Page 13 of Christmas Baby with Her Ultra-Rich Boss

‘I mean it, Lena. While I accept there is a strong probability that I’m the father, I will never marry you, so put the idea from your mind.’

‘I just said I don’t want to marry you, so get off your ego trip. You might be as rich as Midas but you’re not the catch you think you are.’ Jumping to her feet—she had a feeling she wouldn’t be this sprightly for much longer—she folded her arms over her belly. ‘Are you going to sack me?’

Now he was the one to be thrown at her swerve in the conversation. ‘No, but—’

‘You can stop at thebut. If you’re not going to sack me then I’m going back to work.’

‘You’re not going anywhere. We’re talking.’

‘You call going round in circles and taking verbal lumps out of each other talking?’ She sucked her cheeks in as she tried even harder to keep the tears at bay, but when she continued she could hear the choke in her voice. ‘We can talk tomorrow when we should both be calmer, and see if we can at least start finding common ground, but if you’re not prepared to accept you’re the father without a paternity test and keep coming at me as if I’m some kind of bad-faith agent then there’s no point in us even doing that, and you might as well just fly off to Australia like you’d planned and we can talk properly when the baby’s born.’

The way Konstantinos’s elbows were digging into his thighs she thought they might bore holes into them. But he didn’t say anything to stop her leaving. Not verbally. The dark tightness on his face told its own story.

CHAPTER FIVE

ANHOURAFTERLena left his cabin, Konstantinos was still sat on the same armchair having barely moved a muscle, replaying every word they’d exchanged. Replaying Lena’s hurt.

Either she was the best actress in the world or she was telling the truth and the baby was his.

Finally, he shifted position and rested his head back. Gazing up at the pitch-dark pine ceiling, he thought back twelve years to when he’d last been with Cassia. She’d looked him in the eye and told him thatof courseshe still loved him and that nothing was wrong.

Deep in his guts he’d known she was lying but had chosen to believe her. Their wedding day had been fast approaching. They’d even chosen the rings and given them to Theo for safekeeping. Konstantinos had long stopped wondering if Theo wore the larger ring on his own wedding finger. Time had blurred much of the pain but not the betrayal. That still felt as fresh as the day it had happened.

There was nothing in his gut telling him Lena was lying. If he was being truthful, his gut was telling him the opposite.

But there was an ache, too. It had been pulsing deeper even than his guts since Lena had lifted her sweater to reluctantly show him her neat, barely noticeable bump. It was a strange ache unlike the ache that always formed when he thought of her and which heated his veins just to breathe the same air as her, and it warned him more than anything of the danger of taking her word at face value.

He knew better than to take anything or anyone at face value.

Stretching his back, he got to his feet, removed his laptop from its bag, opened it, and got searching.

His eyes were gritty when he finally closed the lid.

Lena’s social media presence was far more discreet than most people in their twenties. She had all the usual accounts but her privacy settings meant he couldn’t access them, and so he’d searched the other staff here at the Ice Hotel and found a number for whom privacy must be an alien concept. As luck would have it, those were the staff who liked to document every aspect of their social lives and, as Konstantinos already knew, the staff here was an actively sociable crew who liked to drink and party the dark nights away when not on duty; there were many photos to go through. Lena’s face was a rarity amongst them.

Pushing his laptop to one side, Konstantinos dragged his fingers through his hair. He had two choices. Hold on to his cynicism until the baby was born and then make arrangements with Lena after a paternity test confirmed what his gut was telling him. Or he could accept she was carrying his child now.

The ache deeper than his guts throbbed.

Gossip spread at the Ice Hotel quicker than the wildest wildfire but even Lena was taken aback at the avid, curious glances she kept catching from the staff. It was patently obvious the entire workforce knew Konstantinos had whisked her off to his cabin for two hours. She could guess what they thought they’d been doing.

Resolutely ignoring their curiosity, she tried her best to concentrate on her work but it was hopeless. Her head was too full of Konstantinos.

She still felt winded. More than that, felt like she’d been run over by a truck. Her insides were so squished they’d liquidised and fallen into her churning belly, and it made her burning brain swim to imagine that right this minute he could be on his way to the airport.

The thought of being on the other side of the world to him should bring relief. She’d been entirely unprepared for Konstantinos discovering the pregnancy at this point, had had no time to fortify herself against the cold opprobrium she’d known would be fired at her. She’d expected it but the reality of it hurt far more than she’d believed it could.

What if hehadgone already? But what if he’d stayed? She didn’t know which outcome she feared the most. Or which outcome she wanted the most. It frightened her that her emotions were so heightened at the thought of either.

It made her feel wretched that she might have gotten him wrong when it came to his treatment of Annika because it was this treatment that had solidified Lena’s fear of Konstantinos’s reaction to her pregnancy, that he would not only deny paternity but sack her, too.

Reaching the point where she was afraid her brain would explode from the circles it was going in, she snatched her phone off her desk and made a call.

‘Lena!’ Thom said when he answered. ‘This is a pleasant surprise.’ In the background, a baby was crying. It was a sound that made her heart ache.

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Lena said.

‘Not at all! It’s great to hear from you! How are you getting on?’

---