Page 33 of Christmas Baby with Her Ultra-Rich Boss

FORSOMEONEWHOwas half Konstantinos’s size and five months pregnant, Lena twisted round and pushed him flat on his back with a surprising agility.

‘Now, you listen to me, Konstantinos Siopis,’ she said fiercely, speaking right in his face. ‘You arenotugly, and to put you right from what you accused me of the other day, I didn’t sleep with you because you’re rich or, just in case you’re thinking it, because you’re my boss, or even because of the wine I’d drunk. I slept with you because I couldn’t not. You smiled at me... I’d never seen you smile before...and I felt it right in the place our baby’s now growing.’

He gazed into the eyes glaring vehemently at him and felt something move in his heart.

Her face still hovering over his, she palmed his stubbled cheek. ‘I have never feltanythinglike that before. You’re not handsome, Tinos, but to my eyes you’re beautiful. Every bit of you.’

He attempted humour to lighten the weight building in his chest. ‘Even my nose?’

She kissed the tip. ‘Every bit of you.’

‘My brother broke it when I was eleven. That’s why it bends.’

Something flashed in her eyes. ‘Why did he do that?’

‘We were fighting and he hit me. In fairness, I hit him first. The damage only became pronounced in my teenage years.’ At the age of fourteen he’d suddenly shot up, growing six inches in the same number of months. His face had changed, too, becoming angular, his always too-long nose gaining prominence. It had taken Theo and Cassia’s betrayal for him to understand that outer beauty often masked inner ugliness. That was when he’d stopped caring about his appearance. People could take him or leave him, and as his wealth had grown, people, especially women, had increasingly taken him.

Right now, here with Lena, he felt like he was with the first person who’d ever looked beneath the surface to seehim.

‘What were you fighting about?’ she asked.

‘I can’t remember. We were always fighting in those days.’

‘Sibling rivalry at its finest. Heidi and I hardly ever fought but I had friends who hated their siblings. Who’s the oldest?’

‘He is, by two years.’

‘Strange,’ she mused. ‘It’s usually the younger sibling who tries to outshine the older one and take what they have for themselves. He must have been incredibly jealous of you.’

He grunted a laugh. ‘He had nothing to be jealous about. Theo’s the one who had everything. He was movie-star handsome like your ex, and like your ex all the girls wanted him.’ Those who’d befriended Konstantinos like Cassia had done so in the hope of getting closer to his brother. Even his parents had noticed the surge in young female applicants for the rare job vacancies in the family restaurant once Theo had started working there.

Her face tightened, that flash blazing in her eyes again. ‘Exactly. Tinos, he stole your fiancée. That’s the cruellest thing a sibling can do. He stuck around to work in the family restaurant, didn’t he?’

Fascinated at her obvious anger, he nodded.

The blaze continued to flash. ‘I bet he hated your hard work and success taking the spotlight from him so he stole the one thing that meant something to you.’

‘He fell in love with her.’ Konstantinos was aware he was only defending his brother to provoke more of this reaction from Lena.

‘I don’t care. If he found himself developing feelings for her he should have stayed the hell away.’

Gazing into the face of the womanheshould have stayed the hell away from, Konstantinos asked for the first time, not only aloud but to himself, ‘What if he couldn’t?’

Hadn’t he been unable to keep away from Lena? For all the excuses he’d made, hadn’t he flown back to Sweden seven months early because his craving to see her again had grown too strong to resist any longer?

‘Oh, come on,’ she said, oblivious to his new direction of thought. ‘He was an adult, not an adolescent experiencing hormones for the first time. There is no excuse for what he did to you. None. They deserve each other and I hope their marriage is a living hell for them both.’

With amusement building amidst the weight in his chest, he slipped his hand back under her top.Theos, he loved Lena’s skin, the soft texture, the way she shivered with obvious pleasure at his touch. Arousal spooled in his loins to imagine stripping her naked and making love to her with his hands and mouth, tasting every inch, licking the tips of her breasts in the way that had made her pant and plead and beg for more...

‘I hate to disappoint you but my parents tell me they are happy,’ he said, having to blink his concentration back to their conversation and not to the heady fantasies that had made him as stiff as a board.

‘There’s still time for karma to bite them on their butts,’ she said stubbornly, even as she slipped her hand up his top and splayed her fingers through the hairs on his abdomen.

No one had ever taken his side without equivocation before. All these years, the ghost of Theo and Cassia had tainted every minute spent with his parents and extended family. He’d never expected anyone to take sides, least of all his parents, but expectation and want were two different things, and their love for their two sons and determination not to choose one over the other had festered like a wound. Konstantinos had been wronged. His life had been shattered. His trust had been destroyed. His dreams had gone up in smoke. And no one had taken his part, making every excuse under the damned sun to excuse the golden son’s betrayal.

‘Where does this fire come from?’ he wondered idly as he continued to gaze at her, his mouth filling with moisture to imagine those lips currently set in an obstinate, furious line kissing fire over his skin. That this fury was on his behalf...

Her shadowed brow creased. ‘I just think they treated you abysmally.’

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