The Stephanides Pregnancy

CHAPTER THREE

CRISTOS watched with a maddening air of scientific interest as Betsy lurched dut of the bed in comical haste. It shook him that she looked so good first thing in the morning. Coppery red hair flying in tousled waves round her oval face and sheathed only in his crumpled shirt, she was very sexy.

'You don't need to act as if you've never shared a bed with a man before,' he said very drily.

'I haven't!' Betsy launched back at him. 'Nor is it something I can treat like a joke.'

Cristos had never felt less like laughing. 'Are you saying that you're… gay?'

Betsy froze and then shook her bright head in wonderment. 'You really don't know where I'm coming from, do you?'

Relaxing from his worst-case scenario, Cristos reclined back against the pillows. 'When you said you'd never shared a bed with a guy, you were obviously exaggerating. '

Betsy folded her arms. Furious as she was with him, she was beginning in a funny way to enjoy herself. 'And how do you make that out?'

'I very much doubt that you're telling me you're a

virgin.',

'Why?' Betsy heard herself say defensively. 'Did you think I would be ashamed of the fact?'

Silence fell, a silence so thick and heavy it screamed at her. Cristos could not conceal his surprise. Her face burned with colour. Wishing she had kept her mouth firmly closed on the subject, she vanished into the bathroom. Why was she embarrassed by what she had just revealed? She had always been shy and Rory had been her only serious boyfriend. Two months after she had begun dating him, he had gone abroad to work for a year. Against the odds they had stayed together, but when Rory had finally returned to London Betsy had been reluctant to rush into intimacy with him. Even though he had asked her to marry him, she had felt that she needed more time to get to know him again and her caution had strained their relationship. Her sister had stepped into that breach.

A virgin. She was a virgin. Was that what was different about her? Cristos asked himself in bewilderment. His every expectation had been violently overthrown. He wondered why she should suddenly seem more desirable than ever. The strength of his own desire was beginning to exasperate him. She was just a woman like other women. Sexual hunger was simply an appetite to be satisfied. There was nothing special or different about her. But he was in dire need of another cold shower. Thrusting back the sheet, he told himself how fortunate he was that that was all that was available.

Betsy was astounded to find women's clothing hanging in one of the bedroom units. 'Whom do you think these belong to?' she asked when she heard Cristos behind her.

Cristos reached over her shoulder and drew out a woman's dress. 'This looks brand-new-'

'Tacky taste… ' Betsy held the garment against her slim body, soft mouth down curving at the fact that it was strappy, low-necked and short. She swooped with delight on a pair of mules, hauled them out and dug. her feet in. The mules were a good size too large but a great deal preferable to bare feet.

'It all seems to be beach wear… you might as well use it.' Cristos checked the size on an item and reckoned it would fit her like a glove. Coincidence? He didn't think so. Someone had put a great deal of planning into their reception on the island. He was not at all surprised to open the other unit and discover a selection of male apparel.

After checking that her injured foot was already well on the way to healing, Cristos went off to shave. Betsy donned a purple bikini and tied a sparkly blue sarong round her slender waist. The air was still cool before the build-up of the day's heat. The front door was wide and she hovered to drink in the beauty of the fresh dawn light filtering down over the sea and the pale sand while the sun rose in crimson splendour in the east. Finally tearing herself from the view, she noticed the champagne bottle still parked beside the flowers that Cristos had mentioned. Already the petals were dropping from the blooms. As she lifted the vase the sheet of paper that had been tucked between it and the champagne slid frown flat on the table surface. Someone had typed several lines of a foreign language in large print on the paper.

'Cristos… ' She went pink as she realised how easily his name came to her lips because she thought of him that way. 'What's this?' she asked, extending it to him as he appeared in the bedroom doorway.

An ebony brow lifted as he studied the sheet. 'This

. is in Greek… where did you get it from?' ~

'It was on the table…'

His brilliant dark gaze narrowed. 'It wasn't there yesterday. '

'But it must've been,' Betsy pointed out.

'If it had been there I would've seen it,' Cristos breathed with implacable assurance.

'I only saw it when I lifted the vase,' Betsy proffered in consolation. 'For goodness' sake, what does it say?'

Lean jaw line clenching, Cristos vented a harsh laugh. 'It's a load of rubbish. It says that we will not be harmed and that whether the ransom is paid or not, we'll be set free. As if you didn't know!'

Betsy stiffened, her bemusement complete. 'What are you talking about?'

'This!' Cristos crushed the notepaper in one powerful fist and let it drop at her feet again in a blatant gesture of contempt. 'It wasn't here yesterday. Therefore you must have planted it.'

'Me… plant it? Are you crazy?' Betsy countered in disbelief.

'If this is an attempt to persuade me to accept my imprisonment here~ it's failed,' Cristos spelt out rawly. 'Right now the only person who concerns me is my grandfather, Patras. He's eighty-three and tough as they come. He's already buried my parents and my little sister. But he may not have the strength to survive the stress of my disappearance and the threat of another loss!'

Betsy was very tense. 'Do you think I'm not concerned about my own family? I don't know why you're so suspicious of me-'

'How can I be anything else? You presented me with that stupid note which doesn't make any sense. No more sense than anything else in this scenario,'

Cristos contended in unconcealed frustration. 'I've been kidnapped but, instead of being chained up in a cellar, I'm on a beach in reasonable comfort with a sexy redhead thrown in for good measure.'

'Count your blessings… next time I see a note around here, I'll just pretend not to see it. You haven't given me one good reason why you should still suspects me of having been involved with the kidnappers.'

'There's been too many coincidences,' Cristos delivered, lean, powerful face brooding. 'I saw you for the first time in my life six weeks ago-'

'Six weeks ago… how?' Betsy pressed in surprise. 'The wind blew your hat off and you were chasing it in a car park at the airport. You didn't see me. I thought you were gorgeous.' Dark golden eyes that seemed laden with condemnation rested on her.

Betsy had no memory of the occasion but her angry resentment was already starting to ebb away. He had noticed her six weeks back? Actually remembered her? Decided she was 'gorgeous'? She went positively pink with pleasure.

'But it never occurred to me that I'd see you again.

I returned to London yesterday and, courtesy of my cousin, you'd been hired to drive me over the weeks' end.'.

'What did your cousin have to do with it?'

'Spyros made the arrangements to bypass the usual limo company anc\ use the one where you work instead. You were supposed to be my surprise.'

Her teeth gritted. No longer did the fact that he had found her instantly attractive seem like a compliment! No longer did she need to wonder why her boss had selected her for the plum job. The cousin would have~ specifically requested that she be the driver. Indeed the whole scenario that Cristos had depicted outraged her sense of decency.

'Your cousin thought that my services could be hired along with the car, did he?' Betsy fired a look at Cristos from stormy emerald eyes.

Faint colour scored his hard cheekbones. 'That is not what I said. My cousin's intervention simply gave me the chance to meet you. That's all.'

'That's very far from all,' Betsy contradicted, her hands knotting into furious fists as she rejected that much more mild interpretation of the facts. 'Speaking as the woman who was supposed to be your "surprise", I have to admit that I've never heard anything more sexist or disgusting!',

Cristos stayed cool. 'That's your prerogative. I thought you were hot and I welcomed the opportunity to get to know you.'

'You waited less than two hours before you lured me into a hotel and tried to get off with me. Is that why you accused me of being bait? Your seedy cousin goes in search of me, sets me up and I get the blame for it because you have the misfortune to be kidnapped while I'm driving you?' Temper was leaping higher and higher inside Betsy.

'I took risks I would not normally take. I disregarded the advice of my staff. I paid no heed to my own personal security because I was more interested in you-'

'My goodness,' Betsy cut in as citrus-fresh and acidic in tone as a lemon. 'I even get blamed for your overactive libido.'

'Are you always this aggressive to guys who might try to separate you from your virginity?'

She hit him. A resounding slap and then fell back 'step in shock at what she had done.

l' 'Is that the best you can do?' Cristos asked in silken provocation. 'You'd have done more damage if you'd ~hit me with your fist-'

'I didn't want to damage you… I'm sorry I slapped you,' Betsy forced out that admission for the sake of form and averted her guilty gaze from the faint mark she had left across the proud angle of a bronzed cheekbones.

'Forgiveness has a price. You let me kiss you.' Betsy lifted her head, green eyes bright and incredulous.

He shrugged a broad shoulder with immense cool. 'And if you hate it, I'll never do it again.'

Her cheeks warming, Betsy shifted off one foot to the other and back again. 'Of course I would hate it. Save yourself the embarrassment,' she advised him thinly. 'Not five minutes ago you were accusing me of having planted that daft note.'

Glittering dark-as-night eyes met hers and flamed gold. 'But intelligence doesn't come into this. I'm like a drunk who keeps falling off the wagon. I still want

to taste you…' II

Her breathing fractured in her throat. He was so close she could feel the heat of his male body warming the taut, bare skin of her midriff. A tiny little quiver started deep down inside her, fanning a spark in her pelvis. Her back arched a little. Her mouth ran dry. Slowly, more slowly than her nerves cold bear, he lowered his handsome dark head. Common sense told her to back off but longing kept her still on a high, of anticipation.

'I'm going to hate this,' she warned him, fighting to the last ditch, willing herself to find all bodily contact with him revolting.

His wide, sensual mouth came down on hers and, on her terms, it was instant spontaneous combustion. It was like every kiss she had ever dreamt of in her teens and· never received. Shell-shocked by the pleasure, she wrapped her arms round him to stay upright. He tasted divine. In fact everything about him might have been specially picked to please her. When he at last lifted his head to drag in some necessary oxygen, she subsided into his lean, powerful frame, losing herself with voluptuous delight in the heady masculine scent of his skin and the awesomely pleasurable feel of him against her. Scanning her feverishly flushed face with smouldering dark golden eyes, he crushed her even closer to him and went back for more of her luscious mouth.

In a fever, Betsy traded kiss for kiss. He employed his tongue with erotic expertise and she gasped, clung to him for support. Again and again she let her own craving rule her, unable to make the break that she knew she should. Her body was all heat and urgency and demand. That fierce hunger she had never felt before was winning the battle between control and restraint.

'Let's go to bed… ' Cristos breathed with husky ferocity.

Striving to hide her disconcertion at how fast things had moved, not to mention her overpowering awareness of her own failure to resist him, Betsy looked up. Lean, hard-boned face taut, Cristos gazed down at her. Her knees were ready to buckle. The breathing space had changed nothing. She still wanted him regardless of pride, intelligence or self-respect. A wild, wicked wanting had been born inside her and had created a need so powerful it shocked her.

Cristos let lean brown fingers glide up from her waist to rest against her narrow ribcage. She was extraordinarily conscious of the swollen tenderness of her breasts, the sensation of forbidden warmth between her thighs. In fact she could hardly breathe for excitement and he knew it. In his stunning dark golden gaze burned all the unashamed expectation of a male accustomed to women who met his every demand without hesitation.

Betsy stiffened and fought her own weakness. With an effort, she parted her reddened lips and said hoarsely, 'The bonfire… we were going to build a bonfire…'

Disbelief flaring through him, Cristos watched her walk to the door. That she cannoned into a chair on her passage there was his only consolation.

Outside in the fresh air, Betsy lifted unsteady hands to her hot face and then dropped them hastily again in case he realised just how badly shaken up she was. 'Are you trying to tell me that you hated being touched by me?' Cristos demanded as he joined her, his Greek accent very strong.

. She stole a glance at his bold bronzed profile and strove to suppress the inner quiver of response that sought to betray her. 'No but I don't want this to go any further… It’s madness,' she told him gruffly. 'You may have a point,' Cristos murmured with a

smooth acceptance that disconcerted her. "I have no contraception here. I assume you're not protected-?' 'No, I'm not,' Betsy slotted in, reddening to t);le roots of her hair and hurriedly directing her attention elsewhere. He made her feel horribly immature. She was affronted by his assumption that a few kisses could have persuaded her straight into bed with him and his frank reference to the need for contraception embarrassed her. It infuriated her even more that he could switch off and be so cool and rational about the halt that she had called when she herself felt as a weak and stupid as an accident victim fighting shock.

And Betsy was in deep and genuine shock. Shock that she could be so passionate. But most of all shock that a man she barely knew could make her want him infinitely more than she had ever wanted Rory. Rory's kisses had not wiped out her brain cells or made her shiver with lust. She had never been at risk of losing control with Rory. She had honestly believed that she was not a very sexual person but Cristos had just taught her differently.

'The best place to build a fire as a beacon is on the headland at the northern end of the beach,' Cristos pronounced, digging hands balled into fists into the pockets of his tailored chinos in a determined effort to conceal how aroused he still was.

'I think we should scout around before picking a spot,' Betsy heard herself say, reacting to a barely understood urge to always disagree with him.

'Any passing shipping will be able to see a fire there.'

While she listened, Cristos produced another three excellent reasons why his site was the superior, indeed the only possible choice. When he began talking about shelter, wind speed and bum rates she knew herself to be utterly outclassed and subsided into her assigned role of being the willing worker directed by the mastermind.

There was a lot of driftwood scattered on the beach below the headland and she gathered it piece by piece and carted it uphill to the designated area. Cristos, she learned, left nothing to chance. The fire was laid with geometric exactitude and the wood pile for feeding it was no exception.

'Your shoulders will burn in this heat. Go and put on a top,' Cristos instructed her as the flames smouldered.

'I'm fine,' Betsy framed tartly, temper on a thin leash after a lengthy period of hard physical labour in temperatures she was unaccustomed to working in. 'Why don't you just leave me to look after me?'

'How can I?' Cristos dealt her a glittering golden glance and elevated a derisive ebony brow. His shirt was hanging open to reveal a bronzed torso that rivalled the sculptured perfection of a marble statue. 'You're useless at it!'

Emerald eyes shimmering with rage, Betsy sucked in a great gush of air. 'And on what do you base that staggering assumption?'

'Where do you want me to begin?' Cristos sliced back with relish. 'When you got us kidnapped by not even locking the car door? When you cut your foot? Almost drowned? And you wonder why I should feel that it's my responsibility to ensure that you don't roast yourself alive?'

In a violent movement, Betsy chucked down the log she was dragging. 'You're just furious with me because I won't sleep with you!'

Cristos plunged down the sand bank towards her and scooped her right off her startled feet.

'What are you doing?' she screeched at him.

'I want you to look at yourself in the mirror and then tell me you're not going to cover up’

'Put me down right now!' Betsy roared at him. With exaggerated care, Cristos lowered her to the sand. 'I don't like being shouted at,' he warned her, smooth as silk.

'I don't like being lifted like I'm a toy doll! I don't like being ordered round all the time either-'

'Isn't it strange that you should have chosen to become a chauffeur?'

'I'm only filling in time until I start up my own business!' she yelled back at him.

'You'd be wise to get some professional advice before you venture into business on your own behalf,' Cristos pronounced in the most superior of tones.

Fit to be tied, Betsy studied him with outraged green eyes. ' You're a living, breathing miracle, Cristos.' 'Meaning?'

'How come you've survived to this age without being strangled? You're driving me crazy… you think you know everything and even if you do, there's no need to share it.' Betsy tilted up her chin. 'For your information, I have a degree in business and the only advice I will require in that field is my own.'

Having delivered that news, Betsy stalked across the sand into the house. She was in the bedroom when Cristos strode in. He stilled behind her and before she could even guess his intention he had skimmed down the bikini straps on her slight shoulders so that the amount' of sunlight her skin had absorbed could be clearly seen in the contrast.

Betsy squirmed and groaned out loud in frustration as she sat down at the foot of the bed. 'Just because you're right…it doesn't make me like you any better.' Cristos strode into the bathroom and reappeared thirty seconds later with a bottle of lotion. He dropped it on the bed beside her. 'Apply this now and maybe you won't be doing a lobster impression by this evening.'

Betsy collided with brilliant dark eyes and her tummy took a hop, skip and a jump like an overexcited child about to climb on a big dipper. She twisted her head round, denying herself temptation, and directed her attention at the mirror again. Cristos sank down on the bed behind her and infiltrated her reflection as well. He looked so devastatingly handsome that she just stared, soft lips parting, mouth running dry.

'Stop looking at me like that…' Cristos advised, reaching for the bottle.

'You've got to be used to it by now.'

At that crack, the faintest hint of colour accentuated his arrogant cheekbones and she was amused. Of course he was aware that he was drop-dead gorgeous. Nobody possessed of his looks, height and superb build could remain ignorant of his own immense appeal.

'In fact not only are you used to the effect you create, you use it shamelessly to get your own way,' Betsy added for good measure.

'I don't usually have much of a problem getting my own way,' Cristos admitted without an ounce of discomfiture. 'Lecture over yet?'

As Betsy stiffened cool fingers smoothed soothing liquid across the hot skin on her shoulders and a tiny startled moan of sound broke from between her lips. 'Am I hurting you?' Cristos asked lazily.

'No…' If anyone had told Betsy that some day the touch of a man's hand on her shoulder would set her alight like a match dropped on a bale of hay, she would have laughed out loud. But the confident caress of his lean fingers was somehow making her unbearably aware of her own body in a way that made it almost impossible for her to stay still.

'Should I stop?' he husked.

'No…' She could not bear the idea of denying herself that physical contact. A kernel of heat was· unfurling low in her pelvis. She was tempted to lean back into the hard, masculine strength of his powerful body. Shaken by the very thought of such behaviour, she went rigid. Desire was in her like a secret agent programmed to seek out her vulnerability. She looked back in the mirror to see Cristos even though she knew she should not. Her heartbeat thudded heavily inside her tight chest.

She thought of all the safe choices she had made and so many of them had been mistakes. All her life she had erred on the side of caution. She had wanted to train as a mechanic but instead she had spent three years at university studying for a career she had no interest in. For a year after that she had worked endless overtime in an office job she'd loathed and her lucrative salary had been of no comfort. In the same way she had been protecting herself from potential hurt when she'd held back from sleeping with Rory. She had always selected the most sensible and least risky option available… and Cristos was a high-risk heartbreaker.

In her mind's eye she pictured herself swivelling round on the mattress and moulding her lips to that wide, sensual mouth of his. She was shattered by just how fiercely she longed for that image to be true.

Taking her by surprise, Cristos rose upright in a fluid motion. He strolled into the bathroom to rinse his hands and murmured levelly, 'Take a break. I'm a lot more used to this heat than you are.'

But very unused to suppressing his libido around a beautiful woman, he conceded inwardly. He raked long fingers roughly through his cropped black hair but still he could see the slender elegant sweep of her back, the fairness of her colouring against his own and the incredibly feminine silky feel of her soft skin. He was becoming obsessed, he told himself angrily. He fed the fire with fierce concentration and then stacked wood.

Betsy regarded sex as something serious and he had never regarded sex as serious. But in the back of his mind lurked a vague and unsettling recollection of the much more conservative views of his mother, Calliope, who had died when he was eleven years old. To combat the rampant sexism of the male contingent of the Stephanides family, his mother had even then been talking to her son about stuff like respect, fidelity and self-discipline. And love. His lean, handsome face clenched hard. Well, suffice it to say that Calliope, who had married her true love at eighteen, had been very naive on that score.

Betsy was, however, in a class of her own. From the minute she had admitted that she was a virgin Cristos had been forced to reassess his attitude to her. No longer could he stick her in the same category as the countless forgettable women who were pretty much willing to spread their legs for any rich man. But her very exclusivity made her an even more potent symbol of desire to a male who had always regarded the best things in life as being his…