Greek Pregnancy Clause

In fact, the last time she’d been anywhere near tipsy it had been with…

Her gaze flicked to Ares as she wondered if he remembered that night on her seventeenth birthday, when they’d sneaked out at midnight and sat on the cliff-edge with a stolen bottle of her father’s Dom Perignon. How they’d lain on the grass, the backs of their hands touching under the canopy of stars with the raging waters beneath their feet. How they’d whispered their hopes and dreams to one another.

Did he think of her at all? Had he spent a single moment on what if?

‘Does it hurt?’

She started, then followed his gaze to her reddened wrist, where imprints of Vincenzo’s cruel hold were already proclaiming her fate if she didn’t find a way out of this nightmare.

‘Um…not really.’

His face darkened, hazel eyes turning molten bronze. ‘Either it does or it doesn’t. Which is it?’ he grated, not bothering to keep his voice down.

‘Okay, it’s a little sore,’ she muttered, hyper-aware that they were the centre of very speculative attention—especially from Vincenzo Bartorelli.

She tensed when, after a moment of dark observation, the older man started across the room, his destination unmistakable.

Panic rising, she turned to Ares. ‘Can I talk to you?’

One jet-black eyebrow lifted. ‘What makes you think we have anything worth saying to each other? I’m only here because of—’

‘Your father. I know. But…’ She swallowed, wondering if she shouldn’t find another way between the rock barrelling towards her and this man who’d disappeared from her life once already. But the sands of time were fast slipping through her fingers. Ares might be a devil, but at this point he was the lesser of two evils.

‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘It’s important.’

A mix of curiosity, censure and suspicion darted across his face. Her heart squeezed, threatening to mourn, because there’d once been a time when only curiosity and amused interest dashed with the intoxicating and forbidden had existed there.

‘Important to you, perhaps. Not to me.’

His gaze flickered past her to where his father was speaking to the butler, another man who’d been in the Santella household since long before Odessa was born.

‘I don’t intend to be here long enough for whatever—’

‘Odessa. A moment of your time?’ Vincenzo interrupted, a hard edge in his tone.

Her heart plummeted. She knew what was about to happen. She’d heard whispers of it, and seen enough of Flávio and Vincenzo’s clandestine meetings in the past week to know.

She darted an imploring gaze at Ares, uncaring if he read the naked plea in her eyes. He didn’t say a word…not for a long stretch of time that shredded every nerve in her body.

Then, when she thought she’d have no choice but to seal her fate by publicly refusing Vincenzo, Ares bit out tightly, ‘It’ll have to wait. Odessa’s wrist is sore. It needs immediate attention. So if you’ll excuse us…’

It wasn’t a request for permission. It was a pointed barb that struck true from the look on Vincenzo’s reddened face as his gaze dropped to where he’d gripped her so mercilessly.

He opened his mouth, no doubt either to excuse himself or to belittle Ares’s comment. Either way, he wasn’t given the chance.

‘Shall we?’

At her nod, Ares’s firm fingers wrapped around her elbow and he led her towards the closest door.

Relief lightened her feet—until reality set in. She had the opening she sought, but she was nowhere near home free. There was still a mountain to climb.

But as she walked beside the man she’d once thought would be hers for ever, she knew there was no going back. There was no way she would marry Vincenzo Bartorelli.

If she didn’t succeed, she’d simply have to find another way. She would rather die than live beneath another man’s thumb.

With uncanny accuracy, considering he hadn’t stepped foot inside this house for over a decade, and even back then he’d rarely been permitted indoors, Ares led her down two long corridors, bypassing her father’s study to enter the small library.

Unlike most rooms in the Santella mansion it was nondescript, almost bordering on simplistically pleasant. It had been her mother’s favourite room only because her father had hated it and spent the least money on it in his grand villa plans.