Page 37 of Pregnancy Clause in Their Paper Marriage

He found himself seeking out Lana instinctively, and as he caught sight of her across the room, he saw she was looking at him in concern, a small, inquiring smile curving her mouth. There was a new lushness to her body, now she was pregnant, and the morning sickness had started to abate. The tiniest of curves to that reed-thin waist, a fullness to her breasts, her body ripe with his child... It filled him with an emotion he wasn’t willing to name.

He managed a smile back, and then decided they might as well get giving the news over with.

‘Before we eat,’ he announced, not quite looking at anyone, ‘Lana and I have something to say.’ In his peripheral vision, he saw her eyes widen and he wondered if he should have done this differently—hand in hand, perhaps, with beaming smiles. He had, he realised, sounded rather grim about it all.

‘What is it, Christos?’ Thalia asked, already impatient.

‘Lana is expecting,’ he said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into his voice. ‘A baby. She’s due in February.’

A shocked silence followed this announcement and then Kristina clapped her hands and went to hug him, and then Lana, peppering her with questions about how she was feeling, whether she’d tried ginger tea for morning sickness.

Sophia smiled faintly and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘Don’t look so terrified,’ she murmured as she stepped back. ‘It will all be okay.’

‘I’m fine,’ Christos replied. His middle sister had always understood him the best, and yet he’d pushed her away too, simply because it had been easier. What had once felt like the right thing to do suddenly seemed selfish. Had Sophia been hurt by his distance? She’d always seemed so self-contained, needing no one, but maybe that was as much of a coping mechanism as any of their other reactions to their mother’s death had been. Maybe he should have reached out...and yet he couldn’t have. It hadn’t felt physically possible.

Another way in which he’d failed.

‘I can’t believe you’re going to be a dad,’ Thalia said, not sounding entirely pleased about it, and Christos understood why. She had always been the baby of the family, the surprise blessing, only two years old when his mother had died. She’d never managed to truly grow up, and he suspected she was worried about being replaced.

And yet what was there to replace? He hardly ever saw his baby sister. The best he offered was the occasional hurried text. Another way in which he thought he’d been protecting his family but now just felt selfish.

What was wrong with him? Why was he thinking this way?

This was what coming home did to him. It made him doubt himself, his perception of the past, of his family and how they felt. And that made him start to wonder about other things...like Lana.

Did she really love him? Could she, if she knew what he’d done?

Did he even want answers to those questions?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHRISTOSWASQUIETon the way home, quieter even than he’d been on the journey there, his jaw tight, his brow furrowed as he gazed out at the road. He seemed deep in thought, and Lana found she didn’t want to disturb him.

The day had been wonderful in many ways—Sophia and Kristina both warmly welcoming, his father kindly and gentle, the conversation easy with more laughter than Lana had expected. In some ways, Christos’s family felt like the family she had never had...big and noisy, warm and loving, yet Christos didn’t seem to appreciate or enjoy any of it at all. And Thalia, Lana acknowledged, had been chilly at best, sometimes even rude, ignoring her in a way that felt pointed, or turning away when she had asked a question.

As for Christos... Lana hadn’t missed how positively grim he had sounded when he’d made the announcement about her pregnancy. Was he having second thoughts about everything? Did he not want their baby any more? Did he not wanther?

She wasn’t brave enough to ask him. A few weeks ago, she’d given herself a strict talking-to, to get her feelings in line and stop wondering if she could fall in love with Christos. She wanted to enjoy what they had, and while that felt easy enough because what they had was wonderful, she knew she still felt empty inside. Still wanted more...more than she’d ever let herself want before. And the more she wanted, it seemed the more Christos didn’t.

Which was exactly the kind of situation she’d been desperate to avoid. But how did you avoid it, when you didn’t have control over your own wayward heart?

It was a conundrum that depressed her, even as she couldn’t keep from feeling a contrary flicker of hope that somehow,somehowit would all work out. Although there wasn’t much room for encouragement with Christos looking so grim as they drove in silence.

Neither of them spoke all the way home, parking the car in the private garage down the street before walking in the summery darkness, the air warm and as soft as velvet. Lana unlocked the door to the brownstone and stepped inside, stopping in surprise when she felt Christos move right behind her. She half turned to him in query, only to have his hands come to her shoulders and he backed her against the wall, just as he had on what had felt like their wedding night. He kissed her then, long and deep, with a tenderness that felt deeper than mere passion, a need that was far more than simple lust.

Surprised, because since she’d become pregnant, Christos had always made sure she initiated their lovemaking, wanting to be considering of her fatigue and tiredness, she stilled and so did he, like a question.

And, acting on instinct, Lana answered it, wrapping her arms around him, drawing her closer to him as their kiss continued, a quiet, heartfelt desperation to it that felt as if it could be her entire undoing. Christos moved his lips to her cheek, and then her neck, and then the hollow of her throat. As he did so, a sound escaped him, something more than a gasp but not quite a sob.

Lana slid her hands to his face, tried to tilt it up towards her. ‘Christos,’ she whispered. ‘Look at me.’

But he wouldn’t. He just kept kissing her, her throat, her shoulder, the swell of her breasts above her dress, each brush of his lips so exquisitely tender it brought tears to her eyes. And Lana decided that it was enough. He needed her now, she knew with a bone-deep certainty, not just physically, but emotionally. Even if he would never admit it. Even if he couldn’t look her in the eye.

And if he needed her that way, Lana knew unequivocally that she wanted to be needed. She wanted to give herself, all of herself, in a way she never had before. And so, she wrapped her arms around him again and opened her body and even her heart to him as he continued to kiss her, stopping only to draw the sundress she’d been wearing over her head and toss it aside.

Lana knew her body looked different than it had even a mere few weeks ago—her breasts were fuller, her belly gently rounded. Christos cupped her belly with his hands, spreading his fingers wide, before he dropped to his knees and kissed her tiny barely there bump with something close to reverence. Pleasure and something far deeper fired through Lana—in all the months they’d been together as man and wife, she’d never felt closer to him than she did now...and yet still so far away.

She had no idea what he was thinking, or even feeling, but she told herself that knowing he needed her was enough. She would let it be enough.