Modern Romance October 2019 Books 5-8. Annie West

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Hannah checked the name against the piece of paper she clutched in her hand, looking around the marina with a frown on her face.

      There was some event on, Capri Sailing Week or some such, and the whole marina was bursting with life. Enormous boats—or ‘superyachts’, as she’d been told they were called—lined up like swans, so graceful and imposing in the evening sun.

      She knew from the search she’d done on the Internet that Stathakis Corp owned a boat that took part in the event. She also knew that Leonidas and his brother came to the event annually on their own ‘superyacht’. Photos had shown her a suntanned Leonidas relaxing on the deck, casting his eye over the race.

      She’d closed out of the images as quickly as she could.

      She didn’t need to see him again. Not like that.

      This was going to be quick, like ripping off a plaster. She’d tell him she was pregnant—not that she’d really need words. At more than five months along, she was quite visibly carrying a baby.

      She’d been so tempted just to call him. To deliver the news over the phone and leave it at that, just as he’d written her a note instead of having the courage to face her the next morning.

      But it was cowardly and she wasn’t that. They were having a baby together—she couldn’t ignore the ramifications of their night together and nor could he. At least she knew that, no matter what happened next, he’d regretted that night.

      He’d regretted it, he wished that it hadn’t happened, and he’d treated her with complete disdain and disrespect, skulking out in the middle of the night, leaving a note! It wasn’t as if she’d have begged him for more—they’d both agreed to it being one night only. It was the salt in the wound of him vanishing, not even bothering to say goodbye.

      That was the man she was having a child with.

      She grabbed hold of that thought; she needed to remember that.

      The Stathakis yacht was the biggest in the marina, and it was pumping with life and noise. Her eyes skimmed the yacht, running over the partygoers moving around with effortless grace, all scantily clad, from what she could see. Music with a heavy beat sounded loud and somehow seductive, so something began to beat low in her abdomen. There were staff, too, their crisp white shirts discernible even at a distance, the trays they carried overflowing with champagne flutes.

      She narrowed her eyes, lifting a hand and wiping it over her forehead. She was warm—the sun was beating down, even now in the early evening, and she’d been travelling since that morning.

      She was tired, too, the exhaustion of the first trimester not giving way in the second.

      She moved closer to the yacht, mindful on her approach that security guards stood casually at the bridge that led to the deck.

      As she approached, one of the men spoke to her in Italian. At her blank expression, he switched to Greek and then, finally, English. ‘Can I help you, miss?’

      ‘I need to see Leonidas Stathakis. It’s important.’

      The security guard flicked his gaze over Hannah, his expression unchanging. ‘It’s a private party.’

      She had expected this resistance. ‘If you tell him my name, I’m certain he’ll want to see me.’

      The guard’s scepticism was obvious. ‘And that is?’

      ‘Hannah. Hannah May.’ Her voice was soft, her Australian accent prominent.

      The guard spoke into his walkie-talkie, the background noise of the party coming through louder when he clicked the button at its side. She discerned only her own name in the rapid delivery of information. Then, he clicked the walkie-talkie back to his hip.

      ‘He СКАЧАТЬ