The Greek's Pregnant Bride

Nothing was said until they were back in the car and moving, both pressed against their respective doors.

‘What did you think of my mother?’ Christian asked, amusement and bitterness both vying for control in his voice.

Alessandra was unable to do anything but raise her shoulders and blow air out of her mouth.

That had to be the most surreal experience of her life, like stepping into some parallel universe where poison ivy grew instead of roses.

‘Do you understand now why I don’t want her at our wedding?’

‘I think so.’ She shook her head some more. She could still taste the acrid atmosphere, overwhelming even the cloying bleach. ‘What did she say to you?’

‘The usual. That I’m a useless son for leaving it so long between visits; that her house isn’t good enough for her; that the house is too big for her, that it’s too small, that her car is getting old. The usual.’

the house

be enough. If she came to the wedding, she’d spend the day complaining. Nothing would be good enough for her, and when she isn’t complaining she’ll be telling all our guests about my no-good bastard of a father who broke her heart and deserves castration without

leaving nothing but the toxic shell of the woman she must have once been. Christian understood it, could see how she had become like that. Stratos Markos

been like this?’ she asked, her

father—that’s what she was saying to you when we left, that you’re a fool to be marrying me and that I’m going to break

said that

would be kinder for me to rip your heart out now—you forget, agapi mou, that I am my father’s son, something she never lets me forget. In my mother’s world, all

widened, full of sympathy. ‘You’re not to blame for your father’s

any platitudes. A coldness had settled in his chest,

always the same after he visited his mother. Regardless of the heat outside, inside all he felt was

her to label all men as bastards

you not believe that yourself?’ he said