The Marakaios Baby
Kate Hewitt
From ‘I Don’t’… Dating Leo Marakaios is like dancing with the devil. Margo Ferrars thinks she can match him, step for seductive step – until Leo asks her to marry him. It might only be for convenience, but Margo knows it’s time to walk away.… To ‘I Do’!Margo accepts that giving up Leo’s earth-shattering kisses and expert touch is the price she must pay to protect her heart, but then she discovers she’s pregnant. And now Margo finds herself in the plush offices of Marakaios Enterprises…about to tell Leo he’s going to be a father and to ask him to marry her!Discover more at www.millsandboon.co.uk/katehewitt
Leo gazed at her narrowly for a moment. He still didn’t understand why she was here. She hadn’t possessed enough honour to be faithful to him—why would she care whether he knew about his own child or not?
‘I would have expected you to pass it off as this other man’s,’ he said abruptly.
Margo winced at that. ‘Clearly you don’t have a very high opinion of me.’
‘And you think I should?’
‘No.’ She let out a little defeated sigh. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘So why didn’t you do that, Margo?’ It was the first time he’d said her name since he’d seen her again, and it caused him a sudden, surprising flash of pain. He clenched his hands into fists, then deliberately flattened them out, resting them again on his desk.
‘Because I am not—no matter what you think—completely without morals,’ she replied with a bit of her old spirit. ‘I want my child, and I want my child to know his or her father.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And, more than that. I want my child to have a loving, stable home. A home where she knows she’s safe, where her parents are there, loving and protecting her. Always.’ Her dark brown eyes seemed to glow with an inner fire, an utter conviction.
‘And how,’ Leo asked after a pause, ‘do you suppose that is going to work?’
‘That’s the other thing I want,’ Margo said, still holding his gaze, her eyes like burning coals in her pale face. ‘I want you to marry me.’
The Marakaios Brides
Powerful Greeks meet their match!
Proud Greek blood flows through the veins of brothers Antonios and Leonidas Marakaios. With determination and ruthlessness they have built their family’s empire to global heights.
It has been their sole focus—even to the exclusion of love.
But now two women look set to challenge their pride, their passion and their marriage vows!
Read Antonios’s story in:
The Marakaios Marriage
May 2015
And meet Leonidas in:
The Marakaios Baby
August 2015
The Marakaios
Baby
Kate Hewitt
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
After spending three years as a die-hard New Yorker, KATE HEWITT now lives in a small village in the English Lake District with her husband, their five children and a golden retriever. In addition to writing intensely emotional stories she loves reading, baking, and playing chess with her son—she has yet to win against him, but she continues to try.
Learn more about Kate at kate-hewitt.com (http://www.kate-hewitt.com).
To Lauren,
Thank you for your many years of friendship. Love, K.
Contents
Cover (#ua0d58fd5-383c-5d81-8b19-105a96c04dd3)
Introduction (#ue47949f4-9d7d-533d-8978-a7f9deb1103e)
The Marakaios Brides (#u72e281d0-84ac-51f5-a55e-ef5294df2f73)
Title Page (#u2c0b933e-3323-5590-a229-6904ae423880)
About the Author (#u3abb9df8-1eaa-5fa0-86cf-50384e2a33ff)
Dedication (#u44fbb77c-4633-56f4-a8c4-77900e5daec3)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua79c8859-4574-5c8c-acb3-93482a44bef4)
CHAPTER TWO (#u9bd1380d-a7b7-50e3-84b6-3091d77085f3)
CHAPTER THREE (#ufd4dff6c-d9b0-5f5b-89a0-6e5d068fc32f)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u44add09d-9885-5828-a72d-bc2c88da4be4)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_676629a8-6d07-5d72-9189-10d208168214)
‘WILL YOU MARRY ME?’
The question seemed to bounce off the walls and echo through the room as Marguerite Ferrars stared in shock at the face of the man who had asked the question—her lover, Leonidas Marakaios.
He gazed at her with a faint half-smile quirking his lips, his eyebrows slightly raised. In his hand he held a small black velvet box, and the solitaire diamond of who knew how many carats inside sparkled with quiet sophistication.
‘Margo?’
His voice was lilting, teasing; he thought she was silent because she was so surprised. But, while that was true, she felt something else as well. Appalled. Terrified.
She’d never expected this—never thought that charismatic playboy Leo would think of marriage. A lifetime commitment, a life—and love—you could lose. And she knew the searing pain of losing someone—the way it left you breathless and gasping, waking up in the night, your face awash in tears, even years later...
The moment stretched on too long, and still she said nothing. She couldn’t. Because she didn’t dare say yes and yet no seemed just as impossible. Leo Marakaios was not a man who accepted refusal. Rejection.
She watched as a slight frown pulled his eyebrows together and he withdrew the hand holding the open velvet box to rest it in his lap.
‘Leo...’ she began finally, helplessly—because how could she tell this impossibly arrogant, handsome, charismatic man no? And yet she had to. Of course she had to.
‘I didn’t think this would be that much of a surprise,’ he said, his voice holding only a remnant of lightness now.
She felt a surge of something close to anger, which was almost a relief. ‘Didn’t you? We’ve never had the kind of relationship that...’
‘That what?’ He arched an eyebrow, the gesture caught between wryness and disdain.
She could feel him withdrawing, and while she knew she should be glad, she felt only a deep, wrenching sorrow. This wasn’t what she’d wanted. But she didn’t—couldn’t—want marriage either. Couldn’t let someone matter that much.
‘That...led somewhere,’ she finished, and he closed the box with a snap, his expression turning so terribly cold.
‘I see.’
Words stuck in her throat—the answer she knew she had to give yet somehow couldn’t make herself say. ‘Leo, we’ve never even talked about the future.’
‘We’ve been together for two years,’ he returned. ‘I think it’s reasonable to assume it was going somewhere.’
His voice held a deliberate edge, and his eyes were blazing silver fire. Or maybe ice, for he looked so cold now—even contemptuous. And moments ago he’d been asking to marry her. It almost seemed laughable.
‘Together for two years,’ Margo allowed, determined to stay reasonable, ‘but we’ve hardly had what most people would call a “normal” relationship. We’ve met in strange cities, in restaurants and hotels—’
‘Which is how you wanted it.’
‘And how you wanted it too. It was an affair, Leo. A—a fling.’
‘A two-year fling.’
She rose from her chair, agitated now, and paced in front of the picture window that overlooked the Île de la Cité. It was so strange and unsettling to have Leo here in her apartment, her sanctuary, when he’d never come to her home before. Restaurants and hotels, yes—anonymous places for emotionless no-strings sex...that was what they’d agreed. That was all she could let herself have.
The risk of trying for more was simply too great. She knew what it was like to lose everything—even your own soul. She couldn’t go through that again. She wouldn’t.
Not even for Leo.
‘You seem upset,’ Leo remarked tonelessly.
‘I just didn’t expect this.’
‘As it happens, neither did I.’
He rose from where he’d been sitting, on the damask settee she’d upholstered herself, his tall, rangy figure seeming to fill the cosy space of her sitting room. He looked wrong here, somehow, amidst all her things—her throw pillows and porcelain ornaments; he was too big, too dark, too powerful...like a tiger pacing the cage of a kitten.
‘I thought most women wanted to get married,’ he remarked.
She turned on him then, another surge of anger making her feel strong. ‘What a ridiculous, sexist assumption! And I, in any case, am not “most women”.’
‘No,’ Leo agreed silkily. ‘You’re not.’
His eyes blazed with intent then—an intent that made Margo’s breath catch in her chest.
The sexual chemistry between them had been instantaneous—electric. She remembered catching sight of him in a hotel bar in Milan two years ago. She’d been nursing a single glass of white wine while she went over her notes for the next day’s meeting. He’d strolled over to the bar and slid onto the stool next to hers, and the little hairs on the back of her neck had prickled. She’d felt as if she were finally coming alive.
She’d gone back with him to his room that night. It had been so unlike her—she’d always kept herself apart, her heart on ice. In her twenty-nine years she’d had only two lovers before Leo, both of them lamentably forgettable. Neither of those men had affected her the way Leo did—and not just physically.
From that first night he’d reached a place inside her she’d thought numb, dead. He’d brought her back to life. And while she’d known it was dangerous she’d stayed with him, because the thought of not being with Leo was worse.
Except now that was a reality. She’d thought an affair with Leo would be safe, that he would never ask more of her than she was prepared to give. But here he was asking for marriage, a lifetime, and her response was bone-deep terror.
Which was why she could not accept his proposal.
Except she had a terrible and yet thrilling certainty that he had a different proposal in mind now, as he came towards her, his gaze turning hooded and sleepy even though that lithe, powerful body she knew almost as well as her own was taut with suppressed energy and tension.
She licked her lips, felt the insistent thud of her heart, the stirring of blood in her veins. Even now her body yearned for him.
‘Leo...’
‘You surprise me, Margo.’
She gave a little shake of her head. ‘You’re the one who surprised me.’
‘Clearly. But I thought you’d be pleased. Don’t you want to get married?’
He sounded so reasonable, but she saw a certain calculation in his eyes, and he ran one hand up and down her bare arm, so gooseflesh broke out in the wake of his touch.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
His easy, interested tone jarred with the fingers he continued to run up and down her arm, and with that sleepy, knowing gaze.
‘I’m a career woman, Leo—’
‘You can be a married career woman, Margo. This is the twenty-first century, after all.’
‘Oh? And how would that work, exactly? You live in central Greece—the middle of nowhere. How am I supposed to work from there?’
For a second she thought she saw a gleam of something like triumph in his eyes, but then it sparked out and he gave a negligent shrug of his shoulders. ‘You could commute. The flight from Athens to Paris is only a few hours.’
‘Commute? Are you serious?’
‘We could work something out, Margo, if that’s all that’s stopping you.’
There was a note of challenge in his voice, and she realised then what he was doing. Leonidas Marakaios was a powerful and persuasive man. He was CEO of the Marakaios Enterprises, a company that had started with a few olive groves and a cold press and was now a multibillion dollar company—a man of the world who was used to getting what he wanted. And he wanted her. So here he was, breaking down her defences, discarding her arguments. And the trouble was she was so weak, so tempted, that it might actually work.
She turned away from him to take a few steadying breaths without him seeing how unsettled she was. In the darkness of the window she could see her reflection: a too pale face, wide eyes, and a tumble of long dark brown hair that fell nearly to her waist.
When Leo had shown up twenty minutes ago she’d been in yoga pants and a faded tee shirt, her face without a lick of make-up, her hair down. She’d been silently appalled. She’d always been careful that he saw only the woman she wanted him to—the woman the world saw: sexy, chic, professional, a little bit distant, a little bit cool. All their meetings had been stage-managed affairs; she’d swept into a restaurant or hotel room in full make-up, a sexy little negligee in her bag, insouciant and secure.
He’d never seen her like this: vulnerable, without the mask of make-up, the armour of designer clothes. He’d never seen her agitated and uncertain, her savoir-faire slipping from her fingers.
‘Margo,’ Leo said quietly. ‘Tell me the real reason.’
Another quick breath, buoying inside her lungs. ‘I told you, Leo. I don’t want marriage or what it entails. The whole housewife routine bores me to death.’ She made her voice cold—careless, even.
Steeling herself, she turned around to face him and nearly flinched at the careful consideration in his eyes. She had a horrible feeling she wasn’t fooling him at all.
‘I just said you don’t need to be a housewife. Do you think I want to change you completely?’
‘You don’t even know me, Leo, not really.’
He took a step towards her, and again she saw that intent in his eyes, felt an answering flare inside her. She had, she realised, just given him a challenge.
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘I’m not talking about sex.’
‘What don’t I know, then?’ He spread his hands wide, his eyebrows raised. ‘Tell me.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Because you don’t want it to be. I know you, Margo. I know your feet get cold in the middle of the night and you tuck them between my legs to keep them warm. I know you like marshmallows even though you pretend you don’t eat any sweets.’
She almost laughed at that. ‘How do you know about the marshmallows?’ Her dirty little secret, when it seemed as if every other woman in Paris was stick-thin and ate only lettuce leaves and drank black coffee.
‘I found a little bag of them in your handbag once.’
‘You shouldn’t have been looking through my things.’
‘I was fetching your reading glasses for you, if you remember.’
She shook her head—an instinctive response, because all those little details that he’d lobbed at her like well-aimed missiles were making her realise how intimate her relationship with Leo really had been. She’d thought she’d kept her distance, armoured herself—the elegant Marguerite Ferrars, keeping their assignations in anonymous places. But in truth reality had seeped through. Emotion had too, as well as affection, with the glasses and the marshmallows and the cold feet. Little signs of how close they’d become, how much he’d begun to mean to her.
And she saw all too clearly how he would chip away at her defences now—how he would seduce her with knowing words and touches until she’d say yes. Of course she’d say yes. Because she was already more than halfway to loving him.
For a second—no more—Margo thought about actually accepting his proposal. Living a life she’d never thought to have, had made herself never want. A life of happiness but also of terrible risk. Risk of loss, of hurt, of heartbreak. Of coming apart so she’d never put the pieces of her soul back together again.
Reality returned in a cold rush and she shook her head. ‘No, Leo.’
That faint smile had returned, although his eyes looked hard. ‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
‘You don’t think I—we—deserve more explanation?’
‘Not particularly.’ She’d made her voice indifferent, maybe too much, because anger flashed in his eyes, turning the silver to grey.
He cocked his head, his gaze sweeping slowly over her. ‘I think you’re hiding something from me.’
She gave a scoffing laugh. ‘You would.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘You can’t believe I’m actually turning you down, can you?’ The words tumbled out of her, fuelled by both anger and fear. ‘You—the Lothario who has had half the single women in Europe.’
‘I wouldn’t go quite that far. Forty per cent, maybe.’
There was the charm, almost causing her to lose that needed edge of fury, to smile. ‘No woman has ever resisted you.’
‘You didn’t,’ he pointed out, with what Margo knew was deceptive mildness.
‘Because I wanted a fling,’ she declared defiantly. ‘Sex without strings.’
‘We never actually said—’
‘Oh, but we did, Leo. Don’t you remember that first conversation? We set out the rules right then.’
She saw a glimmer of acknowledgement in his eyes, and his mouth hardened into a thin line.
It had been an elaborate dance of words, their talk of business concerns and obligations, veiled references to other places, other people—every careful remark setting out just what their affair would and wouldn’t be. Both of them, Margo had thought, had been clear about their desire for a commitment-free relationship.
‘I didn’t think you wanted to get married,’ she said.
Leo shrugged. ‘I decided I did.’
‘But you didn’t at the beginning, when we met. You weren’t interested then.’ She’d felt his innate sense of distance and caution, the same as her own. They had, she’d thought, been speaking the same language, giving the code words for no commitment, no love, no fairytales.
‘People change, Margo. I’m thirty-two. You’re twenty-nine. Of course I’d think of settling down...starting a family.’
Something clanged hard inside her; she felt as if someone had pulled the chair out from under her and she’d fallen right onto the floor.
‘Well, then, that’s where we differ, Leo,’ she stated, her voice thankfully cool. ‘I don’t want children.’
His eyebrows drew together at that. ‘Ever?’
‘Ever.’
He stared at her for a long, considering moment. ‘You’re scared.’
‘Stop telling me what I feel,’ she snapped, raising her voice to hide its tremble. ‘And get over yourself. I’m not scared. I just don’t want what you want. I don’t want to marry you.’ She took a breath, and then plunged on recklessly. ‘I don’t love you.’
He tensed slightly, almost as if her words had hurt him, and then he shrugged. ‘I don’t love you. But there are better bases for a marriage than that ephemeral emotion.’
‘Such as?’
‘Common goals—’
‘How romantic you are,’ she mocked.
‘Did you want more romance? Would that have made a difference?’
‘No!’
‘Then I’m glad I didn’t wine and dine you at Gavroche, as I was considering, and propose in front of a crowd.’
He spoke lightly enough, and yet she still heard an edge to his voice.
‘So am I,’ she answered, and held her ground as he took a step towards her. She could feel the heat rolling off him, felt herself instinctively sway towards him. She stopped herself, holding herself rigid, refusing to yield even in that small way.
‘So this is it?’ he said softly, his voice no more than a breath that feathered her face. His silvery gaze roved over her, seeming to steal right inside her. ‘This is goodbye?’
‘Yes.’ She spoke firmly, but he must have seen something in her face, for he cupped her cheek, ran a thumb over her parted lips.
‘You’re so very sure?’ he whispered, and she forced herself to stare at him, not to show anything in her face.
‘Yes.’
He dropped his hand from her face to her breast, cupping its fullness, running his thumb over the taut peak. She shuddered; she couldn’t help it. He’d always affected her that way, right from the beginning. A single, simple touch lit a flame inside her.
‘You don’t seem sure,’ he murmured.
‘We have chemistry, Leo, that’s all.’ She forced the words out past the desire that was sweeping through her, leaving nothing but need in its wake.
‘Chemistry is a powerful thing.’
He slid his hand down to her waist, his fingers splaying across her hip. Sensation leapt to life inside her, low down, sparks shooting through her belly.
‘It’s not enough,’ she said through gritted teeth.
She ached for him to move his hand lower, to touch her with the knowing expertise her body had once revelled in. Still she didn’t move, and neither did Leo.
‘Not enough?’ he queried softly. ‘So you want love, then?’
‘Not with you.’
He stilled, and she made herself go on—say the words she knew would hurt them both and turn him from her for ever. She had to...she couldn’t risk him breaking down any more of her defences. She couldn’t risk, full stop.
‘I don’t love you, Leo, and I never will. Frankly, you were just a fling—something to while away the time. I never intended for it to be serious.’ She let out a laugh, sharp and high, as Leo pulled back his hand from her hip. ‘Honestly—a proposal?’ She made herself continue. ‘It’s almost funny... Because I’d actually been planning to end it when we met in Rome next week.’ She took a quick breath and went on recklessly. ‘The truth is, I’m seeing someone else.’
He stared at her for a long, taut moment. A muscle flickered in his jaw, but that was all. ‘How long?’ he finally asked, the two words bitten off and spat out.
She shrugged. ‘A couple of months.’
‘Months—?’
‘I didn’t think we were exclusive.’
‘I’ve always been faithful to you,’ he said in a low voice.
‘I never asked you to be,’ she replied with another shrug.
She could hardly believe she was actually fooling him—didn’t he see how she trembled? And yet she knew he was taken in. She saw it in the way everything in him had gone dangerously still.
Then a cold little smile played about his mouth.
‘Well, then, this really is goodbye,’ he said, and before she could answer he pulled her towards him and kissed her.
She hadn’t been expecting it, the sudden press of his mouth on hers, knowing and sure, a delicious onslaught that had her insides flaring white-hot even as her mind scrambled frantically to resist.
But Leo had always been impossible to resist, and never more so than now, when he was utterly, ruthlessly determined to make her respond to him. His tongue slid inside her mouth as his hands spanned her waist, fitting her to his muscled body perfectly.
She kissed him back, gave herself up to the rush of sensations that left her dizzy with longing. The feel of Leo’s hands on her body was so intense it almost hurt—like touching a raw nerve. He slid his hands under her tee shirt, discarding the flimsy bit of cotton with ease. And then her yoga pants were gone too. She kicked them off, needing to be naked, too enflamed by desire to feel either exposed or ashamed as she stood before him, utterly bare, her breath coming in pants and gulps.
Leo stood in front of her and slowly unbuttoned his shirt. She saw a predatory gleam in his eyes, but even that could not cool her desire. Was this his revenge? His punishment? Or simply his proof that she desired him still? Whatever it was, she’d take it. She’d welcome it. Because she knew it would be the last time she’d hold him in her arms, feel him inside her.
He shrugged his shirt off. The crisp white cotton slid off his shoulders, revealing his taut six-pack abs, the sprinkling of dark hair that veed towards his trousers. With a snick of leather he undid his belt and then kicked off his trousers, and he too was naked.
He came towards her, taking her in his arms in a way that was possessive rather than sensual. When he kissed her she felt branded. Perhaps she always would.
He backed her towards the window, so her back was against the cold glass, and then without a single murmur or caress he drove inside her.
Even so she was ready for him, her body expanding to fit around his length. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him inside her even more deeply, her head thrown back against the glass so she felt suspended between this world and the next, caught in a single moment of memory and desire.
The tension and pressure built inside her, a tornado that took over her senses, and at its dizzying peak Leo took her face in his hands and looked her straight in the eyes.
‘You won’t forget me,’ he said, and it was a declaration of certainty, a curse, because she knew he was right.
Then, as her climax crashed over her, he shuddered into her and withdrew, leaving her trembling and weak-kneed against the window. She watched, dazed and numb, as he dressed silently. She could not form a single sentence, not even a word.
She watched him walk to the door. He didn’t speak, didn’t even look back. The door closed with a quiet, final-sounding click. Slowly she sank to the floor, clutching her knees to her chest as the aftershocks of her climax still shuddered through her.
Leo was gone.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_1ef4031d-d3ff-5b92-a2b6-c6401cf260d8)
LEO STRODE FROM Margo’s apartment, his body still shuddering from their lovemaking—but no, he couldn’t call it that. Never that.
With one abrupt movement he lobbed the little velvet box into the nearest bin. A foolish waste, perhaps, but he couldn’t bear to look at that wretched ring for another moment. He couldn’t stand the thought of it even being in his pocket.
He drew a deep breath and raked a hand through his hair, willing back the emotion that had nearly overwhelmed him in Margo’s apartment. All of it. She was out of his life. He need never think of her again.
It wasn’t as if he’d loved her, he reminded himself. Margo had been right about that. He had liked her, yes, and they’d certainly shared an explosive sexual chemistry. She’d seemed the obvious choice when he’d decided it was time he married.
Six months ago, just after their mother’s death, his brother Antonios had resigned as CEO of Marakaios Enterprises and Leo had taken his place. It was what Leo had wanted his whole life, what he had striven for as a young man, working for the father who had never even noticed him. Who had chosen Antonios instead of him, again and again.
But he was over that; he’d made peace with Antonios, and his father had been dead for ten years. His mother too was gone now, and all of it together had made him want to marry, to start a family, create his own dynasty.
But Margo doesn’t even want children.
Why hadn’t he known that? Why hadn’t he realised she was so faithless, so unscrupulous? Theos, she’d been cheating on him. He could hardly credit it; they’d seen each other every week or two at least, and their encounters had always been intense. But she had no reason to lie about such a thing.
And when he thought of how he’d asked her to marry him, how he’d tried to convince her, persuade her with gentle reason and understanding because he hadn’t been able to believe she didn’t want him... Leo closed his eyes, cringing with the shame of it.
Well, no more. He wouldn’t marry. Or if he did it would simply be for a child. He would not engage his emotions, would not seek anything greater than the most basic of physical transactions. And he would never see Margo again, Margo of the cold feet and the marshmallows...
His face twisted with regret before he ironed out his features and strode on into the night.
* * *
Margo’s stomach lurched for the third time that morning and she pressed one hand against her middle, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. This stomach bug was both insistent and annoying. She’d been feeling nauseous for over a week, although she’d thankfully never actually been sick.
‘Are you all right?’
Margo looked up to see Sophie, her colleague and fellow buyer at Paris’s exclusive department store Achat, frowning at her.
They’d worked together for six years, starting as interns, Sophie with her freshly minted college degree and Margo doing it the hard way, having worked on the shop floor since she was sixteen. They’d both moved up to being assistants, and now they were buyers in their own right. Margo was in charge of the home department; Sophie covered accessories. Both of them were completely dedicated to their jobs.
‘I’m fine. I’ve just been feeling a little sick lately.’
Sophie raised her eyebrows, a teasing smile playing about her mouth. ‘If it was anyone but you I’d be worried.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Margo asked, a note of irritability creeping into her voice. She had been out of sorts for a month now, ever since Leo had left her alone and aching.
It was for the best—it had to be—but she couldn’t keep herself from feeling the hurt. The emptiness.
‘I mean,’ Sophie answered, ‘that I’d think you were pregnant. But you can’t be.’
‘Of course I’m not,’ Margo answered sharply.
Sophie knew her stance on relationships and children: one night over a bottle of wine they’d each confided their intention to have single, solitary, safe lives. At least that was how Margo had viewed it; she suspected Sophie just wanted to play the field.
‘I’m on the mini-pill,’ she stated, and Sophie raised her eyebrows.
‘You haven’t forgotten to take it, then?’
‘No, never.’
Margo frowned at her computer screen and the image there of a selection of silk throw pillows, handcrafted in Turkey, that she was considering for Achat’s exclusive range. Her mind was racing back to that night a month ago, when she and Leo had had their memorable farewell. But she’d taken a pill that morning, and one the next day. She hadn’t missed anything.
‘Well, then, it’s probably just a stomach bug,’ Sophie said dismissively.
Margo barely heard her.
The next morning she’d taken it a bit later, she recalled. She hadn’t been able to sleep after Leo had left, her mind seething and her body aching, so she’d taken a herbal sleeping tablet some time in the middle of the night. It had knocked her out, which had been a blessing at the time, and she had slept for eight hours, waking around eleven, which was only three hours after she normally took the pill...
She couldn’t be pregnant.
But what if those few hours had made a difference? Allowed enough of a window...?
She let out a laugh, then, a trembling, near-hysterical sound that had Sophie looking up from her laptop across their shared open-plan office.
‘Margo...?’
She shook her head. ‘Just thinking how ridiculous your suggestion was.’
And then she turned back to her computer and worked steadily until lunchtime, refusing to give her friend’s teasing suggestion a single second of thought.
Her mind was filled with a static-like white noise even as she focused on the Turkish pillows of hand-dyed silk, and at lunchtime she left her desk and hurried down the Champs-Élysées, walking ten blocks to a chemist that wasn’t too close to Achat’s offices.
She paced the length of the shop, making sure no one who knew her was inside, and then quickly bought a pregnancy test without meeting the cashier’s eye. She stuck the paper bag in her handbag and hurried out of the shop.
Back at the office, she went into the bathroom, grateful that it was empty, and stared at her reflection, taking comfort from the elegant, composed face in the mirror. Her mask. Her armour. For work she wore nothing more than some eyeliner and red lipstick, a bit of powder. Her hair was in its usual sleek chignon and she wore a black pencil skirt and a silver-grey silk blouse.
The shade suddenly reminded her of the colour of Leo’s eyes.
But she couldn’t think about Leo now.
Taking a deep breath, she fumbled in her bag for the test and then locked herself in one of the stalls. She read the directions through twice, needing to be thorough, to focus on the details rather than the big picture that had been emerging ever since Sophie had made her suggestion.
Then she took the test and waited the requisite three minutes, staring at the face of her watch the whole time. As the second hand ticked to twelve for the third time she turned the test over—and stared down at two blazing pink lines.
Positive.
She was pregnant...with Leo’s baby.
For a moment she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even see. She doubled over as the world swam and darkened all around her. Then she took a few shallow breaths and straightened. She wrapped the test in a paper towel and shoved it deep in the bin, washed her hands and retouched her make-up. She would not think about this yet. She couldn’t.
She went back to her office, ignoring a curious look from Sophie, and sat at her desk and worked non-stop until six. She took phone calls, she attended a meeting, she even chatted and joked a little with colleagues.
But all the time she could hear the buzzing in her head. She felt as if she were watching herself from a distance, applauding how effortlessly she was handling it all. Except she wasn’t really...because inside she could feel the beginnings of panic ice over her mind and her belly.
She was pregnant with Leo’s baby.
‘Do you want to go for a drink?’ Sophie asked as Margo rose to gather her things at six.
‘I don’t think...’ Margo began, intending to put Sophie off, but then she hesitated.
She couldn’t bear the thought of returning to her apartment and spending the evening alone—not with this bomb of knowledge still ticking inside of her, waiting to detonate.
‘Why not?’ she amended as lightly as she could, and slipped on her blazer.
It was a warm evening in early September, and the office buildings of Paris’s centre were emptying out onto the wide boulevard of the Champs-Élysées. They walked to a wine bar on a narrow side street, one of their favourites, and sat outside at a rickety table so they could watch the world go by.
‘Red or white?’ Sophie asked as she moved to go inside and order their wine from the bar.
Margo hesitated, and then shook her head. ‘I’ll just have a glass of sparkling water. My stomach is still a little queasy.’
Sophie stared at her for a moment and Margo held the stare. She’d come out with Sophie tonight to avoid being home alone with this new knowledge, this new life inside her, but she wasn’t ready to tell her friend yet.
‘Very well,’ Sophie said, and went inside.
Margo sat back in her chair and blindly watched people stream by, heading home or to a bar like this—people with plans, with jobs and busy lives...
Hours ago she’d been just like them—at least on the surface. To the world she presented an image of the confident, sophisticated career woman who had everything she wanted. She’d always known it was nothing more than a flimsy façade, but no one else had.
And now the façade was about to crumble. Because she was pregnant. Pregnant with a baby...a child of her own...
Instinctively her hand crept to her still flat stomach. She imagined the little life nestled inside her, the size of a grain of rice and yet with a brain and a beating heart. A baby...
‘So what’s going on?’ Sophie asked as she returned to the table and handed Margo her glass of water.
Quickly Margo dropped her hand from her middle. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve been acting strange all afternoon. Almost as if you were in a daze.’
‘I’ve been working.’
Sophie just gave her a look; she knew her too well for Margo to dissemble. She took a sip of water to stall for time.
‘Is everything all right?’ Sophie asked quietly, abandoning her usual flippancy for a sincerity that made Margo’s eyes sting.
She didn’t have many friends. She had acquaintances and colleagues, people on the periphery of her life, but no one had ever been at its centre. She hadn’t allowed anyone to be, because loneliness was safer. And maybe it was all she deserved.
If you’d married Leo he would have been there.
But she couldn’t think that way because she’d made her choice. She couldn’t change her mind now, couldn’t wonder or wish for something else.
‘Margo?’ Sophie prompted, real concern wrinkling her forehead.
Margo took a deep breath. ‘Actually...I really am pregnant.’ She hadn’t been planning on admitting it, but now that she had it was such a relief to share the burden, even if Sophie looked as dazed and shocked as she’d felt a few hours ago.
‘Seriously? But...’
‘I took a test at lunchtime.’
Sophie shook her head slowly. ‘I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone seriously.’
‘I wasn’t. It was...casual. He lives in Greece.’
‘And...? Have you told him?’
Margo let out a trembling laugh. ‘Sophie, I told you, I just found out at lunchtime.’
‘Right.’ Sophie sat back in her seat and took a sip of wine. ‘So you’re still processing it, I suppose?’
Margo passed a hand over her forehead. Telling Sophie had made her pregnancy seem more real, and she felt a bit shaky as a result. ‘I don’t think I’ve even started.’
‘Well,’ Sophie said, ‘I didn’t think you wanted children.’
‘I didn’t. Don’t.’
Sophie raised an eyebrow and Margo realised her hand had strayed once more to her middle. She let out another uncertain laugh and dropped it.
‘I don’t know what I want,’ she said quietly, and felt everything inside her lurch at this admission.
‘What about the father, this Greek guy? How long had you been with him?’
‘We were together for two years—’
‘Two years?’ Sophie’s jaw dropped. ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me, Margo?’
‘I...’ Why hadn’t she told Sophie about Leo? Because, she supposed, she had been afraid to allow Leo to seem that important to her, and yet she was afraid it had happened anyway. ‘It was just a fling,’ she said lamely.
Sophie laughed in disbelief. ‘Quite a long-term fling.’
‘Yes, I suppose... In any case, our...relationship is finished. Completely.’ Margo stared down at her glass of water. ‘It didn’t end well.’
‘If you’re thinking of keeping the baby, he should still know,’ Sophie pointed out.
Margo couldn’t keep herself from wincing. How on earth could she tell Leo now? Considering what she’d said to him the last time they’d been together, he might not even believe the baby was his.
‘I can’t think about all this just yet,’ she said. ‘It’s too much. I have time.’
‘If you’re not going to keep it,’ Sophie replied warningly, ‘the sooner you decide the better. For your own sake.’
‘Yes...’
A termination, she supposed, might seem like the obvious answer. And yet the most fundamental part of herself resisted the possibility, shrank away from it in horror.
She hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t expected pregnancy to awaken anything in her but dread and fear. And yet she couldn’t deny the faint stirrings of hope, as ephemeral as a will-o’-the-wisp, that had gathered inside her. A baby. A second chance.
‘You do have some time,’ Sophie allowed, reaching over to pat her hand. ‘Don’t make any rash decisions, in any case.’
‘I won’t,’ Margo promised, but already her mind was spinning, spinning. If she actually decided to keep the baby she would have to tell Leo. And how on earth would that work? Would he believe her? Would he want to be involved?
She left Sophie an hour later and took the Metro back to her apartment on the top floor of an eighteenth-century townhouse on the Île de la Cité. As she stepped into the little foyer, with its marble table and antique umbrella stand, she felt some of the tension leave her body, uncramp her shoulders. This was her home, her haven, lovingly created over the years and the only real one she’d ever known.
She ran a bubble bath in the claw-foot tub and sank gratefully into its warmth, closing her eyes and trying to empty her mind for a few moments. But thoughts crept stealthily back in. A baby. How would she manage with her job? Childcare in Paris was expensive, and she was entitled to only sixteen weeks of maternity leave. Even though she made a decent salary she didn’t think she’d be able to keep her apartment and pay for the full-time childcare she’d need.
But far more concerning, far more terrifying than the financial implications of having a child, were the emotional ones. A baby...a human being she would be entirely responsible for, a person who would be utterly dependent on her...
A person she could love. A person she could lose. Again.
And then, of course, there was Leo. She didn’t even know if he would see her or listen to anything she had to say. And if he did...would he want to be involved in her child’s life? And if so...how much? How would they come to a custody arrangement? And was that what she wanted for her son or daughter? Some awful to-ing and fro-ing between parents who as good as hated each other?
Exhaustion crashed over her and she rose from the tub. She couldn’t think about all this yet. She certainly couldn’t come to any decisions.
* * *
As the days and then the weeks slipped past Margo knew she had to decide soon. Sophie had stopped asking her what she was going to do, but at work she could see the silent question in her friend’s eyes and knew she was concerned.
And then the sickness really hit. The faint nausea that had been plaguing her for a few weeks suddenly turned into something else entirely, something horrendous that left her barely able to get out of bed, and unable to keep anything down.
Lying alone in her bed, unable to do anything but crawl to the toilet, she realised how alone she was. She had so few friends in the city. Sophie wanted to help, but as a single working woman her resources and time were limited.
Margo knew all too well how short a step it was to destitution, to tragedy, when you were on your own. When there was no family, no safety net. If she was going to keep this baby she couldn’t do it on her own. She couldn’t risk it.
After suffering for a week, she managed to drag herself to the doctor for some anti-nausea medication.
‘The good news,’ the doctor told her cheerfully, ‘is that nausea usually means a healthy pregnancy. That baby is here to stay.’
Margo stared at him, his words reverberating through her. He had no idea, of course, how conflicted she was about this child. Except in that moment she realised she wasn’t conflicted at all. This baby was a gift—a gift she’d never expected to receive. And she knew then—realised she’d known all along—that of course she was keeping her child.
And of course she would have to tell Leo.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_b193b05d-05f3-5b87-99dc-cb2529011809)
‘SOMEONE’S HERE TO see you, sir.’
Leo glanced up from his laptop at his assistant Elena, who stood in the doorway of his office on the Marakaios estate. He’d been going over some figures for a new deal with a large North American restaurant chain, and it took a few seconds for Elena’s words to penetrate.
‘Someone? Who is it, Elena?’
‘A woman. She wouldn’t give her name, but she said it was urgent.’
Leo frowned. His office was on the family compound in central Greece—the middle of nowhere, as Margo had so acerbically reminded him. He didn’t get unexpected visitors to his office here. Ever.
‘Well, why on earth wouldn’t she give her name?’ he asked as he pushed back from his chair.
‘I don’t know. But she’s well-dressed and well-spoken. I thought perhaps...’
Elena trailed off, blushing, and Leo took her meaning. She’d thought this woman might be one of his lovers. Only he hadn’t taken a lover in months—not since he’d last seen Margo.
And he very much doubted Margo had come all the way to Greece to see him.
Leo’s mouth twisted cynically at the thought. It had been over four months since he’d seen her—over four months since he’d walked out of her apartment with that ring in his pocket. Four months since he’d let himself think of her. That part of his life was over.
‘Whoever this woman is, Elena, I find it decidedly odd that she wouldn’t give her name.’
‘She seemed very insistent...’
With a sigh, Leo strode to the door. ‘I’ll see her, then,’ he said, and walked briskly out of his office.
It wasn’t until he reached the foyer and saw the woman standing there amidst the leather sofas and sleek coffee tables that his step slowed. His heart seemed to still. And an icy anger came over him like a frozen shell.
He folded his arms. ‘If I’d known it was you I would have told Elena to send you away.’
‘Please, Leo...’ Margo said quietly.
She looked awful—gaunt, with dark shadows under her eyes. She wore a black wool coat that made her ivory skin look pale...too pale.
Leo frowned. ‘What do you want?’
‘To talk to you.’ She glanced at Elena, who had gone back to her desk and was ostentatiously busying herself, but was of course listening to every word. ‘Privately.’
Leo opened his mouth to tell her they had nothing to say to one another, but then he paused. He didn’t want to have this conversation in public—didn’t want anyone, even his assistant, to know his private affairs.
With a terse nod he indicated the corridor. ‘Come to my office, then,’ he said, and without waiting for her to follow he turned and strode back the way he had come.
He watched as Margo came in and carefully closed the door behind her. She looked bruised and exhausted, as if a breath of wind would knock her right over.
‘You don’t look very well,’ he said flatly.
She turned to him with the ghost of a smile. ‘I don’t feel very well. Do you mind if I sit down?’
He indicated one of the two chairs in front of his desk and she sank into it with a sigh of weary relief.
‘Well?’ Leo asked, biting off the single syllable. ‘What do you want?’
She looked up at him, and he felt a ripple of uneasy shock at the resignation in her eyes. It was so different from the way he’d usually seen her—all elegant polish and sassy sophistication. This was a different Margo...one with a layer stripped away.
‘Leo,’ she said quietly, ‘I’m pregnant.’
He blinked, the words taking him totally by surprise.
She said nothing, waiting for his reply.
‘And how does this concern me?’ he asked coolly.
She held his iron gaze. ‘The baby is yours.’
‘And you know that how? Do I need to remind you of what you told me four months ago?’
‘No.’ She hesitated, her gaze moving away from his. ‘The other...man...he can’t be the father,’ she said at last.
A rage so fierce it felt like an earthquake shaking his insides took hold of him. ‘Don’t,’ he said in a voice like a whip-crack, ‘talk to me of him. Ever.’
‘This baby is yours, Leo.’
‘You can’t know that.’
She sighed, leaning her head back against the chair. ‘I do know it,’ she said wearily. ‘Utterly. But if you like I’ll have a paternity test done. I can prove it beyond a doubt.’
He stared at her, shaken more than he wanted to admit or reveal that she sounded so certain. ‘I thought you didn’t want children,’ he said, after a long, taut moment.
‘I didn’t,’ she answered.
‘Then I’m surprised you didn’t just deal with this on your own,’ he snapped.
She put a hand to her throat, the gesture making her seem even more fragile. Vulnerable.
‘Is that what you would have wanted?’
‘No.’ He realised he meant it utterly. A child...his child, if she wasn’t lying. Yet how could he trust a word she said? ‘Why have you come here and told me?’ he asked instead. ‘Do you want money?’
‘No, not particularly.’
He laughed at that—a cold, sharp sound. ‘Not particularly?’
‘I admit having this child will be hard for me financially. But I didn’t come here to ask for a hand-out. I came because I thought you should know. You’d want to know.’
He sank into his chair, the reality of it crashing over him as he raked his hands through his hair. ‘Theos, Margo. This is a lot to take in.’
‘I know. I’ve had three months to process it—’
‘You’ve known for that long and you are only telling me now?’
Colour touched her cheeks faintly. ‘I’ve been very ill. Extreme morning sickness, apparently.’
‘Are you taking medication?’ he asked sharply, and she nodded.
‘It helps a little.’ She sighed and shifted in her seat. ‘The truth is, Leo, I didn’t know how you would respond, or if you’d even see me. And I wanted to tell you in person. But with being so sick I couldn’t face travelling all this way until now.’
He nodded. It all sounded so very reasonable and yet he still felt angry. He should have known. He should have had the choice to be involved from the beginning. And now...?
‘If this is indeed my child,’ he told her, laying his hands flat on the desk, ‘there is no question of my not being involved.’
‘I know.’
‘And I don’t mean some weekend arrangement,’ Leo continued, knowing he meant it even though he was still reeling from her news. ‘I won’t be the kind of father who sees his child only on a Saturday afternoon.’
‘No,’ Margo agreed quietly. ‘I don’t want that either.’
‘Don’t you?’
He gazed at her narrowly for a moment. He still didn’t understand why she was here. She hadn’t possessed enough honour to be faithful to him, so why would she care whether he knew about his own child or not?
‘I would have expected you to have had a termination,’ he said abruptly. ‘Or, if you wanted the child, to pass it off as this other man’s.’
She winced at that. ‘Clearly you don’t have a very high opinion of me.’
‘And you think I should?’
‘No.’ She let out a little defeated sigh. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘So why didn’t you do either of those things, Margo?’
It was the first time he’d said her name since he’d seen her again, and it caused him a sudden, surprising flash of pain. He clenched his hands into fists, then deliberately flattened them out, resting them again on his desk.
‘Because I am not, no matter what you think, completely without morals,’ she replied with a bit of her old spirit. ‘I want my child, and I want my child to know its father.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And more than that I want my child to have a loving, stable home. A home where it knows it’s safe, where its parents are, loving and protecting. Always.’
Her dark brown eyes seemed to glow with an inner fire, an utter conviction.
‘And how,’ Leo asked after a pause, ‘do you suppose that is going to work?’
‘That’s the other thing I want,’ Margo said, still holding his gaze, her eyes like burning coals in her pale face. ‘I want you to marry me.’
* * *
In another situation, another life, Margo might have laughed at the way Leo’s expression slackened with surprise. He hadn’t been expecting that—and why would he? The last time he’d seen her she’d sent him away with a scornful rejection, told him lies of infidelity that she’d known would make him hate her. And here she was now, with a proposal of her own.
‘You must,’ Leo said, his voice like ice, ‘be joking.’
‘Do you think I’d come all the way to Greece just to make a joke?’ Margo asked quietly.
Leo stood up, the movement abrupt. He paced in front of the window that overlooked the Marakaios olive groves, now stark and bare in winter, which produced Greece’s finest olive oil.
‘Your proposal,’ he said, his teeth clenched and the word a sneer, ‘is offensive.’
‘I mean it sincerely—’
He cut her off, his voice now low and pulsating with fury. ‘The last time I saw you, you told me you didn’t want marriage or children.’
She gestured to the gently swelling bump that was just barely visible under her coat. ‘Things have changed.’
‘Not that much. Not for me.’
‘Don’t you want to know your own child?’
‘Who says I won’t? Who says I won’t sue for custody?’
Her stomach plunged with fear at that, but she forced herself to stay calm.
‘And do you think that would be in the best interest of our baby, Leo?’
He sat back down in his chair, raking his hands through his hair. With his head lowered she could see the strangely vulnerable nape of his neck, the momentary slump of his shoulders, and everything in her ached.
‘I’m sorry, Leo, for springing this on you,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve thought long and hard over these last few months about what is best for our baby, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s to live in a stable home with two parents.’
It hadn’t been an easy decision to make, but Margo’s own sorry history made her wary of going it alone as her mother had. Just like her, her mother had had no friends, no family, no safety net. And she’d lost everything.
Margo would not subject her child to the same risk.
He lifted his head, his eyes flashing although the set of his mouth was grim, bleak. ‘Even two parents who don’t love each other? Who have absolutely no reason whatsoever to respect or trust each other?’
She flinched slightly. ‘I respect you, Leo.’
‘You’ve had a funny way of showing it, then.’
She should tell him, Margo knew, that she’d made up the other man. Any hope of a marriage that was amicable at least was impossible with that perceived betrayal between them. But she was afraid Leo wouldn’t believe her if she told him now, and even if he did believe her he would want to know why she had told such an outrageous and damaging lie. The answer to that question was to admit her own fear, and that was something she was not ready to do.
‘I know you don’t respect me,’ she said.
She clenched her hands in her lap and fought another wave of nausea. The sickness had eased a bit in the last few weeks, but she still felt as if she had to drag herself through each day.
‘I know you don’t trust me. I hope that maybe, in time, I can win back both your respect and your trust. But this marriage would be for the sake of our child, Leo. To give our baby the opportunity of a stable home. And even if we don’t love each other we’ll both love this child.’
‘So you’re willing to enter a cold, loveless union, all for the sake of a baby you professed to not even want?’
Another deep breath and she met his gaze without a flinch. ‘Yes.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Why would I be here, then?’ she asked quietly.
‘You want something. Are you in trouble? Did this other man throw you over? Do you need money?’
‘I told you before, I’m not asking for a hand-out.’
‘You also said,’ Leo reminded her ruthlessly, ‘that having this baby would be a struggle financially.’
‘A struggle, yes, but not impossible. I could do it. I’ve thought about doing it,’ she continued, determined to make him believe her, even if he didn’t—couldn’t—understand her motives. ‘I thought very hard about raising this child on my own and not even telling you I was pregnant.’
‘And yet you now want me to trust you?’
‘I didn’t choose to do that, Leo,’ Margo said, her voice rising. She strove to level it; giving in to temper now would not help her cause. ‘I knew that you needed to know, and that our child needed more. Two parents. Stability, safety—’
‘You don’t think you could give this child those things on your own?’
‘No. Not for certain. I don’t...I don’t have a lot of friends, and no family. This baby needs more than just me. He or she needs a father.’
‘If I am the father.’
‘Please...’
She closed her eyes, waves of both nausea and fatigue crashing over here. Coming all this way, dealing with the plane and the rental car and the endless travel, had completely exhausted her.
She summoned what little strength she had left and made herself continue. ‘Let’s not argue. I want to marry you for the sake of our child. I’m not expecting you to love me or even like me after—after what I did, but I do hope we might act amicably towards each other for the sake of the baby. As for...’ She dropped her gaze, unable to look him in the eye. ‘As for the usual benefits of a marriage...I’d understand if you chose to look elsewhere.’
Leo was silent and Margo risked a look up, wondering if he’d taken her meaning.
‘Am I to understand,’ he asked, his voice toneless, ‘that you are giving me permission to violate my marriage vows?’
‘It would be a marriage of convenience—’
‘But still a marriage.’
‘I’m trying to make this more amenable to you—’
‘To sweeten the deal?’ He cut across her, his voice hard. ‘It still tastes rancid to me.’
‘Please, Leo...’ She swallowed, hating the fact that she had to beg.
Maybe he was right. Perhaps she should go back to Paris, raise the baby on her own. Leo could be the sort of weekend father he claimed he didn’t want to be. Plenty of couples did it—why not them?
Because she was afraid of going it alone. Because she wanted more for her child. So much more than she’d had.
‘You ask so nicely,’ Leo said, his eyes glittering now.
He was furious with her, even after so many months apart. She wondered if his anger could ever be appeased. Perhaps if she told him the truth...if only he would believe it.
‘I’m willing to live in Greece,’ she continued, deciding she might as well say it all.
‘Even in the “middle of nowhere”?’
‘I’d leave my job at Achat. I’d want to stay home with the baby for the first few years, at least.’
‘I thought the whole “housewife routine” bored you to death?’
Once again he was throwing her words back in her face, and she couldn’t blame him. ‘It’s different now.’
‘So you’re saying you want those things? That life?’
He sounded incredulous—contemptuous, even—and bile surged in her stomach again. She swallowed past the metallic taste in her mouth. ‘I’m saying that I am willing,’ she answered. ‘It’s a sacrifice I’m prepared to make.’
‘So I’d be marrying a martyr? What an appealing thought.’
‘You’d be making a sacrifice too,’ Margo replied. ‘I understand that.’
‘I still don’t understand you,’ Leo answered.
‘Why is it so hard to believe I’d be willing to do this?’ Margo demanded. She could take only so much of his sneering disbelief. ‘Most women would.’
‘And yet,’ Leo reminded her softly, ‘you aren’t “most women”.’
She closed her eyes, felt herself sway.
She heard Leo’s sharply indrawn breath. ‘Margo, are you all right?’
His voice was rough, although with impatience or anxiety she couldn’t tell.
She forced her eyes open.
‘I’m just very tired, and still quite nauseous,’ she said levelly. ‘Obviously you need time to think about my—my proposal.’ Not the word she’d wished to use, and Leo’s mouth twisted cynically when she said it. There had been too many proposals already. ‘If you could let me know when you’ve decided...’
‘Are you actually intending to return to France?’ Leo asked sharply. ‘You’re in no condition to travel.’
‘I’ll spend the night at a local hotel,’ she answered, ‘and fly out of Athens tomorrow.’
‘No.’ Leo’s gaze was cold and implacable as he gave his order. ‘You’ll stay here. I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.’
Which made her feel like Scheherazade, wondering if she was to be beheaded in the morning. Not the way she would have wanted to think about her marriage, but she’d reconciled herself, or thought she had, to what life with Leo would be like. She’d told herself it was worth it, that anything was worth it if she could give her baby a stable, loving home.
Even if you and Leo will never love each other?
Some sacrifices, she reminded herself grimly, were necessary. And maybe it would be better this way. Without the complication and risk of loving someone, you could never be hurt. Hopefully.
She rose from her chair, blinking back dizziness. Even so Leo must have seen something in her expression, for he reached forward and steadied her elbow with his hand. It was the first time he’d touched her in three months, since he’d made love to her against the window and then walked away.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, and shook off his hand. ‘Just a little dizzy when I stand up, that’s all.’
‘I’ll arrange for someone to show you to the guest suite,’ Leo said.
He was frowning, although over her dizziness or the whole situation she didn’t know. Couldn’t think. He was right: she really wasn’t in a fit state to travel.
She stood, swaying slightly, as Leo made arrangements on his phone. Then he ended the call and gave her one last, hard look.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said, and Margo knew it was a dismissal.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_7547a7c6-06e8-5b54-ba5b-00e02e033d05)
A BABY. HE WAS going to be a father... If the child was truly his. Leo knocked back his third whisky and stared grimly out at the starless night. It had been eight hours since Margo had confronted him in his office, and he was still reeling.
He hadn’t seen her in all that time. Elena had taken her to the house, and then his personal staff had seen to her comforts. He’d called his housekeeper Maria to check on her, and she’d told him that Margo had gone to her room and slept for most of the afternoon. He’d requested that a dinner tray be taken up to her, but Maria had told him it hadn’t been touched.
Anxiety touched with anger gnawed at his gut. If the child was his, he wanted to make sure Margo was staying healthy. Hell, even if the child wasn’t his, he had a responsibility towards any person under his roof. And he hadn’t liked how pale and ill Margo had looked, as if the very life force had been sucked right out of her.
Restlessly Leo rose from the leather club chair where he’d been sitting in the study that had once been his father’s, and then his brother Antonios’s. And now it was his. Six months into his leadership of Marakaios Enterprises and he still burned with the determination to take the company to a new level, to wield the power his father and brother had denied him for so long.
A lifetime of being pushed to the sidelines, being kept in the dark, had taken its toll. He didn’t trust anyone—and especially not Margo. But if the child was his...then why not the cold marriage of convenience she’d suggested? It was what he’d determined he’d wanted after she’d turned him down. No messy emotion, no desperate searching for love. He just hadn’t expected Margo to be his convenient bride.
Grimly Leo turned back to the whisky bottle. What she’d suggested made sense, and yet everything in him resisted it. To live with a woman who had been unfaithful, who had rejected him, and who was now viewing their marriage as the altar upon which she’d sacrifice herself, her hopes and dreams... It was a bitter pill to swallow—and yet what was the alternative? To come to some unsatisfactory custody arrangement and not be nearly as involved in his child’s life as he wanted?
If the child was his.
If it was then Leo knew he had to be involved. He wanted to be the kind of father his own father hadn’t been to him. Loving, interested, open. And he wanted a family—a child, a wife. Why not Margo? He could control his feelings for her. He had no interest in loving her any more.
He could make this marriage work.
* * *
Margo had thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she was so tired that she’d fallen into a deep and thankfully dreamless sleep the moment her head had hit the pillow, after Leo’s housekeeper had shown her to her room.
When she awoke it was dark and the room was chilly, the curtains open to the night sky. Margo rolled over in bed, feeling disorientated and muzzy-headed, as if she were suffering from jet lag or a hangover, or both. She heard a knock on the door, an urgent rat-a-tat-tat that made her think it was not the first knock.
She rose from the bed, pushing her hair out of her face, and went to answer the door.
The housekeeper Maria stood there, with a tray of food. The salad, bread, and lentil soup looked and smelled delicious, but Margo’s stomach roiled all the same. She didn’t think she could manage a mouthful.
‘Efharisto,’ she murmured, and reached out to take the tray.
But Maria would have none of it. She shook her head and bustled into the room, setting the tray on a table in the corner. Bemused, Margo watched as she drew the curtains across the windows and remade the bed, plumping the pillows. She turned on a few table lamps that were scattered about the room and then looked around, seemingly satisfied with how cosy she’d made it in just a few minutes.
‘Efharisto,’ Margo said again, and Maria nodded towards the food.
‘Fae,’ she commanded, and while Margo didn’t recognise the word she could guess what it meant. Eat.
She gave the housekeeper a weak smile and with another nod Maria left the room.
Margo walked over to the tray and took a spoonful of soup, but, warm and nourishing as it was, her stomach roiled again and she left it.
Now that the cobwebs were clearing from her brain she remembered every excruciating detail of her conversation with Leo. His disbelief and his contempt, his suspicion and anger. And now she was stuck here, waiting to see if he would marry her.
Shaking her head at her own stubborn folly, she crawled back into the bed and pulled the covers over herself. She wouldn’t back out of her offer. She cared too much about this child inside her—this child she’d never expected to have, never dared want.
This child she would sacrifice anything for to ensure it had a better childhood, a better life, than she had had. To keep her, or him, safe.
She slept again and when she woke it was dawn, with the first grey light of morning creeping through a crack in the closed curtains. She dozed for a little while longer and then finally got up and went to shower, to prepare herself to meet with Leo and hear his answer—whatever it was.
At eight o’clock Maria knocked on the door and brought in a breakfast tray. Margo didn’t know whether to feel like a pampered princess or a prisoner. At some point, she realised, Maria must have removed the untouched tray from the night before. She must have been sleeping at the time.
‘Efharisto,’ she said again, and Maria gave her a stern look.
‘Fae.’
‘Yes—I mean, ne.’ Margo smiled apologetically. ‘I can’t keep much down, I’m afraid.’
Maria clucked at that, but Margo didn’t think the older woman understood her. She bustled about a bit more, pouring coffee and juice, taking the lids off jam and butter dishes. Finally she left and Margo gazed in dismay at the lavish breakfast Maria had left. The smell of the coffee made her stomach lurch.
For the housekeeper’s sake she tried to eat some yogurt with honey, but after two spoonsful she left it aside and then paced the room, wondering if she should go in search of Leo or wait for him to summon her.
She’d paced for several minutes, restless and anxious, until she realised she was being ridiculous. Had she lost all her spirit since coming here? She might be tired and unwell, and afraid of Leo’s response, but she’d faced far worse obstacles than this and survived. Her strength in the face of adversity was something she clung to and prided herself on.
Determinedly she strode to the door and flung it open—only to stop in her tracks when she saw Leo standing there, looking devastatingly handsome in a crisp white shirt and grey trousers, his ink-dark hair still damp and spiky from a shower. He also looked decidedly nonplussed.
‘Going somewhere?’ he enquired.
‘Looking for you, actually,’ she replied crisply. ‘I’d like your answer, Leo, because I need to get back to Paris. My flight is at two o’clock this afternoon.’
‘Cancel it,’ he returned. ‘You won’t be returning to Paris. Not right now, at any rate.’
She stared at him, as nonplussed as he’d been. ‘Excuse me?’
His eyes flashed and his mouth thinned. ‘Which part of what I said didn’t you understand?’
Margo gritted her teeth. Yesterday she might have donned a hair shirt and beaten her chest in grief and repentance, but clearly that hadn’t been enough for Leo. She didn’t think she could endure a lifetime of snide remarks, all for a crime she hadn’t even committed.
Except you told him you did.
‘Perhaps,’ she suggested, with only a hint of sharpness, ‘we could discuss our future plans in a bit more detail?’
‘Fine. I was coming to get you, anyway. We can go down to my study.’
‘Fine.’
Silently she followed him down the terracotta-tiled corridor to the sweeping double staircase that led to the villa’s soaring entrance hall. Yesterday she’d been too overwhelmed and exhausted to take in any of her surroundings, but today she was keenly aware that this grand place was, in all likelihood, her new home. It seemed, based on what Leo had said about cancelling her flight, that he was going to agree to marry her.
And from the plunging sensation in her stomach she knew she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
He led her to a wood-panelled study overlooking the villa’s extensive gardens. This late in November they were stark and bare, but Margo could imagine how lush and lovely they would be come spring. Would she walk with her baby out there? Bring a blanket and lie on the grass, look up at the clouds while the baby gurgled and grabbed its feet?
‘Let me cut to the chase,’ Leo said, and Margo was jolted out of her pleasant daydream to the current cold reality.
He stood behind a huge desk of carved mahogany, his hands braced on the back of a chair, his expression implacable.
In the two years they’d been together she’d seen his lazy, knowing smiles, his hooded sleepy gazes. She’d seen him light and laughing, and dangerously, sensually intent. But she hadn’t seen him like this—looking at her as if she were a difficult business client.
Well, if he could be businesslike, then so could she. She straightened and gave him a brisk nod. ‘Please do.’
‘I will marry you—but only on certain conditions.’
Margo took a deep breath and let it out evenly. ‘Which are?’
‘First, we drive to Athens this afternoon and you undergo a paternity test.’
It was no more than she’d expected, although the fact that he believed the baby might not be his still stung. This, at least, was easy to comply with. ‘Very well.’
‘Second, you resign from your job immediately and come and live with me here in Greece.’
So he wanted complete control of her and their child? She couldn’t say she was really surprised. ‘Fine.’
‘Third, you agree to have a local doctor of my choosing provide you with medical care.’
Her temper finally started to fray. ‘I think I’m capable of finding my own doctor, Leo.’
‘Are you?’ He arched an eyebrow, coldly sceptical. ‘Because you came here looking dreadful.’
‘Thanks very much, but my looks have nothing to do with my medical care or lack of it,’ Margo snapped.
How much of this was she supposed to take? Maybe, she thought with a surge of reckless fury, the answer was none of it. She’d come to Leo as a supplicant, truly believing that their child should know his or her father. Trusting that she was making the right decision in seeking to provide the kind of stable home life she’d never had...no matter what the sacrifice to her.
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