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She didn’t know how long she slept, but when she woke, the lighting was no longer dimmed and Dimitri lay beside her watching her with an intent expression she could not decipher.
She smiled at him. “Hi. You’re watching me.”
“You are beautiful when you sleep.”
Her smile turned wry. “Right. I bet my hair is sticking on end and I’m not wearing a speck of make-up.”
A gentle finger traced the contours of her face. “You do not need make-up and your hair is very sexy.”
She scooted into a sitting position. “I’m hungry.”
He swung out of bed. “Stay where you are. I will order some food.”
He pulled on a robe hanging in the miniscule closet and went into the main cabin. Which just went to show the difference between them. While she had modeled lingerie on the catwalks of Paris, she couldn’t have faced the flight attendant in her bathrobe to save her life.
Dimitri was back fifteen minutes later carrying a tray laden with food. He laid it across her lap, dropped his robe and slid back into bed beside her. She ate a bowl of wild rice and mushroom soup, a crusty roll, and a brownie before sitting back against him, replete.
He pulled away from her long enough to set the tray on the floor. Settling back into their previous position, he laid his hand on the baby. Their son kicked and rolled, making both of them laugh. “He’s very active in there, my son. He will be champion football player, that one.”
“More like he’ll keep us running with his antics.”
“If he is anything like his mother, he will keep me on my toes until my hair turns gray.”
She smiled at that and laid her hand over Dimitri’s. “You know, you never did explain how you came to the conclusion the baby is yours.”
“I told you about my friend.”
“The doctor? Yes. I remember. That explains how, but not why. I mean just because you realized it was possible for you to be the father of my child, didn’t mean you had to believe you were the father.”
Dimitri exhaled a long breath. “I knew the truth long before I went to Nikos and asked him how it could be possible.”
“Why?”
She felt his body go tense against her and she lifted her head off his chest to look into his eyes. They weren’t revealing anything. “My mother and father died in an avalanche when I was ten years old.”
“I know.” It was the only thing he’d told her about his parents and one of the few things she knew about his family.
“My father was bringing her back from the ski lodge where she had been staying with her current lover.”
“Current lover?”
Dimitri nodded, his head moving in a precise movement that was painful to watch. “She fell in love with daunting regularity, only one of those times was with my father.”
She laid her hand over his heart and caressed the skin there in a comforting gesture. “Oh, Dimitri…”
He frowned as if her sympathy bothered him. It probably did. He was a very proud man.
“She had left before. There was even some question as to whether or not Spiros could claim the Petronides bloodline. My father insisted on having the tests done, my grandfather told me, not because he didn’t love my brother but because he wanted to squelch the rumors. I believe he would have paid to have the tests doctored if they had come back negative. They did not.”
“But if your mother was unfaithful, why did your father remain married to her?” She could not imagine a proud Petronides male doing so.
Dimitri’s frown turned to a scowl. “He was obsessed with her. He too called this feeling love. Their marriage was volatile, their reunions dramatic but in the end her concept of love and his obsession killed them both.”
No wonder Dimitri had such a jaundiced view of love. A depressing sense of hopelessness came over her. Would he ever allow himself that level of vulnerability after the example his parents had set him?
“It is not a pretty tale.”
But it explained why he hadn’t trusted her. He’d seen too much at an impressionable young age to take the fidelity of a woman for granted.
“We all have memories we would rather forget. Every family has its skeletons.”
“Not according to your mother.”
Alexandra smiled at his attempt at humor, but it was a small one. She didn’t feel like laughing when she’d come face to face with Dimitri’s reason for distrusting love. “Not all women are like your mother.”
He shrugged. “Adultery is not such an uncommon thing.”
“Is that why you were so sure I’d had a lover?”
He’d been waiting for her to betray him like his mother had done, because her betrayal had not only been against her husband. She’d done terrible emotional damage to her children as well.
The tension in him grew almost palpable. “It shames me, but yes.”
“My unexplained trips must have played upon your fears.”
“I was not afraid.”
Right. “You don’t like discussing your feelings, do you?” Why hadn’t she caught on to that before?
“No, but you asked for a reason for my belief.”
“Your mother’s behavior explains why you didn’t trust me. It does not explain what changed your mind.”
“I realized you were not like her.”
Hope erupted in her like Mount Vesuvius. If he already accepted she was nothing like his mother, he might eventually learn to trust her enough to let himself love her.
“I’m not,” she reiterated for good measure. Then, because she was curious and couldn’t help wanting to know, she asked, “When did you realize it?”
“When I returned to the apartment and found the pregnancy test on top of the lingerie.”
“Oh.” So, those final frantic moments in the apartment hadn’t been wasted.
“There was a message in that, was there not?”
“Yes.”
“You connected the pregnancy with our lovemaking.”
He really did understand how her mind worked. “Did it make you remember what it had been like between us?” That was what she had intended.
“Yes.” His expression was grim. “I knew you could not be that way with someone else. I still did not understand why you took trips you refused to explain to me, but I knew they were not to meet another man.”
“Now you know.”
“Now I know.” His expression lightened and the hand on her shoulder ventured lower. “I know something else as well.”
“Oh, what’s that?” she asked breathlessly. That hand had found an already aching peak and gently tweaked it.
“There are things I would rather do with you than talk.”
“I’m so surprised.” She tried to sound mocking, but his touch was affecting her and her voice came out husky instead.
They spent a week in Athens, Dimitri insisting they have a honeymoon before he took her to the family home to meet his grandfather. It was a blissful seven days filled with touristy stuff and making love, lots and lots of making love.
Dimitri took her to see the obstetrician. She turned bright red and wanted to hide in a closet when Dimitri insisted on verifying her former obstetrician’s advice about making love. He wasn’t content until the doctor had done a full examination and Dimitri even requested an ultrasound to check the progress of the baby.
At four months, she hadn’t been able to make out much on the ultrasound, but this time she didn’t need the doctor to tell her where the baby’s head and feet were. Nor did she need his interpretation to affirm the male sex of her child.
She pointed to the baby sucking its thumb in the womb and turned to share her delight with Dimitri. He was pale and his eyes had the dazed look of someone in serious shock.
“Mr. Petronides, are you all right?” the doctor asked.
“Dimitri?” she prompted when he didn’t answer.
He turned to her, his eyes suspiciously bright. “That is my son. You nurture and protect him with your body. How can I ever thank you for this gift?”
She stared at him, nonplussed. She knew fatherhood had affected him strongly, but this was over the top…and she loved it. “No thanks necessary. He is my gift as well, mon cher.”
Then Dimitri bent down and kissed her lips very gently as she lay on the examining table with the ultrasound gel making her tummy glisten.
The doctor looked on with tolerance. “You will be an indulgent papa I fear,” he said.
Dimitri straightened to his full six foot, four inches and smiled. “Perhaps.”
And Alexandra felt suffused with a glow of contentment.
That contentment lasted until Dimitri told her it was time for her to meet his grandfather.
“But what if he hates me?” she asked nervously. “He has every reason.”
