Expectant Bride (13 page)

‘So many women, so little time?'

‘Yeah, well, I can't help being a hot property!' Ricky ran appreciative fingers through his thick blond hair and then grimaced. ‘Well, to be honest, I got mixed up with this real terrifying bunny boiler for a while…'

Ellie found herself smiling warmly. ‘Tell me more,' she encouraged. ‘What did she want? A second date?'

‘Could I, like…come inside out of the cold?'

‘I'm not feeling
that
friendly, Ricky. You made a real nuisance of yourself on level eight. I also hear you left under something of a cloud? Am I right?'

‘Dead wrong!' he contradicted with another hugely self-satisfied grin. ‘Good luck came my way and I rocketed up the career ladder.'

‘Are you still in that new position?' she couldn't resist
asking, wondering if Dio's forecast that he would be fired even faster had been accurate.

‘No way! I got myself headhunted out of there again. It wasn't a safe house, if you know what I mean. Fancy a spin in my company car?'

‘I'm pregnant, Ricky.'

His grin fell right off his handsome face. ‘You're…
what
? My God, what happened?'

‘Well…'

‘Flamin' hell, who is this guy? Casanova? Where is he?'

Ellie shrugged.

‘It figures. Yeah, well, maybe I'll look you up like…next year or something,' Ricky muttered ruefully. ‘Probably never. I'm just not into kids at this stage of my life.'

Helplessly amused, Ellie stood up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you for being that honest.'

Startled, Ricky laughed and rested his arms down on her narrow shoulders. He lowered his head to murmur with recovering good humour, ‘Take it from me, you missed a hell of an experience!'

A split second later, the tall blond was literally wrenched away from her. Ellie stumbled back a step in bewilderment. She was just in time to see Dio throw Ricky up against the wall with a snarled Greek expletive and punch him.

‘Stop it!' Ellie screeched, absolutely appalled.

Ricky doubled up, groaning.

‘You stay away from her!' Dio roared, hauling him up again. ‘
You hear me?
You stay away from my woman or I'll rip you apart!'

Ricky focused on his assailant with enlarged eyes full of incredulous recognition.

‘You're behaving like an animal, Dio!' Ellie gasped, shattered by his violent intervention.

Dio released Ricky with a volatile gesture of savage derision. He studied Ellie, dark golden eyes blazing condem
nation. ‘And you ask yourself, whose
fault
is that? I saw you kissing him—'

‘On the cheek,' Ricky grunted as he struggled to try and recover his breath. ‘You know, I could make a real killing if I charged you with assault.'

‘You do what you like,' Dio ground out with magnificent unconcern, still glowering at Ellie full force.

‘And an even bigger killing if I went to the tabloids with this extraordinary little set-up,' Ricky mused.

‘You deserved a good thump for flogging that tip-off you overheard!' Ellie told him roundly.

Dio froze. His arrogant dark head turned slowly. ‘This…
this
is Ricky Bolton?'

‘Yeah, you're right, we're definitely evens…' Ricky decided out loud, and displayed his innate survival skills by hurriedly backing into his car. He was gone within a minute.

Ellie shivered in the night air. But even though she was shaken and furious her eyes clung to Dio. His black hair gleamed beneath the street light, accentuating the hard edges of his taut bone structure.

‘Ricky Bolton!' Dio suddenly seethed through gritted white teeth. ‘What the hell was he doing here?'

‘Oh,
please
!' she moaned. ‘He just called by. And I don't care what you
think
you saw. You had no business acting like a thug!'

‘
Cristos!
How do you think I felt, seeing you wrapped round another man?' Dio growled. ‘You told
me
to stay away. You're treating
me
like a leper. I've had just about all I can take!'

Perhaps for the first time since she had learnt that she was carrying his baby, Ellie faced the fact that Dio was under stress as well. Dio had made instant decisions when her pregnancy had been confirmed. Without hesitation Dio had asked her to marry him and had flown over to Paris to explain the situation to Helena. But Ellie had then rejected his matri
monial solution, refused to see him or speak to him and had withdrawn to wallow in her own bitterness. But now she felt guilty. Dio had a right to know where he stood and what was going to happen next.

‘I just don't know what's going to happen next,' Ellie confided raggedly.

‘I do…' Dio breathed, reaching for her with determined hands and raising her up to crush her startled mouth under his.

That fiery demanding kiss knocked Ellie sideways. His raw hunger snapped her control, released all the seething emotions she had been trying to control. Her head spun; her heart thundered. Sexual heat zapped her. She quivered, locking her straining body to the hard muscle and power of his, a needy moan sounding deep in her throat as she clutched feverishly at his shoulders.

Dio flung back his head, brilliant eyes burning like fire now as he scanned her bemused face. ‘You
do
bring out the animal in me,
pethi mou
,' he husked, backing her indoors again and setting her back down on her own feet. ‘Where's the alarm system?'

Ellie was still in another world entirely, her body throbbing with the pangs of denial. ‘The…
alarm
?'

Dio located it for himself, set it, and doused the lights. Stuffing her bag into her hands, he tugged her outside again and locked up. ‘What are you doing?' Ellie finally muttered in bewilderment.

‘We're going to have dinner and talk.'

‘But I'm not dressed—'

‘You've got clothes on, haven't you?' Dio cut in with very male impatience.

Ellie frowned down at her skinny-rib cardy, long black skirt and flat boots.

‘You look great,' Dio told her without looking at her as he pressed her into the Ferrari.

 

Their corner of the quiet, exclusive restaurant was so peaceful and so empty it was as if an exclusion zone had been set around their table. There didn't seem to be any other diners. Ellie lifted her glass of wine.

Dio looked at her, transfixed. Then he reached across the table and literally snatched the glass right out of her hand. ‘You can't have that!'

Ellie gazed back at him in total bemusement. ‘Why not?'

‘You're pregnant. It's safest to stay off alcohol. Don't you
know
that?' Dio demanded.

‘Why should I know that?'

‘You're a woman—'

‘So?'

‘You're supposed to know about that sort of stuff,' Dio told her with a frown.

‘Well, I don't! I'm twenty-one, single and goal-orientated…at least I
was
,' Ellie muttered darkly. ‘Why would I ever have been interested in knowing what a woman should and shouldn't do when she's pregnant?'

‘As it happens…Nathan dropped this book for expectant fathers in with me.' Dio shrugged, and then shrugged again with exaggerated cool to combat her now widening eyes full of wonderment. ‘I just flicked through it.'

Ellie could tell he had read every sentence, down to the fine print. She was touched. He had made more effort than she had and she worked in a bookshop. Maybe he wasn't as squeamish as she was.

‘I thought there were things I should know—'

‘You really do want this baby, don't you?' she conceded grudgingly.

His dark, deep-set eyes narrowed warily. ‘Only if you come as part of the package.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘That the way you've been behaving I don't know what to expect any more. You don't want to be pregnant. You don't
want to be with me…except in bed,' Dio outlined with a sardonic look of challenge.

An unexpected surge of tears stung the backs of Ellie's eyes. She blinked furiously. ‘That's not true…I do want the baby…' she sniffed. ‘Oh, for heaven's sake, why am I crying?'

Dio reached for her coiled fingers. ‘Your hormones are all over the place right now. It's making you very emotional.'

Ellie reddened furiously and yanked her hand out of his, no longer touched by the prospect of the knowledge he had imbibed on her behalf. ‘Did your book tell you I was a brick short of a full load?'

‘No, it told me to be understanding and supportive,' Dio imparted piously.

‘You haven't got the tact,' Ellie informed him dulcetly.

A slashing smile of amusement curved Dio's beautiful mouth.

Her heart skipped an entire beat. He was so gorgeous she couldn't take her eyes off him.

‘I still want to marry you,' Dio delivered. ‘But if you've got a better solution, run it by me…just as long as it doesn't entail my baby in a basket behind a shop counter.'

‘No, it won't entail that.'

‘Leaving him or her to go out to work?'

Ellie squirmed. ‘Well—'

‘Denying my financial support?'

‘Dio, I—'

‘No, you listen to me,' Dio asserted forcefully. ‘If we don't marry, this child will be an outsider to my family. He won't be a secret. But he's not likely to thank you for making him different from the children I will eventually have
within
marriage with someone else.'

Ellie subsided like a burst balloon. For someone else read Helena. Helena, who would loathe Ellie's child if he or she came visiting. Helena, who would be the ultimate wicked
stepmother, determined to humiliate and denigrate the illegitimate outsider. Ellie's tummy curdled, all appetite vanishing. She reckoned even the baby was taking a panic attack at the threat of such a future.

‘Something I said
finally
clicked with you?' Dio murmured silkily.

Dredging herself from that nightmare series of visions, pressing a trembling, apologetic hand to her tummy in newly maternal protectiveness, Ellie muttered between gritted teeth, ‘Maybe I was a bit hasty saying I wouldn't have you as a gift.'

‘That was beautifully put,
yineka mou
. So we're getting married again, are we?' Dio enquired smoothly.

Ellie swallowed hard, humble pie beckoning, and took off defensively on another tack. ‘You won't believe what I told you about Helena Teriakos.'

‘No,' Dio conceded levelly. ‘I could lie to you for the sake of peace, but I won't. Naturally I understand that you were pretty upset that day. You didn't know about Helena but
she
didn't realise that. Had she been aware of it, she would never have approached you.'

Ellie compressed her wobbly mouth. It was obvious he was never going to believe her version. He had known Helena all his life and his trust was absolute. How would she live with that?

‘Ellie…the night before you found out that you were pregnant, I made the wrong decision. I didn't think it would be a good idea to start telling you about Helena.'

‘You might never had had to tell me.'

Dio left that speaking comment alone, black eyes semi-screened. ‘You were under sufficient strain. In any case, Helena was an issue I had to deal with alone.'

‘You feel very guilty about her,' Ellie breathed tautly.

Dio frowned. ‘How else could I feel?'

Ellie averted her eyes. ‘Do…do you love her?' she dared
in a driven whisper, and then sat there in mute terror of his response.

‘What does love have to do with it?'

That silenced Ellie. It told her so much and yet it told her nothing. Whether he loved Helena or not, he would marry Ellie because she was expecting his child. But how
long
would he stay with her? Would Helena be proved right? But what did she herself have to lose? She would be Dio's wife, for a while at least. Their child would be born legitimate. These days a lot of people didn't seem to set much store by that, but it meant a great deal to Ellie, whose own father had refused to own up to her very existence.

‘We put the baby first. Then we worry about us,' Dio spelt out then, with finality.

It sounded like a leading recipe for disaster to Ellie. But the bottom line for her at that moment was that she loved him, and when he got that brooding darkness in his eyes it scared her and made her feel shut out.

‘I'd like to get married in a church,' she announced breezily. ‘In a totally over-the-top dress. So if you're planning on a register office, you've got no hope!'

Dio's wide, sensual mouth eased into a smile. She felt like a performing clown, but that smile warmed her like the sunshine and she was defenceless against it.

S
IX
weeks later, Ellie walked into her local church, where she was a regular worshipper, to become Dio's wife.

She wore an elegant, fitted, off-the-shoulder dress in palest cream, the superb fabric exquisitely beaded and embroidered. In one fell swoop she had virtually emptied her bank account of five years of savings. It had been like an act of faith in their marriage. She had used one of the credit cards Dio had given her to buy the matching shoes and all the other trappings.

She walked down the aisle alone, and quite unconcerned.

‘Someone has to give you away,' Dio had told her on the phone from Geneva, where he had been attending a conference.

‘Forget that…what do you think I am? A commodity?' Ellie had demanded. ‘I'm almost a twenty-first-century woman!'

‘Why did twenty-first-century woman say no to me the night before last?' Dio had enquired silkily.

A squirming silence had fallen at her end of the line.

‘I want our wedding night to be special. You
said
you understood,' Ellie had reminded him uncomfortably, her face burning.

‘When I was standing under a cold shower at two that morning, aching like the very devil,' Dio had growled back in charged response, ‘I changed my mind.'

It was with that memory foremost in her mind that Ellie smiled with sheer brilliance on that walk down the aisle towards Dio. She was blind to the assembled guests crowding out the church, impervious to everyone but the very tall, very
dark and very, very gorgeous guy waiting for her at the altar with his best man. This was her day, her moment, her guy.
Mine
, she thought fiercely. Well, she adjusted then, for as long as she could hold onto him.

The ceremony was beautiful. Ellie drank in every word, required no prompting when it came to taking her vows, indeed got in there fast. Why? At the back of her mind lurked a no doubt ridiculous but nonetheless enervating image of Helena Teriakos somehow stopping the ceremony in its tracks at the eleventh hour. ‘I make a very bitter enemy,' Helena had warned. And even as the wedding ring went on her finger, Ellie's skin chilled at that memory.

Unfortunately, it hadn't occurred to Ellie that Dio would invite Helena to their wedding. So it was a shock when she saw the beautiful Greek woman approaching them outside the church.

A vision of perfection in a stunning white suit, Helena glided up, grasped both their hands and murmured with a rather sad smile, ‘I am very happy for you both.' Then she paused. ‘Ellie, I hope you don't mind, but I have something I really need to ask Dio.'

That touching air of plucky feminine vulnerability which had taken Ellie entirely by surprise worked like a magic charm on Dio. He was drawn off to speak to Helena and Ellie was left alone on the church steps. As the minutes ticked past, Ellie got paler and paler, her tension rising. Their guests were noticing, stealing covert glances at Dio and Helena, commenting. Ellie just wanted to die of humiliation.

The society photographer finally called, ‘Mr Alexiakis…
please
!'

And only then did Dio return to Ellie's side.

‘She did that
deliberately
!' Ellie condemned helplessly when the photographer had finished.

Dio raised a questioning brow. ‘Who? What are you talking about?'

How could he be so obtuse? Ellie was so furious she could have shaken him. ‘Helena!'

A silence as thick as concrete spread.

Dio breathed in deep.

‘Helena remains a close friend, a very close friend,' he spelt out with what sounded like twenty-five generations of aristocratic ice and breeding backing up his chilling drawl.

‘Oh, I believe I've got that message all right,' Ellie whispered tightly.

‘Then understand this too. I will not allow you to embarrass either myself or her in public. That's my last word on the subject. Get used to the idea
before
I lose my temper!'

And with that blunt warning Dio turned away to speak to his best man, Nathan Parkes. Ellie quivered with sheer rage. She couldn't believe that Dio had had the nerve to speak to her as though she were a misbehaving child threatening to cause a scene. For goodness' sake, he'd got the ring on her finger and then he'd started acting like some medieval tyrant! Hadn't he seen how utterly inappropriate and unnecessary it had been for the brunette to demand his attention in the midst of their wedding photographs being taken? Evidently not.

As Dio swung back to her again, Ellie threw back her slim shoulders and lifted her chin. ‘You can't talk to me like you just did, Dio—'

‘
Ohi
…no?' Dio countered with dangerous quietness, his tone trickling down Ellie's rigid spine like the gypsy's curse. ‘You've got a lot to learn about Greek men!'

Frankly, at that moment, Ellie felt she had already learnt quite sufficient. She was fizzing with fury. But before she could respond in kind, Meg Bucknall appeared a few feet from them. ‘Freeze!' she begged, and eagerly lifted her camera to take a picture.

‘You look just gorgeous, Ellie,' the older woman sighed appreciatively. ‘You didn't have to invite me but I'm so glad you did. I'm having a great time.'

‘The pleasure is ours, Mrs Bucknall,' Dio responded with a charismatic smile.

‘The pleasure has just gone
out
of my day,' Ellie confided as they climbed into the limousine that would take them to the reception at the Savoy Hotel.

‘When you're in the wrong, I'll tell you,' Dio countered without a shade of regret.

But I
wasn't
in the wrong, Ellie almost snapped, and then conscience spurred her into questioning that conviction. This was their wedding day. Helena's smooth little power play had embarrassed rather than injured. Possibly in allowing her own insecurity full rein, she herself had overreacted.

‘Dio,' she murmured ruefully, green eyes very clear, ‘This isn't a very easy occasion for me…'

Dio dealt her a questioning, wary look, her change of approach disconcerting him.

‘I didn't realise there would be so many guests and I hardly know anybody here,' Ellie pointed out. ‘And all your friends and relatives were expecting you to marry Helena.'

Dio tensed. ‘Yes, but—'

‘Dio, they wouldn't be human if they weren't wondering
why
you are suddenly marrying me instead…' Ellie coloured. ‘And if they're thinking what people usually think at times like this, well, they're dead right where I'm concerned, aren't they? I
am
pregnant! Naturally I feel touchy and self-conscious today.'

Dio closed an unexpected hand firmly over hers, black eyes no longer cool and distant. ‘I am proud that you are carrying my baby,' he cut in with roughened sincerity.

‘So maybe I went over the top about Helena—'

‘No,' Dio sighed. ‘Once again I was too quick to judge you, and I apologise. I honestly didn't appreciate how you were feeling.'

It was wonderful what difference a little explanation could make. Ellie watched in wonderment as Dio lifted her hand
and pressed his mouth softly to the centre of her palm. Her heart seemed to swell inside her chest and her pulse-beat accelerated. A simply huge wave of happiness whooshed up inside her, dispelling all anxiety and unease.

‘Even worse, you have no family here of your own to support you,' Dio conceded grimly.

‘Mum would have loved all this…' Ellie's smile of acknowledgement was rather tremulous at that emotive thought.

With a rueful groan, Dio pulled her all the way into his arms. ‘When you said I had no tact, you hit the target!'

Ellie knew better than to remind him of his father. She hadn't the slightest doubt that the late Spiros Alexiakis would have been anything but happy to see his only son marrying someone as ordinary as she felt herself to be. On the face of it, she conceded painfully, Helena would have been so much more suitable. She rested her cheek against his broad shoulder, the warm, intimate scent of him doing the wildest things to her senses.

Dio glanced down at her, dark, deep-set eyes burning gold. ‘Have you ever made love in a limo?' he enquired thickly.

Ellie gave him a helpless grin. ‘Oh, yeah, Dio…of course I want to walk into the Savoy and greet all these important people with my make-up half off and my hair all messed up!'

‘I could persuade you—'

‘But you won't. You're going to be a miracle of restraint…until tonight,' she told him unsteadily, her cheeks warming.

Met by Ellie's determined smile as the bridal couple greeted their arriving guests at the hotel, Helena bent to kiss her cheek with cool familiarity, exchanged a light word with Dio and moved on past. The brunette's supreme confidence and control still daunted Ellie.

Dio watched the smile drop right off Ellie's expressive face again. ‘Try to appreciate how difficult this must be for her.'

Ellie nodded and flushed, feeling herself rebuked although she had done her utmost to look calm and friendly. She had never been very good at hiding her emotions. And it looked as if she was stuck with the stigma of having lied about what had passed between her and the older woman at their first meeting. But then wasn't it possible that in the heat of the moment Helena
had
acted totally out of character that afternoon? Helena might now regret her behaviour, Ellie thought with sudden hope, resolving to be more generous herself.

Nathan Parkes introduced her to his wife, Sally. She was a bubbly redhead with freckles and a friendly, easy manner. ‘I wish I'd got the chance to meet you before the wedding. I did think of asking Dio for your number and calling you. But I knew you'd be frantically busy and I didn't want to seem too pushy.'

‘I'd have been delighted,' Ellie told her warmly, since she was beginning to appreciate that the tall, softly spoken gynaecologist was a much closer friend of Dio's than she had initially realised.

‘Great. I'm not much good at standing on ceremony,' Sally confided cheerfully. ‘And I was really hoping you wouldn't be like—' As she bit back what she had been intending to say, she reddened like mad. ‘What I meant to say was…was…we, well—'

Nathan stepped in to rescue his wife from her discomfiture. ‘Sally hopes you'll come and stay with us in the country some time soon. We warn our guests in advance—we have a muddy yard, three noisy kids and a manic dog!'

‘I'm not a
cordon bleu
cook or anything,' Sally warned rather anxiously.

‘I'm not a fussy eater, and I'd be happy to help out,' Ellie said quickly, thinking that their home and family sounded delightful.

Dio glanced at Ellie with a raised brow. ‘
Can
you cook?' he asked in surprise.

Nathan shot his friend a helplessly amused look and laughed outright. ‘Dio, that says it all, it really does! Are you aware, Ellie, that Dio didn't even know how to switch on a kettle when he first came to stay with us?'

‘They're a lovely couple,' Ellie whispered when they were eating their meal at the top table. ‘Have you known Nathan long?'

‘I was in a car smash when I was nineteen. Nathan was doing his stint as a med student in the casualty unit.' For some reason that recollection made Dio's firm lips curve into a surprisingly amused grin.

‘What's so funny about that?'

‘I only had concussion, but my father was in a highly emotional frame of mind when he arrived.' Dio grimaced. ‘He behaved as if Nathan had saved me from certain death and embarrassed the hell out of both of us. I think Nathan agreed to spend the weekend on our yacht just to escape being wept over and embraced!'

‘Of course your dad was upset. You were an only child,' Ellie scolded, dismayed even by the mention of a car accident that had happened a decade earlier, simply terrified at the idea of anything ever happening to Dio.

Dio gazed deep into her anxious green eyes and his mouth quirked. ‘I wish he'd met you—'

‘No, you don't!' Ellie told him roundly. ‘He'd have locked you up before he'd have let you marry someone like me!'

‘What
is
this “someone like me” stuff?'

‘It's my Cinderella complex talking. I certainly don't mean that you're my prince, Dio, so don't be getting a swollen head!' Ellie cautioned. ‘You're the guy who first switched on a kettle as an adult…and I was the latch-key kid who got my own tea from the age of seven!'

Dio wasn't amused. ‘No damn wonder you find it so hard to lean on me.'

‘Most people I've tried to lean on in life fell over!' Ellie
joked instantly, hoping to make him lighten up again, wishing she hadn't mentioned her childhood.

‘But I won't,' Dio intoned very seriously. ‘You have to learn to trust me,
pethi mou
.'

Sometimes men were a tonic, she decided. He had said that without a shade of irony. Yet
he
didn't trust her. At least, her word didn't yet carry the same weight and value as his lifelong friend Helena's, Ellie couldn't help reflecting. But she swiftly suppressed that thought. They were married now, and it was early days yet. Time would take care of that problem. She couldn't see that he would be meeting up with Helena Teriakos very much in the future, and she was too practical to make a running battle of that issue in the short term. A new marriage was a fragile thing. Wouldn't it be foolish to make the beautiful Greek woman a bone of contention?

A few hours later, in the luxurious room set aside for her use, Ellie removed her wedding gown with rueful regret and put on the travelling outfit she had purchased. A loden-green suit, its fitted jacket adorned with snazzy gold buttons and teamed with a fashionable short skirt. It had cost the earth and she had picked it with great care. But the more mature appearance she had initially attempted to strike hadn't come off. Those kind of clothes didn't look right on her yet. She was twenty-one and she didn't look older than her years.