by Sarah Morgan
‘Are you going to take this? It sort of freaks me out, holding it, knowing how much it is worth. It’s a good job I didn’t know it was that valuable when I owned it. I never would have left the house.’
‘Put it on your finger.’
Kelly’s eyes flew to his and for a moment everything around her ceased to exist. Had he said…? Did he mean…? Even before her brain had answered the question, her heart performed a happy dance all on its own. He couldn’t possibly mean that, could he? He couldn’t be proposing…
‘W-what did you say?’
‘I want you to wear it.’ His hands sure and decisive, Alekos took the ring from her and slid it onto the third finger of her right hand.
Her right hand.
Kelly felt the hard slug of disappointment deep in her gut and suddenly she was cross with herself. What was the matter with her? Even if he had proposed, she would have said no, wouldn’t she? After what happened last time, she wasn’t just going to walk back into his arms, no questions asked. No way.
‘It looks good there,’ Alekos said huskily, and Kelly bit back the impulse to tell him that it had looked even better on her left hand.
The diamond winked and flashed in the bright sunlight, dazzling her as much now as it had four years before. Reminding herself that a diamond didn’t make a marriage, she yanked it off her finger before her brain could start getting the same silly ideas as her body. ‘I’ve told you, I’ve already spent the money. I don’t want the ring. I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t know why I’m here.’ Which probably said more about her than him, she thought gloomily: he’d summoned her and she’d come running.
‘I wanted to talk to you. There are things that need to be said.’
Kelly thought about the child growing inside her and decided that had to be the understatement of the century. ‘Yes.’ She squeezed her hand around the ring, feeling the stone cutting into her palm. ‘I have a couple of things to say to you, too. Well, one thing in particular—nothing that…’ Suddenly she felt horribly nervous about his reaction. What was the best way to tell him—straight out? Lead up to it with a conversation about families and kids? ‘It’s something pretty important, but it can wait. You go first.’ She needed more time to build up her courage. She needed someone like Vivien bolstering her up from the sidelines.
She needed to stop thinking about her own childhood.
‘Put the ring back on your finger, at least for now. I’ll pour you a drink—you look hot.’ Alekos strolled over to a small table which had been laid by the beautiful pool. ‘Lemonade?’
Still rehearsing various ways to spill her own piece of news, Kelly was distracted. ‘Oh, yes please. That would be lovely.’ Wondering what on earth he wanted to say to her, Kelly slid the ring back on the finger of her right hand as a temporary measure. They could argue about it later. ‘So, I read in the papers that you broke up with your girlfriend. I’m sorry about that.’
‘No, you’re not.’ A smile touched his mouth as he poured lemonade into two chilled glasses, ice clinking against the sides.
‘All right, I’m trying to feel sorry, because I don’t want to be a bad person. And I do feel sorry for her, in a way. I feel sorry for any woman who has been dumped by you. I know how it feels. Sort of like missing your step at the top of the stairs and finding yourself crashing to the bottom.’
He winced as he handed her a glass. ‘That bad?’
‘It feels as though you’ve broken something vital. Will your cook person be offended if I pick the bits out of this?’
‘The bits?’
‘The bits of lemon.’ Kelly stuck a straw into the glass and chased the tiny pieces of lemon zest around. ‘I’m not good with bitty things.’
Alekos inhaled deeply. ‘I’ll convey your preferences to my team.’
‘Team? Gosh, how many people does it take to peel a couple of lemons?’ She sipped her drink and sighed. ‘Actually, it’s delicious. Even with the bits. All right, this is all very nice—the whole private jet, pretty clothes and lemon-from-the-tree scene—but don’t think I’ve forgiven you, Alekos. I still think you’re a complete b—’ her tongue tangled over the word ‘—bleep.’
‘You think I’m a “bleep”? What is a “bleep”?’
‘It’s a substitute for a bad word that I absolutely don’t want to say out loud.’ Kelly snagged a few more bits of lemon with her straw. ‘On television they stick a bleep sound in instead of the swear word. I’m doing the same thing.’
‘Which swear word?’
‘You have more intelligence than that, Alekos. Work it out for yourself.’
‘You don’t know one?’
‘Of course I do.’ Kelly sipped her drink slowly. ‘But I’m always very careful with my language. I don’t want to slip up in front of the children. I try never to swear, even when severely provoked.’
‘I seem to recall that you called me a bastard.’
‘Actually, you said that about yourself. I just agreed. It felt good, actually.’ Kelly pressed the glass to her arms to cool her overheated skin. ‘So why did you make me deliver the ring in person? Why not use a courier or send one of your staff? They can’t all be peeling lemons.’
‘I didn’t want the ring. I wanted you.’
Kelly’s heart tumbled and she put her glass down because her hands were suddenly shaking so much that they’d lost their ability to grip. ‘You didn’t want me four years ago.’
‘Yes, I did.’
She looked up at him, reminding herself not to fall for anything he said. ‘You have a funny way of showing it.’
‘You are the first woman I have ever proposed to.’
‘But not the last.’
‘I did not propose to Marianna.’
‘But you were going to.’
‘I don’t want to hear her name mentioned again. She has no relevance to our relationship. Tell me why you have black circles under your eyes.’
That’s right, change the subject, Kelly thought moodily. He obviously didn’t want to talk about Marianna. And maybe she didn’t, either. ‘I have black circles under my eyes because of you. Fighting you is exhausting.’
‘Then don’t fight me.’
Kelly wondered how her heart could still miss a beat even when her brain was issuing warning signals. Yes, he was gorgeous; there was no denying that he was gorgeous. Everything about him was designed to attract the opposite sex, from the leashed power in his broad shoulders to the haze of black hair revealed by his open-necked shirt. Desire pumped through her veins, her physical response contradicting her emotions.
Natural selection, she thought to herself, scrambling around for an excuse for the way she felt. It helped a little to pretend that she was genetically programmed to be attracted to the strongest, the fittest and the most powerful male of the species. And Alekos Zagorakis was all those things.
But just because she could feel herself sinking didn’t mean she was prepared to go down without a fight.
Make a fool of herself as she had first time around? Throw herself at a man who didn’t want her? No. Absolutely no. Not even knowing that she was carrying his child.
‘If you expect me to just surrender to you then you’ll be disappointed. I’ll never be submissive.’
‘I don’t need submissive. I do want honest.’
‘That’s rich, coming from you. When did you ever tell me what you were truly feeling?’
A muscle flickered in his lean cheek, the merest hint of tension in a personality big on control. ‘I don’t find it easy to open up, that’s true. I’m not like you. You spill out what you’re feeling, when you’re feeling it.’
‘It’s how I deal with things.’
‘And I deal with things by myself. That’s what I’ve always done. I have never felt the need to confide.’
Kelly picked up her drink again and sipped, brooding on the differences in their personalities. ‘So I might as well go home, then.’
‘No. There are things I nee
d to tell you. Things I should have told you four years ago.’
Judging from his tone, they were going to be things she didn’t want to hear. Kelly wondered uneasily if she should just tell him she was pregnant before he said something that would make her want to thump him. Being non-violent was becoming a real challenge around Alekos. ‘Am I going to hate you for what you say?’
‘I thought you already hated me.’
‘I do. In which case, you might as well just get on with it and say whatever it is you want to say.’ Ridiculously apprehensive, Kelly shrugged, trying to look cool and casual—as if whatever he said was going to make no difference to her. But it was obviously going to be something important, wasn’t it? Whatever it was had stopped him from turning up on his wedding day, which was pretty major from anyone’s point of view. And then there was the screaming tension she could feel pulsing from his powerful frame.
‘Just say it, Alekos. I’m not great with all this suspense and tension stuff. I hate it on those TV shows where they say “and the winner is…”, and then they wait ages and ages before they give you the answer, and you’re thinking, “for goodness’ sake, just get on with it”.’ Realising that he was looking at her as if she were demented, she gave a tiny shrug. ‘What? What’s wrong?’
Alekos shook his head slowly. ‘You never say what I expect you to say.’
Kelly thumped her glass down on the table. ‘I just want you to get to the point before the suspense kills me! I embarrassed you? I talked too much? I was messy?’ She wrinkled her nose, trying to think which of her other sins might have been sufficient to send him running for the hills. ‘I eat too much?’
‘I love your body, I find your need to drop your belongings as you walk surprisingly endearing, I have always been fascinated by your ability to say exactly what is on your mind with no filter, and you have never embarrassed me.’
The angle of the sun had shifted and it reflected off his glossy dark hair. Somewhere close by an orange fell onto the ground with a dull thud, but Kelly didn’t notice. She was too busy trying to hold back the sudden rush of hope that bounded free inside her, like a puppy suddenly let off a lead. ‘I never embarrassed you? Not even once?’
‘Not even once.’ His hot, brooding gaze dropped to her mouth. ‘But I seem to remember that I embarrassed you most of the time.’
Kelly turned scarlet. ‘Only when we did it in broad daylight. Why do they call it that—why broad daylight? Why not narrow daylight?’ Chattering nervously, she broke off as he ran his hand over his face and shook his head in exasperation.
‘I’m trying to tell you something, and it isn’t easy.’
‘Well, please just get on with it! It’s honestly not good for you to have this much stress. It furs up your arteries.’ Her palms were sweating and her stomach was churning. It was like waiting for an exam result, she thought anxiously, her mind still jumping ahead. Perhaps it was the age thing that had caused him to walk away. Maybe he had been worried that she was too young to know her own mind. Or maybe he’d thought their relationship was too much of a whirlwind. If it had been the age thing, that was now fixed, wasn’t it? She was older. The kids in her class thought she was positively ancient. She was probably less inhibited. Thinking of their steamy encounter on her kitchen table didn’t do anything to alleviate the heat in her cheeks. She was definitely less inhibited.
All she had to do was assure him that she’d matured, that she knew her own mind. He’d apologise. She’d be hurt, but forgiving. Her mind sprinted ahead again, weaving happy endings from the threads of disaster.
Alekos breathed in deeply. ‘The morning of the wedding I read an interview you’d given to a celebrity magazine. You’d spilled your guts about what you wanted. It was all there on the page.’
Still enjoying a fantasy about their future, Kelly tried to remember exactly what she’d said in that particular interview. ‘The press were all over me. Apparently the fact that you’d never shown any interest in marrying anyone before suddenly made me interesting.’
He was going to be really pleased about the baby, she thought dreamily.
They’d live happily ever after. She’d ask him to buy a house in Little Molting; she could still teach her class in September, and once the baby was born they’d come back to Corfu and raise the child here, among the olive groves.
She smiled at Alekos, but he didn’t smile back.
Instead his features were hard, like an exquisitely carved Greek statue. ‘You said that all you’d ever wanted was a family. You said you wanted four children.’
‘That’s right.’ Kelly wondered whether this would be a good moment to tell him that they already had one on the way. ‘At least four.’
Muttering something in Greek, Alekos lifted his hand to the back of his neck, visibly struggling with what he had to say next. ‘When I saw that article I realised that we had plunged into this relationship with no real thought to the future. It was all about the present. We hadn’t discussed what either of us really wanted. I didn’t know what you wanted until I read it in that magazine.’ His voice was raw. ‘It was only when I saw your interview that I realised we didn’t want the same thing.’
‘Oh?’ Still bathing in her own little bubble-bath of happiness, Kelly gave an understanding smile. ‘Honestly, I just wish you’d said something right away. I sort of forgot you were Greek. You always have big families, don’t you? Four kids probably seems like nothing to you. We can have more. I’m not worried. I teach thirty back home! How many did you have in mind?’
Alekos closed his eyes briefly and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. ‘Kelly…’
‘It doesn’t worry me. I love kids. And I don’t even expect you to do the nappies, as long as you help with all the other stuff.’
‘Kelly.’ He closed his hands over her shoulders, gripping tightly as he forced her to listen to him. ‘I don’t want a big family.’ He waited a moment, apparently allowing time for those momentous words to penetrate her thin veneer of happiness. ‘I don’t want a family at all.’
Somehow, Kelly managed to make her mouth move. ‘But—’
‘I’m trying to tell you that I don’t want children. I never did.’
Chapter Five
‘THEÉ MOU, do something!’ His tone dark and dangerous, Alekos glared at the local doctor. The guy had to be almost seventy and appeared to have two speeds—slow and stop. Fingering the phone in his pocket, Alekos wondered how long it would take to fly a top physician in from Athens. ‘She banged her head really hard!’
‘Was she knocked unconscious?’
Vibrating with impatience, Alekos thought back to the hideous moment when Kelly’s head had made contact with the glossy tiles. ‘No, because she called me a bleep several times.’
‘A bleep?’
‘Never mind. But she wasn’t knocked out. I carried her up to the bedroom and she’s been lying here unconscious ever since.’
Glancing at him thoughtfully, the doctor touched the bruise on Kelly’s forehead. ‘Why did she fall?’
Alekos felt the tension trickle down his spine. This had to be the most uncomfortable conversation he’d had in his life. ‘She slipped on the tiles when she was running.’
‘And why was she running?’
Two hot spots of colour touched his cheeks and guilt squeezed tight. ‘Something had upset her.’ Alekos ground his teeth, wondering why he was explaining himself to a doctor so ancient he had undoubtedly known Hippocrates personally. ‘I upset her.’
Apparently unsurprised by that confession, the doctor reached into his bag and removed some pills. ‘Nothing much changes there, then. I was called to see Kelly on the day of her wedding: the wedding that never happened.’
So, although he was slow, there was clearly nothing wrong with his memory. Alekos gritted his teeth. Everything that happened today appeared to be designed to make him feel bad. ‘Kelly needed a doctor?’
‘She was very shocked. And the press were savaging her.’
Feeling as though he’d been slugged in the stomach by a blunt instrument, Alekos drew his eyebrows together, shaken by that graphic description. ‘She should have ignored them.’
‘How? You’re six-foot-three and intimidating,’ the doctor said calmly. ‘I don’t think Kelly has ever been rude to anyone in her life. Even when she was struggling with what had happened, she was still polite to me. Leaving her to the mercy of the press was like throwing raw meat to sharks.’
Wincing at the analogy, Alekos felt as though he was being slowly boiled in oil. ‘I may not have handled it as well as I could have done.’
‘You didn’t handle it at all. But that doesn’t really surprise me. What surprised me was the fact that you’d asked her to marry you in the first place.’ The doctor closed his case with a hand wrinkled with age and exposure to the sun. ‘I remember you coming here to stay with your grandmother as a child. I remember one summer in particular, when you were six years old. You didn’t speak for a month. You had suffered a terrible trauma.’
Feeling as though someone had tipped ice down his shirt, Alekos stepped back. ‘Thank you for coming so promptly,’ he said coldly and the doctor gave him a thoughtful look.
‘Sometimes,’ he said quietly, ‘when a situation has affected someone greatly, it helps to examine the facts dispassionately and handle your fears in a rational manner.’
‘Are you suggesting I’m irrational?’
‘I think you were the unfortunate casualty of your parents’ dysfunctional relationship.’
His emotions boiling, Alekos strode towards the bedroom door and yanked it open. ‘Thank you for your advice,’ he said smoothly, controlling himself with effort. ‘However, what I really need to know is how long you expect Kelly to remain unconscious.’
‘She isn’t unconscious.’ The doctor’s tone was calm as he picked up his bag and walked towards the door. ‘She’s lying with her eyes shut. I suspect she just doesn’t want to speak to you. Frankly, I don’t blame her.’