The Sarantos Baby Bargain

She stared at his receding figure until he disappeared. Then she was flying after him, with nothing left in her but the need to stop him from invading her life again.

Her fingers turned into talons as they sank into his arm. It was so thick, so hard she had to grab it with both hands and wrench with her full strength. That still didn’t make him turn around. She bet he finally stopped of his own accord. He was showing her how she had no effect on him and no say in his actions or decisions. As if she didn’t already know that.

Another wave of fury crashed within her when he turned in utmost tranquility. That snapped her last viable nerve.

She hit him. With both fists. Pounded on his formidable chest with all the bitterness that had long been bottled up inside her. Struck him again and again.

He just stood there, bearing her aggression without a change of expression, letting her “vent,” watching her intently, as if documenting the reactions of a strange and unstable entity. His lack of reaction cracked her open, had every loss and grief she’d ever suffered spewing out, swamping her in agony now that the leash of control had snapped.

Then suddenly, both hands were behind her back, held in the shackle of one of his, and she was pressed between the cold wall and his hot body. Before she could snatch in another ragged breath, one of his knees drove between her legs, splaying them, his other hand at her nape, tangling in her hair, securing her head, completing her imprisonment.

After one last glance into her eyes, a declaration of intent that had her choking on déjà vu, he bore down on her and crushed his lips to hers. And poisonous memories flooded her, plunging her into the past.

It had been exactly like this, when she’d gone to his hotel suite that first time, demanding he take her up on her insistent offer of herself. She’d instinctively known the edge of roughness was integral to his nature. But she’d felt he’d pushed the envelope, trying to scare her away. When that didn’t work, sending her wild with desire instead, he’d pushed some more, testing how much she would allow.

She’d allowed him everything, had reveled in the unbridled power of his passion. From that first night, he’d given her physical pleasure beyond imagining. He’d mined her body for responses and ecstasies she hadn’t known it capable of. With every encounter, he’d escalated the wildness of his possession and the ferocity of her satisfaction. But without the development of any emotional response on his part, even intense sexual gratification had started leaving her feeling drained, used up, like an addict who experienced indescribable highs, followed by crashes to dismal depths.

His conquering rumbles filled her now as he angled his hard lips against hers for a deeper invasion. He plucked at her trembling flesh with his teeth, plunged into her recesses, his tongue a slide of sex and silk against hers, inundating her in sensations, each acutely remembered and longed for.

Her surrender, even if it was with shock, not willingness as it had been before, made him take his sensual assault to the next level. His hand twisted in a fistful of her hair, sending a thousand arrows of pleasure to her core. Then he ground his arousal into her quivering belly, making that core spasm, then melt.

But it was his growl of enjoyment that caused her legs to buckle. “You taste even more intoxicating than I remember.”

And you taste exactly as I remember. Overwhelming...indispensable...

No. She’d already fallen into that abyss. Twice.

Never again.

Feeling as if she was being dragged under, drowning, she tried to squirm out of his hold, fighting not only his hunger, but hers, too. She only managed to grind herself harder into his potency. Her only hope of escape would be if he decided to let her go.

He only eased his grip by degrees, dragged his lips from her gasping mouth and across her cheek, nipping her earlobe on the way to her throat. For heart-thundering moments he sucked at her pulse point, as if he wanted to draw her heartbeats out of her. Then with a final groan, he set her hands free and raised his head.

He didn’t step away, kept their bodies fused. She remained still, not even breathing as that only pressed her closer to him. Not that she could move. It was all she could do to contain the tremors that threatened to shake her apart. It was his body’s support that kept her upright. And it was he who finally backed away from her, with such care, as if his flesh had melded to hers and sudden separation would tear off a layer of their skin.

It wasn’t far from the truth. Every inch he’d imprinted felt raw, every nerve he’d strummed exposed. His scent and feel still pounded in her core, his brooding eyes leaving her no place to hide, no chance to regain her composure.

Finally he stepped back, putting just a foot of charged space between them. She drew in a tremulous breath, hoping oxygen would kick-start her volition.

“I won’t apologize for hitting you,” she murmured. “I bet it’s the response you were after, so you’d have an excuse to do what you just did. You manipulated me into doing exactly what you want, as you always did. Good for you. Now leave. Or it won’t be your chest my next blows target.”

His eyes narrowed to steel slits, the flames of lust still flickering in their depths. “I like this new fire. You were always too...accommodating before.”

“You mean submissive.”

His gaze grew contemplative as he pursed lips fuller in the aftermath of the devouring he’d subjected her to. “Is that how you saw yourself?”

“It was how I was.”

“Not from my point of view. But then you made it clear you think I invent my own convenient, totally inaccurate version of reality. But for what it’s worth, I thought you were...pliant, yet never truly submissive.” His hand suddenly rose to her face, then he lowered it oh so slowly, running the back of his forefinger down her temple, cheek, neck and collarbone before pausing at the top of her cleavage. His voice dipped an octave into the darkest reaches of hypnosis. “You not only found pleasure in submitting to my demands and desires, but you demanded and took what you wanted as well.”

Heat surged in her loins with every recollection of those countless times she’d demanded and taken, when he’d let her feast on him until she’d lost herself in the delight.

She shrank back from his touch, which felt as if it had burned a hole right through her. That wouldn’t have been enough to sever the contact if he hadn’t dropped his hand.

She hated him for being the only one who’d ever been able to toy with her so effortlessly, hated herself more for allowing him to, for being so susceptible to him still.

She forced out a thick whisper. “I don’t think you’re here to discuss our defunct liaison....”

His slanting eyebrow arched at the word.

“You’re right,” she continued. “If I could find a word that’s more trivial and impersonal than liaison, I would have used it. Anyway, I’m not interested in dredging up a past I’ve left behind, with a person I should have never gotten mixed up with, as you so kindly pointed out to me at the beginning.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets, drawing her gaze to his daunting and unabated arousal. It had just been pressed against her flesh, reminding her of all the times it had invaded her, driven her beyond all sense of self and self-preservation with urgency and ecstasy.

She snatched her gaze up, found him watching her with that cool assessment that made her want to scream.

No doubt satisfied that he’d again provoked her, in every way, he half turned. “I am going to sit down. Coming?”

Without waiting, he continued to her family room, as if those explosive minutes that had thrown the precarious stability of her world back into chaos hadn’t occurred.

This time she managed not to pursue and attack him. Not because her anger had lessened, but because she knew he’d respond the same way. She couldn’t withstand another assault on her senses. Knowing him, he might even take it further, press on until he made her beg him not to stop. Even now she feared he’d make her do whatever he wanted her to.

Feeling as if her legs had turned to soggy sandbags, she followed him into her family room.

She’d not only childproofed recently, but also redecorated the space, to make it cheery for Dora and to counter the melancholy that permeated her and the place since Nadine’s and Petros’s deaths. Now Andreas walked into it and his presence made the room darken and shrink, as he’d always done to her whole world.

He headed to the high-backed red armchair beside the gleefully floral L-shaped couch, which he must have occupied as he’d waited for her. The tea tray on the coffee table and the briefcase on the floor affirmed her deduction.

After he’d resumed sitting, he swept back the hair that had fallen over his forehead during their tussle, drawing her aching gaze again to its luxuriousness. If anything, the longer tresses made him appear even more masculine, made every slash and hollow of his face more rugged. Each change in him did. His every line and feature had been honed to a fiercer virility. And she’d thought he’d already been the epitome of manhood.

Damn him.

But that was only a facade. He was as monstrous on the inside as he was divine on the outside.

He cocked his head at her when she remained standing several feet away. “Your reaction to seeing me wasn’t spur-of-the-moment. Seems your animosity has been brewing for a long time.”

Those statements made her scoff incredulously. “If I didn’t know you have a family somewhere, I’d have thought you were grown in a lab, an experiment in producing a frighteningly efficient humanoid devoid of feelings or scruples.”

His expression showed no offense, no amusement, no challenge. Nothing at all, as usual. “If this is how you see me, it’s your prerogative. But don’t you think the impervious entity you describe wouldn’t have tried to keep you from leaving him?”

“I think you would do nothing else, to assert your dominance. You were being a dog in the manger when you refused to finalize the divorce. You never really married me, just signed a bunch of papers to stop me from ending our ill-advised affair, only to continue it under the false label of marriage, on the same barren grounds.”

“And I tried to stop you from leaving me, twice, just to ‘assert my dominance’? Don’t you think it was too much trouble for just that?”

“Not at all. I believe you’d go to any lengths to maintain your record.”

That eyebrow arched again. “What record is that?”

“Your perfect one of having everyone at your disposal and everything done according to your rules and at your command.”

“Interesting.” He scratched the stubble she still felt burning her cheeks, looking as if he was considering a new perspective, before leveling his gaze on her. “That is me to a tee, but none of that was among my motives at the time. I was only trying to wait out your tantrum until you came back to me.”

“Tantrum? Is this how you saw it? And if so, what made you decide to let go of the tug-of-war? Did you wake up one day and say to yourself, ‘To hell with it, who needs a brat?’ It wasn’t as if you could have gotten fed up, after all. You weren’t even involved in plaguing and pestering me. You just sicced your lawyer on me and went about your business, not once appearing in the picture.”

“You must have a theory why I finally let go.”

“Probably because even such hassle-free vindictiveness eventually got old.”

He made no corroboration of her explanation, nor did he provide his own of why after six months he’d suddenly decided to sign the divorce papers.

Not that she would have accepted any reason he gave. Her analysis made the most sense. He’d gotten bored. Or he’d found a satisfactory replacement. Or many.

“You were right.” That made her blink. He was admitting it? But he went on, “I’m not here to recycle past conflicts. But though you claim to have no desire to do that, it seems you’re pretty hung up on them.”

“My disgust with you has nothing to do with our past.”

“What then?”

“You really have no clue, huh?”

“None. Enlighten me.”

“Petros called you on his deathbed.” The words seethed through gritted teeth. “You didn’t bother coming back. You let him die without making the effort to see him one last time. You didn’t even attend his funeral.”

All the response she got was a slow blink. Then those lasers he had for eyes resumed regarding her with the same steady appraisal, waiting for her to continue.

The emotional bile backed up in her system poured out, swerving from outrage on Petros’s behalf to hers. “Everyone came. Even business rivals, even enemies. Everyone knew Nadine was my world. And that Petros had become the brother I never had. Everyone put everything aside and came or at least called to console me. You didn’t.”

Another slow blink allowed her bitterness to gain momentum, as she finally understood why his absence had hurt so much. “Somehow your disregard made everything that happened between us even worse. I was always ashamed I threw myself at you, blamed myself for everything that happened afterward, but that day I despised myself for it, for pursuing, then staying with someone so...warped. When you didn’t answer your only friend’s dying plea, and didn’t grant me even a few empty words of sympathy, I finally realized the magnitude of the crime I’d committed against myself. I never hated anyone in my life. I never hated you even after all you put me through. But when you proved you were worse than a stranger, worse than an enemy...I finally hated you that day.”

His lashes lowered again, giving the momentary impression of him being moved, disturbed.

Then he raised his eyes, and they were their usual unfathomable chips of steel. “I didn’t realize you’d appreciate seeing or hearing from me at the time.”

Her jaw dropped. “Are you pretending you didn’t come or call, in deference to my feelings? Play another one.”

“I’m stating what I believed. But that wasn’t why I didn’t come or call.”

She waited for him to tell her the reason. A heartbeat later she realized she’d fallen into the trap of expectation all over again. He wouldn’t be giving her anything to quench her curiosity or indignation, would never justify his actions or seek understanding or even tolerance for them.

At least she could always count on him for that. No excuses. Everyone invariably lied, or pulled their punches to observe decorum or butter others up, or at least spare their feelings. Not Andreas.

And it would continue to sink in. The magnitude of what she’d risked when she’d thrown herself, body and soul, into his void. Even now he realized she’d been in need of support from any familiar face at the time—he still didn’t bother to say he was sorry.

It seemed disappointment and disillusion had no end with Andreas.

Suddenly, she was tired. So very tired. She’d been struggling to act strong, to appear intact, for so long now. First for her mother, then for Nadine, then for Dora and Hannah. But she could no longer pretend she was on Andreas’s level, when no one was, and when she was at her most brittle. He was a disturbance she couldn’t afford, a battle she couldn’t fight. She needed whatever strength she had left for Dora.

All fight gone out of her, she walked to him, no longer minding if he saw how fragile she was, how she was no match for him. “Whatever your reasons for not coming to the funeral, it was for the best, Andreas. Your presence would have only made me feel worse. It’s the worst thing you could have done, coming back now. Whatever brought you here, it doesn’t matter. Just go. Please.”

In response, his hand reached for hers, cradled it in its warmth. Then, with an effortless tug, he had her spilling into his lap, sinking in his power and heat.

Before another neuron fired, a buzz went through her. Seconds stretched out before she realized what it was. His phone.

That galvanized her to push out of his arms. He only tightened them and groaned, “Don’t, omorfiá mou.”

She shivered at the way his magnificent voice vibrated as he called her “my beauty,” just as she always had when a Greek endearment flowed from those spectacular lips.

Keeping her wrapped in one arm, he got his phone out, evidently to silence it, then groaned again when he saw the caller’s name.

He dragged in a harsh breath. “I have to take this.” He clasped her closer as she squirmed again, immobilizing her with his mesmerizing gaze. “I’m picking up right where I left off afterward.”

She somehow managed to rise from his embrace, making it to the couch opposite before collapsing on it. “No, you won’t.”

His eyes smoldered, running over her with his intention to do just as he’d promised. Then he answered the call, and the name he said...Stephanides. Could it be...?

Next moment he said Christos. So it was him. The man who’d once threatened to smash her kneecaps...and worse.

It was how everything had started between her and Andreas, six years ago. She’d been in Crete with Malcolm to set up a branch of their company. They’d been about to close a deal when one day, thugs had accosted them, delivering a threat from Christos Stephanides, the local real estate development tycoon. The message had been succinct. Either they took their business elsewhere or they wouldn’t leave Crete in one piece.

But before the thugs could give them a taste of what awaited them if they didn’t comply, Andreas had materialized out of nowhere and spoken one word: “Leave.” The ruffians had almost vanished into thin air in their rush to do just that.

In his usual concise way, Andreas had said he’d deal with the thugs’ boss, and had advised them to leave Crete until he told them it was safe to come back. They’d done so, unquestioningly.

Once home, though still shaken, Naomi had been more disappointed. That the one man she’d ever been interested in remained the only man who hadn’t tried to approach her.

Nadine had thought his appearance at the moment they’d needed him had to mean something. She’d insisted that next time they met, if he didn’t make a move, Naomi should take matters into her own hands.

Having no faith in her sister’s romantic notions, Naomi had been surprised and delighted when she’d found Andreas in Malcolm’s office days later. He’d seared her in his focus again, but had made no move. And she’d ended up taking Nadine’s advice, inviting him to dinner. It was then that Andreas had issued his famous warning, turning her down.

Mortified at his rejection, she’d told Nadine that her advice had backfired. Her sister had still insisted that maybe he’d truly believed it wasn’t good for her to know him. Maybe he was being kind, letting her down easy. What had Naomi known about Andreas anyway?

But she’d known what should have been enough. Everybody said he was an iceberg, a man with no feelings, relationships or friendships, who lived only to accumulate more success and money. The presence of females in his life had consisted of abundant one-nights stands.

Not that any of that had discouraged her in the least. She’d still wanted nothing more than to be with him, to appease the unstoppable hunger she’d felt for him, come what may. So she’d approached him again.

This time, Andreas had agreed to her invitation. But as if to test her limits, he’d insisted she come to his hotel suite. Certain that he’d posed no danger beyond the emotional—and she’d had no intention of getting emotionally involved—she’d gone to him.

Bluntly, he’d told her he’d never wanted anything the way he wanted her. But he’d left her alone, knowing she wouldn’t be able to withstand him. His ominous words had been blatant with the implication of his insatiability, as well as what she’d realized only later. His total disregard and insensitivity.

But she couldn’t blame him for any of that. He’d made his terms brutally clear. If she stayed, he would devour her. But he was nothing she might want in a man. Beyond passion and pleasure, he had nothing to offer her.

Drunk with desire and recklessness, she’d told him that was exactly what she wanted, too. Since her mother had died, she’d taken care of her four-years-younger sister, becoming an adult prematurely. Naomi hadn’t made one step since before taking every possible ramification into consideration. Even her professional life was steeped in feasibility studies and risk calculations. But she’d wanted Andreas as she’d never wanted anything else. She couldn’t approach that desire with caution.

And starting that night, she’d let him sweep her like a tornado into a tempestuously passionate affair that had been beyond anything she’d dreamed of. Sex between them had been, even according to him, unparalleled, the pleasure escalating and the lust unquenchable.

But soon she’d found her emotions becoming involved—or they had been all along, and she’d lied to herself so that she’d accept his noninvolvement terms. Apart from his inability to feel, Andreas had been everything she could have admired and loved in a man. Brilliant, driven, disciplined, enterprising and a hundred other things that appealed to everything in her. Being a phenomenal lover had ended any hope that her emotions would remain unscathed for long. As he’d made love to her, it had been impossible not to delude herself that his ferocious passion, his meticulous catering to her needs, hadn’t been signs of caring. That was, until he’d stepped out of bed and reverted to iceberg mode.

It had taken only four months for the lack of an emotional dimension to make her confess she’d been wrong to think she could handle the terms of their involvement. She couldn’t wait for things to deteriorate between them, and it was best to part when they had only the fantastic memories.

In answer, he’d only brooded as she’d walked away, not trying to stop her....

“Christos sends his regards.”

Her heart fired as his calm voice yanked her from the past, landing her in the present with a thud.

Her glower was equally for him and for the hoodlum who paraded as a businessman and dared pretend they were on a cordial footing. Though it surprised her Andreas had told him he was with her. He’d never acknowledged her before.

“Tell him I’m sending them back as undeliverable. And when he gets them, he knows where to put them.”

Andreas’s eyebrows rose slightly, his closest expression to amusement. “He will be shocked a lady like you could be so...harsh. Especially since he’s taken such a shine to you.”

Yeah, and he had tried to “acquire” her “golden beauty” as if she were part of their business deal. “The feeling is certainly not mutual.”

“That would only make you even more enticing in his eyes. Mere men expect the goddess that you are wouldn’t reciprocate their interest, expect you to be haughty and out of reach.”

Was he speaking as a fellow god who knew how he affected mere women? Not that she could accuse him of exaggerating when he called her a goddess. He’d always lavished praise on her that had surpassed poetry. It had been what had kept her with him for two years through the alienation on all other fronts. That and the sheer perfection of their chemistry.

He put his phone away. “I now understand the source of your current antipathy toward me. But why is Christos still in the bull’s-eye of your wrath? Your conflict has long been resolved.”

Strange that he wasn’t taking credit for that, when it had been he who’d gotten Stephanides to relent and then to even do business with her company. They’d done a couple of very lucrative projects together before things had fallen through again, if amicably this time. Not that she was about to thank Andreas for that right now, or for anything else.

Gathering what felt like her last spark of energy, she sat forward. “Listen, I’m sure you didn’t come here to chat about your money-and image-laundering business buddies, or to exercise your irresistible sexual prowess on me—”

“I didn’t intend to touch you...not during this meeting. But it seems nothing has changed. It remains impossible for us to be around each other and not ignite.”