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 with for the 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 fiancée.”
“A proper Greek girl does not give her innocence to a man
