Greek Bachelors: The Ultimate Seduction: The Petrakos Bride / One Night...Nine-Month Scandal / One Night to Risk it All

That evening, Maddie began going through her things and sorting out what could be recycled through a charity shop and what should have been dumped long ago. Travelling light would make relocating less of a challenge.

And would you still feel the same way if I was pregnant?

The ultimate high jump, Giannis conceded in vexation, an austere cast to his wide handsome mouth. It had been a test, however, and he had failed it. Until he had met Madeleine Conway, Giannis had believed that a luxurious lifestyle and extravagant gifts were sufficient to tempt any woman into pleasing him. But Maddie was complex, challenging, and yet in many ways more basic. What did Stone Age Woman want from Stone Age Man? Giannis asked himself grimly. Stone Age Woman expected her guy to supply protection, food and shelter. In much the same way, Maddie wanted a guy she could depend on to look after her in all circumstances. So she had thrown the pregnancy loop and he had bombed. Why? Like most very rich men, he was accustomed to dealing with avaricious scheming women and ceding nothing, calling in his lawyers to clean up and ensure that the press never got wind of it.

Maddie, however, had been asking a simple question to establish the level of his commitment to her. What if? And, cynical, guarded and astute as he was, he had been too clever for his own good. She had expected an honest response, but he could not recall when he had ever answered a leading question from a woman with simple candour. He avoided relationship discussions. He dumped women prone to striking up such conversations. But Maddie occupied a class of her own, and she required more painstaking management and support. She had needed to hear that, whatever happened, he would take care of her. Regrettably, she had given him insufficient time to work out the reality that only forthright sincerity would win him a hearing.

‘Mr Petrakos…?’ one of the Greek board members murmured. For the silence had lasted and lasted, and everyone round the massive table was getting very nervous.

Giannis shot him a chilling glance. ‘Don’t interrupt me. I’m thinking.’

What the hell had Maddie been playing at? Giannis wondered in seething frustration. Where did she get the nerve to tell him that he was not decent, honourable or worthy of respect? Surely only the most severe distress could have provoked her into such base accusations? She should have had the sense to appreciate that a guy with as much money as he had could not possibly afford to ignore or deny the potential time-bomb that would arise from the existence of an illegitimate child. Just because he had never felt any great need to reproduce it did not mean he did not know what was right and proper, either. Some day, after all, he might have children with Krista.

Without warning he was assailed by the image of a spoilt, imperious little girl with a bored, petulant expression, who only cracked a smile when she looked in the mirror. It was closely followed by an equally daunting image of an ignorant, idle son with the same sulky vacant look that Krista wore when the conversation went above her head. If her genes triumphed, what would happen to the Petrakos power-base in the next generation? Giannis was unable to repress a shudder. At that precise moment he knew that he would not marry Krista. He could not work out how he had ever believed that he could.

Forty-eight hours later, Giannis flew out to Paris to break off his engagement. Since their betrothal Krista had been using all his properties, and was currently staying in his townhouse there while she visited friends. He did not give advance warning of his arrival, and when he strode into the hall Krista was screaming like a virago at a cowering maid.

‘Giannis…’ Tiny spots of colour adorning her perfect cheekbones, Krista dismissed the tear-stained member of staff with an imperious wave and turned to greet him as though nothing had happened.

‘Problems?’ Giannis enquired.

Krista complained that he was so rare a visitor to the household that his staff had become sloppy. Giannis was sceptical, because he had seen the vicious look etched on Krista’s face. He had once heard a rumour that the Spyridous had paid off a maid who’d accused Krista of assault. His fiancée gave him a winsome smile that displayed her pearly teeth to perfection. It was wasted on Giannis, who had not only been put in mind of his late mother’s drug-fuelled tirades against her long-suffering servants, but who had also remembered Maddie’s unfailing courtesy with his staff in Morocco. Impatient, however, to do what had to be done, he said nothing more on the subject. In the huge, airy drawing room, he told Krista as gently as he could that he no longer wanted to marry her.

‘You don’t mean it…It’s the wedding arrangements giving you cold feet,’ Krista informed him.

‘The fault is mine. I’m not ready to make such a commitment,’ Giannis countered steadily.

‘But you won’t find being married to me any different to being single!’ Krista pouted. ‘Giannis…I know you enjoy your freedom. You’re a Petrakos male. Womanising is in your blood.’

‘I’m sorry. Our engagement is at an end.’

‘But I’ve made so many arrangements.’

Giannis was quick to assure her that his staff would take care of everything. He was prepared for her every protest. Like a rock in a storm, he withstood reproaches, thwarted tears of rage and a screaming tantrum. Her greatest source of concern was that she would look foolish, and she baulked at his suggestion that they release an immediate joint statement to the press. In a rare gesture he agreed to let her choose the timing and the content of any such announcement.

Also, because he did feel that his change of heart was very hard on her, Giannis presented her with a jewellery case. He had purchased the contents as a wedding gift. ‘Please accept this set as a token of my continuing affection and esteem.’

Krista was as responsive to the glimpse of a large jewel case as a well-trained snake was to a charmer. The magnificent diamond and sapphire set, once the property of now deposed European royalty, brought ecstatic gasps of delight to her lips. Suddenly she was all smiles again.

Giannis was leaving when she said brightly, ‘I’ll wait for you to get this bug out of your system.’

He sent her a wry glance. ‘It’s not a bug.’

She tossed her hair so that it fell like pale blonde candy floss round her exquisite face. ‘I’m perfect for you. Everybody says so. When we get back together we’ll be like Romeo and Juliet.’

‘It’s over, Krista.’ Giannis resisted the urge to point out how Romeo and Juliet’s romance had ended. Instead he rejoiced in the energising sense of freedom gripping him. He knew he would never propose marriage again. It had been a serious mistake on his part. He should have listened to his instincts. If he needed a hostess he would hire one. Maddie had held a mirror up to him, and he did not like the reflection he’d seen.

Thirty-six hours after attending business talks in Dubai, Giannis flew back to London. Although he had yet to forgive Maddie’s behaviour at their last meeting, he could not wait to see her, and he went straight to her bedsit, planning to surprise her.

But the surprise was his, because there was no answer at her door. By the next day Nemos had established that she had moved out of her accommodation without leaving a forwarding address. Giannis insisted on seeing the room and having it searched. He could not credit that she was gone.

Why? He was a very logical guy. But he still could not comprehend why. No woman had ever run away from him before. Why would she do that? She wanted him as much as he wanted her. What was her problem? One minute she kissed him as if she couldn’t live without him, and the next—Raging frustration sizzled through his big, powerful frame. How long would it take him to track her down? There was a chance that he might never find her. That was the cue for the weirdest sense of paralysis setting in to his long powerful legs. Aggressively healthy as he was, he wondered if he was coming down with an illness.

Only when he had swung back into the limo did Nemos bend down to pass him an item. ‘It was in the rubbish bin. I thought you’d want me to be discreet.’

It was the packaging for a pregnancy testing kit. So evidently she had been worried—much more worried than he had been, Giannis registered in surprise. Had he struck her as insensitive? He grimaced. Why was that word working its way into his vocabulary? He had simply thought it improbable that the only contraceptive failure he had ever experienced would lead to conception. And he had been proven right, hadn’t he? But at least he now understood why she had been so angry when they’d last met. She had resented his more mature outlook and his calm lack of concern on that score—which now he found perfectly understandable.

The magazine was well read, and its cover was beginning to come off. Even from the other side of the waiting room, however, Maddie recognised the juxtaposed photos of Giannis and Krista. Practically in one motion, she pushed herself up off her seat and swept the publication off the table. The issue was weeks old. On the cover, a jagged lightening flash split a photo of the couple apart, and below ran the headline: Jilted? Too impatient to sit down again, she stood flicking through the pages in search of the corresponding article. It took several minutes for her to find it, because the piece was only a few lines long and not very informative.

An unnamed mutual ‘friend’ had let it be known that the Greek society wedding of the year was off. No reasons were given. Both Giannis and Krista had refused to comment on the rumours, and had asked for their privacy to be respected. Maddie drew in a slow, deep breath and clutched the magazine tightly.

‘Miss Conway?’

‘And this is your first visit to us?’ The middle-aged doctor sighed as he weighed her and took her blood pressure. ‘You must be at least five months pregnant.’

‘About four months…’ Maddie told him. ‘I saw a doctor in Southend when I was about six weeks along. Everything was fine then.’

The doctor said nothing. Unless she was mistaken about the dates, he thought, there was a problem. She was very noticeably pregnant. She looked thin and tired, and he wasn’t happy with her blood pressure. He examined her and said that he would like her to have a scan at the hospital.

‘Also, I don’t think you should be working,’ he added.

‘I’m only doing a few hours here and there. I can’t afford to quit.’

‘Do you want this baby?’

Losing what little colour she had, Maddie nodded in dismay.

‘Then you need to rest and take it easy.’

Fear gripped Maddie. The only thing that had kept her sane through the long lonely weeks since she had left London had been the comforting prospect of her child. True, she had felt endlessly tired, and sick enough to lose her appetite and some weight, but it had not occurred to her that her pregnancy might be at risk. Confronted with that threat, she was appalled. She was living in a bed-and-breakfast, and working odd shifts as a cashier in a restaurant which was open to all hours.

But if Giannis was no longer engaged there was no reason why she shouldn’t contact him and ask him to help her out. Naturally she would have preferred to remain proudly independent—not least because she had not told him the truth when she might have done. But all of a sudden she was painfully and guiltily aware that she should be putting her baby first and her pride and her feelings last.

It was months since Giannis had given her the embossed business card, but she still had it in her purse. Before she could lose her momentum, she went into the shopping centre to find a public phone. She punched out his mobile number very slowly. Her heart was beating so fast and her mind was so full of apprehensive thoughts that she very nearly dropped the receiver before the call was answered.

Giannis spoke in Greek, which unnerved her.

‘Hello…it’s me,’ she announced stiltedly. ‘I mean, sorry…it’s Maddie.’

At the other end of the phone, Giannis rose from his seat. Every predatory instinct on instant hyper-alert, he murmured as smoothly as silk, ‘I’ve been hoping to hear from you. Where are you?’

The rich, accented timbre of his deep voice touched memories Maddie had not known she had, and brought a surge of unexpected moisture to her eyes. ‘I’m in Reading,’ she said gruffly. ‘I need to see you.’

‘Any time. Give me your address—I’ll send a car to pick you up,’ Giannis suggested, determined to pin her down to an exact geographical location.

Not yet ready to advance that amount of trust, Maddie spread uneasy fingers over the gentle swell of her stomach. ‘No. I’ll get the train to London this afternoon.’

An expert negotiator, Giannis knew when not to push. He had picked up on that audible note of wariness. ‘Where do you want to meet? My apartment?’