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But it was not a mistake If Dimitri did not marry Phoebe Leonides, an old man whom Dimitri loved randfather had refused to back down from his ulti necessary surgery until Di date

His fist jabbed viciously into the pale between thee She could not If she had, at least one time over the past year, her career would have come second and he would have come first It never had Not once

Xandra was angry right now, her feminine pride bruised It had upset her to realize he had planned to , but he could not take seriously the idea she thought their liaison would end in e She’d made her independence too much an issue for that However, she had obviously believed he had no plans at all in that direction

More guilt added to the already swirling cauldron of emotions inside him

He had not intended to ain, but he’d lost his cool and his control the moment she went into seductive gressive lover She was affectionate and responsive, more responsive than any wo rarely and even then, she did so subtly Her seduction just now had been anything but subtle and it had under army

Afterward, it had been harder than he thought possible to tell her of his upcorant from their intimacy

He forced himself away from the wall and toward the elevator A clean break was the only way

Alexandra waited thirty-six hours to call Di of each hour, the man she loved, the father of her child, would come back to her

He had made love to her She was sure he hadn’t planned to do it, but he had He’d never slept with Phoebe He had said he didn’t love the other woman and equally important, he couldn’t possibly need her the way he had needed Alexandra for the past year

But he did not come and she had no choice but to contact him She was furious with him, more hurt than she’d ever been in her life, but she carried his child and she had to tell hi another woman

She refused to consider what she would do if the news of i fatherhood had no effect on his marital plans

The sound of the phone ringing beeped in her ear three times before he picked up “Dimitri, here”

“It’s Xandra”

She wassilence

“We need to talk”

More silence “There is no more to say”

“You’re wrong There are things I must tell you” Did he notice how alike her words now to the ones he’d spoken to her two days ago?

“Can we not dismiss the postmortems?”

She sucked in air, but controlled the desire to screa her like yesterday’s garbage “No We need to talk You owe this to me, Dimitri”

This time she didn’t break the silence

Finally she heard a heavy exhalation at the other end of the line “Fine Meet me at Chez Renée for lunch”

“I’d rather meet in the apart fatherhood and her true identity in a public setting

“No”

She gritted her teeth, but didn’t argue “Fine” Maybe a public setting would be best after all He would hesitate to coht with black humor

They set a ti up

Diein his Athens office He had flown to Athens within hours of leaving the Paris aparto back to her

And that infuriated him