The Pregnancy Shock Page 11

‘Oh…what a lovely idea,’ Billie said in surprise, lowering herself down onto the rug with a soft sigh. Damon offered her food while trying to persuade her to do something more elaborate with the terrace than had been planned. ‘The views are so spectacular,’ he pointed out.

  Billie breathed in deep and shook her head at the wine he offered in favour of the bottled water. ‘I’m afraid I want the house finished as soon as possible and I would prefer not to incur any extra expense. I do still have to furnish it!’

  Scanning the taut pallor of her face, Damon frowned. ‘You’ve been so stressed these past weeks, Billie. What’s wrong?’

  His perceptive powers were unwelcome and her face tightened and she munched busily at her sandwich, finally pausing to murmur, ‘Nothing’s wrong. The summer heat here sometimes tires me out—that’s all.’

  ‘Alexei does like to get his pound of flesh. I don’t know how you stand the pace. And if the press are on the right track, he’s got that bitch Calisto back to keep him busy.’

  Billie stiffened. ‘Why do you call her that?’

  ‘If she is back in Alexei’s life to stay, you’ll soon find out. According to my mother, Calisto was horrible to the household staff at the villa last time around…a real diva. There’s also a rumour that his parents disliked her so much they threatened to disinherit him and that that’s why she married Bethune instead.’

  ‘People change and she was young,’ Billie said wryly.

  Damon reached for her hand. ‘We used to be close friends, Billie.’

  ‘I hope we still are.’ Billie gently slid her hand free again.

  ‘But I’d like us to be something more than friends,’ Damon was honest enough to admit as he retrieved her fingers with dogged determination.

  And it was at that opportune moment that Alexei strolled out of the back of the house and stood lazily studying them from the shadows. Black hair swept back from his brow, sunglasses anchored on his arrogant nose and sheathed in a soft grey summer-weight suit, he was as stylish and sophisticated in appearance as a model on a cat walk. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he urged silkily. ‘I thought it was time I came for a look around.’

  Instantly, Damon released Billie’s hand and sprang up. ‘Let me give you the official tour.’

  ‘I didn’t hear a car,’ Billie commented.

  ‘I walked over from the villa,’ Alexei fielded, eyes framed by dark-as-midnight lashes skimming over her blushing face. ‘Sorry if I interrupted something.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ Billie countered flatly, tugging her skirt down to her knees and reaching defiantly for another sandwich.

  The two men walked round the house while Billie sat outside in the shade, fed up with both of them as she listened to snatches of their revealing dialogue. Damon was so deferential around Alexei that he set her teeth on edge and Alexei had no business declaring that a larger terrace was a necessity, rather than an extravagant extra. And what was Damon playing at? Why did men always refuse to take no for an answer? How many times did she have to tell him that she wasn’t interested now in dating him?

  Alexei reappeared and asked her for the keys of the car she had driven over, which did after all belong to him. ‘Come back with me. I have some calls for you to make.’

  Ignoring Damon’s look of disappointment, Billie scrambled up and smoothed down her skirt. Red-hot temper made her hands tremble a little. It was not that she wanted to stay and risk encouraging Damon, it was resentment at being smoothly manipulated into doing what Alexei wanted her to do.

  ‘You’re about to overstep the boundaries again,’ she warned Alexei fiercely as she climbed into the hot car with him.

  ‘He’s not the guy for you. A bloody picnic on a building site…’ he breathed with incredulous derision. ‘How cool is that?’

  ‘If I listened to you, I’d never get a guy! Every time one comes near me, you interfere and stick a spoke in the wheels. I’d like to know how you justify that when I’m not even allowed to call a doctor if you hurt yourself!’ Billie launched back at him in an angry hail of words that she shot at him like bullets.

  ‘You can trust me to put your interests first,’ he drawled with unblemished assurance, his bold bronzed profile relaxed. ‘Damon will most probably end up returning to his wife and children. Don’t get caught up in their drama.’

  ‘Working for you I’ve got enough drama of my own!’ Billie bawled back at him, turning up the air conditioning with an impatient hand, ignoring it when he winced at the furious rush of icy air directed at him. ‘You have no right to interfere. I’m an adult entitled to make my own mistakes. Stay out of my private life!’

  And she sat there thinking how ridiculous it was for her to argue with him when she was carrying his child, to be able to shout but not to tell him the truth. But he would pity her if he knew the truth and he would feel very guilty. She knew him well enough to make that forecast and although her heart ached inside her like an open wound she was painfully aware that neither his pity nor his guilt, and certainly not his money, would provide her with the smallest comfort…

  Chapter Eight

  IN THE weeks that followed, Billie began to gather unwelcome information about Calisto Bethune, a woman she had never met who, it seemed, had a way of making her mark wherever she went. Calisto trod on toes without fear, she hurt and insulted with constant criticism, she demanded and screamed abuse if she didn’t get what she wanted fast enough. Sooner or later, all staff complaints about Calisto ended up on Billie’s desk. It seemed to her that every employee who came into too close contact with the gorgeous blonde whom Alexei was planning to marry hated her.

  ‘If you’re not prepared to make an official complaint, there’s nothing I can do,’ Billie told a sobbing stewardess from the yacht. ‘Mrs Bethune is Alexei’s partner. You’ll have to get used to her ways.’

  ‘She’s so rude. I’m not her slave! If she speaks to me like that one more time, I’m quitting!’

  ‘You could make this complaint official,’ Billie pointed out for the third time.

  The stewardess grimaced. ‘I don’t want anything on paper…you know Mr Drakos has promised my brother a job when he finishes school. I wouldn’t want to take the risk of offending him.’

  Billie suppressed a sigh, for she had heard it all before too many times. Nobody ever wanted to annoy Alexei. Everyone wanted to stay on the right side of him. It meant that he sailed through life on a sea as smooth and flat as glass, protected from the ripples and storms that lesser mortals endured.

  The chef on Sea Queen had already quit after a volley of censure from Calisto over a meal she had disliked. One of Alexei’s most choice and favoured employees, the chef had long had secret offers from others keen to poach his renowned skills. When Alexei professed surprise that Billie had not contrived to dissuade his chef from leaving his employ, Billie decided to be more honest.

  ‘Your girlfriend offended him. I tried to persuade him to stay but he wouldn’t change his mind.’

  ‘Calisto is very forthright.’

  ‘The chef isn’t the only one of your employees with a problem with that,’ Billie dared.

  Every inch an arrogant Drakos in his bearing, Alexei lifted a questioning ebony brow. ‘Are you saying that there have been complaints?’

  ‘Nothing official, but some employees are finding her manner hard to handle.’

  Alexei compressed his wide sensual mouth into a forbidding line. ‘Then they’ll have to learn to be less sensitive. I won’t tolerate disrespect towards her.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Billie declared, inwardly castigating herself for not having the gumption to warn him that Calisto was a demon with staff and that few would long withstand her vicious temper and verbal abuse. No doubt when people began to leave he would get the message, but there was no way that Billie could bring herself to be more frank right now.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

  ‘Me?’ Billie questioned in surprise. ‘Why are you asking me that?’

  A
lexei released his breath in an impatient hiss. ‘Anatalya told me that you’ve been unwell for quite a few weeks. I would have preferred to hear that from you.’

  Billie’s face flamed and then lost colour again. Her entire skin surface dampened with nervous tension below her clothing. How foolish of her to overlook the likelihood that the housekeeper would notice the attacks of nausea she had tried so hard to conceal!

  ‘Did you consult the doctor?’

  ‘Er…no,’ she admitted grittily.

  ‘So I’m not the only person around here who avoids medical advice,’ Alexei noted mockingly.

  ‘I caught a bug and it took a while to shake off. That’s all,’ Billie retorted with a jerky lift of her shoulders that dismissed the topic as trivial. ‘I’m fine now.’

  That weekend she flew to London to check that the events planner, Janine, had all the arrangements in hand for Calisto and Alexei’s party. The ballroom of Alexei’s town house was exquisitely decorated for an event that promised to be the most fashionable of the season. Billie checked her profile in a mirror, noting with relief that the loose jacket of her suit still concealed her thickening waistline and softly curving stomach. Mercifully, she had got over her nausea and at three months pregnant was now anxiously noticing that the changes in her shape were beginning to accelerate. She reckoned that within another six weeks other people might begin to suspect her secret. Within the next fortnight she would have to tackle Alexei about her proposed career break. In readiness, she had already advertised for a new assistant to be trained up to take over during her absence.

  She was walking through the back door of the ballroom when she heard a woman calling Janine’s name.

  ‘Calisto…’ Janine was saying in a rather strained welcome; the party planner had confided to Billie that Calisto kept on changing her mind about what she wanted.

  Billie spun around and glanced back apprehensively over her shoulder. Calisto was casually turned out in a red dress, a black leather jacket and high-heeled sandals. Even at a glance the Greek woman was a striking beauty with a magnificent blonde mane of hair and amazingly long legs. Billie had only to think of those incredible legs wrapped round Alexei’s lean bronzed body to feel sick and she backed away from the door before she could be seen and walked hurriedly away. Once again she had avoided a face-to-face meeting with Alexei’s fiancée. She had twice sidestepped encounters on the yacht. Indeed, since Calisto’s appearance on the scene, Billie had stayed very much in the background of Alexei’s life and he had yet to bring Calisto back to Speros for a visit. But then, the happy couple were both very busy people who spent a lot of time on board Sea Queen. Calisto, whose once stalled career had taken off again on the strength of her new high profile with Alexei and his A-list friends, was currently accepting modelling assignments across the globe.

  Billie had arranged to spend the weekend with Hilary. Her aunt’s husband—John—had passed away a month earlier and although Billie had flown over to the UK to attend the funeral she had not been able to stay on. But in spite of the open invitation to all his personal staff she had no intention of attending Alexei’s family party. She was jealous and hurting inside and no matter how hard she fought not to feel and think that way she was failing.

  ‘I’ve decided that I’m coming to Greece,’ Hilary informed her niece. ‘Once your baby’s born, I’ll put this house up for rent so that I have somewhere to come back to if I want to.’

  Billie hugged her aunt. ‘It’ll make such a difference to my life and to the baby’s. I just hope you’re not only doing this for my sake.’

  ‘Of course I’m not. I’m planning to write a book on King Henry IV and the House of Lancaster. Ever since university I’ve wanted to do it. I’ll be able to do my research over the next few months with the help of the Internet,’ the older woman told her with an enthusiasm that Billie hadn’t seen her show in years.

  ‘I’ll be able to help you,’ Billie added. ‘I won’t have much else to do while I’m getting through the rest of my pregnancy.’

  But that prospect seemed a blessing once she saw a photo of Calisto in the fabulous ball gown she had worn for the party in the next day’s newspaper. In every way Alexei was fulfilling his destiny. His family expected him to marry a woman as large as life as he was himself and Calisto, with her beauty, fame and connections, certainly fitted the bill. Billie felt another crack form in her breaking heart. She was beginning to marvel that she had ended up in bed with Alexei in the first place. That could surely only have happened because he was drunk and grieving, which was neither a comforting nor ego-boosting suspicion for her to hold.

  Two weeks later, Billie was in Milan with Alexei when she broached the subject of her career break over the working lunch they were sharing.

  Alexei glanced up to study her with frowning force. Her burnished copper streaked hair glinting in the sunshine, she tilted her heart-shaped face back and looked back at him with wide wary eyes as green as limes. ‘Surely this is very sudden?’ he queried. ‘Where has this idea come from?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I’d like to spend some time back in England with my aunt. She could do with the support.’

  ‘She lost her husband recently,’ Alexei recalled, surprising Billie. ‘Well, I have every sympathy, but I’m not prepared to tolerate some idiot trying to do your job for the next six months—’

  ‘For a minimum of eight months,’ Billie corrected before he could contrive to try and bargain down the duration of her absence. ‘I need a break, Alexei…I really do need the break.’

  ‘I don’t understand why.’

  ‘I would come back to work refreshed.’

  From below lush black lashes that any woman would have killed to possess, Alexei looked her over with keen bronze-coloured eyes of enquiry. He didn’t think she looked in need of refreshment, although he was prepared to admit that she had got a little too thin in recent months, so that her clothes seemed to have become too big for her slight frame. He sensed that something was being concealed from him. ‘What’s really wrong?’

  Her gaze took on an evasive slant. ‘I just want a break and…’ in a nervous flicker of motion her tongue crept out to moisten her dry lips as she braced herself to tell her first lie ‘…my aunt is pregnant and alone and she could do with my support.’

  Alexei watched stinging colour warm her cheeks and wondered why she was blushing. Perhaps it was not the late husband’s posthumous baby but the result of a fling with someone else since. He suppressed a sigh: Billie to the rescue. That made perfect sense to him. His wide sensual mouth flattened. ‘I don’t want you to take a break now. I consider you a vital member of my staff.’

  ‘You’ve met Olympia. I’m training her to take my place.’

  ‘Olympia skulks behind doors when I’m around. That isn’t promising—’

  ‘But that’s better than a young woman who continually throws herself in your path,’ Billie pointed out, well aware of how often that desire afflicted women in his radius and of how exasperating he found such behaviour. Yet she had never had the heart to judge a single one of those women when she herself had always been far too susceptible to Alexei’s charisma.

  ‘I can tell you now that Olympia won’t cut it,’ Alexei told her very drily.

  Billie tilted her chin. ‘She’ll have to because I need you to agree to this career break.’

  ‘I’ll consider it.’ Alexei’s rich dark drawl carried more than a touch of ice. ‘But why don’t you consider basing yourself in my London headquarters for eight months instead? That would be a more sensible option and it would still give you a change of scene and new colleagues.’

  Unprepared for that very reasonable suggestion, Billie stiffened in dismay. ‘I would really rather have a complete break from my current employment.’

  Alexei made her wait for a week for a final answer. She had thought she might have to remind him and her nerves suffered while she waited; if he refused she would have to hand in her resi
gnation. He called her into his office shortly before he was due to fly out to Paris for the weekend. She entered the room, stiff-backed as she tried to shrink inside her jacket, lest the fabric fall revealingly against the small swelling mound of her stomach.

  ‘I’m not in agreement with this career break as you call it,’ Alexei informed her without hesitation, his dark golden eyes grim and cool. ‘It’ll be a nuisance, but you’ve worked well for me for some years now and I am conscious of that. When do you want to go on leave?’

  ‘At the end of the month,’ she told him, weak with relief but taut with guilt at the tangle of deception that she was embarking on.

  But she could not see a choice. Although an engagement had yet to be announced, Calisto was already said to be consulting wedding planners. Billie could only hope that the marriage would take place before her return. The passage of time, she told herself urgently, would cure her of sleepless nights and the erotic longings that embarrassed the hell out of her.

  She wasn’t herself any more. It was as if Alexei had picked her up and shaken her so that nothing inside her was in the right place any more. She was at the mercy of her hormones, of passionate crying jags and, sometimes, wild crazy thoughts and hopes. Distance would cure her, give her the chance to get over him, she told herself fiercely, because if she was planning to return to work for Alexei, she needed to grow a tougher skin.

  ‘You and my sister are thick as thieves at present,’ Lauren remarked when her daughter came to say her goodbyes, her burgeoning tummy carefully concealed below a loose T-shirt and a canvas jacket. ‘When are you planning to tell me what’s really going on?’

  Billie ducked the question and gave Lauren a guilty hug, wondering how she would ever face telling the truth to her mother, who was sure to have some very cutting comments to make when the time came. But all that really mattered to her at that moment was that, step by step, her plan was working…

  Eight months later, as she’d promised, Billie made her return to Speros. She stood on the ferry with Hilary and Nikolos, who had become known as Nicky within days of his birth. She pointed out landmarks on the island to Hilary, who was glowing with enthusiasm by her side. With her short blonde hair tousling in the breeze, her aunt’s brown eyes were alight with curiosity and excitement.