Page 45 of The Tycoon's Affair: Tempted By Desire
With a spurt of agitation, Sidonie let her knife drop with a clatter to the plate. Alexio looked up, that gaze narrowed on her flushed face.
Sidonie stood up, feeling feverish. ‘I’ve had enough. Food.’God. She couldn’t even articulate a sentence.
Alexio looked as cool as a cucumber while Sidonie felt a bead of sweat trickle between her breasts.
He wiped his mouth with his napkin and said, ‘Coffee?’
Sidonie seized on the chance to escape that incisive gaze and nodded her head. ‘Some herbal tea, maybe...the housekeeper brought some today.’
Alexio got up and left the room. Cursing herself for this very unwelcome resurgence of desire, Sidonie went back into the drawing room to stand at the window. Praying for control. Praying that the butterflies in her belly would cease.
She put her hand on her belly and was half frowning at how strong the sensation was when she suddenly realised something. She gasped out loud.
A voice came from behind her, concerned. ‘What is it?’
Sidonie whirled around, alight with her discovery for a moment, forgetting everything else. ‘For a few days I’ve been feeling butterflies, but I thought it was—’
She stopped dead, because she’d been about to blurt outjust your effect on me.
She blushed and said, ‘It’s the baby. I can feel the baby moving...’
Alexio was holding out a cup towards her and she grabbed it before she could see the effect of her words on his face.
She had a sudden image of one of his hands splayed across her belly and said quickly, ‘It’s not strong enough yet for anyone else to feel...’
Sidonie took the cup and moved away, taking a sip to hide her burning face.
Alexio gritted his jaw at how Sidonie moved so skittishly away from him, that golden hair looking so much shinier and thicker now, down and shielding her face from him. In the space of only a few days of rest and being well fed she was already looking so much better. The hollows of her cheeks were filling out.
He felt as if he was going to snap soon with the tension building inside him. With every second that passed he wanted to turn into a feral animal and strip Sidonie bare and take her, sating himself and drowning out the recriminatory voices in his head.
But he couldn’t. She was pregnant. And she hated his guts.
She looked incredibly young now, in leggings and a loose T-shirt. Of course she’d refused his offers to get her some clothes, so her Tante Josephine had brought her some.
When he could finally move his gaze up from those slim shapely legs and over her belly, hidden under the loose material, to her face, she was looking at him with that aquamarine gaze, something determined in their depths.
‘Why did you have me investigated?’
Alexio put down his coffee cup onto a nearby table. Sidonie had her hands wrapped tightly around her own mug.
He looked into her eyes. He owed her this.
‘Because what happened between us made me nervous. Because I’d never taken a woman to Santorini before. Because for my whole life I’ve been cynical and when I was with you I forgot to be. And it freaked me out enough to think that by investigating you I’d still be in control.’
CHAPTER NINE
SIDONIEBLINKED. SHEtried to take his words in. Her belly felt as if it was dropping from a height, and she felt unsteady. ‘I’m...you hadn’t taken a woman there before?’
He shook his head, eyes intent on her reaction.
She couldn’t even hide it. She thought of something. ‘But...the clothes...I assumed they had belonged to other women...’ Sidonie felt very gauche now.
Alexio frowned and then emitted a disgusted, ‘Theos.You think I would do that? Buy a wardrobe full of clothes and just hope that they would fit a stream of women?’
Sidonie glared back at him, stung with embarrassment. ‘Well, how would I know? I thought that was some lovers’ bolthole.’
Alexio ran a hand through his hair and said, half to himself, ‘No wonder you sounded funny...and yet you didn’t say anything.’
