by Lynne Graham
Striking ebony brows accentuating his frown, Giannis lowered her with great care to the floor. But when she tried to stand upright her head started swimming again, and she had to grab at his sleeve to correct her balance.
‘All talk and no action,’ Giannis censured, scooping her off her feet again. ‘Let me do what I do best.’
Maddie was belatedly conscious that other people were around: Nemos and his men, and medical staff. Just about everybody seemed to be staring at them. ‘Like bossing people around?’ she quipped.
The forbidding tension in his lean bronzed features eased, and he laughed in appreciation. He bent his arrogant dark head and whispered with husky mockery, ‘I do a lot of things better than other people, glikia mou.’
‘Showing off?’ Regardless of their audience, she was insanely tempted to wrap her arms round him and hug him tight. She wanted to trap the moment and the memory, so that she could take it out some time in the future, when he was no longer around.
He had taught her how vulnerable she could be. In leaving London she had done what she’d believed was best in a bad situation. But there had not been a day in the intervening weeks when she had not thought of him, missed him, and longed for even just five minutes back in his energising company.
Giannis settled Maddie down on an examination couch in a plush office, and turned to address the consultant gynaecologist who had evidently been awaiting their arrival.
Having banished Giannis, Maddie answered loads of questions. While she was being examined she confided that she thought there was nothing wrong with her aside of tiredness and hunger.
‘I can hear two heartbeats,’ the consultant told her quietly. ‘I’m almost certain you’re carrying twins.’
Maddie sucked in a startled breath and then, thinking of her lost twin, Suzy, she slowly began to smile.
Giannis was pacing outside the room when she reappeared, seated in a wheelchair. ‘They won’t let me walk either. I’ll be finished as soon as I have a scan,’ she told him apologetically. ‘You know…I’m fine.’
‘No, I don’t know it. That’s for the medics to say. I’d like to be present for the scan.’
Maddie acquiesced, because she was feeling a little intimidated by the level of attention she was receiving, not to mention her swanky surroundings. From the minute the doctor urged her to watch the monitor, however, she was entranced by the astonishingly clear images in 3D, delivered by the state-of-the-art ultrasound equipment.
‘That’s a baby…’ Giannis whispered in stark amazement. He had expected to see very little that was recognizable, and certainly not a tiny face.
‘Oh, he’s so…so beautiful,’ Maddie framed chokily.
Giannis closed a hand over hers. ‘Are we having a boy?’
‘Do you want to know?’
‘Yes, I think I’d like to,’ Maddie confessed.
‘This one is a boy…’
‘You can tell even at this stage?’ Giannis was studying the monitor in awe. ‘So we are to have a boy. But what did you mean when you said “this one”?’
‘I’m having twins,’ Maddie told him, suddenly appreciating that she had yet to share that information with him, and feeling sad that she had imposed that division between them.
‘It’s a little difficult to be sure with the babies in this position, but I’m almost certain the other is a girl,’ the consultant added.
‘Theos mou…twins.’ Giannis was stunned, and his lean, shapely hand tightened on hers, his thumb and forefinger gently massaging her wrist. As spellbound as she was, his attention was held by the brilliant clarity of the images.
‘Are they healthy?’ Maddie pressed anxiously.
The reassurance she received eased her instinctive concern. She was urged to stop worrying, eat more, and get plenty of sleep.
Giannis tucked her back into the wheelchair with great care. He was in a daze. Two children—his son and daughter—his blood. He was astonished by his sense of satisfaction and his even stronger sense of anticipation. He had always believed that he did not care whether he had children or not. But the instant those tiny faces had appeared on the screen something very fundamental had changed in him. Out of his wondering pride had grown a fierce feeling of protectiveness towards Maddie and the babies she carried.
‘I’ll take you home now. You can eat, just like the doctor ordered, and then rest.’
As Giannis spoke, the limousine pulled away from the rear entrance of the clinic where it had picked them up. She stared out at the camera-wielding paparazzi, pelting in mad frustrated flight round the corner, having realised too late that they had missed their quarry’s exit from the clinic.
‘My City apartment isn’t far from here.’
Her face shadowed, and she closed her hands together on her lap, deliberately not looking at him. ‘No, please. That wouldn’t be a good idea. I’d rather go to a hotel—’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Giannis interposed in an incredulous tone.
‘Hotels are very expensive, but that’ll do fine if you can’t sort me out with anything else in the short term,’ Maddie reasoned doggedly. ‘I do need your financial help right now. I’d be grateful if you helped me find more permanent accommodation and made it possible for me to manage on my own.’
‘But you’re not going to be your own. I’ve no intention of letting you out of my sight, pedhi mou.’
Maddie sent him a sidewise glance and collided unwarily with gilded bronze eyes filled with level enquiry. Her heart seemed to flip inside her chest. Just a glimpse of his lean, darkly handsome face could make her ache with emotion, need, and the most terrible hunger. So she dragged her scrutiny from him again and stared woodenly into space. She had never been sensible with him. In fact she had been stupid, immature and weak. But now that she was pregnant the time for such self-indulgence was past. Her babies needed a mother who behaved like an intelligent adult.
‘Giannis…will you listen to me for a moment?’ she asked tautly. ‘I need to be independent. I wouldn’t feel comfortable in your apartment. You slept with me and I fell accidentally pregnant. That’s the only reason I’m here with you now. You don’t need to pretend that there’s anything more.’
Giannis did not like the sound of what he was hearing. She was pulling away from him just when he wanted to manacle her ankle and wrist to his side. ‘But there is more—’
‘No, there isn’t.’ There was a choky sensation at the foot of Maddie’s tight throat, because it would be a long time before she forgot his confident declaration that she had had nothing whatsoever to do with his broken engagement. Yet even if his honesty had hurt she was grateful for it. Her hopes and dreams had tumbled like sandcastles met by the tide. She loved him. She was absolutely hopelessly in love with him. But he didn’t feel the same way. She had to learn to live with that reality, and the less time she spent in his vicinity the better.
‘Maddie…’ Giannis chided, ready to fight bone and sinew until she came round to his point of view. If she didn’t stay in his apartment she would be a constant source of worry—for how else was he to know where she was, who she was with, and whether or not she was looking after herself properly?
‘I hope you’ll take an interest in our children when they’re born, and that we can both behave like civilised people,’ she muttered feverishly, her eyes hot and scratchy with the tears she was fighting back, that were forcing her to bend her head.
Giannis was about to inform her that a threat to stray with their unborn children away from his care and custody was an act of unjust and warranted aggression which he refused to accept. But then something happened to change his mind. A single drop of moisture splashed down onto her tightly clenched hands. It was a tear. He froze in shock. She rubbed at her eyes and sniffed, murmuring a muffled apology.
‘Please don’t!’ she gasped in dismay, shifting away as though he was contagious when he attempted to put an arm round her.
Giannis was fiercely frustrated by his feeling of powerlessness. She was tremb
ling, clearly distressed, but he was not allowed to hold her or offer comfort. He passed her a pristine linen handkerchief. She mopped up in a no-nonsense way that would have made him smile at any other time. Tears, which he had previously disdained as a base feminine weapon, had a disturbingly strong impact on him when it was Maddie doing the crying. She made him feel like a huge bully. She was tired, unhappy, and pregnant with his children. He did not want to upset her or intimidate her into doing his bidding. For the first time in his life he reined back his strong personality and shelved his arguments along with his impatience. For her sake, he decided to go slowly and take her to a hotel.
The next day Maddie got up after a night of undisturbed slumber. She had an entire suite to herself, and a good meal, a warm bath and a comfortable bed had put her to sleep within minutes of her head touching the pillow. She had got her crying over with in the bath.
Her luggage from the bed-and-breakfast place where she had been staying in Reading was waiting for her when she wakened. Dressed in casual chino pants with a stretchy waist-band and a green T-shirt, she had just finished eating her breakfast when someone knocked on the door. Assuming it was Room Service, coming back to clear the table, Maddie opened the door without making use of the spyhole.
‘I see you know who I am. May I come in?’ Krista Spyridou asked.
Maddie went white, and then red with discomfiture. It was Krista who closed the door and strolled gracefully across to a chair to make herself at home. Maddie could not take her eyes off the other woman. With her fabulous platinum blonde hair falling round her narrow shoulders like a silk curtain, and her turquoise eyes slashing a bright slice of colour in her flawless face, Krista’s glowing perfection took Maddie’s breath away.
‘I can see you’re embarrassed,’ Krista remarked with enviable poise. ‘But there’s really no need to be. I have the solution to all our problems.’
Aghast at the descent of a woman whom she knew she had wounded, Maddie hovered in the centre of the carpet. ‘I don’t know what to say to you. You must hate me.’
‘Why? If it hadn’t been you in his bed it would have been some other woman. Giannis lives by his own rules, and I wouldn’t dream of interfering. I feel privileged to be a part of his life. He’s a very special man,’ Krista murmured with a cool smile. ‘But this pregnancy of yours does create a problem.’
‘How did you even know I was pregnant?’ With Krista talking as though her relationship with Giannis was ongoing, Maddie’s unease was increasing at a rapid pace.
‘Haven’t you seen the pictures in the newspapers yet? They were taken yesterday, outside the clinic. Not very flattering of you, I’m afraid. But you’re definitely pregnant.’ Krista released a musical laugh. ‘Anything relating to Giannis Petrakos is always very big news.’
Maddie tried to hide her chagrin. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want to talk about my private life with you.’
‘If you care about the future of your twins, you will listen to what I have to say.’
Maddie went very still. ‘How did you know I’m having twins?’
Krista looked calmly back at her. ‘How do you think? Giannis told me…’
Maddie’s skin went clammy and she turned away, speared by that declaration like a fish on a hook. She felt quite sick at the idea of Giannis discussing her predicament with this woman. She also felt rather scared of this beautiful blonde in her ice-blue designer suit, with diamonds twinkling in her earlobes and at her slender throat.
‘Let’s concentrate on why I’m here,’ Krista continued. ‘I have a proposition to put to you.’
‘I don’t want to be rude…but what’s any of this got to do with you?’ Maddie was struggling desperately to retain some semblance of dignity. ‘I understood that you were no longer engaged to Giannis.’
‘Giannis and I are very close friends. We’ve broken up before, but he always comes back to me. This is a messy situation, and I’m happy to help Giannis to sort it out.’
Maddie’s hands coiled into defensive fists. She felt gutted and utterly humiliated. ‘Then go and talk to him about it.’
‘No, this is between us. I’m willing to adopt your children when they’re born.’
Maddie was dumbfounded by that assurance, and she spun round wide-eyed. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘It would be the best solution for everyone. Giannis and I will get married, as we’ve always planned, and bring the children up together. It’s perfect.’
Repulsed by the very suggestion, Maddie stared at the smiling blonde and wondered if it was true that Giannis would go back to her. Krista was so very confident that it was hard to believe what she said did not have a solid basis in fact. ‘Does Giannis know you’re here?’
Krista elevated a pencilled brow. ‘What do you think?’
Maddie’s heart sank, and a creepy chill ran down her taut spine. Was this her reward for defying Giannis’s wishes and insisting on her independence? Certainly Giannis had to be very close to Krista if he had already shared so much about Maddie with her, his ex-fiancée. Maddie felt as gutted as if Krista had taken a fish-knife to her.
‘Obviously Giannis feels responsible for your children.’
‘He doesn’t have to. I’ll manage fine on my own,’ Maddie hastened to declare.
‘But Giannis will not tolerate that,’ the blonde protested. ‘He’s a Petrakos, and he’s used to total control. Don’t you understand what that means? If he’s not satisfied that you are a perfect parent, he’ll take your children away from you.’
Maddie flinched.
‘You really haven’t a clue.’ Krista Spyridou gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘Giannis is very powerful and very ruthless when it comes to getting what he wants. If I adopt your children he’ll be delighted, and he’ll ensure that you never have to work or worry about money again.’
‘I have no intention of giving my children up!’ Maddie told the blonde in angry disgust. ‘And no amount of money will change my mind on that score.’
‘I would treat them as my own.’ Krista kept on talking in the same relentlessly upbeat tone, flatly refusing to recognise Maddie’s revulsion. ‘I’m trying to help you—help all of us. If you don’t watch out you’ll lose your children anyway. Giannis wants them. Wouldn’t they be better off being raised by their father within marriage? What have you got to offer them?’
Maddie yanked open the door. ‘Please leave. I’m not interested in discussing this any further.’
Krista settled a card down on the table. ‘My phone number. Be sensible and do the right thing. Some day your children will thank you for it.’
It took quite a few minutes for Maddie to calm down after Krista’s departure. She felt threatened and intimidated, but more than anything she felt scared—bone-deep scared.
Had Giannis sent Krista as a messenger? Evidently Krista would do anything to please Giannis and get him to the altar—even accept another woman’s kids and raise them. Were they conspiring against her? Was the rift between Giannis and the Greek heiress already healed? Had her pregnancy ironically brought them back together?
Her head pounding with tension, Maddie crammed the clothing she had unpacked back into her case. She was leaving without even knowing where she was going. But what choice did she have? She wasn’t running away, she reasoned frantically. She was just trying to look out for the future and protect herself. She believed that her unborn babies needed her love, and that nothing would compensate them for the loss of it or her. The very idea of Krista taking her children made her feel ill. The woman had reminded her of a smiling piranha fish. Not an atom of human emotion had the blonde betrayed during a dialogue that would have taxed most women’s control to the utmost.
Chilled by that memory, Maddie went down in the lift and out on to the street.
Giannis was in the middle of a board meeting when he got the call from Nemos.
‘You make sure they don’t lose her…not for so much as ten seconds!’ Giannis warned in raw, wrathful G
reek. ‘You make sure that nothing happens to her as well.’
His lean, powerful face forbidding, he sprang upright, like a lion going in for the kill, and walked out of the conference room without a word. Maddie was bolting again. He couldn’t believe it. He was furious, affronted, and badly shaken by that news.
What was the matter with her? What was he supposed to do? Imprison her? Clearly giving her space and allowing her to go to a hotel had been a serious error of judgement. Acting like Mr Sensitive had been a tactical disaster. So now it would be gloves off, and he would make her understand her limits. In a rage like nothing he had ever experienced, Giannis swung into his limo.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MADDIE was hurrying breathlessly down the street, hauling her case, when Giannis appeared in front of her. She stopped dead with a gasp, because it seemed to her that he had come out of nowhere.
‘Please get into the car. I don’t want to see a picture of us staging a public dispute in tomorrow’s newspapers,’ Giannis breathed with stinging scorn.
His dark golden eyes were blazing. Shock had overpowered Maddie’s flight instincts and settled her into stillness. ‘I—’
‘Those babies are my flesh and blood too,’ Giannis cut in fiercely.
Bothered by that reminder more than she wanted to acknowledge, Maddie released her numbed grip on her case and climbed into the limo by the kerb. What else could she do? She stole a wary glance at him, aware that he was in a towering rage. He had prevented her from leaving again. But how had he known what she was planning to do?
‘How did you find out?’
‘You have your own security team now.’
‘You mean you’re having me watched?’
‘After today’s little demonstration, don’t expect an apology on that score.’ Giannis dealt her a fulminating appraisal. ‘If you’d got away sight unseen, I might never have found you again. Is that what I deserve? Have I been so bad to you that I have no right to know that you are safe? No right even to know my own children?’
A combination of shame, frustration and confusion held Maddie stiff in her seat. ‘You shouldn’t have sent Krista to see me. That experience would’ve spooked a saint.’