Page 2 of Pregnancy Clause in Their Paper Marriage

Christos strolled up to her, stopping close enough so she could breathe in his aftershave, feel his heat. Her stomach contracted again, as much with awareness as with nerves. Lana had steeled herself against a response to him over the years, but occasionally it still came up and surprised her, a sudden wave of longing she did her best to suppress. She didn’t need that kind of complication. Now she tilted her head up to meet his laughing gaze.

‘You wanted to speak to me?’ he asked, his tone turning momentarily serious, his hazel gaze scanning her face with a concern that made something in her soften.

‘Sexy and nice,’an acquaintance had once told her with a laugh.‘How did you get so lucky?’

Of course, that woman hadn’t known the truth behind their marriage.

‘How did you know?’ she asked.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You only look for me at a party when you want something.’

Lana tried not to flinch at that rather matter-of-fact assessment. It was true, but it made her sound a bit like a grasping shrew, not that he’d said it in a mean way, far from it. ‘Well,’ she said mildly, lowering her voice so others couldn’t hear, ‘that is the reason for our marriage.’

‘Well I know it, my dear.’ His tone was teasing, without any spite or malice. Christos had always taken their paper marriage in his stride; he’d been remarkably unfazed when, at an event like this one three years ago, Lana had suggested the idea to him. She’d done so with a calculated sort of recklessness, expecting it to shock or maybe amuse, but Christos had merely raised his eyebrows, smiling, and asked for details.

‘Are we meant to be on show,’ he asked as he slid his arm through hers, ‘or is this a private conversation?’

‘Private,’ Lana replied as her throat suddenly went tight. She really had no idea how Christos was going to react to her suggestion.

‘Very well,’ he replied equably, ‘but we might as well take a spin around the room for form’s sake, don’t you think? I don’t believe we’ve appeared in public together for a couple of weeks. You wouldn’t want people to start talking.’

‘I’m not sure it matters, after three years,’ Lana replied as he gently steered her from the bar, back to the crowded ballroom. ‘Surely by now our marriage is an accepted fact in this city.’

‘Ah, but people always like to speculate,’ he replied, leaning down to murmur in her ear so his breath tickled her cheek. Lana stiffened, doing her best to ignore the tingling sensation that little whisper had caused to spread through her whole body, a spark she forced herself to instantly suppress, before it could ignite. Now, more than ever, she did not want to complicate things between her and Christos with an intense physical reaction. Besides, she was pretty sure she was reacting to him this way, after three years of learning not to, only because of what was on her mind. Her heart.

And she had no idea how Christos Diakos, herdear husband, was going to take it.

Beneath his arm, Lana’s was as taut and hard as a rod of iron. His lovely wife was often tense, although she did her best not to show it, but tonight the cracks in her usually indefatigable armour were starting to appear, at least to him. Christos doubted anyone else at this party saw beneath Lana’s polished and icy façade. She made sure they didn’t. She’d done her best to make surehedidn’t, and for the most part she convinced him that what he saw with her was what he got. But occasionally, like now, when she was clearly trying so hard, he wondered what lay beneath that cool smile and steely gaze.

Hoped, even, that there was something soft and warm underneath? He mused over the possibility before discarding it with deliberate determination. No, not hoped, not at all. Lana might have convinced herself she’d drawn up their terms of marriage, but Christos had been the one to approve the contract. He wouldn’t have agreed to anything he didn’t want to, and one absolute necessity of their so-called union was that emotion didn’t come into it at all. For Lana, certainly, and also, absolutely, for him. So, it didn’t matter what was beneath her all-business demeanour, because the truth was he didn’t actually care. He would never let himself.

They’d done three sides of the square ballroom before Christos decided he was too curious about what she wanted to bother to complete their stroll. He reached for two flutes of champagne from a circulating tray, only to have Lana shake her head firmly and heft her own glass.

‘I’ve already got a drink.’

He arched an eyebrow as he took in her half-drunk flute of Pellegrino. ‘Water?’

‘I want to keep a clear head.’

Lana rarely drank alcohol for just that reason, but she was still partial to the occasional sip of champagne. With a shrug, Christos took only one flute. He was becoming more and more curious what his wife needed to speak to him about, because it was clearly something. Something urgent.

Did she want a divorce? Or in actuality, an annulment? He considered the possibility with a necessary dispassion. Part of their agreement had been the understanding that either one of them could end it when they saw fit—when it no longer suited them, or if they fell in love with someone else.

Had Lana fallen in love? His stomach tightened rather unpleasantly at that notion. No, surely not. He would know. He knew his wife far better than she thought he did. Even though they saw each other somewhat infrequently, she couldn’t keep that kind of thing from him. Still, it was clearly something, something that would change things between them in some way, and he wasn’t about to waste any more time figuring out what it was.

With Lana’s arm clasped firmly in his and his flute of champagne in his other hand, he shouldered his way through the crowded ballroom to one of the hotel’s smaller salons along the corridor—one of those impersonal, elegant side rooms rented out for business meetings or intimate receptions. The one he chose was empty now, but it had clearly been used for a meeting earlier in that day, because there was an easel with a whiteboard propped on it in the corner, with a heading in dry erase marker half wiped away.

Three Points Regarding...

Lana saw it the same time as he did, and they shared a small smile, both of them having been in many such interminable meetings. Christos slipped his arm from hers, tossing down his champagne before discarding the flute on a side table as he strolled towards the board.

‘Have you got three points for this discussion?’ he asked, taking the whiteboard marker and holding it poised above the board, as if to write them down. Lana looked startled, and uncharacteristically discomfited.

‘Wha—what?’

She really was not on form this evening, he mused, which was very unlike her. Why not? ‘Three points regarding whatever it is you’re going to propose.’

‘How do you know I’m going to propose something?’ she asked, her voice only slightly unsteady.