Cristos watched her from the foot of the bed, his spiky black lashes low over his incisive dark golden eyes. 'I should warn you that I haven't changed my mind, pethi mou. I still intend to marry you. I want the right to look after you and my proper place in my child's life. You will never convince me that there is a better option.'

'Right now I'm too sleepy to try.' Her softened green eyes lingered on his heartbreakingly handsome features and then, with a self-conscious flush, she turned her head away. 'I'm sorry I didn't believe you'd stick to the promises you made,' she muttered unevenly. 'I know you think you've come up with the best solution and I respect that. But women don't have to marry these days just to raise a child.'

'A Stephanides woman does.'

He was immoveable as a rock and she was amused.

She drifted off into a heavy sleep with a faint curve to her weary mouth and slept for several hours. She had wakened and sat up, feeling very much refreshed by her nap when Cristos came in and extended a phone to her. 'For you… your parents want to speak to you…'

,'My parents?' she mouthed in disbelief back at him, but the door was already closing on his exit.

'Betsy…' Corinne Mitchell said chirpily. 'Your father and I just couldn't wait a minute longer to phone you. While you were resting, Cristos called us and introduced himself-'

'Cristos did… what?' Betsy prompted weakly. 'He's really worried about you doing too much… and he's dying to meet us-'

·Betsy had gone rigid. 'Is he really?'

'I have to confess that we are very taken with him.

I know he's so handsome and he has lovely manners when you talk to him. And he seems to be terribly. well off. I know you think money shouldn't be important but I like a man to be a good provider-'

'Cristos is insisting that he will pay for the wedding,' Betsy's father chimed in, evidently on an extension line.

'Yes, he's so generous and considerate,' Corinne Mitchell enthused. 'Mind you, I would normally be a little upset about your being pregnant-'

'Cristos told you?' Betsy yelped in appalled embarrassment.

'But you'll be married soon enough and at least he's not expecting you to be happy about being an unmarried mother like Rory does Gemma.'

'No, I must say you can't fault Cristos there,' her father pronounced with hearty approval. 'He can't wait to put a ring on your finger.'

'Where did you get the idea that Cristos and I might be getting married?' Betsy asked rather shrilly.

'When he suggested we draw up a full list of the guests we want to invite,' Corinne explained with palpable excitement. 'He said we could ask as many people as we like. Don't tease me, Betsy. We're just over the moon for you. I've already phoned half of our relatives to tell them our good news. Maybe a big wedding will put Rory in the notion.'

'It's a relief that your sister has made up with Rory,' her father commented. 'You'll be able to have Gemma as a bridesmaid-'

'No, she won't!' his wife interrupted in dismay. 'Gemma wants to be a bride too much to act as Betsy's bridesmaid. Much better just to have little Sophie.'

Those frank opinions having been exchanged, Betsy managed to finish the call by promising to ring back later. She was filled with shaken disbelief at the trap that Cristos had sprung on her without conscience. How could he have sunk so low? She could not credit that he had chosen to use her unsuspecting parents to put pressure on her. Her poor mother had started telling people that her eldest daughter was getting hitched, and if no wedding came off Corinne Mitchell would be devastated and humiliated.

Betsy found Cristos in the drawing room, talking on a phone in Greek. Brilliant dark eyes met hers with stubborn cool. He set the phone aside.

'How could you?' she pressed.

'Some day you'll look back on this and appreciate that 1 had your best interests at heart,' Cristos asserted smoothly.

'All you had at heart was your usual determination to do exactly what you want to do because you always think you're right!'

'You could have a point.' Cristos seemed determined to maintain a low profile in the aggression stakes.

'How am 1 supposed to tell my mum and dad that 1 don't want to marry you? Especially now they know I'm expecting a baby!' Betsy demanded in reproachful appeal.

'I can see you might have a problem.'

'I just can't believe you've done this to me… going calling my family and announcing that we're getting married when you know I've said no. You had no right to do that and involve them when they have no idea what's going on between us. 1 feel like I'm being blackmailed. '

~How do you feel otherwise?' Cristos enquired as if such accusations as she had made came his way every day and were unworthy of comment.

'Well, I feel just wonderful, Cristos!' Betsy slammed back at him. 'You're set on wrecking both our lives by forcing me in a direction 1 don't want to go, You can't do this to Petrina…it's so cruel-'

His hard bone structure clenched. 'Allow me to worry about Petrina-'

'I can't bear to-hurt another woman the way 1 was hurt by Rory!' Betsy confided in distress.

His golden eyes shimmered, his lean, powerful face taut. 'The baby must have first claim on your loyalty and mine.'

Her slight shoulders slumped. He reached out to close his hands over hers and draw her close. She refused to look at him because she knew she could not trust herself.

'Stop tying yourself up in knots, pethi mou,' Cristos urged, the low-pitched timbre of his deep voice already achingly familiar to her. 'Why upset yourself over what can't be altered? I intervened with your parents because I want us to marry quickly. I see no reason why we should publicize the fact that we're getting married now because you're carrying our first child.'

Her fingers trembled in his. He knew how to press the right emotional buttons. Our first child. He was inviting her to look into a future that contained a real marriage in which other children would be welcomed as well. Her throat thickened and it was an effort for her to swallow. She really, really wanted to marry him.

'But wouldn't you feel trapped?' she prompted half under her breath. 'Wouldn't you resent me?'

Cristos closed one hand into the thick tumbling fall of her Titian hair to tug her head up. Stunning dark golden eyes met her troubled gaze in a direct onslaught. 'Never. I want you. I want our child as well.'

She braced a hand against his shoulder,. let her fingers splay there in the shy but feeling touch of a woman longing to make physical contact. 'You'd have to be faithful… no excuses, no slips. I'd help you… I' d watch you like a hawk,' she warned him. 'You won't get away with anything, not even a flirtation if you marry me. Could you live like that?'

'Is there a choice?' Cristos dared.

Her green eyes fired up. 'No, and one strike and you're out too.'

'But you'll marry me.'

Today if you can fix it, she almost said. Fortunately she was too worked up to find her voice and it was only possible to nod, and she tried to nod with cool as if it were no big deal.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS Betsy's wedding day and she had never been happier.

A diamond tiara sparkling on her head, she studied her reflection in the cheval-mirror. Having fallen in love with the emerald silk bustier on sight, she had teamed it with a flowing ivory skirt that enhanced the elegance of her tall, slender figure. As an outfit, it just screamed Cristos at her. Green was his favorite color. He liked her hair loose too, and her vibrant coppery-red mane hung as waterfall-straight down her narrow back as a sheet of silk.

From the minute she had agreed to marry Cristos two weeks earlier, she had entered another world. But undoubtedly the toughest challenge, she reflected ruefully, had been barely seeing Cristos since then. He had had to return to Greece and after that there had been a business trip to New York. On the single occasion when they had been together, there had been a crowd present. Two members of his staff had dealt most efficiently with the wedding arrangements while still allowing Corinne Mitchell to feel that her input was highly important. In truth, though, Betsy's parents stood in total awe of their future son-in-law and had deemed the organization of a social event for hundreds of wealthy important people to be way out of their league.

At Cristos' instigation, Betsy had given up her job and moved into the apartment, and for convenience her parents had been staying there with her. She had been amazed not just at the cloak of secrecy that Cristos seemed determined to cast over their big day but also at the elaborate security plans that he had insisted were necessary. He had suggested that the press might be tempted to make what he had termed, 'a nuisance of themselves' and that, in that event, she and her family would be safe from annoyance at the apartment. Betsy still could not credit that newspaper reporters would be even remotely interested in her.

'How do you think you'll fit in with Cristos' rich friends?' Gemma remarked. 'Do you think they'll like you?'

Betsy turned her dreamy gaze slowly from the mirror. 'I hope so. People are people whether they're rich or not-'

'Well, his grandfather's obviously not too pleased about the switch in brides. 1 notice he hasn't made any special effort to welcome you into the family.'

Betsy was becoming tense. 'Why should he have done? He's eighty-three years old and 1 expect he's quite happy to wait until he meets me today. Let's not make assumptions-'

'I just suspect that your wonderful new life in Greece may not be a bed of roses. Cristos seems to go abroad a lot on business too.' Gemma· sighed. somehow contriving to vocalize Betsy's every secret concern about her future as a wife. 'With a hunk as good-looking as Cristos, that'll be a real worry for you.'