The Sarantos Secret Baby
“He’ll be fine. I flew in the best orthopedic surgeon and his team from Athens.” A pause. His gaze bored into her, as if he could extract every bit of information out of her gray matter. “When you said you’ll let me be Alex’s father, was that it? You don’t want me as your husband?”
Her heart staggered inside her. Was he asking, to be clear? Or was he offering? And if he was, was it for the right reason?
For the first time in his life, Aris would let something sway him, rule him. Alex’s best interests would make him do anything. She owed him the freedom of an unpressured choice. And herself the truth of his feelings, whatever they were.
This was the hardest, scariest thing she ever had to do. Then she did it, breathed, “We don’t come attached in one deal, Aris. Being Alex’s father has nothing to do with being my husband.”
His eyebrows dipped lower, deepening his grimness. “Being his father and your husband was always the deal.”
Her every cell began to churn with hope. But she had to be beyond certain. “Then your negotiating skills are fraying, because that certainly didn’t seem to be what you’re offering.”
His jaw muscles bunched. “What are you talking about? I asked you to marry me that very first day.”
She nodded, still scared that she was reading what she was dying to see in his eyes. “Yeah—for Alex. That’s no reason to get married. I told you back then, when I refused your rash and offhand marriage proposal…”
His eyes flared. “You mean, when you laughed my head off.”
That rankled, huh? Joy began to bubble inside her, came out as unstoppable goading. “After which you promptly followed up with a very detailed withdrawal and admission that you weren’t husband material, followed by a very relieved dropping of the subject.”
He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What do you think the last four weeks were about? All this talk about testing me, finding out what I can be for both of you?”
Her body hummed in anticipation of setting off in fireworks of jubilation. “Being on good terms with the mother of your son?”
He barked an incredulous laugh. “Good terms? And here I thought we were on the best of terms.”
“I don’t think so.”
His gaze wavered. “You don’t?”
She was pushing too hard. But she had to hear him say the words. “We’re not on those kind of terms—the kind that lead to being husband and wife. Though four weeks ago I would have never thought it possible, you do make a great best friend. So don’t think you have to offer me marriage for Alex’s sake. We can go on like we have been. Great friends, and great parents to Alex.”
He glowered down at her for an endless moment.
Just when she thought he’d tell her she was an insecure fool, then snatch her into his arms and devour her as proof that he’d never settle for anything like that, for less than all of her, that he wanted and had always wanted her, for herself, he turned on his heel.
She stared at his receding back.
He was leaving? B-but…he couldn’t be!
She jerked as the front door slammed after him.
She still waited, unable to believe he wouldn’t come back.
He didn’t.
Was it possible that her worst fears hadn’t been paranoia but the truth?
She didn’t know how long she’d stood there, numb, trembling.
She finally moved, dragged herself up to Alex’s room.
She couldn’t let pain take her over. For his sake. She had to remain on the best possible terms with Aris. It was his right to be part of his son’s life without being with her. His right to love his son, without loving her.
Alex was stirring. She picked him up, hugged him, tears slithering down her cheeks to wet his silky hair.
She was happy. For him. He’d now have a father who loved him for life, not just a mother. As for her, she had to regain the self she’d been before she lost her heart to Aris, a man who had no use for it. She had no illusions that she’d reclaim it, or find happiness. All she could hope for was finding refuge from the agony, maybe a measure of peace.
Hours later, she’d packed and was playing with Alex while inwardly reciting what she’d tell Aris to end this amicably, set up their future interaction, when an urgent knock rapped on the front door.
She dragged herself to open it. It was Taki, Aris’s driver.
The stocky, swarthy man blurted out, “Kyrios Sarantos wants you to come with me at once, Kyria Louvardis.”
Alarm detonated inside her. “Is he all right?”
The man looked at her as if she’d said something ludicrous. “He’s waiting for you.”
Dazedly, she turned to Eleni, who’d already taken her place by Alex. Eleni only beamed at her, said to take her time.
Resigned that she’d know what this was about only when she saw Aris, she stumbled to his limo. For the next twenty minutes, she gazed at the Mediterranean, sun-drenched beauty as the smooth, black asphalt road took them deep through the surrounding vegetation-covered hills before undulating back to the emerald shore.
Finally, Taki came to a stop beside Aris’s Porsche. Taki rushed to hand her out of the car. But he and everything else evaporated from her awareness like a drop of water on a hot tin roof.
All she could register was the scene before her.
A hundred feet away, at the end of a deep red carpet, spread with gold dust and white rose petals, lined by flaming torches and a conflagration of lilies, stood a huge white tent flapping gently in the late-afternoon breeze, just feet from the water.
At the end of the path of fire and flowers, there he was. Aris, in white shirt and pants that hugged every slope and bulge of his perfection and offset his glowing tan. The layered waves of the sun-kissed hair that he hadn’t cut since he’d come back into her life flowed around his leonine head and brushed his formidable shoulders, as if beckoning her closer.
Not that she needed enticement. She had to get close, had to see in his eyes the reflection of this gift a woman could live her life dreaming of and never attain a fraction of. If this was what he felt he should do, or what he truly felt.
She teetered toward him on legs powered by his lure, her enthrallment. Her own hair seemed to come alive in the breeze. She was struggling with its intrusion when she stopped a foot from him, the exact second he went down.
She gasped, almost fell over him.
He’d—he was—Aris was…kneeling before her.
Everything inside her seized. She’d never—never—thought he, Aristedes Sarantos, would put himself in such a position of supplication, no matter what.