The Marakaios Baby (The Marakaios Brides 2)

Now he realised two of his sisters, Xanthe and Ava, who lived on the estate with him, would be wide-eyed and speculating when he brought back his sudden and obviously pregnant bride.

His older brother Antonios had done virtually the same thing—coming back from a business trip to North America with his unexpected bride, Lindsay. Antonios’s iron will had assured Lindsay was made welcome, but even so Leo had seen how hard it had been on her, for a variety of reasons. And she hadn’t even been pregnant.

He didn’t want the same rocky start for Margo.

Flexing his hands on the steering wheel, he glanced at her, looking so pale and weary. ‘My sisters will be at the estate when we return,’ he began, and she turned to him sharply.

‘Sisters? I didn’t even know you had sisters.’

‘Three, and one brother.’

‘Your brother I know about. He was CEO before you?’

‘Yes.’ He’d told her that much at least, although he hadn’t even hinted at the strains and sins that had marred their relationship. ‘Two of my sisters live on the estate. They will want to meet you.’

‘They weren’t there before when I came?’

‘No, they were visiting Parthenope, my third sister. She lives with her family near Patras.’

‘Timon’s mother?’

‘Yes.’

Margo expelled a shaky breath. ‘And what about your parents?’

‘They’re both dead.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She glanced at him, her eyes dark. ‘When?’

‘My father ten years ago, and my mother six months ago.’

Her eyes widened. ‘When we were together?’

‘Yes.’

He hadn’t told her. There was so much he hadn’t told her. And for the first time Leo acknowledged how Margo had had a point, claiming their relationship hadn’t been going anywhere. He’d kept inside its careful parameters as much as she had. It was only when he’d become CEO that he’d decided he should marry and have an heir, and Margo had seemed the obvious choice. The right choice.

And now it had all happened just as he’d wanted...and yet not at all as he’d expected.

‘They won’t be pleased, will they?’ Margo said after a moment. ‘To welcome a surprise sister-in-law, and one who’s pregnant?’

‘They’ll be surprised,’ Leo allowed.

Margo let out a huff of laughter. ‘I should say so. Did they even know you were—that we were—?’

‘No.’ He shifted in his seat. ‘I never told anyone about us.’

She eyed him curiously. ‘And yet you asked me to marry you?’

‘I know.’ He hesitated, and then continued a bit stiffly, ‘I realise now how surprising my proposal must have been. Regardless of how you felt about it, it had to have been a shock.’

‘It was.’ She took a breath. ‘Why...why did you ask me, Leo? If you didn’t love me?’

‘It felt like the right time to get married. I’d just been made CEO and I was conscious of needing an heir, stability. And as we were already together...’

‘It was convenient?’

She let out another huff of sound, although whether it was a laugh or something else Leo couldn’t tell.

‘Well, that’s what it is now. Convenient.’

‘In any case,’ Leo continued, ‘I want to make sure my family accepts you as mistress of the household. You’ll have my full support—’

‘I don’t want to displace anyone.’

‘As my wife, you will have a role—’

‘I know.’ She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. ‘I know. And I will rise to that particular challenge, I promise you. Just...just give me some time—please?’

‘What about your family?’ he asked, deciding it was wiser, or at least safer, to leave the topic of his own family for now. ‘Is there anyone you want to tell? You could invite them to come—’

‘No,’ she cut across him flatly, her face turned to the window. ‘There’s no one.’

‘Your parents?’ Belatedly he remembered she’d said she’d grown up without a father. ‘Your mother, at least?’

‘I haven’t seen her since I was twelve.’

‘Really?’

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been shocked. In the last few days he’d sensed a sorrow, even a darkness, in Margo’s past that he’d never noticed before, perhaps because she’d been careful to hide it.

‘Why not?’

She twitched her shoulders in a shrug. ‘She wasn’t a very good mother.’

It was clear she didn’t want to talk about it, and Leo decided not to press. There had been enough emotional upheavals today.