A Ring for the Greek's Baby

She’d had to because it wasn’t just about what she wanted any more.

It was about what was best for their baby.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE NEXT MORNING Emily showered and changed into fresh clothes, and came out to the sitting room to find Loukas staring out of the rain-splattered windows with his hands in the pockets of the same trousers he had been wearing the night before, which were looking a little worse for wear. He must have heard her soft tread on the carpet as he turned to look at her. His features looked as tired as his trousers. ‘How did you sleep?’ he asked.

She glanced at the rumpled sofa. ‘Probably a whole lot better than you.’

He acknowledged that with a wry quirk of his lips. ‘The news of our engagement has gone viral.’

‘Your mission is accomplished, then.’

He came over to her and took her gently by the upper arms, his gaze meshing with hers. ‘I know this is a big step for you. It’s a big step for me too. I never intended to marry anyone, but—’

‘Why not?’

He released her from his hold and took a step back, his gaze shifting to avoid hers. ‘It was never on my list of things to do.’

‘You must have a reason why it’s not on the list,’ Emily said. ‘Marriage hasn’t exactly gone out of fashion. Most people aspire to settle down and raise a family at some stage of their life. Why not you?’

He pushed out his mouth on an expelled breath. ‘My parents had a messy divorce.’

‘So? That doesn’t mean you would too.’

‘True, but I preferred not to risk it.’

‘So you’d rather spend your life drifting from one shallow hook-up to the next without really connecting on any level but the physical?’

‘I’ve seen what it can do to kids when couples divorce,’ he said. ‘It’s not pretty.’

‘Is that what happened to you when your parents broke up?’ Emily asked. ‘You got caught in the crossfire?’

His expression gave little away and yet Emily sensed this was a difficult and painful subject for him. Maybe she’d picked up a bit of her mother’s mind-reading ability after all.

Scary thought.

But then, she’d gleaned enough about his father to realise things might not have been too easy for Loukas and his mother. ‘Talk to me, Loukas,’ she said softly. ‘If we’re going to get married then surely I should know a little bit about your background?’

He took a deep breath and then released it in a slow stream, as if he was letting go of something that had long been tied up tightly inside him. ‘My parents divorced when I was six. I moved with my father to the States soon after. It wasn’t a good experience. But then divorce rarely is for the kids involved.’

Emily frowned, thinking of him as a small boy travelling to new place, a new culture, without his mother. How had he coped with the separation? What little kid didn’t want their mum at the ready? Why had his father got sole custody? ‘Why with your father and not your mother?’

Loukas gave her a lopsided grimace. ‘My father wanted to punish my mother for having the audacity to ask him for a divorce. He got an attack-dog lawyer to tear her reputation to pieces. After he was finished, there wasn’t a court anywhere in Greece who would have awarded her custody of a stray dog, much less a child.’

‘But that’s awful! Your poor mum. And poor you. You must’ve been distraught to be separated from her so young.’

The taut line about his mouth made her wonder if he had ever forgiven his father. ‘My father soon lost interest in bringing up a small child. I spent time with a number of nannies before

I was packed off to boarding school in England. And it wasn’t just because I was too young to go to an American boarding school. He didn’t want me coming home for weekends and generally getting in the way.’

Emily decided she didn’t like Loukas’s father one little bit. His treatment of women was appalling. How could a man be so cruel as to separate a small boy from his mother, only to dump him in a boarding school thousands of miles away for the sake of convenience? No wonder Loukas wanted to do everything he could to avoid being compared to his father.

A marriage between Loukas and her didn’t seem so outrageous now she understood a little more about his background. Of course he would want to do the best thing for his child, and protect and provide for the mother of his baby so he wouldn’t be linked in any way to his father’s shocking behaviour. ‘Did you ever get to see your mother?’

‘Once I was at boarding school I spent holidays with her. My father didn’t seem to care about her having custody by then.’

‘Did your mother ever remarry?’