‘I like that you’re so eager to be a father.’ She paused, giving him time to process the doubt in her voice.
‘But...?’
A flush coloured her cheeks. ‘But...’ She bit her lip, reminding him of the early days on his island estate when she’d refused his offer of marriage. She hadn’t thought a child sufficient reason to marry.
‘But you’re afraid it’s our baby I want,’ he murmured. ‘Rather than you.’
She opened her mouth to answer but his finger on her lips forestalled her.
‘I love our child already, meu anjo, and I’ll work hard to learn to be a good father.’ He swallowed hard, knowing that would be a bigger challenge than any corporate dealings. ‘But, even if there was no child, even if there could never be a child, I would love you with my whole heart.’
Marisa’s eyes shone brilliantly as she looked up at him. He took the glass from her hand and set it down, then gathered both her hands in his. They trembled. Or perhaps it was he who shook.
‘You are my sun and stars and moon, Marisa. You’ve taught me how to care about more than a balance sheet. That it’s not my corporate empire that defines who I am. It’s who I love.’
He raised her hand and kissed it, revelling in the fresh apple and sunshine scent of her skin, knowing it would always be his favourite perfume.
‘I didn’t know I could love till until you came into my life.’
Her eyes glittered with tears but her smile was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen.
Damaso dropped to his knees in front of her. ‘Will you be mine? We don’t need to marry if you—’
This time it was Marisa’s finger on his mouth.
‘I’ll marry you, Damaso. I want everyone to know you’re mine.’ Her smile was incandescent. Damaso felt its warmth in every cell of her body. ‘Besides, for a scandalous princess, I have a hankering for respectability, so long as it’s with you.’
‘Ah.’ Damaso rose and lifted her into his arms, turning towards the luxuriously appointed bedroom. ‘That’s a shame. I was rather hoping for a little scandalous behaviour now and then.’
Marisa reached out and with one quick tug undid his bow tie and tossed it over his shoulder. Her smile was pure seduction. ‘I’m sure that could be arranged, Senhor Pires.’
* * * * *
Read on for an extract from CHANGING CONSTANTINOU’S GAME by Jennifer Hayward.
CHAPTER ONE
AS FAR AS luck went, Manhattan-based reporter Isabel Peters had been enjoying more than her fair share of it lately. She’d managed to nab a cute little one-bedroom on the Upper East Side she could actually afford, she’d won a free membership to the local gym, which might actually enable her to keep off the fifteen pounds she’d recently lost, and because she’d been in the right place at the right time, she’d landed a juicy story about the New York mayoral race that was putting her name on the map at the network.
But as she raced through the doors of Sophoros’s London offices, slapped her card down on the mahogany reception desk in front of the immaculately dressed receptionist and blurted out her request to see Leandros Constantinou, the look on the blonde’s face suggested her lucky streak might finally have run out.
“I’m afraid you’ve missed him, Ms. Peters,” the receptionist said in that perfectly accented English that never failed to make Izzie feel totally unworthy. “Mr. Constantinou is already on his way back to the States.”
Damn. The adrenaline that had been rocketing through her ever since her boss had texted her as she was about to board her flight home from Italy this morning and sent her on a wild-goose chase across London came to a screeching, sputtering halt, piling up inside her like a three-car collision. She’d done everything she could to make it here before Sophoros’s billionaire CEO left. But midday traffic hadn’t been on her side. Neither had her poky cab driver, who hadn’t seemed to recognize the urgency of her mission.
She struggled to control the frustration that was no doubt writing its way across her face, reminding herself that this woman could still be useful. “Thank you,” she murmured, wrapping her fingers around the card and sliding it back into her purse. “Would you happen to know which office he’s headed for?”
“You would have to ask his PA that,” the blonde said with a pointed look. “She’s in the New York headquarters. Would you like her number?”
“Thanks, I have it.” Izzie chewed on her bottom lip. “How long ago did he leave?”
“Hours,” the other woman drawled. “So sorry it was a wasted trip.”
Something about the gleam in the gatekeeper’s eyes made Izzie give her a second look. Was the elusive Leandros Constantinou holed up in his office avoiding her? She wouldn’t put it past him from what her boss had said about his magic disappearing acts when it came to the press, but she didn’t have time to flush him out. Her flight back to New York left in exactly three and a half hours, and she intended to be on it.
She gave the other woman a nod, zipped up her purse and turned away from the desk. James, her boss, wasn’t going to be happy about this. From what he’d said in his texts, the scandal rocking Constantinou’s gaming software company was about to go public. And if NYC-TV didn’t get to him before it did and persuade him to do the interview, every media outlet in the country was going to be knocking on his door. At that point, their chances of landing the feature would be slim to none.
She swung her purse over her shoulder with a heavy sigh and made her way out the heavy glass doors to the bank of elevators. A glance at the bored, restless expressions of those in the packed reception area told her she’d walked right into the middle of the midday caffeine and nicotine exodus. Which wasn’t to say she herself didn’t have bad habits. Hers were just more of the “shoving food she didn’t need in her mouth” variety. Or obsessing over a story when she should be at the gym sweating off a few extra pounds. But what was a girl to do when her mother was a famous Hollywood diva and her sister sashayed down runways for a living? Perfection was never going to be all that attainable.
The ping of an elevator arriving pulled her gaze to the row of silver-coated death traps. A group of people crammed themselves inside like a pack of sardines, and she should have gone with them, really, given her hurry. But her heart, which hadn’t quite recovered from the trip up, started pounding like a jackhammer. Just looking at the claustrophobic eight-by-eight-foot box made her mouth go dry and her legs turn to mush.
She glanced at the fire exit door, wondering how bad, exactly, walking down fifty flights of stairs would be. Bad, she decided. Three-inch heels did not lend themselves to such activity and besides, she had to catch that flight. Better to slay her demons and get on with it. Except, she reasoned, taking a step back as the thick steel doors slammed shut on the dozen people inside, having a whole contingent bear witness to her incapacitating fear of elevators wasn’t going to happen.
Telling herself she was a rational, levelheaded woman with what many would call a heck of a lot of responsibility on her shoulders every day, she looked desperately around the lobby at the crowd that was left in search of a diversion. She could do this. She wasn’t a total head case.
She took in the drop-dead perfect figure of the woman to her right, covered in a body-hugging dress that screamed haute couture. Stunning. Were these women everywhere? And weren’t those designer heels? So not fair. The only pair of designer shoes she owned were a ruby-red marked-down find she’d fallen in love with, then spent a quarter of a month’s salary on. Which had seen her eating cereal for dinner for weeks.