One Night, So Pregnant! (16 page)

EPILOGUE

T
ESS
let out a low groan as the pain gripped her abdomen, then panted
through the agonising wave that followed and counted it down.

Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds...

She lay rigid on the bed, her fingers curling into a death grip
on the sheet waiting for the wave to pass. Once it finally dimmed and released
her from its grip, she gave an exhausted sigh before lifting the watch on the
nightstand.

Nearly a minute long and a lot less than ten minutes apart. She
caressed the huge mound of her belly and turned to stare at Nate. His handsome
face looked peaceful and content in the moonlight as he lay on his stomach
snoring gently beside her.

She glanced down at her bump. ‘Okay, Junior,’ she whispered
into the darkness. ‘I think it’s time we woke Daddy.’ She shifted over trying
and failing to relieve the now constant discomfort in her lower back. ‘But be
prepared for fireworks.’

Reaching out, she pressed a hand to Nate’s broad shoulder and
gave him a firm shove. ‘Nate, wake up. It’s party time.’

His eyelids drifted up, his sleepy gaze unfocused. ‘Huh?
What?’

‘I’m in labour. We should probably go to the hospital.’

The quietly spoken words had his eyes snapping open the rest of
the way, and his now laser-sharp gaze shooting down to her belly. ‘But you’re
not due for another week,’ he said, jerking upright in the bed as if he’d just
been prodded with a hot poker. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Pretty sure.’ She grinned at the raw note of confusion and
terror. ‘I’ve been having regular contractions for four hours and they’re less
than ten minutes apart now and getting stronger.’

‘Four hours!’ he shouted. ‘What the...?’ Leaping out of bed, he
began swearing under his breath as he raced around the bedroom gathering up his
clothes and struggling into them at breakneck speed. ‘Why the hell didn’t you
wake me up?’ he cried, sending her a dark frown when she let out an exhausted
chuckle.

‘Because I knew you’d freak out, and there wasn’t anything you
could do.’ She let her lips curve, despite the cramping pain already radiating
up her back and signalling another contraction. ‘Duh?’ she added.

‘It’s not funny.’ He stood in the middle of the room, raking
his hair back as he glanced around, frantically searching for something. ‘You
are in big trouble, lady...’ The threat trailed off as he swore again. ‘Where’s
your case? I thought we had it right here.’

‘It’s under the bed,’ she said, but the information was
followed by a loud moan as the pain seized her abdomen, building to a
crescendo.

She watched Nate’s expression go from aggravated to concerned
as he rushed back across the room. Gripping her hands, he kissed the knuckles
while she panted, desperately trying to relieve the agony that just kept
building.

‘Keep breathing. You’re doing great,’ he said.

She let out a strangled cry, the agony refusing to subside this
time. ‘I can’t...’ She groaned through the ragged pants. ‘It hurts too
much.’

‘Yell if you want,’ he said, his presence the only solid thing
in the maelstrom of pain. ‘It’s nearly over.’ The encouraging words, and the
intense emotion in his gaze, gave her the courage she needed. She clung onto his
hands, her nails cutting into his palms as she cried out and rode the wave to
the finish.

The cramping vice released her at last, and she flopped back
against the pillows. ‘Ow, that really hurt!’ she said weakly, a little
shell-shocked by how hard the contraction had hit that time.

Resting his palm on the side of her face, he brushed the damp
tendrils of hair back. ‘You were magnificent,’ he said, then pressed his lips to
hers in a tender kiss.

He pulled back, and she gulped down the swell of emotion at the
reverence in his gaze.

‘I may have to remind you of that next time we have an
argument,’ she murmured.

He chuckled, getting off the bed. ‘What are you talking about?’
he said, the feigned innocence making her choke out a laugh. ‘We never argue,
honey.’

As if.

She grinned as he located the suitcase she had packed over a
week ago under the bed and placed it firmly on the coverlet.

‘Yeah, right,’ she scoffed.

They didn’t just argue, they argued a lot. She suspected more
than most couples. But then that was probably because they enjoyed it. They were
both strong-willed people who had opinions that they weren’t scared to
voice—about everything from baby names to the ultimate pizza topping. Not to
mention the important stuff. After a few solid months of co-habitation, Nate had
only stopped hassling her about investing in her business so he could start
hassling her about when she was finally going to make good on her promise to
marry him. There had been a fair few fireworks on that topic only two days ago,
when he’d laid down the law and insisted on them setting a date in June—and
after much deliberation, and even some yelling, she’d finally managed to push
the date back to August, on the grounds that it would give her at least some
hope of losing the two tons in weight she’d put on in the last month.

But she wouldn’t have had it any other way. She appreciated
their rocky moments as much as their smooth ones, because their passion for
fireworks had helped to strengthen their relationship. They’d learned to respect
each other’s differences, to share each other’s triumphs and to lean on each
other when they needed support. They weren’t perfect, but they were willing to
confront any issue to make this relationship work. They’d discovered how to
compromise and negotiate and on those rare occasions when shouting was involved
there was always the promise of great make-up sex when the shouting stopped.

Tess let the contentment wash through her as Nate crossed to
the door, his movements firm and decisive with no trace of the earlier panic.
She loved him so much—this stubborn, indomitable, pragmatic and ridiculously
pushy guy. Because he’d broken through all the barriers she’d put around her
heart and shown her that she deserved to be loved and cherished—even when his
need to care for her occasionally drove her nuts.

‘I’ll get the Jeep and we’ll head to the hospital,’ he said
from the doorway. ‘Magnificence is great, but let’s get you some pain relief to
go with it.’

* * *

He came back less than two minutes later, making Tess
realise that the panic hadn’t gone completely, he was just being extra careful
not to show it. After bundling her into her coat and boots, supporting her as
she yelled her way through another monstrous contraction and then carrying her
to the Jeep, he started the ignition.

Tess let out a wistful sigh as she watched the redolent glow of
the rising sun light up the sky. The spring dawn rolled towards them over the
cliffs as the Jeep accelerated down the driveway.

She settled her hands over her belly, contemplating the
momentousness of what was about to happen. She was excited about the birth, and
eager to meet their baby for the first time, even if she was a little terrified
about having her pain threshold pushed to the max in the hours ahead. But she
had to admit she was also a tiny bit sad that this would be the end of her and
Nate as a couple after only seven short months. If she’d been given a choice,
she would have liked more time with just the two of them. She could only hope
that they had had enough time together. That their friendship as well as their
love was strong enough to see them through all the new challenges they would
face when the two of them became three.

‘I guess this is the start of a whole new journey for us,’ she
murmured. ‘I hope we don’t mess it up.’

Braking at the gates that marked the entrance to the estate,
Nate rested his hand over hers and rubbed. ‘Nah,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We
won’t mess it up. Because it’s not a new journey, it’s just a new twist in the
road. And I’ve found my ideal travelling companion.’

She laughed, the swell of love and hope and commitment going
some way to quelling her fears, and whispered, ‘Ditto.’

* * *

Brandon Zane Tremaine Graystone was born sixteen
excruciating hours later, weighing in at a healthy eight pounds, three ounces.
Tess cradled him in tired arms, and smiled, flinching only slightly when he
latched onto her nipple and sucked hungrily.

‘That’s a relief,’ she whispered, glancing up at her
husband-to-be as he leaned over her to stroke the baby’s dark curls. ‘He’s
definitely not a billy goat.’

Nate placed a soft kiss on her temple, the fatigue etched on
his face overridden by fierce pride and no small amount of smugness. ‘See, what
did I tell you? That’s already one thing we didn’t mess up.’

Tess laughed, tears of joy spilling over her lids and the last
of her fears slipping away as they gazed in mutual appreciation at their totally
beautiful, completely precious, utterly perfect, non-billy-goat son,
together.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt of
The Secrets She
Carried
by Lynn Graham.

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Presents title.

You want the world!
Harlequin Presents
stories are all about intrigue and escape—glamorous settings, gorgeous women and the passionate, unforgettable men who want them.

Visit
Harlequin.com
to find your next great read.

We like you—why not like us on Facebook:
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

Follow us on Twitter:
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

Read our blog for all the latest news on our authors and books:
HarlequinBlog.com

Subscribe to our newsletter for special offers, new releases, and more!

Harlequin.com/newsletters

CHAPTER ONE

C
RISTOPHE
D
ONAKIS
opened the file on the Stanwick Hall Hotel group, which he expected to become the latest addition to his luxury hotel empire, and suffered an unanticipated shock.

Ironically, it took a great deal to shock Cristophe. At thirty years of age, the Greek entrepreneur and billionaire had seen a lot of bad behaviour and when it came to women in particular he was a complete cynic with low expectations. Orphaned at the age of five, he had survived several major setbacks in life, not the least of which had included foster parents whom he loved but with whom he had not a single thought in common, and a divorce, which still rankled for he had entered his marriage with the best of good intentions. No, what caused Cristophe to vault upright behind his desk and carry the file over to the window to avail of the best possible light was a glimpse of a startlingly familiar face in a photograph of the Stanwick executive staff…a face from his past.

Erin Turner…a pocket Venus with pale hair that glittered like polished silver gilt and eyes the colour of amethysts. Straight off, his lean, darkly handsome features clenched into forbidding angles. Erin occupied a category all of her own in his memories, for she had been the only woman ever to betray him and, even though almost three years had to have passed since their last meeting, the recollection could still sting. His keenly intelligent gaze devoured the photograph of his former mistress standing smiling at the elbow of Sam
Morton, the elderly owner of Stanwick Hall. Clad in a dark business suit with her eye-catching hair restrained by a clip, she looked very different from the carefree, casually clad young woman he remembered.

His tall, powerful body in the grip of sudden tension, Cristo’s dark-as-night eyes took on a fiery glow. That fast he was remembering Erin’s lithe form clad in silk and satin. Even better did he recall the wonderfully slippery
feel
of her glorious curves beneath his appreciative hands. Perspiration dampened his strong upper lip and he breathed in deep and slow, determined to master the near instantaneous response at his groin. Regrettably, he had never met another Erin, BUT then he had married soon afterwards and only in recent months had he again enjoyed the freedom of being single. He knew that a woman capable of matching his hunger and even of occasionally exhausting his high-voltage libido was a very rare find indeed. He reminded himself that it was very probably that same hunger that had led her to betray his trust and take another man into her bed. An unapologetic workaholic, he had left her alone for weeks while he was abroad on business and it was possible that he had invited the sordid conclusion that had ultimately finished their affair, he conceded grudgingly. Of course, had she agreed to travel with him it would never have happened but regrettably it had not occurred to him at the time that she might have excellent, if nefarious, reasons for preferring to stay in London.

He studied Sam Morton, whose body language and expression were uniquely revealing to any acute observer. The older man, who had to be comfortably into his sixties, could not hide his proprietorial protective attitude towards the svelte little manager of his health spas. His feelings shone out of his proud smile and the supportive arm he had welded to her spine in a declaration of possession. Cristo swore vehemently in Greek and examined the photo from all angles, but could see no room for any more innocent interpretation: she was at it again…bedding the boss! While it might have done him good to recognise Erin’s continuing cunning at making the most of her feminine assets, it gave him no satisfaction at all to acknowledge that she was still happily playing the same tricks and profiting from them. He wondered if she was stealing from Morton as well.

Cristo had dumped Erin from a height when she let him down but the punishment had failed to soothe an incredulous bitterness that only increased when he had afterwards discovered that she had been ripping him off. He had had faith in Erin, he had trusted her, had even at one point begun to toy with the idea that she might make a reasonable wife. Walking into that bedroom and finding another man in the bed he had planned to share with her, along with the debris of discarded wine glasses and the trail of clothes that told its own sleazy story, had knocked him sideways. And what had he done next?

Lean, strong face rigid, Cristo grudgingly acknowledged his own biggest mistake. In the aftermath of his discovery that Erin had cheated on him, he had reached a decision that he was still paying for in spades. He had made a wrong move with long-term repercussions and for a male who almost never made mistakes that remained a very humbling truth. With hindsight he knew exactly why he had done, what he had done but he had yet to forgive himself for that fatal misstep and the fallout those closest to him had suffered. Handsome mouth compressed into a tough line at that reflection, he studied Erin closely. She was still gorgeous and doubtless still happily engaged in confidently plotting and planning how best to feather her own nest while that poor sap at her elbow gave her his trust and worshipped the ground her dainty feet trod on.

But Cristo knew that he had the power to shift the very ground in an earthquake beneath those same feet because he very much doubted that the reputedly conservative and morally upright Sam Morton had any awareness of the freewheeling months that Erin had enjoyed in her guise as Cristo’s mistress, or of the salient fact that at heart she was just a common little thief.

That bombshell had burst on Cristo only weeks after the end of their affair. An audit had found serious discrepancies in the books of the health spa Erin had been managing for him. Products worth a considerable amount of money had gone missing. Invoices had been falsified, freelance employees invented to receive pay cheques for non-existent work. Only Erin had had full access to that paperwork and a reliable long-term employee had admitted seeing her removing boxes of products from the store. Clearly on the take from the day that Cristo hired her, Erin had ripped off the spa to the tune of thousands of pounds. Why had he not prosecuted her for her thieving? He had been too proud to parade the reality that he had taken a thief to his bed and put a thief in a position of trust within his business.

Erin was a box of crafty tricks and no mistake, he acknowledged bitterly. No doubt Morton was equally unaware that his butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth employee played a very creditable game of strip poker. That she had once met Cristo at the airport on his birthday wearing nothing but her skin beneath her coat? And that even the coat had gone within seconds of entering his limousine? Did she cry out Morton’s name and sob in his arms when she reached a climax? Seduce him as only a very sensual woman could while he tried to give the business news his attention instead? Most probably she did, for she had learned from Cristo exactly what a man liked.

Disturbed that he still cherished such strong memories of that period of his life, Cristo poured himself a whisky and regrouped, his shrewd brain swiftly cooling the tenor of his angry reflections. The phrase, ‘Don’t get mad, get even’ might well adorn Cristo’s gravestone, for he refused to waste time on anything that didn’t enrich his life. So, Erin was still out there using her wits and her body to climb the career and fortune ladder. How was that news to him? And why was he assuming that Sam Morton was too naïve to know that he had caught a tiger by the tail? For many men the trade-off of as much sex as a man could handle would be acceptable.

And Cristo registered in some surprise at his predictability that he was no different from that self-serving libidinous majority. I could go there again, he thought fiercely, his adrenalin pumping at the prospect of that sexual challenge. I could really
enjoy
going there again. She’s wasted on an old man and far too devious to be contained by a male with a conventional outlook. He began to read the file, discovering that Erin’s wealthy employer was a widower. He could only assume that she had her ambition squarely centred on becoming the second Mrs Morton. Why else would a scheming gold-digger be working to ingratiate herself and earn a fairly humble crust? He was convinced that she would not have been able to resist the temptation of helping herself to funds from Sam Morton’s spas as well.

Her healthy survival instincts and enduring cunning offended Cristo’s sense of justice. Had he really believed that such a cool little schemer might turn over a new leaf in the aftermath of their affair? Had he ever been that naïve? Certainly, he had compared every woman he had ever had in his bed to Erin and found them all wanting in one way or another. That was a most disconcerting truth to accept. Clearly, he had never got her out of his system, he reflected grimly. Like a piece of baggage he couldn’t shed, she had travelled on with him even when he believed that he was free of her malign influence. It was time that he finally stowed that excess baggage and moved on and how better to do that than by exorcising her from his psyche with one last sexual escapade?

He knew what Erin Turner was and he also knew that memory always lied. Memory would have embellished her image and polished her up to a degree that would not withstand the harsh light of reality. He needed to puncture the myth, explode the persistent fantasy and seeing her again in the flesh would accomplish that desirable conclusion most effectively. A hard smile slashed Cristo’s handsome mouth as he imagined her dismay at his untimely reappearance in her life.

‘Look before you leap,’ his risk-adverse foster mother had earnestly told him when he was a child, fearing his adventurous, rebellious nature and unable to comprehend the unimaginably entertaining attraction of taking a leap into the unknown. In spite of all his foster parents’ efforts to tame his passionate temperament, however, Cristo’s notoriously hot-blooded Donakis genes still ran true to form in his veins. His birth parents might not have survived to raise their son but he had inherited their volatile spirits in the cradle.

Without a second thought about the likelihood of consequences, indeed merely reacting to the insidious arousal and sense of challenge tugging at his every physical sense, Cristo lifted the phone. He informed the executive head of his acquisitions team that he would be taking over the next phase of the negotiations with the owner of the Stanwick Hall Hotel group.

* * *

‘Well, what do you think?’ Sam prompted, taken aback by Erin’s unusual silence by his side. ‘You needed a new car and here it is!’

Erin was still staring with a dropped jaw at the top-of-the-range silver BMW parked outside the garages for her examination. ‘It’s beautiful but—’

‘But
nothing
!’ Sam interrupted impatiently as if he had been awaiting an adverse comment and was keen to stifle it. Only marginally taller than Erin’s five feet two inches, he was a trim man with a shock of white hair and bright blue eyes that burned with restive energy in his suntanned face. ‘You do a big important job here at Stanwick and you need a car that suits the part—’

‘Only not such an exclusive luxury model,’ she protested awkwardly, wondering what on earth her colleagues would think if they saw her pulling up in a vehicle that undoubtedly cost more than she could earn in several years of employment. ‘That’s too much—’

‘Only the best for my star employee,’ Sam countered with cheerful unconcern. ‘You’re the one who taught me the importance of image in business and an economical runabout certainly doesn’t cut the mustard.’

‘I just can’t accept it, Sam,’ Erin told him uncomfortably.

‘You don’t have a choice,’ her boss responded with immoveable good humour as he pressed a set of car keys into her reluctant hand. ‘Your old Fiesta is gone. Thanks, Sam, is all you need to say.’

Erin grimaced down at the keys. ‘Thanks, Sam, but it’s too much—’

‘Nothing’s too good for you. Take a look at the balance sheets for the spas since you took over,’ Sam advised her drily. ‘Even according to that misery of an accountant I employ I’m coining it hand over fist. You’re worth ten times what that car cost me, so let’s hear no more about it.’

‘Sam…’ Erin sighed heavily and he filched the keys back from her to stride over to the BMW and unlock it with a flourish.

‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘Take me for a test drive. I’ve got some time to kill before my big appointment this afternoon.’

‘What big appointment?’ she queried, shooting the sleek car into reverse and filtering it out through the arched entrance to the courtyard and down the drive past the immaculate gardens.

‘I’m having another bash at the retirement thing,’ her boss confided ruefully.

Erin suppressed a weary sigh. Sam Morton was always talking about selling his three country-house hotels, but she believed that it was more an idea that he toyed with from time to time than an actual plan likely to reach fruition. At sixty-two years of age, Sam still put in very long hours of work. He was widowed more than twenty years earlier and childless; his thriving hotel group had become his life, consuming all his energy and time.

Thirty minutes later, having dropped Sam off at his golf club for lunch and gently refused his offer to join him in favour of getting back to work, Erin walked back into Stanwick Hall and entered the office of Sam’s secretary, Janice, a dark-haired fashionably clad woman in her forties.

‘Have you seen the car?’ she asked Janice with a self-conscious wince.

‘I went with him to the showroom to choose it—didn’t I do you proud?’ the brunette teased.

‘Didn’t you try to dissuade him from buying such an expensive model?’ Erin asked in surprise.

‘Right now, Sam’s flush with the last quarter’s profits and keen to splurge. Buying you a new car was a good excuse. I didn’t waste my breath trying to argue with him. When Sam makes up his mind about something it’s set in stone. Look at it as a bonus for all the new clients you’ve brought in since you reorganised the spas,’ Janice advised her. ‘Anyway you must’ve noticed that Sam is all over the place at the moment.’

Erin fell still by the other woman’s desk with a frown. ‘What do you mean?’