She felt Giannis squeeze her fingers. She’d already had a scan at twelve weeks, to accurately date her pregnancy, but this was his first experience of seeing his child and she wondered how he felt now that the baby was a tangible reality rather than something they had spoken about.
The sonographer spent several minutes studying the baby’s vital organs and taking measurements. ‘Everything looks absolutely as it should do,’ she said at last. ‘I understand that you have decided to find out the baby’s sex.’
‘Yes,’ they both replied at the same time.
The sonographer smiled. ‘You are going to have a little boy. Congratulations.’
Ava tore her eyes from the image of her son—her son! Blinking back tears of pride and joy, she glanced at Giannis. Her heart turned over when she saw a tear slide down his cheek as he stared intently at the screen. He dashed his hand over his face and when he turned to her he showed no sign of the fierce emotion she had witnessed although, when she looked closely, his eyes were suspiciously bright.
‘Now we know what colour to paint the nursery,’ he murmured.
She nodded, unable to speak past the lump that had formed in her throat. Whatever happened between them, she knew now, without doubt, that Giannis would love his son and would never be parted from him. Which meant that somehow they would have to make their unconventional marriage work.
Another thought slid insidiously into her mind as she remembered her ex’s scathing comments when she had admitted to him that her father was the infamous East End gangster, Terry McKay. Craig had decided against marrying her for fear that their children might grow up to be criminals like their grandfather.
Of course there was not a ‘criminal’ gene, Ava tried to reassure herself. But she couldn’t forget what Stefanos’s nephew had told her about Giannis being involved in organised crime. If the rumour about him was true, and if there was such a thing as a ‘criminal’ gene, what would the future hold for the baby?
In the car on the way back to Milton Grange neither of them spoke much. Ava’s thoughts were going round and round in her head and she did not have the energy to try to breach the emotional distance that existed between her and Giannis. His playboy reputation when she had first met him had made her believe that he was not capable of feeling strong emotions, but that was patently not true, she realised as she remembered the tears on his face when he had seen the scan images of his baby son.
When they arrived at the house he went straight to his study, citing an important business phone call that he needed to make. The cold, grey weather at the end of January did not encourage Ava to go out for a walk, and instead she made use of the heated swimming pool in the conservatory.
She hadn’t got round to buying a maternity swimsuit, and the bikini that she’d bought from a boutique on Spetses barely fitted over her fuller breasts. But no one was going to see her, and the midwife had said that swimming was a good form of exercise during pregnancy. The water was warm and she swam several laps before she climbed out of the pool and wrung her dripping-wet hair between her hands. A sudden blast of cold air rushed into the conservatory as the door opened, and her heart gave a jolt when Giannis strode in wearing a towelling robe.
‘You said you would be working all afternoon,’ she muttered, feeling heat spread over her face as he stared at her ridiculously small bikini that revealed much more of her body than she was comfortable with. She was tempted to run across to the lounger where she had left her towel, but she couldn’t risk slipping on the wet tiles.
‘I was bored of working and decided to come and swim with you.’ He shrugged off his robe and Ava roamed her gaze hungrily over his muscular chest covered in black hairs that arrowed down his taut abdomen and disappeared beneath the waistband of his swim-shorts.
‘Well, I’ve got out of the pool now.’ Her flush deepened when she realised the inanity of her statement.
‘I can see that,’ he mocked her softly. But as he walked towards her his smile faded and his dark eyes glittered with a feral hunger that confused her.
‘Stop staring at me.’ She tried to cover the gentle swell of her stomach with her hands but could do nothing to disguise the fact that her breasts were almost spilling out of her bikini top. She felt exposed, knowing she looked fat, and sure that Giannis must be comparing her to all the gorgeous women who had shared his bed in the past.
He halted in front of her and she noticed a nerve jump in his cheek. ‘How can I take my eyes from you when you take my breath away?’ he said thickly.
Ava bit her lip. ‘I was slim the last time you saw me in a bikini.’ She had nearly said naked, but memories of when they had lain together, skin on skin, their limbs entwined and their bodies joined would only add fuel to the fire burning inside her.
‘You look incredible.’ Dark colour winged along his cheekbones. ‘Can you feel the baby move?’
‘I’ve felt flutters rather than kicks at this stage but the midwife said that the baby’s movements will become stronger as he grows bigger.’
Giannis was focused on her bump. ‘May I touch you?’
She gave a hesitant nod. It was his baby too, and she could not deny him the chance to be involved in her pregnancy. But when he placed his hand on her stomach and stretched his fingers wide over its swell she trembled and hoped he had no idea of the molten heat that pooled between her thighs.
‘There, did you feel that?’ She caught hold of his hand and moved it slightly lower on her stomach just as a fluttering sensation inside her happened again.
He drew an audible breath. ‘Theos,’ he said in an oddly gruff voice. ‘Between us we have created a miracle, glykiá mou.’
Standing this close to him was creating havoc with her emotions. She needed to move away from him and break the spell that he always cast on her. But it was too late, and she watched helplessly as his dark head descended.
‘Giannis,’ she whispered, but it was a plea rather than a protest and the fierce gleam in his eyes told her that he knew it. His breath warmed her lips before he covered her mouth with his and kissed her the way she had longed for him to kiss her, the way she had dreamed about him kissing her every night since she had left Greece.
She couldn’t resist him. It did not even occur to her to try. He was the father of her unborn child, the man she was going to marry, and she wanted him to make love to her. Even the knowledge that love played no part in their relationship did not matter at that moment, as desire swept like wildfire through her veins. She had been starved of him and she pressed her body up against his, closing her eyes as she sank into the sensual pleasure of his kiss.
His hand was still resting on her stomach, and she held her breath when he moved lower and ran his fingers over the strip of bare skin above the waistband of her bikini bottoms. She willed him to slip his fingers beneath the stretchy material and touch her where she ached to be touched. She wanted him to push his fingers inside her, and incredibly she felt the first ripples of an orgasm start to build deep in her pelvis before he had even caressed her intimately.
Tension of a different kind ran through her as she faced up to where this was leading. How could she give herself to Giannis when she had doubts about him? In many ways, it had been easier to have sex with him while she had pretended to be his fiancée because she’d assumed that their relationship would end at the same time as their fake engagement. But now she was going to be Giannis’s wife—if
