Lusty Billionaires Bundle(98)

The car had not arrived one moment too soon.

Dimitri stepped into an empty elevator and pressed the button for his floor.

Would Alexandra be ashamed to marry him while she was so visibly pregnant? He thought back to what he had learned of her past. She’d been educated by nuns. Hell, maybe she would be embarrassed by a big wedding.

She had certainly been upset about the news clipping. He didn’t want her upset and the part he had played in the breaking of the news story troubled him. He’d seen one of the paparazzi that often followed him outside the restaurant where they had eaten lunch. He hadn’t said anything, had not sent his security man after the film—though as he’d learned in the past, that move was not always successful. His actions could be considered ruthless, but he thought of them as the acts of a desperate man.#p#分页标题#e#

She had to marry him.

For her own sake because she needed him.

For the baby’s sake because he was a Petronides.

For Dimitri’s sake because he needed her.

And for the sake of a promise he had made to his grandfather, a second promise when the first had been nullified.

He’d thought it would be easy once he found her. She’d obviously wanted marriage before she left Paris, but now she acted like the thought of it was worse than spending the rest of her life in Purgatory. No matter what she said to the contrary, it was obvious she now hated him. He mourned the warmth that used to shine from her eyes when she looked at him. The smile that had been just for him. Intimate. Special. He’d taken her for granted when he had her. He had ignored the underlying emotional commitment in their relationship.

He’d believed they had no hope of a future.

She’d been a career fashion model. It was lowering to admit, but he’d believed she had every intention of moving on when her career took off. He hadn’t known about her family, hadn’t realized she had no desire to be a supermodel. That ignorance had cost him three months of mental anguish wondering where she was and how she was faring with her pregnancy.

He’d never once considered she might terminate it…even when he’d gone to the apartment in Paris a week after she left and found her message for him on the floor of the living room.

She’d rejected everything he’d ever given her down to the sexy nightwear he’d bought her. His fists clenched at his sides when he thought of that neatly folded stack of silk and lace garments. He’d taken one look at the pregnancy test sitting on top and driven his fist through the wall. One look. That was all it had taken for him to realize she’d been telling him the truth. He hadn’t understood how it could be true, but he had known it was.

He’d called the detective agency that very night, but it had still been too late. He’d lost her.

He’d spent three months tormenting himself with if-only scenarios. If only he had been thinking more clearly when his grandfather delivered his ultimatum, but Dimitri had been badly shaken and had gone into damage control mode. He would do anything to save his grandfather and he had done, hurting both himself and Alexandra in the process.

If only he had believed her about the baby from the beginning and told his grandfather then.

If only he had come back to the apartment sooner, but he hadn’t been able to face its emptiness, the reality of what he had done to his woman. He hadn’t been able to stay in Athens either, not after the announcement of his marriage to Phoebe had been made.

Everything had felt wrong about it. He’d seen the looks his brother gave Phoebe when he thought no one noticed. Dimitri could not miss the way Phoebe stood in fearful awe of him, but laughed in his brother’s company. But most importantly—the look on Alexandra’s face when he’d denied her haunted him.

He deserved her hatred, but he couldn’t live with it. He had to convince her to marry him. He could not consider the alternative. She and the baby needed him even if she refused to admit it. Theos knew he needed her. Would she ever look at him with the warmth of affection in her beautiful eyes again?



Alexandra had picked up the paper her mother left behind and was re-reading the article about her and Dimitri when he returned.

She looked up. “I can’t believe they said all this. It’s horrible. Conjecture about our relationship, your reasons for denying paternity. Where did all this come from?”

Dimitri shrugged. “The story ran for weeks in France and Greece, even some London papers picked it up. The press release your agency sent out saying you had retired from modeling and wanted to live a more anonymous life was all the more scintillating when news of your possible pregnancy got out. I’m surprised you didn’t see any of the stories.”#p#分页标题#e#