A Christmas Marriage Ultimatum

‘I’m under no obligation to you, or anyone, to reveal his father’s identity.’

‘You want me to go the distance with this?’ Dimitri queried in a voice that was dangerously soft. ‘Seek legal counsel, access his birth certificate, request DNA?’

Ice slithered the length of her spine. ‘Is that a threat?’

‘A statement of intention,’ he corrected.

‘I could deny your request for DNA.’ The need to consult a lawyer seemed imperative.

His mouth formed a cynical smile, although there was no humour apparent in those dark eyes. ‘Try it.’

Her stomach performed a slow, painful somersault. ‘You possess an outsize ego. What makes you think you were my only lover?’

‘I was there,’ Dimitri reminded with deceptive quietness. Leashed savagery lay just beneath the surface of his control, and he gained some satisfaction as soft colour tinged her cheeks.

Was his memory of what they’d shared as startlingly vivid as her own? They’d spent every night together, never seeming to be able to satisfy a mutual hunger for each other.

Possession on every level. An all-consuming passion that had known no bounds.

She had lived for the moment she could be with him, resenting each minute they were apart. The sun had never shone more brightly, nor the senses become so defined. If hearts sang, hers had played a soaring rhapsody in full orchestra.

As for the sex…Intimacy, she corrected, at its most intense…highly sensual, libidinous, magic.

‘There was no one else for either of us,’ Dimitri pursued in a silkily soft voice that speared her heart.

Chantelle drew in a deep breath, then slowly released it. ‘Aren’t you forgetting Daniella?’ Even now, it hurt her to say the actress’s name.

A muscle bunched at the edge of his jaw. ‘We dealt with that four years ago.’

‘No,’ she corrected with incredible politeness. ‘We had a blazing row over the disparity between her account of your relationship, and yours.’

‘At which time you chose to believe her version, rather than mine.’

Even now, the scene rose up to taunt her…the harsh words, the invective. ‘She conveyed telling evidence.’

‘Cleverly relayed to achieve the desired outcome,’ Dimitri attested. ‘Daniella is a scheming manipulator, and an extremely clever actress.’

‘So you said at the time,’ Chantelle declared bitterly.

‘Yet you still walked.’

Her trust in him, what she’d thought they had together, had been destroyed. ‘I couldn’t stay.’ He hadn’t tried to stop her. Nor had he called.

To be fair, neither had she.

‘Shall we begin again?’

‘There is nothing to discuss.’

‘We can do it here, now. Or we can share dinner tomorrow night.’ He waited a beat. ‘Your choice.’

‘No.’

One eyebrow slanted. ‘You want to play hardball?’

‘I don’t want to play at all!’

His features assumed a hard mask. ‘I deserve to know if Samuel is my son.’

‘What if I tell you he’s not?’

His gaze pierced hers, indomitable and frighteningly inflexible. ‘I want proof, one way or another.’

Bravado rose to the fore as she held his gaze. ‘You don’t have the right.’

‘Yes, I do. Seven, tomorrow evening. I’ll collect you.’

She didn’t want him here. In fact, she didn’t want to see him anywhere, period!

‘You want to do this with a degree of civility?’ Dimitri queried. ‘Or—?’

‘I’ll meet you.’ She named the first restaurant that came to mind. ‘Seven.’

Without a further word she moved away from him, seeking another guest…anyone with whom she could converse and therefore escape Dimitri Cristopoulis’ damning presence.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU look charming, chérie,’ Anouk complimented the following evening as Chantelle collected the keys to her mother’s car.

‘Thank you.’ She’d chosen a slim-fitting dress in black with a black lace overlay, short sleeves and a square neckline. Black stiletto-heeled sandals lent her petite frame added height, and she’d swept hair the colour of sable high into a careless knot.

‘It’s nice of Andreas’ son to invite you to dine with him.’

Nice wasn’t a description she’d accord Dimitri…or his motives behind the invitation. If Anouk knew the real reason there would be concern, not pleasure, evident.

However, not even her mother knew the identity of Samuel’s father. Her parents had been absent from Sydney at the time of Chantelle’s affair with Dimitri, and afterwards, when told of her pregnancy, they’d counselled informing the child’s father…advice she’d chosen to discount.

She crouched down to give Samuel a hug. ‘Be good for Grandmère, hmm?’

‘Oui, Maman.’

Such solemn brown eyes, she mused, kissing each childish cheek in turn.

‘Thanks,’ she said lightly as Anouk gathered Samuel close. ‘I won’t be late.’

For the past eighteen hours she’d derived countless reasons why she should opt out of tonight. Only the knowledge Dimitri was capable of forcing a confrontation in her parents’ home prevented her from employing any one of them.

It took twenty minutes to reach the glamorous hotel situated on the Spit at Main Beach. Chantelle chose valet parking, and stepped into the marble foyer.