The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress. Lucy Monroe

to Phoebe Leonides. The girl looked about nineteen and as innocent as any virginal bride should be.

      Alexandra checked out of the hotel she’d been staying in, arranged for her possessions to be shipped to the U.S., terminated her contract with her modeling agency, closed her Xandra Fortune checking account, canceled her credit cards under that name and bought a ticket back to the states in the name of Alexandra Dupree.

      Xandra Fortune, fashion model and ex-lover of Greek billionaire, Dimitri Petronides, ceased to exist.

      A little over two months later, Alexandra walked out of the prenatal clinic into the hot, sticky air of early autumn in New York City. She glanced down at the snapshot of her recent ultrasound. She’d put the videotape in her bag, but hadn’t been able to tuck the photo away. She was enthralled with this proof of the baby growing in her womb. The baby she could not yet feel or even see in her only slightly thickened waistline.

      It was a boy. A part of Dimitri Petronides she was free to love, someone who would return her love. Even weakened by constant morning sickness and exhausted from her pregnancy, she wanted to shout for joy.

      Desperately wanting to share her news with someone, she flipped open her cell phone and dialed her sister’s number. She got the answering machine and opted not to leave a message. She could tell Madeleine the news when she went home later. She considered and discarded the idea of calling her mother. Alexandra was not up to another dose of “You’ve brought shame to the family name.”

      Compulsion she could not deny had her dialing the number to the Paris apartment. There had been no news of Dimitri’s wedding in the New York society pages. Fool that she was, she couldn’t stop herself from looking and even more foolishly hoping. Had he come to his senses? Called off the wedding?

      Perhaps the latter was too much to hope for, but surely after two months he would have had enough time to calm down and realize Alexandra would never have been unfaithful to him.

      The phone rang several times and Alexandra remembered belatedly it would be the dinner hour over there. Perhaps he was out, or not in Paris at all. She let the phone continue to ring, knowing she didn’t have the courage to call his cell. For some reason this was news she needed to tell him when he was in the apartment they had shared.

      The other line picked up. “Hello?”

      Alexandra almost dropped her phone. It was a woman’s voice at the other end of the line. She forced her vocal chords to work, praying the unfamiliar voice was that of a new housekeeper and not Dimitri’s newest woman. “Hello. Is Mr. Petronides available, please?”

      “I’m sorry, he’s out. This is Mrs. Petronides. Can I help you or would you like to leave a message?”

      Mrs. Petronides. Alexandra stopped breathing. The bastard had gone through with it. He’d married another woman while Alexandra was pregnant with his child. Funny, until that very moment, she hadn’t truly believed he would do it. And it was only in the absence of all hope that she realized how much she’d been living on the unspoken faith in a man who cared nothing for her and clearly never had.

      “Are you there?”

      “Yes.”

      “Did you want to leave a message for my husband?”

      “No. I…” The words simply trailed into nothingness as the joy that had buoyed her up since discovering she carried Dimitri’s son drained away.

      “Who’s calling please?” The young woman, Phoebe Leonides, no…Phoebe Petronides now, sounded impatient.

      Because Alexandra was so emotionally devastated, she answered the other woman’s question without thought. She couldn’t think. Her brain had ceased to function. She gave the name an occupant of the Paris apartment would expect to hear. “Xandra Fortune.”

      “Miss Fortune, where are you? Dimitrius has been looking for you. He’s desperate about the baby.”

      Dimitri had told his wife about her, about their baby? Alexandra pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it in her hand as if she didn’t know how it had gotten there. She could hear the woman’s voice, but not the words she was saying. She sounded frantic.

      Alexandra cut the connection without putting the phone back to her ear.