The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress(11)

The second one was a photo of Spiros and Phoebe in wedding regalia. Phoebe looked a little shell-shocked. Spiros looked arrogantly satisfied. Typical Petronides male.

The third was a letter from Spiros affirming Dimitri’s account of the situation. This one was in English.

Alexandra took a deep breath, feeling an emotion she should not be feeling. Unadulterated relief. She told herself it was because she didn’t have to worry about the complications of a stepmother being around the baby so early in life, but her heart mocked her. And that scared her to death.

“Why was she at our apartment?” She didn’t notice her slip of the tongue until a look of approval settled over Dimitri’s face. “I mean your apartment. I was evicted,” she added for good measure, wiping the not fully formed smile off his face.

“I have had to take over the Athens office completely since Grandfather’s first heart attack. Spiros and Phoebe moved to Paris so he could run the office there. I gave them the apartment as a wedding present.”

“Is that something like conscience money? You felt guilty for embarrassing her with a public tiff with your discarded mistress, so you gave her the apartment you’d evicted me from?”

She should have kept her mouth shut. She really should have, but she couldn’t seem to remember that when she was around him. His eyes snapped fury at her as he took one menacing step forward after another. She backed up, but eventually hit the wall between the main room and her bedroom.

“It was a joke,” she said weakly.

“This is not.”

Then his mouth closed over hers and she forgot he was only doing it to punish her. She forgot everything but how incredible it felt to be held so close to him, to taste him on her tongue, to be surrounded with his smell, his heat, his desire.

She worked her hands into the space between his jacket and his shirt, reveling in the feel of his muscles under her exploring fingers. He shuddered and she exulted in her power over this dominant Greek male. He pulled her to him, pressing their bodies as close as they could go without taking off their clothes. It wasn’t close enough.

She started unbuttoning his shirt as he slid her sweater up to expose the tight skin over her womb. His hand settled on it and he caressed her there, touching every square centimeter of the football-size lump. The baby moved and Dimitri stopped kissing her to stare down at his hand on her stomach in awe. The baby kicked right in the center of his palm and Dimitri’s eyes slid shut, his breath stilling in his chest.

He let it out very slowly and met her eyes. “My son.”

“Yes,” she whispered, unable to deny such a poignant claim.

Triumph glowed in his indigo gaze before his mouth settled over hers again, this time with such gentleness she felt tears seep out of the corner of her eyes. He kissed her lips as if meeting them for the first time, while his hand continued to explore the new contours of her body.

His possessive touch coupled with the tenderness of his kiss completely undermined any resistance and she fell back into the kiss without a murmur.

She had his buttons undone and her fingers were circling his hardened male nipples when a shrill sound filtered through the passionate haze in her mind. She crashed back to reality with a bruising emotional bump. What was she doing?

She tore her mouth from his. “The phone.”

His eyes were glazed with desire and his skin had that flushed look he got when they made love. He tried to catch her mouth again and she turned her head.

“The phone,” she repeated as it rang again, its piercing jangle skating across her nerves.

He gently pulled the elasticized band of Alexandra’s doeskin pants back to waist level before smoothing her caramel colored crocheted sweater back into place. “This is not over,” he said and then turned to answer the phone.

She walked to the other side of the suite, wanting to get as much distance between them as she could. She’d been so sure she was safe from her attraction to Dimitri, certain her feelings for him were dead. She might not love him anymore, but she wanted him and her pulsing body proved it.

“Yes, Grandfather.” Dimitri went silent, apparently listening. “I remember.” He cast Alexandra an assessing look. “It’s being handled.”

Why did she have the lowering suspicion the it being handled was her?

Dimitri made a few more remarks in Greek, asked his Grandfather about his health, listened silently, said goodbye and hung up. He turned to face her and she couldn’t suppress a shiver. His eyes glowed like those of a predator with his prey firmly in his sights.

She stepped backward even though he hadn’t made a move toward her. “That was a mistake.”

He didn’t ask what that was, he merely smiled. “I don’t think so. It did not feel like a mistake to me pethi mou.”

“I’m not falling back into your bed, Dimitri.”

“Are you certain of this?” he asked lazily.

“Yes.”

“We shall see.”

“I think I’ll order room service. I’m hungry.” Her appetite had increased over the past couple of days. Maybe the awful morning sickness was finally passing.

“I have a better idea.”

“What?” she asked, feeling wary.

“Let’s go out.”

“I don’t know…” Being seen in public with a man of Dimitri’s wealth was always a risk for media exposure.

His eyes warmed with sensual lights. “We can stay here if you prefer.”

“I’ll get my jacket.” A woman had to know how to weigh her options and the risk of staying in the suite with a sexually charged Dimitri far outweighed her concern about being caught in his company by the media.





The muted glow of candlelight lent entirely too intimate an aspect to Alexandra’s dinner with Dimitri. He’d surprised her once again by taking her to one of the see and be seen restaurants so popular among the sophisticated New York social set. Dim lighting didn’t stop recognition and surreptitious glances from one table to another.

Alexandra tried to concentrate on the food in front of her and ignore her compelling dinner companion. Dimitri had ordered a much larger meal for her than she usually ate and she had surprised herself by consuming almost all of it. The same thing had happened at lunch that afternoon. If nothing else, sparring with her ex-lover seemed to spur her appetite.

“Xandra—”

“My name is Alexandra,” she said, before he could complete his sentence. “Xandra Fortune is dead.”

Something passed across his face when she made that statement, but in the dim lighting she couldn’t tell if it was pain or irritation. “You had no plans to go back to modeling after the baby was born?” he asked, conspicuously using the past tense for her plans, implying she had new ones.

“No.”

He studied her like a man trying to decipher a complicated puzzle. “Why?”

“There were many reasons.”

“Very cryptic.” He smiled in a way that used to send her pulse to hyperspeed. “Tell me some of them.”

She gave a mental shrug. Why not? This at least was better than arguing over custody rights and his insulting notion that now he believed her about the baby she should fall all over herself getting to the altar before he changed his mind.

“I want to spend more time with my baby than that type of career would allow and it would be too difficult to maintain two separate lives with a baby in tow. It was hard enough for me, but I think a life like that would be confusing and probably even frightening for a child.”

He mulled that over much longer than she thought necessary. “Explain to me again why the Xandra Fortune image.”

Had she explained it a first time? She couldn’t remember. She knew she’d alluded to it. “My mother did not approve of my working. Dupree women do not work,” she said in a fair imitation of her mother’s soft Southern drawl. “But it was my choice of career that really upset her. The idea of her daughter traversing a catwalk in front of her peers or worse, doing swimsuit or lingerie ads sent her into hysterics.”

“You chose to create a different persona rather than give up your desire to become a model?” he asked.

“I didn’t have a choice. It was either pick up a career or see my mother dispossessed and my sister thrown out of boarding school for nonpayment of tuition.”

“Explain this to me. Where was your father?”

“Dead.”

“That is unfortunate. You have my belated condolences.” The words were formal, but the emotion in his voice left her in no doubt to his sincerity.

“Thank you. He was a dear man, a fossil collector. Old bones interested him; business did not. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, the family had been living completely on credit for two years before he died.”

“When did this happen?”

“Six years ago. I’d just graduated from my last year at Our Lady’s Bower and thankfully the cousin of a school chum had shown some interest in my modeling for his magazine.” She took another bite of her lobster fettuccine. It practically melted in her mouth.

“Our Lady’s Bower sounds like a convent, or something.”

“It is. Dupree girls have been French convent educated for the last six generations.”

“No wonder it was so easy for you to adopt a French persona. Your accent is flawless, your gestures often gallic and your outlook quite European.”