down her spine and she knew she would do anything to avoid that same fate befalling their daughter.
Every primal, maternal instinct she possessed roared to life. She wouldn’t allow their child to be harmed.
And nor would he.
She’d felt that promise from him and trusted him, had known he would lay down his own life if necessary to protect hers, to protect their child’s.
And suddenly, the world seemed frightening and huge, and Hannah knew that if she walked away from Leonidas now, she would be alone, with unknown dangers lurking, with threats to their child she couldn’t possibly appreciate, let alone avoid.
‘The usual month-long notification period for weddings will be waived,’ he explained, sitting opposite her, his long legs encroaching on her space so that if she wasn’t very careful, they would be touching and the little fires still buzzing beneath her skin would arc into full-blown wildfires once more.
It took her a moment to collect her mind from the fears that were circulating and bring herself back to the present. ‘Why?’
‘What do you mean?’
Her sea-green eyes showed confusion. ‘Well, isn’t that the law? Why would that be changed for us?’
He lifted a brow and comprehension dawned.
‘Because you asked for it to be, and you’re Leonidas Stathakis.’
He shrugged. ‘Yes.’
‘And you get whatever you want?’
His eyes were like coal once more. ‘No.’
Her heart twisted because of course he didn’t. He’d just told her he’d lost his family—clearly his life wasn’t that of a charmed man.
‘Why rush, though, Leonidas?’
All of his attention was on her and she trembled for a different reason now, as the heat of his gaze touched something deep in her soul, stirring the remnants of their passion and desire anew. She swallowed, her throat dry, her cheeks blushing pink.
‘Because there is no point in delay. Because I want you to be protected from this day, this moment. I will take no risks with our daughter’s life,’ he said firmly. ‘Nor with yours. You should not have been brought into this.’
She opened her mouth to confront him, but he continued. ‘Having sex with you was a moment of weakness, a stupid, selfish decision that I regretted instantly. Believe me, Hannah, if I could take that back, if I could have never met you…’ He shook his head, looking away, as the plane began to move on the runway.
‘I am sorry to have drawn you into my world. I am sorry that we must marry, sorry that we are having a child together. It is my fault, all of it. I cannot change that night, what happened between us, but I can do my damned best to ensure no further harm befalls you.’
‘Harm?’ she repeated, the word just a croak. ‘You think of this pregnancy as harm?’
‘I think it is a mistake,’ he muttered. ‘But one we must live with.’
Her temper spiked, disbelief at his callous words making her chest hurt. ‘How can you talk about our baby like that?’ she found herself whispering, even though that ‘baby’ was still very much inside her.
‘You said as much yourself,’ he pointed out logically. ‘You didn’t want this.’
‘I didn’t plan on it happening,’ she corrected caustically. ‘I’m twenty-three years old; I thought children would be way off in the future.’
He dipped his head in silent concession.
‘But, Leonidas, almost as soon as I learned of this pregnancy, I have loved this baby, and I have wanted our daughter, and I have known I would put this child first. For ever and always.’
He digested her words, his expression giving little away, and then he nodded, as the plane hurtled faster down the runway before lifting into the sky.
‘And in marrying me, I understand you are doing just that—putting our baby first. You do not wish for this marriage, and nor do I.’ He ground his teeth together. ‘And yet, for this child, here we are.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, not seeing the way her face paled at his harshly delivered words. ‘I have some questions for you. My lawyer emailed them across.’
‘Questions?’ It was a rapid change of subject, one that made her head spin. ‘What for?’
‘The marriage licence. The prenuptial agreement. Setting up your bank accounts and the family trust.’
‘Woah.’ She was still reeling from his repeated insistence of how little he wanted this marriage, and, even though he was surely echoing her own thoughts, hearing them voiced made her head spin a little. It was all too much, too soon.
‘Can’t we just…take it one day at a time?’
‘Let me make this clear,’ he said, leaning forward, his expression that of a hard-nosed tycoon.
She swallowed, but refused to be cowed by his closeness, by his look of steel. ‘Yes?’
‘One week from today we will be married. You will be my wife: Mrs Hannah Stathakis. You will be marrying someone who is worth over a hundred billion American dollars. Your life, as you know it, is about to cease completely. There is no “taking it one day at a time”. In what? Three months? Four? We will have a child. That is the deadline hanging over our heads. Within four months, we need to be able to find a way to relate, to exist as parents. We cannot delay. Surely you see that?’
It was all so shocking, so impossible to comprehend and also so reasonable. She heard his words and closed her eyes, because the final sentence was what really got through to her.
His net worth was awe-inspiring, his suggestion that she too might be worth a fortune, even his reminder that their daughter would inherit such a sum, were all details that caused her heart to pound, and not necessarily in a good way. But what he’d said that had really spoken to Hannah had been right at the end.
They had a deadline. A tiny little time bomb ticking away inside her belly.
They needed to find a way to make this work and he was showing himself to be cognisant of that.
‘Your full name is Hannah May?’
‘Hannah Grace May.’ She nodded, tightening her seat belt and looking out of the window on autopilot. Capri was tiny beneath them, just a beautiful picture-book piece of land, looming from the sea, all verdant green against the deep blue of the Med, the superyachts tiny white shapes now, clean and crisp.
Was it really only that morning she’d flown in over Italy, and stared down at this exact same view? How certain she’d been then of being able to tell Leonidas she was pregnant and then depart, confident he’d accept her suggestion of being a small but vital part of their daughter’s life.
‘Birth date?’
She responded, thinking back to her last birthday, right before Christmas. Angus had
