GREEK HUSBAND

Chapter 45

'I didn't realize that it would still be such a sensitive subject for you. But you're right—I should've done. I'm not particularly keen to discuss my own background,' Edward conceded with a wry twist of his sensual mouth.

'I have to go. I have an appointment to see my tutor in an hour,' Bella fielded, spinning on her heel and walking fast out of the room before she exposed herself anymore.

Edward lifted the investigation file and then slapped it back down hard on the desk in frustration. He had upset her and he hadn't intended to do that. Bella was sensitive. Bella had hang-ups about her past. But didn't he as well? And since when had he worried about such delicate details? Or reacted personally to someone else's distress? The answer to that last question came back and chilled Edward to the marrow: not since he was a child struggling to comfort his distraught mother. Any desire to follow Bella and reason with her faded fast on that note.

Still struggling to master her powerful emotions, Bella leaned back against the wall in the lift. What was it about Edward Zikos that brought her inner aggression out? The very first night she met Edward she had resolved to be herself rather than act like the quieter, more malleable Bella she had learned to be to fit in with her uncle's family. That version of Bella had never freely expressed herself or lost her temper and had certainly never shouted at anyone. So, what was happening to her now? She was unnerved by her own behavior and by the sheer strength of the emotions taking her by storm. It was almost as though that one night of truly being herself with Edward had destroyed any hope of her either controlling or hiding her emotions again forever. Suddenly she was feeling all sorts of things she didn't want to feel.

Hell roast Edward for his interference, she thought in a simmering tempest of resentment. He had made her curious, made her burn to know what he knew about the father she barely remembered and that infuriated her when she had always contrived to keep her curiosity about her father at a manageable, unthreatening level. Now all of a sudden she was desperate to know everything there was to know. But that was yet another betrayal of her self-control, in short, a weakness, and she refused to give way to it. After all, she knew everything she needed to know about her father. Those bare facts could only be interpreted in one way. Her father hadn't cared enough to stay around. That was all she needed to know, she told herself impatiently.

She met with her tutor and her decision to take a year out from her studies was accepted. While she negotiated the stairs back down to the busy ground floor of the university building, Bella was thinking resolutely positive thoughts about the seed of life in her womb. She was facing huge changes in her life, but the sacrifices she was making and the adjustments that would follow would all benefit her baby, she told herself soothingly.

Marrying Edward would give Bella the precious gift of time. She would have time to come to terms with the prospect of motherhood and time to enjoy the first precious months of her baby's life without the stress of wondering how she was to survive as a new mother. She would also have Edward's support. Any male that is keen to marry her for their baby's sake would be a hands-on father and she very much wanted that male influence in her child's life. She had never forgotten how much she herself had longed for a father as a little girl. In every possible way her life would be more settled when she returned to her studies the following year, she reflected with relief.

But as she went to bed that night her mind was still in turmoil over her personal, private reactions to Edward. Edward, always Edward, had dominated her thoughts from the first moment she laid eyes on him. How had that happened? Bella had always prided herself on her discipline over her emotions but Edward Zikos had blasted through her defensive barriers like a blazing comet, awakening her to feelings and cravings that she had barely understood before. Was it infatuation? Was it simply sexual attraction? Or did her need to understand him, note his gifts as well as his flaws, indicate a deeper, more dangerous form of attachment? Theirs would be a marriage of convenience, after all, and even Marina had warned Bella not to expect more from Edward than he was already offering her.