For Pleasure...Or Marriage?

As he’d spoken, a harsh, black light had darkened Leo’s eyes. Markos had ignored it—and the warning he’d just received. So Vanessa was devoted to him? Where was the danger in that? Her very devotion made her the easie

st mistress he’d ever had. Vanessa did everything he wanted, in bed and out of it, and never complained, never hinted or whinged, or played sulky or made up to other males.

Least of all did she try to manipulate him. In that she was a balm to his bruised skin after ten days of having his benighted father going on at him, trying to play on his son’s nonexistent sense of guilt for failing to produce heirs.

Hell, the last thing he wanted was offspring! Didn’t he know, first hand, what it was like growing up with no reason for his existence other than to be a bargaining chip for his mercenary mother and a walking reproduction of Makarios DNA for his father?

No, he wasn’t going to think about that. Nor about his father’s exasperating but pointless machinations. He had successfully compartmentalised his life years ago. There was his real life—running his share of the Makarios Corporation and enjoying the plentiful fruits that that brought him, from fast cars to beautiful women. And even when that had threatened to become boring through familiarity and repetition the arrival of the devoted Vanessa in his life had banished that danger.

And then there was the life he had turned away from, where he was supposed to do his family duty and keep his father happy. Well, his father hadn’t worried much about his happiness while he was growing up, so why should he worry about his father’s now?

Markos’s expression hardened. After the bitter wrangling over custody, when his father had finally got back his nine-year-old son, had he wanted him enough to keep him at his side? In his house? No, he’d packed him off to a private international boarding school in Switzerland, with no one except his cousin Leo to look out for him. As for his mother, once she’d lost the custody battle she’d had no more interest in the child who had been merely a pawn in her financial manoeuvrings against her ex-husband. Instead she’d devoted herself to making the most of her massive alimony by enjoying every fleshpot she could flash herself around in.

Markos reached to snap off the shower, deliberately turning off memory along with the water.

Stepping out, he lifted up a fresh towel and patted himself dry, dropping it to the floor to take another larger one to wrap around his hips. He went out into the bedroom.

The bed was empty. He frowned slightly. Vanessa had been asleep when he’d woken, and because today he needed to go into his London office to catch up on his business affairs he’d had no reason to wake her.

Was she making him breakfast?

She liked to do that. Another sign of her devotion, he supposed. She seemed to get a kick out of cooking for him, instead of summoning Housekeeping or having breakfast delivered from the central kitchens which serviced all the apartments.

But there was no sign of her in the huge, gleaming kitchen, glistening with polished steel surfaces. Annoyed now, Markos padded into the lounge. Also deserted. Then an idea struck him. Even after five months of intimacy Vanessa was still reluctant to come into the en suite bathroom if he was showering, so she often slipped into one of the en suites in the other bedrooms.

He went exploring, and ran her to earth.

She was in one of the bathrooms all right.

And she was throwing up.

Markos froze. His initial impulse was to retreat hurriedly, partly out of male reluctance to be in the vicinity of such an event, and partly out of consideration that the last thing she would appreciate was a witness.

Then, hard on the heels of both impulses, another thought struck him.

What the hell was she throwing up for?

Cold snaked through him. Even he, with his limited knowledge of the female reproduction system, knew about morning sickness.

No. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

Could it?

Urgently he forced his brain to work. A stab of relief went through him. She’d been due a period just when she’d left for Austria—he remembered he’d been relieved that it would not inconvenience him, as he had missed the first few days of the fashion shoot because of a trip to New York.

Silently, on bare feet, he retreated. Vanessa, with all her innate reserve, would not appreciate his presence right now. Instead, he’d go and make her some coffee. She’d appreciate that far more. Feeling virtuous, he headed away.

Shakily, Vanessa finished rinsing out her mouth, giving the loo one last flush and an extra helping of disinfectant.

Where on earth had that come from? She’d slipped out of bed, heading for this bathroom, and suddenly, in the doorway, nausea had rushed up and taken her over.

With trembling fingers she pushed her tumbled hair back and stared at her reflection. She looked as white as a ghost, despite the fine sheen of gold dust that was the sole effect of her freckles on her complexion.

I’ve just been sick in the morning.

The words tolled through her brain, but she could not believe them. Nor their import.

I can’t be pregnant—I just can’t.