Lusty Billionaires Bundle(112)
In the back of her mind, she’d thought all that effort must mean he cared, that he would have given up and accepted visitation if she didn’t matter to him personally. Now she knew differently. He might not love her, but he loved his grandfather…enough to marry the mistress that hadn’t been proper marriage material before.
How could she have forgotten that? Dimitri had dismissed the idea of a future with her out of hand. And gullible idiot that she was, she’d conveniently ignored that fact when he started talking marriage. For the first time since agreeing to marry Dimitri, she felt bile rise in the back of her throat.
She took a hasty sip of her fruit juice and prayed the nausea would go away.
“Are you all right, child? You look pale.”
She looked down at her half-eaten dinner. “Just tired and maybe a little sick,” she admitted. “Morning sickness did not go away after the first trimester like it’s supposed to.” But it had for a while.
Mr. Petronides nodded knowingly. “I remember. Do you want to lie down?”
Did she? She could hide from her misery upstairs, or end up wallowing in it. She really didn’t want her own company right now. “I’d rather stay here with you.”
“Ah, kindness to an old man.”
“Not at all. I enjoy your company,” she replied truthfully.
“Then tell me about this job you had. I have never met a fashion model.”
She told him about her life as Xandra Fortune and ended up talking about how she had met Dimitri. Impossibly, she found herself laughing over memories of her life with Dimitri before she’d gotten pregnant.
She and Mr. Petronides had gone to the drawing room for coffee when Dimitri rejoined them. She was telling his grandfather about the first argument they’d ever had.
“I was doing a swimsuit cover. Dimitri came to the shoot on a whim.”
“I came back a day early and surprised her,” Dimitri inserted as he walked into the room.
Her head snapped around and she met his eyes briefly before her own gaze skated away. She didn’t know how she managed it, but she didn’t stand up and harangue him like a fishwife for once again withholding a crucial piece of information from her. For letting her believe he might be coming to love her when he’d been motivated by his personal sense of honor, not personal need.
Dimitri joined her on the brightly colored Mediterranean-style sofa. Her body tensed in response to his nearness. If only she could forget what he made her feel as easily as he conveniently forgot to tell her about his second promise.
She focused her attention on Mr. Petronides who was smiling benevolently at them. “He didn’t like the suit I was wearing for the shoot and demanded I go to the trailer and take it off.”
“So, being a reasonable woman and understanding the possessiveness of a traditional Greek male, you immediately changed, heh?” Mr. Petronides’s eyes twinkled mockingly.
Dimitri snorted. “She threatened to take it off right there in front of everyone if I didn’t shut up and go to the sidelines.” He still sounded chagrined by her tactics.
She allowed herself a brief glance at him, but it hurt too much to make full frontal contact so she looked back at his grandfather. “It worked.”
The older man roared with laughter and said something rapid to Dimitri in Greek that she didn’t catch. Dimitri scowled.#p#分页标题#e#
She smiled. Anything that made him frown made her happy, or so she told herself.
“She has led you a merry chase, has she not, Dimitrius?”
Dimitri laid his arm across her shoulders. “Yes, but I have her now and I’m not letting go.”
She wanted to cuddle into his side and kick him in the shin at the same time. Was she going crazy? She must be. And he was the one driving her there.
She jumped up. “I think I’ll go to bed.” She turned to Dimitri. “You needn’t feel obligated to join me. I’m sure you and your grandfather have a great deal to catch up on.” The words were stilted, but they were the best she could do.
Dimitri’s eyes narrowed and he stood. “I will see you upstairs.”
His grandfather stood as well, slowly coming to his feet, the expression on his face one of fatigue. It was the first time since she’d met him that he had shown a glimmer of the effects of his recent ill health. “Do not return downstairs for my sake, Dimitrius. Both the very old and the very young need their rest. I will find my bed.”
She gave the old man a quick kiss on the cheek before turning to go upstairs.
Dimitri stayed behind a few moments saying goodnight to his grandfather, but caught up with her before she had reached the top of the stairs. She allowed him to take her hand, but when he reached for her later in bed she told him she was too tired to make love.