Page 16 of Pregnancy Clause in Their Paper Marriage
‘All right, then.’ He raised his eyebrows in expectant query. ‘Do we need to meet again before D-Day?’
She let out a little laugh. ‘I can tell you’re going to have fun with the whole military thing.’
‘Well, itisfertile ground. Literally.’
She rolled her eyes, laughing again. ‘All right, fine. Go ahead with the quips. And I don’t think we need to meet again. Not until...you know.’ She reached for her bag and slung it over her shoulder. ‘I’ll make the hotel reservation and send you the details.’
‘Right.’
She gave a little nod, clearly pleased, clearly thinking she was in control. She’d make the hotel reservation. She’d call the shots. She’d keep everything neat and ordered and under her authority.
Well, maybe not.
‘Good. Great.’ Another nod while Christos watched, smiling faintly. ‘I know I should have said this before,’ she said, ‘but...thank you, Christos. You’ve been more than generous and kind, too, especially considering what I was first suggesting.’ She gave a little shake of her head. ‘I realise now that the whole IVF thing was a little bit ridiculous, all things considered.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘A little bit?’
‘All right, a lot. I just... I suppose I assumed you’d be like all the other men I’ve known.’
That was an interesting, if sorrowful statement, but one he wasn’t about to probe too deeply. ‘I look forward to proving otherwise.’
‘Thank you.’ Another nod. She fiddled with the strap of her bag, and then he saw her professional demeanour come over her like a cloak she drew about herself. Her eyes flashed blue fire and her chin tilted at that determined angle, her lithe body straightening. The only thing she didn’t do was click her heels together like a good soldier. ‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘See you next week.’
‘See you next week,’ Christos echoed as she turned and began to walk out of the club’s lounge.
Yes, he thought as he watched her move through the tables and sofas, the admiring glances sent her way, she would see him next week, but not the way she thought she would.
Because if anyone was going to call the shots in their marriage, it was him.
CHAPTER SIX
LANACOULDN’TKEEPa gusty sigh of relief from escaping her as she kicked off her stiletto heels and walked into the living room of her brownstone. She’d had a full day of back-to-back meetings, and her body ached with tension—not from the work meetings, which she’d actually enjoyed, but from the meeting she was going to be having tomorrow night. Themanoeuvre.
Another sigh escaped her, this one closer to a shudder, and she drew the pins from her hair and shook the tumbled mass down her back as she started to unbutton her blouse. Heading into her bedroom, she shucked off her work outfit and reached for her pyjamas, comfort clothes she never let anyone see her in—old sweats and a T-shirt worn to a paper-thin softness. Her bra went too, tossed into the laundry hamper in the corner. She was going to enjoy this last night of alone time, because tomorrow...
Well, she hadn’t actually let herself think that much about tomorrow. She’d made the reservation at one of the city’s swankiest hotels, althoughnotthe penthouse. She’d bought a nightgown, in coffee-coloured silk edged with black lace, not too virginal or romantic or even sexy, but sophisticated, she hoped. She’d booked a morning’s worth of spa treatments for tomorrow—waxing pretty much everything, a body wrap, the works. When it came to sex with Christos, she wanted to make sure she was on top form, everything a kind of armour.
Sex with Christos.
A shiver went through Lana, and she thought about how he’d stroked her palm, how she’d responded, that ache opening up inside her. How would she respond when he was touching her far more intimately than that? What if she froze up?
What if she didn’t?
It felt like a minefield, and that wasn’t even taking into account the emotional side of the whole thing, which clearly didn’t bother or even affect Christos, but which she knew she still struggled with. Sexmeantsomething to her, which was why she was so scared of having it. Why she hadn’t had it in a very, very long time. Should she tell Christos? Prepare him for her own inexperience and inevitable awkwardness? The thought was excruciating.
He viewed sex differently. She knew that. She just had to remind herself from time to time, including now.
Pushing her feet into fluffy slippers—something else she never let anyone see—she headed into the kitchen to make a late dinner. She put a playlist on her phone, hooked up to the surround sound speakers, and the hauntingly melancholy sound of Bach’s ‘Cello Suite in G Major’ floated through the house, one of her favourite pieces of music, for both its sorrow and beauty.
Dinner was a chef-prepped meal she ordered in bulk from a local caterer, something healthy and delicious she could pop in the microwave. As she waited for it to heat, she wondered if she would start cooking when she had a child of her own. Would she make healthy, home-made meals for her family, nurture them with cookies and cakes baked with love?
She wanted to, and yet the thought filled her with something almost like fear. That certainly wasn’t how she’d grown up. Did she even know how to do it? She’d never really cooked in all her years; when she’d been young and working her way through college, it had been instant noodles and baked beans. Later, when she’d had the money, it had been meals like this.
But besides the uncertainty about whether she could even manage to make a meal, the thought of her and Christos and their baby seated around a table, bathed in the warm glow of a lamp, eating food she’d made herself...
Well, there was something about that image that terrified her, as well as filled her with a deep and unbearable longing.
She was startled back to reality by the sound of what she thought at first was the microwave dinging, but then realised was actually the chime of the front doorbell. Someone was at her house.