Acquired by Her Greek Boss

by Chantelle Shaw

  She looked across the plane to where he was sitting in one of the plush leather armchairs and her heart predictably gave a jolt when she found him watching her. He was casually dressed in grey trousers and a white shirt open at the throat, showing his tanned skin that had turned a darker shade of olive-gold from two weeks in the hot Greek sun. His hair was longer, and the black stubble on his jaw reminded her of the faint abrasion marks on her breasts where his cheek had scraped her skin when he’d made love to her numerous times the previous night.

  Their last night together, she had believed. Now she wondered if he intended their marriage to include sex, and if—or perhaps that should be when—he tired of her would he have discreet affairs that did not attract the attention of the press or the board members?

  ‘I will make a press statement on Monday announcing our engagement and forthcoming marriage.’

  Sara’s stomach lurched. ‘Why so soon? We should at least wait until I’ve seen my doctor to confirm my pregnancy. The test showed that I am about five weeks, and I believe a first scan to determine when the baby is due is at around eight to ten weeks.’

  ‘I can’t risk the media finding out you are pregnant before I’ve put an engagement ring on your finger. The board members are jittery after the takeover bid. The news that I am going to marry my sensible secretary and leave my playboy days behind will bolster their confidence in me. For that reason I’ve made an appointment for us at a jewellers so that you can choose a ring.’

  Everything was happening too fast, she thought frantically. Yesterday she’d believed she would never see Alekos again after they had returned to England, but now she was expecting his child and he was bulldozing her into marriage.

  ‘I don’t believe a loveless marriage will be good for anyone, including the baby.’ She imagined a future where Alekos had mistresses and she became bitter like her mother, and said rather desperately, ‘It can’t possibly work.’

  ‘My parents did not marry for love and had a very successful marriage.’ Alekos opened his laptop, signalling that the conversation was over. It was convenient for him to marry her to keep GE’s board members happy, Sara thought. And by becoming his wife she would be doing the best thing for the baby. But what about what was best for her? How could she marry Alekos when she loved him but he would never love her? But how could she deny her baby the Gionakis name? The stark answer was that she couldn’t.

  The jewellers was in Bond Street and the price tags on the engagement rings made Sara catch her breath. ‘Choose whichever ring you want,’ Alekos told her. ‘I don’t care how much it costs.’

  But diamond solitaires the size of a rock were not her style, and she finally chose an oval-shaped emerald surrounded by white diamonds because Alekos commented that the emerald matched the colour of her eyes.

  ‘I thought you were taking me home,’ she said when the limousine drew up outside his apartment block.

  ‘This will be your home from now on. I’ll have your clothes and other belongings packed up and sent over from your house. But I want you here, where I can keep an eye on you.’

  She looked at him suspiciously. ‘You make it sound like I’m your prisoner. Are you worried I’ll leak the story to the press that I am expecting the chairman of GE’s baby?’

  ‘No. You proved your loyalty to me and to the company when you helped me fight off the hostile takeover.’ Alekos raked his hair off his brow and she was surprised to see colour flare on his cheekbones. ‘I want you to stay with me because you are pregnant and you need looking after.’

  ‘Of course I don’t.’ She tried to ignore the tug on her heart at the idea of him taking care of her as if she were a fragile creature instead of a healthy, independent woman.

  ‘You’re pale, and you fell asleep on the plane and in the car just now,’ he persisted.

  ‘I’m tired because I didn’t get much sleep last night.’ She blushed as memories of the many inventive ways he had made love to her for hours the previous night flooded her mind. The gleam in his eyes told her he was remembering their wild passion too. ‘Alekos...?’

  ‘Yes, it will be a real marriage in every way,’ he drawled.

  Her face burned. ‘How did you know I was going to ask that?’

  ‘Your eyes are very expressive and they reveal your secrets.’

  Sara prayed they didn’t, but she carefully did not look at him when he showed her to a guest room in his penthouse because she didn’t want him to guess she was disappointed that she would not be sharing his bed until they were married.

  The following week passed in a blur. News of their engagement was mentioned in most of the newspapers and Sara was glad to hide away in the penthouse to avoid the paparazzi, who were desperate to interview the woman who had tamed the notorious Greek playboy Alekos Gionakis.

  Her father phoned to offer his congratulations, but when she asked him if he would attend her wedding with her half-siblings Lionel hesitated for so long that Sara’s heart sank.

  ‘Why don’t you tell Charlotte and Freddie Kingsley you are their sister?’ Alekos asked when he discovered her in tears. He had come home from the office unexpectedly in the afternoon and found her lying on the sofa.

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t betray my father to his children. Perhaps it will be better if he never tells them about me and they won’t know that he was once unfaithful to their mother.’

  Alekos sat down on the edge of the sofa and studied her face intently. ‘You’re as white as a sheet. How many times have you been sick today?’

  ‘Three or four.’ She tried to shrug off his concern. ‘Nausea and tiredness are normal in early pregnancy and I’ll probably feel better soon.’

  But she didn’t. Over the next few days the sickness became more frequent and the dull ache on the right side of her abdomen that she’d had on and off for weeks turned into a stabbing pain. Sara had read that a miscarriage was fairly common in the first three months of pregnancy and nothing could be done to prevent nature taking its course.

  For the first time since the shock of finding out that she was pregnant her baby became real in her mind. She pictured a little boy with black hair and dark eyes like his daddy and she felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness for the new life inside her. ‘Hang on, little one,’ she whispered when she went to bed early that night, praying that if she rested her baby would make it through the crucial early weeks of her pregnancy.

  The pain woke her some hours later. A sensation like a red-hot poker scourging her insides was so agonising that she struggled to breathe. Sadness swept through her as she realised that she was probably going to lose the baby and when she fumbled to switch on the bedside light the sight of blood on the sheets confirmed the worst. But the amount of blood shocked her and the pain in her stomach was excruciating. She felt faint, and her instincts told her something was seriously wrong.

  ‘Alekos...’ Dear God, what if he couldn’t hear her and she bled to death, alone and terrified? She called on every last bit of her fading strength. ‘Alekos...help me...’

  ‘Sara?’ She heard the bedroom door open and the overhead light suddenly illuminated the room. She heard Alekos swear and she heard fear in his voice. ‘I’m calling an ambulance.’ His hand felt cool on her feverish brow. She tried to speak but she felt so weak. His face swam in front of her eyes as he leaned over her. ‘Hang on, Sara mou,’ he said hoarsely, repeating the plea she had made to her baby. But pain was tearing her apart and she slipped into blackness.

  * * *

  Someone, at some time—Alekos did not know who or when—had come up with the gem of wisdom, You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. The quote had been painfully apt while he had paced up and down the waiting room while Sara had undergone emergency surgery to stop serious internal bleeding resulting from an ectopic pregnancy.

  ‘An ectopic is when a fertilised egg implants in a fallopian tube instead of in the womb,’ the obstetrician at the hospital where Sara had been rushed to by ambulanc
e had explained to Alekos. ‘The pregnancy cannot continue but the condition is not life-threatening unless the tube ruptures, which unfortunately occurred in Miss Lovejoy’s case.’

  An hour-long operation and two blood transfusions later, Sara was transferred to the intensive care ward and a nurse told Alekos she had been lucky to survive. He’d known that, even without much medical knowledge. The sight of her lying pale and lifeless on the blood-soaked sheets was something he would never forget.

  It had been much later, when he’d sat by her bed in ITU, steadfastly refusing the nurse’s suggestion to go home and get some sleep, when he’d allowed himself to think about the baby they had lost, and the fact that he had very nearly lost Sara. He had spent his life since he was fourteen building a fortress around his heart so that nothing could hurt him like Dimitri’s death had. So why were his eyes wet, and why did it feel as if a boulder had lodged in his throat making swallowing painful?

  Five days later, he stepped into her room in the private wing of the hospital where she had been moved to after she was well enough to leave ITU and a ghost of a smile curved his lips when he found her dressed and sitting in a chair. He was relieved to see a faint tinge of colour on her cheeks, but she still looked as fragile as spun glass and his stomach twisted.

  ‘You look better.’ It was a lie but he suddenly didn’t know what to say to her. The little scrap of life that neither he nor Sara had planned for her to conceive was gone. He did not know how she felt about the loss of their child, and he didn’t want to face his own feelings. So he forced himself to smile as he picked up her holdall. ‘Are you ready to come home?’

  She avoided looking directly at him, and that was a bad sign. ‘I’m not going to the penthouse with you.’

  ‘I realise it holds bad memories. We can go somewhere else. I’ll check with the doctor that you are okay to fly and we’ll go to Eiríni.’

  ‘No.’ At last she did look at him and wiped away a tear as it slid down her cheek. ‘It’s not the penthouse. I’m sad that I lost the baby, but we only knew I was pregnant for two weeks. I was just getting used to the idea of being a mother but now...that’s not going to happen.’ She took something out of her handbag and held out her hand to him. ‘I need to give you this.’

  He stared at her engagement ring sparkling in his palm and a nerve jumped in his cheek.

  ‘Now there is no baby there is no reason for us to marry,’ she said quietly.

  Something roared inside Alekos. He felt unbalanced, as if the world had tilted on its axis and he was falling into a dark place. All he had thought about for the past days was Sara and the baby they had lost. This scenario had not occurred to him and he didn’t know what to say or think or feel.

  ‘There is no need for either of us to make hasty decisions. You’ve been through hell and need time to recuperate before we think about the future.’

  She shook her head. ‘We don’t have a future together. Your only reason for deciding to marry me was because I was pregnant with your child.’

  ‘That’s not strictly true. There were other reasons that are still valid even though there is no baby.’

  ‘What reasons?’ She stared at him and Alekos saw the sudden tension in her body and the faint betraying tremble of her lower lip. For a moment he almost gave in to the urge to put his arms around her and smell the vanilla scent of her hair. He was almost tempted to listen to the roaring inside him. But then he thought of Dimitri walking into the sea, throwing away his life for love, and the fortress walls closed around Alekos’s heart.

  ‘My position as chairman of GE will be strengthened if I marry. The board members like and respect you—as I do. I value you, Sara. We are a good team and I am confident that if you were my wife you would run my home as efficiently as you ran my office.’

  To his own ears his words sounded pompous and Sara gave an odd laugh. ‘You make marriage sound like I would be your PA with a few extra perks.’

  ‘Excellent perks,’ he said drily. A lot of women would jump at the chance to live the wealthy lifestyle he was offering. ‘You would not have to work and could study art or do whatever you want to do. And let’s not forget sex.’ He watched her pale cheeks flood with colour and was amazed she could blush when he knew her body as well as his own and had kissed every centimetre of her creamy skin. ‘The sexual chemistry between us shows no sign of burning out.’

  ‘And you resent it,’ she said slowly. ‘The marriage you described is not enough for me. I don’t care about your money,’ she said quickly before he could speak, ‘and I agree the sex is great. But you would tire of me eventually. I was your PA for two years and I know the short lifespan of your interest in women.’

  ‘What do you want, then?’ he demanded, furious with her for reading him too well.

  ‘The saddest thing is that you have to ask.’ She stood up and gathered up her handbag. ‘My friend Ruth is coming to pick me up and she’s invited me to stay with her because my mother’s house has now been sold.’

  It hit Alekos then that she actually meant it and something akin to panic cramped in his gut. ‘Sara, we can talk.’

  ‘Until we’re blue in the face,’ she said flatly, ‘but it won’t change anything. I understand why you won’t allow anyone too close. I know you feel guilty because you think you should have done more to help your brother. But you can’t live in the past for ever, Alekos. Love isn’t an enemy you have to fight and I don’t believe Dimitri would have wanted you to live your life without love.’

  ‘Even though loving someone cost him his life?’ Alekos said savagely.

  ‘You don’t know for sure that he did mean to end his life. You told me you never talked about Dimitri’s death with the rest of your family. Maybe you should. Because a life without love will make you as bitter and unhappy as my mother was, and how I would become if I married you.’

  Her words stung him. ‘I don’t remember you being unhappy when we were on Eiríni.’ He pulled her into his arms and sought her mouth. ‘I made you happy,’ he muttered against her lips. ‘Do you think you’ll find this passion with anyone else?’

  He kissed her hard and his body jerked when he felt her respond. She was a golden light in his life, and he realised that almost from the first day she had started working for him he had looked forward to her cheerful smile every morning and he’d felt comfortable with her in a way he had never felt with other women. They had been friends before they were lovers but she was prepared to walk away from what they had because he refused to put a label on what he felt for her.

  He knew how to seduce her. He knew how to kiss her with a deepening hunger so that she flattened out her bunched fists on his chest and slid her arms up around his neck. Her body melted into him and triumph surged through him, spiking his already heated blood. She couldn’t deny this.

  He couldn’t believe it when she wrenched her mouth from beneath his and pushed against his chest. He was unprepared for her rejection and dropped his arms to his sides as she stepped away from him. ‘You want me,’ he said harshly. ‘We’re good together, Sara, but I won’t beg. If I walk away I won’t come back. Ever.’

  He held his breath as she stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips gently on his cheek. ‘I hope that one day you will find the happiness you deserve. And I hope I will too. I can’t settle for second best, Alekos.’

  He froze. Second best. Was that what she thought of him? The same as his father had thought. Theos, she might as well have stabbed him through his heart. The pain in his chest felt as if she had.

  * * *

  Sara watched Alekos stride out of her hospital room and nearly ran after him. She sank down onto the bed as the enormity of what she had done drained the little strength she had in her legs after her ordeal of the ectopic pregnancy. The sense of loss that swept over her was almost unbearable.

  When she’d regained consciousness and discovered she was lying in a hospital bed she had known immediately that her baby hadn’t survived. The grief she felt was gr
eater than anything she’d experienced. It was true she had only known for a few weeks that she was pregnant but there was a hollow space inside her and she felt as though her hopes for her future as a mother had been ripped from her as savagely as her child had been ripped from her body.

  Now she had lost Alekos too. She would never see him again, never feel his strong arms around her or feel him move inside her in the timeless dance of love. Because it wasn’t love, she reminded herself. What she’d had with Alekos was wonderful sex that for him had been meaningless.

  Much as she hated to acknowledge it, she had been just another mistress. The only difference between her and all the other countless women he’d had affairs with was that the board members of GE approved of her, which was why he had wanted to marry her despite her no longer being pregnant.

  She knew she had done the right thing to turn him down. Her close brush with death when her tube had ruptured had shown her that life was too precious to waste a moment of it. There had been a moment when she’d thought Alekos was going to admit that he cared for her and she’d held her breath and hoped with all her heart, only to hear him say that he valued her in the same way that he might have said he valued a priceless painting or one of the flash superyachts his company was famous for building.

  Once she would have been grateful for any crumb he offered her. She had been so lacking in self-confidence that she would have married him because she had adored him and didn’t believe that a handsome, charismatic and sophisticated man such as Alekos could fall in love with his plain, frumpy secretary.

  Meeting her father had made her feel like a whole person. Casting her mind back over the past months, she could see that she had taken more interest in her appearance because she felt more worthwhile, and maybe it was her new confidence that had attracted Alekos as much as her new, sexier clothes and hairstyle. But crucially she had forgotten that he’d once said love was simply a word used by poets and romantics to describe lust.