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Lilah poured her tea and groaned. ‘You’re really serious about this...’
‘It may not seem immediately obvious to you in our current relationship,’ Bastien remarked in a roughened undertone, watching her nibble at a croissant with unconscious sensuality and gritting his teeth as he hardened in response, ‘but if you do prove to be pregnant I have a lot to offer as a husband and a father...’
Who was she? Lilah immediately wanted to know. Who was the evil witch who had made Bastien feel worthless at the age of twenty-one when he had been little more than a boy?
‘I know that, Bastien,’ she said quietly. ‘Who was the woman who had the termination?’
Bastien grimaced. ‘This long after the event, there is no need for us to discuss that.’
Lilah tilted her chin. ‘If you want me to marry you in these circumstances I have a right to know the whole story.’
‘Her name is Marina Kouros. She’s the daughter of a wealthy businessman.’
‘Greek?’
‘Yes. She hung out with my half-brother, Leo. I knew she had a thing for him, but he saw her only as a friend.’
Lilah winced when he described that connection. ‘Complicated...’
‘Nothing I couldn’t handle at the time, I thought. I was very confident with women even at that age,’ Bastien admitted bleakly. ‘Too confident, as it turned out. Of course I was infatuated with Marina. We had a one-night stand but I wanted more. I didn’t see it at the time, but she was using me to try and make Leo sit up and take notice of her.’
‘You were brothers. It was wrong of her to come between you like that,’ Lilah opined.
‘To be fair, Marina didn’t intend to cause trouble, and Leo and I have never been close. I also know why she went for the termination behind my back,’ he admitted tautly. ‘I was illegitimate and penniless—hardly a winning package for a wealthy socialite. Unfortunately when Leo heard the rumours that I had got her pregnant she lied to save face with him and pretended that I had bullied her into the abortion clinic. He’s held that against me ever since.’
‘That’s so unfair,’ Lilah breathed angrily.
Bastien shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘Very little in my life has been fair,’ he derided softly. ‘That’s why I prefer to make my own luck and my own fortune. I don’t owe anyone anything and that’s how I like it, glikia mou.’
‘But I would prefer not to risk having an unnecessary marriage and divorce in my relationship history,’ Lilah told him quietly. ‘I think we should wait and see if we have anything to worry about first.’
His dark golden eyes hardened. ‘Not this time.’
‘Even if I have conceived I don’t think I’d choose a termination,’ Lilah added.
Bastien sprang upright and set down his coffee cup, an aggressive edge to his movements. ‘We’ll do this my way. We’ll get married.’
Lilah stood up. ‘It’s not the course of action I would choose, Bastien.’
‘I don’t care. This is an amendment to our original agreement,’ he declared without hesitation. ‘Deal with it.’
Lilah turned away from him, angry and stressed.
‘You’ll have a few days to think your position over,’ Bastien told her. ‘I have to make a trip to Asia, to check out some trouble at one of my manufacturing plants.’
Taken aback, Lilah turned. ‘How long will you be away?’
‘About a week.’
Lilah had a second cup of tea while Bastien talked on the phone in a foreign language. Deal with it, he had told her. An amendment to their original agreement? Was he threatening her? Would continuing refusal to marry him on her part be treated as a breach of that agreement? Did she dare push it?
What, after all, was she planning to do should Bastien’s fears prove correct and she found herself pregnant? Her skin turned clammy with anxiety. If she was pregnant she would want Bastien’s support every step of the way, she reflected ruefully. Maybe, just maybe, she was fighting the wrong battle...
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS A beautiful dress. Exquisitely simple in shape, it flattered Lilah’s slender figure, with long tight lace sleeves, a boat-shaped neckline and a slimline skirt. Her wedding gown, she acknowledged in lingering astonishment as she studied her reflection. It was her wedding day, and she still couldn’t believe that she was actually about to marry Bastien Zikos.
