by Lucy Monroe
Both men spoke at once.
“I did not say—”
“What’s the matter with my grandson?”
The smile broke through. “To be fair, I did look a fright from lack of sleep and morning sickness at the time.”
Mr. Petronides beetled his brows at Dimitri. “Never tell a pregnant woman she looks a fright, even when her appearance would be enough to scare the goats from the hills. You will find yourself sleeping in the guest room and dealing with enough tears to sink a fishing boat, heh?”
“A little piece of wisdom Grandmother taught you?” Dimitri asked.
“My eyes. She taught me.” He thumped his cane on the floor. “She asked me did I think she was fat? Of course she was fat. She was as round as a barrel and could barely walk. Your papa, he weighed ten pounds. She almost died. I said no more babies after that, I can tell you.” Remembered fear clouded the old man’s eyes for a moment. “I told her, yes I thought she’d gotten fat. She threw her dinner at me and then started in on the other dishes on the table. I said I was sorry and ended up with moussaka in my hair for my trouble. I ran for my life.”
Dimitri’s smile made Alexandra feel all gooey inside while she laughed at Mr. Petronides’s story. “And she made you sleep in the guest room?”
He grinned and winked. “She locked our door.”
“So you meekly found another bed for the night, hmm?” Dimitri asked mockingly.
Mr. Petronides laughed. “You are like me. Tell me what you would do if this lovely creature carrying my first great-grandson locked you out of her room.” He waved his cane in Alexandra’s direction.
Remembering a locked door and a very erotic shower, she smiled. No wonder Mr. Petronides had his security man teach Dimitri to pick a lock. For some reason that thought struck her as terribly funny and she started laughing so hard she was almost bent over double.
“So it’s already happened, heh?”
Dimitri didn’t answer, but took her firmly by the wrist and pulled her to a bright red armchair and almost pushed her into it. “The baby can’t be getting enough oxygen with you laughing like a loon,” he reproved her, but his eyes smiled and the corner of his mouth was engagingly tilted.
She took a deep breath and then another, finally managing to stop her mirth.
Mr. Petronides sat across from her, his face creased in a smile. “I did not have a smart grandfather to see to my education. I did not know how to pick a lock, so I threatened to kick in the door. She started crying so loud I could hear her through the thick wood.” He rolled his eyes. “I climbed in through the window and took her by surprise, heh? It was a very satisfactory reunion.”
Alexandra felt herself blush thinking of Dimitri’s similar approach to the same problem.
He sat on the arm of her chair with his hand on her nape. “Are Spiros and Phoebe back in Paris?” he asked his grandfather.
“Yes. They came here first, though. Wanted to tell me what a wonderful new granddaughter I had.”
Alexandra felt her cheeks heating again. She smiled at the older man. “I’m pleased they think so. I was worried they would resent me, but they were very kind as you have been.”
Mr. Petronides waved his hand in an expansive Greek gesture. “It all worked out for the best, heh? I have both my grandsons married, a grandchild on the way and everyone is happy as a clam. Sophia could not have done a better job if she were alive to arrange it all,” he said with obvious satisfaction. “I think I must send prayers of thanks to the Good God above for so many gifts all at once to my family.”
His clear sincerity moved her deeply. She impulsively pushed herself out of the chair and crossed to give him another kiss on the cheek. “Thank you. You are a very nice man.”
He waved her away, but his eyes revealed his pleasure in her words. “Take her upstairs, Dimitrius. Pregnant ladies need their rest, heh?”
Which made her giggle again, being so close to what Dimitri said at least once a day since his return into her life. They were usually followed by his version of a nap, the resemblance to which was loosely based on the fact they went to bed.
Dimitri shook his head and swung her up against his chest. “Come, pethi mou. I believe you need an afternoon nap.”
She went off into gales of laughter at that, but she choked back her amusement to protest. “You can’t carry me up the stairs. I’m too heavy.”
Dimitri’s eyes glittered down at her. “I won’t be accused of implying you’re fat. I learned my lesson from Grandfather’s story.”
“Letting me walk on my own isn’t making any sort of implication,” she asserted.
He was already a third of the way up the stairs. “It is after you said you were too heavy. Either you’re implying you are fat or I am a wimp. I refuse to give credence to either.”
She subsided, secretly thrilled at his macho display of consideration.
He carried her into a bedroom so big that even the extra-long, king-size four-poster bed looked small in the middle of it. Two sets of side-by-side sliding glass doors looked out onto the wrap around terrace and the crystalline-blue sea beyond it and her gaze alighted there first.
“It’s breathtaking, mon cher.”
He let her slide down his body in a very suggestive manner and she turned from the incredible view to smile into his blue eyes. “A nap I think you said?”
“We must make sure you are properly tired,” he informed her as he began working on the removal of her clothes.
Her gaze wandered around the room and was arrested by a familiar Lladro figurine on top of an antique chest of drawers. It was of a young girl in a garden. Dimitri had said the figure reminded him of Alexandra. The last time she’d seen it, it had been in a pile of paper wrapping on the floor of the living room in the Paris apartment.
She only had time to ponder the significance of it being here in Greece for a few moments before Dimitri’s expert ministrations shut down her thinking processes entirely.
Alexandra pulled open yet another drawer in the antique bureau looking for her clothes. So far she had found a drawer full of Dimitri’s socks, one full of silk boxers, another had the plain cotton t-shirts he liked to wear under sweaters or by themselves with jeans when he was relaxing at home. She closed the drawer and bent down to open the last one.
She’d opened it only a couple of inches when strong hands on her arms pulled her into a standing position. “Pethi mou, what are you doing? You should not be bending over like that and opening heavy drawers.”
“I’m just looking for my clothes, but so far all I’ve found are yours.” She looked in disgust at the last open drawer. Dimitri’s stuff again.
A small piece of white caught her eye and she found herself kneeling again to see what it was. She reached in and pulled the plastic stick from the drawer. She stared at it in her hand. He’d saved the pregnancy test.
Turning her head so she could see his face, she asked, “Why did you save it?”
“It was the only proof I had that my baby existed. I could not find you. I did not know where to look, but somewhere my baby was growing in your womb.” Red scorched the chiseled lines of his cheekbones. “It gave me hope.”
She felt emotion well up in her and she shot to her feet, probably too fast for a woman almost six months pregnant, but she didn’t care. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly to her. “Oh, Dimitri…”
His arms closed around her toweling robe-clad figure and she felt a sense of belonging she had not felt since before she left Paris.
“So, where are my clothes?” she asked into his naked chest.
He let her go and turned her toward a doorway in the wall beside the entrance to the en suite bathroom. “There.”
She went over and opened the door to find a large dressing room with three walls of hanging clothes and one of built in shelves, drawers and shoe racks. The sight of Dimitri’s suits hanging beside her pregnancy dresses had an air of domesticity that made her smile. She reached for one of th
e dresses to wear for dinner with his grandfather when she realized several of the garments were from the pile she’d left in Paris.
“You saved my clothes,” she said stupidly.
“Of course. I knew you would be returning and in need of them,” he said from the open doorway. “Though not for a few months. I should have bought you more maternity things. I did not think.”
She fingered the brilliant blue of an ankle length silk sheath dress Dimitri had bought her in Milan. Had he kept her clothes for a similar reason to keeping the pregnancy test?
She turned and gave him a saucy smile. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
His eyes filled with mock horror. “God forbid. I would not say such a thing. Your figure is luscious and perfect.”
Right at that moment she was so happy it felt like champagne bubbles fizzing in her bloodstream. “You’re a pretty fine specimen yourself, Mr. Petronides.”
He would be afraid to admit he loved her after the experience he’d had growing up. But she was beginning to believe in the impossible…that he could love her and need her in her own right, not just as the mother of his child.
“If I stay in here, we will not make it to dinner with my grandfather.”
She shooed him out. “Then go. I have to get dressed.”
She pulled on a pair of peach silk bikini briefs and matching bra she’d bought since getting pregnant. Over that she slid on an apricot sundress with a flirty skirt. The soft fabric fell in graceful curves over her tummy to midcalf. She loved the dress because it made her feel feminine even though she’d lost her waistline weeks ago.
She walked out of the dressing room to find Dimitri ready to go down in a dinner suit, silk shirt and understated tie.
Approval burned in his eyes when he looked at her. “I’m tempted to order dinner in our room tonight.”
She gave him a severe look. “Don’t you dare. I want to make a good impression on your grandfather.”
“You already have, or couldn’t you tell?”
“He’s terribly nice.”
Dimitri’s dark brows rose. “When he wants to be.”
“Well, I’m glad he wants to be nice to me.”
“You are family.”
She smiled, feeling warm inside. To be accepted simply because she was family and not because she did and said all the right things was a unique experience for her. She liked it.
Halfway through dinner, Dimitri was called from the table to take an international phone call.
Mr. Petronides winked at her. “Ah, the business, it intrudes, eh?”
She lifted her shoulders in a small, casual movement. “He must have a lot of catching up to do after all his time in New York and on our honeymoon.”
“As you say.” He beetled his brows at her in what was becoming a familiar gesture. “Tell me about your family.”
So she did, telling him about Madeleine and Hunter, her mother and Dimitri’s generosity in buying back the Dupree Mansion.
Mr. Petronides flicked his hand in a throw away gesture. “This is nothing to Dimitrius. Your mother is now his family. It is his responsibility to look after her.”
Alexandra chewed her lip anxiously. “I did not marry your grandson so he would take over my financial responsibilities with my mother.”
The old man laughed, long and richly. “Of course not, silly child. Had you wanted money from my grandson, you would never have left Paris.”
She smiled with relief. “You’re right. All I ever wanted was him. I didn’t know about Phoebe,” she added earnestly.
“Ne. Yes. I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what are you sorry child?”
“Causing Dimitri to break his promise to you.”
Mr. Petronides nodded his head knowingly. “You feel the weight of such things. I like this.”
“Thank you.” She wasn’t all that fond of the guilt that plagued her, though.
“But I do not want you to feel badly my grandson could not keep a promise he made under the threat of my health.” He sighed. “I should not have put such a pressure on him.”
“He told me in Paris that his marriage to Phoebe had been expected for a long time,” she said with a small spark of residual pain. She frowned. “You must have been very disappointed.”
“Disappointed?” He looked startled, his dark eyes wide for a second of stunned silence. “I wanted the certainty of great-grandchildren and I have that now, heh?” he asked with a pointed look at her stomach, not quite hidden by the table.
She felt herself blushing…again. The Petronides men were not good for her composure.
He laughed again, this time with wholly masculine amusement. “Do not worry about Dimitrius breaking his promise to marry Phoebe. It all worked out for the best, heh? Phoebe is happier with Spiros, I think. She’s a little afraid of Dimitri. I did not see this until after the betrothal was announced and they were here together.”
It astounded her, but no one in Dimitri’s family seemed bitter with her over the changes her pregnancy had wrought among them.
He took a sip of his wine. “And this grandson of mine, he kept his second promise, heh?”
“Second promise?”
“He married you just as he promised me he would.” Dark eyes glittered with steely determination. “He gave my great-grandson the Petronides name. Ne, yes, I am a content man.”
Shock congealed the smile on Alexandra’s face. “He promised you he would marry me?”
Mr. Petronides nodded his gray head. “He is a man of his word, my grandson. His second promise more than negated his first,” he said with pride. “Your son will be raised a Petronides. I could die tomorrow happy.”
“Don’t talk like that,” she admonished even as her heart was breaking within her.
Dimitri had promised his grandfather he would marry her? He had promised to give their son the Petronides name?
“The young. They fear talk of death. I am old. I do not fear it, but I would like to teach my great-grandson to pick a lock before I go.” He laughed at his own joke.
She forced her lips to smile. “I thought it was your security man who taught Dimitri?”
“He did, but I made him teach me too so I could teach Spiros. Maybe Phoebe has a surprise to come one day, heh?”
Alexandra couldn’t believe she could carry on a conversation with Dimitri’s grandfather and pretend nothing was wrong while inside she felt like she was dying.
Dimitri had not married her because he wanted her. He hadn’t even married her for the baby’s sake. He’d married her because he had made a promise to his grandfather. His brother had prevented him from keeping the first promise, a huge blow to his Greek pride. However nothing, not even her angry rejection had been able to stop him from keeping the second one.
No wonder Dimitri had put up with so much from her. He had been determined to keep his oath to his grandfather, no matter what obstacles she put in his path. When she had refused to discuss the option of marriage, he had seduced her. He had charmed her mother and even used the repurchase of Dupree Mansion as an incentive to get her to marry him.
In the back of her mind, she’d thought all that effort must mean he cared, that he would have given up and accepted visitation if she didn’t matter to him personally. Now she knew differently. He might not love her, but he loved his grandfather…enough to marry the mistress that hadn’t been proper marriage material before.
How could she have forgotten that? Dimitri had dismissed the idea of a future with her out of hand. And gullible idiot that she was, she’d conveniently ignored that fact when he started talking marriage. For the first time since agreeing to marry Dimitri, she felt bile rise in the back of her throat.
She took a hasty sip of her fruit juice and prayed the nausea would go away.
“Are you all right, child? You look pale.”
She looked down at her half-eaten dinner. “Just tired and maybe a little sick,” she admitted. “Morning sickness did not
go away after the first trimester like it’s supposed to.” But it had for a while.
Mr. Petronides nodded knowingly. “I remember. Do you want to lie down?”
Did she? She could hide from her misery upstairs, or end up wallowing in it. She really didn’t want her own company right now. “I’d rather stay here with you.”
“Ah, kindness to an old man.”
“Not at all. I enjoy your company,” she replied truthfully.
“Then tell me about this job you had. I have never met a fashion model.”
She told him about her life as Xandra Fortune and ended up talking about how she had met Dimitri. Impossibly, she found herself laughing over memories of her life with Dimitri before she’d gotten pregnant.
She and Mr. Petronides had gone to the drawing room for coffee when Dimitri rejoined them. She was telling his grandfather about the first argument they’d ever had.
“I was doing a swimsuit cover. Dimitri came to the shoot on a whim.”
“I came back a day early and surprised her,” Dimitri inserted as he walked into the room.
Her head snapped around and she met his eyes briefly before her own gaze skated away. She didn’t know how she managed it, but she didn’t stand up and harangue him like a fishwife for once again withholding a crucial piece of information from her. For letting her believe he might be coming to love her when he’d been motivated by his personal sense of honor, not personal need.
Dimitri joined her on the brightly colored Mediterranean-style sofa. Her body tensed in response to his nearness. If only she could forget what he made her feel as easily as he conveniently forgot to tell her about his second promise.
She focused her attention on Mr. Petronides who was smiling benevolently at them. “He didn’t like the suit I was wearing for the shoot and demanded I go to the trailer and take it off.”
“So, being a reasonable woman and understanding the possessiveness of a traditional Greek male, you immediately changed, heh?” Mr. Petronides’s eyes twinkled mockingly.
Dimitri snorted. “She threatened to take it off right there in front of everyone if I didn’t shut up and go to the sidelines.” He still sounded chagrined by her tactics.