He bought the property, but it’s in my and your father’s name. We own it,
Maddie. We did feel a bit awkward about it—poor but proud, as your Dad always says! He tried to persuade your Dimitri to make it a capital loan, but he was having none of it. We were family, he said, and the cash outlay was peanuts to him. You married a man in a million!’ This was followed by a slightly anxious, ‘Everything’s still all right between you? We were worried. On the face of it, Dimitri’s everything a parent could want for a daughter. But—’
Her head reeling from what she’d heard, Maddie put in, ‘We’re fine, Mum.’ And, because they had to know, ‘I’m pregnant.’
No need to worry them now. It would be a few more weeks before she had to tell them the truth. She was more than happy to listen to her mother’s overjoyed exclamations as her mind spun, trying to make sense of this new information.
CHAPTER NINE
AFTER the call ended Maddie stood immobile under the shower, her brow furrowed, as she grappled with Joan Ryan’s revelations, and what they meant.
Thanks to Dimitri’s generosity her parents’ home and livelihood were safe. There was, of course, huge relief because from the start he had led her to believe that her family would be out of their new home and business like a shot if she didn’t toe the line and stick with their marriage—but the question remained.
Why? Why had he done that?
To force her to resume her marital duties? Share his bed until the child he needed was conceived.
Obvious.
And yet …
That kind of thoughtful generosity didn’t gel with the kind of guy she had categorised him as being—a heartless blackmailer who would use any means to get what he wanted and suffer not one pang of conscience when he made her family face real hardship when he’d got it, because they were unimportant, mere peasants. He didn’t fit that box now.
It looked as if he were the kind of guy who would spend vast amounts of money setting her parents up in their own home and business, generously sorting out the difficulties they were facing and were financially and emotionally unable to cope with.
In the situation that had faced her parents any other needle-sharp, super-wealthy businessman with a philanthropic streak a mile wide might have done what he had done, she conceded, but he would have kept the deeds in his name, as an investment, one among many.
But Dimitri had gone one huge stride further. His generosity shook her, made her acknowledge that he wasn’t all as bad as she had named him. Far from it.
Could she have misjudged him in other aspects of their relationship?
Irini?
The attention he lavished on the other woman when she was around—which had always been far too often for Maddie’s liking—could be explained away by the fact that his aunt had counted her as one of the family from the time of her birth. And the relationship had rubbed off because for Dimtri family was all important.
Having lost both his parents at an early age, he was determined to create a family of his own. She could understand that because he would lavish care on anyone he considered part of his family, as witness how he had helped his parents-by-marriage.
But she couldn’t explain away that overheard telephone conversation when he had confirmed his love for the beautiful Greek woman, dropped everything and shot off to be with her. Nothing could. Or the way the two of them had vanished together during the week before he’d brought her here to this island. And, although he hadn’t confirmed it—or denied it either, come to that—the intimate-sounding phone call she’d interrupted had to have been to Irini, breaking the news of the pregnancy they had both waited so anxiously for.
And Irini’s spiteful warning on the night of that party, spelling out exactly why the man who was probably the most eligible bachelor in the whole of Greece had chosen to marry an insignificant nobody like her, was solid, irrefutable fact.
Her mind preoccupied, Maddie dressed and went down to find him, uselessly wishing yet again that she had never taken Amanda’s advice and kept quiet about Irini’s warning, sticking her head in the sand and putting it down to the malicious spite of a jealous woman.
Her pride had stopped her flinging what she knew and what she strongly suspected at him after he had flown to England to find her and force her to return to him. And now, it seemed, it was too late.
He had categorically stated that he no longer wished to know why she had left him. He wouldn’t listen and, knowing him, his masculine pride, she could understand why. In leaving him, demanding a divorce, she had rejected him and all that he was. His ego wouldn’t let him listen to why she had done it. Not if he wanted them to start over, wipe the slate clean. Make the marriage work.
Until the safe delivery of their child?
‘We’ll stop here. You mustn’t overtire yourself.’ A couple of days ago she had accused him of wrapping her in cotton wool. True, he conceded with a wry twist of his mouth. He simply couldn’t help himself. He took this pregnancy seriously, and his part in it was to cherish her.
Dimitri slid the strap of the picnic bag off one broad shoulder as they reached one of his favourite spots on the island. A gentle green hollow beside an abundant freshwater spring, shaded from the burning sun by a grove of ancient, long-neglected olive trees.
Golden eyes soft and slightly narrowed between thick black lashes, he watched her wander over the lush green grass, down to where the water bubbled into a natural stone basin. The gauzy cotton skirt she was wearing, in shades of primrose, pale blue and cream moved against the lovely legs that had acquired a healthy tan over the week they had spent here. He adored looking at her. He only had to look at her to want her.
Their time here together during this past week had been perfect. Their marriage was back on track.
Or almost.
Swimming in the pool or in the gentle waters of one of the small bays, exploring the island and the dozens of tiny beaches, lazy afternoons and languid evenings, hot sex—everything was pointing to her willingness to put the recent past behind them, to make a fresh start, as he had wanted, for the sake of the coming child.
Except …
He missed her once-ready, infectious laughter. Had caught the wistful look in those clear blue eyes, quickly extinguished when his eyes connected with hers. But it was there, all the same, in his memory.
It troubled him. But no way was he prepared to question her.
Because he wouldn’t like the answer?
The thought came unbidden. She’d wanted a divorce. Since the news of her pregnancy there was no chance of that. And even if he strongly suspected her reasons, he would have to live with those suspicions and do his damnedest to disregard them. If she’d wanted her freedom with the financial cushion of a hefty slice of alimony he didn’t want to hear her confess it, not now!
He’d said they were to make a fresh start, wipe the slate clean. Every child had a right to a close, loving family, the care of both parents, and he had a duty to provide it.
And that was how it was going to be. His decision. End of story. Their future and that of the coming child was all that mattered—unsullied by a knowledge he didn’t want to have.
Thrusting the unwelcome and rare bout of introspection out of his head, he strode towards her. She was kneeling by the spring, her hands gliding slowly back and forth in the cool clear water. As he reached her she glanced up at him from beneath the wide brim of the straw hat he insisted she wear and smiled. Her smile touched his heart, turned it over. It always did.
‘It’s lovely! So cool!’
His heart twisted, the breath in his lungs tightening. The band of freckles across her neat little nose was more pronounced, and perspiration dewed her short upper lip. The blue of her