The Wealthy Greek's Contract Wife Read online

  ‘I was wrong to say what I did. Very wrong,’ Ilios told her. ‘I want you to stay. The fact that you are to have my child changes everything. Its place is here in Greece with me, and yours with it. You are both my responsibility. It is my duty to provide for you.’ How stiff and cumbersome the words sounded, but he didn’t know any other way to say what he wanted to say.

  ‘Duty is no substitute for love, Ilios,’ Lizzie told him. ‘And I can’t live in a marriage without love. Wanting something you can’t have is corrosive. It embitters and destroys. Being trapped in a marriage that isn’t wanted drives the one who doesn’t love to crave their freedom, and from that contempt and hostility will grow. I don’t want our child to grow up in that kind of environment, torn between two parents who are together only because of it. It is too much of a burden to place on a child. It’s better that I leave.’ She paused. ‘Please don’t make this harder for me than it already is. I’ll tell him or her all about you—how special you are, how proud it can be to be your child and to have you as its father.’

  She had to stop because of the emotion choking her throat. She wanted badly to touch him, to trace the shape of his face and give him her love—the love she knew he did not want.

  ‘I’ll tell it that you wanted us to be with you, and that it is my fault we aren’t. And when I do I’ll tell it too how much I love you, and how I couldn’t bear to burden you with that love when I knew you didn’t want it and hadn’t asked for it. I can’t promise, though, to tell it that its mother was foolish enough to mistake love for lust. I hope you will be happy, Ilios, and that life will send you someone you can truly love, because…’

  ‘It already has—only I was too afraid to accept it, Lizzie.’ He caught hold of her arm, his voice hoarse with desperation. ‘I love you. Please give me a second chance. We belong together—you and me and our child.’

  Lizzie shook her head. ‘You’re just saying that because of the baby. Because you think you have to. Because—’

  Ilios stopped her. ‘I’m saying it because it’s the truth.’

  One look at her face told him that no matter how hard he tried to convince her she was not going to believe him.

  He took a deep breath.

  ‘Lizzie, do you know why this—’ he touched her still flat stomach ‘—happened?’

  ‘Of course. It happened because I desired you.’

  Ilios shook his head.

  ‘No, it happened because I allowed it to happen—because secretly I wanted it to happen, even if I wouldn’t let myself recognise that fact at the time. Something in me, something stronger and braver than I was, knew what I most needed.’

  He was holding her hand in his own, making her feel safe and protected, making her wish…

  ‘I admire you more than I believed it possible to admire anyone—man or woman. I respect you and I value you—as a person, not just as the woman I love. Before I knew I loved you I knew that I wanted you to be the mother of my sons. I knew that the night we made love. I knew it, and because I knew it I deliberately chose to ignore the fact that we weren’t using any contraception. Even if I refused to recognise it at the time I know now that I wanted you to have my child, Lizzie. I wanted to tie you to me and I knew that you could not have a child and not love it. Please stay. Please stay and let me prove to you that I do love you. I need you, Lizzie. You’ve changed me, made me unrecognisable to myself, and I need you to help me understand the person I’ve become. I need you to show me how to be the man you want me to be. I grew up without learning what love is. I need your help so that I can understand it. You humble me, Lizzie—with everything that you are.’

  Could she believe him? Dared she?

  He was going to lose her. In his pocket he could feel her wedding ring, the diamond of her engagement ring. Impulsively he dropped down on one knee in front of Lizzie, and removed the rings from his pocket.

  ‘Please wear these again for me, Lizzie—for me, and our child, and the other children I want us to have. Be my wife and my love. I need you, Lizzie. I love you.’

  Lizzie reached out and touched the dark head, her love for him filling her.

  ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t give up to have your love, Lizzie, not even Villa Manos. You’ve taught me that love matters more than anything else.’

  ‘You’d give up your inheritance? But it’s a sacred trust.’

  ‘I won’t sacrifice my love or my children for bricks and mortar.’

  Now she believed him. Now she knew that he loved her and the child they were to have.

  ‘Oh, Ilios.’

  She was in his arms, and he was kissing her with a fierce need that told her more than words just how he really felt about her.

  ‘I couldn’t have let you go,’ he told her emotionally. ‘My life is nothing without you to share it with me, Lizzie.’

  ‘Nor mine without you,’ Lizzie whispered back to him lovingly.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Ilios begged her. ‘Not until we get home and I can show you how very much I want you.’

  ‘Home. What a lovely word that is,’ Lizzie told him. ‘You are our home, Ilios—mine and our baby’s. Nothing else and no one else matters.’

  The look of devotion and love on his face was everything her loving heart had longed to see there—and more.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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  First published in Great Britain 2009

  Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © Penny Jordan 2009

  ISBN: 978-1-4089-1857-9