The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress
  Lucy Monroe
  Synopsis:
  When Greek billionaire Dimitri
Petronides is forced to give up Xandra
Fortune, his beautiful mistress, he's certain she
won't be too distraught. For all the intense
passion they've shared, she's never let him into her
heart, and such a commitment-shy woman could never be his
wife....
  But after their split Dimitri discovers that Xandra
Fortune is not who he thought she was -- and she is also
pregnant with his child. Now he has to track her down
and claim his mistress as his wife!
  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be
aware that this book is stolen property. It was
reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher,
and neither the author nor the publisher has received any
payment for this "stripped book."
  To my resident alpha male-you are and
  will always be the hero of my heart.
  Thank you for believing in me.
  I love you.
  ISBN 0-373-12438-4
  THE BILLIONAIRE'S PREGNANT
MISTRESS First North American Publication
2004. Copyright (c) 2003 by Lucy Monroe.
  All rights reserved. Except for use in any
review, the reproduction or utilization of this work
in whole or in part in any form by any electronic,
mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including xerography, photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, is forbidden without the written
permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises
Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don
Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B
3K9.
  All characters in this book have no existence outside the
imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever
to anyone bearing the same name or names. They
are not even distantly inspired by any individual
known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are
pure invention.
  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin
Books U.s.a.
  (r) and TM are trademarks of the publisher.
Trademarks indicated with (r) are registered in the
United States Patent and Trademark Office,
the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other
countries.
  wwwddeHarlequin.com Printed in U.s.a.
  PROLOGUE

  The cold porcelain of the bathroom sink pressed
against Alexandra Dupree's forehead as she leaned
against it, her stomach still heaving from its third
early-morning upset in as many days. She dragged
air into lungs starved by the unpleasant moments spent
bent over the sink.
  After a minute of doing nothing but breathe, she
tentatively brought her body erect. A small
twinge of nausea hit her, but she was able to control
it. Okay, as unpleasant as this new early morning
ritual had become, she had something even less
pleasant to perform. She stared at the small
white stick with all the wariness she would feel for a
snake
found curled around the base of the commode.
  Dimitri had been fanatical about using birth
control. So she'd convinced herself one late period
didn't mean anything, until she woke up heaving
three days ago. At first she'd thought she had the
flu, sure there could be no possibility she was
pregnant even though the condom had broken a month
ago. Her menses had come right on time a week
later.
  She still didn't understand how this could be possible, but
she had too many symptoms to deny. Her breasts were
tender. She was tired all the time. She'd cried when
Dimitri told her he had to spend more time in
Greece and wouldn't be returning to their Paris
apartment for several days. She never cried.
  She forced herself to do what was necessary for the pregnancy
test. Ten minutes later the world went white

  around the edges as she stared at the blue line
confirming she carried the child of Dimitrius
Petronides.
  Dimitri clenched his fists, refusing to give
vent to his frustration.
  "You know it is time. You are thirty, heh? You
need a wife, some babies, a home." The older
man's gray head tilted arrogantly, while he
fixed Dimitri with a look that said he would argue this
to the ground.
  Dimitri had no desire to argue anything with his
grandfather. He had barely survived a heart
attack five days ago. Dimitri smiled.
"I'm hardly in my dotage, Grandfather."
  The man who had raised Dimitri and his brother
since their parents' deaths snorted. "Don't try
to get around me with your charm. It won't work. You're
my heir and I need to go to my grave knowing you will do
your duty by the Petronides name."
  Dimitri's heart contracted. "You are not going
to die."
  His grandfather shrugged. "Who of us is to say when
we will die? But I'm old, Dimitrius. My
heart is not as strong as it once was. Is it so
much to ask you marry Phoebe now? Why put it off?
She's a sweet girl. She'll make you a
proper Greek wife. She'll give you
Petronides babies."
  Eyes sliding shut, the older man breathed
shallowly as if his short speech had taken
more out of his weakened physical state than he had
to give. Dimitri wanted to do something, but he was
powerless. His grandfather's doctors wanted the old
man to have heart surgery, but he had refused
to discuss it.
  "Why won't you have the by-pass operation your
doctor is recommending?"
  "Why won't you marry?" the old man countered.
"Perhaps if I had great-grandchildren to look forward to,
the pain of such an operation would be worth going through."
  Dimitri felt the blood drain from his face.
"Are you saying you won't have the operation if I
don't marry Phoebe Leonides?"
  Dark blue eyes, so much like his own, opened to stare
at Dimitri with all the stubbornness a
Petronides male had to bear. "Yes."
  CHAPTER ONE

  Alexandra nervously smoothed the kerchief style
silk halter-top over the nonexistent bump where
her baby rested under her heart.
  The unaccustomed warmth of late spring had allowed
her to wear the sexy outfit to boost her flagging
morale. She turned to the side and
surveyed herself in the full-length mirror in
her bedroom. Her willowy body encased in the
champagne silk hip-hugging pants and sexy
halter looked no different than it had when
Dimitri had left for Greece.
  The week-old knowledge that she was pregnant with his child
might show in her wary hazel eyes, tinted sultry
green by colored contacts, but it had not yet affected
the shape of her body. She adjusted the gold chain
belt resting low on her hips and the multiple thin
bangles she wore on her wrist tinkled like small
bells as they clinked together. Then in a nervous
gesture, she pulled another curling strand of her
hair down to frame the soft angles of her face.
  Curled and professionally bleached so many shades,
it looked like rippling sunlight when she let it
down, her hair was a Xandra trademark. Only
right now, she didn't feel like Xandra Fortune,
popular model and lover to Greek Tycoon,
Dimitrius Petronides. She felt like
Alexandra Dupree, daughter of an old New
Orleans family, convent educated and shocked to be
unmarried and pregnant with her lover's child.
  'allyou look beautiful, pethi mou."
  Alexandra spun away from the mirror.
Dimitri stood in the door, masculine
appreciation burning in his startling blue eyes. For a
moment she forgot her condition. Forgot the many truths
she needed to tell him. Forgot her fears. Forgot
everything but how much she had missed this man over the
past three weeks.
  She flew across the room and threw herself against his
chest. "Mon cher, I have counted the minutes since you
left!"
  Strong arms locked around her in an almost
convulsive movement while his body remained
strangely stiff. "It has only been a month and
you have been busy with work. You cannot have missed me that
much."
  His words reminded her how he had resented her
refusal to quit modeling when they had become
lovers, but she had not wanted to be any man's
kept mistress. Nor had she had the option of
quitting her job. She needed the money she made
to support the family he knew nothing about.
  "You are wrong. Nothing can keep me so occupied
I do not notice your absence. A day. A week.
A month. I grieve them all." She grimaced
inwardly at her blatant vulnerability. Where had
her sophisticated cool gone, the career model
facade that had initially drawn Dimitri
to her?
  The first crack had appeared when he'd told her
he was going to be in Greece longer than
anticipated and she'd cried. After two-and-a-half
weeks of morning sickness, a positive
pregnancy test and her mother's horrified reaction
to the news, the Xandra Fortune persona was in
definite risk of extinction.

  Dimitri tried to hold on to his
self-control, not an easy thing around Xandra. And this
was Xandra as he'd never seen her. Clingy. Almost
vulnerable, but he knew that could not be true. They had
become lovers a year ago and although she shared her
body with a generosity that moved him, she kept her
heart and parts of her life hidden from him.
  Their relationship was modern and free of long-term
commitment, something she'd made it clear by her actions
she did not expect from him.
  She pressed her body to his in blatant
invitation and he laughed. "You mean you have grieved my
absence from your bed, do you not?"
  That was the only place he was convinced she did
need him. She wouldn't let him support her,
making it obvious she would rather spend time away
from him than give up any part of her career. None
of this, however, made it easier to say what needed
to be said. In fact, he was sure it would be harder for
him to say the words than for her to hear them. His
sophisticated lover would not appreciate a drawn
out, or emotional goodbye any more than he would.
  She shook her head, stretching up to link her hands
behind his neck and brushed the hair at his nape. "I
missed you, Dimitri. There was no joy in cooking
for myself alone, no pleasure in watching the French
Open without you to mutter when your favorite
double-faulted on game
point."
  He frowned, remembering the play. She smiled
at him with a look that spelled his doom if he
didn't get his news out quickly. It had already wrought
an instant response in his body. "I have news
I must tell you."
  Her arms went stiff in reaction to the seriousness of
his tone. "Can it not wait, mon cher?"
  He reached behind his neck to remove her hands, but
she locked her fingers with surprising force. He
clasped her wrists. "We must talk now."
  Alexandra did not want to talk. She was not
ready to share her news. He'd seduced her
from the beginning. She'd given him her heart, her
body and her fidelity, as committed to him as any
wife could be. Only she wasn't his wife and she
didn't know how he'd respond to his lover
getting pregnant.
  Fear more than desire prompted her hips
to grind against him. "No." She kissed his chin,
tasting the skin and letting her body absorb the
return of its other half. "No talk." She
brushed her unfettered breasts behind her thin top
back and forth across the crisp white silk of his
shirt. "First, this."
  "Xandra, no." He pulled her hands away from his
neck, but made the mistake of letting them go.
  She tunneled under his jacket and pushed it off his
shoulders. "Dimitri, yes."
  He glared at her, but he did not stop her from
pushing his suit coat to a pile of expensive
Italian designer fabric on the floor. She
smiled in approval. "I want you, Dimitri.
We can talk later."
  She needed the affirmation that they were two halves
of the same whole before she could tell him the truth about
the baby she carried and equally as terrifying, the
truth about who and what she was.
  He grabbed her round the waist and lifted her
until her mouth was even with his own. "Heaven help
me, I want you, too."
  There was something about the angry tone in his voice she
did not understand, but she could not focus on it for long,
not with his warm lips closing over her own in
overwhelming passion.

  She tore at his tie while he made quick work
of the two hooks holding her top together. He helped
her with the buttons on his shirt. The two garments
fell to the thick pile carpet together and his lips never
separated from hers. He pulled her flush against his
body and the naked flesh of her already aroused nipples
brushed the heat of his muscular chest.
  She shivered in reaction while he groaned.
  "We should not be doing this."
  The words registered only subliminally, planting
a question as to why they should be said, but she could not
consciously respond to them. She was too overwhelmed
by the feel of his flesh against her own for the first time in
over a month. He seemed similarly affected as
his arms tightened around her until she could barely
take a breath.
  Seconds later they lay entwined on the
bed, the rest of their clothes discarded, hungry hands
touching intimate places, mouths devouring one
another. They climbed to the heights together with a speed
they never had before. When they tumbled into starbursts and
oblivion, masculine shouts mingled with her own
cries of pleasure.
  Alexandra laid her hand over Dimitri's
heart. It still beat with the accelerated pulse of
recently spent passion.
  "Such a strong heart," she murmured, "such a
strong man." Would the news she had to share direct
that strength toward her or against her?
  His body tensed as if he had some premonition of
what was to come. He rolled away and ejected himself from
the bed. "I need a shower."
  She stared at the six-foot-four-inch sexy
giant towering above the bed. Tension was emanating off
him in waves.
  "I'll join you."
  He shook his head. "Stay there. I will be quick."
  Her heart squeezed at the small rejection, but
she smiled and nodded. "All right." Craven coward
that she was, she gladly accepted another excuse
to put off telling him her news.
  He came out of the bathroom fifteen
minutes later dressed in his usual sartorial
elegance, but his dark hair was still damp. His choice
of another business suit over something less formal
made her pause.
  "Do you have a meeting?"
  The chiseled features of his gorgeous face were
set in an unemotional mask. "Xandra, there is
something I must tell you."
  She scooted into a sitting position, pulling the
sheet with her to shield her body from the blue gaze that
had mesmerized her from the moment they met. "What?"
  "I'm getting married."
  Everything inside her went still. Had he said what
she thought he had said? No. It wasn't possible.
"M-mar-ried?"
  His hands fisted at his sides, his body stiff with
tension she could no longer ignore. "Yes."
  She could not take it in. It had to be some kind of
joke. "If this is your idea of a marriage
proposal, you've got a lot to learn."
  Sensual lips twisted in a grimace. "Do not
be ridiculous."
  "Ridiculous?" She wished her brain would start
working again, but she couldn't think in the face of his words.
  "You are a career woman as you've shown
time and again over the past year." He slashed the air
with one cutting hand. "A woman with your ambitions would
not

  make a proper wife for the heir to the
Petronides empire."
  She shivered with a chill that went clear to the marrow of
her bones. "What exactly are you saying?"
  "I am getting married and naturally our
liaison must come to an end." The sick paleness of
his features did nothing to alleviate her personal
pain.
  "You told me our relationship was exclusive.
You told me I could trust you. You would not make
love to another woman while I shared your bed."
She jumped out of that bed, feeling dirty and used, the
passion they had shared soiled with his revelation.
  Running his long fingers through the black silk of his
hair, he sighed. "I have not had sex with another
woman."
  "Then who are you marrying?" she practically
shrieked.
  "No one you know."
  "Obviously." Alexandra glared at him,
wanting to kill him, wanting to scream, very
afraid she would cry.
  He sighed again. "Her name is Phoebe
Leonides."
  Greek. The other woman was Greek and
probably meek, proper and brought up to marry
money. "When did you meet her?" Though the pain was
tearing her apart, she had to know.
  "I've known Phoebe most of my life. She
is the daughter of a family friend."
  "You've known her most of your life and you just
decided you loved her?"
  A cynical laugh erupted from him. "Love
has nothing to do with it."
  He said love like it was a dirty word. Neither of
them had ever spoken of love, but she adored
Dimitri with every fiber of her being and had hoped that he
had returned those feelings at least in some small
way. Enough to make a marriage and family between them
work now that she was pregnant with his child, but he quite
obviously didn't believe in the emotion.
  "If you don't love this woman, why are you
marrying her?"
  "It is time."
  She swallowed convulsively. "You say that like
it's something you'd always planned to do."
  "It is."
  Blood roared to her head, making her feel
flushed and weak. She swayed.
  He said something vicious in Greek and grabbed her
upper arms to steady her. "Are you all right, pethi
mou?"
  What planet was he from? How could she be all
right? He'd just told her he planned to marry
another woman, a woman he'd always intended
to make his wife while he'd spent the past year
using Alexandra as his whore.
  "Let. Me. Go," she got out between clenched
teeth.
  He dropped his hands, his face registering
affront and she wanted to slap him so much it was an
ache in her muscles. He took a single step
back.
  She glared up at the face that had been more beloved
than any other since they met fourteen months
ago. "Let me get this straight. You always
planned to marry another woman?"
  Indigo eyes narrowed. He didn't like repeating
himself. "Yes."
  "Yet you seduced me into your bed. You made me
your tart knowing you never intended our relationship
to be anything more than sexual?"
  He reared back as if she'd struck him. "I
did not make you my tart. You are my lover."

  "Ex-lover."
  His jaw clenched. "Ex-lover."
  "Why..." She swallowed the bile rising in her
throat. She couldn't ask this, but she had to. "Why
did you make love, I mean...h sex with me just
now?"
  He spun away from her, his magnificent body
sending messages to her own even amidst the carnage
of their discussion.
  "I couldn't help myself."
  She believed him. She hadn't been able to help
herself with him from the very beginning. She'd still been a
virgin at the ripe age of twenty-two, but her
innocence had been no barrier to the feelings he
ignited in her.
  He'd been shocked by her virginity, but not
deterred in his resolve to make her his lover.
She'd loved him and after two months of holding him
off, she'd given in. It had been fantastic.
He had made her feel cherished and there had been
times over the past year when she had even
felt loved.
  "I don't believe you want to let me go."
He couldn't.
  "It is time," he said again, as if that explained it
all.
  "Time to marry the woman you intended to marry all
along?" she asked, needing to make it very clear in her
own mind.
  "Yes."
  Suddenly she felt her nakedness even through the
mists of her anger and it shamed her. She had shared
her body without inhibitions with this man for a year... a
year during which he knew he planned to marry another
woman.
  She spun on her heel and headed to the bathroom
where she jerked on the toweling robe she kept hanging
on the back of the door. When she came back into the
bedroom, Dimitri was gone. A search of the apartment
revealed he had not merely left the bedroom, he
had left her.
  She stood in the middle of the living room and let
the emptiness of the apartment sink into her consciousness
until it was so heavy it forced her to her knees. Her
head dropped, feeling too heavy for her neck and the
sting of tears began in the back of her
throat.
  Soon their acid heat burned their way down her
cheeks and neck to soak into the lapel of the heavy
Turkish robe.
  Dimitri was gone.
  Dimitri leaned against the wall in the hallway
outside the apartment. He'd forced himself to leave when
Xandra went into the bathroom. If he hadn't, he
would never have made it out the door. Even now, the
temptation to go back to her and tell her it was all a
mistake rode him hard.
  But it was not a mistake. If Dimitri did not
marry Phoebe Leonides, an old man whom
Dimitri loved more than his own life or personal
happiness, would die. His grandfather had refused
to back down from his ultimatum and even now sat
weakly in a wheelchair, refusing necessary surgery
until Dimitri set a wedding date.
  His fist jabbed viciously into the palm of his other
hand. Why had Xandra mentioned marriage between them?
Why taunt him with the impossible? She did not want
marriage. She could not. If she had, at least one
time over the past year, her career would have come second
and he would have come first. It never had. Not once.
  Xandra was angry right now, her feminine
pride bruised. It had upset her to realize he
had planned to marry another woman all along, but
he could not take

  seriously the idea she thought their liaison would end
in marriage. She'd made her independence too much
an issue for that. However, she had obviously
believed he had no plans at all in that
direction.
  More guilt added to the already swirling cauldron of
emotions inside him.
  He had not intended to make love with her again, but
he'd lost his cool and his control the moment she went
into seductive mode. For all her worldly
sophistication, Xandra was not an aggressive lover.
She was affectionate and responsive, more
responsive than any woman he'd ever known, but
she initiated lovemaking rarely and even then, she
did so subtly. Her seduction just now had been
anything but subtle and it had undermined his defenses with the
impact of an invading army.
  Afterward, it had been harder than he thought possible
to tell her of his upcoming marriage while her body
remained warm and fragrant from their intimacy.
  He forced himself away from the wall and toward
the elevator. A clean break was the only way.
  Alexandra waited thirty-six hours to call
Dimitri's cell phone, sure with the passing of
each hour, the man she loved, the father of her child, would
come back to her.
  He had made love to her. She was sure he
hadn't planned to do it, but he had. He'd never
slept with Phoebe. He had said he didn't
love the other woman and equally important, he
couldn't possibly need her the way he had needed
Alexandra for the past year.
  But he did not come and she had no choice but
to contact him. She was furious with him, more hurt than
she'd ever been in her life, but she carried his child and
she had to tell him before he made the mistake of
marrying another woman.
  She refused to consider what she would do if the
news of impending fatherhood had no effect on his
marital plans.
  The sound of the phone ringing beeped in her ear three
times before he picked up. "Dimitri, here."
  "It's Xandra."
  She was met with unnerving silence.
  "We need to talk."
  More silence. "There is no more to say."
  "You're wrong. There are things I must tell you."
Did he notice how alike her words now to the ones
he'd spoken to her two days ago?
  "Can we not dismiss the postmortems?"
  She sucked in air, but controlled the desire
to scream like a fishwife at the insensitive tycoon
dismissing her like yesterday's garbage. "No. We
need to talk. You owe this to me, Dimitri."
  This time she didn't break the silence.
  Finally she heard a heavy exhalation at the other
end of the line. "Fine. Meet me at Chez Renee
for lunch."
  "I'd rather meet in the apartment." She did not
want to tell him of his impending fatherhood and her
true identity in a public setting.
  "No."
  She gritted her teeth, but didn't argue.
"Fine." Maybe a public setting would be best
after all. He would hesitate to commit murder with
witnesses, she thought with black humor.
  They set a time and hung up.
  Dimitri cut the cell connection and turned
to look out the large window in his Athens office. He
had flown to Athens within hours of leaving the Paris
apartment. He

  hadn't trusted himself to stay in France and not go
back to her.
  And that infuriated him.
  His grandfather's life was at stake and Dimitri
refused to allow an obsession with a woman deter him
from his purpose. His parents had taught him all the
lessons he needed to learn in that area. His father's
obsessive need for his mother had resulted in years of
volatile togetherness and ultimately both their deaths.
  He could not allow a similar compulsive need for
Xandra to affect the same result for his grandfather.
  He'd been her first lover, but with a sensual
nature like hers, he knew he would not be her last.
There had even been times when he wondered if he were
her only lover. There were areas of her life she
kept hidden from him. She took trips abroad that
were not modeling assignments, but
that she refused to discuss with him.
  He had told himself he was being foolish. She
did not flirt or make meaningful eye contact with
other men. She had always been gratifyingly hungry
when they came together, but he'd never been able to dismiss
the feeling she did not belong exclusively to him.
If not sexually, than emotionally.
  Which had led him to believe she would take their
eventual but inevitable breakup with her usual cool
sophistication, just as she took their many separations
made necessary by her work or his. A memory of her
tear-clogged voice the last time he'd called to say
his stay in Greece had been prolonged rose up.
  What if she had convinced herself she loved him?
He shuddered at the thought. Love was an excuse
women used to succumb to their passions. His mother had
supposedly loved his father, but she'd also loved her
tennis instructor and then the husband of a business
acquaintance and finally the Italian ski instructor
she'd run off with.
  His mother had been a prime example of the treachery
women perpetrated in the name of love. Dimitri
preferred the frank exchange of sexual desire
to protestations of a fleeting emotion that only caused
pain in the end.
  But Alexandra wanted to meet one more time. His
curled fist settled against the windowsill.
  He'd agreed because she was right...he did owe her.
  They'd spent a year together and she had given him the
gift of her innocence. She'd made little of it at the
time, but his traditional Greek upbringing had
planted it as a debt firmly in his mind.
A debt he should not have repaid with such a soulless
dismissal of their relationship.
  He hadn't even given her a gift in parting.
She deserved better than that. She had been his
woman for a year. He would make sure she was set
for the future.
  He could only hope his control at their upcoming
meeting exceeded that of the last one.
  CHAPTER TWO

  Alexandra remained seated while she waited for
Dimitri to weave his way between the small bistro
tables and join her. She'd chosen to sit outside,
hoping the late spring sunshine would imbue their
encounter with some much needed optimism. Dimitri's
aviator sunglasses hid his expression from her,
but his mouth was set in a grim line that did not bode
well for the meeting ahead.
  She resisted the urge to rub her temples,
giving away the anxiety she felt.
  He pulled out a chair opposite her own and
folded his tall frame into it. "Xandra."
  What a cold greeting for the woman he had been
living withforthe past year. She pulled the cloak of
sophistication she wore like a protective
covering around her and inclined her head. "Dimitri."
  He pulled off the aviators and tossed them on
the table. His blue eyes revealed no more of his thoughts
than the mirrored reflection of his glasses had.
"Have you ordered?"
  Why that question should cause pain to slice through her, she
had no idea. Perhaps because it exemplified a new
level of distance between the two of them. He had not
asked how she was or how her morning had gone.
Presumably those topics were no longer of concern
to him.
  "Yes. I ordered you a steak and salad."
  "Fine. I presume you have a specific reason
for insisting we meet," As if the dissolution of their
year long relationship wasn't enough. "There is
something I forgot to do at our last meeting as well."
He
grimaced. "It did not go as I expected."
  She had thought she couldn't hurt more than she already
did, but she had been wrong. Not go as he
expected? They'd made love with desperate
passion and then he'd ditched her. Which part hadn't he
expected?
  "There's something you need to know. Something I have
to tell you before you..." She could not make herself
say it.
  His brow rose in query and he pulled a sheaf of
papers from his briefcase. He laid them on the
table and then placed a small box on top of them,
a box obviously the size of a jewelry case.
There was an attitude of finality in the action that
cut the thread holding her composure.
  "You can't marry her!" The words burst from
Alexandra without thought. "She doesn't care about you.
She couldn't and still accept your lifestyle for the past
year."
  Again that mocking black brow rose.
  She answered the unspoken question. "You've been
living with me." Surely no woman could tolerate
such a circumstance and care even the least little bit for the
man involved.
  "I assure you, I have not publicized the
fact."
  She clenched her hand against her stomach, feeling as
if she'd sustained a blow there.
  He was right. He had been very careful to keep their
relationship out of the media, no small feat when she was
a fairly well known model in Europe and he was
a billionaire. But those same billions along
with her circumspect behavior had made it
possible. She had her own reason for wanting to stay
out of the international scandal rags.

  Just as she'd had her reasons for keeping her
identity as Alexandra Dupree a secret. Just as
she had commitments that had forced her to put her job before
her time with Dimitri. But those commitments no longer
held top place in her priorities, not now that
she was pregnant and he was talking about marrying
another woman.
  "Do you love her?" He'd implied he
didn't, but she wanted facts. She needed
assurances.
  "Love is not something I think about."
  That was telling her. She bit her lip, tasting
blood before she realized what she was doing.
  He swore and dipped his napkin in her glass of
water before pressing it against the small wound, his
expression furious. "Do not do this to yourself, Xandra.
Our affair was bound to end. Perhaps that end is coming
sooner than either of us expected or wanted, but it
cannot be a complete shock to you."
  She shook her head, unable to believe he thought
she had spent the last year looking ahead to an end in
their relationship. She had never allowed herself
to imagine a future with him, either. In fact, she'd
spent the last year pretty much refusing to think of the
future at all.
  "I love you." The words just slipped out.
  "Damn it. Don't do this."
  "Don't do what? Tell you the truth?"
  "Try to manipulate me with such claims."
  "I'm not trying to manipulate you."
  Cynicism colored his features. "Then why have
you said nothing of this great love for the past year?"
  "I was afraid..."
  His sarcastic laugh cut into her. "You were more
sincere."
  On one level, she understood his disbelief.
She'd never spoken of love and he didn't know about
Mama or Madeleine and the financial needs that had
forced Alexandra to put him second to her modeling
career. She might never have told him of her love
either, but her pregnancy had forced her to reevaluate
her life, a big chunk of which was her relationship with
him.
  Even understanding it, his scathing denial of her love
still hurt. "You care about me. Don't try to deny
it. Not after the way we have been the past twelve
months, not after making love to me two days
ago."
  "I appreciate that having sex with you in the
circumstances was wrong, but as I said I could not
help myself."
  Okay, so he hadn't agreed he cared about her,
but such an admission from a guy like Dimitri
Petronides wasn't something to dismiss lightly.
He found her irresistible. Surely that must mean
he had some feelings for her. "If it were only sex,
you could have gotten that anywhere, including from your
fianc@ee."
  "A proper Greek girl does not give her
innocence to a man before she marries."
  Did he realize what he was saying? It was
archaic. Prehistoric. "What does that make
me? A tart?"
  His broad shoulders tensed. "No. You are an
independent, career-minded woman. I wanted you.
You wanted me. We made no promises to one
another. I never intended marriage and if you are
honest with yourself you will admit you knew that."
  "Why should I?" Maybe she hadn't thought ahead
to marriage, but she sure as heck hadn't assumed
they'd break up like this either. Not with him planning
to marry someone else. "We had something
incredibly special."
  "We had great sex."
  Her hands trembled and she put down the glass of

  juice she had just lifted to her lips. "I can't
believe you just said that."
  "It is the truth."
  "Your truth."
  He shrugged. "My truth."
  "Well, I have a truth I have to share with you as
well."
  "What is this truth?" he asked coolly.
  It was hard, harder than she could ever have imagined
to pluck up the courage to tell a man who had just
informed her what she had mistaken for love had been
nothing more than great sex that she carried his child. In the
end only blunt honesty would do. "I'm
pregnant."
  For several seconds his expression did not
change and then his eyes filled with pity. "Xandra, do
not humiliate yourself this way. I will not leave you
unprovided for."
  He thought she was worried about the payoff gift?
She glared at the pile of papers and jeweler's
box near his right hand, wishing she could
incinerate them with her eyes. "I'm carrying your child,
Dimitri."
  He groaned and rubbed between his eyes with his thumb and
forefinger. "You've always been very forthright, very honest. Do
not stoop to telling tales now. Surely you cannot
believe it will change the outcome."
  He thought she was lying? She felt hysterical
laughter well up inside her. He thought she was
lying now and had always been so forthright in
the past. He believed she was Xandra Fortune, the
French fashion model and orphan the world saw. And
he didn't believe she was pregnant.
  The irony almost choked her. "I am not lying."
  His cynical smile galvanized her into action.
She dug in her purse and grabbed the white stick that
proved her pregnancy. She waved it in front of
him. "One blue line means yes to a
pregnancy."
  She did not know exactly what reaction she had
expected, but it was not the volatile, fury filled
one she got.
  He grabbed her wrist, lifting the hand with the
pregnancy test, his body vibrating with palpable
anger. "You dare to show this to me?"
  What was wrong with him? "Yes, I dare.
I won't let you ignore the reality of your baby
just because you've decided it's time to marry another
woman."
  A nerve ticked in his jaw. "Do you think I am
stupid? You cannot possibly be pregnant with my
child."
  "The condom broke, remember?" He should.
He'd made enough of it at the time.
  "That was before your period and we did not have sex again
until two days ago." The grip on her wrist
tightened painfully. "Tell me you are not
pregnant. Tell me this-was he shook her hand
"comis some kind of joke."
  "You're hurting me," she whispered as tears
clogged her throat and burned her eyes.
  A flash went off and he let her go, throwing her
arm from him with disgust. She watched out of the periphery of
her vision as one of Dimitri's security men
took off after the photographer. "It's not a lie.
I am pregnant."
  If anything, he seemed to swell with more anger.
"It is not my child."
  For a moment his words paralyzed her. How could he
doubt it was his child? She'd never had another lover.
He knew it. "It is."
  His face contorted with revulsion. "All this time you
have been haranguing me for planning to marry Phoebe,

  you have known you took another man to your bed. Who
is it?"
  His shouted question made her jump in fright.
Dimitri never lost his cool. He hated scenes
and putting on a public display was anathema to him.
  "There is no other man."
  "The evidence is not in your favor." His voice
had dropped to freezing levels.
  "I don't know how it can be, but it is."
  "I had planned to be generous, give you the
apartment. I thought you deserved it, but I'll be
damned if I'm going to pay for your lover's
lifestyle and support his bastard child. I am not that
stupid." He grabbed the papers off the table, but
tossed the box at her. "This should be a sufficiently
memorable token for services rendered."
  She shoved the box aside. "There is no other
man!"
  His face closed up and terror coursed through her.
He did not believe her. "You can have the tests
done."
  He stood up. "Be assured I will
demand them if you attempt to sue for any kind of
support."
  Alexandra gulped, trying to get enough air. Trying
not to vomit, but the pain was so intense that she wasn't
sure she could win the battle. Her arms were wrapped
tightly around her middle and she still felt like
she was going to fly apart into a thousand broken little
pieces.
  To have the gift of their child so brutally rejected
hurt almost beyond bearing.
  She whimpered.
  Whipping her hand to her mouth, she blocked the sound
with her fist. She did not want to let him see her
weakness.
  "You have twenty-four hours to vacate the apartment."
He gave her one last sulfuric glare, spun
on his heel and left.
  Alexandra paced from one side of the living room
to the other. She'd called Dimitri's cell phone
at least a dozen times and gotten his message
service every time. She'd left messages with the
operator, at his Paris office, at his office in
Athens, even with his grandfather's housekeeper.
  Every message had said the same thing. Please
call.
  He hadn't. Not all day yesterday as she
vacillated between tortured tears and blazing fury.
Not through a sleepless night when she had tossed and
turned in a bed too big for comfort without him in it.
She'd tried to rest for the baby's sake, but every time
she closed her eyes images of him telling her he
planned to marry intruded, or worse...his
expression of revulsion when she'd told him she was
pregnant.
  It was now close to one o'clock in the afternoon and she'd
spent the last hour calling every contact number she had
for him again. It hadn't done any good. She couldn't
sit down. She was so strung out and edgy, she felt
like she'd taken a couple of the diet pills some of
her fellow models used to control their appetite.
  One thought played itself over and over again in her
brain. Dimitri believed she'd taken another
lover. What kind of trust was that? He really did
think she was some kind of slut.
  The thought sent her to her knees only to hop up
again at the sound of a key turning in the lock. She
flew to the door. He'd come back. Relief
surged through her in unstoppable waves. He'd
realized how idiotic he'd been to believe she could
make love to another man.
  She wrenched the door open. "Dim-was Her
voice

  choked off mid word. It wasn't Dimitri at
the door. "Who the hell are you?" she demanded in
English before remembering where she was and repeating her
question in French.
  The stocky bald man pushed his way into the
apartment, followed by an efficient looking woman and
another man, this one lanky and sandy haired. The
woman spoke. "I am Mr. Petronides's
facilities manager. I am here to oversee your
vacation of the apartment."
  Alexandra barely made it to the bathroom before she
lost the little bit of food she'd forced herself to eat that
day.
  When she came out, the brunette was directing the
two men in the packing of Alexandra's things with an
officious looking clipboard in one hand and a pen in the
other. The facilities manager used her pen
to point at a small Lladro figurine
Dimitri had bought Alexandra when they were in
Barcelona together.
  The bald man picked up the statuette and began
wrapping it in paper before putting it in one of the
numerous boxes the moving team must have brought with them.
Alexandra stood in appalled fascination as every item
she could claim as her own was packed in a similarly
efficient manner from the living room.
  The last three days had been nightmarish, but this was
beyond a nightmare. It was so horrifyingly real, she
almost buckled from the pain of it.
  "He sent you to evict me?" She asked the words
in a bare whisper, but
the other woman heard.
  She turned to Alexandra, her face
impassive. "I have been sent to facilitate your
move, yes."
  "Have you evicted many of his ex-lovers?"
Alexandra asked.
  The other woman's eyes twitched. "Your
relationship
  with Mr. Petronides is not my business. I
am simply following through on my instructions."
  "War criminals say the same thing in their
defense."
  Her mouth tightening, the brunette turned away
without answering. Alexandra did not push it. Instead,
she marched into the bedroom she had shared with Dimitri
and started packing her clothes. She didn't
want those men touching them. She already felt violated
by their presence and the way they went through her home
removing her things, removing traces of her.
  Two hours later, the packing was done.
Alexandra returned to the living room and surveyed
the neatly piled boxes the two men were preparing
to transport out of the apartment. were they going to take
them down to the lobby and leave them there? Out onto the
street?
  Suddenly emotions that had gone numb in the face
of Dimitri's cruel ejection of her from his life,
came back to life and Alexandra shouted, "Stop!"
as the bald man went to pick up one of the boxes.
  The man stopped.
  "Some of the items you packed don't belong to me.
You'll have to wait while I sort through the boxes and
take them out."
  "I had a very specific list from Mr.
Petronides," the brunette began to say.
  "I don't care." Alexandra stood to her full
five feet, nine inches and glared the other woman
down. "I'm not taking his property with me."
  The movers must have read her determination on her
face because they didn't attempt to dissuade her again.
It took forty-five minutes, but in the end
she had removed every single thing Dimitri had ever
given her. She'd gone through her clothes as well,
chucking sexy

  lingerie from her suitcases along with designer
dresses...anything and everything he had bought.
  When she was done, there was a pile of objects
mixed with crumpled manila newsprint on the living
room floor along with two stacks of neatly
folded clothes.
  "There's one more thing."
  The brunette just nodded, her eyes registering some
emotion after watching Alexandra's feverish attempt
to purge her things of all items related to her
ex-lover.
  Alexandra picked up her purse and pulled out the
white stick she'd replaced yesterday after the
disastrous confrontation with Dimitri along with the
jewelry case he'd left lying on the cafe
table. She dropped them both on top of the lingerie
pile. She stood up and grabbed the handle of her
suitcase, slung the matching overnight case over
her shoulder and exited the apartment.
  Alexandra waited a week to hear from Dimitri,
hoping time would calm him to the point of
rationality. Seven days after she'd been evicted from
their apartment, she read an article in the society
column announcing his upcoming wedding to Phoebe
Leonides. The girl looked about nineteen and as
innocent as any virginal bride should be.
  Alexandra checked out of the hotel she'd been
staying in, arranged for her possessions to be shipped
to the U.s., terminated her contract with
her modeling agency, closed her Xandra Fortune
checking account, canceled her credit cards under that name
and bought a ticket back to the states in the name of
Alexandra Dupree.
  Xandra Fortune, fashion model and ex-lover of
Greek billionaire, Dimitri
Petronides, ceased to exist.
  A little over two months later, Alexandra
walked out of the prenatal clinic into the hot, sticky
air of early autumn in New York City. She
glanced down at the snapshot of her recent
ultrasound. She'd put the videotape in her
bag, but hadn't been able to tuck the photo away.
She was enthralled with this proof of the baby growing in her
womb. The baby she could not yet feel or even
see in her only slightly thickened waistline.
  It was a boy. A part of Dimitri
Petronides she was free to love, someone who would
return her love. Even weakened by constant morning
sickness and exhausted from her pregnancy, she
wanted to shout for joy.
  Desperately wanting to share her news with someone,
she flipped open her cell phone and dialed her
sister's number. She got the answering machine and
opted not to leave a message. She could tell
Madeleine the news when she went home later.
She considered and discarded the idea of calling her mother.
Alexandra was not up to another dose of "You've
brought shame to the family name."
  Compulsion she could not deny had her dialing the
number to the Paris apartment. There had been no news
of Dimitri's wedding in the New York society
pages. Fool that she was, she couldn't stop herself
from looking and even more foolishly hoping. Had he come
to his senses? Called off the wedding?
  Perhaps the latter was too much to hope for, but
surely after two months he would have had enough time
to calm down and realize Alexandra would never have been
unfaithful to him.
  The phone rang several times and Alexandra
remembered belatedly it
would be the dinner hour over there. Perhaps he was
out, or not in Paris at all. She let the phone
continue to ring, knowing she didn't have the courage
to call his cell. For some reason this was news

  she needed to tell him when he was in the apartment they
had shared.
  The other line picked up. "Hello?"
  Alexandra almost dropped her phone. It was a
woman's voice at the other end of the line. She
forced her vocal chords to work, praying the
unfamiliar voice was that of a new housekeeper and not
Dimitri's newest woman. "Hello. Is
Mr. Petronides available, please?"
  "I'm sorry, he's out. This is Mrs.
Petronides. Can I help you or would you like
to leave a message?"
  Mrs. Petronides. Alexandra stopped
breathing. The bastard had gone through with it. He'd
married another woman while Alexandra was
pregnant with his child. Funny, until that very moment,
she hadn't truly believed he would do it. And it was
only in the absence of all hope that she realized how
much she'd been living on the unspoken faith in a
man who cared nothing for her and clearly never had.
  "Are you there?"
  "Yes."
  "Did you want to leave a message for my
husband?"
  "No. I..." The words simply trailed
into nothingness as the joy that had buoyed her up since
discovering she carried Dimitri's son drained
away.
  "Who's calling please?" The young woman,
Phoebe Leonides, no...Phoebe
Petronides now, sounded impatient.
  Because Alexandra was so emotionally devastated, she
answered the other woman's question without thought. She
couldn't think. Her brain had ceased to function. She
gave the name an occupant of the Paris apartment would
expect to hear. "Xandra Fortune."
  "Miss Fortune, where are you? Dimitrius has
been looking for you. He's desperate about the
baby."
  Dimitri had told his wife about her, about their
baby? Alexandra pulled the phone from her ear and
stared at it in her hand as if she didn't know how it
had gotten there. She could hear the woman's voice,
but not the words she was saying. She sounded frantic.
  Alexandra cut the connection without putting the phone
back to her ear.
  CHAPTER THREE

  Dimitri took a sip of his neat whiskey and
walked out onto the terrace of the New York
high-rise apartment. It was empty, no doubt due
to the chill in the air brought on by November's
cooling temperatures.
  He'd come late to the holiday party, at the
insistence of a business acquaintance who'd told him
the host was an investment banker he thought Dimitri
should meet. For the past four months, Dimitri had
had very little interest in making money. He'd had little
interest in anything, but finding the mother of his child.
  He was in New York because that was her last known
whereabouts. She'd had her things shipped to a
Manhattan receiving office and picked them up on the
day of their arrival. One day before he had instigated
a search for her. After that, there had been nothing. His
investigators had been unable to find a single lead.
  She'd canceled her contract with her modeling
agency. She'd even closed her credit cards and
checking account. No one had seen or heard from
Xandra Fortune in three months.
  Well, that was not strictly true. She'd called
the Paris apartment four weeks ago and
spoken to Phoebe. Xandra had hung up without
saying why she'd called or answering Phoebe's
questions about where she was. The call had been placed
on an untraceable cell phone.
  Dimitri still cursed whenever he thought of that
ill-fated phone call. Would she have told him where
she was if he had been there to answer the phone?
  The sound of voices drifted out onto the almost
deserted terrace and he asked himself why he'd
bothered to come. He spun on his heel, intending to go
when a woman caught his eye. She had her back
to him. Long curling blond hair reached to the center
of her back, a back that looked much too
familiar. Then she moved, gripping the balcony
railing and letting her head fall back as she took
a deep breath of air.
  "Xandra!"
  She spun around to face him and his heart tightened
in a painful knot, for although the woman had enough
surface resemblance to Xandra to be her sister, she
wasn't the model.
  She smiled, even white teeth gleaming in the
cool glow of the outdoor lighting. "Hello. I
didn't realize anyone was out here."
  "I came for the solitude," he
admitted.
  Her smile flashed again. "I know what you mean.
I adore socializing, but once in a while the
crush gets to me and I just need to breathe some air
that's all my own."
  He felt himself smiling for the first time in months.
"Then I'll leave you to it."
  She waved her hand. "There's no need. I
don't mind sharing my little oasis of quiet. You said
you knew Xandra?"
  "Yes. I know her."
  "She was an amazing model, wasn't she? She
had just the right combination of innocence and passion to shoot
her to supermodel status. It's too bad she
refused to take any New York commissions."
  "She prefers working in Europe."
  Something odd passed across the woman's face.
"Yes, I suppose she did."

  "You keep talking about her in the past tense."
Had Xandra given up modeling for motherhood?
  "That's because Xandra Fortune is gone."
  Everything inside him went still. "What do you mean
gone?"
  The blonde sighed. "According to my sister,
Xandra Fortune is dead, if not buried six feet
under."
  The words had the effect of multiple body blows
and he felt his knees begin to buckle. He reached
out blindly for the balcony railing and it was only by sheer
force of will that he remained standing. "She's dead?"
  He tried to breathe, but his lungs refused
to cooperate. He felt the whiskey glass in his
hand break and the sharp pain of one jagged edge pressing
into his hand.
  "Oh, my word. Are you all right?" The woman's
voice was filled with concern. "Wait right there.
I'll get something for the cut and to clean up the
glass."
  He looked down at the blood beading against the
dark skin of his hand and could not connect it to anything he
felt because all he felt was numbness. Xandra was
dead and his baby with her. That thought pounded
through his consciousness with the power of an express train
pushing away all other considerations.
  It could have been minutes or hours later, but the
woman returned armed with a first-aid kit and the maid
behind her carrying a bowl of water and some small
towels.
  "Put those down on the table and close the
door on your way out," the woman instructed the
maid. She gave Dimitri a small smile.
"I don't want an incident at the party.
Hunter, my husband, doesn't like scenes."
  "You said Xandra was dead." Perhaps he had
misheard her.
  "Yes." She bathed his hand and fixed a plaster
over
  the small cut with gentle efficiency. "I
didn't mean to upset you. I forget that others
don't know..." Her voice trailed off and he
didn't press her to continue.
  He didn't care if anyone else knew
Xandra had died. "Was it..." He swallowed.
"The baby?"
  Her hands stilled in their task of putting the
first-aid implements to rights. "How did you know about the
baby?" Her light brown gaze pinned him and her
charming air had transformed to one of suspicion.
  "She told me."
  "You're Dimitri Petronides?" The woman
spit his name out of her mouth as if it were a foul tasting
substance.
  "Yes."
  He didn't see the blow coming, but he
felt it. Her hand landed against the side of his face with
enough force to turn his head and make him stagger back a
step.
  "You filthy pig! I'd like to strangle you with my
bare hands. How you have the gall to come here, to my home
after the way you treated my
sister."
  "What the hell is going on out here?" Another
man came storming out onto the terrace. A
veritable blond giant. "What have you said to upset
my wife?"
  "Hunter!" The woman threw herself at her
husband. "It's Dimitri Petronides. He's
the one. You've got to get him out of here. If
Allie sees him, she'll have a relapse. She's
just started sleeping at night. Do something!"
  None of the woman's words or actions had made
sense since she'd told Dimitri Xandra was
dead, but then how could anything make sense in the face
of that devastating fact?
  He turned to go, more than willing to abandon the
scene.

  Alexandra could hear her sister's voice raised
in agitation from where she sat chatting with one of
Hunter's many business associates in the
penthouse's living room. She excused herself and
stood up. Madeleine's voice had lowered to the
point where Alexandra could not make out what her sister
was saying, but the urgency was still there.
  She walked through the dining room tastefully
decorated in autumn colors for the Thanksgiving
holiday and out onto the balcony. Madeleine was
gripping Hunter's biceps and saying something about
getting rid of someone. A bowl of water, tinged pink
and a bloodied towel lay on the table to her right and the
smell of spilled whiskey permeated the air. A
small pile of broken glass lay winking in the
outside lights near the outer wall of the terrace.
  "Madeleine, are you all right, cherie?"
Madeleine whipped around, her expression horror
stricken. She rushed to Alexandra and grabbed her
wrist. "Come on, Allie." She started tugging.
  Alexandra resisted simply because she didn't
understand the urgency in
her sister's voice and wanted to know the reason for it.
She looked down the length of the balcony to see if
she could discover the source of her sister's agitation and
froze. Dimitri Petronides was heading in the
opposite direction, toward the sliding
glass doors leading into Hunter's study.
  He stopped at the open doorway and turned.
"I didn't mean to upset your wife," he said
to Hunter in a voice unlike anything she had ever
heard out of Dimitri's mouth.
  His gaze flicked over the tableau she made with
her sister pulling frantically against her arm.
  His eyes appeared unfocused, as if he
wasn't even seeing them. "I'll see myself out."
  Then he was gone.
  Again.
  He'd walked away from her for the second time without
a backward glance. It was no consolation that this time he
would have been hard pressed to recognize her.
  "I'm sorry, Allie. I don't know how he
came to be here. Are you going to be all right?"
Madeleine's voice buzzed in Alexandra's
ears. "I slapped him." Her sister's words finally
registered.
  "You what?"
  "I slapped him and I called him a pig."
  Alexandra almost smiled. "He deserved it."
  "Yes, he did."
  "How did you know who he was?"
  "I told him you were dead, I mean
Xandra Fortune. Anyway, he asked if it was because
of the baby and I just knew."
  "You told him Xandra was dead?"
  "Yes, she did, but it's not true is it?
You're alive and I'd like to shake you both until
your teeth rattle." Dimitri's fury filled
voice sent Alexandra's nerves into overdrive.
  Madeleine dropped Alexandra's wrist in
shock. "Go away!" she shouted at Dimitri.
  He towered over them, his skin an unnatural
shade of gray, his eyes registering anger and a
brief moment of vulnerability that disappeared before
Alexandra could be certain of its existence. "I'm not
going anywhere. In fact, I think it is you and your
husband who need to go so Xandra and I may speak in
private of affairs that do not concern you."
  Madeleine opened her mouth to speak, but
Alexandra

  forestalled her. She pivoted her body so she
faced Dimitri fully and fixed him with a bored
stare. "My name is Alexandra Dupree and I'm
sure you and I have nothing to discuss."
  Since leaving her Xandra Fortune persona behind,
she'd run into former colleagues and none of
them had recognized her. She'd had her hair cut
short and dyed back to the rather mousy-brown color
she'd been born with. She'd ditched the green
contact lenses and her body at five months
pregnant in no way resembled the willow thinness of
Xandra Fortune's trademark figure.
  There was no reason she couldn't bluff this
confrontation with Dimitri out. And a very good reason why
she wanted to. She'd thought and thought about why he would
tell his wife about her and the baby and the only
logical solution she'd been able to come up with was that
Dimitri had decided that though he no longer
wanted his ex-lover, he did want their child.
  Something dangerous flashed in Dimitri's indigo
blue eyes. "Do not play games with me."
  "I am not playing any games. If you do not
believe me about who I am, I can show you
identification. I've been Alexandra Dupree
my whole life. I should know." She deliberately
infused her voice with a New Orleans accent, one
she hadn't spoken with since being sent to convent boarding
school in France at the age of eight.
  "Ten minutes ago I believed you to be dead."
  "I can confirm without question that Xandra Fortune is
indeed dead, but I am not and I am
Alexandra Dupree."
  He didn't even look disconcerted. "You may
be Alexandra Dupree, but you are also Xandra
Fortune and how you believe you could deny such truth
to me, the man who knows you more intimately than any
other, I cannot understand." His usual flawless English
was heavily accented with Greek intonation.
  "I assure you, you do not know me intimately at
all." And that was the truth. If he had truly known
her, he could never have suspected the baby had been
fathered by someone else.
  Terrible rage reflected in Dimitri's eyes
before he leaned forward and swept her high against his
chest, his arms as tight and inflexible as steel bands.
  Madeleine shrieked, "Put her down!"
  Hunter strode forward to grab Dimitri's
shoulder.
  Dimitri glared at him, his body tense with
primitive masculine aggression. "Take your hand
off me."
  "I won't allow you to take my sister-in-law
out of this apartment against her will."
  The entire situation was unreal. Dimitrius
Petronides doing something so uncool as to attempt
to kidnap a pregnant woman from a party was
beyond the scope of her imagination, much less believable
reality.
  Dimitri looked down at her, his blue gaze
compelling agreement. "Tell him you want to come with
me."
  She glared back at him. "I don't."
  Dimitri stiffened and Hunter became more menacing,
but in his fury, Dimitri shrugged off Hunter's
restraining hold as if it were nothing more than a wispy
cobweb. He spun to face Hunter. "I'm not
going to hurt her. She's mine. She's pregnant
with my child and we're going to talk."
  After that, neither Dimitri nor Hunter spoke for
what seemed like several minutes, but was in all
probability only seconds. Then something passed
between the two men and much to Madeleine's dismay and
Alexandra's irritation Hunter nodded.
  "You can talk to her, but you'll have to do it here."

  Alexandra tried to shove herself out of Dimitri's
arms. "I'm not talking to him."
  His hold tightened. "Be careful. If you
fall, you could hurt the baby."
  "What do you care about my baby?"
  If possible, his expression turned
grimmer. "I care."
  Those two words scared her more than the thought of giving
birth to a child. He was going to try to take her baby
from her. She knew it. "I'm not giving you and your little
Greek paragon wife my baby. I'm not!"
  He shook his head. "Talk. Xandra. We need
to talk."
  "You didn't even believe the baby was yours at
first," she said, giving up any hope at deceiving him
about her identity.
  Emotion passed across his chiseled features. "I
do now."
  "What changed your mind?" she demanded, ceasing her
struggle against the increasing pressure of his hold.
  He smelled like whiskey, expensive aftershave and
sweat. Something had made Dimitri sweat. In
fact, his hairline still showed evidence of moisture.
The thought of losing his baby must have really destroyed
him. She could almost feel sorry for him, but she
refused to be so weak. He'd denied his paternity of
their baby. He deserved what he got.
  "I spoke to a doctor. He told me it was
actually quite common for a woman to have one or even two
menses after conceiving a child."
  "So you believed some stranger over me.
I'm impressed, Dimitri. It certainly shows
where our relationship fit in the scheme of your life."
  "He's not a stranger. He's a friend."
  Who cared how well he knew the stupid
doctor? "I'm not giving you my baby!" she
reiterated while inside she cursed the doctor who
had put her bond with her child at risk like this.
  "If you don't put my sister down this instant and
leave my home, I'm calling the police,"
Madeleine interrupted.
  Eyes deadly with intent, Dimitri met
Madeleine's gaze with his own inflexible one. "Go
ahead." He turned to Hunter. "I'm not going
anywhere without her."
  Hunter sighed. "You can talk out here. We'll
close off the doors to the house so you'll have some
privacy."
  Alexandra shuddered. She didn't want
privacy with Dimitri. "If I have to talk to you,
I'd rather do it somewhere public."
  "You don't have to talk to him at all,"
Madeleine's angry voice interjected.
  Hunter squeezed Madeleine's shoulder.
"She's pregnant with his child, my love. They have
to talk."
  Her sister turned on her husband with murder in
her eye. "I suppose that's some macho code all
arrogant men try to live by, but I'm not standing by and
watching him rip my sister into emotional shreds again.
Don't you remember how she was when she got here?"
  As much as she loved her sister and appreciated
Madeleine's loyalty, Alexandra did not want
Dimitri to know how much he had hurt her. Her
pride would not take it. "Put me down. We can go
to Casamir," she said, naming a French
restaurant on B Avenue.
  Dimitri and Madeleine said no at the same
time. Alexandra opted to deal with her sister first.
"Maddy, I want this settled."
  Madeleine's eyes filled with tears. "I
don't want you hurt again."
  Alexandra shook her head, very certain of that if
nothing else. "He can't hurt me anymore. I
despise him."

  Dimitri's body jerked.
  She ignored the reaction and asked him, "Why
can't we go to Casamir?"
  "We tried to talk nicely in a public venue
once and it did not work. Did you see the
photos? They were all over the papers the week after
my engagement to Phoebe was announced. Wealthy
Greek Tycoon Argues with Secret
Pregnant Paramour. My grandfather relapsed and
had to have emergency by-pass surgery."
  Alexandra stifled her urge to offer sympathy.
Dimitri got nothing from
her from this point forward. Nothing.
  "Talk out here, Allie. You don't want your
circumstances bandied about any more than Dimitri
does. If pictures of you make it into the scandal
rags here, your mother may not have a heart attack, but
the hissy fit she'll throw won't be much of an
improvement and it will all come down on your head."
  Madeleine glared at her husband, but agreed.
"Hunter's right. If you are going to talk to this swine
it might as well be here where no sleazy journalists
are waiting to quote an overheard conversation or
take damaging pictures."
  Dimitri's patience was wearing thin and Alexandra
could feel his anger mounting. Some things, it seemed,
had not changed. She could still read him like the other half
of herself. She found the thought so disturbing, she buried
it immediately.
  "You're right. Mother is already prepared
to disown me and make up some story about my early
demise. We'll talk here."
  She would have mistaken the breath Dimitri
expelled as a sigh of relief, but she no longer
believed he was capable of feeling enough vulnerability
to be relieved.
  With a few dire warnings to Dimitri and concerned
  looks at Alexandra, Madeleine allowed
Hunter to lead her from the terrace after turning on the
small gas outdoor fireplace. The sound of
metal sliding against metal indicated one set of
doors closing. A minute of silent waiting and the
second set of doors closed from the inside of the
apartment. As the vertical blinds slid across the
doorway and then turned to create a visual barrier
against the rest of the party, Alexandra felt trapped.
  She was alone with a man she used to love-a man
she no longer trusted.
  Dimitri didn't speak. He didn't move.
He just stared at her and then at the football-size
bump that indicated their baby living and growing beneath her
heart. Tension arced between them and she became aware of
the feel of his hard, muscular chest against her side.
  "Put me down."
  He seemed to snap out of a trance and his
gaze shifted to hers. "Your eyes are golden. They
used to be green."
  "Color contacts."
  "Even at night?"
  "The lights were dim, or off."
  "You cut your hair."
  "Yes."
  "It's darker."
  She shrugged. He, of all people should know her
natural hair color. He'd been the only one
to see it in the last six years since she'd had her
first bleach job and landed her first modeling contract.
  "I like it."
  That made her angry. He had no right to like
anything about her anymore. He was a married man.
"I don't care."
  His eyes narrowed and his mouth set in a firm
line.
  She refused to cower before the signs of his anger.

  "As fascinating as this discussion is, I thought you
had more important issues you wanted to talk about."
  He nodded. He gently lowered her into a wicker
armchair before seating
himself in its twin on the other side of a
small wicker and glass table. Both were well
away from the broken whiskey glass and first-aid
supplies, but near the fireplace whose gas lit
flames generated some heat.
  Contrarily, she missed the warmth of his body as a
slight autumn breeze caught the strands of her
chin-length hair and lifted them to chilling effect.
She shivered.
  "You are cold. We should talk inside."
  Where someone might hear? "No. It was just a
breeze."
  He shucked out of his coat and tucked it around her
shoulders before she knew what was happening. She tried
to shrug it off, but he held it in place by the
lapels. "Do not be stubborn."
  His nearness was doing something to her hard won
emotional distance so she agreed in order to get him
to back off. It didn't do a lot of good. The
coat carried his scent and warmed from his body, it was like
having his arms closed protectively around her.
Stifling the image that thought provoked, she focused
on getting down to business.
  She smoothed her oversized, sage green cable
knit sweater over the baby, reminding herself that
possession was nine-tenths of the law and no one
could deny that right now, she was the one in possession of
their baby. "What is it exactly you think we have
to talk about?" she asked, going on the offensive.
  He looked her in the eye, his blue gaze dark
with purpose. "I want my child."
  CHAPTER FOUR

  He wanted her baby.
  She had suspected it since her call to the
Paris apartment, but hearing him say it was like being
tossed into a black hole and having all the air
sucked out of the universe at one time.
  She put her hands protectively over her
tummy as if by doing so she could somehow prevent him from
carrying through on his monstrous plan. "You can't have
him."
  "You say him. Do you mean to say you know he is a
boy?"
  Should she lie? Would he fight any less
ruthlessly for a daughter? The implacable expression
on his face said not.
  "Yes."
  "How do you know?"
  "I had an ultrasound at four months."
  An expression of dawning understanding came
over his hardened features. "That's why you called the
apartment."
  She refused to answer.
  His hands fisted against the Italian suit wool
covering his thighs. "You were going to tell me our baby
was to be a boy." He sounded astonished by the fact.
  Why shouldn't he be? He'd treated her like the
lowest of the low, denied his paternity, ditched her
to marry another woman and evicted her from their apartment
like a bad tenant ninety days past lease. And
she'd called to

  tell him the sex of their child. How stupidly
sentimental could any one woman be?
  An expression like grief passed over his face,
though what he had to grieve about, she could not
imagine. "And you spoke to Phoebe."
  Why bother answering? He knew the details
already.
  "You refused to tell her where you were."
  "Do you blame me?"
  His jaw clenched. "Funnily enough. Yes. I
can blame you. Phoebe begged you to tell her where you
were and you refused. I've spent months of fruitless
searching and hired no less than five
world-class detective agencies, only to be
told by all of them that Xandra Fortune ceased
to exist."
  "They were right."
  "Yet, here you are."
  "No. Here you see Alexandra Dupree. I will
never be Xandra Fortune again." She would never allow
herself to be vulnerable to the man she had loved as
Xandra again, either.
  "You told me you were an orphan."
  She felt her mouth twist cynically. "No. That
is what your agency told you when you had me
investigated as a suitable candidate to be your
lover. I just never denied it."
  "You created an entire persona for yourself."
  "Yes."
  "You lied to me every day of our association."
Association? Was that anything like a relationship gone
sour? "I did not lie to you." "You let me call
you Xandra." "Many models use a working name."
"Only you lived a life completely separate from
this reality I now find in a New York apartment.
That woman, Madeleine, she is your sister?"
  "Yes. Hunter is her husband."
  His brows rose in mockery. "I had
figured that out."
  She clenched her fists so she wouldn't hit him.
  He laughed, but it was a sound without mirth.
"Don't try it. Your sister already slapped me."
He lifted his plastered hand as a silent indicator
of that wound. "I'm in no mood to sustain further
injury."
  "Poor you," she jeered.
  "Keep pushing it and my temper will override my
patience."
  Remembering the inimical fury he'd exhibited
the day she told him of her pregnancy, she
shivered. "I used to think you were such a cool guy,
no scenes, no temper tantrums, all sleek
sophisticated Greek male."
  "Do not forget rich."
  "I don't care about your filthy money. I never
did."
  "Yet it will be difficult for you to win against it, should
you attempt to withhold my child from me."
  Fear tried to take hold, but she refused
to give into it. "You don't scare me. This isn't
Greece. You can't take my baby away from me just
because you're rich and male. United States family
law is heavily balanced in the mother's
favor." She'd looked into it as soon as she'd
hit New York. She'd known even then that if
Dimitri ever decided to claim her child, she would be
facing difficulties ahead.
  "Perhaps, but can you afford the constant legal
battles? The draining expense of hiring top-notch
lawyers to plead your case."
  The picture he painted was a bleak one.
"I'll do whatever it takes to keep my child."
"Anything?"

  "Yes! Anything."
  "Then come with your baby to my home."
  That sent her to her feet in a hurry. "You
arrogant toad! Do you honestly believe I would go
anywhere with you after everything that has happened?"
  Her stomach churned. Did he think she was such a
dope that she would let him set her and their son up
somewhere convenient while he lived happy families
with Phoebe? Another ugly thought followed the last
one. "I won't be your mistress," she hissed with
enough venom to slay him.
  He too shot out of his chair. "I'm not looking
for a
  mistress."
  "Good, because I won't be one. Not ever. I
learned all I wanted to know about having
uncommitted sex with a guy so primitive he should
be in a museum. The next time I have sex with a
man, I'm going to have a ring on my finger and an
avowal of love to go with it!"
  "Just who is this man?" he demanded in a near
roar.
  "I don't know, but when I find him, he won't
be anything Like you!"
  "You think not?" Then he reached out and grabbed the
lapels of his suit jacket again, yanking her to him.
"I think this mythical man will be just like me because he will
be me. No other man touches the mother of my
  child."
  He'd said the words a breath above her lips and then
closed the distance. And the electric current of
desire was there, waiting, lurking in her deepest
subconscious to come to the fore with the first touch of his mouth
to
  hers.
  She went under so fast, she didn't even have time
to despise herself for her weakness. His mouth moved over
hers with truly possessive passion and she
responded like a woman deprived of
physical intimacy for years.
  Her hands locked around his neck, her body
stretched to press itself to his and her mouth opened in
serious invitation. He took it and deepened the kiss
even as his hands caressed her back, pressing her
closer to him, letting her feel his heat and his
excitement. Blatant evidence of that excitement
brought her to her senses and she shoved herself away from
him so fast and so hard, she stumbled backward and
fell flat on her bottom.
  He was on his knees beside in her in a second.
"You foolish woman! You could have hurt yourself. Are
you trying to kill our son? Are you all right?" His
hands were doing a hasty examination of her and her body
was getting the wrong message entirely from those
impersonal touches.
  She slapped his hands away. "Stop it. I'm
fine." Her bottom was sore, but she wasn't about
to tell him that. "Babies are resilient. I'm not
going to lose him from such a small fall." Oh
Lord, please let that be true.
  "You would take such a risk?" He glared at
her. "What other risks have you taken with our child?"
  If she'd had a gun, she would have shot him, or
at least at him...ffscare him a little and
wipe that condescending look of censure off his face.
"It's not my fault you acted like a lecher and kissed
me. What was I supposed to do, tolerate it?"
  He swelled with affronted pride. "You have never
merely tolerated my kiss in your life."
  She had no argument to that, so she didn't try
making one. "Married men are not supposed to kiss
women other than their wives," she said instead. He
shrugged. "I agree. Does this worry you?" Was
he for real? Of course it worried her. He was

  married to Phoebe and he'd just soul-kissed
Alexandra. "Am I crazy, or are you?" she
asked, feeling helplessly
  bewildered.
  His mouth twisted in a grimace. "I have been
crazy since the first report from the private
investigators trying to locate you. They had not a
single lead and you had disappeared in one of the largest
cities in the world."
  He tucked the suit coat around her slender
shoulders once again, then leaned down and lifted her in
his arms. Was there something about imminent fatherhood that
made the male of the species go all basic? She
could remember only one other time he'd
carried her during their year together and that had been one
night she'd had a little too much champagne and
fallen asleep in the car on the way home.
  Yet, tonight, he'd picked her up like he owned
her. Twice. "Please put me down,
Dimitri." It was a sign of how vulnerable she
felt that she made it a request instead of a demand.
  Either way, he did not comply. "I do not think I
should. You are too volatile right now."
  She closed her eyes in frustration. "I'll
control myself if you keep your hands and lips to yourself."
  "I cannot promise this."
  "Poor Phoebe. Does she know what an
unfaithful letch she is married to?"
  "Phoebe is married to a man of absolute
honor," he replied, his voice laced with furious
affront.
  "You? Don't make me laugh," she scorned.
A man with integrity did not
marry one woman after impregnating another.
  Dimitri sat down, keeping Alexandra pinned
in his lap. His blue gaze scorched into hers. "You
believe I am married to Phoebe? And you believe
I have no honor?" The last was said with escalating
anger.
  "I suppose you're going to try to tell me
you're not married to your little Greek paragon."
  "This is true. I am not."
  Alexandra closed her eyes. She didn't know
why, but she hadn't expected him to lie to her. She
opened them again and stared into his deceitful face.
"She told me she was your wife, so you can just forget
about the smoothy deceptions."
  "She would not have told you she was my wife." His
voice was filled with such conviction that Alexandra thought
back to the devastating phone call.
  "She told me she was Mrs. Petronides."
  "But then she told you she was married to my
brother."
  "What?"
  "She told you she had wed my brother."
  "She did no such thing!" But she could have.
Alexandra remembered the voice still talking as she'd
ended the call.
  Dimitri wouldn't let her look away from him,
his compelling eyes holding hers hostage. "She
did."
  "But..."
  "She also pleaded with you to tell her where you were."
  Alexandra remembered that part. "I
wasn't about to have a heart-to-heart with your new
wife."
  "She is not my wife."
  "Prove it."
  In his shock at her demand, Dimitri's grip
loosened and Alexandra extricated herself from his lap,
this time much more carefully. "You say you are not married
to Phoebe Petronides. Well, I don't
trust you anymore,

  Dimitri. If you want me to believe it,
you'll have to bring me proof."
  He shot to his feet again, all outraged male.
"How dare you question my word?"
  "You wouldn't believe how easy it is," she
admitted. That seemed to shake him. "I will get you
the proof you require," he said angrily.
  "Fine. Until then, I suggest you go." "I
am not letting you out of my sight again." "What do you
propose, setting up camp outside my sister's
door and dogging my every footstep?"
  "Count on it, but I have no desire to sleep in
a hallway. You can come with me to my suite."
  "No way. I'm not staying in a hotel room with
you." "There are two bedrooms, though there was
a time you would not have required the other one."
  She glared at his, to her mind, savagely
insensitive reminder. "Forget it I'm not going."
  "Then I will stay here. It is a large apartment.
I'm sure your sister has a spare room I could
use."
  She felt flummoxed. "You can't stay here.
Madeleine would have a hissy
fit. She hates you."
  He shrugged his broad shoulders. "Speaking of
hissy fits, your brother-in-law implied your mother
would have one if you were featured in a scandalous
article."
  Alexandra couldn't prevent her eyes from rolling
in exasperation. "Yes." She'd spent six years
living as someone else to protect her mother's sense of
family dignity. Dupree women did not work.
  Only this generation of Dupree women would have been
out on the street if one of them hadn't ignored the
old money heritage and gotten a job to support
the family. The cousin of a friend from school had offered
her a modeling contract. She'd taken it with one
proviso...she work anonymously under an assumed
name. He'd gone one better and helped her create
Xandra Fortune, French orphan turned
fashion model.
  Dimitri was speaking again. "She would be most
upset to see an expose interview with her
daughter's discarded tycoon lover and rejected father
of her child."
  Her body didn't know whether to go faint or
boil with fury at his implied threat and twisting of the
facts. "I didn't discard you. You dumped me
to marry Phoebe, the Greek virgin bride, or
don't you remember?"
  "I am not married to Phoebe."
  "You don't have to have committed a murder to be
guilty of a crime."
  Instead of getting angrier, he smiled. "Are you
saying you believe I did not marry her?"
  "No!"
  "You still require proof?"
  "Yes."
  "Then you'll have to convince your sister to give me a
bed for the
night because I'm not letting you out of my sight."
  "And if I don't, you're going to make sure
my family's name gets a good smearing in the
tabloids, is that it?" she asked with all the
derision at her disposal.
  He didn't even flinch. "Yes."
  "I despise you."
  "Not hate?"
  "No. I don't love you anymore, but I
refuse to hate you. Part of you is in my child and I
won't ever have my child believing there is anything about him
I could hate." Her son deserved better than a
mother eaten up by bitterness.
  A look she could not decipher settled on
Dimitri's

  chiseled features. "That is commendable. Now, shall
we talk to your sister about my accommodation?"
  In the end, Alexandra decided it would be better
to accompany Dimitri to his suite. The mere
thought of trying to work out the current complications in her
life with her younger sister breathing fire at
Dimitri left her cold. Alexandra did not
want Madeleine and Hunter forced into a position of
enmity with a man of Dimitri's wealth and power because of
her.
  Going to Dimitri's suite was the only workable
solution. It wasn't going to be all that bad, she
decided. She didn't need to worry about
Dimitri getting to her. She was well and
truly over him. The kiss had just been physical
reaction to memories and she wouldn't let it happen
again.
  All that was left between them was to determine how they
would handle
his role in her son's life.
  If anyone had asked Alexandra two days ago
the chances of her sitting down to breakfast with
Dimitri in his hotel suite, she would have said
nil. Nada. Zilch. Absolutely not one.
Yet, here they sat. She pushed her eggs and fruit
around the plate of breakfast room service had
provided minutes earlier. He eyed her with
calculating regard.
  She knew what he saw. A positive hag.
She hadn't been able to sleep again last night, not
with the knowledge that Dimitri rested on the other side of the
wall. Her eyes looked bruised while her
complexion wore its usual sallow tint from her
pregnancy. Most women finished with morning
sickness at three to four months. Not Alexandra.
She still woke up every day feeling like she had the flu and
she was in her fifth month.
  Her one consolation was Dimitri didn't look
much
  better. She'd been too overwrought to notice it
the night before, but he'd lost weight and there were new
lines around his eyes. His grandfather's illness coupled
with the search for his unborn child must have taken their toll
on the man usually untouched by human frailty.
  "You need to stop playing with your food and eat it."
  Her head snapped up. "Don't tell me what
to do."
  He leaned back in his chair on the other side
of the small walnut table and smiled. "It appears
someone needs to. I have always heard pregnant
women glow. You look as if you've just come off a
nine-day flu."
  Stupid tears filled her eyes. She knew she
wasn't the beautiful model he'd gone to great
lengths to get in his bed any longer, but did he have
to rub it in? She gritted her teeth and blinked her
eyes, trying to rid them of their wet sheen.
  She hated the emotional weakness she'd experienced
since getting pregnant. "It's a good thing I'm
not trying to make a living as a model any longer
then, isn't it?" He reached across the table, grabbing
her hand before she had a chance to pull it away. "I
did not say you are no
longer beautiful, merely that you look
unwell."
  She jerked her hand out from under his as the warmth of his
skin burned into her own. "I'm pregnant." It was
fine for him to sit there looking a bit worse for the
wear, but still sexy as sin and in sickeningly good health.
"Yes, but not happily so from the look of things."
"Are you trying to imply I don't want my
baby?" He exhaled an impatient breath. "I
think the fact you are five months into an obviously
difficult pregnancy is ample proof you want
my child."
  "I don't want your child. I want this baby."
His lips creased in a devilish grin. "Same
thing."

  Unwilling to agree on any point, but equally
unwilling to deny the truth, she remained silent and
took a bite of ripe melon, savoring its
sweet and juicy freshness in her mouth. "I want
this baby and I'm keeping him. Do you
  hear me?" His mouth twisted. "Have I at any
time implied that
  you should not?"
  "You told me you wanted my son."
  "You believe I am married to Phoebe,
therefore I must want the baby without the mother?" His hands
lifted in an expression of exasperation she knew
well. "Do I have this right?"
  She wasn't totally certain any longer, so she
shrugged. He could make what he liked of it.
  "Your opinion of me is very low," he said
grimly, all humor gone from his countenance. "I should
have the proof you need of Phoebe's marriage
to Spiros within the hour."
  She remained mute. She'd believe it when she
saw it. It wasn't his
brother Spiros who had announced his engagement to the
young Greek heiress.
  "I can see it is of no use attempting to talk
with you until I have the documents."
  "I don't want to talk to you at all," she
admitted,
  It was a useless sentiment. She was pregnant with
his child. They would have to come to terms eventually, but those
terms would not include her giving up her baby.
  "Do not play the child."
  She forced herself to eat a bite of her eggs. Their
flurry warmth tasted like sawdust on her tongue.
She had believed she was even tempered before she met
Dimitri.
  "You said you are no longer modeling to support
  yourself."
  She nodded, wary of where this was leading. She
didn't want to give away any more information than
she had to.
  "What are you doing now?"
  "Maybe I'm just living off Hunter's
largess." She knew the idea of another man
supporting her while she was pregnant with his child would
infuriate Dimitri.
  Sure enough, his eyes narrowed. "Are you?"
  "I'm living with them," she pointed out.
  He just waited and when she remained silent, he
sighed. "I already have five reputable detective
agencies on my retainer. Now that I know the name you
are living under, it should be a matter of a phone call
or two to elicit the information."
  "I'm working as a translator and interpreter for
an agency that sends out temps."
  His blue eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. "You
go out to work for strangers?" He made it sound like she
was some sort of call girl or something.
  "It's not that different from doing a modeling
assignment."
  "But then you knew the photographers, the
other models."
  She pushed her plate aside and took a sip of
herbal tea. "What difference does it make?"
  "You are pregnant and obviously ill." His
gaze wandered over her with tactile force. "You should not
be working."
  If he didn't want Hunter supporting her,
how did he expect her to live? "I have
to support myself. I refuse to be my younger
sister's charity case."
  "Why have you not returned to your parents" home?"
  A traditional Greek man who shared the loving
rapport he had with his grandfather could never understand

  the complicated relationship she had with her mother.
"I'm not welcome," was all she said.
  "This cannot be. You are pregnant with their
grandchild. Surely your parents desire to care for
you at this
  time."
  "My father died six years ago and my mother is
only willing for me to return to New Orleans and the
family home if I invent a fictitious
husband who conveniently died recently or lives
overseas. It's positively draconian,
but that's the way she is. She refuses to even
discuss the baby and hasn't come to visit
Madeleine since I moved
  in."
  His jaw set. "You refused to invent this pretend
  spouse?"
  "Yes." She'd rather live without her mother's
approval than continue pretending to be something and
someone she wasn't.
  "It will be a relief for her then that the real and in
fact living father of your child will soon be your husband as
well."
  CHAPTER FIVE

  "As jokes go, that's not a very good one."
  He fixed her with an impenetrable stare. "I am
not joking, pethi mou."
  "Don't call me that. It's an endearment and
I'm not dear to you which only makes it an insult."
  He shoved his plate away from him in an
uncharacteristic show of temper. "My marriage
proposal is a joke and endearments an insult.
Is there nothing I can do right with you?"
  "You could leave me alone."
  His blue eyes darkened to the color of the
sky just before midnight. "This I will not do."
  She forced another bite of melon down, its
succulent juiciness lost on her. "I figured as
much."
  "Then why suggest it?"
  "Wishful thinking?"
  "Do not be facetious. This is a serious discussion
we are having here."
  "What exactly are we discussing? Your
attempt at bigamy?"
  His fist slammed down on the table, causing the
dishes and plates to clatter alarmingly. "I am not
married."
  She eyed him warily, almost believing him.
Maybe, deep down, she did believe him, but some
imp in her wanted him to prove it, to see how it
felt to have his word questioned on a claim that should be
accepted without hesitation.
  "So you said. Proof is to arrive within the hour, or

  something like that..." She waved her hand in an airy
gesture.
  "Right," he gritted out between clenched teeth. She
really had to stop baiting him. "Let's say I
believe you. Why would your brother marry your
fianc@ee?"
  "As I told you last night, your and my
relationship came as a great shock to my family."
Pain crossed his features. "The photographer
did his homework and had chapter and verse on our
year-long association. My brother was appalled on
Phoebe's behalf. She'd been made to look a
fool, something his perception of our family honor
could not tolerate."8So he married her? Wouldn't your
intended marriage have been just as efficacious?"
  "No. I was the philanderer, the one caught with my
pants down in public so to speak."
  She swallowed a smile at the imagery.
Dimitri Petronides in such a vulnerable
position was something she'd give a great deal to see.
"I can't believe you agreed to let your fianc@ee
marry your brother."
  "He convinced her to elope with him. Her pride was
saved. Our family honor was saved and now I am
free to marry you."
  He looked for all the world like he expected her
to leap for joy and congratulate him on his good
planning. She would have rather dumped his coffee in his
lap. "Charming. You can marry your pregnant
mistress now that the virginal bride-to-be
has flown the coop. Thanks, but no thanks."
  "Do you think our son will thank you for denying
  him his heritage, his Greek family, his role
as my heir?"
  "We don't have to be married for you to make our
  son your heir or for you to be part of his life. You
can have access."
  "Of what good is this? You live an ocean away.
How can I be his father with two continents and an ocean
between us?"
  "I don't know." She stood up wearily. She
had to get ready to go to work. She had an assignment
in two hour's time across town. "You'll have to forgive
me for not having all the answers just yet. You ditched
me three months ago, certain the baby I carried
was not yours. I haven't been thinking in terms of
parental sharing and visitation rights."
  He stood as well. "Where are you going?"
  "I have an assignment in a couple of hours.
I'm going to get ready."
  "I told you I am not allowing you out of my
sight."
  "Then come along," she offered sarcastically, "but
I'm going to work."
  She came to rue those flippantly
uttered words. Dimitri insisted on doing just that. In
addition, he refused to take a cab, but had his car
called, along with his two bodyguards. It had been
a while since she went out with security men in tow,
a little over three months to be exact.
  Dimitri refused to wait in the car while she
did the short translation job for the group of French
tourists. She walked beside the tour guide,
translating the woman's rapid dialogue concerning
the Empire State Building into French while
Dimitri and his bodyguards brought up the rear of the
line.
  It would have been a comical sight if she wasn't
so tired and stressed. By the time she slid into his car
for the ride back to his hotel, she was disgustingly
grateful she hadn't had to wait in line for a taxi.
She didn't even

  have enough energy to enjoy looking at the city's
Christmas decorations out the limousine's window.
Commenting on her drooping appearance, he insisted on
stopping for lunch at one of Manhattan's
upscale Italian restaurants.
  Alexandra walked back into the main room of the
suite from her bedroom just as Dimitri was
turning from the fax machine, several sheets of paper
in his hand. She'd avoided him since their return
by the simple expedient of taking a nap. For some
reason, she'd slept better than she had in
ages.
  Dimitri waved the papers before her. "Proof."
  "Proof?" She was still a little rummy from the nap and
didn't know what he was talking about until she
looked down and read the top sheet. "Oh."
  She put out her hand for the sheaf of papers and he
gave them to her. The first one was a marriage
license. It was in Greek, but she was now
almost as conversant in that language as she was in both
English and French. She easily translated the
names and the male listed was Spiros Petronides,
not Dimitri.
  The second one was a photo of Spiros and
Phoebe in wedding regalia. Phoebe looked a
little shell-shocked. Spiros looked arrogantly
satisfied. Typical Petronides male.
  The third was a letter from Spiros affirming
Dimitri's account of the situation. This one was in
English.
  Alexandra took a deep breath, feeling an
emotion she should not be feeling.
Unadulterated relief. She told herself it was because
she didn't have to worry about the complications of a
stepmother being around the baby so early in life, but her
heart mocked her. And that scared her to death.
  "Why was she at our apartment?" She didn't
notice her slip of the tongue until a look of
approval settled over Dimitri's face. "I
mean your apartment. I was evicted," she added for good
measure, wiping the not fully formed smile off his
face.
  "I have had to take over the Athens office
completely since Grandfather's first heart attack.
Spiros and Phoebe moved to Paris so he could
run the office there. I gave them the apartment as a
wedding present."
  "Is that something like conscience money? You felt
guilty for embarrassing her with a public tiff with
your discarded mistress, so you gave her the apartment
you'd evicted me from?"
  She should have kept her mouth shut. She really should
have, but she couldn't seem to remember that when she was
around him. His eyes snapped fury at her as he
took one menacing step forward after another. She
backed up, but eventually hit the wall between the main
room and her bedroom.
  "It was a joke," she said weakly. "This is not."
  Then his mouth closed over hers and she forgot he was
only doing it to
punish her. She forgot everything but how incredible it
felt to be held so close to him, to taste him on
her tongue, to be surrounded with his smell, his heat,
his desire.
  She worked her hands into the space between his jacket and
his shirt, reveling in the feel of his muscles under
her exploring fingers. He shuddered and she exulted in
her power over this dominant Greek male. He
pulled her to him, pressing their bodies as close as
they could go without taking off their clothes. It wasn't
close enough.
  She started unbuttoning his shirt as he slid her
sweater

  up to expose the tight skin over her womb. His
hand settled on it and he caressed her there, touching every
square centimeter of the football-size lump. The
baby moved and Dimitri stopped kissing her to stare
down at his hand on her stomach in awe. The baby
kicked right in the center of his palm and Dimitri's
eyes slid shut, his breath stilling in his chest.
  He let it out very slowly and met her
eyes. "My son."
  "Yes," she whispered, unable to deny such a
poignant claim.
  Triumph glowed in his indigo gaze before his mouth
settled over hers again, this time with such gentleness she
felt tears seep out of the corner of her eyes. He
kissed her lips as if meeting them for the first time,
while his hand continued to explore the new contours of
her body.
  His possessive touch coupled with the tenderness of his
kiss completely undermined any resistance and she
fell back into the kiss without a murmur.
  She had his buttons undone and her fingers were
circling his hardened male nipples when a shrill
sound filtered through the passionate haze in her mind.
She crashed back to reality with a bruising emotional
bump. What was she doing?
  She tore her mouth from his. "The phone."
  His eyes were glazed with desire and his skin had that
flushed look he got when they made love. He
tried to catch her mouth again and she turned her head.
  "The phone," she repeated as it rang again, its
piercing jangle skating across her nerves.
  He gently pulled the elasticized band of
Alexandra's doeskin pants back to waist
level before smoothing her caramel colored crocheted
sweater back into place.
  "This is not over," he said and then turned to answer
the phone.
  She walked to the other side of the suite, wanting
to get as much distance between them as she could. She'd been
so sure she was safe from her attraction
to Dimitri, certain her feelings for him were dead.
She might not love him anymore, but she wanted
him and her pulsing body proved it.
  "Yes, Grandfather." Dimitri went silent,
apparently listening. "I remember." He cast
Alexandra an assessing look. "It's being
handled."
  Why did she have the lowering suspicion the it being
handled was her?
  Dimitri made a few more remarks in Greek,
asked his Grandfather about his health, listened silently,
said goodbye and hung up. He turned to face her and
she couldn't suppress a shiver. His eyes glowed like
those of a predator with his prey firmly in his sights.
  She stepped backward even though he hadn't
made a move toward her. "That was a mistake."
  He didn't ask what that was, he merely
smiled. "I don't think so. It did not
feel like a mistake to me pethi mou."
  "I'm not falling back into your bed, Dimitri."
  "Are you certain of this?" he asked lazily.
  "Yes."
  "We shall see."
  "I think I'll order room service. I'm
hungry." Her appetite had increased over the
past couple of days. Maybe the awful morning
sickness was finally passing.
  "I have a better idea."
  "What?" she asked, feeling wary.
  "Let's go out."
  "I don't know..." Being seen in public with a
man

  of Dimitri's wealth was always a risk for media
exposure.
  His eyes warmed with sensual lights. "We can
stay here if you prefer."
  "I'll get my jacket." A woman had to know
how to weigh her options and the risk of staying in the
suite with a sexually charged Dimitri far outweighed
her concern about being caught in his company by the media.
  The muted glow of candlelight lent entirely too
intimate an aspect to Alexandra's
dinner with Dimitri. He'd surprised her once
again by taking her to one of the see and be seen
restaurants so popular among the sophisticated
New York social set. Dim lighting didn't
stop recognition and surreptitious glances from one
table to another.
  Alexandra tried to concentrate on the food in
front of her and ignore her compelling dinner
companion. Dimitri had ordered a much larger meal
for her than she usually ate and she had surprised
herself by consuming
almost all of it. The same thing had happened at
lunch that afternoon. If nothing else, sparring with her
ex-lover seemed to spur her appetite.
  "Xandra-was
  "My name is Alexandra," she said, before he could
complete his sentence. "Xandra Fortune is dead."
  Something passed across his face when she made that
statement, but in the dim lighting she couldn't tell if
it was pain or irritation. "You had no plans to go
back to modeling after the baby was born?" he asked,
conspicuously using the past tense for her plans,
implying she had new ones.
  "No."
  He studied her like a man trying
to decipher a complicated puzzle. "Why?" "There
were many reasons." "Very cryptic." He smiled in
a way that used to send her pulse to hyperspeed.
"Tell me some of them."
  She gave a mental shrug. Why not? This at
least was better than arguing over custody rights and his
insulting notion that now he believed her about the baby
she should fall all over herself getting to the altar before
he changed his mind.
  "I want to spend more time with my baby than that
type of career would allow and it would be too
difficult to maintain two separate lives with a
baby in tow. It was hard enough for me, but I think a
life like that would be confusing and probably even frightening
for a child."
  He mulled that over much longer than she thought
necessary. "Explain to me again why the Xandra Fortune
image."
  Had she explained it a first time? She couldn't
remember. She knew she'd alluded to it. "My
mother did not approve of my working. Dupree women
do not work," she said in a fair imitation of her mother's
soft Southern drawl. "But it was my choice of
career that really upset her. The idea of her
daughter traversing a catwalk in front
of her peers or worse, doing swimsuit or
lingerie ads sent her into hysterics."
  "You chose to create a different persona rather than
give up your desire to become a model?" he
asked.
  "I didn't have a choice. It was either pick up
a career or see my mother dispossessed and my sister
thrown out of boarding school for nonpayment of
tuition."
  "Explain this to me. Where was your father?"
  "Dead."
  "That is unfortunate. You have my belated
condolences."

  The words were formal, but the emotion in his voice
left her in no doubt to his sincerity.
  "Thank you. He was a dear man, a fossil
collector. Old bones interested him; business
did not. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, the family had
been living completely on credit for two years before
he died."
  "When did this happen?"
  "Six years ago. I'd just graduated from my
last year at Our Lady's Bower and thankfully the
cousin of a school chum had shown some interest
in my modeling for his magazine." She took another
bite of her lobster fettuccine. It practically
melted in her mouth.
  "Our Lady's Bower sounds Like a convent, or
something."
  "It is. Dupree girls have been French convent
educated for the last six generations."
  "No wonder it was so easy for you to adopt a
French persona. Your accent is flawless, your
gestures often gallic and your outlook quite
European."
  "Yes." She'd selected France for the debut of
Xandra Fortune for those very reasons.
  "Go on," Dimitri prompted.
  She grimaced. "There's not much else to tell.
Mother would have ignored the redundancy notices
until the sheriff showed up to evict us from our home.
Madeleine still had two years left at Our
Lady's Bower and I couldn't bear for her to lose that
stability after we'd all just lost Papa."
  "So you went to work."
  "Under an assumed name. I was trying to spare my
mother's feelings. It didn't work."
  "She could not reconcile herself to the thought of her
daughter working?"
  "No." She smiled ruefully. "I've always
felt guilty, that I had failed her, but I
simply could not think what else to do. I hadn't
gone to college yet. I was too young for most well
paid career choices. Modeling looked like my only
option. My friend's cousin helped me create Xandra
Fortune. It was cloak and dagger stuff and he really
got into it. He made sure the only people who knew
about Alexandra Dupree's connection to Xandra
Fortune were me, my family and him."
  "So this man knew you were Alexandra Dupree, but
I, your lover for a year did not." He sounded
mortally offended.
  "Got it in one. I didn't know about Phoebe,
the patiently waiting bride-to-be, either. I
guess we're even on that score." Her throat
felt dry from all the talking and she took a long
cool sip of water.
  He didn't take the bait, surprising her.
"Your mother's sensibilities are the reason you
refused New York assignments."
  "Yes. I never took an assignment in the
States period. I was careful to avoid doing
commercials for international products and as you know,
I
tried to stay out of the media limelight in my
personal life." "Yet, you were well-known in
Europe." "Yes, but only as a French model,
not a supermodel. My biggest claim to fame was
being your lover and you were careful to keep that fact under
wraps."
  "Not completely," he said enigmatically. "You
did your family a great service and your mother should be
proud of you."
  His words warmed her, but Alexandra felt a burble
of laughter well up and let it out. "Proud of me?
Her scandalous working daughter who got pregnant
without the benefit of matrimony? She hadn't
forgiven me yet for not saving the family home.
I'll be the black sheep of

  the family forever at the rate I'm going." She
tried to hide the hurt that knowledge caused her. She
didn't want Dimitri to see her weakness.
  "Your mother lost her home?"
  "My income as a model kept my mother in
Chanel suits and provided a complete education for
my sister. She graduated from Smith a month before
she married Hunter last year." Pride in
Madeleine's accomplishment tinged
Alexandra's voice.
  Then she sighed. "The money did not stretch far enough
to keep up payments on a heavily mortgaged
mansion and the staff necessary to run it. Mother was forced
to sell and move into a converted apartment serviced by a
daily maid. Although it's still in a socially
acceptable New Orleans neighborhood, it is not
the Dupree Mansion."
  "And she blames you for this? Not your irresponsible
father who left his wife and daughters in debt?"
  She didn't take exception to Dimitri's
view of her father. Dimitri was a responsible
guy, someone who would never leave his family in the
lurch. He couldn't comprehend a man who had
absolutely no sense about
money.
  "Mama doesn't exactly blame me for losing
the mansion, but she was furious when I wouldn't stop
modeling after it was sold. She would have much preferred
I married well rather than work to support her and
Madeleine."
  "But you did not wish to marry well?"
  "I wanted to marry a man I loved, not a
bank account."
  "Then it should please you to marry me. If
the words you spoke at Chez Renee were true, I can
give you both."
  "They were true then," so much so that parts of her
heart were still cracked and bleeding after the abrupt way
they'd broken up, "but I don't love you
anymore."
  "I refuse to believe a woman of such strong
character could fall out of love at the first sign of
adversity."
  She was beginning to have a horrible suspicion he was
right, but she wasn't about to feed his smug pride
admitting it. "I wouldn't call you ejecting me from
your life with the force of a rocket launcher so you could
marry another woman the first sign of adversity."
  "Yet I did not marry her."
  "Because your brother beat you to the punch."
  He sighed. "You are sure I would have married her
otherwise?"
  Why was he asking her that? Of course she was
sure. He'd made his position very clear that last
meeting in Paris. "Yes."
  "If I told you I had already decided not to go
through with the marriage, you would not believe me, hmm?"
  Was he saying that? No. This was just another one of his
subtle manipulations. "Don't tax your
personal integrity making the claim.
You're right. I wouldn't buy it."
  "And yet I had hired a detective agency
to find you within days of you leaving Paris."
  "I waited for you to change your mind for a whole
week, Dimitri. You didn't even call. I can
believe you started to consider the consequences if I'd
told the truth about the baby, but I don't think you
were prepared to call off your wedding because of it. I
didn't matter to you then, and I don't matter to you
now. It's all about the baby and I'm not stupid enough
to forget that." His hand gripped his wine glass very
tightly. The

  same hand that still wore a bandage from the night he'd
come to Madeleine and Hunter's party.
  "How did you cut yourself? I never asked." Her
mind had been on other things that night.
  He carefully put his wine glass down, staring
at it as if it held the answer to an important
question. Then he looked up at her and she gasped.
  His eyes held a torment that was haunting.
  "When Madeleine told me you were dead, I
crushed the glass in my hand."
  CHAPTER SIX

  Dimitri'So statement hung in the air between them
like a bomb that had not exploded, but still might.
  "You were that upset at the prospect of losing your
child?" She had not considered Dimitri's emotional
involvement with their baby. Which wasn't all that
surprising considering she'd seen him as an emotionless
monster for the past three months.
  His jaw tautened. "If it pleases you to believe
so, yes."
  "I'm sorry."
  He inclined his head. "With your background, you should
understand the importance of our child being raised in his home
country of Greece and as a Petronides."
  That was more like it. Dimitri wanted his son because
family pride demanded he be raised
Petronides. "I understand the importance of loving
my baby for his own sake, not the sake of family
pride. Whether he's raised a Dupree or
Petronides, he will still be worthy of my love.
Can you say the same?"
  Dimitri's features took on the cast of the
Iceman. "Apparently you do not believe me
capable of any level of emotion, so why should I
bother answering?"
  She'd hurt him, wounded his sense of self and for
some reason, she simply couldn't bear that. "I
didn't mean-was
  "Leave it. Do you want dessert?"
  "No." She couldn't eat anything now.

  "Then we will return to the suite. If we are
to have yet another argument, we will do it in privacy."
  The drive back to his hotel was a silent one.
She felt guilty and kept telling herself she
shouldn't, but the feeling remained. Just because
Dimitri did not love her did not mean he was not
capable of loving his son. She'd had no right
to imply that it did.
  She was still trying to work up to an apology when he
let them both into the suite a half an hour later.
  "Dimitri, I-was
  "I said leave it." He rubbed his forehead.
"I'm
  tired."
  His admission of weakness stunned her.
  His lips twisted wryly. "You think I cannot get
exhausted like the next man? We all have our
limits, pethi
  mou."
  He hadn't in the twelve months she'd lived with
him.
  "I have not slept well for the three months I have
searched for you," he further shocked her by admitting.
"I believed once I found you, everything would fall
into place. You would agree to marry me. We would be
on the next plane to Greece so you could meet my
grandfather. I believed I would have to assuage your
anger, I did not expect to find a woman who
hated me."
  "I don't hate you," she averred, "I told
you that."
  "You do not wish to hate me for our child's sake. I
understand this, but you do not want to marry me. You do not
trust me. I am at a loss where to go from here. Just
as you saw modeling as the only solution to your
family's financial difficulties, I see
marriage as the only workable solution to our
situation."
  It was her turn to sigh. "I know you do."
  "And I am sexually frustrated." His laugh was
harsh. "I don't like going without."
  She didn't know if she could handle Dimitri in
this strange mood. She was used to him taking charge,
demanding. His admissions of weakness
surprised her silly. "It hasn't been that long,
surely?"
  "I have not made love to another woman since the
night I told you I was marrying Phoebe."
  For a hopelessly oversexed male like Dimitri that
was a lifetime. No wonder he wasn't himself. She
didn't know why he had abstained, but something deep
inside her was fiercely glad he had. "I see."
  "I doubt it, but maybe you will someday." All
tiredness disappeared from his expression to be replaced
with predatory sensuality. "You could help me out."
  She backed toward her bedroom. "I think
I'll make an early night of it, t-take a
shower, m-maybe read a book."
  He'd already proven she couldn't resist him
physically. She wasn't about to stick around and offer
herself as the main course to end his months long sexual
fast.
  She took the image of his primitive smile with
her as she closed the door to her bedroom. She
pushed the lock in for good measure and took her first
unhindered breath in five minutes. She couldn't
let him make love to her again. She was too
vulnerable to him and she needed to think. She wouldn't be
able to do that with any sense of clarity while
under the influence of his passionate nature.
  Her eyes closed, Alexandra rinsed the lather from
her hair, enjoying the feel of hot water cascading
over her body from three different directions.
  The luxury of the spa shower had even won out over
a long soak in the oversized, jetted tub. Two
showerheads

  shot warm showers of water toward her body from chest
height while another sent down a gentle spray from
above her head. She felt completely pampered in the
glass and tile enclosure.
  So pampered that she was almost able to push her chaotic
thoughts away, but not quite. Somehow, she had to work things out
with Dimitri. He had as much right to love their son
as she did and more importantly, their child had a right
to two loving parents if possible. Dimitri had
made it clear such an eventuality was possible, but
he did not love her.
  Was it right though, for her to make her child pay the
price for her own unfulfilled dreams? And their
son would pay a price if she refused to marry
Dimitri. He would be born outside the bonds of
matrimony. For many that would not matter, but among his
Greek family and future business
associates, it would.
  Her own mother might never accept him. While that
made Alexandra furious, she knew there was little she
could do to turn around a lifetime of conditioning. Her
mother's belief system was as ingrained as a fossil in
  rock.
  In his fossil research, her father had often been
forced to leave rock sediment on one of his specimens
because to remove it would be to destroy the fossil. She
didn't want to destroy her mother. She didn't
even want to upset her. Because despite her mother's
irritating habit of seeing the world only from her own
point of view, Alexandra loved her and wanted her
to be happy.
  Wishing she could brush her troubling thoughts away so
easily, Alexandra swiped the water from her eyes
and opened them...ffblackness. She blinked, but no
light penetrated the darkness surrounding her. Had there
been a power outage? Didn't all the larger
hotels have generators?
  Suddenly the stream of water pulsing down on her
head ceased. The two other showerheads kept going
however, leaving her feeling disoriented. She fought down
panic as she reached out to touch the tile of the wall
for a sense of reference and touched bare flesh
instead.
  For an instant her brain could not take in the
significance of the hair roughened, heated flesh under
her agitated fingers. What...? Then,
"Dimitri?" whispered because she couldn't force more
volume from the frozen muscles in her throat.
  "It is I." His voice surrounded her with more
warmth than the steam from the hot water flowing over both
their bodies.
  "You shouldn't be here."
  An arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her
forward. "Should I not?" he asked against her shocked
lips.
  "No. I don't want this." Did she sound as
unconvincing to him as she sounded to herself?
  Knowing fingers brushed gently over nipples that had
gone turgid and aching the moment she realized his naked
body stood so close to her own.
  "Are you sure about that?"
  "We need to talk," she tried again, while her
body shook with the need to melt into his.
  "No," he said with harsh emphasis. "We have
talked enough. It gets us nowhere, but this..." He
squeezed her nipple between thumb and forefinger and she
could not stifle her moan. "This I can give
you."
  "Sex won't solve our problems. It's what
started them

  in the first place," she said, trying one last time
to keep hold of her senses.
  "No. It was not the sex. When we make love it
is like a poem of rare beauty and beat. Words have
brought this distance between us. My words. Your words. I will
not let it continue. I cannot let it continue."
  The urgency in his voice affected her as deeply
as the emotive words and she felt tears burn the
back of her throat. He was right. Their distance had
been caused by words. Making love had never been
anything but beautiful between them, even that last
tempestuous time.
  She couldn't stand the distance any longer either, but
undoubtedly for a different reason. There in the steamy
darkness, she accepted a truth her heart had been
telling her all along. She was not over Dimitri
Petronides. She would never be over him. The
love she felt for him was too strong, too deeply
imbedded in her.
  Again it was the fossil in the rock, only this time
she knew with absolute certainty that to try
to rip the love she felt for him from her breast would
destroy her completely.
  She made a noise of need and longing. His arm
tightened around her, bringing her body flush with his own.
Familiar lips closed over hers in a kiss so
passionate, she felt scorched by the heat of it.
Dimitri nibbled impatiently at her bottom
lip until she opened her mouth and then he was
inside, laying claim to her softness and reminding her
of the incredible physical bond they had once shared.
A bond that rejection, distance and time had not been able
to sever.
  Hungry for the feel of him, she let her fingers
trail over the musculature of his chest. His mouth
broke from hers and she sensed his head falling back as
his body

  shuddered. "Yes, mow mou, touch me. I need you
to touch me."
  She had no hesitation about obliging him. She'd
tried to hide from it, but she'd missed him so much.
She circled the hard little nubs of his nipples,
making him grind his already pulsingly erect flesh
against her stomach.
  Memories of how that flesh felt
filling her would have sent her to her knees, but for the almost
bruising hold he had on her waist. Running her
hands up his chest and over his shoulders, she got
drunk on the ability to touch him once again. She
leaned forward and took one nipple into her mouth.
Gently she teased it with her teeth and small
flicks on the very tip with her tongue. He was moving
against her with almost uncontrolled desire and she
loved it.
  If nothing else, she knew that in this, he was
hers... completely.
  She started sucking on that same erotic bit of
flesh and Dimitri made hoarse sounds of need from
deep in his throat. Then his hands were on either side of
her face, exerting light pressure to her head.
She let go of his nipple with reluctance.
  "I want it to be so good for you, you will never leave
me again," he vowed with a fervency that was almost frightening.
  He pushed against her shoulders until she was leaning
against the slick wet tile wall at the back of the
square shower cubicle. "Press your hands to the
wall."
  She did it because she couldn't seem to stop herself.
  "Do not move them."
  "Dimitri?"
  "Trust me."
  In this, he had never hurt her and she knew deep
in her heart, he never would. "All right."

  Masculine fingers traced her cheeks until one
brushed her lips and pressed inside. She felt
warmth flood her between her legs as she sucked on that
hot finger sliding in and out of her mouth. He continued
the light tracing of her skin with his other hand, brushing
down over her collarbone to her left breast. He
stopped there, exploring her new shape brought on
by changes from her pregnancy.
  It was fuller and more sensitive. He seemed
to sense this and kept his touch feather light as he used
all five fingers in a cone motion encircling her
entire breast. He brought his hand toward himself, bringing
his fingers together as he did so until they circled her
distended peak. He squeezed lightly and then did the
entire motion all over again, and again, and again until
she felt feverish with the need for his mouth on it.
"Dimitri, please... Your mouth..." He
laughed huskily. "Not yet, hmm?" Then he
pulled his hand from her mouth and gave the same treatment
to her other breast until her head was thrashing back and
forth against the wall in an agony of need.
  "Please..." She could not articulate another
word.
  She didn't need to. He dropped to his
knees in front
  of her and took one straining tip into his mouth.
He
  started off suckling ever so softly, but soon
increased the
  pressure until the pleasure was almost pain and
she was
  crying out.
  "More, please... Oh, Heavens... Stop! I
can't bear it No... Don't stop! Harder. Now,
Dimitri! Now..." and she came with an explosion
of color in the inky blackness of their sensual
prison.
  She sagged against the wall, but he wasn't done.
He kissed a path down to her belly. If she
thought his exploration earlier of their baby's current
home had been erotic, it was nothing compared to the way
he caressed every new curve, every bit of skin
stretched tight over her womb with both fingers and
lips that almost worshipped.
  "Mow mou." His baby. He kissed the center of
her distended tummy. "Yineka mou." His
woman. Both his hands covered her skin in
possessive declaration.
  She was so lost in her sensual daze that she almost
did not catch the significance of the words whispered
against the taut wall of her stomach, but when they
penetrated her brain she felt emotion course through
her. Earlier he had called her his baby, but now
he was acknowledging their son. And her, but in a very
different way. He'd claimed her with an endearment
he'd never used with her before. Words that both connoted
her place in his life as his woman, but also laid
claim to her as his wife.
  "I will never let you go again." She could not
respond. What could she say? He acted as if
her leaving his life had been voluntary and also that it
had hurt him. She didn't know if she could
believe him, but she didn't have time to dwell on it.
His lips were traveling down her stomach until they
found her most secret place. He kissed her
there, a soft salute and then exerted pressure on
the outside of her thighs to bring her legs together.
  She was unprepared for the penetration of his tongue.
He did not pull her legs apart again, but let his
tongue slide between her slick folds of femininity.
He stroked her sweetest spot with the tip
of his tongue, going back and forth and then in circles,
all the time keeping her legs together. She couldn't
believe how incredible it felt to have her inner thighs
touching and the swollen flesh

  of her womanhood pressed together and around the wet
stimulation of his tongue.
  She felt the sensations of pleasure begin to build
to ecstasy once again. Tears ran down her cheeks
to mix with the water on her skin from the still pulsing
showerheads as she said his name over and over. His hands
moved from their hold on her outer thighs to cupping the
underside of her bottom and she pressed herself against his
marauding mouth, unable to stop the wanton
  movement.
  Then one of his fingers penetrated where she had not
been touched in over four long months and she came
apart, sobbing out her pleasure and his name. He
didn't stop and she bucked against him, convulsing over
and over again until she went limp and the impenetrable
darkness was no longer responsible for the blackness before
her eyes.
  She came to on the king-size bed in Dimitri's
room. He was toweling her dry with gentle
movements. The bedside lamp was on,
casting a gentle glow over his bronzed features.
  He smiled down at her. "So you have decided
to wake up."
  "I fainted." She couldn't believe it.
  "It happens sometimes, when the feelings are very, very
intense."
  A surge of purely possessive jealousy
coursed through her and she stiffened, glaring up at him.
"I suppose you've had lots of lovers faint in
your arms."
  He shook his head, all trace of smile gone.
"Never, yineka mou. Only you. Only now."
  "But..." How had he known?
  He shrugged as if she'd asked the question aloud.
"I am a man. It is something I have heard."
  "Thank you." He had given her pleasure she'd
never dreamed of, not even in his arms.
  His blue eyes, the color of the midnight sky,
bored into her. "It is I who thanks you. I have
never experienced anything like the fire you give me when
I touch you."
  He laid the towel across her torso, giving the
illusion of modesty and straightened to stand beside the bed.
"Dimitri?"
  "I will leave you to sleep in privacy
if that is your wish."
  She stared at him, her heart pounding in her chest.
"Don't you want me?"
  He laughed and flicked a self-deprecating hand
in the direction of his shaft. It stood proud and
pulsatingly erect out from his body. "I want you more
than my next breath, but I will not take what you do
not wish to give."
  She would have expected him to shore up his victory
in the shower with a complete seduction. In fact, she was
almost sure that had been his plan. She did not know
what changed his mind, but only that it touched her
deeply he had. He was giving her a choice, not
trying to coerce her with their physical compatibility.
  And in giving her that choice, he robbed her of her
resolve. She wanted him, so much. The pleasure
he had given her in the shower was beautiful, something she
would never forget, but she needed to feel the connection of
their bodies for it to be complete.
  She tugged the towel from her body and dropped it
on the floor beside the bed.
  His face looked hewn from stone while a wild
hope burned in his indigo eyes. "Alexandra?"
She put out her arms. "I want you." He came
to her in a rush of masculine possession,

  covering her body completely with his own and entering
her all in one incredible move. Then he went still.
"This for me is a taste of Heaven on Earth."
  Alexandra strove to breathe in the face of an
indescribable pleasure she'd thought never to know again.
His size was such that she was stretched and filled
to capacity, but her earlier pleasure had made his
swift penetration easy and smooth.
  She too felt a need for stillness. She wanted
to savor a sensation she thought lost to her. It felt
different and at first she didn't understand why, but then
she remembered. He hadn't donned a condom. He
hadn't needed to. She was already pregnant with his
baby. She loved the feel of naked flesh against
naked flesh in such an intimate way.
  She tipped her head and met his gaze.
  He smiled. "In this, we are in one accord."
  She couldn't help returning his smile.
"Yes."
  Then he started to move, sliding almost completely
out before entering her again with torturing slowness. "We will
not hurt our son?"
  She shook her head vehemently. Her
obstetrician had informed her she could
continue conjugal relations right up until her son's
birth as long as it remained comfortable for her. She
hadn't appreciated the information at the time.
  She groaned as he slid in again.
  "Are you certain of this?"
  She forced her mind to focus so she could tell him
what the doctor had said. His look of shock was so
funny, she came out of her passion glazed daze enough
to tease him. "You are a man. This is something you are
supposed to know."
  Red scorched his well defined cheekbones. "This
we do not discuss."
  She giggled. "I bet you didn't know that there's
a chemical in your fluid that helps me go
into labor when the time comes, either." That had been
another helpful tidbit she'd wanted to yell at
her obstetrician for sharing. She'd thought she would be
spending her pregnancy alone and the prospect of
getting Dimitri's help in this way an
impossible one.
  The surprised expression turned to a smug one.
"A Petronides knows his duty. I will be certain
to provide you all the chemicals you need at
the time."
  She laughed, refusing to ruin the moment
by reminding either of them that she was still unsure whether or
not she wanted to be in a position to allow that. Both
her laughter and her disturbing thoughts melted away as
he began to move more aggressively. He rocked
her body with his hands while he plunged in and out of
her with passionate fervor.
  Incredibly she felt a tightening sensation in her
lower belly, telling her that her body was preparing for
another explosion of pleasure. She grabbed his
shoulders, holding on so tight with her fingers that her
nails dug into his skin while their bodies rocked
together toward a crescendo of satisfaction.
  Just as she felt herself contracting around his hardened
flesh, he went absolutely stiff above her and
shouted out his release. For the first time in their
relationship, she was allowed to feel every pulse as his
warmth flooded her and she could not believe how that
impacted her emotions. It felt more intimate than
anything they had ever done-It was as if he'd always
held part of himself back from her, but now he willingly
gave her that which had accidentally

  brought about the new life in her womb. She
wanted to thank him again, but the moment was too profound
for words.
  Whatever became of their future, she would always have
this moment.
  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dimitri rolled off her, but pulled her body
close to his side as if he were afraid she was
going to make a break for it.
  She was almost too tired to breathe. She wasn't
going anywhere. "I locked the door," she murmured
on a yawn against the warmth of his chest.
  "Yes."
  "How did you get in?"
  "Do you think I only know how to make money? I
can pick a lock. My grandfather's security chief
taught me when I was sixteen. He said every man should
have the ability. I confess it has never been of use
until now."
  She laughed softly, picturing a younger
Dimitri learning such a questionable skill. "Did your
grandfather know?"
  "It was his idea."
  "You're having me on."
  "No. Grandfather believes a man should be able to do
things for himself, even if he has the money to pay
someone else to do them."
  She snuggled in closer. It felt so good. "No
wonder you never balked at helping me with dinner. I
always thought you were surprisingly domesticated for such a
traditional Greek man, not to mention such a rich
one."
  "I enjoyed the simplicity of our life in
Paris."
  "Right. You threw a fit when I told you I
didn't want a live-in housekeeper, cook and
maid."
  "It surprised me." He defended himself.
"Most

  women who worked as hard as you did would have been
happy to leave the
domestic chores to someone else."
  "It kept me grounded. It would have been too
easy to get wrapped up in the glitter and glitz
surrounding the fashion industry." She sighed and
kissed the hair roughened skin of his chest simply because
she couldn't help herself. "I guess I didn't
want to end up like my mother with my view of life and the
world blinkered by the society surrounding me."
  But like her mother, she'd willfully worn blinders
in one area of her life...with him. She had
refused to consciously acknowledge the transitory
nature of their relationship, living only in the
present. So, when he ended it-she had been
devastated. She didn't want to think about that right
now, maybe never again.
  "Why the darkness?" she asked instead.
  "I needed it to be only you and I. No more pain.
No past. No present. No future. Just us."
  She understood that. Allowing this area of their
relationship to be tainted by the differences that plagued
them would be like taking a color marker to the Mona
Lisa.
  They lay like that for a long time, his fingers brushing her
side in an absentminded movement while her hand
rested over his heart. It reminded her of their last
time together and her words then. A strong heart
  "You said your grandfather had another heart attack?
You never told me about the first one,"
  "It happened while I was in Greece that last
time before you left Paris."
  "Why didn't you tell me?"
  "Why didn't you tell me who you really were?"
he countered.
  "I was Xandra Fortune in France."
  "Yes, and you took periodic trips that
were not modeling assignments
and yet you would not tell me what they were.
Presumably they were to return to your life as
Alexandra Dupree." "Yes," she admitted.
"I thought you had met someone else." She sat up
and stared down at him, his beautiful black hair
tousled by her fingers, his naked body gleaming bronze
above where the sheet rested across his hips. "You thought
I was two-timing you?"
  Chance would be a fine thing. If he had believed that
about her, he would not have stayed.
  "I had never had another lover. Did you think that
now I knew what sex was, I couldn't wait
to try it with someone else?"
  She wasn't prepared for the guilty stain across his
cheeks.
  "You did!" She didn't think about it, she just
balled up her fist and smacked him right on the chest.
Hard.
  He grunted and caught her hand in his own. "I
did not believe it. If I had, I would have ended
our relationship."
  Right. That sounded like him. "But you thought the baby was
someone else's."
  "Yes. I did hold this tormenting
belief for a week. I have no excuse."
  She glared at him. "No, you don't." But
inside she had to acknowledge her trips home could have
looked suspicious to a lover as possessive as
Dimitri. He'd hated the fact she had things in
her life she refused to tell him about. She'd
kept it that way to stop him from taking her over
completely. She had loved him so much, she'd needed
the defense mechanism of having a part of herself he
did not know. Only when she

  returned to living that part of her life, she took
the pain of his loss with her. The defense had not worked.
  "My grandfather refused to have necessary by-pass
surgery until I promised to set a date for my
marriage with Phoebe. I was not ready to give you
up, but I was not prepared to let him die, either."
  She stared at him in disbelief. "You cannot be
serious. You always told me what a great guy your
grandfather was. How could he blackmail you like that
into ditching me?"
  "He did not know about you."
  This new view of what had happened three months
ago left her feeling disoriented. "But still..."
  "He wanted an assurance I would do
my duty by the Petronides name."
  "And instead you got your mistress pregnant and
yourself featured in a public fight with her."
  He grimaced. "Yes."
  "He'll be furious if you marry me."
  He looked amused. "He will be thrilled
to become a great-grandfather and he cannot help but be charmed
by so lovely a new granddaughter."
  "I'm not beautiful anymore. You said so."
  He used the grip he had on her hand to tug her
down to his chest. "I said you looked ill, not
ugly, you foolish woman."
  "But I don't have sultry green eyes now,"
she said, remembering what he used to say about them.
  "Now you have eyes that change color with your mood.
It is quite tantalizing."
  "My hair is short and mouse brown."
  He laughed and tousled the aforementioned hair. "It
is sexy as sin and you know it. As for the color...how
can you complain when it shines
like liquid sand?"
  "But I'm shaped like a pumpkin."
  He used one knee to part her legs so she draped
across him in intimate disarray. His male hardness
pressed against her. He thrust upward.
"Does this feel like I think you are ugly?"
  What was the question? She couldn't remember; she was
too busy melting into a puddle of desire on top
of him. Silence reigned while he touched her in
ways she'd forgotten and brought her body to the peak of
pleasure over and over again. She didn't have the
energy to start another discussion when they were done. She
found herself slipping into sleep cuddled against his side,
feeling more at peace than she had since discovering her
pregnancy.
  Warm security surrounded Alexandra and she
didn't want to make the trip to full wakefulness.
How many times had she had this dream since leaving
Paris? She was back in Dimitri's bed, his arms
wrapped around her like protective bands, their lower
limbs entwined to make them two parts of one whole.
It seemed so real, but she knew if she allowed her
mind to continue its journey toward complete
lucidity, the fantasy would disappear, leaving cold
reality behind.
  He shifted against her, rubbing his hairy leg between
her smooth limbs and she rocketed to complete
wakefulness. She opened her eyes to black curling
hair over a bronze, muscled chest. Dimitri.
Along with her sensory impressions,
memories of the night before blasted her conscious mind.
  They had made love. Many times. He had been
afraid of hurting the baby, asking her every time if it
would be all right and she had reassured him. Again and
again. Because she had wanted him. The last time, he'd
woken

  her around dawn and seduced her with a sensitivity that
had touched all
the way to her soul.
  It was incomprehensible that the man who had treated
her so tenderly the night before could be the same one who
had walked away from her without a backward glance.
  Only according to him, he had looked back and found
her gone. His grandfather had refused life-saving
surgery until Dimitri had set a wedding date
with Phoebe. While the knowledge her eviction from his life
had not been voluntary soothed some of her still
lacerated emotions, it did not soothe them all.
  Would his grandfather have made such a demand if
Dimitri had told the older man about Alexandra
and implied she had an important place in his
life? The problem was, she had not had that place
at the time. She had been a temporary lover
to Dimitri, a mistress to an unmarried
man.
  Last night had not felt like the joining of a man and
his temporary lover or mistress, though. It had
felt almost sacred.
  Knowing about his grandfather put a new perspective
on the events four months ago, but the older man
wasn't the reason Dimitri had denied paternity
of their baby. As much as she didn't want to, she
had to take some of the blame for that one. By withholding part
of her life from him, she had set up fertile ground
for distrust to grow.
  In some ways, Dimitri had done the same
to her. He hadn't told her about his grandfather's heart
attack and when she asked about his family, he had
been reticent. She knew things about his brother and his
grandfather, but he'd always changed the subject when his
parents came up. They hadn't died until he was
ten, so it couldn't be because he had no memories of
them. He'd never taken her to meet his family,
never invited his brother to the apartment for a meal when the
younger man was in Paris.
  Now he wanted her to marry him. She shifted
restlessly, at once both loving and hating the sense
of security his warmth provided. What had changed?
The answer to that was obvious, she derided
herself. One, she was pregnant with a baby he now
accepted he had fathered. For a Petronides male,
that would change a lot. Hadn't she known that when
she told him?
  At the time she had hoped it would have the exact
result it finally had: his desire to marry her. Now
that desire felt like too little too late.
  The second change was that his wife-to-be had
married his brother. Dimitri had acted like the
betrayal hadn't mattered to him, but even if his
emotions had not been involved...his pride would have
been. A quick marriage of his own would assuage some
of the wounds his pride had sustained, particularly if
it was to a woman who had adored him like she once had
done.
  She'd recognized last night that she still loved
him, but she didn't adore him. Did that make her
any less vulnerable?
  "Have you figured it all out yet?" Dimitri
asked from above her head.
  She tilted back to look him in the face.
"Figured what out?"
  "Your life. My life. Our life together."
  "What makes you so sure I was thinking about us?
Or that I was thinking at all, for that
matter?"
  His smile was grim. "As much as you may want
to deny it, I know you, pethi mou. You often spend your
first waking moments lost in thought and what is of more

  importance to you at the moment than the future of the
baby you carry?"
  "You assume that future has to include you."
  "You know it does. Married or not, lovers or
enemies, whatever relationship you and I share, I will
have a part in my son's life."
  She didn't balk at the implacability in his
voice. She hadn't meant to imply otherwise.
Her wording had been unfortunate. "I didn't mean
that. I will not withhold your child from you."
  "No matter how much you despise me?" His
voice was bleak and his face expressionless.
  She stared at him. Could he honestly believe she
despised him after the way she had responded to him
last night? "I don't despise you."
  "But you no longer love me."
  To answer would require a lie, so she
sidestepped. "Did you have plans for today?"
  "Yes."
  "Then, I guess we'd better get
up."
  He smiled wickedly down at her. "Not
necessarily."
  "But..."
  "My plans today are to woo you. I think here,"
he said, indicating the bed, "is where I am at my
best."
  She didn't know what she would have said because at that
precise moment, the phone rang. Giving her a
last lascivious look that made her giggle
despite her heavy thoughts, he turned to answer the
bedside phone.
  Was he really going to woo her? The thought was
tantalizing. She remembered his two-month-long
pursuit before he'd seduced her into bed and talked
her into moving in with him. They had been heady days.
Living with him had been pretty wonderful too, but
a wooing... well, it sounded nice.
  "Alexandra."
  She looked up from her blind contemplation of his naked
back. "Hmm?"
  "The phone is for you. It is your sister."
  Alexandra crawled across the bed and took the phone
from Dimitri's outstretched hand. "Madeleine?"
  "Yes. It's me. How are things going
with you-know-who?" Madeleine sounded nervous.
  "Don't ask."
  "That bad, huh?"
  Bad? No. More like foolish. Falling into bed with
Dimitri the first time around hadn't been her smartest
move, but doing it this time, when their future was
unsettled and she was still dealing with the effects of his
betrayal was outright stupidity. "We've got a
lot to discuss, that's all."
  "Did he show you proof he didn't marry that
Greek girl?"
  "Yes."
  "That's good anyway. Hunter said he would.
Maybe he's not a complete swine."
  "Hunter or Dimitri?" she asked
facetiously.
  "Both," was her sister's surprising and
emphatic reply.
  "Is everything all right, cherie?"
  "Well..."
  "Madeleine..." she said in a voice she had
used since childhood to encourage her sister to fess
up.
  "It's all Hunter's fault!"
  Hunter, the man who went to any lengths
to make her sister happy? Alexandra had a hard
time believing he'd done anything to hurt
Madeleine. "What's all his fault?"

  "He had a business contact invite Dimitri
to the party...on purpose!"
  Pure shock traveled through Alexandra.
"What?" "He said he was worried about you. He
didn't think you were adjusting to life without Dimitri
very well and wanted to know if there was a chance for you
two. Hunter made discreet inquiries and found out
Dimitri had been searching for Xandra Fortune
since a couple of days after you landed in New
York. Remember that time he suggested you call
Dimitri and try to work it out?"
  She remembered. It had been a week after the
ultrasound. "I told him I'd rather move in with
Mama."
  Madeleine laughed, albeit stiltedly. "He
didn't know you thought Dimitri was married and he
couldn't figure out why you wouldn't at least give the
father of your baby one more chance."
  "So he decided to take the choice out of my
hands?" she asked, feeling both outraged and
outclassed. Hunter had been right and she and
Dimitri did need to work out their future, whatever
that might be. Still... "Save me from arrogant
men."
  "I slept in the guest room," Madeleine said
with a certain amount of satisfaction.
  Evidently Hunter didn't know how to pick a
lock.
  "I'm sorry, Maddy. I don't want you and
Hunter arguing because of me."
  "He could have told me his plans. I might even
have gone along if he told me Dimitri wasn't
really married."
  "Maddy!"
  "Well, Hunter was right about one thing. You were
wilting without Dimitri. You sound more alive this
morning than you have in the past three months."
Alexandra didn't know how to respond to that bit of
truth, so she changed the subject. "Is that all you
called about?"
  "Actually, no..." She was back to sounding
nervous.
  What more could there be?
  "Mother flew in on an early morning flight and
she wanted to know where you were and I didn't want
to tell her, but then Hunter came in. And
just like a man, he didn't realize he'd be starting
World War III and told her you were staying at a
hotel with Dimitri. Mother fainted and I screamed
at Hunter and now he's not speaking to me..." At
this point Madeleine's voice broke.
  "Oh, cherie. I don't want my problems
to become
  yours."
  Madeleine gave a watery laugh. "That's so like
you. You took care of mother and me when Daddy died and
tolerated Mama's disapproval. But when it comes
time to lean on someone else, you feel guilty, for
Heaven's sake!"
  "I got myself into this mess. No one else should have
to pay the price for my stupidity."
  Dimitri stiffened beside her.
  "Well, Mama's on her way over to get you out
of it!"
  She couldn't have heard right. "But..."
  "She threatened to swoon again like some Victorian
maiden, but the thing is, she looked pale as
death...s I told her what hotel Dimitri was
staying in and your room number."
  Madeleine started crying and saying she was sorry
over and over again. Her argument with Hunter
and having their mother descend on her had clearly taken
its toll.
  "Calm down, Maddy. It will be fine. She's
my

  mother, of course I don't mind you telling her where
I am," Alexandra said, lying through her teeth.
  "But the newspapers. They're awful. I don't
know how you're going to handle it." Newspapers?
"What are you talking about, Maddy?" "You don't
know?" Madeleine started crying again. "It's just
terrible and after all you've been through already."
  Knowing she wasn't going to get another coherent
word out of her sister, Alexandra did her best
to calm Madeleine before hanging up the phone. She
turned to face Dimitri. "My mother is on her
way over." Dimitri's brow rose. "So I
gathered." "She's on the warpath, though Mother's
version of warfare is quite genteel." That had never
stopped Alexandra from feeling like she'd been through the
meat grinder after one of her mother's lectures though.
  "She is your mother. Her greatest concern is for your
welfare," he said with absolute confidence.
  She just laughed, although the sound was a hollow one.
"Mama's highest priority is the
dignity attached to the Dupree name. Appearance is
everything and my staying in your suite doesn't look
right no matter how you wrap it up and tie it with a
pretty little bow."
  He was silent for several seconds, his regard so
intent, she felt heat rush into her cheeks.
"What?" she finally demanded.
  "I am shocked at my own naivete. I
believed the whole Xandra Fortune image. A
French fashion model, an orphan, a woman
of the world with a sophisticated outlook on life, a
woman who had no sense of family
responsibility because she'd never had one."
  "And?" Honestly, some times talking to him was like
going through a maze blindfolded and tipsy from too much
wine. What was his point? And what did all this have
to do with the impending visit from her mother?
  He shook his head as if clearing it. "Many things
did not fit the image if I had but looked at
them."
  "You were interested in an uncomplicated
relationship with a worldly model. You saw what you
wanted to see."
  "This is true." He reached out and touched her
cheek in an oddly affectionate gesture.
"It is also true I saw what you wanted me
to see, hmm?"
  She couldn't deny it. She had considered telling
him the truth of her background so many times, but
self-protection had kept her silent. And then there
had been the fear that he would lose interest in the real
Alexandra Dupree. It had been a big enough shock
that a man like Dimitri could find her Xandra
Fortune persona desirable.
  "Well, you know what they say... You don't
usually know people as well as you think you do." She could
admit now that both she and Dimitri were guilty of
that
  truth.
  "But you made it a point to prevent me from knowing
you."
  That wasn't strictly true. "You knew me, the
woman. I only hid the trappings of my life as
Alexandra Dupree."
  "And gave me a false set of realities
to replace them."
  "In a way, you are a lot like my mother. You
only see the surface. You only want the
surface," she declared.
  He tugged her into his arms and brushed his
warm hand over the slope of her breast. Her
nipple, still sensitive from their loving the night
before, went erect immediately.

  "It is true I like this surface." His smile
was pure seduction, but then he went serious. "It
is not all I desire, however. I want all of
you and I will have all of you."
  The possessive determination in the words made her
shiver. She had the awful feeling he didn't just
mean marriage. He wanted her mind and her
emotions. It was there in his eyes and he would settle
for nothing less.
  "Madeleine said something about a newspaper, but
wouldn't give me the details. I think you'd
better look into it. Someone may have seen us together and
is now speculating on who the billionaire's
pregnant companion is."
  He didn't look worried. "After we shower I
will make a phone call."
  She nodded and tried to pull away. "Mother's already
left Madeleine's. She'll be here in less than
thirty minutes unless she hits traffic. We
need to get showered and dressed."
  He stopped her from hopping out of bed.
"Things have changed for us, have they not?"
  "Because we had sex?"
  He leaned down and kissed her on the tip of her
nose. "Because we have once again established an area
of our relationship that is nothing but beautiful."
  "I won't let you seduce me into marriage,"
she said vehemently.
  "Are you sure about that?" he asked, his wandering hands
now wreaking havoc with her breathing.
  She didn't answer and he laughed, pulling her
from the bed toward the shower. "Come, we will bathe together and
save time."
  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alexandra had been worried Dimitri would try
to make love to her in the shower again, but he was as good as
his word. They were dressed in record time and
Dimitri was on the phone to his assistant when a
gentle rat-a-tat-tat sounded on the door.
  "Mother," she breathed.
  Dimitri turned from the phone and gave her a
sharp look. He cut the connection abruptly and
crossed the room to open the door. Cecelia
Dupree stood on the other side, looking
fragile and quite lovely in her pale pink
Moschino suit.
  "You must be Xandra's mother," Dimitri said as he
led Cecelia through the door.
  Alexandra had to stifle a groan at his slip
of the tongue. Her mother's face pinched and she swung
on Alexandra, for once forgetting the social
niceties. "So, this is what you do when you're living
high as Xandra Fortune. Have you no sense of
decorum at all? You're in New York now,
where you are known as Alexandra Dupree. What do you
think New Orleans society will say when they
discover you've spent the night with some foreigner in his
hotel room?" she asked in an outraged voice.
"Think of your sister. The scandal could adversely
affect Hunter's business dealings."
  "I sincerely doubt Hunter's business
associates care one way or the other about the
behavior of Madeleine's pregnant sister, as for
New Orleans society...I'm not taking out an
ad in the paper. Why should anyone back

  home know?" Or care, she asked herself
silently. Her mother lived in such a ratified
milieu, she didn't know how ninety percent of the
world thought and functioned.
  "You are a Dupree," her mother said as if that should
explain it all. "Yet, by the look of this," she
said, waving a newspaper in Alexandra's face,
"you have completely forgotten that fact. How could you
allow this sort of information to become public knowledge?"
  Alexandra put her hand out toward Cecelia.
"May I see, Mama? The accused has a right
to know the charges."
  Cecelia flung the paper toward Alexandra with
an absolutely surprising lack of restraint.
When Alexandra saw the headline and pictures, she
understood why. One picture was of her and Dimitri
leaving the restaurant they'd had lunch in yesterday.
The other was of her and Dimitri yelling at each
other at Chez Renee. The headline read, *
"Greek Tycoon and Lover Reunite: Does
Petronides Now Believe the Baby is
His?"
  With a sense of impending dread, Alexandra read the
article. She was named as the famous French model
Xandra Fortune and the quiet living Alexandra
Dupree. The writer speculated as to the reason for
her dual personas and the effect her pregnancy had
had on Dimitri's scuffed plans to marry
Phoebe Leonides. Dimitri's
denial that he was the father was quoted, apparently having
been overheard by the enterprising photographer or
someone who'd been with him.
  The writer went on to say it appeared Dimitri
now accepted his role as father and ended the article with a
pithy comment regarding a possible marriage between them.
  Alexandra felt sick and she made a mad dash
for the bathroom. When she finished retching, Dimitri
was there with a cold wet washcloth for her face and a
glass of water to rinse her mouth. When she was done,
he swung her into his arms and carried her back
into the main room of the suite. He set her gently
on the cream colored
  sofa.
  "I'm going to order some food, all right moro
mou?" She couldn't take it in. She couldn't even
look at her mother, knowing how furious and disappointed
in her Cecelia was bound to be. She'd spent years
living two lives to protect her mother from
embarrassment and possible scandal, only to have it all
torn apart with one sleazy newspaper article.
"Dimitri, they know... Everyone knows about us, about
the baby, about Xandra
  Fortune."
  He laid his finger against her lips.
"Shh. All will be well, You must trust me. Now
what do you want to
  eat?"
  "Dry toast and maybe a little fruit."
  He shook his head, his expression wry. "That is
not sufficient sustenance for you and the baby. I will order
your dry toast, fruit and some food besides, I
think."
  "Why ask me if you plan to do what you want
anyway?" she asked petulantly, glad to focus
on something less volatile and damaging than the
newspaper article.
  He chuckled. "Perhaps because I like to hear your
  voice?"
  Her mother gave a most unladylike snort,
reminding
  both Dimitri and Alexandra she was there.
  Dimitri turned to Cecelia. "I understand your
concern and will do everything in my power to mitigate it, but
I will not allow you to harangue your daughter. She is
in too fragile a state right now."
  "How dare you?" her mother demanded.

  "Can I order anything for you?" Dimitri asked,
ignoring her mother's outraged question.
  Apparently realizing when she was faced with a will
stronger than her own, Cecelia subsided. She
took a seat in one of the armchairs opposite the
couch, her expression dour. "Tea might settle
my nerves."
  "Then I shall order you some without delay."
  He went to the phone to do so, but kept his body
toward them as if he were watching her mother to make sure
she said nothing to upset Alexandra. His concern felt
nice and Alexandra had to admit she was glad she
wasn't alone to face her mother's recriminations.
When he finished making the order, Dimitri
returned to sit next to Alexandra on the smallish
sofa. He took her hand and squeezed it
reassuringly then turned the full force of his charm
on her mother.
  "Mrs. Dupree, allow me to introduce myself.
I am Dimitri Petronides." His smile would
have melted stone. He stood and leaned toward
Cecelia, extending his hand.
  "It is an honor to meet the mother of the woman I
intend to marry."
  Alexandra sucked in air so fast she choked on
it while her mother's "just sucked on a lemon" look
turned to calculated charm in the space of a
single heartbeat. Cecelia patted her perfectly
coiffed ash-blond hair and smiled at Dimitri.
  "Please, you must call me Cecelia.
Marriage will be just the thing to alleviate the scandal.
I'm so glad you'd already thought of it. Alexandra's
been so impetuous these past six years and I declare
the last three months have been the worst."
  Alexandra gritted her teeth at her mother's
digs. "I haven't agreed to
marry him."
  Cecilia dismissed Alexandra's words with a wave
of her hand. "Of course you will, dear. Now let's
start making plans. It will have to be a quiet affair
if there's any hope of avoiding more scandal."
  Alexandra hadn't told her mother anything about
Dimitri, including the details of their breakup.
But she doubted it would have made any difference in the
older woman's current outlook. In Cecelia
Dupree's mind, babies came after marriage.
Therefore, to preserve appearances, Alexandra had
to be married.
  "This isn't the Middle Ages, Mother. You cannot
give my hand in marriage to a man without my
permission." She turned her head to meet
Dimitri's eyes. "And you
  can't take it."
  "Alexandra, is that reporter correct? Is this
man the
  father of your child?"
  Alexandra's vocal chords froze. An
affirmative answer would be her downfall with her
mother.
  "Yes," Dimitri said when Alexandra refused
to.
  "Then there can be no question that you will marry
  him."
  "On the contrary." Alexandra didn't like the
feeling of pressure emanating from both her mother and
Dimitri. "I'm perfectly capable of having this
baby alone. If that upsets you, I'm sorry."
  She was proud of her little speech until her mother's
eyes filled with tears. "Wasn't six years
spent worried someone would discover my daughter's
lifestyle enough a cross to bear? Now everyone knows."
She sniffed and Alexandra felt a tug on her own
emotions even though she suspected the tears were a
tool as well used as her mother's Southern
charm. "Now you balk at making things right. Think of the
baby," was Cecelia last emotive appeal.
  "You say lifestyle like my being a
model was the

  "I'm glad you took the time to come by and see us,"
he said, taking her mother's arm and gently lifting her
from the chair before he guided her to the door, "but as
I'm sure you are aware, Alexandra and I have a
great deal to do before the wedding. Perhaps we can get together
this evening or tomorrow to discuss plans."
  He continued talking as if he had both her and her
mother's complete cooperation as he led Cecelia from the
suite.
  Dimitri called for his car and waited in the
hotel lobby with Cecelia until it came. He
shook his head watching Cecelia walk regally from the
hotel. Running interference for Alexandra with her mother
was going to take vigilance. Cecelia had tried
to convince him again to consider a modest wedding by saying it
would be cruel to Alexandra to make a media event of
it when she had so obviously anticipated her wedding
vows.
  The car had not arrived one moment too soon.
  Dimitri stepped into an empty elevator and
pressed the button for his floor.
  Would Alexandra be ashamed to marry him while she
was so visibly pregnant? He thought
back to what he had learned of her past. She'd
been educated by nuns. Hell, maybe she would be
embarrassed by a big wedding.
  She had certainly been upset about the news
clipping. He didn't want her upset and the part
he had played in the breaking of the news story troubled
him. He'd seen one of the paparazzi that often
followed him outside the restaurant where they had
eaten lunch. He hadn't said anything, had not sent
his security man after the film- though as he'd
learned in the past, that move was not always successful.
His actions could be considered ruthless, but he thought of
them as the acts of a desperate man.
  She had to marry him.
  For her own sake because she needed him.
  For the baby's sake because he was a Petronides.
  For Dimitri's sake because he needed her.
  And for the sake of a promise he had made to his
grandfather, a second promise when the first had been
nullified.
  He'd thought it would be easy once he found her.
She'd obviously wanted marriage before she left
Paris, but now she acted like the thought of it was worse
than spending the rest of her life in Purgatory.
No matter what she said to the contrary, it was
obvious she now hated him. He mourned the warmth that
used to shine from her eyes when she looked at him. The
smile that had been just for him. Intimate.
Special. He'd taken her for granted when he
had her. He had ignored the underlying emotional
commitment in their relationship.
  He'd believed they had no hope of a future.
  She'd been a career fashion model. It was
lowering to admit, but he'd believed she had every intention
of moving on when her career took off. He hadn't
known about her family, hadn't realized she had no
desire to be a supermodel. That ignorance had
cost him three months of mental anguish wondering
where she was and how she was faring with her pregnancy.
  He'd never once considered she might terminate
it...even when he'd gone to the apartment in Paris a
week after she left and found her message for him on
the floor of the living room.
  She'd rejected everything he'd ever given her
down to the sexy nightwear he'd bought her. His fists
clenched at his sides when he thought of that neatly
folded stack

  of silk and lace garments. He'd taken one
look at the pregnancy test sitting on
top and driven his fist through the wall. One look.
That was all it had taken for him to realize she'd been
telling him the truth. He hadn't understood how it
could be true, but he had known it was.
  He'd called the detective agency that very
night, but it had still been too late. He'd lost
her.
  He'd spent three months tormenting himself with
if-only scenarios. If only he had been thinking
more clearly when his grandfather delivered his ultimatum,
but Dimitri had been badly shaken and had gone
into damage control mode. He would do anything
to save his grandfather and he had done, hurting both himself
and Alexandra in the process.
  If only he had believed her about the baby from the
beginning and told his grandfather then.
  If only he had come back to the apartment sooner,
but he hadn't been able to face its emptiness, the
reality of what he had done to his woman. He
hadn't been able to stay in Athens either, not after the
announcement of his marriage to Phoebe had been
made.
  Everything had felt wrong about it. He'd seen the
looks his brother gave Phoebe when he thought no
one noticed. Dimitri could not miss the
way Phoebe stood in fearful awe of him, but
laughed in his brother's company. But most
importantly-the look on Alexandra's face when
he'd denied her haunted him.
  He deserved her hatred, but he couldn't live with
it. He had to convince her to marry him. He could not
consider the alternative. She and the baby needed him
even if she refused to admit it. Theos knew he
needed her. Would she ever look at him with the warmth of
affection in her beautiful eyes again?
  Alexandra had picked up the paper her mother left
behind and was
rereading the article about her and Dimitri when he
returned.
  She looked up. "I can't believe they said all
this. It's horrible. Conjecture about our
relationship, your reasons for denying paternity. Where
did all this come from?" Dimitri shrugged. "The
story ran for weeks in France and Greece, even
some London papers picked it up. The press
release your agency sent out saying you had retired from
modeling and wanted to live a more anonymous life was
all the more scintillating when news of your possible
pregnancy got out. I'm surprised you didn't
see any of the stories."
  She'd avoided the European scandal rags after
the announcement of his marriage to Phoebe.
Alexandra hadn't wanted to see any pictures
of the couple together. And of course, the stories hadn't
made it to the States. They were about a French
fashion model and a Greek tycoon, nothing of
interest for American readers. At least not until
the connection to her real identity was made.
  "How did they make the connection?" she wondered
aloud.
  "I am, unfortunately, followed by a certain
amount of paparazzi wherever I go. Once we were
seen together, it was only a matter of time before one of
them recognized you."
  "But no one else had," she said helplessly.
  "I find that inexplicable."
  A wavery smile tilted her lips. "You
certainly weren't fooled."
  Remembered anger shimmered in his eyes. "No."
  "You were so sure it was me and yet I must have
looked very different to you," she mused.

  "You are my woman. I would recognize you in the
dark."
  "You did," she said, helplessly
remembering the passion they'd shared the night before.
  His smile was predatory. "Yes."
  "Sex isn't everything," she admonished him.
  "But it is a start, is it not, yineka mou?" He
resumed his seat beside her and placed his hand against her
protruding belly. "And we have this precious child we
share as well."
  If only she could believe him, but she didn't
trust him. Did he have an ulterior motive for the
marriage? "You're afraid I won't give you
access, aren't you? You think you'll have more say in our
baby's life if we're married."
  "I will, but that is not why I want to marry you."
  "Then why?" she demanded.
  "You once said we had something special. Perhaps
I want that back again."
  "Impossible."
  "Nothing is impossible, Alexandra."
  Believing he might come to love her was. "I
don't know," she said, achingly aware her desires
were at odds with her intellect. She wanted to marry
him, but she was afraid doing so would only open her
heart to more hurt.
  "Your mother will be devastated if you refuse me."
  Alexandra knew that all too well.
"My mother's feelings do not dictate my life."
  "You can say that after spending six years living a
double life to protect her sensibilities?"
  "Living as Xandra Fortune was infinitely
preferable to the prospect of living as Alexandra
Petronides." She didn't know why she'd said
it. To wound him as he had once wounded her?
Regardless, guilt assailed her the second the
words left her.
  His jaw tautened, his blue eyes flashing anger.
"Think of our child. Life as a legitimate
Petronides will be infinitely preferable to life as
the bastard child of the black sheep of the Dupree
family," he said, throwing her words back at her.
  She flinched with the pain the words inflicted.
"Don't use that word!"
  His face registered regret and then determination.
"I will never use it again in relation to our son,
regardless of your decision, but I cannot say the same
for others."
  "I know." She felt tears fill her eyes and
she tried to brink them away.
  He cursed in Greek and pulled her against his
chest. "Do not cry, pethi mou. I cannot stand it."
  "Then it's a good thing you weren't around for the
first month after I left Paris. I did nothing but
cry," she said, hiccupping with her swallowed tears.
  His arms tightened around her until she squeaked from
the pressure. He loosened his grip immediately. "I
did not intend to hurt you."
  Was he talking about just now, or three months
ago?
  She looked at him. "Tell me about your
parents, Dimitri. You never have."
  His sensual lips thinned.
  "How can you expect me to marry you when you won't
share your family with me? I've never even met your
grandfather or your brother."
  "I will invite my brother to the wedding,
unfortunately Grandfather cannot travel yet. You will
meet him when we go to Greece."
  "What do you mean, go to Greece?"
  "It is where we will live."

  "What if I want to live in New York?"
  "Do you?" he asked with more patience than she
expected.
  She met his gaze and then looked away. "I
don't want to raise our son in a big city,"
she admitted, knowing she was playing right
into his hands.
  "This is good." He gently tugged her face
back around so she was caught in the compelling blue of
his gaze. "The family home is on a small
island off the coast near Athens. There is nothing on
the island but the Petronides home and a fishing
village. It will be a wonderful place for our son
to grow up. I should know. I was raised there."
  It sounded all too tempting.
  CHAPTER NINE

  "If I marry you and you divorce me, you could
keep my baby," she said, expressing her deepest
fear.
  He swore and stood. "You believe I would do this
to you?"
  She wanted to deny it. He looked so angry.
"I don't know. I don't trust my instincts where
you are concerned anymore."
  "Marriage is forever. I would not do this." She could
tell it infuriated him to have to say it. His pride was
wounded and for some reason that made her feel bad. "This
baby and the ones to come after will have both their mother and their father
to raise them."
  "You want more children?" The thought had never
occurred to her.
  "Yes. Do not tell me you only want this
baby?" The thought clearly horrified him.
  "No. I want at least two, but would really like
four."
  "Don't you think you had better marry me
beforehand?"
  "For the baby's sake?" she asked, wishing it could
be different.
  "For his sake yes, but also for your sake."
  "You mean I won't have to work to support us both
if I marry you?"
  "You would not have to work regardless. From this point
forward, you and the baby are my responsibility."
  "Thank you." She knew he meant what he said.
It

  was written on the immovable features of his
gorgeous face.
  "You will be happier married to me than as a single
parent," he asserted with inbred arrogance.
  "You think so?"
  "I know this."
  "How can you be so certain?"
  "Whatever you need to make you happy, I
will give it to you."
  Everything but his love, she thought sadly. But she
would have his passion. Last night had proven that. She
would have his support. He'd given her a taste of it
this morning with her mother and it had been sweet. She would
have his respect. If he did not respect her, he
wouldn't be asking for marriage, she was sure of it.
  "It would certainly relieve my mother's mind."
  A calculating expression entered his eyes.
"If you marry me, I will buy back the Dupree
Mansion and staff it with servants for your mother's
lifetime."
  The sheer generosity of the offer stunned her. She
understood his willingness to provide for her and the baby,
but to take on responsibility for her mother as well
was excessive and very, very endearing.
  "Mama would love you forever."
  "Yes." He frowned. "She does not want a
big wedding. She believes you would be embarrassed.
Is she right?"
  "Embarrassed? To be marrying you?" she asked
incredulously.
  "To be married publicly when you are so
obviously enceinte."
  "I'm not ashamed of my baby." She
wasn't comfortable with the fact he'd been conceived in a
relationship rather than a marriage, but her son was
precious to her all the same.
  Dimitri's expression lightened. "I am very
proud that you carry my child, yineka mou."
  Alexandra pictured a traditional wedding, she
and Dimitri decked out in formal white, her veil
and train brushing the floor at least three feet behind
her.
  "Your eyes have gone soft and golden. Of what do
you think, little one?"
  She felt herself blushing, but decided to tell him.
"I know it sounds really naive but I always wanted
to wear a traditional white wedding dress with a long
train and oodles of lace in my veil." She
sighed and touched her tummy. "But then I guess I
would look pretty silly in white in my state."
  He returned to the sofa and took her hand in his.
"White is the sign of a pure heart. You would not
look silly to me."
  Her breath caught and she had to concentrate on
getting her lungs to expand again. "I wouldn't?"
  He leaned forward and she closed her eyes in
preparation for his kiss. Why didn't she have more
self-control with him? She felt a touch so
light it almost wasn't there on both her eyelids,
her cheeks and finally her lips. They parted of their own
accord and the pressure increased.
  He ended the kiss scant seconds later,
leaving her feeling dazed.
  That was nice.
  He laughed and she realized she'd spoken aloud.
  She smiled at him. "So you think I should wear
white?"
  "Yes."
  "I'd like that."
  "Does this mean you will marry me?"

  Had there ever really been any doubt? Because she
didn't want her pride
stomped in the dust, she said, "It's the best thing for the
baby."
  His tender expression turned to stone and he stood
up quickly from the sofa. "There are plans to be made.
I want to be married a week from today."
  "So quickly? What about my dress, the church-was
  "I will take care of it."
  She didn't argue. She supposed a
billionaire could pull together a wedding on nothing
notice. Money talked, or so they said.
"I'm picking out my own dress."
  He shrugged. "As you like."
  He turned toward the phone, all signs of his
loverlike countenance gone.
  "Dimitri?"
  He pivoted to face her. "Yes?"
  "This is what you want?"
  He laughed harshly. "I am getting what I
deserve and can expect nothing more."
  "But I thought you wanted to get married." Had she
completely misread the situation? The one hope she
clung to was the knowledge that he wanted her. Had last
night satisfied that craving?
  "I do." His eyes blazed certainty at her.
  "But you seem unhappy now that I've said yes."
  He came back and pulled her up and into his
arms. "I am not unhappy, petki mou. I am
merely preoccupied with the details of the wedding now that
you have agreed."
  It made sense and she had no fears while his
arms were around her. She yawned. "All right."
  He turned her toward the bedroom and patted her
bottom gently. "Take a nap. Pregnant
ladies need their rest."
  She went, feeling comforted. He'd
pointed her in the direction of his bedroom. It was
only later, while she hung on the verge of
sleep that she realized he had once again
sidestepped the issue of his parents.
  Dimitri gripped the phone tightly without
dialing. What had he expected, that she would say
she was marrying him because she wanted to? At least she
had agreed. He should not bemoan the fact it had been
for the child's sake alone.
  He would convince her to trust him again. He would show
her that what they had had in Paris could be theirs again.
The affection. The fun. The rapport. And once
she saw that he would never dismiss her so cruelly
again, she would once again glow in his presence.
  At least he'd kept this promise to his
grandfather.
  "You are nervous, yineka mou. Why?"
  Alexandra shifted the yards of fabric in her
wedding dress's skirt an inch to the left on the
limousine's seat. "There are going to be a lot of people
at the reception."
  Which was an understatement. Dimitri had managed
to invite an obscene number of wedding guests, all
of whom would be staying for the reception...including
Dimitri's brother, Spiros, and his
wife Phoebe.
  "You have modeled swimwear in front of a bigger
crowd."
  True. But the crowd had never included
Dimitri's ex-fiancee and brother. "Does
Spiros think I'm an awful tramp?"
  Dimitri reeled as if she'd struck him and his
eyes burned angry blue fire. "Why should you
think this? Do you feel like this marriage has made you
one?"
  She wondered how Dimitri managed the
Petronides

  Corporation so effectively with his lousy
communication skills. "Of course I don't feel
like a tramp because I married you. It's just that your
brother's read those awful articles. I'm sure
he blames me for Phoebe's humiliation."
  "My brother does not blame you."
  She waved Dimitri's words aside. "Don't
be ridiculous. Who else would he blame? I was
the other woman even if I didn't know it. He
had to marry Phoebe to save the family honor.
I bet he hates me," she wailed.
  Dimitri pulled her onto his lap,
yards of white satin and all. He took her chin in
his hand and forced her to look at him. "My brother
does not blame you. He knows you were unaware of
Phoebe's existence. He knows where the real blame
lies. With me."
  "But he's your brother. He's bound to forgive
you." Look how many times she forgave Mama.
"He's free to hate me." Dimitri laughed.
He actually laughed and she wanted to sock him.
"It's not funny. Your family's got no choice
but to think you've married some kind of opportunist,
five months pregnant with your baby and they've
never met me."
  "Spiros and my grandfather know this too is my
fault. Do not worry, Alexandra. Spiros is
content in his marriage and excited at the prospect
of being an uncle. You made both things possible.
He will adore you."
  She would have continued her lament, but the limousine
slid to a smooth stop and seconds later the door
opened. Dimitri lifted her in his arms.
  She squealed. "You're supposed to carry me
over the threshold, not to the reception!"
  He laughed, a true Dimitri laugh that she
hadn't heard since before their breakup in
Paris. "I can do both."
  She wasn't about to spoil that smile, so she
demurred.
  He carried her all the way to the hotel
ballroom where the reception was being held. A loud
cheer went up when they came into the room and the next
hour was spent accepting well wishes from their wedding
guests.
  Alexandra rested in one of the many Queen Anne
style armchairs set in small groupings around the
perimeter of the ballroom. Space had been left
in the center of the floor for dancing. She was looking
forward to being in Dimitri's arms.
  "I guess he's not such a swine after all."
  Alexandra smiled as her sister took the chair
closest to her. "Hi, Maddy. Isn't this
fabulous?" she asked, waving her hand to encompass
the reception and its elegant guests. She was
feeling incredibly happy for a woman who had just
entered a marriage of convenience. It was all
Dimitri's doing. "Can you believe the wedding?"
  Madeleine grinned. "Believe it? I lived
it. I was your matron of honor, after all. The
horse drawn carriages were a very sweet touch.
There were so many red and white poinsettias and
that gorgeous Christmas greenery in the church, you
couldn't see the pews."
  "He did everything possible to make it special.
He kept asking if there was anything else I
wanted all week long, making sure my every
fantasy of my wedding was fulfilled."
  "And why should it not be?" Dimitri asked from behind
her. He came to her side and rested his hand on the
skin of her shoulder bared by the dropped shoulder
neckline of her wedding dress. "You will only marry
once. It should be the wedding of your dreams."
  She tilted her head to smile up at him. "It
has been."
  He leaned down and kissed her softly on the
lips. "I am glad, yineka mou. That was my
only wish."

  If she didn't know better, she'd say he
sounded like a man in love. Even if he wasn't,
he had to care about her a lot to have gone to so much trouble
to see her happy.
  "Making calfs eyes at each other again?" A
man who could have been Dimitri's twin, but for his
obvious younger age and dark brown eyes, slapped
Dimitri on the back. "There will be
plenty of time for that later."
  Dimitri's hand on her shoulder tightened
briefly in a reassuring gesture as if he could
sense her unease.
  "I do not make calfs eyes," he informed his
brother.
  Spiros smiled mockingly. "If you say so."
  Phoebe, a beautiful woman with classic
Greek features and an air of youthful innocence,
laughed. "Do not tease your brother. A man is
allowed to look pleased with his bride on his wedding
day."
  Remembering the picture she'd seen of Spiros
and Phoebe's wedding day, Alexandra thought
Phoebe must be intimately acquainted with the concept
and said so.
  Phoebe blushed sweetly while Spiros put
his arm around her shoulder in a possessive manner.
"This is true," he said.
  Alexandra smiled. At least her pregnancy
hadn't ruined their lives. They were obviously very
happy to be married to each other. She couldn't help
wondering what the Petronides family had been
thinking to match a girl of Phoebe's gentle
nature and obvious youth with an overwhelming
man like Dimitri in the first place.
  "It's not just reserved for the wedding day, you know.
I'm still making calfs eyes at my wife,"
Hunter said as he joined the group, taking the chair
closest to Madeleine.
  Madeleine's air of complacent acceptance of such
an accolade indicated whatever contretemps
Alexandra's problems had caused in their marriage
was well and truly over.
  Alexandra looked up at Dimitri. She was not
at all convinced he'd been looking at her with
anything near the adoring glance her brother-in-law
bestowed upon her sister. However, she was willing to tease
him regardless. "So I can look forward to years of
bovine expressions of affection?"
  He stiffened with affront just as she'd expected him
to do. "I am not a cow."
  She smiled, feeling mischievous. "No indeed.
If anything, you must be likened to a bull." She
rubbed her protruding middle and felt their son
move. "I would say that he is proof positive you
are a male capable of breeding."
  After a second of shocked silence, during which the
entire group seemed to assimilate her rather risque
teasing, they all burst out laughing, including
Dimitri. There were a few more teasing comments and
Madeleine even went so far as to welcome
Dimitri into the family which he thanked her forwith
grave appreciation rather than his usual arrogance.
  After which, he leaned toward Alexandra and asked,
"Are you ready to go?"
  "We haven't danced yet." And she wanted to.
  He smiled indulgently. "And we must do this
to fulfill tradition, hmm?"
  She nodded, loving the look of indulgence in his
eyes. It made her feel cosseted.
  He reached out his hand and led her to the middle of the
ballroom
floor, empty but for a few guests who stood in
small groups chatting. Their presence on the dance
floor was the orchestra's cue to move into a slow
waltzing tune.

  She and Dimitri took the traditional pose
for a waltz, her train attached to her wrist making
her feel like a nineteenth-century debutante at
her comeout ball. Dimitri's dancing was divine and
Alexandra lost herself in the pleasure of his arms and
their bodies" movement to the music.
  Other couples began to join them.
Madeleine and Hunter. Phoebe and Spiros.
Several guests she did not know by name.
  She tilted her head to look into his eyes.
"Thank you."
  "For dancing with you?" he asked, a smile
flirting with the edges of his lips.
  "For all of this. The wedding. Keeping Mama
calmed down over the last week. Charming
Madeleine so she didn't think I was marrying an
ogre. Buying the Dupree Mansion back for
Mama. I guess I didn't think you were totally
serious and yet you accomplished the purchase in less
than a week. I'm stunned."
  "I want you to be happy, pethi mou. I have
told you this."
  "Are all Petronides men willing
to sacrifice for their wife's happiness?"
  A shadow passed over his chiseled features, but
was quickly gone. "All the Petronides males in
my family, yes."
  "That gives me a great deal of hope for the
future, mon cher."
  He stopped, stock-still in the middle of a turn.
  "What's the matter?" she asked, anxiously.
Had she stepped on his foot without realizing
it?
  "Say it again."
  "What?" Then she knew. She hadn't called
him by an endearment since he found her at
Madeleine's. Even in the most passionate of their
lovemaking, she had used only his name.
  She could not deny him. He'd given her so much this
week. She went up on tiptoes and still had to pull
his head down so their lips could meet. "Mon cher,"
she whispered against his lips before kissing him.
  It was a kiss completely lacking in passion, a
restoration of a bond that had been cruelly severed and
left her bleeding. It had left its mark on
Dimitri as well and now they saluted one another
with a kiss of remembrance and renewal.
  Three hours later, they were aboard Dimitri's
private jet. She had changed into a comfortable, but
chic honey gold, oversized, crocheted sweater and
almond-colored wool stretch pants. Relaxed
on the small couch in the plain's main cabin, she
sipped on the glass of fruit juice
Dimitri's personal flight attendant had
given her.
  "We should be taking off in less than half an
hour," Dimitri informed her, walking into the
main cabin from the cockpit after speaking to the pilot.
  He had changed too and now wore tailored
black slack trousers, a round-necked Armani
sweater in gray over a black T-shirt. He
lowered his long frame onto the sofa beside her, his outer
thigh brushing her own sending the ever ready shivers down
her limbs in anticipation of the next touch.
  "How long will the flight to Athens take?" she
asked, trying to tamp down the urge to slide her
hands under his sweater and feel the well muscled
contours of his chest.
  He shrugged. "It depends. Perhaps eight
hours."
  "I'm glad I don't have to make the flight on
a commercial airline. I don't think I could
take it." So much

  sitting in one position would be painful to her back
in her currently pregnant state.
  His fingertips brushed her cheeks. "I would never
expect you too." His hand fell away. "I did
not ask if you were okay with changing doctors so late
in your pregnancy."
  "I can hardly have my New York doctor in
Greece," she replied with a smile.
  "So Madeleine said."
  Her sister again. She bit back a grimace.
"I'll be fine."
  "I have arranged for you to be seen by an eminent
obstetrician in Athens. He wants us to move
to the Athens apartment for your last month."
  "You've already spoken to him?" Why did that
surprise her? This was his heir they were talking about
after all.
  "He comes highly recommended."
  "I have no doubt," she said with some bemusement. So
much for having to find a new doctor and arrange
appointments for her last trimester.
  "If you do not like him, we will find someone else."
  Suddenly it struck her that Dimitri was worried
about her reaction. She laid her hand over his.
"I'll be fine. Really. Have you already arranged for
my records to be transferred?"
  "I had them faxed three days ago."
  "Did I sign for that?" Between the marriage
license, living Visa for Greece and other
paperwork necessary for their wedding to take place, she
didn't know what she had signed.
  "Yes."
  "Do you plan to be with me during
delivery?"
  "I would like this very much, but the final decision must be
yours."
  That surprised her. First that he wanted to be there.
Dimitri wasn't exactly a New Man. And
second that he would leave the choice to her. "I
want you there."
  "Then I will be. I believe there are classes
we can take to help you through the delivery."
  She stared at him, too shocked to speak this time.
  "What is the matter? Do you not wish to take these
classes? I had heard they were very beneficial for
new mothers. I think you should consider attending them."
  "I had always planned to do so," she choked out.
  "You do not wish me to attend with you? Someone must be
your coach. As your husband, I should fulfill the
role." He was arguing with her like she'd denied him.
  She hadn't. Didn't he realize how much she
had wanted to share her pregnancy with the father of her
baby? She'd dreamed of taking childbirth
classes with Dimitri, but had known her
fantasies were unattainable. Cold reality had
been a life without him and the prospect of giving
birth alone.
  "I want you to be my labor coach.
I want that more than anything." Then she burst
into tears.
  Dimitri looked like he'd just been hit by a
truck. It would be funny,
if she wasn't feeling so emotional.
  "Alexandra, yineka mou, what is it?"
  She shook her head and tried to stem the flow of
tears, but the salty wetness kept up a steady flow
down her cheeks.
  "You must not upset yourself this way."
  "I'm n-not upset," she sobbed.
  "Come here." He took her glass from her hand and
set it down, then pulled her into his arms and onto
his

  lap. Just like in the limo. "Tell me what is
making you cry." He sounded quite desperate.
  "I wanted you to be there so many times. I would
wake up and reach for you and only find an empty
bed. The first time the baby really kicked, I wanted
to call you, but I thought you were married. I m-missed
you so much..."
  His arms tightened around her and he whispered to her in
Greek. The words were too low and quick for her to understand,
but the soothing tone was not. She snuggled
into his arms and cried out the frustration and pain of the
last three months.
  Her sobs eventually turned to small hiccups and
he mopped up her face as if she were a child. She
gave him a watery smile. "You'll be good with the
baby."
  He didn't respond to the joke. His eyes had
darkened with unfathomable emotion. "You will never be without
me again."
  As vows went, that was a pretty comforting one. She
nodded, accepting his words and the promise in his eyes.
  CHAPTER TEN

  Her tears were killing him. And she'd cried like this
for a solid month after leaving Paris? The thought sent
shards of pain slicing through him.
  This was his woman. His wife. He had almost lost
her. He would never let her go again. She had wanted
him and he hadn't been there. He didn't want her
to cry anymore. He wanted to look toward the
future, for her to see things were going to be different.
  He knew the truth now, who and what she was beyond the
fashion model with an almost obsessive focus on
her career. He understood that focus now. She'd
been supporting her family, her mother now,
but presumably Madeleine also until she had
married Hunter. Alexandra hadn't been able
to give up her career to travel with him because she had
needed the money and she'd not wanted to take it from him.
  His arms tightened around her of their own accord.
She filled his arms so perfectly, their baby
nestled between their bodies. Her tears were lessening, but
had not stopped. He knew of only one way
to completely overcome her outburst of emotion.
  It was with the one thing he had not managed to kill between
them with his actions three months ago. Passion.
  Possessive pleasure coursed through him as he
turned her face upward until he could cover her
tear-drenched lips with his own. She belonged to him now,
both legally andwiththe emotional ties of carrying his child.
He did

  not have to seduce her into accepting his kisses. She
tasted so sweet and her response was even sweeter.
Her mouth opened under his on a small gasp and he
deepened the kiss with one thought in mind.
  He wanted to obliterate her sadness and
replace it with pleasure in his arms.
  He plundered her mouth, his own desire soon
surging through him in unstoppable waves. She
responded with all the generous eroticism that was in her
nature, her hands coming up to cling to his shoulders,
her mouth moving under his with enticing need. He wanted
her under him, surrounding his sex, yielding her softness
to the hardness that made him a man.
  He needed to touch her. His hands were working their way
under the hem of her sweater when a sound from the anterior
of the cabin reminded him where they were. On his
plane. Readying for takeoff. The flight
attendant would be requesting them to buckle-up any
moment now. The woman had probably already gotten
an eyeful. He forced himself to pull back and gently
set Alexandra from him.
  She didn't understand at first and almost overcame his
self-control trying to get back in his arms, but all
at once she also seemed to realize what they were doing
and where they were. Eyes gold with desire went round
and wide while the pale perfection of her skin
turned a rosy hue from embarrassment.
  She primly straightened her sweater over the
pants that clung to her sexy legs. "I forgot where
we were."
  He smiled. "I also."
  She shot a sideways glance at the flight
attendant who was pretending to be very busy
in the galley.
  "She's as discomforted as you are," he assured
Alexandra.
  "Is that meant to make me feel better like
telling me a spider is more frightened of me than I
am of it?" she asked, her blushing cheeks now almost
fire engine red.
  Unable to help himself, he reached out and cupped her
nape. He needed to touch her in some way. "They are
both the truth."
  She cast another glance at the flight
attendant, whose back was to them while she moved things
around the galley in an obvious attempt to give
them privacy. "I'm willing to buy the
embarrassment thing, but not the spider theory."
  He rubbed the delicate skin of her neck with his
thumb. "After we have reached altitude, we can
retire to the relative privacy of the bedroom."
  That brought a smile, a very feminine,
flirtatious smile. "You mean so I can get my
sleep? Pregnant ladies need lots of rest,
or so some domineering father-to-be has been telling
me all week long."
  He smiled at her reminder that she had not always
taken his concern for her welfare with good
grace. "I will assure you get your rest."
  "Before or after?" she asked, her eyes sparkling with
teasing lights he'd thought never to see again.
  It was going to be all right. He would make it so.
"After, most definitely after."
  She gave an exaggerated sigh and clasped her
hands, fluttering her eyelashes like a 1920's
film star. "I can't wait."
  The minx. "I'll make it worth your while,"
he promised, knowing that in this, he could satisfy her
every desire.
  "I'll see that you do."
  Alexandra stood before Dimitri, divested of her
travel clothes, her body throbbing with a desire he
had fed until

  she was ready to scream for fulfillment. And that was
before he undressed her. He was equally naked and his
body's desire was apparent in the glorious size
and rigidity of his erection.
  His eyes were intent, appearing almost black in the
dimmed lighting of the plane's bedroom. "You are so
beautiful."
  She felt the words clear to her toes and other
nether regions that affected her breathing and
her ability to stand. "I feel beautiful when you
look at me like that, not like a misshapen woman with a
football for a waistline."
  "Misshapen?" His expression turned feral.
"You are carrying my child. Your shape is the biggest
turn-on imaginable. I get hard every time you turn
sideways and I get a picture of the difference my
son has made in your body."
  She turned in silhouette, purposefully,
provocatively and invitingly.
  He accepted the invitation with all the speed of a
jaguar going in for the kill. As prepared as she thought
she was, she still squealed in the most embarrassing
way when he swept her into his arms and then onto the
bed in one heady rush.
  He rolled onto his back and pulled her on
top of him, spreading her legs so she was poised
above his manhood, kissing him intimately. "You
control how deep," was all he said.
  And she did, sliding onto him centimeter
by tantalizing centimeter. The feel of his hardness
filling her so completely was incredible. She couldn't
take all of him comfortably any longer, but he
didn't push her or complain. He didn't seem
disappointed at all if the look of intense
ecstasy on his face was any indication.
  While he allowed her to dictate the level of his
penetration, he set the pace by holding her hips in
an unshakable grip and moving her slowly and gently
on his shaft. Her eyes slid shut as sensation
crowded through her. How could she have survived months
without this?
  The answer was: she hadn't. She had spent that
time living as half a person, hating him, missing
him and wishing with all her heart things were different.
  But now she was once again connected to the other half
of herself and she celebrated the bliss that connection
gave her. She forced her eyes open again. She
wanted to see him, see the effect of their joining on
him.
  His eyes were slits, his face rock hard with
passionate need. His grip on her hips was almost
bruising, but she didn't complain. She needed to know
she could push him to this place of no control. It
gave her hope that his feelings for her were something more
than guilt and responsibility, or even
run-of-the-mill desire. There was nothing ordinary
about the feelings they sparked in each other.
  He increased the pace of their loving and she gasped
as the pleasure increased as her insides
began to tighten toward that ultimate satisfaction
only he had ever given her. She couldn't support
herself anymore and she whimpered, knowing she could not just
collapse on top of him.
  He seemed to understand her need because he rolled them
both to the side, keeping their bodies intimately
connected, pulling her thigh over his own. He took
over the thrusting, holding her to him with a hand cupped
possessively on her backside. Now that her
hands were no longer occupied with holding her up, she
could touch

  him. She brushed her fingers through the black silk
of his chest hair and he shuddered.
  She smiled, remembering what made him shudder
even more and began to run light circles around his
male nipples. When they were hard, she pinched them and
his body bowed toward her in animalistic joy. She
cried out as his body brushed hers in abandoned
desire. The inner contractions started and she lost
sense of time and place as her body
convulsed in wave after wave of ecstatic delight.
  His release was accompanied by a feral shout that
left her eardrums ringing. The ecstasy of their
union went on and on until they lay
spent and sweating. He brushed his hand down her
shoulder and her entire body contracted on another
wave of pleasure. She moaned. It was too much.
  He pulled her closer, until she was resting
against him, shivering with intermittent aftershocks from their
cataclysmic release. He soothed her with a hand
on her back. "Shh. It's all right."
  A sob welled up in her. "It's too much."
  The calming motion of his hand did not stop. "No,
agapi mou, it is so wonderful your body can barely
stand it, but it is not too much."
  Everything in her went still. Had he called her his
love? Then reason asserted itself. After something as
incredible as what they had just shared, any man would be
forgiven for using such a tender term with his partner. It was
just sex talk, but even so, it made her feel good and
she hugged the endearment close to her heart.
  She sighed and snuggled closer. "Relative
privacy is right. If your crew didn't hear you
shouting, they're deaf."
  "I was not the only one making noise, hmm?"
  She smiled against his chest. "I'm not answering."
  Masculine laughter rumbled in his chest,
vibrating through her. "I do not need this answer. I have
ears to hear."
  She didn't reply and they rested together in silence
for several minutes before he shifted away from her.
She murmured a protest, but he picked her up and
carried her into the plane's small shower, where he
proceeded to wash her so thoroughly she made a lot
more noise and could not stand unaided when he was finished.
He carried her back to bed and she fell asleep as
he pulled her body snugly into his own.
  She didn't know how long she slept, but when she
woke, the lighting was
no longer dimmed and Dimitri lay beside her watching
her with an intent expression she could not decipher.
  She smiled at him. "Hi. You're watching
me."
  "You are beautiful when you sleep."
  Her smile turned wry. "Right. I bet my
hair is sticking on end and I'm not wearing a
speck of makeup."
  A gentle finger traced the contours of her face.
"You do not need makeup and your hair is very sexy."
  She scooted into a sitting position. "I'm
hungry,"
  He swung out of bed. "Stay where you are. I will
order some food."
  He pulled on a robe hanging in the
miniscule closet and went into the main cabin. Which just
went to show the difference between them. While she had
modeled lingerie on the catwalks of Paris, she
couldn't have faced the flight attendant in her
bathrobe to save her life.
  Dimitri was back fifteen minutes later
carrying a tray laden with food. He laid it across
her lap, dropped his robe and slid back into bed
beside her. She ate a bowl

  of wild rice and mushroom soup, a crusty
roll, and a brownie before sitting back against him,
replete.
  He pulled away from her long enough to set the tray
on the floor. Settling back into their previous
position, he laid his hand on the baby. Their son
kicked and rolled, making both of them laugh.
"He's very active in there, my son. He will be
champion football player, that one."
  "More like he'll keep us running with his antics."
  "If he is anything like his mother, he will keep me
on my toes until my hair turns gray."
  She smiled at that and laid her hand over
Dimitri's. "You know, you never did explain how
you came to the conclusion the baby is yours."
  "I told you about my friend."
  "The doctor? Yes. I remember. That
explains how, but not why. I mean just because you realized
it was possible for you to be the father of my child, didn't
mean you had to believe you were the father."
  Dimitri exhaled a long breath. "I knew the
truth long before I went to Nikos and asked him how
it could be possible."
  "Why?"
  She felt his body go tense against her and she
lifted her head off his chest to look into his eyes.
They weren't revealing anything. "My mother and father died
in an avalanche when I was ten years old."
  "I know." It was the only thing he'd told her
about his parents and one of the few things she knew about his
family.
  "My father was bringing her back from the ski lodge
where she had been staying with her current lover."
  "Current lover?"
  Dimitri nodded, his head moving in a precise
movement that was painful to watch. "She fell in love
with daunting regularity, only one of those times was with
my father."
  She laid her hand over his heart and caressed the
skin there in a comforting gesture. "Oh,
Dimitri..."
  He frowned as if her sympathy bothered him. It
probably did. He was a very proud man.
  "She had left before. There was even some question as
to whether or not Spiros could claim the
Petronides bloodline. My father insisted on
having the tests done, my grandfather told me, not because
he didn't love my brother but because he wanted
to squelch the rumors. I believe he would have paid
to have the tests doctored if they had come back
negative. They did not."
  "But if your mother was unfaithful, why did your father
remain married to her?" She could not imagine a proud
Petronides male doing so.
  Dimitri's frown turned to a scowl. "He was
obsessed with her. He too called this feeling
love. Their marriage was volatile, their
reunions dramatic but in the end her concept of
love and his obsession killed them both."
  No wonder Dimitri had such a jaundiced
view of love. A depressing sense of hopelessness
came over her. Would he ever allow himself that level
of vulnerability after the example his parents had
set him?
  "It is not a pretty tale."
  But it explained why he hadn't trusted her.
He'd seen too much at an impressionable young age
to take the fidelity of a woman for granted.
  "We all have memories we would rather forget. Every
family has its skeletons."
  "Not according to your mother."
  Alexandra smiled at his attempt at humor,
but it was a small one. She didn't feel like
laughing when she'd

  come face to face with Dimitri's reason for
distrusting love. "Not all women are like your mother."
He shrugged. "Adultery is not such an uncommon
thing."
  "Is that why you were so sure I'd had a lover?"
  He'd been waiting for her to betray him like his mother
had done, because her betrayal had not only been against
her husband. She'd done terrible emotional damage
to her children as well.
  The tension in him grew almost palpable. "It
shames me, but yes."
  "My unexplained trips must have played upon your
fears."
  "I was not afraid."
  Right. "You don't like discussing your
feelings, do you?" Why hadn't she caught on to that
before?
  "No, but you asked for a reason for my belief."
  "Your mother's behavior explains why you didn't
trust me. It does not explain what changed your
mind."
  "I realized you were not like her."
  Hope erupted in her like Mount Vesuvius.
If he already accepted she was nothing like his mother, he
might eventually learn to trust her enough to let himself
love her.
  "I'm not," she reiterated for good measure.
Then, because she was curious and couldn't help wanting
to know, she asked, "When did you realize it?"
  "When I returned to the apartment and found the
pregnancy test on top of the lingerie."
  "Oh." So, those final frantic moments in the
apartment hadn't been wasted.
  "There was a message in that, was there not?"
  "Yes."
  "You connected the pregnancy with our lovemaking."
  He really did understand how her mind worked. "Did
it make you remember what it had been like between us?"
That was what she had intended.
  "Yes." His expression was grim. "I
knew you could not be that way with someone else. I still
did not understand why you took trips you refused
to explain to me, but I knew they were not to meet
another man."
  "Now you know."
  "Now I know." His expression lightened and the hand
on her shoulder ventured lower. "I know something else
as well."
  "Oh, what's that?" she asked breathlessly. That
hand had found an already aching peak and gently tweaked
it.
  "There are things I would rather do with you than talk."
  "I'm so surprised." She tried to sound
mocking, but his touch was affecting her and her voice
came out husky instead.
  They spent a week in Athens, Dimitri
insisting they have a honeymoon before he took her to the
family home to meet his grandfather. It was a
blissful seven days filled with touristy stuff and
making love, lots and lots of making love.
  Dimitri took her to see the obstetrician.
She turned bright red and wanted to hide in a
closet when Dimitri insisted on verifying her
former obstetrician's advice about making love.
He wasn't content until the doctor had
done a full examination and Dimitri even
requested an ultrasound to check the progress of the
baby.
  At four months, she hadn't been able to make out
much on the ultrasound, but this time she didn't need

  the doctor to tell her where the baby's head and
feet were. Nor did she need his interpretation
to affirm the male sex of her child.
  She pointed to the baby sucking its thumb in the
womb and turned to share her delight with Dimitri.
He was pale and his eyes had the dazed look of
someone in serious shock.
  "Mr. Petronides, are you all right?" the
doctor asked.
  "Dimitri?" she prompted when he didn't
answer.
  He turned to her, his eyes suspiciously bright.
"That is my son. You nurture and protect him with
your body. How can I ever thank you for this gift?"
  She stared at him, nonplussed. She knew
fatherhood had affected him strongly, but this was over the
top...and she loved it. "No thanks necessary. He
is my gift as well, mon cher."
  Then Dimitri bent down and kissed her
lips very gently as she lay on the examining table with the
ultrasound gel making her tummy glisten.
  The doctor looked on with tolerance. "You will be
an indulgent papa I fear," he said.
  Dimitri straightened to his full six foot,
four inches and smiled. "Perhaps."
  And Alexandra felt suffused with a glow of
contentment.
  That contentment lasted until Dimitri told her
it was time for her to meet his grandfather.
  "But what if he hates me?" she asked
nervously. "He has every reason."
  "Don't worry. He cannot help but adore you and
he has no reason to hate you."
  She would probably have been more confident of that
concept if she were confident in Dimitri's
adoration. But while he was overtly
affectionate, complimentary and the charming companion she
remembered, he never spoke words of love. He'd
never called her his love again either. Not in Greek,
not in English or even French which they slipped
into frequently, it being the language they had
originally used to communicate.
  Love words never passed his lips...even in the
height of passion.
  CHAPTER ELEVEN
  Theopolis Petronides did not look at all
like a seventy-one-year-old man who had undergone
heart by-pass surgery only a few months
ago. Even leaning on a cane for support, he
stood commandingly tall in the middle of the spacious
Mediterranean-style room. His almost black eyes
bore into Alexandra with disconcerting force from below
steel-gray brows that matched the hair on his head.
  "So this is my new granddaughter, heh?" He
put his hand out commandingly. "Come here and greet your
family, child."
  Alexandra stepped forward with an assumed air of
confidence, knowing to show her fear of his disapproval would
be to lose his respect. She put her hands on his
shoulders and reached up to kiss his cheek in greeting.
He returned the salute with an approving smile
before she stepped back.
  "She doesn't look like her pictures," he
said to Dimitri. Then he turned back
to Alexandra. "I like you better this way. More
natural. No fancy curls and dye jobs in your
hair. My Sophia, she never used color on
her hair." His gaze roamed over her face like he
was taking inventory. "Eyes a nice
hazel, not some impossible green. It suits you."
  She bit back a smile at his blunt speaking.
"Thank you. Dimitri thought maybe I was too
ugly to support myself modeling any longer."
  Both men spoke at once.

  "I did not say-was
  "What's the matter with my grandson?"
  The smile broke through. "To be fair, I did
look a fright from lack of sleep and morning sickness
at the time."
  Mr. Petronides beetled his brows at
Dimitri. "Never tell a pregnant woman she
looks a fright, even when her appearance would be enough
to scare the goats from the hills. You will find yourself
sleeping in the guest room and dealing with enough tears
to sink a fishing boat, heh?"
  "A little piece of wisdom Grandmother taught you?"
Dimitri asked.
  "My eyes. She taught me." He thumped his
cane on the floor. "She asked me did I think
she was fat? Of course she was fat. She was as round
as a barrel and could barely walk. Your papa, he
weighed ten pounds. She almost died. I said no more
babies after that, I can tell you."
Remembered fear clouded the old man's eyes for a
moment. "I told her, yes I thought she'd gotten
fat. She threw her dinner at me and then started in
on the other dishes on the table. I said I was
sorry and ended up with moussaka in my hair for my
trouble. I ran for my life."
  Dimitri's smile made Alexandra feel
all gooey inside while she laughed at Mr.
Petronides's story. "And she made you sleep
in the guest room?"
  He grinned and winked. "She locked our door."
  "So you meekly found another bed for the night,
hmm?" Dimitri asked mockingly.
  Mr. Petronides laughed. "You are like me.
Tell me what you would do if this lovely creature
carrying my first great-grandson locked you out of her
room." He waved his cane in Alexandra's
direction.

  Remembering a locked door and a very erotic shower,
she smiled. No wonder Mr. Petronides had
his security man teach Dimitri to pick a lock.
For some reason that thought struck her as terribly
funny and she started laughing so hard she was almost bent
over double.
  "So it's already happened, hen?"
  Dimitri didn't answer, but took her
firmly by the wrist and pulled her to a bright red
armchair and almost pushed her into it. "The baby can't be
getting enough oxygen with you laughing like a loon," he
reproved her, but his eyes smiled and the corner of his
mouth was engagingly tilted.
  She took a deep breath and then another, finally
managing to stop her mirth.
  Mr. Petronides sat across from her, his face
creased in a smile. "I did not have a smart
grandfather to see to my education. I did not know how
to pick a lock, so I threatened to kick in the
door. She started crying so loud I could hear her
through the thick wood." He rolled his eyes. "I
climbed in through the window and took her by surprise,
heh? It was a very satisfactory reunion."
  Alexandra felt herself blush thinking of
Dimitri's similar approach to the same problem.
  He sat on the arm of her chair with his hand on her
nape. "Are Spiros and Phoebe back in
Paris?" he asked his grandfather.
  "Yes. They came here first, though. Wanted
to tell me what a wonderful new granddaughter I
had."
  Alexandra felt her cheeks heating again. She
smiled at the older man. "I'm pleased they think
so. I was worried they would resent me, but they were very
kind as you have been."
  Mr. Petronides waved his hand in an
expansive Greek gesture. "It all worked out
for the best, heh? I have both my grandsons married,
a grandchild on the way and everyone is happy as a
clam. Sophia could not
have done a better job if she were alive to arrange
it all," he said with obvious satisfaction. "I
think I must send prayers of thanks to the Good God
above for so many gifts all at once to my
family."
  His clear sincerity moved her deeply. She
impulsively pushed herself out of the chair and crossed
to give him another kiss on the cheek. "Thank you.
You are a very nice man."
  He waved her away, but his eyes revealed his
pleasure in her words. "Take her upstairs,
Dimitrius. Pregnant ladies need their rest,
heh?"
  Which made her giggle again, being so close to what
Dimitri said at least once a day since his
return into her life. They were usually
followed by his version of a nap, the resemblance to which
was loosely based on the fact they went to bed.
  Dimitri shook his head and swung her up against
his chest. "Come, pethi mou. I believe you need an
afternoon nap."
  She went off into gales of laughter at that, but she
choked back her amusement to protest. "You can't
carry me up the stairs. I'm too heavy."
  Dimitri's eyes glittered down at her. "I
won't be accused of implying you're fat. I
learned my lesson from Grandfather's story."
  "Letting me walk on my own isn't making
any sort of implication," she asserted.
  He was already a third of the way up the stairs.
"It is after you said you were too heavy. Either you're
implying you are fat or I am a wimp. I
refuse to give credence to either."

  She subsided, secretly thrilled at his macho
display of consideration.
  He carried her into a bedroom so big that even the
extra-long,
king-size four-poster bed looked small in the
middle of it. Two sets of side-by-side
sliding glass doors looked out onto the
wrap around terrace and the crystalline-blue sea beyond
it and her gaze alighted there first.
  "It's breathtaking, mon cher."
  He let her slide down his body in a very
suggestive manner and she turned from the incredible
view to smile into his blue eyes. "A nap I
think you said?"
  "We must make sure you are properly tired,"
he informed her as he began working on the removal of
her clothes.
  Her gaze wandered around the room and was arrested by a
familiar Lladro figurine on top of an
antique chest of drawers. It was of a young girl in
a garden. Dimitri had said the figure reminded
him of Alexandra. The last time she'd seen it, it
had been in a pile of paper wrapping on the floor
of the living room in the Paris apartment.
  She only had time to ponder the significance of it
being here in Greece for a few moments before
Dimitri's expert ministrations shut down her
thinking processes entirely.
  Alexandra pulled open yet another drawer in the
antique bureau looking for her clothes. So far she
had found a drawer full of Dimitri's socks,
one full of silk boxers, another had the
plain cotton t-shirts he liked to wear under
sweaters or by themselves with jeans when he was relaxing at
home. She closed the drawer and bent down to open the
last one.
  She'd opened it only a couple of inches when
strong hands on her arms pulled her into a standing
position. "Pethi mou, what are you doing? You should not
be bending over like that and opening heavy drawers."
  "I'm just looking for my clothes, but so far all
I've found are yours." She looked in disgust at the
last open drawer. Dimitri's stuff again.
  A small piece of white caught her eye and
she found herself kneeling again to see what it was. She
reached in and pulled the plastic stick from the drawer.
She stared at it in her hand. He'd saved the
pregnancy
test.
  Turning her head so she could see his face, she
asked, "Why did you save it?"
  "It was the only proof I had that my baby
existed. I could not find you. I did not know where
to look, but somewhere my baby was growing in your womb."
Red scorched the chiseled lines of his cheekbones.
"It gave me hope."
  She felt emotion well up in her and
she shot to her feet, probably too fast for a
woman almost six months pregnant, but she
didn't care. She threw her arms around him and
hugged him tightly to her. "Oh, Dimitri..."
  His arms closed around her toweling robe-clad
figure and she felt a sense of belonging she had not
felt since before she left Paris.
  "So, where are my clothes?" she asked into his
naked chest.
  He let her go and turned her toward a doorway
in the wall beside the entrance to the en suite bathroom.
"There."
  She went over and opened the door to find a large
dressing room with three walls of hanging clothes and
one of built in shelves, drawers and shoe racks.
The sight of Dimitri's suits hanging beside her
pregnancy dresses

  had an air of domesticity that made her smile.
She reached for one of the dresses to wear for dinner with his
grandfather when she realized several of the garments were from the
pile she'd left in Paris.
  "You saved my clothes," she said stupidly.
  "Of course. I knew you would be returning and in
need of them," he said from the open doorway.
"Though not for a few months. I should have
bought you more maternity things. I did not think."
  She fingered the brilliant blue of an ankle
length silk sheath dress Dimitri had bought her in
Milan. Had he kept her clothes for a similar
reason to keeping the pregnancy test?
  She turned and gave him a saucy smile.
"Are you saying I'm fat?"
  His eyes filled with mock horror. "God
forbid. I would not say such a thing. Your figure is
luscious and perfect."
  Right at that moment she was so happy it felt like
champagne bubbles fizzing in her bloodstream.
"You're a pretty fine specimen yourself, Mr.
Petronides."
  He would be afraid to admit he loved her after the
experience he'd had growing up. But she was beginning
to believe in the impossible...t he could love her and
need her in her own right, not just as the mother of his child.
  "If I stay in here, we will not make it to dinner
with my grandfather."
  She shooed him out. "Then go. I have to get
dressed."
  She pulled on a pair of peach silk bikini
briefs and matching bra she'd bought since
getting pregnant. Over that she slid on an
apricot sundress with a flirty skirt. The soft
fabric fell in graceful curves over her
tummy to midcalf. She loved the dress because it
made her feel feminine even though she'd lost her
waistline weeks ago.
  She walked out of the dressing room to find
Dimitri ready to go down in a dinner suit, silk
shirt and understated tie.
  Approval burned in his eyes when he looked
at her. "I'm tempted to order dinner in our room
tonight."
  She gave him a severe look. "Don't you
dare. I want to make a good impression on your
grandfather."
  "You already have, or couldn't you tell?"
  "He's terribly nice."
  Dimitri's dark brows rose. "When he
wants to be."
  "Well, I'm glad he wants to be nice
to me."
  "You are family."
  She smiled, feeling warm inside. To be
accepted simply because she was family and not because she
did and said all the right things was a unique
experience for her. She liked it.
  Halfway through dinner, Dimitri was called from the
table to take an international phone call.
  Mr. Petronides winked at her. "Ah, the
business, it intrudes, eh?"
  She lifted her shoulders in a small, casual
movement. "He must have a lot of catching up to do after
all his time in New York and on our honeymoon."
  "As you say." He beetled his brows at her in
what was becoming a familiar gesture. "Tell me
about your family."
  So she did, telling him about Madeleine and
Hunter, her mother and Dimitri's generosity in
buying back the Dupree Mansion.
  Mr. Petronides flicked his hand in a throw
away gesture.

  "This is nothing to Dimitrius. Your mother is now
his family. It is his responsibility to look after
her."
  Alexandra chewed her lip anxiously. "I did
not marry your grandson so he would take over my
financial responsibilities with my mother."
  The old man laughed, long and richly. "Of
course not, silly child. Had you wanted
money from my grandson, you would never have left
Paris."
  She smiled with relief. "You're right. All I
ever wanted was him. I didn't know about Phoebe,"
she added earnestly.
  "Ne. Yes. I know."
  "I'm sorry."
  "For what are you sorry child?"
  "Causing Dimitri to break his promise to you."
  Mr. Petronides nodded his head knowingly. "You
feel the weight of such things. I like this."
  "Thank you." She wasn't all that fond of the
guilt that plagued her, though.
  "But I do not want you to feel badly my
grandson could not keep a promise he made under the
threat of my health." He sighed. "I should not have
put such a pressure on him."
  "He told me in Paris that his marriage
to Phoebe had been expected for a long time," she
said with a small spark of residual pain. She
frowned. "You must have been very disappointed."
  "Disappointed?" He looked startled, his dark
eyes wide for a second of stunned silence. "I
wanted the certainty of great-grandchildren and I have that now,
heh?" he asked with a pointed look at her
stomach, not quite hidden by the table.
  She felt herself blushing...ag. The
Petronides men were not good for her composure.
  He laughed again, this time with wholly masculine
amusement. "Do not worry about Dimitrius breaking
his promise to marry Phoebe. It all worked out for the
best, heh? Phoebe is happier with Spiros,
I think.
She's a little afraid of Dimitri. I did not
see this until after the betrothal was announced and they
were here together."
  It astounded her, but no one in Dimitri's
family seemed bitter with her over the changes her
pregnancy had wrought among them.
  He took a sip of his wine. "And this grandson of
mine, he kept his second promise, heh?"
  "Second promise?"
  "He married you just as he promised me he would."
Dark eyes glittered with steely determination. "He
gave my great-grandson the Petronides name.
Ne, yes, I am a content man."
  Shock congealed the smile on Alexandra's
face. "He promised you he would marry me?"
  Mr. Petronides nodded his gray head. "He
is a man of his word, my grandson. His
second promise more than negated his first," he said
with pride. "Your son will be raised a
Petronides. I could die tomorrow happy."
  "Don't talk like that," she admonished even as
her heart was breaking within her.
  Dimitri had promised his grandfather he would marry
her? He had promised to give their son the
Petronides name?
  "The young. They fear talk of death. I am old.
I do not fear it, but I would like to teach my
great-grandson to pick a lock before I go." He
laughed at his own joke.
  She forced her lips to smile. "I thought it was your
security man who taught Dimitri?"
  "He did, but I made him teach me too so I
could

  teach Spiros. Maybe Phoebe has a
surprise to come one day, heh?"
  Alexandra couldn't believe she could carry on a
conversation with Dimitri's grandfather and pretend nothing
was wrong while inside she felt like she was dying.
  Dimitri had not married her because he wanted her.
He hadn't even married her for the baby's sake.
He'd married her because he had made a
promise to his grandfather. His brother had prevented
him from keeping the first promise, a huge blow to his
Greek pride. However nothing, not even her angry
rejection had been able to stop him from keeping the
second one.
  No wonder Dimitri had put up with so much from
her. He had been determined to keep his oath to his
grandfather, no matter what obstacles she put in his
path. When she had refused to discuss the option of
marriage, he had seduced her. He had charmed her
mother and even used the repurchase of Dupree
Mansion as an incentive to get her to marry him.
  In the back of her mind, she'd thought all that
effort must mean he cared, that he would have given up and
accepted visitation if she didn't matter to him
personally. Now she knew differently. He might
not love her, but he loved his grandfather...enough to marry
the mistress that hadn't been proper marriage
material before.
  How could she have forgotten that? Dimitri had
dismissed the idea of a future with her out of hand. And
gullible idiot that she was, she'd conveniently
ignored that fact when he started talking marriage.
For the first time since agreeing to marry Dimitri, she
felt bile rise in the back of her
throat.
  She took a hasty sip of her fruit juice and
prayed the nausea would go away.
  "Are you all right, child? You look pale."
  She looked down at her half-eaten dinner.
"Just tired and maybe a
little sick," she admitted. "Morning sickness did
not go away after the first trimester like it's supposed
to." But it had for a while.
  Mr. Petronides nodded knowingly. "I
remember. Do you want to lie down?"
  Did she? She could hide from her misery
upstairs, or end up wallowing in it. She really
didn't want her own company right now. "I'd rather
stay here with you."
  "Ah, kindness to an old man."
  "Not at all. I enjoy your company," she
replied truthfully.
  "Then tell me about this job you had. I have never
  met a fashion model."
  She told him about her life as Xandra Fortune
and ended up talking about how she had met Dimitri.
Impossibly, she found herself laughing over
memories of her life with Dimitri before she'd
gotten pregnant.
  She and Mr. Petronides had gone to the drawing
room for coffee when Dimitri rejoined them. She
was telling his grandfather about the first argument they'd ever
had,
  "I was doing a swimsuit cover. Dimitri
came to the
  shoot on a whim."
  "I came back a day early and surprised
her," Dimitri inserted as he walked into the room.
  Her head snapped around and she met his eyes
briefly before her own gaze skated away. She
didn't know how she managed it, but she didn't stand
up and harangue him like a fishwife for once again
withholding a crucial piece of information from her. For
letting her believe he might be coming to love her when
he'd been motivated by his personal sense of
honor, not personal need.
  Dimitri joined her on the brightly colored
Mediterranean-style sofa. Her body tensed in
response

  to his nearness. If only she could forget what he
made her feel as easily as he conveniently forgot
to tell her about his second promise.
  She focused her attention on Mr.
Petronides who was smiling benevolently at them.
"He didn't like the suit I was wearing for the shoot and
demanded I go to the trailer and take it off."
  "So, being a reasonable woman and understanding the
possessiveness of a traditional Greek male, you
immediately changed, heh?" Mr. Petronides's
eyes twinkled mockingly.
  Dimitri snorted. "She threatened to take it
off right there in front of everyone if I didn't
shut up and go to the sidelines." He still sounded
chagrined by her tactics.
  She allowed herself a brief glance at him, but it
hurt too much to make full frontal contact so
she looked back at his grandfather. "It worked."
  The older man roared with laughter and said something
rapid to Dimitri in Greek that she didn't
catch. Dimitri scowled.
  She smiled. Anything that made him frown made
her happy, or so she told herself.
  "She has led you a merry chase, has she not,
Dimitrius?"
  Dimitri laid his arm across her shoulders.
"Yes, but I have her now and I'm not letting go."
  She wanted to cuddle into his side and kick him
in the shin at the same time. Was she going
crazy? She must be. And he was the one driving her
there.
  She jumped up. "I think I'll go to bed."
She turned to Dimitri. "You needn't feel
obligated to join me. I'm sure you and your grandfather
have a great deal to catch up on." The words were
stilted, but they were the best she could do.
  Dimitri's eyes narrowed and he stood. "I will
see you upstairs."
  His grandfather stood as well, slowly coming to his
feet, the expression on his face one of fatigue.
It was the first time since she'd met him that he had
shown a glimmer of the effects of his recent ill
health. "Do not return downstairs for my sake,
Dimitrius. Both the very old and the very young need their
rest. I will find my bed."
  She gave the old man a quick kiss on the cheek
before turning to go upstairs.
  Dimitri stayed behind a few moments saying
goodnight to his grandfather, but caught up with her before she
had reached the top of the stairs. She allowed him
to take her hand, but when he reached for her later in bed
she told him she was too tired to make love.
  He'd married her because of a promise to a sick
relative. For the first time she felt an
unwelcome weight around her heart because of her
pregnancy. If she hadn't gotten pregnant,
Dimitri would have let her go without a second thought.
  Even if Phoebe had still ended up married
to Spiros, Dimitri wouldn't have gone looking for his
discarded lover, Xandra Fortune.
  Because his grandfather would not have extracted that second
promise.
  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The next morning Alexandra came to consciousness
alone in the bed. She cuddled Dimitri's pillow,
inhaling his scent, wishing his absence from
their bed was not a physical ache in her heart. He
had left for Athens two hours ago, but not before
waking Alexandra with slow, tender caresses that had
ended in such exquisite release she'd cried.
  She'd gone to sleep determined not to make love
with him. That determination hadn't lasted past his first
drugging kiss around dawn. She rolled onto her
back and stared at the ceiling. There were no answers
to her predicament in the white plaster.
  A knock on the door heralded the arrival of a
maid with the breakfast Dimitri had ordered for her.
She scooted into a sitting position and
allowed the maid to lay the breakfast tray over her
legs. An unexpected smile tilted her lips
when she saw the dry toast, fruit, eggs and single
slice of bacon. He'd teased her about her
tendency to order the same meal for breakfast every
morning. He'd said pregnant women were supposed
to crave pickles and ice cream, not dry toast and
bacon.
  The food was accompanied by the awful tasting herbal
tea she'd taken to drinking in the morning to settle
her nausea. She ignored it, grateful the stomach
upset that had plagued her the night before was gone.
She refused to contemplate the possibility
Dimitri's lovemaking had been more effective in
making her feel better than all the herbal tea
she'd drunk.
  The maid opened the curtains letting in the bright
Greek sun before leaving Alexandra to finish her
breakfast alone.
  She ate by rote, her thoughts casting back to the
night before and then more recently to earlier that morning.
She still tingled in places from her husband's
possession. Remembered pleasure caused an
unwelcome throbbing in her lower body. If he were
here now, she'd be hard pressed not to beg
him to make love to her.
  Huffing out a sigh of frustration at her body's
betrayal, she climbed out of bed. As she showered and
dressed, she considered her situation pragmatically.
What, after all, had changed? She'd known
Dimitri didn't love her when she agreed
to marry him.
  But she hadn't known about the promise, her heart
cried.
  Did it matter?
  Of course it mattered. It was humiliating
to realize she'd been married for a reason totally
unrelated to herself. She had her pride.
  And it had been a cold companion for three long
months in New York. She'd been miserable without
him. She'd missed him like a wound in her soul every day
they had been apart, even believing he had been
married to another woman hadn't dulled the unwanted
desire to be back in his arms.
  She walked over to the dresser and picked up the
Lladro statue. It was so delicate. She could
remember with absolute clarity her sense of joy and
wonder when he had bought it for her. She ran her
forefinger along the figurine's head and the graceful
lines of her dress. Then she lightly
touched the kitten playing at the woman's feet.
  Dimitri had saved this reminder of a happier time
between

  them. He had saved her clothes. He had brought
her things here, to the family home, obviously
believing she would live here as well one day. Of
course he had believed it. He knew about his
promise to his grandfather, her mind insidiously
reminded her.
  But he hadn't had to save her things. She'd
left them in an insulting pile on the floor,
flouting his pride, condemning him with their presence and
her absence.
  She had a choice. She could fight the truth and
make both Dimitri and herself miserable, or she could
accept reality.
  She and Dimitri would have the kind of marriage people
in his world and her mother's world excelled at...a
marriage of convenience. After all, she was no longer
Xandra Fortune, the nobody model he slept with,
but Alexandra Petronides, his wife and a woman
with a background he could be proud of.
  Sharp slashes of pain cut at her heart at the
last thought. She'd spent her whole life
being accepted for the trappings of who she was. Her own
mother had withheld her love and approval for the six
long years Alexandra had spent as Xandra
Fortune. Cecelia had been effusive in her
approval the week before the wedding though. She had
been thrilled her daughter had landed such a catch in
the marriage market.
  And she'd positively gushed her appreciation for
her oldest daughter when Dimitri repurchased the
Dupree Mansion.
  Alexandra thought of the empty years ahead being
nothing more than the traditional Greek wife, an
adjunct in Dimitri's life, not a major
player. She determined then and there not to fall
passively into that role. She'd married Dimitri
as she'd said she would. Their son would be raised a
Petronides.
  Because she loved Dimitri, she would never leave
him. But she wasn't going to play doormat.
He'd said she could have anything she wanted to make her
happy. What would he say if she told him she
wanted to go back to modeling after the baby was born?
What would he say if she said that would make her
happy?
  He said nothing.
  Dimitri stared at her across the width of the bed, his
blue eyes unreadable, his naked body erect and for
once not showing the least signs of desire. Waves
of something feral rolled off him and made her shiver.
  "Do you have a problem with me returning to my career
after the baby is born?"
  His hands fisted at his sides and his jaw clenched.
"In New York, you told me you didn't want
to return to modeling."
  She shrugged. "I didn't think I had a
choice. The life of a single parent is difficult
enough without pursuing a career as demanding as that of a
model."
  "You want to leave our son to be raised by a
nanny?" Distaste tainted every word he bit out.
  No. Damn it. That was not what she wanted. One
of the things she'd been looking forward to after her
marriage was the ability to stay home with her baby.
She wanted to breastfeed. She wanted to be there for
her baby's first word, his first step. What had her
muddled thinking that morning led her to?
  "I don't have to take every assignment. I can
give up catwalks and commercials and concentrate
on photo shoots."
  "You can give up your job entirely."
He glared at her. "You are my wife. You have no
need to work."
  She gripped the sheet covering her until there was
a

  bunched up wad of polished cotton in her fist.
"Are you saying you refuse to let me?"
  He rubbed his eyes, looking as tired as he had
that first day in New York. "Would you listen to me if
I did?"
  "I'm going to live my own life, if that's what
you mean."
  "When have you ever done anything else?" He
climbed into bed and turned out the light before lying on his
side facing away from her.
  Evidently the discussion was over.
  She scooted down and turned on her side,
trying to get comfortable. She'd grown used to the
security of Dimitri's arms around her while she
slept. Now, the width of the king size bed divided
them. She felt stupid tears burn the back of her
eyes. She'd brought this on herself.
  She didn't really want to go back to modeling.
It had only ever been
something she did to provide for her family.
Something she could do with the resources at her disposal.
Now, she'd threatened to return to it for nothing more than
to anger Dimitri just because he didn't love her.
  Okay... maybe not just to make him mad. A
small part of her had hoped, against all evidence to the
contrary, that he could accept her for what she was, not
what he wanted her to be. She had thrown down the
gauntlet of her career as a test, she realized
now. A test that had failed spectacularly.
  She had been looking for a way to assuage her
feelings of rejection suffered as Xandra Fortune, his
lover. Stupid. She'd only opened herself up for more
of the same. Hot tears leaked out between her tightly
shut eyelids and she sniffed, trying to swallow
back the tears and pain.
  Sudden heat engulfed her and she was surrounded
by hard, masculine muscle. "Do not cry, pethi
mou. I am an idiot. If you want to pursue
your career, I will not stand in your way."
  "Dimitri?"
  "Who else?" he asked with lazy humor as he
tucked her into the curve of his body.
  That wasn't what she'd meant. "I knew it was
you...I'm just surprised at what you are saying."
She wished the lights were on so she could see
his expression. Did he mean it?
  "I am accustomed to getting my own way."
  She gave a watery smile he couldn't see.
"I know."
  "I am sometimes arrogant."
  She didn't answer, thinking silence more politic
than speech.
  "I hated the time your career took away from me
before, but I must not be selfish. If it is what you
need for happiness, I will not stand in
your way."
  Had he really hated to be away from her? "It
won't embarrass you to have a model for a wife?" she
probed.
  "Why should it? I was not ashamed when you were my
lover."
  "That was different. You even said so."
  "I said many things I learned to regret," he said
heavily.
  "Mama would have a hissy fit."
  "I will deal with your mother. She thinks I am a
god, I have returned to her the family home."
  The remnants of Alexandra's tears turned
to laughter. "You mean it?"
  "Yes."

  "Turn on the light," she pleaded.
  "Why?"
  "I want to see you."
  He humored her and a second later the soft glow
of the bedside lamp illuminated his chiseled
features. Sincerity burned in his eyes.
  "You really will support me returning to my
Xandra Fortune career."
  "No." His mouth set in a firm line.
  She sucked in her breath on a wave of pain.
She'd been mistaken. He couldn't accept the
woman she'd been.
  "You can model, but you are Alexandra
Petronides. You will not deny me my place in your
life."
  The arrogant statement should have infuriated her, but
instead it made her heart sing. Not only would he
support her career as a model, but he had no
desire to distance himself from it by her using a working name.
  He didn't love her, but he did respect
her. "I don't want to be a model," she
admitted.
  His expression turned to stone. "What?"
  "I want to stay home with the baby."
  "Then what the hell has this last half hour been
about?" he demanded in a shout that hurt her eardrums.
  "Don't raise your voice to me!"
  His jaw clenched and she could just see him counting
to ten. "Why did you tell me you wanted to be a
model when you did not?" he asked, teeth gritted,
eyes spitting frustrated anger.
  "I needed to know."
  "What did you need to know?"
  "If you accepted the woman I was...the woman
who became pregnant with your baby. When you asked
me to marry you, I was living as Alexandra
Dupree."
  "They are the same woman. I have said this before."
  But she hadn't taken it in, or maybe she
hadn't believed him. "You tossed me out as Xandra
Fortune."
  "You thought if you went back to modeling and calling
yourself this other name, I would do so again?" he asked,
outrage lacing every syllable.
  "No, of course not." But it all seemed muddled
now. None of her thinking since discovering his second
promise had been particularly clear. "I don't
know."
  He flopped back on his pillow and
covered his eyes with his forearm. "You are never going
to forget, are you?"
  "What do you mean?" she asked anxiously.
  "My stupidity. You will never trust me enough to let
yourself love me again."
  "You don't believe in love," she reminded
him.
  He moved his arm and she flinched at his bleak
expression. "You do not know what I believe in,
Alexandra."
  "Why didn't you tell me about the second
promise to your grandfather?" she asked in a whisper.
She hadn't meant to ask, but now that the words were out,
they could not be unsaid.
  He sat up, his body vibrating with something she
would not label defeat in a million years. "This
is why you put me through hell tonight thinking you wanted
to go back to a career that always came before me?"
  "It didn't come before you."
  "Oh? No? I can't come with you, I've got a
photo shoot. I'll be gone for a week to do the
commercial We can't make love right now, I need
to sleep so I won't look like a hag in the
morning." He repeated excuses she'd given him
in the past with cruel sarcasm. "Even

  our damned sex life was dictated by your career.
Do not say you did not put it before me."
  "I had to work, Dimitri. You know why now."
  "But I did not then and you did not enlighten me."
  "I couldn't."
  "Why not? Why could you not tell me who you really
were?"
  "Because..."
  "I will tell you why. You did not trust me. You
gave me your body, but not your trust. Not your
heart." His Greek accent had gotten very thick.
  "That's not true! I loved you!"
  He slammed out of bed and towered over it on the
opposite side. "Such a love I can do without.
You lied to me every day we were together."
  She gasped in outrage. "I did not lie to you."
  "You said you were Xandra Fortune."
  "I was Xandra Fortune."
  He sliced through the air with his hand. "What is the
use? You rewrite history to suit your own
purpose."
  "I don't have to rewrite history to know you
kicked me out of your life like a pile of garbage!"
she screamed at him, shocked at her own
loss of control.
  His shoulders slumped, his face looked haggard.
"It will always come back to this, will it not?" He turned
away.
  And suddenly she was out of bed, vibrating with rage
suppressed for months while pain and despair
held sway. "Don't you turn your back on me,
you bastard!"
  He spun around. "What did you call me?"
  "Nothing worse than what you called me that day
at Chez Renee," she accused.
  "I called you nothing that day."
  "You called me a whore!"
  He looked shocked. "I did not say this."
  "Yes you did. That damn jeweler's box said it
for you!"
  "I bought the bracelet before my grandfather's heart
attack. I had meant it as a gift to express
my affection...then in my jealousy it became something
else."
  So, it had been a bracelet. She'd never
looked. "You expect me to believe that, after what you
said that day?"
  "No." He shook his head. "I do not expect
you to believe anything I say. You did not
trust me before I betrayed our love, how can you
possibly trust me now?"
  In the red mists of fury surrounding her, she
doubted her hearing, but she could have sworn he'd said
he'd betrayed their love. She shook her head,
trying to clear it.
  "As I thought." He stood there in silence for
several seconds. "Is there anything more you wish
to say?"
  She slowly jerked her head to one side in a
negative. She'd said enough.
  He braced himself, as if for a blow and then nodded.
"I cannot sleep here tonight next to a woman who
hates me. I cannot hold you in my arms knowing you
suffer my touch for the sake of our son."
  She felt her heart contract like a vise had
been clamped onto it and was being slowly tightened.
"I don't hate you." As for suffering his touch, how
could he think that?
  His eyes said he did not believe her.
  He went into the dressing room and came out wearing
a robe. "I'll sleep next door in the guest
room."
  She wanted to beg him not to go, but her tongue would
not form the words. His hand was on the door
handle when she asked, "Why didn't you tell me
about the second promise?"

  "I knew you would believe I had only come after
you to keep it. I needed you to believe I wanted you
for myself." Then he opened the door and was gone.
  I needed you to believe I wanted you for myself. You
never trusted me. You lied to me. You hate me.
Dimitri's words ran like an unending refrain through
her head. Such a love I can do without.
  Love. He had said he had betrayed their love.
She knew it. While she'd been screaming her
invective at him, he'd admitted he had loved
her. Did he still love her? Could he after the way
she'd rejected him over and over again since he found
her in New York?
  She still loved him.
  She did love him, but she hadn't acted like it.
Not when they'd been together in Paris and not since his
resurgence in her life. She had withheld her
secrets, herself and her trust. What kind of love
was that?
  The only kind of love she'd known-conditional and with
limits. Her limits had been born of fear, but
they had damaged Dimitri as much as her
mother's limits had hurt her. Alexandra felt that
knowledge clear to her soul. She had wanted to receive
unconditional love, but she hadn't been willing
to give it. Was it too late?
  She went toward the dressing room with one
purpose in mind. She flipped on the light and
started sifting through her lingerie. There had to be
something, then she remembered and started looking for white
gossamer. Dimitri had bought it for her their
second week together. It was a flowing nightgown with a
princess cut and yards and yards of gossamer
fabric that fell from the gathered waistline below her
breasts. The wide straps accentuated the delicate
curve of her shoulders and it had reminded her of a
wedding dress...a see-through wedding dress.
  It was one of the few gowns that would fit over her
pregnant stomach. She slipped it on, her
mission firmly in her mind. To be on the safe
side, she pulled a robe on over it as well.
No telling who might be wandering around in the hall
outside her door to witness her state of dress.
Security cameras at the very least.
  She sifted through her cosmetic bag until she
found a hatpin she used to unstop clogged tubes of
makeup. She walked over to Dimitri's
dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer. The
pregnancy test was still there. With it and the hatpin
clutched firmly in her hands, she left the
bedroom.
  Dimitri had said he was going to be next door
in the guestroom. The door to the room on the right of
their bedroom suite stood open. The door to the
left was closed. She walked toward it. She tried
the handle. It turned in her hand and she breathed a
sigh of relief. She hadn't had a grandfather with
tremendous foresight see that she was taught how
to pick a lock.
  The hatpin was for effect.
  She opened the door and stepped into the room. The
bed was empty, she could see from the light spilling through
the open doorway. There was no other light in the
room. She didn't need light to know he was there,
though. She could sense the presence of the other half of
her soul as surely as she knew her feet were
attached to her body though she couldn't see them.
  He stood at the window, his hand gripping one of the
heavy draperies. He'd shed the robe he had been
wearing and the sculpted muscles of his virile body
lured her with animal magnetism. She could never
let this
man go again.
  "Go back to bed, Alexandra."

  She dropped the dressing gown and took a step
toward him. "Make me."
  He tensed, but he did not turn around. "I am
in no mood for further arguments. Spare us both more
unpleasantness and leave me. Please."
  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was the "please" that did it.
  She couldn't stand to hear her proud Greek husband
pleading with her.
  She flew across the room and landed against his back,
her arms going around him like channel locks. She
felt the baby move and kick. She was plastered so
close to Dimitri, he had to have felt their son as
well.
  His entire body shuddered as if he'd been touched
by a live electric wire.
  She pressed her face into his back, kissing
him with feverish intensity. "I don't hate you. I
love you," she whispered fiercely against his skin.
"I'm sorry I've expressed my love so
dismally you can't believe me. Love is
supposed to be generous, but I've been too busy
protecting myself."
  He forcefully peeled her hands from his body and
spun around. "Don't yineka mou. I cannot stand it.
It is I who have hurt you. I who stupidly
rejected your gift of a child, your gift of yourself. You
have nothing to reproach yourself for."
  "Don't I?" She shook her head and placed
her hand over his mouth when he opened it to speak.
"Please. Let me say this."
  His lips moved against her palm in a kiss as
gentle as the brush of angel's wings and he nodded.
  She lowered her hand and stepped back from him. She
met the blue depths of his gaze and held it. "I
love my mother, but she's always doled out her
approval and affection

  based on my performance as her daughter."
Alexandra took a deep breath and let it out. "I
learned early on that love was conditional, that it had
limits and that it hurt."
  He nodded as if he understood and considering his
background, she had no doubt he did.
  "So when I fell in love with you, I set
limits on that love, impossible conditions
you had no way of meeting. I didn't tell you the
truth because I was afraid to. You were, you are, this
incredible guy, Dimitri. You teased me about how
my mom sees you as a god among men, but for me
it's no joke. You're so much more than anything I
ever believed I could have. More generous. More sexy. More
wonderful. More man. More everything and I couldn't
believe you wanted me."
  She sucked in more air, trying to control her
emotions, before going on. "It shocked me that you'd
want Xandra Fortune, but I was sure you wouldn't
want Alexandra Dupree, a convent educated
girl from a conservative family that had lost all
its money. And to be honest, I thought if I kept
that part of myself from you, I could protect myself from you
taking me over completely. There would still be that part of
me left when you were gone."
  At his look of dawning understanding, she nodded. "You
were right in Paris. I did expect our relationship
to end, though I didn't
consciously acknowledge it at the time. By keeping the
other part of my life from you, I was preparing to go on
when it did. But it didn't work because as you've said more
than once-I was both Xandra Fortune and
Alexandra Dupree with you. I grieved
your loss in my other life as surely as I would have
grieved if I'd stayed in Paris."
  "I wish you had stayed. I would have found you
sooner."
  She grimaced. "I didn't think you wanted
to find me."
  Devastating pain radiated from his eyes. "I
know. This is my fault."
  She didn't deny it. They each had their portion
of blame for the disastrous end to their relationship.
  "I should have told you where I was going on my
trips. I made it easy for you to distrust me and when
I told you about the baby, it was understandable you thought at
first I might have had a lover."
  "No! It was not!" The words exploded from him.
"I let my mother's behavior color how I saw
you. I had no reason to distrust you. You were so generous
with me when we made love, so giving of yourself. I
knew, I knew you could not have been that way with anyone
else, but I was fighting a rearguard action against
ending up as obsessed as my father had been. The
feelings I had for you made me vulnerable. That was not
acceptable, so I acted like the bastard you called
me."
  Tears clogged her throat. "No."
  "Yes. My only excuse is that I was not
thinking clearly. Worry for my grandfather, frustration
over the promise he had extracted from me, it
played hell with my thinking processes. The worst
part was the desperation I felt at the thought of losing
you. It horrified me and when I am afraid, I
act. I lashed out at you and I lost you."
  "I waited a week for you," she said helplessly.
Not wanting him to feel worse than he already did,
but wanting him to know she'd loved him enough to stay even
after he had her evicted from the apartment. "I didn't

  leave until I saw the announcement of your
engagement to Phoebe."
  His eyes closed and his head went back, his jaw
taut. "I knew I'd made the biggest mistake
of my life when I let my grandfather put the
announcement in the paper. It all hit me. How
wrong everything was. How wrong everything would continue
to be if I didn't get you back, but you were gone,
pethi mou."
  There was a wealth of pain in those words.
  "I'm sorry," she whispered.
  "I could not find you," he said, as if she hadn't
spoken, "I had my detectives looking
everywhere, but you had disappeared as if you didn't even
exist. When I slept, I had nightmares of you
falling down a deep hole and vanishing forever."
  His skin broke out in sweat at the memory.
  She stepped forward and laid her hand against his
heart. "Losing you hurt so much, I thought I was
going to die."
  He crushed her to him. "I'm sorry."
  Two words sincerely spoken, words she had never
heard him say in all the time they had known each
other. And they healed wounds deep in her heart.
  "I love you, mon cher."
  He kissed her with a passion that seared her soul.
She was lost in the beauty of his kiss when he pulled
away abruptly.
  "Ouch."
  She looked up, dazed. "What?"
  "Something poked me."
  She looked down at her left hand where the hatpin
protruded from her tightly clutched fingers. She
lifted her hand and opened it to reveal the two
objects she held. "I think it was the hatpin."
  "Hatpin?" he asked as if he didn't know
what one was. Maybe he didn't. Not many women
had them anymore, but her mother was old
fashioned. She still carried starched hankies.
  "Yes."
  "You planned to wear a hat?"
  She laughed softly. "No. It was to pick the
lock."
  "But I did not lock the door."
  "I wanted to be prepared."
  "You know how to pick a lock?" he asked, a
smile tugging at his mouth.
  She shook her head. "I wasn't going to let that
stop me."
  He laughed and pulled her back into his arms, this
time with more caution. "Alexandra Petronides, you
are my dearest treasure and I will love you forever."
  She gulped back tears and pleaded, "Say it
again."
  He cupped her face between the solid warmth of his
hands. "I love you whether you are the independent
career woman, Xandra Fortune, the spitting
kitten, Alexandra Dupree or any other
persona you choose to take on. You are the wife of
my heart."
  "Show me, Dimitri."
  And he did. Beautifully. Erotically.
Thoroughly. Then he carried her back
to their bed and showed her again. She fell asleep in his
arms.
  "So, what was the pregnancy test for, agapi
mou?" Dimitri had convinced Alexandra to redon the
shimmery nightgown from the night before and she sat
curled
  in his lap in a chair on their private terrace
a little after
  sunrise.
  "Just a minute. Let me show you." She jumped
off
  his lap and went in search of the small white stick.
She

  found it with the hatpin on the floor of the guestroom.
She went back out onto the terrace and couldn't
help smiling at the picture her husband presented
in nothing but a pair of black silk boxers.
  Her gown covered more of her body with fabric, but
none of it with modesty and his eyes gleamed their
appreciation at her as she approached him.
  She knelt down on the tile by his knees and
presented the pregnancy test to him. "I'm
pregnant with your baby, Dimitri."
  His eyes widened, then narrowed in
understanding. "You are giving me a second chance."
  "Love can erase the mistakes of the past."
  Something profound moved across his features and he
reached for the stick. "I can think of nothing greater in
life than to have you carry my child."
  They were the words she had wanted to hear so much five
months ago and she smiled with a radiance she made
no effort to hide. "I love you, mon cher."
  She'd said it so many times over the past hours, the
words should have lost their impact, but she knew they never
would and the expression on his face told her he felt
the same.
  "I love you, Alexandra. Never leave me
again."
  "Never," she agreed fervently.
  He leaned down and kissed her softly before lifting
her back into his lap.
  "I still feel bad about your grandfather," she
admitted.
  "Why should you feel this?"
  "All those awful news stories. They must have
devastated him."
  Dimitri tilted her chin so they were looking into one
another's eyes. "It was not the tabloid gossip that
upset Grandfather so badly he had another
attack." Guilt chased across Dimitri's
features. "I am fully to blame."
  "But..."
  "Grandfather didn't even see the news stories
until after coming out of the hospital."
  "I don't understand."
  "I told my grandfather I couldn't marry
Phoebe and then I told him why."
  "Because I was pregnant with your baby."
  He shook his head, his eyes warming her. "Because
I love you. He had the heart attack when he
started yelling at me for being a fool after I
admitted I'd evicted you from the apartment and could not
find you."
  She couldn't take it in. "You already knew you
weren't going to marry
Phoebe before the tabloids ran the gossip about
us?"
  "I knew I wasn't going to marry Phoebe the
day you told me you were pregnant, but I was insane
with unreasonable jealousy, angry at myself, angry
at my grandfather. I went off the rails and didn't
get back on them until I saw you standing next
to your sister that first night in New York."
  "I don't know. You acted pretty
derailed then too."
  "She told me you had died! Do you have any idea
what that did to me?"
  She was beginning to have an inkling. If he had loved
her, and now she knew he had, such news would have been
soul destroying. "I'm sorry, Dimitri." She
leaned forward and kissed him, wanting to heal the hurts
of the past.
  He kissed her back with enough passion to leave her
gasping for breath a minute later.
  "I don't know if I can ever forgive myself for
what I did to you."

  Her eyes misted, but she smiled. "Please. You
have to. I don't want to spend the rest of my
life looking back. My present is glorious
now that you are in it, now that I know you love me!"
  "I saw the paparazzi outside the restaurant
in New York and did nothing," he said with the air
of a man who felt he had to admit everything.
  She tried to figure out what he was saying. "Are
you saying you wanted them to make the connection with my
Xandra Fortune identity?"
  He did his best to look humble, but it didn't
come naturally. "I realize this was wrong."
  "But you would do it again."
  "I was desperate," he defended.
  Dimitri desperate. Her heart just melted.
"That's really sweet, mon cher."
  "You are not angry with me?" he asked warily.
  She snuggled closer, curling her fingers in his
chest hair. "No. It's flattering to think of my
Greek tycoon so desperate he stooped
to nefarious means to win me," she said cheekily.
  "I will never let you go again," he growled against her
temple and then did something truly amazing with his
tongue to her ear.
  She shivered with the excitement only he could
generate. "You're stuck with me for life,
Dimitri Petronides."
  "Count on it, agapi mou."
  The baby kicked and they both laughed.
  She rubbed the taut skin over the protruding little
foot. "He approves."
  "He's already brilliant," said the proud papa.
  "Mmm..." she agreed, feeling contentment clear
to her toes.
  Dimitri shifted under her and she felt another
protruding member, but this wasn't infantile at
all.
  "You look very sexy in that nightgown, even more
sexy than you did when I first bought it."
  "Over six months pregnant and you think I'm
sexier than I was when we first met?" she mocked,
secretly thrilled by the compliment.
  He didn't smile at her joke. "Yes.
Sexier. More beautiful. More
everything because now you are mine and I know you are mine."
  "For the rest of my life," she affirmed.
  And then she set about showing him the kind of love she
planned to give him for all that time: a passionate,
unconditional, without limits kind of love.
  Dimitri stood in the doorway of the Dupree
Mansion nursery watching his wife tuck their small
son into his cot. Little Theo, named after his
great-grandfather, was nine months old. He had loved
the excitement of Christmas, but had been ready for
bed a good hour before Alexandra had been able to prize
him from his fond grandmother's arms.
  Cecelia had been in her element hosting
Christmas for her family and Dimitri's besides in
her New Orleans home. Alexandra had asked
him to let her mother do it and as with so many things related
to his wife's desires, he hadn't even considered
saying no. She was the love of his life and
he would do anything to make her happy.
  He'd learned to appreciate the difference between that
and the obsessive love his father had suffered from toward his
mother. Alexandra had shown him by wanting only the best
for him in return. It was a heady sensation.
  Alexandra laid her hand on Theo's back and
sang a soft French lullaby. Far from letting a
nanny raise their

  son, she had insisted on seeing to all his needs,
including midnight feedings, three-in-the-morning
feedings and dawn wake-up calls to change Little
Theo's nappy for the first few months. Dimitri
hadn't minded. He liked getting up with Alexandra
and watching his son nurse. It was a sight so
beautiful, it transfixed him.
  She was an amazing mother and an even more incredible
wife. He thanked God daily for second
chances.
  She finally felt all was well with their son and
turned to leave the nursery. She smiled up at
him, her face soft with love. It was a look he
would never take for granted again.
  "He's out for the count."
  Dimitri put his arm around her and drew
her next door to their bedroom. "I have something for
you."
  "Dimitri." She drew his name out like it had six
syllables. "You've already given me a mountain of
gifts today. It's worse than last year."
  He smiled in remembrance of their first Christmas
together. They'd spent it with his grandfather in Greece.
She'd cried when he gave her an eternity ring.
He'd almost died from pleasure when she gave him his
gift later that night...herf wrapped in a see-through
red nightgown that had made her look like a very sexy,
but pregnant elf.
  Her eyes were soft with a love. "You're spoiling
me."
  "It is impossible to spoil perfection."
  She shook her head. "I'm far from perfect."
  She always said things like that, as if she wanted
to remind him she was flawed and he always reminded her
he would love her forever regardless. Which he did again
and she smiled her contentment and love back at him.
  They reached the bedroom and he pulled her to sit
on the edge of the antique four-poster. Then he
pulled a small gift wrapped in red foil and
topped with a tiny gold bow from his pocket. "Happy
Christmas, agapi mou."
  With a smile on her beautiful lips, she
carefully tore the paper from the white jeweler's
case.
  She remembered it.
  He could tell because just for a second, she looked
uncertain and then her eyes glowed undying love at
him. Her fingers trembled a little as she opened it, then
she gasped.
  He withdrew the bracelet from the box and attached
it to her wrist. When he looked in her beautiful
golden eyes, she was crying. "Are you all right,
yineka mou?"
  She nodded, but had to swallow before she spoke.
"Is it the same bracelet?"
  "Yes."
  "If I had opened this, I would never have left
Paris. It would have taken a crane to get me out of the
apartment."
  She understood. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Finally this last ghost laid to rest.
  The bracelet sparkled on her wrist, the
intertwined hearts studded with diamonds glistening in the
light.
  It was not the parting gift of a man to his mistress.
It was not even merely a gift of affection
from one lover to another. The bracelet bespoke a
deeper emotion than he had been willing
to acknowledge or verbalize at the time, but she
understood.
  "You loved me then."
  "I loved you from the morning after I made you mine.
You smiled so sweetly, offering no recriminations
to me for seducing you from your innocence."
  "It took me a while to realize it," she said
ruefully.

  "I as well, but I will never forget it," he
vowed.
  "And you always keep your promises," she said,
laughing like the teasing little torment she was, "just ask
your grandfather."
  "When they mean loving you, I do."
  She went serious and looked at the bracelet
again. "I wish I'd opened the box."
  "I made you too angry to do so. I think I
did it on purpose."
  "Because you knew the message the bracelet would
give me and you weren't ready to admit it then."
  "I love you, agapi mou."
  She accepted his words without reproach.
"I love you, mon cher."
  He pulled her into his arms. "Always."
  She hugged him as if she would never let go and he
knew she wouldn't. "Always."
  And his mind spoke the words she did not say, but
had proven over and over again she meant...love without
limitations or conditions. His body spoke the
message back to her and her smile was a
benediction.