by Lynne Graham
She walked back into the living room, where the remnants of a light lunch remained on the dining table and exchanged a rueful smile with her guest. ‘Atreus just cancelled,’ she shared.
‘Oh, dear…’ Princess Elinor of Quaram, a willowy redhead who had been on the brink of leaving, sat down again and occupied herself by brushing her younger son’s hair off his brow. Tarif, a cute-as-a-button toddler with his father’s black hair and his mother’s light eyes, returned to the toys he had been playing with. ‘That’s unfortunate.’
‘It’s not like him. Something must have come up,’ Lindy declared, watching her friend’s older boy, Sami, and her daughter, Mariyah, flying a kite in the paddock with the help of their tall, athletic father. ‘But I’m not bothered. I’m being sensible now, and I’m over Atreus.’
Her companion gave her a doubtful appraisal.
‘No, seriously—I am over him,’ Lindy emphasised.
‘If you say so,’ Elinor said mildly. ‘But I think you’ve had a traumatic time over the last few months. Don’t rush into making any big decisions.’
Lindy struggled to stay calm while she waited for Atreus’s arrival the next morning. He was the father of her baby and otherwise no big deal, she told herself earnestly. All right, so he was gorgeous, but he was with another woman now, and her only remaining connection with him was an inconvenient pregnancy. She watched him pull up outside in a gleaming black Bugatti Veyron and she made herself hang back and count slowly to ten before she went to open the front door.
Atreus thrust a bouquet of roses into her arms. Startled by that almost awkward gesture from a man who had never given her flowers even when they were lovers, Lindy muttered her thanks. Flustered, she abandoned him to go off and put the flowers in water.
Curiously untroubled by the scent of lavender in the cottage, Atreus paced the wood floor, impatient for her return.
In full polite hostess mode, Lindy reappeared with a tray of coffee and biscuits for him, and homemade lemonade for herself. ‘My business is doing very well at present,’ she told him proudly.
Atreus tensed. ‘There’s a lot of physical labour involved in your business. I’d like to hire someone to take care of that side of your work.’
‘I don’t need any help. I’m not sick or delicate, just pregnant.’
‘ talked to a friend who’s a doctor. He said that heavy work is not a good idea at this point in your pregnancy.’
Her teeth closed together with a snap. ‘I think that’s my affair.’
Brilliant dark eyes clashed with hers head-on. ‘Not when you’re carrying my baby.’
The speed with which he voiced that direct challenge for supremacy shook Lindy, who had contrived to forget just how interfering and bossy Atreus could be. She breathed in deep to hang onto her temper, telling herself that it was good that he should take an interest in her health. ‘I wouldn’t do anything stupid.’
‘You might. You don’t like accepting help,’ Atreus pointed out with infuriating accuracy. ‘So recruit an assistant and I’ll cover the expense until you’re fully fit again.’
Lindy could not breathe in deeply enough to douse the fire of temper he had ignited inside her. ‘I appreciate your anxiety, but how I live and how I choose to manage my business is my concern.’
‘But you are my concern,’ Atreus purred, like a prowling jungle cat.
‘Since when?’ Lindy challenged.
His dark golden gaze narrowed. ‘Since you conceived. If you had told me the day you found that out, we would still be together.’
Lindy veiled her gaze. ‘So you say—but then we can all be wise after the event. Five months ago you made it very clear than an unplanned pregnancy would destroy our relationship.’
‘After my experiences with women in that field it was second nature for me to talk in that vein. It’s what I do now that it’s happened that speaks best for me,’ Atreus informed her with firm conviction. ‘And I’m here today to ask you to be my wife.’
In the act of pouring lemonade into a glass, Lindy switched her attention to him, her violet-blue eyes wide with disbelief. Frozen as she was by shock, she went on pouring the lemonade until the glass overflowed onto the tray beneath. The deluge only stopped when Atreus strode forward and lifted the jug from her paralysed grasp.
‘I don’t believe you just said that,’ Lindy admitted unevenly.
‘You’re expecting my child. What could be more natural?’
Lindy dealt him a transfixed appraisal. ‘I can’t think of anything more unnatural! We broke up because you spelt out the fact that you would never consider marrying someone like me. What about Krista?’
His strong jaw line hardened. ‘That’s over and done with.’
‘But you were planning to marry her!’ Lindy protested.
‘Was I?’ Atreus treated her to an impassive look that revealed nothing.
‘You took her home to meet your family, which for you was quite a statement,’ Lindy pronounced, her pride still smarting over the reality that even after eighteen months she had never met a single member of the reclusive Dionides family.
Determined to prevent her from muddying the water with pointless references to Krista, Atreus lifted and dropped a wide shoulder. ‘There’s little point in discussing what might have been now.’
Sensitive as she was on the issue of Krista Perris, Lindy turned her head away sharply, as if he had slapped her.
‘I want to talk about us.’
Lindy almost laughed out loud. ‘There is no us. The fact I’m pregnant doesn’t wipe out the last few months, or the reasons we split up.’
Atreus breathed in deep. The silence was laden with tension.
‘And I’m not interested in playing a role in a shotgun marriage. I suppose I should say thank you for asking,’ Lindy replied in a doubtful tone, ‘but you thought I was totally unsuitable as a wife when we broke up, and you weren’t shy about telling me that. I don’t see what’s changed.’
Atreus could no longer restrain his ire. ‘Look in the mirror. Our baby needs both of us—and in my family we get married when a woman is pregnant.’
‘Whatever turns you on.’ Lindy grimaced, and closed both hands round her glass of lemonade. ‘But I’m afraid it’s not something that I could agree to, and I think I’m doing both of us a favour in being the sensible one.’
Atreus regarded her with fulminating eyes. ‘What’s sensible about it? You will be denying my child my name.’
‘That doesn’t have to be an issue. If necessary, names can be changed by deed poll,’ Lindy informed him.
‘Only if we’re married can I be a proper father to our child!’ Atreus lanced back at her, far from mollified by her prosaic assurance that names could be legally changed outside the bonds of matrimony.
‘I think we’re both adult enough to know that that’s not true. I will be happy for you to take an interest in our child, but we don’t need to get our lives tangled up on any other level,’ Lindy stated, tilting her chin. ‘Let’s be honest, Atreus. You moved on from me pretty quickly, and neither one of us wants to go back.’
Scorching golden eyes clashed with hers. ‘Don’t tell me what I want. You don’t know what I want.’
Lindy thought that getting married to Atreus would be wonderful—but only for a little while. Once the novelty of having a child wore off for him she would be left with an empty marriage and a husband who didn’t love her, who had once let her go even though she loved him. The pain of losing Atreus a second time would be more than she could bear, so why put herself through such an ordeal? Just for the short-lived joy of being able to call herself his wife?
‘As separate individuals sharing a child we can enjoy a mutually respectful relationship. But if we marry we will just end up getting divorced, because I’m not and will never be the wife you really want,’ Lindy told him starkly.
‘And how do you make that out?’ Atreus demanded rawly, astonished by the barrage of arguments she was employing against him.
‘Because you picked Krista Perris, who is everything I am not. She’s Greek and she’s rich and she’s doll-sized. I can’t compete and I don’t intend to even try.’ Strong pride made Lindy lift her head high, for she meant every word that she was saying. She didn’t want to be hurt again. She didn’t want to be a second-best wife, tolerated for the sake of her child. She knew her vulnerability, and was determined to protect herself from further pain and disillusionment.
‘I’m not asking or expecting you to compete with her!’ Atreus slammed back at her. ‘But I am expecting you to think of what is best for the baby you are carrying. Being a parent is about making sacrifices. It is not about what we want but about what our child needs to thrive.’
Unhappily aware from his words that he was not even able to pretend that she might have gifts equal to Krista’s in other fields, Lindy nodded stonily. ‘Lecture over? I know all about sacrifices. I spent the first four months of my pregnancy being sick at least once a day. I’ve lost my figure. My clothes don’t fit any more. I get so tired I’m in bed by ten most nights. I can’t do physical things I used to take for granted.’
Atreus reached down and closed his hands over hers to tug her upright. ‘I get the picture—I was insensitive,’ he conceded in a raw, driven undertone. ‘But I assumed that you would want to marry me. Was that so arrogant?’
The tears that came so easily to her eyes since she had fallen pregnant almost overflowed. The appeal in his hot golden gaze went straight to her heart. Angrily blinking back the moisture in her eyes, she lifted a hand and smoothed the stubborn angle of his jaw in a soothing gesture. ‘No. If I hadn’t been pregnant, if you had asked me six months ago, I would have been ecstatic. But that time has gone, and we can’t get it back because everything has changed. A divorce would be much more traumatic for our child.’
‘I just might make a bloody good husband!’ Atreus bit out in furious reproof.
‘With the right woman, yes. But that woman,’ Lindy framed unsteadily, ‘isn’t me. I wouldn’t fit in. I couldn’t be what you want and you’d end up hating me.’
Strong arms banding round her, Atreus stared down into her earnest blue eyes and kissed her with all the unstudied intensity of a man fed-up with talking. Utterly unprepared for that radical change of approach, Lindy quivered in feverish shock from the moist dart and dance of his tongue, her breath catching in her throat as an earthquake of response flooded her all too willing body. He slid a hand below her top, flipped loose her bra and closed his fingers round a firm breast with a growling sound of satisfaction that reverberated through his deep chest. With the fingers of one hand she clung to his shoulder, leaning on him while he stroked her throbbing nipples. Excitement was running amok through her sensation-starved body until her imagination jumped ahead a few minutes, to the moment when she would have to surrender her clothing. The thought of lying on her bed like a beached whale while Atreus became much too closely acquainted with her new barrel-like measurements was sufficient to make Lindy pull hurriedly away from him.
She vanished into the cloakroom at speed, to set her clothing to rights and to tell herself off for acting like a wanton hussy. Was it any wonder that he couldn’t recognise the meaning of the word no when she threw it at him?
Dragging herself back out of cover to face him again was a huge challenge, but, pink with embarrassment, Lindy returned to the living room.
Atreus dealt her a slow, sensually assessing look from smouldering dark golden eyes. ‘We could finish this dialogue in bed…’
Lindy froze.
‘I can’t think why you look so shocked. That was where we were heading until you took fright.’
Lindy recognised the tough edge of assurance in his measuring scrutiny and knew that her response had weakened her position. ‘I didn’t take fright…I just realised that what we were doing was absolutely wrong.’
‘How?’ Atreus incised aggressively.
‘If we’re not getting married but we hope to raise a child together we need to forge a new relationship—as friends,’ Lindy informed him squarely.
‘When I want to drag you off to bed I’m not capable of being your friend, glikia mou.’
Outraged by his attitude, when she saw her own as being by far the more reasonable, Lindy snapped, ‘Of course you could. You’ve managed without me for months. You’ve been out with at least a dozen other women!’
Atreus released his breath in a sharp hiss. ‘So that’s what I’m paying for?’
Lindy squeezed her hands into fists and prayed for self-control. ‘You’re not paying for anything, Atreus. I’m not that kind of woman. I’m not trying to settle some stupid score.’
Atreus sent her a glittering glance, fierce pride etched in the sombre set of his handsome features. ‘I asked you to marry me. Shouldn’t that be enough to clear the decks between us?’
Lindy paled. ‘I want what’s best for both of us.’
‘And you also want me,’ he stated with insolent certainty. ‘Desire is a healthy basis for marriage but a seriously bad basis for friendship.’
Agonised colour washed to the very roots of Lindy’s hair. ‘Then we’ll have to settle on something in between and learn as we go,’ she argued shakily. ‘Because if you’re serious about wanting to be part of our child’s life I’m more than willing to accept you in that role…but not as my husband.’
‘When do you next go for a medical check-up?’ Atreus shot at her without warning, his dissatisfaction with her unhidden.
‘Next week,’ she answered tautly.
‘Let me know the time and the place now and I’ll be there. Without flowers or a proposal,’ he added with silken derision.
Lindy lost colour. He was offended. His pride had been hurt. She didn’t blame him for feeling as he did. He was a very rich man who had probably been raised from no age at all to see himself as one hell of a marital prize. All his adult life women had been trying to get him to the altar without success. Yet he had offered up his freedom as a sacrifice for the sake of their unborn child and she had dared to reject him. But wasn’t that wiser than letting him plunge into a marriage to her in which she was convinced he would end up feeling trapped and hating her? It would have been so easy to say yes, she acknowledged painfully, so easy to simply take him at his word, bury her head in the sand and accept him.
Having arranged their next meeting, Atreus sprang back into his Bugatti. It was a dangerously fast vehicle that she would have nagged him for driving had she been his wife. Of course he would just have given her one of his dark stubborn looks and gone ahead and driven it anyway, she reflected ruefully. Atreus would never be tamed or obedient, and she wasn’t sure she would ever find it possible to stop wanting him.
Ben dropped in for a visit the following evening and told her she was crazy to have turned down Atreus’s marriage proposal. ‘What the hell were you thinking of?’ he demanded in apparent disbelief. ‘Now you’re going to be saddled with a child, it was the best offer you’re ever likely to get!’
Since the day Lindy had told Ben that she was pregnant she had seen a great deal less of him. The possessive attitude he had appeared to develop towards her during her affair with Atreus had vanished. Ben seemed to think that a woman with a child had zero attraction for other men and little chance of meeting a permanent partner. That attitude, added to his aversion to anything to do with pregnancy, had not endeared him to Lindy, who found herself trying pointlessly to suck in her stomach when he was around. It was finally beginning to dawn on her that Ben was very immature.
The weeks that followed marked a new departure in Lindy’s relationship with Atreus. He was more distant with her, but much more involved in her life than she had ever dreamt he would be. As he had suggested she took on an assistant to help with the business, and her stress level eased while she worked shorter hours and found it easier to take time off.
Atreus accompanied her to all her medical appointments, and when she was sent for a scan at the nearest
hospital he met her there. He was endearingly fascinated by the images of the baby on the monitor, and quite stunned by the news that she was expecting a boy.
Afterwards, he insisted that she dine at his London apartment and that she stayed there for the night. Exhausted by the day she’d had, and in no mood to face the journey home by herself, Lindy agreed and called her assistant, Wendy, to ask her to feed the dogs. Never having visited Atreus’s home before, she was very curious, but the huge, airy penthouse apartment with its designer furniture and wide open spaces had an anonymous, impersonal quality that left her cold.
During the meal, Atreus excused himself to take a phone call, and when he returned, he found Lindy fast asleep in her dining chair.
Lindy wakened in the early hours because she was too warm. Although she could only feel a sheet over her, there was good reason for her high temperature. Instead of putting her in one of his guestrooms Atreus had put her in his bed, with him, and she was clamped to his lean and powerful heat-exuding physique like a second skin.
‘Go back to sleep, mali mou.’ Atreus urged huskily.
A single exploratory shift of position had left Lindy wildly aware of the feel of his aroused body against her own. ‘You shouldn’t have put me in the same bed as you,’ she censured.
‘When did you turn into such a prude?’
Avoiding any form of intimacy was her protection, she admitted inwardly. In her mind she was already fantasising about what he might do next, and the burn of long abstinence from such pleasures sat like a hollow ache at the heart of her.
‘Stop teasing me,’ she urged stiffly.
‘Relax, you’re safe,’ Atreus asserted.
Cut to the bone by that assurance, Lindy sucked in a sustaining breath. Of course she was safe. Why on earth had she thought she might be otherwise? Simple proximity to a female body had caused his arousal. After all, he could hardly find her swollen form sexually appealing. She was amazed he had had an arm round her, and wondered if she had burrowed into him while she slept. After all, he never touched her now in that way when she was awake. There had been no more unexpected kisses, not so much as a flirtatious word out of place.