Sarah Morgan - Powerful Greek, Unworldly Wife

‘There never was any chance of reconciliation.’ She didn’t look at him. ‘Where’s the baby? I should be going.’

Leandro stilled. ‘Where, exactly, are you planning to go?’

‘It’s already past midnight. I’ve booked into a small bed and breakfast near here.’

‘A bed and breakfast?’ Leandro looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and fascination, realising just how little he knew about this woman. ‘Are you suggesting what I think you are?’

‘I’m taking the baby, of course. What did you think?’

‘So you’re planning to take in your sister’s baby and care for it—this is the same baby that is supposedly the result of an affair between your own sister and your husband. Whether you think your sister was lying or telling the truth—’

‘Telling the truth.’

Leandro’s jaw tightened. ‘Whichever. Your sister wrecked your marriage. She hurt you. And you’re willing to take her baby? What are you, a doormat?’

Her narrow shoulders were rigid. ‘No, I’m responsible. And principled. Qualities that you probably don’t recognise. Am I angry with my sister? Yes, I’m angry. And that feels really horrible because even while I’m grieving I’m hurt that she could have done that to me.’ Her voice shook. ‘She behaved terribly. Some people wouldn’t forgive that. If I’m honest I’m not sure that I’ll ever forgive that. She betrayed my trust. But at least she was in love with you. And I think at the end she was truly sorry.’

Leandro raised an eyebrow but she ploughed on.

‘It was the guilt that pushed her into depression. And whatever had happened, I would never have wanted her to…’ Her voice trembled. ‘We were sisters. And as for the baby—well, I don’t believe that a child should be held responsible for the sins of his parents. My sister is dead. You can’t bring up a baby, so I will have him. He will have a loving home with me as long as he needs one.’

‘So you’re proposing to love and care for your husband’s bastard, is that right?’

‘Don’t ever call him that.’ Her eyes blazed. ‘And, yes, I’m intending to care for him. He’s three months old. He’s helpless.’

Curiously detached, Leandro looked at her. She wasn’t classically beautiful, he mused, but there was something about her face that was captivating. ‘So you have forgiven your sister.’

‘I’m working on it.’ She caught her lip between her teeth. ‘I understand the effect you have on a woman. Even that Hollywood actress was willing to humiliate herself to spend a night with you. Tell me one thing—why, when you have a reputation for not committing to a woman, did you marry me?’

‘Frankly?’ Leandro lifted his eyes from his scrutiny of her soft lips. ‘At this moment I have absolutely no idea.’

‘You really know how to hurt. You treated our marriage lightly.’

‘On the contrary, you’re the one who walked out at the first obstacle.’

Her shoulders sagged, as if she was bearing an enormous weight. ‘If you’ve said everything you wanted to say, I’d like to take the baby.’

‘As usual you are being quite breathtakingly naïve. For a start there is a pack of journalists on my doorstep. How do you think they’re going to react if you leave here clutching the baby?’

‘I think it would reflect very badly on you. But you don’t care about that, do you? You never care what people think about you. If you did, you wouldn’t behave so badly.’

Leandro pressed the tips of his long fingers to his forehead, his control at breaking point. ‘We’ll talk about this in a minute,’ he snapped. ‘For goodness’ sake, go and use the bathroom. You’re soaking wet. And next time use the front door, like my wife, instead of creeping through the garden like a burglar.’

‘Whatever you say, you wouldn’t have wanted those headlines any more than I did.’

Leandro sent her a brooding glance, marvelling that the male libido could be such a self-destructive force. ‘The headlines will stop when they realise there is no story.’

She didn’t appear to register his words. Certainly she didn’t question his meaning. ‘As soon as I’m dry, I’ll take him away. We’ll both be out of your life.’

Leandro watched in silence, allowing her to delude herself for a short time.

His wife was back.

And he had no intention of letting her walk out again.

NUMB with misery, Millie stood in front of the mirror in the huge, luxurious bathroom. She didn’t reach for a towel. She did nothing to improve her appearance. She simply stared at herself.

No wonder, she thought numbly. No wonder he’d strayed.

Leandro Demetrios was six feet two inches of devastatingly handsome, vibrant masculinity and she was—she was, what?

Ordinary.

She was just so ordinary.

Staring at her wild, curling hair, she reflected on how long it had taken her each day to straighten it into the tame, sleek sheet that everyone expected. And even with the weight she’d lost during the misery of the last year, her breasts were still large, and her hips curvy.

No wonder he’d chosen her sister.

Trying not to think about that, Millie ran the tap and splashed cold water on her face. One thing about already having lost your husband to another woman, she thought, was that you no longer had to pretend to be someone different. She could just be herself. What did she have to lose?

Nothing.

She’d already lost it all.

But life kept throwing boulders at her, and she had a whole new challenge ahead of her. She had to put aside all her dreams of having her own baby, and instead love and nurture the baby that had been the result of her husband’s affair with her sister.

Caught in a sudden rush of panic, Millie covered her mouth with her hand. It was all very well to say she was going to do this, but what if she looked at the baby and hated it? That would make her an awful person, wouldn’t it?

She wanted to do the right thing, she really did, but what if doing the right thing proved too hard?

Her encounter with Leandro had been a million times harder than she’d anticipated and she’d always known it was going to be awful.

Even though their marriage was over, nothing had prepared her for the agonising pain of seeing Leandro with another woman. And worse still was the realisation that she hadn’t healed at all. She wasn’t over him and she never would be.

She’d learned to survive, that was all. But life without him was flat and colourless.

‘Millie?’ Leandro’s harsh tones penetrated the closed door and she stilled, fastened to the spot like a rabbit caught in headlights. Then her eyes slid to the bolt on the door. Even Leandro in a black temper couldn’t break his way through a solid bolt, could he?

She didn’t understand his anger. Surely he should have been grateful to her for solving a problem for him. The last thing he needed in his life was a baby.

An image of the actress slid into her brain and paralysed her. For a moment she couldn’t move or think.

What had she expected? That he was sitting in alone at night, thinking of her?

‘Wait a minute!’ Hands shaking, she looked at herself in the mirror, hoping that she’d turn out to be the person she hoped she was. She didn’t want to be a pathetic, jealous wimp, did she? She wanted to have the strength to walk away from this marriage with her head held high and her dignity intact. She wanted to be mature enough to care for the baby and give him the love he deserved, regardless of how much his parents had hurt her.

That was the person she wanted to be.

Gritting her teeth, Millie turned away from the mirror, walked across the bathroom and opened the door.

Leandro was leaning against the doorframe, dark lights in his eyes warning her of just how short his fuse was. ‘What have you been doing for the last half an hour? You look exactly the same as you did when you went in. I assumed you were going to shower and change. Or at least use a towel.’

Up until that point she hadn’t realised that she’d forgotten to dry herself. ‘I…didn’t have anything to change into.’

Leandro reached out a hand and touched her damp hair with a frown of exasperation. ‘You didn’t bring any clothes.’

‘I left my suitcase on the train,’ she muttered. ‘I was…upset. And I’m only staying in London for one night. It will be fine.’ She wished she could feel angry again. The anger had given her energy to cope with the difficult situation. Without it, she felt nothing but exhaustion.

His hand dropped to his side. ‘You still have clothes here. Wear them.’

‘You kept my clothes?’ Shocked, Millie stared up at him and his cold, unemotional appraisal chilled her.

‘I hate waste and I find them useful for overnight guests.’

The barb sank deep, the pain resting alongside the earlier wounds he’d inflicted, and she wondered why it was that emotional agony could be so much more traumatic than physical wounds.

He’d dismissed her from his life so easily.

Millie thought about all the bleak, lonely hours she’d spent agonising over whether or not she was right to have walked out— about the tears she’d shed. The times she’d wondered whether he was thinking about her. Whether he cared about their break-up.

Well, she had her answer now.

He was just fine. He’d moved on—apparently with effortless ease. Which just proved that he’d never loved her. He’d married her on impulse. He’d seen her as a novelty. Unfortunately it hadn’t taken long for her novelty value to wear off. When they’d been living in their own little world everything had been fine. It had been when they’d returned to his world that the problems had started.

Did you really think you’d be able to hold him? Her sister’s sympathetic question was embedded in her brain, like a soundtrack that refused to stop playing.

‘The baby.’ Knowing that the only way she was going to be able to hold it together was if she didn’t dwell on how she felt, Millie forced herself to ask the question. ‘Who has been looking after him?’

‘Two nannies. Change your clothes,’ Leandro said roughly. ‘The last thing I need is you with pneumonia.’

‘I’m not cold.’

‘Then why are you shivering?’

Did he honestly not know? She wanted to hit him for not understanding her feelings. He possessed confidence by the barrel-load and that natural self-assurance seemed to prevent him understanding those to whom life didn’t come quite so easily. What did a man like Leandro Demetrios know about insecurity? He didn’t have a clue.

Neither had he shown any remorse for the way their relationship had ended. In fact, he’d made it obvious that he thought she’d been in the wrong.

Maybe other women would have turned a blind eye, but she wasn’t like that.

‘I’m shivering because I’m finding this situation…’ She struggled to find a suitably neutral word. ‘Difficult.’

‘Difficult?’ His sensual mouth formed a grim, taut line in his handsome face. ‘You haven’t begun to experience difficult yet, agape mou. But you will.’

What did he mean by that?

What could possibly be worse than being forced into the company of the man she adored and hadn’t been able to satisfy, and forced to care for the child he’d had with another woman? At the moment that challenge felt like the very essence of difficulty.

Feeling as though she was balancing precariously on the edge of a deep, dark pit, Millie took a deep breath. ‘I’d like to see my nephew.’ She drew the edges of her damp cardigan around her. She was shivering so hard she might have been in the Arctic, rather than his warm bedroom. ‘Where’s the baby?’