Page 12 of Reunited By the Greek's Baby

One reverberating thud and his heart started again, and with it his brain.

Isla, pregnant!

He couldn’t stop his gaze sliding to her abdomen. Heat burned his skin and deep within his chest.

Isla, with another man?

Instant denial turned into revulsion, nausea searing his gut and making him grimace. It wasn’t possible.

Of course it’s possible. She’s a passionate, attractive woman.

Yet Theo was having none of it. As if the sheer force of his willpower could make it untrue.

He breathed deep and slow, forcing himself to think.

It was sixteen weeks and four days since they parted. Theo knew precisely. In prison, counting the days since freedom had become habit. That had to be why he recalled precisely how long since he’d seen Isla.

Plus since then she’d spent at least a week in Athens, trying to see him. Automatically Theo brushed aside the tangle of feelings that memory evoked.

His mind cleared and the terrible weight pressing on his chest eased. In that time would Isla have taken another lover?

He couldn’t believe it.

Theo had been surprised by her sexual inexperience. He’d even wondered if she’d been a virgin the first time they had sex. If not, she’d been close to it, but he hadn’t asked, not wanting to embarrass her since she hadn’t referred to it.

Whatever her previous experience, Isla was an ardent lover. The memory of intimacy with her still had the power to undo him. Yet a woman didn’t reach the age of twenty-four and be sexually inexperiencedandpromiscuous. He’d been honoured that she’d chosen to be with him. It wouldn’t be in character for her to leave him and take another lover so soon.

Isla didn’t let down her guard easily. When others from the dig partied to excess, she’d enjoyed herself but kept within limits. Despite her animation and warmth, Isla had an underlying reserve. Not coldness, but self-sufficiency. He sensed she participated on her own terms.

When she’d become his lover it hadn’t only been sexual satisfaction he’d experienced. He’d felt privileged.

Now this. No other lover had ever caused more than a tiny ripple in the smooth waters of his life. Isla’s news was a tsunami.

‘You’re having my baby?’

Any doubt disintegrated at her expression. Her eyes rounded as if he’d shocked her. There was something in her face too, as if she’d come to terms with something life-changing.

Theo knew that look. He’d seen it in the mirror often lately. ‘Isla?’

‘You accept my word for it?’

‘If you say you’re pregnant, I believe you. Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Not about the pregnancy. About it being yours.’

Her eyes that earlier had been a glacial grey turned misty blue. The same colour as when, a lifetime ago, she’d cuddled into him, breathless from sex and smiling dreamily as if he were some priceless treasure she’d unearthed on her excavation. The sight mesmerised him.

Theo shook his head. This was no time for reminiscence.

If today had taught him one thing it was that Isla was cured of that attraction. The knowledge was a lead weight in his gut, but he ignored it. He’d done what he had to do.

‘The babyismine.’ It emerged as a statement. Definite, almost possessive.

That’s how he felt. Possessive.

Of Isla.

And, as his gaze dropped again to her belly, of the child she carried.Hischild.

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