he said roughly.
‘That doesn’t make it okay to speak to me the way you did.’
‘I know.’ He exhaled heavily. ‘I don’t want to fight with you, Ava. But I want what is best for the baby, and I do not believe that being brought up in a bedsit and being dumped in a nursery for hours every day while you go to work is anywhere near the best start in life that we can give to our child.’ He paused for a heartbeat and said quietly, ‘Do you?’
Unable to think of an answer, she turned her head to look out of the window so that he would not see the tears that had filled her eyes when he’d said our child. For the first time since she had stared in disbelief at the positive sign on the pregnancy test, she felt that she wasn’t alone. It made her realise how scared she had been at the prospect of having a baby on her own, with no one to share the worry and responsibility with. Her mother was busy with her new life and partner, and her brother thankfully seemed to be sorting himself and enjoyed working on their aunt and uncle’s farm. There was no one she could rely on apart from Giannis. But, despite his assurance that he wasn’t a criminal, she did not know if she believed him.
They left the motorway and drove through a small village before Giannis turned the car through some wrought iron gates which bore a sign saying ‘Milton Grange’. At the end of the winding driveway stood a charming Georgian house built on four storeys, with mullioned windows and ivy growing over the walls.
Snow had been falling lightly for the last half an hour and the bay trees in front of the house were dusted with white frosting. But, although the snow looked pretty, Ava was glad to step into the warm hallway where they were greeted by Giannis’s housekeeper.
‘The fire is lit in the drawing room and lunch will be in half an hour,’ the woman, whom Giannis introduced as Joan, said when she had taken their coats.
‘What a beautiful house,’ Ava murmured as she looked around the comfortably furnished drawing room, decorated in soft neutral shades so that the effect was calming and homely.
‘I bought it as an investment,’ Giannis told her. ‘But it’s too big, especially as I do not live here permanently. I arranged for a charity which provides help to parents and families of disabled children to use the top two floors as a respite centre. Builders reconfigured the upper floors and in effect turned one large house into two separate properties.’
Ava sat down in an armchair close to the fire and furthest away from the sofa where Giannis took a seat. He gave her a sardonic look but said evenly, ‘Would you like tea or coffee?’ A tray on the low table in front of him held a cafetière and a teapot.
‘Tea, please. I should only drink decaffeinated coffee, but actually I’ve gone off coffee completely since I’ve been pregnant. Just the smell of it made me sick at first.’
He frowned. ‘Do you suffer very badly with morning sickness? It can’t be good for the baby if you are unable to keep food down. Are you eating well?’
‘I’m fine now, and I’m eating too well.’ She gave a rueful sigh. ‘If I’m not careful I’ll be the size of a house.’
‘You look beautiful,’ he said gruffly. Ava swallowed as her eyes met his and she felt a familiar tug deep in her pelvis. He was so handsome and she suddenly wished that the situation between them was different, and instead of offering her a cup of tea he would whisk her upstairs and make long, slow and very satisfying love to her.
‘How far along is your pregnancy?’
‘I’m eighteen weeks. At twenty weeks I am due to have another ultrasound scan to check the baby’s development and I’ll be able to find out the sex.’ She bit her lip. ‘It’s possible that I conceived the first time we slept together in London.’
‘As I recall, neither of us slept much that night,’ he drawled in that arrogant way of his which Ava found infuriating.
‘But now we must deal with the consequences of our actions,’ she said flatly.
He took a sip of his coffee and said abruptly, ‘I would like to come to your scan appointment. Do you want to find out the baby’s sex?’
‘I think I do. I suppose you hope it’s a boy.’ If the baby was a girl, perhaps Giannis would lose interest in his child. Her hand shook slightly as she placed the delicate bone china teacup and saucer down on the table.
‘I will be equally happy to have a daughter or a son. All that matters is that the child is born safe and well.’
His words echoed Ava’s own feelings and her emotions threatened to overwhelm her. She was too warm sitting by the fire, but she did not want to move nearer to Giannis. Instead she pulled off her jumper and only then remembered that the strap-top she was wearing beneath it was too small. The material was stretched over her breasts, which had grown two bra sizes bigger. She hoped he would assume that the flush she could feel spreading across her face was due to the warmth of the fire and not because she’d glimpsed a raw hunger in his eyes that evoked a molten heat inside her. She tensed when he stood up and strolled over to where she was sitting.
‘You said that you are currently without a job, so how were you planning to manage financially?’
‘My old job in Glasgow is still available. Working as a VCO is not a popular or well-paid career,’ she said ruefully. ‘I will be entitled to maternity pay for a few months after the baby is born, but then I’ll have to go back to work to support both of us.’
‘I want to be involved with my child,’ Giannis told her in a determined voice. ‘And of course I will provide financial support for you and the baby.’
‘I don’t want your money,’ she said stubbornly. She could not bear for him to think that she had trapped him with her pregnancy because he was wealthy.
‘What you want and what I want is not important. The only thing that matters is that we do the right thing for our child, who was unplanned but not unwanted—am I right that we at least agree on that?’ he said softly.
His voice was like rough velvet and Ava nodded, not trusting herself to speak when she felt so vulnerable. ‘What do you suggest then?’ she asked helplessly.
He hesitated for a heartbeat. ‘I think we should get married.’
FOR A FEW seconds Ava could not breathe, and there was an odd rushing sensation in her ears. Giannis had not said that he wanted to marry her, she noted. And why would he? All he wanted was the baby she carried, and she was simply a necessary part of the equation.
‘You’re crazy,’ she said flatly. ‘It wouldn’t work.’
He pulled up a footstool and sat down in front of her, so close that it would be easy to stretch out her hand and touch the silken darkness of his hair—easy and yet impossible.
‘What is the alternative?’ he asked levelly. ‘Even if we came to an amicable agreement about shared custody, a child needs stability, which I can provide in Greece at Villa Delphine. I could buy a house for you in England and we could send our child back and forth between us like a ping-pong ball—Christmas with you, first birthday with me, and so on. But that wouldn’t make me happy, I don’t think it would make you happy and I’m certain it would not be a happy childhood for our son or daughter.’
Ava couldn’t argue with his logic. Everything Giannis said made sense. But her emotions weren’t logical or sensible; they were all over the place. She tensed when he took hold of her hand and rubbed his thumb lightly over the pulse thudding in her wrist.
‘Like it or not, you and the baby are my responsibility and I want to take care of both of you.’ He met her gaze and the gleam in his dark eyes sent a quiver of reaction through her. ‘Our relationship worked very well for the month that we pretended to be engaged,’ he murmured.
It