CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Iliana
“I’ll tell him tonight,” I promised Jennifer as she sat sorting through her things. Several days had passed since I peed on that stick, and she was set to leave on the day after tomorrow. “As long as you’re okay with all this. We can just tell him no and do something for just the two of us.”
“You need to tell him, Squeaks,” she said as she folded a t-shirt and placed it in her luggage. “And you’ve been avoiding it. I’m all for you telling him everything tonight. He deserves to know, and you deserve to have some real support when I’m gone. Plus, the things that Nate will be able to show me tonight seem pretty damn cool. No offense or anything.”
She was half-teasing me, though the behind-the-scenes access that Nate could offer her tonight was incredibly compelling.
Jenn didn’t want to leave me behind in Cassia — she’d made that clear since the moment we learned that I was pregnant. But she had her own final semester of graduate school to prepare for, and she’d earned herself a prestigious thesis workshop with an impossible-to-land theater director in town. She had to go. We both knew it.
“If things are bad enough, you can always come back to San Diego,” she said. “We can find some three-bedroom place and make it work for the time being if we have to. But you need to finish your master’s, and you should at least give the man a chance to be a dad.”
I was panicked at that last part, although either direction Sebastianos went had the option of scaring the crap out of me. In my mind, either he’d abandon me altogether, which was just depressing, or he’d take my baby from me and kick me out of the country, which was terrifying.
I’d run through the option of telling Sebastianos nothing a few times, mostly out of panic and in jest, and my best friend had wisely counseled me not to be an asshat.
“This is one of those big moments, girl,” she’d said when I mused about hiding myself in her luggage. “Your life is going to pivot one way or another, so maybe you should try to be in some sort of control when it happens. Or at least try to avoid turf toe and a face full of mud if things go south.”
Such a wise smart ass my best friend was.
So, there we were. Jenn getting a head start on her packing for her trip home and me panicking, wondering how on earth I was going to tell this man I hardly knew that we were going to have a child together in mid-February.
***
“My hand is turning purple,” Jenn hissed to me as we approached the plaza where Sebastianos and Nate were waiting for us. I was clinging to Jenn like my life depended on it, and to me, it did. In about a million scenarios I played out in my head, most of them ended with me somehow managing to get thrown into a dungeon or eaten by wolves. Or even worse… having my baby ripped from my arms. “At the end of the day, he’s just a man, Squeaks. Stop being so scared of him.”
I swallowed hard. “A man with a title and an entire division of security guards and police behind him,” I muttered, also noting this was the man who was known as The Runaway Duke for good reason. The man had literally run away from the responsibility of his royal role. Granted, he hadn’t been off drinking Mia Tias on some exotic beach. He’d been in the military, but still…
But that wasn’t enough for what was about to unfold between us tonight, I was certain.
Up ahead, I spotted Sebastianos as he stood beneath a giant Kermes oak tree that soared a good forty feet above him. He hadn’t seen us yet, and he was talking on his cell phone. I took the opportunity to get a good look at him, something I was mostly unable to do whenever he was close by because there were always people around.
Sebastianos Xenakis was damn handsome, and not for the first time since finding out I was having his baby, I wondered how much his good looks would influence what our child would look like.
I swallowed a lump against the “our child” notion, and with all my heart, wished for a more traditional route to motherhood. A doting partner. A traditional nursery. Maternity photos and baby showers.
This whole thing was bittersweet because, as I’d gotten used to being pregnant in the first place, I’d also resigned myself to the fact that I would likely be experiencing the whole gamut of childbirth and raising alone.
And that made me sad for a lot of reasons.
“Chin up,” Jenn whispered as Sebastianos noticed us approaching and smiled. He ended his call and headed in our direction. “You got this.”
I’d gone back and forth over the past twelve hours about just how I would approach the dropping of this bombshell. Was I going to just blurt it out the first chance I got? Probably not. Wait until the last possible moment? More likely than not.
My biggest hurdle was that I didn’t know Sebastianos well enough to really segue into that sort of conversation.
Maybe I’d say, “Like kids?” Or something along that line. To which he’d have to affirm that he did or didn’t, leaving me the opening I was looking for. Like, “Surprise, you’re going to have one!” Or worse, “Surprise, you’re going to have one anyway!”
It just didn’t work.
“Let go of my hand now, Squeaks,” Jenn whispered through clenched teeth, and I realized I was still holding on to her for dear life.
Nate approached from the right, holding an envelope in his hand. Jenn noticed and asked him about it.
“The credentials we’ll need for tonight,” he explained, and Jenn looked even more excited than before.
She looked over at me, her eyes wide. “I’m going places that need credentials, Squeaks,” she said with all the excitement of someone given a VIP pass to the entire capital city.
I couldn’t help but smile as she gave me an excited hug and followed Nate to his waiting car. She cast one final, weighted look at me, as if to remind me of my mission for the night. My weak smile probably wasn’t reassuring, but it was the best I could do as I panicked at the thought of her leaving me alone to deliver the news to Sebastianos.
For his part, the poor man looked about as oblivious as could be as he gave me a warm, stomach-tilting smile.
“You look beautiful,” he said as he offered me his arm. Being Sebastianos, he was naturally wearing a classic button-down shirt, this one black, and gray pants. He looked casual and sharp all at the same time, and I couldn’t help but look down at my little sundress and sandals and wish I’d dressed up a little more.
“Thank you,” I said, remembering myself.
In the distance, the center of Abingson was all café lights and cobblestone at night, and it looked straight off the set of some romantic comedy movie. There were no cars allowed in that part of the capital city after six p.m. to allow for the restaurant and nightclub crowd to maneuver safely around.
But we didn’t head that way.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” Sebastianos said, taking my hand and linking it through his elbow as we walked. My heart raced, and I was grateful that the man didn’t have superhuman hearing or he’d have picked up on the fact that my pulse was galloping now that I was touching him.
It raced even more as I realized he was walking us toward the water. And a boat. A big boat.
“This belonged to my father, but don’t worry, we won’t set sail. There’s just so few places I can dine without causing a stir that I thought you might appreciate something more private.”
The yacht was massive, and as we walked up the ramp, I looked down onto the water that twinkled with the lights from the city and from the boat itself.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, taking it in before remembering I had another thing to ask before unleashing the tidal wave of news. “One thing, though.”
He lifted a brow. “What’s that?”
“I accidentally forgot the phone Thierry has me using in the throne room yesterday.” I didn’t tell him that whenever he was around, my brain took long, disengaging naps. “Is there any chance we can grab it before I go home tonight? I don’t want to lose it.”
“Distracted by my dashing presence were you?” There was a gleam in Seb’s smile that was infectious, and I couldn’t help but grin back.
“You wish,” I replied, shaking my head, but he agreed to take me to the palace later to get the phone. Since I wasn’t on the schedule for the weekend, I couldn’t just pop in like I would a normal workplace to retrieve it, and this would save me the embarrassment of needing to be admitted to the throne room on Monday morning.
Sebastianos was surprisingly open as we talked over the meal of steak and seafood along with regional specialties with names I could barely pronounce.
There was enough food for an army, which was good because I was suddenly starving again, and the smell of the seafood only made me hungrier, not sick.
This whole morning sickness thing was weird. For one, because it didn’t just happen in the morning. And two, I didn’t always know what would set me off.
“My father was the Duke of Becktonas until he died a few months ago, leaving the title and all of the responsibilities to me.”
“Were you close?”
He nodded. “Mostly. He wasn’t thrilled when I joined the military all those years ago because he wanted me closer to the palace, to help with those duties, but I wasn’t interested. Eventually, he warmed up to what I wanted to do with my life and was supportive.”
Sebastianos asked about my family, though I suspected he knew a lot more than he let on thanks to his clearance and nosy nature.
“Dad left Cassia for college and never came back,” I said. “He and my mom are basically nomads. Always have been.”
Sebastianos pushed a bite of gooey dessert around his plate and looked up at me. “But not you?”
I didn’t have an easy answer for that. “I suppose I was by default for so many years because I was young and went where they went.” I gave the question even more thought before continuing. “Honestly, I think I’d prefer a little more stability and a home base I can come back to.”
“But you don’t have a home base to come back to now, right?”
I smiled at that. Sebastianos had obviously been paying attention that night in the Green Dragon when I drunkenly told him all about packing up my house and moving.
“Not at the moment.”
I looked at my phone and noted the late hour. Buses ran late on the weekends, but I was pushing my luck if I wanted to get the palace phone and have a ride back to the manor after he tossed me out on my ear.
“Do you think we could get that phone now?”
Sebastianos frowned, searching my face like he wanted to ask me something important. But instead of asking, he stood, offering me his arm.
I thanked the staff for such a lovely meal before he escorted me off the yacht and into a sporty little car I hadn’t seen earlier.
I laughed. “They let you drive?”
He grimaced, pointing over at a large SUV sitting behind us. “Sort of.”
His smile returned, but I could tell he didn’t appreciate being trailed after everywhere he went. He started the car, and the engine roared to life.
“I bet you could lose them,” I challenged, bobbing my eyebrows up and down.
He pressed the gas, revving the engine, and the vibration of the powerful engine passed through me. “I bet you’re right.”
Then we were off, the g-force from his acceleration pressing me back into my seat. By the time we reached the road, I was laughing. So was he.
I was afraid he wouldn’t be laughing in a little while.
***
The drive over to the palace was short. His vehicle was a sporty little two-seater that had roll bars over the top of the headrests, and as much as I was trying not to constantly think about this whole pregnant-with-his-child thing, I couldn’t help but think that no guy with a car like this was in the market for a kid.
“What’s on your mind tonight?” he asked as we stopped to let some pedestrians cross the narrow street.
I glanced over at him, wondering if I’m pregnant was stamped on my forehead. “What do you mean? I’m fine.”
I mean, I really was fine. Preoccupied a little maybe. Or a lot.
He just shook his head, his thumb stroking the steering wheel, making me remember how that thumb had stroked me. All of me.
“I know we don’t know each other that well yet, Iliana, but I can tell something is bugging you lately,” he said. “You’re all closed up. More than normal, anyway.”
I couldn’t help but cling to the fact that he said the word yet in that sentence. Sighing in frustration at myself for these ridiculous girly thoughts, I kept up with my denial.
“I don’t mean to be,” I said, trying to keep my voice light and a smile on my lips. I probably looked like I was baring my teeth at him, but I was doing the best I could. “I’ve never been much of a cheerleader sort of person, so if you prefer to be around someone who talks a lot, you might want to find someone else to hang out with.”
He frowned, and I realized I’d sounded defensive, but deep down, I was just being honest. One of the downsides to traveling so much as a kid was that I got used to keeping myself company, and I didn’t get close to many people because I didn’t want to feel the pain of losing them.
Instead of pressing, Sebastianos just winked at me and concentrated on navigating his little rocket car through Abingson and into the palace gates that opened automatically at his car’s approach.
“Geez,” I muttered under my breath, thinking it was quiet enough for him not to hear. Wrong.
“Jealous, intern?”
Sebastianos was grinning at me, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “A little,” I said with a shrug. “This guard smiles at you, at least. The guard at the pedestrian gate refuses to recognize me from one day to the next and makes me go through the whole I’m an intern, here are my credentials spiel every morning.”
Sebastianos chuckled as he pulled his car into an underground parking garage I didn’t even know existed. The other cars parked in neat rows looked like they had about four layers of armored steel on them.
“Nice,” I said, appreciating the sheer brute force these cars could endure if necessary.
Sebastianos was out of the little car and around to my side before I even had my seatbelt off. He held his hand out, and my heart began to pound as mine was engulfed by his and he helped me out of the low vehicle.
Vibrations of electricity passed through me at the touch. I thought he felt it too, because he just stared down at me for a long moment before turning and placing his hand on the small of my back, steering me into the palace.
“Evening, Charles,” Sebastianos said to a man at yet another guard station. I tried to move out of his grip in case the guard got the wrong idea. I didn’t want to cause rumors.
“Your Grace,” the guard said with a shallow bow.
“Celebrities,” I said with a sigh as we neared the elevators.
Sebastianos chuckled. “Interns,” he shot back.
It was pretty convenient moving through a high-security place like Riniasa Palace with a cardholding member of the royal family. I even mentioned it to Sebastianos as we waited for a guard to open the throne room.
“Your access badge is almost convenient enough to consider keeping you around.”
The words were out of my mouth before I realized I’d said them. They were a joke, and while the guard shot me a surprised look, Sebastianos chuckled. “I think I’ll keep you around for entertainment value if nothing else.”
Stepping inside the throne room, I was once again taken by the grandeur, make even more so by the low lighting of the evening. Forcing myself to move, I headed straight to the side tables and chairs, finding the phone where it’d dropped to the floor behind the center table.
Stooping to pick it up, I was forced to halfway crawl under the damn thing to snag it, hoping my dress hadn’t crept up too much and was exposing my ass.
Making quick work of the phone rescue, I crawled back out and stood. “Found—”
I turned straight into Sebastianos, who had come to stand directly behind me. His hands moved to my shoulders to steady me, and all the oxygen from the universe left the room.
Here, Sebastianos Xenakis looked a lot less like the Duke of Becktonas and a lot more like the Adonis Butt guy from the Green Dragon. He had a fire in his eyes that made them practically glow, and the longer he stood there, looking at me in complete silence, the hotter my internal temperatures seemed to be rising.
“Seb…” I didn’t know how to form the words that needed to follow.
The hands on my shoulders moved up my throat until his warm palms were pressed to my face. “Ana…”
He kissed me.
Of course he kissed me because the world would have surely stopped rotating if he hadn’t.
The kiss was a necessity, and I found myself reaching for him, my hands circling his neck to draw him even closer. This was air. This was life. Nourishment I didn’t realize I needed.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” he whispered against my lips. “So. Damn. Long. Why have you invaded my every waking thought, Iliana? My dreams too.”
If I’d been smart, I would have pulled away. I would have addressed the tiny bean-sized elephant in the room.
I wasn’t smart. The very stupid Iliana needed another kiss. Just one more, I promised myself.
Then my hands were in his hair and his hand on my breast, and I couldn’t breathe from the need that was coursing through me.
Maybe just one more night with him, I reasoned to myself. One more night before he tossed me out of his life.
“I need you.”
His words struck something deep inside me, a cord of longing that vibrated through my every cell.
“I need you too.” He didn’t know how much. Couldn’t know. I should have stopped and told him. He deserved to know before this went any further. Pulling myself back into reality, I took a deep breath. “But first, I need to tell you something.”
He hauled me up against him, walking me backward until I was pressed into the wall. “Tell me later.”
“But—”
His mouth covered mine again.
I was lost. Completely lost.
My head was spinning when he growled into my mouth, “Come with me.”
Taking my hand, he led me from the throne room and to a little elevator I’d never noticed before. The moment it opened, we were inside and he was kissing me again. I barely heard the ding before he was hauling me out and down a long hallway leading to the private royal quarters.
Stopping outside a regal set of double doors, he turned to me. “Do you want to be with me again?”
There was desperation in his tone, even as he took the moment necessary to assure this was also what I wanted. He might have a debauchery side, but Sebastianos was also a good man.
I knew what I should have said. I should have told him that I did, but that we needed to talk first. But the fear… oh god the fear of telling him made me want to hide the truth for a few moments longer.
No, I couldn’t. I needed to tell him.
“Yes, Seb. I want this too. I—”
I need to tell you something first.
Those words were lost in my brain as he pulled me to him, his mouth on mine again as he carried me through the door.
We were lips and teeth, skin and warmth, clashing in the darkness as we tumbled around furniture, and I giggled at the sheer clumsiness of it all.
“I love the sound of your laugh.”
I didn’t know why, but it was one of the most romantic things anyone had ever said to me, and tears pricked my eyes at the reality of how very special this man was to me.
“I also love the sound of your moans.”
His lips moved to my throat, pulling another one from me.
“The sound of your voice when you scream my name.”
As he carried me down a hallway, I had a feeling he would be rewarded with that sound very, very soon.
“Chemistry,” I murmured.
He sank his teeth into my lower lip. “Yes, chemistry.”
It might have been the perfect opening to explain how his chemistry and my chemistry had mixed to form a new biological being, but he was laying me down on cotton so soft it felt like silk and all thought of conversation melted away.
He rolled, pulling me on top of him, and reached for the nightstand, picking up a remote. With a click of a button, the blinds closed and the nightstand lights began to glow.
I grinned. “Fancy.”
“I wanted to see you.”
From what little I could see of his bedroom, Sebastianos preferred his surroundings clean, luxurious, and modern. And the place smelled like him too. The spice and the woodsy scent I remembered from that first night had haunted me over the past few weeks, and now it was everywhere, drowning me in its depths.
“I want to see you too.”
Sitting up, I straddled him and began to work on the buttons of his shirt, watching as inch by inch of man flesh was exposed. Taking in every swell and valley, I wondered how a man as busy as Sebastianos had the time to dedicate to keep muscles like this. He was like a work of art carved from marble, and my hands moved over the smooth plane of his pecs.
In turn, he gripped the hem of my dress. “Arms up.”
I complied, and soon the dress was up and off, then tossed onto the floor.
His hands smoothed up my arms and to my shoulders, stopping at the straps of my black lacy bra.
“You make me contradict myself, Iliana. One moment I want inside you so badly, I feel as if I might explode if I don’t hurry. And in the next moment, I want to take my time.”
His hands moved to my breasts, pulling down the cups of the bra to expose them to his gaze. My nipples were already hard. He squeezed, and I gasped at how sensitive my breasts had already become.
He growled. “So fucking responsive.”
Before I could respond, he pulled me up his body until he could take a nipple into his mouth.
He was fire. I felt him everywhere we connected, and the result was electric.
All I could do was hold on as he licked and sucked, biting at my sensitive flesh until an orgasm began to build from this alone, which was new.
“I think I might come just from this,” I breathed and felt him smile against my breast, then felt his hand move between my legs. “Oh…”
The man was a veritable orgasm vending machine, and he delivered me my first on a freaking gold-plated platter.
I exploded. Shattered.
Maybe it was the pregnancy that made it more intense. Or maybe it was my simple need to be held by this man again, but the orgasm was so violent, my vision turned white at the edges.
Then I was on my back, and my panties were being dragged down my legs even as I continued to tremble from the onslaught.
His mouth found the center of me, and the touch was so unexpected and so filled with electrical shock I jolted several inches up the bed. He followed, clamping his arms around my thighs as his tongue found me again.
I scrabbled for something to hold on to, settling on his hair, pulling at it as he feasted on my body.
“Seb!”
He growled, taking my clit between his teeth, using his tongue to stroke the overly stimulated nerve endings. “Τόσο γλυκό.”
So damn sweet.
I smiled as I understood his words, then cried out. It was too much but at the same time, never enough. And when he entered me with his fingers, I arched as they twisted, scraping the deepest parts of me.
I exploded again, and my breasts ached with it. My eyes closed as I fought not to scream. Taking my breasts in my own hands, I squeezed them flat against my chest, as if that simple gesture might hold me together as he continued to thrust his fingers and bite my clit, not stopping until I exploded again.
Then he was gone, just far enough to kick off his pants. He pulled a condom from his pocket first and tossed it beside me.
The sight of it made me half laugh and half sob.
“What’s wrong?”
Still rung out from the orgasms, I struggled to clear my brain. I should tell him now. This had already gone too far.
Pushing myself up, he came to stand in front of me, and his hand moved to my hair.
His beautiful cock was so hard, it rose to his belly button. Before I realized I was moving, I licked up the vein, not stopping until the taste of his pre-cum filled my mouth.
It was his turn to moan, and when I looked up at him, I saw the desperation in his eyes.
I couldn’t tell him now.
I’m pregnant, enjoy the blue balls.
But there was something else in his eyes too. Tenderness. It was that emotion that nearly undid me. Tears filled my eyes.
Not wanting him to see, I stroked him up the long shaft, using both hands so I could completely encircle him.
I’d tell him.
But I’d pleasure him first.