Lynne Graham: The Stephanides Pregnancy

In the grip of fear and horror that Joe was some kind of maniac who had kidnapped her because she had rejected him, Betsy scrambled upright. She was only wearing one shoe and there was no sign of the missing one. Kicking off the. one that remained, she raced out of the bedroom and headed straight for the wide open door several feet beyond.

In that doorway, Betsy came to a breathless halt.

She blinked. Her lower lip parted company from the upper in an inelegant expression of astonishment. Barely a hundred feet away a shimmering sea as crystal-blue as the sky above was washing a sandy beach. The beauty of the scene struck her as incongruous and she thought she had to be hallucinating. When she had lost control of the limo, it had been raining. It had been a typical English spring day: sunny and damp in turns with a breeze thrown in for good measure. But the heat of the golden sun above seemed Mediterranean.

Cristos strode into view from behind the rocks girding the northern edge of the beach. Her tummy flipped. Intense relief filled her. He was safe and, whether it was logical or not, his presence made her feel less afraid. As he drew closer she charted the changes in. his once immaculate appearance. He had doffed his suit jacket and tie. A pearl-grey shirt open at his brown throat outlined his broad shoulders. His black hair was tousled and a heavy growth of dark stubble outlined his stubborn jaw line and wide, sensual mouth. He still looked spectacular. Her tummy performed another somersault. His hardcore sexuality had a powerful charge.

Seeing her, Cristos came to a halt. Glittering dark eyes zeroed in on her, his lean, handsome features clenching into formidable stillness. 'Where are we?' he asked roughly.

Her brow furrowed, for she could not understand why he should ask her that question in a tone that implied that she would have that information at her fingertips. '1 don't know… do you?'

'How the hell would 1 know? Don't play dumb with me,' Cristos warned her.

Her spine stiff with tension and forgetting that she was not wearing shoes, Betsy moved out onto the sun warmed path. The surface was uncomfortably hot for soles encased only in nylon tights and she hurried into the sparse shade thrown by the gnarled tree that grew at the front of the house. 'Play dumb? 1 don't understand-'

'1 know that you were involved in plotting my kidnapping-'

'You know… what?'

'You must've been shattered to wake up here and realise that y0ur fellow conspirators had decided to ditch you-'

'My fellow conspirators? What on earth are you accusing me of?' Betsy fired back at him in frank bewilderment.

'You greeted the gorilla who shot us both full of

knock-out drugs by name.'

Her brain, she discovered in frustration, was very reluctant to process thoughts with anything like its usual efficiency. Gorilla? Did he mean Joe? Of course Joe was involved in the kidnapping because he had attacked them both. 'Joe works for Imperial Limousines… I didn't appreciate what was happening when he first opened the car door-'

'You said his name quite happily,' Cristos Stephanides countered.

'I was in shock… I hadn't had enough time to appreciate that the crash hadn't been an accident.' She lifted an unsteady hand to her brow, which was damp as much with stress as with the unfamiliar heat. She pulled out the clip anchoring her hair and let it fall, massaging the back of her neck where the clip had left a tender spot. 'That was a stinger that was hurled in front of the car to puncture the tyres and force us to a stop, wasn't it?'

Cristos surveyed her with brooding intensity. 'If 'you're trying to convince me that you're innocent of any involvement, you're wasting your breath. You are also making me angry-'

Her anxiety growing, Betsy gazed back at him. 'You're serious, aren't you? But you can't decide that I'm a criminal just because I know Joe-'

'I don't think I'm quite that simplistic.' Cristos dealt her a derisive look.

'How could I not know him when he works in the. same place?'

'Oh, I think the connection between you and Joe was a touch more intimate than that,' Cristos murmured with scathing softness.

Betsy was exceedingly reluctant to accept that he might be implying a certain fact that she was in no hurry to tell him. 'What do you mean?'

'He referred to you as his girlfriend.'

The guilty colour ran up hot beneath her skin. Too late she recalled Joe making some crack in that line before she'd lost consciousness. 'I went out with him once… OK?'

'No, it's· not· OK. Nothing about this situation is OK.' His lean, hard-boned face was grim. 'You're involved in this filthy business right up to your throat-'

'Look, if you dated a serial killer once, would you be responsible for her crimes?' Betsy threw at him. He was being so unfair to her. She was ashamed and embarrassed that she had ever gone out with someone of Joe's evident propensities. But surely nothing she had said or done could possibly have contributed to the current situation?.

'I haven't got time for this nonsense…' Cristos strode forward and closed lean hands to her forearms. 'I've been kidnapped. My life is at risk. I have no plans to sit around on a deserted island in the middle of an ocean waiting for the kidnappers' next move-'

'We're on an island?' Betsy interrupted in dismay, wincing a little at the strength of those long, tensile fingers, which were biting just a tad uncomfortably into her arms.

She had always considered herself to be a fair height. However, Cristos Stephanides had to be around six feet four inches tall. He towered over her to such an extent that she felt tiny. Indeed she was beginning to feel actively intimidated by him. He was very strong and he was very angry and he was not listening to her. Could she blame him for that? He had been kidnapped. His life probably was at risk. Whether she liked it or not she could understand why he should be highly suspicious of a woman who appeared to have been on terms of familiarity with one of his kidnappers.

'Where is this island?' Cristos demanded harshly. 'I need to know everything that you know so that I can work out what's coming next!'

'But I don't know anything…' In a sudden movement that took him by surprise, Betsy tore herself free and backed hurriedly away from him. 'You've got to believe me about that-'

Unafraid to turn up the pressure, Cristos advanced. 'I don't. You were the bait, and very effective bait. I went for it-'

Her slender length rigid, Betsy slowly increased the distance between them with quiet, cautious steps. Her nervous antenna was on a high state of alert. After all, what did she know about Cristos Stephanides and how violent he might be in such circumstances? He believed she had conspired with his kidnappers and might feel that his need for information was justification for getting rough. She found it bitterly ironic that just ten days earlier she would have stood her ground against Cristos, blithely confident that she could look after herself and that most men were essentially decent. It was Joe Tyler who had taught her to fear masculine strength. He had held her against her will long enough to teach her to be scared and had for ever stolen her peace of mind in male company.

'I wasn't the bait,' Betsy swore, fighting to put as much weight and sincerity into her voice as she could while at the same time wondering what the heck he was talking about. 'I had nothing to do with your kidnapping and I was as shocked by all this as you are.'

'Like hell you were,' Cristos growled, watching the sunlight pick up the deep coppery tints in the fantastic rippling coil of hair sliding across her shoulders with her every movement. He was convinced she had let her hair down in an effort to distract him. 'You were a part of it right up until your boyfriend decided to sacrifice you-'