Читать книгу The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress - Люси Монро, Lucy Monroe, Люси Монро - Страница 11

DIMITRI took a sip of his neat whiskey and walked out onto the terrace of the New York high-rise apartment. It was empty, no doubt due to the chill in the air brought on by November’s cooling temperatures.

He’d come late to the holiday party, at the insistence of a business acquaintance who’d told him the host was an investment banker he thought Dimitri should meet. For the past four months, Dimitri had had very little interest in making money. He’d had little interest in anything, but finding the mother of his child.

He was in New York because that was her last known whereabouts. She’d had her things shipped to a Manhattan receiving office and picked them up on the day of their arrival. One day before he had instigated a search for her. After that, there had been nothing. His investigators had been unable to find a single lead.

She’d canceled her contract with her modeling agency. She’d even closed her credit cards and checking account. No one had seen or heard from Xandra Fortune in three months.

Well, that was not strictly true. She’d called the Paris apartment four weeks ago and spoken to Phoebe. Xandra had hung up without saying why she’d called or answering Phoebe’s questions about where she was. The call had been placed on an untraceable cell phone.

Dimitri still cursed whenever he thought of that ill-fated phone call. Would she have told him where she was if he had been there to answer the phone?

The sound of voices drifted out onto the almost deserted terrace and he asked himself why he’d bothered to come. He spun on his heel, intending to go when a woman caught his eye. She had her back to him. Long curling blond hair reached to the center of her back, a back that looked much too familiar. Then she moved, gripping the balcony railing and letting her head fall back as she took a deep breath of air.

“Xandra!”

She spun around to face him and his heart tightened in a painful knot, for although the woman had enough surface resemblance to Xandra to be her sister, she wasn’t the model.

She smiled, even white teeth gleaming in the cool glow of the outdoor lighting. “Hello. I didn’t realize anyone was out here.”

“I came for the solitude,” he admitted.

Her smile flashed again. “I know what you mean. I adore socializing, but once in a while the crush gets to me and I just need to breathe some air that’s all my own.”

He felt himself smiling for the first time in months. “Then I’ll leave you to it.”

She waved her hand. “There’s no need. I don’t mind sharing my little oasis of quiet. You said you knew Xandra?”

“Yes. I know her.”

“She was an amazing model, wasn’t she? She had just the right combination of innocence and passion to shoot her to supermodel status. It’s too bad she refused to take any New York commissions.”

“She prefers working in Europe.”

Something odd passed across the woman’s face. “Yes, I suppose she did.”

“You keep talking about her in the past tense.” Had Xandra given up modeling for motherhood?

“That’s because Xandra Fortune is gone.”

Everything inside him went still. “What do you mean gone?”

The blonde sighed. “According to my sister, Xandra Fortune is dead, if not buried six feet under.”

The words had the effect of multiple body blows and he felt his knees begin to buckle. He reached out blindly for the balcony railing and it was only by sheer force of will that he remained standing. “She’s dead?”

He tried to breathe, but his lungs refused to cooperate. He felt the whiskey glass in his hand break and the sharp pain of one jagged edge pressing into his hand.

“Oh, my word. Are you all right?” The woman’s voice was filled with concern. “Wait right there. I’ll get something for the cut and to clean up the glass.”

He looked down at the blood beading against the dark skin of his hand and could not connect it to anything he felt because all he felt was numbness. Xandra was dead and his baby with her. That thought pounded through his consciousness with the power of an express train pushing away all other considerations.

It could have been minutes or hours later, but the woman returned armed with a first-aid kit and the maid behind her carrying a bowl of water and some small towels.

“Put those down on the table and close the door on your way out,” the woman instructed the maid. She gave Dimitri a small smile. “I don’t want an incident at the party. Hunter, my husband, doesn’t like scenes.”

“You said Xandra was dead.” Perhaps he had misheard her.

“Yes.” She bathed his hand and fixed a plaster over the small cut with gentle efficiency. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I forget that others don’t know…” Her voice trailed off and he didn’t press her to continue.

He didn’t care if anyone else knew Xandra had died. “Was it…” He swallowed. “The baby?”

Her hands stilled in their task of putting the first-aid implements to rights. “How did you know about the baby?” Her light brown gaze pinned him and her charming air had transformed to one of suspicion.

“She told me.”

“You’re Dimitri Petronides?” The woman spit his name out of her mouth as if it were a foul tasting substance.

“Yes.”

He didn’t see the blow coming, but he felt it. Her hand landed against the side of his face with enough force to turn his head and make him stagger back a step.

“You filthy pig! I’d like to strangle you with my bare hands. How you have the gall to come here, to my home after the way you treated my sister.”

“What the hell is going on out here?” Another man came storming out onto the terrace. A veritable blond giant. “What have you said to upset my wife?”

“Hunter!” The woman threw herself at her husband. “It’s Dimitri Petronides. He’s the one. You’ve got to get him out of here. If Allie sees him, she’ll have a relapse. She’s just started sleeping at night. Do something!”

None of the woman’s words or actions had made sense since she’d told Dimitri Xandra was dead, but then how could anything make sense in the face of that devastating fact?

He turned to go, more than willing to abandon the scene.

Alexandra could hear her sister’s voice raised in agitation from where she sat chatting with one of Hunter’s many business associates in the penthouse’s living room. She excused herself and stood up. Madeleine’s voice had lowered to the point where Alexandra could not make out what her sister was saying, but the urgency was still there.

She walked through the dining room tastefully decorated in autumn colors for the Thanksgiving holiday and out onto the balcony. Madeleine was gripping Hunter’s biceps and saying something about getting rid of someone. A bowl of water, tinged pink and a bloodied towel lay on the table to her right and the smell of spilled whiskey permeated the air. A small pile of broken glass lay winking in the outside lights near the outer wall of the terrace.

“Madeleine, are you all right, chérie?”

Madeleine whipped around, her expression horror stricken. She rushed to Alexandra and grabbed her wrist. “Come on, Allie.” She started tugging.

Alexandra resisted simply because she didn’t understand the urgency in her sister’s voice and wanted to know the reason for it. She looked down the length of the balcony to see if she could discover the source of her sister’s agitation and froze. Dimitri Petronides was heading in the opposite direction, toward the sliding glass doors leading into Hunter’s study.

He stopped at the open doorway and turned. “I didn’t mean to upset your wife,” he said to Hunter in a voice unlike anything she had ever heard out of Dimitri’s mouth.

His gaze flicked over the tableau she made with her sister pulling frantically against her arm.

His eyes appeared unfocused, as if he wasn’t even seeing them. “I’ll see myself out.”

Then he was gone.

Again.

He’d walked away from her for the second time without a backward glance. It was no consolation that this time he would have been hard pressed to recognize her.

“I’m sorry, Allie. I don’t know how he came to be here. Are you going to be all right?” Madeleine’s voice buzzed in Alexandra’s ears. “I slapped him.” Her sister’s words finally registered.

“You what?”

“I slapped him and I called him a pig.”

Alexandra almost smiled. “He deserved it.”

“Yes, he did.”

“How did you know who he was?”

“I told him you were dead, I mean Xandra Fortune. Anyway, he asked if it was because of the baby and I just knew.”

“You told him Xandra was dead?”

“Yes, she did, but it’s not true is it? You’re alive and I’d like to shake you both until your teeth rattle.” Dimitri’s fury filled voice sent Alexandra’s nerves into overdrive.

Madeleine dropped Alexandra’s wrist in shock. “Go away!” she shouted at Dimitri.

He towered over them, his skin an unnatural shade of gray, his eyes registering anger and a brief moment of vulnerability that disappeared before Alexandra could be certain of its existence. “I’m not going anywhere. In fact, I think it is you and your husband who need to go so Xandra and I may speak in private of affairs that do not concern you.”

Madeleine opened her mouth to speak, but Alexandra forestalled her. She pivoted her body so she faced Dimitri fully and fixed him with a bored stare. “My name is Alexandra Dupree and I’m sure you and I have nothing to discuss.”

Since leaving her Xandra Fortune persona behind, she’d run into former colleagues and none of them had recognized her. She’d had her hair cut short and dyed back to the rather mousy-brown color she’d been born with. She’d ditched the green contact lenses and her body at five months pregnant in no way resembled the willow thinness of Xandra Fortune’s trademark figure.

There was no reason she couldn’t bluff this confrontation with Dimitri out. And a very good reason why she wanted to. She’d thought and thought about why he would tell his wife about her and the baby and the only logical solution she’d been able to come up with was that Dimitri had decided that though he no longer wanted his ex-lover, he did want their child.

Something dangerous flashed in Dimitri’s indigo blue eyes. “Do not play games with me.”

“I am not playing any games. If you do not believe me about who I am, I can show you identification. I’ve been Alexandra Dupree my whole life. I should know.” She deliberately infused her voice with a New Orleans accent, one she hadn’t spoken with since being sent to convent boarding school in France at the age of eight.

“Ten minutes ago I believed you to be dead.”

“I can confirm without question that Xandra Fortune is indeed dead, but I am not and I am Alexandra Dupree.”

He didn’t even look disconcerted. “You may be Alexandra Dupree, but you are also Xandra Fortune and how you believe you could deny such truth to me, the man who knows you more intimately than any other, I cannot understand.” His usual flawless English was heavily accented with Greek intonation.

“I assure you, you do not know me intimately at all.” And that was the truth. If he had truly known her, he could never have suspected the baby had been fathered by someone else.

Terrible rage reflected in Dimitri’s eyes before he leaned forward and swept her high against his chest, his arms as tight and inflexible as steel bands.

Madeleine shrieked, “Put her down!”

Hunter strode forward to grab Dimitri’s shoulder.

Dimitri glared at him, his body tense with primitive masculine aggression. “Take your hand off me.”

“I won’t allow you to take my sister-in-law out of this apartment against her will.”

The entire situation was unreal. Dimitrius Petronides doing something so uncool as to attempt to kidnap a pregnant woman from a party was beyond the scope of her imagination, much less believable reality.

Dimitri looked down at her, his blue gaze compelling agreement. “Tell him you want to come with me.”

She glared back at him. “I don’t.”

Dimitri stiffened and Hunter became more menacing, but in his fury, Dimitri shrugged off Hunter’s restraining hold as if it were nothing more than a wispy cobweb. He spun to face Hunter. “I’m not going to hurt her. She’s mine. She’s pregnant with my child and we’re going to talk.”

After that, neither Dimitri nor Hunter spoke for what seemed like several minutes, but was in all probability only seconds. Then something passed between the two men and much to Madeleine’s dismay and Alexandra’s irritation Hunter nodded.

“You can talk to her, but you’ll have to do it here.”

Alexandra tried to shove herself out of Dimitri’s arms. “I’m not talking to him.”

His hold tightened. “Be careful. If you fall, you could hurt the baby.”

“What do you care about my baby?”

If possible, his expression turned grimmer. “I care.”

Those two words scared her more than the thought of giving birth to a child. He was going to try to take her baby from her. She knew it. “I’m not giving you and your little Greek paragon wife my baby. I’m not!”

He shook his head. “Talk. Xandra. We need to talk.”

“You didn’t even believe the baby was yours at first,” she said, giving up any hope at deceiving him about her identity.

Emotion passed across his chiseled features. “I do now.”

“What changed your mind?” she demanded, ceasing her struggle against the increasing pressure of his hold.

He smelled like whiskey, expensive aftershave and sweat. Something had made Dimitri sweat. In fact, his hairline still showed evidence of moisture. The thought of losing his baby must have really destroyed him. She could almost feel sorry for him, but she refused to be so weak. He’d denied his paternity of their baby. He deserved what he got.

“I spoke to a doctor. He told me it was actually quite common for a woman to have one or even two menses after conceiving a child.”

“So you believed some stranger over me. I’m impressed, Dimitri. It certainly shows where our relationship fit in the scheme of your life.”

“He’s not a stranger. He’s a friend.”

Who cared how well he knew the stupid doctor? “I’m not giving you my baby!” she reiterated while inside she cursed the doctor who had put her bond with her child at risk like this.

“If you don’t put my sister down this instant and leave my home, I’m calling the police,” Madeleine interrupted.

Eyes deadly with intent, Dimitri met Madeleine’s gaze with his own inflexible one. “Go ahead.” He turned to Hunter. “I’m not going anywhere without her.”

Hunter sighed. “You can talk out here. We’ll close off the doors to the house so you’ll have some privacy.”

Alexandra shuddered. She didn’t want privacy with Dimitri. “If I have to talk to you, I’d rather do it somewhere public.”

“You don’t have to talk to him at all,” Madeleine’s angry voice interjected.