‘Why not? You have a proven fertility record, and you’re amazing in bed, glika mou,’ Giannis pointed out without hesitation. ‘What more is there?’
All the stuff that he wasn’t about to offer or deliver, Maddie affixed in angry confusion: love, fidelity, communication. A proven fertility record? She wanted to slap him. Why was it that the instant matters took a serious turn Giannis resorted to being facetious? Such a superficial relationship would never be enough for her. But if she didn’t marry him he might end up marrying Krista, who was obviously still in hot pursuit. The very thought of Giannis getting hitched to Krista instead sent an icy wave of fear travelling through Maddie—because she knew now that Krista would plot and plan against her and her children. She would be damned if she did agree to marry him, damned if she did not. In neither option did she see the prospect of happiness.
The tip of Maddie’s tongue snaked out to moisten her dry lower lip. ‘And if I say no?’ she prompted.
An explosive silence pooled between them like an oil spill.
Giannis was still, but she could feel the storm within him like a dangerously destructive riptide below the surface. Lush black lashes screened his dark golden eyes and their shimmering glitter of warning. ‘Let’s not go there,’ he drawled, without any inflection at all.
Maddie registered that she did not have a choice. Or at least he had just heavily weighted the marrying option. It was total overkill. She wondered if she should tell him that his threat was quite unnecessary, since she had been brought to her knees just by the idea of Krista walking down the aisle with him. She had a mean, jealous streak a mile wide. She was horribly ashamed of herself. She felt that if she was actually the kind, decent woman she had once believed she was, she would have wanted Giannis to return to Krista. But she loved Giannis, and she knew that she had to do the best she could for her unborn children. His attitude might outrage her, but she would find stronger ground on which to fight back and mount a defence. If he was prepared to coerce her into marriage, Maddie reasoned hotly, he would have to accept the certain consequences of that decision.
Giannis decided that he had probably picked the only woman in the world who would sit pregnant with his twins on his coffee table and quietly spend ten minutes deciding whether or not she would become a Petrakos. While he was not proud of the veiled threat he had employed, he was convinced that the ultimate good of his intentions excused his ruthless methods in obtaining the desired result.
‘All right. I’ll marry you,’ Maddie informed him flatly.
‘Do you think you could risk one glass of champagne to celebrate?’ An immediate smile of approval slashed his wide sensual mouth.
Her green eyes gleamed. ‘I’m not celebrating.’
Giannis did not bat a magnificent eyelash at that declaration. Having achieved his goal, he was in excellent form. Her days of vanishing were at an end. Never again would she go anywhere he couldn’t find her. He found that a hugely soothing prospect. During the weeks she had been missing he had been unnerved by the discovery that not even his bottomless resources could help to locate her when there was not a single lead to go on. Her disappearance had been a continual source of disquiet to him, a reality that she did not seem to appreciate.
‘I’d like the ceremony to take place as soon as possible.’ Giannis rested assessing gilded bronze eyes on her, not entirely certain that he could fully trust her agreement.
‘Whatever…’ Maddie lifted and dropped a shoulder with an indifference that set his teeth on edge.
‘A proper wedding,’ Giannis added loftily, just in case he had given her the impression that he was suggesting some shabby affair. ‘Church, wedding gown, hundreds of guests.’
Maddie bridled. ‘I’m not stuffing myself into a wedding dress when I’m this pregnant!’
‘So?’ Giannis challenged. ‘You might as well flaunt it. It is not so unusual these days.’
Maddie could think of nothing more guaranteed to embarrass her to death than a pregnant stomach at her wedding, where every one of his friends and relatives would be comparing her to her reed-slender predecessor Krista. While at the same time doubtless blaming her for getting involved with a man already engaged to someone else.
Although the enthusiasm Giannis had hoped to ignite had so far failed to appear, he was nothing if not persistent. Perhaps, he reasoned, she was afraid that she would not be up to the monumental task of organising such an event with only weeks to spare. ‘Naturally a wedding planner and my staff will deal with all the arrangements.’
‘If I have a vote to cast, I go for a quiet hole-and-corner marriage ceremony.’
Keeping a tense grip on his growing vexation, Giannis breathed in slow and deep, before saying with admirable cool, ‘I will be proud to make you my wife. A hole-and-corner ceremony is not what I want.’
Maddie looped several bright copper spirals of hair off her brow, and her green eyes glinted like a cat about to claw. ‘And of course we all know that what you want you must have. But I’m warning you that if you marry me life isn’t going to be as neat and tidy as that.’
‘Is that a declaration of war, pedhi mou?’ Giannis was hugely amused by that idea. He marvelled at the fact that he found her constantly entertaining. Right now she was annoyed with him, but she would get over that and appreciate that he really did know best. Didn’t she realise that a small secret wedding would only make it look as if he was ashamed of her and feed the gossips? Didn’t all women go mad for weddings? He was convinced that, whatever she said, in no time she would be deeply involved in the preparations. All she required was a little push in the right direction.
‘I’ve got nothing more to say on that score. But where am I supposed to live in the meantime?’
‘Here.’
Maddie grimaced.
Giannis rose to the bait. ‘It’s a fabulous apartment.’
Maddie sniffed. ‘It’s a bit James Bond, though, isn’t it? You don’t even own a comfortable seat.’
Giannis rose above the desire to tell her that she might have had a different opinion had she not been seated on a coffee table. ‘If you don’t like this place it’s not a problem. I have a country house in Kent.’
‘If you don’t mind, I’ll stay there until the wedding.’ Out of easy reach of him and all temptation, Maddie thought ruefully.
Giannis did mind—very much. He said nothing, though. He understood that he had used coercion, and she was hitting out with the only weapons at her disposal. He was disconcerted by the speed with which she had learned how to fight back. Had she learned that art from him? He wondered how fast a wedding could be organised. Two weeks? A month? He didn’t want to wait a month. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t want to wait a week. He was astonished at the driving force of his impatience. He was, after all, the same guy who had insisted Krista pick a wedding date more than eighteen months ahead.
Ten days later, there was an expectant hush in the elegant drawing-room of Harriston Hall once the lawyer had finished explaining the salient points of the pre-nuptial agreement to Maddie.
She had been shaken when she heard that, in the event of a marital breakdown, Giannis expected to retain custody of their children. It seemed to her that the inclusion of such a condition implied that he was betting on their marriage failing, and was unlikely to make the effort to ensure that their relationship survived.
‘Giannis retains custody regardless of who is at fault?’ Maddie queried. ‘That’s totally unfair.’
‘I’m afraid fault doesn’t come into it.’
‘Well, it should,’ Maddie told the lawyer roundly. ‘I presume I can make conditions too?’
‘Of course. But it will extend these negotiations,’ the suave older man warned her, as if he expected that fact to put her off.
Maddie almost smiled. ‘That’s fine by me. I won’t accept that clause concerning the children. My stipulation is that if Giannis breaks his marriage vows he has to surrender his right to retain custody.’
Unprepared for that announcement, the lawyer gave her a startled look, before professionalism smoothed over his face again.
‘I do appreciate that Giannis won’t like that.’ Her eyes gleamed like emeralds, startlingly vivid against her white skin. ‘I also think that, since fidelity is very important to me, there should be a clause that discourages him from the pursuit of other women.’
Her companion was now regarding her in total fascination. He had been planning how he would describe the future Mrs Petrakos to his interested colleagues, for she was a source of enormous curiosity. Exotic, unusual, sexy…but the extraordinary je-ne-sais-quoi that had netted her a billionaire bridegroom had eluded his detection. Now he saw that quality in neon lights. The bride might be pregnant, but she was in no hurry to get to the church, and she was voicing her controversial demands with composure. She was exactly the kind of woman who would take a tiger by the tail. Or, in this case, a notorious womaniser.
‘What exactly were you thinking of?’
Maddie was considering what was most important to Giannis. His reputation? His power? His wealth? He was incredibly serious about business and the art of making money. Perhaps the knowledge that infidelity would cost him money would act as a deterrent? And, if it did not, at least she would have the satisfaction of being rich in her own right, as well as wretched. ‘If he is unfaithful, it should cost him millions.’
‘I believe that a clause of that nature would raise quite a storm,’ the older man cautioned.