Page 28 of The Maid's Pregnancy Bombshell

‘Gosh, you’re suddenly letting all these cats out of the bag when I least expect it,’ Alana gasped, stretching up to whisper in his ear.

‘No need for secrecy now,’ Ares intoned with quiet mockery. ‘And it iswhyI married you,moraki mou.’

Shock shivered through Alana’s taut frame as they were ushered through the glamorous cliques of bejewelled, designer-clad women and elegant men, every eye welded to them as they made their entrance and were shown to the top table. A welter of introductions followed and everyone stared her up and down, seething speculation in their every smile, sally and glance. Who was she? Where had she come from? Ares Sarris’swife? Her cheeks were flushed by the time they finally had the peace to sit down.

‘Why did you tell me that now?’

‘You’ll have to mull over it before you confront me with it,’ Ares retorted with amusement. ‘I was surprised that you haven’t demanded an answer sooner.’

Alana flushed to the roots of her hair and then paled, annoyed by his nonchalance. But he had hit the facts dead on target and she was ashamed that she had stopped asking questions. When had she become so involved in their fake marriage that she no longer worried about why he had needed a pretend wife in the first place?

‘That’s why I told you,’ Ares advanced smoothly. ‘Heading off a complication in advance.’

‘You actually haven’t explained—’

‘This is neither the place nor the time.’

Grudgingly accepting that reality, Alana sat back in her seat to watch the famous celebrity currently treating the guests to her latest song. With a parade of such world-class acts to entertain them the evening went past at speed and by the time Alana drifted off to the cloakroom, she was no longer as tense.

Ares was teasing her. Sometimes he did that. Having noted her revealing omission, he had pointed it out. Did he realise that she had far from contractual feelings for him now? Had she exposed herself to that extent? It was perfectly possible, she acknowledged ruefully. She didn’t hide anything. She didn’t play hard to get either. Maybe he had already worked out that she was in love with him.

Emerging from the cloakroom into an alcove with a comfortable sofa, Alana sat down and dug into her tiny beaded purse to extract a lipstick.

‘The Sarris bride?’ an English voice queried from the bar nearby. ‘She was so incredibly young and unsophisticated I couldn’t believe my eyes. Has to be the last woman I would have paired with Ares Sarris!’

‘Beautiful, though—’

‘Still not his type. If it’s true that he was cosy for years with Marina Vasileiou, the violinist, his renowned preference lies with older, sophisticated brunettes.’

‘So, he married a youthful blonde and festooned her in jewels worth a king’s ransom. Sadly, there’s nothing new in a very wealthy man falling for a fresh pretty face,’ her companion remarked cynically.

Marina, the violinist? Who was she? Alana’s sensitive tummy turned over sickly. The former mistress he had briefly referred to?

Alana went searching on her phone and found pictures of a tall, gorgeous brunette in her thirties, all long black hair, classic features and endless legs. A famous soloist, who looked like a supermodel. She swallowed hard, deleted the search and rose from her seat to return to the function room, refusing to even look in the direction of the chattering women. She didn’t listen to idle gossip, did she? And she wasn’t about to question Ares either. She had more pride than that, she assured herself.

CHAPTER NINE

FIRSTTHINGTHEnext morning, the London consultant contacted them with the results of the blood test. They were having a little girl, news that enthralled them both, with Ares even beginning to consider names, which Alana had told him was premature.

‘So, this is where...?’ Alana asked once they were arriving at the Sarris property, having left the penthouse with their luggage.

‘Where I would’ve grown up had I been born legitimate,’ Ares filled in as the limousine swept them up a long driveway screened by carefully tapered cypresses planted like sentinels to cast long thin shadows across the sun-baked gravel.

‘And yet you’ve never been here before?’ Alana checked uncertainly because, as yet, she really didn’t know what Ares was about to unload on her. It was not as though he was likely to fill in the blanks beforehand.

‘You know that my father wouldn’t acknowledge me,’ he reminded her flatly. ‘After he turned me away from his office, the local priest went to his lawyers’ office and told them about me instead. They ran DNA tests to confirm the blood in my veins because they accepted that if I belonged to the family line, that would have repercussions for the family trust. After long discussions with my father, they reached agreement that I would be sent at his expense to be educated at an English boarding school under a fake name to protect the Sarris reputation—’

‘But illegitimate kids aren’t as big a deal in today’s world,’ Alana argued in surprise. ‘Why all the secrecy?’

‘My parentage disgusted my father’s family, particularly my grandmother. A mother who was a hooker?’ Ares grimaced.

Alana’s hand came down on top of his where it was braced tautly on the leather seat between them. ‘Only a hooker because your father refused to step up and support her when she was pregnant,’ she reminded him fiercely. ‘Don’t let that embarrass you—’

‘I don’t,’ he asserted.

But he did.Alana silently cursed the Sarris family roundly for forcing Ares into hiding as a child. Exiling him to a foreign country for his education, his Greek family had ensured that he was imbued with the conviction that he was something to be hidden and ashamed of. Abandoned by his mother and denied by his father. Her heart literally bled for what he had been forced to endure.

‘I was a very bright child and fortunate to receive a first-class education,’ Ares added almost argumentatively. ‘The lawyers did their best for me.’

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