The Greek's Pregnant Bride
Chapter 25

Chapter 25

She’d spent years breaking free and now, just as her life and freedom were hers and hers alone, shefound she was pledging herself to a man with the same controlling instinct she had spent so longkicking back from.

Christian had over-protectiveness down to an art.

He hadn’t merely employed a bodyguard for her, he’d employed an elite squad of hardened ex-soldiers.

Unfortunately they didn’t come with personalities, all having been highly trained never to crack a smileor share banter. In the safety of her apartment building she could forget all about them, but the secondshe stepped outside they would materialise.

As much as she found their presence stifling, she was grateful. She’d never imagined the paparazzicould be any worse than when she’d been seventeen. She’d been wrong. Eight years ago it had beenmostly the Italian press with a handful of Brits thrown in. This time their number included Greeks—lotsof them—Americans, French... She swore she’d even heard a Japanese voice throw questions at her.She’d known her engagement to Christian would generate a frenzy but had not been prepared for suchmadness.

The granddaughter of the great Giovanni Mondelli, a man of such stature he was regarded like royalty;the sister of Rocco Mondelli, the man credited with dragging the House of Mondelli kicking andscreaming into the twenty-first century, a man who’d recently married one of the most famoussupermodels in the world; Alessandra Mondelli, the former scandal-hit teenager who’d become one ofthe world’s leading fashion photographers: for such a woman to be marrying the self-made Greekbillionaire, the whizz of the financial world with the movie-star looks... For the press it was a dreamcombination.

For Alessandra it was a nightmare. She consoled herself that at least she wasn’t being called a slut anymore. She’d kept her dark sunglasses on and answered only one of the hundreds of questions that had

been thrown her way over the past week.

‘Are you looking forward to the wedding?’ someone had asked.

‘Of course,’ she’d replied with what she hoped was an enigmatic smile.

She hadn’t been the only target. Christian, his sunglasses permanently attached to his face too, hadalso been mobbed. As had Rocco, who ignored every single question. Rumours had started circulatingin the past few days about the punch, a new frenzy ensuing.

Relieved to be away from the madness, she leaned back in the leather seat and gazed out at Athens,the city that would play a huge part of her life from this moment on.

She’d heard it referred to as ‘the cradle of Western civilisation.’ Even if she’d been unaware of itshistory, she would have recognised it. It had seeped into the walls, some pristine, some falling apart atthe seams. With ugly apartment blocks and majestic buildings, it was a city that managed to becosmopolitan yet obviously ancient and historic. A city of contradictions.

For the first time she felt something akin to excitement bubble in her veins.

She had six days in this city before she exchanged her vows. From worrying that she would be boredstuck in a place where she knew no one, she now saw a huge opportunity. If she could ever getanywhere. At this rate, she would be lucky to make it to the hotel before the sun set. She’d thought thetraffic in Milan was bad...

Eventually, they came to a road with manned security gates that opened slowly and led to an enormouswhite building with pillars either side of the huge entrance. It was as though she was staring at a palacethat had been home to the Greek gods themselves.

A fleet of staff was by her side within seconds of the car coming to a stop, her luggage whisked awaywhile she was taken through to the marble foyer.

‘Don’t I need to sign in?’ she asked when a woman, who identified herself as the general manager,offered to take her straight to her room.

‘No, despinis,’ the woman replied. ‘Everything is taken care of.’

Christian’s work, Alessandra told herself, her belly tightening at the thought of seeing him again. She’dbeen so busy over the past week that she’d hardly had the time to think of him on anything other than apractical level. Her dreams, though, had been...disturbing. Enough that merely to think of him made herbones feel as if they’d been through a blender.