Expectant Bride

Ellie reddened furiously and yanked her hand out of his, no longer touched by the prospect of the knowledge he had imbibed on her behalf. 'Did your book tell you I was a brick short of a full load?'

'No, it told me to be understanding and supportive,' Dio imparted piously.

'You haven't got the tact,' Ellie informed nun dulcetly.

A slashing smile of amusement curved Dio's beautiful mouth.

Her heart skipped an entire beat. He was so gorgeous she couldn't take her eyes off him.

'I still want to marry you,' Dio delivered. 'But if you've got a better solution, run it by me...just as long as it doesn't entail my baby in a basket behind a shop counter.'

'No, it won't entail that.'

'Leaving him or her to go out to work?'

Ellie squirmed. 'Well—'

'Denying my financial support?'

'Dio, I—'

'No, you listen to me,' Dio asserted forcefully. 'If we don't marry, this child will be an outsider to my family. He won't be a secret. But he's not likely to thank you for making him different from the children I will eventually have within mar¬riage with someone else.'

Ellie subsided like a burst balloon. For someone else read Helena. Helena, who would loathe Ellie's child if he or she came visiting. Helena, who would be the ultimate wicked stepmother, determined to humiliate and denigrate the ille¬gitimate outsider. Ellie's tummy curdled, all appetite vanish¬ing. She reckoned even the baby was taking a panic attack at the threat of such a future.

'Something I said finally clicked with you?' Dio murmured silkily.

Dredging herself from that nightmare series of visions, pressing a trembling, apologetic hand to her tummy in newly maternal protectiveness, Ellie muttered between gritted teeth, 'Maybe I was a bit hasty saying I wouldn't have you as a gift.'

"That was beautifully put, yineka mou. So we're getting married again, are we?' Dio enquired smoothly.

Ellie swallowed hard, humble pie beckoning, and took off defensively on another tack. 'You won't believe what I told you about Helena Teriakos.'

'No,' Dio conceded levelly. 'I could lie to you for the sake of peace, but I won't. Naturally I understand that you were pretty upset that day. You didn't know about Helena but she didn't realise that. Had she been aware of it, she would never have approached you.'

Ellie compressed her wobbly mouth. It was obvious he was never going to believe her version. He had known Helena all his rife and his trust was absolute. How would she live with that?

'Ellie...the night before you found out that you were preg¬nant, I made the wrong decision. I didn't think it would be a good idea to start telling you about Helena.'

'You might never had had to tell me.'

Dio left that speaking comment alone, black eyes semi-screened. 'You were under sufficient strain. In any case, He¬lena was an issue I had to deal with alone.'

'You feel very guilty about her,' Ellie breathed tautly.

Dio frowned. 'How else could I feel?'

Ellie averted her eyes. 'Do...do you love her?' she dared in a driven whisper, and then sat there in mute terror of his response.

'What does love have to do with it?'

That silenced Ellie. It told her so much and yet it told her nothing. Whether he loved Helena or not, he would marry Ellie because she was expecting his child. But how long would he stay with her? Would Helena be proved right? But what did she herself have to lose? She would be Dio's wife, for a while at least. Their child would be born legitimate. These days a lot of people didn't seem to set much store by that, but it meant a great deal to Ellie, whose own father had refused to own up to her very existence.

'We put the baby first. Then we worry about us,' Dio spelt out then, with finality.

It sounded like a leading recipe for disaster to Ellie. But the bottom line for her at that moment was that she loved him, and when he got that brooding darkness hi his eyes it scared her and made her feel shut out.

'’I’d like to get married hi a church,' she announced breez¬ily. 'In a totally over-the-top dress. So if you're planning on a register office, you've got no hope!'

Dio's wide, sensual mouth eased into a smile. She felt like a performing clown, but that smile warmed her like the sun¬shine and she was defenceless against it

CHAPTER EIGHT

Six weeks later, Ellie walked into her local church, where she was a regular worshipper, to become Dio's wife.

She wore an elegant, fitted, off-the-shoulder dress in palest cream, the superb fabric exquisitely beaded and embroidered. In one fell swoop she had virtually emptied her bank account of five years of savings. It had been like an act of faith in their marriage. She had used one of the credit cards Dio had given her to buy the matching shoes and all the other trap¬pings.

She walked down the aisle alone, and quite unconcerned.

'Someone has to give you away,' Dio had told her on the phone from Geneva, where he had been attending a confer¬ence.