Page 12 of Greek’s Christmas Heir

“Almost certainly not.” And Constance smiled at him then. It wasn’t that smile she’d been beaming around the church earlier. This one was as warm as it was tired, and it made him...want things he didn’t know how to name. It was another shade ofdisconcertingand he could not like it. But he also couldn’t seem to look away. “It’s been a long day. It’s actually been a lot of long days and I’m not sleeping well. I’m guessing neither one of you slick-looking folks knows a whole lot about pregnancy, but it’s...a lot. People say it’s a happy time, and I suppose that’s true, but you sleep less and less. Your body isn’t your own. Everything is very heavy and sluggish, and then you still have labor to look forward to. So, really, the only thing I understand is that everything you’re talking about isn’t going to matter to me at all once the contractions hit.”

There was not a single situation, in the entirety of his existence, when Anax had ever been treated to a lecture on pregnancy. Much less invited to think about thecontractionsthat would soon occur in the woman standing before him.

It occurred to him then that he was not used to women that he was not related to speaking to him in so frank a manner.

He should have found it disagreeable.

Yet he...did not.

“I don’t know what they told you at this clinic,” he said then, sidestepping thecontractionsdiscussion. “I assume they signed a great many documents and you did, too, but you see, all of them are based on a false premise. I never gave my permission. And so we find ourselves in a strange situation, you and me.” He held up a hand. “I’m not accusing you of anything. You did nothing wrong. But all the same, you are about to havemy child. I cannot pretend that that’s not happening.”

She rubbed her belly in a wide, circular motion. “I understand that.”

“I’m sure you already have a plan in place about how you are going to care for the child,” he continued, trying to sound as friendly and nonthreatening as possible, to start. “I would like my first offer, on Christmas Eve, to be my assurance that I will, of course, contribute in any way I can. I want to make certain that the child’s life is as easy as possible.”

“Oh.” She blew out a breath, and that seemed to take a minute. She put one hand at the small of her back. “That’s very nice of you. But I think I have everything I need.”

For a moment, they all stared at each other. Outside the doors, there were the sounds of spontaneous Christmas carols, conversations and laughter, and the pounding feet of running children.

No one moved.

“My brother is not offering you some extra diapers and babysitter,” Vasiliki said after a moment, and sharply. “He is astronomically wealthy. He can have a fleet of nannies and an expert medical team at your beck and call with a click of his fingers.”

Constance frowned at Anax’s fingers. “I have a midwife and friends. So.”

Vasiliki made an impatient noise. “You do not seem to grasp your situation. The child you are about to give birth to will be the sole heir to all that my brother has amassed in his lifetime. This child will inherit the entirety of my brother’s vast empire.”

“That does sound very fancy,” Constance said, and then laughed again. “Buck Lewiston calls himself the cow emperor of the county, but mostly folks laugh at that. There’s not much call for empires, if you want to know the truth. This is Iowa.”

“My brother has homes all over the planet,” Vasiliki said matter-of-factly. “Yet real estate is only a small portion of his portfolio. Anax is a billionaire, Ms. Jones. As the lucky woman who is producing the accidental heir to Anax’s fortune, this is your lucky day. But you don’t seem to grasp that.”

“I’ve always thought Christmas Eve is lucky by default.”

Constance still sounded as if she was laughing. Her eyes looked suspiciously bright. Was that laughter, Anax wondered, or sheer hysteria? Was the poor woman overset by her good fortune?

But she was still talking. “You’ll forgive me, butthisChristmas Eve doesn’t seem all that lucky. I was the oldest person in the nativity play by roughly twenty years. I was sharing space with a goat and a donkey and a ten-year-old boy, and I’m not sure which was the stinkiest. Happily, they were all pretty cute. But I’m not sure what your presence has to do with any of this.”

“As I have been at pains to make clear,” Vasiliki began.

Constance shook her head, just slightly, but it was definitive. Another glimpse of that other, more powerful version of her Anax thought he’d glimpsed before.

And shockingly, it actually worked. Vasiliki fell silent.

“I’m not sure what you want me to say,” Constance said in a quiet, firm sort of way. “It never occurred to me that I’d ever have occasion to deal with the father of this child. I’m not sure Iwantto deal, if that’s all the same to you.”

It was not all the same to Anax, as his presence here should have made more than obvious. But when Vasiliki looked as if she might be about to launch into attack mode, he called her off with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“It is a lot to take on,” he said, almost soothingly, to the woman before him. Who was still rubbing her belly, and was now shifting very slightly, side to side. “I apologize. But there is one pressing thing.”

“Somehow,” Constance said, she sounded almost dry, though she was smiling all the same, “I’m guessing that your pressing thing and my pressing thing are not the same.”

“I don’t want my child coming into the world illegitimate.”

Anax had intended to deliver this part of what he had to say differently. He’d expected her to be different, if he was honest. But instead she wasConstance, and he didn’t have it in him to follow the expected scripts.

He moved closer to her instead, and watched as her lips parted once more. Following an urge he would not have indulged under any other circumstance, he reached out and put his hand on her belly.

“Forgive me,” he said quietly. “But I’m still having trouble believing this is real.”

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