His Pregnancy Ultimatum

By Helen Bianchin

A surprise reunion with a one-night stand leads to a shocking revelation in this captivating romance from the USA Today–bestselling author.

Mia Fredrickson has no idea what possessed her to share the bed of a complete stranger. Her handsome lover turns out to be Greek tycoon Nikolos Karedes, and when he discovers Mia’s secret he insists they marry. But Mia refuses!

However, as far as Nikolos is concerned, Mia’s resistance is only temporary. He will have again what he enjoyed before—Mia—using his exceptional seductive skills to place her at his mercy!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 11, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426867163

Helen Bianchin

Helen Bianchin was encouraged by a friend to write her own romance novel and she hasn’t stopped writing since! Helen’s interests include a love of reading, going to the movies, and watching selected television programs. She also enjoys catching up with friends, usually over a long lunch! A lover of animals, especially cats, she owns two beautiful Birmans. Helen lives in Australia with her husband. Their three children and six grandchildren live close by.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

‘MIA!’

A slender form almost identical to her own burst forward the instant Mia emerged into Sydney’s airport arrival lounge, and within seconds she was engulfed in an enthusiastic hug.

‘Hey,’ she protested with a musing laugh. ‘It’s only been five months.’

A sisterhood of two, no parents since their untimely death a decade before, the girls had been the best of friends for as long as they could remember. Sibling rivalry didn’t exist, never had, and each was sure it never would.

Petite in height, sable-brown hair, dark brown eyes, their likeness was such they had on occasion been mistaken for twins.

Yet Alice was the elder by two years, divorced with a nine-year-old son.

Mia caught hold of her sister’s arm. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

It took a while to collect her bag from the carousel, clear the busy terminal and join the flow of traffic heading towards the city.

It was great to be home, although home was something of a misnomer, for she no longer had a home as such. During the past few years she’d lived on university campus studying for a pharmacy degree.

Mia rolled her shoulders in a bid to ease the lingering tension from too many sleep-deprived nights leading up to end-of-year exams, the lack of caffeine, and a weariness that had little to do with either one of them.

‘So, tell me,’ Alice begged. ‘What’s new?’

Hell. Where did she start? Not at all might be best, she decided, while her sister was negotiating busy inner city traffic. It would take a while to reach the northern suburb of Manly, and the kind of news she had to impart was better told seated at Alice’s dining-room table while sharing a pot of tea.

‘The exams went okay,’ Mia reiterated cautiously, aware she’d said as much via email.

‘And?’

‘It’s good to be back.’

Alice gave her a searching look as the car drew to a halt at a controlled intersection. ‘You look pale. Tired,’ she elaborated.

Mia offered a faint smile. ‘Thanks,’ she managed ruefully. ‘Just what I needed to hear.’

‘Nothing some home-cooked food and a good night’s sleep won’t cure.’ The brisk tone was accompanied by a competent smile.

Alice was the ultimate earth mother, taking pride in producing wholesome hearty meals, home-baked cookies and bread, charity bakes. She sewed, stitched, crocheted, knitted, and took pottery classes. It didn’t stop there, for she also took art, sculpted, and set oils on canvas. She served on her son’s school committee, ran as president of the parent-teacher association, and excelled in organisation of all things.

Ask Alice was an invisible bandana her sister wore with pride, for helping had become a mission in life. It made up for the five years of Alice’s marriage during which her husband conditioned her to believe she served little purpose and possessed no self-worth.

Mia took in the familiar sight beyond the windscreen. Old buildings merged with new, dull, well-worn red brick jumbled together with renovated terrace houses, newly lacquered ornamental iron railings vying with broken wood palings. An endearingly eclectic mix that marked inner-city suburbia.

Traffic, as usual, maintained a hectic pace in a never-ending river of vehicles jostling for position in a bid to catch the next set of lights and minimise road time.

City smells, combining aged buildings, fuel fumes, summer heat. Trees with spreading branches bordering a green-grassed park, and, above, a cloudless blue sky.

Mia turned her attention to her sister.

‘How’s my favourite nephew?’

‘Great. Matt is doing well in school, enjoyed a terrific soccer season, and is heavily into tennis for summer,’ Alice enthused. ‘He’s studying piano, guitar, and is a whiz at chess. He began martial arts classes this year.’

Maternal love was unconditional, and Alice believed in the ‘busy mind, active body’ theory…totally. Fortunately her son was an enthusiastic advocate who viewed each new venture as a conquerable challenge.

‘I can’t wait to spend time with him.’ They shared a mutual affection that dispensed with the generation gap, a love of sports, action movies, books. Pals, she accorded fondly, and hoped the friendship part of their relationship would never change.

‘He has plans,’ Alice warned, and Mia offered a wry smile.

‘Uh-huh. I take it para-gliding, bungee-jumping and all other dangerous activities are a definite no-no?’

Alice made a sound that was part sigh, part groan.

‘Don’t,’ she warned. ‘Even in jest.’

Traffic was heavy as they crossed the harbour bridge, and only began to ease as they cleared the inner northern suburbs.

There were coves with moored craft, a marina, and heavy greenery hugging the elevated rock-face where luxurious homes perched high sharing magnificent views of the inner harbour and city.

Sun-dappled water, stunning architecture…a place where she’d been born and spent her formative years. Excelled and survived, loved and been betrayed, only to emerge as a strong, determined young woman whose focus became unwavering in pursuit of her goal.

Except for one little blip that had the power to change her life for ever.

Alice’s home was situated in a wide tree-lined street, a solid double-brick structure with medium-size rooms her sister redecorated with considerable flair at regular intervals.

Externally it was similar to many houses in the established suburb, but indoors it held an air of homeliness that was both inviting and relaxing.

‘Coffee, tea, or something cold?’ Alice queried as she preceded Mia down the hallway.

‘Tea would be great.’ There was only one guest room, which she occupied during university vacations, and she deposited her bag, released her knapsack, then she quickly freshened up before joining her sister in the kitchen.

Aromatic tea steamed from two cups, and there was a selection of home-made cookies set out on a plate.

‘We have an hour before I need to go collect Matt from school,’ Alice declared, indicating a chair opposite. ‘So…out with it.’

She could prevaricate, brush off her sister’s intuitive questioning, or at least delay giving an answer until…when? Tonight, when Matt was asleep? Tomorrow? There was never going to be a good time.

‘I’m pregnant.’ No lead up, just the basic fact. Yet the very starkness of her announcement caused acute anxiety as to Alice’s reaction, for Mia’s stance on pre-marital sex was a shared, well-known fact.

Together, they’d laughed about it, exchanged views, pursued the ‘fors’ and ‘againsts’, whether saving oneself for the right man and marriage didn’t belong way back in the previous century! ‘What if the sex turns out to be…well, less than anticipated? How will you know if you have nothing to compare it with?’ Alice had teased.

Now, there was a tremendous sense of vulnerability along with the anxiety. Everything she’d believed in, all that she’d held dear in her emotional heart, was laid bare, and open to criticism.

It was bad enough she’d resorted to self-castigation every day…every waking hour, since that fateful night.

‘Just…I’m pregnant? That’s it?’ Alice demanded, aghast.

Mia closed her eyes, then opened them again. Dear heaven, what was the matter with her? ‘I need to fill you in,’ she managed ruefully, and caught her sister’s intent expression.

‘In spades. No detail spared. And it would help to know whether I’m to congratulate, commiserate, console, or rejoice with you.’

Her stomach executed a somersault, then went into free fall. ‘Commiserate,’ she admitted, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘You weren’t—?’ Shock and anger meshed with a fighting spirit second to none. ‘It wasn’t—?’

‘No,’ she reassured at once, her own shock a visible entity. ‘Nothing like that.’

Alice leaned forward and covered her sister’s hand with her own. ‘So—what happened?’

The genuine concern evident in her sister’s expression almost moved her to tears, and she shook her head in self-chastisement of the emotional roller coaster she’d been riding for the past few weeks. One minute she’d be fine, the next a teary mess.

Where did she start? ‘Who,’ she corrected wryly. Oh, yes, it was definitely who.

‘I assume he’s to die for,’ Alice opined with a faintly wicked smile. ‘Considering he managed to persuade you to discard every one of your preconceived convictions about sex before marriage?’

His image came sharply into focus, haunting, taunting her with what they’d shared together. The excitement, the ecstasy…and her wantonness to experience it again, and again. A willing pupil beneath a skilled lover’s touch, she reflected.

‘Incredible,’ she said simply, aware of the warmth flooding her cheeks as she held her sister’s gaze.

‘Off the planet, huh?’ Alice’s grin was replaced with curiosity and a degree of mild reproof. ‘You didn’t tell me you were with anyone.’

Alice’s surprise was understandable, given they spoke on the phone each week and resorted to email almost every day.

‘I’m not.’

Her sister’s eyes narrowed fractionally. ‘If you don’t give me the rundown…the total rundown,’ she endorsed, ‘I’ll be forced to take dire action!’

Mia managed a faint smile. ‘The short version won’t wash?’

‘Don’t even think about it!’

There was nothing else for it but to start at the beginning…something she should have done at the onset, instead of dropping a verbal bombshell in her sister’s lap.

‘I was supposed to meet a friend at an evening function.’ A night out had seemed a good idea at the time, following weeks of intense study. It had also provided the opportunity to dress up…a marked change from wearing the usual university garb of jeans and tee shirt. ‘She didn’t show,’ Mia went on to explain. ‘When I checked my cellphone there was a text message to say she’d become suddenly ill.’ She effected a faint shrug. ‘I didn’t know anyone there, and I was about to leave when I noticed a fellow guest standing alone on the other side of the room.’

A man whose magnetic presence had made the room and everyone in it fade into insignificance.

Even from a distance he’d had an alarming effect on her equilibrium. Disturbing, disruptive, lethal. In that instant she’d instinctively known her emotional life was about to go into a tail-spin.

Yet not even she, in her naïvety, could have possibly imagined how the evening would end, or its far-reaching implications.

Nor would she have believed she could fall so quickly, so easily beneath a man’s spell.

Not one day passed when she didn’t query her sanity in mindlessly giving in to temptation…yet that was a misnomer, for she’d been fully aware of her actions, and honesty demanded acceptance she’d been a willing, eager participant.

‘You dated him?’

Oh, hell, this was where it became…difficult. ‘Not exactly.’

Alice’s expression sharpened. ‘What do you mean…not exactly?’ There was fleeting comprehension, followed by full-blown shock. ‘You slept with him that same night?’

There hadn’t been much sleep, only sheer physical and emotional exhaustion in the early pre-dawn hours.

‘Dear God, Mia.’ Her sister’s voice reduced to a stunned whisper. ‘What were you thinking?’

She closed her eyes against the anguish of her foolishness. ‘That’s just it. I didn’t think.’

Her sister’s eyes narrowed. ‘I take it the sex was consensual?’

‘Oh, hell, yes.’ The man, the night, the sex filled her mind in vivid detail. His powerful image, his touch, everything about him was indelibly imprinted in her mind.

Alice discarded her tea and sank back in her chair. ‘You had a wild night with someone you’d never met before?’ She shook her head in silent disbelief. ‘My sensible sister who’s so selective with her body she steadfastly refused to sleep with the man who wanted to put a ring on her finger?’

How could she explain all it had taken was one look, and she’d felt her bones melt? Recognition on some intense instinctive level that went beyond anything she’d ever known before.

‘Someone must have spiked your drink.’ It was the only logical explanation Alice could summon, and Mia shook her