by Lynne Graham
‘Krista?’ His sleek ebony brows pleated, and his brilliant eyes were suddenly keen as lasers on her strained face. ‘You have actually met Krista?’
Maddie jerked her chin in confirmation.
And that was that. Lean, strong profile set like granite, Giannis swept up the phone, punched out a number, and started speaking in Greek, fast and furious. While he conducted the conversation Maddie breathed in and out several times, in an effort to get her composure back. A couple of minutes later he replaced the phone.
‘I didn’t send Krista to visit you.’
Maddie was reluctant to believe him. Shaken up as she was, she was afraid to trust him. Was he friend or foe? She no longer knew how to tell the difference. She wanted to believe him. Of course she did. But what if he was playing a double game? It would be foolish to ignore the reality that he had to have his own agenda. Was it feasible that Krista Spyridou had been telling her the truth?
‘We’ll talk at the apartment,’ Giannis decreed, stifling his impatience to know what Krista had said during her visit. That was not a possibility he had foreseen, and he felt culpable. The idea that an external event might have spurred Maddie’s second flight mollified him a little, but he was heartily tired of being treated like the enemy.
A lift ferried them in silence up to his penthouse apartment, which was all gleaming stone and wood surfaces, with soaring ceilings that put her in mind of a public building. The reception room struck her as no more inviting. Large as a sports pitch, it was sprinkled at intervals with oddly indistinguishable items of furniture and several large pieces of contemporary sculpture.
Maddie wasted no time in getting to the heart of the atmosphere between them. ‘Krista approached me with a proposition. Do you know what it was?’
She focused on Giannis, absorbing the sleek, dark vibrance of him in a navy pinstripe business suit. It took great effort to retain her full concentration. He’s the enemy, he’s the enemy, her common sense rhymed, while the rest of her just rejoiced in his lithe, muscular male beauty, his amazing eyes and his liquid grace of movement.
‘How would I know?’ Giannis shifted a glass lounging chair a few inches in her direction, because she had sat down on the bi-level coffee table.
‘Because you must have talked to her last night,’ Maddie dared, wondering why he was shifting his works of art around. ‘She already knew I was expecting twins.’
‘When the press captured photos of us together, I knew I owed Krista a warning call.’ His response was level and unapologetic. ‘It’s one thing to end an engagement, something else to show up in public with a pregnant woman soon afterwards.’
Maddie flushed, her discomfiture pronounced at that reminder of his former ties with Krista. ‘Obviously you’re still very close to her.’
‘I’ve known her all my life. Look, what is all this about? Why did Krista want to see you?’
Maddie studied him, fighting to hide her suspicions.
‘No, I don’t know why!’ With that response Giannis startled and dismayed her. The apparent fact was that he could read her face like an open book, even when she was striving her hardest to be cunning.
‘Krista asked me to agree to you and her adopting the twins.’
Giannis grimaced. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Her teeth gritted at that unexpected comeback. ‘Well, she did. She said you and she had broken up and reconciled before, and that adoption would be the perfect solution. She believed that you’d marry her and raise my children with her.’
Giannis raked long brown fingers through his luxuriant black hair. ‘Sometimes the female mind amazes me. That was a very resourceful idea for Krista—even if it was mad.’
Listening to him, Maddie was on hyper-alert. Her need to have her worst fears set to rest was not satisfied by that infuriatingly uninformative response. She had hoped he would tell her that it was nonsense that he and Krista had reconciled before—because the existence of such a history made her feel deeply uneasy. She had hoped he would utterly dismiss the idea that he might still end up marrying Krista. When he did neither, Maddie could no longer suppress her fierce apprehension.
She flew to her feet and snapped, ‘So you’re saying you had nothing whatsoever to do with that scheme of hers?’
Giannis gave her a long, steady appraisal. ‘Do I look that crazy? I know you well enough to be aware that you wouldn’t even consider such an arrangement.’
‘How am I supposed to trust you?’
One little lie of omission, Giannis reflected in raging frustration, and he was still paying for it in spades. Her lack of faith in him was deeply offensive to his sense of honour. He studied her, now seated on his coffee table, Titian hair fanning round her vivid face. In her bright green T-shirt she should have looked remarkably like a leprechaun. Instead there was something extraordinarily sexy about the au naturel look she favoured. Her tousled copper curls framed her provocative green eyes and her ripe pink mouth, and the T-shirt was stretched to capacity over the highly feminine abundance of her full breasts. Angry as he was, that view sent an instant shaft of lust to his groin and his even white teeth clenched.
Maddie could feel his gaze on her bosom, and before she even knew what she was doing she had arched her back like a shameless temptress, so that part of her body was more than ever noticeable. She was shocked at the speed with which that wanton prompting came over her, and even more taken aback by the wild pleasure and satisfaction she experienced when he looked at her in that sexual way. He was turning her into a natural-born trollop, she thought, hating herself like poison for her weakness.
She leapt upright and stalked over to the window. Krista had been so cool, so very classy. ‘Giannis…’
‘We could just get rid of all this aggro in bed, pedhi mou,’ Giannis murmured thickly.
She folded her arms fast over her bust, terrified her prominent nipples might be showing through her cotton top. He was absolutely without shame. He had no inhibitions whatsoever. What shook her was how much she liked that earthy sexuality of his.
‘Maddie…’ he murmured silkily, slowly turning her round into the shelter of his lean, powerful body. ‘We need each other.’
He curved his hands to the swell of her behind and drew her up against him, making her madly aware of his masculine arousal. There was a slow burn of warmth and moisture flowering between her thighs, and a dulled ache of physical awareness that left her quivering.
It literally hurt her to yank herself back from the very edge of temptation. ‘I can’t do this…I can’t. It’s wrong—’
Hot golden eyes smouldering with urgent desire, Giannis gave her a pained appraisal and surrendered himself to the prospect of the only answer he saw to their plight. ‘How is it wrong when we’re going to get married?’
‘We’re going to w-what?’ she stammered, staring at him.
‘What else can we do? It’s the only rational option.’ His dark features taut, Giannis shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘That’s why you can trust me. That’s why I was furious that you could even consider running away from me again.’
Maddie was trembling with surprise and uncertainty, hanging on his every word, yet still unable to credit that he could be serious. ‘I ran away because I felt that I was being threatened. I haven’t got the power or the money it would take to fight you if you decided that you wanted to take my children from me.’
‘Theos mou…why would I do that? Does that make sense to you?’ Giannis demanded in exasperation. ‘I want my children to grow up with two parents in a secure environment.’
Maddie worried at her lower lip with her teeth. ‘But it isn’t necessary for us to get married.’
‘It is. Who but me will teach them how to be Greek? How to cope with my Petrakos relations? How to handle wealth and privilege? You couldn’t meet that challenge without living in my world.’
All of a sudden Maddie understood why Krista had approached her. The beautiful blonde knew Giannis well enough to guess that he woul
‘I don’t know what to say…’ she whispered, because her thoughts were buzzing like frantic bees inside her head.
‘You say yes…and you say it in Greek.’ Giannis surveyed her with that sudden flashing charismatic smile of his that made her heart seesaw on its sadly unreliable supports. ‘Ne is the word you need.’
‘But you can’t want to marry me,’ Maddie protested tautly.
‘Why not? You have a proven fertility record, and you’re amazing in bed, glika mou,’ Giannis pointed out without hesitation. ‘What more is there?’
All the stuff that he wasn’t about to offer or deliver, Maddie affixed in angry confusion: love, fidelity, communication. A proven fertility record? She wanted to slap him. Why was it that the instant matters took a serious turn Giannis resorted to being facetious? Such a superficial relationship would never be enough for her. But if she didn’t marry him he might end up marrying Krista, who was obviously still in hot pursuit. The very thought of Giannis getting hitched to Krista instead sent an icy wave of fear travelling through Maddie—because she knew now that Krista would plot and plan against her and her children. She would be damned if she did agree to marry him, damned if she did not. In neither option did she see the prospect of happiness.
The tip of Maddie’s tongue snaked out to moisten her dry lower lip. ‘And if I say no?’ she prompted.
An explosive silence pooled between them like an oil spill.
Giannis was still, but she could feel the storm within him like a dangerously destructive riptide below the surface. Lush black lashes screened his dark golden eyes and their shimmering glitter of warning. ‘Let’s not go there,’ he drawled, without any inflection at all.
Maddie registered that she did not have a choice. Or at least he had just heavily weighted the marrying option. It was total overkill. She wondered if she should tell him that his threat was quite unnecessary, since she had been brought to her knees just by the idea of Krista walking down the aisle with him. She had a mean, jealous streak a mile wide. She was horribly ashamed of herself. She felt that if she was actually the kind, decent woman she had once believed she was, she would have wanted Giannis to return to Krista. But she loved Giannis, and she knew that she had to do the best she could for her unborn children. His attitude might outrage her, but she would find stronger ground on which to fight back and mount a defence. If he was prepared to coerce her into marriage, Maddie reasoned hotly, he would have to accept the certain consequences of that decision.
Giannis decided that he had probably picked the only woman in the world who would sit pregnant with his twins on his coffee table and quietly spend ten minutes deciding whether or not she would become a Petrakos. While he was not proud of the veiled threat he had employed, he was convinced that the ultimate good of his intentions excused his ruthless methods in obtaining the desired result.
‘All right. I’ll marry you,’ Maddie informed him flatly.
‘Do you think you could risk one glass of champagne to celebrate?’ An immediate smile of approval slashed his wide sensual mouth.
Her green eyes gleamed. ‘I’m not celebrating.’
Giannis did not bat a magnificent eyelash at that declaration. Having achieved his goal, he was in excellent form. Her days of vanishing were at an end. Never again would she go anywhere he couldn’t find her. He found that a hugely soothing prospect. During the weeks she had been missing he had been unnerved by the discovery that not even his bottomless resources could help to locate her when there was not a single lead to go on. Her disappearance had been a continual source of disquiet to him, a reality that she did not seem to appreciate.
‘I’d like the ceremony to take place as soon as possible.’ Giannis rested assessing gilded bronze eyes on her, not entirely certain that he could fully trust her agreement.
‘Whatever…’ Maddie lifted and dropped a shoulder with an indifference that set his teeth on edge.
‘A proper wedding,’ Giannis added loftily, just in case he had given her the impression that he was suggesting some shabby affair. ‘Church, wedding gown, hundreds of guests.’
Maddie bridled. ‘I’m not stuffing myself into a wedding dress when I’m this pregnant!’
‘So?’ Giannis challenged. ‘You might as well flaunt it. It is not so unusual these days.’
Maddie could think of nothing more guaranteed to embarrass her to death than a pregnant stomach at her wedding, where every one of his friends and relatives would be comparing her to her reed-slender predecessor Krista. While at the same time doubtless blaming her for getting involved with a man already engaged to someone else.
Although the enthusiasm Giannis had hoped to ignite had so far failed to appear, he was nothing if not persistent. Perhaps, he reasoned, she was afraid that she would not be up to the monumental task of organising such an event with only weeks to spare. ‘Naturally a wedding planner and my staff will deal with all the arrangements.’
‘If I have a vote to cast, I go for a quiet hole-and-corner marriage ceremony.’
Keeping a tense grip on his growing vexation, Giannis breathed in slow and deep, before saying with admirable cool, ‘I will be proud to make you my wife. A hole-and-corner ceremony is not what I want.’
Maddie looped several bright copper spirals of hair off her brow, and her green eyes glinted like a cat about to claw. ‘And of course we all know that what you want you must have. But I’m warning you that if you marry me life isn’t going to be as neat and tidy as that.’
‘Is that a declaration of war, pedhi mou?’ Giannis was hugely amused by that idea. He marvelled at the fact that he found her constantly entertaining. Right now she was annoyed with him, but she would get over that and appreciate that he really did know best. Didn’t she realise that a small secret wedding would only make it look as if he was ashamed of her and feed the gossips? Didn’t all women go mad for weddings? He was convinced that, whatever she said, in no time she would be deeply involved in the preparations. All she required was a little push in the right direction.
‘I’ve got nothing more to say on that score. But where am I supposed to live in the meantime?’
‘Here.’
Maddie grimaced.
Giannis rose to the bait. ‘It’s a fabulous apartment.’
Maddie sniffed. ‘It’s a bit James Bond, though, isn’t it? You don’t even own a comfortable seat.’
Giannis rose above the desire to tell her that she might have had a different opinion had she not been seated on a coffee table. ‘If you don’t like this place it’s not a problem. I have a country house in Kent.’
‘If you don’t mind, I’ll stay there until the wedding.’ Out of easy reach of him and all temptation, Maddie thought ruefully.
Giannis did mind—very much. He said nothing, though. He understood that he had used coercion, and she was hitting out with the only weapons at her disposal. He was disconcerted by the speed with which she had learned how to fight back. Had she learned that art from him? He wondered how fast a wedding could be organised. Two weeks? A month? He didn’t want to wait a month. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t want to wait a week. He was astonished at the driving force of his impatience. He was, after all, the same guy who had insisted Krista pick a wedding date more than eighteen months ahead.
Ten days later, there was an expectant hush in the elegant drawing-room of Harriston Hall once the lawyer had finished explaining the salient points of the pre-nuptial agreement to Maddie.
She had been shaken when she heard that, in the event of a marital breakdown, Giannis expected to retain custody of their children. It seemed to her that the inclusion of such a condition implied that he was betting on their marriage failing, and was unlikely to make the effort to ensure that their relationship survived.
‘Giannis retains custody regardless of who is at fault?’ Maddie queried. ‘That’s totally unfair.’
; ‘I’m afraid fault doesn’t come into it.’
‘Well, it should,’ Maddie told the lawyer roundly. ‘I presume I can make conditions too?’
‘Of course. But it will extend these negotiations,’ the suave older man warned her, as if he expected that fact to put her off.
Maddie almost smiled. ‘That’s fine by me. I won’t accept that clause concerning the children. My stipulation is that if Giannis breaks his marriage vows he has to surrender his right to retain custody.’
Unprepared for that announcement, the lawyer gave her a startled look, before professionalism smoothed over his face again.
‘I do appreciate that Giannis won’t like that.’ Her eyes gleamed like emeralds, startlingly vivid against her white skin. ‘I also think that, since fidelity is very important to me, there should be a clause that discourages him from the pursuit of other women.’
Her companion was now regarding her in total fascination. He had been planning how he would describe the future Mrs Petrakos to his interested colleagues, for she was a source of enormous curiosity. Exotic, unusual, sexy…but the extraordinary je-ne-sais-quoi that had netted her a billionaire bridegroom had eluded his detection. Now he saw that quality in neon lights. The bride might be pregnant, but she was in no hurry to get to the church, and she was voicing her controversial demands with composure. She was exactly the kind of woman who would take a tiger by the tail. Or, in this case, a notorious womaniser.
‘What exactly were you thinking of?’
Maddie was considering what was most important to Giannis. His reputation? His power? His wealth? He was incredibly serious about business and the art of making money. Perhaps the knowledge that infidelity would cost him money would act as a deterrent? And, if it did not, at least she would have the satisfaction of being rich in her own right, as well as wretched. ‘If he is unfaithful, it should cost him millions.’
‘I believe that a clause of that nature would raise quite a storm,’ the older man cautioned.
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