by Jennie Lucas
But at that, sudden rage filled her, chasing away the shadows of fear.
“I’m a liar?” she said incredulously.
His lip curled scornfully. “You hid your pregnancy and ran away like a thief—”
Holly was past listening as nearly a year of grief and rage exploded from her heart.
“You’re the liar, Stavros. When you wanted me in your bed, you promised the sun and the moon! You asked me to marry you!” Her body shook with pain and anger. “But as soon as you were done, you couldn’t throw me away fast enough on Christmas morning!”
He started to speak, then abruptly cut himself off. He looked away, his jaw clenching. He said in a low voice, “I had a good reason.”
“Yeah, right!” Holly, who’d never lost her temper in her life, truly lost it now. “You’d had your fun and you were done. You didn’t care what it did to me. You’re selfish to the bone. Why would I ever let a man like you near my son?”
“Son?” He slowly turned to her. Then his eyes narrowed. “I want to meet him.”
“No.”
“I’m his father.”
“Father?” She lifted her chin incredulously. “You’re a sperm donor, nothing more. I don’t want anything to do with you. We’re better off without you.” She jabbed her finger toward the door. “Now get out!”
Stavros clawed his hands through his dark, tousled hair. His black eyes looked weary, almost bleak. “You don’t understand. I wasn’t myself last year—”
“You were exactly yourself,” she interrupted coldly. “The lying, coldhearted bastard everyone else claimed you were.” Holly was surprised he’d even bother trying to make excuses. It didn’t seem like his style. But it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let herself get suckered into caring about him ever again. She shook her head. “You’re selfish and cruel. Just like Oliver said—Minos men only care about themselves!”
Abruptly, Stavros turned to face her.
“I was dying, Holly,” he said flatly. “That’s why I sent you away on Christmas morning. I thought I was dying.” He narrowed his eyes. “And now I want to see my son.”
* * *
Stavros wasn’t prepared for the shock he’d felt, seeing her in the doorway of the Alpine chalet.
He was even less prepared for the shock of learning that the rumor was true, and he was a father.
A father. And the baby had to be around two months old. All those months of the pregnancy, and he hadn’t known. He felt dizzy with the revelation.
Dizzy, and angry. But not just at Holly.
So much had happened over the last year. He’d been unusually emotional last Christmas, convinced he’d been about to die. That must have been why he’d acted so foolishly, seducing her with such wild longing, proposing marriage, even begging her to have his child.
It embarrassed him now to remember it. All that rank sentimentality, the desperation he’d felt for love and family and home.
Thank God, he’d recovered from that, along with the cancer. Holly Marlowe was nothing to him now.
Or so he’d thought. But now they had a child together. That meant they’d be linked forever, even after death.
And looking at Holly now, Stavros felt the same punch in the gut that he remembered from last Christmas. If anything, she looked more beautiful, more impossibly desirable.
Her curly red hair tumbled over her shoulders of her soft green tunic, and the angry pant of her breath showed off breasts grown fuller and even more womanly than he remembered. Tight leggings revealed the delicious shape of her hips and backside. Her emerald eyes sparkled with fury as they narrowed in disbelief.
“Dying?” she said incredulously.
“It’s true. Last Christmas I thought I only had months to live.”
He waited for her to react, but her face was stony.
“Didn’t you hear me?” he demanded. She shrugged.
“I’m waiting for the punch line,” she said coldly.
“Damn you. I’m trying to tell you something I haven’t shared with anyone.”
“Lucky me.”
Turning away, Stavros paced, staring briefly at the crackling fire in the fireplace, then out of the frosted window toward the sun sparkling on the snow. He took a deep breath. “I had a brain tumor. I was told I was dying.”
“And that inspired you to seduce me and lie to me?”
“Dying inspired me to want more,” he said softly. “To make one last attempt to leave something behind. A wife. A child.” He turned back to her. “That’s why I slept with you, Holly. That’s why I said I wanted to marry you and have a child with you. I wasn’t lying. I did want it.”
She clenched her hands, glaring at him. “So what happened?”
“I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t be that selfish. I knew you would fall in love with me. You were so...innocent. So trusting. I didn’t want to break your heart and make you collapse with grief after I died.”
She pulled back, looking strangely outraged. He’d forgotten that about her, how she wore her emotions so visibly on her face. Most people he knew hid their emotions behind iron walls. Including and especially himself, notwithstanding Christmas Eve last year, which he still tried not to think about.
“So you said those horrible things,” Holly said, “and sent me away for my sake. You’re such a good guy.”
Her tone was acid. Staring at her in shock, Stavros realized he’d taken her innocence in more ways than one.
He’d kept the secret of his illness entirely to himself for a year. Even when his hair had fallen out, he’d shaved his head and pretended it was a fashion choice. When his skin had turned ashy and he lost weight, he’d blamed it on the stress of mergers and acquisitions.
Until this moment, only his doctors had known the truth. Literally no one else. Stavros had thought, if he ever opened up to Holly about that night, he would be instantly forgiven. Because, damn it, he’d been dying.
He’d obviously thought wrong.
“Why didn’t you die, then?” Holly said scornfully. She tilted her head in mild curiosity, as if asking why he’d missed breakfast. “Why didn’t your tumor kill you?”
Stavros thought of the months of painful treatment, getting radiation and chemotherapy. After he’d abandoned his dream of leaving behind a wife and child, he’d decided to give up his dying body to an experimental new therapy. He’d thought he might at least benefit science by his death.
Instead, in August, he’d been informed by shocked doctors that the inoperable tumor had started to shrink.
Now, Stavros shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “It was a miracle.”
Holly snorted. “Of course it was.” She rolled her eyes. “Men like you always have miracles, don’t they?”
“Men like me?”
“Selfish and richer than the earth.”
The scorn in her voice set his teeth on edge. “Look, I’m getting a little tired of you calling me selfish—”
“The truth hurts, does it?”
“Stop trying to put all the blame on me,” he growled. “You’re the one who has kept my son from me. I told you to contact my lawyers if you were pregnant!”
“I wasn’t going to let you force me into having an abortion!”
Shocked, Stavros stared at her, his forehead furrowed. “What?”
“Christmas morning, you told me you’d changed your mind. You didn’t want a child. You said if I was pregnant, I should contact your lawyers and they’d take care of it!” An angry sob choked her voice. “Did you think I didn’t know what you meant?”
Furious, he grabbed her shoulders. “I meant I’d provide for my child with a great deal of money,” he growled. “Damn you!”
As Holly stared at him, Stavros abruptly dropped his hands, exhaling.
Finally, he understood. Since Oliver had phoned him yest
erday, he’d wondered how it could be true. Why would Holly not tell him about a pregnancy? Was it some kind of nefarious attempt at revenge for his seduction and subsequent rejection? Holly had apparently kept the news from her sister as well. She’d only told her yesterday, obviously knowing Nicole would tell Oliver and he’d tell Stavros. But why?
Now it was clear. Holly had been afraid. He gritted his teeth at that insult. But now, with her baby safely born, she was ready to claim the fortune that was due her.
Stavros looked around the ramshackle old cabin, saw the cracks between the logs where the cold wind blew. Holly was no gold digger, but any mother would want the best for her child. She was ready for them to live in greater comfort, and who could blame her?
Now that he understood her motivation, Stavros relaxed.
“You have nothing to worry about,” he proclaimed. “I will provide for the baby, if he’s mine.”
“If?” she repeated in fury.
“I want to meet him.”
Holly glared at him. “No.”
Stavros blinked. “What?”
“You came here to find out if I’d had your baby. Fine. Now you know. Your lawyers probably gave you papers for me to sign. Some kind of settlement to make sure neither I nor my baby would ever make a claim on your full fortune.”
“How did you know—” He cut himself off too late. She gave him a cold smile.
“I was a secretary for many years to powerful men. I know how you all think. You’re no different from the rest.” She came closer, her eyes glowing intently. “I don’t want your money. I’ll take nothing from you. And nothing is what you’ll get in return. Freddie is mine. You will relinquish all parental rights.”
“Relinquish?” he breathed in shock. All his earlier smug confidence had disappeared. Surely Holly couldn’t hate him so much, when all he’d been trying to do last Christmas was protect her from her own weakness? There was no reason for her to toss him out like this, without even letting him see the baby. Unless—
A thought hit him like hard kick in the gut from a steel-toed boot.
“Is there another man?” he said slowly.
An odd smile lifted the corner of her lovely lips. “What difference would it make to you?”
“None,” he lied coldly.
But against his will, he was enraged at the thought.
He’d spent the year as celibate as monk, exhausted after too many hours at the hospital alone, getting medical treatment that sucked away his life and energy. Why had he imagined, just because he’d taken her virginity, that a beautiful young woman like Holly would have spent the last year celibate as well?
For the last year, he’d tried not to think about her, or how out of control she’d made him feel last year. He’d told himself that he’d done the noble thing, the hard thing, setting her free. Since he’d gone into complete remission last month, he’d tried to forget that their night together had been the single greatest sensual experience of his life.
Because Holly made him lose control. She made him weak. He’d couldn’t risk seeing her again.
Until he’d gotten the call from Oliver yesterday. Then he’d had no choice.
Because whatever Holly might think of him, Stavros would never abandon his child. Even if he wasn’t sure he was ready to be a father, he would provide for him.
His lawyers had warned him if the baby rumor was true, he should immediately ask for a paternity test, and insist that Holly sign papers to recuse herself and her child from any other claim on his billions before he paid her a dime.
His lawyers had never told Stavros what to do if Holly scorned him, his money, and the horse he rode in on.
“You...don’t even want my son to know me?” he asked.
She gave a single short shake of her head.
“So why tell me about the baby at all?” he said harshly. “Just to punish me?”
“I never intended for you to know. I swore my sister to secrecy.”
Holly hadn’t intended for him to know about his son? Ever? Shock left him scrambling. “But my son needs a father!”
She lifted her chin. “Better no father at all than someone who will let him down, and teach him all the wrong lessons about how to be a man. How to lie. How to make meaningless promises. How to be ruthless and selfish and care only about himself!”
Stavros hadn’t thought he had much of a heart left, but her words stabbed him deep. He thought of his own childhood, growing up without a father. Having to figure out for himself how to be a man.
Hardly aware of what he was saying, he insisted, “But what if I want to be in his life? What if I want to help raise him?”
Holly’s eyes widened.
Then her lips twisted scornfully. “I’ve heard that lie before.”
“This is different...”
“You might have lured me once into some romantic fantasy. Never again.” Crossing the cabin, she wrenched open the door. A blast of cold air flew inside, whipping the fire with its icy fingers. “Please go. Don’t come back. Have your lawyers send me the papers.” She looked at him coldly. “There’s no reason for us to ever meet again.”
“Holly, you’re not being fair—”
It was the wrong word to use.
“Fair?” Turning, she called out to the driver parked in front of the cabin. “Your boss is ready to leave.”
Stavros’s head was spinning. He needed time. He hadn’t even seen his baby, or held him in his arms. He wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore. But Holly was already making the decision for both of them.
She didn’t want any part of him. Not as a husband. Not as a father. Even his money wasn’t good enough.
Fine, he told himself coldly. He’d keep his money. He didn’t need her. Or their baby.
“Fine. You’ll have the papers by the end of the day,” he told her grimly.
“Good,” she said in the same tone.
Stavros set his jaw, glaring at her. Then he stalked out of the cabin without a word, his long dark coat flying behind him as he breathed a Greek curse that left a whisper of white smoke in the icy air. The frozen snow crackled beneath his Italian leather shoes as he passed his waiting driver and got into the back seat of the Rolls-Royce Cullinan.
“Let’s go,” he growled to his driver.
“Where to, Mr. Minos?”
“Back to the airport,” Stavros barked. He’d tried to take responsibility, but she didn’t want him in their baby’s life. Fine. He’d give her exactly what she wanted. He’d call his lawyers and have them draw up the new papers, severing his parental rights, and giving Holly absolutely nothing.
All my most impossible dreams are suddenly coming true.
The memory of her trembling voice came back to him, whispered into the silent, sweet night last Christmas Eve. Leaning his head back against the leather seat, Stavros closed his eyes, pushing away the memory. Along with how it had felt to have her body against his that sacred, holy night.
But as the Rolls-Royce wound its way back through the Swiss valley, his shoulders only grew more tense. He stared out at the picturesque valley, blanketed by white snow sparkling beneath the sun.
For the past year, he’d hidden his illness from everyone, driving himself harder at work, so no one would know his secret. When he’d gotten the shocking news that he was going to live, he’d been alone in the medical clinic, with no one to share the miracle except for doctors eagerly planning to document the case to medical journals and astonish their colleagues.
Was this how he would spend that miracle? Abandoning the woman he’d seduced last Christmas...and the child they’d conceived together? Leaving a son to grow up without a father, and would despise Stavros as a heartless stranger?
If he did, he truly was a Minos to the core.
His eyes flew open.
“Stop,” he said hoarsely
.
CHAPTER SIX
HOLLY PUSHED HER stroller through the festive Christmas market in Zedermatt’s tiny town square.
Sparkling lights were festooned over outdoor walkways filled with locals and tourists bundled up against the cold, browsing dozens of decorated outdoor stalls, filled with charming homemade items, centered around an enormous Christmas tree in the square. Sausages of every kind, bockwurst and knockwurst and every other kind of wurst, sizzled on outdoor grills, adding the delicious salty smell to scents of pine, fresh mountain air and hot spiced wine called glühwein. Smiles were everywhere on rosy cheeks.
Past the eighteenth-century buildings around the square, including a town hall with an elaborate cuckoo clock that rang the time, craggy, snow-covered Alps rose above the tiny valley.
As she pushed her baby’s stroller through the crowds, everyone was welcoming. Gertrud and Karin, elderly sisters who ran a bakery in town, made a point of cooing over the baby. Gunther and Elfriede, selling scented homemade candles from their pine-decorated stall, generously praised Holly’s improving language skills.
Holly was surrounded by friends. She’d made a home.
So why did she feel so miserable?
Stavros, she thought. Just his name caused her heart to twist. Seeing him had been more painful than she’d ever imagined. And more terrifying. Asking him to give up his parental rights to Freddie, she’d been shaking inside.
Why had she been so afraid? Even if he’d never actually meant to threaten her into terminating her pregnancy as she’d once feared, he’d still made his total lack of interest in fatherhood clear.
So if he’d seemed hurt by her words, it must have only been his pride, injured at being told he wasn’t wanted. Obviously. What else could it be?
Dying inspired me to want more. To make one last attempt to leave something behind. A wife. A child. That’s why I slept with you, Holly. That’s why I said I wanted to marry you and have a child. I wasn’t lying. I did want it.
Was it true? Had he really been dying?
She hadn’t believed him at first. But a proud man like Stavros Minos wouldn’t lie. Not about something like that, something that exposed weakness.