Page 5 of The Heir Affair (Claimed by a Greek #1)

When they arrived at their destination, Xander handed several bills to the driver, his jaw now clenched so tight his teeth ached.

The woman beside him had not said a word during the short drive along the wharf to the marina, but he could feel her animosity.

What exactly did she have to be so angry about? She was not the one who had been unaware she was going to become a parent for five solid months.

He climbed out of the car and headed around the back to open her door.

She peered out, but remained seated. ‘Where are we?’

‘My yacht is moored in the bay,’ he said tightly, annoyed he was having to explain himself. ‘We require privacy for this conversation, so that is where we are headed.’

Her gaze met his. ‘You don’t have somewhere we can go on land?’

‘No, I do not,’ he replied, which wasn’t precisely true.

Caras Shipping had hired the penthouse floor and the roof garden at the principality’s main casino hotel.

It would be the venue for the event early next week celebrating the announcement of his engagement to Freya and the port deal that would base Caras Cruises in Galicos.

But he had not bought property in Galicos yet, preferring to live on the yacht when he was visiting the principality for business purposes.

He steeled himself against examining why that was, because he had a bad feeling his decision not to buy a home here yet—despite his planned marriage—had a lot to do with the obsession he had been unable to shake with the woman refusing to leave the cab.

His gaze strayed again to the evidence of her pregnancy.

And the knots in his gut tightened. He had no idea how he felt about the prospect of fatherhood.

He had never really considered becoming a parent.

The truth was, when she had confirmed what he had already suspected—that the baby was his—his first reaction had been shock followed by panic.

Because all he had been able to think about in those first moments of dawning awareness were those nights in Athens, with his brother’s fragile body curled beside him.

Those dark hours before dawn, when he had woken, sweating, or shivering, his belly empty, his heart racing, and the terror had consumed him that he would not be able to keep them both safe and together for another day.

But the fierce protectiveness now towards the life growing inside her was hard to ignore. And went some way to curbing the old fears.

‘Get out of the car, Poppy,’ he managed, trying not to shout—while she had been belligerent at the restaurant, she seemed more wary now.

She glanced up at him, her expression as tense as he felt, but he could see the flicker of panic she was trying to hide. ‘We could go to my hostel?’ she offered. ‘Pretty much everyone there works nights, so it’ll be virtually empty.’

He bit into his tongue, to stop himself from informing her exactly what he thought of that asinine suggestion.

‘We will not be alone on the yacht, if that is your concern,’ he managed, barely containing his temper now. Did she think he was going to hurt her? What kind of a monster did she think he was? ‘I have staff, and my brother, Theo, will also be there.’

The thought of Theo’s response though, when he saw Poppy and put two and two together, was hardly reassuring. No doubt his brother would find it hilarious that Xander had just discovered he had got a woman pregnant on the eve of his engagement announcement.

Although Xander couldn’t muster much concern for the possible demise of an arranged marriage he had been less than enthusiastic about.

The minute he had seen Poppy again, the moment he had realised she was pregnant, and the child was his, he had also acknowledged his arrangement with Prince Andreas might have to be renegotiated.

Because his primary concern now had to be this child.

Whatever its mother’s motives, the child was innocent in all this and would deserve his protection. He would never shirk that responsibility, because he knew what it felt like to be unprotected and unwanted.

Poppy had captivated him once with her free spirit, her optimism, her reckless pursuit of pleasure and her wild enthusiasm for life. Her irresponsibility, her impulsiveness, her artlessness that day had been like a drug to a man who had spent his life in the single-minded pursuit of his goals.

No doubt that had been an act to trap him into this commitment.

But even if that girl had been real, what had once captivated him only concerned him now.

How could that girl, who had been so eager and unworldly, so keen to lavish her affection on a man she didn’t know, and had thought nothing of trusting so implicitly without even knowing his name, be able to give a child the safety and security it needed to thrive?

And that was assuming she could even nurture it long enough to give birth to it. The concern tightened like a vice around his ribs. He knew nothing about pregnancy, but she had been on her feet working long hours. Was that even safe, for her or the baby?

‘I’m not sure that’s as reassuring as you think it is…’ Poppy murmured, still rooted to the cab seat. ‘Let’s not forget, you already lied to me once.’

The anger surged. ‘I did not lie. We both agreed not to reveal our surnames to each other.’ The anger twisted at the realisation that her impulsive suggestion—which he had thought so charming at the time—had come back to bite him on the butt.

The suspicion she had known all along who he was that day only made him feel like more of a fool.

Why on earth had all his common sense deserted him?

The minute she had bounced up to him on the beach and offered to pay him twenty euros to take her to his own private island, with some ludicrous story about wanting to revisit the place where she had spent the best day of her life as a teenager?

Why had he been so eager to buy into her lies? The sob story about her mother? So keen to believe she didn’t know who he was, that her motivations were so pure and sweet and genuine, when he had always known that no one did anything without an agenda.

Her eyes flashed with hurt. ‘I thought we were trespassing on that island together . If you had told me you were the man who owned it, I would never have gone with you, and you know it.’

Really? Did she think he was an idiot?

His teeth clenched as he held onto the retort. He would not engage again with her nonsense. His gullibility that day, the way she had managed to play him, was immaterial now.

‘The only thing that matters about what happened that day now are the consequences,’ he said, his gaze flicking to the evidence of her pregnancy, pointedly.

‘If your intention is to make your condition public, then by all means let us discuss it on the wharf, or in your hostel,’ he bit out, deciding to call her bluff.

No doubt that had been her intention all along, to humiliate him, possibly even to extort money out of him—why else would she have chosen to be in Galicos less than a week before his engagement was announced?

‘But first you will have to get out of the car.’

Poppy wanted to scream. How had he outmanoeuvred her again?

The cynical glitter in his eyes told its own story though. He thought she had come to Galicos to ruin his wedding plans, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Of course, she had been heartbroken when she had discovered he was as good as engaged. But seeing him now, knowing what he thought of her, was helping to heal her heart the rest of the way. This was not the man she had been falling for. She needed to cling to that salient fact now like a life raft.

Letting her heart rule her head had been her superpower as a kid, her optimism the protection her mum had given her against the harsh realities life could throw at you.

As her mum had often said—when she’d had to work an extra job to pay the rent, or been struggling through another round of chemo—the only way to find the joy in life was to find a positive out of every challenge, every setback, every hard or cruel event.

And the positive now was the baby Caras had given her, however unintentionally.

Dealing with her baby’s father was the forfeit she would have to pay for the life inside her—which she had loved as soon as the plus sign had appeared on the pee stick.

She grabbed her coat and bag from the seat and stepped out of the taxi.

Damn him.

After handing the driver another note, Caras closed the passenger door. As the cab sped off into the darkness, she shivered even though the night was warm.

She did not want to go to his yacht, because she had no doubt at all having his wealth thrown in her face would be more than a little intimidating, and she was already intimidated enough.

But she guessed that was the only way to have this conversation without the press getting wind of the details.

She’d never had to deal with press scrutiny herself, being a complete nobody, but she supposed if you were about to marry a princess, it could be an issue.

And the last thing she wanted was for her baby to be exposed to any kind of media spotlight.

At least they were on the same page about that.

Without another word, he scooped the coat and bag out of her hands.

‘My launch is this way,’ he said, his tone surprisingly neutral.

She tried not to react when he placed his hand on the base of her spine, again , to lead her towards a speedboat at the end of the dock. But she couldn’t seem to control the instinctive shudder.

Double damn him.

But as they reached the boat, his hand dropped away.

Had he felt it, too? Heat burst in her cheeks—and pulsed disconcertingly between her thighs. What exactly was that about?

She thanked God for the darkness.