Free The Greek Billionaire's Love-Child by Sarah Morgan

offering me visitation rights? You think that’s what I want?’ His voice was fierce and Ella froze, horrified at the thought that people might hear.
    ‘Keep your voice down. I don’t know what you want. I thought you wanted to see your child. But if you don’t—that’s fine, too. I suppose your latest girlfriend would take a pretty dim view of having a relationship with a guy who has a baby in tow.’
    Nikos made an impatient sound. ‘I do not have a girlfriend. Since we parted I have been working in Athens at the children’s hospital. And that is enough talking about the past. We need to talk about the future.’
    Keeping the lock and chain firmly on her dreams, Ella blinked back tears. ‘We don’t have a future, Nikos.’
    ‘Be careful…’ he gave a dangerous smile, his fingers trapping hers ‘…or I might just choose to prove you wrong in public.’
    They stood for a moment, a host of things unsaid, and then Rose strolled across to them.
    ‘Your car is attracting quite a crowd, Nikos.’ She cast an amused glance towards the group of teenagers who were loitering on the street, gazing in awe at the sleek lines of Nikos’s high-performance sports car. ‘Dare I ask how the meeting with the hospital management board went? I suppose they turned you down?’
    Dragging his hot, burning gaze from Ella’s face, Nikos turned his attention to Rose, visibly struggling to concentrate. ‘From next Monday the budget will cover three extra nurses for the summer months, one of them paediatric trained.’
    Rose gave a gasp of shocked delight. ‘You’re joking.’
    ‘There is no humourous side to health service staffing,’ Nikos drawled, and Rose stood on tiptoe and hugged him impulsively.
    ‘You’re a genius. Oh, sorry.’ Embarrassed, she sat down and cast Ella an apologetic look. ‘It’s just that we’ve been so stretched and our numbers seem to go up every summer. What did you say to them?’
    ‘I appealed to their sense of reason,’ Nikos said silkily, and Ella rolled her eyes.
    ‘You bullied them.’
    ‘I was forcefully persuasive,’ Nikos countered, and Rose laughed.
    ‘I love that. Forcefully persuasive. Remind me to adopt that approach next Saturday night when the department is full of drunks. Forcefully persuasive.’ Grinning with delight, she wandered back to the table to pass on the happy news to the rest of the team.
    ‘So now you’re a hero.’ Her stomach churning, Ella abandoned all hope of relaxing. ‘Well—given that you’ve secured extra staff, no one will miss me if I leave. I’m going to hand in my resignation tomorrow.’
    ‘There is no reason for you to resign.’
    ‘I cannot work alongside my ex-lover.’ Suddenly Ella felt exhausted.
    Pregnancy or stress?
    Below her in the harbour the family on the boat were putting the children to bed and Ella swallowed down the lump in her throat as she noticed the tiny stuffed bear in one of the windows.
    They were a family.
    Whatever that meant.
    Her mind flew back to the moment that she’d discovered that she was pregnant. She’d been too devastated by what she’d discovered about Nikos to feel excited about her own news.
    And even knowing that part of it had been a misunderstanding, there was no getting away from the fact that he had lied about the money. And he hadn’t trusted her enough to share the details of his past.
    Secrets.
    ‘You’re tired.’ Nikos straightened, slid a possessive arm around her shoulders and uttered a smooth apology to the rest of the group. ‘We’ve been apart for rather too long. If you’ll excuse us…’
    Ella resisted the temptation to brush him off simply because she didn’t want the gossip.
    As they walked along the street, the crowd of teenage boys hovering around Nikos’s car parted with silent deference.
    ‘Great car, man,’ one of them breathed enviously, and Nikos made a masculine comment about cylinders or something equally unfathomable, and Ella took advantage of the brief