It certainly wasn’t the first time it’d happened to Nico. The memories continued to cloud him, sucking the air out of his lungs and making the earth feel like hot coals beneath his feet. He remembered that day well, the only person who’d ever felt like family to him. The father he’d always wanted and never had. He’d dragged Nico by the arm all the way to the front door.
Then he was homeless. Alone, again. Abandoned…and worse.
“What?” She shook her head. “My plan? What plan are you talking about?”
So that’s how she was going to play it, by sticking to the whole innocent act? His chest rose and fell as panic took its grip. “Don’t insult me, Marianna.”
Her eyes widened so much he thought they might pop right out of her head. “W-what?”
“You heard me,” he growled. “If you think you fooled me even for a second with your fake name, then you’re wrong.”
“Oh my god.” She pressed a hand to her chest, as if trying to still her heartbeat. “You know my name.”
“I saw you walk out of the café with your brother.” He shook his head. “I was curious, so I played along. But if Daniel thinks that he can change my mind by shoving his sister into my lap, then he’s got another thing coming. I will not be manipulated into a business deal. People have tried it before and failed. You and your brother are no different.”
“I’m not…” She shook her head, her breath tripping. “We’re not doing that. That’s not what this is.”
“You must have a reason to lose your virginity to the guy who turned your brother down. There’s got to be an ulterior motive—why else do it?”
Nico realized then that he was having this argument with her while totally naked. Growling in frustration, he reached down and grabbed a towel to cover himself. Logically he knew that this thing with Marianna shouldn’t have shaken him. After all, it made no difference. They could play whatever tricks they wanted, but he wouldn’t be giving the Halsey family his money or his support. He owed them nothing. And sleeping with her didn’t change that.
You can act like it didn’t have any meaning, but that doesn’t change the fact that you felt it. She got to you.
But he couldn’t dwell on that. This situation smacked of the past. It burrowed under his skin like a needle, painful and sharp, rousing the memories he’d tried so hard to bury.
“I didn’t know who you were,” she said. Now her eyes were shimmering with tears, and she’d wrapped her arms around herself, rolling her shoulders in as if hoping it might make her disappear. “You came up to me.”
“To stop you from getting robbed. That could have been the end of it.”
“I invited you for a drink because I thought you were handsome. That’s it.”
“And you wanted your first time to be with a stranger?” He shook his head. “I’m not buying it.”
“Excuse me?” She glared at him. “You make it sound like I’m a liar.”
“Are you, Bianca?”
“That’s different!”
“This whole thing sounds fishy as hell, and it wouldn’t be the first time a woman had tried to use sex to get something out of me.”
Marianna was practically vibrating now; her tear-filled eyes had turned hard. Her mouth pressed into a thin line as the hot, pulsating anger poured off her like a pheromone. It only made her look even more regal. Like a furious and vengeful queen.
“You want to know what I was after, Nico?” His name was spat out like it caused a bad taste in her mouth. “I wanted to have sex. That’s all. I wanted to let my hair down and have a hot time with a stranger while I was here in Greece. Now, you can make up whatever nefarious stories you like, but that’s the truth of it.”
She sounded sincere. But Nico had heard plenty of “sincerity” in his time. She’d certainly seemed attracted to him. All that adorable fumbling, that sweet clumsiness had allowed him to let his guard down. What if it was all part of her plan? Then she’d had him eating out of the palm of her hand.
Shame burned bright and hot, giving a jittery edge to his racing heart. “Well, if that’s what you came for, then you got it,” he said. “But that means we’re done.”
“Fine,” she gritted out.
Some strange inner voice urged him to stay, to find out more about her. Because today hadn’t been nothing to him, despite how it was ending.
But he smothered the voice until there was nothing but cold silence. “I’ll call my driver to take you back to your hotel. You can wait here until he’s ready.”
And with that, Nico stalked into the house, trying to shake off the feeling that he’d just made a very big mistake.
Chapter Six
Two months later…
It had been exactly eight weeks, two days, and six hours since she’d returned from Greece. And every second that ticked past failed to lessen the vivid image of Nico in Marianna’s head. It was so clear that her hand twitched with the desire to reach out and touch the mirage. It was so real. That glossy black hair, those icy eyes and firm, full lips.
Every night she fell asleep watching TV on her laptop, because the quiet darkness gave her room to think and she couldn’t have that. Because every fantasy was cut short by the memory of Nico’s accusations.
And now…
Now she had bigger concerns. Marianna hurried to the front door of the modest house she shared with two of her brothers. She’d left university early today, hoping to make it home before the boys. Privacy was an absolute requirement right now.
The paper bag from the pharmacy burned a hole through her handbag as she bent her head to the fine mist of rain, pausing at the last second to dig out her keys. She fumbled, her cold, shaking hands struggling as she opened the door.
“Hello?” Marianna shrugged out of her coat. “Anyone home?”
Please be empty. Please be empty. Please be empty.
The rain fell harder outside, pelting the windows with increasing pressure. “Hello?”
When silence greeted her again, she let out a relieved sigh and headed into the main bathroom. Swallowing down the mounting fear in the back of her throat, she pulled the pregnancy test out of the paper bag. Eight weeks, two days, and six hours…and still no period. She scanned the instructions and shimmied out of her trousers.
Please. I’ll never have sex again.
When Nico had stormed off and left her standing half naked beside his pool, she’d refused to cry. Marianna was, despite what her brothers thought, made of strong stuff. She had a resilience that most people would never understand, that most people would never have to experience. She’d grown up without much—only a little money and even less freedom. She’d lost her father young. Then her mother. She’d persevered, persisted, and tried her damnedest to make something of herself. She studied languages, learned about other cultures, taught ESL classes to children and adults who were new to Australia in her spare time.
But she’d reached a point in her life where she needed to start taking control, to chase the things she wanted instead of being passive and letting her brothers make decisions for her. She wanted to be her own woman, someone who would have made her parents proud.
This, however, was not how she had envisaged it going down.
She placed the white plastic stick on top of the box it came in and waited, her breath barely moving in and out of her lungs.
A baby would change everything. It would mean having to confess to her brothers. Having to deal with questions from her work supervisor, her colleagues…everyone who’d known her since she was a baby herself. And even if the pregnancy went well, there would be no loving partner by her side. She could only imagine what Nico would say. He couldn’t have pushed her out of his house fast enough at the time. If she went to him now…
But what choice would she have?
A wave of nausea rolled over Marianna, and she blinked back tears as she fought it down. All she’d wanted was one moment of pleasure. One moment of escape. She was on the pill. Did the universe hate her so mu
ch that she was in the point-one percent of people for whom it wasn’t effective as a contraceptive? Or maybe it had been the change in time zones, meaning she’d taken her pill later than she should have?
You will learn from your mistakes, because it’s a lesson, nothing more.
But no matter how much she tried to calm herself, her heart slammed against her ribs as though trying to force its way out.
“Stop it,” she said, her jagged words bouncing off the tiles and echoing back to her.
Sucking in a deep breath, Marianna prayed with all her might that it would be negative. The twin pink lines stared back at her, wrenching a gasp from her chest.
No. No. No!
She picked it up and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that her vision would correct itself. But the twin lines remained.
She was pregnant.
For a moment it felt like she was falling. The bottom had slipped out from under her feet, and she was going to land hard. The room spun around her, and she gripped the edge of the sink. Everything narrowed to a pinpoint.
She was pregnant.
Pregnant.
The word replayed over and over in her head. Should she feel her baby yet? Should she know now that she would be a good mother? That she’d create the best home she could for the life growing inside her?
Marianna’s chest heaved. She knew nothing. Was certain of nothing. Except one thing… She would keep the baby. All her life she’d wanted a child and to be able to give them what she’d been robbed of—a loving, strong, invested family.
This wasn’t how she’d ever imagined it happening, but Marianna would survive. And she would make a life for her baby.
Steeling herself, she pushed up and righted her clothes. Then she flushed the toilet, washed her hands and gathered up the pregnancy test, ready to toss it into the bin in the kitchen. This time when she looked back at the mirror, there was a determined set to her jaw.
She placed a hand over her stomach. “I’m not going to fail you,” she whispered. “I know you probably don’t have ears yet, but I’m going to tell you this every day until you can hear me. And then every day after that. I’m not going to fail you.”
She walked out of the bathroom, her head spinning while she tried to think of how to break it to her brothers. The second she set foot into the hallway, a surprised squeak left her lips. Matthew and Daniel walked in the front door and found her standing there, the test in her hands.
“Hey Mari.” Daniel came forward first, his eyes on her hands. “You’re home early.”
She opened her mouth, but it was like someone had a fist around her voice box. Nothing came out.
Daniel’s expression morphed from curious to worried. His sandy brows furrowed as his gaze swung from the box in her hands up to her face and back down again. “What’s going on?”
There was no sense lying. They could see the box with its bright pink lettering announcing to the world she was no longer living only for herself. God, what would they say?
“I…” Come on. Like a Band-Aid. Do it now. “I’m pregnant.”
Two hours later, the last Halsey brother turned up at the house. The lounge room was now full to the bursting point. Even Samuel, the brother she saw the least, had left work early to be here. Oddly, it made Marianna feel comforted rather than intimidated. Her brothers weren’t perfect, that was for damn sure. But when there was a problem, they rallied and weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Without fail. She was never ever made to feel alone in her problems.
“Come into the clinic tomorrow. I’ll get one of the other doctors to do a blood test.” Mark, the oldest sibling, was a doctor and ran a medical clinic with his best friend.
Felicity, Mark’s wife, sat by his side. Her brows furrowed, even though she’d been trying to act calm ever since she’d arrived. “No matter what happens, we’ll help you. You know that, right? This baby is going to be so loved.”
The sweet sentiment made her heart want to shatter. Felicity and Mark had been trying to get pregnant since they got married four years ago. Their first round of IVF hadn’t worked out, and they were contemplating a second round. Marianna couldn’t help but feel guilty that her problem was the very thing they wanted with all their hearts.
But neither Mark nor Felicity had treated her with jealousy or frustration. In fact, Felicity had hugged her so tight Marianna had struggled for breath. She’d even offered up her stash of baby clothes that they’d bought prior to undergoing IVF the first time as a gesture of hope.
“What about Nico?” Daniel asked, raking a hand through his wavy, light brown hair.
“I doubt he’ll want the baby,” Marianna said. “He made it clear he thought you sent me in as a kind of…manipulative power play. He wasn’t buying that it was a coincidence.”
“Then why the fuck did he sleep with you?” Daniel held up his hand. “I’m sorry, I just…I don’t understand why…why he did that with you, if he knew who you were. If it was such a problem, why go through with it?”
It. They kept referring to the fact that Marianna slept with him as “it.” Her mistake. Her screw-up. It was a disaster with lifelong consequences.
“I have to tell him,” she said. “Even if he doesn’t want anything to do with me or the baby.”
“You’re right,” Isaac said. He and his twin, Jonathan, sat on two dining chairs they’d dragged over from the table. Their identical faces reflected identical worried brown eyes. “It’s his kid, too.”
Truthfully, the thought of facing Nico again terrified her.
Yet you managed to fantasize about going back to him for the last two months without worry. What about all those times you daydreamed about seeing him again? Having him again?
But this was different. It wasn’t sex. It was life. Three lives.
“I know you’re probably scared out of your wits.” Isaac leaned over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “But we’ll make this work.”
“I know.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth, either. She would try…but nothing was certain.
“Why should he know? We never have to go back there,” Daniel argued.
“He doesn’t necessarily need to be involved. But we can’t not tell him,” Jonathan countered.
We. Because in her family, a problem for one was a problem for all.
“He won’t want to be involved, I can tell you that now.” Daniel looked like he was about to spit flames. “The way he treated me in the meeting… I can only imagine how he treated Mari.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Isaac shook his head, ever the moral compass of the family. “We all grew up without a mum and dad because we didn’t have a choice. Is it fair to do that to the baby?”
She pressed her hand to her stomach, which was stupid since her son or daughter was currently the size of a kidney bean, according to the baby website she’d consulted earlier. There was nothing to feel, yet some maternal instinct made the action feel natural. Comforting.
If her child asked her one day about their father, what would Marianna say? Sorry, I never told him about you. Avoiding Nico might be easier for her, but it wasn’t best for her baby. If Nico wasn’t part of their child’s life, it wouldn’t be because Marianna was too scared to own up to her responsibilities.
“Is a father who doesn’t want you better than no father at all?” Daniel argued.
“Guys, enough!” Every head in the room snapped in her direction at the unusual sound of her raised voice. “I appreciate the support, you know that. But this is my decision and I am going to tell him. I want this baby to have a family.”
If only her mother was here, maybe it wouldn’t be quite so terrifying. Maybe she wouldn’t feel like she’d blown a giant hole through her life.
“I’m going to ask him to marry me,” she added, swallowing against the lump in her throat.
“What?” Daniel’s face was beet red. Usually, he was the cool, calm, and collected one of this family. But on their return flight from Gree
ce, he’d had nothing but bad things to say about Nico. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s not your call,” she said calmly. “This is my body and my issue. I will deal with it how I see fit.”
“Do you want to marry him?” Felicity asked, biting down on her lip. “It’s a big step with someone you care about, let alone with a virtual stranger.”
“For my entire life I’ve wanted to have a complete family.”
After her mother had died, they’d unearthed a box of mementos containing letters to Santa from when they were all kids. The boys had asked for bikes and toy trucks and gaming consoles. Marianna had asked for her father. Over and over and over, her Dear Santas were followed by requests for her father to come back from heaven.
She might not be able to have it for herself, but she was damn well going to try her hardest to give it to her baby. Even if it meant leaving everything she knew behind—her brothers, her best friend, her studies. Life without those three important things would be tough. But wasn’t that what parenthood was all about—sacrificing to make a better life for your baby?
“Besides, Nico has the money to give our child everything they could possibly want in life. They’ll have a better quality of life. Travel, education…all the things we struggled to afford. And, if we’re married, then at least I know he won’t try to take custody away from me…”
Would Nico do something like that? Take the baby from her? He certainly had the money to overpower her legally. Getting married would at least ensure her involvement in the baby’s life. And if he wanted nothing to do with them, so be it. But she had to try.
The room was silent. Nobody could argue the point.
“Well, we’re here for you,” Felicity said. “No matter what happens.”
“I’ll come with you,” Daniel added. “For moral support.”
“No.” Marianna shook her head. “I need to do this alone.”
She’d gotten herself into this mess, so she would be in charge of getting herself out. The days of her being coddled by her brothers were over. And, as her mother had always taught her, making a mistake wasn’t what defined a person. It was the action they took after it.
Beauty and the Greek Billionaire Page 6