Page 23 of The Maid's Pregnancy Bombshell

‘You’re leaving now...’ Ares gathered, noting the luggage stacked by the door, sending his keen gaze circling back to where she stood in a turquoise coat teamed with turquoise suede-fringed cowboy boots, an outfit that was so Alana, it made him smile. He liked the weird way she often slotted a quirky note of individuality into her outfits. He noticed, though, that her usual smile as bright as the sunshine was markedly absent.

Alana let her attention linger on him. Heavens, Ares was beautiful. Complex, frustrating, infuriatingly lacking in emotion and dynamite in bed. But also, indisputably beautiful with his classic bronzed features and stunning dark golden eyes.

‘Yes, I’m leaving.’ She conceded the obvious in a flat tone since her departure time had been as regimented as her arrival time and nothing whatsoever to do with her.

‘I’ll see you next week in Athens.’ Ares frowned, now wondering what was wrong.

‘Hold the sex, though,’ Alana advised as the front door opened and her luggage was whisked out by efficient hands.

Ares elevated a level dark brow. ‘Meaning?’

Alana moved closer to ensure that she was not overheard. ‘You made me feel like a call girl last night,’ she admitted starkly.

Ares froze as if he had heard a hurricane warning, his lean strong face snapping taut, and he caught her wrist between his fingers to prevent her from turning away again. ‘What did I do?’

‘Whatdidn’tyou do?’ Alana slung back bitterly. ‘And I can’t say that you didn’t warn me, can I? But when you get out of a bed you’re sharing with me to find another one in the middle of the night it’s not acceptable and, what’s more, it’s hurtful—’

‘Hurtful,’ Ares repeated, shaken that that should be her main complaint about an evening that had been a car crash from start to finish. Not that they hadn’t made the theatre, not that he had had hardly any time to spend with her. No, she was complaining that he hadn’t spent the night in the same bed. Crazy woman!

As Alana tried to pull away, he caught her free hand in his as well to hold her there in front of him. ‘I’m not used to sharing a bed,’ he framed awkwardly.

‘No, it’s not that,’ she whispered shakily. ‘It’s that you don’twantto, it’s that you can’t face even that amount of closeness with me, it’s another barrier you’re determined to keep up to shut me out...yet when it comes to getting down and dirty, gosh, there’s no holds barred with you!’

Ares almost laughed at that final comment, but he held it back because there was a glossy sheen to her bright eyes that he recognised as tears. No, she hadn’t been joking when she utilised that word, ‘hurtful’. ‘I can change,’ he heard himself say doggedly, even though he thought he couldn’t.

‘Maybe the contract is a safer bottom line for two people as different as we are,’ Alana muttered shakily.

‘I’m sorry,’ he breathed unevenly, something clenching tight inside his chest as he watched her fighting back the tears and he felt very much to blame.

Five minutes with her and he felt fantastic, but it didn’t seem to work the same way for her. He didn’t know how to fix what he had broken either. He didn’t know what to say to remedy the situation.

You made me feel like a call girl.

He had misjudged everything. He had assumed she would understand, overlook and pardon his workaholic ways because she was usually very accommodating. But then she had complained about his preference for sleeping elsewhere, he reminded himself grimly.

‘And to give us both a completely clean page I will share my only secret with you to give you fair warning. I’ve been worrying for a while now that I could be pregnant after our first night together.’ Alana lifted her chin in a decided challenge as she made that admission. ‘And I’m going back to Templegreen to do a test.’

Pregnant!It was as if a field of too-bright lights lit up Ares’s brain, stunning, blinding, preventing any kind of thought process. In short it was an overload. Very pale, he stared down at her in disbelief.

Alana flinched in the rushing silence of his visibly aghast reaction. ‘Even worse, as I’m sure you’re aware, that development is not covered in that dreadful contract of yours.’

Ares then found himself staring into empty space. She had slid out of the door, taking advantage of his shock. Alana was pregnant? His brows knitted. He could see Alana with a baby, but he could definitely not see himself.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘I’VEBEENASKEDto warn you that there will be a delay, Mrs Sarris,’ the stewardess on Ares’s private jet informed Alana as the jet sat on the tarmac.

Alana had a magazine open on her lap although she wasn’t reading. In reality all she could still see was Ares’s appalled reaction to the prospect of her being pregnant. He hadn’t said a single word but maybe that had been the saving grace of her being on the very brink of departure. For better or for worse, she had warned him. She should have done the test at least a week earlier but she had wanted to meet him in Geneva first.

Why?How could she ever have been naïve enough to believe that having sex with Ares would miraculously lead to him attaching feelings to the sharing of that act? How stupid was that? Tears burned at the backs of her eyes, and she blinked them away angrily.

Quick steps sounded on the metal airstair and there was a chorus of greetings from the air crew. Her self-loathing session interrupted, Alana glanced up and her eyes widened in dismay on the disturbing sight of Ares striding down the aisle towards her. The jet was not delayed, she registered, the jet had merely been waiting for its owner’s arrival. Ares had also changed since she last saw him. He wore a black designer suit, probably Armani or Brioni, the expensive cloth faithfully tailored to every inch of his big powerful body, a dark blue roll neck hugging his bronzed throat. No shirt and tie? She was surprised and unnerved when he sank down in the leather seat right opposite her and spread his muscular thighs, fine cloth pulling taut.

‘I thought you were staying on here—’

Ares canted up a sleek ebony brow. ‘After what you shared with me?’

Alana went pink. ‘I only said that there was a risk of that development, not a certainty.’

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