The Greek Prince's Chosen Wife

When you had done hundreds of photo shoots, when your own face looked back at you from magazine covers, you expected it. It was part of the price you paid for success in the world of modeling.

Men noticed you. They looked at you.

But not like this.

The expression on Damian Aristedes’s face spoke of contempt, not desire. How dare he be disdainful of her? She’d made a devil’s bargain—she knew that, had known it almost from the beginning—but she’d been prepared to stand by that bargain even if it tore out her heart.

Not him.

He was the man who’d started this. Now, he was pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about.

That was fine. It was perfect. It meant she’d kept her promise and now she was free to put the past behind her and concentrate on the future. On the child she’d soon have.

Her child, not his.

It was just infuriating to have him look at her as if she were a liar and a cheat.

Except, there’d been a moment, more than one, when she’d caught him watching her in a different way, his eyes glinting not with disdain but with hunger.

Hunger only she could ease.

And when that had happened, she’d felt—she’d felt—

“You’re as transparent as glass, Miss Madison.”

Years of letting the camera steal her face but never her thoughts kept Ivy from showing any reaction.

“How interesting. Do you read minds when you’re not busy evading responsibility, Your Highness?”

“You’re trying to come up with a way to capitalize on that moment of shock I showed when you told me I was your baby’s father.” He smiled thinly. “Trust me. You can’t.”

He was partly right. She was trying to come up with a way to capitalize on something, but not that.

Ivy took a steadying breath.

“I’ll be happy to leave, happier still never to see you again, Prince Damian. But first—”

“Ah. But first, you want a check for…How much? A hundred thousand? Five hundred thousand? A million? Don’t shake your head, Miss Madison. We both know you have a price in mind.”

Another steadying breath. “Not a check.”

“Cash, then. It doesn’t matter.”

The icy little smile slipped from his lips and she repressed a shudder. The prince would be a formidable enemy.

“I don’t want money. I want a letter. A document that makes it clear you’re giving up all rights to the child in my womb.”

He laughed. Laughed, damn him!

“Thee mou, lady. Don’t you know when to quit?”

“Sign it, date it and I’ll be out of your life forever.”

His laughter stopped with the speed of a faucet turning off. “Enough,” he said through his teeth. “Get out of my home before I do something we’ll both regret.”

“Just a letter,” she said. “A few lines—”

He said something in what she assumed was Greek. She didn’t understand the words but she didn’t have to as he gripped her by the shoulders, spun her around, put a hand in the small of her back and shoved her forward.

“And if you’re foolish enough to tell your ridiculous story to anyone—”

The thing to do was hire a lawyer. Except, he’d hire a dozen for every one she could afford. He had power. Money. Status. Still, there had to be a way. There had to be!

“And if you really are knocked up, if some man was stupid enough to let your face blind him to the scheming bitch you really are—”

Ivy spun around, swung her fist and caught him in the jaw. He was big and strong and hard as nails but she caught him off guard. He blinked and staggered back. It took him all of a second to recover but it was enough to send a warm rush of pleasure through her blood.

“You—you pompous ass,” she hissed. She marched forward, index finger aimed at his chest, and jabbed it right into the center of his starched white shirt, her fear gone, everything forgotten but his impossible arrogance. “This isn’t about you and who you are and how much money you have. It isn’t about you at all! I don’t want anything from you, Prince Damian. I never—”

She gasped as he caught her by the elbows and lifted her to her toes.

“You don’t want anything from me, huh?” Damian’s lips drew back from his teeth as he bent his head toward hers. “That’s why you came here? Because you don’t want anything from me?”

“I came because I thought I owed it to you but I was wrong. I don’t. And I warn you, letter or no letter, if you should change your mind a month from now, a decade from now, and try and claim my baby—”

“Damn you,” he roared, “there is no baby!”

“Whatever you say.”

“The truth at last!”

“Truth?” Ivy laughed in his face. “You wouldn’t know it if it bit you in the tail!”

“I know that I never took you to bed.”

“Let go!”

“How come you didn’t factor that into your little scheme?” Damian yanked her wrist, dragged it behind her back. She flinched but she’d sooner have eaten nails than let him know he was hurting her. “You made several mistakes, Miss Madison. One, I don’t drink to excess. Two, I never forget a woman I’ve been with.” His gaze swept over her with slow deliberation before returning to her face. “Believe me, lady, if I’d had you, I’d remember.”

“I’m done talking about that.”

“But I’m not.” He drew her closer, until they were a breath apart. “Why should I be? You said we were intimate. I said we weren’t. Why not settle the question?”

“It isn’t worth settling. And I never said we’d been intimate.”

His lips drew back from his teeth. “Ah, Ivy, Ivy, you disappoint me. Backing down already?” His smile vanished; his eyes turned cold. “Come on, glyka mou. Here’s your chance. Convince me we slept together. Remind me of what it was like.”

“Stop it. Stop it! I’m warning you, let me—”

She gasped as Damian slipped one hand lightly around her throat.

“A woman can only taunt a man for so long before he retaliates. Surely someone with your skills should have learned that by now.”

“You’re wrong! You know the truth, that we never—”

Damian kissed her.

Her mouth was cool and soft, and she made a little sound of terrified protest.

That was how she made it sound, anyway.

It was all part of the act. Part of a performance. Part of who she was and why she was here and…

And she tasted sweet, sweeter than the first time he’d kissed her, maybe because he knew the shape of her mouth now. The fullness of it.

The sexy silkiness.

She cried out again, jammed her hand against his chest and Damian told himself it was time to let go of her.

He’d accomplished what he wanted, met her challenge, showed her that she had no power over him…

His arousal was swift. He put one hand at the base of her spine and pressed hard enough so she had no choice but to tilt her hips against his and feel it.

God, he was on fire.

Another little sound whispered from her mouth to his and then, same as before, he felt the change in her. Her mouth softened. Warmed. The stiffness went out of her body and she leaned toward him.

He reminded himself that nothing she did was real. It was all part of her overall plan.

And it didn’t matter.

He knew only that he wanted this. The taste of her. The feel of her. He was entitled to that. Hell, he’d been accused of something he had not done.

Why not do it now?

Lift Ivy into his arms. Carry her up the stairs to his bedroom. Take everything she wanted him to believe he’d taken before, again and again and again…

“Please,” she whispered, “please—”

Her voice was soft. Dazed. It made him want her even more.

Deliberately he slid his hand inside her jacket and cupped the delicate weight of one breast.

“Please, what?” he growled. “Touch you? Take you?”

His fingers swept over her breast, blood thundering in his ears when he felt the thrust of her nipple through the silk that covered it. She moaned against his mouth.

A wave of lust rolled through him, shocking him with its intensity.

She moaned again and he gathered her closer. Slid his hands under the waistband of her black jeans. Felt the coolness of her buttocks, the silk of her flesh.

Primal desire flooded his senses. He wanted her, no matter what she was. And she wanted him. Wanted him. Wanted him…

Panagia mou! Damian flung her from him and stepped back. Tears were streaming down her face. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have honestly thought she was weeping.

“I can’t believe Kay loved you, that she wanted to give you a child!”

“Your story’s getting old. And confused. You’re the one who’s pregnant. Who I took to bed, remember?”

“That’s not true! Why do you keep saying it? You know we didn’t go to bed!”

“Right,” he said, his voice cold with contempt and sarcasm. “I keep forgetting that. We didn’t. We did it standing up. Or sitting in a chair. Or on a sofa—”

“There was no chair. No sofa. You know that. There was just—just your sperm. A syringe. And—and me.”

“Yeah. Sure. You, my sperm, a syringe…” Damian jerked back. “What?”

“You damned well know what! And you didn’t even have the—the decency to let Kay be artificially inseminated by a physician. Oh, no. You wanted to protect your precious privacy! So you—you used a—a condom to—to—” Her voice turned bitter. “I knew what you were when you didn’t ask to meet me in advance. When you didn’t care enough to come with Kay the day she—the day I—the day it took place.”

Damian wanted to say something but he couldn’t. He felt as if his head were in a vise.

Her story was fantastic. Far more interesting than the usual He made me pregnant tale.

And the media loved fantasy.

They’d fall on this like hyenas on a wounded antelope. By the time a different scandal knocked the story off the front pages, the damage would have been done. To his name, to Aristedes Shipping, the company he’d spent his adult life rebuilding.

“Nothing to say, Your Highness?” Ivy put her hands on her hips and eyed him with derision. “Or have you finally figured out that denial will only take you so far?”

Tossing this woman out on her backside was no longer a viable option. She was too clever for such easy dismissal.

“You’re right about that,” he said calmly. “Denial only goes so far and then it’s time to take appropriate action.” He closed the distance between them, relishing the way she stumbled back. “You will take a pregnancy test. Then, if you’re really pregnant, a paternity test.”

Ivy stared at him. She couldn’t think of a reason he’d want her to take such tests…Unless he was telling the truth. Unless he really hadn’t known about the baby.

And if he hadn’t…What would happen once he did?

“I don’t want to take any tests,” she said quickly. “You said you didn’t want the baby. That’s fine. You only have to give me a document—”

“No, glyka mou. It is you who will provide me with a document that legally establishes that you and I and a syringe never met, except inside your scheming little brain.”

“But—”

Damian took her arm, marched her to the elevator and pushed her inside it. Seconds later, the doors slid shut in her face.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT TROUBLED her all the way back to her apartment.

If Kay’s lover had known about the baby, if he’d orchestrated it as Kay claimed, why would the details of the baby’s conception have shaken him?

And he had been shaken.

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