One Night to Risk it All

She lifted one shoulder, the casual gesture at odds with her internal panic. With the fact that when he’d burst through that door he’d blown through her carefully cultivated, calm façade, yet again. “I’ve known the man for more than fifteen years. I think I know who he is.”

“You’ve never even slept with him.”

“I’m gonna,” she said, edging away from him toward the bathroom, “tonight.”

He strode toward her, blue eyes like chips of ice. He put his arm around her waist and hauled her up against his chest. “You will not.”

“Yes, I will,” she said, words pouring out of her now, with no thought of control or decorum or any of the other stuff she was usually so attached to. She was lying, because before Alex had come in, she’d decided she couldn’t do it. But she wanted to...hurt him if it was possible. To cause him some kind of discomfort because he sure had caused enough for her. “I’m going to have sex with him—” a shiver of displeasure coursed through her at the thought “—tonight. I’m going to let him inside of me. I’m going to do all the dirty naked things with him that I did with you!”

And then he leaned down and kissed her. As if he had every right to do it. As if she didn’t have a wedding scheduled to happen in just four hours. As if she hadn’t told him that she hated him and never wanted to see him again.

As if there was no reality. No Ajax. No vengeance gone wrong. No angry words. As if there was nothing more than passion. Fire and heat. She wrapped an arm around his neck, the other still behind her back, and parted her lips, let him slide his tongue against hers.

She kissed him back because for some reason, when Alex touched her, she couldn’t think.

Because suddenly a month since the time they’d been apart didn’t matter. And neither did anything else. Nothing but the kiss. The heat that flooded her body, her mind, her soul.

She wrapped her other arm around his neck and hit him in the ear with the edge of the box. He jerked his head back and looked to the side, and she followed his line of vision and froze.

Oh. Bloody perfect.

“What is this?” he asked, pulling back, his hand encircling her wrist.

“Nothing.”

He arched a brow. “Try again.”

“It is a...gift. For a friend.”

“A gift for a friend?”

“Yessss,” she said, drawing the word out to give herself time to think of more to add to her very stupid lie. “Because she asked for something that could tell the future and I thought...Magic 8 Ball or pregnancy test? And I went with pregnancy test because it gives specific yes or no answers to very specific questions.”

“Do you think you’re pregnant?”

“Right now? I think I’m absent a period. Which under normal circumstances would be like, ‘Hey, great timing, because I’m supposed to be getting married.’”

“But?”

“Under the circumstances of ‘I slept with my fiancé’s enemy a month ago’ I find it a bit worrisome, and yes, I think I might be pregnant.”

“Go and find out,” he said, moving away from her. “Now.”

“So now I’m supposed to pee on your command? What if I don’t have to go?”

“You were about to go—don’t play that way.”

His jaw was set, his skin pale. He wasn’t taking this much better than she was. “Honestly, Alex, what do you care if I am?”

“I care because I will be a part of that child’s life.”

“You will not be,” she said, the words coming out before she had a chance to think them through.

“You think I’m going to let that man near any child of mine?” he asked, rage rolling off him like a force field, pushing her back. “I know what happens to children who get near the Kouklakis family. I doubt you do.”

“Ajax is...he’s not a Kouklakis. He’s...”

“Got an alias. How foolish are you? He’s changed his name.”

“I don’t...”

“Go and take the test.”

She didn’t even have it in her to argue with him now. She nodded slowly, holding the box in numb fingers as she backed into the bathroom. Alex watched Rachel’s retreating form, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might hammer through his chest and flop onto the bed, leaving a crimson stain on that pristine white duvet of hers.

A child.

His child.

This wasn’t about revenge anymore. It hadn’t been, not from the moment he’d claimed Rachel as his own. He wanted her, and he would have her. That was why he was here.

And because he refused to allow Ajax Kouros anywhere near a son or daughter of his.

No, Ajax didn’t deal in human or drug trafficking, and Alex knew that. He knew, from the extensive research he’d done on the subject, that Ajax’s business was entirely legitimate.

But bad blood was bad blood. Alex knew it. He felt it. He’d been born with the same blood as Alex, and he would never truly escape it. Alex hadn’t, why should Ajax?

He shook it off. That thought. That burning sensation he felt whenever he imagined poison running through his own veins.

Things had changed for him.

Alex had made his fortune playing the stock market, first with other people’s money, and now with his own. He was a gambler by nature, and doing it in the realm of the financial had been lucrative. Because like any good gambler, he had a skill for it. It wasn’t pure luck, it was research. Memory. A natural feel for it.

It had earned him millions. On his twenty-sixth birthday, only six months ago, he’d netted his first billion.

He wasn’t powerless anymore. He never would be again.

The bathroom door opened and Rachel appeared, white-faced, blue eyes watery.

“What?” he asked.

“There were two lines.”

“Well, what does that mean?” he asked, tension making his heart race, pumping too much restless energy in his muscles.

“It means that I’m pregnant. And before you ask—it is your baby, I won’t lie to you about that.”

“You will not marry him.”