stakes in the last two months down a wide private hallway adjoining his office to a sleek, dark door.
The bathroom was another stylish masterpiece—naturally. Gleaming surfaces held exclusive toiletries, polished floors echoed my nervous tread and the wide mirror faithfully reflected my wan features.
I diverted my face from it, hurried into the cubicle and took the test.
A little over three minutes later, I stepped out.
He stood, square and true, five feet from the door, his gaze piercingly intent on the stick in my hand. For a single moment—knowing what this meant even if he doubted me, knowing I was perhaps about to change Neo Xenakis’s life—something moved in my chest.
Then he ruined it by holding out an imperious hand for the test.
I handed it over.
His gaze dropped to it and he swallowed hard.
He seemed to rock on his feet—a fascinating feat to watch, especially for a toweringly powerful man like him. He didn’t speak, only held the stick as if it was a magic wand that had the potential to deliver his most heartfelt wish.
Afraid I would succumb to softening emotions again, I hurried to speak. ‘As you can see, it indicates how many weeks along I am. I can give you the date of my last period too, if you want?’
It was meant to be sarcastic. It fell far short simply because I wanted him to believe me. Wanted to take away his doubt once and for all.
Because I wanted to hurry to the part where, despite the evidence, he’d conclude that fatherhood wasn’t for him after all. That this was a mistake. That I wasn’t worthy to carry his child.
He didn’t respond immediately. When he lifted his gaze his eyes were a stormy, dark grey, the pupils almost black. ‘This is sufficient for now,’ he finally said, his voice gravel rough.
Then he turned and walked away.
I COULD BARELY walk beneath the staggering evidence of what I held in my hand.
Confirmation that there was a child, possibly my child, shook through me with every step back to my office. The circumstances astounded me. Seemed almost too good to be true—the stuff of big-screen melodramas.
Had the woman who’d brought desolation to my door returned with redemption, despite my threat to her the last time she’d been in my presence? Despite the medical evidence I’d been provided with to the contrary?
What were the chances of lightning striking twice? Was I setting myself up for the same kind of betrayal Anneka had dished out so callously?
My jaw gritted, my stomach churning with the need for one hundred percent certainty.
I sucked in a calming breath, recalling what rash decisions had led me here in the first place. My fingers tightened around the stick. Not that I regretted it…if it was truly happening.
A bolt of euphoria threatened to overwhelm my calm. Brutally, I suppressed it. Rationalised it.
As Sadie had pointed out, the kit I’d asked my trustworthy assistant to purchase was the highest quality, giving an estimation of gestation. The test announced Sadie was more than three weeks pregnant.
Surely she knew how powerful I was? Knew that any information provided could be easily verified by my security team? Would she be so foolish as to toss out falsities that could catch her out?
A throat was cleared huskily behind me, making me aware I’d reached my desk, opened the secure thumbprint-accessed drawer that held confidential documents and was in the process of dropping the stick into it. I needed that connection, this visual evidence that maybe, just maybe, I’d defied science and the odds.
Again, stunned awe shook through me. A child. My child. But just as swiftly, a less effervescent emotion rose. A little desperate, and a lot dismaying.
The thought struck me that I had no true compass as to how to be a father. I’d gone straight from boarding school to boardroom, my spare moments spent watching my grandfather struggle to hang on to the company, and subsequently witnessed my father and Ax embroiled in a cold battle for the helm of the company.
I’d used my time on the sidelines efficiently—learned everything I needed to excel in my field.
Those lessons hadn’t included how to be a father.
‘Now that we’ve established that there’s a pregnancy, are we done here?’ she asked.
Done here? Was she joking? ‘No, we’re not done. Far from it.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means I intend to be involved in this baby’s welfare every step of the way. Beginning now.’
I forestalled the questions brimming in her eyes by making a quick phone call.
The moment I was done, she approached.
Shock born of the earth-shattering news she’d delivered had partly blocked off the stunning effect of her appearance. Now, with the flood dammed and a plan of action swiftly slotting into place in order to secure what she insisted was mine, I couldn’t stem my reaction to her.
The white sundress was a cheap and simple design, but on her it looked anything but. The scooped neckline gave a tantalising glimpse of the perfect breasts that seemed to have swelled a size bigger with her pregnancy. And her skin, now her temper had subsided, glowed with an additional translucence that triggered wild tingles in my fingers with a need to trace, to caress… Christos, to lay my lips against that pulse before stealing another taste of those rosebud lips, currently caught between her teeth as she watched me.
I bit back a growl as my gaze rose to that final monument to her beauty. Two months on, her hair had grown longer, the ponytail she’d caught the heavy tresses into almost down to the middle of her back.
The hunger to set it free, to lose myself in the exotic scent of it, powered through me.
‘Explain what that means. Precisely. Because less than twenty minutes ago you were almost apoplectic about my perceived deception.’
I forced myself to throttle back this insane arousal that fired up only with her.
It wasn’t for lack of trying that I’d remained dateless since that night in London. Hell, I might even have cursed Sadie Preston a little for the sudden urge to set my useless little black book on fire because not a single woman listed within sparked the kind of flame she did with a mere look.
‘You have to be aware that I intend to take every precaution with you?’
Her wary glance confirmed that notion was becoming clear to her.
‘I’ve told you I only came here to give you the news—which I could’ve done by phone if you hadn’t
