Page 22 of The Heir Affair (Claimed by a Greek #1)

Had she been impossibly na?ve and immature? Not to have even considered the full impact of having a man as wealthy as Xander Caras as the father of her child?

‘Okay, I guess… Maybe we do need time and space to talk about how this is going to work,’ she said wearily, aware for the first time of how much her life was likely to change. She sighed. ‘There’s definitely more at stake here than I thought.’

He smiled, but his gaze remained shuttered, his expression strained. Reaching across the table, he scooped an errant tear off her cheek.

‘Do not cry, Poppy. It will not be so bad. Believe me, it is much better to be too rich, than too poor. I know.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she murmured, although she wasn’t so sure.

One thing her mum had never had to worry about, when her father had walked out on her for another woman, was whether her child would be kidnapped.

But even so, she felt ashamed now at her naiveté. And her sense of entitlement.

After all, she’d judged him and his motivations, and made assumptions about his past, to justify her own hurt feelings.

Assumptions that she now knew were totally false.

She’d held his extreme wealth against him, even despised him for it, believing he was a man who had been born into privilege.

But, from the little he’d divulged about his past, she now knew that was not the case.

If he tried to use his money to control her, she could fight him on that. But thinking she could go back to being a free spirit, or a free agent even, wasn’t going to fly. Not if she was going to do what was best for her baby.

She let out a shuddering breath.

Their baby.

She pressed unsteady palms to her rounded belly—and rubbed the place where she’d felt the baby move that morning.

It was past time she stopped thinking only of herself.

The truth was, however determined she was to maintain her independence, she also hadn’t really put a whole lot of thought into the practical considerations of what her life would look like once the baby was born.

She’d just assumed she could wing it, as her mum had, and as she had ever since she’d left university and embarked on a nomadic existence of temporary jobs and insecure accommodation.

She’d enjoyed not knowing where she was going and what she would be doing next.

It had felt like an adventure… Not being beholden to anyone, not being tied down.

Perhaps because whenever hard times had hit when she was a kid, her mum had turned it into an adventure.

They’d always been the two musketeers. And when her mum had gone, and she’d been stuck in her dad’s home, she’d convinced herself she could still be the one musketeer.

Her ability to be upbeat and positive even at the lowest points in her life had been her greatest strength.

Even after she’d found herself pregnant and alone, she’d been so excited at the thought of becoming a mum.

But had her greatest strength also been a weakness?

Because always assuming her life would just fall into place, that things would work out okay in the end, if she worked hard and kept her options open and didn’t let the doubts get her down, had also left her without a coherent plan now—because how exactly was she supposed to protect herself and her baby from kidnappers?

When she didn’t even have enough money at the moment to get back to the UK, or fix the roof on her mum’s old cottage in Kent where she’d had some vague plan of living?

‘You will come back to Parádeisos with me, then?’ he asked, although it didn’t really sound like a question.

‘Yes, okay… Yes.’

‘Excellent…’ The fierce frown became an even fiercer smile. ‘I will have to work occasionally, but the island is beautiful at this time of year, and I have spent no time there. So I will make time to explore it with you.’

Before she had a chance to process his meaning, he skimmed a proprietorial finger down the side of her face. ‘And we can also enjoy more of the chemistry that created our baby.’

The familiar jolt of arousal hit all her erogenous zones at once.

‘No.’ She jerked away from his touch. ‘I… I don’t think us sleeping together is a good idea. It will just complicate things even more.’

‘How does this complicate anything?’ One eyebrow rose in a quizzical expression.

Maybe she was—because the echo of pleasure from that morning was pulsing in those damn erogenous zones again too.

‘Surely this is the only thing which is very simple,’ he said.

‘We both enjoy making love to each other. And we are good at it.’

Except they wouldn’t be making love.

They’d be scratching an itch. Unfortunately, she was a lot less experienced at scratching those itches, and she’d certainly never scratched them with a man who could do it so well.

He wasn’t the first man she’d ever slept with, but he was the only one to make her forget everyone but him.

She could so easily become addicted to his touch, his taste, the way he made her feel cherished and important while he was bringing her to orgasm with ruthless efficiency.

He’d done it that morning, when, for a few precious, terrifying moments, he’d held her.

And while she’d been steeped in afterglow, she’d almost fallen back into the trap of believing their spectacular connection meant something more.

She couldn’t afford to go there, especially now she was having his child.

After Fig Gate, she knew he could use their chemistry like a weapon against her.

And remain aloof. If he ever found out exactly how fast and hard she had fallen for ‘Alex’, how easily she’d confused their physical intimacy that day for something else, and all the hopes and dreams she’d poured into a relationship that had never existed, she would be even more vulnerable than she was already.

But how to tell him she didn’t want to ‘enjoy their chemistry’ without him realising exactly how vulnerable their physical connection made her feel?

‘Honestly, I’m just pretty exhausted,’ she finally said, not honestly at all, because she was mostly over the fatigue that had hit during the early weeks of her pregnancy.

‘I see.’ His brow furrowed, but when twin flags of colour appeared on his cheeks, she knew she’d used the right tactic. Because for the first time since she’d met him, he looked unsure. ‘But you are well?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely. I’m fine.’ She dismissed the trickle of guilt that he had been concerned about her health.

‘But making a baby is a lot of work. It would be nice to take some downtime, a proper holiday… Just sit around the pool and concentrate on the baby-making when we’re not busy discussing stuff. And get lots of early nights.’

In truth, she couldn’t think of anything more tedious than sitting around a pool doing nothing—or more boring than going to bed early, because she’d always been a night owl.

But she could explore the island she loved while he was working, and if she recalled correctly—from when they’d crept into the palatial villa he’d built there—he had an impressive entertainment suite and a huge library.

She’d just have to hope the games and films and books in there weren’t all in Greek.

And that hopefully he’d be far too busy growing his already enormous shipping empire to notice she was busy avoiding him.

The crease on his brow became a chasm, and she had the disturbing thought he had already smelled a rat.

But then the waiter arrived with a service trolley, laden with a mouth-watering array of local foods and an enormous pizza.

The delicious scent of grilled mozzarella and garlic had her empty stomach growling loudly.

He sat back in his chair, still studying her with the intense scrutiny that made her feel totally transparent, while the waiter sliced up the pizza and reeled off the toppings the chef had added.

But once the server had left again, Xander’s sensual smile had heat eddying down to her core.

‘Eat,’ he said, his voice so husky it brushed over her skin like a caress.

But as she lifted a slice to her mouth and bit into the heady combination of thin chargrilled bread, sweet tomatoes and creamy, chewy cheese, it wasn’t just the flavours of her first authentic Neapolitan pizza that had her whole body exploding with sensation.

It was the intensity in his eyes as he watched her eat.

‘We must ensure you keep your strength up,’ he said as he helped himself to a slice of the pizza.

But as she watched him fold the slice and devour it with equal gusto, she had the strange feeling that, instead of keeping herself safe from any misguided emotions where the father of her baby was concerned with her white lie, she’d just thrown down a gauntlet to a billionaire player who never lost a challenge he wanted to win.