A Ring for the Greek's Baby Read online

  Or was he a bit squeamish about her pregnancy? Some men found it a turn-on; others found it confronting to make love to a pregnant woman, worried they might hurt the baby or something. She pulled her knickers and top back into place, bundling her bra into one hand. ‘I guess you’ve proved your point.’

  Loukas frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have zero self-control around you.’

  He grazed her cheek with his fingertip. ‘Will you be all right here on your own? Don’t leave the suite. Call room service if you need anything. I won’t be long—two hours, tops. It’s a meeting with a government security agency and people have flown in from all over the country for it. I couldn’t cancel it at short notice.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Do you want me to call Allegra for you, to tell her you won’t be in for a few days?’

  ‘No. I’ll do it. I’m surprised she hasn’t already called to ask me what’s going on. But she’s in the process of moving her practice to Greece, so is probably a bit distracted just now and hasn’t seen the newsfeed yet.’

  He bent down and brushed her hair back from her forehead. ‘Be good while I’m away.’

  * * *

  Emily had barely straightened her clothes and hair when she heard her phone ringing from where it was plugged into a charger next to the bed. She knew it was her mother because she had set her number to ring with a particular ringtone. ‘Mum, I was going to call—’

  ‘Why am I the last person to know my one and only daughter is engaged and having a baby? What on earth is going on? I didn’t even know you were dating someone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it’s all happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to—’

  ‘I hope you’ve established if he’s gay or not,’ her mother said.

  ‘He’s definitely not gay.’ Emily placed a hand on her still flat tummy. It seemed unbelievable to think a tiny embryo was growing inside her womb, a combination of Loukas’s DNA and hers making a little person who would, in a few months’ time, be in her arms.

  ‘Anyway, I knew you were pregnant well before I saw it splashed all over social media this morning,’ her mother said.

  Emily didn’t really believe her mother could read minds, auras or tealeaves, but who knew what maternal sixth sense was at work? Not that their mother-daughter bond was particularly strong or anything. It was currently running on about two bars of signal strength. ‘How could you have possibly known I was pregnant?’

  ‘You haven’t had PMS this last month. You always get crabby with me when you’re due. Crabbier than usual, I mean.’

  ‘That might’ve been because I took that vile-tasting liquid supplement you gave me.’

  Her mother gave a snort. ‘You haven’t taken any of it. I checked the bottle last time I was over at your place.’

  Emily had always thought her mother had missed her calling as a forensic detective. Which was why she’d been avoiding her until she’d told Loukas about the baby. Her mother would have ferreted out that stash of pregnancy tests like a sniffer dog on a drug bust. ‘I’m hopeless at remembering to take medication—you know that.’

  ‘Clearly you’ve neglected to take your contraceptive pill. How far along are you?’

  She let out a jagged breath. ‘I wasn’t on the pill—I was taking a break after all those years on it. I’m four weeks or thereabouts.’

  ‘You didn’t think about terminating?’

  ‘No.’ It shocked Emily that it hadn’t been the easiest decision to make. She’d always thought she would be thrilled about one day falling pregnant. But when she’d missed her period the panic had consumed any sense of thrill. The doubts and worries had rained on her like arrows: how would she cope with a baby? What if Loukas didn’t want to have anything to do with their child? What if he hated her for keeping it? Or, worse, hated the child? She had worked at a law firm long enough to know there were men out there who began to hate their children because they’d been conceived with a partner they now detested.

  It wasn’t the way she had pictured her life panning out. She had pictured a white wedding to a man she loved and who loved her back, and then raising a family with him, a dream family, as she had longed for during her peripatetic childhood.

  ‘Well, having a kid is one thing, but marrying the guy is another,’ her mother said. ‘Who marries because of a baby these days? It wasn’t mandatory even in my day.’

  All the same, it would have been nice to find out the guy’s name, even if you didn’t end up marrying him.

  Emily didn’t say it out loud because every time she said anything about her mother’s casual approach to sex she ended up sounding like a nineteen-fifties Sunday School teacher. ‘I want my baby to have a father in its life.’

  ‘I know you think you’ve missed out on having a father but not every man is cut out to be a dad,’ her mother said. ‘Some men can’t cope with the responsibility.’

  Nor can some mothers.

  Emily sometimes felt her mum didn’t enjoy being a mum and had only given birth to her so she could tick the box marked ‘Mother’. Her approach to motherhood was the same as her approach to everything else. She would do it with great passion for a period of time and then the novelty would wear off and she would abandon it to sign up for something else that had seized her interest. Emily had barely been out of nappies when her mother had started offloading her to other people whenever she could to go on yet another yoga, mind or body retreat. Most of her school holidays had been spent in holiday care because her mother had always had better things to do than hang out with her.

  ‘Why are you marrying this man?’ her mother asked. ‘Do you love him?’

  Emily had no choice but to lie. She couldn’t tell her mother the truth. She would never hear the end of it. ‘Of course I love him.’

  ‘You said you were in love with Daniel and look how that turned out,’ her mother said. ‘I told you he was hiding something the first time I met him. He gave off a furtive vibe. You wasted years on him. Years and years and years.’

  Don’t remind me.

  ‘Look, I really have to go now, as—’

  ‘You always do that,’ her mother said. ‘You run away from stuff that cuts too close to the bone. That’s why you stayed with Daniel so long. You refused to face up to what was staring you in the face. If you’d listened to me from the get-go, you would’ve saved yourself a heap of heartache. His chakras were blocked. I knew it from the first time I met him but did you listen to me? No.’

  ‘I’m marrying Loukas, Mum, okay? We’re in love and can’t wait to be a family.’

  ‘When do I get to meet him?’ her mother asked. ‘I’ll do a chart for him. What’s his birth date?’

  Emily mentally gulped. ‘Erm...’

  Her mother made a sound that had a broad hint of ‘got you’ about it. ‘You don’t know, do you? How well do you know this man if you don’t even know when his birthday is?’

  ‘I do know him,’ Emily said. ‘I know enough about him to know he’s a good man who’ll stand by the baby and me no matter what.’

  ‘He’s pretty wealthy according to the press,’ her mother said. ‘Funny, but I never took you for a gold-digger. You didn’t trap him, did you?’

  ‘How can you even think that?’ Emily asked. ‘Surely you know me better than that?’

  Her mother gave a long-winded sigh. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I know you at all, Emily Grace.’

  Likewise.

  ‘Look, I have to go—I’ll talk to you some other time. Bye.’ Emily clicked off the phone and then turned it to silent in case her mother called back and began another lecture. She sat on the edge of the bed and took a few seconds to calm herself. Not an easy task after a conversation with her mother.

  Not an easy task, period.

  * * *
r />   Emily picked up her phone to call Allegra but then decided she would go in to see her at the office instead. Loukas had told her not to leave the suite, but surely she could dash out to see Allegra, who was coming in that morning after spending a few days with Draco on his private island in Greece? Besides, who would recognise her without Loukas by her side? He was the one who was the press magnet, not her. She could nip to the office and back and no one would even notice.

  Emily slipped out of a side entrance of the hotel and jumped in a cab, arriving at the office a short time later. When Allegra saw her she signalled for Emily to come into her office out of the hearing of the junior staff. She closed the door and came over to where Emily was standing. ‘I’ve been calling for the last hour but you haven’t answered. What’s going on?’

  Emily had forgotten she’d turned her phone to silent after she’d spoken with her mother. ‘Well, firstly the test was positive. All seven of them were.’

  ‘Oh, Em. I don’t know what to say. Congratulations?’

  ‘Congratulations twice over,’ Emily said. ‘I suppose you’ve read the news about us being engaged?’

  ‘I did, and you could have knocked me down with a finch’s feather,’ Allegra said. ‘He actually asked you to marry him?’

  ‘Told me would be more appropriate,’ Emily said with more than a touch of wryness. ‘I thought you said he was dead set against marriage? I swear to God, if there had been a priest or an Elvis impersonator handy Loukas would’ve demanded he marry us on the spot.’

  ‘But is that what you want?’ Allegra asked. ‘I mean, you only met him a month ago. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing? You hardly know each other.’

  ‘I’m not at all sure; in fact I’ve never felt more confused in my entire life. But I want my baby to have a father and Loukas wants to be involved. He’s worried about everyone thinking he’ll be like his waste-of-space father. Did you know what a jerk his dad is?’

  ‘Draco mentioned something about a scandal with a girl Loukas’s father got pregnant but he didn’t discuss it in too much detail,’ Allegra said. ‘Apparently Loukas doesn’t like too many people knowing about it.’

  ‘Can’t say I blame him,’ Emily said. ‘Loukas wants me to fly to Corfu with him today. I know it’s hideously short notice, but can you spare me for a couple of weeks?’

  ‘Of course, but I’m worried about you rushing into this. You’ve barely had time to get used to the idea of being pregnant and now you’re talking about marriage.’

  ‘Yes, well, you can blame the press for that,’ Emily said. ‘We were at the hospital last night—’

  ‘The hospital?’ Allegra suddenly noticed Emily’s bandaged finger. ‘What happened to your finger?’

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I was working up the courage to tell Loukas about the baby when I broke—’

  ‘So he came to see you? In person?’

  ‘Yes. He finally called. I didn’t think it was right to tell him over the phone, so when he came round to take me out to dinner—’

  ‘He asked you out to dinner?’ Allegra asked, eyes wide. ‘Before he knew anything about the baby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t wait to tell Draco. Why did he call you?’

  ‘He wanted to see me again. He was only offering me a fling, mind you. Nothing permanent. But when I knocked over the bin and he saw all the pregnancy tests—’

  ‘You mean you didn’t actually tell him? He found out by default?’

  Emily bit her lip. ‘I know, I know, I know. I’m the world’s biggest coward. I was trying to tell him but couldn’t quite work up the courage.’

  Allegra pulled out the chair for Emily to sit on and then, once Emily was seated, she perched on the edge of her desk, facing her. ‘You don’t have to marry him if you don’t want to, Em.’

  ‘Funny, but I seem to remember me saying something similar to you not that long ago,’ Emily said with a pointed look.

  Allegra did a self-effacing little eye-roll. ‘Yes, well, I’m lucky it all worked out in the end.’ Her frown snapped back. ‘But Loukas isn’t Draco. Draco told me no one gets close to Loukas. Think about it, sweetie. You’re an open book, but he’s as tight as a bank vault in a recession. Are you sure you’d feel comfortable marrying someone like that?’

  Emily averted her gaze to focus on her hands resting on her thighs. ‘I know he’s a little locked down, but I’m just starting to peel back his layers. He’s my baby’s father and he wants to marry me, and with everything else that’s been going on I can’t see how I can say no now. I don’t want him to be compared to his father.’

  She looked back up at Allegra. ‘I want people to see the Loukas I see. The one Draco knows as his best friend. He’s a good man, a decent and honourable man. I want to get closer to him, and marrying him would be a good way to do it. Does that make sense?’

  Allegra leaned down to press one of her hands on Emily’s, her gaze warm with concern. ‘Are you in love with him?’

  Emily did her bunny-rabbit twitch, a habit she’d had since childhood when she’d first started wearing glasses and had to winch them back up her nose. She wore contacts now but the habit remained. ‘I like him, otherwise I wouldn’t have slept with him. I’m not a one-night-stand person. But I’m not in love with him.’

  But how long before you are?

  I’m not going to fall in love with him.

  Ha-de-ha-ha-ha.

  Allegra gave her hand a little squeeze. ‘I hope it works out for you, Em. I really do. But, just in case it doesn’t, remember I’m always here for you. Whatever you decide to do.’

  ‘Thing is, Loukas doesn’t want a big wedding, so we’re having a quiet ceremony to keep the press interest down.’

  ‘Won’t you be terribly disappointed?’ Allegra asked, frowning again. ‘You’ve been talking about weddings ever since you first came to work for me. You were so excited about being my bridesmaid. Surely you want to have more than a civil ceremony?’

  Emily shrugged to disguise her niggling sense of disappointment. She had been picturing her dream wedding since she was a small child. Being the only child of a single mother who was staunchly against the notion of marriage had had the opposite effect on her. But if she married Loukas that dream would have to be relinquished. One of many she would have to let go. ‘A big wedding will take months to organise and by then I’ll be showing. No, it’s better this way.’

  ‘What does your mother think of all this?’

  Emily grimaced. ‘I told her I was in love with Loukas.’

  Allegra’s brows lifted. ‘Did you, now?’

  ‘It was easier than explaining everything. She wanted to do an astrology chart for him but I didn’t know his birthday. I felt like such an idiot.’

  ‘Was she excited about being a granny?’

  Emily snorted. ‘Can you picture my mother knitting booties? One thing I do know. There’s no way she’ll want to be called Granny or Nanna. She’ll want to be called Willow.’

  Allegra’s brow furrowed. ‘I thought her name was Susannah?’

  Emily gave her a welcome-to-the-crazy-world-of-my-mother look. ‘She did a “Names and Their Influence on Your Success” workshop a couple of months back. Apparently Willow has a better vibe or something. I just count myself lucky she didn’t do that workshop before naming me. I dread to think what she might have come up with instead of Emily Grace.’

  Allegra gave a wistful smile. ‘At least you still have her.’

  Emily felt a jab of remorse for harping on about her wacky mother when Allegra had lost hers when she was twelve. Allegra’s children would only have one grandfather, Allegra’s father, to whom she wasn’t all that close, as Draco had lost both his parents when he was young. ‘Sorry. That was a bit insensitive
of me.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Allegra said with a closed-mouth smile. ‘My mother and I weren’t all that close anyway. Have you got time for a coffee and a choc-chip muffin?’

  Emily put her hand over her mouth and gulped. ‘Ack! Don’t mention food.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  LOUKAS GOT BACK to the hotel to find the suite empty. He went through every room, even going so far as to open the wardrobes, but there was no sign of Emily. He whipped out his phone and dialled her number but it went through to the message service. Panic gripped him by the throat, tightening his airway until he could barely snatch in a breath. Where was she? Was she ill? Had she been taken to hospital? Had she gone outside and been hounded by the press? Perhaps chased down the street? Got hit by a bus? Kidnapped? The list of possibilities rushed through his brain like a toxic fever. His heart hammered so hard it was as if a construction site were inside his chest.

  He called the front desk, asking if anyone had seen his fiancée. He felt a fool for having to ask it. ‘No, Mr Kyprianos,’ the receptionist said. ‘Perhaps she’s gone shopping for the wedding. There are three bridal stores and two florists on this block. This area’s very popular for brides-to-be.’

  Loukas put down the phone and wiped the back of his hand over his clammy brow. He had to get a grip on himself. There was probably a perfectly good explanation for why Emily had disobeyed his instruction to stay in the suite. The sense of powerlessness was sickening, reminding him of the day of the accident when so many lives had careened out of control.

  Why had Emily gone? Where had she gone? Was she coming back? Or had he scared her with his insistence on marriage? Sure, it was a big step to get married. He might not be perfect husband material but it wasn’t as if he was some boorish oaf who wouldn’t look after her. He tried her phone another time but it went to message service again. His hand tightened on the phone until he thought the screen would crack. Should he do a ring-around of the hospitals to see if she’d been admitted? Ask the hotel to run the CCTV tapes to see if she’d left the hotel with someone?