Page 15 of Christmas Baby with Her Ultra-Rich Boss

‘I...’ He sighed but it didn’t sound like an irritated sigh, more of an accepting one. ‘Sure.’

‘Thank you.’ Blinking back more tears, she blew out a puff of air. ‘Macaroni cheese or spaghetti meatballs?’

At his silence, she glanced up at him. The look he was giving her made her give a choked laugh and lightened her thumping heart a fraction. ‘Not a fan of ready meals?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m Greek. Ready meals are illegal there.’

She nearly asked if he was being serious but then she recognised the dryness in his voice and the glint in his eyes, and her heart lightened a little more. Whatever anger he still felt towards her, he was trying to contain it and, for the first time since she’d taken the pregnancy test, a tendril of hope unfurled that her baby’s father would want to be involved in its life.

Konstantinos had watched the stress lining Lena’s beautiful features melt away at his admittance of paternity and, with no makeup covering the shadows beneath her eyes, had seen the exhaustion lining them. But it was the way she’d stared into that freezer visibly trying to keep her composure that had set the wave of emotion rolling through him. And now it was the expression in her shining eyes that set another wave rolling. Such a mixture of emotions contained in them.

Lena was carrying his child. She was going to have his baby. Whether the conception had been deliberate or not he needed to accept things as they were and park his recriminations and anger.

He took a long, deep breath through his nose but it didn’t help quell anything, not when it filled his lungs with the soft floral scents emanating from Lena’s skin. They weren’t the scents of perfume—he couldn’t remember noticing her wear perfume—just the simple scents of showered cleanliness. The memories they triggered, the heat and scent of her skin underlying those scents...

He was standing far too close to her. Much closer and the swell of her breasts would brush against him.

Gritting his teeth, Konstantinos leaned back against her tiny food area to increase the gap between them.

‘Go and sit down,’ he ordered ‘You have had two long days and you’re exhausted. I’ll have food delivered to us.’

Her forehead creased with confusion. Immediately, his thumbs tingled to press against the smooth skin and massage the lines away. ‘We don’t do cabin service for staff,’ she said blankly.

He jammed his hands into his back pockets. ‘We do for me.’

Lena tapped her forehead in disbelief at her own brain fade. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

Not with her brain. Konstantinos had gotten so close to her that her brain had become quite scrambled.

‘Go on, sit,’ he insisted. ‘Take the weight off your feet. What would you like to eat?’

‘Anything. You choose. I’m not fussy... But no shellfish. I’m not allowed to eat that. Bad for the baby.’ While she babbled, the limited floorspace meant she had to practically shimmy past him to reach the sofa. No sooner had she slumped gratefully on it when it hit her that her lack of other seating meant Konstantinos would have to share the sofa with her. It was either that or plonk himself on the teeny bit of flooring that didn’t actually have any furniture on it. If he stretched out on his side and chopped his legs off from midthigh, he might just squash into that sliver of space.

She would not allow herself to think of him sitting on her bed.

‘Can you eat Arctic char?’

She turned her head back to him. He had his phone to his ear but was looking at her.

As she stuck her thumb up at him, she felt movement inside her. Her baby was awake.

While he finished giving his instructions, Lena pulled her robe open so she could rub her belly. This had become her favourite time of the day. It was as if her baby knew Mummy had finished work and woke up specially to say hello. Every day her baby’s movements grew stronger.

The silence of the cabin suddenly felt very stark. Turning her head back to Konstantinos she found him staring at her stomach.

Slowly, his gaze drifted back to her face. Her heart squeezed at his expression and the longing contained in it, squeezing again to understand that this was a longing from a father to his unborn child.

Instinctively, she held a hand out to him. ‘He or she’s awake. Come and feel.’

He took a visible deep breath. ‘You are sure?’

She nodded. Feeling her baby move inside her was the greatest blessing Lena had ever experienced in her life, and she’d often had to stop herself from imagining Konstantinos’s hand on her belly marvelling at what was happening beneath the surface, sharing this most wonderful joy with him. She’d had to stop herself because her own longing had always hit the hardest then.

His throat moved before he stepped to her.

Instead of sitting beside her, he knelt before her, jaw clenched, breathing heavily.

The thuds of her heart pounded in her ears, awareness prickling her skin, but she smothered the effects as best she could.

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