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A Ring For The Greek's Baby
MELANIE MILBURNE
From no-strings…Notorious playboy Loukas Kyprianos cannot forget his wild night with sweet, innocent Emily Seymour. But when he arrives in London to offer a no-strings arrangement, Loukas uncovers a surprise consequence of their passion—Emily is expecting!To wearing his ring!Despite their exquisite encounter, Emily knows Loukas can’t give her the fairytale she dreams of—so when he insists they wed, she agrees for their child’s sake alone. But their engagement fuels their hunger, and when the irresistible Greek’s protection turns to seduction it’s only a matter of time before Emily succumbs to his touch!When one night…leads to pregnancy!
From no strings...
Notorious playboy Loukas Kyprianos cannot forget his wild night with sweet, innocent Emily Seymour. But when he arrives in London to offer a no-strings arrangement, Loukas uncovers a surprise consequence of their passion—Emily is expecting!
To wearing his ring!
Despite their exquisite encounter, Emily knows Loukas can’t give her the fairy tale she dreams of—so when he insists they wed, she agrees for their child’s sake alone. But their engagement fuels their hunger, and when the irresistible Greek’s protection turns to seduction it’s only a matter of time before Emily succumbs to his touch!
‘Tell me you want me.’
‘I want you, but there’s—’
Emily stepped back from Loukas with what little willpower she had left, but she stumbled over the pedal bin behind her left foot and it tipped over and spilled its contents in front of his Italian-leather-clad feet.
An unpinned grenade would have had a similar effect.
Loukas’s face drained of colour as if he was the one with morning sickness. He stood frozen for a moment. Totally statuelike. As if someone had pressed the ‘pause’ button on him.
Emily watched as if in slow motion as he bent to pick up not one but seven pregnancy test wands. He examined the telltale blue lines, clanking the wands against each other like chopsticks.
His eyes finally cut to hers—sharp, flint hard with query. ‘You’re...pregnant?’
One Night With Consequences (#u030d4e62-3430-5e1a-93da-9d0b1dcc7f04)
When one night…leads to pregnancy!
When succumbing to a night of unbridled desire it’s impossible to think past the morning after!
But, with the sheets barely settled, that little blue line appears on the pregnancy test and it doesn’t take long to realise that one night of white-hot passion has turned into a lifetime of consequences!
Only one question remains:
How do you tell a man you’ve just met that you’re about to share more than just his bed?
Find out in:
The Greek’s Nine-Month Redemption by Maisey Yates
Crowned for the Prince’s Heir by Sharon Kendrick
The Sheikh’s Baby Scandal by Carol Marinelli
A Ring for Vincenzo’s Heir by Jennie Lucas
Claiming His Christmas Consequence by Michelle Smart
The Guardian’s Virgin Ward by Caitlin Crews
A Child Claimed by Gold by Rachael Thomas
The Consequence of His Vengeance by Jennie Lucas
Secrets of a Billionaire’s Mistress by Sharon Kendrick
The Boss’s Nine-Month Negotiation by Maya Blake
The Pregnant Kavakos Bride by Sharon Kendrick
Look for more One Night With Consequences stories, coming soon!
A Ring for the Greek’s Baby
Melanie Milburne
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MELANIE MILBURNE read her first Mills & Boon novel at the age of seventeen, in between studying for her final exams. After completing a master’s degree in education she decided to write a novel, and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and a keen dog-lover and trainer. She enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the HOLT Medallion—a prestigious award honouring outstanding literary talent.
Books by Melanie Milburne
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
The Temporary Mrs Marchetti
Unwrapping His Convenient Fiancée
His Mistress for a Week
Wedlocked!
Wedding Night with Her Enemy
The Ravensdale Scandals
Ravensdale’s Defiant Captive
Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress
Engaged to Her Ravensdale Enemy
The Most Scandalous Ravensdale
The Playboys of Argentina
The Valquez Bride
The Valquez Seduction
Those Scandalous Caffarellis
Never Say No to a Caffarelli
Never Underestimate a Caffarelli
Never Gamble with a Caffarelli
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/) for more titles.
To my darling father, Gordon Luke, who passed away during the writing of this novel.
You were an amazing father, grandfather and great-grandfather, brother, uncle and friend. You have touched so many lives with your funny stories, your generous spirit and strong work ethic. I will always treasure the memories I have of our relationship. The world would be a better place if everyone could have a dad like you.
Rest in peace. xxx
Contents
Cover (#u9a8491c7-d797-5f7e-855e-58a45cb741a8)
Back Cover Text (#u8a7b1602-7aa7-59d3-a2e0-951e2a211a15)
Introduction (#u9cfac1b4-3838-5725-9e34-d474f20d4306)
One Night With Consequences (#u90975998-26c0-514f-8752-cf0b040e4a53)
Title Page (#u72529c63-ca1b-56a1-b0f1-cfd6a28bc4b7)
About the Author (#u4afe0bf6-627b-5c09-9f96-3f72877035ba)
Dedication (#ud4ec9ac7-bfbf-5690-ac74-4b3edbfc72b1)
CHAPTER ONE (#u9f6d57b7-2a49-54fb-8fbd-82dc55158fc0)
CHAPTER TWO (#ud3f528f4-bd07-5cbc-8443-344990561cd3)
CHAPTER THREE (#u114f1321-f123-57f6-b063-930df2b4c86c)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u030d4e62-3430-5e1a-93da-9d0b1dcc7f04)
WHEN THE SEVENTH TEST came back positive, Emily knew it was time to face the truth. Face it or spend a fortune on pregnancy tests until there wasn’t a pharmacy she could walk into in the whole of London without blushing with an ‘it’s me again’ grimace. She’d thought buying a jumbo box of tampons was embarrassing, but a basket full of pregnancy tests was way worse. There was no avoiding it. Those little blue lines weren’t lying even if she wished they were.
She. Was. Pregnant.
Not that she didn’t want to have a baby. Some day, with some nice guy who was madly in love with her and had married her at a big, white wedding first.
Her first ever one-night stand and look what had happened. How could she be so fertile? How could condoms be so unreliable? How could she have slept with a man so out of her league? Emily was all for aiming high in life, but a Greek billionaire? And not one of those short, fat, balding middle-aged ones, like those in her local deli, but a six-foot-four heart-stoppingly gorgeous man who had eyes so brown you could lose yourself in them.
Which she had promptly done. Completely and utterly lost herself in a sizzling sexual encounter unlike anything she’d experienced before. Which, truth be told, was not saying much, because her experience could hardly be described as extensive given she’d wasted seven years with her ex-partner Daniel. Seven years. Argh! Why couldn’t the number seven be lucky for her like everyone else? For seven long years she’d waited for a proposal. It had got so bad that every time her ex had bent down on one knee to pick something up off the floor she would get all excited thinking this was it—the moment she’d been waiting for.
It had never happened.
What had happened instead was she’d got cheated on. The ignominy of being betrayed was bad enough, but to be left for a male lover was a whole new level of humiliation. How could she have been the last to know Daniel was gay?
But it wasn’t the betrayal that hurt her the most. It was the loss of being a part of a couple; the shock of being single for the first time in so long she had forgotten how to be single. Going out at night without a partner by her side felt weird, like going out with only one shoe on. Or eating in a restaurant on her own, working her way through a meal, wondering if everyone was speculating if she’d been stood up or something.
She used to love going out to dinner with Daniel, who was a bit of a food and wine connoisseur. They would try different restaurants and cuisines and sit for hours over a meal, discussing the food, the presentation, the wine and even the other diners. She used to love coming home from work knowing she had someone to talk to about her day. Daniel had been her ‘guess what happened to me today’ person, her sounding board, her back-up, her anchor. The person who’d provided the stability she’d craved since she was a child.
She hadn’t had much luck since with dating. Her New Age relationship-therapist mother said it was because she was subconsciously sabotaging her male relationships because of her father issues. Father issues. And whose fault was it she didn’t have a father? Her mother hadn’t managed to get his name and number when she’d had sex with him under a rain-soaked tarpaulin at a music festival.
Emily looked at the pregnancy test again. No. She wasn’t having a nightmare. Well, she was. A living nightmare. A nightmare that involved fronting up to commitment-phobe Loukas Kyprianos and telling him he was going to be a father.
Oh, joy.
Such a task would be a whole lot easier if he had called her in the month since their night of bed-wrecking, pulse-throbbing sex. Or sent a text message. Or an email. A carrier pigeon, even. Given her some tiny thread of hope he might want to see her again.
Although, come to think of it, she hadn’t exactly done herself any favours in that department. She could write a book on how to get a guy to lose interest in one date. When she was nervous she talked too much. Way too much. When she gushed like that, she didn’t just wear her heart on her sleeve but on every visible part of her body. A couple of drinks down and she’d mentioned her dream of marriage, four kids and a dog—an Irish Retriever, no less. To a man who had a reputation as an easy come, easy go playboy.
What was wrong with her?
Emily walked out of the bathroom and picked up her phone. No missed calls. No text messages...apart from four from her mother with links to her prescribed daily meditation and yoga practices. It was easier to let her mother think she used the links than to argue why she didn’t. She had learned a long time ago that arguing with her mother was a pointless and energy draining exercise.
Emily didn’t have Loukas’s number even if she could summon up the courage to call it. She could get it from her friend Allegra, who was married to Loukas’s best friend, Draco Papandreou, but somehow telling Loukas over the phone didn’t seem quite the way to go. Hey, guess what? We made a baby! would probably not be such a great opening gambit.
No. This called for a face-to-face conversation. She needed to gauge his reaction. Not that he was an easy person to read. He had one of those faces that gave little away in terms of expression. His facial muscles were into energy saving or something. It was like trying to see what was behind a curtained stage. But he had an aura of quiet authority she’d found overwhelmingly attractive. His aloofness had intrigued her at the wedding. He didn’t seem to need people the way she did. She was like a too-friendly puppy at a garden party, moving from group to group, trying to win approval.
He, on the other hand, was like a statue.
