One Night to Risk It All

CHAPTER SIX


RACHEL LAY DOWN on the white down-filled blanket and stared at the ceiling. She would ask for him to take her home if she wasn’t such a coward. If she wasn’t so afraid she didn’t have a home to go back to.

Even if she did, it would be crawling with reporters, ready to get the juicy dirt on why she’d left Ajax at the altar. And the lame thing was there was tons of juicy dirt. If the bride being pregnant with another man’s baby wasn’t a great scandalous headline, she really didn’t know what was.

Society wedding of the century became farce just that quickly and the press would absolutely adore it.

There was a knock on the door. Not Alex, (A) because he wouldn’t have knocked, and (B) because it was soft, a woman’s hand, she was almost certain.

“Yes?”

The door opened a small woman with dark hair came in. “Mr. Alex has requested that you join him for dinner out on the terrace.”

“Oh, has he now?”

“Yes,” the woman said, either not picking up on Rachel’s annoyance, or choosing not to acknowledge it.

“When does he expect me?”

“Ten minutes, miss.”

“Tell him it will be twenty—I need to dress for it. And tell him not to let that go to his head.”

The woman nodded and backed out of the room. Rachel felt like a shrew. A sweaty, mean one. She was hot from the walk, still, and in a foul mood.

A quick shower did wonders for the sweaty part, but the meanness still seemed to be simmering beneath the surface, even while she slipped into a simple black shift dress and a pair of black heels. She fastened a string of pearls around her neck and looked at her side profile. Her hair was neat, in place as it should be. Her makeup looked good.

She looked normal. Like the Rachel she was accustomed to seeing in the mirror every day.

Which was so strange because she didn’t feel like normal Rachel. She hadn’t. Not since that day she’d locked eyes with stupid Alexios Christofides.

She let out a harsh breath and exited her room to find the maid standing there waiting for her.

“I will take you to Mr. Alex.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said, even while she thought that he was only sending her an escort to make sure she didn’t bribe his pilot to get her off the island.

That was when she realized how stuck she was. With each step across the white marble floor and out toward the terrace, she felt a rope tightening around her neck, her pearls suddenly feeling heavy, like they were choking her.

She reached up and unfastened them as they walked, wadding them up in her shaking hand, holding them down at her side.

“Miss Rachel,” the maid said, announcing her as though she were a duchess of some kind.

Alex stood and her heart squeezed. No matter how angry she was, he never failed to leave her utterly speechless. He was wearing a simple white button-up shirt, unfastened at the collar, the sleeves rolled up past his forearms.

His skin looked a deeper bronze in that color, a glimpse of chest hair visible through the open neck. He looked so effortless. So ridiculously sexy.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that her body was drawn to a man like this. A man who had tricked her, used her and basically had her held captive on an island. What the ever-loving heck was wrong with her? Was she punishing herself for past sins? Or was there something that drew her to men who wanted to...use her?

She sat down, and he took his seat.

“I trust you had a nice rest?” he asked.

“I don’t think you really trust that. I’m sure you know I spent the past hour quietly freaking out in the privacy of my bedroom.”

“I suppose that’s only fair.”

“I’ve just found out I’m having a baby, on top of everything else, so yes, it is only fair.”

“That is why I proposed marriage,” he said. “Not to get Holt away from Ajax, but for the sake of the baby.”

“Great. Fine. But please know that I will not marry you. Not for the baby, not for anything. At the very least not until my sister is married and I am certain, one hundred percent certain, that you won’t get Holt because of my indiscretion. I will not allow you to hurt Ajax or my family in that way.” A startling thought occurred to her. “And if you go after my sister I will be forced to remove your male member from your body with a very dull pocketknife, and don’t think I won’t do it. I might have been spoiled from birth, but I’m also from New York, and we don’t mess around over there.”

“I have no desire to go and seduce your sister,” he said, leaning back in his chair, looking out at the ocean. As though they were discussing the weather, and not her desire to castrate him. “My plans, my priorities, have changed. My loyalty is to the child, not to my vengeance.”

“Well, it’s very early in the pregnancy, and things can go wrong, so, yet again, marriage is off the table.”

“Fine. For you, maybe it is, but not for me. I’ll continue to enter it into the discussion at times I feel are appropriate.”

“You are a massive pain in the rear, do you know that?”

“I absolutely do,” he said, lifting a glass of wine to his lips. Yeah, and he was drinking wine in front of her. He knew he was a pain. And he seemed to revel in it.

“Well, stop it.” She took a sip of water from her glass.

“Probably not. That’s twenty-six years of bad habits you’re asking me to break immediately, and I doubt it’s going to happen.”

“Another good reason to avoid marrying you.”

“Why is it you agreed to come with me?”

“I’m a massive coward,” she said. “Among other things.”

“What other things?”

“An idiot. That’s the other thing I am. I can’t believe I fell for your charm and that boyish curly thing your hair does when it’s wet and your...sparkling blue eyes.”

“Are you preparing to compose a sonnet about me?”

“Shall I compare you to a horse’s ass?”

“Is that your attempt at poetry?”


“Yes. I thought it was good.”

“Brilliant.” He took another sip of wine.

“I have to ask, Alex, because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me—what does a guy like you want with a baby?”

“I don’t want a baby,” he said. “I want my baby and that’s an entirely different thing.”

“Just a bit-of-sperm different at this point. It’s not like you know the child, not like you could even...feel him or get an idea he was inside of me for...months and months. I would think walking away from it would be really easy for you.”

“Why is that?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Because a lot of men do. It’s not an insult, it’s just that...well, a lot of men do. And since you just picked me up with the idea of getting revenge on Ajax and that’s all done, I would have thought it wouldn’t serve your purpose to be involved with the child. Especially since I won’t marry you and let you take Holt from Ajax.”

“This is a matter of honor.”

“You have honor? Where was your honor when you were stealing my virtue in Corfu?”

“This virtue I stole,” he said, leaning forward, “where was it when we were in Corfu? Virginity I remember. But I sort of remember you flinging it at me. I don’t really remember me stealing it.”

She sniffed. “What. Ever. The thing is that I’m not really sure what’s in this for you and that makes me nervous. I’ve removed a couple of carrots and yet here you are still, like there’s another treat for you to catch—and I’m concerned about exactly what treats you think you’re going to be...getting from me. Because none. The answer is none.”

“I want my child,” he said, setting his wine glass down, his palms flat on the table. “Because I know how the world is. Because I know what it’s like to grow up without a father. I know what it is to look at trees making shadows on your wall, and to not simply wonder what sort of evil things a bogeyman might do to you, but to know, with utter certainty, every horrible thing that could become of you. What it is to know that if the bogeyman ever did come there would be no one to protect you. My child will never know these fears. I will protect him. I will give him shelter with me, security. When I’m there, he will never worry. Not about one thing.”

She looked down at the table and a plate of fish and rice was placed in front of her. It didn’t look appetizing in the least. Her stomach was too full of knots and anxiety for her to take a bite of anything.

And Alex’s speech had only added to the knots. She didn’t want to see the good in him. It was far too dangerous. She wanted to be angry. To look at him and see a mustache-twirling villain bent on tying her to the tracks in an attempt to defeat Ajax, who she was still trying to place in the position of hero.

Not that she could believe that Ajax was a villain, not in the least, but...but it wasn’t like she was longing for him to ride in on his white horse, either.

“That’s really good of you, Alex.”

“It’s basic human decency,” he said. “Every parent should want to be there for their child. What about you, Rachel? Were your parents there for you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Always. My father has always been involved in my and my sister’s lives, and when Ajax came... He loves Ajax like a son. And so did my mother.”

“You said your mother died?”

“A few years ago. She was ill. That’s one reason I never went on to higher education or anything. I had to help. Leah was young and...and she needed to live her life. My mother wasn’t the easiest person for me to get along with, but she was sick and she needed someone. So I can’t possibly resent that I spent that time with her.” She fiddled with her fork. “But then...well, then Ajax expressed the desire that we might...”

“Why did you put him off for so long?”

“I can see now, clear as day, that my saying I wanted to ‘live a little’ first was mainly because I just didn’t feel anything for him. I dated some other men, but didn’t have serious relationships with them because even though I knew Ajax wasn’t putting an exclusive claim on me it felt like I would have been cheating.” And she’d felt far too burned out to go there, but she wasn’t going to bring that up. “And then we made it official and we’ve been engaged for years and...it was comfortable. To wear his ring and go on with life like it hadn’t changed.” She looked into her water glass. “And now everything’s changed.”

“Well, not everything. You aren’t married.”

“And I’m not going to be.”

“Because you don’t trust me?”

“There’s that, but there’s the fact that this isn’t even close to being about trust. My father has promised ownership of Holt to the daughter who marries first and to the man she marries. He won’t go back on a promise.”

“Refreshing,” Alex said, a dark light in his blue eyes.

“Yes, well, you don’t get to benefit from it. Sorry.”

“Too bad.”

“I’m exhausted,” she said, standing. “I think dinner wasn’t the best idea. I’m going to my room.”

“Fine. Shall I have your plate cleared?”

“Yes,” she said. “And have cookies sent to my room. And decaf coffee. I don’t want to eat healthy.”

He arched a brow. “You are a rebel, Rachel Holt. How did the media ever paint you as anything else?”

“Shut up, Alex.” She turned and walked back into the house, stalking to her room. She flung open the door and then slammed it with equal fervor.

She needed something. She needed...cookies. And to open a window so that she could breathe. She walked over to the other side of the room and flung the curtains open, then shoved the windows wide.

The breeze coming in off the ocean didn’t help relieve the pressure in her chest. It didn’t help anything.

She felt like she was going to burst. The pressure behind her eyes was so intense she could barely stand it.

But there was no release. She had worked so long to keep her emotions, her desires, anything too wild or demonstrative in check, that she couldn’t let it out even now.

She couldn’t even be herself when she was alone.

The scary thing was, she was pretty sure the only time she’d been herself for more than a decade was during the night she’d spent in Alex’s arms. Naked in every single way.

He hadn’t deserved that. It had been a lie for him.

She took a deep breath, gulping the air down like water. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping for tears, desperate for a crack in the foundations she’d built.

Nothing came.

Damn that Alex. She was so angry at him, so hurt by everything he’d done. And still she craved those moments of release, those moments of feeling like she was home in herself, that only he’d ever given her.

Well, that was too bad. She wasn’t ever going to be back in his arms, ever again.

So she would just have to deal with that.

* * *

He married me, BTW.





Rachel stared down at the text from her sister, her body numb. She’d married Ajax? Leah had married Ajax?

When she’d started texting with Leah that morning she hadn’t expected this. Leah had been checking on her, and she could get why, because running off like this was out of character for her, and because, yeah, she had a feeling they knew full well who Alex was.


But to find out Leah and Ajax had married? She didn’t even know how to process that.

She got up from her position on the floor and went to her computer, typing in Ajax Kouros as quickly as she could.

And sure enough.





Ajax Kouros Weds Replacement Bride





“Well...wow.”

She picked up the phone and typed in Holy crap. Just Googled.





You’re happy? You didn’t love Ajax did you?





Her sister’s response came quickly. Leave it to Leah to worry about her, even still. Rachel couldn’t imagine her sweet younger sister with Ajax. Hell, she was the one who was worried.

As for the love part...





Not like that. Not the kind you need to marry a guy. You know?





She hit Send. It was a lie of omission in a lot of ways. Because she would have married him. If things hadn’t changed. If not for the baby.

The baby. All of this kept hitting her in little pieces. She had a feeling if it hit her all at once she would be completely buried by it.





Do you love Alex?





Her sister’s message hit her right in the chest. Because it brought her back to that night. To those feelings. Feelings that were so different from anything she’d ever experienced before.





I need to be with Alex.





She typed it, but didn’t hit Send right away. It was the truth. She had to figure out how they were going to make this work, what they were going to do.

She’d stayed up half the night reading, browsing the internet and eating cookies and basically trying to figure out what had gone wrong in her world and how she was going to fix it.

She knew one thing for sure: That she had to give Alex a chance to be in his child’s life. Beyond that? She had no clue.

She finished out her conversation with Leah and tossed her phone down onto the bed.

Oh, great. And there went her line of defense. Her “No, Alex, you villain! I cannot marry you!” was going to be so much weaker now.

Although, it was nice to know that Holt was secure. That it would still go to Ajax, because even though she hadn’t wanted to marry him, she hadn’t wanted him to lose anything, either.

But Leah... Oh, she hoped Leah would be happy. That she knew what she was doing. Leah had always been fond of Ajax. They’d always gotten along, but she hadn’t gotten the idea that her sister wanted to marry him.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe they were both better at hiding who they were than people realized. Rachel was sure her sister would never believe that she was a bad girl living inside of a good girl, and that both entities had a penchant for cookies. That she’d had a one-night stand on vacation with her fiancé’s enemy. Nope. She was sure no one would guess that.

There was a knock on the bedroom door, and this one, she guessed, was Alex. Though she was a little shocked the man knew how to observe things like knocking. It was a social nicety she wouldn’t have credited him with.

“Come in,” she said, straightening and hoping she didn’t look like she’d had an all-night cookie and internet bender, even though she had.

Alex strode into the room, as usual, his charisma filling up the small space in a way that was shocking.

“They got married,” he said.

“So I saw,” she returned, and she was sure they were talking about the same people.

“Are you okay?” he asked. It was shockingly sensitive, all things considered. A lot more sensitive than a man who was just out to use her should ever be.

“I’m...fine. Worried about Leah. I didn’t want her to...to marry someone she didn’t love for me.”

“Maybe it wasn’t for you.”

“Of course it was,” she said.

“The whole world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”

“No, I’m well aware of that. I get used a lot. But what I want doesn’t ever seem to be that important.”

“Are you sorry you aren’t married to him?”

“Am I sorry that I’m not trapped in a loveless marriage with him?”

“You could be trapped in one with me,” he said. “It might take your mind off her.”

“Nice try, but I actually think that I might relish my newfound freedom.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have screwed everything up. When the press find out...well, when the press find out, I’m not going to be their princess anymore. They love me, sure, but they love Ajax and the wayward woman will always be the villain. My father will be so disappointed that I...that I didn’t learn. Leah’s had to marry someone she doesn’t love because of me. I’ve messed up everything. I have...no reason at all, in all the world, to keep doing what’s expected of me. Or rather to start again. I’m ruined,” she said, laughing. “Utterly ruined. And there’s no point even trying to backpedal. To try and legitimize myself by marrying my baby’s father when it won’t change the circumstances. My father can’t pay anyone off and make this go away.”

“So you’re ready to go and face the press then?”

“I am absolutely not,” she said. “I...I want you to know that no matter what...whether I was pregnant or not, press or not, whether you had come or not...I wasn’t going to marry him.”

“Is that the case?” he asked, his voice rough.

“Yes. I can’t. I...I can’t. But that doesn’t make me brave. I would still be hiding, without the baby. I’m a coward, and I feel totally fragile and I want to hide out for a while and figure out...what all this means. See what...what happens with the pregnancy.”

“Do you have any reason to believe you’ll miscarry?” he asked. He looked disturbed by the idea, which was strangely touching. It was easy to imagine he was digging in and doing the right thing because of his past experience, but he almost seemed to want the baby. Almost seemed like he would be sorry now if it didn’t happen.

And she felt a little bit shocked by the revelation that she would be sad if something happened. That she wanted the baby, no matter the circumstances.

“No. Not any reason beyond statistics. I mean...they happen, don’t they?”

“I suppose. But it hardly seems right to plan for one.”

“I’m not. I’m just being cautious.”

“I have to go back to New York for the work week. I have several clients I need to meet with and it has to be done in person.”

“Why can’t you Skype them or something?”

He leaned against the door frame, arms crossed over his broad chest. “I’m new in town still. Comparatively. That means I have to play by other people’s rules sometimes.”

“You must hate that.”

He smiled that wicked, enticing smile. “I hate rules. But you have to play the game. And the game has been good to me so far. It’s how I’ve earned my money. It’s how a kid from a brothel ended up being a billionaire.”

“Well, have fun in New York,” she said. She didn’t want to probe deeper. Didn’t want to find out more about him. Didn’t want him to seem so human.

“You aren’t going to come?”

“Was I invited?”

“Of course. You want to stay here then?”

She did, weirdly. She should go home and face the music. Her father. Everything. But she wasn’t ready for that yet. She wasn’t ready to share her and Alex’s...relationship? Whatever it was, with her family. When she told her family she was pregnant, she would have to confess that she’d had that little indiscretion and she wasn’t ready to tell them yet.


Wasn’t ready to expose that part of herself, a part she’d only just discovered. A part Alex had uncovered.

She hadn’t even known she was capable of being swept away on a tide of desire, and she wasn’t really ready to let anyone else in on her revelation.

“Yes.”

“By yourself?” he asked.

“Sounds ideal, actually.”

He pushed off from the door frame. “Well then, please yourself.”

“Shall.”

“I will see you next week.”

She nodded slowly. “Okay. Next week, then.”

“Then...then we’ll decide what we’re going to do.”

She nodded, holding back a groan. She wasn’t ready to decide anything.

“No guarantees.”

“People do not tell me no, Rachel. I warn you of that right now.”

“Funny, I’ve told you no quite a few times.”

“Yes. But before you said no, you said yes. Pretty emphatically. I’m sure I can get you to say it again.”