Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Eight weeks later
These past two months , never speaking of what she and Alex had done together in the hotel stairwell in Switzerland had suited Olympia down to the ground. Not even thinking about it—or him—had suited her even better, because with his parting shot, he’d turned the hottest ten minutes of her life into some of the seediest.
It wasn’t that she had a problem with one-night stands. On the contrary, prior to going into rehab, she’d learned to favour ultra-casual flings, which gave her the rush she craved. She was far too screwed up to be trusted with a relationship, and who would ever want to take on her and her issues anyway? No strings meant no disappointment. No possibility of rejection. No danger of swapping one dependency for another and transferring her innate neediness onto a man.
Besides, she wasn’t sure she even knew what love meant. She certainly hadn’t received any from either of her parents. Before his fatal heart attack when she was nine, her aristocratic British father had been a stern distant figure, only interested in his heir—her eldest brother, Leo. Her scandalous Greek socialite mother had never had time for anyone but herself, and still didn’t. And with five older siblings, she’d had to fight for every scrap of attention she’d been given, none of which could have been called unconditional.
It was the way the night had ended that left such a bad taste in the mouth. She’d thought she and Alex had been on the same page. He’d certainly demonstrated an equal degree of feral desperation. She hadn’t had sex with anyone since checking into the clinic in Arizona, and she’d been excited by the idea of making up for lost time with him.
But he’d made her feel as though they’d done something shameful, something grubby. She’d been left with the impression that, bafflingly, not only did he deeply regret succumbing to desire, but also he held her to blame for his loss of control. His unexpected and inexplicable anger had winded her. His rejection had stung. Her brittle self-esteem had plummeted, and for the first couple of weeks she’d been back in Athens she’d hated him for all of it.
Nor was she all that keen on herself, if she was being honest. She still couldn’t work out what on earth she’d been thinking that night. Acting on impulse had been one of the first problem areas that therapy sessions in rehab had identified. She’d spent weeks learning strategies to control it, and had put considerable effort into working on this particular flaw.
Yet the minute Alex had confronted her in all his thrillingly dark and handsome glory, she’d forgotten every single one of them. She hadn’t questioned for one moment the wisdom of taking what she so badly needed. Had they been caught, the press would have had a field day. She’d have been fired on the spot, her fledgling career over, her improving but still fragile reputation in tatters.
However, none of that had crossed her mind. The second he’d pulled her against him and crushed his mouth to hers she’d been utterly lost. The flicker of triumph she’d experienced at his surrender had been burned to a crisp by the bonfire he’d lit. All she’d been able to focus on was taking what they were doing to its natural conclusion as quickly as possible.
Stupidly, unthinkingly, she’d positioned herself at the top of a slippery slope, at the bottom of which lurked a version of herself she was trying to put behind her. The reckless rebel, who’d taken attention seeking as a child to a whole new boundary-pushing level in adolescence, by first flirting with an eating disorder and shoplifting, then dabbling in drugs and alcohol and casual sex—bad choices all of them. She’d slipped back into old habits as if she’d never spent three months in Arizona working out why she behaved the way she did, then doing her best to create better, less destructive ways to measure her self-worth. She’d thrown caution to the wind and chased the high that would make her feel like a billion dollars without a thought to the consequences.
And now she was paying for it.
Because, as she’d discovered this Friday morning, half an hour ago, here at the clinic where she’d had an appointment to find out what was behind her chronic tiredness and bloating, there was indeed a consequence. The sort that developed over nine months and lasted a lifetime.
She was pregnant.
Not ill, not suffering from ultra-delayed cold turkey, but pregnant.
Olympia’s head spun and her stomach churned as she stared at the black and white printout of her uterus, containing the recognisably baby-shaped blob, which she held with clammy fingers that had been trembling for the last twenty minutes. Surely the scanner had to be faulty. The blood tests wrong. Because how could it have happened? She and Alex had had sex just the once and they’d used protection. It didn’t make any sense. Had there been a problem with the condom? An application issue? Or had they just been spectacularly unlucky?
More pertinently, what the hell was she going to do about it? She wasn’t equipped to have a child. Up until a year or so ago, she’d lived her life entirely on her terms, and those terms had not been great. She’d barely been able to look after herself, let alone anyone else, and even though she’d moved on—she hoped—she was still a little fragile. Still at risk of screwing up if she wasn’t careful. And then there was her budding career, her need to prove she had value and purpose outside of supplying the gossip columns with material. What impact would a child have on that?
But despite the inconvenient timing and her many concerns about her ability to cope, she wanted this baby instantly, with a surprising strength that had made her throat tight and her chest ache. She wanted someone to shower with love and affection and to receive it back. To do it right. Her child wouldn’t suffer the parental neglect she had, she vowed as she concentrated on breathing in and out, slowly and deeply. Her child wouldn’t be left to fend for itself in a sea of older siblings and an absence of guidance.
So there was only one solution. However much she might recoil at the idea of facing him again, she was going to have to tell Alex. He blew so hot and cold that his reaction to the news was anyone’s guess, but this was as much his concern as it was hers, and she had no other support. She needed to know whether or not he wanted to be involved and, if he did, what that involvement might look like. Only then could she proceed.
She hadn’t seen him since he’d disappeared through the fire door that night, attractively rumpled yet confusingly brutal. Unable to stand the thought of bumping into him, and feeling even worse about herself than she already did, she’d packed her bags and left the conference early the following morning. Thereafter, somehow, she’d managed to avoid him completely.
But that wasn’t an option any longer. Nor was sticking her head in the sand and pretending all this would go away in time—it wouldn’t. She had to face reality, put the past behind her and focus on the future. There was no point dwelling on the unpleasant manner in which he’d abandoned her. Or bearing a grudge against him for the situation she was in because after all, he was the one who’d taken responsibility for contraception. Regret and blame would help no one, least of all this new life they’d created.
What would help was staying cool and in control when she confronted him. Presenting him with the facts plainly and unemotionally and above all maturely. She would not allow lust to throw her off course again, she told herself as she carefully stowed the ultrasound in her handbag and pulled out her phone to try and track him down. Or any emotion for that matter. She would finally deploy the tactics she’d learned to curb her impulsive streak and rise above any unfathomable animosity he might still display towards her.
She had someone else to think about now, someone who needed her to make this work, whatever the sacrifice, and that was all that mattered.
* * *
Sitting at his desk in the office suite that occupied the entire penthouse of the twenty-storey Athens building, which housed Andino Asset Management, Alex was in the middle of mentally calculating the money he could potentially make by shorting the yen against the dollar, when one of his three assistants put her head around the door.
‘Sorry to disturb,’ Elena said with an apologetic grimace, ‘but Olympia Stanhope is on her way up. I checked and she doesn’t have an appointment. However, according to the receptionist she was very insistent on seeing you. She was threatening to make a scene. I thought it best to contain the situation by complying with her wishes.’
In response to this revelation, Alex barely moved a muscle. His gaze merely flickered from the screen in front of him to Elena, then back again, while his pulse skipped a beat and his brain screeched to a halt. He hardly even breathed.
Up until now he’d done an excellent job of blanking the appalling encounter he’d had with Olympia from his head. Even though it had been the hottest sex of his life, the last thing he wanted to do was revisit such a monumental loss of control with a woman who represented everything he detested, and not just because of her surname.
What the hell had he done? That was the question battering his thoughts as he’d stormed back to his hotel suite, still recovering from the most earthshattering orgasm he’d ever had, while simultaneously feeling sick to his stomach with self-loathing and regret, furious with himself, her, the entire bloody world. He’d allowed himself to be seduced by a self-proclaimed hedonist, a charming, beautiful scandal of a woman who wouldn’t know responsibility if it slapped her around the face.
He should never have approached her that night. He should have waited until the morning, when she wouldn’t have been wearing an aggravating dress and her thick glossy hair would have been up in its usual neat and tidy arrangement, instead of down in loose alluring waves about her shoulders.
But even as she’d demanded he burn her, he could have salvaged the situation. All he’d had to do was release his grip on her, take a step back and demonstrate supreme control by getting the hell out of there. Yet he hadn’t moved. He’d been transfixed by the challenging jut of her chin and the knowing, teasing glint in her eyes. Then she’d deliberately brought her breasts into contact with his chest and all rational thought had vanished.
She needed to be shown that he was in control here, he’d thought as he’d raked his gaze over her stunning face, the arch of one fine eyebrow, the hint of a provocative smile on her beautiful mouth. So if she wanted to be burned, he’d burn her. He’d brand her so deeply she’d run a mile whenever their paths crossed, riddled with regret that she’d ever decided to take him on.
But it was he who’d been branded. Because the minute he’d kissed her—in a mindbogglingly stupid attempt to teach her some sort of a lesson—he hadn’t stood a chance. The desire he’d had for her was simply too overpowering. And it was his brain that had disintegrated when he’d finally pulled back and she’d thrown herself at him.
His defences reduced to rubble by her extraordinarily effective assault, he’d succumbed to temptation. He’d slept with the enemy. Which meant that not only had he made a mockery of his driving force these past two decades, but also that he was not nearly as strong-willed as he’d always assumed. In fact, he was just as weak as his father, incontrovertible proof that the apple really didn’t fall far from the tree.
Who would want to recall any of that? He certainly didn’t. Therefore he hadn’t, and he was so single-minded that it hadn’t even taken much effort. He’d just wiped the entire incident from his head, as if it had never happened, and that had been that.
However, now Olympia was here. Why, he had no idea. But while instinct urged him to instruct Elena to get rid of her, logic told him that he couldn’t turn her away. The scenes she made tended to end up on the front pages of newspapers, and his business could do without that sort of scandal.
And really, there was no need for alarm, he assured himself as the shock receded and his brain cranked back into gear. It wasn’t as if he’d be blindsided by her effect on him again. He knew what to expect. He would not be hurled off track by memories of how incredible she’d felt in his arms or the soft little sounds she’d made as, together, they found oblivion. He would not look at her and suffer an attack of the past. Whatever she had to say, he’d hear her out, then respond appropriately with icy indifference and rock-solid immunity.
‘Show her in,’ he said, taking a moment to prepare himself, so that when she stepped into his office a moment later, he was able to bank the immediate response of his body to the sight of her, getting to his feet as if completely unmoved.
Pleasingly, he was so unaffected he barely noticed the mini earthquake she seemed to be setting off as she crossed the floor, or the rearrangement of the air so that it apparently no longer contained oxygen. He merely slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers and watched her as she came to a stop on the other side of his desk, somehow managing to make blue jeans, white trainers and a biscuit-coloured blazer over a white T-shirt look like haute couture.
‘Good afternoon, Olympia,’ he said, giving her the smallest of nods and allowing his mouth to curve into a faint but humourless smile. ‘You just can’t resist invading my territory, can you?’
‘It’s delightful to see you too, Alex,’ she replied with equal cool.
‘How have you been?’
‘Just fine. You?’
‘Couldn’t be better. May I offer you something to drink?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Please do take a seat.’
She sank elegantly into the chair he’d indicated while he sat back down, refusing to recall how the last time he’d seen her she’d been convulsing around him and biting his shoulder to muffle her cries of pleasure. ‘Did you enjoy the last day of the conference?’
‘I left early that morning.’ She crossed her legs and linked her hands over her knee. ‘Things to catch up on. I assume you didn’t stay either.’
‘I’d been away from the office long enough.’
‘Of course.’ She gave her head the tiniest of tilts and smiled. ‘I must say, I’ve been surprised not to bump into you these past few weeks. You haven’t been avoiding me, have you?’
‘Not at all,’ he said easily, thinking that of course he hadn’t been avoiding her. He’d simply been so busy with work recently he’d considered it a judicious use of resources to send others in his stead whenever Andino representation was required at an event. ‘I’ve just had a lot on. As have you, I hear. I knew it was too much to hope you’d quit the industry entirely.’
‘Sorry to disappoint.’
He arched one sceptically amused eyebrow. ‘Are you?’
‘Not remotely.’
‘I didn’t think so. At least you saw sense and backed off my business.’
‘I had no choice. Your clients are mystifyingly loyal.’
‘There’s nothing mystifying about it. Not only do my results consistently outperform everyone else’s, but I’ve also spent years building and curating the relationships I have. Why would anyone jump ship?’
‘Yes, well, fortunately for me, others aren’t quite so good at what they do.’
While Alex could admit he found this back and forth mildly entertaining, he doubted it was the reason she’d pitched up at his office. He was keen to find out what it was, so he could eject her from his building and move on with his life.
‘So to what do I owe this pleasure, Olympia?’ he asked, steepling his fingers as he continued to regard her impassively. ‘What are you doing here?’
For a moment, she just looked at him blankly, as though she’d forgotten. Then she gave herself a quick shake, took a breath and said, ‘I have some news.’
Oh? ‘Couldn’t you have called?’
‘My phone was hacked once and it’s the sort of news best delivered face to face anyway.’
A ripple of apprehension shivered down his spine. ‘That sounds ominous.’
‘It might be. Or it might not be. Depends on your perspective.’
‘How cryptic.’
‘You must be busy so I’ll get to the point.’
Finally.
‘I know we were supposed to forget all about what we did together the last time we saw each other and, believe me, I was fully on board with that. In fact, given the way you stalked off and left me there, I would have been perfectly happy never to lay eyes on you ever again. As an exit strategy, yours leaves a lot to be desired. But unfortunately, keeping out of each other’s way is no longer possible.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because that night created a situation.’
‘What sort of a situation?’
She pulled her shoulders back and looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’m pregnant, Alex,’ she said. ‘And the baby’s yours.’