A Ring for the Greek's Baby

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘The end of the month.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘But that’s only two weeks away!’

  ‘So? It shouldn’t take too much time to plan a simple ceremony with a handful of witnesses.’

  ‘But won’t people expect someone of your status and wealth to have a big church wedding?’

  ‘I don’t do things just because people expect me to,’ Loukas said.

  ‘No?’ One of her brows rose in a wry you-can’t-fool-me arc. ‘Only marry a perfect stranger so people won’t compare you to your father? Sure, I believe you.’

  He pressed his lips together for a moment, determined not to be triggered by her little dig. It wasn’t just about being compared to his father. He genuinely wanted to protect Emily and this was the only way he could see to do it. ‘Do you want a big wedding?’

  She gave an offhand shrug of one slim shoulder. ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘If you and your ex had married, what would the wedding have been like?’

  Emily folded her arms and sent him a resentful glare. ‘Could we talk about something else apart from my disastrous relationship with my ex?’

  ‘Were you in love with him?’

  Her gaze slipped out of reach of his. After a moment she released a short puff of a breath. ‘I thought so, but I realised later I wasn’t. Not the way other people describe being in love. I think I was in love with the idea of being in a relationship. Being a couple. Of having a base to come home to—of belonging to someone.’

  ‘It’s an easy mistake to make.’

  Her eyes came back to his. ‘Have you ever been in love?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Never.’

  She searched his gaze some more. ‘Not even a teensy-weensy bit?’

  ‘No.’

  Her frown deepened. ‘So you just sleep with women for the sex? You don’t actually feel anything for them but pure and simple lust? Doesn’t that seem a little...shallow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, it does to me.’

  ‘Are you saying you felt something for me other than lust that night?’ Loukas asked, drilling his gaze into hers.

  She blew out another gust of a breath, her slim shoulders going down. ‘Okay, you win. Point taken.’

  Loukas put a hand at her nape and brought her head forward to press a soft kiss to the middle of her forehead. ‘Go back to sleep, glykia mou. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  * * *

  Emily lay staring at the ceiling once Loukas had left. So, she was going to marry him. Not that he’d given her much choice, but still. It wasn’t exactly the most romantic proposal in the world: we’ll marry quickly and quietly and that will be the end of it.

  Sleep was out of the question, knowing he was in the next room tossing and turning on the sofa. Should she have asked him to stay? Asked him to make love to her?

  What are you thinking?

  I want him.

  So? You had him and look what happened.

  He wants me. I’m sure of it.

  For sex, yes, but forget about anything else.

  Emily didn’t want anything else...did she? The marriage would be an arrangement, not a relationship in the truest sense. She wasn’t in love with Loukas. This was a lust thing, and no doubt the pregnancy hormones were making it worse. His kiss had unravelled her. Again. As soon as his lips had touched hers she’d become a boneless, whimpering mess of need.

  Emily turned over and hugged the nearest pillow but it was a poor substitute for his virile male body. But why hadn’t he taken it further? Especially since he was so determined to marry her. Was he holding back from her until he got a ring on her finger? His ability to stop a kiss in its tracks made her self-doubts flash like warning lights. Daniel had always been able to pull away from a kiss. Always. It had made her feel undesirable, resistible. What if Loukas was only kissing her to keep her sweet about the marriage deal? What if he could resist her? Would resist her? Why was she signing up for such an arrangement? A marriage without love? A contract drawn up between two virtual strangers to live together until such time they didn’t want to any more. How could she have agreed to that?

  She’d had to because it wasn’t just about what she wanted any more.

  It was about what was best for their baby.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE NEXT MORNING Emily showered and changed into fresh clothes, and came out to the sitting room to find Loukas staring out of the rain-splattered windows with his hands in the pockets of the same trousers he had been wearing the night before, which were looking a little worse for wear. He must have heard her soft tread on the carpet as he turned to look at her. His features looked as tired as his trousers. ‘How did you sleep?’ he asked.

  She glanced at the rumpled sofa. ‘Probably a whole lot better than you.’

  He acknowledged that with a wry quirk of his lips. ‘The news of our engagement has gone viral.’

  ‘Your mission is accomplished, then.’

  He came over to her and took her gently by the upper arms, his gaze meshing with hers. ‘I know this is a big step for you. It’s a big step for me too. I never intended to marry anyone, but—’

  ‘Why not?’

  He released her from his hold and took a step back, his gaze shifting to avoid hers. ‘It was never on my list of things to do.’

  ‘You must have a reason why it’s not on the list,’ Emily said. ‘Marriage hasn’t exactly gone out of fashion. Most people aspire to settle down and raise a family at some stage of their life. Why not you?’

  He pushed out his mouth on an expelled breath. ‘My parents had a messy divorce.’

  ‘So? That doesn’t mean you would too.’

  ‘True, but I preferred not to risk it.’

  ‘So you’d rather spend your life drifting from one shallow hook-up to the next without really connecting on any level but the physical?’

  ‘I’ve seen what it can do to kids when couples divorce,’ he said. ‘It’s not pretty.’

  ‘Is that what happened to you when your parents broke up?’ Emily asked. ‘You got caught in the crossfire?’

  His expression gave little away and yet Emily sensed this was a difficult and painful subject for him. Maybe she’d picked up a bit of her mother’s mind-reading ability after all.

  Scary thought.

  But then, she’d gleaned enough about his father to realise things might not have been too easy for Loukas and his mother. ‘Talk to me, Loukas,’ she said softly. ‘If we’re going to get married then surely I should know a little bit about your background?’

  He took a deep breath and then released it in a slow stream, as if he was letting go of something that had long been tied up tightly inside him. ‘My parents divorced when I was six. I moved with my father to the States soon after. It wasn’t a good experience. But then divorce rarely is for the kids involved.’

  Emily frowned, thinking of him as a small boy travelling to new place, a new culture, without his mother. How had he coped with the separation? What little kid didn’t want their mum at the ready? Why had his father got sole custody? ‘Why with your father and not your mother?’

  Loukas gave her a lopsided grimace. ‘My father wanted to punish my mother for having the audacity to ask him for a divorce. He got an attack-dog lawyer to tear her reputation to pieces. After he was finished, there wasn’t a court anywhere in Greece who would have awarded her custody of a stray dog, much less a child.’

  ‘But that’s awful! Your poor mum. And poor you. You must’ve been distraught to be separated from her so young.’

  The taut line about his mouth made her wonder if he had ever forgiven his father. ‘My father soon lost interest in bringing up a small child. I spent time with a number of nannies before
I was packed off to boarding school in England. And it wasn’t just because I was too young to go to an American boarding school. He didn’t want me coming home for weekends and generally getting in the way.’

  Emily decided she didn’t like Loukas’s father one little bit. His treatment of women was appalling. How could a man be so cruel as to separate a small boy from his mother, only to dump him in a boarding school thousands of miles away for the sake of convenience? No wonder Loukas wanted to do everything he could to avoid being compared to his father.

  A marriage between Loukas and her didn’t seem so outrageous now she understood a little more about his background. Of course he would want to do the best thing for his child, and protect and provide for the mother of his baby so he wouldn’t be linked in any way to his father’s shocking behaviour. ‘Did you ever get to see your mother?’

  ‘Once I was at boarding school I spent holidays with her. My father didn’t seem to care about her having custody by then.’

  ‘Did your mother ever remarry?’

  Something passed over his face: a shadow in his eyes, a tensing of muscles, his locked jaw. It was as if what he had released moments ago was now being reined back in and locked down tightly again. ‘Yes, but it didn’t work out.’

  Emily knew lots of second marriages failed but she wondered if there was more to Loukas’s mother’s story than he was prepared to share. She sensed his guardedness whenever she touched on the subject of his family. But then, with a jerk of a father like his, no wonder he was a little reticent about talking about his family. ‘Just because your parents and subsequent partners’ relationships didn’t work out doesn’t mean you’ll suffer the same curse,’ she said. ‘I haven’t had the best role model in the world but it hasn’t stopped me wanting the fairy-tale.’

  Which you will be giving up if you marry him.

  Don’t remind me.

  Just saying.

  ‘The break-up of any relationship where feelings are involved is difficult.’

  ‘Is that why you never do long-term relationships?’

  ‘I hate hurting people,’ he said. ‘I see no point in giving someone false hope. I’ve made it a policy to be scrupulously honest about what I’m prepared to give.’

  Which he had been with her that night. Brutally honest.

  No-strings sex. No phone numbers. No follow-ups.

  His words hadn’t been all that important to her back then. All she had thought about was how his mouth felt on hers, how he made her body sing with delight when he made love to her. ‘But how long do you think our marriage would last? Are you expecting it to—’

  ‘I don’t expect you to commit to me for life,’ he said. ‘That’s why I don’t see the point in making a show out of the wedding. But I think we should remain married for the sake of the baby for three or four years at the very least. It will give our child a secure base before they go to school.’

  Three or four years. It wasn’t exactly a lifetime. And she would be fully supported and the baby would have everything it needed. Besides, Emily found Loukas increasingly intriguing. He was like a secret code she wanted to solve. Was a short-term marriage a stupid move on her part or the best thing under the circumstances? ‘So...you’re not worried about marrying a virtual stranger?’ she said.

  ‘We might not know much about each other but we do know we have the right chemistry,’ Loukas said.

  But would it be enough? Emily wondered if she was being a fool even considering it, let alone accepting his proposal. She had longed for one from her ex for seven years, longed and prayed for it every single day, and it had never been forthcoming. Now she’d had a proposal from a man she was fiercely attracted to but hardly knew. And she was having his baby. ‘I wish you’d given me a little more time to think about this...’

  ‘What’s to think about? Most girls would jump at the chance to marry a rich man.’

  Emily lifted her chin. ‘If you think I’d marry a man simply because he’s rich then you’re very much mistaken. I’m not a gold-digger. Your money doesn’t mean anything to me. It certainly wasn’t why I slept with you.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ Something dark and cynical glinted in his gaze.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why did you sleep with me?’

  Emily forced herself to hold his gaze. ‘You kissed me, that’s why.’

  He closed the distance once more and traced the line of her jaw with an indolent fingertip, his eyes holding hers in a sensually charged lock. ‘Do you sleep with every man who kisses you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So...’ His fingertip traced the vermillion border of her lower lip, his body so close to hers she could feel the warmth of him, and smell the intoxicating citrus notes of his aftershave. ‘If I kissed you right now would you sleep with me?’

  Emily’s lip was buzzing from his touch, her inner core already contracting at the thought of his hot male mouth coming down on hers. Her heart was racing so fast, if there’d been a cardiologist handy they would have sent for an immediate EEG. Or defibrillator paddles. What was it about this man that made her turn into a wanton woman with no measure of self-control? He only had to touch her and she trembled with need. ‘But you don’t want to sleep with me,’ she said in a voice that sounded nothing like hers. It was too husky. Sexy husky. Phone-sex husky.

  Loukas sent his fingertip over her top lip, making every nerve scream for him to replace it with his mouth. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘You didn’t want to share the bed with me last night.’

  His fingertip did another round of her mouth. ‘I was concerned about you. You were sick, exhausted. It would have been insensitive of me.’

  I’m not sick now.

  Emily didn’t say it out loud but her hands going to the front of his chest communicated it anyway. She gazed into the depths of his eyes, her insides stretching, stirring with the same need she saw reflected there. She lowered her gaze to his mouth, studying its contours, the way his dark, urgent stubble surrounded it. Had she ever seen a more fascinating mouth? That mouth had pleasured every inch of her body, done things to her secret places no one had ever done before. Her body thrummed even now with the memory of it.

  Loukas brought her chin up with his fingertip, his lower body brushing against hers pelvis to pelvis. ‘I want you. You can’t be in any doubt of it, surely?’

  Emily felt the hard contour of his growing arousal, the surge of blood so similar to the way her body swelled and moistened in secret. ‘I want you too.’ Desperately. Feverishly.

  His hands cradled her face, his fingers splaying through her hair, his mouth coming down to hers in a searing kiss that spoke of primal urgings of his body that echoed her own. His tongue entered her mouth in a slow, silky thrust that made her inner core pulse and pound with lust. Her hands slid further up his chest to encircle his neck, her fingers caressing the tousled curls that brushed his collar. He groaned and deepened the kiss, his tongue exploring the recesses of her mouth with increasing fervour. A hot fizz filled her core as he brought her closer to his body, one of his hands settling in the small of her back to keep her in place.

  Emily kissed him with the same blistering passion, her tongue duelling and dancing with his in little flicks and darts that made him murmur deep sounds of approval, making her feel more of a woman than she had ever done before. Desire rose in her like a swirling current, moving through her flesh with unstoppable force.

  Loukas left her mouth to kiss his way down her neck, lingering over the pleasure spots he’d discovered that night a month ago. He came just shy of her breasts, his hands cupping her ribcage below them. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine if you don’t squeeze them.’

  He moved her top aside and brushed his lips over the upper curve of her left breast. Then he sent his tongue in a rasp
ing lick down the valley between her breasts. Well, maybe ‘a valley’ was stretching it a bit. Her pregnancy hormones had a little catching up to do, but she lived in hope. ‘Tell me if I’m being too rough.’

  Emily was fast moving beyond speech. She was having enough trouble breathing as it was. His tongue moved over the top side of her right breast before he unclipped her bra and stroked each of her nipples with his tongue. He kissed his way back up to her mouth, subjecting it to a long, slow kiss that fuelled her desire to a point where she was whimpering.

  Emily could barely recall the steps of how she got there, but somehow she was lying on her back on the bed and Loukas was kissing his way down past her belly button to the triangle of cotton she was wearing. Yes, white, boring cotton. Why wasn’t she wearing sexy black, cobwebby knickers?

  He peeled the cotton down and gently traced the seam of her body with his tongue. The sensations tingled through her flesh, her nerve fibres shuddering as the strokes increased in pressure and intensity when he encountered the most swollen, tender part of her. She sucked in a sharp breath as the tension in her body gathered to one point as the wave approached. It seemed he knew her body better than she knew it herself. Within seconds she was convulsing with an orgasm that left her not just shaken and stirred but with her senses reeling.

  But, just when she thought he was going to take things a step further for his own pleasure, he gave her a rueful grimace and stood, stepping away from the bed. ‘Maybe we should save this until I have more time,’ he said. ‘I have a meeting in half an hour and I don’t want to rush this.’

  Emily wondered if it was the time factor or whether he didn’t fancy her half as much as she’d thought. There had been no hesitation that night a month ago. No pulling away from kisses, no half measures of pleasuring. It had been full-on I-want-you-right-now sex. She’d got off. He’d got off. Or they’d got off together. Had she imagined how good it had been that night a month ago? Had the glasses of champagne she’d had that night blurred her memory?