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That hot-headed kiss outside the jewellers had been intended as nothing more than a distraction. If he was being honest, it had also been intended as an arrogant demonstration of his sexual mastery. To show her that he was boss and always would be. But somehow it had backfired on him. It had reactivated his desire and now he was stuck with a raging sexual hunger which kept him awake most nights, staring at the ceiling and imagining all the different things he wanted to do to her.
He knew there was nothing stopping him from acting on it. From stealing into her room when darkness had fallen. From pulling back a crisp sheet and finding her, what...naked? Or wearing some slinky little nightgown she might have bought at the same time as the killer heels and new clothes. Those occasional longing looks and accidental touches had reinforced what he’d already known...that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Physically, at least. He was confident enough to know he could be inside her in minutes if he put his mind to it, tangling his fingers in the soft spill of her pale hair and staring down at her beautiful pale curves.
And then what?
He felt another unwanted and unfamiliar stab of his conscience, which was enough to kill his desire stone-dead. Make her fall in love with him? Break her heart as he had broken so many in the past and leave her bitter and upset? Some good that would do when Ellie, above all others, was someone he needed to keep onside. She was carrying his baby and he needed her as a friend, not as a lover.
Because something inside him had changed. He’d imagined he would feel nothing about the new life growing inside her and that he would feel disconnected from her pregnancy. But he had been wrong. Hadn’t his heart clenched savagely in his chest the first time he’d seen her fingertips drift almost reflectively over her still-flat belly?
With a fascination which seemed beyond his control, he had found himself watching her when she wasn’t looking. When she was curled up in an armchair reading a book and making his life seem almost...normal. He’d never had normal before. And hadn’t he been filled with an unbearable sense of longing for the family life which had been nothing but a dark void during his own childhood? Hadn’t he started wondering again whether he could give this child what he’d never had himself? And one thing was for sure: he could not break the heart of his child’s mother...
The car stopped outside the restaurant and as she draped the scarlet shawl around her shoulders he found he couldn’t look away. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss all that shiny lipstick away from her beautiful lips, but why start the evening on a false promise?
‘You look...great,’ he said neutrally as the driver opened the limousine door for her.
‘Thanks.’
Ellie’s fingers tightened around the gilt chain of her handbag. First he’d shot her down in flames and then he’d told her she looked great? Was that the best he could do? Why, she’d had more praise from her science teacher at school—and she was hopeless at science. Cautiously, she stepped onto the pavement, balancing carefully on her high heels, thinking how unlike the Ellie of old she must look with enough diamonds glittering on her finger to have bought her an apartment outright.
She was grateful for the armour of her expensive new clothes in a room where every other woman looked amazing—but it wasn’t that which made her feel suddenly wistful. All the wives and girlfriends looked so happy. Did she? Did she look how a new bride was supposed to look—all dewy-eyed and serene? She wondered if anyone guessed that inside she felt as if she were clinging onto this strange new reality by the tips of her fingers.
But sometimes you built things up in your head and they weren’t nearly as bad as you’d feared. The woman who’d designed Alek’s apartment—Alannah—turned out to be a lot less scary than Ellie had imagined. Maybe because she was married to Niccolò da Conti, a stunningly handsome man who seemed to command almost as much attention as Alek and who clearly adored his wife.
Some of the guests were more memorable than others. Ellie stood for ages talking to Luis and Carly and discovered they were all friends going back years. When the sultan arrived—last—Ellie was overcome with nerves because she’d never met a royal before and might not have bought such high heels if she’d thought about having to curtsey in them. But Murat was charming and quickly put her at her ease, and his Welsh wife was lovely.
Ellie watched the exalted group of men joshing and laughing with one another and as she listened to their wives eagerly discussing their social calendars she tried not to feel like the outsider in their midst.
‘Let me see your ring, Ellie,’ said Alannah, catching hold of Ellie’s hand and peering down at the glittering band. ‘Gosh, it’s beautiful. Those diamonds look almost blue—they’re so bright.’ She raised her eyes and smiled. ‘So tell us about Alek’s proposal—was it romantic?’
Ellie wished she’d anticipated this perfectly understandable question so that she could have prepped an answer. She didn’t know how honest to be. She didn’t know how much he’d already told them. She knew that apart from the faint swell of her breasts, there was no outward sign of her pregnancy. Maybe some of the women had already guessed the reason why the world’s most reluctant groom had put a ring on her finger, but for some reason she didn’t want to tell them. Not right now. Couldn’t tonight be her fantasy? Couldn’t she play the part of the shiny-eyed new bride and pretend, just this once?
So she curved a smile—and found it was stupidly easy to let her voice tremble with excitement as she allowed herself to be caught up in the memory. ‘He kissed me in Bond Street and almost stopped the traffic.’
‘Really?’ Alannah smiled. ‘Not another “get a room” moment from the famously private Alek Sarantos? Didn’t I read something about him kissing you while you were working as a waitress?’
A sudden lump in her throat was making words difficult and Ellie just nodded. She wondered if Alek ever thought about that moment of passion beneath the starry sky. That split second of thoughtlessness, setting off the domino effect which had brought them to this moment. Did he regret it?
Yet as she glanced over to see him deep in conversation with Murat, she found that she couldn’t regret what had happened, because sometimes your feelings defied logic. Something incredible had happened when she’d lain with him and she couldn’t seem to scrub that memory away. He could be arrogant and cold, but there was something about him which drew her to him like a magnet, no matter how hard she tried to resist. It might be senseless to care about him, but did that mean it was wrong? Could you stop yourself from falling in love with someone, even if you knew it was a mistake?
She saw him smile at something Murat said and he responded by gesturing expansively with his hands in a way an Englishman would never do. She’d never been to Greece, but in that moment he seemed to sum up everything about that sun-washed land with its ancient history and its passions.
Yet that side of his life remained a mystery to her. He’d clammed up when she’d mentioned his birthplace on the way here. He had snapped and changed the subject and done that not very subtle thing of letting her know who had all the power in this relationship. How much did she really know about the father of her baby? She stared down at the slice of lime which was bobbing around in her tonic water. Probably as much as she knew about her own father.
But she pushed the troublesome thoughts away and tried to enter into the spirit of the evening. She nibbled on a few canapés and stood beside Alek as he made a short speech about love and marriage, with just the right touch of lightness and solemnity.
And that was the bit she found hardest. The moment when she wanted to shake off the hand which was resting lightly on her shoulders, because it was kick-starting all kinds of reactions. It was making her want to feel that extraordinary connection with him again. To lie with him and feel him deep inside her. To wonder why the hell she’d insisted on separate rooms—not realising that denial would only feed the hunger she felt for him.
She spoke to all the guests with just the right amount of interest and pretended she was Ellie the trainee hotel manager again—chatting away with smiling attention. People were never terrifying if you got them on a one-to-one basis, no matter how initially intimidating they were. She met a judge, a Hollywood actress and a Spaniard named Vicente de Castilla, whose buccaneering appearance was attracting plenty of covert glances. But gorgeous as Vicente was, there was only one man who commanded Ellie’s attention and she knew exactly where he was at any given point in the evening. He seemed to command all her attention and it was difficult not to stare. Beneath the fractured rainbow light of the chandeliers, his hair gleamed like jet. At one point he slowly turned his head to look at her, his blue eyes blazing as they held her in their spotlight. And she turned away, feeling curiously exposed...stiffening slightly when he came to stand beside her, sliding his arm around her waist with easy possession. As if he touched her like that all the time, when they both knew he didn’t touch her at all.
She knew it was done to add authenticity to their marriage. She knew his touch meant nothing, but unfortunately her body didn’t. It was sending frantic messages to her brain. It was making her want more. It was making her wish it were all real. That he’d married her because he loved her and not because there was a baby on the way.
Quickly excusing herself, she made her way to the restroom where Alannah was standing in front of the mirror, brushing her long black hair.
‘Enjoying your wedding party?’ she questioned.
Ellie pulled out a convincing smile as she met the other woman’s denim-blue eyes. ‘It’s wonderful. Such a gorgeous place. And all Alek’s friends seem lovely and very welcoming,’ she added.
Alannah laughed
