The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress(10)
His mouth twisted. “Have I at any time implied that you should not?”
“You told me you wanted my son.”
“You believe I am married to Phoebe, therefore I must want the baby without the mother?” His hands lifted in an expression of exasperation she knew well. “Do I have this right?”
She wasn’t totally certain any longer, so she shrugged. He could make what he liked of it.
“Your opinion of me is very low,” he said grimly, all humor gone from his countenance. “I should have the proof you need of Phoebe’s marriage to Spiros within the hour.”
She remained mute. She’d believe it when she saw it. It wasn’t his brother Spiros who had announced his engagement to the young Greek heiress.
“I can see it is of no use attempting to talk with you until I have the documents.”
“I don’t want to talk to you at all,” she admitted.
It was a useless sentiment. She was pregnant with his child. They would have to come to terms eventually, but those terms would not include her giving up her baby.
“Do not play the child.”
She forced herself to eat a bite of her eggs. Their fluffy warmth tasted like sawdust on her tongue. She had believed she was even tempered before she met Dimitri.
“You said you are no longer modeling to support yourself.”
She nodded, wary of where this was leading. She didn’t want to give away any more information than she had to.
“What are you doing now?”
“Maybe I’m just living off Hunter’s largess.” She knew the idea of another man supporting her while she was pregnant with his child would infuriate Dimitri.
Sure enough, his eyes narrowed. “Are you?”
“I’m living with them,” she pointed out.
He just waited and when she remained silent, he sighed. “I already have five reputable detective agencies on my retainer. Now that I know the name you are living under, it should be a matter of a phone call or two to elicit the information.”
“I’m working as a translator and interpreter for an agency that sends out temps.”
His blue eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. “You go out to work for strangers?” He made it sound like she was some sort of call girl or something.
“It’s not that different from doing a modeling assignment.”
“But then you knew the photographers, the other models.”
She pushed her plate aside and took a sip of herbal tea. “What difference does it make?”
“You are pregnant and obviously ill.” His gaze wandered over her with tactile force. “You should not be working.”
If he didn’t want Hunter supporting her, how did he expect her to live? “I have to support myself. I refuse to be my younger sister’s charity case.”
“Why have you not returned to your parents’ home?”
A traditional Greek man who shared the loving rapport he had with his grandfather could never understand the complicated relationship she had with her mother. “I’m not welcome,” was all she said.
“This cannot be. You are pregnant with their grandchild. Surely your parents desire to care for you at this time.”
“My father died six years ago and my mother is only willing for me to return to New Orleans and the family home if I invent a fictitious husband who conveniently died recently or lives overseas. It’s positively draconian, but that’s the way she is. She refuses to even discuss the baby and hasn’t come to visit Madeleine since I moved in.”
His jaw set. “You refused to invent this pretend spouse?”
“Yes.” She’d rather live without her mother’s approval than continue pretending to be something and someone she wasn’t.
“It will be a relief for her then that the real and in fact living father of your child will soon be your husband as well.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“AS JOKES go, that’s not a very good one.”
He fixed her with an impenetrable stare. “I am not joking, pethi mou.”
“Don’t call me that. It’s an endearment and I’m not dear to you which only makes it an insult.”
He shoved his plate away from him in an uncharacteristic show of temper. “My marriage proposal is a joke and endearments an insult. Is there nothing I can do right with you?”
“You could leave me alone.”
His blue eyes darkened to the color of the sky just before midnight. “This I will not do.”
She forced another bite of melon down, its succulent juiciness lost on her. “I figured as much.”
“Then why suggest it?”
“Wishful thinking?”
“Do not be facetious. This is a serious discussion we are having here.”
“What exactly are we discussing? Your attempt at bigamy?”
His fist slammed down on the table, causing the dishes and plates to clatter alarmingly. “I am not married.”
She eyed him warily, almost believing him. Maybe, deep down, she did believe him, but some imp in her wanted him to prove it, to see how it felt to have his word questioned on a claim that should be accepted without hesitation.
“So you said. Proof is to arrive within the hour, or something like that…” She waved her hand in an airy gesture.
“Right,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
She really had to stop baiting him. “Let’s say I believe you. Why would your brother marry your fiancée?”
“As I told you last night, your and my relationship came as a great shock to my family.” Pain crossed his features. “The photographer did his homework and had chapter and verse on our year-long association. My brother was appalled on Phoebe’s behalf. She’d been made to look a fool, something his perception of our family honor could not tolerate.”
“So he married her? Wouldn’t your intended marriage have been just as efficacious?”
“No. I was the philanderer, the one caught with my pants down in public so to speak.”
She swallowed a smile at the imagery. Dimitri Petronides in such a vulnerable position was something she’d give a great deal to see. “I can’t believe you agreed to let your fiancée marry your brother.”
“He convinced her to elope with him. Her pride was saved. Our family honor was saved and now I am free to marry you.”
He looked for all the world like he expected her to leap for joy and congratulate him on his good planning. She would have rather dumped his coffee in his lap. “Charming. You can marry your pregnant mistress now that the virginal bride-to-be has flown the coop. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Do you think our son will thank you for denying him his heritage, his Greek family, his role as my heir?”
“We don’t have to be married for you to make our son your heir or for you to be part of his life. You can have access.”
“Of what good is this? You live an ocean away. How can I be his father with two continents and an ocean between us?”
“I don’t know.” She stood up wearily. She had to get ready to go to work. She had an assignment in two hour’s time across town. “You’ll have to forgive me for not having all the answers just yet. You ditched me three months ago, certain the baby I carried was not yours. I haven’t been thinking in terms of parental sharing and visitation rights.”
He stood as well. “Where are you going?”
“I have an assignment in a couple of hours. I’m going to get ready.”
“I told you I am not allowing you out of my sight.”
“Then come along,” she offered sarcastically, “but I’m going to work.”
She came to rue those flippantly uttered words. Dimitri insisted on doing just that. In addition, he refused to take a cab, but had his car called, along with his two bodyguards. It had been a while since she went out with security men in tow, a little over three months to be exact.
Dimitri refused to wait in the car while she did the short translation job for the group of French tourists. She walked beside the tour guide, translating the woman’s rapid dialogue concerning the Empire State Building into French while Dimitri and his bodyguards brought up the rear of the line.
It would have been a comical sight if she wasn’t so tired and stressed. By the time she slid into his car for the ride back to his hotel, she was disgustingly grateful she hadn’t had to wait in line for a taxi. She didn’t even have enough energy to enjoy looking at the city’s Christmas decorations out the limousine’s window. Commenting on her drooping appearance, he insisted on stopping for lunch at one of Manhattan’s upscale Italian restaurants.
Alexandra walked back into the main room of the suite from her bedroom just as Dimitri was turning from the fax machine, several sheets of paper in his hand. She’d avoided him since their return by the simple expedient of taking a nap. For some reason, she’d slept better than she had in ages.
Dimitri waved the papers before her. “Proof.”
“Proof?” She was still a little rummy from the nap and didn’t know what he was talking about until she looked down and read the top sheet. “Oh.”
She put out her hand for the sheaf of papers and he gave them to her. The first one was a marriage license. It was in Greek, but she was now almost as conversant in that language as she was in both English and French. She easily translated the names and the male listed was Spiros Petronides, not Dimitri.