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Jed respected her, and stayed at a permanent suite at a deluxe hotel the Sabbides Corporation owned when working in London, while having an apartment on her own had allowed Phoebe to study hard in her final year at university.
Despite Jed’s wealth they were just like any other couple in love, she told herself. They occasionally went out to dinner, or a film, and after their relationship had become intimate he’d often stayed overnight—if pressure of work allowed, sometimes more than one night. Jed had left a few items of clothing here over the year, but he definitely did not live here. He travelled a lot—as Phoebe knew to her cost when she lay aching for him in the big bed at night—but she had the compensation of the ginger cat Marty to keep her company when he was gone.
Jed rarely discussed business with her, but it had not taken her many months to realise he was a workaholic and split his time between two continents. But on the bright side he had once told her he had an older sister, who was married with two young girls whom he adored, so he obviously liked children—a positive sign, surely. He would want their baby just as much as she did, she was convinced…
Phoebe had met Jed when he was a guest at the hotel where she’d worked as a receptionist, and her life had changed from that moment. She had glanced up at the sound of his deep, slightly accented voice, looked into his gleaming dark eyes and been transfixed. He was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. Then he had smiled at her, and every nerve in her body had tingled with an excitement she had never felt before. Incapable of looking away, she had blushed scarlet.
Twelve months later the sight of him and the sound of his voice still excited her beyond belief—and sometimes still made her blush…
Phoebe Brown—maybe soon Phoebe Sabbides, she thought, lost in a daydream of the future. Snagging a handtowel from the rail, she bent her head and began to towel-dry her hair.
‘Aghh!’ she yelled, blinded by the towel as a large hand grasped her bare shoulder. ‘What the heck?’ she exclaimed as she was spun round and held at arm’s length.
The towel fell from her hands, her hair forgotten, as she looked up at Jed, her heart leaping in her chest. Tall, dark and handsome did not do him justice—he was so much more than that. He had a dynamic vitality about him—a presence that drew the eye of men and women alike wherever he went—especially the woman. And why not? Phoebe thought, eagerly drinking in the sight of him. He was magnificent.
‘Jed—it is you.’
‘I should hope so.’ He grinned down at her. ‘Who else would you welcome in your bathroom?’ he mocked.
Then his hands slipped from her shoulders to unwrap the towel from her body, his laughing eyes darkening as they roamed hungrily over her shapely form.
‘Now, this—this is what I have dreamed of for weeks.’ His gaze lingered on the proud thrust of her full breasts, the rose-tipped nipples tightening beneath his gaze. ‘But the reality exceeds my wildest dreams.’
Phoebe tilted her head back further. He had shed his jacket and tie and unfastened the first few buttons of his shirt, revealing the tanned column of his throat and a hint of black curling body hair. A slow, appreciative smile parted her full lips.
‘Ah, Jed…I’ve missed you so much.’ She sighed, and was gathered into his arms. His dark head dipped and his mouth covered hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they kissed with all the pent-up hunger and need that had built up over the time they had been apart.
His hands stroked down her back, and when they had to break for breath his head dipped lower, to capture one pert nipple into the heat of his mouth, licking and suckling as he tipped her backwards over a strong arm and delivered the same incredible pleasure to its partner.
‘Damn, Phoebe, I can’t wait,’ he groaned.
She ran a hand through his thick hair and slid the other through the opening of his shirt, desperate to feel again the warmth of his bronzed skin and the pebble-like nipples half hidden in crisp curls. She saw the flush over his high cheekbones, the gleaming brown eyes deep black pools of desire, and she stroked her hand lower. Her fingers traced the rock-hard outline of his arousal through the fabric of his pants and she knew exactly what he meant.
Neither could she…It was the longest they had been apart since they had met, and the liquid heat between her thighs was a potent testament of her need of him.
Catching her hand, he thrust it away and, pinning her against the wall, unzipped his pants to free his straining length. Then he was lifting her high, cupping her buttocks, and she locked her legs around his back as he thrust into her moist feminine core.
They came together in a frenzied passion.
Phoebe’s hands clasped behind his neck as she welcomed his hungry possession, her body pulsing as he plunged fast and furious, deeper and deeper, until she felt herself quivering on the brink of an ecstasy her body was screaming out for. With one last ferocious thrust he drove them both over the edge into a tumultuous climax.
Her head fell into the curve of his neck, her slender body shuddering in the aftermath of release. She could feel the heavy pounding of his heart against her own, and for a long moment she was incapable of movement.
‘Forgive me, Phoebe.’ She heard the rasping tone of his voice, and, lifting her head, she looked into his dark smouldering eyes. ‘But I needed you so badly.’
‘Me too,’ she murmured as he brushed his lips gently against hers and lowered her slowly down his long body.
He steadied her with an arm around her slender waist as her legs wobbled a little. ‘Are you sure you are okay?’
‘Better now. I only have to look at you to want you,’ she admitted freely, ecstatic at his unexpected early arrival.
‘Then keep that thought while I get out of these clothes,’ he said, with a wry glance at his pants around his knees before stepping out of them.
Phoebe bent down, intending to pick up the bath sheet from the floor, but Jed caught her wrist and pulled her upright.
‘Don’t bother,’ he drawled giving her a sensuous smile. ‘You won’t need it for what I have planned next.’ And as she watched he stripped off the remainder of his clothes.
Phoebe could not help it—he was her very own Greek god, she thought, excitement stirring inside her all over again as she let her eyes roam freely over him.
Jed her lover was six feet three of sheer perfection. His hair was black and slightly curly, and at the moment sexily dishevelled by her eager hands. His eyes were a golden-brown that darkened in passion to jet-black—as she knew only too well—and his nose was a straight blade in the fabulous structure of his handsome face. His sensual mouth was wide, the lips perfectly etched—the bottom slightly fuller than the top—and his jaw was square.
She could look at his face for ever, but the temptation of his wide shoulders and the smooth bronzed skin was becoming too much, and her gazed dropped to his broad chest and the dusting of black body hair that drew the eye down again over the well-defined muscles of his stomach, narrow waist, lean hips and long, long legs. He was all muscle and sinew, without an inch of fat on his impressive frame. As for his manhood, amazingly raising again from between his strong thighs, it fascinated her—Jed fascinated her, full-stop…
‘Like what you see?’ he quipped, and swiftly she raised her eyes to his. Even now, after all this time, she blushed at having been caught staring.
‘Yes.’ Like? She loved him—and maybe now was the time to tell him her news. But before she could find the words he swept her off her feet and carried her into the bedroom.
‘Wait, Jed—don’t you want a drink or something to eat after your journey? And why are you here a night early?’
‘Because I could not wait another day, and all I want to eat is you.’ Laying her down on the bed, he stretched out beside her.
Thrilled at his need for her, she reached for him—and what followed was a night like no other. He made love to her with an achingly slow passion that drove her wild with excitement, exploring every curve and crevasse, seducing all her senses as he drove her to climax. As for Phoebe it was as if she was possessed by some other entity, and any faint, lingering sexual inhibitions she’d had vanished as she explored every inch of him. He encouraged her with hands and mouth, teeth and tongue, and led her deeper along a path of ever more inventive sex, driving her to heights she had never reached before over and over again. It was if he could not get enough of her, nor she of him.
Finally, hours later, lying exhausted in the crook of his arm but unable to sleep, her mind spinning with disjointed thoughts, she looked across at his beloved face and wondered if their child would look like him. Then she wondered if his returning early was the special surprise he had promised, and frowned. Stupid, but she had secretly been nursing the hope that it might be a ring. In her fantasy scenario she had imagined him asking her to marry him before she told him she was pregnant.
‘I can hear you thinking, Phoebe—what’s wrong?’ Jed’s deep voice rumbled.
Leaning up, she spread her hand across his chest and stared down into his slumberous dark eyes. ‘Nothing. I was just wondering if coming back early was the surprise you promised me. I have to say if so it was the best ever.’ And, dipping her head, she kissed him.
‘I aim to please—but, no.’ Rolling her onto her back, he slid off the bed and switched on the light. ‘Stay where you are. I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said.
She watched him stroll naked out of the bedroom, to return a minute later with a black leather box in his hand.
‘Sit up, Phoebe.’ And she did.
‘For your graduation from university.’ He opened the box to reveal a dazzling platinum and diamond necklace. Slipping it around her neck, he fastened it. Then, running his hands over her slender shoulders and down to cup her breast, he added, ‘And also for your graduation in the bedroom.’ He rolled her nipples between his fingers. ‘I didn’t think sex could get any better, but I surprised myself. And you were with me all the way, surprising me even more, my incredibly wanton woman.’
‘Thank you, Jed,’ she murmured. ‘The necklace is breathtaking.’
She looked down at the dazzling cascade of gems around her throat, not wanting to reveal the slight disappointment she felt. But as she glanced lower, at his long tanned fingers teasing her breasts, it wasn’t disappointment she experienced but a renewed surge of arousal in what she had thought was her exhausted body.
Reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck, she brushed his lips with hers. ‘And I love you,’ she said softly.
She had told him enough times before, but it suddenly struck her that Jed had never actually said the words to her in English. He’d said she was beautiful and that he loved her body, he had told her so many times, and she had assumed he had said I love you in Greek, which was the language he used in the throes of passion. Now she was not so confident…
Telling herself not to be so silly—after what they had just done she was no longer the blushing innocent, that was for sure—she straddled his great body and, taking control, made love to him with a powerful passion which finally exhausted them both.
Phoebe awoke to feel a large male hand cupping her breast and the unmistakable pressure of an aroused male against her bum. A husky voice was murmuring in her ear, ‘Ah, Phoebe, you feel so good.’
She stretched sinuously, and groaned her pleasure as Jed’s other hand stroked around her waist to settle on her tummy, his long fingers edging to the curls at the apex of her thighs.
But her stomach had ideas of its own, and it wasn’t settled at all. In a flurry of arms and legs she slid off the bed and dashed towards the bathroom.
‘What the hell, Phoebe?’ She heard Jed swear.
Unable to answer him she dashed inside, closing the door behind her, and turned on the tap of the vanity unit. Maybe a drink of water would stop her need to heave. But it was no use, and two seconds later she was on her knees retching in the toilet but with surprisingly little result!
Slowly she straightened, and after flushing the toilet she turned to splash her face with water and wash her mouth out. Maybe she was not going to be cursed with morning sickness after all. Maybe if she learnt to lie still or move with more care the urge to be sick would be averted, she pondered, eyeing her reflection in the mirrored door of the floor-to-ceiling cabinet.
Her full lips curved in a feminine smile. She did not look any different yet. She simply looked like a very well-loved woman, and the marks of passion on her breast and thighs were evidence of the fact—along with the diamond necklace that adorned her throat. She sighed happily. When she would ever wear it she had no idea, but it was a fantastic present, and the night had been incredible. Jed had proved in a dozen different ways how much he wanted her—including a couple she had never experienced before. But now she recognised that between lovers even the unimaginable was acceptable and exquisitely pleasurable.
‘Phoebe?’
She heard him call her name.
Now was as good a time as any to tell him she was pregnant, she decided—with her confidence sky-high. ‘Coming in a minute,’ she called back and, taking a towel from the cupboard, she wrapped it around her naked body before exiting the bathroom.
‘What took you so long?’ he drawled, the eyes that met hers gleaming with humour and undisguised desire.
Her gaze swept over his lean muscled body splayed across the bed, over the sleek golden skin with its subtle pattern of black hair in strategic places, and noted he was still mightily aroused. He lifted a long fingered hand and beckoned her to join him, and her heart turned over.
‘I’m waiting for my morning sex,’ he said with an anticipatory grin.
A sensual shiver slid down her spine. He wanted her. Jed loved her—she could see it in his eyes.
Taking a step towards him, she grinned back. ‘And I am pregnant, and thought I was going to be sick.’ She saw the anticipation fade from his eyes. ‘But don’t worry—I’m fine now,’ she told him swiftly as she reached the bed.
A certain part of his anatomy had faded equally fast, she registered as he swung his legs over the other side of the bed and stood up. ‘Jed?’ she began, and stopped as he turned to face her, shocked by the flash of violent anger she caught in his eyes before, as if a shutter had fallen his handsome face became devoid of all expression.
He stared at her for a long moment, and the transformation from eager lover to cold hard stranger could not have been more obvious. She shivered again—but this time with a deep sense of foreboding.
Chapter Two (#u1fdee3d1-19da-5f89-9e6f-c4c3771fec97)
PREGNANT. Phoebe was pregnant. It wasn’t possible. He had taken every possible precaution—but had she? Jed asked himself the question, and a red mist of rage engulfed him as his totally panicked brain scrambled for an acceptable answer. Counting to ten didn’t work. He got up to a thousand before he reached the glaringly obvious conclusion and finally trusted himself to turn and speak to her without yelling.
‘I’m sure you think you are fine,’ he drawled with biting cynicism, while battling to keep a lid on the fury still simmering inside him and retain his legendary cool control. ‘Standing there with diamonds around your elegant neck, and according to you pregnant with what I presume you are going to claim is my child.’
He could not believe he had been suckered in by Phoebe’s so-called innocence; she was like all the rest—if not worse—because she had succeeded where other women had failed with the oldest trick in the book.
‘Of course the baby is yours.’
He heard the shock in her voice but ignored it.
‘You know you are the only man I have ever made love with. I love you, and I thought you loved me.’
‘You thought wrong. I don’t do love—don’t believe in the concept.’
‘Why are you being like this?’ She looked at him with wide puzzled eyes.
‘Why? Because I have no wish to be tricked into becoming a father,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘Cast your mind back to the beginning. I always used protection. You then suggested going on the pill and I—more fool me—because of your initial innocence was tempted by the idea of condom-free sex for the first time in my life. I introduced you to my own private Dr Marcus, and he supplied your birth control pills. You did not even have to remember to collect them as he arranged for them to be delivered to you here. So there could have been no missed prescription, no mistake—so tell me, when did this conception occur?’
Whatever reaction Phoebe had expected, this sneering, cynical hard-eyed stranger standing facing her bore no resemblance to the Jed she’d thought she knew and loved. Her emotions were frozen in shock and she simply stated the truth.
‘The weekend in Paris. I forgot to take my pills with me.’
‘I might have guessed.’ Jed’s analytical mind, no longer blinded by sex, put two and two together and instantly saw through Phoebe’s devious plan.
‘I remember the only time you argued with me instead of being the eager lover was when I returned from spending Easter in Greece. You complained I never took you abroad with me, and moaned that the only time you had been out of the country was a day-trip to Belgium. You had not even been to Paris, so I took you there. Now you expect me to believe you mistakenly left your pills behind and never thought to mention the fact in the three days we stayed? How very convenient for you,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘That was the end of April, and now it is the beginning of July—you must be two months pregnant.’
‘Nine weeks,’ she amended softly. Maybe it was just shock making Jed behave like the biggest louse on the planet, Phoebe rationalized.
‘What took you so long to tell me? Don’t answer that—let me guess. You waited until you had finished your exams and graduated, but you never had any intention of starting a career other than living in the lap of luxury at my expense. You’re a highly intelligent woman, Phoebe, and your timing is perfect. But no one takes me for a fool, and if your unusually spectacular and wanton display in bed last night was supposed to soften me up to get me to marry you are out of luck. No man expects his mistress to get pregnant.’
Through the fog of numbness Phoebe was devastated that he could actually believe she was so conniving as to have executed the plan he had formed in his mind. As for calling her his mistress—that was the last straw.
‘I was never your mistress—I would never be any man’s mistress. I thought you were my boyfriend. I thought you—’
He cut her off.
‘Come off it, Phoebe, don’t pretend you are that naïve. I got this apartment for you.’
‘I thought I was housesitting for your friend and Marty.’
‘You were—but he sold me the place three months after he left and said you could keep the cat. Apparently he has found a different kind of feline to snuggle up to—hopefully one less devious than you.’
‘Devious!’ she cried ‘How can you call me that after all we have shared?’
‘Quite easily. I gave you a car, jewels, clothes—whatever you wanted you could have. But a wedding ring was never on offer, and you knew that perfectly well from the start and agreed with me. If you think for one minute you can trap me with a child that was never on my agenda…think again.’
Phoebe sank down onto the bed, her mind in turmoil. He had said a child was not on his agenda. Typical business-speak, she realized, for what he really meant. He did not want their child and it was like a knife to her heart. She could not bear to look at Jed, and took a few deep, steadying breaths. Then finally the import of his disavowal of love as a concept registered in her mind, and in a flash of blinding clarity she saw she had been deluding herself from the very start of their relationship. While she had fallen in love and thought Jed was her boyfriend he had only considered her his mistress and treated her accordingly.
Now a lot of little niggling things over the past year made sense. No wonder he had never suggested she go to Greece with him and meet his family and friends, or go anywhere else with him on his travels. He had always had some excuse for not being around when her Aunt Jemma came up from Dorset to London to see her, and she had asked him often enough.
Jed had wined, dined and bedded her. He had even given her a car a week before Christmas. She had tried to refuse, saying he was too generous, but he had insisted she take the car, saying it would be useful for driving home for the holiday. He hadn’t been able to spend it with her because he always went to Greece for the festive season. Much in the same way he’d insisted when he gave her a jewelled clip six weeks after they met, then a diamond bracelet for her twenty-first last August, and insisted on taking her shopping for designer clothes and lingerie that were not really her.
She had learnt it was easier to accept gracefully than to object. But she had never met any of his friends other than the man who had originally owned this apartment, and Dr Marcus with whom he had gone to school. She was simply his mistress in London. The weekend in Paris had been the only time he had taken her abroad—what a cliché! Then another sickening thought hit her. If he considered her simply a mistress maybe she was not the only one. He probably had others in New York and Greece and heaven knew where else.
Her shoulders slumped and her head fell forward. She raised her hands to run them despairingly through her tangled hair, blinking away the tears that threatened. How could she have been so dumb, so mistaken about Jed, her first and only lover?
Liz had been right all along, and she had been too besotted to see the truth…
Jed looked at Phoebe’s downbent head saw the utter devastation she could not hide. The shock and anger that had overtaken him subsided a little. If she was pregnant of course he would take care of her. But first he needed Dr Marcus to confirm the pregnancy and, given he had been away for weeks at a time throughout their affair, he needed to be certain the child was his before he could even consider marrying her—though no child of his was going to be born out of wedlock. Lock being the operative word, he thought cynically…Marriage meant the end of his bachelor days.
He could not deal with Phoebe now. He needed time to think, and he had a breakfast meeting in an hour.
He walked around to where she sat, and laid a hand on her shoulder. He felt her jerk away from him, which angered him again.
‘I have not time for this now,’ he said curtly. ‘I have meetings lined up all day that I can’t miss, and I have to be in Greece by tomorrow evening for my father’s birthday party.’
