The Wealthy Greek's Contract Wife (15 page)

L
IZZIE
suppressed a small guilty yawn, afraid she might actually fall asleep in her dinner if she wasn’t careful.

She was regretting now having agreed that it was a good idea, at the reception a week before, when Ariadne Constantin had suggested that the four or them go for dinner together, to a new restaurant that had recently opened to rave reviews. Especially in view of the distance that Ilios had deliberately created between them. He barely looked at her any more, never mind spoke to her or touched her. There had not been any further invitations to accompany him on site visits during the day, and nor was he discussing any aspect of his life or his plans with her any more. It was, Lizzie acknowledged bleakly, as though he hated her being there and bitterly resented the fact he had had to marry her—even though it had been his own decision.

The food, a Greek take on Australian-Eastern fusion cooking, was delicious, and the light sauces accompanying the fish and meat courses mouthwateringly tempting, but Lizzie had no appetite for them. She was far too unhappy. Was her constant tiredness perhaps a symptom of the misery she was feeling? Was that why she yearned to close her eyes and blot out reality?

Just remembering the curtness in his voice and the way he had turned away from her now was enough to close up her throat and sting the back of her eyes with the embarrassing threat of unwanted tears. Her reaction was surely more that of a hormonal teenager than an adult woman, and certainly not one she could ever remember having before. But then she had never loved Ilios before.

Lizzie watched enviously as Ariadne and her husband got up to dance on the restaurant’s small dance floor. It must be heaven to be held so close in the arms of the man you loved in a small and discreet public demonstration of the love between you. Her body trembled in response to the intensity of her emotions.

The Constantins were returning to the table. Stavros Constantin was ordering more wine. Lizzie shook her head when the waiter moved to fill her glass. She hadn’t touched alcohol since the night she had drunk champagne and she and Ilios made love—had had sex, she corrected herself fiercely. That was all it had been—sex—lust—that was what she must remember. She certainly wasn’t going to risk having a drink now. In her current emotionally vulnerable frame of mind there was no saying what she might attempt to do, or how much she might try to humiliate herself once they were alone together.

The other three drank their wine, then Ariadne got up, asking if, like her, Lizzie wanted to visit the ladies’.

Nodding her head, Lizzie got up too. Anything would be better than having to sit next to Ilios, knowing how eager he was to get rid of her.

Once in the cloakroom, Lizzie felt the tiredness that had threatened to overwhelm her earlier catch up with her again, causing her to smother yet another yawn. She apologised
to Ariadne as she did so, hoping that the other woman wouldn’t think her rude.

‘Don’t worry,’ Ariadne responded. ‘I understand. I was exactly the same when I was first pregnant with our son. I’d been expecting morning sickness, but instead what I got was sleeping sickness.’

Pregnant.
The cloakroom spun dizzily round her and Lizzie had to cling to the basin.

Ariadne, obviously concerned, reached out to her.

‘I’m all right,’ Lizzie reassured her. ‘It’s just that I hadn’t thought—’

She stopped abruptly, but Ariadne had obviously guessed the truth because she put her hand to her lips and then exclaimed, ‘Oh! You didn’t realise that you might be pregnant—and now I am the first to know and it should have been Ilios. Don’t worry—I shan’t say a word—not even to Stavros.’ She gave Lizzie’s arm a comforting little squeeze, and offered, ‘If you would like, I could give you the name of my maternity doctor. He is very good.’

‘That’s kind of you, but…but I don’t actually think that I
am
pregnant,’ Lizzie fibbed. She was still in shock, battling to accept the reality of the situation, torn between tears of despair and joy. She longed with all her heart to believe that the man she loved would react to the news of the child they had created together with pride and love. But how could that happen when Ilios did not love her?

Pregnant. She was pregnant. It seemed so obvious now that she couldn’t believe she had not realised for herself. What should she do? Ilios had a right to know, of course. What would he say? What would he do? He wanted sons. Would the knowledge that she was carrying his child soften his heart towards her or harden it? Lizzie wished she knew.
But if he rejected her and their child then at least his son or daughter would have a family who loved it in England.

A powerful surge of maternal need to protect her unborn child raced through her. Ilios might not want the child they had created together, but she would love it—doubly so, because she would love it for itself and because it came from Ilios.

Back at their table, she wanted to yawn again. On the other side of the table Ariadne smiled knowingly at her, telling her husband, ‘Lizzie is tired. She isn’t yet used to our habit of eating late, I expect. Ilios, you must take her home and look after her.’

Lizzie stiffened, horrified that despite her promise Ariadne might announce that she thought Lizzie was pregnant. But to her relief Ariadne announced that they too did not want a late night as her mother was babysitting.

They left the restaurant together, and said their goodbyes in a flurry of hugs and kisses in the street next to their parked cars. Ariadne’s warm hug for Lizzie was patently meaningful.

Leaning back against the comfortable support of the passenger seat of Ilios’s car, whilst he drove them back to the apartment, Lizzie closed her eyes, her thoughts driven by panic and despair. She was pregnant. She was carrying Ilios’s child. Despite the turmoil of her thoughts, somewhere deep inside Lizzie there was a small pool of calm and joy in the knowledge that she was carrying the most precious gift that life could give: the child of the man she loved.

L
IZZIE
gave Maria a wan smile as they stepped into the lift together. It was a week since she had realised that she was pregnant, and she still hadn’t told Ilios. But then she hadn’t really had much opportunity to do so, since he avoided her as much as he could. Lizzie wished that she was braver—that she had the courage to confront him, to tell him outright that he could treat her as he chose but his child had a right to his love. She had been out for a walk to try and clear her thoughts. Ilios was being so cold to her that she knew it was pointless her hoping that he would ever return her love.

The lift moved silently upwards. Lost in the despair of her own thoughts, Lizzie forgot to keep her back turned away from the glass wall and the yawning cavity below, the sight of which always made her feel nervous. She had suffered from a fear of heights for as long as she could remember, and the movement of the lift and its glass structure only made her feel worse.

A wave of dizziness engulfed her, making her lose her balance. The lift had stopped, but she felt too nauseous to move.

Maria took control, taking hold of her arm and supporting her as she guided her determinedly from the lift, across
the hallway into the apartment. Lizzie felt too unwell to do anything but allow Maria to do so. A cold sweat had broken out on her forehead and her stomach was churning. When Maria released her to close the door, Lizzie slid to the floor in a dead faint.

When she came round Maria was kneeling on the floor beside her, her face flushed with excited delight as she a patted Lizzie’s hand maternally and assured her, ‘You do not worry. It is just the baby Ilios make with you makes you faint. He will be a big fine boy. Already he is causing his mama trouble. You stay there. I telephone Ilios and tell him to get doctor to come.’

‘No!’ Lizzie protested, horrified. ‘No, Maria, please…’ she begged her. This wasn’t how she wanted Ilios to learn that he was to become a father. ‘There’s no need. I’m perfectly all right.’ But it was no use. Maria already had the phone in her hand and was speaking at speed into it in Greek, gesturing as she did so.

Very carefully Lizzie got to her feet and made her way to the living room, where she sat down on one of the sofas. She still felt queasy, and slightly dizzy, but then she hadn’t eaten any breakfast this morning. She’d planned to eat something whilst she was out, but she hadn’t, and now she suspected the baby was making its displeasure known. A haunted smile touched her mouth as Lizzie remembered how firm she had been with Ruby about eating properly when she had been carrying the twins.

She could hear Ilios’s voice in the hallway now, as he spoke in Greek to Maria. Her heart was jumping, her mouth dry. Matters had been taken out of her hands and there was no going back. Thanks to Maria, Ilios would now know that he was going to be a father. What would he say? What would he do?

The door opened and he came into the living room, striding towards her and then standing over her. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, and his shirt emphasised the powerful width of his shoulders—shoulders that a woman could lean on, so long as that woman wasn’t her.

‘Maria says you fainted.’

Ilios’s voice was harsh—with anger? Lizzie fought down the threatened return of her earlier nausea. Ginger biscuits—that was what she needed. They had worked for Ruby, she remembered.

‘Is it true that there is to be a child?’ Ilios demanded grimly.

Lizzie couldn’t bring herself to speak. She could only nod her head, well able to imagine how unwelcome to him her confirmation would be.

Anger seized Ilios—a furious, savage, blinding rage that exploded inside him like a fireball, devouring reason, humanity and compassion. This was the very last thing he wanted—to be tied to anyone. And especially to this woman, who he had been fighting to keep out of his thoughts, his desires and his emotions, by anything, but most of all by a child. A living, breathing human life that would bind the three of them together with cords that no mere man had the power to break. Ilios wanted to bunch his fists and cry out to the gods his denial of this claim on him. He did not want it and never would.

‘You did this deliberately—despite the fact that you knew I would not want it,’ he accused Lizzie, conveniently forgetting that he himself had played the greater role in his child’s conception. ‘No doubt you were hoping to force me into accepting both you and your child—a child I expect you see as a meal ticket that will enable you to live in comfort for the rest of your life.’

Lizzie felt sick with grief and pain.

‘No!’ she told him. ‘That is not what I thought.’

‘No?’ Ilios challenged her. ‘Do you think I am such a fool that I can’t see now what you
really
wanted when you claimed to desire me? What you really desired was what you are now carrying within you. My child—born into a legal marriage. A child that I cannot deny or refuse to accept. A child that will have a lifelong financial claim on me.’

‘That’s not true,’ Lizzie denied frantically.

‘You had it all planned, didn’t you?’ Ilios gave her a look of biting contempt. ‘Well, I refute your claim and I refute your child. Both you and it are as nothing to me. Less than nothing.’

That was all Lizzie needed to hear. Ilios’s cruel words had fallen on her like blows—blows she would not allow her child to bear.

She stood up, despite the fact that she felt so weak, and started to walk towards the door.

When she reached it she turned round and told Ilios proudly, ‘Your child might be less than nothing to you, Ilios, but to me he or she is the most precious thing in my life. You’re right. I
did
hope for lifelong security from you when I told you I desired you, even if at the time I didn’t recognise it for what it was myself. But the lifelong security I wanted wasn’t your money, it was your love—in exchange for my love for you. Now that you’ve made it plain that that can never be, I shall remove both my unwanted presence and your equally unwanted child from your life—permanently.’

‘Good,’ Ilios told her coldly. ‘And the sooner the better.’

I
LIOS
had gone out. Lizzie didn’t know where. She wasn’t going to cry. What would be the point? Instead she did everything that had to be done. She booked herself a seat on the first available flight, packed her trolley case. She wasn’t going to take anything that had come to her via Ilios—except, of course, his child. But then he didn’t want that child—had denied it, spoken callously and dismissively of it.

She was crying after all. Tears were flooding her eyes to run down her face before she could stop them. Carefully she wiped them away with a tissue.

She had done everything she needed to do, including calling herself a cab.

The intercom rang.

It was time for her to go.

She dropped the tissue beside the notepad next to the telephone, where she had written down her flight number, and headed for the door.

Would she have gone yet? Ilios hoped so, he told himself as he unlocked the door to his apartment and went inside.

But it wasn’t pleasure or even relief that gripped him
and twisted his emotions with ruthless, painful intensity when he stood in the master bedroom. Only the lingering echo of Lizzie’s scent remained to show that she had ever been there. On the bedside table on his side of the bed were her engagement and wedding rings. He picked them up. Lizzie had such slender fingers, elegant hands. The rings felt warm. Ilios curled his hand round them. Lizzie’s warmth. An image slid into his head of Lizzie’s hands holding their child, Lizzie’s face looking down at it, her eyes warm with love.

Fresh anger filled him. Broodingly he pushed the rings into his pocket. What was the matter with him? He was behaving like…like a lovesick fool. He was the one who had wanted her to go. Who had forced her to go. Forced her to go even when he had seen how unwell she looked. What if she fainted again? What if she did? Why should he care?

Ilios walked into the dressing room and removed his jacket. A wisp of lace trapped in the closed doors of Lizzie’s closet caught his eye. She’d obviously missed something when she’d packed. He pulled open the door, a fresh surge of anger burning through him when he saw all the clothes hanging there. The clothes he had bought her. What was she trying to prove? Did she really think he’d be impressed because she’d left them? Well, he wasn’t. The truth was that he would far rather she had taken them with her. Why? Because he was afraid that they would remind him of her, and that he might start regretting what he had done?

Of course not. That was rubbish. Was it? Wasn’t he already missing her? Hadn’t he regretted his cruelty to her almost from the minute he had left the apartment?

Didn’t the fact that he was here now, pacing the floor,
unable to work, unable to stop thinking about her, tell him anything about his own feelings? About her—Lizzie?

Lizzie.

Ilios sat down heavily in the chair next to the telephone, dropping his head into his hands in defeat.

Alone in the silent space which, despite all his attempts to stop it from being so, was filled with intangible memories of Lizzie’s presence within it, Ilios glanced at the telephone. His body stiffened as he saw the piece of paper on which Lizzie had written her flight number and its time of departure. Another hour and she would be gone out of his life. There was a tissue beside the telephone marked with mascara—had she cried? Because of him? The sudden ring of the telephone filled him with a surge of fierce hope. Lizzie. It had to be.

He snatched up the receiver, his heart pounding as he demanded, ‘Lizzie?’ only to be flooded with disappointment when he realised that his caller was merely an acquaintance.

After he had got rid of him Ilios replaced the receiver and stood motionless, staring into space, whilst his heart thudded with sledgehammer blows that were pounding, beating into him the message, the knowledge that he had fought so hard to deny.

Pain wrenched through him, tearing at his heart, clawing at it, filling him with despair.

He loved Lizzie. He loved her and he had lost her.

Nothing was the same in his life because nothing could
be
the same. The anger he felt, the fury, the grim determination to destroy what had taken root in his heart, belonged not to a brave man but to a coward. It wasn’t his love for Lizzie that was threatening his future, but his attempts to destroy it. As though light had replaced darkness Ilios
could see now, when it was too late, how empty his life had been—and would be without her. In the short time they had been together she had changed him so completely, in so many different ways, that he felt he was still getting to know the person he now was—and he was in need of her support to help him do so. She had taught him so much, but there was still much he had to learn. How could he teach the sons who would follow him to be the men Ilios now knew he wanted them to be on his own? He couldn’t. Those sons, just like him, needed Lizzie. They all needed her love.

When he thought of the sons he had planned to have, and the manner in which he had planned their conception, inside his head he saw them living in the shadows, deprived of the happiness they would have known had Lizzie been their mother. He wanted to stop time and turn it back, to that moment when he had still been holding her in his arms. He could have listened to what his own heart had been trying to tell him instead of resolutely denying it. Could have told her that he was nothing without her, and could have begged her to love him. Now it was too late.

Too late. Inside his head Ilios had an image of himself as a small child, standing on the quayside with Tino and his grandfather whilst he watched his mother and her new husband stepping onto his sailing boat. His mother had held out her arms to him, telling him to jump into them. He had desperately wanted to go to her, he remembered, but he had known that his grandfather disapproved of her remarrying.

‘Mummy’s boy, mummy’s boy,’ Tino had taunted him, and so he had hesitated, and then had had to watch his mother’s smile disappear to be replaced by coldness as she turned away from him.

That had been the last time he had seen her. A month later she had drowned.

If he had jumped, if he had taken that risk, if he had trusted her love to keep him safe, how different would his life have been?

Too late.

Ilios reached for his mobile. For the man with courage there was no such thing as too late. There was merely further to travel to reach what he most wanted.