If she made love with Giannis she would reveal her vulnerability that she was desperate to hide from him.
But then suddenly it was over as he wrenched his mouth from hers. She swayed on her feet when he abruptly snatched his arm from around her waist. He swore as he swung away from her and dived into the water.
Ava watched him swim to the far end of the pool and wondered if he had somehow been aware of her doubts. A more likely explanation for his rejection was that he found her pregnant shape a turn-off. Giannis had been attentive because she was carrying his child, but he’d made it clear that he did not want her.
At least she knew where she stood with him, Ava told herself as she dragged her towel around her unsatisfied body to hide the shaming hard peaks of her nipples. He was marrying her to claim his baby. And she had agreed to be his wife because she feared that he would seek custody of their son—not immediately perhaps, but she couldn’t bear to live with the threat hanging over her.
* * *
Why the hell had he come on to Ava like a clumsy adolescent on a first date? Giannis asked himself furiously as he powered through the water. He heard the conservatory door bang, signalling her departure, but he kept on swimming lap after lap, punishing himself for his loss of control.
Since he had seen the grainy scan images of his child he’d felt as if he were on an emotional rollercoaster. Ava’s pregnancy had seemed unreal until the moment the sonographer had pointed out on the screen the baby’s tiny heart beating strongly. In that instant he’d realised that nothing—not money or possessions or power—were important compared to his son.
Back at the house he’d paced restlessly around his study, unable to concentrate on a financial report he was supposed to be reading. Work had always been his favourite mistress, the area of his life where he knew he excelled, but—just as when he had taken Ava to Spetses—he had wanted to be with her instead of sitting at his desk.
Walking into the pool house and seeing her in a tiny bikini had blown him away. Pregnancy had turned her into a goddess and he had been transfixed by her generous curves—her breasts like ripe peaches and the lush swell of her belly where his child lay. He’d wanted to touch her and feel a connection with his baby, and when he’d felt the faint movements of a fragile new life a sense of awed wonder had brought a lump to his throat. Something utterly primal had stirred in his chest. His child. His woman. He would die to protect both of them, he acknowledged.
Had he kissed Ava to stake his claim? With savage self-derision he admitted that he’d felt a basic need to pull her down onto a lounger and possess her in the most fundamental way. Desire had drummed an insistent beat in his blood and in his loins. He had forgotten that she did not trust him—although he should not be surprised by her wariness after he had threatened to take her child, he thought grimly.
He had kissed her for the simple reason that he could not resist her, but when he’d felt her stiffen in rejection he knew he had no one to blame but himself. When he’d persuaded her—or pressurised her, his conscience pricked—to marry him, he had promised himself that he would be patient and wait for her to come to him. Instead he’d behaved like a jerk, and in truth he was shocked that she had got under his skin to the degree that she dominated his thoughts and disturbed his dreams.
It would not happen again, Giannis vowed as he climbed out of the pool. He would control his desire for Ava because too much was at stake. He had discovered that he wanted more from her than sex. He wanted everything—her soft smile and infectious laughter, her cool, incisive intelligence and her fiery passion. And he wanted his child. Even if he failed to win all that he hoped for, he would have his son.
* * *
By the middle of February a thaw had turned the winter wonderland of snow and ice to grey slush, just in time for the wedding which was to take place in the private chapel in the grounds of Milton Grange. Not that Ava cared about the weather when her marriage to Giannis would be as fake as their engagement five months earlier had been.
Since the incident by the pool they had maintained an emotional and physical distance from each other. The closest contact they’d had was when their hands had accidentally brushed as they’d passed each other on the landing, on the way to their separate bedrooms.
She was thankful that the wedding would be a small affair. It had been arranged at short notice, and both her mother and Giannis’s mother were on holiday in the warmer climes of the southern hemisphere and could not attend. Her best friend Becky was coming, and Sam had promised to be there. Ava was looking forward to seeing him—although if her brother had not been partly responsible for damaging Giannis’s boat she would not now be pregnant and about to marry a man who had become so remote that sometimes she wondered if the close bond she had felt between them on Spetses had been in her imagination.
But the problem was not only Giannis, she acknowledged. Her trust issues meant that she found it difficult to lower her guard. And now her father was once more in the forefront of her mind.
It had started with an email she’d received from an author who was writing a book about East End gangs and had discovered that Ava was Terry McKay’s daughter. The author wanted to ask her about her childhood growing up with her notorious gangster father.
She sent a message back saying that she never discussed her father. But Ava knew she could not stop the book being published. People were fascinated by crime, and even though she had changed her name to Sheridan there was always a chance that she would be revealed as Terry McKay’s daughter.
It would be unfair for Giannis to find out about her father in a newspaper article or book review, her conscience nagged. She ought to tell him the truth about her background before she married him. Especially as she had come to believe that Stefanos’s nephew had lied about Giannis having links to a criminal organisation.
But she could not forget Craig’s suggestion that her children might take after her criminal father, and she was fearful of Giannis’s reaction. Would he reject her and his son? Maybe she should just keep quiet and hope that he never discovered her real identity. Tormented by indecision, she withdrew into herself—which did not go unnoticed by Giannis.
‘You’re very pale, and you have barely spoken a word all day,’ he commented during dinner on the evening before their wedding. He frowned. ‘Do you feel unwell? The baby...’
‘I feel fine, and I’ve felt the baby kicking and I’m sure he is fine too,’ she was quick to reassure him. She knew that Giannis’s obsessive concern about her health was because he cared about his child. But how would he feel if he was to learn that his son’s genes came from a very murky pool? She pushed her food around her plate, her appetite non-existent. ‘It’s just pre-wedding nerves.’
He gave her a brooding look from across the table. ‘There is no reason for you to feel nervous. I have told you that I will not make demands on you,’ he said tersely.
If only he would! Ava wished he would whip off the tablecloth, plates and all, and make hot, urgent love to her on the polished mahogany dining table. Sex would at least be some sort of communication between them, rather than the current state of simmering tension and words unspoken.
There had been times over the past weeks when she had caught Giannis looking at her with a hungry gleam in his dark eyes that made her think he still desired her. But then she remembered how he had wrenched his mouth from hers that day by the pool, and her pride would not risk another humiliating rejection if she made the first move.
She went to bed early, giving the excuse that she was tired, and ignored his sardonic expression as he glanced
