Sharon Kendrick - The Greek Tycoon's Baby Bargain

‘Ochi,’ he negated fiercely. ‘Say nothing! Do nothing but stay here in my arms when you know that this is what we both want!’ And he kissed her into willing submission.

Yet even at the height of her very first orgasm, Rebecca was aware of a sharp twist of pain in her heart. That her surrender could be her emotional undoing, and that she risked losing everything—the most important thing being her heart. Her life and her future was one in which a man like Xandros would have no place—and yet, having tasted all the pleasures that he gave her, the thought of any future without him already seemed bleak and empty.

If she had known all that right from the beginning, then why hadn’t she stopped? Why give into something which you knew instinctively was doomed on so many levels?

Because human nature wasn’t like that. It made you reach out and grab at the unreachable.

The mists of memory cleared as Rebecca blinked around at her luxurious surroundings. She bent down to pick up one of the shoes she had discarded while she had been stripping off for her hard-bodied Greek lover and sighed. It was pointless going back over what had happened. She could do nothing to change the past—what she could work on was the present.

But the present brought her scant comfort.

She was here, in Xandros’s penthouse suite—about to go out for a meal which she knew that neither of them really wanted. And after that he was off to New York, and she didn’t know when she was going to see him again. So how was she going to play it? Did she have enough acting ability to convince him that she didn’t really care, either way—or would he see right through her?

‘Rebecca?’

The silken, accented Greek voice filtered through the air. By concentrating on finishing fastening her shoes, Rebecca was able to compose herself before straightening up to look at him. His black eyes were set like dark jewels in the backdrop of his gleaming olive skin and her heart turned over with love and longing. If only he didn’t look so heartbreakingly gorgeous. Reaching into her handbag, she took out a hairbrush and began to make great sweeping strokes through hair all tousled from love-making. ‘Yes, Xandros?’ she questioned calmly.

He liked to watch her brush her hair. The first time she had loosened it for him he had told her that it was the colour of Greek honey—which was darker and richer than any honey in the world. ‘The car is waiting downstairs, agape mou .’ His eyes narrowed at her in question. ‘You still want to go and eat?’

What would he say if she told him the truth—that what she really wanted was to know how he felt about her? Whether he was tiring of her—or whether it was a figment of her over-active imagination. But some bone-deep instinct told her that a man like Xandros would ultimately despise a woman who wanted that kind of reassurance. To an independent man that might smack of neediness—and everyone knew how unattractive that was.

‘Eat? I thought you’d never ask,’ she said lightly, turning her head so that her newly brushed hair swung in a scented curtain around her still-flushed cheeks. She even managed to give him a faintly mocking look in return. ‘Somehow I’ve worked up quite an appetite—though can’t for the life of me work out why!’

Xandros gave a barely perceptible nod as he picked up her coat and held it open for her, watching the naturally sinuous movement of her body as she wriggled into it. Her response had held just the right amount of cool distance and yet her apparent composure was strong enough to fan the flames of his desire once more. He found himself wanting to pull her back into his arms again and a nerve flickered at his temple.

This was going to be harder to finish than he had anticipated.

NEXT morning Rebecca awoke to the sound of a shower splashing nearby and Xandros singing something rather tunelessly in Greek. He sounded happy, she thought wistfully—and why wouldn’t he be? She opened her eyes and stared at the chandelier which glittered above the vast bed like a canopy of diamonds.

Over dinner last night, he had described the elegant new apartment block he was building, which incorporated a ‘sky-garden’ at its summit which would bring lush grasses and fragrant shrubs to the defiantly urban part of the city in which it was set. He wanted it to be the first of many—to bring greenery to grey places. He wanted a world which did not push nature out. His deep voice had been passionate and dreamy and Rebecca had found herself swept up by it—torn between admiration and envy. It had been as if he was describing a paradise she would never be part of.

She heard the gushing of the water stop and after a few minutes he walked into the bedroom—completely naked—towelling at his ebony hair with a small towel.

His hard body glowed, the broad shoulders tapering down into narrow hips and then long, hair-roughened legs. He was a man utterly at ease with his nudity—but then who wouldn’t be with a physique like that? He swam every day, no matter where he was in the world. He had told her that it was one thing he had brought with him from his native Greece—the desire to feel the water on his skin and the delicious freedom which came with it.

He looked at her lying amidst the rumpled sheets and his mouth softened briefly into a smile. ‘Kherete,’ he said softly.

‘Hello,’ she murmured back, astonished at how she could still feel almost shy when he looked at her like that—despite the fact that he knew her body more thoroughly than any other man had ever done. ‘I feel so lazy I can’t move.’

‘Seeing you lying there like that makes me want to stay.’

Easy to say. ‘But you can’t.’

‘No.’ He slid on a pair of dark boxers which felt silky next to his skin. ‘Unfortunately I can’t. As soon as I get off the plane, stateside, I have a long list of meetings to attend.’ He looked up and shrugged but his black eyes gleamed with anticipation. ‘There is a big deal nearing completion, new plans to draw up.’

‘And no doubt a stack of invitations to glittering parties from just about every New York society hostess worth her salt.’ She hadn’t meant to say it, but somehow the words seemed to tumble out of their own accord.

There was the fraction of a pause, the faintest elevation of jet-dark brows. ‘That, too,’ he agreed.

Rebecca knew that she was stepping into unfamiliar territory. That Xandros, more than most men, compartmentalised his life—and she was firmly fixed in the English section. But surely showing interest wouldn’t necessarily be interpreted as possessive jealousy? Didn’t dating him give her the rights to know something about his life? ‘And do you go to them?’

‘To parties?’ He shrugged as he reached into the closet for a pure silk shirt in a buttery ivory colour and, slipping it on over his broad shoulders, began to button it. ‘Sometimes—like most people—when I’m not too busy. Why wouldn’t I?’ He pulled on a pair of dark trousers. ‘And what about you, Rebecca—what do you do when your Greek lover is not in town?’

Was it significant that he was asking her this now—when he had never really been interested before? Or was he simply being dutiful and turning the question back on her? Pride made her want to embellish a life which would surely sound very ordinary when judged by his standards. Imagine how he would react if she told him that she spent a lot of her free time thinking about him! Even the supermarket was an unsafe zone, for she often found herself scouring the shelves for the brand of olive oil she knew that his family firm produced back in Greece. Up until now, she’d never found it.