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

by Maya Banks

  A muscle flickered in his lean cheek, the merest hint of tension in a personality big on control. ‘I don’t find it easy to open up, that’s true. I’m not like you. You spill out what you’re feeling, when you’re feeling it.’

  ‘It’s how I deal with things.’

  ‘And I deal with things by myself. That’s what I’ve always done. I have never felt the need to confide.’

  Kelly picked up her drink again and sipped, brooding on the differences in their personalities. ‘So I might as well go home, then.’

  ‘No. There are things I need to tell you. Things I should have told you four years ago.’

  Judging from his tone, they were going to be things she didn’t want to hear. Kelly wondered uneasily if she should just tell him she was pregnant before he said something that would make her want to thump him. Being non-violent was becoming a real challenge around Alekos. ‘Am I going to hate you for what you say?’

  ‘I thought you already hated me.’

  ‘I do. In which case, you might as well just get on with it and say whatever it is you want to say.’ Ridiculously apprehensive, Kelly shrugged, trying to look cool and casual—as if whatever he said was going to make no difference to her. But it was obviously going to be something important, wasn’t it? Whatever it was had stopped him from turning up on his wedding day, which was pretty major from anyone’s point of view. And then there was the screaming tension she could feel pulsing from his powerful frame.

  ‘Just say it, Alekos. I’m not great with all this suspense and tension stuff. I hate it on those TV shows where they say “and the winner is...”, and then they wait ages and ages before they give you the answer, and you’re thinking, “for goodness’ sake, just get on with it”.’ Realising that he was looking at her as if she were demented, she gave a tiny shrug. ‘What? What’s wrong?’

  Alekos shook his head slowly. ‘You never say what I expect you to say.’

  Kelly thumped her glass down on the table. ‘I just want you to get to the point before the suspense kills me! I embarrassed you? I talked too much? I was messy?’ She wrinkled her nose, trying to think which of her other sins might have been sufficient to send him running for the hills. ‘I eat too much?’

  ‘I love your body, I find your need to drop your belongings as you walk surprisingly endearing, I have always been fascinated by your ability to say exactly what is on your mind with no filter, and you have never embarrassed me.’

  The angle of the sun had shifted and it reflected off his glossy dark hair. Somewhere close by an orange fell onto the ground with a dull thud, but Kelly didn’t notice. She was too busy trying to hold back the sudden rush of hope that bounded free inside her, like a puppy suddenly let off a lead. ‘I never embarrassed you? Not even once?’

  ‘Not even once.’ His hot, brooding gaze dropped to her mouth. ‘But I seem to remember that I embarrassed you most of the time.’

  Kelly turned scarlet. ‘Only when we did it in broad daylight. Why do they call it that—why broad daylight? Why not narrow daylight?’ Chattering nervously, she broke off as he ran his hand over his face and shook his head in exasperation.

  ‘I’m trying to tell you something, and it isn’t easy.’

  ‘Well, please just get on with it! It’s honestly not good for you to have this much stress. It furs up your arteries.’ Her palms were sweating and her stomach was churning. It was like waiting for an exam result, she thought anxiously, her mind still jumping ahead. Perhaps it was the age thing that had caused him to walk away. Maybe he had been worried that she was too young to know her own mind. Or maybe he’d thought their relationship was too much of a whirlwind. If it had been the age thing, that was now fixed, wasn’t it? She was older. The kids in her class thought she was positively ancient. She was probably less inhibited. Thinking of their steamy encounter on her kitchen table didn’t do anything to alleviate the heat in her cheeks. She was definitely less inhibited.

  All she had to do was assure him that she’d matured, that she knew her own mind. He’d apologise. She’d be hurt, but forgiving. Her mind sprinted ahead again, weaving happy endings from the threads of disaster.

  Alekos breathed in deeply. ‘The morning of the wedding I read an interview you’d given to a celebrity magazine. You’d spilled your guts about what you wanted. It was all there on the page.’

  Still enjoying a fantasy about their future, Kelly tried to remember exactly what she’d said in that particular interview. ‘The press were all over me. Apparently the fact that you’d never shown any interest in marrying anyone before suddenly made me interesting.’

  He was going to be really pleased about the baby, she thought dreamily.

  They’d live happily ever after. She’d ask him to buy a house in Little Molting; she could still teach her class in September, and once the baby was born they’d come back to Corfu and raise the child here, among the olive groves.

  She smiled at Alekos, but he didn’t smile back.

  Instead his features were hard, like an exquisitely carved Greek statue. ‘You said that all you’d ever wanted was a family. You said you wanted four children.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Kelly wondered whether this would be a good moment to tell him that they already had one on the way. ‘At least four.’

  Muttering something in Greek, Alekos lifted his hand to the back of his neck, visibly struggling with what he had to say next. ‘When I saw that article I realised that we had plunged into this relationship with no real thought to the future. It was all about the present. We hadn’t discussed what either of us really wanted. I didn’t know what you wanted until I read it in that magazine.’ His voice was raw. ‘It was only when I saw your interview that I realised we didn’t want the same thing.’

  ‘Oh?’ Still bathing in her own little bubble-bath of happiness, Kelly gave an understanding smile. ‘Honestly, I just wish you’d said something right away. I sort of forgot you were Greek. You always have big families, don’t you? Four kids probably seems like nothing to you. We can have more. I’m not worried. I teach thirty back home! How many did you have in mind?’

  Alekos closed his eyes briefly and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. ‘Kelly...’

  ‘It doesn’t worry me. I love kids. And I don’t even expect you to do the nappies, as long as you help with all the other stuff.’

  ‘Kelly.’ He closed his hands over her shoulders, gripping tightly as he forced her to listen to him. ‘I don’t want a big family.’ He waited a moment, apparently allowing time for those momentous words to penetrate her thin veneer of happiness. ‘I don’t want a family at all.’

  Somehow, Kelly managed to make her mouth move. ‘But—’

  ‘I’m trying to tell you that I don’t want children. I never did.’

  Chapter 5

  ‘Theé mou, do something!’ His tone dark and dangerous, Alekos glared at the local doctor. The guy had to be almost seventy and appeared to have two speeds—slow and stop. Fingering the phone in his pocket, Alekos wondered how long it would take to fly a top physician in from Athens. ‘She banged her head really hard!’

  ‘Was she knocked unconscious?’

  Vibrating with impatience, Alekos thought back to the hideous moment when Kelly’s head had made contact with the glossy tiles. ‘No, because she called me a bleep several times.’

  ‘A bleep?’

  ‘Never mind. But she wasn’t knocked out. I carried her up to the bedroom and she’s been lying here unconscious ever since.’

  Glancing at him thoughtfully, the doctor touched the bruise on Kelly’s forehead. ‘Why did she fall?’

  Alekos felt the tension trickle down his spine. This had to be the most uncomfortable conversation he’d had in his life. ‘She slipped on the tiles when she was running.’

  ‘And why was she running?’


  Two hot spots of colour touched his cheeks and guilt squeezed tight. ‘Something had upset her.’ Alekos ground his teeth, wondering why he was explaining himself to a doctor so ancient he had undoubtedly known Hippocrates personally. ‘I upset her.’

  Apparently unsurprised by that confession, the doctor reached into his bag and removed some pills. ‘Nothing much changes there, then. I was called to see Kelly on the day of her wedding: the wedding that never happened.’

  So, although he was slow, there was clearly nothing wrong with his memory. Alekos gritted his teeth. Everything that happened today appeared to be designed to make him feel bad. ‘Kelly needed a doctor?’

  ‘She was very shocked. And the press were savaging her.’

  Feeling as though he’d been slugged in the stomach by a blunt instrument, Alekos drew his eyebrows together, shaken by that graphic description. ‘She should have ignored them.’

  ‘How? You’re six-foot-three and intimidating,’ the doctor said calmly. ‘I don’t think Kelly has ever been rude to anyone in her life. Even when she was struggling with what had happened, she was still polite to me. Leaving her to the mercy of the press was like throwing raw meat to sharks.’

  Wincing at the analogy, Alekos felt as though he was being slowly boiled in oil. ‘I may not have handled it as well as I could have done.’

  ‘You didn’t handle it at all. But that doesn’t really surprise me. What surprised me was the fact that you’d asked her to marry you in the first place.’ The doctor closed his case with a hand wrinkled with age and exposure to the sun. ‘I remember you coming here to stay with your grandmother as a child. I remember one summer in particular, when you were six years old. You didn’t speak for a month. You had suffered a terrible trauma.’

  Feeling as though someone had tipped ice down his shirt, Alekos stepped back. ‘Thank you for coming so promptly,’ he said coldly and the doctor gave him a thoughtful look.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said quietly, ‘when a situation has affected someone greatly, it helps to examine the facts dispassionately and handle your fears in a rational manner.’

  ‘Are you suggesting I’m irrational?’

  ‘I think you were the unfortunate casualty of your parents’ dysfunctional relationship.’

  His emotions boiling, Alekos strode towards the bedroom door and yanked it open. ‘Thank you for your advice,’ he said smoothly, controlling himself with effort. ‘However, what I really need to know is how long you expect Kelly to remain unconscious.’

  ‘She isn’t unconscious.’ The doctor’s tone was calm as he picked up his bag and walked towards the door. ‘She’s lying with her eyes shut. I suspect she just doesn’t want to speak to you. Frankly, I don’t blame her.’

  * * *

  ‘Open your eyes, Kelly.’

  Ignoring his commanding tone, Kelly kept her eyes tightly shut.

  She was going to lie here in this safe, dark place until she’d worked out what to do.

  He didn’t want children. It was just like her dad all over again, only worse.

  How could she have been so completely and utterly stupid? How could she not have known?

  ‘Just because you’re not looking at me, doesn’t mean I’m not here.’ His voice rang with exasperation and something else: remorse? ‘Look at me. We need to talk.’

  What was there to talk about?

  He didn’t want kids and she was pregnant. As far as she could see, the conversation was over before it had even begun.

  What was she going to do?

  She was going to have to raise their child completely on her own.

  Overwhelmed by the situation, Kelly screwed her eyes up tightly, wishing that she could magic herself back to her tiny cottage in Little Molting and lock the door on the world.

  Through the haze of her panic she heard him say something in Greek. The next minute he’d rolled her onto her back and lowered his mouth to hers. Rigid with shock, Kelly lay there for a moment, and then the tip of his tongue traced the seam of her lips, his kiss so gentle that she gave a despairing whimper.

  Sensation shot through her and she opened her eyes. ‘Get off me, you miserable—’ She thumped her fists against the solid muscle of his shoulders. ‘I hate you, and I hate your horribly shiny floors. I hurt on the outside and the inside.’

  Alekos grabbed her fists in his hands and pressed them back against the pillows. ‘I thought you were non-violent.’

  ‘That was before I met you.’

  His answer to that was to lower his head again and deliver a slow, lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth. ‘I’m sorry you fell. I’m sorry you hurt yourself.’

  Kelly tried to turn her head away but his hand held her still. ‘You hurt me far more than your floor. Stop doing that—stop kissing me. How dare you kiss me when this whole situation is so horribly complicated and impossible and—get off me!’

  She tried to wriggle away from him but he shifted over her and used his weight to press her into the bed.

  ‘For both our sakes, lie still,’ he gritted. Kelly glared up at him but his hard, intense gaze filled her vision.

  ‘You’re not playing fair.’ She needed to get away from him. She needed space to think about what was best for the baby.

  ‘I play to win.’

  ‘Well, I’m not in the game any more. I give up. I surrender.’ Kelly twisted under him but he put one hand on her hip and held her still.

  ‘Stop moving,’ he breathed. ‘Kelly, I know what I said upset you, but you wanted me to be honest. You said you wanted to know what I was thinking.’

  ‘Well, how was I to know you were thinking such awful things?’ She strained against him but that movement brought her into direct contact with his body so she stilled. ‘You’re Greek! You’re supposed to want hundreds of children.’

  His expression was suddenly guarded. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘I gathered that.’ Kelly gave a groan and squeezed her eyes shut. This scenario was so far removed from what she’d expected that she had no idea how to deal with it. She needed time to work things out. No matter what happened, this must not turn into one of those occasions where she just blurted out what was on her mind. No; this time she was going to think it through, come up with a strategic plan and implement it carefully. She’d tell him when the time was right—when she was properly prepared.

  Once she’d made a decision, she’d share it with him, and not before.

  Alekos traced gentle fingers over the bruise on her forehead. ‘You ought to take the tablets the doctor left.’

  Wincing with the pain, Kelly opened her eyes. ‘I can’t take them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I can’t take tablets. Don’t ask me why.’

  ‘They will stop your head hurting.’ Alekos sounded puzzled and a touch exasperated. ‘You just swallow them. What’s so hard about that?’

  ‘I just don’t want to take them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I said, don’t ask me why!’

  ‘Just take them, Kelly.’

  ‘No, because I don’t want to take anything that might hurt the baby!’ The words burst from her mouth like a dam breaking behind a force of water and she felt an immediate rush of anger directed towards herself and him. ‘I didn’t want to say that. I wasn’t ready to tell you yet! I told you not to ask me why, but you pushed and pushed, didn’t you? I’m going on an assertiveness course.’

  Alekos looked as though he’d been shot through the head at close range. ‘Baby?’

  ‘I’m pregnant, OK? I’m expecting your baby,’ Kelly shrieked. ‘That’s the baby you don’t want, by the way. So I think you’ll agree that we’re in a bit of a fix.’

  * * *

  White-faced and shaking, Alekos slid into the driver’s seat of the Ferrari, st
arted the engine and pressed his foot to the floor.

  Baby?

  The word echoed through his brain along with all the associated feelings. A child depending on him. A child whose entire happiness was going to be his responsibility. A child crying on his own.

  A thin film of sweat covered his brow; he swore fluently in Greek and pushed the car to its limits, taking the hairpin bends like a racing driver.

  Only when a horn blared did he finally come to his senses.

  Treading on the breaks, he stopped the car at the top of the hill, staring down across the olive groves towards the villa.

  Kelly was down there somewhere, probably packing her bags.

  Crying her heart out.

  With a rough imprecation, Alekos looked away, trying to apply logic to a situation that required none.

  A baby. All his life he’d avoided this exact situation.

  And now.

  Why had he been so careless?

  But he knew the answer to that. One look at Kelly had driven rational thought from his head. Every time he went near her, he behaved in a way that was totally at odds with his ruthlessly structured life.

  Yet it wouldn’t have been possible to find a less suitable woman if he’d tried.

  She wanted four children.

  Alekos broke out into a sweat. Just get your head round one, he told himself. That would be a start.

  One baby. One baby depending on him. One baby whose entire future happiness was in his hands.

  Alekos lifted his fist to his forehead, his knuckles white. Until this moment he’d never known what it was like to be truly afraid. But right now, right at this moment, he knew fear.

  Fear that he’d let the child down.

  Fear that he’d let Kelly down.

  If he got this wrong, if he blew this, a child would suffer. And he knew only too well how that felt.

  * * *

  ‘Theé mou, what are you doing on your feet? You should be lying down, resting.’ His hoarse voice came from the doorway and Kelly quickly scrubbed away her tears, feeling a rush of pure relief that he was still in one piece.