by Lucy Monroe
“Yes.” She’d rather live without her mother’s approval than continue pretending to be something and someone she wasn’t.
“It will be a relief for her then that the real and in fact living father of your child will soon be your husband as well.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“AS JOKES go, that’s not a very good one.”
He fixed her with an impenetrable stare. “I am not joking, pethi mou.”
“Don’t call me that. It’s an endearment and I’m not dear to you which only makes it an insult.”
He shoved his plate away from him in an uncharacteristic show of temper. “My marriage proposal is a joke and endearments an insult. Is there nothing I can do right with you?”
“You could leave me alone.”
His blue eyes darkened to the color of the sky just before midnight. “This I will not do.”
She forced another bite of melon down, its succulent juiciness lost on her. “I figured as much.”
“Then why suggest it?”
“Wishful thinking?”
“Do not be facetious. This is a serious discussion we are having here.”
“What exactly are we discussing? Your attempt at bigamy?”
His fist slammed down on the table, causing the dishes and plates to clatter alarmingly. “I am not married.”
She eyed him warily, almost believing him. Maybe, deep down, she did believe him, but some imp in her wanted him to prove it, to see how it felt to have his word questioned on a claim that should be accepted without hesitation.
“So you said. Proof is to arrive within the hour, or something like that…” She waved her hand in an airy gesture.
“Right,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
She really had to stop baiting him. “Let’s say I believe you. Why would your brother marry your fiancée?”
“As I told you last night, your and my relationship came as a great shock to my family.” Pain crossed his features. “The photographer did his homework and had chapter and verse on our year-long association. My brother was appalled on Phoebe’s behalf. She’d been made to look a fool, something his perception of our family honor could not tolerate.”
“So he married her? Wouldn’t your intended marriage have been just as efficacious?”
“No. I was the philanderer, the one caught with my pants down in public so to speak.”
She swallowed a smile at the imagery. Dimitri Petronides in such a vulnerable position was something she’d give a great deal to see. “I can’t believe you agreed to let your fiancée marry your brother.”
“He convinced her to elope with him. Her pride was saved. Our family honor was saved and now I am free to marry you.”
He looked for all the world like he expected her to leap for joy and congratulate him on his good planning. She would have rather dumped his coffee in his lap. “Charming. You can marry your pregnant mistress now that the virginal bride-to-be has flown the coop. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Do you think our son will thank you for denying him his heritage, his Greek family, his role as my heir?”
“We don’t have to be married for you to make our son your heir or for you to be part of his life. You can have access.”
“Of what good is this? You live an ocean away. How can I be his father with two continents and an ocean between us?”
“I don’t know.” She stood up wearily. She had to get ready to go to work. She had an assignment in two hour’s time across town. “You’ll have to forgive me for not having all the answers just yet. You ditched me three months ago, certain the baby I carried was not yours. I haven’t been thinking in terms of parental sharing and visitation rights.”
He stood as well. “Where are you going?”
“I have an assignment in a couple of hours. I’m going to get ready.”
“I told you I am not allowing you out of my sight.”
“Then come along,” she offered sarcastically, “but I’m going to work.”
She came to rue those flippantly uttered words. Dimitri insisted on doing just that. In addition, he refused to take a cab, but had his car called, along with his two bodyguards. It had been a while since she went out with security men in tow, a little over three months to be exact.
Dimitri refused to wait in the car while she did the short translation job for the group of French tourists. She walked beside the tour guide, translating the woman’s rapid dialogue concerning the Empire State Building into French while Dimitri and his bodyguards brought up the rear of the line.
It would have been a comical sight if she wasn’t so tired and stressed. By the time she slid into his car for the ride back to his hotel, she was disgustingly grateful she hadn’t had to wait in line for a taxi. She didn’t even have enough energy to enjoy looking at the city’s Christmas decorations out the limousine’s window. Commenting on her drooping appearance, he insisted on stopping for lunch at one of Manhattan’s upscale Italian restaurants.
Alexandra walked back into the main room of the suite from her bedroom just as Dimitri was turning from the fax machine, several sheets of paper in his hand. She’d avoided him since their return by the simple expedient of taking a nap. For some reason, she’d slept better than she had in ages.
Dimitri waved the papers before her. “Proof.”
“Proof?” She was still a little rummy from the nap and didn’t know what he was talking about until she looked down and read the top sheet. “Oh.”
She put out her hand for the sheaf of papers and he gave them to her. The first one was a marriage license. It was in Greek, but she was now almost as conversant in that language as she was in both English and French. She easily translated the names and the male listed was Spiros Petronides, not Dimitri.
The second one was a photo of Spiros and Phoebe in wedding regalia. Phoebe looked a little shell-shocked. Spiros looked arrogantly satisfied. Typical Petronides male.
The third was a letter from Spiros affirming Dimitri’s account of the situation. This one was in English.
Alexandra took a deep breath, feeling an emotion she should not be feeling. Unadulterated relief. She told herself it was because she didn’t have to worry about the complications of a stepmother being around the baby so early in life, but her heart mocked her. And that scared her to death.
“Why was she at our apartment?” She didn’t notice her slip of the tongue until a look of approval settled over Dimitri’s face. “I mean your apartment. I was evicted,” she added for good measure, wiping the not fully formed smile off his face.
“I have had to take over the Athens office completely since Grandfather’s first heart attack. Spiros and Phoebe moved to Paris so he could run the office there. I gave them the apartment as a wedding present.”
“Is that something like conscience money? You felt guilty for embarrassing her with a public tiff with your discarded mistress, so you gave her the apartment you’d evicted me from?”
She should have kept her mouth shut. She really should have, but she couldn’t seem to remember that when she was around him. His eyes snapped fury at her as he took one menacing step forward after another. She backed up, but eventually hit the wall between the main room and her bedroom.
“It was a joke,” she said weakly.
“This is not.”
Then his mouth closed over hers and she forgot he was only doing it to punish her. She forgot everything but how incredible it felt to be held so close to him, to taste him on her tongue, to be surrounded with his smell, his heat, his desire.
She worked her hands into the space between his jacket and his shirt, reveling in the feel of his muscles under her exploring fingers. He shuddered and she exulted in her power over this dominant Greek male. He pulled her to him, pressing their bodies as close as they could go without taking off their clothes. It wasn’t close enough.
She started unbuttoning his shirt as he slid her sweater up to expose the tight skin over her womb. His hand settled on it and he cares
sed her there, touching every square centimeter of the football-size lump. The baby moved and Dimitri stopped kissing her to stare down at his hand on her stomach in awe. The baby kicked right in the center of his palm and Dimitri’s eyes slid shut, his breath stilling in his chest.
He let it out very slowly and met her eyes. “My son.”
“Yes,” she whispered, unable to deny such a poignant claim.
Triumph glowed in his indigo gaze before his mouth settled over hers again, this time with such gentleness she felt tears seep out of the corner of her eyes. He kissed her lips as if meeting them for the first time, while his hand continued to explore the new contours of her body.
His possessive touch coupled with the tenderness of his kiss completely undermined any resistance and she fell back into the kiss without a murmur.
She had his buttons undone and her fingers were circling his hardened male nipples when a shrill sound filtered through the passionate haze in her mind. She crashed back to reality with a bruising emotional bump. What was she doing?
She tore her mouth from his. “The phone.”
His eyes were glazed with desire and his skin had that flushed look he got when they made love. He tried to catch her mouth again and she turned her head.
“The phone,” she repeated as it rang again, its piercing jangle skating across her nerves.
He gently pulled the elasticized band of Alexandra’s doeskin pants back to waist level before smoothing her caramel colored crocheted sweater back into place. “This is not over,” he said and then turned to answer the phone.
She walked to the other side of the suite, wanting to get as much distance between them as she could. She’d been so sure she was safe from her attraction to Dimitri, certain her feelings for him were dead. She might not love him anymore, but she wanted him and her pulsing body proved it.
“Yes, Grandfather.” Dimitri went silent, apparently listening. “I remember.” He cast Alexandra an assessing look. “It’s being handled.”
Why did she have the lowering suspicion the it being handled was her?
Dimitri made a few more remarks in Greek, asked his Grandfather about his health, listened silently, said goodbye and hung up. He turned to face her and she couldn’t suppress a shiver. His eyes glowed like those of a predator with his prey firmly in his sights.
She stepped backward even though he hadn’t made a move toward her. “That was a mistake.”
He didn’t ask what that was, he merely smiled. “I don’t think so. It did not feel like a mistake to me pethi mou.”
“I’m not falling back into your bed, Dimitri.”
“Are you certain of this?” he asked lazily.
“Yes.”
“We shall see.”
“I think I’ll order room service. I’m hungry.” Her appetite had increased over the past couple of days. Maybe the awful morning sickness was finally passing.
“I have a better idea.”
“What?” she asked, feeling wary.
“Let’s go out.”
“I don’t know…” Being seen in public with a man of Dimitri’s wealth was always a risk for media exposure.
His eyes warmed with sensual lights. “We can stay here if you prefer.”
“I’ll get my jacket.” A woman had to know how to weigh her options and the risk of staying in the suite with a sexually charged Dimitri far outweighed her concern about being caught in his company by the media.
The muted glow of candlelight lent entirely too intimate an aspect to Alexandra’s dinner with Dimitri. He’d surprised her once again by taking her to one of the see and be seen restaurants so popular among the sophisticated New York social set. Dim lighting didn’t stop recognition and surreptitious glances from one table to another.
Alexandra tried to concentrate on the food in front of her and ignore her compelling dinner companion. Dimitri had ordered a much larger meal for her than she usually ate and she had surprised herself by consuming almost all of it. The same thing had happened at lunch that afternoon. If nothing else, sparring with her ex-lover seemed to spur her appetite.
“Xandra—”
“My name is Alexandra,” she said, before he could complete his sentence. “Xandra Fortune is dead.”
Something passed across his face when she made that statement, but in the dim lighting she couldn’t tell if it was pain or irritation. “You had no plans to go back to modeling after the baby was born?” he asked, conspicuously using the past tense for her plans, implying she had new ones.
“No.”
He studied her like a man trying to decipher a complicated puzzle. “Why?”
“There were many reasons.”
“Very cryptic.” He smiled in a way that used to send her pulse to hyperspeed. “Tell me some of them.”
She gave a mental shrug. Why not? This at least was better than arguing over custody rights and his insulting notion that now he believed her about the baby she should fall all over herself getting to the altar before he changed his mind.
“I want to spend more time with my baby than that type of career would allow and it would be too difficult to maintain two separate lives with a baby in tow. It was hard enough for me, but I think a life like that would be confusing and probably even frightening for a child.”
He mulled that over much longer than she thought necessary. “Explain to me again why the Xandra Fortune image.”
Had she explained it a first time? She couldn’t remember. She knew she’d alluded to it. “My mother did not approve of my working. Dupree women do not work,” she said in a fair imitation of her mother’s soft Southern drawl. “But it was my choice of career that really upset her. The idea of her daughter traversing a catwalk in front of her peers or worse, doing swimsuit or lingerie ads sent her into hysterics.”
“You chose to create a different persona rather than give up your desire to become a model?” he asked.
“I didn’t have a choice. It was either pick up a career or see my mother dispossessed and my sister thrown out of boarding school for nonpayment of tuition.”
“Explain this to me. Where was your father?”
“Dead.”
“That is unfortunate. You have my belated condolences.” The words were formal, but the emotion in his voice left her in no doubt to his sincerity.
“Thank you. He was a dear man, a fossil collector. Old bones interested him; business did not. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, the family had been living completely on credit for two years before he died.”
“When did this happen?”
“Six years ago. I’d just graduated from my last year at Our Lady’s Bower and thankfully the cousin of a school chum had shown some interest in my modeling for his magazine.” She took another bite of her lobster fettuccine. It practically melted in her mouth.
“Our Lady’s Bower sounds like a convent, or something.”
“It is. Dupree girls have been French convent educated for the last six generations.”
“No wonder it was so easy for you to adopt a French persona. Your accent is flawless, your gestures often gallic and your outlook quite European.”
“Yes.” She’d selected France for the debut of Xandra Fortune for those very reasons.
“Go on,” Dimitri prompted.
She grimaced. “There’s not much else to tell. Mother would have ignored the redundancy notices until the sheriff showed up to evict us from our home. Madeleine still had two years left at Our Lady’s Bower and I couldn’t bear for her to lose that stability after we’d all just lost Papa.”
“So you went to work.”
“Under an assumed name. I was trying to spare my mother’s feelings. It didn’t work.”
“She could not reconcile herself to the thought of her daughter working?”
“No.” She smiled ruefully. “I’ve always felt guilty, that I had failed her, but I simply could not think what else to do. I hadn’t gone to college yet. I was too young for most well paid career choices. Mod
eling looked like my only option. My friend’s cousin helped me create Xandra Fortune. It was cloak and dagger stuff and he really got into it. He made sure the only people who knew about Alexandra Dupree’s connection to Xandra Fortune were me, my family and him.”
“So this man knew you were Alexandra Dupree, but I, your lover for a year did not.” He sounded mortally offended.
“Got it in one. I didn’t know about Phoebe, the patiently waiting bride-to-be, either. I guess we’re even on that score.” Her throat felt dry from all the talking and she took a long cool sip of water.
He didn’t take the bait, surprising her. “Your mother’s sensibilities are the reason you refused New York assignments.”
“Yes. I never took an assignment in the States period. I was careful to avoid doing commercials for international products and as you know, I tried to stay out of the media limelight in my personal life.”
“Yet, you were well-known in Europe.”
“Yes, but only as a French model, not a supermodel. My biggest claim to fame was being your lover and you were careful to keep that fact under wraps.”
“Not completely,” he said enigmatically. “You did your family a great service and your mother should be proud of you.”
His words warmed her, but Alexandra felt a burble of laughter well up and let it out. “Proud of me? Her scandalous working daughter who got pregnant without the benefit of matrimony? She hadn’t forgiven me yet for not saving the family home. I’ll be the black sheep of the family forever at the rate I’m going.” She tried to hide the hurt that knowledge caused her. She didn’t want Dimitri to see her weakness.
“Your mother lost her home?”
“My income as a model kept my mother in Chanel suits and provided a complete education for my sister. She graduated from Smith a month before she married Hunter last year.” Pride in Madeleine’s accomplishment tinged Alexandra’s voice.
Then she sighed. “The money did not stretch far enough to keep up payments on a heavily mortgaged mansion and the staff necessary to run it. Mother was forced to sell and move into a converted apartment serviced by a daily maid. Although it’s still in a socially acceptable New Orleans neighborhood, it is not the Dupree Mansion.”