One Night to Risk it All

CHAPTER THREE

HE’D TOLD HIMSELF he wasn’t going to the wedding. He’d told himself so as he’d boarded a plane in New York that was headed for Greece. He’d told himself so as he’d reclined in first class, accepting more glasses of wine than he normally would during travel.

He’d told himself so as he drove from the airport to the Holt Estate, where he knew the wedding was being held.

Everyone knew where the wedding was being held. It was international news. The wedding of enigmatic businessman and heartthrob Ajax Kouros to the beloved Holt Heiress. Photos of the event would cost a premium, the world waiting with bated breath for information, for a glimpse.

It had been shoved in his face on every news publication since he’d left Corfu. Since he’d been thrown out of Rachel Holt’s bed.

Rachel.

He couldn’t think of her without aching. That soft skin, that smile. The way she’d made love with him, all enthusiasm and clumsy motions. She had been inexperienced—well, non-experienced—but she had wanted him.

Never in his life had he been wanted like that. Not just in a sexual sense.

At some point over the course of that night he had forgotten. That he wasn’t just Alex. That she wasn’t just Rachel.

He had been a man, who wanted a woman. Not a man twisted and bent on revenge.

But her sweet voice piercing his sleep with Alexios had brought him straight back. And then it had all gone to hell. He hadn’t enjoyed that moment. Hadn’t enjoyed her realization that he was Ajax’s enemy.

That fact had surprised him. And then when she’d asked, with tears in her eyes, that he not tell Ajax, he damn well hadn’t done it.

And what was the point of going to all that trouble to have Ajax’s woman if he didn’t let him know it? He’d clearly passed the point of seducing her up the aisle so he could rob Ajax of his acquisition of Holt, a fact he’d learned was contingent on the marriage, so at the very least he could stop their marriage and deprive him of the company that way.

And yet he hadn’t made the call.

It was a mystery to him. As was the fact that he was now at the Holt Estate with an expertly forged invitation. A forged invitation that allowed him to be one of the few guests admitted early to enjoy canapés and a tour of the grounds.

He’d had his personal assistant start working on the invitation a couple of weeks ago. Merely a precaution. And it had turned out to be a good thing, since he was here.

He hadn’t been planning on coming, but it was always nice to cover your bases. If there was one thing Alex knew for sure, it was that life had no place for the lazy or the honest.

It was best to be hardworking and morally flexible.

He handed the invite over to the woman standing at a podium. She was dressed all in black, her blond hair pulled back into a neat bun. Everything about the décor, from the ribbons to the flowers, was restrained. Elegant. Nothing unnecessarily frilly or romantic.

The picture of the woman Rachel seemed to be in the media, but not the woman he’d met that sun-drenched day in Greece.

He was filing that away. It could be useful information.

The woman scanned a code on the back of the invitation—that had been the tricky part, but his PA was friends with an acquaintance of Ajax’s PA, which made getting in to reproduce the sequence on the codes possible—then smiled at him brightly when it made a nice sound that gave him the impression it had been approved, and gestured behind her.

“Follow the path to the garden. You’ll find that refreshments are already being served, Mr. Kyriakis.”

Nice alias. Seeing as he’d lived his entire adult life with one, he knew a good one when he heard it.

“Thank you.”

He followed her instructions, and the neatly groomed path, to the back of the house. It was expansive, with rows of chairs set up facing an altar and the sea. Everything was white. Crisp and pure.

Again, very like the Rachel the media was so fond of. Nothing like the woman he’d experienced.

The woman he’d experienced hadn’t seemed so pure when she’d been with him. Legs wrapped around his hips, her breath hot on his ear as she’d moaned her pleasure.

Heat washed over his skin. Prickles of sensation that bloomed from his neck and down his arms. He flexed his fingers, tried to shake off the sensation. It wasn’t as though Rachel was the first woman he’d had.

There were any number of options available to a young man who found himself out on the streets and unsupervised from the age of fourteen. If nothing else, hooking up had often given him a bed to crash in, and he’d had no complaints about that.

So why on God’s depraved earth was he so fascinated by a night of sex with a virgin? He couldn’t fathom it.

Perhaps it was extra satisfying because he had taken her from Ajax. Because he’d robbed him of what he had been surely saving as a wedding night prize. Why else would he have left her untouched?

Just thinking about the man, being this close to him, made his stomach burn. If he hadn’t decided years ago that assassination was a bad plan, he would have been considering it now.

Well, he was imagining it, but he wouldn’t really do it.

He was a bastard—life had made him that way. But he wasn’t entirely cold-blooded. Unlike Ajax.

Unlike their father.

No matter his position now, Ajax had been there, just as Alex had been. A young teenager who had taken advantage of the excess on offer.

The women, like Alex’s mother, who would have done anything for their next fix. Who were slaves in every way. Victims. Living in poverty while surrounded by opulence. Kept on a leash of addiction, and in his mother’s case, a strange attachment to the master of the manor.

A twisted thing she’d called love. The kind of love that, when severed, had left her to bleed out onto the floor. A crimson stain in Alex’s memory that he could never wipe away.

Years and success wouldn’t change that. Wouldn’t bring her back. And yet Ajax stood at the top now, unaffected. With a family. A woman who had always appeared, to Alex, at least, to love him.

He looked unscathed, unspoiled. Ajax could pretend at respectability all he wanted but Alex knew the truth.

Because the truth was in him, too. But at least he never played as if he was anything other than a bastard. Ajax played as though he’d walked through it all and come out clean.

Alex knew he would never be clean.

He curled his fingers into fists and looked up at the house. There was a small group of people headed inside, led by a woman wearing black, which was clearly the uniform of the event staff.

He started in their direction, melting into the back of the group. Everyone was rapt, paying close attention to what the woman was saying about a fresco on the exterior wall that had been moved from an old church. Blah blah. He didn’t care.

Greece was old. Like that was news.

He’d spent nights in more crumbling ruins than he could count. He was a fan of mod cons. As long as they didn’t come at the price of living under the roof of a violent, sexually deviant psychopath.

Yeah, he’d preferred the ruins to that. He preferred the street to that. Starvation and cold and everything else that came with it.

He had run from that life. From all that it represented. He would not become a part of it.

He followed them into the house and as soon as they rounded the first corner, he separated from them and headed up the stairs. No one stopped him. Because he looked like he belonged. A right he’d earned, if only recently.

This was his world now. He was no longer someone who could be stepped on by the rich and powerful.

He was the rich and powerful. He went where he liked, he did what he liked.

“I have something to give the bride,” he said to a passing servant. “Where might I find her?”

“Miss Rachel is in her suite. Down the hall and just to your left,” the woman answered without blinking.

Because he looked the part. He spoke with confidence. And as a result, no one questioned whether or not he belonged.

He nodded once and continued on down where the woman had indicated.

He hadn’t been going to come. But he was glad he had.

* * *

She’d never prayed so hard for her period to come in all her life. She’d never prayed for it to come. She’d taken it for granted. The cramps, the teariness. It had started when she was fifteen and it had gone on, regularly, for all the time since. Just a little signifier that it was the middle of the month. Nothing more.

Well, not right now.

Now the absence of it was about to send her into a panic attack. She’d been walking around her bedroom in her bra and panties for the past twenty minutes, a tampon on the nightstand, right next to an unopened pregnancy test.

Neither had been used at this point. One month since her night with Alex. One month of alternating between cursing his name and lying in a dark room just staring at the ceiling, unable to cry because tears were a release she wouldn’t allow herself. A rush of emotion, too uncontrolled for the likes of her.

And then her period hadn’t come. Even after it had passed fashionably late, she’d still been praying the floodgates might open and forth would come the crimson tide, and that the pregnancy test could remain unopened. But no such luck.

Tampon or test. She was going to be opening one of them in the next few minutes.

And it was rapidly becoming clear which.

She was already six days late. This little song and dance between her and those two items had been going on since the first morning.

She finally reached down and grabbed the pregnancy test.

And suddenly the world just sort of tipped to the side and she saw herself clearly, standing there, almost ready to marry another man while she was potentially pregnant with Alex’s baby.

And she knew there was no way she could get married today.

Her hands started shaking, her throat going dry. Oh...Jax, please forgive me.

So now she was just going to have to...tell him. Right before the wedding. But there was something she had to do first.

“Okay,” she said to the little white-and-pink box. “Let’s do this.”

Her bedroom door swung open and she whirled around, clutching the box to her breasts in an instinctive attempt at modesty. Until she realized she was advertising that she was holding a pregnancy test and whipped it behind her back, her thigh crossing over the front of her other thigh in an attempt to hide that she was in very brief panties.

Then she froze, because she realized who her intruder was. For almost a full second, she was frozen, caught by those arresting blue eyes. Again.

It was almost like all that thinking about him had just...conjured him here. But at the worst possible moment.

His hair was shorter. His body wrapped in a custom-made suit and not in those thin, faded work clothes she’d first seen him in.

How strange to think it was the other Alex that had been a disguise, while this was the real him. It hardly seemed possible.

Then suddenly, she was hit by the bright, clear smack of reality. She hated Alex. Hated him. It was her wedding day. He was here. And she was afraid she was pregnant with his baby.

“What the ever-loving hell are you doing here?” she asked.

He seemed frozen. As she’d been only a moment before.

“At least close the door,” she said, realizing that anyone who walked by was going to see her standing there in her undies.

He obeyed, stepping into the room.

“I am naked,” she hissed.

“You’re not.”

“Close enough.”

“Not anywhere near close enough.” He was looking at her. Intently. As though he was trying to gauge the opaqueness of her underwear.

“Stop that! And what are you doing here?”

“I am here for your wedding, agape.”

“Weird. I don’t think Ajax penciled his mortal enemy onto our guest list,” she said, her fingers curling tightly around the pregnancy test still hidden behind her back.

She was trapped. Standing there in lacy bridal undies, unable to do anything for fear he’d see the test.

“He might have. Did you look to see if I was listed under Enemy or Mortal?”

“I was looking in the A’s for As—”

“I won’t let you marry him,” he said, his voice turning into a feral growl.

“What?”

“You don’t know what he is.”

She lifted one shoulder, the casual gesture at odds with her internal panic. With the fact that when he’d burst through that door he’d blown through her carefully cultivated, calm façade, yet again. “I’ve known the man for more than fifteen years. I think I know who he is.”

“You’ve never even slept with him.”

“I’m gonna,” she said, edging away from him toward the bathroom, “tonight.”

He strode toward her, blue eyes like chips of ice. He put his arm around her waist and hauled her up against his chest. “You will not.”

“Yes, I will,” she said, words pouring out of her now, with no thought of control or decorum or any of the other stuff she was usually so attached to. She was lying, because before Alex had come in, she’d decided she couldn’t do it. But she wanted to...hurt him if it was possible. To cause him some kind of discomfort because he sure had caused enough for her. “I’m going to have sex with him—” a shiver of displeasure coursed through her at the thought “—tonight. I’m going to let him inside of me. I’m going to do all the dirty naked things with him that I did with you!”

And then he leaned down and kissed her. As if he had every right to do it. As if she didn’t have a wedding scheduled to happen in just four hours. As if she hadn’t told him that she hated him and never wanted to see him again.

As if there was no reality. No Ajax. No vengeance gone wrong. No angry words. As if there was nothing more than passion. Fire and heat. She wrapped an arm around his neck, the other still behind her back, and parted her lips, let him slide his tongue against hers.

She kissed him back because for some reason, when Alex touched her, she couldn’t think.

Because suddenly a month since the time they’d been apart didn’t matter. And neither did anything else. Nothing but the kiss. The heat that flooded her body, her mind, her soul.

She wrapped her other arm around his neck and hit him in the ear with the edge of the box. He jerked his head back and looked to the side, and she followed his line of vision and froze.

Oh. Bloody perfect.

“What is this?” he asked, pulling back, his hand encircling her wrist.

“Nothing.”

He arched a brow. “Try again.”

“It is a...gift. For a friend.”

“A gift for a friend?”

“Yessss,” she said, drawing the word out to give herself time to think of more to add to her very stupid lie. “Because she asked for something that could tell the future and I thought...Magic 8 Ball or pregnancy test? And I went with pregnancy test because it gives specific yes or no answers to very specific questions.”

“Do you think you’re pregnant?”

“Right now? I think I’m absent a period. Which under normal circumstances would be like, ‘Hey, great timing, because I’m supposed to be getting married.’”

“But?”

“Under the circumstances of ‘I slept with my fiancé’s enemy a month ago’ I find it a bit worrisome, and yes, I think I might be pregnant.”

“Go and find out,” he said, moving away from her. “Now.”

“So now I’m supposed to pee on your command? What if I don’t have to go?”

“You were about to go—don’t play that way.”

His jaw was set, his skin pale. He wasn’t taking this much better than she was. “Honestly, Alex, what do you care if I am?”

“I care because I will be a part of that child’s life.”

“You will not be,” she said, the words coming out before she had a chance to think them through.

“You think I’m going to let that man near any child of mine?” he asked, rage rolling off him like a force field, pushing her back. “I know what happens to children who get near the Kouklakis family. I doubt you do.”

“Ajax is...he’s not a Kouklakis. He’s...”

“Got an alias. How foolish are you? He’s changed his name.”

“I don’t...”

“Go and take the test.”

She didn’t even have it in her to argue with him now. She nodded slowly, holding the box in numb fingers as she backed into the bathroom. Alex watched Rachel’s retreating form, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might hammer through his chest and flop onto the bed, leaving a crimson stain on that pristine white duvet of hers.

A child.

His child.

This wasn’t about revenge anymore. It hadn’t been, not from the moment he’d claimed Rachel as his own. He wanted her, and he would have her. That was why he was here.

And because he refused to allow Ajax Kouros anywhere near a son or daughter of his.

No, Ajax didn’t deal in human or drug trafficking, and Alex knew that. He knew, from the extensive research he’d done on the subject, that Ajax’s business was entirely legitimate.

But bad blood was bad blood. Alex knew it. He felt it. He’d been born with the same blood as Alex, and he would never truly escape it. Alex hadn’t, why should Ajax?

He shook it off. That thought. That burning sensation he felt whenever he imagined poison running through his own veins.

Things had changed for him.

Alex had made his fortune playing the stock market, first with other people’s money, and now with his own. He was a gambler by nature, and doing it in the realm of the financial had been lucrative. Because like any good gambler, he had a skill for it. It wasn’t pure luck, it was research. Memory. A natural feel for it.

It had earned him millions. On his twenty-sixth birthday, only six months ago, he’d netted his first billion.

He wasn’t powerless anymore. He never would be again.

The bathroom door opened and Rachel appeared, white-faced, blue eyes watery.

“What?” he asked.

“There were two lines.”

“Well, what does that mean?” he asked, tension making his heart race, pumping too much restless energy in his muscles.

“It means that I’m pregnant. And before you ask—it is your baby, I won’t lie to you about that.”

“You will not marry him.”

“You know there are like...a thousand wedding guests coming? A hundred reporters?”

“You have two options, Rachel,” he said, the adrenaline that was spiking through him making his mind run quickly. “You leave with me, now, don’t speak to anyone. Or you go forward with the wedding. But mark my words, if you do that, I will stop the ceremony and I will tell everyone that you are pregnant with my child. That I seduced you in Corfu and that you gave it up to me in record time. Even without a paternity test, your precious Ajax will know. Because I’m the only man that’s had you. And a due date with that big of a gap from your wedding night won’t lie.”

“The press...”

“The press is here, and they’ll hear and report every word I say. But the decision is yours.”

“It’s not mine,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. She was still wearing nothing more than her underwear. “I’m in an impossible situation here. I can’t go back. I can’t fix this. I can’t...” she paused. “I could get a...” She looked away from him. “I could make it go away.”

His stomach clenched. “No.”

She shook her head, her blue eyes filling with tears. “You’re right. I can’t. I just... I can’t.”

“Come with me.”

“And what?”

“Marry me.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU’RE INSANE,” RACHEL SAID, aiming the air-conditioning vent at her face as Alex’s red sports car peeled out of the driveway of the family estate.

Holy crap. She’d done it. She was running away from her wedding. She had...almost nothing. A few clothes, her favorite shoes. Her computer, her phone, her books.

But when he’d told her about the options, it was like seeing ahead, straight and clear. She could go out there, dressed all in white, the virginal bride, and promise herself to Ajax, knowing she was carrying another man’s baby. Knowing the press would slaughter all involved if Alex strode down the aisle after her and told everyone in attendance what she’d done.

That was something she’d known she couldn’t do even before she’d confirmed the pregnancy.

She knew the position she was in. She’d been made so fully aware of it that day in her father’s office when he’d told her he would no longer shield her from the scandal she was exposing herself to.

She’d managed to stay perfect in the eyes of the public and because of that the media had placed her on a pedestal. That meant that any whiff of scandal would send a mob of reporters out to knock her straight off it.

Nobody liked a paragon, not really. They only kept her around for the chance to see her fall. She’d been spared that fate. Her father had protected her from the consequences of her actions, and after seeing the extent to which she could have ruined things for herself she’d decided that she would be playing the part of dutiful daughter, and wife, for the rest of her life.

And all she’d done was delay the inevitable—she saw that now.