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The Marakaios Baby
Kate Hewitt
From ‘I Don’t’… Dating Leo Marakaios is like dancing with the devil. Margo Ferrars thinks she can match him, step for seductive step – until Leo asks her to marry him. It might only be for convenience, but Margo knows it’s time to walk away.… To ‘I Do’!Margo accepts that giving up Leo’s earth-shattering kisses and expert touch is the price she must pay to protect her heart, but then she discovers she’s pregnant. And now Margo finds herself in the plush offices of Marakaios Enterprises…about to tell Leo he’s going to be a father and to ask him to marry her!Discover more at www.millsandboon.co.uk/katehewitt
Leo gazed at her narrowly for a moment. He still didn’t understand why she was here. She hadn’t possessed enough honour to be faithful to him—why would she care whether he knew about his own child or not?
‘I would have expected you to pass it off as this other man’s,’ he said abruptly.
Margo winced at that. ‘Clearly you don’t have a very high opinion of me.’
‘And you think I should?’
‘No.’ She let out a little defeated sigh. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘So why didn’t you do that, Margo?’ It was the first time he’d said her name since he’d seen her again, and it caused him a sudden, surprising flash of pain. He clenched his hands into fists, then deliberately flattened them out, resting them again on his desk.
‘Because I am not—no matter what you think—completely without morals,’ she replied with a bit of her old spirit. ‘I want my child, and I want my child to know his or her father.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And, more than that. I want my child to have a loving, stable home. A home where she knows she’s safe, where her parents are there, loving and protecting her. Always.’ Her dark brown eyes seemed to glow with an inner fire, an utter conviction.
‘And how,’ Leo asked after a pause, ‘do you suppose that is going to work?’
‘That’s the other thing I want,’ Margo said, still holding his gaze, her eyes like burning coals in her pale face. ‘I want you to marry me.’
The Marakaios Brides
Powerful Greeks meet their match!
Proud Greek blood flows through the veins of brothers Antonios and Leonidas Marakaios. With determination and ruthlessness they have built their family’s empire to global heights.
It has been their sole focus—even to the exclusion of love.
But now two women look set to challenge their pride, their passion and their marriage vows!
Read Antonios’s story in:
The Marakaios Marriage
May 2015
And meet Leonidas in:
The Marakaios Baby
August 2015
The Marakaios
Baby
Kate Hewitt
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
After spending three years as a die-hard New Yorker, KATE HEWITT now lives in a small village in the English Lake District with her husband, their five children and a golden retriever. In addition to writing intensely emotional stories she loves reading, baking, and playing chess with her son—she has yet to win against him, but she continues to try.
Learn more about Kate at kate-hewitt.com (http://www.kate-hewitt.com).
To Lauren,
Thank you for your many years of friendship. Love, K.
Contents
Cover (#ua0d58fd5-383c-5d81-8b19-105a96c04dd3)
Introduction (#ue47949f4-9d7d-533d-8978-a7f9deb1103e)
The Marakaios Brides (#u72e281d0-84ac-51f5-a55e-ef5294df2f73)
Title Page (#u2c0b933e-3323-5590-a229-6904ae423880)
About the Author (#u3abb9df8-1eaa-5fa0-86cf-50384e2a33ff)
Dedication (#u44fbb77c-4633-56f4-a8c4-77900e5daec3)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua79c8859-4574-5c8c-acb3-93482a44bef4)
CHAPTER TWO (#u9bd1380d-a7b7-50e3-84b6-3091d77085f3)
CHAPTER THREE (#ufd4dff6c-d9b0-5f5b-89a0-6e5d068fc32f)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u44add09d-9885-5828-a72d-bc2c88da4be4)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_676629a8-6d07-5d72-9189-10d208168214)
‘WILL YOU MARRY ME?’
The question seemed to bounce off the walls and echo through the room as Marguerite Ferrars stared in shock at the face of the man who had asked the question—her lover, Leonidas Marakaios.
He gazed at her with a faint half-smile quirking his lips, his eyebrows slightly raised. In his hand he held a small black velvet box, and the solitaire diamond of who knew how many carats inside sparkled with quiet sophistication.
‘Margo?’
His voice was lilting, teasing; he thought she was silent because she was so surprised. But, while that was true, she felt something else as well. Appalled. Terrified.
She’d never expected this—never thought that charismatic playboy Leo would think of marriage. A lifetime commitment, a life—and love—you could lose. And she knew the searing pain of losing someone—the way it left you breathless and gasping, waking up in the night, your face awash in tears, even years later...
The moment stretched on too long, and still she said nothing. She couldn’t. Because she didn’t dare say yes and yet no seemed just as impossible. Leo Marakaios was not a man who accepted refusal. Rejection.
She watched as a slight frown pulled his eyebrows together and he withdrew the hand holding the open velvet box to rest it in his lap.
‘Leo...’ she began finally, helplessly—because how could she tell this impossibly arrogant, handsome, charismatic man no? And yet she had to. Of course she had to.
‘I didn’t think this would be that much of a surprise,’ he said, his voice holding only a remnant of lightness now.
She felt a surge of something close to anger, which was almost a relief. ‘Didn’t you? We’ve never had the kind of relationship that...’
‘That what?’ He arched an eyebrow, the gesture caught between wryness and disdain.
She could feel him withdrawing, and while she knew she should be glad, she felt only a deep, wrenching sorrow. This wasn’t what she’d wanted. But she didn’t—couldn’t—want marriage either. Couldn’t let someone matter that much.
‘That...led somewhere,’ she finished, and he closed the box with a snap, his expression turning so terribly cold.
‘I see.’
Words stuck in her throat—the answer she knew she had to give yet somehow couldn’t make herself say. ‘Leo, we’ve never even talked about the future.’
‘We’ve been together for two years,’ he returned. ‘I think it’s reasonable to assume it was going somewhere.’
His voice held a deliberate edge, and his eyes were blazing silver fire. Or maybe ice, for he looked so cold now—even contemptuous. And moments ago he’d been asking to marry her. It almost seemed laughable.
‘Together for two years,’ Margo allowed, determined to stay reasonable, ‘but we’ve hardly had what most people would call a “normal” relationship. We’ve met in strange cities, in restaurants and hotels—’
‘Which is how you wanted it.’
‘And how you wanted it too. It was an affair, Leo. A—a fling.’
‘A two-year fling.’
She rose from her chair, agitated now, and paced in front of the picture window that overlooked the Île de la Cité. It was so strange and unsettling to have Leo here in her apartment, her sanctuary, when he’d never come to her home before. Restaurants and hotels, yes—anonymous places for emotionless no-strings sex...that was what they’d agreed. That was all she could let herself have.
The risk of trying for more was simply too great. She knew what it was like to lose everything—even your own soul. She couldn’t go through that again. She wouldn’t.
Not even for Leo.
‘You seem upset,’ Leo remarked tonelessly.
‘I just didn’t expect this.’
‘As it happens, neither did I.’
He rose from where he’d been sitting, on the damask settee she’d upholstered herself, his tall, rangy figure seeming to fill the cosy space of her sitting room. He looked wrong here, somehow, amidst all her things—her throw pillows and porcelain ornaments; he was too big, too dark, too powerful...like a tiger pacing the cage of a kitten.
‘I thought most women wanted to get married,’ he remarked.
She turned on him then, another surge of anger making her feel strong. ‘What a ridiculous, sexist assumption! And I, in any case, am not “most women”.’
‘No,’ Leo agreed silkily. ‘You’re not.’
His eyes blazed with intent then—an intent that made Margo’s breath catch in her chest.
The sexual chemistry between them had been instantaneous—electric. She remembered catching sight of him in a hotel bar in Milan two years ago. She’d been nursing a single glass of white wine while she went over her notes for the next day’s meeting. He’d strolled over to the bar and slid onto the stool next to hers, and the little hairs on the back of her neck had prickled. She’d felt as if she were finally coming alive.
She’d gone back with him to his room that night. It had been so unlike her—she’d always kept herself apart, her heart on ice. In her twenty-nine years she’d had only two lovers before Leo, both of them lamentably forgettable. Neither of those men had affected her the way Leo did—and not just physically.
From that first night he’d reached a place inside her she’d thought numb, dead. He’d brought her back to life. And while she’d known it was dangerous she’d stayed with him, because the thought of not being with Leo was worse.
Except now that was a reality. She’d thought an affair with Leo would be safe, that he would never ask more of her than she was prepared to give. But here he was asking for marriage, a lifetime, and her response was bone-deep terror.
Which was why she could not accept his proposal.
Except she had a terrible and yet thrilling certainty that he had a different proposal in mind now, as he came towards her, his gaze turning hooded and sleepy even though that lithe, powerful body she knew almost as well as her own was taut with suppressed energy and tension.
She licked her lips, felt the insistent thud of her heart, the stirring of blood in her veins. Even now her body yearned for him.
‘Leo...’
‘You surprise me, Margo.’
