The Greek's Pregnant Bride

by Michelle Smart

  He’d been as good as his word yesterday, arriving back from his busy day twenty minutes before their first guests had arrived. They’d spent the evening glued to each other’s side, laughing and joking. At one point he had leaned in to whisper into her ear.

  ‘I think we’re convincing them,’ he’d said. At least, that was what she thought he’d said, the feel of his hot breath against her skin turning her brain to mush in less than a second.

  Dio, what was he doing to her?

  Was it any wonder she couldn’t sleep?

  She’d spent years believing marriage and babies would never be in her future. Sexual relationships had been consigned to the same void: not for her. No messy emotions to contend with, no lies for her ears to disbelieve, no truths for her eyes to avoid. Once the dust had settled with the fall-out over Javier’s lies, she’d come to the conclusion that living a life of solitude was the best for her.

  Other than her brother, she’d effectively been alone since birth. Her grandfather had controlled every aspect of her life, from the food she ate to the clothes she wore to the friends she was allowed—but always remotely, Alessandra another tick on his daily to-do list, his directives adhered to by the many members of the Villa Mondelli staff. She’d longed for someone to want to be with her for her, not because they were paid to be or because she’d passed some kind of wealth and social standing test, but for her. She’d truly believed Javier had seen beyond the surface but it had been a lie that had shattered her.

  All the protections she’d placed around herself since those awful, lonely days were crumbling at the edges.

  In three days she would be pledging her life, her future, to Christian Markos. How could she keep her emotions in a box if she had to share the bed with him occasionally?

  One night: that was all it had taken. She’d watched him sleep, her chest clenched so tightly she’d fought for air.

  She needed air now.

  She wandered to the end of the corridor and climbed the stairs that led up to the roof terrace.

  Their wedding was three days away but already a huge transformation was taking place for the party they would be having there once the nuptials were done. White tables and chairs were laid out to the specifications of their wedding planner. She stared at what was to be the top table, a sharp pang lancing her as she thought of sitting there without either her grandfather or her brother by her side.

  A part of her wanted to call Rocco, was desperate to hear his voice. But she would not. Christian still bore the remnants of the punch Rocco had given him, the black eye now a pale yellow, but still evident if you looked closely enough. Unless he was prepared to apologise and accept her marriage, he could stay away.

  Forcing her thoughts away from her brother, she headed to the back of the terrace, the part that overlooked the huge gardens. Far in the distance sat the whitewashed chapel they were to marry in. It gleamed under the morning sun, as if it were winking at her. She readied her camera and fired off a couple of shots.

  She much preferred taking photos of people but one day she wanted to be able to show her child everything about their parents’ big day. She’d been nine when she’d stumbled across her own parents’ wedding photos. Until that time she’d never believed her father had ever smiled, not once in his whole life. But, of course, it had been the pictures of her mother that had meant the most to her.

  Whenever she was asked the question of who her biggest influences were as a photographer, she always said Annie Leibovitz and Mario Testino, but in truth it was her parents’ wedding photographer. He had brought them to life in a manner that had touched her deeply and made her see them as people in love.

  She wondered if Christian had photos of his parents’ wedding day and if he ever looked at them.

  Christian. It disturbed her how badly she wanted to know everything about him, to understand everything that made him tick, everything that had shaped him. The pieces were coming together but it was like a semi-filled photo album with pictures missing.

  Resolve filled her. She looked at her watch. If she hurried, she should be able to catch him before he left the hotel for his first appointment of the day.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MINUTES LATER SHE knocked on his door, her camera still slung round her neck.

  She sensed movement behind the door before it opened, sensed him peering through the spyhole.

  And there he stood, skin damp, hair wet...and with nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips.

  ‘Sorry; I’ve caught you at a bad time,’ she said, having to fight to get her vocal cords to work properly and not stammer.

  ‘Not at all. Come in.’ He stood aside to admit her into his suite.

  She stepped past him, moistening suddenly dry lips.

  Dio, was he naked beneath that towel?

  Her arid mouth suddenly filled with moisture.

  ‘Is there a reason you’ve come to my suite so early, agapi mou?’ he asked, a smile playing on his lips, as if he knew exactly what was going on beneath her skin.

  ‘No.’ She blinked sharply. ‘Yes. Do you want to get dressed before we talk?’

  ‘I’m good.’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Does the sight of me undressed disturb you?’

  ‘It makes it hard for me to think straight,’ she admitted, wishing she could think of a decent lie.

  ‘That is good.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘The thought of you naked makes it hard for me to think straight too. So, we are even.’

  ‘You think of me naked?’ Did she have to sound like a breathless imbecile?

  The smile dropped. He closed the distance between them and inhaled deeply.

  His voice dropped to a husky whisper. ‘All the time. I’ve just thought of you while I showered, imagining you sharing it with me.’

  She swallowed. Was he suggesting what she thought he was...?

  His lips brushed against her earlobe. ‘Until we are legally married I will have to satisfy myself with memories of our night together in Milan.’

  Her skin fizzed beneath the warmth of his breath while heat such as she had never experienced surged through her, settling in the V of her thighs. He stepped closer still and placed a hand on her thigh, close enough that she could feel his erection jut through the cotton of his towel and press against her belly.

  She tilted her head back and gazed into his eyes. It was there, that desire: stark, open, unashamed.

  What would he do if she were to loop her arms around his neck and kiss him? If she were to clasp his towel and yank it off him...?

  He must have read her mind for his lips brushed against her ear again. ‘Anticipation makes fulfilment taste so much sweeter.’

  She pulled away. ‘Do you know that from experience?’

  A strange look came into his eyes, a half-smile tugging on his lips. ‘Only in a professional sense. I look forward to finding out if it’s as sweet when it comes to us making love again.’

  ‘I thought you said it would depend on whether I wanted anything to happen,’ she said, her voice hoarse.

  ‘And it will.’ Now his eyes glittered, no mistaking the feeling behind them. ‘But we both know the anticipation is driving you crazy too.’

  While Alessandra stood there, unable to deny what he’d said, too full of the heavy, pulsating thickness swirling through the very fabric of her to think clearly, Christian strode into the bedroom of his suite.

  ‘So, what did you want to see me for?’ he asked, disappearing from view.

  Forcing her brain to unfog itself, she followed him to the door but stopped at her side of the threshold.

  She took a moment to compose herself, but that very composure almost fell to ruins when he emerged back in view, now wearing a pair of black boxer shorts that on
ly enhanced his strong physique.

  He opened his dressing-room door and disappeared again, re-emerging moments later with a pair of grey trousers on. Looking at her, he slipped his arms into a pale blue shirt. ‘Alessandra?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She put her hand to her mouth and cleared her throat. ‘I just wanted to discuss the guest list.’

  ‘Everyone has accepted.’

  ‘Apart from Rocco?’

  He nodded, his mouth tightening.

  She watched as he deftly did the buttons of his shirt up.

  ‘I think you should reconsider inviting your mother,’ she said.

  He didn’t react, other than a slight narrowing of his eyes.

  ‘It doesn’t feel right, us marrying without you having any family there.’

  ‘You haven’t invited your father,’ he said pointedly.

  ‘That’s because my father is an alcoholic who likes to pretend I don’t exist. She’s your mum—wouldn’t she want to see her only child get married?’

  ‘Just drop it. She’s not coming and that’s final.’ He tucked his shirt in and pulled the zip of his trousers up.

  ‘No. I won’t drop it. If you won’t invite her then can you at least tell me why?’

  His mouth set in a forbidding line, he reached for the silver tie on his bed and walked over to the mirror on the wall, his back to her. He met her eye in the reflection.

  ‘No. I can’t.’

  ‘Why not? Christian, we’re getting married in three days. You know everything about me and my past—what is so bad that you don’t want me to meet your mother? Are you ashamed of her or something?’

  ‘Or something about sums it up,’ he said grimly. ‘But, no, I’m not ashamed of her.’

  ‘Really? Because it looks like you’re ashamed of her from where I’m standing.’

  His nostrils flaring, his jaw clenched tight, he knotted his tie. ‘Can you not take my word for it?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but no.’ This was too important a topic to back down from.

  He must have seen something in her reflection that made him read the stubbornness of her thoughts. He shook his head angrily. ‘If it means that much to you, I will show you.’

  ‘Show me what?’

  He straightened his shirt, then turned back to face her. ‘I’ll take you to meet her. You can see for yourself why I don’t want my mother anywhere near our wedding.’

  * * *

  The car came to a stop outside an immaculate two-storey house in a quiet Athenian suburb.

  No sooner had the engine been turned off than Christian got out, not bothering to wait for the driver to open the door for him.

  The entire drive had been conducted in silence, Christian sitting ramrod-straight, only the whiteness of his knuckles betraying what lay beneath his skin.

  It was a demeanour Alessandra had never seen from him before. It unnerved her.

  That he’d cancelled his first appointment of the day had unnerved her even more; that, and the grim way he’d said, ‘Let’s get it over with.’

  It was with a deep sense of dread that she followed him out of the car and up the small driveway.

  A tall, thin woman with short white hair appeared at the door, lines all over her weathered face, her thin lips clamped together in an obvious display of disapproval.

  Wordlessly, she turned on her heel and walked back inside, leaving the door open for them to follow.

  The house itself was pristine, a strong smell of bleach pervading the air.

  There was nothing homely about it. What could have been a beautiful home was nothing but a carcass, sanitised functionality at its best.

  If Elena Markos could speak English, she made a good show of hiding it. She made no show of hiding her disdain for Alessandra, refusing her hand when Christian introduced them, and looking through her when Alessandra said, ‘Hárika ya tin gnorimía,’— ‘pleased to meet you’—a phrase she’d practised with the girl who’d brought breakfast to her suite that morning after Christian had grudgingly agreed to bring her here.

  They gathered together in the immaculate kitchen, where the stench of bleach was even stronger. No refreshments were offered.

  Alessandra might as well have been invisible. All of Elena’s attention was on her son. She was speaking harshly to him in quick-fire Greek, whatever she said enough to make the pulse in his jawline throb. When he replied, his answers were short but measured. At one point he seemed to be the one doing the talking rather than the listening, his words making Elena dart her blue eyes to the stranger in the midst, a sneer forming on her face.

  In all her twenty-five years, Alessandra had never sat in such a poisonous atmosphere as this, or felt as unwelcome.

  There was something almost unhinged in Elena Markos’s demeanour. Her eyes were the same blue as Christian’s but were like a frozen winter morning without an ounce of her son’s warmth.

  Simply imagining being raised by this woman made her skin feel as icy as Elena’s eyes. But Christian couldn’t leave it to imaginings. He’d lived it, every cold, emotionless second.

  Was it any wonder Christian eschewed any form of emotional entanglement when this was what he’d grown up with?

  Her mind flitted back to their many conversations at Mikolaj’s taverna. She’d said the name Markos stood for guts and determination but had not appreciated then exactly how great his determination must have been, not just to drag himself and his mother out of poverty but to keep his humanity.

  Mikolaj. She recalled the obvious affection between the two men. Surely it was from this man Christian had learned to form real human bonds? It soothed her to know he hadn’t been completely alone in his childhood.

  So much for the couple of hours Alessandra had anticipated spending there. After twenty minutes, Christian took her hand and said, ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Now.’

  Elena glared at them, her eyes like lasers.

  When they reached the door to leave she gave what Alessandra assumed was supposed to be a laugh.

  ‘Fool girl,’ she said, her accent thick. ‘Marry fools. He kill you heart.’

  Alarmed and not a little scared, Alessandra nodded weakly, squeezing Christian’s hand so tightly her blood screamed for circulation.

  Nothing was said until they were back in the car and moving, both pressed against their respective doors.

  ‘What did you think of my mother?’ Christian asked, amusement and bitterness both vying for control in his voice.

  Alessandra was unable to do anything but raise her shoulders and blow air out of her mouth.

  That had to be the most surreal experience of her life, like stepping into some parallel universe where poison ivy grew instead of roses.

  ‘Do you understand now why I don’t want her at our wedding?’

  ‘I think so.’ She shook her head some more. She could still taste the acrid atmosphere, overwhelming even the cloying bleach. ‘What did she say to you?’

  ‘The usual. That I’m a useless son for leaving it so long between visits; that her house isn’t good enough for her; that the house is too big for her, that it’s too small, that her car is getting old. The usual.’

  ‘You bought the house for her?’

  ‘It’s the third house I’ve bought for her—the other two didn’t match her needs. I buy her a new car every year. I give her a large allowance. It’s never enough. I could give her my entire fortune and it wouldn’t be enough. If she came to the wedding, she’d spend the day complaining. Nothing would be good enough for her, and when she isn’t complaining she’ll be telling all our guests about my no-good bastard of a father who broke her heart and deserves castration without anaesthetic.’

  His father’s desertion and betrayal had shattered her.
Whatever love had once resided in his mother’s bones had been destroyed, leaving nothing but the toxic shell of the woman she must have once been. Christian understood it, could see how she had become like that. Stratos Markos hadn’t just walked away from her, he had walked away from the child they had created together—that was how little she had meant to him. He had wanted no part of her, so worthless that their baby meant nothing to him either.

  ‘Has she always been like this?’ she asked, her husky voice stark.

  ‘All my life. She thinks all men are like my father—that’s what she was saying to you when we left, that you’re a fool to be marrying me and that I’m going to break your heart.’

  Alessandra’s shock was palpable. ‘She said that about her own son?’

  ‘She also said it would be kinder for me to rip your heart out now—you forget, agapi mou, that I am my father’s son, something she never lets me forget. In my mother’s world, all men are liars and cheats, especially those with the name of Markos.’

  Her doe eyes widened, full of sympathy. ‘You’re not to blame for your father’s actions.’

  ‘I know that.’ But right then he didn’t want to hear any platitudes. A coldness had settled in his chest, bearing down on him.

  It was always the same after he visited his mother. Regardless of the heat outside, inside all he felt was compressing ice.

  ‘And it’s not fair for her to label all men as bastards because of the misdeeds of one.’

  ‘But do you not believe that yourself?’ he said roughly. ‘That all men are scum?’

  She swallowed, her eyes dimming as if in confusion. ‘I don’t hate men, I just don’t trust them.’

  What would it take to get her to trust him? If she’d taken him at his word he would never have had to bring her here.

  He wished he could demand it of her, as if trust were like a tap that could be turned on and off at a whim.

  After a long pause, he said, ‘We’re lucky we both know how destructive love can be. We won’t fall into the trap our parents fell into. Our child will never have to deal with parents whose love has turned to bitterness and recrimination.’