Those final words knocked the breath from his lungs, making them sting as he tried to take a breath in. Suspicious thoughts hammered into him and he fought the urge to walk away from the hurt and the pain.
‘So the only reason you agreed to be my wife was to help your sister?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, in a tone that sounded as if she had no idea of the implications of what she was saying.
She’d never wanted to marry him, for them to bring their child up together. So why had she come to Greece? Why tell him the news personally?
‘That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?’
It was obvious he was second-best. Damn it, he didn’t want to be second-best. Not ever again.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Nikos. I didn’t have a plan—except to tell the fisherman I thought you were that he was going to be a father. I didn’t expect anything from him—not financially, anyway. But he’d lied.’
‘So as soon as you discovered who I was you agreed to my proposal?’
He stood and watched her as she looked at him, her brow furrowing as she saw her future with him and all he could provide possibly slipping away.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Damn it, Serena, you’ve made a fool out of me. You’ve been working out how to get the best from this since we parted the night our child was conceived.’
‘I have not. How can I have been so stupid? I believed things could work out between us. You, Nikos—you blackmailed me into staying, leaving me no option. I couldn’t go back and flaunt my pregnancy in front of my sister, knowing I’d given up what is probably her last chance at being a mother. You have forced me into the worst possible situation. But I can’t do it any more.’
Before he could form a reply she’d marched from the room. She wouldn’t be going anywhere now. It was nearly midnight and she didn’t have a clue where she was. Maybe some cooling off time was best—for both of them.
Tomorrow they would draw up a plan for how to continue. They would marry to legitimise the child and he would spend his time between London and Athens if it meant seeing his child grow up. And right now his child was all he cared about.
* * *
Serena sat in the darkened living room, the pale glow from the outside lights shining in through the windows the only light. If it had been daytime she would have gone—walked away without a backward glance. She was totally aware that her declaration of love had poured cold water over the desire that had been in every look Nikos had given her, every touch and definitely every kiss.
She had watched him get dressed and known that cold water had turned to icicles.
Now she sat alone and shuddered, despite the warm night air, thinking of that moment again. His ruthless streak was back in play—and it looked permanent.
Behind her she heard movement, but refused to turn and look. Finally Nikos’s brooding silence snapped her willpower and she turned, bracing herself for his stormy mood.
‘What do you want, Nikos?’ She sighed as she spoke, too weary for an argument, but she had to remain strong—just for a little while longer. Once she was home she could let the tears fall.
It hurt that he thought she had used the baby as a bargaining tool to get what she wanted from him when all along it was he who’d done that. First it had been his lies, and then his heartless demands for marriage and the terms attached. He’d known she had no alternative but to accept—he was that cruel. What had happened to him to make him like that?
He moved to stand in front of her, his tall and broad frame blocking the small amount of light and darkening everything. She looked up at him, saw the hardness he preferred everyone to see well and truly back on display.
‘I want my child, Serena. You should not have come here expecting to strike a bargain with me. I will not make a deal for the right to be a father.’
Each word dripped with icy-cold disdain and her heart sank. All her dreams, every little bit of hope she’d had that her love would be enough for them both, slipped into oblivion. There wasn’t hope any more...and there certainly had never been love.
‘I found out too late that you were a powerful businessman—one with a ruthless heart—and I wish so hard I’d known sooner. If I had I would not have come. You lied from the moment we first met. I thought you were a different person. But he doesn’t exist, does he, Nikos? He was just what you wanted me to see. He was just a way to seduce me.’
She looked up at him, her gaze meeting the frozen core of his eyes. She shivered, despite the humid heat of the night. He’d seduced her, lied to her, and now wanted to put terms on the life they’d created.