Lusty Billionaires Bundle(113)

He’d married her because of a promise to a sick relative. For the first time she felt an unwelcome weight around her heart because of her pregnancy. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, Dimitri would have let her go without a second thought.

Even if Phoebe had still ended up married to Spiros, Dimitri wouldn’t have gone looking for his discarded lover, Xandra Fortune.

Because his grandfather would not have extracted that second promise.





CHAPTER TWELVE




THE next morning Alexandra came to consciousness alone in the bed. She cuddled Dimitri’s pillow, inhaling his scent, wishing his absence from their bed was not a physical ache in her heart. He had left for Athens two hours ago, but not before waking Alexandra with slow, tender caresses that had ended in such exquisite release she’d cried.

She’d gone to sleep determined not to make love with him. That determination hadn’t lasted past his first drugging kiss around dawn. She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. There were no answers to her predicament in the white plaster.

A knock on the door heralded the arrival of a maid with the breakfast Dimitri had ordered for her. She scooted into a sitting position and allowed the maid to lay the breakfast tray over her legs. An unexpected smile tilted her lips when she saw the dry toast, fruit, eggs and single slice of bacon. He’d teased her about her tendency to order the same meal for breakfast every morning. He’d said pregnant women were supposed to crave pickles and ice cream, not dry toast and bacon.

The food was accompanied by the awful tasting herbal tea she’d taken to drinking in the morning to settle her nausea. She ignored it, grateful the stomach upset that had plagued her the night before was gone. She refused to contemplate the possibility Dimitri’s lovemaking had been more effective in making her feel better than all the herbal tea she’d drunk.

The maid opened the curtains letting in the bright Greek sun before leaving Alexandra to finish her breakfast alone.

She ate by rote, her thoughts casting back to the night before and then more recently to earlier that morning. She still tingled in places from her husband’s possession. Remembered pleasure caused an unwelcome throbbing in her lower body. If he were here now, she’d be hard pressed not to beg him to make love to her.#p#分页标题#e#

Huffing out a sigh of frustration at her body’s betrayal, she climbed out of bed. As she showered and dressed, she considered her situation pragmatically. What, after all, had changed? She’d known Dimitri didn’t love her when she agreed to marry him.

But she hadn’t known about the promise, her heart cried.

Did it matter?

Of course it mattered. It was humiliating to realize she’d been married for a reason totally unrelated to herself. She had her pride.

And it had been a cold companion for three long months in New York. She’d been miserable without him. She’d missed him like a wound in her soul every day they had been apart, even believing he had been married to another woman hadn’t dulled the unwanted desire to be back in his arms.

She walked over to the dresser and picked up the Lladro statue. It was so delicate. She could remember with absolute clarity her sense of joy and wonder when he had bought it for her. She ran her forefinger along the figurine’s head and the graceful lines of her dress. Then she lightly touched the kitten playing at the woman’s feet.

Dimitri had saved this reminder of a happier time between them. He had saved her clothes. He had brought her things here, to the family home, obviously believing she would live here as well one day. Of course he had believed it. He knew about his promise to his grandfather, her mind insidiously reminded her.

But he hadn’t had to save her things. She’d left them in an insulting pile on the floor, flouting his pride, condemning him with their presence and her absence.

She had a choice. She could fight the truth and make both Dimitri and herself miserable, or she could accept reality.

She and Dimitri would have the kind of marriage people in his world and her mother’s world excelled at…a marriage of convenience. After all, she was no longer Xandra Fortune, the nobody model he slept with, but Alexandra Petronides, his wife and a woman with a background he could be proud of.

Sharp slashes of pain cut at her heart at the last thought. She’d spent her whole life being accepted for the trappings of who she was. Her own mother had withheld her love and approval for the six long years Alexandra had spent as Xandra Fortune. Cecelia had been effusive in her approval the week before the wedding though. She had been thrilled her daughter had landed such a catch in the marriage market.