His Pregnant Bride: Pregnant by the Greek Tycoon / His Pregnant Princess / Pregnant: Father Needed

‘Actually, no, it isn’t. I take the matrimonial vows quite seriously.’

‘Oh, really? Your vows mentioned a bit of cherishing, and I seem to recall when you chucked me out there wasn’t much cherishing involved. Don’t feel bad about it,’ she said. ‘Some good came out of it. I have to admit, after not having a say in my own life it came as quite a shock being alone. But I know how to stand on my own feet now.’

Quivering with hurt and fury, she proved the point by standing up in one graceful motion.

The anger in his face was replaced by a grim frustration as he looked at her. Georgie was weeping uncontrollably. There was no resistance in her slim body as he gathered her into his arms.

‘Things will be fine now.’

Georgie, who didn’t feel as if anything would ever be fine, lifted her head. ‘How do you figure that?’

He took her chin in his fingers. ‘Look at me, yineka mou.’

‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’ she returned with a sniff.

‘I will learn to be a halfway decent husband.’

His dark eyes lingered on her face and Georgie shifted uneasily. The movement resulted in one of his heavily muscled thighs becoming wedged between her legs. Painfully aware of the lean, hard length of the body so close to her own, she shivered.

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ It occurred to her that from a distance they would look to passers-by like lovers embracing.

‘Deadly serious.’ His thumb moved to the full curve of her lush lower lip. Georgie swayed, nailed to the spot by a wave of intense longing.

‘This isn’t fair,’ she whispered.

‘I love your mouth. I always did…’

Georgie swallowed hard. ‘I don’t think my mouth is relevant to this conversation.’

His restless glance continued to move hungrily over her soft features. ‘At night I think about your sweet lips on my body and I ache. I ache for you.’

He thought about…he ached for her…! And she ached for him too.

She felt his warm breath touch her sensitive earlobe and sighed, fast losing the fight against the raw urgency that coursed through her pliant body.

Angolos must have sensed her surrender because she could hear the male triumph in his voice as he promised, ‘It will be even better than it was when we are together…’

She turned her head and their lips were almost touching when his comment penetrated. With a cry of disgust she pulled away, breathing hard. ‘You are such a control freak!’ she accused, backing away with her hand pressed to her throat. Her skin felt hot and sticky. ‘Well, your tactics won’t work this time.’

‘Firstly, it wasn’t a tactic.’

She focused on his face and saw that there was a damp sheen to his olive-toned skin that made it glisten; the heat in his eyes was fading, leaving a raw frustration in its place.

She decided not to ask what it was. ‘And second?’

‘Second, it almost worked. Can’t you accept that I just want you, and for that matter you want me? It was not part of some sinister plan. I would not take your compliance to mean you’ll come back to me. And it’s not as though I was about to drag you down onto the sand. It was just a kiss…’ His attention shifted to her mouth. ‘Almost a kiss.’

The husky afterthought made her stomach muscles quiver frantically.

Her hands clenched at her sides. ‘Angolos…’

Against all the odds he responded to the anguished appeal in her voice. ‘Fine, you want to concentrate on the practical—have you considered the financial aspect of this?’

‘What do you mean, “financial”?’

‘My son will one day inherit all that I have.’

Her eyes widened; Angolos had a lot! ‘I hadn’t thought about that…’

‘He will be an extremely wealthy man,’ he slotted in quietly. ‘But he will also inherit responsibilities,’ he continued in a matter-of-fact way. ‘Wealth and power can be the ruin of some people…I’ve seen it happen. Nicky will need guidance…not heavy-handed, but loving, parental guidance.’

A stark silence followed his comments.

‘You’ve given me a lot to think about,’ she admitted. They were very powerful arguments and she couldn’t pretend otherwise.

‘Then go away and think…until tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not long enough,’ she protested. ‘I couldn’t possibly come to such a major decision so quickly.’

‘I’m bending over backwards to be reasonable here, Georgette, but don’t push it. Tomorrow.’

Reluctantly she shook her head. ‘I should be getting back; Ruth is looking after Nicky.’

‘He’s a beautiful child.’

Their eyes touched. ‘He takes after you.’ The moment the unthinking but heartfelt words were out of her mouth she wished she could retract them.

‘Georgette, you’ll make me blush,’ he teased, revealing a set of perfect white teeth as he laughed out loud at her visible discomfiture.

‘I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know,’ she retorted, with as much dignity as she could muster. She had touched his perfection on more than one occasion. Thinking about just how unstinting she had been with her praise made her cringe with embarrassment.

Though, in his favour, for a man who had been endowed with such incredible good looks he really wasn’t vain. In fact she had more than once seen him irritated by the attention he got, though mostly he tuned out strangers who gawped.

‘Shall I call at the house tomorrow?’

She shook her head. ‘Best not.’ Tomorrow Dad and Mary were driving Gran back up. ‘By the church, about one…’

‘I’ll be waiting.’

CHAPTER TEN

ACTUALLY he wasn’t waiting, she was.

When Georgie arrived there was no sign of Angolos. She might have followed her first cowardly impulse and left if she hadn’t known that he would come looking for her.

With a sigh she walked through the gate into the small churchyard. Thoughts far away, she began to wander down the interwoven stone paths past the moss-covered gravestones. Georgie had never found this place at all gloomy, and had often remarked on the tranquil atmosphere.

She stopped, her eyes drawn to a lichen-covered memorial. The weathered inscription in the stone revealed the woman born over three hundred years earlier had had a long life. Georgie’s curiosity stirred; had she been happy, this woman born into another century?