Modern Romance August 2018 Books 5-8 Collection. Julia James

did not have a relationship—we had sex,’ she reminded him tartly.

      The word hung in the air between them, taunting Ava with memories of their wild passion and Giannis’s body claiming hers with powerful thrusts.

      ‘Don’t knock it, glykiá mou,’ he drawled. ‘You enjoyed it as much as I did.’

      Hot-faced with embarrassment, she dropped her gaze from his amused expression and wondered what he was thinking. Her pregnancy was not really showing yet, but she was conscious of her thickening waistline which meant that she had to leave the button on her jeans undone. Before Giannis had met her, he had slept with some of the world’s most beautiful women—and she doubted his bed had been empty for the past months that they had been apart.

      ‘So, do you expect it to be a proper marriage?’ she said stiffly.

      His eyes narrowed. ‘I do not expect anything, certainly not intimacy, unless you decide it is what you want.’

      She should feel relieved by Giannis’s assurance that he would not put pressure on her to consummate their marriage, but Ava felt even more confused. He was a red-blooded male and celibacy would not be a natural state for him. But perhaps he intended to find pleasure elsewhere. For her own protection she needed to ignore the chemistry between them while she was still unsure if she could believe his insistence that he was not a criminal.

      Giannis stood up and offered her his hand to help her to her feet. ‘What is your answer?’

      She ignored his hand. ‘I need time to consider my options.’ Her tone was as cool as his. They could have been discussing a business deal instead of a decision which would affect the rest of their lives. But her pregnancy had already had a fundamental effect, and it occurred to her that, whether or not she accepted his proposal, they would be linked for ever by the child they had created between them.

      ‘Do not consider them for too long,’ he said as he ushered her out of the drawing room and across the hall to the dining room. ‘I intend for us to be married well before the baby is born.’ The implacable note in Giannis’s voice warned Ava that the only option he would accept was her agreement to become his wife.

      * * *

      ‘The gel will feel cold, I’m afraid,’ the sonographer said cheerfully before she squirted a dollop of thick, clear lubricant onto Ava’s stomach.

      Ava tried to suck her tummy in as the sonographer smeared the gel over her bump. She was intensely conscious of Giannis sitting beside the hospital bed where she was lying for the ultrasound scan. Her top was tucked up under her breasts and her trousers were pushed down low on her hips, leaving her stomach bare. From her angle, looking down her body, her stomach seemed huge, which was hardly surprising after she had spent the past couple of weeks enjoying Giannis’s housekeeper’s wonderful cooking, she thought ruefully.

      ‘I understand you need to eat for two,’ Joan had said cheerfully when Giannis announced that he and Ava would be getting married as soon as it could be arranged. The wedding could not take place until twenty-eight days after they had given notice at the local register office.

      The bright lights in the scanning room made the pink sapphire ring on Ava’s finger sparkle. This time her engagement was real, and her heart lurched at the thought that very soon she would be Giannis’s wife.

      She had accepted his proposal the day after he had asked her to marry him—following a sleepless night when she’d faced the stark choice of having to believe him or Stefanos Markou’s nephew. On a practical level she knew that Giannis was determined to be a father to his baby and she concluded that she would be in a better position to safeguard herself and her child if she was married to him.

      ‘You can choose a different ring if you would prefer not to wear this one,’ he’d said when he had returned the pink sapphire heart to her.

      Ava had slid the ring onto her finger and told herself that she hadn’t missed it being there for the past few months. ‘It seems fitting to keep the ring that you gave me while I was your fake fiancée, seeing as our marriage will be one of convenience,’ she’d said stubbornly, determined he would not know how much she had missed him.

      His eyes had gleamed dangerously but he’d said evenly, ‘Whatever you wish, glykiá mou.’

      What she had wished was for him to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless so that she could pretend they were lovers back on Spetses—before rumours, doubts and her pregnancy had driven a wedge between them. But Giannis had walked out of the room and she’d felt too vulnerable to go after him and make the first move to try to break the stalemate in their relationship.

      She pulled her mind back to the present as the sonographer moved the probe over her stomach. ‘If you look on the screen, here is Baby’s heart—you can see it beating. And this here is one of Baby’s hands...and just here is the other hand...’ The sonographer pointed to the grey image on the screen. ‘You can make out Baby’s face quite clearly.’

      Ava caught her breath as she stared at her baby’s tiny features. She felt Giannis squeeze her fingers. She’d already had a scan at twelve weeks, to accurately date her pregnancy, but this was his first experience of seeing his child and she wondered how he felt now that the baby was a tangible reality rather than something they had spoken about.

      The sonographer spent several minutes studying the baby’s vital organs and taking measurements. ‘Everything looks absolutely as it should do,’ she said at last. ‘I understand that you have decided to find out the baby’s sex.’

      ‘Yes,’ they both replied at the same time.

      The sonographer smiled. ‘You are going to have a little boy. Congratulations.’

      Ava tore her eyes from the image of her son—her son! Blinking back tears of pride and joy, she glanced at Giannis. Her heart turned over when she saw a tear slide down his cheek as he stared intently at the screen. He dashed his hand over his face and when he turned to her he showed no sign of the fierce emotion she had witnessed although, when she looked closely, his eyes were suspiciously bright.

      ‘Now we know what colour to paint the nursery,’ he murmured.

      She nodded, unable to speak past the lump that had formed in her throat. Whatever happened between them, she knew now, without doubt, that Giannis would love his son and would never be parted from him. Which meant that somehow they would have to make their unconventional marriage work.

      Another thought slid insidiously into her mind as she remembered her ex’s scathing comments when she had admitted to him that her father was the infamous East End gangster, Terry McKay. Craig had decided against marrying her for fear that their children might grow up to be criminals like their grandfather.

      Of course there was not a ‘criminal’ gene, Ava tried to reassure herself. But she couldn’t forget what Stefanos’s nephew had told her about Giannis being involved in organised crime. If the rumour about him was true, and if there was such a thing as a ‘criminal’ gene, what would the future hold for the baby?

      In the car on the way back to Milton Grange neither of them spoke much. Ava’s thoughts were going round and round in her head and she did not have the energy to try to breach the emotional distance that existed between her and Giannis. His playboy reputation when she had first met him had made her believe that he was not capable of feeling strong emotions, but that was patently not true, she realised as she remembered the tears on his face when he had seen the scan images of his baby son.

      When they arrived at the house he went straight to his study, citing an important business phone call that he needed to make. The cold, grey weather at the end of January did not encourage Ava to go out for a walk, and instead she made use of the heated swimming pool in the conservatory.

      She hadn’t got round to buying a maternity swimsuit, and the bikini that she’d bought from a boutique on Spetses barely fitted over her fuller breasts. But no one was going to see her, and the midwife had said that swimming was a good form of exercise during pregnancy. The water was warm and she swam