The Pregnant Kavakos Bride by Sharon Kendrick

Author:Sharon Kendrick [Kendrick, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Chick-Lit, Fiction, Love Stories, Man-Woman Relationships, Romance, Women's Fiction
Amazon: B01NBQL5KI
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2017-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

AS SHE PREPARED for Ariston’s visit next morning, Keeley stared at her white-faced reflection in the mirror and gritted her teeth. This time she wouldn’t lose her temper. She would be calm and clear and focussed. She would tell him she couldn’t possibly marry him but that she was willing to be reasonable.

She washed her hair and put on a loose cotton dress and a sudden desire to impose some order made her give her bedsit an extra-special clean—busying herself with mop and duster. She even went down to the local market and bought a cheap bunch of flowers from the friendly stallholder who implored her to, ‘Cheer up, love! It might never happen!’

It already had, she thought gloomily as she crammed the spindly pink tulips into a vase as she waited for the Greek tycoon to arrive.

He was bang on time and she hated her instinctive reaction when she opened the door to see him in an exquisite pale grey suit, which today didn’t make him look remotely uncomfortable. In fact, he came over as supremely relaxed as well as looking expensive and hopelessly out of place in her crummy little home. She didn’t want to shiver with awareness whenever she looked at him, nor remember how it had felt to be naked in his arms, yet the erotic images just kept flooding back. Was she imagining the faint triumph which curved those cruel lips of his—as if he was perfectly aware of the way he made her feel? He can’t make you do anything you don’t want him to, she reminded herself fiercely. You might be carrying his baby but you are still a free agent. This is modern England, not the Middle Ages. He can hardly drag you up the aisle against your will.

‘I’m hoping you’ve had time to come to your senses, Keeley,’ he said, without preamble. ‘Have you?’

‘I’ve given it a lot of thought, yes—but I’m afraid I haven’t changed my mind. I won’t marry you, Ariston.’

He said something soft in his native tongue and when he looked at her, he seemed almost regretful as he sighed. ‘I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this.’

‘Come to what?’ she questioned in confusion.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about your mother?’

She felt the blood drain from her face. ‘Wh-what about my mother?’

His gaze slid over her. ‘That she’s living in a care home and has been for the last seven years.’

Keeley’s lips folded in on themselves because she was afraid she might cry, until she reminded herself that she couldn’t afford the luxury of tears—or to show any kind of vulnerability to a man she suspected would seize on it, as a starving dog might seize on a bone. ‘How did you find out?’

He shrugged. ‘The gathering of information is simple if you know who to ask.’

‘But why? Why would you go to the trouble of having me investigated?’

‘Don’t be naïve, Keeley. Because you are the mother of my child and you have something I want.

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