Greek’s Shotgun Wedding (The Diamandis Heirs #1)

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

A ND WHAT SHOOK Jace the most in that moment was the inexcusably weird shot of satisfaction that rocketed through him and the even less presentable thought, Try walking away now...

He was shocked by his own reaction and wondered what the hell was happening to his brain. A... baby ? He didn’t know any, so had little to say on the subject, but for the first time in his life in recent weeks, and ever since the risk of a pregnancy had arisen, Jace had started noticing babies for the first time. Babies...and pregnant women. That curiosity had freaked him out a little even while it had somewhat acquainted him with the possibility of becoming a parent.

‘Pregnant!’ Gigi gasped, stricken.

‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Jace pointed out, feeling remarkably calm in the crisis. ‘Come back to bed. It’s too early to get up—’

‘Come back to bed?’ Gigi repeated, studying him as though he had sprouted horns and cloven feet in his apparent madness. ‘Are you crazy? After getting news like that?’

Jace vaulted out of bed and clasped her hand to tug her upright and off the rug where she was still sitting like a woman felled by a lightning bolt. ‘We were up half the night. You’re exhausted. This is not the time to talk about this—’

‘It’s a nightmare...’ Gigi looked up at him with tears swimming in her eyes.

‘We’re not having a drama over this,’ Jace assured her with innate confidence, bending down to scoop her off her bare feet and tuck her with care back into her side of the huge bed. ‘You’ll feel better once you’ve slept for a while and will be more able to deal with it—’

‘I’m not having a termination!’ she shot at him accusingly.

Jace stretched out an arm and edged her close in a determined movement. ‘I don’t want that either—’

‘But what are we going to do ?’ Gigi snapped at him in frustration, because his complete inhuman cool was not at all how she had expected him to deal with such an announcement. She had assumed that he would be shaken, horrified, angry...all likely responses from a young, single guy, who was in no way ready or eager for fatherhood with a woman he had only recently met.

Inside himself, Jace was in shock as well at the prospect of becoming a parent and the lifelong commitment that would demand from him. His birth parents had been lousy at the job, he acknowledged, little better than disinterested bystanders during his early childhood. He would have to do a hell of a lot better on that front than they had. But right now, he couldn’t afford to reveal his panic to Gigi because it would only fuel hers. No, he needed to take a deep breath and step back and come up with a solution. That meant not getting emotional or dramatising the situation. He needed to concentrate on the practicalities.

‘We’ll get married—’

‘What?’ Gigi shot bolt upright in the bed, almost elbowing him in the face in her disbelief as he too sat up again, looking very much put upon.

Jace surveyed her aghast expression, mentally leafed through all possible arguments and came up with the one most practical, most likely to appeal to her as a future parent. ‘All the Diamandis family holdings are in a trust. For my firstborn to inherit his or her share, the parents have to be married . I doubt that either of us are sufficiently anti-matrimony to disinherit our future child because we can’t be bothered tying the knot.’

Thoroughly disconcerted by that very rational and unemotional explanation, Gigi slowly lay down again. Jace relaxed then and curved her back into him. ‘Go back to sleep. You’re catastrophising... I can feel it. We’re adults and we have nobody but ourselves to consider in this. We’ll handle it together—’

‘Do you really mean that?’ Gigi muttered worriedly.

‘Do you truly not trust me enough to accept my word?’

Marriage? Marry Jace? Yes, she could do it for the sake of their child’s potential prosperity, she reasoned in a daze, thinking that she had no choice on that basis. But what had Jace done with all the emotion she had initially sensed seething in him when she first made that announcement? Where had it gone? He hadn’t said one word wrong. Was he always that tactful? Why did she have the suspicion that he had gone undercover with his emotions like some stupid secret agent on a mission?

Gigi went to sleep. Jace expelled his breath in a discreet sigh of relief. A baby. He didn’t know anything about babies, but he had seen one or two in prams in Japan that had struck him as being reasonably cute and interesting. None of his friends had a child. The Diamandis men, however, usually didn’t marry until middle age and he would be breaking that cycle. He splayed a sneaky hand across Gigi’s still flat stomach as she slumbered and he swore to that tiny life inside her that he would be a much better father than his birth parents had been to him.

Challenged, however, by the altered future now opening up ahead of him, Jace was restless. He slid quietly out of bed and went off to use his phone and share his news with his family. After all, it was his duty to control the narrative and ensuring that there were few surprises ahead would prevent him from dwelling on the emotional stuff.

Gigi wakened to having breakfast served to her in bed, Jace straightening to tower over her, fully dressed in a designer elegant suit. He looked stupendous even first thing in the morning and she knew that she did not, not without a brush through her hair, her teeth clean—and even some pyjamas would not have gone amiss. She dropped her evasive gaze to the beautifully prepared tray and wondered uncertainly when and just how they had become so intimate. She had fallen for him like a ton of bricks but that didn’t mean she had to be dependent on him...for anything. Indeed, Gigi had based her entire life to date on not needing anyone for anything because she could usually take care of herself better than anyone else.

‘I’ve organised a doctor’s appointment for you this morning.’ Jace fell silent as Gigi lifted stunned eyes to his. ‘He’s a top obstetrician. I assumed that move was only sensible...to have you checked out because we haven’t had that done yet—’

‘I don’t think there’s any royal “we” when I’m the one who’s pregnant,’ Gigi heard herself say tartly, even though all the while an inner voice was urging her not to be a five-letter word of a woman when he was only trying to take care of her. The way nobody had ever taken care of her, she reminded herself ruefully. Maybe that was why her hackles were raised, because that kind of treatment was new to her and it gave her an almost threatened feel, which her intelligence warned her was a ridiculous response.

‘Seeing a doctor is normal,’ she agreed in addition, cheeks flushing as she made that concession, disliking the irrational resentments assailing her. It wasn’t his fault that they were in this predicament. If anything, it was her fault for not having taken the contraceptive precautions most young women in her age group did. Her fault for assuming that she would never meet a guy she wanted to have sex with. How realistic had that conviction been? For goodness’ sake, he was standing right there now beside her and a dangerous, reckless and wanton part of her still wanted to drag him down on the bed and rip him back out of that business suit. He stole her self-control; he changed her into someone she felt uncomfortable with.

Sadly, she didn’t seem to have the same effect on him. His shrewd and striking green eyes were impassive, his lean, dark, devastating face calm as a tranquil sea. Businesslike? She didn’t know the side of Jace he was currently giving her and it...unnerved her more than a little. Not to know what he was thinking or feeling left her feeling shut out, distanced, and he hadn’t given her one typical, normal extrovert Jace reaction since she had uttered that fatal word ‘pregnant’ first thing that morning.

Jace had never wanted so badly to peel back the layers in a person and see exactly what went on inside their head. Gigi was freaking out, still freaking out about the baby and he didn’t know what to do about that. He was trying to be supportive, and she didn’t like that either. His even white teeth gritted hard in frustration. An efficient can-do approach towards the practicalities would surely soothe her as any emotional reaction would not.

‘Eat something,’ he urged, since she had yet to touch a crumb of the food on her tray.

All her favourite items were on the tray. When had he noticed exactly what she liked to eat? My word, they hadn’t been together that long! But there sat the hot chocolate and the yogurt and the fruit like a statement. And she hadn’t a clue what he preferred for breakfast! Did that make her a very selfish, useless girlfriend? Exasperated by the constant clamour of anxiety and insecurity assailing her without warning, Gigi began to eat and Jace backed off a few feet.

Showered and fresh, Gigi pulled on her jeans and a somewhat shabby sweater and studied herself in a mirror, feeling unusually critical of her appearance. She had to buy some clothes, she conceded ruefully, never having been a fan of shopping. But she had next to nothing left to wear in a true winter climate.

‘Why so serious?’ Jace chided, striding over to her as he pulled open the door into the lift.

‘Well, it’s all serious stuff now, isn’t it?’ she framed bleakly.

A lean hand curved to her tense jawline and Jace lowered his head to claim a kiss. Not a light kiss, not a ‘comforting the little woman in the lift’ kiss, a downright passionate claiming kiss that shook her inside out and made her toes curl in her scuffed winter ankle boots. She blinked up at him in astonishment as he walked her out to the waiting car. It was the first thing he had done since they learned of her pregnancy that revealed emotion and she loved it.

In the back of the car, he offered her a drink and she said no, thank you. In a speedy sleight of hand that thoroughly disconcerted her, Jace produced a glittering ring and threaded it with great care onto her engagement finger. ‘Er...what’s this?’ she mumbled.

‘You know it’s an engagement ring because we’re getting married,’ Jace pointed out flatly.

‘Of course...for the look of things, for appearances,’ she mumbled, a stiletto knife piercing her heart as she surveyed the truly gorgeous ring that was pretty much a fake as far as his intentions were concerned. It wasn’t huge, which she would have hated, but a delicate, creative swirl of dazzlingly bright diamonds that would undoubtedly have cost the earth and some change. ‘It’s really beautiful, Jace,’ she extended unevenly. ‘Very elegant and not too much for my small hand. Thank you.’

A little mollified, Jace studied her taut profile until he noticed that her lower lip was wobbling as if she was on the brink of tears. ‘What’s wrong?’

What was wrong was that she could hardly tell him that she wished the ring and the supposed sentiments attached to it were real instead of fake to make them look like a genuine engaged couple. ‘Nothing... I don’t know what’s the matter with me,’ she said truthfully. ‘I feel weepy and that’s not normal for me.’

‘It’s probably stress. I don’t want you stressing about anything ,’ Jace informed her in a forceful undertone. ‘If there’s any stressing to be done, let it be my problem, rather than yours. Evander and Marcus and my grandmother will take care of the wedding on Faros. All you have to do is choose your gown.’

Gigi swivelled in her seat in dismay. ‘The wedding?’ she gasped. ‘You’re already making arrangements for it?’

Jace dealt a sizzling appraisal. ‘Why not? Since we’re doing it, there’s little point in waiting.’

With difficulty, Gigi held her tongue. She felt trapped, harassed, pushed into choices she had barely had time to consider. But was that reasonable? Hadn’t she agreed to marry him? For the sake of their child’s future inheritance? Which sounded horrendous, she acknowledged. Surely more should come into the decision than something so reliant on cold, hard cash?

‘We probably won’t like being married,’ she warned him stiffly, while thinking that she would cope fine with the prospect of having him almost every day, but he had always been accustomed to more adventurous possibilities: fabulous underwear models, gorgeous screen stars, polished socialites. His past contained all of those options and how could she possibly compare?

‘We’ll manage,’ Jace pronounced in a tone of finality.

Gigi went through the prior tests for her appointment at the surgery before Jace joined her in the consulting room and the obstetrician, a suave male in his forties or so, gave her an ultrasound to show them the tiny blip of their child inside her. The backs of her eyes stung with happy tears. Jace brushed her cheekbone to wipe away that bead of moisture when it trickled down without her noticing.

‘I know, asteri mou ,’ he breathed soft and low. ‘It’s pretty special.’

He was calling her ‘my star’ and she almost wept all over him at the affectionate term. But that was before Mr Eames, the consultant, learned that she was a veterinary surgeon and revealed that his wife was one as well and that she had given up work for the duration of each of her pregnancies.

‘Was that really necessary?’ Jace asked in surprise.

‘Toxic chemicals, dangerous procedures, the risk of infection or harm from an injured animal...what do you think?’ the older man responded.

‘Perhaps your wife works more with livestock than I do,’ Gigi said stiffly even as her brain was spiralling with horror at the mere thought of not being able to work. Work had always been her holy grail, her anchor, what she based her whole life on. The threat of being without her job terrified her.

‘Even so, there are a lot of risks for a pregnant woman in your field. Will you really take that chance with your baby?’ the consultant prompted. ‘Of course, if you’re part of a big practice, your colleagues can handle the patients you can’t...that would work.’

But Gigi didn’t have that option. There was nobody else at the rescue shelter able to perform her job. Ioanna was qualified to do vaccinations and blood tests but that was about it. It would require another vet to do the surgeries and some other treatments. Her troubled eyes veiled and her slight frame stiffened.

‘So, you quit for a few months,’ Jace remarked without any expression at all as he tucked her back into the limousine.

Gigi’s eyes widened but she said nothing because the prospect of losing her job was like a crack of doom sounding above her head that reverberated through her entire body. It was her security, her very foundation. She was going to lose everything that mattered to her, she reflected in a frantic, fearful surge of anxiety. Her whole life would fall apart without work.

‘That’s easy for you to say. It’s not that simple,’ she objected.

‘Nothing about this situation is easy for either of us,’ Jace countered drily.

And her heart sank to her boot soles because that was finally telling her, wasn’t it? That all his careful plans were against his personal wishes? That he didn’t want the baby or her and certainly didn’t want to marry her? Gigi swallowed very hard and, in containing herself, she went rigid.

‘What’s wrong?’ Jace asked in the lift on the way back up to the apartment.

‘How can you ask me that?’ she hissed at him, her messy emotions finally breaking through to the surface. ‘My life is about to fall apart at the seams!’ she shot at him in the foyer of the apartment.

‘This is about your job, isn’t it?’ Jace murmured flatly, studying her the way a male might have studied a grenade about to blow.

‘Full marks for perception!’ Gigi gasped as she stalked down the bedroom corridor to their room to blow up in solo privacy.

Regrettably, Jace, it seemed, could not take a hint that just at that moment she was better left alone to deal with unwelcome medical advice. She felt as if the top of her head were about to blow off with anger and frustration. But Jace, cool as always, strolled in, closed the door and leant back against it. He looked almost insanely hot and sexy. Her breasts peaked under her sweater and something in her pelvis tightened right then, doubly infuriating her. It was bad enough having pulled the short straw with her pregnancy and marriage to a guy who didn’t want either of them, but it felt like betraying herself to still want him so badly.

‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ Jace murmured. ‘I can fix most things—’

‘You can’t fix this !’

‘Do you want this child?’ Jace asked with lethal quietness, bright green eyes narrowed to an intimidating degree, and it was yet another side of Jace that she had not seen before. For a split second, he chilled her where she stood.

‘No...no, it’s not that,’ she declared, devastated by that question, shocked he would ask because, of course, her baby was more important to her than her job. ‘The baby’s here and it’s staying inside me until it’s born. It’s everything else...this wedding—’

‘Which you agreed to,’ he interposed drily.

‘The impact the pregnancy will have on my working life. I mean, there would be risks I would have to avoid—’

‘We’ll get better advice, qualified advice,’ Jace incised. ‘And if it’s still a potential problem I will cover the cost of another vet working with you—’

‘For goodness’ sake, you can’t buy everything!’ Gigi launched at him with scorn.

‘I will pay for virtually anything that makes you happier,’ Jace told her levelly, wondering why she didn’t recognise how hard he was trying to shape the future into something that she could accept. ‘That’s not extravagance or foolishness when I’m your future husband, it’s my duty.’

That word, ‘duty’, hit Gigi like a brick smashing through glass. ‘Oh, take a hike, Jace. Leave me alone to get my head straight. I’m sorry. I’m in a bad mood. And it doesn’t help that —’ Her voice broke off. ‘No, never mind.’

‘Never mind about what? What doesn’t help?’ he pressed grimly, knowing that he dared not respond in a similar emotional way lest he lose control of the situation and made a mess of calming her down.

‘That you’re not giving me an honest, genuine answer to anything !’ Gigi fired back at him, unable to silence that frightening conviction. ‘I feel like all I’m being told is what you think I want to hear and that’s not fair to either of us right now! I don’t want to be manipulated like that. I can take bad news like any other woman!’

‘I’m not manipulating you. I’m trying to keep you calm because I don’t imagine it’s good for you right now to get so upset,’ Jace declared without hesitation, determined not to react. She was having his baby and he would do whatever it took to smooth that journey for her. Much good it would do them if he went off in an emotional scene and accelerated hers!

‘Because I’m pregnant,’ Gigi guessed, and she still wanted to slap him, slap him and drag him back into bed at the same time. But no, that wasn’t where he was at in this moment. He was too busy suffering through a scary pregnant woman experience and handling her with velvet gloves like a dangerous science experiment. ‘You’re taking that far too seriously. As you said, it’s not the end of the world,’ she proffered, hoping to draw him out.

‘You’re the one still behaving as though it is the end of the world, so why are you questioning my behaviour?’ Jace asked, logical down to the bone.

‘That’s not what I’m talking about!’ Gigi flung back at him with spirit. ‘I’m talking about the fact that you don’t feel able to be honest with me any more and I can’t stand that... It’s like there’s a wall between us now!’

Striding back to the door, Jace angled a scorching look like live green fire at her, his cut jaw line taut and hard. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I don’t do the touchy-feely stuff with women, if that’s what you’re expecting. Maybe it’s because I’m a guy or maybe it’s because... I’m emotionally repressed—’

‘Or maybe it’s because you’re a coward and can’t face the challenge of honesty,’ Gigi interposed stiffly, aware that he was on the brink of losing his temper, wanting to push that, not wanting to push that in equal parts. Indeed, she was not even sure quite what she did want from him. All she really knew was that she felt torn apart and weak with insecurity and fear and that that, more than anything else, was what she wanted him to fix for her.

In the corridor, Jace stopped dead as though faced with a loaded gun and then he swung back to her, dazzling green eyes chilling as a polar freeze. ‘Do you think you could strive to handle this situation with a little more maturity?’

It was Gigi’s turn to ice over, knees stiffening beneath her to brace her and keep her taut back straight. ‘Obviously you don’t think so,’ she parried.

‘You say that you want honesty but, believe me... you don’t ,’ Jace gritted, staring at her, wondering what had happened to the woman who had bewitched him without even trying to do so. Him? Was it his own fault? Was he supposed to lie down like a rug for her to walk over? Too bad, that brand of weakness wasn’t in the Diamandis DNA. He could not recall ever being so angry with anyone and certainly not a woman, but at the same time he knew that he could not bear to utter a single word that she might take wrong. They could talk after the wedding, when all the fuss was over, when it was only the two of them and the baby news had settled in with her. So, he wasn’t splashing his emotions round the place as she was...but that wasn’t his job right now. She needed him to be sensible and controlled and consider the greater good.

‘So you say.’ With difficulty, refusing to show her vulnerability, Gigi simply shrugged a slight shoulder. Hadn’t her own mother warned her times without number that men ducked out when the going got tough? Warned her that she had to be hard and independent and trust in no one other than herself? And from no age at all, Gigi had learned to live that way.

‘Grow up, glykia mou ,’ Jace advised with icy restraint. ‘Our baby comes first and we must learn to compromise for our child’s benefit. That’s the bottom line and agonising over it won’t change it.’

And with that final uncompromising dressing-down, Jace strode off and Gigi backed into the bedroom again, sick at heart and even her tummy churning. Funny how the obstetrician had asked her if she had suffered any nausea and she had said no and now, all of a sudden, she felt sick as a dog. It wasn’t funny, she acknowledged, lying down on the bed, wishing that Jace would come back and simply put his arms round her.

It was as though he had not the smallest idea of how much difference that one little gesture could make at a tense time. And was she likely to be the one to teach him? She, whose mother had never once hugged her, who herself had only ever shown affection to Jace? But possibly his omission was more honest than his words had been. She was hugging him because she was crazy in love with him. Why would he think to hug her in the midst of their current plight?

So, what kind of marriage was it likely to be? Gigi wiped her tears away. Our baby, he had said for the very first time. She supposed that label had finally answered all the questions he had refused to answer. He would marry her for their child’s sake and not for any other reason.

When she rose after a sleepless night, it was to a text on her phone, informing her that Jace had flown to New York on business, apologising for the change of plan and for the necessity of her returning to Greece alone.

And now, she had contrived to drive him away, she thought wretchedly. Could she really blame him, though, for not wanting to spell out truths that, in all honesty, she did not want to hear?