefully lifted Christian’s head and placed it on her lap. Being as gentle as she could, she ran her fingers over his hair, not knowing or caring if she was comforting him or herself. Of all the scenarios that had played itself out in her head, this was not an outcome she had prepared for.

She should be getting used to that.

‘Are you still here?’ she snarled at her brother. ‘He needs ice.’

‘He needs castration.’ He swore loudly. ‘You’re my sister and he’s a playboy—’

‘And you’re a hypocrite!’ she interrupted. ‘The majority of the women you’ve slept with have been someone’s sister. He’s your best friend and you’re just as big a playboy as he is.’

‘Not any more, I’m not—and I’m not oblivious to those other women being someone’s sister, but you are my sister.’

‘No—I was your sister. After what you’ve just done, I will never call you my brother again. I’ll walk myself up the aisle. Now, get an ice pack and then you can get the hell out of my life.’

Through the ringing in his ears Christian heard the sound of muffled talking. Arguing.

Was that Alessandra speaking so emotively?

Through the lancing pain in his face came the realisation that, yes, it was Alessandra—that it was her warm lap supporting his head, her gentle fingers lacing through his hair, her normally calm, husky voice pitched at a much higher octave than he had ever associated it with.

Footsteps left the room, the door slamming with a close.

He winced as the sound reverberated through his pounding head.

Well, that had gone better than he’d anticipated.