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Authors: Sandra Marton

BOOK: The Greek's Unwilling Bride
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“Close your eyes,” he said. “Rest for a while.”
“I'm not tired.”
“Yes, you are.”
“For heaven's sake, Damian, must you pretend you know every...”
Her eyes closed. She was asleep.
Damian rose to his feet. No, he thought grimly, he didn't know everything, but he knew enough to figure that a woman who claimed she'd been on a diet of tomato juice and black coffee wasn't very likely to have eaten something that made her sick...especially not when she was carrying around a little white card like the one that had fallen from her pocket when he'd put her on the couch.
He walked into the kitchen and took the card from the table, where he'd left it: Vivian Glass man, M.D., Gynecology and Obstetrics.
It probably didn't mean a thing. People tucked away cards and forgot about them, and even if that was where Laurel had been today, what did it prove? Women went for gynecological checkups regularly.
His fist clenched around the card. He thought of Laurel's face, when she'd seen him coming toward her a little while ago—and he thought of something else.
All these weeks that he'd dreamed of her, relived the night they'd spent in each other's arms. The heat, the sweetness—all of it had seemed permanently etched into his brain. Now, another memory vied for his attention, one that made his belly cramp.
In all that long, wild night, he'd never thought to use a condom.
It was so crazy, so irresponsible, so completely unlike him. It was as if he'd been intoxicated that night, drunk on the smell of Laurel's skin and the taste of her mouth.
He hadn't used a condom. She hadn't used a diaphragm. Now she was nauseous, and faint, and she was seeing a doctor whose specialty was obstetrics.
Maybe she was on the pill. Maybe his imagination was in overdrive.
Maybe it was time to get some answers.
He took a long, harsh breath. Then he reached for the phone.
* * *
Laurel awoke slowly.
She was lying on the living-room couch. Darkness had gathered outside the windows but someone had turned on the table lamp.
Someone?
Damian.
He was sitting in a chair a few feet away. There was a granitelike set to his jaw; above it, his mouth was set in a harsh line.
“How do you feel?”
She swallowed experimentally. Her stomach growled, but it stayed put.
“Much better.” She sat up, pushed the afghan aside and swung her legs to the floor. “Thank you for everything, Damian, but there really wasn't any need for you to sit here while I slept.” He said nothing, and the silence beat in her ears. Something was wrong, she could feel it. “What time is it, anyway?” she asked, trying for a light tone. “I must have slept for—”
“When did you plan on telling me?”
Her heart thumped, then lodged like a stone behind her breastbone.
“Plan on telling you what?” She rose to her feet and he did, too, and came toward her. Damn, where were her shoes? He was so tall. It put her at a disadvantage, to let him loom over her like this.
“Perhaps you didn't intend to tell me.” His voice hummed with challenge; his accent thickened. “Was that your plan?”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said, starting past him, “and I'm really not in the mood for games.”
“And I,” he said, clamping his hand down on her shoulder, “am not in the mood for lies.”
Her eyes flashed fire as she swung toward him. “I think you'd better leave.”
“You're pregnant,” he said flatly.
Pregnant
.
Pregnant.
The word seemed to echo through the room.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“It will be easier if you tell me the truth.”
She twisted free of his grasp and pointed at the door. “It will be easier if you get out of here.”
“Is the child mine?”
“Is...?” Laurel stuffed her hands into her pockets. “There is no child. I don't know where you got this idea, but—”
“How many men were you with that week, aside from me?”
“Get out, damn you!”
“I ask you again, is the child mine?”
She stared at him, her lips trembling. No, she wanted to say, it is not. I was with a dozen men that week. A hundred. A thousand.
“Answer me!” His hands clamped around her shoulders and he shook her roughly. “Is it mine?”
In the end, it was too barbarous a lie to tell.
“Yes,” she whispered, “it's yours.”
He said nothing for a long moment. Then he jerked his head towards the sofa.
“Sit down, Laurel.”
She looked up and their eyes met. A shudder raced through her. She stepped back, until she felt the edge of the sofa behind her, and then she collapsed onto the cushions like a rag doll.
“How—how did you find out?”
His mouth curled. He reached into his pocket, took out a small white card and tossed it into her lap. Laurel stared down at it. It was the card Dr. Glass man had given her.
She looked up at him. “She told you? Dr. Glass man
told
you? She had no right! She—”
“She told me nothing.” His mouth twisted again. “And everything.”
“I don't understand.”
“The card fell from your pocket. I telephoned Glass man's office. The receptionist put me through when I said I was a ‘friend' of yours and concerned about your health.”
The twist he put on the word brought a rush of color to Laurel's face. Damian saw it and flashed a thin smile.
“Apparently your physician made the same interpretation. But she was very discreet. She acknowledged only that she knew you. She said I would have to discuss your medical condition with you, and she hung up.”
Laurel's face whitened. “Then—then you didn't really know! You lied to me. You fooled me into—into—”
“I put two and two together, that's all, and then I asked a question, which you answered.”
“It wasn't a question!” Laurel drew a shuddering breath. “You said you knew that I was—that I was—”
“I asked if it was my child.” He moved suddenly, bending down and spearing his arms on either side of her, trapping her, pinning her with a look that threatened to turn her to ice. “My child, damn you! What were you planning, Laurel? To give it up for adoption? To have it aborted?”
“No!” The cry burst from her throat and, as it did, she knew that it was the truth. She would not give up the life within her. She wanted her baby, with all her heart and soul, had wanted it from the moment the doctor had confirmed that she was pregnant. “No,” she whispered, her gaze steady on his. “I'm not going to do that. I'm going to have my baby, and keep it.”
“Keep it?” Damian's mouth twisted. “This is not a puppy we speak of. How will you keep it? How will you raise a child alone?”
“You'd be amazed at how much progress women have made,” Laurel said defiantly. “We're capable of rearing children as well as giving birth to them.”
“A child will interfere with the self-indulgent life you lead.”
“You don't know the first thing about my life!”
“I know that a woman who sleeps with strangers cannot possibly pretend to be a fit mother for my child.”
Laurel slammed her fist into his shoulder. “What a hypocritical son of a bitch you are! Who are you to judge me? It took two of us to create this baby, Damian, two strangers in one bed that night!”
A thin smile touched his lips. “It is not the same.”
“It is not the same,” she said, cruelly mimicking his tone and his accent. She rose and shoved past him. “Do us both a favor, will you? Get out of here. Get out of my life. I don't ever want to see your face again!”
“I would do so, and gladly, but you forget that this life you carry belongs to me.”
“It's a baby, Damian. You don't own a baby. I suppose that's hard for someone like you to comprehend, but a child's not a—a commodity. You can't own it, even if your name is Damian Skouras.”
They glared at each other, and then he muttered something in Greek and stalked away from her.
Dammit, she was right! He was behaving like an ass. That self-righteous crap a minute ago, about a woman who slept with strangers not being a fit mother, was ridiculous. He was as responsible for what had happened as she was.
And now she was carrying a child. His child. A deep warmth suffused his blood. He had always thought raising Nick would be the closest he'd come to fatherhood. Now, Fate and a woman who'd haunted his dreams had joined forces to show him another way.
Slowly, he turned and looked at Laurel.
“I want my child,” he said softly.
Laurel went cold. “What do you mean, you want your child?”
“I mean exactly what I said. This child is mine, and I will not forfeit my claim to it.”
His claim? She felt her legs turn to jelly. This kind of thing cropped up in the papers and on TV news shows, reports of fathers who demanded, and won, custody. Not many, it was true, but this was Damian Skouras, who had all the power and wealth in the world. He could take her baby from her with a snap of his fingers.
Be calm, she told herself, be calm, and don't let him see how frightened you are.
“Do you understand, Laurel?”
“Yes. I understand.” She made her way toward him, her gaze locked on his face, assessing what to offer and what to hold back, wondering how you played poker with a man who owned all the chips. “Look, Damian, let's not discuss this now, when we're both upset.”
“There is nothing to discuss. I'm telling you how it will be. I will be a father to my child.”
“Well, I'm not—I'm not opposed to you having a role in this. In fact, Dr. Glass man and I talked a little bit about—about the value of a father, in a child's life. I'm sure we can work out some sort of agreement.”
“Visiting rights?”
“Yes.”
His smile was even more frightening the second time. “How generous of you, Laurel.”
“I'm sure we can work out an arrangement that will suit us both.”
“Did I ever tell you that my father played no part in my life?”
“Look, I don't know what the situation was between your parents, but—”
“I might as well have been a bastard.”
“Damian—”
“I have no great confidence in marriage, I assure you, but when children are involved, I have even less in divorce.”
“Well, this wouldn't be the same situation at all,” she said, trying not to sound as desperate as she felt. “I mean, since we wouldn't be married, there'd be no divorce to worry ab—”
“My child deserves better. He—or she—is entitled to two parents, and to stability.”
“I think so, too,” she said quickly. “That's why I'd be willing to—to permit you a role.”
“To permit me?” he said, so softly that she knew her choice of words had been an error.
“I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I won't keep you from my—from our—child. I swear it.”
“You swear,” he said, his tone mocking hers. “How touching. Am I to take comfort in the word of a woman who didn't even intend to tell me she was pregnant?”
“Dammit, what do you want? Just tell me!”
“I
am
telling you. I will not abandon my child, nor be a father in name only, and I have no intention of putting my faith in agreements reached by greedy lawyers.”
“That's fine.” She gave him a dazzling smile. “No lawyers, then. No judges. We'll sit down, like two civilized people, and work out an arrangement that will suit us both.” She cried out sharply as his hands bit into her flesh. “Damian, you're hurting me!”
“Do you take me for a fool?” He leaned toward her, so that his face was only inches from hers. “I can imagine the sort of arrangement you would wish.”
“You're wrong. I just agreed, didn't I, that a father has a place in a child's life?”
“Ten minutes ago, you were telling me you never wanted to see my face again.”
“Yes, but that was before I understood how deeply you feel about this.”
“You mean, it was before you were trapped into telling me you were pregnant.” He laughed. “You're a bad liar, Laurel.”

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