Pretending with the Greek Billionaire(11)
“You want me to move in?” Constance asked, looking between the two of them. She wasn’t sure if it was horror or excitement that made her legs shake like palm fronds in the wind.
“You may have your own room, of course,” Joseph started but Luca interrupted him.
“No. You’ll share my room.”
“What?” Constance asked, completely taken off guard.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and a dangerous twinkle in his eyes. “And my bed.”
Even Joseph’s eyes widened at that one. Constance stared at Luca, barely able to draw breath. He returned her gaze, stone-cold serious for once. His entire body was tense, his muscles clenching and unclenching like he was trying to prevent himself from jumping up.
Her mind shouted angry obscenities at the arrogant jerk even as her body nearly trembled at the thought of being in such close proximity with him.
She shook her head, her words coming out more as a whisper than the forceful declaration she’d meant them to be. “You can’t blackmail me into having sex with you.”
Luca’s lips twitched into a half smile. “I’ve never been that hard up, love. I didn’t say that we’d be having sex, though I’m certainly open to that any time you wish.”
Constance glared and gritted her teeth. Luca just grinned and continued on. “I said we’d share a bed. Despite Joseph’s vigorous screening process and more nondisclosure agreements than I can count, somehow the intimate details of my life still manage to get leaked to the tabloids on a distressingly frequent basis. If we’re going to make this look real, you can’t live with me in a room down the hall. You’ll have to share my room, and my bed, like my real fiancée would. Well, almost like a real fiancée. I assure you, your virtue is safe from me. As long as you want it to be.”
She shook her head, thankful she had a legitimate reason they couldn’t argue with to get out of his twisted little plan. “I can’t do that. I told you, I can’t abandon my children. Moving in here would certainly fall under that criteria.”
“Why do you keep calling them your children? What, you adopted them all?” Luca asked, his forehead creased.
“No, but the arrangement is similar. It’s possible the girls who still have families might return to their homes one day, but it’s highly unlikely. Releasing children to the program is a last resort step for most families. Only undertaken if there are no other options, no other means of support, because in order to create safe, stable environments for these kids, it’s necessary to give them permanent homes. Permanent caregivers. Keep them from being bounced back and forth.”
“So you signed up to take care of six kids, permanently, all on your own.”
She frowned slightly at him. “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of this program before. It’s not like it’s some secret organization.”
“I’ve heard of it. Not the specifics, but I know the gist.”
Constance shook her head. “And that’s the problem right there. If more people like you knew, or cared about more than the gist about programs like this, we wouldn’t need programs like this.”
His eyebrows rose. “So people like me should…what? Go adopt everyone?”
“No, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to be a little more involved.”
“Maybe. Depends on your definition of involved.”
It was her turn to raise an eyebrow. He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey, not all of us are cut out to parent half the island.”
Her lips twitched despite herself. “I didn’t know I’d end up with six children, but we don’t like to split up sibling groups. I’ve got two sets of siblings. And Elena. And I don’t do it entirely on my own. In some locations, House Mothers live near each other, some even in special villages built for the purpose, in order to give each other support and additional stability for the children. There isn’t anything like that on Mykonos yet, though I hope there will be one day. For the moment, I live next door to a widow, Mrs. Ballas, who helps me.”
“So why can’t this Mrs. Ballas watch them for a few weeks while you stay here?” he asked, stretching out his long legs. His bare feet were inches from her own legs and she shifted a bit so he wasn’t quite so close. He gave her a smug smile that she ignored.
“She helps out, kind of like a housekeeper. But I told you I am their mother. I wouldn’t leave them to someone else for several weeks for no good reason any more than I’d do that with my own biological children. This program isn’t like a typical foster care system, certainly not like the one in America. I’m not technically an adoptive parent, but the program does make me legally, physically, morally, and spiritually responsible for my girls for the rest of their lives. Well, technically until they’re legal adults. But I’m not going to raise them as my own and then walk away once they are eighteen. I’m not just going to walk away from them for weeks on end either.”