A Ring to Secure His Heir

‘It damn well does!’ Alexius suddenly roared at her in rebuttal. ‘If you think I’m likely to stand by and watch now while you get involved with another man, you’ve picked the wrong guy!’

Although she was intimidated by his fury, Rosie lifted her chin and gave him a freezing look. ‘It might be your baby but my body is my own and if you had any idea at all of how ordinary people live—

which you don’t—you would appreciate that my chances of meeting another man have been seriously damaged by the simple fact that I’m pregnant!’

‘Why should that matter to you? You’re my woman. Get used to the fact!’ Alexius grated, outraged that she could talk about her chances of meeting another man while still warm from his body, even more enraged that she could even think along such lines.

‘I’m not your woman. I’m not any man’s woman,’ Rosie declared. ‘And I’m not hitching my wagon to yours just because you’ve got a private jet and loads of money! That’s not my dream—that’s not what I want out of life!’

‘What the hell do you want from me?’ Alexius shot back at her with sizzling incomprehension.

‘Feelings, you blockhead!’ Rosie thundered back at him with incredulity that he had still not got that message. ‘It’s not enough that you’d be a great provider and fantastic in bed!’

Alexius vaulted off the bed. ‘You think I’m going to fall in love with you like some infatuated teenager?’ he derided in an all-encompassing rage, driven by exasperation and the belief that she wanted him to provide some fairy-tale solution that he couldn’t hope to achieve.

‘That’s right—mock my dreams!’ Rosie hissed, her face red as fire. ‘But it doesn’t have to be love, just caring, unselfishness, kindness—’

‘Haven’t I been caring? Haven’t I been kind?’ Alexius bit out, furious that she was making him defensive.

Rosie thought of his behaviour since she had given him her news and had to acknowledge that he had demonstrated both attributes but she still thought there ought to be more. ‘You don’t even want our baby.’

‘I want you,’ Alexius fired back bluntly. ‘And I’m starting to think of the baby as a person attached to you. Isn’t that enough to start with?’

That he still wanted her, regardless of the baggage she brought with her, meant a great deal to Rosie and she couldn’t deny it, but deep down inside her something still said no to the notion of marrying a man who didn’t love her, who, whether he would admit it or not, still imagined that his enormous wealth should be sufficient inducement to overcome all other objections.

‘I appreciate that you’re offering a good deal,’ she muttered in an effort she barely understood to placate him, but they had been so close there for a couple of hours and she couldn’t bear to feel shut out again. ‘Especially to someone like me from a poor background.’

The tension screaming from his stance ebbed and his eyes veiled. ‘That doesn’t come into the equation. You’re one of the kindest and most considerate people I’ve ever met.’

‘That doesn’t say much for the people you know.’

‘You’re not interested in my money. You don’t try to take advantage of me and I like being with you. Believe me, those facts matter more,’ Alexius delivered curtly. ‘But I don’t have the emotional capacity to give you love. I’ve never been in love in my life.’

‘Never?’ Rosie was shocked.

‘It’s always been sex for me, nothing more complex,’ Alexius acknowledged grudgingly. ‘And I like sex more with you than with anyone else.’

Rosie resisted a sudden staggering urge to weep. ‘I suppose that’s something,’ she said shakily, astonished by his claim but strangely touched as well. Indeed, Alexius ignited a whole host of conflicting emotions inside her.

‘It’s more than something on my terms, moraki mou,’ Alexius shot back on her.

‘That’s our most fundamental difference,’ Rosie responded ruefully. ‘Sex is more important to you, lower on the scale for me. But great sex doesn’t mean we’d have a great marriage.’

Condemned for the one bond she was willing to admit that they shared, Alexius felt like punching a wall and instead seethed with silent aggravation. No woman had ever infuriated him so much and it galled him that he felt lost in the dialogue, didn’t automatically know the right answers, the perfect angle to take to emerge supreme. He gritted his even teeth and said nothing at all. Rosie unfroze from her self-justifying stance and closed the distance between them. She linked her hands round his neck with difficulty and stretched up to press a kiss to the corner of his unsmiling mouth. ‘I don’t want to argue with you.’

‘But you are.’

Rosie ran a frankly manipulative hand down over his bronzed, hair-roughened torso, revelling in the heat and muscularity of his strong physique, and pressed as close as she dared to mutter shamefacedly, because she knew she was taking the easy way out, ‘Let’s go back to bed …’

Relief assailed Alexius. Lust he understood in the same way that he understood that he needed air to breathe. It was honest and offered no room for misunderstandings. He carried her small hand lower.

‘Remember asking me for directions?’ he remarked not quite steadily, startled at the speed with which his erection returned at the first shy brush of her fingers. He was accustomed to everything but ignorance in the bedroom. A long line of very experienced eager-to-please sophisticates had given him high expectations of his lovers, but nothing had ever excited him as much as Rosie’s hesitant overture at that moment. And that was in spite of the fact that he knew exactly what she was doing in smoothing over the discomfiture roused by the conversation he should never have started.

Rosie skimmed tentative fingers down his hard, thick shaft and shed the turmoil of thoughts torturing her. What was right? What was wrong? Did it really matter as long as she was happy?

And happiness was humming through Rosie when she opened her eyes the following morning: Alexius was there, mere inches away, and his presence soothed her. His lean, hard-boned face was softer in slumber, his outrageously long black lashes almost hitting his exotic cheekbones. So good-looking, so vital, so full of mystery. She wanted to get under his skin, grasp why he was so reserved, learn if he was hiding anything, sort him out like a challenging jigsaw puzzle. But then he fascinated her and after the night of unashamed passion they had shared she didn’t think her response to him was likely to change any time soon. She ached but it was a pleasurable ache of passion shared and rejoiced in. He was amazing in bed, would probably be highly insulted if he ever found out that for her the best part was being held afterwards, feeling so physically close and valued, her heart lifting when he smiled or laughed.

It scared her that he could already have so much power over her. She hadn’t consciously made the choice to give that power to him, yet somehow he had taken it, stealing her heart the first chance he got. She had fallen for him so easily but he was never going to love her back: that was very clear. When she thought of the many female options he must always have available, she knew it would be banging her head up against a brick wall to hope for more. She was a novelty to Alexius Stavroulakis, she decided uneasily, an ordinary working woman who had been a virgin. Of course she was different from his previous lovers, but for how long would her novelty value exercise this amount of pulling power over him? If she wasn’t careful she could easily slip into the trap of just wanting to make Alexius happy. She could hardly have failed to have noticed that happiness when he laughed or smiled always seemed to take him by surprise.