The Greek Billionaire's Innocent Rrincess(24)

his father was, and he had vowed he would not abandon a woman if she fell pregnant with his#p#分页标题#e#

child. Soon after, when Greta had revealed she was expecting his baby, he had immediately

proposed. But his desire to marry the Danish model had not only been for the sake of the child.



He had loved her, Nikos acknowledged grimly. After his mother’s death, work had become his

obsession and he had never allowed any of his lovers to get too close. But Greta had been

different. Their affair had been Nikos’s longest relationship, and he had finally admitted that the

beautiful blonde had got beneath his guard and captured his heart.



After his initial shock he had been glad about the baby, knowing that his child would be his only

blood relation in the world. But a month after he and Greta had married, tragedy had occurred.

To his dying day he would never forget her phone call from Denmark, where she had gone for a

modelling assignment, telling him that she had miscarried.



Nikos stared blindly out of the palace window, remembering the sorrow that had swamped him.

It had been a bitter blow, but he had dealt with his grief privately, and done his best to comfort

Greta—unaware that her tears had been an act. In the months that had followed she had appeared

to recover well, and quickly returned to modelling. But it had not been long before cracks

appeared in their relationship. Greta loved to party, and had accused him of being a boring Greek

husband. And she had been adamant that she wanted to concentrate on her career when Nikos

had suggested they should try for another child.



Her open use of cocaine, and her revelation that she had hidden her habit before their marriage,

had led to a series of increasingly bitter rows, and it had been during one of her drug-fuelled

rages that Greta had screamed the truth at him. She had never wanted a baby—but when she had

fallen pregnant, and Nikos had proposed, she had seized her chance to marry a multimillionaire.

She had waited until after the wedding, but on her trip to Denmark she hadn’t miscarried their

child—she had chosen to terminate her pregnancy.



Nikos swallowed the bile in his throat, and forced his mind away from his ex-wife. Greta was in

the past. The newspaper reports two years ago of her death from a drug overdose had elicited no

sympathy from him. From the moment he’d learned how she had callously deprived him of his

child his heart had frozen over, and, although he was a living, breathing man, inside he was

emotionless and cold.



But he did not feel dead inside now. For the first time in five years something stirred within him,

and he stared at the woman who had sworn she was carrying his baby, his heart pounding. Fate

had given him another chance, another child— and he would move heaven and earth to ensure

that the tiny speck of life created from his seed would have a chance of life.





CHAPTER SIX


KITTYstared numbly at Nikos, shaken by the bleakness in his eyes. He looked devastated by the news that she was expecting his baby. His jaw was rigid, his skin stretched so taut over his sharp

cheekbones that he looked as though he had been carved from marble—cold and hard and utterly

unforgiving.



The idea of fatherhood definitely did not appeal to him—that much was clear, she brooded

bitterly. The tiny flame of hope that had lurked deep in her subconscious was snuffed out and

pride made her voice strong. ‘Don’t look so worried, Nikos. I don’t want anything from you.

This is my problem, and I’ll deal with it. You needn’t be involved.’



Something flared in his eyes, an emotion Kitty could not define but that made her feel as though

her legs were about to give way, and she sank weakly back down on the sofa.



‘ Deal with it? ’ he said in a dangerous tone. ‘You are talking about a human life. In what way were you planning to deal with it?’



‘I meant that I will take care of the baby, financially and in every other way,’ Kitty faltered.

‘What do you think I meant?’ Her eyes widened as the implication of his words hit her, and

sickness surged through her. ‘You can’t possibly think…’ She took a shaky breath, but when she

spoke her voice was fierce. ‘I am having this baby, and as far as I’m concerned there is no viable

alternative I would ever consider. But as I said before, you don’t have to be involved.’



Nikos felt some of the terrible tension that had gripped him lessen. She had sounded convincing,

but Rina, or Katarina as he now knew her, was an accomplished actress—he had evidence of

that. ‘But I am involved,’ he said implacably, his eyes locked with hers. ‘You are carrying my