Page 22 of The Maid's Pregnancy Bombshell

The moment he left the room she got up and went back into the shower to condition her hair because it would dry into a rat’s nest without it. While she decided what to wear for dinner, she questioned the sudden shift in their relationship. Had she let herself down by admitting that she wanted to be with him? No, no, she refused to believe that. She had never been the kind of young woman who sat around waiting for anyone or anything and she had taken her future into her own hands to shape it. Why shouldn’t she be upfront about her desire to be with him? That had cut through the shell of his reserve as nothing else could have done. She didn’t know why or how her attitude had achieved that miracle, but she wasn’t about to question it when it was so obvious that Ares wanted her too.

Of course, there was a chance that it was only sex for him, but given time she would see how much of his life he was willing to share with her. She wasn’t about to quit at the first hurdle, she assured herself.

Ares rushed through his meeting with his estate manager and settled into work, immediately sidelining or delegating anything that wasn’t urgent. In the midst of that exercise he found himself questioning that laid-back approach, which was so out of character for him. Why was he behaving in such an irresponsible way? Why couldn’t he stop remembering Alana’s breathy little moans of pleasure? Or the dreamy expression on her face post-orgasm in the shower? Why was he still reliving the raw excitement of having sex with her again? It was sex, it was simply sex, nothing more, nothing less, nothing he needed to stress about. He was allowed to step off the eternal grind of the business wheel and enjoy life occasionally, wasn’t he? And that was what Alana was for him, he recognised reflectively, pure honest enjoyment.

Inevitably it would stop being enjoyable and he would get bored, but he would have to let her down lightly. Of course, possiblyshewould get bored first. He batted that idea back and forth in his brain and discovered that he didn’t like that idea, that suspicion that in a very short time she might want to spread her wings and fly free without him. She was young, a lot younger than he was, he conceded grudgingly. The contract only tied her to him for a year at most, and by then he might well be glad to see her leave his life. In the short term, however, he would have to keep her amused, and never in his life before had Ares had to make an effort to hang onto a woman’s interest.

Alana came down to dinner in a strappy scarlet dress that fell to just above her knees. The lacing at the bodice and the pale full swell above attracted Ares’s gaze. ‘You look outrageously sexy. When I see lacing, I want to unlace,’ he breathed huskily.

Still a little shaky in the unfamiliarity of high heels, she sank down in the dining chair across from him.

Dinner was very much a special occasion, it seemed, because there were candles lit and evidently the chef had really pushed out the boat for Ares’s benefit because there were several very tasty courses and Alana ate with appetite. Ares made light conversation and was rather more sociable than she had expected. Coffee was served in the drawing room in front of the log fire and it reminded her of their meeting at the Blackthorn Hotel.

‘You’re lonely here, aren’t you?’ Ares guessed, his sculpted lips compressing. ‘You can invite your sister and family down here to stay any time you like.’

‘Skye travels with Enzo whenever she can. She’s rarely at a loose end.’

‘Come here...’ Ares invited, stretching out an expectant hand. It was an unplanned move because for a split second he had been on the very brink of suggesting that she join him in London. That such a thought had even occurred to him shook him inside out. He liked his own space. He had always liked his own space and he fiercely guarded his privacy. Next week she would be waiting for him in Geneva. Presumably he was capable of waiting a week? On the other hand, when his hunger was at such a height, having her available on the spot would pay dividends as well.

Alana went pink and slowly rose to her feet.

‘Take off the shoes. You’re not comfortable in them.’

With a sound of relief she kicked off the shoes and came to him barefoot. His hands clasped hers and he drew her down onto his lap. ‘Relax,’ he urged lazily, the faint accent in his husky tone sending a little shiver down her taut spine. ‘You’re a walking dream of a temptation in that dress,morakimou.’

Alana tried to play it cool while his fingertips toyed with the lace bow and then gently tugged it loose. ‘Ares—’

‘Hush,’ he said softly, tugging down the bodice to bare her breasts and bending his head to capture the swollen crown of one peak between his lips, toying, teasing, so that her pulse raced and her head fell back, her lips parting on a helpless moan of compliance.

His other hand smoothed up a slender thigh and disappeared below the skirt of her dress, flirting with the lacy edge of her knickers and stroking across the taut silk between her legs to start a hum of deeper arousal low in her belly. He tapped a fingertip against her clitoris and her back arched and then he tugged away the silk to play with her hot, damp core. Within minutes she was helplessly engaged in muffling her cries against his jacket.

He tugged her head back into the shelter of his arm and rested back in his armchair with a wicked smile. ‘I suppose this is what you call the honeymoon phase. Tell me if I’m being too demanding.’

‘No...er...’ Alana fell silent again, fighting to organise her confused thoughts. She hadn’t known that she could hunger for someone the way she did for him, nor had she realised that it would be a constant hunger that was never quite sated.

Hours later, when Alana lay in an exhausted heap in her bed, Ares began to pull away to go to the room next door. He never ever slept with anyone. He never ever shared a bed. But Alana moved closer in her sleep and flung both an arm and a leg over him, as if even sleeping she could sense his restlessness. Almost groaning out loud, Ares rested his head back again. She was like a little wriggling octopus in bed, at least one limb cleaving to him at all times. He didn’t want to wake her up. She deserved her rest when she had been more than generous in meeting his quite insatiable demands. He had never had sex that often in such a short space of time and he had never spent so much time with any woman.

Unhappily for him, he didn’t wish to hurt her either and that was an unfamiliar new limit in his world that equally disconcerted him. After all, she would survive wounded feelings. But the need to return to his own normality triumphed when he wakened at five the next morning and he eased very, very slowly away from her snuggling body. He texted his driver, showered in the room next door, dressed and headed out to the airport to fly back to London. He would text Alana later and he would show his appreciation with some splendid gift. Emeralds to match her eyes or diamonds to reflect her sparkling personality? Why not both?

Within twenty-four hours, a magnificent necklace and drop earrings arrived for Alana at Templegreen. She studied the river of glittering diamonds and the big central emerald in wonderment and read the gift card that suggested that she might want to wear the jewellery set in Athens. In other words, the pressie hadn’t arrived on such terms that she felt she could rationally refuse to accept it. It was reasonable for Ares to give her the kind of fancy jewellery that people would expect a billionaire’s wife to be wearing at an exclusive charity ball. At best, it could be viewed as a prop for the wife role. Atworst?

Well, the wages of sin and all that...

Doubtless he would be surprised if he realised that staying to have breakfast with her or even leaving a note would have been more welcome to her. Her pale face took on a painful flush when, the following day, a superb set of designer luggage arrived and, on the next, a diamond and platinum watch. In the luxury gift department Ares was keen to spoil her rotten. Encouraged by such gestures, she was soon counting the hours until her trip to Geneva.

She travelled by private jet and limousine in the utmost comfort and arrived at a penthouse apartment in an exclusive hotel. Ares didn’t actually show up until it was too late to make the theatre trip he had promised her. His business negotiations had gone on later than he had assumed they would. Alana didn’t complain. Hadn’t she promised herself that she would give him a chance to do stuffhisway? She had sworn not to judge, not to make demands.

Result?

Ares spent an hour on the phone after his final appearance while his busy staff milled around him and she sat in a corner like Cinderella all dressed up with nowhere to go. She retired to bed. Five minutes later, shorn of his phone, Ares dragged her into the shower with him, wrecked her carefully straightened hair while enjoying a passionate bout of sex with her...and then someone came knocking on the bedroom door and he retrieved his phone and began chatting in a foreign language again while he got dressed.

Alana? Alana ordered a meal from room service and returned to bed. At some stage of the night Ares joined her in that bed, explained the sudden business crisis in unnecessary detail before expressing further apologies and soothing himself and her with more spectacular sex.

But the last straw for even Alana’s forgiving nature?

That was when she woke up alone again and registered that Ares had slept in the room next door. While she ate her solitary breakfast in the lounge, she pondered her predicament and blamed herself for misunderstanding the rigid boundaries of the neat little drawer Ares had now put her in. He wasn’t lifting his ban on relationships, he wasn’t revising their marriage contract either, he was simply using her as a sexual outlet. Or maybe she was using him? No, it would have saved her pride to think that, but she knew that she had only flown to Geneva with the goal of achieving greater closeness to Ares and winning, if not his love, at least his respect and appreciation.

Instead she had met up with a guy who put business first and wouldn’t even share a room with her, a guy who placed his privacy above her feelings. How had he imagined she would feel waking up alone after the disappointments of the evening before? Had he thought such shabby treatment was enough for her as long as he sent her expensive gifts in consolation? Was that why he had mentioned a trip to New York in two weeks and a return to Abu Dhabi the month afterwards? He was scheduling her into his calendar as a mistress within a marriage that was no marriage at all!

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