The Greek Billionaire's Secret Baby (Contemporary Romance) (10 page)

The baby opened his mouth and made a fish-like pucker movement before closing his mouth. His eyes remained tightly closed the entire time.

“Just watch him,” the nurse advised before she moved away. “He’s a feisty and strong and he keeps trying to remove his tubes. That’s why we have them taped to his cheeks.”

Lauren’s tears fell freely, and because her hands were full from holding her son, Alex took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped Lauren’s tears away.

“He’s so little,” she said, for nothing in her entire life had prepared her for the unbridled emotions flowing through her at this moment. She and Alex had created a little person, and the love emanating from her for this tiny vulnerable life form overwhelmed her. More tears came to her eyes. “I should have taken better care of myself; I should have… Oh, I’m so sorry my little one.”

Alex placed his forefinger under Lauren’s chin and gently tilted her face so she could see him. “
Glykia mou
, don’t cry. The nurses say he’s doing even better today than yesterday. He’ll be going home with us very soon.”

“I hope so.”

“He will.” Alex’s voice caught in his throat and he coughed to clear it. His eyes darkened. “He is beautiful. Christopher would be very proud.”

No, he wouldn’t. He would tell Lauren that Alex deserved to know the truth. He’d been here the entire time with her. A dark shadow of stubble graced his tired face and he wore the same clothes as he had at the judge’s office. He needed a shower and shave.

Seeing him like this caused more tears to spill down Lauren’s cheeks. Her baby’s nose barely wrinkled as a wayward teardrop touched his skin. She and Alex had created this tiny life. At one point, her son’s mom and dad had loved each other deeply. Why had things gone so wrong?

She moved the blanket, seeing the white heart monitor circles taped to his chest. Except for a diaper, her baby was naked, the monitors and tubes making wearing baby clothes impossible.

The nurse appeared again. “Time for a check,” she said simply. “It’ll only take a minute and I promise you can have him right back.”

Lauren’s arms felt barren the moment she passed her child over. When the nurse drew a blood sample by pricking the baby’s heel, Lauren winced.

Alex stepped behind the wheelchair and put his hands on Lauren’s shoulders. “Don’t fret,
kopela
mou
. He’ll be back in your arms in just a moment. I’ve watched them work with him for hours now. Don’t worry. He’s getting excellent care.”

Lauren reached up, her right hand covering Alex’s. Gentle heat fused their hands together and provided solid comfort. At times like this Alex could be solid as a rock, and she felt comforted that he was here.

She sighed and turned her head so that her cheek rested on their joined hands. Guilt crept in. Alex used to be her refuge, her haven. She’d been wrong to keep the truth from him. She’d been so wrong. She should tell him. He had the right to know about his son.

A movement far away at NICU doorway caused Alex to stiffen. Lauren straightened and turned her head. Theo. She shuddered. She should have guessed.

Alex removed his hand and stepped away, the tender moment between them shattering into a million irreparable pieces.

“Stay and hold the baby. It’s good for him. The nurse will wheel you back to your room whenever you are ready. I have business problems that I have to deal with, but I promise I’ll come back to see you both as soon as I am able.”

Lauren averted her face. Always business, always promises. Despite the room’s perfect climate control, a cold chill enveloped Lauren and grabbed her heart like a tight fist. She’d been wrong a few moments ago when she’d questioned whether she should tell Alex truth.

She could not let what had to be simply postpartum blues color reality. Business came first for Alex. While he may have cared for her once, she only mattered now because she was the mother of a Pappas baby. She watched as Alex strode to the doorway, signed out, and disappeared with Theo.

The nurse finished the natal check and brought Lauren’s baby back over to her. She smiled and lowered the baby into Lauren’s arms. “He’s doing so much better. You’ll both be going home before you know it. You’ll see.”

Lauren turned her attention to the tiny bundle of life in her arms.

She glanced at the door and forced herself to relax so that her son didn’t feel her frustration. Taking care of herself and her baby was the important thing.

Despite seeing Alex being paternal, Lauren couldn’t let down her guard. She could not let his actions in of the last twenty-four hours color her perceptions or weaken her resolve. She could not tell him the truth or fall in love with him. And she certainly could not let herself, even for a moment, pretend they were a real family.

She was a mother, the one most responsible for the innocent, defenseless child she held in her arms.

She could not afford the risk.

*****

Chapter Seven

When Alex returned to the hospital, Lauren’s maternity room remained empty. Instead he found her still in the NICU, the baby snuggled to her chest. She’d moved into the rocking chair, and the wooden runners glided easily as she rocked back and forth.

A lump formed in his throat as strong feelings powered through him, feelings he knew he had to repress. While Lauren Andrews would be his wife, the child she cradled and loved wasn’t his son.

“You’re back,” Lauren said as she saw him. Tiredness etched her face. “Your business wasn’t that important?”

“Someone is buying up the Pappas Foods stock. Today I managed to purchase it first.”

“Oh.”

He studied her. “You look tired. The doctor said you shouldn’t overexert yourself.”

“I’m fine,” Lauren said.

“Fine.” Alex scoffed at the word, for he was tired of hearing it. “You always say that and every time it’s a lie. You are not fine. You’ve had major surgery. The muscles in your stomach have been sewn back together and don’t work properly. You are definitely not fine.”

“I am not your concern.”

Fire lit her blue eyes. The fighter was back and ready for battle. Well, so was Alex.

“No, you’re wrong. I have every right. You will be my wife. Christopher’s son will call me father.”

He calmed himself. While he needed to convince her, harsh words in the NICU were not appropriate. He dropped his volume.

“I am not the evil man you make me out to be. You meant something to me once. This situation has shown me that life is fragile. First my brother dies and then his son enters the world harshly. You have had enough stress. Let me take on some of it.”

“Why?”

At least she hadn’t said no. “I’m concerned about you. I care about your welfare. Hell, I loved you.”

The baby’s face puckered and he began to whimper. Lauren bent her head, hiding her face. “Shh. You’re upsetting him.”

Alex tossed his hands up in the air. “I didn’t mean to upset him. This situation is not easy for me. That was to be our son. This isn’t the future I envisioned either.”

She ran her hands over the baby’s back.  “I know.”

When she glanced up he saw fresh tears in her eyes. He frowned.

“But please, Alex, don’t pretend that we are more important to you than business. You’ve done your duty and I will marry you as I agreed when you came to rescue me. But Theo’s appearance at the NICU today simply proves that business remains your number one priority. It always has been that way, and there’s no need to start pretending otherwise now. I can’t risk depending on you and then you aren’t there.”

“I had an important meeting or I never would have left your side. My family is fighting a takeover. I never wanted the company public in the first place. That was all Spiro.”

Lauren tightened her hold on the baby. “You always have reasons.”

He laughed at the bitter irony that faced him. “It is almost as if you want to be more important to me. Do you? Do you ache for what we had? Do you wish that was my son you hold? Do you look around this room and see other couples who obviously love each other and want what they have, a bond to get them through all their trials?”

Lauren bit her lip.

Alex felt his gut wrench. The word weapons he’d thrown at her had injured him as well.

“I loved you once, Lauren, but I won’t ever love you again. Oh, I’m sure I’ll be fond of you, and we’ll have a good marriage for the sake of Christopher’s son. I’ll love my nephew as my own and raise him properly. But love you? Never. You killed those feelings in me. They died.”

He knew his words hurt her—he could see the pain in her beautiful eyes. Why hadn’t he been able to stop himself? He was a cad for hurting her.

“I am sorry that is the bitter truth,
agapi mou
. And I’m sorry I told you here. It is highly inappropriate to say those things to you, especially here. It makes me a heel. I was inappropriate. You’ve had surgery and even if he is too young to understand us, my nephew doesn’t need to be at surrounded by our ugly reality.”

Lauren shook her head. His apology had fallen flat. “You have no idea what is truth, Alex. You wouldn’t know it if it hit you on the head.  And for that, I am sorry.”

He gazed at her, suspicion obvious. “Are you denying you had an affair with my brother, that you didn’t live with him all these months? Are you asking me to trust you?”

Gone were the tears and her eyes shot daggers at him. Lauren lifted her chin. “What I am saying is that when it comes to business, reality or truth, you have no room to talk or lecture to me.”

“Again, you equate me with your father.” It was an argument she’d always used in the past. She didn’t want someone like her father, who’d put his mission first at the expense of his and her mother’s lives.

“You will be a father to this child as you’ve pointed out already. I have a right to be concerned as to the quality of that fatherhood.”

“I will give this child my name.”

“Parenting is more than a surname. It’s being there. This isn’t about you and me. This is about letting a child know they are loved. Cared for.”

He suddenly understood the impact her parents’ deaths had on her. “With my name come my word and my vow. He will never suffer or want. He will be safe and cherished. He will be loved.”

“As you say, Alex,” Lauren sighed. “You have little clue how hard it was for me when I was with you. You were constantly gone. You didn’t call. Tell me, can a leopard change his spots?”

Alex raked a frustrated hand though his hair. He either wanted to yell or kiss her into submission. Neither was appropriate.

“I am done with this pointless conversation. I refuse to go round and round in endless circles. You both are doing better. As I have not yet eaten, I am going to the cafeteria. Do you want anything?”

“No,” Lauren said.

“Infernal woman,” Alex said as he strode from the NICU. There was no pleasing Lauren. Business was what a man did. He’d always let Lauren know his schedule in advance. Susan had made sure.

Alex paused as he punched the elevator button. Susan had resigned shortly after Lauren’s departure, and Lauren had always hated Susan. A niggling thought tickled Alex’s brain, and for the first time he wondered if Lauren’s accusations had merit.

He’d never considered that before. But Susan had been Spiro’s secretary first. Spiro was the one behind the push to go public with stock. He’d become very rich. Alex’s stomach rumbled and he dismissed the matter as pure, ridiculous speculation.

#

A week later the Pappas limousine wound its way through city traffic to the Plaza Hotel. Even though Lauren had been discharged from the hospital after the standard 72 hours, her son had remained in the NICU because he’d developed jaundice and had needed phototherapy light treatment.

So that she could be just down the hall from her child, Lauren had wanted to stay in the parents’ waiting room, sleeping overnight in a recliner like so many of the other parents.

It had taken all of the NICU nurses and Lauren’s own doctor to persuade her that she shouldn’t risk her own health and that she should return with Alex each night the apartment.

There she’d discovered that he’d also hired her a nurse, and despite her initial protests, Lauren had quickly learned he was right in doing so. Forbidden to lift more than ten pounds or do anything requiring any exertion, she had needed the nurse’s help to sit up. Even walking tired her out.

“It’ll take your stomach muscles some time to recover,” the nurse had soothed as Lauren, after another attempt to bring herself to a sitting position on her own, had broken into fresh tears.

But after a week she was stronger, as was her baby. Much to her delight she’d spent last night in a “going home” hospital room so that she could get used to being alone with the baby before he let the hospital.

Finally had that moment was arrived.

The limousine drew up to the hotel and the doorman opened her door. The nurse waited, wheelchair ready. Alex was already out the other side of the car and he came around to assist her.

The daily ritual of leaning on his strong arm as he helped her from the car still hadn’t purged the desire that ran through her despite the sweltering late summer heat.

She sat in the wheelchair and watched as he reached inside and, with one click, lifted their baby from the car seat. Lauren drew her son to her chest as the nurse began to push her towards the hotel entrance.

“There are items in the trunk,” Lauren heard Alex’s chauffer tell the doorman.

“Are you comfortable?” Alex asked as the cool lobby air enveloped them.

“Fine,” Lauren said, her word not quite a falsehood. She and Alex had forged somewhat of a truce since their last cryptic words in the NICU. It seemed that he’d done everything he could to please her. He’d not been disturbed by work again, and each day he’d sat by her side in the NICU and made conversation about this and that.

There, in their own little niche of the noisy NICU, they were isolated from the outside world. It was if they were a real family.  She knew the illusion couldn’t last.

“I had wanted a quiet evening at home,” Alex told Lauren as the hotel elevator rose upward, “but my mother’s patience is exhausted and she will not wait any longer to see her grandson. She is waiting for us upstairs in the suite. I did manage to send everyone else away. They will wait until the christening.”

“Okay,” Lauren said gratefully. Maria Pappas she could probably handle. Everyone else, especially Theo and the other uncles and cousins, probably not. Eventually she would have to face them, but not tonight, her baby’s first away from the hospital. “Thank you,” she said.

Alex shifted and glanced at her. “For what?”

“For sending them away.”

“I told you I would try and please you,” Alex said. If there was more he wanted to add, he didn’t because of the nurse’s presence.

Alex inserted his key into the lock and turned the handle. Always in the latest fashion, this time a simple a-line dress, Maria Pappas rose the moment the door opened and waited as the party came towards her. At five foot two, Alex and Christopher’s mother was a petite woman, her hair long ago having turned a fascinating shade of gray that seemed more silver than white.

“Mother,” Alex said. He kissed his mother on the cheek. The nurse pushed Lauren closer and at Alex’s curt nod, disappeared to her own private quarters. “Mother, come meet your grandson, Nikolai Christos Pappas. We have decided to call him Nick.”

“A very good name,” she said. Her dark indigo eyes studied the baby’s face. “He will be a big strong boy. Just like his father.”

An almost imperceptible line tightened near Alex’s mouth. “Christopher would have been proud.”

“Of course he would,” Maria said simply. She sat down next to Lauren, who’d already moved to the sofa. “If you’d be so kind as to let me, I would love to hold my grandson.”

“Of course.” Lauren lifted her arms, and Maria’s hands reached forward. Alex leaned down and put his hands protectively under the exchange. Maria settled herself on the sofa and moved the swaddling cloth away from the child’s face.

“He looks just like his father did when he was born,” she announced, her gaze locking onto Lauren’s for a moment. “An exact mirror image.”

Maria stroked a finger down the baby’s cheek. “I see you too, Lauren, in his mouth, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is his father’s son.”

Alex’s cell phone shrilled and he reached in his pocket and retrieved it. He scowled when he saw the number. “I must take this call,” he said.

Lauren sighed. The reprieve from Pappas Foods had lasted less than five minutes after returning home. Nick was out of the hospital, crisis averted, so back to business as usual.

“Go,” his mother told Alex. “Lauren and I will be fine on our own. We women know exactly how to handle babies.”

His mother made more cooing noises, waiting until Alex left the room before saying, “He is the spitting image of his father. Too bad his father is too blind to see it.”

“Christopher…” Lauren began.

“Christopher isn’t his father,” Maria corrected sharply, her lips thinning. “And pride blinds Alex from seeing the obvious truth I know the truth, Lauren. Not only can I see it in little Nick here, but also as you will discover someday, a mother knows her sons. I know Christopher would never have betrayed his beloved older brother by touching you.”

Lauren clenched her hands together and placed them in her lap. Maria had blindsided her.

Maria shifted the baby. Nick was asleep.

“I miss Christopher,” she told Lauren. “It’s important you realized that my darling Christopher was always very
timious
. I can see from the crease between your eyebrows that you don’t know what that particular Greek word means.
Timious
means very honorable, very steadfast. A
timious
man, like Christopher, would have rather died than dishonor his family.”

“He loved his family. He never wanted this. Nothing ever happened.”

Maria nodded. “No, of course not. He never would have allowed you to crawl from his brother’s bed to his. This child, this darling baby boy that rests like an angel in my arms, is Alex’s son.”

“Christopher and I never slept together,” Lauren admitted. The millstone she’d carried around her neck seemed to lift a little. “Not even after I joined him in Mexico.”

“Even I guessed that much. Seeing this child finally confirms it. Why did you leave, Lauren? Why did you destroy Alex’s life? Why did you not let Christopher explain the truth? Surely if you can’t tell him, at least tell me.”

“I couldn’t handle his involvement with the family foods business,” she said simply, for telling Maria Pappas the truth about Theo would serve no purpose except to upset her. “I am also not Greek.”

“Alex is not as old fashioned as that. He grew up in America. He loved you,” Maria said. “I’d never seen my son so smitten with anyone as he was you.”

“That doesn’t matter. Christopher told me about how your husband bought off the woman he was dating because of her nationality. I wasn’t Greek. I could be Alex’s mistress, but nothing more. The family expected him to marry a Greek woman.”
Theo told me they even had one picked out
.