Lynne Graham: The Stephanides Pregnancy

Refreshments were served. Patras answered her questions about the house, which had been in the family for generations. He told her about his collection of classic cars and promised to invite her over to his home for lunch and a tour of inspection.

Just before he departed, Patras studied her with wry acceptance. 'One look was enough to tell me what attracted my grandson to you. You're his Helen of Troy.'

After a startled pause, Betsy laughed. 'Hopefully nobody is about to start a war over me!'

'Don't underestimate Cristos.' Patras looked pensive and rather somber. 'I'm glad you love him, though. That is as it should be.'

She went bright pink.

The old man awarded her discomfited face an amused glance. 'I saw how you look at him…it relieved all my concerns.'

Three weeks later, Betsy sat on the top step of the stairs and watched Cristos walk into the dimly lit hall. It was two in the morning.

'And what time of day do you call this to come home?' Betsy enquired with pretend annoyance.

His proud dark head came up, the aura of weariness cast off when he saw her perched on the stairs waiting for him. A softer line eased the hard set of his mouth. 'A time when you should be in bed, Mrs. Stephanides.'

Betsy padded down the staircase, a slender figure in a simple white wrap. 'I'm not planning on staying out of bed for very long,' she confided, pink washing her cheeks because she was trying to give him a saucy look of invitation.

He grinned.

'For the baby… ' He tossed her the package in his hand.

She unwrapped a brightly colored toy and a faraway look came into in her eyes: she was imagining a little boy thumping the life out of the drum. It had become a ritual. Every couple of days, Cristos brought back something for the nursery. The drum would join a mobile, a boy toy train set that would require a room of its own, a cute stuffed dog and a little board book that had reminded Cristos of one that he had had as a child.

'Are you hungry?' she asked him.

'I could be tempted…' Dropping a powerful arm round her slight shoulders, Cristos headed her back up the stairs.

Betsy wondered if he was ever going to stop playing macho man and confide in her. Was he convinced that he had to protect her from all stress simply because she was pregnant? Or was it a Greek male thing? This silent, steely refusal to admit that anything was amiss on the work front? She needed no crystal ball to know that the Stephanides empire was facing challenging times. But Cristos had ignored her every subtle invitation to share his concerns and had denied that there even was a problem.

At the same time he continued to work eighteen hour days. Only when he was at home after midnight was the phone silent but within a few hours his relentless punishing schedule would begin again. Around eight, his personal staff would arrive to brief him before he even left the house. He would have a working breakfast and walk out to the limousine, dictating orders, listening to bulletins read off sheets. The tension in the air betrayed how serious were the issues at stake and the reality of the crisis.

Crossing the threshold into their bedroom, Cristos rested back against the door, pulled her close and released a low, slow sigh of satisfaction. 'I shouldn't say it… but 1 love it when you sit up waiting for me. It makes coming home special.'

'That's the point… I aim to make myself indispensable.'

Be tipped her head back. His brilliant dark golden eyes inspected her lovely face and the crackling energy of the coppery-red mane flowing round her shoulders. 'You're the most amazing woman… you haven't complained once.'

'I'm running a book,' she teased. '"

Long fingers knotted slowly into strands of her bright hair. 'I didn't have you picked as the restful, sympathetic type. I underestimated you. I'll never forget how unselfish you've been-'

'Do you think all women are as spoilt and demanding as little kids no matter what the situation?'

'Your predecessors were… ' With a slumberous sigh, Cristos bowed his brow down briefly on top of her head and then straightened again. 'I'll go and get a shower.'

The instant he departed, Betsy sped across the vast room to spread wide the French doors and light the candles waiting in readiness out on the balcony. Dragging in the giant floor cushions she had assembled, she tossed a couple of throws over them to create a relaxed atmosphere. Last of all, she brought in the capacious hamper, poured some wine for him and arranged the mouth-watering spread of dishes.

Shedding her wrap, she curled up on the cushions and thought about how ridiculously, incredibly happy she had been since her arrival in Greece. The business emergency that was responsible for forcing Cristos to work such impossible hours had made remarkably little impression on their relationship. But then they had both made a huge effort to make the most out of every minute they could spend together.

There had been early morning swims, midnight barbecues on the beach listening to the surf and snatched snack lunches in his office where sometimes they ditched eating for kissing because they were so desperate to be together. If he had one minute free, he called her and they talked on the phone.

During her very first week in Greece she had been engulfed by the warm and generous hospitality of Cristos' large extended family. There was not a day of the week when she needed to be lonely, for there

was always someone wanting to entertain her by taking her out shopping, sightseeing or simply visiting. Perhaps she had learned to appreciate Cristos most when she'd realized just how popular he was with his own relations. For his sake, she had been given the benefit of the doubt and wholeheartedly accepted into his family.

She got on with Patras like a house on fire and he had already developed the habit of dropping in to see her most days. He had assumed responsibility for squiring her about to events where she might have felt a little self-conscious shorn of a male escort. So, she had dined out several evenings in high style and was indeed a little giddy at the amount of socializing she had done.

Cristos emerged from the bathroom, a white towel knotted round his lean hips. Scorching dark golden eyes took in the effect of Betsy, her porcelain perfect skin and stunning shape enhanced by a strappy gold satin nightdress, sprawled among the cushions, and glittered with raw male appreciation. 'Theos mou… you could seduce a saint with one smile, thesspinis mou.'

'No saints round here that I know of…'

Cristos groaned. 'Agreed. Are you going to make me eat first?'

Betsy nodded very seriously. 'You know the rules.' 'Do I get a massage later?' Cristos shot her a gleaming look of pure devilment that had the same effect as a megawatt charge on her susceptible heart.

'Forget it,' Betsy advised, her color heightening, her pride still stinging from the recollection of his response to her very first massage attempt a couple of nights earlier. '} do not massage people who laugh themselves sick in the middle of my best efforts.'

Eyes bright with unholy amusement, Cristos flung himself down on a cushion opposite and reached for a piece of barbecued chicken. 'It was that very strange New Age music that really sent me off the edge. You do a very good line in a sexy picnic;' he pointed out in teasing consolation.

She watched him eat. He was truly the most important thing in her world. She wondered how she had ever imagined that she loved Rory because she would not have compromised an inch for Rory or gone out of her way to smooth his path. Whereas Cristos, she just adored, and he might not love her but he did make her feel hugely important to him and hugely appreciated. Around him, she was really beginning to believe that she was a stunningly beautiful, rampantly sexy woman. He told her she was and he made her feel good about herself.