The Marakaios Baby

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.