The Greek's Pregnant Lover (12 page)

Piper’s expression lit up as she unfolded her crossed arms and gave him a bright smile. “Hi, Zee. I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

“I got word Arthur Bellingham was in Seattle.” He gave the other man a once-over, not impressed with what he saw. Piper had been married to this? “I had a feeling he’d come crying to you rather than be a man and face me himself.”

“Be a man?” Art asked in outrage. “I’ve never even met you, Mr. Nikos. How would I get an appointment?”

“Did you try calling my secretary?”

Art checked as if the idea had not occurred. “No.”

“She has instructions to put your call through.”

“You’ve given your secretary instructions about Art?” Piper asked, clearly attempting to assimilate that knowledge with her heretofore stated belief Zephyr had nothing to do with the shift in Très Bon’s reputation.
“You had some kind of travel alert set on him, too?”

Zephyr shrugged, not as relaxed as he wanted to appear. “I am a thorough man.”

“You’re a petty tyrant, is what you are,” Art said, blotchy color rising in his face.

The man was every bit the idiot Zephyr had thought him. “Calling me names isn’t the best way to try to get on my good side.”

“Once you’ve set a course of action, you don’t change it. There is no getting on your good side,” the dissipated-looking designer huffed.

“I almost have to respect your foresight in not trying the rational one-businessman-to-another approach.”

“Once I realized you were the man behind the fall of my company’s reputation in the international development community, I did my research. Words like
stubborn, highly intelligent, ruthless
and
deceptively charming
are used to describe you.
Reasonable
is not.”

“But I am a reasonable man.”

“You always have been with me,” Piper agreed with a smile.

“Of course you would say that,” Art sneered. “You two are obviously having an affair.”

“We are engaged to be married,” Zephyr said in dangerous tones the other man would do well not to ignore, “not having an affair.”

“Well, congratulations.” Sarcasm dripped from every syllable.

“Thank you.” Zephyr did sardonic truth up there with the best of them. “That happy news aside, I did not express my less than favorable opinion of your unimaginative and overpriced design firm for Piper’s sake.”

“Right,” Art said sarcastically.

“Had you not done your level best to destroy not only your marriage, but also any hope of ongoing friendship with Piper as well, she probably would never have left New York.”

“That’s true,” Piper added with a look that could only be termed sentimental.

Zephyr smiled at her. “I’m glad you came to Seattle.”

“Me, too.”

Art made a disgusted sound. “And you’re trying to say you did not destroy my company because of her.”

“Only indirectly. I demand the best, isn’t that right,
yineka mou
?”

Piper nodded, looking no less perplexed. “Yes.”

“You are the best.”

“Thank you.” Her lovely blue eyes began to gleam with understanding.

“If I had gone with the recommendation of one of my colleagues based on things he had heard as a result of Arthur Bellingham’s very real smear campaign against you in New York, I would not have hired you for that first job.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I spoke to local clients you had worked with and visited properties you’d finished, but most importantly, I liked the proposal you gave me for my own project better than anyone else’s,” Zephyr disclosed.

“So, what was the problem?” Art demanded, showing a real lack of understanding his offense, even after Zephyr explained it.

“Your lies almost cost me the work of a fantastic designer.”

“So, you decided to destroy my business?”

“Are you an idiot? I did not destroy your business. I merely helped you along in the process.” But would Piper see it that way, as well?

“You utterly
ruthless
bastard!” Art rasped in a low voice.

He could not deny it. He was ruthless and he was a bastard. His only real concern was how his new fiancée responded to this particular truth. “At least I’m an honest one. Unlike your creative dealing with the truth, I never once said something about your firm that wasn’t true. I
wouldn’t
hire Très Bon for one of my properties. You
are
overextended financially and have been for years. Your designs
are
unimaginative. And
you do
have a reputation for finishing a project over budget and late.”

Art sniffed superiorly, an effort that was completely wasted on his audience. “That has never bothered my clients in the past.”

“You mean they tolerated your shoddy business practices in order to attach the name of Très Bon to their buildings.”

“It was a name worth having before you set out to destroy it.”

“Your uncle and grandfather ran a decent, if conservative design firm. You’ve been doing your best to destroy their work with bad business decisions since taking over ten years ago.”

“Don’t you care about the people that are going to be out of work when Très Bon folds?” the other man asked, appealing to Piper, rather than Zephyr.

But it was Zephyr who answered. “Did you care about Piper having to leave New York, her career in tatters?”

“She’s just one person!”

Yes, definitely an idiot. “And you lied about her.”

“I
knew
it was about Pip.”

Zephyr winced at the name and looked at Piper. “Do you like that ridiculous nickname?”

“No. I already told him not use it, but as usual with Art, he didn’t listen to me.” She sounded mildly annoyed, but it was the lack of expression on her face that concerned Zephyr.

“If he had, his business might not be in trouble right now.”

“She left, not me!”

Piper frowned at her ex, but no real anger shined in her eyes. “I left because you cheated on me and then fired me when I filed for divorce.” There was no real heat in her words, just a weary-sounding truth.

Art’s glare wasn’t so insouciant. “You didn’t used to be vindictive.”

“I’m not vindictive now.”

“Then get him to stop.” Art contrived to sound desperate and pleading. He even said, “Please.”

Zephyr barked out a laugh and she looked at him with a question in her eyes. “Your ex is quite the actor.”

“Oh, I think he’s every bit as despairing as he sounds and frankly, I understand why,” Piper responded.

“You feel sorry for him?” Zephyr demanded incredulously, his worry ratcheting up a notch.

“I know what it’s like to have your career ripped away by the careless words of someone else. I’d never wish that on even my worst enemy.”

“I have no problem wishing it on him,” Zephyr admitted in the spirit of complete honesty.

“Obviously.” She did not sound particularly condemning, but nor did she sound approving.

He couldn’t help morbidly wondering if their relationship was going to survive the revelation of the ruthless aspect to his nature. Though was it a revelation? She’d known his plans to fight for majority custody without him ever having to voice them.

Zephyr turned cold eyes onto the other man. “What did you hope to gain by coming here?”

Art looked like he was trying to decide how honest to be. Finally, shoulders slumped, he said, “Ideally Piper would convince you to say you’d been mistaken about my firm.”

“I do not lie.” And he sure as hell hoped she would not ask him to.

“I’d settle for you calling off the dogs.” Like he had any room to negotiate.

That was the most the other man could ask from Zephyr, but the request came with an inherent error in thinking. “I have not set any dogs on you. I did not have to.” It really had been just a comment here and there.

He certainly hadn’t offered favors for passing the word along.

“So you’ve implied. Everything is my fault, according to you.”

“That is how I see it.”

“So, you aren’t going to do anything to help me?” he asked Piper rather than Zephyr once again.

This time Zephyr let her answer.

“I don’t know what I can do,” she said.

“You could come back to work for Très Bon.”

It was all Zephyr could do not to bark out a decisive, “Hell, no,” but he respected and trusted Piper to get the point across on her own.

“Not in this lifetime.” There wasn’t even an ounce of maybe in her voice.

Art waved his hand, dismissing her denial. “Think about it, we can open up a West Coast office and you can head it up.”

“I’m not even flirting with interested.” Piper was no slouch at sarcasm herself.

“Then, I guess there’s nothing to do but claim bankruptcy and lay off all of Très Bon’s employees.”

Zephyr’s disgust meter reached red levels. “Don’t be a melodramatic ass. A halfway decent management consultant could pull your company out of the red with a stringent reorganization and consolidation of resources.”

“Not if you keep blacklisting us.”

Zephyr flicked a look at Piper and then back to the other man. “In future, you tell the truth about Piper’s talent and abilities and I’ll do my best to avoid having to tell the truth about yours.”

“I guess that’s the best I’m going to get.”

“I could suggest a consultant for your reorg.” See him be reasonable.

“I’ll find my own consultant and my own way out.” Art turned on his heel, his former bravado pulled around him like a tacky suit, and left.

“Man, you guys are better than the soaps,” Brandi said, a color board in each hand. “I just wanted to check these were the ones we planned for this design.”

“Yes, those are the ones.” Piper rubbed her forehead, fatigue clear on her features. She had not gotten enough sleep the night before to make up for her sleepless night away from him. “I’ll be gone for the rest of the day. If you need to contact me, call my cell.”

“Like always, boss. No worries.” She went back to the work area.

Piper sighed. “She thinks she’s Aussie and she’s never even been out of the States.”

“The idea of moving to Greece should appeal.”

“If I asked her to, I’m sure it would.”

That did not sound good. Something cold settled in his gut. “So, you are not planning to ask?”

“I’ve done all the discussing of my private life in my place of business I want to for today. Let’s go.”

He wasn’t about to argue. If she was going to tell him she had changed her mind about marrying him, he would rather hear it somewhere he had a chance at changing her mind. Somewhere private.

When they got to her apartment, Zephyr had his emotional game face on. The one that showed nothing except humor when he wanted it to. Piper wasn’t sure what made him draw into himself like that, but she wasn’t going to let the visit from Art drive a wedge between them. If seeing her ex had done one thing, it had driven home to her how lucky she was to have a man like Zephyr in her life now.

His sense of justice was a little overdeveloped, but that was better than being a man who not only lied to others, but also to himself. Like Art.

Thinking how to best handle the emotionless vibes coming off her sexy fiancé, she sighed and stopped in front of her door. “We forgot something when you came into my shop earlier.”

“What was that?” he asked with a weariness she did not understand.

“To kiss.”

“You want me to kiss you?”

He really had to ask? “Yes.”

“I can do that.”

“It wouldn’t say much for our upcoming nuptials if you couldn’t,” she sassed.

Morphing into a sensual predator before her eyes, he pushed her against the apartment door with his body, one hand on either side of her head. “You know what I’ve noticed lately?”

“No, what?” Was that breathless voice hers?

“You’ve got a real thing for getting the last word.”

She would have answered that, but his lips were in the way.

A
ND
very nicely, too. She loved this side of him and didn’t really care what that said about her.

He didn’t rush the kiss and neither did she. Of one accord, they broke apart to turn together to unlock and open the door. Once through, Zephyr made sure it was shut and locked again before leaning back against it with her in front of him.

His hold said one thing. Talking could wait. Everything but this intense pleasure between them
would
wait.

He leaned down and sucked up a pleasure mark on her neck while his hands skimmed down the front of her body, only to sweep up again, bringing the hem of her shirt along the way. His fingertips brushed against the smooth skin of her torso.

She writhed against his hard body, reveling in the feel of his erection pressing into her back. “Yes, Zee, touch me.”

His hands cupped her breasts, squeezing lightly in nothing short of a tease.

“More, you know I want more.” And he loved it when she told him so. She’d discovered that fact early in their relationship.

“Do you,
yineka mou
?”

“You know.”

He kissed all around her ear and whispered, “Oh, yes, I do know.”

His hands slid inside her bra to play with her nipples as he
nibbled on the supersensitive spot behind her ear, laving shimmering nerve endings with his tongue.

She pressed back against him harder, her feminine center aching for the attention he was showing to the rest of her body.

Proving he was really adept at reading her mind, one of his hands moved down to undo her trousers. Her body knew what that meant and hot liquid gushed between her legs as her entire body thrummed with a new level of nascent desire. He pushed fabric down her hips without ceremony along with her panties. She stepped out of the pile of blue linens and silk, not caring that she still wore the high-heeled sandals she’d had died blue to match this particular outfit.

His rogue hand slid right over her mound and then long, knowing fingers were playing a symphony on her clitoris, drawing it into swollen sensitivity.

She arched toward the touch, a mewling sound that would have embarrassed her if she was not so turned on coming from her throat. He played her right through to a shocking, intense, early orgasm.

Only then did he start taking his own clothes off. It all got really hectic then and somehow she ended up leaning, with her hands on the back of the couch, her legs spread, and still wearing her heels.

He pushed his big sex into her now pulsing depths, eliciting moans and groans from her as well as unrestrained pleas for more, more and more.

So darn good. “How can it always get better?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.” He started a driving rhythm that would have sent her right over the back of the couch if he didn’t have both arms around her.

One hand continued to toy with her breasts and stomach while the other kept up constant stimulation to her clitoris.

She was screaming with her second orgasm as he roared out his climax inside her, long, sweaty, strenuous minutes later.

Afterward, he cajoled her into the shower, where they washed
each other with as much pleasure as making love. She adored the domestic intimacy of showering together. It was one of the things that said most clearly to her that they were a couple.

They were making dinner together in her small kitchen when he said, “I thought you were going to back out of marrying me.”

So, that was what had him behaving strangely earlier. “For heaven’s sake, why?”

“You have seen my ruthless side and what it can lead to.”

“I always knew you could be ruthless, but I have to admit I have a hard time reconciling the man I’ve come to love with one who would set out destroy someone else’s reputation.” She leaned up to kiss his jaw.

He turned away, tension radiating in every inch of his sixfoot, three-inch frame. “You never asked me about my father.”

“You know who your biological father is?” she asked in shock. She’d just assumed his mother had not known which of her clients had sired her oldest son.

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t make a meal of it.” She pulled him around to face her. “Tell me.”

“If you talked to the other men of his class, they would tell you he was a respected olive grove owner from an honorable family who was lucky in his investments. Only he and his wife had luxurious tastes in living that could not be supported with his olive income. He made investments, but not of the respectable kind.”

“What do you mean?”

“He invested in a stable of women, and yes, that is what he called them. He treated them as well as he would horses, I suppose. He provided for their physical needs, while expecting them to serve his customers. And him. My mother was his favorite. He was the only man allowed to copulate with her without using a condom.”

“He kept her working for him, even after she had his son?” What a prince…
not
.

“He did not recognize me as such. Not until I was older and he realized his legitimate wife was never going to give him an heir for the family’s grove. He came to the home with the intention of claiming me. He thought I would be grateful he wanted to ‘adopt’ me.”

“What a morally corrupt, not to mention selfish,
slimeball
.” Her heart ached for the child Zephyr had been and for the man whose ability to trust and love had been so damaged.

“That’s how I saw it. I had no intention of playing dutiful son to a man who treated my mother like a commodity and was content to leave me in an orphanage for years.”

“That’s when you and Neo ran away from the home, isn’t it?”

“Yes. He’d had much looser restrictions on him while living with his mother, before she died. The home felt like a prison to him.”

“So, you two took off together.”

“And helped each other build lives as far from the ones we’d been born to as it was possible to get.”

“You both succeeded admirably.”

“Yes.”

But she was still interested in what had made him go tense. “So, you brought your dad up for a reason right now.”

“You are right.” He sighed and tried looking away again.

She wouldn’t let him. “Tell me.”

“When I was in a position to do so, I made sure the truth of his
investments
was brought to light.”

Ah, that made sense. “That ruthless side of yours showing itself.”

“Yes.”

“Did he go to jail?”

“
Ohi
…no, he had money. He paid his way out of trouble, but he couldn’t pay his respectable wife to stay with him. In a true twist of irony, he ended up married to one of his prostitutes and she’s given him two children. Both daughters. She rules the home every bit as
ruthlessly
as he used to rule his
‘stable.’” He stopped, his body going rigid, an expression of horror crossing his features. “We are not inviting them to the wedding. The girls are too young to know who or what I am and I have no interest in recognizing that pimp as my father.”

She shuddered. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t even consider it.”

Relief showed on his face. “So.”

“So?”

He looked at her like he couldn’t quite figure out what was going on in her head. Since that was usually her role, she got an inappropriate little thrill from seeing the shoe on the other foot for a change.

“I am a very ruthless guy.” He made it sound like that was some big revelation.

“It’s a little disturbing,” she said, unable to resist the urge to tease a little.

“Disturbing enough to make you question your decision to marry me?”

She refused to treat this like a serious question. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether there are any other people you feel the need to ‘tell the truth’ about.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him, making it clear that she was joking.

He, however, looked as serious as a heart attack. “No.”

“I was joking, Zee. I’m not really worried about it. Nothing I learned today changed in any way how I feel about you.” She spelled it out for him because he seemed to need that.

“You do not think I am like my father?”

“What?” She grabbed his shoulders and tried to shake him. It didn’t work, him being the buff stud that he was, but he got the idea. “How could you ask that? You are nothing like that user.”

“But he is ruthless about getting what he wants.”

“And you are ruthless in standing for the truth. That can be overwhelming at times and a great burden to bear at others, but
it’s as far from the man who exploits the weakness of others to provide for his own ill-gotten luxuries as the life you now live is to the one you were born to.” She needed him to see that.

“I did not want him punished for what he did to me, but I wanted his world to see him for who he was and how he took advantage of others.”

“I know.”

“He destroyed too many lives.”

“And I bet he was never sorry he did so. He and Art have more in common than you and him.”

“Too bad they are not related.”

“Yes, it is. Art’s family are decent, nice people. I have no idea how he turned out so selfish and blind to his own faults.”

“My mother did not want to give me up. Even when I was a small boy, I understood that. She felt she had no choice. She did not want me to be raised in a whorehouse.”

“So, she chose the lesser of two evils, and paid the rest of her life for having to do so.”

“I think you are right.” He looked like he was having a revelation.

“It’s that mother-to-be oracle thing again,” she teased.

He smiled and then went serious again. “That is why you want to invite her to the wedding. You think it is time she stopped paying.”

“I think it is time you both stopped paying for things that cannot be changed.”

“I will call her tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

Zephyr stared at his computer monitor. It displayed his latest project spreadsheet, but all he saw was an image from the past—his mother’s face one of the many times she told him she loved him before leaving him at the home. He could see something in that mental picture that he had never let himself acknowledge before, the terrible pain in eyes so like his own.

His burned and he blinked rapidly.

“At Last” by Etta James started playing in that tinny way that ring tones did, bringing him firmly into the present.

He grabbed his cell phone and pressed the talk button without looking at the screen. “Hello,
pethi mou
.”

What he lacked in sentiment, Piper made up for. She’d programmed the song into his phone as her personal ring tone after agreeing to marry him. She was going to go all gooeyeyed over the wedding ring set he had ordered to be overnighted from Tiffany’s. He’d had their names and the date they met engraved on the inside. It was such a little thing, but it would be special to her.

“How did it go?” Piper asked without preamble.

“She cried.”

“You’re not surprised.”

“No.” Not after Piper had warned him to expect it. “We agreed to meet for dinner on a day before the wedding, as you suggested.” Piper had thought him seeing his mother for the first time in more than two decades at his wedding might be too much drama.

He’d agreed for his mother’s sake. If he thought he might be grateful for it, too, he wasn’t saying.

“Great. Are we meeting at a restaurant?”

“No, she asked us to come to her home,” he replied.

“And you agreed?”

“Yes.”

Piper was quiet for a second and then asked, “Will her husband be there?”

“Yes.” He might as well get it all out at once. “He’s coming to the wedding as well.”

Absolute silence met that bombshell.

“He wanted to talk to me, too.”

“What did he want to say?”

“That he was very, very,
very
sorry. That he was wrong to

make my mother let me go. He said he wanted to tell me
before, but he could not until I was ready to talk to him. He cried, too.”

“I’ve heard Greek men do that sometimes.”

“Not expatriates.”

“Of course not.” There was a teasing note in her voice, but he did not call her on it.

“I heard the story of how my sister and brother learned of my existence.”

“Really?” The sound of Brandi asking a question in the background came over the phone. Piper covered the mouthpiece and he could hear the muffled sound of her answer before she said, “I thought it was odd your mother told them after not allowing you to see them once they were old enough to remember you.”

“You never considered I might have told them?”

“No.”

“Even with my ruthless streak?”

“Like I told you, it’s a good kind of ruthlessness.”

“You have a great deal of faith in me.”

“Yes, I do.”

His heart contracted at her words, but he ignored the strange sensation and said, “Iola found my mother crying over a pile of old photos. They were of me. My sister convinced our mother to spill the whole story.”

“She must be pretty persuasive.”

“She is very stubborn.”

“Like her brother, hmm?”

“Perhaps.”

Piper laughed. “There is no
perhaps
about it.”

“You are treading on thin ice here.”

“I like to live dangerously.” Her smile carried in the sound of her voice.

“I can tell.”

“How old was she when your sister found out about you?”

“Twelve. She was furious with her father. She called him
a monster and refused to speak to him at all for an entire year after finding out about me.”

“Wow, she might even be
more
stubborn than you.”

“You think?” He had always enjoyed the fact that to Piper, he was just a guy she could joke with, not someone she was too in awe of to treat like a human.

“I’ll have to consider it.”

“She never told me about all that once I contacted them. She let me believe my mother told her of her own volition, which in a way, she had. Iola did not want me to hate our mother.”

“She also respected the distance you maintained. It’s pretty obvious she felt you had the right to set the terms for your relationships with your family.”