It was intense and it was fast and it robbed her of breath and control. Her eyelids filled with light, her mouth tasted like steel. She pushed up on her elbows, staring into Leonidas’s eyes, feeling quite mad and delirious with what she’d just experienced.
But it was nowhere near over.
He braced himself above her on his palms, watching the play of sensation on her features, and then he began to move again, his body stirring hers to new heights, his dominance something that made her want to weep.
She knew though, instinctively, that giving into the salty tang of tears would be a bad idea. Even while she was part mad with pleasure, she didn’t want to show how completely he’d shifted something inside her, nor how much this meant to her.
Because Hannah felt a surge of feminine power and it was instantaneous and went beyond words. She didn’t need to tell him how much this meant to her; she felt it and that was enough.
Angus had made her feel precious and valued, he’d made her feel like an objet d’art and that had been nice. It had been better than knowing herself to be an unwanted nuisance, which was how she’d spent a huge portion of her childhood since the loss of her parents. But he’d never looked at her as though he would die if he didn’t kiss her.
He’d never looked at her as though the push and pull of their chemistry was robbing him of sense.
Leonidas was, though.
He moved his body and he stared into her eyes and she felt a cascade of emotions from him to her and none of them would be worth analysing, because this was just one night. A temporary, fleeting, brief night—a slice out of time.
* * *
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Leonidas cradled his head in his hands, staring at the floor between his feet. Early dawn light was peeking through the window. Hannah’s rhythmic breathing filled the room, soft and somehow sweet. Sweet? How could breath be sweet? He turned to face her on autopilot, his expression grim.
He didn’t know how, but it was.
She was sweet.
She’d been innocent.
He cursed silently, standing and pulling his pants on, watching her through a veil of disbelief. What the hell had come over him? Four years of celibacy and then he’d spontaneously combusted the second the beautiful redhead had literally bumped into him?
And it wasn’t the red hair, nor the passing resemblance to Amy. If anything, that would have been a reason to keep his distance. No, this was something else. A kind of sexual starvation that he supposed was only natural, given he’d denied himself this pleasure and release for such a long time. But, Theos, a virgin?
He hadn’t wanted that! He had wanted meaningless, empty sex. A quick roll in the hay to satisfy this part of him, to obliterate his grief, to remind him that he was a man, a breathing, living man with blood in his veins.
And instead, he’d taken a young woman’s innocence. He’d been her first.
A sense of disbelief filled him as he watched her sleeping, her gentle inhalations, her lips that were tilted into a smile even in her sleep.
He’d always be her first. No matter what happened, no matter who she slept with, he was that to her.
It wasn’t meaningless; it never could be. Thank God he’d remembered protection. He’d have put money on the fact she wasn’t on birth control—why would she be? He could think of nothing worse than that kind of consequence from a night of unplanned pleasure.
And it had been a night of pleasure, he thought with a strong lurch of desire in his gut. Despite her inexperience, she had matched him perfectly, her body answering every call of his, her inquisitiveness driving him wild, the way she’d kissed and licked her way over his frame, tasting all of him, experimenting with what pleased him, asking him to tell her what he needed.
He groaned, a quiet noise but she stirred, shifting a little, so the sheet fell down and revealed her pert, rounded breasts to his gaze.
His erection throbbed against his pants. He took a step back from the bed.
One night, and dawn was breathing its way through the room, reminding him that this was not his life.
Hannah was an aberration. A mistake.
He had to leave. He had to forget this ever happened. He just hoped she would, too.
* * *
Hannah woke slowly, her body delightfully sore, muscles she hadn’t felt before stretching inside her as she shifted, rolling onto her side.
A Cavalcanti masterpiece was on the wall opposite, the morning light bathing its modernist palette in gold, a gold she knew would be matched by the sheer cliffs of this spectacular island.
But none of these things were what she wanted to see most.
She flipped over, her eyes scanning the bed, looking for Leonidas. He wasn’t there.
She reached out, feeling the sheets. They were cold. Her stomach grumbled and she pushed to sitting, smothering a yawn with the back of her hand. When had they finally fallen asleep? She couldn’t remember.
A smile played about her lips as she stood, grabbing the sheet and wrapping it toga style around her, padding through the penthouse.
‘Leonidas?’ She frowned, looking around. The glass doors to the balcony were open. She moved towards it, the view spectacular, momentarily robbing her of breath for a wholly new reason.
He wasn’t out there.
She frowned, turning on her heel and heading back inside. It was then that she saw it.
A note.
And there was so much to comprehend in that one instant that she struggled to make sense of any of it.
First of all the letterhead. It was no standard issue hotel notepad. It bore the insignia of the hotel, but the embossed lettering at the bottom spelled ‘Leonidas Stathakis.’
Leonidas Stathakis? Her heart began to race faster as she comprehended this. She didn’t know much about the Stathakis brothers—she wasn’t really au fait with people of their milieu, but no one could fail to have at least heard of the Stathakis brothers. To know that they were two of the richest men in the world. There were other facts, too, swirling just beneath the surface. Snatches she’d heard or read but not paid attention to because it had all seemed so far away. Crimes? The mob? Murder? Was that them? Or someone else?
She swallowed, running her finger over the embossing, closing her eyes and picturing Leonidas as he’d been the night before. As he’d stood so close to her and their eyes had seemed to pierce one another’s souls.
Her pulse gushed and she blinked her green eyes open, scanning the paper more thoroughly this time, expecting to see a few lines explaining that he’d gone to get breakfast, or for a workout—those muscles didn’t just grow themselves—or something along those lines.
What she wasn’t expecting was the formality and finality of what she read.
Hannah
It shouldn’t have happened. Please forget it did. The penthouse is yours for as long as you’d like it.
Leonidas
She read it and reread it at least a dozen times, her fingers shaking as she reached for the coffee machine and jabbed the button. Outrage warred with anger.
It shouldn’t have happened.
Because she hadn’t been what he’d expected? Because she hadn’t been any good?
Oh, God.
Was it possible that the desire she’d felt had been one-sided? Angus had been engaged to her and been able to easily abstain from sex, yet he’d been fooling around behind her back.
Had she been a let-down?
Hurt flooded inside her, disbelief echoing in her heart.
She’d wanted to come to Chrysá Vráchia almost her whole life, but suddenly, she couldn’t wait to leave.
CHAPTER THREE
A WEEK AFTER leaving the island, Leonidas awoke in a cold sweat. He stared around the hotel room, his heart hammering in his chest.
Hannah.
He’d been drea
ming of Hannah, the woman he’d met on Chrysá Vráchia. He’d been dreaming of her, of making love to her. His body was rock hard and he groaned, falling back onto the pillows, closing his eyes and forcing himself to breathe slowly, to calm down. To remember his wife.
And nausea skidded through him, because he knew he would never forget Amy. But for those few moments, when he’d lost himself inside Hannah, when he’d pierced her innocence, and possessed her so completely, he had felt...
He had felt like himself.
For the first time in many years he had felt like a man who was free of this curse, this guilt, this permanent ache.
He had lost himself in Hannah and, just for a moment, he had lost his grief.
He swore under his breath, and pushed the sheet back, his heart unable to be calmed. Leonidas walked to the plush kitchen of his Hong Kong penthouse, pressing a button on the coffee machine.
He watched it brew, an answering presentiment of disaster growing inside him.
* * *
‘Do you need me to talk to him?’
Leonidas focussed on sounding normal. But in the month since leaving Chrysá Vráchia, he’d had a growing tension, balling in his gut, and nothing he did seemed to relieve it. It was guilt, he knew. Guilt at having betrayed his vows to Amy. At having broken the vow he made himself, that Amy would be the last woman he was intimate with.
The limousine slid through Rome, lights on either side.
‘Yeah, sure, that’s even better,’ Thanos responded with sarcasm. Leonidas’s younger brother shook his head. ‘Kosta Carinedes will take one look at you and see Dad. Sorry.’
Leonidas winced—the physical similarities between himself and Dion were not news to him. ‘So how are you going to convince him to sell?’
‘He wants to sell,’ Thanos murmured, tilting his head as the car slowed at a corner and paused near a group of beautiful women wearing skimpy shorts and singlet tops. ‘He just doesn’t want to sell to us.’
‘Because of Dion?’
‘Because of our name,’ Thanos conceded with a nod. ‘And because I am, quote, “a sex-mad bachelor”.’
At this, Leonidas laughed, despite the bad mood that had been following him for weeks. ‘He’s got you bang to rights there.’
Thanos grinned. ‘Hey, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being sex-mad. We can’t all live the life of a saint like you.’
Leonidas’s expression shifted as though he’d been punched in the gut. He was far more sinner than saint, but he had no intention of sharing his slip-up with his brother.
‘Offer him more money,’ Leonidas suggested, cutting to the crux of the matter.
‘It’s not about money. This is his grandparents’ legacy. They built the company out of “love”,’ he said the word with sardonic derision, ‘and he won’t sell it to someone who’s constantly in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.’
Leonidas shrugged. ‘Then let it go.’
‘You’re kidding, right? I told you what this means to me? And who else is interested in buying it?’
Leonidas regarded his brother thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Luca Monato. And I know you two hate each other. But this is just a company. Let him have it, buy its competition and drive him into the ground. Far more satisfying.’
‘It might come to that. But I’m not done yet.’
‘What else can you do? I hate to point out the obvious, but Kosta’s right. You’re a man whore, Thanos.’
Thanos laughed. ‘And proud. You could take a couple of pages out of my book. In fact, why don’t you? I’ve got a heap of women you’d like. Why don’t you call one of them? Take her for dinner and then back to your place...’
Leonidas turned away from his brother, looking out of the window of the limousine as Rome passed in a beautiful, dusk-filled blur. He thought of Hannah, his body tightening, his chest feeling as if it were filling with acid. ‘No.’
‘You cannot live the rest of your life like this,’ Thanos insisted quietly, his tone serious now, their banter forgotten. There weren’t many people on earth who could speak plainly to the great Leonidas Stathakis, but Thanos was one of them, and always had been. Side by side they’d dealt with their father’s failings, his criminality, his convictions, the ruin he’d brought on their fortune and the Stathakis name.
Side by side, they’d rebuilt it all, better than before, returning their family’s once-great wealth—many times over. They were half-brothers, only three months apart in age, and they’d been raised more as twins since Thanos was abandoned on their doorstep by his mother at the age of eight. Their insight into one another was unique.
Leonidas understood Thanos as nobody else did, and vice versa. Leonidas knew what it had done to Thanos, his mother abandoning him, choosing to desert him rather than find a way to manage his dominant character traits.
‘What would you do?’ Leonidas drawled, but there was tension in the question. Tension and despair.
Thanos expelled a sigh; the car stopped. Thousands of screaming fans were outside on the red carpet, here to catch a glimpse of the A-list Hollywood stars who’d featured in the film of the premiere they were attending.
‘I can’t say. I get it—you miss Amy. What happened to her and Brax—do you think I don’t feel that? You think I don’t want to reach into that prison cell and strangle our father with my bare hands for what he exposed you to? But, Leonidas, you cannot serve her by living half a life. Do you think Amy would have wanted this for you?’
Leonidas swept his dark eyes shut, the panic in his gut churning, the sense of self-disgust almost impossible to manage. ‘Don’t.’ He shook his head. ‘Do not speak to me of Amy’s wishes.’
But Thanos wasn’t to be deterred. ‘She loved you. She would want you to live the rest of your life as you did before. Be happy. Be fulfilled.’
‘You think I deserve that?’
‘It was our father’s crimes that killed her, not yours.’
‘But if she hadn’t met me...’ Leonidas insisted, not finishing the statement—not needing to. Thanos knew; he understood.
‘It’s been four years,’ Thanos repeated softly. ‘You have mourned and grieved and honoured them both. It’s time to move forward.’
But Leonidas shook his head, his time on Chrysá Vráchia teaching him one thing and one thing only: it would never be time. He had failed Amy during their marriage, in many ways; he wouldn’t fail her now.
* * *
‘Tuna salad, please,’ Hannah said over the counter, scanning the lunch selections with a strange sense of distaste, despite the artful arrangements. In the four months since arriving in London and taking up a maternity-leave contract as legal secretary to a renowned litigator, Hannah had grabbed lunch from this same store almost every day.
Her boss liked the chicken sandwiches and she the tuna. She waited in the queue then grabbed their lunches and made her way back to the office as quickly as she could.
There was a wait for the lift and she stifled a yawn, sipping her coffee. Her stomach flipped. She frowned. The milk tasted funny.
‘Great,’ she said with a sigh, dropping it into a waste bin. Just what she needed—spoiled milk.
But when she got to her desk and unpeeled her sandwich, she had the strangest sense that she might vomit. She took one bite of the sandwich and then stood up, rushing to the facilities. She just made it.
It was as she hovered over the porcelain bowl, trying to work out whether she was sick or suffering from food poisoning, that dates began to hover in her mind. Months of dates, in fact, without her regular cycle.
Her skin was damp with perspiration as she straightened, staring at the tiled wall with a look of absolute shock.
No way.
No way could she be pregnant. Her hand curved over her stomach—it was still flat. Except her jeans had felt tight on the weekend, and she’d put it
down to the sedentary job.
But what if it wasn’t just a little weight gain? What if she was growing thick around the midsection because she was carrying Leonidas Stathakis’s baby?
She gasped audibly, pushing out of the cubicle, and ran the taps, staring at herself in the mirror as the ice water ran over her fingertips.
Surely it wasn’t true? It was just a heap of coincidences. She had a tummy bug and her weight gain was attributable to the fact she was chained to a desk for twelve-hour days. That could also account for her recent exhaustion.
That was all.
Nonetheless, when she left the office much later that day, still feeling unwell, Hannah ducked into a pharmacy around the corner from the Earl’s Court flat she’d rented a room in.
She’d do a pregnancy test. There was no harm in that—it was a simple precaution.
In the privacy of her the bathroom, she unsealed the box, read the instructions, and did precisely what they said. She set an alarm on her phone, to tell her when two minutes was up.
She didn’t need it, though.
It took fewer than twenty seconds for a second line to appear.
A strong, vibrant pink, showing that she was, indeed, pregnant.
With Leonidas Stathakis’s baby.
‘Oh, jeez.’ She sat down on the toilet lid, and stared at the back of the door. Her hand curved over her stomach and she closed her eyes. His face appeared in her mind, unbidden, unwanted, and unflinchingly and just as he had been for months in her dreams, she saw him naked, his strong body and handsome face so close to her that she could breathe him in, except he was just a phantom, a ghost.
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