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‘So?’ he pressed a minute later.
She gulped down the knot building in her throat. ‘I... I’ll put together some samples and we’ll take it from there.’
He nodded. ‘Good. But that means allowing the chef back into his kitchen to do his job, yes? I suspect he’ll throw a tantrum if he’s kept away much longer.’
Odessa couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at her lips, or the buoyant feeling that built and built inside her as she returned to the kitchen, Ares prowling lazily behind her. Or the simple contentment that gripped her when he devoured a helping of her lasagne and immediately demanded seconds.
She couldn’t escape the pressing confirmation that her feelings for her husband were far from platonic. Hell, had they ever been?
With the no echoing in her head, she admitted, too, that his offer just now had touched her more than she’d expected it to. For the first time in her life she was embracing a true sense of accomplishment that was reawakening the fire in her soul.
The career and the family she’d only ever dreamed of was creeping tantalisingly closer...
There was still the problem of Ares’s deep mistrust and full custody plans hanging over her head, but she decided with a firm promise to herself that she would tackle that too. Or at the very least put contingencies in place in case she needed them later.
Because the subject of her child—her children—was too precious to leave to chance.
CHAPTER NINE
Six months later
ODESSA ACCEPTED THAT she shouldn’t have left things to fester for this long.
Because unlike her pregnancy, which had sailed along smoothly after a few weeks of morning sickness, the atmosphere between her and Ares had stagnated into tepid politeness—with the occasional bout of wild lovemaking when her need built and built and then drove her into his bedroom late at night. There they slaked their lust with a wild fervour that mocked their daytime interactions, that mocked the emotional barricades she’d fought so hard to put up. Because Ares, for all his consideration, remained immovable over their agreement. Had coolly shut her down the handful of times she’d tried to broach the subject.
Sergios had lightened the atmosphere when he’d joined them on the island. Or maybe they’d just stepped up their pretence of a happy marriage...
But she suspected Sergios wasn’t fooled...his shrewd looks missed very little.
And now Odessa’s increasingly anguished heart had finally cracked, and she was unwilling to let sleeping dogs lie any longer.
Starting with an hour-long confidential consultation with a lawyer who reassured her that she’d have a good case to petition for shared custody of her children, should it come to that.
Any flashes of guilt she felt at proceeding with that meeting, she pushed away. If anything, she was simply taking a leaf out of Ares’s book. He’d gone to great lengths to draw up an agreement to distance her from her children. She had every right to seek her own counsel.
And, yes, she also acknowledged that she was praying it never came to that.
That hope burned in her heart as she made an appointment to see the lawyer when she returned to Athens. Since Ares had written into their agreement that his child was to be born in his country of birth, she anticipated they would be returning soon.
Now, as she lay back in preparation for the last scan before the baby came, her hand travelled over the hard bump of her growing baby, seeking comfort from her baby as she’d been doing increasingly over the last couple of months, once her figure had changed and the reality of motherhood had become irrefutable.
Ares entered the guest suite, and she braced herself for what the sight of him did to her. He ruined her in the best possible way every time she grew weak with need and sought his arms. So much so that she feared she was past the point of effectively guarding her heart any longer. Especially when his gaze raked over her, lingered on her belly and his nostrils flared with open, unfettered possessiveness.
‘Are you ready?’ the female doctor asked, smiling. ‘Maybe today we might be lucky and get to discover the sex, yes?’
Ares settled himself beside her, as he’d done both times before, his piercing gaze fixed on her. ‘You still want to know?’ he rasped.
‘Yes.’
He nodded.
The doctor went to work, passing the wand over her swollen belly.
The moments before their baby’s heartbeat echoed in the room were heart-stopping. The second it did, and the 3D image appeared, Ares slid his fingers between hers. That was a first. The electric sensation of their palms touching, an act only usually replayed in bed, made her breath catch, made her wonder if their peculiar stalemate was fracturing. Whether this was the opportunity she needed to take.
‘I’m happy to report your baby boy looks completely healthy,’ the doctor announced.
Ares inhaled sharply, his eyes growing fever-bright as they latched on to the screen, then swung to her a moment later.
