Mediterranean Tycoons: Wealthy & Wicked. Jacqueline Baird

It was if he could not get enough of her, nor she of him.

      Finally, hours later, lying exhausted in the crook of his arm but unable to sleep, her mind spinning with disjointed thoughts, she looked across at his beloved face and wondered if their child would look like him. Then she wondered if his returning early was the special surprise he had promised, and frowned. Stupid, but she had secretly been nursing the hope that it might be a ring. In her fantasy scenario she had imagined him asking her to marry him before she told him she was pregnant.

      ‘I can hear you thinking, Phoebe—what’s wrong?’ Jed’s deep voice rumbled.

      Leaning up, she spread her hand across his chest and stared down into his slumberous dark eyes. ‘Nothing. I was just wondering if coming back early was the surprise you promised me. I have to say if so it was the best ever.’ And, dipping her head, she kissed him.

      ‘I aim to please—but, no.’ Rolling her onto her back, he slid off the bed and switched on the light. ‘Stay where you are. I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said.

      She watched him stroll naked out of the bedroom, to return a minute later with a black leather box in his hand.

      ‘Sit up, Phoebe.’ And she did.

      ‘For your graduation from university.’ He opened the box to reveal a dazzling platinum and diamond necklace. Slipping it around her neck, he fastened it. Then, running his hands over her slender shoulders and down to cup her breast, he added, ‘And also for your graduation in the bedroom.’ He rolled her nipples between his fingers. ‘I didn’t think sex could get any better, but I surprised myself. And you were with me all the way, surprising me even more, my incredibly wanton woman.’

      ‘Thank you, Jed,’ she murmured. ‘The necklace is breathtaking.’

      She looked down at the dazzling cascade of gems around her throat, not wanting to reveal the slight disappointment she felt. But as she glanced lower, at his long tanned fingers teasing her breasts, it wasn’t disappointment she experienced but a renewed surge of arousal in what she had thought was her exhausted body.

      Reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck, she brushed his lips with hers. ‘And I love you,’ she said softly.

      She had told him enough times before, but it suddenly struck her that Jed had never actually said the words to her in English. He’d said she was beautiful and that he loved her body, he had told her so many times, and she had assumed he had said I love you in Greek, which was the language he used in the throes of passion. Now she was not so confident…

      Telling herself not to be so silly—after what they had just done she was no longer the blushing innocent, that was for sure—she straddled his great body and, taking control, made love to him with a powerful passion which finally exhausted them both.

      Phoebe awoke to feel a large male hand cupping her breast and the unmistakable pressure of an aroused male against her bum. A husky voice was murmuring in her ear, ‘Ah, Phoebe, you feel so good.’

      She stretched sinuously, and groaned her pleasure as Jed’s other hand stroked around her waist to settle on her tummy, his long fingers edging to the curls at the apex of her thighs.

      But her stomach had ideas of its own, and it wasn’t settled at all. In a flurry of arms and legs she slid off the bed and dashed towards the bathroom.

      ‘What the hell, Phoebe?’ She heard Jed swear.

      Unable to answer him she dashed inside, closing the door behind her, and turned on the tap of the vanity unit. Maybe a drink of water would stop her need to heave. But it was no use, and two seconds later she was on her knees retching in the toilet but with surprisingly little result!

      Slowly she straightened, and after flushing the toilet she turned to splash her face with water and wash her mouth out. Maybe she was not going to be cursed with morning sickness after all. Maybe if she learnt to lie still or move with more care the urge to be sick would be averted, she pondered, eyeing her reflection in the mirrored door of the floor-to-ceiling cabinet.

      Her full lips curved in a feminine smile. She did not look any different yet. She simply looked like a very well-loved woman, and the marks of passion on her breast and thighs were evidence of the fact—along with the diamond necklace that adorned her throat. She sighed happily. When she would ever wear it she had no idea, but it was a fantastic present, and the night had been incredible. Jed had proved in a dozen different ways how much he wanted her—including a couple she had never experienced before. But now she recognised that between lovers even the unimaginable was acceptable and exquisitely pleasurable.

      ‘Phoebe?’

      She heard him call her name.

      Now was as good a time as any to tell him she was pregnant, she decided—with her confidence sky-high. ‘Coming in a minute,’ she called back and, taking a towel from the cupboard, she wrapped it around her naked body before exiting the bathroom.

      ‘What took you so long?’ he drawled, the eyes that met hers gleaming with humour and undisguised desire.

      Her gaze swept over his lean muscled body splayed across the bed, over the sleek golden skin with its subtle pattern of black hair in strategic places, and noted he was still mightily aroused. He lifted a long fingered hand and beckoned her to join him, and her heart turned over.

      ‘I’m waiting for my morning sex,’ he said with an anticipatory grin.

      A sensual shiver slid down her spine. He wanted her. Jed loved her—she could see it in his eyes.

      Taking a step towards him, she grinned back. ‘And I am pregnant, and thought I was going to be sick.’ She saw the anticipation fade from his eyes. ‘But don’t worry—I’m fine now,’ she told him swiftly as she reached the bed.

      A certain part of his anatomy had faded equally fast, she registered as he swung his legs over the other side of the bed and stood up. ‘Jed?’ she began, and stopped as he turned to face her, shocked by the flash of violent anger she caught in his eyes before, as if a shutter had fallen his handsome face became devoid of all expression.

      He stared at her for a long moment, and the transformation from eager lover to cold hard stranger could not have been more obvious. She shivered again—but this time with a deep sense of foreboding.

       Chapter Two

      PREGNANT. Phoebe was pregnant. It wasn’t possible. He had taken every possible precaution—but had she? Jed asked himself the question, and a red mist of rage engulfed him as his totally panicked brain scrambled for an acceptable answer. Counting to ten didn’t work. He got up to a thousand before he reached the glaringly obvious conclusion and finally trusted himself to turn and speak to her without yelling.

      ‘I’m sure you think you are fine,’ he drawled with biting cynicism, while battling to keep a lid on the fury still simmering inside him and retain his legendary cool control. ‘Standing there with diamonds around your elegant neck, and according to you pregnant with what I presume you are going to claim is my child.’

      He could not believe he had been suckered in by Phoebe’s so-called innocence; she was like all the rest—if not worse—because she had succeeded where other women had failed with the oldest trick in the book.

      ‘Of course the baby is yours.’

      He heard the shock in her voice but ignored it.

      ‘You know you are the only man I have ever made love with. I love you, and I thought you loved me.’

      ‘You thought wrong. I don’t do love—don’t believe in the concept.’

      ‘Why are you being like this?’ She looked at him with wide puzzled eyes.

      ‘Why? Because I have no wish to be tricked into becoming a father,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘Cast your mind back to the beginning. I always used