The Marakaios Baby

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.