The Greek’s Chosen Wife

‘Try me,’ Nik invited.

‘Leo spent ages talking to the vendor at the property we viewed. When I got back to my car it had a flat tyre… Leo changed it but he had a dreadful time with the wheel nuts.’ Prudence threaded her hair off her damp brow with limp fingers and wished she could just sit down and slump.

‘Wheel nuts,’ Nik repeated with glittering dark golden eyes. ‘Is that the best you can do for an excuse?’

Blinking in bewilderment, she paused on her passage up the massive staircase. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s after midnight-’

‘I’m not Cinderella-’

‘And I’m not stupid. You’ve been with another man for hours on end.’

‘Another man?’ Prudence frowned, not immediately able to identify Leo as falling within that category.

‘You don’t answer your phone…you’ve been gone all evening. Naturally I’m suspicious.’

When Prudence realised what Nik was driving at she could not hide her astonishment. ‘Suspicious of Leo and me? But he’s madly in love with Stella and has been for years-’

‘Isn’t it strange that you never mentioned a Stella before?’

His persistence disconcerted her. The charged tension etched in his bronzed features was very real. Only then did she recall her silence when he had questioned her friendship with Leo after that misleading photo had appeared in the newspaper. She felt horribly guilty because she had made no attempt to settle his suspicions then and there. In fact she had actually quite enjoyed the idea that he was no longer so sure that her affections were firmly centred on him.

‘Leo and I are mates and that’s all. I should have made that clear from the start. The trouble is…I quite liked you being a bit jealous,’ Prudence confided shamefacedly, wincing at an odd little shooting pain low in her tummy.

‘I don’t do jealous,’ Nik asserted between gritted white teeth.

Fighting off a sick wave of dizziness, Prudence acknowledged that she really wasn’t feeling very well and she gripped the balustrade hard. Her complexion was paper white.

‘Theos mou…What’s wrong?’ Nik exclaimed.

Prudence swayed as her knees began to buckle and the darkness folded in. Nik threw himself forward and caught her in his arms as she fainted.

Prudence swam back to consciousness. She was lying on a sofa in the drawing room. ‘What happened?’

Nik was bending over her. His brilliant, beautiful dark eyes were full of concern. ‘You passed out and almost fell down the stairs. I think you need to see a doctor-’

‘Don’t be daft. There’s nothing the matter with me. I just think I overdid things today. I haven’t had anything to eat and I’m tired,’ she muttered ruefully.

‘Leo really looks after you, pethi mou,’ Nik derided.

‘A woman doesn’t need a man to look after her.’

‘It’s a pleasure for me to look after you…to see that you eat and rest and have no worries,’ Nik responded without hesitation. ‘I like doing it.’

It was true and he did it so well. She remembered his solicitous behaviour in Tuscany. It had encompassed everything from ensuring she didn’t sit too long in the sun to letting her lie in bed longer than he did in the morning. They had dined at her favourite restaurants, visited the places she most wanted to see. He had spoilt her rotten and made her feel as precious as solid gold. Without thinking about it, she reached for his hand and pushed her cheek into his palm in a helpless gesture of affection.

The tension etched in his lean, hard features eased. Long brown fingers stroked her face. ‘I still want a doctor to check you out tomorrow. You look too fragile.’

With his help she got into bed. He brought her an omelette which he swore he had cooked himself and while she ate he invited her to tell him about Leo and Stella. He laughed a couple of times. He said Leo was mucking about and acting like a wimp. Arguing with that macho judgement, Prudence began to relax and feel happy again. She had missed Nik so much. The giant hole in her life had felt unendurable. So what if he didn’t want children? she asked herself wryly. She could learn to live with that. Nothing was perfect. At some time in the future he might change his mind. If she had him, if she had the guy she loved, shouldn’t that be enough for her?

‘I should’ve told you about the pills,’ she whispered in drowsy apology.

‘No…you were right. I let myself forget how our marriage started out.’ Dark golden eyes sombre, Nik watched her slide into sleep. Earlier that day he had put Oakmere Abbey in her name so that whatever happened she and the sanctuary would be secure. The estate would be self-sufficient. If he wasn’t careful he would lose her as well as everything else. Somehow, some way, he had to address the image problem, he reflected grimly, fighting off his exhaustion. Subscribing to charity and pioneering business-enterprise awards for the young weren’t enough to impress Prudence. He had to do something compassionate in the animal line.

In the early hours, Prudence woke up and smiled sleepily at the familiar feel of Nik’s lean, hot, powerful body against hers. She lifted her lashes to study him. He was wide awake and watching her, too, golden eyes steady. He looked so serious and she wondered why, but only briefly, for the blue-black stubble shadowing his classic chiselled features only added to his smouldering sex appeal. Shifting closer, she gave an encouraging little wriggle. Surprised by his failure to take immediate advantage, she smoothed a provocative hand down over his hard, bronzed torso. He caught her fingers in his. ‘You were ill last night…we shouldn’t-’

‘Refusal will offend. You said it was your pleasure to look after me,’ Prudence reminded him with dancing eyes.

An appreciative grin slashed his handsome mouth. ‘It is…a very great pleasure, thespinis mou,’ he asserted, tugging her up against him with easy strength and taking her mouth with passionate fervour.

A couple of hours later she hurried downstairs to join Nik for breakfast. She was crossing the hall when without the slightest warning a spasm of sharp pain gripped her pelvis and doubled her up. ‘Nik!’ she gasped in shock and fear.

He took her to the nearest hospital. They were both totally stunned when a pregnancy test was carried out and came up with a positive result. Before Prudence could even deal with the knowledge that she was almost two months pregnant, she learned that she was losing her baby. Ashen below his bronzed skin, Nik listened with hollow, dark eyes when the gynaecologist opined that the very lack of symptoms that might have initially warned Prudence of her condition might well have indicated an unstable pregnancy. No, he assured her kindly, he did not think that she could have done anything to change what was happening. After that there was nothing to do but let nature take its course.

When it was all over she lay in her private room, staring sightlessly at the wall. She must have fallen pregnant the very first time she slept with Nik. Her most cherished dream had come true with the man she loved, but she had not had the chance to enjoy the fact even briefly.

‘I wish we’d known,’ Nik breathed thickly, gripping her hand in his. ‘It feels so wrong that we didn’t know until it was too late.’

‘No,’ she agreed numbly, staring at the wall at the foot of the bed.

‘I am to blame for this situation. We made love and I chose not to protect you-’

‘I said I wanted a child,’ she said dully, not understanding how he was to blame. She had conceived and would have been overjoyed had she still been pregnant. But now she had miscarried and all such talk only reminded her of her loss and her disappointment.

Nik closed both hands round her limp fingers and expelled his breath in a ragged hiss. ‘I’m so sorry…you will probably never understand how much.’

He had stayed with her throughout. He had been strong for her, supportive, everything a husband should be. But only a few days back he had admitted that he didn’t really want a baby with her. Of course, had he realised that there was the slightest risk that she might be pregnant he would never have admitted that. But he had admitted it and she could not forget his candour. And, naturally, he could not forget it on such a day either. After all, Prudence conceded wretchedly, he was a very decent guy.

‘I let my pride come between us…’ Nik bit out in a driven undertone.

That was a startling enough announcement to make Prudence turn her head on the pillow to look directly at him. ‘How?’

Nik studied her with bleak, dark eyes. ‘I wanted you to have my child. But I wouldn’t admit that when the