A Reputation For Revenge(80)

Itching for a fight, Nikos sat down on the blue overstuffed sofa, pretending to make himself comfortable. “No, I don’t mind at all.” He indicated the nearby rocking chair.

She stared at him in amazement. “You think I’ll do it in front of you?”

“Why not?”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“What? Are you scared?” He raised his eyebrows. “You have no reason to be. I’ve seen everything you have to offer.”

Although that was true, it wasn’t true at all. With her loose ponytail, that left dark tendrils cascading against her white skin, she looked very different from the tightly controlled, buttoned-up woman he remembered. And even in the baggy T-shirt she was wearing he could see that her breasts were larger. They’d been perfect before. He remembered them well, remembered cupping them in his hands, licking slowly across the full nipples, until she’d moaned and writhed beneath him, making love to them after he’d brought her to climax—twice—with his mouth. What were her breasts like now beneath that shirt?

He suddenly realized he was rock-hard.

He was supposed to torture her, not the other way around. He willed the desire away. He didn’t want her. He didn’t want her.

“Fine. Stay. I don’t care,” she said, although he could tell by the defiant expression on her beautiful pale face that she cared very much. Grabbing the diaper bag with her free hand, she set it down with a plop on the floor by the cushioned rocking chair. Rummaging through the bag, she pulled out several items before she found a blanket. A small vial fell out and rolled across the floor. He picked it up. The label was in Russian.

“What’s this?”

“Baby painkiller,” she said. “He’s teething.”

“At his age?”

“It’s a little early, but not uncommon.” Her fingers seemed clumsy as she used the blue blanket, decorated with safari animals, to cover both baby and breast before she pulled up her T-shirt. The baby’s wails immediately faded to a blissful silence, punctuated with contented gulps.

It shouldn’t have been erotic, but it was. Every movement she made, every breath she took, seemed electric in Nikos’s overcharged state.

He pressed his lips together, remembering how her whole body had trembled when he’d kissed her in the library. The way she’d melted into his arms when he’d brushed his lips against hers.

And before. After they’d found out she was pregnant he’d barely left her side for six months. Every inch of his skin, every cell of his body tingled with the memory. Remembering lovemaking so hot that it had nearly set his bed on fire. Not just his bed. When they hadn’t been fighting about the way he’d forced her to relax and take care of herself, they’d made love everywhere—in the kitchen, the conference room, the home theater. Against the wall in the courtyard one rainy day. And in the back of his helicopter the time he’d wanted to fly her over the Grand Canyon. They’d never made it off the ground.

She glanced up at him now, her turquoise eyes so cool and distant. I’m too good for you, her eyes seemed to say. She had a royal bloodline of a thousand years. The great-granddaughter of a Russian princess, she was a fantasy of ice and fire. He’d never experienced any woman like her.

Watching her now, nursing his son, he came to a sudden decision.

She deserved to suffer.

But there was no reason to make himself suffer as well.

Tonight. He would have her in his bed tonight.





CHAPTER THREE

A SLOW BURN spread across Anna’s cheeks as Nikos watched her nurse their child. She pulled the blanket a little higher, making sure her breast was covered, but she could still feel his eyes on her. It made her feel naked.

Funny to think she’d once dreamed of this moment, of nursing their baby in the gorgeous, spare-no-expense baby suite she’d decorated, with Nikos sitting beside her. A happy family. She’d dreamed that Nikos would love her, be faithful to her, and someday propose to her.

Now the dream tasted like ashes in her mouth.

Perhaps he hadn’t purposefully set out to ruin her father, but he’d kept his involvement in his business a secret. If Anna had known, she could have found a way to save her father from himself, to prevent the depression after his bankruptcy that had caused him to drink himself to death. Nikos should have told her. Instead, he’d tried to shield her from everything, as if she were a helpless doll. It was as if the moment she’d become pregnant he’d suddenly lost all trust in her and in the world around them.

Thank God she’d given up on waiting for him to love her. Too bad it had taken her so long to wise up. After five years as his secretary, watching his revolving door policy with women, she’d been stupid to ever think he would ever change.