Page 1 of Pregnancy Clause in Their Paper Marriage
CHAPTER ONE
LANASMITHMOVEDpurposefully through the well-heeled crowd, her ice-blue gaze skimming over the elegantly coiffed heads of the top echelons of New York City’s business world. Socialites rubbed elbows with bankers, lawyers, and entrepreneurs, while the strains of a seventeen-piece orchestra swelled over the tinkling sound of laughter and the clink of crystal. Among all these rising and shining stars, she could not see the man she was looking for, the man she rarely looked for, but desperately needed right now.
Her husband.
‘Lana!’ Albert, an aging tech wunderkind who had availed himself of her company’s PR services a year ago in order to rehabilitate his somewhat sagging reputation, came towards her, hands outstretched, to air-kiss her on both cheeks. Lana made the requisite kissy noises before leaning back and smiling at him, trying not to appear as distracted as she felt.Wherewas Christos? Earlier that day, he’d texted her that he’d be here tonight. She’d been on the fence about attending at all, because it was her fourth function in the space of a week, but it was always helpful for the two of them to make appearances, short and sweet, together. That wasn’t, however, why she was looking for him now.
‘I saw your husband just a short while ago,’ Albert told her, and Lana’s gaze narrowed as her heart leaped.
‘You did?’ She took a sip from the crystal flute of sparkling water she held in one hand, trying not to sound as eager as she felt. ‘Let me guess. Holding court in the whisky bar?’
Albert gave an indulgent chuckle. ‘How did you know?’
‘Christos always prefers a smaller, more captive audience,’ she quipped, although she wasn’t sure that was entirely true. Her husband of three years was still something of an enigma to her, and rightly so. She hadn’t been particularly interested in getting to know him, beyond the basics, and he’d felt the same. Their convenient marriage had suited them both; they had a healthy respect for one another as well as a pleasant, unthreatening affection and camaraderie, and that was all that was needed for a successful marriage.
Until now.
‘I probably should go say hello to him,’ Lana told Albert, with a smiling roll of her eyes. ‘We’ve been like ships passing in the night these last few weeks.’ Last few years, but nobody actually knew that salient fact, which was, essentially, the point of their marriage.
‘Don’t be a stranger,’ Albert called after her as she began walking towards the ballroom’s doors. ‘I have a friend whose image needs a little polish...he’s young, up and coming, but awkward. You know how it is. I mentioned your name.’
Lana turned back to give him a quick, laughing look. ‘You know how to find me,’ she replied with a flick of her long, poker-straight strawberry-blonde hair, and then she kept walking, her head held high, a faint smile on her lips as she nodded at the various guests she knew or at least recognised.
She’d been part of this crowd for nearly ten years, first as a wannabe hanger-on when she’d started as a lowly administrative assistant for one of the city’s top PR firms, still trying to figure out who she was, then rising to consultant, and then, as much out of painful necessity as ambition or desire, starting her own firm six years ago, having left behind a career—and a heart—that had taken a brutal battering. For a second she let herself remember those years, when she’d been so young, so impressionable, sobroken, all thanks to one man.
But, she told herself, she could give credit where credit was due—if Anthony Greaves hadn’t broken her heart and stamped on her pride, grinding it nearly to dust, she might never have started her own business...or married Christos Diakos.
Marrying Christos three years ago, New York City’s enigmatic tech investor and once considered its most eligible bachelor, had been the icing on the cake, cementing her success both in society and business. Not that she needed a man for that, of course, but Lana certainly understood the need to be pragmatic.
Which was what tonight was all about. She’d explain her new plan to Christos in the same businesslike terms in which he’d agreed to their marriage, and that would be that. Yet the clenching of her insides, the sudden speeding up of her heart, told another story.
Somehow Lana didn’t think this was going to be as easy or simple as she wanted—and needed—it to be. Even after three years of marriage, she couldn’t say she really knew her husband or how he’d react to the proposal she was about to put to him, but she did know that despite his laughing wryness, his easy manner, he had a core of absolute steel. He hadn’t swept into this city and taken over business after business, held his nerve with some of the riskiest investments imaginable, and risen to multimillionaire status all within a few years on charm alone, although he had that in spades, as well.
At the imposing double doorway of the ballroom, Lana paused, taking a breath to steady herself, flicking her hair once more behind her shoulders, straightening her spine. The pale blue evening gown she wore, a simple sheath of satin, matched her eyes and made her stand out like a column of ice, which was exactly the image she’d tried to go for when she’d reinvented her broken-hearted self at age twenty-three—sophisticated, a little bit remote but ultimately approachable, determined but also charming, which was why she smiled at everyone she saw, without letting itquitemeet her eyes. She’d spent a long time cultivating the right image as a PR consultant, someone who had to be both aspirational and approachable, friendly yet always professional. Besides, a sense of reserve came naturally to her, after a turbulent childhood and a single, disastrous romance; it was like a layer of armour against the slings and arrows of the world, one she knew she needed.
Yet she sometimes had the uncomfortable, prickling suspicion that her husband saw through that carefully constructed façade—although to what underneath, she couldn’t say.Thatshe knew she never gave away, not to anyone, and never would, not even to herself. She’d left that lonely little girl, that broken-hearted woman, behind a long, long time ago.
With her chin tilted at a challenging angle, Lana headed into the hotel’s whisky bar, a carefully curated den of masculinity, with deep leather club chairs, a mahogany bar, the amber shades of a hundred different whisky brands glinting in their bottles behind it.
She saw Christos immediately, her gaze instinctively drawn to his magnetic presence, picking him out from half a dozen men with ease. He was that notable, that charismatic, sprawled in a leather chair, a tumbler of whisky dangling carelessly from his fingertips. Dark, rumpled hair, a little too long, a powerfully lithe body well over six feet, so he stood head and shoulders over most men in any room. Golden-green eyes that often looked sleepy, but Lana knew better; he’d be taking in everything. He’d probably leave this so-called social meeting with several business tips, or even a contract in the making. That was one of the things she admired about him. One of the things that had made him, for her, husband material.
She took a step into the bar and waited for him to notice her. Another thing she admired about him—he didn’t play games. Didn’t pretend not to see her for some stupid ego boost, the way so many men did. The way Anthony had, his gaze skimming over her with something like malice as she’d watched him chat up another woman.
No, Christos turned as soon as she stepped into the room, his gaze training on her like a laser, making an unexpected heat bloom through her body, a quickening of her pulse.
She’d long ago trained herself not to react to that gaze, often seeming sleepy yet so intent, or that powerful body, the muscles of his shoulders rippling under the starched white cotton of his button-down shirt. She didn’t react to the bergamot scent of his aftershave, or the long, relaxed stride he had, like a lion who didn’t even need to pounce. Chemistry, never mind actual sex, had never been part of their bargain, and that had been for a very good reason.
And it wasn’t going to be part of it now, despite what she was about to ask him. Again, Lana’s insides clenched with nerves. Did she really want to do this? Did she dare? She’d had three days to think about it, three days to absorb, accept, grieve. Three days to weigh the pros and cons, to try not to feel emotional, even though she knew, deep down, that this was entirely an emotional decision. One from the heart, the kind she’d learned never to make.
Yet here she was.
‘Lana.’ Another thing she had learned not to respond to—Christos’s voice. Rich and deep, and always with a hint of laughter. Not mean-spirited laughter, the mockery of a man who needed to feel superior—and goodness, but she knew whatthatsounded like—but the genuine humour of someone who found the world a fun place to be. Utterly unlike her in some ways, but Lana liked it about him. He relaxed her, maybe without even meaning to.
She inclined her head, let a smile curve her lips. ‘Christos.’
‘Sorry, gents, matrimony calls.’ Christos rose from his chair in one fluid movement. Despite his height, or perhaps because of it, he was a man who moved with easy grace. He tossed back the last of his drink in a single swallow before handing the glass to the bartender with a fleeting smile of thanks. Yet another thing she liked about him—he was always kind to staff, to the people others would have seen as utterly irrelevant and beneath them.
All evidence, she told herself, that she was making the right decision now.