The Giannakis Bride by Catherine Spencer Page A

pleasure.
    If the warning ping! of the doors opening to admit another passenger hadn’t interrupted the moment, what might have happened next didn’t bear thinking about. Bad enough that she was all rosy and breathless, with her nipples visibly advertising their presence under her cotton blouse.
    “You’re so bad!” she muttered, slipping her sunglasses in place as they left the building and stepped out into the midday sun.
    He grinned unrepentantly. “Small wonder, my dear. The novelty of my self-imposed chastity is taking a terrible toll.”
    For her, too. His smile, his touch, his kiss, his every glance, filled her with a riot of sensation. She melted in the warmth of his smile. Went weak at the knees when he kissed her. Ached for him in the lonely luxury of her bed.
    Yet she worried they were hurtling along at too fast a pace when they should have been taking the time to be sure, really sure, they were getting it right this time. Because it was no longer just about the two of them. Poppy was part of the mix, and she’d already lost one mother. She didn’t deserve to lose another. No child did.
    On the Thursday she met again with Noelle and began the round of preliminary tests at the clinic. For the next two days, she was weighed, measured and X-rayed. Poked and prodded by an endless stream of technicians and doctors who took endless blood samples. Quizzed about everything from her childhood ailments, to her diet, to possible allergies, to her menstrual cycle.
    “I warned you we’d be thorough,” Noelle said with a smile.
    And with every passing hour, Brianna and Dimitrios grew closer. Whatever the interruptions during the day, they always made time to be together last thing at night. Walking the beach after dark, stolen kisses and touches that set her on fire, and hard-won restraint: these formed the foundation of their new understanding, the pattern of their renewal, even though every inch of her body screamed for the ultimate intimacy, the easing of a perpetual ache that only he could bring.
    When they’d first met, she’d fallen in love with his cosmopolitan tastes, his sharp intelligence, his wit and charm. She’d been seduced by the deep, exotic purr of his voice, and his masculine beauty. By his passion and sensitivity.
    This time she loved him for all that and more. For laying bare all the misunderstandings and lies that had come between them, and for taking the time to court her, just as he’d promised he would. Most of all, though, she loved him for the father he’d become.
    He stole her heart with his gentleness with his little girl; with his patience and tenderness. She loved how his big hands cradled Poppy’s little body; how he snuggled her against his shoulder. She loved his tone of voice, his face as he watched her sleep, his pain when she cried. Everything to do with his daughter made Brianna want to put her arms around him and give him comfort and support however she could. With her body, her heart, her soul, her life.
    Somehow she resisted, knowing it was too soon. There was too much else going on and all of it so steeped in emotion that it was hard to separate sex from stress; empathy from love. She had to be cautious. He’d broken her heart once. She’d never survive his doing it a second time.
    “You’re going to wear yourself to a shadow worrying about the two of them, if you’re not careful,” Erika informed reprovingly.
    But her words, Brianna noticed, lacked the bite of a week ago. “I can’t help it, Erika,” she replied. “They both mean too much to me. In any case, you worry, too. I know you do.”
    “Because I belong with them. But how long before you grow tired of the whole business and walk out, just like the other one did?”
    “I’m not my sister, Erika, and I don’t play fast and loose with other people’s lives, especially not a child’s. I love that little girl as if she were my own.”
    “Hmm,” came the reply on a disparaging sniff. “Time will tell,