Page 22 of Christmas Baby with Her Ultra-Rich Boss

‘I wasn’t making a judgement,’ he refuted coolly. ‘I was making an observation.’

‘An observation cast like a judgement.’

He’d hit on a weak spot there, he thought. Was it guilt making her react so defensively?

At this thought, a pang of guilt punched through him. The evidence of Lena’s love for her family and their love for her was everywhere. The photo of the two Weir girls playing in the snow was one of three photos in her office of her family. Her cabin was stuffed with family photos that he’d deliberately avoided looking at because it was easier to try and banish her from his mind if she was a caricature in his mind and not a flesh and blood woman with feelings.

He’d made his judgemental observation deliberately. With the intention of hurting her. And he’d succeeded.

Damn it, it wasn’t Lena’s fault he reacted so viscerally to her and that he was sitting in this confined office—everywherein this hellscape was confined—fighting with every breath in his body not to pull her to him for a taste of her sweet headiness. He shouldn’t punish her for his desire and his failure to control it.

‘Do you want to be based near them when the baby comes?’ he asked, making an effort to neuter the atmosphere he’d created. When her pinched features remained stony, he added, ‘Everything is changing, Lena, and you will need a home. Given the choice, would you prefer to be close to your family or somewhere else?’

Holding his stare a moment longer, she drew her chest slowly off the desk and leaned back in her chair. Her expression now wary, she said, ‘My choice would be to live close to my family.’

‘Then I shall make it happen. Email me their address and I will get my people on it.’

‘On it?’

‘To find a suitable home for you and the baby close to your family. You get the final choice and the contracts will be made in your name. The home will be yours.’

Her mouth dropped open. ‘That is... Are you sure?’

‘Of course,’ he dismissed. ‘But I am not a miracle worker. It might take a month or two before you are able to move into it. I have a penthouse in London you can use until then.’

She shook her head as if clearing water from her ears but the wariness remained. ‘That is very kind and generous of you.’

‘I am a kind and generous man,’ he said drolly.

She gave a sudden snort of laughter that made her shoulders shake and finally removed the last trace of her bristling anger.

Konstantinos had no idea why it made him feel so ridiculously pleased to hear that laughter again and why the softness returning to her eyes should ease the pressure that upsetting her had put on his chest, and then he remembered how hearing that laugh and seeing that softness during their celebratory meal had gone a long way into seducing him. It was a rare person who drew the humour out in him, a rarer person still whogotit and by extension got him. Lena’s gift that night—whether genuine or not—had been to make him feel that she’d looked beneath the ugly but wealthy exterior and seen the beating heart of the man, and that she’d liked what she’d seen. It had been an incredibly powerful aphrodisiac that had intoxicated him and drawn him into making the biggest mistake of his life because, unlike his usual dispassionate affairs, the remnants of their lovemaking had never left him.

‘All I ask in return is that you spend Christmas with my family.’

The dark eyes that had widened with such passionate surprise at her first climax with him came close to popping out of her head. ‘You’ve told your family about the baby?’

‘Yes.’ Like ripping a sticking plaster off in one go, he’d known it was best to get it over and done with and just tell them.

‘How did they take it?’

‘Very well.’

The wariness returned but this time underlined by fear rather than anger. ‘You told them the circumstances?’

‘Only that we are not in a relationship, but do not let that worry you. Family is everything to my parents and they want to welcome you into ours.’

‘Really?

‘To them, this is a blessing. They long ago gave up hope I would have children.’ Only in the past few years had they stopped asking if he’d ‘met’ anyone. It had taken him a long time to control his anger at their bewilderment in his absolute refusal to even consider finding a partner. They’d been there. They knew the effect Theo’s betrayal had had on him. ‘They want to meet you. They are like children themselves when it comes to Christmas and it would bring them much joy to involve you in our celebrations of it. That isn’t a problem for you, is it?’ he added when Lena didn’t respond. ‘You couldn’t have made plans to celebrate it with your family. You were supposed to be working the period here.’

‘It’s not a problem, no,’ she said slowly. ‘You’ve just taken me by surprise. I don’t think I’d even considered that you had parents.’

‘How else did you think I came to be here? Did you think I was grown on a Petri dish?’

The grin that spread over her face at this zinged through the air between them and injected another dangerous dose of warmth into his veins.

‘I had wondered,’ she said with a snigger. ‘I take it this will be their first grandchild?’

---