Alekos showed her how fantastic, how unbelievably amazing sex could be when he slid his hands beneath her bottom and lifted her hips to meet his devastatingly powerful thrust that hurtled her over the edge and into ecstasy. It was beyond beautiful, and she sobbed his name as pulses of pleasure radiated out from deep in her pelvis. The fierce spasms of her orgasm kept shuddering through her while he continued to move inside her. His pace was urgent now as he neared his own release. And when he came, it was with a groan torn from his throat as his body shook so hard that she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight against her heart.
* * *
Another week passed, as tense and turbulent as the weeks preceding it, as Alekos fought to save the business his father had entrusted to him. In many ways it was the worst time of his life. Endless meetings with shareholders at GE’s offices in Athens, strategy meetings with his management team and, hanging over him, the possibility he refused to consider—that he might fail. It should have been the worst time of his life and the fact that he could smile—Theos, that he could actually be happy—was totally down to Sara.
At work she was a calming presence, offering thoughtful and intelligent suggestions when he asked her advice—which he had found himself doing more and more often. She charmed the shareholders and the board members liked and trusted her. Sara was an asset in the office as his PA, and when they returned to Eiríni each evening she delighted him in her role as his mistress.
Often they walked down to the village and sat on the small harbour to watch the fishing boats unload the day’s catch. Later they would return to the house and eat dinner served on the terrace by his housekeeper before they went to bed and made love for hours until exhaustion finally claimed them. Alekos was waiting to grow bored of Sara, but when he woke each morning and studied her lovely face on the pillow beside him he felt an indefinable tug in his chest and a rather more predictable tug of sexual hunger in his groin that he assuaged when he woke her and she was instantly aroused and ready for him.
‘Why do you think your father would blame you for GE’s problems when you yourself told me that hostile takeover bids are a common threat to businesses?’ she asked him one day, after he’d confided that he felt he had let his father’s memory down.
‘He doubted my ability to run the company as successfully as he believed Dimitri would have done.’ Alekos rubbed a towel over his chest after he’d swum in the pool. He sat down on a lounger next to where Sara was sunbathing in a tiny green bikini which his fingers itched to remove from her shapely body that drove him to distraction.
It was Sunday, and after six crazily busy days of working he had decreed that today they would not leave the island. In truth, he would have been happy not to leave the bedroom they now shared, but Sara had murmured that they couldn’t spend all day having sex.
‘Why do you think your father compared you to your brother?’
He shrugged. ‘Dimitri was the firstborn son and my father groomed him for his future role as chairman of GE from when he was a young boy. My relationship with my father was much more distant. I was the youngest of his five children, the second son. When Dimitri died and I became my father’s heir he made it obvious that I was second best. Sometimes,’ he said slowly, ‘I wondered if he wished that I had died and Dimitri had lived.’
Sara sat up and faced him, her green eyes bright and fierce. ‘I’m sure that’s not true. It must have been a difficult time for all the family, but particularly for your parents who were grieving for their son. It sounds like he was very popular.’
‘Everyone loved Dimitri.’
‘Especially you. I think you were very close to your brother,’ she said softly.
‘I idolised him.’ Images flashed into Alekos’s mind: Dimitri teaching him to sail, the two of them kicking a football around the garden, that time when he’d accidentally smashed the glass panes of the greenhouse with a misaimed kick and his brother had taken the blame. He had blocked out his memories of Dimitri because when he’d been fourteen it had hurt too much to think about him. It still hurt twenty years later. And he was still angry. If his brother hadn’t fallen in love with some stupid girl he would still be here, still laughing, still Alekos’s best friend.
He hadn’t spoken about Dimitri in all those years and he did not understand why he had told Sara things that he’d buried deep inside him. He didn’t want her compassion, he didn’t want to want her so badly that he found himself thinking about her all the time. His crazy obsession with her would pass, he assured himself. Desire never lasted and the more often he had sex with her, the quicker he would become sated with her and then he could move on with his life and forget about her.
He walked back over to the pool and dived in, swimming length after length while he brought his emotions under control. Of course he did not need Sara. She was simply a pleasant diversion from his work problems.
She came to sit at the edge of the pool and he swam up to her. ‘How about we have some lunch, followed by an afternoon siesta?’
‘Hmm...’ She appeared to consider his suggestion. ‘Or we could forget lunch and just go for a lie-down.’
‘Aren’t you hungry?’
‘I’m very hungry.’ Her impish smile made his gut twist and he pulled her into the water, ignoring her yelp that the water was cold.
He felt angry with himself for his weakness and angry with her for making him weak. ‘In that case I’d better satisfy your appetite, hadn’t I,’ he mocked as he untied the strings of her bikini top and pulled it off, cupping her breasts in his hands and playing with her nipples until she moaned softly.
He was completely in control, and he proved it when he carried her up to the bedroom and placed her face down onto the bed. He made love to her using all his considerable skill until she climaxed once, and when she came down he took her up again and only when she buried her face in the pillows to muffle her cries as she had a second orgasm did he finally let go, and felt the drenching pleasure of his own release.
* * *
By the middle of their second week in Greece the situation with GE started to look more hopeful, as increasing numbers of shareholders pledged their alliance to Alekos and refused to sell their shares in the company to Stelios Choutos. Alekos was still tense and Sara knew he would not be able to relax while GE and his position as chairman were still threatened. But, although she continued to be supportive, she had a niggling worry of her own that made her pop to the chemist during her lunch break. Of course, having bought a pregnancy test, she felt the symptoms that her period was about to start and, although the dull pain low in her stomach was annoying, she felt relieved that she wouldn’t need to use the test.
The news came on Friday afternoon. Alekos strode into Sara’s office, which adjoined his, and found her standing by the window, gazing up at the iconic Acropolis. She pulled her mind from her thoughts and her heart leapt when she saw the grin on his face.
‘We won.’ He swept her into his arms. ‘Stelios’s financial backers have pulled out and I’ve just had a call confirming he has withdrawn his takeover bid.’
‘So it’s over? The company is safe and you will continue to be chairman?’ She blocked out the realisation that the end of the battle for GE meant that her affair with Alekos would also be over.
‘I have the unanimous backing of the board, including Orestis Pagnotis.’
His victory made him almost boyish and he swung her round before claiming her lips in a fierce kiss that deepened to a slow and achingly sweet exploration of her mouth with his tongue. Sara was trembling when he finally released her and she moved away from him while she struggled to regain her composure.
‘Congratulations. I never doubted you.’
‘I know.’ He no longer needed to wear the eye patch now that his injury was completely healed, and his eyes gleamed as he held her gaze. ‘Your support was invaluable. We work well together as a team. We’ll fly to back to London tomorrow and start focusing on what GE is renowned for, wh
ich is to make the best yachts in the world.’
Sara did not say anything then, but when the helicopter flew them to the island and they walked up to the house Alekos slipped his hand into hers. ‘You’re very quiet.’
‘I was thinking that this is our last night on Eiríni—and our last night together. Today was the final day of my notice period,’ she reminded him when he frowned. ‘I’ve arranged for a temporary PA to fill my place while you hold interviews and appoint a permanent member of staff.’
He looked shocked, and that surprised her until she told herself he’d been too busy fighting for his company to have been aware that her notice period had finished. She followed him into the sitting room and looked through the glass doors that opened onto the garden where the swimming pool was a brilliant turquoise beneath a cloudless blue sky. She had fallen in love with Alekos’s island and it would have a special place in her heart for ever.
Alekos crossed to the bar and poured them both a drink, as he did every evening: a crisp white wine for her and a single malt Scotch with ice for him. Usually they carried their drinks out to the terrace, but this evening he drained his glass in a couple of gulps and poured himself another whisky.
‘You could stay on,’ he said gruffly. ‘Why do you want to leave? I know you enjoy your job.’
‘I do enjoy it, but actually I never wanted to be a secretary. I only did it because I needed to help my mother pay the mortgage. Now I’m selling the house and I have plans to do something different with my life.’
‘I see.’ Alekos did not try to persuade her to stay, nor did he ask about her future plans, Sara noted. She ignored the pang her heart gave and reminded herself that it was time she took control of her life. ‘We both know that our affair...or whatever it is we’ve been having for the past few weeks...was temporary. I think it will be better to end our professional and personal association once we are back in London.’
Once again a flicker of surprise crossed his sculpted features. She was possibly the only woman who had ended a relationship with Alekos before he was ready for it to finish, Sara thought wryly. It was only the thought of her mother’s empty life that kept her strong when her treacherous heart and traitorous body both implored her to be his mistress for as long as he wanted her.
‘In that case we had better make the most of tonight,’ he said in a cool voice that forced her to acknowledge that she really did mean nothing to him other than as a good PA and a good lay. Knowing it helped her to harden her heart when he drew her into his arms and kissed her with such aching tenderness that she could almost believe he was trying to persuade her to change her mind.
It was just great sex, she reminded herself as he undid the buttons on her blouse and slid his hand into her bra to caress her breast. He stripped her right there in the sitting room and shrugged out of his clothes, taking a condom from his trouser pocket before he pushed her back against the sofa cushions. He hooked her legs over his shoulders so that she was splayed open to him and used his tongue to such great effect that she gasped his name when he reared over her and thrust into her so hard that she came instantly.
It was the beginning of a sensual feast that lasted long into the night and Alekos’s passion and his dedication to giving her pleasure tested Sara’s resolve to leave him to its limits. She wished the night could last for ever, but with the pale light of dawn came a reality that stunned her.
She woke to the sound of the shower from his bathroom and the horrible lurch her stomach gave sent her running into her own bathroom. There could be a number of explanations of why she had been sick, but although she still had an uncomfortable cramping pain in her stomach her period was now over a week late. The pregnancy test took mere minutes to perform and the wait for the result seemed to last a lifetime.
Alekos knocked on the door while she was still clinging to the edge of the basin because her legs had turned to jelly. ‘I’ll meet you downstairs for breakfast.’
‘Sure.’ She was amazed that her voice sounded normal. ‘See you in a minute.’ She almost threw up again at the thought of food, and the much worse prospect of telling Alekos her news. But not telling him was not an option. She wasn’t going to make every mistake her mother had made, Sara thought grimly.
* * *
He found her on the beach, standing on the wet sand where the waves rippled over her bare toes. Alekos remembered how he had seen Sara walk into the sea the night they had arrived on the island, and his body tightened at the memory of how she had come apart in his arms. Sex with her was better than he’d known with any other woman but, Theos, he wasn’t going to beg her to stay with him. The idea of him pleading with a mistress was laughable but he didn’t feel in the mood to laugh, even though he had won the battle to keep GE. Curiously, he hadn’t given a thought to the company since Sara had announced her intention to leave him when they went back to London.
‘Don’t you want something to eat?’ he said as he walked up to her. ‘The helicopter will be here to collect us in a few minutes.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
She was pale and he frowned when he saw her mouth tremble before she firmed her lips. The breeze stirred her hair and Alekos smelled the evocative scent of vanilla. ‘What...?’ he began, unable to rationalise his sudden sense of foreboding.
‘I’m pregnant.’
She said the words in a rush, as if they might have less impact. But they left him reeling. He stared at her slender figure, which of course showed no signs yet that a new life was developing inside her. Was it possible she was expecting his baby? He had never thought about fatherhood, apart from in a vague way as an event that he supposed would happen at some point in his future. His family impressed on him the need for him to provide an heir. But this was real. If Sara was telling him the truth, and he had no reason to doubt her, he was going to be a father and he couldn’t begin to assimilate the emotions churning inside him. Crazy though it was, he felt a flicker of excitement at the idea of holding his child in his arms. Theos, he hoped he would be a good father.
In the years since his brother had died Alekos had become adept at hiding his feelings and his coolly logical brain took charge. ‘You’re sure?’
‘I did a test this morning and it...it was positive. My period is a week late, but I thought...’ she bit her lip ‘... I hoped there was another explanation. We’ve always been careful.’
Alekos went cold as he recalled that he had been careless that first time when they had been on Artemis. His hunger for Sara had been so acute that he’d made love to her a second time immediately after they’d had sex.
He stared out across the sea—flat and calm today, it looked like a huge mirror reflecting the blue sky above, but the idyllic scene did not soothe his tumultuous thoughts. His irresponsible behaviour had resulted in Sara conceiving his child and the implications were huge. He should have taken more care. He should have fought his weakness for Sara. Anger with himself made his voice clipped and cold.
‘In that case a damage limitation strategy is necessary.’
She frowned. ‘What do you mean by damage limitation?’
‘How do you think GE’s board members will react to the news that I have fathered an illegitimate child?’ he said grimly. ‘Once the press get hold of the story—as they undoubtedly will—I’ll be accused of being an irresponsible playboy and that kind of reputation will not go down well with the board or the shareholders, especially now, so soon after the hostile takeover bid. There is only one solution. We will have to get married.’
He looked at her stunned expression and ignored the inexplicable urge to enfold her in his arms and promise her that everything would be all right. Instead he drawled, ‘Congratulations, Sara mou. You’ve done what many other women dream of and secured yourself a rich husband.’
She flinched as if he had struck her, but then her chin came up. ‘Firstly, I have never been yours, and secondly I am not any other woman—I’m me, and I would never marry for money. Your arrogance is asto
unding. I’m certainly not going to marry you to save your reputation.’
* * *
Sara spun round and walked up the beach towards the house. She heard the helicopter overhead and felt glad that soon she would be on it and leaving Eiríni. She wished she could leave Alekos behind. She hadn’t expected him to be pleased about her pregnancy. Pleased had not been her first reaction when she’d stared at the blue line on the pregnancy test that confirmed a positive result. She felt stunned and scared and very alone, and Alekos’s implication that she was a gold-digger who had somehow engineered falling pregnant to snare him was so unfair that tears choked her.
‘Would you deny the child its father then, Sara?’
She stopped walking and turned to find he was right behind her, so close that she breathed in his aftershave, mingled with an indefinable scent that was uniquely Alekos. ‘You don’t want a child,’ she muttered.
‘It doesn’t matter what I want or don’t want. The child is my heir and if we marry he or she will inherit not only GE but the Gionakis fortune. If you refuse to marry me I will financially support my child, but in the future I will take a wife and any legitimate children born within the marriage will bear my name and be entitled to inherit my legacy.’
Alekos trapped her gaze with his eyes that were as black and hard as pieces of jet. ‘Will you deny your child its birthright the way you were denied yours, Sara? You told me you wish you’d grown up knowing your father. Can you really deprive your child of the chance to grow up with both its parents?’
CHAPTER TEN
ALEKOS HAD HIT her with an emotional body blow. He had aimed his argument straight at her heart, aware that she would do anything to give her baby a father—even if it meant she had to marry him.
She had tried to dissuade him. During the helicopter flight from the island and when they’d boarded his private jet bound for London, she had offered various suggestions of how they could both have a role in their child’s life. But his response had been unequivocal. They must marry before the baby was born so that it was legitimate.
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