Lusty Billionaires Bundle(86)

Why was he asking her that? Of course she was sure. He’d made his position very clear that last meeting in Paris. “Yes.”

“If I told you I had already decided not to go through with the marriage, you would not believe me, hmm?”

Was he saying that? No. This was just another one of his subtle manipulations. “Don’t tax your personal integrity making the claim. You’re right. I wouldn’t buy it.”

“And yet I had hired a detective agency to find you within days of you leaving Paris.”

“I waited for you to change your mind for a whole week, Dimitri. You didn’t even call. I can believe you started to consider the consequences if I’d told the truth about the baby, but I don’t think you were prepared to call off your wedding because of it. I didn’t matter to you then, and I don’t matter to you now. It’s all about the baby and I’m not stupid enough to forget that.”

His hand gripped his wine glass very tightly. The same hand that still wore a bandage from the night he’d come to Madeleine and Hunter’s party.

“How did you cut yourself? I never asked.” Her mind had been on other things that night.

He carefully put his wine glass down, staring at it as if it held the answer to an important question. Then he looked up at her and she gasped.

His eyes held a torment that was haunting.

“When Madeleine told me you were dead, I crushed the glass in my hand.”





CHAPTER SIX




DIMITRI’S statement hung in the air between them like a bomb that had not exploded, but still might.

“You were that upset at the prospect of losing your child?” She had not considered Dimitri’s emotional involvement with their baby. Which wasn’t all that surprising considering she’d seen him as an emotionless monster for the past three months.

His jaw tautened. “If it pleases you to believe so, yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

He inclined his head. “With your background, you should understand the importance of our child being raised in his home country of Greece and as a Petronides.”#p#分页标题#e#

That was more like it. Dimitri wanted his son because family pride demanded he be raised Petronides. “I understand the importance of loving my baby for his own sake, not the sake of family pride. Whether he’s raised a Dupree or Petronides, he will still be worthy of my love. Can you say the same?”

Dimitri’s features took on the cast of the Iceman. “Apparently you do not believe me capable of any level of emotion, so why should I bother answering?”

She’d hurt him, wounded his sense of self and for some reason, she simply couldn’t bear that. “I didn’t mean—”

“Leave it. Do you want dessert?”

“No.” She couldn’t eat anything now.

“Then we will return to the suite. If we are to have yet another argument, we will do it in privacy.”

The drive back to his hotel was a silent one. She felt guilty and kept telling herself she shouldn’t, but the feeling remained. Just because Dimitri did not love her did not mean he was not capable of loving his son. She’d had no right to imply that it did.



She was still trying to work up to an apology when he let them both into the suite a half an hour later.

“Dimitri, I—”

“I said leave it.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’m tired.”

His admission of weakness stunned her.

His lips twisted wryly. “You think I cannot get exhausted like the next man? We all have our limits, pethi mou.”

He hadn’t in the twelve months she’d lived with him.

“I have not slept well for the three months I have searched for you,” he further shocked her by admitting. “I believed once I found you, everything would fall into place. You would agree to marry me. We would be on the next plane to Greece so you could meet my grandfather. I believed I would have to assuage your anger, I did not expect to find a woman who hated me.”

“I don’t hate you,” she averred, “I told you that.”

“You do not wish to hate me for our child’s sake. I understand this, but you do not want to marry me. You do not trust me. I am at a loss where to go from here. Just as you saw modeling as the only solution to your family’s financial difficulties, I see marriage as the only workable solution to our situation.”

It was her turn to sigh. “I know you do.”

“And I am sexually frustrated.” His laugh was harsh. “I don’t like going without.”

She didn’t know if she could handle Dimitri in this strange mood. She was used to him taking charge, demanding. His admissions of weakness surprised her silly. “It hasn’t been that long, surely?”