The Greek Bachelors Collection. Rebecca Winters
his, because there was no answer at her door. By the next day Nemos had established that she had moved out of her accommodation without leaving a forwarding address. Giannis insisted on seeing the room and having it searched. He could not credit that she was gone.
Why? He was a very logical guy. But he still could not comprehend why. No woman had ever run away from him before. Why would she do that? She wanted him as much as he wanted her. What was her problem? One minute she kissed him as if she couldn’t live without him, and the next—Raging frustration sizzled through his big, powerful frame. How long would it take him to track her down? There was a chance that he might never find her. That was the cue for the weirdest sense of paralysis setting in to his long powerful legs. Aggressively healthy as he was, he wondered if he was coming down with an illness.
Only when he had swung back into the limo did Nemos bend down to pass him an item. ‘It was in the rubbish bin. I thought you’d want me to be discreet.’
It was the packaging for a pregnancy testing kit. So evidently she had been worried—much more worried than he had been, Giannis registered in surprise. Had he struck her as insensitive? He grimaced. Why was that word working its way into his vocabulary? He had simply thought it improbable that the only contraceptive failure he had ever experienced would lead to conception. And he had been proven right, hadn’t he? But at least he now understood why she had been so angry when they’d last met. She had resented his more mature outlook and his calm lack of concern on that score—which now he found perfectly understandable.
The magazine was well read, and its cover was beginning to come off. Even from the other side of the waiting room, however, Maddie recognised the juxtaposed photos of Giannis and Krista. Practically in one motion, she pushed herself up off her seat and swept the publication off the table. The issue was weeks old. On the cover, a jagged lightening flash split a photo of the couple apart, and below ran the headline: Jilted? Too impatient to sit down again, she stood flicking through the pages in search of the corresponding article. It took several minutes for her to find it, because the piece was only a few lines long and not very informative.
An unnamed mutual ‘friend’ had let it be known that the Greek society wedding of the year was off. No reasons were given. Both Giannis and Krista had refused to comment on the rumours, and had asked for their privacy to be respected. Maddie drew in a slow, deep breath and clutched the magazine tightly.
‘Miss Conway?’
‘And this is your first visit to us?’ The middle-aged doctor sighed as he weighed her and took her blood pressure. ‘You must be at least five months pregnant.’
‘About four months…’ Maddie told him. ‘I saw a doctor in Southend when I was about six weeks along. Everything was fine then.’
The doctor said nothing. Unless she was mistaken about the dates, he thought, there was a problem. She was very noticeably pregnant. She looked thin and tired, and he wasn’t happy with her blood pressure. He examined her and said that he would like her to have a scan at the hospital.
‘Also, I don’t think you should be working,’ he added.
‘I’m only doing a few hours here and there. I can’t afford to quit.’
‘Do you want this baby?’
Losing what little colour she had, Maddie nodded in dismay.
‘Then you need to rest and take it easy.’
Fear gripped Maddie. The only thing that had kept her sane through the long lonely weeks since she had left London had been the comforting prospect of her child. True, she had felt endlessly tired, and sick enough to lose her appetite and some weight, but it had not occurred to her that her pregnancy might be at risk. Confronted with that threat, she was appalled. She was living in a bed-and-breakfast, and working odd shifts as a cashier in a restaurant which was open to all hours.
But if Giannis was no longer engaged there was no reason why she shouldn’t contact him and ask him to help her out. Naturally she would have preferred to remain proudly independent—not least because she had not told him the truth when she might have done. But all of a sudden she was painfully and guiltily aware that she should be putting her baby first and her pride and her feelings last.
It was months since Giannis had given her the embossed business card, but she still had it in her purse. Before she could lose her momentum, she went into the shopping centre to find a public phone. She punched out his mobile number very slowly. Her heart was beating so fast and her mind was so full of apprehensive thoughts that she very nearly dropped the receiver before the call was answered.
Giannis spoke in Greek, which unnerved her.
‘Hello…it’s me,’ she announced stiltedly. ‘I mean, sorry…it’s Maddie.’
At the other end of the phone, Giannis rose from his seat. Every predatory instinct on instant hyper-alert, he murmured as smoothly as silk, ‘I’ve been hoping to hear from you. Where are you?’
The rich, accented timbre of his deep voice touched memories Maddie had not known she had, and brought a surge of unexpected moisture to her eyes. ‘I’m in Reading,’ she said gruffly. ‘I need to see you.’
‘Any time. Give me your address—I’ll send a car to pick you up,’ Giannis suggested, determined to pin her down to an exact geographical location.
Not yet ready to advance that amount of trust, Maddie spread uneasy fingers over the gentle swell of her stomach. ‘No. I’ll get the train to London this afternoon.’
An expert negotiator, Giannis knew when not to push. He had picked up on that audible note of wariness. ‘Where do you want to meet? My apartment?’
‘No…’ But her mind, she discovered, was a total blank. The doctor had said it was hormones, but sometimes she felt as if her brain had been hijacked.
She had no objection, therefore, to Giannis stepping straight into the breach with the immediate assurance that she would be met at the station and brought to a hotel where they could dine.
‘It’ll be very relaxed.’ Giannis was determined to do and say whatever it took to draw her out of hiding, though he was using persuasive tactics that were utterly new to him.
Maddie wondered dully how hungry he would feel after she had broken her news. Since she could hardly take care of that in a public restaurant, she felt she had to say in warning, ‘I sort of need to talk to you in private.’
Whatever, Giannis thought, energised by a wave of satisfaction and impatience. She had missed him. Of course she had. He had picked up on a hint of tears in her voice, but even so she had stayed away for over three bloody months! Strange how a woman who could be so gentle could also be as stubborn as a mule and as hard as granite. He realised that he was as angry with her as he was pleased, and it was a volatile combination. But stronger than either prompting ran a deep, atavistic need to stamp her as his again, with the raw, physical intimacy that would ensure she never ran in the wrong direction again. This enthralling imagery in mind, Giannis cancelled all his afternoon appointments with a casualness that shocked his personal assistants.
Even though it was a hot day, Maddie wore a long jacket which, amazingly, did a good job of concealing her changing shape. Nemos greeted her with a warm, welcoming smile and shepherded her through the busy station. She alighted in a quiet side street. The lavish hotel foyer was wrapped in the intimidating silence of an exclusive establishment. Her nervous tension increased, her palms dampening.
‘Mr Petrakos is in here…’A door was spread back and she saw him for herself: tall, vibrantly dark and devastatingly handsome, he wore a silver-grey business suit with the classy sheen of madly expensive silk. He was all she saw—the only element in the room that she could focus on. A tiny pulse was beating too fast in the hollow of her collarbone.
His first thought was that she looked incredibly lovely, like a painting brought to life. She looked tiny and fragile in a voluminous black jacket which acted as a vivid foil for her Titian mane of curls and pure white skin.
‘Would