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They were having twins! Twins—Christos! Two babies...two real, tiny individuals...
Sweat beaded on his brow and his chest contracted again in a weird spasm.
Wanting a child with Mira was one thing and hearing her say she was pregnant with twins was a whole different thing.
He would be father to two children...two little lives he could ruin and traumatize and corrupt in a thousand different ways. Ignoring the twinge of discomfort in his hip, he went inside the gym and ran through the strength routine his physiotherapist had been insisting Aristos do since the accident.
The aches and pains fell away as his mind churned the same thing over and over.
What the hell did he know about being a father?
He’d never even seen the face of the man who’d fathered him. The man who had abandoned his mother long before Aristos had been even the size of a kidney bean. He’d dumped her the moment he’d learned that her billionaire father, Leo Carides, had washed his hands of her, said that she was nothing but a spoiled princess playing at rough love, Mama had told him in one of her drunken ramblings.
Sperm provider, that’s what the man had been. Nothing more.
Wasn’t that his role too?a mocking voice asked and Aristos found he had no way to refute it. And he didn’t want to let it stand true.
It had seemed simple enough in theory when he’d concocted the plan. By marrying her, he’d give her what she so desperately wanted. And he would settle down and build the legacy that Leo and the Carides board wouldn’t stop carping about instead of using his stunts to undermine his charity efforts.Andhe would have finally Mira in his life as his wife.
The concept of fatherhood had been a vague, far-fetched thing he’d barely thought of. At best, he’d assumed he’d be a generous, busy father and would keep his involvement to a minimum. He had no doubt—then or now—what a phenomenal mother Mira would be. He’d seen her with Yana and Nush—how completely she loved them, how unconditional her support of them was. He’d remembered her dream even as a teenager to build a family of her own.
Christos, what an arrogant, thoughtless ass he’d been. The very same reassurances did nothing to dispel his escalating confusion now.
And the thought of Mira leaving him in five years with their children in tow—because for all that he was the arrogant, ruthless bastard that she called him, he’d never separate their children from her—left him with a visceral fear he couldn’t get a hold on.
Growing up on the streets of Athens with an alcoholic mother who barely remembered to feed him, all Aristos had ever wanted was a family. When Leo had brought him home years after his mother’s death, he’d thought he’d found one—for all of two minutes. In the end, he’d realized he’d have a family only if he made one and he’d wanted to build it with only one woman.
Now the blasted contract stood between them like a wall. And the fact that his wife thought the worst of him.
She thought he’d cheated on her.
She thought he would be an irresponsible, uncaring, even reckless parent.
She thought very little of him. With the tiring routine siphoning away some of his anger, a bit of sense returned.
Had he given her cause to think any better? Yes, she should know better, know him better, but that was a faulty assumption. He was dealing with a woman who, after summers of falling in love with him, had broken their engagement overnight. With a woman who didn’t fall for sweet words or cute promises but demanded action.
So he’d simply have to prove to her what he could be as a husband and as a father-to-be and as a provider.
He wasn’t going to let go of Mira or his children or the family he was finally building. Not now. Not in five years. Not ever. That much was clear to him. Which meant he’d have to teach his dear wife that threats and intimidations didn’t work on him. Especially not the ones about her leaving him.
He’d just finished his routine, dumped water over his overheated head and returned to his bedroom when Mira stepped out of the attached bathroom. They hadn’t spoken again since he’d left her in Stella’s capable hands as soon they’d returned and he’d fled to the state-of-the-art gym he’d had built in one wing of the mansion.
Seeing Mira in his bedroom settled something in his chest.
Except for the quiet swishing sound of the waves from the ocean past the veranda attached to their bedroom, heavy silence blanketed them. Overhead lights flickered on with each step he took toward the center of the room, illuminating her face more and more. He let his gaze sweep over her body with a lazy leisure he was far from feeling.
Her hair, damp and braided, hung over one shoulder. She’d changed into a baby-pink silk negligee that fluttered far above her knees and a matching robe tied at the waist that invited a closer look at the cleavage it proudly served up.Christos, he’d forgotten about his wife’s fascination with silk-and-lace lingerie. During the day and to the general population, she was Dr. Mira Carides—self-sufficient, smart and almost always conservatively dressed in pantsuits. A woman who was ruthlessly sensible and let none of life’s fancies or silliness touch her.
By night, she was his sensuous wife who loved tormenting him in one sexy outfit after the other. That he was the only one who got to see this Mira, touch this Mira, know this Mira...went a long way to calming him down.
In the minimal light, he realized now that she’d lost weight. Her round cheeks had a sunken, taut look. Even with exhaustion etching itself into the lines of her face, her skin gleamed with that dewy silkiness that invited his touch.
He wanted to pick her up and wrap her in his arms and tend to her. He wanted to place his hand on her belly and let the sheer wonder of the children they’d created together fill him. He wanted to revel in the feeling of something bigger than him for once in his life.
He resisted the urge to do it all with a patience born of a fight for survival. He was a master strategist, forever planning in business or his charities or his dares, ten steps ahead.
He’d stay away tonight, deny all the clamoring needs in his mind and body. And as many nights as it took for him to get control over his emotions. For as angry as he was with her, he didn’t want to make his pregnant wife cry.
