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“I’m astonished,” she managed to say when he stopped before what looked like an indistinguishable block of flats. “I would have thought that the mighty Balthazar lived on his own mountaintop. In an appropriate castle. Withseveralmoats.”
“This is a medical facility,” he clipped out, sounding bored and impatient. “And this is a private entrance.”
He parked the car at the behest of a set of overawed attendants, then marched her into an elevator. She was whisked up to a series of private rooms, a waiting area and then an exam room, and Balthazar only glared stonily at her when she dared to suggest she might like some privacy.
“Really,” she tried. “I would prefer it.”
His mouth curved into that hard line. “This is no time for fantasies, Kendra.”
When it was done, both pregnancy and paternity had been determined.
Kendra felt the truth like a stone, heavy and unwieldy, crushing her even when she stood upright. Balthazar, meanwhile, had transformed from a mere thunderstorm to the threat of a far more terrifying tornado, evident in the blazing fury she could see in his dark eyes.
The trip back to that offensively bright car of his was so tense that she found herself shaking.
“Balthazar,” she began as he roared his way out of the parking area and back into the crowded streets of Athens, “I really think—”
“If you have any sense of self-preservation whatsoever,” he growled, an imposing fury beside her as he drove, “you will be quiet.”
The ferocity in his words left her winded.
Kendra decided self-preservation was an excellent idea and stayed silent for the rest of the drive. It was a short one, ending at another private entrance to a corporate parking area and another gleaming elevator. Where he ushered her, in that same grim silence, up to the roof of an office building she only belatedly realized was the corporate headquarters of Skalas & Sons. Where a helicopter waited to carry them off.
She could have argued, she supposed. Thrown a fit on the rooftop, where there were no witnesses but Balthazar’s men and the ancient city spread out beneath them. She could at least havetried.
But she didn’t see how fighting a losing battle with a tornado was going to help either her or her baby.
Her baby.
Kendra might hate herself for her weaknesses when this was all said and done, but for the moment, she wrapped her arms around the middle she’d thought was expanding thanks to eating her way through Provence and sat with that. She was having a baby.
Hisbaby.
And when they landed on a small island surrounded by a gleaming blue sea, she didn’t have it in her to make smart remarks about castles or moats. Because the island was not large. There was no sign of anything like a village. There was one sprawling house on the higher end of the island, a collection of outbuildings, and beaches.
She supposed most people would consider it paradise, but she knew better.
It was a prison.
Balthazar marched off into the sprawling villa, a celebration of Greek architecture with wide-open spaces that flowed in and out of the outdoors. Letting in the sea and sky from every angle.
Kendra followed him because what else was she to do? Attempt to fly herself back to the mainland?
“There is a skeleton staff on the island,” he informed her when he led her to a bedroom that sat above the sea and then stood there, glowering at her, as if she’d impregnated herself purely to spite him. It occurred to her that he thought she had. “They’ll operate according to the orders of the housekeeper, Panagiota, who has been with my family since my father was young and is deeply loyal to me. You may assume that anything she says comes directly from me.”
“You’re leaving me here?” Kendra should have assumed that was what he was doing, she knew. She had the absurd thought that if she’d known she wouldn’t be returning to the cottage, she would have packed more of her things. As ifher thingswere what mattered at the moment. “For how long?”
He took a long while to simplylookat her, as if he was trying to see beneath her skin. As if he was looking for something. “For as long as it takes.”
She tried to gather herself. “You are aware, I hope, that there’s a specific timeline? And we’re in the second trimester. Leaving only one remaining.”
“I can count.” His tone was withering.
“Are you really planning to leave me here forsix months?”
But even as she asked the question, she knew the answer. She was glad she’d wrapped her great-aunt’s gauzy scarf around her on the helicopter ride. It felt like a hug.
“Consider this a kindness,” Balthazar bit off. “There’s nothing I have to say to you right now that you would like to hear, I promise you.”
