The Carides Pregnancy

The dark-suited figure patrolling up and down with a walkie-talkie in his pocket spotted her immediately. He advanced, his intention clearly to intercept her—until he saw the man beside her. He nodded in a manner that could only be described as deferential, and walked on to meet them.

As the two men began to speak, Becca, staring straight ahead, walked past them. The narrow lane led to the main road, where people were waiting behind barriers for a glimpse of the bride. She had not quite lost herself in the crowd when she heard a distinctive footfall beside her.

‘Look!’ she snapped, swinging back. ‘I’m not going to crash the reception, or scream abuse at the bride, so will you just back off?’ No, I’m going to sneak back home with my tail between my legs and tell my little sister I did nothing! ‘This has all been a massive waste of time and energy,’ she admitted, her shoulders slumping with weary defeat.

‘Well, most women in your situation would have contented themselves with a kiss-and-tell story in the tabloids. Though that lucrative option is still open to you,’ he admitted.

When she didn’t respond to this blatant provocation he tried another tack.

‘Have you considered what would have happened if you had stood up and done your piece—dramatically stalled the wedding?’

Becca, about to walk away, swung back and blinked in owl-like confusion up at his face. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We are talking stalled, not stopped. The wedding would have gone ahead,’ he elaborated brutally.

Becca shrugged. ‘She’s welcome to him.’

‘Yes, every time I look at you I feel great waves of indifference.’ In his experience a woman didn’t travel halfway across the country because she was indifferent.

Stung by his blatant sarcasm, Becca had opened her mouth to deliver a biting retort when involuntarily her eyes dropped over the length of his lean, striking person. Indifference, she reflected, aware of the telling leap in her pulse-rate, would not be the most predictable response this man normally excited in the opposite sex.

‘Or maybe this isn’t about revenge?’ he suggested softly.

His comment diverted Becca from the direction her own troubled thoughts had taken. The awful part was, he was right. She hadn’t thought this thing through. And now he had forced her to do so she could see that she had almost set into motion a chain of events that would have ended up with the tabloid press camped on her sister’s doorstep!

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, feeling sick when she thought of how close she’d come to making things ten times worse for Erica.

‘Maybe you thought he’d take one look at you and realise that he’d made a terrible mistake—that you were the one he wanted all along.’ As he watched her shake her head in angry denial he experienced a rush of anger. ‘It wouldn’t have happened,’ he informed her harshly. Because I wouldn’t have let it happen.

Becca took a startled step back when, without warning, he reached across and ran a long finger down the curve of her cheek. After making a moment’s startled contact with his dark, strangely compelling gaze she swept her lashes down against her cheek and stayed that way until she had taken several deep, restorative breaths.

‘You sound very sure,’ she said, feeling normal again bar the strong urge to reach up and press her own fingers to the tingling area on her cheek.

Christos was drawn by the intense china blue of her wide eyes. It occurred to him that being forced to compare this face with that of his prospective bride might have caused even his avaricious cousin to experience a stab of regret.

A muscle in his lean cheek clenched. ‘Look, maybe you were special.’

To Becca his shrug suggested he had lost interest in the subject. ‘Are you trying to make me feel better?’ she joked, her eyes hostile as she sketched a grim smile. ‘Because I have to tell you you’re not very good at it.’

Her observation made his lips quiver slightly. ‘You’re certainly not Alex’s usual type.’

‘Really? What do they have that I don’t?’

Other than no personality? Christos thought as he grimly ticked off the attributes that normally attracted his cousin on his fingers. ‘His usual types are young, low-maintenance blondes, with long legs, a lot of ambition, and virtually no talent for anything but wearing and buying clothes and spending his money.’

This cynical analysis made her eyes flash angrily. ‘It sounds like you know the boss pretty well.’ And don’t like him much, she thought, but didn’t add.

‘Boss?’

Becca looked his curling lip and couldn’t help but think he must be awfully good at what he did for any employer to put up with his disdainful manner.

‘Well, isn’t that what he is?’ she challenged. ‘Or does it hurt your macho pride to admit you’re a lackey, like the rest of us?’

‘And who are you in servitude to?’

‘I’m a primary schoolteacher.

‘I never had a teacher that looked like you.’

There was an insolent sexual quality to his appraisal that ought to have repelled her. Instead she felt a shiver of excitement slide down her spine.

‘Actually,’ he added, before she could respond, ‘Christos Carides is the head of the company which paid for the wedding security today.’

Becca shrugged. The technicality changed nothing as far as she was concerned. ‘He’s a Carides.’

His dark brows lifted. ‘So you tar everyone of that name with the same brush? Is that fair?’

‘Don’t lecture me on fairness,’ she snapped back, tired of being the voice of impartial reason.

‘Are you always this forthright?’

‘Say what you mean—you think I’m mouthy?’

The retort drew a reluctant grin from Christos. ‘You know, Alex is even more of a fool than I thought he was.’

‘If that is meant to be a compliment, save it.’ It was not good to start wondering how someone who looked like a sleek predator would kiss. ‘I have no taste for insincerity.’ Or beautiful but predatory men, she reminded herself.

His expression hardened. ‘That sounds an odd thing for someone who has been Alex’s lover to say. Insincerity is his speciality.’

The inflection in his deep voice as he said lover sent an odd, disturbing surge through Becca’s body. ‘Do you always bad-mouth your employers?’

‘I thought you put no value on insincerity?’

‘I do put value on good manners, however.’

‘Now,’ he said, ‘you do sound like a teacher. I can see you in the classroom.’ Not strictly the truth. Christos was seeing her in the bedroom!

The classroom was somewhere she really wished she had never left, Becca reflected. Perhaps she just didn’t have the right genes for revenge and retribution? She had certainly made a total mess of this!

CHAPTER FIVE

TO BECCA’S horror she felt her lip quiver as her eyes filled with weak tears. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’ she cursed under her breath, as she caught her wobbling lip between her teeth and sniffed.

‘Come on,’ he urged, taking her arm and pulling her into the doorway of a shop.

The edge of rough concern in his deep voice was tinged with impatience, and one or the other—she wasn’t sure which—made Becca’s eyes weakly fill all over again.

‘I’m not coming anywhere with you,’ she contended huskily. ‘I’m going back home.’ The thought of home did nothing to stem the flow of tears. ‘I wish,’ she added, burying her nose in a tissue, ‘that I’d never left!’ Before she lifted her head the hand he had extended towards her had fallen back to his side.