Page 9 of Greek’s Christmas Heir

He was even better looking up close, and that didn’t help. There was something about a gorgeous man. Not that she’d considered this in any serious way before, but they were just...too much, weren’t they? It was all too much, all thatrampant masculinitywhere most men were justthere.It was impossible to have any meaningful thoughts about it, or him, becausethe forceof it all was everywhere.

And he was absurd, and who had eyes like that, like smoke ringed with those impossibly sootylashes, and—

“You are Constance Jones, are you not?” he asked, though it sounded more like a command than a question.

And that was both a relief and a new bit of trouble. A relief, because it allowed her to stop that cascade of silly thoughts that she was slightly afraid had taken over her whole face, like a broadcast. But the trouble was, his voice was an epic journey all its own.

It was sogravelly. He had anaccent.

And the way he said her name made that shimmering thing stronger. Deeper.

“I am,” she said, though she would have said she was her own late grandmother if that was what he’d asked. This was not the sort of man a person denied. She cleared her throat, though it didn’t need clearing. “I am Constance Jones.”

She wasn’t prepared for the way he smiled, though that wasn’t the right word. It was not a kind smile. Nor was it a happy one. But it was a curve of his mouth, nonetheless, sensual and stern. It was a flash of those intoxicating eyes, smoke and a kind of fascination that made her bones feeloddinside her body.

“Then I am delighted to make your acquaintance,” he said then, in a way that made it perfectly clear to Constance thatdelighthad nothing to do with this. On his side, anyway. “I am Anax Ignatios. The father of your child.”

CHAPTER THREE

THISWOMAN—THEputative Mother Mary and mother of his child—gazed back at him as if he was an apparition. As if she was not sure he was truly standing before her at all.

“The father...?” she echoed, but it was as if the words only penetrated as she said them. Because it was then that her eyes widened and her lips parted, and for a moment, all she could seem to do was stare.

And it had been a great, encompassing fury that had driven Anax here. A fury that had taken him from his office in Athens, where Stavros had delivered the impossible news, across the planet in search of Delphine, and to that little clinic in a different part of what Americans called theirMidwest—presumably because there was so muchWestleft on either side. He had been focused on nothing else save the same driving need to see for himself. To see if it was true.

To handle this all himself, as if that might solve the problem.

Because, of course, it usually did.

But somehow, in all of this, he hadn’t really considered the woman herself.

He knew things about her. His sister had delivered those details to him—repeatedly. He could list off her stats from memory without any effort. He had been told that she was of medium height, medium build. Brown hair, brown eyes.

All that was true.

But none of that described her at all.

Maybe it was because he’d been jetting all over the world in a particular fury this time. That was nothing new to him. But very rarely were his emotions flying the plane, metaphorically speaking.

In point of fact, Anax preferred to behave as if he had never encountered an emotion in his life. Even though he knew the truth that most men seem to miss. Anger was the primary male emotion, and he had that in spades. He had never met a man who didn’t.

That didn’t mean he acted on his. He wasn’t an adolescent any longer.

And maybe it was because they were standing in a church and he had yet to burst into flame. It seemed that despite all the sins his mother had accused him of over the years, he was apparently not too profane to darken God’s door after all. He couldn’t wait to tell her.

But right now, in this overwarm church teeming with loud children and curious spectators, Anax found himself feeling...caught, somehow.

It didn’t make sense.

Then again, this Constance Jones didn’t make any sense either. She had pushed back the hood of the cloak she wore, in the typical blue to denote the Virgin Mary. Her hair was brown, yes, but it was a thick, rich dark brown that looked as if it might curl. Given the right encouragement. It was coiled on one side of her neck and braided loosely as it fell down over her shoulder. Her eyes were also brown, but it was a fascinating shade. Deep pools of that rich color, ringed in onyx. Like some kind of smoky quartz.

There he went again. Getting whimsical when he was a man known and feared for his relentless practicality.

He had never paid specific attention one way or another to pregnancy, or pregnant women. Why should he have? Butthiswoman was pregnant withhischild.

It was astonishing what a difference that made. He told himself that had to be the reason he kept...noticingher in all these ways.

Anax wanted to put his hands on her. He wanted to trace the shape of that enormous belly with his palms. He had the strangest urge to close the distance between them and press his mouth against the crest of that great mound where he knew his child rested—

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