made certain his business matters didn’t interfere while they went through the steps necessary for conception to work.
Leandros had been so sweet and tender with her about their situation. Like any happily married couple wanting to start a family, they’d waited for the signs that meant she had conceived. Two months into their marriage, her period came. Leandros had kissed her and loved her out of her disappointment.
“Next month,” he’d whispered.
Knowing he was disappointed, too, she’d loved him back with all the energy in her, wanting to show him she wouldn’t allow this to dampen her spirits. Once again they went back to the hospital, for another try, only to be disappointed the following month.
So many tries full of expectations, but each waiting period had seemed harder than the last, contributing to the problems that had slowly crept into their marriage. What bittersweet irony that now they were divorcing, she was pregnant.
After she showered and got dressed, she phoned for a breakfast tray. Halfway through her meal she panicked. What she ought to do was go right back to Pennsylvania and phone him when there were thousands of miles between them. But it would be the cowardly thing to do. Her aunt and uncle never said as much, but she knew they’d be disappointed in her if she left it to a phone call.
You have to tell him.
You can’t leave it up to anyone else.
Whatever is ultimately decided about the children, he has the right to hear it from you in person.
All the voices speaking in Kellie’s head finally drove her to follow through with her agenda.
She asked the front desk to phone for a taxi. In a few minutes she found herself being driven along Kifissias Avenue toward the Petralia Corporation office building in downtown Athens. When it pulled up in front, she paid the driver and got out.
After taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and opened the doors, where Giorgios, looking like a well-dressed prizefighter, sat at the security desk near the entry. When he saw her, he shot to his feet in surprise.
“Kyria Petralia—”
Her chocolate-brown eyes fastened on him. He was one of Leandros’s bodyguards and fiercely loyal to him. “Good morning, Giorgios. It’s nice to see you. Is my husband on the premises?”
“He arrived an hour ago.”
The news relieved her, since she hadn’t relished the thought of trying to hunt Leandros down. He could have been out of the city doing business right now. Then again, he could have been at his apartment here in Athens, or at his villa on the family estate on Andros.
“If you still want a job with him, you won’t let him or Christos know I’m here,” she said in fluent Greek.
His expression turned to shock before Kellie walked around his desk to the elevator located behind him. Unless Leandros made a helicopter landing on the roof after his flight from Andros Island, the elevator existed for his exclusive use when he entered or left the building from the street. For convenience sake it opened to the foyer of his private inner sanctum on the top floor. Giorgios had orders to guard it with his life.
She pressed her hand to the glass by the door, wondering if it would still recognize her code. For all she knew, Leandros had deleted it. But no, the door opened. She entered, still feeling Giorgios’s stunned gaze on her before it closed.
A little over a month ago she’d left Greece, vowing never to return. But a week ago nausea had driven her to make an appointment with her doctor in Philadelphia. When he told her what was wrong with her, a transformation had taken place inside Kellie. It transcended the anguish and pain of the past year and gave her the spine she needed to face Leandros one more time.
Their divorce would soon be final. She intended for nothing to change in that regard, but since this totally unexpected contingency had arisen, it required an alteration in the documents their two lawyers had drawn up. Twenty-four hours should give Leandros’s attorney enough time to take care of the necessary changes.
Kellie was desperate to catch her husband off guard; it was the only way to get through this final ordeal with him. She dreaded it, knew it would hurt, but had no other choice. For that reason she hadn’t even told her best friend, Fran Meyers, she was coming.
Fran was now married to Nikolos Angelis, a good friend of Leandros’s. They lived here in Athens with Nik’s baby niece, Demi, soon-to-be their adopted daughter. If Nik knew of her arrival, he’d have phoned Leandros. Among the legal papers in her purse was evidence of the restraining order she’d placed on Leandros to call off her bodyguard. Yannis had been her shadow for the two years she’d been married to Leandros. But when she’d demanded a divorce, she’d drawn the line at the retired secret service agent following her to the States. Leandros had been forced to comply, with the result that he had no prior knowledge she’d flown to Athens yesterday.
As the elevator carried her skyward, Kellie planned to take care of business as quickly as possible. She knew she’d soon be on her way back home to Philadelphia, where she’d been living with her aunt and uncle for the last month. But that was about to change.
By next week she’d move her aunt and uncle from their small apartment into a lovely four-bedroom brick row home in Parkwood with her. It was a charming residential neighborhood in the far northeast corner of Philadelphia, perfect for children. She’d already put down a deposit. A new life awaited her, but first things first.
When the elevator stopped and the door opened, Kellie took a deep breath and headed through the foyer. She walked past Christos, her husband’s chief bodyguard. He started to reach for his phone to warn Leandros, but she put a finger to her lips and smiled. He nodded and sat down again.
A few more steps and she reached the entrance to her husband’s private suite, which was also protected by a security code. As CEO of the Petralia Corporation, which built resorts all over Greece, he was one of the most successful businessmen in the country and had been a target for crazies long before Kellie had met him.
She had no idea what she might be interrupting, but that wasn’t her concern anymore. It had been on her wedding day, two years ago, when Kellie realized she had an enemy in Karmela Paulos. Karmela was the sister of Petra, Leandros’s first wife, who’d been pregnant when she’d died in a plane crash. At Kellie’s wedding to Leandros, the beautiful, fashionable Karmela would willingly have scratched Kellie’s eyes out if she could have gotten away with it.
Fran had been Kellie’s matron of honor and had witnessed the obvious fact that Karmela had hoped to become the next Mrs. Leandros Petralia. But it didn’t happen, so his sister-in-law had done the next best thing by becoming indispensable to Leandros, first as a confidante to the grieving widower, who was family, and later as a secretary in his inner office, under Mrs. Kostas. With cunning, Karmela had worked her way to the top floor, where she had daily contact with him.
Combined with the stress Kellie had been under because she couldn’t conceive, plus her struggle with feelings of inadequacy, the situation had grown intolerable for her. After much thought and soul-searching, she’d told Leandros she wanted a separation, and had left on a trip with Fran. But because of disastrous circumstances, it came to an abrupt end, with her friend staying in Athens to be with Nik. At that point Kellie had left for Philadelphia.
On the night before she was due to fly back, she’d had a fainting spell and Leandros had taken her to the ER. When
