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His baby.
“So you’ll call Emmie?” Nico persisted. “Offer her job back?”
“I’ll do more than that,” he’d replied grimly. “I’ll go to her wedding. And talk to her myself.”
After finishing the call, Theo told his crew to return to Athens as quickly as possible. Gloating over the ruin on Lyra Island would have to wait. He told his secretary to make sure his private jet was fueled and ready when he arrived.
Flying across the Atlantic last night, he’d barely slept. He took a shower, changed his clothes, paced. The flight took longer than it ever had. He tried to stay calm, but his heart was pounding so hard he could barely catch his breath. From rage.
Emmie had kept her baby a secret.
She’d lied to him with her silence.
She hadn’t even given him a chance.
His plane landed outside New York where his motorcycle waited, a mode of travel quicker than any car. He stomped on the gas and sped to Queens, twisting dangerously through traffic, engine roaring in his determination to reach the church in time.
Cold. Cold. He had to be cold. To lose his temper would show weakness; it would show he cared. He would be ice.
He finally reached the old stone church in Queens, crammed between colorful shops and walk-up apartments. He’d been to this neighborhood. Nico’s wife had grown up here, alongside Emmie. The neighborhood was blue-collar, working-class, and a happier, livelier place than Midtown Manhattan. As Theo parked his motorcycle, a dog rushed down the sidewalk, barking happily in pursuit of two children on toy scooters.
Grimly, he set down his helmet over his Ducati. Crossing the street, he strode up the church steps and silently pushed open the door.
The minister was already speaking as he entered the crowded church. His motorcycle boots echoed softly against the flagstones, faltering when he got his first look at the elderly bridegroom. What the...? That was the man Emmie had chosen? Overhim?
The bride turned her face, and he saw his secretary’s snub nose and heart-shaped face beneath an appallingly unfashionable knot of tulle sticking out in every direction. She looked uncomfortable, even miserable, and no wonder. Conventional wisdom said that every bride was beautiful, but the white gown seemed lumpy in all the wrong places. It emphasized her huge breasts.Her huge belly.
She was giving herself away, along with her baby. Some other man would be the child’s stepfather. She’d hidden the baby from Theo in an attempt to cut him out of the equation, to make him powerless—
“Stop,” he ground out, stepping into the aisle. “Now.”
Everyone in the pews gasped, turning toward him. The minister stared slack-jawed, and beneath her crown of white tulle Emmie turned, eyes wide with horror.
“Theo,” she breathed. “What—what are you doing here?”
“Emmie.” His eyes dropped to her belly, then lifted dangerously. “Are you pregnant with my baby?”
CHAPTER TWO
EMMIESWAYED,her heart racing as she gripped her red-rose bouquet. She looked past crowded pews at the Greek billionaire standing in the aisle. The same man she’d dreamed about every night for the last seven months, in hot sensual memories that left her gasping with need.
“Are you pregnant with my baby?”
No!she wanted to shout.You can’t be his father. Because you’ll never know how to love him.
For months, Emmie had kept quiet about her pregnancy, hoping she could dodge this bullet. She’d never lied about paternity—not exactly. She’d just hoped that somehow Theo would never find out. She’d told herself that even if he knew, he wouldn’t care. She would just save him the trouble of rejecting her and the baby.
Emmie had to be hard-eyed and sensible. She’d worked herself through community college, taking night classes in accounting. She’d worked for years in a windowless basement for a corporation downtown before becoming secretary for a ruthless, amoral tycoon she despised. In her constantly struggling family,someonehad to focus on the bottom line.
But even Emmie hadn’t been able to be practical in this case. She knew Theo would have given her child support, for legal reasons if nothing else. But though she’d picked up the phone a few times, she just couldn’t do it. Even with her father’s plumbing business losing money every month. She couldn’t call Theo, groveling and begging for cash. Her pride wouldn’t let her.
Or maybe she’d just been afraid of giving him that much power over her. Because unlike when she’d quit her job as his secretary, knowing he’d only break her heart further if she stayed—once he knew, she’d never be able to quit being the mother of his child.
But now he was here. Mouth dry, Emmie choked out, “Who told you?”
“Not you. That’s the point.” Theo Katrakis’s voice, slightly accented from his childhood in Greece, was low and angry as he came forward, his hard gaze pinning Emmie by the altar. “You lied to me.”
As he stalked past the crowded pews, whispers went through the church like wildfire.
