The Stephanides Pregnancy

'Have you nothing to say.’ Petrina derided, her scorn palpable.

'I just want Cristos to be happy,' Betsy muttered, and she wasn't entirely sure about what she was saying. She believed that she ought to mean every syllable of the sentiment she had uttered. But when it came to picturing Cristos with Petrina, she felt gutted and desperate.

'He will be happy with me. He loves me,' Petrina asserted without hesitation.

'And yet you didn't mind that he wasn't faithful. Betsy pressed half under her breath.

The Greek woman settled scornful eyes on her. 'Why should it bother me when he amuses himself with a little slut like you.’

Betsy walked over to the door to spread it wide. 'I think it's time you clambered back on your broomstick.'

But, although Petrina departed, Betsy's mind had been made up for her. If Cristos loved Petrina, he deserved the freedom to choose to be with the other woman and Betsy ought to remove herself from his

path as tactfully as she could. "-

'I think I should go home for a while,' she informed. Cristos when he came in to visit her that afternoon.

His lean, strong face set in taut lines. 'I don't think

that's a good idea at present. You need to convalesce.' 'I can do that in London. I'd like to see my family.' 'Then we'll go together.'

'I'd prefer to go on my own.'

'We've only been married a few weeks,' Cristos reminded her.

'And a very eventful few weeks they've been,' Betsy pointed out tightly.

Cristos lodged at the window and she watched his lean, powerful hands curl into fists and flex loose again. 'I still believe that we should stay together and work through this. We can go away… anywhere in the world that you like, yineka mou.'

Her throat thickened and she would not allow herself to meet his intent gaze.

'Will you stay at our country house in England?' he asked abruptly.

'OK.'

'If you are there 1 can at least be sure that you're being properly looked after.' Suddenly, Cristos sounded as weary as she felt. 'That matters to me.'

'I know…' Her voice was going all wobbly and gruff.

'If 1 let you go, you have to promise to come back to Greece again.'

Her blood ran cold when she tried to imagine making a final visit to discuss the end of their marriage. 'No problem.'

'I'll give you two weeks-'

'That's not long enough,' she muttered. 'I need a month.'

'A month is a long time,' Cristos gritted.

Yes, long enough for him to tire of the role of being a supportive husband with no wife around. A month in which they could both heal and he could start considering the futility of resurrecting a marriage in which they were already living apart. When she came back

… to Greece it would be to agree to the official separation he was almost certain to request. And she would make it easy for him. She would be bright and breezy and he would never ever guess that her heart was breaking…

'I'll phone you every day,' he murmured flatly. Betsy breathed in slow and deep and suppressed her anguish. 'I think we both need more space than that…1 think it would be better if you didn't call.'

CHAPTER TEN

IN THIRTY minutes, the private jet would be landing on Greek soil.

Betsy went off to tidy herself. She wondered if her black shift dress and jacket looked a little funereal. She had put her hair up in an effort to look cool and restrained and now she decided it made her look plain. Cristos might not want her back, but she didn't fancy the idea of him looking at her and wondering what he had ever seen in her.

For the whole month, she had stayed at Ashstead, the Stephanides country house in Devon. The first week she had done nothing but cry and sleep. At the start of the second week she had dutifully gone to London to visit her family, accept their commiserations over her miscarriage and admire Gemma's engagement ring. When she returned to Devon, she began going out for long country walks. Her appetite came back and a sparkle returned to her eyes. Patras came to stay for two days and, although she had to ban him from trying to behave like a heavy-handed marriage guidance counselor, she really enjoyed his company and absolutely adored all the stories he told her about Cristos as a boy. By the end of the fourth week, when Cristos had his PA call her to relay her travel arrangements, she was feeling thoroughly rested.

But while she had come to terms with her grief, she found it quite impossible to come to terms with the prospect of losing Cristos. Even worse the, concept of surrendering Cristos to Petrina, who she was convinced was wholly undeserving of him, kept her awake at night. She missed him every hour of every day. A hundred times over, she almost lifted the phone to ring him just to hear the sound of his voice. Only the question of how she would explain herself prevented her from succumbing to temptation.

After the jet landed at Athens, Betsy was ferried across the airport to board a helicopter. When the flight winged out across the Aegean Sea she wondered where on earth she was being taken, yet in another sense she didn't care enough to try and ask. If journey’s end meant politely accepting that her marriage was over, she would just as soon remain an eternal traveler. As she'd left London her spirits had been buoyed up by the knowledge that she would soon be seeing Cristos again. Fear of what he would be telling her had plunged her into the downward descent of misery.

So preoccupied was she that when the helicopter landed she scrambled out without the smallest idea of where she was. A few hundred feet away the turquoise sea shimmered in the, late afternoon sunlight and the golden beach bore not a single footprint. Disbelieving the evidence of her own eyes, she discounted the strong sense of recognition that was trying to persuade her that she was back on the island of Mos again. In that mood, she hurried round the helicopter and there, nestling below the headland, sat the little villa with the terracotta roof.

Kicking off her shoes, which were sinking into… the sand, and discarding her jacket, Betsy sped on towards the house. A figure appeared in the doorway and her steps faltered and started to slow. Shock slivered through her: it was Cristos. Sheathed in tailored beige chinos and a black shirt, he looked drop-dead gorgeous. He stayed where he was, waiting for her to come to him. To a woman starved of the sight of him, he was the equivalent of a feast after a famine.

Several feet from him, Betsy froze in her tracks. She was bewildered by the shock of finding herself back on the island and she hated the fact that she'd been taken by surprise. 'What is this set-up? What on earth is going on?'

'You're going to be angry with me,' Cristos imparted.

'Don't tell me what you think I'm going to do… tell me why I would be angry.' Suddenly she stalked forward and pushed past him to peer indoors with suspicious eyes. 'Do you have Petrina in there?' she demanded.

His astonishment was unfeigned. 'Is that a joke?

Petrina wouldn't dream of gracing a place as primitive as this with her presence.'

Still very much on the defensive, Betsy folded her arms. 'I don't think it's primitive but I do think it's extremely tasteless to bring me back here.'

The deafening roar of the helicopter taking off again drowned out all possible exchanges for a couple of minutes. Betsy threw her bright head back and pursed her lush mouth. 'How am I supposed to get back to Athens?'

'You're not…at least not without me,' Cristos informed her. 'I'm afraid you've been kidnapped for the second time in your life.'

'Kidnapped?' Betsy parroted.

'When you and I were last here, things were very simple. 1 thought it would be a good idea to take our marriage back to basics too.'

Betsy could not believe her ears. 'Are you telling me… that you lured me out here with the intention of keeping me on this island against my will?'

Cristos nodded.

Betsy had fallen very still. 'To save our marriage?' 'I appreciate that it would be more ideal if 1 gave.

you a choice, but 1 want the chance to do some tough negotiating and if you can't walk away

from the table, it gives me an advantage.'

'True… on the other hand, 1 might not want to walk. away,' Betsy pointed out a little unevenly. 'Hasn't that occurred to you?'

'That's not how you've been behaving. No visits, no phone calls, an enforced separation,' he reminded her bleakly.

Betsy stopped hiding behind her pride. 'I didn't want you to stay with me just because we were marrried.1 wanted to give you the chance to choose… and 1 really did think that you might choose Petrina.'

'Even after all you and 1 have been to each other?' Cristos framed in apparent amazement.

'She told me you loved her-'

'You've met Petrina… but when?' Cristos demanded, taken aback.

Betsy explained about the visit she had received at the hospital.

Cristos swore under his breath in his own language; 'Theos mou…if 1 had known 1 would not have been responsible for my actions. How could she be so cruel? You had only just lost our child. You were vulnerable then.' His clear dark golden eyes were bitterly angry. 'There was no love in my relationship with her-respect, familiarity, and tolerance? perhaps. I thought that that was all there was. I honestly believed I wasn't missing anything… and then I met you.'

And then I met you! Betsy savored that admission, for, if Petrina had only qualified for respect and tolerance, he was making it sound as though Betsy herself had made much more of an impression. He had never loved Petrina. The relief of learning that fact made her feel dizzy. He had set her worst fear to rest.

'Everything got so complicated with you.' Cristos raked long fingers through his cropped black hair. 'You told me you loved Rory. When I saw you toogether at our wedding, I believed you still loved him-'