She felt emotion well up in her and she shot to her feet, probably too fast for a woman almost six months pregnant, but she didn’t care. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly to her. “Oh, Dimitri…”
His arms closed around her toweling robe-clad figure and she felt a sense of belonging she had not felt since before she left Paris.
“So, where are my clothes?” she asked into his naked chest.
He let her go and turned her toward a doorway in the wall beside the entrance to the en suite bathroom. “There.”
She went over and opened the door to find a large dressing room with three walls of hanging clothes and one of built in shelves, drawers and shoe racks. The sight of Dimitri’s suits hanging beside her pregnancy dresses had an air of domesticity that made her smile. She reached for one of the dresses to wear for dinner with his grandfather when she realized several of the garments were from the pile she’d left in Paris.
“You saved my clothes,” she said stupidly.
“Of course. I knew you would be returning and in need of them,” he said from the open doorway. “Though not for a few months. I should have bought you more maternity things. I did not think.”
She fingered the brilliant blue of an ankle length silk sheath dress Dimitri had bought her in Milan. Had he kept her clothes for a similar reason to keeping the pregnancy test?
She turned and gave him a saucy smile. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
His eyes filled with mock horror. “God forbid. I would not say such a thing. Your figure is luscious and perfect.”
Right at that moment she was so happy it felt like champagne bubbles fizzing in her bloodstream. “You’re a pretty fine specimen yourself, Mr. Petronides.”
He would be afraid to admit he loved her after the experience he’d had growing up. But she was beginning to believe in the impossible…that he could love her and need her in her own right, not just as the mother of his child.
“If I stay in here, we will not make it to dinner with my grandfather.”
She shooed him out. “Then go. I have to get dressed.”
She pulled on a pair of peach silk bikini briefs and matching bra she’d bought since getting pregnant. Over that she slid on an apricot sundress with a flirty skirt. The soft fabric fell in graceful curves over her tummy to midcalf. She loved the dress because it made her feel feminine even though she’d lost her waistline weeks ago.
She walked out of the dressing room to find Dimitri ready to go down in a dinner suit, silk shirt and understated tie.
Approval burned in his eyes when he looked at her. “I’m tempted to order dinner in our room tonight.”
She gave him a severe look. “Don’t you dare. I want to make a good impression on your grandfather.”
“You already have, or couldn’t you tell?”
“He’s terribly nice.”
Dimitri’s dark brows rose. “When he wants to be.”
“Well, I’m glad he wants to be nice to me.”
“You are family.”
She smiled, feeling warm inside. To be accepted simply because she was family and not because she did and said all the right things was a unique experience for her. She liked it.
Halfway through dinner, Dimitri was called from the table to take an international phone call.
Mr. Petronides winked at her. “Ah, the business, it intrudes, eh?”
She lifted her shoulders in a small, casual movement. “He must have a lot of catching up to do after all his time in New York and on our honeymoon.”
“As you say.” He beetled his brows at her in what was becoming a familiar gesture. “Tell me about your family.”
So she did, telling him about Madeleine and Hunter, her mother and Dimitri’s generosity in buying back the Dupree Mansion.
Mr. Petronides flicked his hand in a throw away gesture. “This is nothing to Dimitrius. Your mother is now his family. It is his responsibility to look after her.”
Alexandra chewed her lip anxiously. “I did not marry your grandson so he would take over my financial responsibilities with my mother.”
The old man laughed, long and richly. “Of course not, silly child. Had you wanted money from my grandson, you would never have left Paris.”
She smiled with relief. “You’re right. All I ever wanted was him. I didn’t know about Phoebe,” she added earnestly.
“Ne. Yes. I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what are you sorry child?”
“Causing Dimitri to break his promise to you.”
Mr. Petronides nodded his head knowingly. “You feel the weight of such things. I like this.”
“Thank you.” She wasn’t all that fond of the guilt that plagued her, though.
“But I do not want you to feel badly my grandson could not keep a promise he made under the threat of my health.” He sighed. “I should not have put such a pressure on him.”
“He told me in Paris that his marriage to Phoebe had been expected for a long time,” she said with a small spark of residual pain. She frowned. “You must have been very disappointed.”
“Disappointed?” He looked startled, his dark eyes wide for a second of stunned silence. “I wanted the certainty of great-grandchildren and I have that now, heh?” he asked with a pointed look at her stomach, not quite hidden by the table.
She felt herself blushing…again. The Petronides men were not good for her composure.
He laughed again, this time with wholly masculine amusement. “Do not worry about Dimitrius breaking his promise to marry Phoebe. It all worked out for the best, heh? Phoebe is happier with Spiros, I think. She’s a little afraid of Dimitri. I did not see this until after the betrothal was announced and they were here together.”
It astounded her, but no one in Dimitri’s family seemed bitter with her over the changes her pregnancy had wrought among them.
He took a sip of his wine. “And this grandson of mine, he kept his second promise, heh?”
“Second promise?”
“He married you just as he promised me he would.” Dark eyes glittered with steely determination. “He gave my great-grandson the Petronides name. Ne, yes, I am a content man.”
Shock congealed the smile on Alexandra’s face. “He promised you he would marry me?”
Mr. Petronides nodded his gray head. “He is a man of his word, my grandson. His second promise more than negated his first,” he said with pride. “Your son will be raised a Petronides. I could die tomorrow happy.”
“Don’t talk like that,” she admonished even as her heart was breaking within her.
Dimitri had promised his grandfather he would marry her? He had promised to give their son the Petronides name?
“The young. They fear talk of death. I am old. I do not fear it, but I would like to teach my great-grandson to pick a lock before I go.” He laughed at his own joke.
She forced her lips to smile. “I thought it was your security man who taught Dimitri?”
“He did, but I made him teach me too so I could teach Spiros. Maybe Phoebe has a surprise to come one day, heh?”
Alexandra couldn’t believe she could carry on a conversation with Dimitri’s grandfather and pretend nothing was wrong while inside she felt like she was dying.
Dimitri had not married her because he wanted her. He hadn’t even married her for the baby’s sake. He’d married her because he had made a promise to his grandfather. His brother had prevented him from keeping the first promise, a huge blow to his Greek pride. However nothing, not even her angry rejection had been able to stop him from keeping the second one.
No wonder Dimitri had put up with so much from her. He had been determined to keep his oath to his grandfather, no matter what obstacles she put in his path. When she had refused to discuss the option of marriage, he had seduced her. He had charmed her mother and even used the repurchase of Dupree Mansion as an incentive to get her to marry him.
In the back of her mind, she’d thought all that effort must mean he cared, that he would have given up and accepted visitation if she didn’t matter to him personally. Now she knew differently. He might not love her, but he loved his grandfather…enough to marry the mistress that hadn’t been proper marriage material before.
How could she have forgotten that? Dimitri had dismissed the idea of a future with her out of hand. And gullible idiot that she was, she’d conveniently ignored that fact when he started talking marriage. For the first time since agreeing to marry Dimitri, she felt bile rise in the back of her throat.
She took a hasty sip of her fruit juice and prayed the nausea would go away.
“Are you all right, child? You look pale.”
She looked down at her half-eaten dinner. “Just tired and maybe a little sick,” she admitted. “Morning sickness did not go away after the first trimester like it’s supposed to.” But it had for a while.