The Affair: One Night...Nine-Month Scandal

by Maya Banks

  “I don’t care who the biological father is. She’s mine. Just as you are mine. We’re a family. I’ll be a good father, I swear it. I love her already, and I want us to be a family, Jewel. Please say you’ll give me another chance. I’ll never give you any reason to leave me again.”

  He gathered her hands in his, holding them so tightly that she was sure her fingers were bloodless.

  “I love you, Jewel. I was wrong. So wrong. I don’t deserve another chance, but I’m asking—no begging—for one because there’s nothing I want more than for you and our daughter to come home.”

  She stood there, mouth wide open, trying to process everything he flung at her. He loved her. He still didn’t think he was the father. He didn’t care if he wasn’t the father. He wanted her and the baby back.

  Her throat swelled, and her nose stung as tears gathered in her eyes. How difficult must this have been for him, to come all this way, thinking that the baby wasn’t his, but wanting them anyway, accepting them anyway.

  She should be angry, but the results had confirmed his worst fears, and yet it didn’t matter.

  He’d humbled himself in front of her, made himself as vulnerable as a man could make himself. She had only to look at the sincerity burning like twin flames in his eyes to know that he spoke the truth.

  He loved her.

  “You love me?”

  She needed to hear it again. Wanted it so desperately.

  “I love you so much, yineka mou.”

  She shook her head. “What does that mean, anyway?”

  “What does what mean?”

  “Yineka mou.”

  He smiled. “It means my woman.”

  “But you called me that the first night we made love.”

  He nodded. “You were mine even then. I think I fell in love with you that very night.”

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she swallowed back the sob that clawed its way up her throat.

  “Oh, Piers. I love you so much.”

  She threw herself back into his arms, holding onto him as tightly as she could. He held her just as firmly, his hands stroking her hair. Then his palm slid down to cup her belly.

  He trembled against her, his big body shaking with emotion. When he spoke, there was a betraying crack that told her how close he was to breaking.

  “How is our child?”

  She closed her eyes as tears slipped from the corners. Then she reached down to hold on to his wrist as she stepped away.

  “She’s yours, Piers. I swear it to you. I haven’t slept with another man. Only you. Please tell me you believe me. I know what the tests said, but they were wrong.”

  He stared back at her, hope lighting his eyes. He swallowed and then swallowed again. “I believe you, yineka mou.”

  She closed her eyes and hugged him again, burying her face in his strong chest.

  “I’m sorry for hurting you, Jewel. I won’t do so again, you have my word.”

  “There is something I must tell you,” she said quietly.

  He stiffened against her and slowly drew away, his eyes flashing vulnerability.

  “You should sit down.”

  “Just tell me. There is nothing we can’t work out.”

  She smiled. “I hope you won’t be angry at what I’ve done.”

  “We can fix it. Whatever it is. Together, yineka mou.”

  She took his hands in hers as they sat on the couch. “I came to Miami to find Eric.”

  He went completely still. “Why?”

  “I thought you needed closure. I thought if you could see him happy and well adjusted that you could carry that memory instead of the one where he screamed and cried as his mother took him away.”

  “And did you find him?”

  There was anticipation in his voice that told her how eager he was to know of Eric’s well-being.

  “Yes, I found him,” she said softly.

  Her grip tightened around his hands.

  “Joanna abandoned him two years ago.”

  “What?”

  Anger exploded from him in a volatile wave. He bolted from the couch, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

  “Why didn’t she bring him to me? She knew I loved him. She knew I’d take him in.”

  Jewel shook her head sadly. “I don’t know, Piers. He was taken into foster care and has been there for the last two years.”

  “This must be rectified. I won’t allow him to remain in foster care. Not like you were, yineka mou. I won’t allow your pain to be his.”

  She stood beside him, touching his arm. “How did you know about me?”

  Piers looked at her with such pain in his eyes. “Kirk told me when I went to San Francisco looking for you. Theos, Jewel. I am so shamed by the way I treated you.”

  “Piers, Eric is here,” she said gently.

  His mouth dropped open in shock. “Here?”

  She nodded. “He’s asleep in his bedroom. You see, I couldn’t allow him to remain in foster care either. I knew how much he meant to you, and I know how painful my childhood was. I searched for Eric before we split up. It was why I came to your office that day. I was going to tell you that I’d found him and that he was in foster care. I thought we could both fly to Miami to get him.”

  He closed his eyes and let out a groan. “Instead, I drove you away, and you came here yourself to take care of him.”

  “He’s here, and he very much needs a mother and a father.”

  “You would do this? You would take in a child that is not your own?” he asked.

  “Isn’t that what you plan to do? What you planned to do when you thought our daughter was not your own?”

  He gathered her close in his arms, his body trembling against hers. “I love you, yineka mou. So much. Never leave me again. Not even if I deserve it.”

  She laughed lightly. “I won’t. Next time, I’ll stay and fight, which is what I should have done this time. You won’t get rid of me so easily again.”

  “Good,” he said gruffly. “Now let’s go see our son.”

  Epilogue

  “She’s the most beautiful girl in the world,” Piers said proudly as he held up six-week-old Mary Catherine for his brothers to admire.

  “You can only say that because Marley is having another boy,” Chrysander pointed out.

  “Listen to them,” Bella said in disgust. “Why is it that babies turn men’s minds to mush?”

  “I thought that was good sex,” Marley said mischievously.

  “Well, that too,” Jewel said with a laugh.

  Eric stood with the Anetakis men, looking absurdly proud of his little sister. Jewel’s heart never failed to swell when she saw the love between father and son.

  Eric’s adoption had become final just two weeks before Mary Catherine had been born. A week later, Piers had received a frantic phone call from the laboratory that had performed the paternity test. They had, indeed, made a mistake and mixed up his results with someone else’s. Piers had been horrified all over again over the fact that he’d blasted Jewel, but she reminded him that he’d taken her word on faith long before he knew the results were in fact in error. That was enough for her.

  Bella had been quick to point out that all they’d needed to do was wait for Mary Catherine to be born because no one in their right mind would ever deny that she was an Anetakis through and through.

  She was dark haired and dark eyed, and blessed with the olive complexion of her father. She was for all practical purposes a miniature Piers.

  Jewel looked around at her family, all gathered at her home on the cliff overlooking the sea. There was so much happiness here. It was hard to believe at times that it was all hers. That she had a family. That she belonged. She and Piers had both been
drifters for so long, but somehow they’d found their way to one another and had at long last found what mattered the most. A home.

  “I’d like to propose a toast,” Chrysander said as he raised his glass. “To the Anetakis wives. I’ve no doubt they’ll keep us on our toes well into our old age, and I plan to enjoy every minute of it.”

  “Here, here,” Theron said as he raised his own.

  Piers turned to smile at Jewel, and she rose to stand by his side as they both looked down at the bundle in his arms. She put out her arm, and Eric snuggled against her side.

  “I’d also like to propose a toast,” Jewel said. “To Bella. May she give Theron a house full of girls all as beautiful and as sassy as she is.”

  “Bite your tongue,” Bella said, but her eyes twinkled merrily.

  Theron put his arm around his wife. “God help me if that is true. One Bella is all this world needs.”

  “I’d like to propose a toast to love and friendship,” Marley said. She pulled Jewel and Bella away from their husbands and linked her arms around them both.

  Jewel and Bella squeezed back.

  “To love and friendship,” they both echoed.

  * * * * *

  ONE NIGHT…

  NINE-MONTH SCANDAL

  Sarah Morgan

  Dear Reader,

  I love marriage-reunited stories. I enjoy exploring the intensity of emotion and conflict that comes from a past relationship, which is why I wrote One Night…Nine-Month Scandal—except that in this case the marriage didn’t happen. Four years ago Greek tycoon Alekos Zagorakis left schoolteacher Kelly at the altar. Now he wants her back in his life, but Kelly has other ideas…until one passionate encounter with her rich, powerful ex leaves her pregnant. Suddenly her simple life is complicated. Alekos is a man who knows what he wants and he wants her, but this proud man has to earn the right to be back in her life.

  Writing for the Harlequin Presents line allows me to feed my addiction to strong, sexy alpha heroes and I’m thrilled to be in this volume with Maya Banks, who writes such brilliant alpha men. If you enjoy this story, I hope you’ll try one of my longer single title books for Harlequin HQN. The O’Neil Brothers series is available now! For more information and extracts check out my website at www.sarahmorgan.com!

  Thank you for reading.

  Sarah

  xx

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 1

  ‘I don’t care if he’s on a conference call, this is urgent!’

  The voice outside his office belonged to his lawyer and Alekos paused in mid-sentence as the door burst open.

  Dmitri stood there, papers in his hand, his face a strange shade of scarlet.

  ‘I’ll call you back,’ Alekos drawled and hit the button to disconnect himself from his team in New York and London. ‘Given that I’ve never seen you run anywhere in the ten years you’ve worked for me, I assume you’re the bearer of bad tidings. A tanker has sunk?’

  ‘Quickly.’ The normally calm, steady Dmitri sprinted across the spacious office, banged into the desk and spilled the papers over the floor. ‘Switch on your computer.’

  ‘I’m already online.’ Intrigued, Alekos shifted his gaze to his computer screen. ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’

  ‘Go to eBay,’ Dmitri said in a strangled voice. ‘Right now. We have three minutes left to bid.’

  Alekos didn’t waste time pointing out that placing bids with an online auction-house didn’t usually form part of his working day. Instead he accessed the site with a few taps of his fingers.

  ‘Diamond,’ Dmitri croaked. ‘Type in “large, white diamond”.’

  A premonition forming in his mind, Alekos stabbed the keys. No; she couldn’t have. She wouldn’t have.

  As the page sprang onto his screen, he swore softly in Greek while Dmitri sank uninvited onto the nearest chair. ‘Am I right? Is it the Zagorakis diamond? Being sold on eBay?’

  Alekos stared at the stone and felt emotion punch deep in his gut. Just seeing that ring made him think of her, and thinking of her set off a chain reaction in his body that shocked him with its intensity. He struggled to shake off the instantaneous assault on his senses triggered by those rebel thoughts. Even after four years of absence she could still do this to him, he thought grimly. ‘It’s the diamond. You’re sure she is the seller?’

  ‘It would appear so. If the stone had come on the market before now we would have been notified. I have a team checking it out right now, but the bids have already reached a million dollars. Why eBay?’ Bending down, Dmitri gathered together the papers he’d dropped. ‘Why not Christie’s or Sotheby’s, or one of the big, reputable auction-houses? It’s a very strange decision.’

  ‘Not strange.’ His eyes fixed on the screen, Alekos laughed. ‘It’s entirely in character. She’d never go to Christie’s or Sotheby’s.’ Her down-to-earth approach had been one of the things he’d found so refreshing about her. She’d been unpretentious—an attribute that was a rare commodity in the false, glittering world he inhabited.

  ‘Well, whichever.’ Dmitri tugged at his tie as if he were being strangled. ‘If bids have reached a million dollars then there’s a high probability that someone else knows this is the Zagorakis diamond. We have to stop her! Why is she doing this now? Why not four years ago? She had plenty of reason to hate you then.’

  Alekos leaned back in his chair, considering that question. When he spoke, his voice was soft. ‘She saw the pictures.’

  ‘Of you and Marianna at the charity ball? You think she heard the rumours that the relationship is serious?’

  Alekos stared at the ring taunting him from the screen. ‘Yes.’

  The ring said it all. Its presence on the screen said this is what I think of what we shared. It was the equivalent of flinging the diamond into the river, only far, far more effective. She was selling it to the highest bidder in the most public way possible and her message was clear: this ring means nothing to me.

  Our relationship meant nothing.

  She was in a wild fury.

  His own anger slashed like the blade of a knife and he stood up suddenly, taking this latest gesture as confirmation that he’d made the right choice with Marianna. Marianna Konstantin would never do anything as vulgar as sell a ring on eBay. Marianna was far too discreet and well-bred to give away a gift. Her behaviour was always impeccable; she was quiet and restrained, miserly with her emotions and, most importantly, she didn’t want to get married.

  Alekos stared at the ring on the screen, guessing at the depth of emotion hidden behind the sale. Nothing restrained there. The woman selling his ring gave her emotions freely.

  Remembering just how freely, his mouth tightened. It would be good, he thought, to cut that final link. This was the time.

  Watching the clock count down on his computer screen, Alekos made an instantaneous decision. ‘Bid for it, Dmitri.’

  His lawyer floundered. ‘Bid? How? You need an account, and there is no time to set one up.’

  ‘We need someone just out of college.’ Swift and decisive, Alekos pressed a button on his phone. ‘Send Eleni in. Now.’

  Seconds later, the youngest PA on his team appeared nervously in the doorway. ‘You wanted to speak to me, Mr Zagorakis?’

  ‘Do you have an eBay account?’

  Clearly stunned by the unexpected question, the girl gulped. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I need you to bid for something. And don’t call me sir.’ His eyes on the screen, Alekos watched as the clock ticked down: two minu
tes. He had two minutes in which to retrieve something that should never have left his possession. ‘Log in, or whatever it is you do to put in a bid.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course.’ Crumbling with nerves, the girl hurried to his desk and entered her username and password. She was shaking so badly that she entered her password incorrectly and Alekos clamped his mouth shut, sensing that if he showed impatience he’d just make her more nervous.

  ‘Take your time,’ he said smoothly, sending a warning glance towards Dmitri who looked as if he were about to have a stroke.

  Finally entering her password correctly, the girl gave him a terrified smile. ‘What bid do you want me to place?’

  Alekos looked at the screen and made a judgement. ‘Two-million US dollars.’

  The girl gave an audible gasp. ‘How much?’

  ‘Two million.’ Alekos watched the clock counting down: sixty seconds. He had sixty seconds to retrieve an heirloom that he never should have given away. Sixty seconds to close the door on a relationship that never should have happened. ‘Do it now.’

  ‘But the limit on my credit card is only f-five hundred pounds,’ the girl stammered, ‘I can’t afford it.’

  ‘But I can. And I’m the one paying for it.’ Glancing at the girl’s ashen features, Alekos frowned. ‘Do not pass out. If you faint now, I won’t be able to bid for this ring. Dmitri is head of my legal team—he will witness my verbal agreement. We now have thirty seconds, and this is very important to me. Please.’

  ‘Of course, I—sorry.’ Her hands shaking, Eleni tapped the amount into the box, hesitated briefly and then pressed enter. ‘I—I’m—I mean you’re—currently the highest bidder,’ she said faintly and Alekos lifted an eyebrow.

  ‘Is it done?’

  ‘Providing no one puts in a last-minute bid.’

  Alekos, who wasn’t taking any chances, promptly put his hands over hers and entered four-million dollars.

  Five seconds later, the ring was his and he was pouring the shaking girl a glass of water.