Greek Bachelors: Bound By His Heir: Carrying the Greek's Heir / An Heir to Bind Them / The Greek's Tiny Miracle

She spoke to all the guests with just the right amount of interest and pretended she was Ellie the trainee hotel manager again—chatting away with smiling attention. People were never terrifying if you got them on a one-to-one basis, no matter how initially intimidating they were. She met a judge, a Hollywood actress and a Spaniard named Vicente de Castilla, whose buccaneering appearance was attracting plenty of covert glances. But gorgeous as Vicente was, there was only one man who commanded Ellie’s attention and she knew exactly where he was at any given point in the evening. He seemed to command all her attention and it was difficult not to stare. Beneath the fractured rainbow light of the chandeliers, his hair gleamed like jet. At one point he slowly turned his head to look at her, his blue eyes blazing as they held her in their spotlight. And she turned away, feeling curiously exposed...stiffening slightly when he came to stand beside her, sliding his arm around her waist with easy possession. As if he touched her like that all the time, when they both knew he didn’t touch her at all.

She knew it was done to add authenticity to their marriage. She knew his touch meant nothing, but unfortunately her body didn’t. It was sending frantic messages to her brain. It was making her want more. It was making her wish it were all real. That he’d married her because he loved her and not because there was a baby on the way.

Quickly excusing herself, she made her way to the restroom where Alannah was standing in front of the mirror, brushing her long black hair.

‘Enjoying your wedding party?’ she questioned.

Ellie pulled out a convincing smile as she met the other woman’s denim-blue eyes. ‘It’s wonderful. Such a gorgeous place. And all Alek’s friends seem lovely and very welcoming,’ she added.

Alannah laughed. ‘You don’t have to say that—but thanks very much all the same. We’re just all very happy for him, that’s all. Nobody thought he would ever settle down. I expect you know that he’s never really committed to anyone before? Mind you, Niccolò was exactly the same. They just need to find the right woman,’ she said, pulling open the door and wiggling her fingers in a little wave of farewell.

Ellie watched the door swing closed again.

The right woman.

If only they knew. Would they all be choking into their champagne if they realised that the newlyweds were about as far apart as two people could be?

But she had been the one who insisted on having separate rooms, hadn’t she? She’d been the one who had thought that keeping distance between them would help protect her against emotional pain. And it didn’t. Because she found herself wanting Alek no matter how hard she tried not to want him.

She gazed at her reflection, thinking that her appearance betrayed nothing of her turmoil. The silvery silk dress gleamed and her professionally blow-dried hair fell in a soft cascade over her shoulders. She didn’t look like herself, and she didn’t feel like herself either. All she could feel was a longing so powerful that it felt like a physical pain. It might be crazy but she wasn’t going to lie...and the truth was that she wanted Alek.

She closed her eyes.

She wanted more than that single encounter which had resulted in this pregnancy. She wanted something slow and precious because everything else had happened so fast. She’d become pregnant after that one time. She had demanded marriage and moved in with him. She’d attended doctor’s appointments, taken care of herself and tried to keep busy. But she wasn’t a cardboard cut-out. She still had feelings—feelings she’d tried to put on ice, only somewhere along the way they had started to melt.

So what was she going to do about it? Was she brave enough to go after what she really wanted and to hell with the consequences? Did she dare risk pain for another moment of passion?

Picking up her handbag, she walked out into the corridor where Alek’s shadow fell over her and instantly she froze.

‘Oh,’ she said, attempting a smile. ‘You startled me.’

Alek felt a pulse hammering away at his temple as he stared at her. She was close enough to touch and it was distracting. Theos, but it was distracting. Her hair was tumbling down over her shoulders and she had that slightly untouchable beauty of all brides. But all he could think about was the creaminess of her skin and the scent of something which smelt like roses, or cinnamon. Maybe both. He felt his throat thicken. ‘I was looking for you.’

‘Well...here I am,’ she said, and as she met his eyes her lips parted. ‘What exactly do you want?’

Alek went very still. He saw the darkening of her eyes and heard the dip of her voice, but it was more than that which told him what was on her mind. He’d been around enough women to realise when they were sending out messages of sexual availability—it was just that he hadn’t been expecting it with Ellie. Not tonight. He knew that she considered the wedding a farce. That they hadn’t been honest with anyone, least of all themselves. Nobody knew the real reason for this wedding, but he’d justified not telling his friends about the baby by remembering what the doctor had said—that there was a slightly higher risk of miscarriage until after the twelve-week mark. And something about those cautionary words had made him realise how much he wanted this baby—for reasons he didn’t care to fathom. He realised that the life she carried inside her mattered. Should he tell her that? Should he?

But suddenly he wasn’t thinking about the baby and neither, it seemed, was she. He could almost see the invitation glinting from her eyes and although he wanted her more badly than he’d ever wanted anyone—one last stab of conscience told him to hang fire. That the most sensible option would be if they ended the night as they’d begun it. Separately.

But sometimes the right decision was the wrong decision when it went against everything your body was crying out for. The ache in his groin was unbearable as he reached for her hand, which was trembling, just like his.

He studied the sheen of her fingernails before lifting his head in a clashing of eyes. ‘I want you,’ he said unsteadily. ‘Do you have any idea how much?’

‘I think I’m getting the general idea.’

‘But I’m not going to do this if it’s not what you want.’ He stared at her intently. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Alek.’ One of the silvery straps of her dress slipped off one shoulder and she pushed it back again with fingers which were trembling and her grey eyes looked wary. As if she was suddenly out of her depth. As if the words she was about to say were difficult. ‘You...you’re an experienced man. You must know how much I want you.’

He shook his head. ‘I know that your body wants me and that physically we’re very compatible. But if you’re going to wake up in the morning with tears all over my pillow because you’re regretting what happened, then I’ll back off right now and we’ll act like this conversation never happened.’

There was silence. A silence which seemed to go on for countless minutes.

‘I don’t want you to back off,’ she whispered at last.

His heart pounded and his body grew hard. He raised her hand to his lips and although the now faint voice of his conscience made one last, weak appeal, ruthlessly he brushed it aside. ‘Then let’s get home,’ he said roughly. ‘So I can take you to bed.’

CHAPTER NINE

ALEK FELT AS IF he wanted to explode but he knew he had to take it slowly.

He and Ellie had left the party almost immediately—smiling through the rose petals and rice showering down on their heads. But the journey home had been tense and silent, in direct contrast to their teasing banter at the wedding reception. He hadn’t trusted himself to touch her and maybe Ellie had felt the same because she’d sat apart from him, her shoulders stiff. The tension in the car had grown and grown until it had felt as if he was having difficulty breathing. And wasn’t he terrified that she’d changed her mind?

Her face had been paler than usual as they’d ridden up in the elevator. The space had seemed to close in on them until the ping announcing their arrival at the penthouse had broken into the silence like the chime of a mighty bell. He’d convinced himself that she had changed her mind as he’d unlocked the door to his apartment. But it seemed she hadn’t. Oh. She...had...not—and the minute the door had closed behind them they had been all over each other.

Their first kiss had been hungry—almost clumsy. They’d reached blindly for each other in the hall as some ornament had gone crashing to the ground, and he’d ended up pushing her up against the wall with his hand halfway up her dress until he’d realised that he hadn’t wanted to do it to her like that. Not on her wedding night. Not after last time. He wanted to show her he knew the meaning of the word consideration. He wanted to make love to her slowly—very slowly. And so she had allowed him to lead her to his bedroom where now she stood, looking around her with a slightly nervous expression on her face.

‘I suppose this must be the scene of a thousand seductions?’

‘A rather inflated estimate,’ he responded drily. ‘You don’t want me to lie to you? To say you’re the first woman I’ve brought here?’

She gave a funny little smile. ‘No, of course not.’

‘I haven’t asked you about any of your former lovers, have I?’

‘No, that’s right. You haven’t.’

He wondered what he was trying to do—whether he was trying to sabotage things before they’d even got started. Why the hell hadn’t he just told her that in her silvery gown she eclipsed every other woman he’d ever known? That she was beautiful and soft and completely desirable? With a small growl of anger directed mainly at himself, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again and he heard the gasping little sound she made as she caught hold of his shoulders. He kissed her for a long time, until she started to relax—until she began to press herself against his body and the barrier of their clothes suddenly seemed like something he couldn’t endure for a second longer. He led her over to the bed and sat her down on the edge, before getting down on his knees in front of her.

‘What are you doing?’ she joked weakly as he began to unstrap one of her shoes. ‘You’ve already made the proposal.’

He lifted his gaze; his expression mocking. ‘I thought it was you who did the proposing?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She tipped her head back and expelled a breath as he started rubbing the pad of his thumb over her instep. ‘So I did.’

He removed both shoes and peeled off her silvery wedding dress before laying her back on the bed and kicking off his shoes and socks. He lay down next to her, pushing the hair from her face and brushing his lips over hers, taking his time. ‘You are very beautiful,’ he said.

‘I’m—’

He silenced her with the press of his forefinger over her mouth. ‘The correct response is, thank you, Alek.’

She swallowed. ‘Thank you, Alek.’

‘But I’m afraid of hurting you.’

She reached her hand up to brush a strand of hair off his forehead and suddenly her face looked very tender. He felt his heart clench.

‘Because of the baby?’ she asked softly.

He nodded, still wary around that shining tenderness which instinctively put him on his guard. ‘Because of the baby,’ he repeated.

‘The doctor said it was okay.’ She leant forward and kissed him. ‘But that maybe we should avoid swinging from the chandeliers.’

‘I don’t have any...chandeliers,’ he said indistinctly, but suddenly the flirting word games of foreplay became swamped by a far more primitive need to possess. Refocusing his attention, he began to explore her properly—touching the coolness of her flesh above her stocking tops as she began to make soft little sounds of pleasure. Did she feel his uncharacteristic hesitation as his fingers tiptoed upwards? Could she hear the loud pounding of his heart? Did she know that suddenly—ridiculously—this felt completely new?

‘It’s no different from how it was before,’ she whispered. ‘I’m still me.’

He kissed her again. But it was different. She was like a ship carrying a precious cargo. His baby. He swallowed as his finger trailed over her navel and he could tell she was holding her breath, expelling it only when he eased his hand beneath the elastic of her panties and cupped her where she was warm and wet.

‘Oh,’ she said.

His mouth hovered over hers. ‘Oh,’ he echoed indistinctly as, blindly, he reached for his belt and suddenly she was unbuttoning his shirt, making a low sound of pleasure as she slipped it away from his shoulders. And he stopped thinking. He just gave himself up to every erotic second. There was a snap as he released her bra and her breasts tumbled into his eager hands. He felt the slide of her bare thigh against his as she used her foot to push his trousers down his legs. He could smell the musky aroma of her sex as he peeled off her panties and threw them aside.

Their eyes met in a long moment and he felt shaken by the sudden unexpected intimacy of that.

He slid the flat of his hand over her hip. ‘I don’t want to hurt you—’

She bit her lip, as if she was about to say something controversial but had thought better of it at the last moment. ‘Just make love to me, Alek,’ she said with a simple sincerity which tore through him like a flame.

Slowly he eased himself inside her, uttering something guttural in Greek, which wasn’t like him. But none of this was like him. He’d never felt this close to a woman before, nor so aware of her as a person rather than as just a body. It rocked him to the core and, yes, it intimidated him, too—and he didn’t like that. He wasn’t used to being out of control. To feeling as if he were putty in a woman’s hands. He groaned. Maybe not putty. Because putty was soft, wasn’t it? And he was hard. Ah, neh. He was very hard. Harder than he could ever remember. And if he wasn’t careful, he was going to come too soon.

This is sex, he told himself fiercely. Sex which you both want. So treat it like sex. Breaking eye contact, he buried his face in her neck as he began to take command, each slow and deliberate thrust demonstrating his power and control. He smiled against her skin when she moaned his name and smiled some more when she began to gasp in a rising crescendo. ‘Oh, yes...yes!’

He raised his head and watched as she came. Saw her tip her head back and her eyes close. He saw her body shudder and heard the disbelieving little cry which followed. And then he saw the first big fat tear which rolled down her cheek to be quickly followed by another, and he frowned. Because hadn’t she cried last time—and wasn’t the deal supposed to be that this time there were no tears? No regrets. His mouth twisted. No nothing—only pleasure.

‘Alek,’ she whispered and he could no longer hold back—letting go in a great burst of seed which pumped from his body as if it was never going to stop.

He must have fallen asleep, and when eventually he opened his eyes again he found her sleeping, too. Rolling away, he stared up at the ceiling, but although his heart was still pounding with post-orgasmic euphoria he felt confusion slide a cold and bewildering trail across his skin.

He glanced around the room. Her wedding dress lay on the floor along with his own discarded trousers and shirt. His usually pristine bedroom looked as if someone had ransacked it and he found himself remembering the ornament breaking in the hall—a priceless piece of porcelain shattered into a hundred pieces which had crunched beneath his feet.

What was it about her which made him lose control like that? He turned his head to look at her again—a pale Venus rising from the crumpled white waves of the sheets. His gaze shifted to her belly—still flat—and his heart clenched as he thought about the reality of being a father.

The fears he’d been trying to silence now crowded darkly in his mind. What if certain traits were inherited rather than learnt? Wasn’t that one of the reasons why he’d always ruled out fatherhood as a life choice, not daring to take the risk of failing as miserably at the task as his own father had done?

She began to stir and opened her eyes and he thought how bright and clear they looked, with no hint of tears now.

‘Why do you cry?’ he asked suddenly. ‘When I make love to you?’

Ellie brushed her fringe out of her eyes, more as a stalling mechanism than anything else. His question suggested a layer of intimacy she hadn’t been expecting and that surprised her. This was supposed to be about sex, wasn’t it? That was what she thought his agenda was. The only agenda there could possibly be—no matter what her feelings for him were. If she suddenly came out and told him the reason she’d cried was because he made her feel complete, then wouldn’t he laugh, or run screaming in the opposite direction? If she told him that when he was deep inside her, it felt as if she’d been waiting her whole life for that moment, wouldn’t it come over as fanciful, or—worse—needy? If she told him she was crying for all the things she would never have from him—like his love—wouldn’t that make her seem like just another woman greedily trying to take from him something she knew he would never give?

She told him part of the truth. ‘Because you are an amazing lover.’

‘And that makes you cry?’

‘Blame my hormones.’

‘I suppose I should be flattered,’ he drawled. ‘Though, of course, that would depend on how experienced you are.’

She pushed her hair out of her eyes and narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you fishing to find out how many lovers I’ve had before you?’

‘Is it unreasonable of me to want to know?’

She sat up and looked down at his dark body outlined against the tumbled bedding. ‘I’ve had one long-term relationship before this and that’s all I’m going to say on the subject, because I think it’s distasteful to discuss it, especially at a time like this. Is that acceptable?’

‘Completely acceptable would be for there to have been no one before me.’ He smiled, but it was a smile tinged with intent rather than humour. ‘And since I intend to drive the memory of anyone else from your mind for ever, you’d better come back over here and kiss me right now.’

His hand starfished over her breast and, even though his questioning was unfair and his attitude outrageously macho, Ellie couldn’t seem to stop herself from reacting to him. She wondered what he’d say if she told him he’d banished every other man from her mind the first time he’d kissed her. Would he be surprised? Probably not. Women probably told him that kind of thing all the time.

It hadn’t been her plan to have him parting her legs again quite so soon, and certainly not to cry his name out like a kind of prayer as he entered her a second time. But she did. And afterwards she was left feeling exposed and naked in all kinds of ways, while he remained as much of an enigma as he’d always done.

She lay there wrapped in his arms and although his lips pressing against her shoulder were making his words muffled, they were still clear enough to hear.

‘I’m thinking that we ought to start sleeping together from now on—what about you?’ he said. ‘Because it would be crazy not to.’

It was a strangely emotionless conclusion to their lovemaking and Ellie didn’t know why she was so disappointed, because he was only behaving true to form. But she made sure her smile didn’t slip and show her disappointment. She kept her expression as neutral as his. He wanted to treat sex as simply another appetite to be fed, did he?

Well, then, so would she.

She lay back against the pillow and coiled her arms around his neck. ‘Absolutely crazy,’ she agreed huskily.

CHAPTER TEN

HER WEDDING RING no longer mocked her and neither did the closed door of Alek’s room. Because Ellie now shared that room, just as she shared the bed within and the man who slept in it.

Pulling on a tea dress, Ellie began to brush her hair. To all intents and purposes, she and Alek now had a ‘full’ marriage. Ever since the night of their wedding—when they’d broken the sexual drought—they had been enjoying the pleasures of the marital bed in a way which had surpassed her every expectation.

He could turn her on with a single smile. He could have her naked in his arms in seconds. Even when she told herself she ought to resist him—in a futile attempt to regain some control over her shattered equilibrium—she would fail time and time again.

‘But you can’t resist me, poulaki mou,’ he would murmur, as if he guessed exactly what she was trying to do. ‘You know you really want me.’

And that was the trouble. She did. She couldn’t seem to stop wanting him, no matter how much she tried to tell herself that she was getting in too deep. And if sometimes she lay looking wistfully at the ceiling after he’d made love to her, she made sure it was while Alek was asleep. She tried to stop herself from caring for him too much—and certainly to hide her feelings for him. Because that wasn’t what he wanted. This was as close to a business arrangement as a personal relationship could be.

But her life had changed in other ways, too. They started going out more as a couple, so that at times the marriage felt almost authentic. He took her to the theatre, which she loved. They watched films and ate in fancy restaurants and explored all the tiny backstreets of the city. They drove down to the south coast, to visit Luis and Carly in their amazing house which overlooked a beautiful river.

And yet, despite the increased richness of their day-to-day existence, it was difficult to get to know the real man behind the steely image, despite the external thaw between them. He could do that thoughtful stuff of massaging her feet when she was tired, but if his fingers hadn’t been made of flesh and blood she might have thought she was being administered to by some sort of robot. Sometimes it felt as if she didn’t know him any better than when that list of his likes and dislikes had been circulated to staff at The Hog before his arrival. She still wasn’t sure what motivated him, or what made him sometimes wake her in the night when he’d had a dream which had clearly been a bad one. She would turn to find his eyes open but not really seeing, his body tense—suspended between the two worlds of sleeping and waking. But when she gently shook him awake, his face would become guarded and he would deflect her concerns with something sensual enough to send any questions scuttling from her mind.

He was a master at concealing the real man who lay beneath; adept at avoiding questions. His cool blue eyes would narrow if she tried to probe more deeply; his gaze becoming one of sapphire ice. Don’t push me, those eyes seemed to say. But that didn’t stop Ellie from trying, even though he would deflect her questions by sliding his hand beneath her skirt and starting to make love to her. He’d leave her breathless and panting as all her questions dissolved and nothing was left but the pleasure he gave her, time after time. And she didn’t give up. She just lowered her sights a little. She stopped expecting big revelations and just concentrated on the little ones.

And every time she discovered something about him, it felt like a major victory—like another little missing bit of the jigsaw. In those sleepy moments after making love, he told her about how he’d worked his way up from being a kitchen boy in Athens, to owning an entire chain of restaurants. He told her about working on a fancy vineyard in California, so that he knew all about the wine trade. He made a wistful face when he described his friend Murat’s beautiful country of Qurhah and told her how big the stars looked when you were out in the middle of the desert. He explained how life was just one great big learning experience and everything he knew, he had taught himself.