The Marakaios Baby (The Marakaios Brides 2)

She heard a snort of laughter from behind her and turned around.

‘Knocked-up Rapunzel?’ Leo repeated, a smile tugging at his mouth. ‘That presents quite an image.’

Margo smiled back. She’d missed this kind of banter so much. The jokes and the teasing...the lightness. She needed it to combat the darkness she felt so often in herself. ‘Well, that’s how I feel. And I don’t even have tons of beautiful blonde hair to compensate.’

‘Your hair is beautiful,’ Leo said.

And just like that he dropped the banter, replacing it with an intent sincerity that made Margo’s heart judder.

‘I always enjoyed watching you when you unpinned it in the evening.’

All at once she had an image of Leo, gazing at her as she reached up to undo the chignon she normally kept her waist-length hair in. She pictured the hotel room, the candlelight casting flickering shadows across the wide bed. The moment’s intimacy and expectation, the sheer eroticism of it...

It felt like a lifetime ago—and yet it also felt very real. She could remember exactly how it had felt when her hair had cascaded down her back and Leo had reached for her, taken her into his arms and pushed the heavy mass aside to kiss the tender nape of her neck...

She swallowed hard, not sure if she wanted to revel in the moment spinning out between them or move past it.

In the end Leo chose for her.

‘I understand you needing to get out. But your mobile phone doesn’t even work here—’

‘Then perhaps I should get a new one. I can’t be a prisoner, Leo.’

‘I don’t want you to be. I’ll order you a phone today. I should have done it before. I’m sorry.’

She nodded wordlessly, still caught in the thrall of that moment, that memory.

‘I was thinking,’ Leo said abruptly, ‘we should have a party. To welcome you properly and introduce you to the community. If you feel up to it.’

‘I’m feeling much better. I’d like that.’ Maybe a party would help her to meet people and finally start feeling a part of things.

* * *

Somewhat to Margo’s surprise, Xanthe and Ava were excited about the party. They set a date, and contacted caterers, and sent out invitations to everyone in the local community.

And they took Margo shopping.

She resisted at first, because the thought of the two women fluttering around her like butterflies while she tried on dresses was alarming, to say the least. But they insisted and she finally gave in, driving with them into Amfissa one afternoon a few days before the party.

‘You’re not quite ready for maternity wear,’ Ava said, casting a critical eye over Margo’s neat bump. ‘How far along are you, anyway?’

‘Just over eighteen weeks,’ Margo said.

The nausea had almost completely gone, and she was starting to feel a little more energetic and look a little less gaunt.

‘You’re so thin,’ Xanthe said, envy audible in her voice. ‘It seems like all Parisian women are thin. Do you ever eat?’

‘Not lately,’ Margo admitted, ‘but normally, yes.’

Suddenly she thought of the mini-marshmallows she’d kept in her bag—her secret vice—and how Leo had known about them.

‘You’re smiling like a cat who just ate the cream,’ Ava noted.

Margo shook her head. ‘Just...remembering something.’

Which made the sisters exchange knowing looks.

And then Xanthe asked abruptly, ‘So what is going on between you and Leo? Because obviously...’ she gestured towards Margo’s bump ‘...you’ve been together, but...’ She trailed off as Ava gave her a quelling look.

Margo sighed. She’d come to realise that Ava and Xanthe were good-natured and well-intentioned, if a little interfering. They deserved the truth, or at least as much as she could tell them without betraying Leo’s confidences.

‘We were together. But things had...started to cool off. And then I became pregnant.’

‘Accidentally?’ Xanthe asked with wide eyes.

Ava snorted. ‘Of course accidentally, ilithia.’

Margo recognised the Greek word for idiot; this wasn’t the first time Ava had used it towards her younger sister and Leo, amused, had told her what it meant.

Ava turned to Margo. ‘So you told Leo about the baby?’

‘Yes. I never thought I’d have children, but—’

‘Why not?’ Xanthe interjected.

Margo hesitated. ‘I suppose because I was focused on my career.’ Which was no more than a half-truth. It was because she was afraid of loving and losing someone again—so desperately afraid.

Her hand crept to the comforting swell of her bump and Ava noticed the revealing gesture.