Page 29 of The Maid's Pregnancy Bombshell

‘But, essentially, you were an orphan,’ Alana reflected. ‘So where did you go at holiday times?’

‘Supposedly, my uncle’s, my father’s brother. By that time my father had married and produced his first legitimate son and I was still very much the dirty secret. Naturally, my uncle and his family didn’t want to be lumbered with me either. Why would they have?’ Ares asked grimly. ‘I was his brother’s mistake,nothis. I only went to my uncle’s home once and he passed away from heart disease soon afterwards. After that, I went to friends’ homes but sometimes I just stayed on at the school. That’s when I learned to work so hard. I was determined to succeed in life so that nobody could ever treat me the way they did again.’

‘Completely understandable,’ Alana murmured as the limo drew to a stately halt outside a huge porticoed entrance. ‘So how did you come to inherit when they wouldn’t even let you visit this place?’

‘A terrible tragedy. My father, his wife and my two half-brothers died in a plane crash several years back,’ Ares volunteered harshly. ‘And even though from that moment on my grandmother, Katarina Sarris, knew that I would inherit she still refused to meet me.’

‘Even allowing for her grief, that was pure bitterness and bile,’ Alana told him, enraged on his behalf. ‘She must have been a very mean-minded woman. You were still her grandson even if she didn’t approve of your background and you deserved a more generous response. Nobody should punish a child for the adults’ irresponsibility.’

‘Which is whyourdaughter will never suffer for one moment believing that she was unwanted,’ Ares swore in a raw undertone as he closed his hand tautly over hers. ‘That isveryimportant to me.’

Alana’s heart lifted high at that adamant assurance and no longer did she have to wonder at his unquestioning acceptance of their accidental conception. Ares was so determined to do everything differently fortheirchild that she could only be filled with relief and hope for the future. Whipping round in her seat without the smallest hesitation, she reached for him and laced her fingers into his silvery blond hair and kissed him. Ares reached down and unclipped her belt to drag her straight into his lap. He ground her down on him with a muffled groan of desire, crushed her pink lips hungrily beneath his and let his tongue slide in for one urgent sweep before pulling back from her.

‘Sex in the limo is sleazy,’ he informed her.

‘Never had it but could be convinced otherwise,’ she mumbled shakily, all flustered and pink, and then she glanced out of the tinted window and saw the assembly of people awaiting their arrival on the steps of the substantial house. ‘Who the heck are all those people?’

‘Lawyers, domestic staff. A big moment. The last Sarris arrives,’ Ares remarked drily.

‘The only one with any courage or honour!’ Alana quipped almost aggressively, so protective of him at that instant that she was almost in pain because of what he had suffered growing up: the cruelty, the humiliation, the shame. Sometimes Ares wound her up like a clock and she didn’t know what to do with all the emotion he could send sloshing around inside her.

‘When did you end up taking my side?’ Ares asked with a wry smile.

‘When I fell in love with you,’ Alana told him bluntly without even thinking about that declaration, because she knew that he needed someone to believe inhim, not his wealth, not his power, all the other much more important stuff that made him the guy he was. ‘And no, you don’t have to reciprocate—’

‘Don’t think I know how,’ Ares slotted in gruffly, stunning dark golden eyes locked to her lovely heart-shaped face in sheer wonder at a creature so different from him that she might as well have been an alien being. ‘You don’t hide anything at all, do you?’

‘Guess I walked into that one,’ Alana conceded as she scrambled off his lap to vacate the car, dazed by what she had revealed and yet knowing deep down inside her somehow that Ares had needed that support from her. Arriving at the Sarris ancestral home as the new owner, finally acknowledged for who he was,wasa very big deal for him.

Alana lovedhim. Ares was in shock as he swung out of the limo. Was she crazy? Didn’t she know how damaged he was, how impossible it would be for him to be what she deserved in a man? And yet with that unequalled generosity of hers she had given him that pledge regardless of all his faults. She was giving him a level of trust that left him breathless and shaken.

They were ushered into a vast entrance hall like visiting royalty. Alana felt overpowered by the sheer grandeur of the building but stood tall for Ares’s sake. The last thing he needed right then was a wife cringing by his side as if she didn’t feel good enough for such fancy surroundings. In a library walled with old books, two older Greek men, the lawyers whom Ares was already clearly acquainted with, set out documents on a polished desk for his signature. It was a surprise to her when Ares urged her forward to add her signature to his. As a celebratory glass of champagne was proffered, Ares waved hers away on her behalf and requested something non-alcoholic.

An older man approached them in the hall just as Alana was about to ask why her signature had been required. ‘This is Dmitri, head of Household Sarris,’ Ares imparted. ‘But we don’t require the official tour. We’ll explore on our own.’

Alana sipped her juice as Ares strode through another grand doorway and she followed with less assurance. She had never ever in her life entered a property built and furnished on such a magnificent scale. Everything she looked at seemed to be antique and the paintings on the walls were huge and imposing.

‘Are these your ancestors?’ she whispered.

‘No, this is the classical collection of art which the family used to show off on very occasional open days to the public,’ Ares told her. ‘I’ve read everything written about this house. I could probably show you around it blindfolded.’

Alana had to blink rapidly in response to that admission of knowledge about a property he had been forbidden to even visit. ‘The family’ he referred to had beenhisfamily, but of course they had deprived Ares of ever believing in that blood bond because they had refused to recognise his existence. Even the death of most of that family hadn’t altered his mindset.

‘Did you attend your grandmother’s funeral?’ she whispered curiously.

‘No. She left instructions making it clear that she did not want me to do so,’ he told her.

‘Nasty old shrew,’ Alana mumbled, aghast that anyone could be that bitter about an illegitimate grandson even on their deathbed. ‘So, why did I have to sign those documents?’

‘My grandmother, Katarina, found a loophole. Ultimately, she couldn’t stop me from inheriting this place because there is a legal trust that prevented her from doing so. When I was still a teenager I gave an interview boasting about how I would never marry, which was, indeed, my mindset for more years than I care to count,’ Ares conceded in a wry undertone. ‘So, Katarina played a blinder. In her will she passed it all on dutifully to me with three little extra words:and his wife. To claim my inheritancewithouta wife I would’ve been forced to prove my identity in an open courtroom and that would have dragged out all the dirty laundry. It could have been done. There was no way I could be denied what is mine by right of birth but I was reluctant to face that courtroom exposure.’

‘Of course, you were,’ Alana agreed, reaching for his hand, squeezing his fingers. ‘It would have embarrassed you and why should you be embarrassed all over again after what you’ve already had to rise above?’

‘That’s pretty much how I felt about it as well,’ Ares admitted, his wide sensual lips compressed into a flat line. ‘So, that’s why I was looking for a wife, whowasn’ta wife—’

‘And ended up with a wife, whoisa wife...oram I?’ Alana heard herself ask in sudden helpless dismay.

‘I imagine the jury is still out on that one,’ Ares countered with his usual innate caution, while wondering how the hell a guy was supposed to handle a woman who was so open and impulsive and just hung everything out there when, all his life, he had kept everything hidden and locked down until it was literally forced out of him. ‘It’s early days for us.’

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