Линн Грэхем – Greek Bachelors: In Need Of A Wife: Christakis's Rebellious Wife / Greek Tycoon, Waitress Wife / The Mediterranean's Wife by Contract (страница 14)

‘Nik? How could it be Nik’s?’

‘You must not mention this to Cristo yet. It’s private...between Nik and me,’ Betsy extended awkwardly, wishing that Cristo’s wife would stop studying her as though she were waiting for the clowns to come trooping in and provide a comic act. In as few words as she could manage she revealed that Nik had had the vasectomy reversed.

Belle blinked slowly. ‘OK,’ she conceded. ‘And then he gave you the dog back and clearly you slept with him out of gratitude—’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Betsy countered quietly.

‘I know you. You’re very soft-hearted. He took advantage—’

‘Maybe I took advantage of him...’

Belle was shaking her head in wonderment. ‘Wow...just wow. Nik’s going to be a dad. Considering that he can’t even bear to be in the same room with my siblings that scenario takes quite a stretch of the imagination—’

Betsy was fond of Cristo’s wife but had never appreciated her outspokenly critical attitude towards Nik. ‘You’re not being fair, Belle. Nik never knew his own father and has never had anything to do with children. Gaetano Ravelli walked out of his life when he was a baby and Nik never saw him again, so it’s a lot harder for him to feel that there’s a family connection with the younger brothers and sisters that you and Cristo have adopted.’

Franco, the youngest of those children, an adorable toddler with curly black hair and big brown eyes, clambered onto his half-sister Belle’s lap and hugged her with easy affection. It was clear that he regarded Belle very much as his mother, yet Franco and his four siblings were actually the progeny of Belle’s late mother’s long-running affair with Nik and Cristo’s now-deceased father.

For the first time though, Betsy was also registering an odd fact that made her brow furrow in surprise. Almost everything she knew about Nik’s family background had come from either Cristo or Belle because Nik never ever talked about his childhood. His relationship with his mother was quietly dysfunctional and something he politely refused to discuss.

Betsy had only met Helena Christakis once when the older woman had evidently surprised Nik by choosing to attend their wedding. Helena had arrived with her latest boyfriend in tow and had avoided all but the most fleeting contact with her son and his bride. Even so, Helena’s presence must’ve proved more of a punishment than a pleasure for her son because she had worn a dress more suited to a teenager, had got distinctly drunk and at one stage had chosen to recline on her toy boy’s lap and behave like a sex kitten. Nik had seemed impervious to his mother’s behaviour and had made no comment. At the time Betsy had naively assumed that he was hiding his embarrassment but she had since learned to appreciate that virtually nothing embarrassed Nik.

‘It was a challenge for Cristo as well,’ the other woman reasoned. ‘He wasn’t into kids either but I don’t think he was ever as set against the idea of them as Nik has always seemed to be. When do you plan to tell him about the baby?’

‘I’ve already told him... This morning, in fact. That’s why I came up to London.’ Betsy compressed her lips because she had no intention of sharing any further information, but then she could scarcely have hoped to conceal a pregnancy from close friends and family. And more than anything else that was what Cristo and Belle had become to Betsy—family, the family she’d never really had. They had both made time in their busy lives for her during the gloomy, heartbreaking months of her marriage breakdown, always ready to listen and support and offer soothing words.

‘And?’

‘Well, at least Nik didn’t suggest that the baby might be some other man’s—’

‘Why would he when you’ve been living like you’ve taken a vow of celibacy?’ Belle demanded with a wry roll of her eyes. ‘A child is going to make everything so much more difficult and complicated for you.’

‘I don’t see why,’ Betsy replied in a fiercely upbeat tone as she tilted her chin. ‘I have a business, a home and a devoted dog. The baby will slot right in there perfectly and life will go on.’

Soon after that, Betsy got up to leave because the emotional turbulence of her day had exhausted her and she was looking forward to getting home and relaxing in front of the fire with Gizmo as a foot warmer. Belle pulled open the drawing room door for her. ‘Oh, before I forget, you’re booked to come to my birthday party a week on Friday. I’ve even arranged a lift for you—’

‘A...lift?’ Betsy repeated in surprise.

‘Chris Morrison. He lives by you and he said he’d be happy to bring you with him, so you won’t even have to stay the night here because he’ll take you home again as well,’ Belle revealed with satisfaction. ‘I passed on your number so that he can contact you to arrange a time.’

‘Who is he?’ Betsy prompted with a frown, recognising how Belle had cleverly boxed her in and made it impossible for her to refuse to attend. Her momentary spark of resentment at being managed, however, evaporated when she pictured herself sitting home alone every night moping. Nik wasn’t moping; no, her soon-to-be ex was regularly linked to society beauties, whom he escorted to clubs, art galleries and opera performances. Indeed, Nik, who had rarely taken Betsy out anywhere after marrying her, had turned into a maddeningly visible male, whose social success was mapped by a trail of revealing photos in gossip columns and both glossy and worthy magazines.

Across the hall in the very act of emerging from Cristo’s study where a couple of brandies had chased the increasing chill from his stomach, Nik had frozen into immobility at the unexpected sound of Betsy’s voice. A glance at his brother revealed that even tolerant, laid-back Cristo had tensed at the obvious fact that the feisty Belle was already making dates for Nik’s still legally wed wife. And with a womaniser like Chris Morrison, of all people! Only Betsy would have to ask who the man was! Only one of the richest bankers in the City! Diavelos! Nik’s eyes flashed pure emerald brilliance as he fought down a tide of pure toxic rage because no matter how he felt he couldn’t strangle his brother’s provocative wife.

‘Ah, boys together too...’ Belle trilled teasingly, not one whit perturbed by the awkward meeting. ‘Isn’t this cosy?’

‘Betsy...’ Cristo gave Betsy an uneasy smile that warned her that Nik had confided in him. She wondered if Nik’s brother even appreciated how extreme an honour that was, because Nik was one of the most secretive men she had ever met. She finally dared to shift her attention to Nik. His sheer physical impact as he stood there poised with his arrogant black head held high and his broad shoulders thrown back hit her like a thunderclap. The amount of stress she had been fighting at his office had shielded her from the full effects of his compelling sexual magnetism. Now suddenly she was bare to the elements, reliving X-rated moments of their passionate encounter weeks earlier. She remembered the hard, jolting thrust of his demanding body into hers, the wild, screaming sensitivity of every nerve ending and the mad excitement that had engulfed her. A flush of heat travelled from her pelvis up through her already tender breasts and burned her face.

But behind that unwelcome response smouldered an anger and a resentment that Betsy had always repressed because as a child she had been taught to regard such emotions as destructive, rude and undesirable.

‘Betsy won’t need a lift from Morrison,’ Nik announced, tight-mouthed. ‘As I’m coming to the party as well, I’ll organise her transport.’

Betsy could not credit her hearing because Nik had spoken as though she were a crate requiring shipping. Or a personal possession that he still had the right to move about at will. This, from a male who had deceived her, deserted her and who was racing to divorce her! Without warning a volcanic fury beyond anything Betsy had ever felt before funnelled up through her diminutive figure like hot, scorching lava and she stalked forward, blue eyes ablaze.

‘Where do you get the nerve?’ Betsy spat out, her small face a mask of raging indignation as she confronted Nik and jabbed a small forefinger hard into his shirtfront. ‘Where the hell do you get the nerve to think you have the right to organise anything for me?’

As taken aback as if a chair had suddenly lifted up and attacked him, Nik gazed down in disbelief at Betsy, the most conciliatory person he had ever known and without an ounce of aggression, facing up to him like a miniature warrior on the battlefield.

‘I—’

‘Shut up...I don’t want to hear your voice!’ Betsy seethed up at him, head tipping back because she refused to focus on his chest, but it was a challenge to seek eye-to-eye contact when he was so much taller than she was. ‘You’ve got nothing to say that I could possibly want to hear! You don’t own me and you don’t have any say in what I do or where I go or who I do it with! Only last week you were wrapped round an Amazonian blonde at some New York party. I didn’t interfere. I didn’t offer you an opinion. Why not? Because it was none of my business! And my life now is none of your business either!’ she completed with a final stab of her forefinger on his broad chest. ‘Do you get that, Nik? Or do I need to write it down for you, put it in business language so that you might actually grasp it?’