Page 16 of Christmas Baby with Her Ultra-Rich Boss

‘It doesn’t bite,’ she said softly when he made no effort to put his hands on her stomach or drop his gaze back to it, and then it came to her that his hesitation could be rooted in him not wanting to touchher.

A spasm of pain washed through her, harder to smother than the thickening awareness of him kneeling so close, his body so long his eyes were level with hers, but she smothered it enough to lift her pyjama top over her stomach and reach for his hand.

This wasn’t about her. This wasn’t about him. This was about their baby. Lena wanted her baby to have as close a relationship with Konstantinos as she had with her own father. Every child deserved to be loved and wanted by both its parents and until barely twenty minutes ago she hadn’t dared hope her child could be loved or wanted by its father. If forging that love and want meant swallowing her hurt then that was no price to pay.

His green eyes flickered as she wrapped her much smaller fingers around his and gently pulled his hand to her stomach, then used both her hands to flatten it at the area the movement felt strongest.

The roar between Konstantinos’s ears was so loud it drowned out the drum of his heart.

Being so close to Lena when he’d only just backed himself away from the warmth of her floral scent, gazing into those stunning dark brown eyes that were like melted dark chocolate, had brought the night they’d shared together crashing back into his consciousness. Remembering not the physical aspect of it all but how it had run so much deeper, right down into his core, and the very fact that heachedto touch her again had been the very thing that had kept him rooted to the spot.

And now his hand was flat against the swelling of her stomach, her own hands pressed against it to hold it in place, and suddenly he felt it. Movement beneath the skin.

In an instant his heart ballooned to fill every crevice of his being as finally it sank into him that this was his child.Hischild.

His other hand pressed against Lena’s stomach with no thought from his confounded brain, and he sank lower, suddenly needing to look at the swelling within which his child was growing.

An unexpected grunt of awed laughter escaped his throat when the next movement happened. Sheer impulse had him slide his hands to her waist and press a kiss to the spot his baby was most active... Not just his baby but Lena’s baby. Their baby.

Fingertips dug gently into his skull. He closed his eyes at the sensation skittering over his skin before lifting his face to the woman who’d just given him the purest jolt of joy in his life.

The tenderness in Lena’s eyes and the dreamy smile on her face only increased the swelling of his heart, but as he stared into those soft eyes, all the emotions consuming him began to alter. The thuds in his chest became heavier. The vim in his veins slowed to sludge. The scent of her warm body swirled into his senses and suddenly he became aware that his hands were clasped on her naked waist, that the smooth softness beneath them was her skin and as that awareness hit him, arousal thickened and he found his hands slipping around her waist to her back, his thighs rising to lift him and bring his mouth closer to the generous lips that had plagued his dreams all these months. As he closed in on her, the dreamy smile faded from her face. The tenderness in her eyes locked so tightly on his faded. There was a barely perceptible parting of her lips but it was enough for him to catch a hint of her warm, minty breath and for his senses to go into overload.

CHAPTER SIX

THEROAROFblood pounding in Lena’s head was so loud it drowned out everything, including her ability to think. The expression in Konstantinos’s hooded eyes when he’d lifted his gaze back to hers had made her heart throb and then burst into ripples, and the detachment she’d tried so desperately to impose on herself at his closeness and the sensation of his bare hands on her skin vanished. In the blink of an eye, her lungs soaked in the warm, masculine, citrusy scent of the man whose mouth was closing in on hers and locked it inside her. Awareness danced like fire over her skin and through her veins, fingers that had unthinkingly pressed into his hair falling to his shoulders. The mesmerising vampiric face tilted almost imperceptibly, and the warmth of his coffee-laced breath seeped into her moisture-flooded mouth a fraction of a second before their lips connected. Heat flushed through every part of her. Closing her eyes, her fingers reflexively tightened on his shoulders but the kiss never went beyond a fleeting caress of the lips. With an abruptness that came from nowhere, Konstantinos jerked away like he’d had a bucket of ice thrown over him. Coldness immediately filled the vacuum made by the loss of his body heat.

Her eyes flew open.

He’d reared back on his haunches, his expression as tight as she’d ever seen it. ‘Your phone,’ he said in a tone that matched his expression.

Dazed at what had so nearly happened, she stared blankly at him before the ringing of her phone finally penetrated her brain.

It was her mum’s ringtone.

Lena had never received a call from her mum that she didn’t answer straight away, but there was no possibility of her even moving off the sofa to get it, not with Konstantinos staring at her with the look of a man who couldn’t decide if he wanted to pounce on her and ravish her or plunge his teeth into her neck and suck all the life from her. His breaths were as ragged as the thuds of Lena’s heart, right until he closed his eyes sharply and turned his face.

With a grace that confounded her, he rose to his feet and in a couple of strides lifted her phone from the counter above the freezer. He held it out to her wordlessly.

Still trying to pull herself out of the spell she’d been caught in, Lena straightened and took a deep breath before accepting the video call. Her mum’s face filled the screen.

‘There you are,’ her mum said cheerfully in her native Swedish. ‘I was starting to think you were ignoring...’ She peered closer to the screen. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m great, thanks.’ Lena twisted her angle so Konstantinos wasn’t directly in her eyeline. ‘It’s just been a long day. How are you all?’

‘All good here. The weather forecasters say we might have snow tonight.’

‘Careful, you’re starting to sound like a naturalised Brit.’

Her mum laughed. ‘I miss the snow.’

‘I know, and before I go to sleep tonight I’ll do a snow chant for you.’ Over more laughter, Lena asked, ‘How’s Heidi? Still recovering?’ A moot question—her parents would have told her if Heidi’s recovery from the chest infection that mercifully hadn’t required hospitalisation had gone backwards in the two days since they’d last spoken. Lena had only agreed to leave England for Sweden after making her parents swear solemnly to never try to spare her worry about her sister’s condition.

‘She sent me to the library for audiobooks this morning.’

Ordinarily, Lena would have relaxed at this. Heidi asking for books always meant she was in a good place. With a heavy awareness of Konstantinos’s attention fixed on her, there was zero chance of her relaxing into the conversation. It was hard enough thinking coherently with him sharing the same air. ‘Definitely recovering well, then.’

Konstantinos had perched his backside on a tiny carved stool with a woodland scene etched on it. He was thankful it took his weight but it was so low he had to stretch his legs out, and space was so limited in the cabin that his feet were forced to rest next to Lena’s. There was nowhere else for him to sit unless he sat himself beside Lena on the sofa and be forced to endure the heat of her body so close to his or, worse, sat on the bed covered in the same patchwork bedspread as the night they’d spent together. If he hadn’t ordered food for them both, he would have left. A strong part of him thought he still should.

---