‘You’re just not the faithful type,’ she said, unable to prevent that belief from leaping straight off her tongue. ‘And I couldn’t cope with that.’
Dark colour laced Xan’s killer cheekbones. He was in a rage and battling to contain it. Women had been angling for a marriage proposal from him since he’d made his first billion. He knew that the lifestyle he could offer was his biggest attraction. He had always assumed that when he finally proposed he would be trodden on by his choice of bride in her haste to get him to the altar before he could change his mind. He had never once envisaged rejection. After all, Angie had been a different case, ditching him at a time when he appeared to be a poor financial bet. That Elvi could summarily dismiss him in the husband stakes as volatile and likely to be unfaithful incensed him.
‘It may surprise you to know that I have never been unfaithful to a sexual partner,’ Xan grated. ‘My lovers don’t overlap. I like clarity and candour in my personal life.’
Elvi coloured uncomfortably, wondering whether she could believe him. To be fair, he had been blunt with her from the outset about the limits of their arrangement. He had not told her any lies or broken any promises. But even so, his behaviour with his first love at his sister’s wedding had hurt Elvi and continued to nag at her like a sore
tooth. Perhaps she was too rigid in her outlook, not having had any former loves in her own past, she conceded ruefully.
Evidently, Xan had not seen Angie Sarantos since their breakup and naturally he had been curious. Furthermore, his familiarity with the other woman had only underlined the fact that they must once have been very close. Equally, there had been no sin in his enjoying Angie’s company. There had been no stolen kisses, indeed nothing that Elvi could label an actual betrayal of trust. True, Angie had cherished a strong desire to win Xan back but Elvi could hardly blame him for the brunette’s aspirations.
Elvi released her breath on a slow hiss. ‘I was judging you and I shouldn’t have been,’ she admitted stiffly. ‘The trouble is I still don’t know you well enough to know if I can trust you.’
‘You can surely trust that I want to do the best I can for our child,’ Xan argued in a driven undertone. ‘Thee mou, Elvi...asking you to marry me was a major act of trust for me! And how else can we share our child? We need that framework... I’m not very good at sharing but if you’re my wife, I will adapt.’
I’m not very good at sharing. That careless admission sliced through Elvi’s thoughts like a blade and released a sudden flood of apprehension. Xan’s father, Helios, had not wanted to share his child either. Although he had ditched his first wife, he had insisted on retaining custody of their son. How could she have forgotten that she was dealing with a man raised almost exclusively by his father?
And what if she too became superfluous to Xan’s requirements? What if the way she chose to raise their child failed to meet his expectations? What if he decided that he wasn’t seeing enough of his child? How many rights would she have as an unmarried mother on a low income? And how the heck would she ever contrive to fight such a very wealthy and powerful man?
Sheer panic at the threat of such future developments stirred nausea in Elvi’s tummy and turned her entire skin surface clammy. Wives had more legal rights than single mothers, didn’t they? Surely a wife could not be brushed aside in the same way? Out of pride and hurt, Ariadne had simply chosen not to fight her ex-husband for custody of her son, but Elvi knew that she would have fought to the death before surrendering her own flesh and blood. If such a battle ever became necessary, she decided that she would be safer and stronger as Xan’s wife.
Xan scanned Elvi’s troubled blue eyes and the hands she was unconsciously twisting together on her lap. Guilt sliced through him. In using Angie as an excuse to extract himself from his affair with Elvi, he had done much more damage than he had ever intended. The consequences were only hitting him now. Elvi was wary, distrustful and reluctant to even reach for the security of a wedding ring. Angie would’ve grabbed the ring and laughed all the way to the divorce court and a fat financial settlement. But then, he conceded wryly, Angie and Elvi had barely a thought in common. He had only appreciated that contrast when Angie had sworn viciously at him when he’d told her that he wasn’t interested in reliving their past after his sister’s wedding. Angie had been enraged, not hurt. She was hard as nails, bitter over the choices she had made and as much a stranger to the softer, more feminine emotions as a rock.
With difficulty, Elvi dragged herself out of the freezing grip of extreme apprehension and drew in a slow, steadying breath before looking across at Xan. There was a brooding, distant look already etched on his lean, breathtakingly handsome features and she imagined manipulative wheels were already turning at speed in that dynamic brain of his because Xan was programmed to fight and win. If Plan A failed to deliver, he would waste no time in moving on to Plan B and heaven only knew what Plan B might entail.
‘If you honestly believe that marriage would be the best option for our child,’ she muttered shakily before she could lose her nerve, ‘I agree.’
Xan studied her in astonishment because she had performed a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turnaround in the space of minutes. ‘You’ll marry me?’ he pressed with a frown.
‘If that’s what you want,’ Elvi stated more firmly.
What had changed her mind? Xan scanned her with questioning dark golden eyes and then tossed pointless curiosity on the back burner. She would marry him and he would have both her and his child. For the moment that was enough, he told himself stubbornly. Did it really matter that she would want much more from him than any other woman ever had? Elvi would want him to change and cuddling would be the least of it. Ultimately, Elvi would want love and that worried him because he really didn’t think he could give her love. He could be loyal and faithful but the thought of loving anyone, when everyone he had ever loved in life had either let him down or abandoned him, sent menacing cold chills running through Xan.
‘The first thing we will do is visit a doctor to have your pregnancy confirmed,’ Xan decreed. ‘You’ll come home with me to the penthouse tonight—’
‘No. I’ll stay with my family until we get married,’ Elvi interrupted tightly, shying away from the thought of returning to that intimate setting with him. ‘And if I agree to see a doctor, it has to be alone.’
‘Let’s not quibble about the details, moli mou,’ Xan urged softly, his spectacular golden eyes gleaming like priceless ingots as he appraised her, already trying to picture her swollen with his child. The image shocked him by turning him on hard and fast, something primal in him reacting to that concept with spontaneous vigour.
‘I guess not,’ Elvi muttered uncertainly, meeting the blaze of his scrutiny and stilling like a mouse suddenly scenting a predator stalking her. Colour banished her pallor, heat curling between her thighs in a wanton surge that embarrassed her. ‘But there’s something I should explain to you before you meet my family.’
Xan hadn’t even thought of meeting Elvi’s family. He had merely vaguely assumed that they would attend the wedding. Her mother, his former maid, he thought now with a faint shudder, and a thief into the bargain.
‘It’s time you knew the truth about the theft,’ Elvi told him with determination.
CHAPTER NINE
XAN LISTENED IN stunned silence while Elvi told him the story about her kid brother’s accidental removal of the brush pot from his penthouse apartment. Anger sparked, flared and climbed to an extraordinary height inside him.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ Xan urged with lethal derision. ‘I was cast as the baddie in this scenario right from the start. You couldn’t trust me with the truth, your mother couldn’t and even my own head of security, who clearly worked out the truth from the beginning, couldn’t trust me to do the right thing!’
‘It wasn’t like that, Xan—’
‘It was exactly like that,’ Xan retorted crushingly, his volatile temper flaring like a comet over the lowering awareness that everybody but him had known what was going on. ‘You all presupposed that I would visit my wrath on your little brother and would refuse to believe his version of what happened.’
‘We didn’t want to take the risk that you would react the wrong way,’ Elvi admitted heavily.
‘Diavole...well, I’m reacting very much in the wrong way now!’ Xan slung at her in a raw undertone. ‘You all conspired to keep the truth from me.’