The sincerity in the lines deepening on his face stayed with her as she swiveled and began to walk to somewhere there was more air, where she could think—just somewhere away from Christo’s heated gaze, and from the impossible solution he’d proposed.
His footfalls equaled hers as they headed toward the waterfront viaduct, and the harbor sparkling in the distance like a jeweled blanket. The spirit of this place that had begun as a tug when she’d arrived now hauled her in cell-by-cell, and she couldn’t ignore it. She belonged here. So did her baby. In this city. In that house. Her home.
But not with Christo living there. A home should be a place full of love, a haven to relax and let your guard down—things she could never do with Christo in the same house.
“A marriage for how long?” she wondered aloud. “Until your mother is settled and you can move me and my baby out?”
His voice was a low rumble beside her, dark but sure. “A marriage forever. I’m Greek Orthodox, Ruby. The lifelong commitment of marriage is important in my culture. I don’t make a contract then back out of it.”
A contract for marriage. To be drawn up as a way to break this impasse. How could he have even thought it possible, let alone said it aloud?
Each revelation in the past twelve hours had been a shock, but this was a king-hit delivered direct to her chest and once again her brain scrambled for a way out. Maybe the letter Tim had given her would hint at a solution? But she’d need to be alone to read something as personal as her mother’s final words to her.
Just ahead, a woman swerved a stroller toward them to avoid a workman in a manhole and Christo dragged her close. She sucked in a breath as a shroud of protective heat enveloped her body and, slightly dizzy, she tried to right herself only to be assailed by an intense awareness of the man holding her. Memories of hungering for Christo’s touch in the past couldn’t match her desire for him now. Every nerve ending cried out for that strong, certain caress that was branded in her body’s memory.
With her elbow cradled in his palm, Christo guided her into the veranda of a restaurant as a stream of people funneled past. She stepped back into the shadow of a black and white striped awning, heart tripping, body sparking.
She blinked, trying to focus on why they were here, to negotiate a solution for the house.
She swallowed. “Your mother wouldn’t want you to have a sham marriage for the sake of a house. I know she wouldn’t.”
“My mother would believe it was a traditional, committed marriage or she wouldn’t stay. You know how important her faith is to her.”
Ruby couldn’t believe she was standing here, calmly discussing the details of his proposal as if it was a rational suggestion. As if it were possible. That he could speak of a marriage in such a calculated and cool tone caused her heart to chill.
“Your offer’s generous, Christo. I appreciate that you’re trying to propose a solution, but I’ll find a way out of this. And I’ll find a way to support my baby.”
He swung around so his back was turned to the push of pedestrians and his gaze locked on her. “My offer is on the table for two days.”
Swallowing, she backed closer to the wall behind her. “Two days? Why?”
Slowly, he took a step nearer, and the sun was blocked completely, his broad chest a touch away, his breath hot on her cheek. Mouth set in a straight line, his eyes shone with something enticing. “I don’t expect you to agree today, but when you think this through, get over the shock, you’ll see it’s the right decision. The only one. Neither of us will let the other have the house. Marriage so your baby’s inheritance is assured is the logical solution.”
She pulled in air, drugged by the seductive certainty on his face. Could it be possible? “But why a time limit?”
“I’m offering you a new kind of family, Ruby. A father for your baby, and a grandmother who will love your child as if it were her own. But I won’t wait endlessly for your answer.”
Mouth beginning to dry, she stroked the skin at her throat, trying to ease her breathing. Family. He couldn’t know the power of that word, how she ached because her child would never know its family. “Those things would benefit me and my baby, Christo, but why would you turn your life upside down like that? What on Earth would you gain apart from the house? Another possession?”
A muscle at his jaw pulsed for the merest second. “A son. A daughter.”
His hand braced the brick lintel above her head, and when he leaned in a swell of understanding gripped her. A child he could call his own. The grandchild he thought he couldn’t give his mother. Everything had changed since yesterday. Now it was about so much more than his quest to gain the house from her. Now he wanted her to provide a son or daughter too. She’d once dreamed of them being parents together, growing their love in a family, but the thought of him asking her to do this so dispassionately sent icy fingers across her skin.
“But your mother would know this baby wasn’t yours,” she rasped.
“Of course she’ll know the biological truth, but the child will be mine in everything but genetics.”
Reality punched her in the chest. As he’d always done, Christo would use her for what she could provide—the things that lay outside his grasp. He didn’t need her for status or money this time; now he needed her for the house he couldn’t secure for his mother, for the baby he would never father, and for the grandchild he desperately wanted to produce. He was an only child, the son his mother’s life had orbited since she’d brought him here from Greece as a baby. With all the sacrifices she’d made for him and his resulting successes, it was so achingly clear why he wanted to give her a grandchild.
Being around someone who knew exactly what he wanted, someone who was passionate enough to toss everything aside to win it, was intoxicating. It had taken her breath away about him in the past. Yet he’d use her to acquire these things in the same way he’d used her before.
He dropped his voice. “You won’t regret sharing the house with me.” He lifted a hand as if to touch her, graze his thumb down her cheek, but then stopped. “It’s time we acknowledged our past and moved beyond it, Ruby. We both know what each other is capable of and why a relationship between us was doomed. Now we can come to an arrangement to suit us both. Given there’s no money from the estate, have you thought about how you’ll support your baby?”
She lifted her chin and met his stare. “I’ll find work here. I still have some publishing contacts.”
“You’d have to work full time, earn a decent living to maintain that enormous old house and grounds. That means your baby would be in full-time care.”
She rolled her lip between her teeth. With all the revelations in the past few days, everything had changed. She’d planned as far ahead as coming home and telling her mother she was pregnant, praying for a reconciliation, and then beginning a whole new chapter in her life. But now that her mother was gone, now that she’d have to maintain the house on her own with a baby, admittedly it did feel…scary. But she’d find a way to make it work.
“With my offer, and my mother at home to child-mind, you could work part-time, full time, whatever you pleased, knowing your baby was being cared for by family. Or I could support you fully so you could spend all day together. You know it’s the right decision, Ruby.” He paused and all she could focus on was the set of his lips as he’d said her name and she wanted him to say it again. His grin was slow. “Two days. You’ll agree by then.”
She shook her head as she tried to expel her body’s reaction to him, but she met the full threat of his gaze. “And when I say no?”
His chin tilted, and she noticed the change from smooth skin this morning to swarthy stubble now. How would that rugged skin feel against her cheek, her neck, her breast? Imagining the sweet pleasure-pain as his skin grazed every part of her sent spikes of desire through her. The fantasy swelled in her mind until she caught his smoldering look and wondered if he felt it too.
He shrugged one jacketed shoulder and the corner
of his mouth lifted more. “For two days we get to know each other again, work out the practicalities. I guarantee by then you’ll see the benefits of becoming my wife.”
There it was—in that instant she could feel herself slipping under Christo’s spell again. It wouldn’t happen this time, though, not when her baby depended on her to make the right choices. She moved as if to slide away from the seductive hold he had over her. “If you don’t mind I’d like some privacy to read through my mother’s letter.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. “You want me to go back to the house alone? An opportunity for me to call Tim back and say you’ve run off again. As you did ten years ago.”
The mention of the way she’d left before stung, but she held his sparking stare. “It wasn’t like that last time. It wasn’t me who ran off.”
The throng behind them had thinned but still he stayed close, his voice dropping to a deep hum. “What happened last time, Ruby? You left and hardly ever came back. Your plan to use me to shock your father had obviously worked so why leave when you finally had his full attention? Or was that all part of the game?”
She looked left and right, then let her gaze drift back to his face. “I’m not talking about it here, on the pavement.”
He touched her elbow again and spoke low, nodding at the bar behind them. “Let’s go in here. You can read your mother’s letter while I get us a drink.”
She paused and then nodded before he ushered her through the door.
Minutes later she sat at a table by the corner of the bar, wondering at her decision to step inside this place. Slow fans moved the sticky air overhead, and she pulled off the linen jacket glued to her back. Twisting her fingers around the leather strap on her bag, she watched Christo at the bar, standing as if he owned the place. God, considering all she’d learned in the last two days, he probably did.
With a trembling finger, she lifted the flap on the envelope and withdrew a small piece of flowered notepaper.
Dearest Ruby,
I should have explained this long ago, but with the way things were between us I wanted my words written down, not lost in some tense conversation. I know things must feel very confusing to you right now, so I’d like to try and help you understand.
Heartbeat stuttering, eyes filling with tears, Ruby read on.
I’ve left the house to both you and Christo for two reasons. The first is that I have no money to offer you, and Christo has promised he’ll pay a very generous amount for your share.
Of course I know how you feel about him, and I suspect if I hadn’t made him a beneficiary you would’ve refused to sell to him. But I want him to have the house, Ruby. I’ve known for a long time that the scars caused by my relationship with your father have cut so deep you’ll never return here for good, so it’s my last wish that Christo buys the house for Stella, my most loyal and dearly loved friend, who deserves to spend the rest of her days in what has, for so long, been her home.
There is much I wish I’d told you about what happened between me and your father, but I’m not sure it’s what you’d want to hear right now. Christo knows the whole story, should you be interested one day. But in the meantime I wish you every happiness and success in your life in America, my darling. I hope the money you receive from Christo will allow you to live the dreams you’ve so bravely chosen to follow.
All my love forever,
Mum
Heart racing, Ruby flicked the page over, desperate for something more. No explanation for her affair? No acknowledgement of the pain they’d all been through? Disappointment and a slow, gnawing sadness dragged through her.
Her mother wanted Christo to have the house. She wanted Stella to live there. It was no longer just an assertion from Christo. The truth was here in black and white. Tears burned the back of her nose and, too tired, too heartsick to hold them back, she let one fall.
“Sparkling feijoa?”
Quickly wiping her eyes as Christo put a glass and bottle down, she tried to still the whirl of confusion in her head.
“I wasn’t sure what was appropriate when pregnant, whether soda was okay or if there was too much sugar.”
Her fingers moved across her belly. If only she’d had a chance to see her mother again, tell her about the pregnancy and that she’d put their past behind them. Maybe they could’ve lived in the house and brought up her baby together.
…
Christo unscrewed the cap, poured the foaming liquid into a glass, and handed it to Ruby. She’d caught a lip between her teeth and nibbled it in that sexy way of hers. “It says it’s organic,” he said, pulling the conversation back to safer ground. “Which reminds me, I made a call to Alec, one of my restaurant managers, and he’ll be sourcing the best produce for a daily delivery to the house. I didn’t ask you this morning if you’re suffering from morning sickness.”
Ruby pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. When her lids fluttered open, the sadness cut straight through him.
He leaned forward. “Is everything all right?” He nodded at the piece of paper still clutched in her hand. “Did it help?”
“Help?” she whispered.
“Convince you?”
She laced her fingers together and stared at her drink. “I was hoping it would give me a way out,” she said with a sigh. “Something I could take back to Tim or my lawyer, but it’s the opposite. The whole letter explains why she left the house to both of us and why she wants you to buy me out.” She paused as her voice shook. “If Mum felt so strongly about you and Stella having the house, then maybe it’s time I honored her wishes and gave it up.”
Christo put his palm flat on the table. She couldn’t back out now. Things had changed too much, morphed into possibilities he never could have imagined in the beginning. “But she didn’t know about your baby.”
“No, she didn’t.” She touched the tiny pink beads of her pearl bracelet, moving each one like a rosary.
“She may have changed her will if she had.”
She wiped her hand across her cheek as if brushing away tears. “Maybe you’re right. Mum mightn’t have done the right thing for her immediate family, but she was so close to her brothers Lorenzo and Matteo that I’m sure she would have been different as a grandmother.”
He rolled a shoulder as the tension inside him eased. “Is that why you stayed away? Because your relationship with your mother had broken down?”
For a second it seemed as if she’d deflect his question. He willed her to give him an answer, to confirm his suspicion that she’d been avoiding him all these years.
Brushing a blond strand over her shoulder, she shifted in her chair. “I didn’t want to be here anymore.”
He lifted a bottle of beer to his lips but spoke before he drank. “And you didn’t want to come back and see your mother? Your father before he died?”
She pulled the lip between her teeth again. Damn if he’d let himself be distracted.
“I was in touch with my father. I came for the occasional holiday.”
“That’s all?”
She leaned forward and her voice dropped. “I found out some things that changed the way I viewed my parents, my family.”
He rested his wrists on the table and clasped his hands together. Should he feign innocence, or finally reveal the truth, the things she didn’t know about her family? “Things?”
“I found out…” She hesitated and moistened her lips. “That my mother had been having an affair.”
He nodded slowly, keeping his features neutral. “I see.”
She took another sip of the soda. “Not just a one night stand or a fling. My mother had been having an affair for years.”
“How did you find out?”
“I heard her on the phone one night,” she said softly, “not long after you’d been sent away, and I questioned her.”
The memory of how he’d felt the evening he was banished was still so vivid, but he pushed it aside. “And how was she?”
“She didn
’t deny it. Said she was sorry I’d had to find out like that.” Leaning back, she crossed her arms under her breasts, the pain of telling him stamped on her face. “And then I knew I couldn’t live under the same roof while she did that to my father. I couldn’t see him devastated, so I told her I’d keep her little secret, and I left. It was the best thing for everyone.”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “And you never spoke to her about it again?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what happened to her lover. I never even found out who he was or how long the affair continued. My parents stayed in the house together until my father died of a stroke, so she was either still keeping things a secret, or she’d moved on. We pretended it wasn’t there in the beginning, that in not discussing it, it wasn’t real.” She drew in a long and labored breath. “But the less we talked, the more distant we became.”
He dropped an arm to the table and scraped his other hand across his chin, all the while holding her gaze to his. It was now or never, let her know everything or shut this conversation down.
The air between them stilled and he heard the breath draining from Ruby’s lungs. “What do you know, Christo? Mum said in the letter that if I wanted to know more to ask you.”
Tilting his head, he shrugged. “There’s no need to go over all this, Ruby.”
“Need? Of course there’s a need. In the space of two days I’ve found out the ownership of my childhood home is in dispute, that there’s no money to fight it, and I have to marry to get what’s rightfully mine. In seven months I’ll have a child who’s lost most of its family, a child who deserves to have me fight for any link to its heritage, including that house.” She blew out a breath. “Yes, there is a need.”
Contract for Marriage Page 6