Greek's Baby Of Redemption

He had a few trusted staff who had seen his face and wouldn’t talk, but he’d never had many friends and so he had even fewer now. As for lovers? What a joke. All in all, it was a lonely life, but it was the only one he could bear to live.

And yet he’d known this moment would come, when the woman who would be his wife would look on his face and shudder. He hated it with an intensity that made his fists clench before he made the choice, very deliberately, to flatten them out. He would not be that kind of man. Not like his father. It was a choice he made every day, deliberately, calmly, because he had to.

‘I... I have to think,’ Milly stammered, her gaze still tellingly transfixed by the scars that crisscrossed his entire right cheek, starting in his hairline and coming down to the corner of his mouth and quirking his lip upwards in a horrible half-smile he couldn’t ever change. There were other scars too, ones she might not have noticed yet, cording the side of his neck and making a patchwork of white lines across his shoulder. ‘It’s such a big step...’

‘Well, don’t think too long,’ Alex returned in a deliberate drawl, making sure to keep her gaze even though everything in him demanded he turn away. Hide. ‘Because if you refuse, I’ll have to ask someone else, and as quickly as possible.’

‘Do you have an alternative?’ She sounded more curious than offended—or relieved.

He didn’t, not yet, but he just shrugged. ‘I have some possibilities.’ None of the women of his acquaintance would agree to marry him looking like this, and he wouldn’t want them anyway. Shallow, vapid creatures, caring only for appearances and wealth, and he had only one of those attributes.

No, he realised he wanted her, because she seemed sensible and trustworthy, and he had a feeling they could get along tolerably well, which was all he could ask for. All he would ever let himself want.

‘Why me, though?’ Milly pressed.

Looking at her, Alex knew he was fooling himself if he thought he wanted her just for those modest qualities. No, there was more to it than that. He wanted her, wanted her in the way a man wanted a woman. Desire was dangerous and foolish, and it made him feel exposed in a way he hated.

‘You’re here. You’re suitable. You need the money.’ He bit each word off and spat it out. She flinched a little, but then she nodded.

‘At least you’re honest. I...appreciate that.’ She sighed, turning away from him to stare out at the water. ‘I love it here,’ she said softly, and he tensed.

‘That’s a good beginning.’

‘Is it? It doesn’t seem nearly enough.’

‘But if you don’t want love in your marriage, why not this?’

‘I feel as if I’m signing my life away.’

‘You’d have every freedom.’

‘Except the freedom to marry someone else.’

‘True.’ He paused. ‘I would not countenance divorce. A child needs both parents.’

‘Nor would I,’ Milly returned sharply, with more force than even his tone had possessed. ‘My parents are on their third and fourth marriages. I would never get divorced.’

Alex inclined his head. ‘Yet another point upon which we agree.’

‘I still don’t know you. I don’t know if you’re kind, or trustworthy, or good.’ Her voice throbbed with emotion. ‘Shouldn’t I know those things?’

Yes, of course she should, and he knew he couldn’t promise her any of it. He wasn’t kind. He hadn’t been trustworthy. As for good... ‘I suppose you’ll have to take my word for it.’

‘And if we marry, and I discover your word is worthless? You...mistreat me...or lock me away...’

‘Mistreat you?’ He couldn’t keep the offence from his tone, or a deep-seated conviction from shuddering through him. It was as if she were looking into his soul, and yet not seeing anything at all. ‘I would never hurt a woman.’ He’d never meant anything more, and yet she still seemed uncertain as she turned back to face him.

‘I don’t want to think you could do something like that, of course, but I don’t know you, Alex. I don’t know you at all.’

‘Then ask me,’ he bit out. ‘Ask me whatever you want.’ He stood there, bracing himself for whatever questions she fired at him, but she remained silent, gazing at him in helpless frustration.

‘You make it sound like a job interview.’

‘Of a sort.’

Another sigh and she nibbled her lip as she started to shake her head. He could feel her slipping away from him, like an ebbing tide. The scars had tilted the odds against him. Of course they had.

‘I just don’t think I can do this,’ she said softly, her gaze sliding away from his. Her shoulders hunched; she looked guilty. ‘I watched my mother marry for money, time and time again, and the results were disastrous...for her as well as for me and my sister. I can’t be like her in that way. I won’t let myself.’ She paused, her shoulders hunched, her gaze averted as if she couldn’t bear to look him in the face. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Really, there is no need to apologise,’ Alex returned stiffly. He wasn’t going to argue with her; he certainly wasn’t going to beg. ‘Consider the matter closed,’ he said, and then he turned and walked back inside the villa, staring blindly ahead all the while.

CHAPTER THREE (#u622a7222-a064-5b90-9ed4-7c5f92ce9eb4)

WHEN MILLY AWOKE the next morning, she knew Alex had gone. It was only a little past six, lemony sunshine banishing the last of the pearly grey light of dawn, but she knew all the same. She could almost hear the echo of the whirr of the helicopter blades signifying his departure; perhaps that was what had woken her up.

Quietly she slid out of bed and went to the window, opening the shutters fully to take in the breathtaking view of sun and sand, sea and sky. The blue-green waters of the Aegean Sea shimmered under the azure perfection of another summer’s day. Inside Milly felt strangely hollow.

As soon as Alex had walked back into the villa last night, his body and gait both stiff with dignity and affront, Milly had questioned her decision—and not just because of the money. Yes, she could use the money, especially for Anna’s sake, but what if this was the only marriage proposal she ever received? More importantly, what if it was the best?

As Alex had sussed out, she was cynical and wary of such fanciful feelings as love and romance. If her parents hadn’t put her off, her dalliance with Philippe certainly had.

Even now she could remember the mocking twist of his lips as he’d gazed at her. ‘Do you honestly think I’d fall for a little mouse like you?’

No, she wasn’t going to go down that route again. So why not this? She wouldn’t get duped or hurt, and she’d have financial stability, companionship of a sort, and even a child. After the financial and emotional turbulence of her entire childhood, who was she to scoff at those things?

Standing at the window, letting the sunlight stream over her, she wondered why she’d refused—even as she acknowledged why. Because her mother had married for money rather than love, and she never, ever wanted to be like her mother.

But this would be different, a little voice inside her persisted.

Would it? Another insidious voice mocked back. Would it really?

Turning away from the window, Milly went to shower and dress. She had a full day of housework ahead of her, and she needed to stop thinking for a little while. Blot out all the what-ifs and just be. Still, she wondered when Alex would return...and what it would be like when he did.

The house felt emptier than usual as she went about her work, sweeping and mopping and dusting. She put off doing the inevitable—cleaning Alex’s bedroom, stripping the bed and washing his sheets. It had felt like any other room just days before, but now it was different. Perhaps she was.

After a solitary lunch reading at the kitchen table, she decided to put it off no longer, and in truth she was curious. Upstairs, down a separate corridor that held only his master suite and two guest bedrooms, she tiptoed towards his door, holding her breath, half expecting someone to pop out, something to happen. Of course, nothing did.

Milly pushed open his bedroom door and then stepped into the sparsely furnished room—a king-sized bed on a low dais with rumpled sheets and duvet, the indentation where his head had lain still visible on his pillow. There were no ornaments or knick-knacks, no photos or mementoes. There never had been, in her six months there.

The room was luxurious and as impersonal as could be, like something found in a high-end hotel. Milly began to strip the bed, her methodical movements belying the sudden thud of her heart, her dry mouth. Why was she being affected this way?

Unthinkingly she slipped off the pillowcase he’d used and pressed it to her face, inhaling an unfamiliar musky and very male scent. She was still holding it when her mobile phone began to vibrate, and she jumped like a scalded cat, dropping the pillowcase.

Her hands near to shaking, Milly slid her phone from the pocket of her jeans and glanced down at the screen. Anna. All thoughts of pillowcases and the head that had lain on them vanished as she swiped to take the call.

‘Anna? Are you okay?’ As ever Milly couldn’t keep the anxiety from her voice as soon as she spoke with her sister. Her situation was so precarious, and she was so very young.

‘I’m fine, Milly.’ Anna’s voice was quiet, a little sad. Milly knew she hated living with her father, Milly’s stepfather—one of them, anyway—and Milly couldn’t blame her. The situation was dire, and there was nothing she’d been able to do about it. Carlos Bentano kept custody of his only child more out of a cruel whim than any love or affection on his part.