Buch lesen: «The Carides Pregnancy»
The Carides Pregnancy
Kim Lawrence
MILLS & BOON
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EPILOGUE
COMING NEXT MONTH
CHAPTER ONE
CARL STONE’S control over his financial empire was total, whereas the weather in the Home Counties, for the moment, remained outside his dominion.
It was the day of his only daughter’s wedding, and the Met Office had predicted an early snowfall across the country. The ominous clouds overhead suggested that promise would almost definitely be fulfilled.
Sure enough, as a sprinkling of early guests began to arrive, making their way through the tight security cordon around the Cathedral, the first thick white flakes began to fall.
A few snowflakes, however, were not about to dampen the spirits of these guests. Most would have happily struggled through a total white-out, weighed down by their understated—in some cases overstated—elegance, their designer hats, fur coats, and jewels, to attend what was extravagantly being billed as the society wedding of the year!
Only one person appeared not to appreciate his good fortune at being there. The tall, lean figure stood a little apart, with one hand thrust negligently into his trouser pocket, his broad back set against the gnarled trunk of an ancient yew. He was apparently oblivious to the biting cold wind, and the snow that had begun to dust his dark hair and the shoulders of his well-cut morning suit.
If the expression on his dark, startlingly handsome face suggested anything it was intense boredom. This sombreness of expression was lightened occasionally when he responded in kind to a greeting from a friend or family member as they passed by.
One impressionable young lady, gasping as she witnessed such a moment, was heard to declare fervently that she would happily sell her soul to be on the receiving end of that smile. Her more literally-minded sister retorted bluntly that she would like to be on the receiving end of more than his smile!
‘Jocasta…India…Behave, girls.’ Herding her sulky daughters ahead of her, their mother—a long way from indifferent herself to the attributes of the tall, enigmatic figure with the fallen angel features and the dangerous sexy aura—gave a slightly wistful glance in his direction before following her offspring inside the splendid Gothic edifice.
If others present had been unaware of his identity, his colouring would have immediately placed him on the groom’s guest list. Typically Greek, they would have said, observing his jet-black hair, warm olive skin, and a profile that could have come straight from an ancient Greek statue. But those better acquainted could have told them that this man wasn’t typically anything!
The question of identity didn’t arise, however, because of course there was hardly a soul amongst the socially prominent guests who wasn’t aware of his identity. Any number, if asked, could probably list his star sign, his shoe size, and hazard an educated guess at his bank balance.
Christos Carides, head of the Carides Empire, was actually as instantly recognisable to his fellow guests as was their host, and according to some sources he was even more disgustingly rich! And, it went without saying, much better looking.
Despite outward appearances Christos was feeling the cold, having spent the last month enjoying warm Australian sunshine, he was keenly aware of the chill in the air. A chill that was very nearly as bone-biting as the one between him and his cousin—the groom.
A spasm of contempt briefly distorted the perfect contours of his sensually moulded lips as his thoughts touched on the subject of his cousin Alex.
At that moment a shortish, cherubic-faced and fair-haired young man emerged from the side of the building. He gave a relieved sigh as he immediately spotted the person he was looking for. Breathless, his jacket flapping open to reveal a striped silk waistcoat, the harassed best man belted along the path, narrowly avoiding several collisions with startled-looking guests.
‘I’m Peter,’ he blurted out as he skidded to halt in front of the tall, commanding figure of the Greek financier.
‘Yes, I remember. You’re Carl’s godson, aren’t you…?’
Peter nodded. ‘I’m the best man after…’ He stopped, looking uncomfortable.
Christos helped him out. ‘After I refused.’
‘Yeah, well, you don’t know how glad I am to see you.’
‘Always glad to make someone happy,’ Christos observed drily. ‘Can I help you?’ he prompted, when the younger man didn’t respond.
‘You’ve got to come with me!’
In response to this dramatic statement Christos flexed his shoulders and levered himself with effortless elegance from the tree trunk. ‘I have…?’ he murmured politely.
The sardonic inflection and the cold light in the dark, deepset eyes that rested on his face caused the breathless younger man’s hopeful smile to gutter and fade. This was not a promising start.
‘He’s asking for you. Please…Mr C-Carides,’ he stuttered. ‘I don’t know what to do. He’s a total mess, and if Uncle Carl sees him like this there’ll be hell to pay,’ he predicted gloomily. ‘He drank enough to sink a battleship last night. He really isn’t himself.’
Christos did not display surprise—because he wasn’t surprised. He would have been more surprised if his cousin hadn’t fallen off the wagon. At times of stress—and presumably marrying the heiress of one of the richest men in Britain came under that title—his cousin always reached for a crutch.
‘I think you’ll find, Peter, when you have known Alex a little longer, that he is being himself.’
He would learn, as people generally did, that underneath the charm Alex possessed in abundance his cousin was essentially weak and, like many insecure men, inclined to be spiteful and manipulative when thwarted.
The younger man looked a little nonplussed by the languid response. ‘I don’t think you understand. He can hardly stand up and he keeps…’ He paused and glanced over his shoulder. ‘Crying…’
It was clear to Christos that in the young Englishman’s eyes these masculine tears were the most embarrassing feature of this situation. ‘And this should concern me because…?’ he enquired, in his deep, accented drawl.
The younger man’s expression betrayed his shock and revulsion at this casual response. ‘You’re not going to help?’
The reply, when it came, was unambiguous. ‘No.’
Under normal circumstances the younger man would not have dared speak his mind to the likes of Christos Carides, but the realisation that he was going to have to sort out the mess himself made him recklessly outspoken.
‘When Alex said you were a cold, callous bastard I gave you the benefit of the doubt!’
Christos smiled, revealing even white teeth and zero warmth. ‘Your mistake, I think,’ he observed mildly. ‘If you want my advice, for what it’s worth, I’d shove his head in a bucket of ice water, fill another with black coffee and force-feed it to him.
‘Don’t worry too much,’ he added. ‘He has the constitution of a hospital superbug. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m waiting for someone.’ With a slight inclination of his dark head he dismissed the younger man.
The stressed best man retreated a few feet, then turned back, his resentment roughening his young voice as he yelled back, ‘Uncle Carl is right. You and the rest of Carides family may think you’re a cut above everyone else, but when it comes down to it you’re no better than a damned pirate. No morals, no scruples and no manners.’
Peter saw that, rather than being offended by the insulting tirade, Christos was grinning, in that instant looking every inch a swashbuckling buccaneer—one, furthermore, likely to cut his throat on a whim!
‘Is that a direct quote?’
Peter was not a physical young man, but the mockery gleaming in the Greek’s dark eyes filled with him with an uncharacteristic desire to resort to physical violence. Not that he did, of course. He was angry, not insane! This was no sedentary businessman he was talking to. Christos Carides was only in his early thirties, and besides, he had to be six five if he was an inch—and he definitely worked out!
Cooling down slightly, Peter became belatedly aware that people were staring. And, being much less comfortable with this attention than his adversary, the young man gritted his teeth and stalked off with as much dignity as he could muster.
He would have been comforted to know that there was someone close by who would have applauded his reading of the Carides character—and added a few choice observations of her own!
Becca Summer, mingling with guests, was approaching the security cordon. At that moment her throat was so dry with nerves she probably couldn’t have strung two words together, and if she had she wouldn’t have been able to hear what she said above the heavy thud of her pounding heart. Six weeks earlier she hadn’t been similarly hindered.
Six weeks earlier she had been uncharacteristically vocal!
‘People like these Carides,’ she had declared, snarling the name contemptuously. ‘They make me sick! They think that just because they have money and power they can do anything they want.’ She’d looked at her sister, Erica, and swallowed past the emotional lump in her throat. ‘Regardless of who they hurt.’
‘You know, Becca, there’s not much point being mad,’ Erica had pointed out defeatedly.
‘You mean don’t get mad, get even?’ The old cliché had never made more sense to her than it had at that moment.
‘Get even?’ Erica had exclaimed with a laugh. ‘Are you serious? We’re talking about the Carides.’
‘So you think that people like the Carides imagine they can do anything they want?’ Becca had retorted.
‘I know they can, Becca.’
The bleak retort had made Becca’s eyes fill. She’d struggled to hold back the tears and declared fiercely, ‘One day I’ll teach them that they can’t walk all over people and get away with it! You see if I don’t.’
It had been said in the heat of the moment, and deep down she probably hadn’t really believed that such an opportunity would arise—but here she was, about to do her small part in balancing the scales of justice.
And she was already regretting it big-time!
Becca caught a passer-by staring at her head and quickly pulled off the knitted cloche—not the sort of head gear that people wore to posh weddings—crammed over her tangled titian hair. Pulling a not quite steady hand through her Pre-Raphaelite curls, she shook her hair back, letting it fan over the dark material of her coat.
Don’t give up the day job, Becca. Undercover work is definitely not for you, she told herself, repressing a worried grin.
Part of the problem was that she was not just scared out of her mind, she was exhausted. Hardly surprising, considering that the previous evening she had jumped in her ancient Beetle and driven through the night, halfway across the country, to get here.
Adrenaline and outrage—and seeing the newspaper article concerning the ‘society wedding of the year’ had given her a double dose of both—could, she discovered, take a protective big sister a long way.
Cars, on the other hand, needed petrol—which was why she had had to walk five miles along a lonely road to the nearest service station at three in the morning. A terrifying experience. And then, just to add to her misery, it had started to snow.
Snow in early November—how unlucky was that?
She had a blister on her right heel to bear witness to her trek, and a suspicion that spontaneity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. After this was over it would be a relief to go back to her normal sensible, cautious, consequence-considering self!
Reckless just wasn’t her. It wasn’t in her nature to throw caution to the wind. In fact, her inability to be spontaneous had been one of the reasons Roger had cited for the failure of their relationship.
Her family and friends had been suitably supportive when the announcement—the very week following their break-up—of Roger’s engagement to a bubbly blonde had appeared in the local paper. Becca, uneasily aware that as the dumped fiancée she ought to be feeling more traumatised, had received their sympathy with a degree of guilt. After a few weeks the role of pathetic victim had begun to get wearing.
When she had said as much to her sister, Erica had said, ‘Don’t worry—in a few weeks’ time they will have a new juicy scandal to talk about.’
Neither of them had suspected at the time that it would be Erica who supplied the scandal!
Erica had told her family about her unplanned pregnancy the same day the ambulance had been called, its sirens ringing, to the neat Edwardian semi where Becca and Erica had grown up
But it had been too late to save the baby.
Later, back home, with the promise that—all being well—their youngest daughter could be discharged the next day, the Summers family had sat down in the sitting room, staring mutely at one another.
Recognising her elderly parents were still in shock—her father was ten years older than her mother, and Elspeth Summer had been forty-five when her younger daughter had been born—Becca had done the only thing she’d been able to think of: she’d made tea.
‘She’s only eighteen,’ her mother had been saying when she’d come back in, carrying the tray.
‘Well, maybe this was for the best.’
‘For the best…? For the best! How can you even suggest that losing a baby is for the best!’ Elspeth had demanded, rounding furiously on her startled husband.
‘Dad didn’t mean it that way,’ Becca had soothed. ‘Did you, Dad.’
‘No, of course not,’ her father had said, looking intensely grateful for the intervention.
‘I was just thinking that, knowing our Erica, it would have been you and Becca who ended up looking after the baby,’ he’d observed, with an affectionate watery smile.
His wife had given him a reassuring smile back and said huskily, ‘I know you didn’t mean it, love.’ She’d reached across and clasped his hand. ‘I’m just thinking if we’d been stricter with her…’
And that had been the start of a predictable orgy of self-recrimination. Recrimination! Their kind, loving parents were the very last people in the world who had anything to reproach themselves over. Going over that conversation in her head made Becca ashamed that she had almost turned back when she saw the scale of this wedding she intended to crash and disrupt. Her soft lips thinned. She just hoped that plenty of people had their video cameras handy!
Head up, she pinned on a confident smile and, picking up a corsage that someone had dropped on the floor she tucked it at a jaunty angle into her buttonhole. She intended to see to it that the society wedding of the decade didn’t go without a hitch.
CHAPTER TWO
CHRISTOS watched the irate best man vanish around the side of the building and suppressed a twinge of guilt. For a second he was tempted to follow him, but instead he blew on his fingers to revive the circulation. It struck him as faintly ludicrous that even after all that had happened his first instinct was to bail his cousin out.
What Alex needed was not someone to hold his hand and wipe his nose—he needed to take responsibility for his own actions. Christos’s attempt the previous year to instil a sense of responsibility into the younger man had failed spectacularly.
When he had spelt out the new rules to his cousin, the younger man had laughed.
‘This is a wind-up. You’re bluffing.’
Christos had shaken his head. ‘Turn up at the office more than once every six months, and when you’re there do more than drink coffee and chat up female staff.’
‘I delegate,’ Alex had protested.
‘No. I delegate; you sponge. Work, cousin—or the very healthy cheque that’s credited to your bank account every month won’t be there.’
Christos hadn’t been bluffing.
There were a number of family members who had called him a heartless monster for refusing to be swayed from his decision—though naturally not to his face. Interestingly, there had been an equal number who had said, About time too!
But Alex’s response to the challenge had not been what he’d hoped. In fact it had been something he could not have predicted.
Christos had never decided if Alex had wanted him to find out, but there was no similar ambiguity when it came to his ex-fiancée’s intentions. Melina had known Christos was coming to her flat that evening, to return the keys and pick up the laptop he’d left there.
‘Don’t be silly—there’s no reason we can’t be civilised. We have history,’ Melina had said when he’d rung to say he would send someone round with the keys. ‘You come, darling, and we can have a drink to the good times.’
The look of spiteful triumph in her eyes when he had walked in and found her and Alex naked on the floor, amidst a pile of discarded clothes and several empty wine bottles, had removed any lingering guilt Christos felt about ending their short-lived farcical engagement the previous week.
Mild disgust and contempt were not the responses a man was meant to have when he found the woman he had briefly contemplated spending the rest of his life with making love to another man!
He’d felt no desire to take violent retribution, no desire to wipe the supercilious smirk off his cousin’s face—just a compelling urge to walk away from the sordid and tasteless spectacle.
And that was what he had done. He had slung the keys on the table and left. His only regret being that he had ever been insane enough to think all right and workable were thoughts a man should have as prerequisites for marriage.
Before Christos succumbed to frostbite, or to the austerity of his own grim reflections, his great-aunt, whom he had been delegated to escort, arrived. Christos heard her before he saw her. Her bony frame was swamped by several layers of motley fur, and her grey hair was crammed into an ancient shapeless hat, but her voice was not similarly fettered. It was loud and penetrating.
‘It is not civilised. I shouldn’t be surprised if this British weather kills me!’ she was telling a fellow guest.
‘I should be very surprised.’
A smile illuminated the lined, leathery face as Theodosia Carides identified the tall figure who had materialised at her side.
‘So you did come,’ she grunted, offering her rose-scented withered cheek for her great-nephew’s respectful salute.
‘Seeing you, Aunt Theodosia, makes the effort worth while.’
‘Don’t try your charm on me,’ the old lady recommended, repressing a pleased grin as she accepted the arm her tall handsome nephew offered. ‘I’m immune.’
The still-upright septuagenarian, who did not even reach his shoulder, did not see the need to lower her voice as her favourite nephew escorted her into the hushed, vaulted interior of the Cathedral.
‘I thought you were in Australia, Christos?’
‘I was.’ Christos saw Melina, looking as stunning as ever, seated a few feet away. They nodded in a civilised manner to one another.
‘Did Alex really ask you to be best man?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘And you said no?’
Christos’s expression didn’t alter as he inclined his dark head in agreement—which, considering the mental picture of his ex, naked astride the groom, which was at that moment flickering across his retina, was no mean achievement.
‘I expect you had your reasons…?’
Christos did not satisfy her curiosity. ‘Can I take that for you, Aunt?’ he asked, indicating the large portmanteau his elderly relative clutched.
‘I am not an invalid.’ Despite this sharp assertion, she paused to catch her breath. ‘I suppose you know that Andrea is saying your refusal is just another symptom of your deep-seated jealousy?’
Christos’s dark brows lifted. ‘Jealousy?’
The old lady nodded. ‘According to her, you’ve always been jealous of her precious Alex.’ No longer able to conceal her amusement, she gave a loud cackle of mirth and shared the joke. ‘Apparently you never lose any opportunity to belittle him and make him look foolish. Though from what I’ve seen he doesn’t need much help—and so I told his mother. Andrea always was a very silly woman.’
‘I must remember to avoid Aunt Andrea.’
‘As if you care what she thinks. As if you care what anyone thinks.’ Her expression suggested she approved of this attitude.
Christos gave one his most charming smiles. ‘I care what you think, Aunt Theodosia,’ he promised slickly.
The old lady dismissed the comment with a derisive snort. ‘Does nobody but me care about tradition any more?’ she wondered out loud. ‘Nobody would even know this was a Carides wedding,’ she continued, in the same disapproving bellow. ‘Nobody has yet explained to me why they’re not having a proper Orthodox ceremony.’
‘Don’t look at me, Aunt Theodosia. This wedding has nothing to do with me.’ He was only here because his mother had got distressed and played the duty card. ‘They’ll think you don’t like your cousin.’
‘I don’t.’
In the event his honesty had not won him any points with his mother. She had bitterly enquired over the phone if he derived some form of malicious pleasure out of tormenting her.
‘If he gets a little loud around you it’s because you make him feel inadequate,’ Mia Carides had explained.
On the other side of the world, Christos had given a wry grin. Inadequate was one of the things a man might be excused for feeling if he found the woman he was to have married having sex with another man. Only he had never really been in love with Melina.
In truth, it had come as something of a surprise to Christos to hear the news of his own engagement!
When Melina had pulled her father to one side and whispered in his ear, Christos had had no inkling of the secret she was sharing. Not until two minutes later, when their host had called for hush and shared the news with the rest of the three hundred or so close friends who were there to celebrate the thirty years of married bliss he and his wife had enjoyed.
‘I am happy to announce that my daughter and our dear friend Christos Carides are to be married.’
Christos had had no desire to humiliate the rather drunk Melina, with whom he had enjoyed a casual on-off relationship for several years, so he had smiled through the inevitable congratulations and gone home with the firm intention of ending the engagement the next day.
That had been his first mistake!
His next had been not to agree when a very shame-faced and repentant Melina had turned up the next morning, promising to set the record straight immediately. Her remorse had appeared totally genuine, and she’d obviously been mortified—so much so that he had heard himself saying, ‘Why bother? We could give it a trial run.’
‘Do you really think so, Christos?’
‘Why not? We get on well enough, and it’s not as though either of us is waiting for love at first sight.’
Contemplating life without love did not overly concern Christos. A person could not miss what they had never had. And perhaps, as Melina had claimed in one of their many arguments, he was incapable of the emotion?
‘What do you mean, nothing to do with you? You’re head of the family, aren’t you?’ Aunt Theodosia demanded shrilly.
With a rueful smile Christos refocused his attention on the demanding little lady at his elbow. When jet lag eventually kicked in he was going to sleep for a week. ‘A title with few benefits.’
His dry observation drew a crowing little laugh from the old lady, but she added severely, ‘Don’t whine, Christos. You have been blessed with brains, looks and health—not to mention a gift for making large amounts of money without breaking a sweat.’
The unsympathetic recommendation brought a smile to Christos’s dark, expressive eyes. ‘Sorry, Aunt,’ he said, bowing his dark head meekly.
‘This girl of Alex’s has got a face like a horse,’ she observed regretfully.
‘Sally is a very nice girl,’ Christos responded, a quiver in his deep voice.
It was at that moment he saw her.
He stopped dead, and didn’t hear what Theodosia was saying—or, for that matter, anything else. She was framed in the doorway, her hair as she entered the Gothic candlelit Cathedral an incredible burnished beacon.
For a few seconds things got seriously surreal. But there was in all probability some perfectly prosaic reason for the rest of the world receding, leaving him with the impression that he and the redhead were the only two people in the place.
Christos, his jaw clenched, blinked hard, and the hum of conversation gradually filtered back into his consciousness. Jet lag, he concluded, loosening the constricting tie around his neck a little as he narrowed his gaze on the bright head of the slim, simply dressed woman.
He had never seen her before. Not that this made her exceptional. There were any number of people attending the wedding that he had never laid eyes on before. But, unlike this late arrival, those strangers had no connection with the prickle on the back of his neck. The groove between his dark, strongly delineated black brows deepened as he lifted a hand to the affected area.
With a first-class degree in pure maths, and the owner of a mind that was widely held to be brilliantly analytical and logical, he saw nothing contradictory in trusting his instincts. And there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that the slender redhead represented trouble of a major variety.
Perhaps the danger she represented appealed to him? Could that alone account for his suddenly out-of-control libido? He didn’t have a clue, and he was not in a mood to analyse his motivation, he just knew he was going to make sure—even at the risk of major disappointment—of meeting her.
At some level he recognised that even the recent months of self-enforced abstinence didn’t totally explain away the compulsion that made him unable to take his eyes off her for fear she would vanish.
Vanish? With that hair? Not likely. His eyes moved hungrily over the mass of rich auburn curls that fell down her shapely narrow back. It was extremely unlikely that she would be swallowed up in the crowd, even though that was clearly her desire. A circumstance that he would investigate at a later date, when other more urgent needs, like hearing her voice, were satisfied.
Christos met many attractive, interesting women during the course of his average day, but none that had ever immobilised him with lust. But now…He trained his eyes on the redhead, who was still trying hard to blend in, and drew a deep breath. This was a temptation he had no intention of resisting.
‘I don’t dislike horses, and from what I’ve seen the girl has got excellent child-bearing hips.’
A thoughtful expression settled on Theodosia’s lined face as she imperiously reclaimed her nephew’s attention with this outrageous observation and a sharp tug on his jacket.
‘Is she pregnant, I wonder? It would explain the unseemly haste. What do you think, Christos?’
With an air of resignation, and still conscious in the periphery of his vision of the redhead, he guided the outspoken old lady into her seat. ‘I think I should mind my own business.’
‘Not that there’s anything wrong with a pregnant bride.’
‘That is very broad-minded of you, Aunt Theodosia.’
‘I’m not a prude, boy.’
Christos’s thickly lashed eyes narrowed in affection. ‘You do surprise me.’
‘And virgins are all well and good,’ she observed generously.
The redhead, he noticed, was in danger of disappearing behind a stone column. He had established, to his satisfaction, that she definitely wasn’t with anyone, but she was too far away for him to tell if she wore any rings.
‘I’m not aware that I know any.’ In his opinion it was more important to be the last man in a woman’s life, not the first, if that woman was the one you intended to spend the rest of your life with.
Theodosia chose to ignore her nephew’s satiric insert beyond tapping him sharply across the knuckles with her cane. ‘I hardly think you’re in any position to criticise. Greek men can be so hypocritical,’ she observed tartly. ‘You’re no saint yourself, young man. At least,’ she continued, ‘when you get a girl pregnant before you put the ring on her finger you know she’s fertile.’
‘That’s very pragmatic of you.’ He cupped the old lady’s elbow as she lowered herself slowly into the pew. ‘But I’m not sure,’ he added in a soft aside, ‘that the bride’s father shares your viewpoint. Or that the modern female would enjoy being likened to a brood mare.’
Just at that moment his mother, looking flushed and breathless, appeared at his shoulder. ‘Christos—I need you.’ Under her breath, Mia Carides said with a fixed smile, ‘Don’t encourage her.’
‘What do you need me for, Mother?’ Christos asked, wondering if the glorious redhead’s hair was as soft and silky as it looked. A man could dream of falling asleep wrapped in that hair…
‘There’s a problem with security,’ Mia improvised smoothly. ‘Such a nuisance. I’m sorry, Aunt Theodosia, you’ll have to excuse us.’
