The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress(23)

“More like he’ll keep us running with his antics.”

“If he is anything like his mother, he will keep me on my toes until my hair turns gray.”

She smiled at that and laid her hand over Dimitri’s. “You know, you never did explain how you came to the conclusion the baby is yours.”

“I told you about my friend.”

“The doctor? Yes. I remember. That explains how, but not why. I mean just because you realized it was possible for you to be the father of my child, didn’t mean you had to believe you were the father.”

Dimitri exhaled a long breath. “I knew the truth long before I went to Nikos and asked him how it could be possible.”

“Why?”

She felt his body go tense against her and she lifted her head off his chest to look into his eyes. They weren’t revealing anything. “My mother and father died in an avalanche when I was ten years old.”

“I know.” It was the only thing he’d told her about his parents and one of the few things she knew about his family.

“My father was bringing her back from the ski lodge where she had been staying with her current lover.”

“Current lover?”

Dimitri nodded, his head moving in a precise movement that was painful to watch. “She fell in love with daunting regularity, only one of those times was with my father.”

She laid her hand over his heart and caressed the skin there in a comforting gesture. “Oh, Dimitri…”

He frowned as if her sympathy bothered him. It probably did. He was a very proud man.

“She had left before. There was even some question as to whether or not Spiros could claim the Petronides bloodline. My father insisted on having the tests done, my grandfather told me, not because he didn’t love my brother but because he wanted to squelch the rumors. I believe he would have paid to have the tests doctored if they had come back negative. They did not.”

“But if your mother was unfaithful, why did your father remain married to her?” She could not imagine a proud Petronides male doing so.

Dimitri’s frown turned to a scowl. “He was obsessed with her. He too called this feeling love. Their marriage was volatile, their reunion  s dramatic but in the end her concept of love and his obsession killed them both.”

No wonder Dimitri had such a jaundiced view of love. A depressing sense of hopelessness came over her. Would he ever allow himself that level of vulnerability after the example his parents had set him?

“It is not a pretty tale.”

But it explained why he hadn’t trusted her. He’d seen too much at an impressionable young age to take the fidelity of a woman for granted.

“We all have memories we would rather forget. Every family has its skeletons.”

“Not according to your mother.”

Alexandra smiled at his attempt at humor, but it was a small one. She didn’t feel like laughing when she’d come face to face with Dimitri’s reason for distrusting love. “Not all women are like your mother.”

He shrugged. “Adultery is not such an uncommon thing.”

“Is that why you were so sure I’d had a lover?”

He’d been waiting for her to betray him like his mother had done, because her betrayal had not only been against her husband. She’d done terrible emotional damage to her children as well.

The tension in him grew almost palpable. “It shames me, but yes.”

“My unexplained trips must have played upon your fears.”

“I was not afraid.”

Right. “You don’t like discussing your feelings, do you?” Why hadn’t she caught on to that before?

“No, but you asked for a reason for my belief.”

“Your mother’s behavior explains why you didn’t trust me. It does not explain what changed your mind.”

“I realized you were not like her.”

Hope erupted in her like Mount Vesuvius. If he already accepted she was nothing like his mother, he might eventually learn to trust her enough to let himself love her.

“I’m not,” she reiterated for good measure. Then, because she was curious and couldn’t help wanting to know, she asked, “When did you realize it?”

“When I returned to the apartment and found the pregnancy test on top of the lingerie.”

“Oh.” So, those final frantic moments in the apartment hadn’t been wasted.

“There was a message in that, was there not?”

“Yes.”

“You connected the pregnancy with our lovemaking.”

He really did understand how her mind worked. “Did it make you remember what it had been like between us?” That was what she had intended.

“Yes.” His expression was grim. “I knew you could not be that way with someone else. I still did not understand why you took trips you refused to explain to me, but I knew they were not to meet another man.”

“Now you know.”

“Now I know.” His expression lightened and the hand on her shoulder ventured lower. “I know something else as well.”

“Oh, what’s that?” she asked breathlessly. That hand had found an already aching peak and gently tweaked it.

“There are things I would rather do with you than talk.”

“I’m so surprised.” She tried to sound mocking, but his touch was affecting her and her voice came out husky instead.





They spent a week in Athens, Dimitri insisting they have a honeymoon before he took her to the family home to meet his grandfather. It was a blissful seven days filled with touristy stuff and making love, lots and lots of making love.

Dimitri took her to see the obstetrician. She turned bright red and wanted to hide in a closet when Dimitri insisted on verifying her former obstetrician’s advice about making love. He wasn’t content until the doctor had done a full examination and Dimitri even requested an ultrasound to check the progress of the baby.

At four months, she hadn’t been able to make out much on the ultrasound, but this time she didn’t need the doctor to tell her where the baby’s head and feet were. Nor did she need his interpretation to affirm the male sex of her child.

She pointed to the baby sucking its thumb in the womb and turned to share her delight with Dimitri. He was pale and his eyes had the dazed look of someone in serious shock.

“Mr. Petronides, are you all right?” the doctor asked.

“Dimitri?” she prompted when he didn’t answer.

He turned to her, his eyes suspiciously bright. “That is my son. You nurture and protect him with your body. How can I ever thank you for this gift?”

She stared at him, nonplussed. She knew fatherhood had affected him strongly, but this was over the top…and she loved it. “No thanks necessary. He is my gift as well, mon cher.”

Then Dimitri bent down and kissed her lips very gently as she lay on the examining table with the ultrasound gel making her tummy glisten.

The doctor looked on with tolerance. “You will be an indulgent papa I fear,” he said.

Dimitri straightened to his full six foot, four inches and smiled. “Perhaps.”

And Alexandra felt suffused with a glow of contentment.

That contentment lasted until Dimitri told her it was time for her to meet his grandfather.

“But what if he hates me?” she asked nervously. “He has every reason.”

“Don’t worry. He cannot help but adore you and he has no reason to hate you.”

She would probably have been more confident of that concept if she were confident in Dimitri’s adoration. But while he was overtly affectionate, complimentary and the charming companion she remembered, he never spoke words of love. He’d never called her his love again either. Not in Greek, not in English or even French which they slipped into frequently, it being the language they had originally used to communicate.

Love words never passed his lips…even in the height of passion.





CHAPTER ELEVEN




THEOPOLIS PETRONIDES did not look at all like a seventy-one-year-old man who had undergone heart by-pass surgery only a few months ago. Even leaning on a cane for support, he stood commandingly tall in the middle of the spacious Mediterranean-style room. His almost black eyes bore into Alexandra with disconcerting force from below steel-gray brows that matched the hair on his head.

“So this is my new granddaughter, heh?” He put his hand out commandingly. “Come here and greet your family, child.”

Alexandra stepped forward with an assumed air of confidence, knowing to show her fear of his disapproval would be to lose his respect. She put her hands on his shoulders and reached up to kiss his cheek in greeting. He returned the salute with an approving smile before she stepped back.

“She doesn’t look like her pictures,” he said to Dimitri. Then he turned back to Alexandra. “I like you better this way. More natural. No fancy curls and dye jobs in your hair. My Sophia, she never used color on her hair.” His gaze roamed over her face like he was taking inventory. “Eyes a nice hazel, not some impossible green. It suits you.”

She bit back a smile at his blunt speaking. “Thank you. Dimitri thought maybe I was too ugly to support myself modeling any longer.”

Both men spoke at once.

“I did not say—”

“What’s the matter with my grandson?”

The smile broke through. “To be fair, I did look a fright from lack of sleep and morning sickness at the time.”