Not Just the Greek's Wife

chapter NINE


CHLOE’S brows drew together. “Isn’t that the point? No birth control.”

“Not until you have put on a few necessary pounds.”

“What?” she asked, her tone filled with confusion.

“Why?”

“You are dangerously thin.”

“I am not.”

“I have spoken to your doctor.”

“You shouldn’t have done. You had no right.”

“You never rescinded the medical power of attorney you signed during our marriage.” Though spouses had such rights automatically in many countries, their very global lifestyle required all contingencies had been planned for.

“You signed one too. How would you like me to make an invasive call to Dr. Helios?”

“I rescinded that power of attorney when our divorce became final.”

She made a defensive move to cover herself and he swore. Damn it. He had not intended to take her out of the moment.

He grabbed the condom and put it on the seat beside him before reaching for her.

Running his hands over her silky skin, he had to swallow against his suddenly dry throat. “Listen to me, yineka mou, you must not let memories of the past intrude on our present. We have moved beyond them.”

“You’re so sure.”

In this instance, he had more hope than certainty, but he would not admit it. She would be his. The change in plans he’d made before leaving New York seemed even more necessary now.

“We have both learned from our past, I hope.” He was going to buy her a book on communication though. “However, that is where it must remain now. As history.” Deeply personal history, but only that nonetheless.

“Gaining weight isn’t as easy as it looks—at least for me,” she said ignoring his promise and admonition completely.

“I know. That is why I have hired a personal trainer for you.”

“Why can’t I just use yours?” she demanded. “At least I already know him.”

“I thought you would be more comfortable with a woman.”

Chloe gave him a knowing look. “You mean you would be more comfortable with a female working with me.”

“I will not deny it.”

“I don’t flirt, Ariston.”

“This I know.”

“So?”

“I am at heart a traditional Greek man.” One who had spent enough time talking with his naked ex-wife in his arms.

He pulled her back into his lap, this time draping her legs over his as he insinuated one hand between her thighs. “You are so enticing, yineka mou.”

She laughed. “Right. With the dark circles under my eyes and my underweight body, I hardly look like a woman.”

“Never say so. You are the most feminine woman I’ve ever met. You turn me on.” He took her hand and curled it around the hard and leaking proof of his claim.

It felt as if every muscle in his body seized at the touch and he made no effort to stifle his groan of gratification.

“Sometimes I think a stiff breeze could excite you.” But her hand squeezed convulsively on his hardness.

“No breezes, only you.” And that was more true than he wanted to examine, even within himself. “Regardless, I will not allow your health to suffer carrying my child. On this, I will not be moved.”

“You’re so darn bossy, you know that, don’t you?” Her hand slid up and down his shaft, her eyes going heavy-lidded and a small moan escaping her lips.

He had always reveled in how much she enjoyed touching him.

“I am what I am.” He did not consider himself bossy, simply right. “And what I am is a man who needs to be inside you.”

She didn’t answer, but then he didn’t expect her to as he slid his fingers expertly over her *oris and down until he penetrated her honeyed depths, making her body jolt and her hips cant toward him.

She was wet and hot, so obviously aroused despite her arguments that he had to draw on more self-control than even he thought he had to stop himself taking her that very second. He touched her until her slick dew covered her sex, preparing her completely for his invasion.

When he brought her up to straddle him once again, she tilted her pelvis so her opening pressed against the head of his sex.

“Want you,” she moaned as she pressed down to encase him in her drenched heat.

“Yes,” he hissed, the barrier of the condom not nearly enough to keep him away from the knife edge of ecstasy.

He slipped his hand between them, pressing gently with his thumb against her *oris, so every movement of their hips caused her pleasure to spike. She cried out, and begged him not to stop, which he had no intention of doing.

They rocked together, the urgency growing with each deep thrust of his sex inside her welcoming flesh.

“You are mine,” he growled, watching her intently.

She looked into his eyes, her own dazed with passion, but no words came out of her mouth.

“Say it,” he demanded.

“I’m yours,” she gasped out in rapture as she gave the signs that told him she was on the verge of climaxing.

He pressed just a little bit harder with his thumb and shouted his own triumph as she came around him.

Her convulsions sparked his own completion, the only sound coming out of him then a guttural groan as his sex erupted in the condom.

This between them, this at least was right.

Dressed again, Chloe snuggled drowsily in Ariston’s arms. “So now I know why you had Angela ride with the security team.”

“You have been away from my side for three weeks. We deserved some time alone.” Had she not missed him at all?

She’d certainly showed no signs of wanting to get to New York as soon as possible.

“I think we would have survived waiting until tonight to share a bed.”

“Perhaps you would have—clearly I was not so content to wait.”

“I didn’t say I was content.” She yawned, cuddling in closer.

He ate it up. He’d always enjoyed his wife’s affectionate side … or rather ex-wife. Not that she would be that for much longer.

“You have not been sleeping,” he censured.

“I’ve had a lot to do.”

“At night?” He did not think so.

“My mind doesn’t always shut down when my body wants to.”

He did not ask what thoughts had kept her awake. He did not think the answer would make him happy. She’d shown enough reluctance to leave her little coastal town. He’d been forced to come and get her, and therefore had no intention of bringing her worries in this regard to the forefront again.

“Sleep now,” he commanded.

She needed it and he needed some space to think.

She nodded, adjusting her position so she was lying across the seat, her head in his lap.

His plan had gone according to his calculations right down the line, until it came to Chloe leaving her home of nearly two years. Then things had gotten more than dicey. She’d thrown a full-fledged spanner in the works.

Three weeks of cajoling his recalcitrant ex-wife into making the move to New York before they were both retirees had convinced Ariston that he needed to change their schedule on certain things.

Mentally going over the list of things they had to do before leaving New York, he brushed his fingers through her hair.

“Mmmm … nice. Don’t stop,” she slurred as her body relaxed into sleep.

He didn’t, finding the action as relaxing as she did.

She was with him now, without arguing.

So, he should be content.

Why wasn’t he?

“What do you mean, we’re getting married?” Chloe nearly screeched as she waved the contract she’d just finished reading at Ariston.

They were in his office again, his lawyer and the Dioletis attorney in the outer office with Jean. Ariston had insisted Chloe read through the contract in privacy before the lawyers witnessed its signing.

No darn wonder. Far from the contract he’d initially told her she would be signing, this one was a clear prenup, with rather generous financial terms, but an entirely unambiguous clause that gave Ariston majority custody of any future children should Chloe leave him or have an affair.

Presumably any other behavior on her part would not be enough to spur him into filing for divorce. She didn’t know what to think.

Ariston, who sat beside her on the sofa they’d made love on her last time in his office, took the papers and set them on the low table in front of them. “I decided there was no reason to hold off on the marriage aspect of our bargain.”

“But you said you didn’t want to get married again until I had successfully given birth to your child.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to marry him at all.

“I may not have considered all angles when I made that stipulation.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I do not joke about matters this serious.”

“Right. Contracts are right up there with God in your book.”

“My grandfather would not appreciate your blaspheming.”

“Takis isn’t here.”

“No, he is in Greece, eagerly waiting to welcome you back into his family.”

Ariston went to brush his hand through her hair and ran into her French twist. His frown looked absolutely thwarted. “I do not like your hair like this.”

“I do.” Before he could pursue further argument over something so insignificant, she said, “So, this is about your grandfather. I knew he wouldn’t be happy with the thought that his great-grandchild was to be born out of wedlock.”

“I never mentioned that particular aspect of our proposed arrangement to him.”

“And you finally realized it would be a bad idea to ever do so, didn’t you?” she couldn’t help taunting.

The man was just too sure he was always right.

“Perhaps.”

“There’s no perhaps about it.”

Ariston was awful at admitting when he was wrong. Probably because the Greek tycoon golden boy so rarely was. There was a reason for his arrogance and it wasn’t just money and genetics.

“I had many reasons for rethinking my position on the timing for our marriage.”

“Did you now?” She wasn’t buying it, not for one single solitary minute.

“I did.”

“Name them.”

“Your health.”

“What about my health?” Sheesh … he acted as if she was just out of hospital or something.

“It could take months for you to gain back the weight you’ve lost since the divorce.”

“So?”

“So, you will not be getting pregnant until that happens.”

“Again, so?”

“It occurred to me that putting off the marriage was unnecessary unless I believed you were going to once again cheat me.”

“I didn’t cheat you—” she began to hotly deny, but he interrupted her.

“So you maintain, but we must agree to disagree on our perception of your actions.”

“How magnanimous of you.” She wasn’t being sarcastic.

For a man of his temperament to agree to disagree was no small concession. The man liked being right almost as much as he liked making money.

“Yes, well … it also occurred to me that you might feel more settled in your return to your normal life with the assurance of a legal bond between us.”

“Wasn’t the contract going to be the legal bond?” she asked with some confusion, while reeling at the reality he considered their marriage her normal life.

What had the last two years been? Some kind of temporary aberration?

“If there is one thing I have come to understand about you in the past weeks, it is that you and I do not place the same importance on a signed contract.”

There was no arguing that point. “So, you’ve decided we should get married now?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t think that maybe you should have asked me if that’s what I wanted?”

The slight flare in his azure eyes said better than words that clearly he had not. “You had already agreed to the terms.”

“Yes, but I didn’t expect to become Mrs. Spiridakou in two days’ time at the courthouse.”

“You never ceased to be Mrs. Spiridakou. You retained my name.”

“Yes, but I dropped the Mrs. and you know it.”

He frowned in acknowledgment of that truth. “Now or later, it should not matter.”

“But according to you, it does matter to me.” He wanted her to feel secure in her life—he’d said so.

It was actually really rather sweet and very thoughtful, further proof that Ariston wasn’t exactly like her father used to be. They both might be business sharks, but Ariston had a heart.

Even if he wouldn’t admit it. And maybe she wasn’t the only one he was thinking needed the bonds of marriage between them.

“Are you refusing to marry me?”

“Are you asking?” she pressed, no longer against the idea, but not ready to give in yet either.

“Are you saying I have to?” His business-shark mask fell away to be replaced by an out-and-out glare.

“Yes.”

She didn’t care if what they had was a business arrangement, they were getting married again. And for her, that was personal. Deeply so.

Giving no clue to what he was about to do, Ariston silently got up from the couch and walked over to his desk. He opened the top drawer and pulled something out before coming back to her.

He stopped at the end of the sofa closest to where she sat. “I am not a romantic man.”

“This isn’t a matter of romance.” For him at least. What her heart got out of it wasn’t any of his business, since he’d made it plain that he had no interest in that organ. “It is a matter of respect.”

Understanding tinged with relief crossed his masculine features. “In that case …”

He dropped to one knee. Right there, in the middle of his office, on the hand-stitched Turkish carpet.

He lifted the object in his hand toward her and she recognized the jeweler’s exclusive and distinctive packaging on what turned out to be a ring box. It wasn’t the same jeweler her original engagement and wedding ring had come from. It was the one whose catalog Ariston had found her thumbing through six months after they were married.

She’d told him how much she liked their exclusive line of chocolate diamonds.

He flipped the box open. “Marry me, Chloe.”

She reached out to touch the ring. It was a large square-cut chocolate diamond set in yellow gold. Another preference she’d shared with him despite the popularity of platinum amongst their set. On either side of the center stone was a cluster of white diamonds.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered in awe.

“Beautiful enough to wear for the rest of your life?” he asked carefully.

That really was the question, wasn’t it? Did she want to spend a lifetime with this man? She’d walked away before, believing her love deserved to be returned. She still hoped that one day it would be, but she’d realized something about love in their two years apart.

It wasn’t a stingy emotion and it didn’t die just because she’d been separated from her beloved.

Ariston had said on her first trip to New York that this was their second chance and she realized she wanted to take it, all the way.

“Yes.”

He pulled her into a mind-blowing kiss, which was awfully romantic, no matter what he claimed to the contrary.

When they came up for air, she said, “No wonder you didn’t take me to that gorgeous apartment you set up for me.”

“I thought you would sleep better in our bed. You never seemed to have any trouble before.”

They’d spent the night in his Manhattan townhouse, their home while they’d been married. Sleeping in the master bed with him had felt strange, but in retrospect she could see that once his mind had been made up, she’d become his wife again without her even knowing it.

She wasn’t about to tell him that it wasn’t the comfort or lack thereof of her bed in Oregon that had kept her awake. It didn’t matter now. “Having sex had more to do with my long and restful sleep than the comfort of the mattress, Ariston. You tired me out.”

He looked quite pleased with that pronouncement.

She ignored his satisfaction and asked. “Are all of my things in the house, then?”

“Your art supplies and personal items, yes. Your furniture is in storage until you decide what you want to do with it.”

He really had never intended for her to live in the gorgeous apartment. At least not once his plans for them getting remarried had come into play. She wondered at what point he’d changed his mind on that, and decided to ask.

“After the third phone call in which you put off leaving for New York another day,” he replied to her question with more candor than she’d expected.

Maybe more honesty than he’d intended, too, by the look on his handsome face.

He’d been uncertain of her and decided to take measures not to feel that way again. She’d been right. The wedding wasn’t just about making her feel secure—it was about making him feel it, too.