Expectant Bride (11 page)

Taken aback by that bald admission, Dio expelled his breath in a fracturing hiss.

‘So you really weren't on a winning streak with that offer you made,' Ellie pointed out, a pained attempt at a teasing smile curving her soft full mouth. ‘But at least you're not someone else's husband, like he was…'

Dio had gone very still. His incredible lashes lowered to screen his gaze.

‘And even though it wasn't what I wanted to hear, I guess you were honest,' Ellie conceded jerkily. ‘Which
he
never was.'

Tension snaked through Dio's big powerful frame. His arms tightened round her. Ellie felt whole again for the first time since she had left Chindos, but all the more conscious that the emotional hold which Dio had on her was stupendously strong.

Dio smoothed the tumbled silvery hair from her damp brow, his eyes liquid dark with emotion. ‘You were right,' he murmured with a roughened edge to his dark, deep voice.
‘When I asked you to be my mistress, I didn't consider you. I wanted you back in my bed. That was the bottom line.'

Ellie trembled, defenseless against her own hunger to be as close to him as his own skin. ‘Well, I don't want to be your mistress,' she whispered shakily. ‘But I
do
want to be with you tonight…'

Dio wasn't quite quick enough to hide his surprise.

Shocked by her own daring, Ellie reddened, not even sure where that frank confession had come from.

‘I really
don't
deserve you,' Dio grated quietly as he bent and lifted her easily off her feet and up into his arms.

Ellie buried her hot face in his shoulder and gloried in his physical strength. At that instant being with Dio was all she wanted in the whole wide world. He settled her down on a divan in a low-lit elegant bedroom. He ran the zips down on her boots and eased them off. He sprang upright again with that fluid grace she adored and began to undress.

Watching him discard his clothes, Ellie was weak with longing. She shimmied out of her tights and clumsily tugged off her sweater.

‘Stop it,' Dio scolded with shimmering golden eyes full of mingled reproach and anticipation. ‘I want to do that.'

Her mouth ran dry as he came back to her, his bold arousal flagrant proof of his powerful masculinity. He was like a bronze sculpture, but far too erotic to ever be put on public view. Nor could any metal ever have portrayed his sheer vibrance. Stinging sexual awareness shot through Ellie like an electric current.

Dio unclipped her bra. Her full breasts were adorned by pouting pink nipples. His slumbrous eyes burning her temptingly exposed flesh, Dio suddenly groaned, ‘
Cristos
…I shouldn't be doing this!'

Ellie frowned in bewilderment. His tension pronounced, Dio raised his scorching gaze to her moist parted lips and then to her confused eyes. Just as suddenly he appeared to
reach a decision, and he closed his hands over hers to haul her all the way into his arms. He possessed her mouth with a raw, hungry heat that provoked a startled gasp from her, and then he eased her over him to deftly dispose of the rest of her clothing.

‘I want you
every
way there is,' he intoned, lowering her to the pillows and running sure hands over the straining sensitivity of her breasts. ‘But gently,
pethi mou
.'

Excitement already running like fire through her as he teased her prominent nipples, Ellie could only manage a shaken moan, and then she reached up, plunging her fingers into his thick black silky hair to draw his gorgeous mouth back to hers again. She let her fingers slide down over his taut flat stomach, reveling in the sudden tightening of his muscles as she traced the fine furrow of hair to its magnificent source.

With a ragged laugh at her new boldness, Dio flung himself flat on the bed and watched her explore him with golden eyes full of indulgence. Then he drew her up to him with lazy eroticism and began to show her what he liked. And, shy and uncertain as she was, she was driven by the most intense need to give him pleasure.

‘Enough,' Dio groaned all too soon, lifting her up to him with powerful arms and kissing her breathless. He studied her with deeply appreciative eyes. ‘I love teaching you…but you're too fast a learner.'

‘Am I?' Ellie shivered, shockingly aroused by the excitement of touching him, loving him. She sank down on his lean, hard all-male length to lose herself in another carnal kiss with the ease of a programmed doll.

He rolled her over and began to systematically drive her wild. Her heart hammered like crazy. Nothing existed for her but Dio and the tormenting need which now controlled her. He found the swollen, aching sensitivity at the very heart of her and she couldn't stay still. Her breath sobbed in her throat
then as she twisted and jerked beneath a tidal wave of exquisite sensation.

‘Please…'
she gasped helplessly.

Eyes burning pure gold, Dio slid between her parted thighs and entered her with an earthy growl of satisfaction. The feel of him stretching her gave her the most intense tormenting pleasure. He moved fast and deep, and a low, keening sound was wrenched from her. His every thrust burned her with liquid fire. All control was decimated, her overwhelming hunger driven higher and higher. She clung to him in wild abandonment, out of her senses with pleasure long before he pushed her to a shattering climax.

Ellie came back to herself with tears in her eyes and a dazed sense of wonder. She relived the instant when Dio had shuddered over her, reaching down his own zenith with dominant power, and she stroked loving fingers through his tousled damp hair and pressed her reddened mouth reverently against his shoulder. ‘You make me feel so special…' she whispered unsteadily.

Really
special, for the first time in her entire life, she realised ruefully—just as the phone by the bed buzzed and Dio's long, lithe length suddenly tensed above hers.

‘Don't answer it,' she muttered urgently, not wanting anything to intrude.

‘I'm expecting a call.' Dio eased free of her to roll over and reach for the phone.

Lying on her stomach, Ellie watched him recline back against the padded headboard. His brilliant black eyes were screened from her but she could feel his sudden distance like a cold chill in the air. He was talking in Greek, his darkly handsome features grave and taut.

Ellie frowned, anxiously wondering what the call was about.

A couple of minutes later, Dio cast the phone aside. ‘I need a shower, and then I might work for a while,' he an
nounced, his stunning eyes veiled, his jawline clenched. ‘Try to get some sleep, Ellie.'

When he sprang off the bed without another word, Ellie paled. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Nothing that need concern you.'

‘Maybe you'd just like me to vanish in a puff of smoke now!' Ellie exclaimed rawly.

Dio drove exasperated fingers through his hair and swore long, low and viciously in his own language. Black eyes glittering, he drew in a deep, shuddering breath, visibly attempting to control a temper that was now, it seemed, on a hair trigger. ‘Ellie, just lie down and go to sleep—'

‘I'm going home.' Her face a furious pink, but her eyes mirroring her pain and confusion, Ellie swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

Dio loosed a savage groan. ‘I
want
you to stay!'

Ellie flung back her head in challenge. ‘It doesn't feel like it.'

‘I'm not about to beg,
yineka mou
,' Dio incised in stark warning.

It was the endearment that soothed her. At least she assumed that the thing he'd called her was a term of affection. She listened to the shower running in the bathroom, but all happy contentment had now been wrested from her. Maybe he had got some bad news during that phone call. But if that was true, why hadn't he just said so? Her insecurity level began to climb. Inevitably she started questioning the renewed intimacy she had personally invited, and her misgivings mushroomed.

In a desperate need to convince herself that they
did
have a relationship, she had just thrown herself at Dio. All right, she loved him, and was currently suffering from the most humiliating need for reassurance, but that was certainly not an excuse. Tonight, prompted by the fear that she was pregnant, she had tried to attach strings that didn't exist, hadn't
she? If Dio was feeling in need of some space now, how could she possibly blame him? She should have resisted her own weakness and slept elsewhere. Why, oh, why did she
always
get it wrong with Dio? she asked herself in positive anguish.

Getting out of bed, Ellie hurriedly gathered up her clothes. She crept down the corridor to the room in which she had changed earlier and climbed into the bed there. If Dio really wanted her with him, he would come and get her. If he didn't—well, then she had done the right thing, hadn't she?

Ellie lay awake for a long time, but Dio didn't put in an appearance to persuade her back into his arms.

 

Dio's manservant brought her breakfast in bed the following morning. Then Dio called her on the internal phone to tell her that he had made a provisional appointment for her with a consultant gynaecologist willing to see her at noon.

‘Nathan Parkes is a personal friend. If you feel uncomfortable with that fact, I'll make other arrangements,' Dio asserted with scrupulous care and tact.

‘I don't care who I see,' Ellie responded flatly, worn down by her sleepless night and thoughts that overflowed with regret and self-loathing.

She was impervious to Dio's every impossibly smooth conversational sally on the drive across London. A pretence of polite cool was beyond her. She might love him, but just then she hated him for succumbing to her moment of weakness the night before. Succumbing with enthusiasm and
then
making her feel ten times worse. She wished she had never met him. She wished it so hard that she said it out loud just as she climbed out of his fabulous sleek black Ferrari.

‘I don't wish that,' Dio delivered grittily as he strode up onto the pavement beside her, six foot three inches of aggressive masculinity. ‘And neither do you.'

‘What do you know about how I feel?' she demanded shakily. ‘And why have you got out of your car?'

‘Naturally I'm coming in with you—'

‘Like heck you are! This is one thing I do on my own!'

Twenty minutes later, Ellie's suspense came to an end.

‘You're pregnant,' Nathan Parkes informed her levelly.

‘Definitely… That is, without any room for doubt?' Ellie prompted jerkily.

‘Definitely. No room for doubt.'

Ellie dropped her head and studied her tightly linked hands. Why had she even bothered to question his diagnosis?

‘At this stage, feeling a little sick is normal,' the lanky blond man continued. ‘But I'm not entirely happy with your weight. You're quite thin.'

‘I've been skipping meals recently,' Ellie admitted grudgingly.

‘Nausea does tend to kill one's appetite,' he allowed. ‘But try to eat small meals regularly. That often helps.'

Pining for Dio had killed Ellie's appetite, but she kept that demeaning truth to herself.

‘You
are
planning to continue with this pregnancy?'

Hearing the edge of concern in that query, Ellie nodded in immediate agreement, but she still didn't look up. She had honestly believed that she was prepared for the news that she was pregnant. Now she was discovering that she hadn't been prepared. She felt shocked, and very scared of the future.

‘Excellent,' Nathan Parkes pronounced approvingly.

Ten minutes after that, Ellie stood in the empty waiting room and took several deep breaths to calm herself. From the window, she could see the roof of Dio's Ferrari. As she emerged onto the street, Dio climbed out and strode round the bonnet. His dark, deep-set gaze instantly locked to her pale, strained face.

Ellie stared back at him.

‘So we celebrate,' Dio announced, pulling open the pas
senger door and tucking her back inside his car with hands that brooked no argument.

‘Can't you just for once say something
honest
?' Ellie condemned in a tight, taut undertone.

Dio leant in to fix her seatbelt for her. ‘We're going to be parents. Personally, I feel that the conception of my first child is a
very
special event. If you have nothing positive to say right now, keep quiet.'

A ragged laugh was dredged from Ellie. Dio swung in beside her and immediately fired the engine into a throaty roar.

Ellie worried at her lower lip. ‘How do you
really
feel?' she whispered.

‘Shattered…kind of smug…sentimental,' Dio enumerated with husky sibilance, closing his hand over her clenched fingers as they waited at traffic lights.

Her tense fingers loosened beneath the enveloping warmth of his. ‘I just feel all shook up.'

‘You look very tired. I'll take you back to the apartment and you can sleep.'

‘No, I promised Mr Barry that I'd come in as soon as possible…anyway, I need a change of clothes,' she muttered uncertainly.

As the lights changed, Dio released her hand. ‘I'd prefer you to remain at the apartment. I have to fly over to Paris this afternoon,' he imparted rather grimly. ‘I doubt if I'll make it back before tomorrow evening.'

Dismayed by that unexpected news, Ellie stole an anxious glance at him from below her lashes. His lean, hard profile was taut. But then he had frankly admitted that he was shattered, and he was distinctly pale beneath his Mediterranean dark skin. If she was in shock at the idea of having a baby, why shouldn't he be in shock too?

‘I think I'd be more comfortable at home,' she said more firmly.

‘When you're my wife, I'll expect you to do exactly as you're told at all times,' Dio murmured without any expression at all.