Page 39 of Contractually Wed

He had married her as part of the deal she herself had struck and he would be a poor businessman if he let her change the terms of their deal now. And he wasn’t done with her father, as she had so naively assumed.

CHAPTER TEN

JIAWALKEDUPto the second-floor open terrace that looked out into the turquoise sea and took in a deep breath of fresh air on the unseasonably warm day. It did little to calm her stomach that afternoon.

She’d been feeling queasy all day but she’d kept it to herself. Apollo, with his usual bullheadedness, would’ve sent her back to bed and she’d miss seeing the house that his firm had custom-designed and nearly finished for a seventy-year-old Arab tycoon.

It was the first house they’d designed together. Granted, near to completing it, Apollo had been stuck in some aspects and Jia had helped make a few modifications. And now, there it stood carved into the side of a hill. The expanse of blue sea and green hillside working perfectly to encapsulate the all-white home.

Jia wasn’t usually a fan of the modern contemporary designs that lacked all warmth and color, and rejected natural elements like wood and fabric. Solely depending on steel and chrome, they looked like geometric cubes.

But here, in this house, the sharp, flat cube design had no flourishes. Only white walls and glass, which served to highlight the lush, natural landscape around it. A rectangular pool at the front of the house reflected sunlight like jewels on its blue surface.

It was a perfect escape for anyone who wanted to get away from the hustle, the perfect destination for a small family to spend the weekend. God, she was beginning to think like Apollo Galanis’s wife, with thoughts of summer homes and island destinations. When she didn’t have a single nickel to her name.

It had never bothered her before. All she’d lived for was to win her family’s approval, to somehow contribute to their well-being. Only last week, she’d learned that the stock she owned in her father’s company had shot up meteorically. Not unconnected to the formal press release that Apollo Galanis was taking over the firm.

Weeks after she’d made the offer to sign it over to him, Jia still didn’t understand why he didn’t take her up on it. How long could she bear to have the shadow of the past color their relationship?

Joy tingled on her lips when he kissed her, danced through her body when he made love to her, was beginning to shine like a flame in her chest when he looked through a crowd or coworkers or his family for her. When he spotted her, those little crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes and his mouth curled up. Everything around them dissolved, leaving the two of them alone in the entire universe.

Even knowing the truth of the trauma Apollo had faced when he’d discovered his father’s body and everything that had followed, Jia couldn’t find it in herself to hurt her father anymore. If that made her a sentimental pushover, so be it. It wasn’t like she was faring any better with Apollo. In a mere two months, she had shifted her loyalty to him without any qualms.

Absentmindedly, she took a sip of the champagne. It coated her throat with a slick bile, threatening to bring up the little she’d managed to eat at breakfast. Bad enough that her period was due any day now and...

Jia quickly checked her calendar. Shock jostled her stomach a little more as she looked at the colorful numbers. She’d had only one period since she’d arrived in Greece and that was nearly nine weeks ago, when they’d still been in Athens. Her legs trembled as she came down the stairs to the main level.

Was she pregnant?

Having a baby with Apollo was the last thing she’d ever imagined, when she’d struck the deal with him. But the thought of not having the baby filled her throat with fresh bile and she nearly tripped on the way to the bathroom.

Large hands held her hair back as she emptied her stomach, whispering reassurances, holding her when her knees buckled.

Jia washed up, doing her best to avoid looking at the large circular mirror and meeting his watchful eyes. If she did, he would know. And if Apollo knew, he would be...happy. She knew that as surely as her racing heartbeat.

A house for us and the family we might have.

Closing her eyes, Jia leaned into the hard warmth of his body behind her. His corded forearm clasped around her waist with utter gentleness. “I’ll have the chopper ready in five minutes. You should have told me you weren’t feeling well.”

Tears filled Jia’s eyes and she trembled with the effort to hold them back. She’d have to take a pregnancy test, yes, but she knew. Especially since she’d been told that antibiotics could mess with the pill.

Slowly, shock gave way to crystal-clear clarity.

“What’s wrong,agapi? Where does it hurt?” Apollo said in a voice she’d never heard from him.

But she couldn’t say anything because the thing she did want to say was the biggest truth of her life. She wanted to stand at the highest peak, and scream into the sea and the sky that she had fallen in love with him.

She was in love with her husband. And with this baby,their baby, which was probably no bigger than the size of a tiny worm right then.

Andshe was in love with how precious their life together that he kept showing her tiny, taunting glimpses of, could be.

She was in love with a man who was obsessed with making her father pay for his sins and in the process, refused to feel anything else, a man who considered her an asset. A man who in the pursuit of that revenge had even alienated his own mother.

“Jia, look at me.Parakalo.”

It was thepleasethat did it, full of his own desperation, that reminded her that he did care for her, but just not in the way she wanted him to.

She turned around and threw herself at him and cried like she’d never done before. How could he be the storm that was wrecking her and still also be the only harbor left to her?

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