The Greek's Pregnant Lover (10 page)

Because she carried his child.

In a normal world, that would result in an immediate and outright refusal on her part. Before meeting and falling in love with Zephyr Nikos, she would never have even considered for one second marrying a man who did not profess to love her. But Zephyr’s perspective was a unique one.

In his world, love guaranteed nothing but pain. He hadn’t come out and said so, but his story about his past made that clear. He had loved his mother and she had abandoned him to an orphanage. He had loved both of his half siblings, but they had been taken from him.

Even if he did love Piper, he might never be able to admit it.

One of the questions that chased round and round in her brain was whether or not she could accept that and marry him anyway. She had no doubts about her ability to raise this child on her own. She was an educated woman with her own successful business. She wasn’t a billionaire, but she wasn’t a pauper, either.

Zephyr could be part of the baby’s life without marrying her as well. But he couldn’t be a full-time dad if they didn’t live together. Even in the best shared custody arrangements, both parents were forced to take a less pervasive role in their child’s life.

And Zephyr wasn’t going to be content with the role of part-time dad. Just because she refused to marry him did not mean he would not one day marry. He didn’t just want to be a father; he wanted a family. That had been obvious when they’d visited the aquarium together.

He wanted what he saw all around him, and she could not blame him.

Which led to the other question that chased the first one over and over again: could she bear to stand aside while he married another woman and built a whole family with her? Could she stand her own child only having half-time with his or her daddy while others that came later got him each and every day?

Unlike Zephyr, her time at the Seattle Aquarium was doing nothing to help her think of answers to those hard questions.

Zephyr let himself into his empty apartment, annoyed when he realized the cleaning service had left the lights on in the living room again. His power bill was not the issue; indiscriminate wasteful use of the planet’s resources was.

It had been almost a week since Piper was supposed to have called him. She hadn’t been in to work, at least according to her assistant, Brandi. He’d gone by Piper’s apartment, but she hadn’t answered the door. Her phone had to be off and he’d finally stopped calling, but each day that went by echoed feelings he thought he would never again have to experience.

The fear of being abandoned was a live thing inside of him, but he hid it, even from Neo. He couldn’t stand the feeling of helplessness that grew with every hour she did not call. Had he lost his friend? Was she going to try to keep him from his child if she was indeed pregnant?

One thing he knew was that he might feel helpless, but he wasn’t. If she carried his child, she was not going to keep it away from him like his brother and sister had been. He would be a part of this child’s life, even if marrying its mother wasn’t an option.

He would fight for custody. She could be the weekend parent, if she didn’t want to marry him. She was still building her business, she’d said so herself. He could free more of his time to parent their child hands-on and any decent judge would see that.

Disgusted with the direction of his thoughts, he yanked off his already loosened tie as he strode into the living room. He stopped dead at the sight that greeted him.

Piper was curled on his sofa, under a quilt he had brought back from Greece many years ago. As if she could sense his presence, her eyelids fluttered and then opened.

She gazed up at him drowsily. “Hi.”

“You said you would call.”

“I couldn’t. I had to think.”

“So, you left me hanging for almost a week?”

She flinched at the ice in his voice, but he could not help that. “I decided it wasn’t something we should discuss on the phone but, um…maybe I should have called and told you that.”

“Yes, you should have. I have been worried. I went by your apartment. You did not answer the door.”

“I wasn’t there. I went to
my
favorite place to think after trying yours and getting nowhere.”

“Where is that?” he demanded.

“The beach.”

“You could not have let me know you went out of town?”

“If I had called you, you would have talked me into seeing you.”

“Maybe because that was what we both needed.” Frustrated anger laced his voice. “At the very least, you could have let me know that you were waiting here today.”

“I should have,” she acknowledged as she sat up and brushed her hair back off her face. The beach might be her favorite place to think, but it had brought her no peace and despite just waking from a nap, she looked like she hadn’t been getting enough sleep. “I was just so tired and thought you would come up after work. I didn’t realize you would work until bedtime.”

“It is hardly that.”

“Close enough.”

“Damn it! Do not try to sidestep the issue. If I had known you were here, I would have left my office immediately.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly to prevent his volume from increasing. “I was worried. Do you understand that?” Did she care? “I called your cell over and over again.”

She looked down so he could not see her eyes, and target the guilt he would see there. “I turned it off.”

“I figured that out.”

She nodded. She stood up and came to him, then tilted her head back so their gazes met. Emotions he did not understand swirled in her blue depths.

“Tell me,” he demanded, his tone softer than he intended.

How could he help feeling compassion? She looked like hell.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. It was inconsiderate and selfish of me. I should have called, no matter how hard it would have been. I kept thinking and thinking, but I couldn’t make sense of anything no matter which way I looked at it. When I finally got here today, it was past four. I really thought I’d take a short nap and you would be here. And then we could talk.”

“Instead I worked late, trying to keep my mind off the fact you did not keep your promise to call.” Almost a week ago, but he had already said that and she had acknowledged it.

She nodded. “This situation is scary, Zephyr.”

“I agree, but I would think that two friends facing down fear together would work better than each trying deal with it on his or her own.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” She looked away again. “I just…I knew you’d want to get married and I didn’t know what I wanted to do about that.”

“So, you
are
pregnant.”

She met his gaze, hers suspiciously glossy. “Yes, we’re either very unlucky or wildly fortunate, depending on how you want to look at it.”

“How do
you
look at it?” he demanded.

“Wildly fortunate? How else? I’m thrilled to be having your baby even if this whole situation scares me to death.” She looked ready to shake apart.

Damn it. He would have noticed how fragile she was earlier if he hadn’t been working through his own turmoil. He did
not want to tell her the plans he’d been making when he first arrived, but would she give him a choice?

Hoping to convince her of their best option yet, he pulled her into his arms, keeping their gazes connected even as their bodies pressed together in comfort. “What are you so frightened of?”

“A lot of things.”

“What scares you the most?”

“That I’ll agree to marry you, we’ll do the deed and then you’ll finally fall in love—
with someone else
.”

That was at the top of her fear factor list? He couldn’t have been more stunned if she said she was terrified of an alien invasion snatching their baby from her womb. “I am not going to fall in love with another woman.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“Yes, I can. Trust me, Piper. It is not even a possibility.” Of all the things he’d been considering over her week-long silence, that was not one of them.

“Do you think there is even a tiny chance that someday you might fall in love with me?” She buried her face against his chest and waited for his answer.

He wanted to lie; it would make things so much easier, but he could not. “If I was capable of falling in love, I already would have.”

“You really believe that?”

“Absolutely.”

Her head tilted back so he could see her glare. “Everyone is capable of love.”

“That is debatable.”

“Yes, I guess it is.” She grimaced. “There are certainly people that make a great case for that point of view anyway. I never considered you one of them, however.”

He could not help that. He shrugged. “What else scares you?”

“Oh, the usual, what will happen to my business, what if I lose the baby, what if I’m a terrible mother, am I going to turn into a whale, can I learn Greek?” Her litany of worries
came out in a voice garbled by suppressed tears he did not know what to do about.

“You are going to marry me.” Why else would she need to learn Greek?

“How can I do anything else? I’ve looked at this situation from every side until I’m sick with it. If I don’t marry you, we’ll have to share custody and I’m not naive enough to think you are going to settle for being a weekend dad. You’ll fight for at least equal custody, if not majority custody.”

He was shocked. She realized that. “I…”

“Don’t try to deny it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Her lips trembled, but she blinked away the incipient moisture in her troubled blue eyes. “Good. We can’t build a marriage on lies.”

“I agree.”

“The custody issue wasn’t even the most distressing.”

“It was not?” What could have worried her more?

“No. It was the certainty that if I didn’t marry you, one day you would marry someone else and build a whole family with them.”

“The thought of me married to someone else bothers you?” he asked, just to clarify. She had left him without any sort of contact for almost a week after all.

“Of course it does.
I love you
.”

Something inside his chest stuttered. “You love me?”

“Yes.”

“Like a friend.” He attempted to qualify.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and shook her head, those terrifying tears of hers spilling over now. “No, not like a friend.”

“You won’t convince anyone you love me like a brother.” Maybe there was some special kind of love women left for the father of their children.

She shook her head again, a mysterious smile flirting with
the edge of her lips, despite the sadness in her eyes. “Like the only man in my universe, like the other half of my heart, like the part of my soul that’s been missing my whole life but I didn’t know it.”

He would have staggered if they hadn’t been holding each other so tightly. “Is that how you loved Art?” He did not know why he asked except for as some form of penance, because one thing he
never
wanted to hear was that she had loved her ex like that.

“My feelings for Art weren’t even a shadow of what is in my heart for you.”

Could he believe that? And if he did, what difference did it make? His mother had loved him, too, but she’d walked away when a choice had to be made. “And yet, you did not call.”

“Loving you doesn’t make me perfect, or even perfectly unselfish. In fact, it makes me terribly self-focused because it makes me so vulnerable to being hurt by you. I
want
to marry you so I know you won’t—
can’t
—leave me.” The tears were in her voice now. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life and I wanted to be pregnant so bad, it was an ache in my gut that wouldn’t let me sleep at all the night before the doctor’s office called. I spent the darkest hours of that night in a perfect agony of guilt and unable to change my desires one jot even because of it. Did you hear all those
I’
s and
me’
s?”

“You
wanted
to carry my child?” he asked, ignoring selfflagellating guilt.

“Yes, more than anything. Which probably makes you wonder if I lost my patch on purpose, but I swear to you that I didn’t.”

“Of course not, but why did you want to?”

“Have you been listening to me at all? I knew a baby would tie you to me. Not because I’m not capable of being a single mother, but because you would not want me to be. I’m really ashamed of feeling that way, but I can’t change it. I never would have done it on purpose, but I won’t pretend I don’t
feel
wildly fortunate
, either. Which probably should make
you
reconsider whether or not you should marry me.”

“So, if you wanted it so bad, why stay away so long?”

“Because when I got what I thought I wanted, I pictured a lifetime of being married to a man who is not in love with me and it terrified me.”

“You have been so unhappy these past months?”

“No.”

“Then, why should you be unhappy as my wife?” he demanded. Didn’t she see how illogical she was being?

“I’m hoping I won’t be.”

“I’ll make sure of it.” She was going to accuse him of arrogance again, but before she got a chance, he decided to offer his own truth. “I also wanted you to be pregnant and I am very glad you have decided to marry me.”

He could not resist the expression his words brought to her face, he kissed her and they spent several minutes lost in a very pleasant joint effort to leave an indelible mark on the other’s lips.

“Do you think our mutual selfishness negates itself?” she asked as if the answer really mattered to her.

“I think that as long as we are both pleased with the outcome, it does not matter.”

“I think maybe you’re right.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “Can we make love now?”

“Is it safe for the baby?”

“Very.”

“You asked?”

“Of course I did. I know what we’re like together and we are going to be together a lot now.”

He liked the sound of that, though a tiny voice inside warned him not to get too used to it as it could all be taken away. After all, she had cut herself off from him while making her decision, showing she did not
need
him even if she loved him. “You’ll move in with me?”