ensure that, she’d demanded rules, upfront and unswerving, to govern whatever time they had together. They’d be together whenever their schedules allowed. For as long as they shared the same level of passion and pleasure, felt the same eagerness for each other. But once the fire was gone, they’d say goodbye amicably and move on.
He had agreed to her terms but had added his own nonnegotiable one. Exclusivity.
Stunned that he’d propose or want that, with his reputation as a notorious playboy, it had only made her plunge harder, deeper, until she’d lost herself in what raged between them. But all the time she’d wondered how long it could possibly last. Not even in her wildest dreams had she hoped it would burn that brightly for long, let alone indefinitely.
But it was now a year later and it kept growing more powerful between them, blazing ever hotter.
And she couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t.
But she had to tell him...
“I’m pregnant.”
Her heart hammered painfully as even she was taken aback at her own raggedly blurted out declaration. Then more as silence exploded in its wake.
It was as if he’d turned to stone. Nothing remained animate in him except his eyes. And the expression that crashed into them was enough.
Any unformed hope she might have held—that the pregnancy might lead to something more for them—died an abrupt and agonizing death.
Suddenly, she felt she’d suffocate under his weight. Sensing her distress, he lurched off her. She groaned with the pain of separation as he left her body for what was probably the last time.
She sat up unsteadily, groping for the covers. “You don’t need to concern yourself with this. Being pregnant is my business, as it is my business that I decided to have the baby. I only thought it was your right to know. Just as it is your right to feel and act as you wish concerning the fact.”
His grimness was absolute as he, too, sat up, as if rising from under rubble. “You don’t want me near your baby.”
Did her words make him think that she didn’t?
She forced out a whispered qualification through her closing throat. “It is your baby, too. I welcome your role in its life, whatever you want it to be.”
“I mean you don’t want me near your baby. Or you as a new mother. I’m not a man to be trusted in such situations. I will give the baby my name, make it my heir. But I will never take part in its upbringing.” Before she could gasp out her confusion over his contradicting statements, he carried on, “But I want to remain your lover. For as long as you’ll have me. When you no longer want me, I’ll stay away. You will both have my limitless support always, but I cannot be involved in your daily lives.”
He reached for her, his eyes piercing her with their vehemence. “This is all I can offer. This is what I am, Caliope. And I can’t change.”
She stared up into his fierce gaze, knowing one thing. That the sane thing to do was to refuse his offer. The self-preserving thing was to cut him off from her life now, not later.
But she couldn’t even contemplate doing that. Whatever damage it caused in the future, she couldn’t sacrifice what she could have of him in the present to avoid it.
And she succumbed to his new terms.
But as the weeks passed, she kept bating her breath wondering if she’d been wrong to succumb. And right in believing the pregnancy would shatter their perfection.
She did sense his withdrawal in everything he said and did. But he confused her even more when he always came back hungrier than ever.
Then just as she entered her seventh month, and was more confused than ever about where they stood, her world stopped turning completely when Maksim just...disappeared.
One
Present
“And he never came back?”
Cali stared at Kassandra Stavros’s gorgeous face. It took several disconcerted moments before she reminded herself her new friend couldn’t possibly be talking about Maksim.
After all, Kassandra didn’t even know about him. No one did.
Cali had kept their...liaison a secret from her family and friends. Even when declaring her pregnancy had become unavoidable, with Maksim still in her life, she’d refused to tell anyone who the father was. Even when she’d clung to the hope that he’d remain part of her life after her baby was born, their situation had been too...irregular, and she’d had no wish to explain it to anyone. Certainly not to her traditional Greek family.
The only one she knew who wouldn’t have judged was Aristedes. Her, that was. He would have probably wanted to take Maksim apart. Literally. When he’d been in a similar situation, her brother had gone to extreme lengths to stake a claim on his lover, Selene, and their son, Alex. He’d consider any man doing anything less a criminal. His outrage would have been a thousand fold with her and his nephew on the other end of the equation. Aristedes would have probably exacted a drastic punishment on Maksim for shirking his responsibilities. Knowing Maksim, it would have developed into a war.
Not that she would have tolerated being considered Maksim’s “responsibility,” or would have let Aristedes fight her battle. Not when it hadn’t been one to start with. She’d told Maksim he’d owed her nothing. And she’d meant it. As for Aristedes and her family, she’d been independent far too long to want their blessings or need their support. She wouldn’t have let anyone have an opinion, let alone a say, in how she’d conducted her life, or the...arrangement she’d had with Maksim.
Then he’d disappeared, making the whole thing redundant. All they knew was that Leo’s father had been “nothing serious.”
Kassandra was now talking about another man in Cali’s life who’d been a living example of “nothing serious.” Someone who should also hold some record for Most Callous User.
Her father.
The only good thing he’d ever done, in her opinion, had been leaving her mother and his brood of kids before Cali had been born. Her other siblings, especially Aristedes and Andreas, had lifelong scars to account for their exposure to his negligence and exploitation. She’d at least escaped that.
She finally answered her friend, sighing, “No. He was gone one day and was never heard from again. We have no idea if he’s still alive. Though he must be long dead or he would have surfaced as soon as Aristedes made his first ten thousand dollars.”
Her friend’s mouth dropped open. “You think he would have come back asking for money? From the son he’d abandoned?”
“Can’t imagine that type of malignant nonparent, huh?”
Kassandra shrugged. “Guess I can’t. My father and uncles may be controlling Greek pains, but it’s because they’re really hopeless mother hens.”
Cali smiled, seeing how any male in the family of the incredibly beautiful Kassandra would be protective of her. “According to Selene, they believe you give them just cause for their Greek overprotectiveness
