The Carides Pregnancy

That had been his first mistake!

His next had been not to agree when a very shame-faced and repentant Melina had turned up the next morning, promising to set the record straight immediately. Her remorse had appeared totally genuine, and she’d obviously been mortified—so much so that he had heard himself saying, ‘Why bother? We could give it a trial run.’

‘Do you really think so, Christos?’

‘Why not? We get on well enough, and it’s not as though either of us is waiting for love at first sight.’

Contemplating life without love did not overly concern Christos. A person could not miss what they had never had. And perhaps, as Melina had claimed in one of their many arguments, he was incapable of the emotion?

‘What do you mean, nothing to do with you? You’re head of the family, aren’t you?’ Aunt Theodosia demanded shrilly.

With a rueful smile Christos refocused his attention on the demanding little lady at his elbow. When jet lag eventually kicked in he was going to sleep for a week. ‘A title with few benefits.’

His dry observation drew a crowing little laugh from the old lady, but she added severely, ‘Don’t whine, Christos. You have been blessed with brains, looks and health—not to mention a gift for making large amounts of money without breaking a sweat.’

The unsympathetic recommendation brought a smile to Christos’s dark, expressive eyes. ‘Sorry, Aunt,’ he said, bowing his dark head meekly.

‘This girl of Alex’s has got a face like a horse,’ she observed regretfully.

‘Sally is a very nice girl,’ Christos responded, a quiver in his deep voice.

It was at that moment he saw her.

He stopped dead, and didn’t hear what Theodosia was saying—or, for that matter, anything else. She was framed in the doorway, her hair as she entered the Gothic candlelit Cathedral an incredible burnished beacon.

For a few seconds things got seriously surreal. But there was in all probability some perfectly prosaic reason for the rest of the world receding, leaving him with the impression that he and the redhead were the only two people in the place.

Christos, his jaw clenched, blinked hard, and the hum of conversation gradually filtered back into his consciousness. Jet lag, he concluded, loosening the constricting tie around his neck a little as he narrowed his gaze on the bright head of the slim, simply dressed woman.

He had never seen her before. Not that this made her exceptional. There were any number of people attending the wedding that he had never laid eyes on before. But, unlike this late arrival, those strangers had no connection with the prickle on the back of his neck. The groove between his dark, strongly delineated black brows deepened as he lifted a hand to the affected area.

With a first-class degree in pure maths, and the owner of a mind that was widely held to be brilliantly analytical and logical, he saw nothing contradictory in trusting his instincts. And there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that the slender redhead represented trouble of a major variety.

Perhaps the danger she represented appealed to him? Could that alone account for his suddenly out-of-control libido? He didn’t have a clue, and he was not in a mood to analyse his motivation, he just knew he was going to make sure—even at the risk of major disappointment—of meeting her.

At some level he recognised that even the recent months of self-enforced abstinence didn’t totally explain away the compulsion that made him unable to take his eyes off her for fear she would vanish.

Vanish? With that hair? Not likely. His eyes moved hungrily over the mass of rich auburn curls that fell down her shapely narrow back. It was extremely unlikely that she would be swallowed up in the crowd, even though that was clearly her desire. A circumstance that he would investigate at a later date, when other more urgent needs, like hearing her voice, were satisfied.

Christos met many attractive, interesting women during the course of his average day, but none that had ever immobilised him with lust. But now…He trained his eyes on the redhead, who was still trying hard to blend in, and drew a deep breath. This was a temptation he had no intention of resisting.

‘I don’t dislike horses, and from what I’ve seen the girl has got excellent child-bearing hips.’

A thoughtful expression settled on Theodosia’s lined face as she imperiously reclaimed her nephew’s attention with this outrageous observation and a sharp tug on his jacket.

‘Is she pregnant, I wonder? It would explain the unseemly haste. What do you think, Christos?’

With an air of resignation, and still conscious in the periphery of his vision of the redhead, he guided the outspoken old lady into her seat. ‘I think I should mind my own business.’

‘Not that there’s anything wrong with a pregnant bride.’

‘That is very broad-minded of you, Aunt Theodosia.’

‘I’m not a prude, boy.’

Christos’s thickly lashed eyes narrowed in affection. ‘You do surprise me.’

‘And virgins are all well and good,’ she observed generously.

The redhead, he noticed, was in danger of disappearing behind a stone column. He had established, to his satisfaction, that she definitely wasn’t with anyone, but she was too far away for him to tell if she wore any rings.

‘I’m not aware that I know any.’ In his opinion it was more important to be the last man in a woman’s life, not the first, if that woman was the one you intended to spend the rest of your life with.

Theodosia chose to ignore her nephew’s satiric insert beyond tapping him sharply across the knuckles with her cane. ‘I hardly think you’re in any position to criticise. Greek men can be so hypocritical,’ she observed tartly. ‘You’re no saint yourself, young man. At least,’ she continued, ‘when you get a girl pregnant before you put the ring on her finger you know she’s fertile.’

‘That’s very pragmatic of you.’ He cupped the old lady’s elbow as she lowered herself slowly into the pew. ‘But I’m not sure,’ he added in a soft aside, ‘that the bride’s father shares your viewpoint. Or that the modern female would enjoy being likened to a brood mare.’

Just at that moment his mother, looking flushed and breathless, appeared at his shoulder. ‘Christos—I need you.’ Under her breath, Mia Carides said with a fixed smile, ‘Don’t encourage her.’

‘What do you need me for, Mother?’ Christos asked, wondering if the glorious redhead’s hair was as soft and silky as it looked. A man could dream of falling asleep wrapped in that hair…

‘There’s a problem with security,’ Mia improvised smoothly. ‘Such a nuisance. I’m sorry, Aunt Theodosia, you’ll have to excuse us.’

Her son responded to the urgent look with a languid smile which made his mother’s diplomatic expression wobble for an instant as she clenched her teeth. Her son, as she knew, could be very vexing when he chose.

‘Aunt Theodosia and I were just discussing the blushing bride, Mother.’

‘I know—I heard you. So did half the guests,’ Mia observed, waving graciously and bestowing a serene smile on the bride’s indignant parents.

Undeterred, Aunt Theodosia continued, ‘This family needs more babies. What is wrong with you young people nowadays? When are you going to have some babies, Christos?’

Christos bent and pressed his lips in a courtly gesture to the frail, age-spotted old hand. ‘When I find someone with as much spunk as you.’ Or, failing that, red hair. He blinked, wondering where that thought had come from.

The old lady tried to hide her pleased smile. ‘If you do,’ she predicted, ‘it might well be the making of you. That other girl—what was her name?’

‘Melina.’

‘That was it. I didn’t like her. She smiled too much.’

Across the aisle, Melina wasn’t smiling at all. In fact she was looking daggers at a girl with red hair, who Christos had barely taken his eyes from.

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHY do you encourage her, Christos?’ his mother reproached him as she walked down the aisle.

While he lent an attentive ear to his mother, Christos continued to watch the troublesome redhead as she sat down, concealing all but the top of her fiery head from his view.

‘Carl looked furious,’ Mia added in a hushed tone. ‘Especially as Sally is pregnant.’