Читать книгу The Carides Pregnancy - Ким Лоренс, KIM LAWRENCE - Страница 7

‘I REALLY don’t think that would be a good idea, do you?’

Good idea? Becca reflected, as the quivering tension left her body in a debilitating rush. That had never had any thing to do with this.

This had always been about standing up, if only in a small way, for Erica and for every other woman who had fallen for that slimy creep’s lies. His future wife needed to know what sort of low-life she was getting married to, and the world needed to know what sort of man Alex Carides actually was.

Who am I kidding? This is about revenge—plain and simple!

The deep, interestingly accented voice, complete with sexy rasp, seemed very close to her ear as he added softly, ‘I don’t think you want to do this.’

Which, in conjunction with the heavy hand on her shoulder, translated as I’ll carry you kicking and screaming from the building if you try. Becca decided to retreat with a little dignity intact.

Chin up, and looking straight ahead, Becca responded to the pressure of those fingers on her shoulder and smoothly rose from her seat, moving up the aisle and walking with little fuss through the metal-studded oak door just to her right which she hadn’t even noticed was there.

Christos was conscious of a slow-burning anger that had started to smoulder the moment he had realised what she intended to do. God knows what ‘just cause’ she had intended to produce, but there was only one logical conclusion to draw. The woman who was going to feature strongly in his fantasies for the foreseeable future was one of Alex’s cast-offs.

A cynical sneer twisted his mouth as he considered the opposite sex’s inability to see beyond his cousin’s winning smile and slick good looks.

The redhead had appalling taste—but she smelt very good! His eyes widened slightly as he recognised that he was angrier now than he had been when he had caught Melina with Alex.

If this wasn’t jet lag he had a serious problem!

Her captor led Becca into a small ante-room. As the heavy door closed it effectively sealed them off from the sounds of the service beyond. At that moment reaction started to set in—in a big way. Her knees began to shake, closely followed by the rest of her.

‘He’s really not worth it, you know.’

‘I know he’s not…’ As she spoke Becca turned her head, inhaled audibly, and added an unthinking and breathy, ‘Goodness!’

Which, under the circumstances—the circumstances being that she was inches away from the most sinfully gorgeous man she had ever seen—was quite restrained. If you were going to be caught, she reflected, you might as well be caught by someone breathtaking. And my goodness, she thought, still slightly stunned by the dark vision of brooding male perfection, he was gorgeous—and then some!

It was perhaps fortunate that the shaky hand she had lifted to her mouth stopped her saying something unconsidered.

Christos watched the colour rush to her cheeks and then fade quite dramatically away, leaving her marble-pale.

‘I think you could do with some fresh air.’ In his opinion that was the very least she looked as if she could do with.

Becca started, and realised that she had been staring at this stranger. Goodness knew how long she had been the prisoner of those hypnotic dark eyes and her own fascination.

She nodded awkwardly.

Her shoulders slumped as she followed the tall man with the longest eyelashes she had ever seen outside. Another minute—that was all she’d needed. She could have wept with sheer frustration. It was so unfair. Why was it that men like Alex Carides never paid the price?

Shame flooded through her. A great sister I am!

Outside, Becca sank down onto a conveniently situated bench that had been fashioned from a tree trunk. She was in no mood to appreciate its aesthetic properties as she bent forward and buried her face in her hands.

‘Later, when you’ve had a chance to think calmly about this, you’ll realise I’ve done you a favour.’

Becca’s head jerked up. ‘A favour?’ she echoed belligerently. ‘Look, I know you were only doing your job— though if you were any sort of security I wouldn’t have got as far as I did,’ she felt impelled to point out. ‘But don’t act as if your motives were altruistic.’

The tall, dark and gorgeous stranger looked startled for a moment, then gave a lop-sided sort of smile that made her undiscriminating tummy muscles quiver appreciatively.

‘I was tempted to let you do it,’ he admitted.

Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. ‘I wanted…wanted…’

‘Calm down.’

He really was the most beautiful man she had ever seen—or even imagined! She ran the tip of her tongue across the outline of her dry lips and fixed him with a resentful glare. ‘You could have looked the other way.’

‘But then,’ he observed, ‘I’d have lost my job.’

Becca gave a distracted sigh. ‘I suppose you would,’ she agreed.

‘Did you really want to stand up and make a fool of yourself like that?’

‘This isn’t about wanting, it’s about…’ She stopped and took a shuddering deep breath as she struggled to regain control. After a few moments her darkened eyes lifted to the face of the man beside her. ‘Tell me, do you think it’s right that he gets away with ruining someone’s life?’

‘I think you should consider it a narrow escape,’ Christos observed drily.

Becca frowned at the platitude. ‘What would you know about it?’

‘I know quite a lot about Alex Carides.’

Which might, she mused, explain his expression of contempt.

‘How can you work for a man like that?’ The thought of being around such a creep made her skin crawl. The thought of being around any Carides full-stop made her skin crawl.

‘A man has to eat.’

She flickered him an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry—I didn’t mean to moralise. Goodness, I’m the last person to do that.’

Her self-deprecating remark wiped all expression from his face.

Confused, Becca watched his dark, cynical gaze drop, and wondered at the almost tangible waves of tension emanating from him. ‘Are you pregnant?’

Becca blinked, confused by the speed with which his manner had transformed from sympathy to frozen condemnation. As she read the distaste in his face twin circles of angry colour appeared on the apples of her pale cheeks.

‘You think that I—’ She bit back her hasty rejoinder. She didn’t owe a total stranger any explanation—though knowing that he believed she had slept with a Carides made it hard for her to hold her tongue. ‘Your boss makes a habit of getting women pregnant, does he?’ she countered.

‘Then there is a baby?’ he said, looking sterner than ever.

‘Not any more.’

‘A termination?’ he said bleakly.

Becca’s voice grew husky with emotion as she corrected him. ‘A miscarriage.’

The security guard drew a deep breath and, framing her face in his hands said urgently. ‘What is your name?’

The peculiarity of his manner stood out as very strange in a day that had possibly been the strangest in her life.

‘Your name?’ he repeated.

‘Becca.’

‘Don’t move, Becca. I’ll be back.’

He didn’t have the faintest idea if she had registered what he’d said. It was hard to tell from the glazed expression in her eyes if she was taking in anything much at all. He didn’t like to leave her, but the strength of his feelings meant he had to act on them.

His timing was perfect. The main participants, along with the photographer, were emerging from the vestry, their symbolic signatures having been duly witnessed. They all stopped when they saw him.

Without responding to the varied greetings directed at him, Christos grabbed his cousin by the shoulders and pulled him away from his bride.

‘What’s wrong?’

Christos smiled, and his cousin looked alarmed. ‘This is for Becca!’ he said, and landed a sharp but controlled jab on the younger man’s nose.

The groom yelled and clutched at his nose, blood oozing between his fingers. ‘Who the hell is Becca?’ he screamed indignantly. So Christos punched him again, and Alex went down.

She had moved. Cursing softly under his breath, Christos ran down a side path and saw her almost immediately.

‘I told you to stay put.’

Becca looked at the long brown fingers curled around her upper arm. Until he touched her she had been feeling a lot better. Now her sensitive stomach was quivering violently. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she said.

Considering the advice she had dished out on the subject to her sister, she couldn’t go down the road of reacting to arbitrary and dangerous sexual attraction without being a total hypocrite!

‘More to the point, what are you doing?’ he queried suspiciously.

‘Is that any of your business?’ she countered frostily. ‘And, thank you, but I can find my own way.’ Her eyes slid to the hand on her arm, but he didn’t react. ‘I don’t need an escort.’

‘The head of security might have other ideas,’ he retorted drily.

‘That’s not you?’ Her frowning regard travelled the length of his tall lean person. No reason, of course, that he had to be the boss. He wasn’t wearing a badge or anything. But he didn’t act like a man who was used to obeying orders.

On the other hand it was easy to picture him issuing them, and having people fall over themselves to obey. An accusing frown settled on her upturned face.

‘You act as if you are.’ No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t she see him slotting into any hierarchy of command. This man didn’t look like a team player to her.

‘I’m new to the game,’ he admitted glibly.

‘Which probably explains why you’re taking your duties too zealously,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve not committed a crime or anything. You’ve got no right to restrain me against my will. In fact,’ she added, ‘That—’ her nod indicated the hand on her arm ‘—is probably assault. Actually, I don’t think there’s any probably about it.’

He smiled, and Becca lowered her eyes as she experienced a spasm of sexual awareness that made her knees quiver. What is it with me? You’d think I’d never seen an attractive man before!

‘Perhaps we should let the police decide?’

The silky suggestion brought her horrified gaze back to his face. ‘You’re joking?’

He shrugged and looked infuriatingly enigmatic.

Becca couldn’t stop the quiver of doubt entering her voice as she added, ‘I’ve told you, I’ve not committed a crime or anything.’

‘You don’t think so?’

He made no attempt to prevent her as she pulled her arm free of his grasp and folded it across her heaving chest, glaring up at him defiantly.

‘I don’t think. I know.’

Despite her confident assertion Becca couldn’t prevent a shade of worry entering her voice as she reviewed her gate-crashing.

‘Unless this is a question of one law for the rich and another for the rest of us.’

His dark eyes narrowed on her scornful face. ‘You have a problem with people being wealthy?’

She lifted a hand to her aching head. ‘No, I have a problem with spoilt parasites like the Carides.’

Aware of an expression in her captor’s dark eyes that made her uneasy, she bit her lip to cut short this flow of bitter confidences.

‘It’s a little late to be discreet.’

‘I really don’t want to debate this with you. I just want—’ She broke off and winced as the bells overhead broke into a triumphal peal. Face pale and composed, she lifted her eyes to his face. ‘I just want to go home.’

‘An excellent plan,’ he said, falling into step beside her.

Becca tilted her face and studied the hard angles and intriguing hollows of his dark, lean and exasperatingly sexy features. ‘What,’ she demanded, expelling a gusty sigh, ‘do you think you’re doing now?’

‘Making sure you go home.

‘Are you going to escort me all the way to Yorkshire?’

‘I’m going to stick to you until I’m sure you can’t double back and wreak the destructive vengeance your soul craves.’ His eyes locked with hers. ‘I take it that is what this is about?’

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me revenge wouldn’t make me feel better?’

‘No, I wouldn’t say that,’ Christos responded, thinking of the groom with his bloody nose.

There were times in life when a man had to stop being cerebral and get physical—though he imagined there were a few people inside who might disagree with him at that moment. It would be a long time before he was forgiven for ruining the wedding. But it would be interesting to hear how they explained away the groom’s face…

Becca pursed her lips and looked at him with mute dislike. She saw he was smiling. ‘You have my word that I won’t crash the reception or spoil the wedding photos.’

‘Your word…’ he mused, dragging a brown hand through his dark collar-length hair. ‘You do see my problem there?’

Becca planted her hands on her slim hips and inhaled wrathfully. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

‘Not as such. But,’ he qualified, ‘I do think you’re not thinking straight right now.’

‘Don’t patronise me.’ She gritted her teeth as she reflected on his comment. ‘Not a liar, but mentally unbalanced. Gosh,’ she observed bitterly, ‘I feel better already.’

He met her angry eyes and released a low, husky laugh. Becca regarded him with growing frustration, but could see that it might be hard to remain angry with a man who possessed a laugh that warm and attractive. Fortunately she wasn’t going to be within laughing distance long enough for it to become a real problem!

‘Go ahead—enjoy the joke.’ She gave a bleak wintry smile. ‘I can see your point. What’s a ruined life…? So long,’ she added on a bitter quaver, ‘as it isn’t your life!’

‘I know it feels like it to you now, but your life isn’t ruined.’

She looked different, but she obviously wasn’t. She was like any number of women who were willing to overlook the fact that his cousin was a total bastard.

Becca’s electric blue eyes narrowed. She had never had the sort of fiery temper that was meant to accompany auburn hair, but his confident assertion had made her see red. As she swallowed hard, trying to contain her feelings, an image of her sister’s shadowed eyes flashed into her head.

‘What would you know about it?’

Jaw taut, she allowed her hostile eyes to linger on his lean face. Actually, it wasn’t a conscious decision. The truth was that once she started looking she found it disturbingly hard to stop.

‘You have to put this behind you.’ And I have to stop talking in platitudes.

‘I’d settle for putting you behind me. A long way behind me,’ she muttered.

‘Not going to happen,’ he said, planting a hand lightly on her shoulder and directing her to the other side of an ancient gnarled yew tree that grew beside the six-feet-high wall. ‘There’s a side gate.’

There was. It was covered in ivy and easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there. On the other side of the gate, Becca found herself in a narrow cobbled side street with expensive-looking cars parked down one side.

The dark-suited figure patrolling up and down with a walkie-talkie in his pocket spotted her immediately. He advanced, his intention clearly to intercept her—until he saw the man beside her. He nodded in a manner that could only be described as deferential, and walked on to meet them.

As the two men began to speak, Becca, staring straight ahead, walked past them. The narrow lane led to the main road, where people were waiting behind barriers for a glimpse of the bride. She had not quite lost herself in the crowd when she heard a distinctive footfall beside her.

‘Look!’ she snapped, swinging back. ‘I’m not going to crash the reception, or scream abuse at the bride, so will you just back off?’ No, I’m going to sneak back home with my tail between my legs and tell my little sister I did nothing! ‘This has all been a massive waste of time and energy,’ she admitted, her shoulders slumping with weary defeat.

‘Well, most women in your situation would have contented themselves with a kiss-and-tell story in the tabloids. Though that lucrative option is still open to you,’ he admitted.

When she didn’t respond to this blatant provocation he tried another tack.

‘Have you considered what would have happened if you had stood up and done your piece—dramatically stalled the wedding?’

Becca, about to walk away, swung back and blinked in owl-like confusion up at his face. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We are talking stalled, not stopped. The wedding would have gone ahead,’ he elaborated brutally.

Becca shrugged. ‘She’s welcome to him.’

‘Yes, every time I look at you I feel great waves of indifference.’ In his experience a woman didn’t travel halfway across the country because she was indifferent.

Stung by his blatant sarcasm, Becca had opened her mouth to deliver a biting retort when involuntarily her eyes dropped over the length of his lean, striking person. Indifference, she reflected, aware of the telling leap in her pulse-rate, would not be the most predictable response this man normally excited in the opposite sex.

‘Or maybe this isn’t about revenge?’ he suggested softly.

His comment diverted Becca from the direction her own troubled thoughts had taken. The awful part was, he was right. She hadn’t thought this thing through. And now he had forced her to do so she could see that she had almost set into motion a chain of events that would have ended up with the tabloid press camped on her sister’s doorstep!

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, feeling sick when she thought of how close she’d come to making things ten times worse for Erica.

‘Maybe you thought he’d take one look at you and realise that he’d made a terrible mistake—that you were the one he wanted all along.’ As he watched her shake her head in angry denial he experienced a rush of anger. ‘It wouldn’t have happened,’ he informed her harshly. Because I wouldn’t have let it happen.

Becca took a startled step back when, without warning, he reached across and ran a long finger down the curve of her cheek. After making a moment’s startled contact with his dark, strangely compelling gaze she swept her lashes down against her cheek and stayed that way until she had taken several deep, restorative breaths.

‘You sound very sure,’ she said, feeling normal again bar the strong urge to reach up and press her own fingers to the tingling area on her cheek.

Christos was drawn by the intense china blue of her wide eyes. It occurred to him that being forced to compare this face with that of his prospective bride might have caused even his avaricious cousin to experience a stab of regret.

A muscle in his lean cheek clenched. ‘Look, maybe you were special.’

To Becca his shrug suggested he had lost interest in the subject. ‘Are you trying to make me feel better?’ she joked, her eyes hostile as she sketched a grim smile. ‘Because I have to tell you you’re not very good at it.’

Her observation made his lips quiver slightly. ‘You’re certainly not Alex’s usual type.’

‘Really? What do they have that I don’t?’

Other than no personality? Christos thought as he grimly ticked off the attributes that normally attracted his cousin on his fingers. ‘His usual types are young, low-maintenance blondes, with long legs, a lot of ambition, and virtually no talent for anything but wearing and buying clothes and spending his money.’

This cynical analysis made her eyes flash angrily. ‘It sounds like you know the boss pretty well.’ And don’t like him much, she thought, but didn’t add.

‘Boss?’

Becca looked his curling lip and couldn’t help but think he must be awfully good at what he did for any employer to put up with his disdainful manner.

‘Well, isn’t that what he is?’ she challenged. ‘Or does it hurt your macho pride to admit you’re a lackey, like the rest of us?’

‘And who are you in servitude to?’

‘I’m a primary schoolteacher.

‘I never had a teacher that looked like you.’

There was an insolent sexual quality to his appraisal that ought to have repelled her. Instead she felt a shiver of excitement slide down her spine.

‘Actually,’ he added, before she could respond, ‘Christos Carides is the head of the company which paid for the wedding security today.’

Becca shrugged. The technicality changed nothing as far as she was concerned. ‘He’s a Carides.’

His dark brows lifted. ‘So you tar everyone of that name with the same brush? Is that fair?’

‘Don’t lecture me on fairness,’ she snapped back, tired of being the voice of impartial reason.

‘Are you always this forthright?’

‘Say what you mean—you think I’m mouthy?’

The retort drew a reluctant grin from Christos. ‘You know, Alex is even more of a fool than I thought he was.’

‘If that is meant to be a compliment, save it.’ It was not good to start wondering how someone who looked like a sleek predator would kiss. ‘I have no taste for insincerity.’ Or beautiful but predatory men, she reminded herself.

His expression hardened. ‘That sounds an odd thing for someone who has been Alex’s lover to say. Insincerity is his speciality.’

The inflection in his deep voice as he said lover sent an odd, disturbing surge through Becca’s body. ‘Do you always bad-mouth your employers?’

‘I thought you put no value on insincerity?’

‘I do put value on good manners, however.’

‘Now,’ he said, ‘you do sound like a teacher. I can see you in the classroom.’ Not strictly the truth. Christos was seeing her in the bedroom!

The classroom was somewhere she really wished she had never left, Becca reflected. Perhaps she just didn’t have the right genes for revenge and retribution? She had certainly made a total mess of this!