Satisfaction: The Greek Tycoon′s Baby Bargain
Satisfaction: The Greek Tycoon's Baby Bargain
Sharon Kendrick
When playboy Alexandros Pavlidis discovers that Rebecca is pregnant with his twins, his first instinct is to pay her off. But Xandros won’t be truly satisfied until Rebecca agrees to marriage – on his terms! Billionaire Kyros Pavlidis wants a warm and willing woman in his bed every night – a wife to satisfy all his needs and Alice is just the woman for the job! Estranged from his wife, billionaire Alexei Christou is angered by Victoria’s sudden demand for a divorce. He agrees to her terms but it will come at a price – his satisfaction! He means to bed his bride again. . .
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
Satisfaction
The Greek Tycoon’s Baby Bargain
The Greek Tycoon’s Convenient Wife
Bought by Her Husband
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#u1b77c83b-f621-5f91-80aa-7692b908610e)
About the Author (#uda739b3f-dcc0-5cf5-aa9d-83cf0008d8b9)
Title Page (#u0f3baf92-954a-5a8e-80f4-c48dd64f9805)
The Greek Tycoon’s Baby Bargain (#u35c1a242-2389-5deb-a07b-e295236503b8)
Dedication (#ud03041f0-9c8c-583a-867e-cff88cabbafd)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_b8b6a716-6015-574d-b908-36651c58698e)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_0e82d2c7-c25d-5942-a11a-62046bc94095)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ff6f49e0-2f3e-5877-b406-b86bd79b1cc4)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_2b55554c-cee8-5709-80d1-0fcdd8e1da8e)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_686e28da-0a7a-52b6-8094-7a49243e924a)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_e57e6e74-524c-5965-8e45-a93690d252ea)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_52e96077-1327-5f21-b5cb-ff5f7a698f39)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_18b8a2f3-7f5b-53e2-bfcc-919c1623edce)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
The Greek Tycoon’s Convenient Wife (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Bought by Her Husband (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
The Greek Tycoon’s Baby Bargain (#u5d5f3c07-2575-5869-a0eb-88779f6f0f46)
Sharon Kendrick
To my adorable godchildren:
Lucy Jacob, Judy Jacob, Hannah Minnock,
Lucy Wightwick, Rory Maguire and
Catriona McDavid. With love.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_27b4e624-3856-56fd-a026-8d455d4cc434)
IT WASN’T the first time he had been late—but it was the first time he hadn’t bothered to warn her.
Outside, the rain made the street look as glossy as an old black and white photo but Rebecca’s eyes were fixed at the junction which would give her the first glimpse of his car.
The palms of her hands were cold and clammy and she bit her lip, her head spinning with thoughts she could no longer ignore. Because maybe this was how it all began—the end of a relationship. With the slow, slow drip of inconsideration—rather than the passion of the blazing row.
Her lips curved into a painful smile as she recognised that even calling it a relationship gave it more importance than it deserved. When two people lived on opposite continents and merely snatched at secret moments together—did that really count?
Perhaps affair would be more accurate. An affair which should never have started and which she’d tried her best to resist, but in the end she had been weak—of course she had. For wasn’t that Xandros’s special ability: to make women weak around him? It wasn’t difficult to see why. Given the sheer charisma and powerful persuasion of the Greek billionaire, it was amazing that she had lasted out as long as she had.
Maybe this was what happened when you finally began to fall in love with a man like Alexandros Pavlidis—or Xandros to his friends and lovers. This terrible preoccupation which made all your thinking skewed. Even though you told yourself that you didn’t want to be in love, that it couldn’t possibly be love when all you’d known were some amazing dates and some even more amazing sex.
Yet you could tell yourself something again and again and sometimes almost believe it. And then he would call at the very last minute and she would hear that deep sexy voice, asking her if she’d like to have dinner, and her heart would flip—the world seeming suddenly to be lit by fairy lights. And even though she hated herself for being so available, she would be unable to say no.
The gleam of powerful headlights cut a bright channel through the night and Rebecca saw the shiny black nose of the limousine as it slowly eased its way into view. Hastily, she ducked out of sight as it stopped outside the apartment building. Not the most attractive sight in the world, was it? To be seen staring anxiously out of the window!
She checked the mirror. Her hair was clean and shining—worn loose, just the way Xandros liked it. She was wearing a dress in soft lilac and was slim enough and young enough to carry off the relatively inexpensive outfit and make the most of it. Xandros didn’t like a lot of make-up and neither did she. A slick of lipstick and a curl of mascara—that was all.
But no amount of careful preparation could hide the faint shadows beneath her eyes, or the way that she seemed to have been constantly biting her lip lately, like an exam candidate who hadn’t really understood the question.
The doorbell rang and she pinned a casual smile to her mouth, which died the instant she opened the door to see a tall man in uniform standing on the step, rain dripping from his peaked cap, and it took a moment or two to realise that she was looking at Xandros’s chauffeur.
‘Miss Gibbs?’ he said politely, as if he’d never met her before. As if he hadn’t witnessed Xandros kissing her so passionately on the back seat of the car. Or hadn’t been forced to sit in a car outside her tiny house, waiting for his Greek boss to reappear over an hour later minus his tie, his hair dishevelled, his sensual mouth curved with pleasure.
Rebecca’s cheeks burned with shame at the memory of that particular time. ‘Where’s Xandros?’ she questioned, and then her eyes widened as a thousand horrible possibilities flooded into her mind. ‘He’s okay? I mean—nothing’s happened to him?’
But the chauffeur’s face might have been made of wood. Hard, disapproving wood—as if he was used to dealing with a hundred worried-looking women like Rebecca. ‘Mr Alexandros Pavlidis asked me to convey his apologies, but he is dealing with a conference call. He asked me to bring you to him instead.’
Rebecca swallowed. Bring you to him. Like a convenience, she thought. A package. Something handy, but ultimately disposable. Yes, that was her, all right.
There was a split second while she ran through her options. What was the normal response when your lover sent his chauffeur to collect you and you suspected that was because your novelty value was wearing off and he might be tiring of you? Did you smile gratefully and thank the chauffeur and settle back comfortably in the back of the luxury car, counting your blessings?
Or would you be more respected—and desired—if you politely told the driver that he could go back to his boss with the information that you had changed your mind about dinner, and were staying in? That if he was busy, then surely the best solution was to leave him in peace to get on with his work.
But the lure of Xandros was strong, and so was her fear that a dramatic display of pique might bring about the end sooner than she had anticipated. Sooner than she could cope with.
‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said.
The traffic was heavy and the weather bleak for a Thursday night in April. Rebecca’s hair was whipped around her head by a biting wind as the hotel doorman opened the car door and she stepped out.
Had she been hoping that Xandros might have been standing in the foyer, waiting for her? That she wouldn’t have to make the endless journey across the luxurious carpet on her own, imagining that eyes were on her, wondering who the woman in the cheap dress was? Wasn’t there a part of her which was slightly terrified of being stopped by one of the hotel staff, demanding to know why she was taking the lift up to the penthouse?
But the journey passed without comment and in the mirror-lined lift she had the opportunity to drag a brush through her hair, to compose herself into the right kind of expression.
How did she look the first time he’d seen her—when he had hunted her down like a hungry predator? Surely she could recreate a similar kind of expression now. The kind of air which implied that she had a full and fulfilling life, and she wasn’t particularly fussed about any man—not even if he was a world-famous Greek billionaire.
The trouble was that things changed. People changed, once a man like Xandros had possessed them. Did he have the power to turn women into his willing slaves—so that he could ultimately despise them for wanting him so badly?
Did he despise her? Had she no pride left where he was concerned?
The lift doors slid open noiselessly and she could hear the sound of his voice coming from the direction of the sitting room. A unique voice, in Rebecca’s experience—low, soft, dangerous, sexy. He was speaking in Greek and then suddenly he switched to English as she began to walk towards its silken resonance, the heels of her boots quiet on the thick carpet.
He was sitting at the vast desk which overlooked London’s Hyde Park, wearing a white silk shirt which contrasted against his deep olive skin. His ebony hair was ruffled and it sparkled with the light from drops of water—as if someone had scattered fine diamonds over his head, though he was clearly just out of the shower.
‘Tell them no,’ he was saying. ‘Tell them …’ And then he must have become aware of her presence for his gaze flicked up from the document he was reading. He studied her for one long, unhurried moment and then the black eyes glittered, and he gave a slow smile, running the tip of his tongue over his lips—like someone starving who had just seen their meal arrive.
‘Tell them that they will have to wait,’ he said softly, and then put the phone down without any kind of conventional goodbye. ‘Rebecca,’ he murmured. ‘Rebecca mou.’
Usually, that deep, sensuous endearment made her tremble, but not tonight. ‘Hello, Xandros,’ she said evenly.
His eyes narrowed. Leaning back in his chair, he continued to study her. ‘Forgive me for not coming to collect you myself—but some business came in which I had to deal with.’
Rebecca eyed the dark arrow of hair revealed by the few shirt buttons which had been left open and she felt the habitual rush of desire which overrode everything else, even sanity. But if she ignored this lapse in plain courtesy, then wasn’t she just giving him permission to treat her any way he saw fit? If it was any other man, would she have said something? Of course she would. But with any other man you wouldn’t care!
‘You could have phoned.’
There was a split second of a pause. ‘I could indeed,’ he agreed steadily and felt the flicker of a pulse at his temple. Be careful, agape mou, he thought. Be very careful.
‘And you’re still not ready.’
His eyes narrowed. Was that a criticism? Of him? Did she not realise that he would not tolerate being judged? That no woman ever had, and no woman ever would? And was she not aware that she was in danger of treading the path of the predictable—the path that so many women before her had taken—and that if she did there could be only one outcome?
Leaning back in his chair just a little, he crossed one long leg over the other, watching the way that her eyes followed the movement as she tried to disguise the hunger in her eyes. Should he take her now? he wondered idly. Could he really be bothered to endure a restaurant dinner of small talk when all he wanted was to lose himself in the sweetness of her body?
‘Indeed I am not,’ he agreed softly, following her gaze to his bare feet and remembering that amazing time when she had … ‘But that is easily remedied,’ he said thickly. ‘I shall go into the bedroom and finish getting dressed right now.’
‘Okay,’ she said uncertainly, something telling her that he was playing a game with her.
‘Or …’ His mouth flickered in the mockery of a smile. ‘Or you could always come over here and say hello to me properly.’
Was that a subtle dig that she hadn’t already done so? Rebecca was aware of some unknown emotion hovering in the air about them—something unspoken and dangerous. Instinct told her that she was playing with fire if she continued to moan about his lateness. And an even stronger instinct made her badly want to kiss him.
Letting her handbag slide to the floor, she crossed the room and went over to him, bending her face to brush a light kiss against his lips. A kiss could wipe everything away, she thought longingly, her hands reaching up to his shoulders. Oh, Xandros.
‘Nice,’ he murmured. ‘Oreos. Do it some more.’
She kissed him again. And then again—only deeper this time and more intently—until he groaned and reached for her so that she let him pull her down onto his lap. ‘Xandros!’ she gasped.
‘Touch me,’ he urged, his mouth against her ear, his nostrils inhaling her light, flowery scent and feeling the silken spill of her hair next to his skin.
‘Wh-where?’
‘Where ever you want, agape mou.’
Oh, the choice was dazzling. Where did she begin? With his face—and all its shadowy contours, its contrasting lines and curves? She let her fingers caress his cheeks, running them along the luminously gold skin as if she were measuring the high angles of his cheekbones until she encountered the rasp of the dark new growth around his jaw.
‘You didn’t shave today,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t you know what they say about men who need to shave a lot?’
‘No. What do they say?’
‘What do you think they say?’ he taunted. ‘They say that he is a real man. Shall I prove it to you?’ Taking her hand, he guided it down to between his legs and Rebecca felt the rush of blood to her cheeks as she felt the unbelievable hardness of him stretching the fabric of his elegant trousers. ‘Ne,’ he groaned. ‘Touch me there. Right there.’
‘Like that?’ she whispered, cupping him in the palm of her hand.
‘Ne. More. Do that some more.’
She drifted her fingers teasingly over the rocky shaft of him, and his soft moan became an impatient imprecation. His ebony eyes were sparking pure passion and fire and his voice was unsteady as he stroked the silken skin above her breasts. ‘I haven’t seen this dress before.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘No. I want to tear it from your body.’
‘Don’t do that, Xandros—it’s new.’
‘Then why don’t you take it off for me?’
Suddenly she felt shy, the doubts which had been assailing her all day coming back like spectres to haunt her. Was this an acceptable way to be treated by a man—to be made to feel insecure with him and then for him to ask you to perform a striptease, while he was still seated at his desk?
‘Shouldn’t we go into the bedroom?’
He gave a short laugh, but he was so hard and so hot for her that he doubted he would be able to make it to the door and this sensual power which she always seemed to exert over him made him want to wrest back control. ‘Isn’t it a little soon in our acquaintance for convention to rear its ugly head?’
Rebecca froze. Acquaintance. What kind of a word was that?
He saw her mouth tremble and he licked the tip of his tongue over it to cease its shiver, his hands slipping around her waist, fingers splaying over its slim indentation. ‘Take it off,’ he urged thickly.
She wanted to say I can’t, but then he might ask her why, and how could she possibly answer that? Telling him that she wanted him to respect her and not just treat her as a sex object might sound like emotional blackmail. Respect had to be earned, not demanded—and, besides, maybe this was the kind of high-octane way in which billionaires conducted their love affairs.
And wasn’t there a part of her which was revelling in her newly discovered ability to thrill him, to make his body rigid with tension, the black eyes opaque with a kind of helpless desire? Wasn’t this the only time she felt that she had any real say in the relationship—in that emotionally and physically fraught time just before a couple had sex?
She stood up and lifted her hands to her hair, scooping it up between her fingers, before letting the whole heavy mass fall around her shoulders, watching his black eyes following the movement almost hypnotically. She knew he loved her hair. He had told her that the first time she’d met him—he’d said it was the colour of the setting sun before the night sky swallowed it up, whole. And when he had said it, he had looked as if he would like to swallow her up whole.
Hadn’t it been his almost poetic way with words which had disarmed her just as much as the dark, good looks and the hard, lean body? The idea that a man could be the embodiment of all that was masculine and yet be unafraid to express himself in the way which would make a woman melt?
But hadn’t that just been part of his well-practised seduction technique? How long had it been since he’d told her that her eyes were like the violet-blue flowers which scrambled in among the arid rocks and bloomed during a Grecian spring? Or that her skin was pure cream, and that was why he liked to lick it?
She shivered. Pride told her she should not strip for him and yet she knew that the evening would start off badly if she started playing games by refusing.
Peeling off her dress with one slow, sweeping movement, she dropped it on the desk, right in the middle of all his papers, daring him to object—wanting him to object. To somehow make this powerful man feel as helpless as she did. ‘I do hope that won’t interfere with your work,’ she said, thinking no such thing at all.
‘Rebecca,’ he said unevenly.
‘Yes, Xandros?’
‘Turn around,’ he said huskily. ‘Turn around and let me feast my eyes on you.’
She made him wait. The only time she could—and then she began to walk to the other side of the desk.
‘Rebecca?’
‘Do you mean like this, Xandros? Do you want to see my bottom?’ Slowly, she turned around and gave a flamboyant little wiggle and heard him laugh, but the laugh was tinged with a small groan as he saw the unbelievably alluring scarlet briefs and the matching bra over which her breasts spilled.
‘Ne. Just like that.’
He loved her bottom, as well as her hair. He had told her that, too, insisting that the pert globes be covered in nothing but lace, wanting to buy her sets of lingerie from one of the most exclusive stores in London—but she had refused. She would not be bought, even though sometimes he made her feel like a possession—just like one of his sleek cars or the fancy apartments he owned.
She began to slide the panties off, but her hands were trembling as she hooked them off over each foot and as she turned around, she crumpled them angrily between her palm and threw them at him.
Catching them effortlessly, Xandros raised his dark brows, and then—very deliberately—he lifted them up to his face and closed his eyes as he breathed in their scent.
Rebecca felt faint. What did he do to her? What power could he wield that could make her feel so utterly abandoned and wanton when she was with him—and yet leave her feeling abandoned in quite a different sense when he wasn’t there?
‘Delicious,’ he murmured. ‘Now the bra. Take it off.’
‘You take it off.’
‘But I can’t reach.’
‘Then move.’
‘Are you ordering me around, agape mou?’
‘You bet I am.’
Laughing softly, he rose to his feet and walked towards her with the slow stealth of the certain predator. And then, without warning, he snaked his arms around her and crushed her into his arms into a kiss of such hard—almost brutal—passion that she lost her balance.
But Xandros had her held firmly in his arms and he continued to kiss her, luxuriating in the softness of her body, enjoying the little cries she was making. For a woman who had made him wait longer than any other—his victory was almost complete.
‘Still want to go to the bedroom?’ he taunted, dragging his mouth away from hers. ‘Or did you have somewhere else in mind?’
She no longer cared, but she was damned if she was going to tell him that. Or to give into him yet again. He wanted her now and he wanted her here and he could damned well wait as he had made her wait for him to turn up tonight.
‘B-bed,’ she managed. Damn him, damn him, damn him! Everything with him was a battle—but this was one she was going to win. She didn’t care if it was conventional to want to go to the bedroom—at least it wouldn’t be insultingly convenient to have him take her there and then on the floor as he had done so many times before.
But he scooped her up in his arms as she had known he would—and all her angry thoughts melted because this bit was her fantasy come true. Her darkly virile lover taking his willing captive off to experience the perfect pleasures of his body. Wasn’t that the stuff of every woman’s secret dream—to be mastered and dominated by such a powerful man?
Rebecca kissed his neck as he carried her down the long corridor of the suite he rented whenever he was in London—which took over the entire top floor of the Park Lane hotel. She remembered the first time she had seen the bedroom—and had been rendered speechless.
Photo-spreads in glossy magazines could easily show luxury—but she’d been unaware that a single room could be so spacious. This one had a bed which was only slightly smaller than her entire bedroom back home—and everything else seemed to be controlled at the push of a button.
There was a giant TV screen and a small fridge, stocked with champagne and fancy chocolates as well as cut-glass bowls of flowers strategically placed to scent the room. There was even a bookcase and a rack which held all the international newspapers. But there was only one thing which she and Xandros did once they crossed the threshold of this room…
Xandros put her down on the bed and began to unbuckle his belt, watching her face as he did so, seeing her eyes darken in anticipation, as they always did. ‘You want me to strip for you now?’ he questioned softly.
‘Yes. I-I insist on it,’ she said unsteadily, but for her it was less of an erotic turn-on than the fact that she wanted to see him vulnerable—or as vulnerable as he was capable of.
But there was nothing remotely vulnerable about watching Xandros take his clothes off. First, he loosened his shirt, button by button—an interminable amount of buttons, or so it seemed to her.
‘Want me to go faster?’ he mocked as he saw her tongue snake out to moisten her parched lips.
Rebecca shook her head as he slipped the garment from his broad, bare shoulders and let it flutter to the floor like the white flag of surrender—except she knew that he didn’t have a surrendering bone in his body.
Rebecca saw him give a mocking wince as he slowly slid the zip of his trousers down and it said much for his self-possession and steely control that still he did not hurry it, despite the very obvious evidence of his arousal.
How could he possibly look both elegant and sexy as he removed his trousers and draped them over the back of a chair? His feet were bare, so all that remained were the silk boxer shorts which gave his body the look of a taut and supremely fit athlete. He kicked them off and for a moment just stood before her—completely naked and thrillingly aroused—his eyes glittering with an irresistible and arrogant challenge. And in that moment there was something so daunting—almost forbiddingly masculine—about him that Rebecca’s heart thumped with something which felt more like fear than desire.
‘Shall I come to you now, agape mou?’ His voice was a caressing tease. ‘Is that what you want?’
She wanted to tell him to promise not to break her heart, and she wanted him more than she could remember wanting anything in her life—more than breath itself. Was he aware of that? Or that sometimes he made her feel emotionally raw—as if he had seared away the top layer of her skin, leaving her cruelly exposed to his analytical eye? And what did that eye see? Someone who lived the way that plenty of other young women did—yet one who was dating a man way out of her league.
‘If you want,’ she answered, as if she couldn’t care less.
He gave a low laugh of delight as he climbed onto the bed beside her. ‘Come here.’
‘No.’
‘Ah, Rebecca. Rebecca mou.’ Reaching out, he pulled her trembling body into the hard heat of his own, his thumb reflectively circling one puckered rose nipple so that it seemed to push insistently against him. ‘You are still angry with me for being late?’
Tell him. Tell him! ‘You could have let me know. I just don’t want to be taken for granted, Xandros. I thought that you—’
His kiss silenced her, but then it was the most effective silencer in the world where women were concerned—and if all she was intending to do was to subject him to the age-old complaint about how a woman wanted to be treated, well … He had heard that grievance more times than he cared to remember.
This was better. Just this. The feel of skin against skin, the growing warmth of their ardour making their bodies closer still—as if they were glued together. In his arms, she was everything he could want from a lover—a little inexperienced, it was true, but he liked that. He had no time for women with lots of different party tricks to try out—for they were little better than hookers. A sense of wonder was fine by him, and, for however long the affair lasted, he would enjoy teaching her everything he knew.
He enjoyed the mental battle he engaged in during sex. He liked to test himself—to bring the woman to the near-height of pleasure over and over again, while denying himself until he could deny it no longer.
‘Oh, Xandros,’ she pleaded, with a frantic little cry of pleasure.
‘Mmm?’
‘Please!’
‘Please, what, agape mou?’
‘Now!’
How eager she was! How quickly she reached her peak! He lifted his dark head from where he had been suckling at her breast and moved over her, his black eyes glittering, before thrusting into her long and hard and deep, with a little groan of pleasure.
Sometimes he liked to watch a woman bloom and flower, but Rebecca was reaching her hands up to his shoulders, pulling him down so that their mouths met, and she groaned with pleasure as she writhed beneath him.
Tangled and gasping, she wrapped her limbs around him like a soft, white octopus, moving her hips in abandon until he felt the control slipping away from him. His orgasm came with a strength and a power which surprised him, but it had been like that with her since the very first time, and he couldn’t quite work out why.
Because she had made him think the unthinkable—that he was actually going to fail to get her into his bed?
Her head lay against the stilling thunder of his heart and he stroked her hair, missing the absence of her warm breath as she turned her head away to stare at the wall, saying nothing.
Ironically, this was when he liked her best—when she was retreating from him, like the tide moving away from the ever-distant shore. Xandros only wanted something when it was beyond his reach. Because once he had possessed it he wanted to move on, as he had been moving on all his restless life.
‘Do you still want to go out for dinner?’ He stretched lazily, and yawned. ‘Or shall we stay here and order something in?’
For a moment, Rebecca didn’t answer. In a way, she was perfectly happy to stay there—for she was as warm and replete as a woman could be. He would order from room service and the food would be wheeled in on a grand linen-covered trolley, with big silver domes concealing the food. And a silent waiter would set their table for them, while they watched him, rather awkwardly.
There would be flowers and fine wines and morsels of food which they would pick at—and, soon enough, they would return to bed. Or make love on the sofa, while watching a film. And Xandros would probably take at least one business call.
The alternative was to get dressed and be whisked off to dinner—and every woman liked a little life outside the private world of the bedroom, no matter how wonderful the fantasy land within it. If theirs was a normal relationship she would have been thrilled to have been seen with him—but it wasn’t. They weren’t supposed to be dating and so they crept around, like thieves in the night. They visited discreet, out-of-the-way restaurants—or they stayed in his hotel room. Sometimes she wondered if anyone would actually believe her if she told them she was seeing the Greek billionaire.
But who could she tell? She had put her job on the line by agreeing to date him in the first place and none of her colleagues knew about it.
She turned her head to look at him, touching the strong curve of his jaw with the tip of her finger, and her heart turned over. Was she being selfish by wanting to go out? He looked so tired. Suddenly, her doubts and her fears melted away and she snuggled closer against his warm body, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders and massaging the silken skin beneath. Was it inbuilt in a woman that she should want to nurture her man?
‘Which would you prefer?’ she questioned softly. ‘To stay here?’
Xandros bit back an instinctive click of impatience. He wanted to tell her not to keep accommodating his needs. But this was inevitably what happened. Women tried to please you and in so doing they submerged their own identity into yours. And then you lost sight of what had attracted you to them in the first place—for you could no longer see it.
‘What I would prefer is to stay right here,’ he said brutally. ‘But I am afraid that if I do that, then I’ll fall asleep and I’ve booked the Pentagram for nine—and you told me how much you’d always wanted to go there. So you had better make your mind up.’
‘Then I guess we’d better go.’ Could his curt response be any better reminder that this particular man didn’t need any nurturing? She moved, her thigh brushing against his as she stretched—wondering if that would be enough to have him pull her back hungrily into his arms, but he didn’t. She gave him a quick smile, but it was one which was edged with nerves. ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’
He lay back against the pillows and watched her move across the room. She was both graceful and beautiful, he thought—but he recognised that something was changing between them. Something as inevitable as the sun rising in the sky each morning. The predictable had reared its ugly head. Xandros couched his words with velvet in an attempt to lessen their blow. ‘Because of course,’ he said softly, ‘this may well be the last chance we get to have dinner for some time.’
Her footsteps halted as Rebecca froze. Carefully composing herself, she slowly turned around, her heart beginning to beat hard beneath her breast as she considered the possible implication of his words—but she prayed that her face gave nothing away. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ he questioned carelessly. ‘I have to fly back to New York tomorrow.’
Don’t react, she told herself. Stay calm. ‘Oh? For very long?’
He could see her face working to conceal her disappointment and he gave a shrug, for his timetable was his own. He would not have disclosed it even if he’d known it, because freedom was as important to Xandros as breathing. ‘It is impossible to predict. A fortnight at least. Maybe longer—depending on the deal.’
‘How absolutely lovely,’ she said, with the bright enthusiasm of a travel agent. ‘I expect the city is beautiful at this time of year.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he agreed. Yet in a perverse kind of way, Xandros was disappointed that she was accepting it so easily. Hadn’t he been anticipating some kind of scene which might have heralded the end? If she had objected or sulked that would have been it. He would have finished it without a second thought, because no woman had the right to question his movements, no matter how much pleasure he brought them in bed or how much they had begun to paint rosy pictures of the possibility of a future together.
But she turned and began to walk out of the bedroom—presumably in search of the clothes she had so delectably removed—and he felt his body stir at the sight of the high, firm curve of her naked bottom. And suddenly Xandros knew that he still hadn’t got her out of his system. His tongue snaked out over bone-dry lips and his words caught her on the threshold of the room. ‘But I will see you when I return, agape mou.’
It was a statement, not a request. Rebecca felt like a mouse who had been played with by a large cat—and then had her fate spared at the very last moment. ‘You might. If you’re lucky,’ she said, in a light, who-cares voice which she thought sounded pretty convincing.
Thank heavens he couldn’t see her face—because surely he would have read her almost dizzy relief that he was coming back. And that he was planning to see her again. Or was he clever enough to guess at her dreadful, aching realisation that one day soon it would all be over and it was going to feel a million times worse than this?
Her hands were trembling by the time she reached the sitting room and began to pick up her clothes, wondering how the hell she had let this happen—to have got herself into something she’d known was hopeless from the very start. And wishing that she could have sustained the strength of character which had attracted him to her in the beginning. In the days when it had been so easy to refuse him.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f712672f-1331-5e44-9790-be10b97b45c3)
THEIR paths should never have crossed, of course. Ordinary, suburban girls like Rebecca weren’t supposed to rub shoulders with jet-setting billionaires like Alexandros Pavlidis.
But Rebecca worked as a flight attendant for a small and highly exclusive private airline which brought her into contact with the kind of people that most mere mortals only read about.
Evolo airline was based close to London and ferried its mega-rich customers around the world for astronomical fees. It paid Rebecca more than any of the bigger airlines would have done, but in return required her to be available at very little notice and, above all, to be discreet.
Rock stars, Hollywood actors, minor royals and just the plain rich frequented the champagne-fuelled flights which had been started by an ambitious blonde pilot named Vanessa Gilmour.
Each time she flew, Vanessa or her male deputy would brief Rebecca on the passenger list and one morning she had seen a name she didn’t recognise. A rather beautiful name.
‘Who’s this?’ she asked, tongue twisting over the words. ‘Alexandros Pavlidis?’
Vanessa pulled a funny kind of face. ‘Don’t you ever read the newspapers?’
‘Sometimes.’ Rebecca pulled her uniform cap down over her smoothed-down hair and smiled. ‘But I prefer books.’
‘He’s an architect,’ explained Vanessa, an impatient wave of her hand dismissing the entire concept of books. ‘Or starchitect as the press like to refer to him. A Greek based in New York—he’s designing a new bank near London Bridge. I met him at a party and persuaded him that Evolo could accommodate his every need. It’s the first time he’s flown with us—and I don’t want it to be the last. So be nice to him, Rebecca—just not too nice.’
Rebecca heard the warning in her employer’s voice—although she didn’t need one. She knew it was forbidden to date any of the customers. ‘What’s he like?’ she checked politely, because as crew they were supposed to know about the passengers’ likes and dislikes.
There was a pause. ‘He’s difficult,’ admitted Vanessa softly. ‘Very difficult.’ And then her eyes sparkled in a way that Rebecca had never seen them do before as her voice dropped into a kind of ecstatic whisper. ‘And absolutely bloody gorgeous.’
If difficult was an understatement, then so was gorgeous, Rebecca decided when she met him later that day. She found herself startled by the man’s overwhelming charisma as well as his astonishing good looks.
If someone had said, ‘Bring me the most delectable man in the world,’ then Alexandros Pavlidis would have been the list-topper. If you wanted tall, dark, ruggedly handsome—with a coldly irresistible air about him—then Pavlidis ticked all the right boxes.
The Greek was terse to the point of rudeness, and he operated at the speed of light—the retinue who were following his tall, black-clad figure into the small departure lounge almost having to run to keep up with his long-legged stride.
And it didn’t escape her notice that every woman who worked in the building found some kind of pretext to try to catch a glimpse of him.
But it wasn’t her job to swoon over customers. Her manner had to remain benignly courteous and respectful. Whatever he asked for, she brought. She did not attempt to engage him in any kind of conversation and her entire dialogue with him was confined to politely answering his requests.
He began to use Evolo regularly for his European trips, since apparently he had sold his own private jet fleet for environmental reasons, and his work took him all over the globe. Rebecca tried not to be so heart-poundingly aware of him, but it wasn’t easy. She couldn’t quash the excitement she always experienced when she saw his name on the passenger list.
And even though she did her best to disguise it a kind of unspoken awareness began to sizzle between the two of them—because nothing could disguise chemistry, no matter how hard you tried. His black eyes would narrow thoughtfully when he saw her, and her heart would leap whenever he dealt her his rare, slow smile.
But she remembered Vanessa’s words about discretion and boundaries and quickly turned away from it. Even if it wasn’t forbidden to date the clients—was she really considering herself the kind of woman that someone like Xandros would date?
Yet her apparent lack of interest seemed to inflame him. He went out of his way to engage her in conversation and surely it would have been discourteous not to have joined in?
‘What are you doing once we land?’ he asked her one dark, starry night as the plane touched down in Madrid.
‘I’m having an early night,’ she answered.
‘Ah!’ His black eyes glittered with sudden understanding, for this would explain her inexplicable resolve not to flirt with him. He felt a slight pang of disappointment, but it was quickly followed by the inevitable rush of challenge—for there was no rival who could not be easily dispatched if Xandros wanted something. ‘And who is the lucky man?’
Rebecca felt colour tinge her cheeks. ‘Mr Pavlidis!’
‘Ne, agape mou, what is it?’
Why did he call her that? Didn’t it mean ‘darling’, or something? ‘Will that be all?’
‘Ochi,’ he said roughly, for he had seen her blush—something which was as rare as the rose-coloured Starlings which sometimes appeared on the Aegean islands. ‘It will not be all. I want you to have dinner with me. In fact, I demand it.’
Maybe if she had agreed to his request then it would have all been over before it began, but Rebecca did something that few women ever did. She said no.
When a man had everything—he wanted what he couldn’t have, and Xandros wanted Rebecca. He wanted her in a way he hadn’t wanted a woman for years and he was forced to pursue her—something which was almost alien to him. Even when he’d first arrived in New York as an unsophisticated eighteen-year-old, women had fallen eagerly into his arms.
‘What harm is there in dinner?’ he mused, the next time they flew together. It was a late winter afternoon as the luxury jet began its descent towards Paris and the early-setting sun was lighting the sky with its fiery blaze. Coal-black eyes mocked her. ‘Do not worry.’ His voice was like silk, embroidered with sardonic thread. ‘You have turned me down enough times to impress me, agape mou. And now that we have established your fine reputation, you can see there is no reason for us not to enjoy one another’s company.’
It sounded unbearably tempting. Rebecca tugged unnecessarily at the neat jacket of her Evolo uniform. ‘But I’m not supposed to mix with the customers, Mr Pavlidis,’ she said.
‘Says who?’
‘Says my boss.’
‘This would be Vanessa?’ he queried, his eyes narrowing.
‘That’s right.’
He nodded, as if satisfying himself of something. Or someone. ‘Vanessa has her own agenda,’ he drawled softly. ‘And I’m not proposing that we ride off into the sunset together,’ he added sarcastically. ‘I just think Paris is not a city to be alone in and that it would be agreeable to have a little company. Mmm? What could be wrong with that?’
His black eyes glittered with enticing question. In her heart, Rebecca knew that he wasn’t being straightforward with her; she suspected he had an address book crammed with the numbers of beautiful and willing women no matter how many cities he visited. But she had held out for so long against her feelings for him and in that moment she felt defenceless against the full onslaught of his charm.
‘Just dinner?’ she verified breathlessly.
‘If that is what you want,’ Xandros returned, his smile careless.
It hadn’t been ‘just’ dinner, of course. For how could you not let a man like Xandros kiss you at the end of it when you had been longing for him to kiss you since the first time you’d set eyes on him? And then? Her battle had been with herself rather than with him. Her sense of what was right and proper vying with her heart and her body’s desires.
She had lost the battle. Of course she had ended up in bed with him. He was a powerful, virile man who would not be satisfied with a chaste kiss at the end of a first date—and for the first time in her life, neither was she.
Rebecca had never felt so physically vulnerable beneath a man’s caresses as she was to Xandros. She hated herself for her easy capitulation that night and yet she couldn’t stop herself. Her hungry body’s need overrode everything else—ruthlessly quelling the voice in her head which demanded to know whether he would respect her after this.
And to Xandros, her only spoken objection was a practical one. ‘No one from work must know,’ she told him urgently as his hand began its inevitable and longed-for journey up her inner thigh.
‘Why should they?’ he breathed, peeling off her panties with a low moan of delight.
‘Because … oh … oh … Xandros! Because people …’ She closed her eyes, and swallowed. ‘They talk,’ she whispered eventually.
‘Then we won’t give them anything to talk about,’ he assured her silkily, his fingers working ruthlessly against her hotly aroused flesh, feeling it yield to him. ‘No one will know a thing. We will keep it secret, ne? Our little secret …’
But weren’t secrets wrong? Wasn’t that making it sound as if he wanted to keep her hidden away—like something furtive, to be ashamed of? Rebecca tried to pull away, but the lure of his embrace was too strong to resist, the gentle caress of his fingertips too tremblingly intense. ‘Xandros?’ she tried, one last time.
‘Ochi,’ he negated fiercely. ‘Say nothing! Do nothing but stay here in my arms when you know that this is what we both want!’ And he kissed her into willing submission.
Yet even at the height of her very first orgasm, Rebecca was aware of a sharp twist of pain in her heart. That her surrender could be her emotional undoing, and that she risked losing everything—the most important thing being her heart. Her life and her future was one in which a man like Xandros would have no place—and yet, having tasted all the pleasures that he gave her, the thought of any future without him already seemed bleak and empty.
If she had known all that right from the beginning, then why hadn’t she stopped? Why give into something which you knew instinctively was doomed on so many levels?
Because human nature wasn’t like that. It made you reach out and grab at the unreachable.
The mists of memory cleared as Rebecca blinked around at her luxurious surroundings. She bent down to pick up one of the shoes she had discarded while she had been stripping off for her hard-bodied Greek lover and sighed. It was pointless going back over what had happened. She could do nothing to change the past—what she could work on was the present.
But the present brought her scant comfort.
She was here, in Xandros’s penthouse suite—about to go out for a meal which she knew that neither of them really wanted. And after that he was off to New York, and she didn’t know when she was going to see him again. So how was she going to play it? Did she have enough acting ability to convince him that she didn’t really care, either way—or would he see right through her?
‘Rebecca?’
The silken, accented Greek voice filtered through the air. By concentrating on finishing fastening her shoes, Rebecca was able to compose herself before straightening up to look at him. His black eyes were set like dark jewels in the backdrop of his gleaming olive skin and her heart turned over with love and longing. If only he didn’t look so heartbreakingly gorgeous. Reaching into her handbag, she took out a hairbrush and began to make great sweeping strokes through hair all tousled from love-making. ‘Yes, Xandros?’ she questioned calmly.
He liked to watch her brush her hair. The first time she had loosened it for him he had told her that it was the colour of Greek honey—which was darker and richer than any honey in the world. ‘The car is waiting downstairs, agape mou.’ His eyes narrowed at her in question. ‘You still want to go and eat?’
What would he say if she told him the truth—that what she really wanted was to know how he felt about her? Whether he was tiring of her—or whether it was a figment of her over-active imagination. But some bone-deep instinct told her that a man like Xandros would ultimately despise a woman who wanted that kind of reassurance. To an independent man that might smack of neediness—and everyone knew how unattractive that was.
‘Eat? I thought you’d never ask,’ she said lightly, turning her head so that her newly brushed hair swung in a scented curtain around her still-flushed cheeks. She even managed to give him a faintly mocking look in return. ‘Somehow I’ve worked up quite an appetite—though can’t for the life of me work out why!’
Xandros gave a barely perceptible nod as he picked up her coat and held it open for her, watching the naturally sinuous movement of her body as she wriggled into it. Her response had held just the right amount of cool distance and yet her apparent composure was strong enough to fan the flames of his desire once more. He found himself wanting to pull her back into his arms again and a nerve flickered at his temple.
This was going to be harder to finish than he had anticipated.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_a2fc19e0-703f-5335-b7bd-ed71c3e305db)
NEXT morning Rebecca awoke to the sound of a shower splashing nearby and Xandros singing something rather tunelessly in Greek. He sounded happy, she thought wistfully—and why wouldn’t he be? She opened her eyes and stared at the chandelier which glittered above the vast bed like a canopy of diamonds.
Over dinner last night, he had described the elegant new apartment block he was building, which incorporated a ‘sky-garden’ at its summit which would bring lush grasses and fragrant shrubs to the defiantly urban part of the city in which it was set. He wanted it to be the first of many—to bring greenery to grey places. He wanted a world which did not push nature out. His deep voice had been passionate and dreamy and Rebecca had found herself swept up by it—torn between admiration and envy. It had been as if he was describing a paradise she would never be part of.
She heard the gushing of the water stop and after a few minutes he walked into the bedroom—completely naked—towelling at his ebony hair with a small towel.
His hard body glowed, the broad shoulders tapering down into narrow hips and then long, hair-roughened legs. He was a man utterly at ease with his nudity—but then who wouldn’t be with a physique like that? He swam every day, no matter where he was in the world. He had told her that it was one thing he had brought with him from his native Greece—the desire to feel the water on his skin and the delicious freedom which came with it.
He looked at her lying amidst the rumpled sheets and his mouth softened briefly into a smile. ‘Kherete,’ he said softly.
‘Hello,’ she murmured back, astonished at how she could still feel almost shy when he looked at her like that—despite the fact that he knew her body more thoroughly than any other man had ever done. ‘I feel so lazy I can’t move.’
‘Seeing you lying there like that makes me want to stay.’
Easy to say. ‘But you can’t.’
‘No.’ He slid on a pair of dark boxers which felt silky next to his skin. ‘Unfortunately I can’t. As soon as I get off the plane, stateside, I have a long list of meetings to attend.’ He looked up and shrugged but his black eyes gleamed with anticipation. ‘There is a big deal nearing completion, new plans to draw up.’
‘And no doubt a stack of invitations to glittering parties from just about every New York society hostess worth her salt.’ She hadn’t meant to say it, but somehow the words seemed to tumble out of their own accord.
There was the fraction of a pause, the faintest elevation of jet-dark brows. ‘That, too,’ he agreed.
Rebecca knew that she was stepping into unfamiliar territory. That Xandros, more than most men, compartmentalised his life—and she was firmly fixed in the English section. But surely showing interest wouldn’t necessarily be interpreted as possessive jealousy? Didn’t dating him give her the rights to know something about his life? ‘And do you go to them?’
‘To parties?’ He shrugged as he reached into the closet for a pure silk shirt in a buttery ivory colour and, slipping it on over his broad shoulders, began to button it. ‘Sometimes—like most people—when I’m not too busy. Why wouldn’t I?’ He pulled on a pair of dark trousers. ‘And what about you, Rebecca—what do you do when your Greek lover is not in town?’
Was it significant that he was asking her this now—when he had never really been interested before? Or was he simply being dutiful and turning the question back on her? Pride made her want to embellish a life which would surely sound very ordinary when judged by his standards. Imagine how he would react if she told him that she spent a lot of her free time thinking about him! Even the supermarket was an unsafe zone, for she often found herself scouring the shelves for the brand of olive oil she knew that his family firm produced back in Greece. Up until now, she’d never found it.
‘Oh, this and that.’ She pushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. ‘I go out to the cinema—sometimes the theatre—’
‘With your girlfriends, of course?’ he cut in, his fingers pausing in the act of zipping up his trousers.
Something in his dismissive tone offended her. Who did he think he was? He offered her nothing, nor promised her anything—did he think she just crawled into a dark box and stayed there when he was out of the country, like some caged animal eagerly panting for his return?
‘Not always. Obviously, I have friends of both sexes.’
Brilliant black eyes were fixed on her and he shot the word out as if it were a bullet. ‘Men?’
There was a pause. Did he imagine these were the Dark Ages? ‘Of course.’
‘Men that you go out with?’
Rebecca sat up in bed, her hair now tumbling down all over her bare breasts. ‘Not go out with!’ she protested. She wanted to say, Not like I go out with you—but that would have sounded false. They didn’t exactly go out, did they? They just got together for some very agreeable sex whenever he happened to be in town. That he bought her dinner or occasionally took her to a show was neither here nor there. ‘Just men whose company I occasionally enjoy. You know.’
His eyes narrowed, fiercely intelligent, hard and, in that one moment, displaying a flash of something which looked almost like cruelty.
‘No, I don’t know. You are not making any sense to me, agape mou. In my experience men and women who go out together have only one real item on their agenda. For that is how nature intended it.’
His silky voice sounded almost … threatening. And primitive. Rebecca frowned, taken aback by the hot storm of accusation which blazed from his eyes. ‘What are you suggesting, Xandros?’ she queried unsteadily. ‘That I have sex with other men while you aren’t here?’
‘Do you?’
First she felt faint, then hurt—and then angry. But it was difficult to maintain your dignity while you were completely naked and Rebecca yanked the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself. As she got out of bed she realised that her hands were shaking and she turned on him.
‘I can’t believe you would even ask a question like that! Implying I’m some kind of…some kind of … tramp!’ Her breath was coming hot and rapid and he regarded her with a narrow-eyed scrutiny before crossing the room, but she waved him away. ‘Just what kind of woman do you normally associate with to make you think something like that?’ she demanded.
None that had as much fire in their eyes as she did at that precise moment, he thought with a mixture of sexual hunger and something much darker which had not reared its ugly head for a long time. With an effort he forced himself back from its brink. For a man who rarely considered himself to be in the wrong, apology did not come easy. ‘It was a clumsy question—I should never have asked it.’
‘No, you shouldn’t.’
He reached out for her and he could see the struggle taking place within her, telling herself not to forgive him too quickly. Until, with a reluctant sigh, she let him lift her hand to his lips and he managed to coax a reluctant softening of her mouth as he kissed each fingertip in turn.
‘Forgive me,’ he murmured, against skin which still carried his scent from their long night of sex. ‘Forgive me, agape mou.’
She wanted to—and yet she wanted to tell him to go to hell. Wavering between desire and despair, Rebecca closed her eyes, wishing she were strong enough to walk away from this sweet torture he inflicted on her. And when she opened them again it was to find his gaze upon her—dark and unremitting and gleaming with erotic promise. When he looked at her that way, she was utterly lost—so did that make her weak, or him strong? Or both? Oh, Xandros.
‘Do you?’ he prompted her.
With an effort, she shrugged, thankful he didn’t have the power to read her thoughts. She might not want to let him go, but she was damned if she was going to lie down on the ground and let him trample all over her. ‘I’ll think about it.’ Her eyes grew serious. ‘But please don’t ever accuse me of something like that again. It’s unjustified and it’s archaic’
Was it? ‘But I am Greek,’ he returned softly. ‘And we Greeks understand that human nature never really changes. I believe that it is impossible for a man and a woman to have real friendship—for how can they, when the hungry presence of sex is for ever in the background? Particularly when the woman happens to look like you, Rebecca.’ His mouth twisted into an odd kind of smile as he forced himself to voice the inevitable climb-down. ‘But I accept that you have no intention of bedding another man.’ And why would she, when Xandros Pavlidis was the finest lover a woman could ever desire in a hundred lifetimes?
He could see her looking as if she wanted something more—and this wearied him because he did not provide emotional security. Ever. Xandros used exactly the same coolly analytical attitude towards relationships as he did towards his work. Affairs ran their course—in the same way as a fever did—and by now he had gone through most of the stages with Rebecca.
He had chased her and seduced her. Revelled in making love to her—over and over and over again. But much more and the relationship would slip into a boring and predictable pattern—and Xandros would not tolerate either. Much better for it to finish on a high. To leave him with exquisite memories, rather than the slow deterioration into apathy.
Yet even though he sensed that his time with her was coming to an end, something inside him relented. A little longer, that was all he wanted. Because somehow—unusually—he had not quite got her out of his system and he needed more time to rid his mind and his body of her sweet temptations. He felt the sweet, hard jerk of desire.
‘I should be back on the tenth,’ he murmured. ‘So why don’t you plan something around that? Something you’d really like—a place you’ve always wanted to visit. Bill it to me.’
Rebecca flinched as one of his phones began to ring, but he didn’t even appear to notice the wounding nature of his words—dropping a brief kiss on the tip of her nose, his mind already occupied with the day ahead.
‘I’ll call you,’ he promised as he clicked one of the buttons to answer it. Soon, he mouthed, beginning to speak rapidly in Greek as she headed for one of the bathrooms.
Rebecca felt distracted all the way home. And hurt—the kind of simmering low-grade hurt which wouldn’t go away. Usually, when Xandros flew out she treated herself to chocolates or bubble bath, or a new book—silly little inexpensive treats which helped lessen the impact of his departure. But today she didn’t feel like buying any. Nor did she feel like an early night, which was the sensible solution after so little sleep—with a flight the next day leaving soon after dawn.
Plan something, he had said.
Bill it to me, he had said. Was he aware of how dismissive those words had been—as if everything in life came with a price-tag? She supposed that maybe for Xandros it did. Did he think that she couldn’t manage to provide an enjoyable time on her rather limited income? It was true that her salary as a stewardess was a mere drop in the ocean compared to his vast wealth—but she knew how to live. You didn’t need vintage wines and costly foods to satisfy your appetite.
Rebecca shut the front door behind her and looked around. Yet she hadn’t exactly welcomed him into her home, had she? Why, Xandros had barely been here apart from a few bouts of snatched passion en route to somewhere else. He had certainly never eaten a meal here or spent the night with her in her—admittedly—rather small bed. But it wasn’t small—it was a normal, double bed. It was just that anything was going to seem minute when compared with what he was used to.
Putting the kettle on to make a cup of coffee, she stared out of the window where the first hint of green buds were softening the sharp edges of the branches. Springtime often brought with it clarity—shining a light after the long darkness of winter—and maybe it was time for her to face facts.
She was falling ever deeper for Xandros, but currently their relationship was all on his terms. She was worried about it ending and yet how could anything so one-sided possibly be sustained?
Surely Xandros got fed-up with everyone always acceding to his whims. An appetite would inevitably become jaded if it was always indulged. Didn’t you need a proper contrast in life to enjoy it to the max?
Plan something, he had said.
Rebecca’s mouth curved into a sudden, spontaneous smile. She most certainly would! Only she wouldn’t dream of billing it to him. He would get a taster of life, Rebecca-style! A little home-cooking and a flavour of the ordinary.
She decided to make him a home-made chicken pie—a favourite choice from her childhood and something he’d be unlikely ever to get in one of the fancy restaurants he frequented. Going down the road to her local wine merchant, she bought a mid-price bottle of red which the wine-merchant said was a real find. Next, she set to giving her apartment the kind of spring-cleaning which it hadn’t seen in longer than she cared to remember.
How satisfying it was to drag out pieces of furniture and to polish and wipe and shine in all the dusty corners. It was liberating—and Rebecca felt as if she were cleaning out all the dark corners of her own mind as she scrubbed and polished.
Xandros hadn’t rung, but she wasn’t going to get into a flap about it. She wasn’t going to be needy and dependent when he was obviously busy. He had said the tenth, and that was what she was planning for.
She washed the linen on the bed—hanging it out on her tiny washing line in between April showers so that it smelt all clean and fresh. But as she ironed it and sniffed it with the enthusiasm of someone appearing in a soap-powder commercial she felt a faint cloud of apprehension skitter into her mind. Just because she was planning to entertain Xandros on her territory, didn’t mean she had to transform herself into some kind of hausfrau, did it?
And besides, Xandros still hadn’t phoned—and once she registered the long gap since they’d spoken she began to fret about it, even though she tried to tell herself not to.
She did that dreadful thing of haunting the telephone—while gazing in dismay at the vases of fresh flowers she’d bought down at the market. What if they’d wilted by the time he turned up? What if all the dust particles she’d cleared away somehow regrouped on every lovingly buffed piece of furniture?
It was that thought which drew her up short and made her realise that, although she was planning to give Xandros a little taste of her life, she was still behaving like a starving dog who was content to be thrown an occasional scrap from its master’s table.
Why was she waiting for him to call her? She knew his number. She shared his bed—why shouldn’t she call him to confirm the arrangements?
Yet despite all the reasoning in the world her hands were still trembling as she dialled his number and her heart was pounding with nerves. How stupid was that? This was a person with whom she had…
There was a sudden click on the line and then an automated voice telling her that her call was being transferred, then more ringing—with the instruction to leave a message. She had nothing prepared. Nothing to say but a stumbled, ‘Oh, hello, Xandros, it’s me. Rebecca. I was just …’
Just what? Just wondering what time to put the chicken pie in the oven? Very enticing.
‘I was just calling to say hi,’ she continued firmly. ‘And perhaps you could give me a ring when you’re free?’ Now she sounded like a dental receptionist asking him to confirm that he was about to keep his appointment.
Then she noticed that there was another number listed for him, and when she tried that, a woman’s voice answered.
Rebecca’s heart pounded painfully in her chest. Who the hell are you? ‘Is … is Xandros there, please?’
‘Not at the moment, I’m afraid,’ came the woman’s cool, transatlantic drawl. ‘May I ask who’s calling?’
I’m his girlfriend, she wanted to shout. ‘Could you just tell him that Rebecca called?’
‘Sure.’
Her phone shrilled into life an hour later and a distracted-sounding Xandros spoke. ‘You rang?’
She wanted to ask who the woman had been. She wanted to ask why he never rang when he said he would. Instead, she said in a way which would afterwards make her cringe, ‘Did I disturb you?’
There was a pause. ‘I was in a meeting.’ One of those meetings with a developer who seemed to think that cutting corners was a necessary part of construction. It had gone on for much too long, and it still wasn’t resolved. ‘What can I do for you, Rebecca?’
Was she imagining the indifference in his voice? Was this why she had always waited for him to ring before? Some instinct protecting her from this haughty coolness which seemed curiously at odds with the hot passion he displayed in bed. He was a man who always liked to be in control by telephoning her; she was taking a little of the control back.
But the reason she was doing this was because she wanted things to move out of the rut they seemed stuck in. To become once more the sparky and animated woman she used to be. ‘I just wanted to check that you’re still arriving on Friday.’
Narrowing his eyes, Xandros glanced down at the diary lying open on his desk. ‘That’s right. Though if this deal isn’t tied up, I may have to take a later flight.’ His voice softened by a fraction as he allowed himself an enticing reminder of just how beautifully she always welcomed him. ‘Why don’t I call you when I land and you can come straight round and say hello, agape? Tell you what, why don’t I warn the hotel—and you can be right there waiting for me?’
Warn the hotel? The husky timbre of his voice left her in no doubt as to how he would like her to greet him. Probably wearing a tight, satin bra and a pair of skimpy panties. She thought of the chicken pie she had laboured over. The apartment which was so clean, it looked as if she were about to start marketing it. And the little vase of lily of the valley which she had rather self-consciously placed next to her bed, which she planned to make up with clean and freshly ironed linen.
‘I’d much rather you came to me actually, Xandros.’
There was another pause. ‘To you?’
‘Yes. I’m cooking you dinner here. At my apartment. Just for a change.’
In New York, Xandros frowned and stifled a sigh. He didn’t want her cooking for him. He wanted her where he always had her—on tap and readily available. Quietly, he began to drum two fingers against the gleaming oak of his desk. ‘What is the point of wasting precious time cooking when there are so many more enjoyable ways of spending it?’ he questioned reasonably.
But Rebecca was determined—she could feel her resolve bubbling to the surface. She was no longer going to be just a compliant sex-object—available whenever and wherever. From now on they were going to be on a more equal footing—because that was how relationships moved forward.
‘Because I want to,’ she said stubbornly.
Oh, do you? ‘Then who am I to object?’ questioned Xandros, with silky carelessness. ‘In that case—I’ll come straight from the airport, and ring you when I’m on my way. How does that sound—satisfied now?’
But Rebecca was not left with anything remotely resembling satisfaction as he finished the call with a note in his voice she couldn’t ever remember hearing before. Instead, a terrible kind of foreboding had begun to make her stomach flutter and she felt as if she had stupidly brought down the curtain on the show, before the last act was properly over.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_614201dd-4f0f-5b8e-95b1-37335c7fb1d1)
XANDROS had been to Rebecca’s house before—but maybe he’d never looked at it properly. When a man was hot with desire it obliterated almost everything else and he had wanted her so badly. She had made him wait for so long that the sex had been dynamite. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her.
And now? His thumb jammed on the doorbell. Of course he still wanted her, but inevitably desire became corrupted. Life and circumstances began to muddy it. More damningly, women always had to try and change what was good—and to reach beyond that. Why did they always want more than you were prepared to give and thus to ruin it for themselves? Xandros felt his mouth thin into a grim line. They hid their duplicity and schemes behind their beautiful smiles and men allowed them to. Why, he would never forget the shock on his father’s face when his mother had announced she was leaving them. How could a man be such a fool not to have seen it coming? How could he and Kyros not have seen it coming?
Her front door flew open. Hair piled up on top of her head and an apron tied around the waist of her short cotton dress—this was Rebecca looking more functional than he had ever seen her. Her smile was bright, but he thought he could detect a wariness in her eyes. Had she recognised that she had pushed him into a corner and realised her folly too late?
But Xandros had played out this scene often enough in the past that he’d become a master of it and knew how best to deal with it. He had his props to hand, just as she had hers. He could hear the sound of music playing and smell something cooking.
‘Hello, Rebecca,’ he said softly.
‘Hello, Xandros.’ She stood there, almost awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do, or say. A fish out of water in her own home. ‘Won’t you come in?’
He gave an odd kind of smile as he walked into the tiny hallway and shut the door behind him. How he hated convention—the stultifying feeling that this kind of situation imposed on him. Trying to ignore the line of shoes which were lined up by the telephone—how cluttered!—he stared down into her violet-blue eyes. ‘No kiss?’ he mused.
She wound her arms up around his neck, her inexplicable nerves and his heady proximity making her tremble—but once his lips crushed down on hers, then all her vague fears were forgotten. How could they be otherwise? The seeking caress of his kiss and the hard contours of his body stirred her into instant longing as she gave herself up to his kiss and with a hungry groan he deepened it.
His hands began to rove experimentally over her body and once again he was taken aback by the intensity of his desire—his body felt like dry timber, her kiss the match which ignited it. He wanted her here, now—instantly. If he could have signed a pact at that moment to say that he wanted to spend the rest of his life inside her body, then he would have signed it willingly. ‘Oh, Rebecca,’ he groaned. ‘What is it that you do to me?’
‘X-Xandros,’ she breathed, because he was splaying his fingers luxuriously over her bottom and bringing her up against the hard cradle of his own desire.
‘Ne, agape mou? What is it that you want? Some of this? Ah, yes—you like that, don’t you? And this? Mmm? This, too?’
His fingers were teasing their way over her belly and he was drifting his mouth against her neck in a way which was making her shiver even more. She knew what he wanted—exactly the same as her—but tonight was going to be different. Tonight she wanted to feel more than just an object in his arms.
She pulled away from him, her cheeks flushed, her heart beating like crazy. ‘There’ll be time for that later—but I don’t want your supper ruined.’
How like a suburban housewife she sounded! But Xandros didn’t react. Didn’t she realise what she sounded like? Didn’t she realize how many times women had spoiled things for themselves through their own, warped ambition? ‘No, indeed—for that would indeed be a crime,’ he said gravely. ‘To ruin my supper.’
Rebecca smiled uneasily. ‘Come on through.’
Xandros walked into the sitting room, which had a dining area at one end, and a door leading into the tiny kitchen. It was smaller than his walk-in closet back in New York and once he had made love to her on that rather curious sofa while his chauffeur waited outside. But tonight the scene was very different and she had clearly gone to a lot of trouble.
Candles glittered everywhere and there was a small pot of flowers placed at the centre of the table, which was laid for dinner—every piece of cutlery and china seeming to be fighting for a little of the limited space. The smell of polish clashed with the heavy smell of something cooking, and Xandros forced a smile.
‘It smells delicious,’ he lied.
‘Does it? I hope you’re hungry.’
He guessed that now would not be a good time to tell her that he had eaten something on the plane. ‘Why don’t we have a drink first?’
‘Yes, of course—sorry, I should have asked. Would wine be all right?’
‘Some wine would be perfect,’ he said evenly, and took the bottle from her and began to open it. ‘Here, let me.’
The glasses were chinking like wind chimes as she put them down in front of them. Would he notice that was because her hands were shaking—and how stupid was that? Xandros was her lover and she was entertaining him for the first time—what was there to be nervous about?
He poured them both a glass and handed one to her. ‘What shall we drink to?’
To us, she wanted to say—but only a fool would have made a toast as inappropriate as that. ‘Let’s drink to happiness.’
He wanted to wince but sipped his wine instead, before putting put his glass down to dig deep inside his pocket to produce a small packet. He held it out towards her.
Wide-eyed, Rebecca stared at it, and then up at him. It looked like … ‘What’s this?’
‘Why not open it and see?’
A present? A present which looked awfully like jewellery? Carefully, she put her drink down and fumbled with the wrapping to reveal a pair of earrings. They were large amber ovals—simple and bright as syrup, set in plain silver—and she stared at them for a moment, her eyes blinking furiously because the gesture was so unexpected.
‘Put them on,’ he said.
They gleamed against her ears and reflected back the colour of her hair. ‘Oh, Xandros—they’re beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘But why have you bought me earrings?’
Something to remember me by. ‘Isn’t a man allowed to buy a woman presents?’ he retorted softly.
‘Well, yes, but …’ A timer starter pinging in the kitchen. ‘Damn!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’d better go and turn the oven off.’
‘Leave it.’
‘I can’t leave it—the pie will burn.’
‘Let it burn.’ He snaked his hands around her waist and brought her up close to him, seeing the violet-blue light from her eyes darken with desire as he began to kiss her.
But for once Rebecca couldn’t relax into it. Was that burning she could smell? After all her hard work? ‘The dinner …’
He said something soft and explicit in Greek as she pulled away from him.
‘Xandros, I must go and check the dinner.’
‘Must you?’
His hand caressed her cheek and for a moment, she hesitated. She knew he wanted her, just as she wanted him—but this had to change. She had spent most of her last few days off making everything perfect for this evening—and just because he had bought her a beautiful present didn’t mean that she should change all her plans and let everything spoil, did it?
‘You’ve taken me out for so many meals that I want to treat you for a change,’ she whispered as she traced his lips with the tip of her finger. ‘I shan’t be long.’
Moodily, Xandros waited while she clattered around with pots and pans. He could hear the sound of some kind of extractor fan sounding like a small aircraft about to take off in her kitchen. By the time she eventually returned and deposited dishes and plates on the table, her face was all warm with steam and tendrils of hair were spilling untidily around her face.
‘It’s a bit burned.’
‘So I see.’
‘Your fault for kissing me.’
‘Fault?’ he echoed faintly.
‘Or mine for letting you.’ But he didn’t smile back.
They dished the meal out in silence and Rebecca couldn’t shake off the terrible sense of impending doom as she gave him a portion of the least cremated part of the pie.
‘So when did you last eat a home-cooked meal?’
He wanted to say never—and wouldn’t that have been the truth? But Xandros had no desire to tell her that and to have to parry the questions which would inevitably follow.
And wasn’t there one tiny part of him which couldn’t fail to be touched by all the trouble she’d gone to tonight? But he steeled his heart against it—because he knew the category of this evening’s entertainment.
It was: See what a perfect home-maker I can be, Xandros.
There were others, of course.
The: Let me ensnare you with my sexual prowess, Xandros.
Or, I’ll make myself so indispensable to your life that you’ll wonder how you ever managed without me, Xandros.
But they were all variations on a theme. All part of the games that women played. Show them a single man with sex appeal and billions in the bank and they seemed to go straight onto some kind of predictable autopilot. Xandros would be the last person to deny his own arrogance and self-assurance—but it was a simple fact that women had been trying to marry him for years.
Was that why Rebecca had produced this touching little scene tonight? Had she decided that a man so used to untold wealth would be captivated by a more humble setting? Didn’t she realise that he had seen it all before—and then some more?
‘Xandros?’ she prompted him, hating the tense and forbidding mask which seemed to have tightened his handsome face. ‘I was asking when you’d last had a home-cooked meal like this?’
He topped up their wineglasses and gave her a bland smile. ‘I don’t remember.’
Rebecca frowned. They never talked about the kind of stuff that other couples talked about. Surely they’d been together long enough now for her to be able to ask him a little more about his past? Because how could they get to know one another better without knowing the basics? ‘What about when you were a little boy?’ she asked, her voice growing gentle—trying to imagine him as a youngster.
‘Was there something specific you wanted to know?’ he questioned coolly.
‘Well, not really specific—I meant more general, really.’ She smiled at him in silent appeal. I’m interested, that’s all—her eyes tried to tell him. ‘You never talk much about your life in Greece, or your brother, for that matter. I can’t even remember his name.’
He felt like pointing out that his brother’s name was irrelevant. ‘His name is Kyros. And there is nothing much to say. You know the facts about my former life.’ His black eyes glittered her a warning. ‘I left when I was eighteen and I have not been back.’
‘But he—Kyros—he’s your twin, isn’t he?’
‘And?’ She was using his brother’s name as if she knew him! As if she ever would! Xandros pushed his plate away and his eyes were cold—for she had persisted when he had made it very clear that he did not wish to pursue the subject.
‘The world seems to have some kind of universal theory about twins which is based on sentiment rather than fact,’ he ground out. ‘The consensus being that there is always some kind of telepathy—some unbreakable bond between them. Well, let me tell you, Rebecca—that much is pure fantasy.’ As were so many of the myths peddled about family lives. That mothers cared and fathers played with their sons.
She was taken aback by the sudden harshness in his voice, as if she had touched on a very raw nerve indeed. Intuition told her to back off, but a far more powerful instinct overrode it. Because what was the point of being with Xandros if all she was allowed to do was operate within the strict emotional boundaries he seemed to want to dictate? Hadn’t that been one of the reasons why she’d organised this wretched dinner in the first place? To burrow beneath his peculiar icy-yet-passionate persona to find the real substance of the man beneath.
‘You sound so bitter, Xandros,’ she ventured quietly. ‘So angry. Won’t you tell me why?’
He flinched as if she had struck him, staring at her. ‘You dare to call me bitter? You dare to speak of what you do not know?’
He was twisting her words, just as he was twisting his mouth into a contemptuous curve of condemnation. ‘It wasn’t meant like that!’ she protested. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be an insult. All I wanted—’
‘I don’t care what you want!’ he bit out. ‘Because what I don’t want is to unburden myself to you, my beauty.’ Black eyes burned into her. ‘That was never part of the deal.’
His words weren’t making sense. ‘The deal?’ she echoed unsteadily. ‘What deal?’
His heart had begun to pound, the blood to beat thickly through his veins. Draining off the last of his wine, he put the empty glass down on the table. ‘My time with you was supposed to be a pleasant interlude—and now suddenly I’m supposed to be baring my soul just because you’ve peeled a few potatoes. If I’d wanted a damned therapy session I could have crossed the road in New York and found a hundred!’ He saw her stricken face and with an effort, he quelled his fury. ‘Listen, Rebecca,’ he said, in as gentle a voice as he’d ever used with her. ‘What we’ve had together has been—’
‘Nothing!’ cut in Rebecca furiously—because she saw where this was heading as clearly as if she were emerging from the darkness into the bright, glaring light of day. He was about to dump her! And along with that revelation came the realisation of just how weak and compliant she’d been all along—always accommodating his needs. It had been Xandros, Xandros, Xandros all the way. She had tiptoed around him, trying to gauge what he wanted and how he felt. She had walked on eggshells and look where it had got her. Suddenly, she felt filled with self-disgust at the way she had behaved.
So if she didn’t like the way she had been treated by the Greek billionaire—then she had only herself to blame. It wasn’t too late for her to seize the tattered remnants of her pride before he did irreversible damage to it. She sucked in a shuddering breath. ‘You know—for all the fancy restaurants and beautiful hotels—it’s really been nothing but sex and small talk! That’s all we’ve ever had between us,’ she bit out tremblingly. ‘And do you know something else, Xandros? I’m glad it’s over. Yes, glad!’
Xandros stilled, his senses on alert. ‘But I haven’t told you that it’s over.’
Rebecca almost laughed out loud at his exquisite arrogance—if it hadn’t already started to hurt so much. ‘No, that’s right. You haven’t. Because I’m telling you. It’s over—maybe it should never have begun. Heaven knows, I did my best to resist you.’
‘But you couldn’t,’ he taunted.
‘No. I couldn’t. You’re very good, Xandros—I’ll admit that. The best, in fact. It would take a stronger woman than me to resist you and the charm you oozed all over me at the time—but which seems to have been in ever-diminishing quantities ever since.’ Her eyes flashed him a challenge. ‘But at least we both know now where we stand—so I think perhaps you’d better go, don’t you?’
He saw the high flush of colour which washed over her cheekbones and the violet-blue fire which sparked from her eyes and in that moment he knew an overwhelming anger at her insolence and interference—coupled with a rush of desire so strong that he felt himself hardening against his will.
‘Yes, I’ll go,’ he said, and God forgive him but he enjoyed the instinctive way she bit her lip at his ready agreement. She would live to regret her impetuosity! And yet he could not resist one parting shot—one more arrogant demonstration of how he could still pull the strings, should he so desire. ‘But before I do—what about a farewell kiss?’ he suggested, his voice one of deceptive silk. ‘For old times’ sake?’
‘N-no.’ But Rebecca’s protest sounded half-hearted and it was too late anyway, for he had caught hold of her and was pulling her into his arms.
One touch and she was lost. Willingly lost. Like a line of fierce flame sweeping down an arid hillside—scorching everything in its touch with instant combustion. She heard his groan as he tightened his embrace and she heard her own echo it. Please make me stop him, she begged herself—but she made no move to stop him.
Afterwards, she would try to justify her actions by telling herself that it was like someone who was just about to go on a long journey without food or drink—and who could blame them for taking part in a banquet if it was offered?
But this was Xandros as she had never seen him before—like a pure-bred stallion, all excitement and fire. And his wild fervour only fuelled her own urgent need. She wanted to drown in his kiss and take him down with her. His hands were on her breasts, moulding them luxuriously against his palms, and then they were smoothing frantically down over her hips and her bottom—and he had begun to ruck her dress up like a man possessed.
And all the while he was kissing her—varying the kiss so that it was in turns hard, and then soft. Cajoling her and tempting her and then inciting her to touch him back—to run her fingers greedily over the hard ridge in his jeans, so that he gave a low, throaty laugh of pleasure.
‘Unzip me,’ he commanded roughly—and to her everlasting shame, she did just that.
Her expensive panties—which were new and had been bought especially for the seduction she had planned for later—were destined to be ripped off and allowed to flutter uselessly to the floor. She couldn’t even in all conscience blame him, could she? Not when she was writhing around—so turned on that she thought she might have urged him to do just that.
There was no finesse about what was taking place now. Xandros was pushing her down against the hard floor and yet her arms were reaching up to try to pull him down on top of her. And he was groaning again, just yanking his jeans down, and she realised that he wasn’t going to bother taking them off but was just going to … going to…
He let out a cry as he thrust into her and it was echoed by her own. She sobbed as he drove in deeper, and then deeper still—deeper than he had ever been—as if he were piercing her soul itself. The wild scream she let out as she bucked beneath him was the heralding of her orgasm—but it also signalled the breaking of her heart. Because the heart didn’t respond to reason and—no matter how many reasons she threw at herself why she shouldn’t—the fact was that she loved him.
She could feel the salty taste of tears welling up at the back of her throat as she tried to imagine a life without Xandros and it was like trying to conjure up a bleak, bare landscape with no sign of light on the horizon.
Afterwards, she lay there for as long as it took for his body to grow still, and then heavy. Hearing his breathing grow more steady, until she was sure that he must have fallen asleep. But then she felt him move.
Moving out of and then away from her and she kept her eyes tight closed to keep the tears at bay—hating herself for wanting him back in her arms, wishing that the whole stupid scene and row had never happened and they could have carried on with the evening as she had planned. Damn it—she couldn’t even remember what the argument had been about.
Silently, Xandros rose to his feet, adjusting his clothes and zipping up his jeans, his heart still pounding madly in his chest. He stared down at Rebecca—her hair had come down and it spilled all over her rosy-flushed neck, shining gold against the rose. A stab of guilt pierced him as he noted the torn and discarded panties on the floor, until he reminded himself that she had wanted that just as much as him. Easily as much.
‘Rebecca?’
She turned her face to the wall and the pain in her heart made her want to curl up like a broken animal. ‘Just go, will you, Xandros?’ she said wearily.
His eyes narrowed, capturing her and the scene in a brief snapshot to file away in his memory one last time. ‘Goodbye, Rebecca,’ he said softly, and shut the door very quietly behind him.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_2948e34e-8795-5e23-8a3f-2ebe3a4b2e2d)
‘WOULD you mind coming in to see me, please, Rebecca?’
Vanessa’s cool voice came down the line and Rebecca gripped the receiver with knuckles which were suddenly snow-white. ‘But my flight isn’t due to leave until this evening,’ she protested.
‘I know that. I have your flight schedule right here in front of me.’ Vanessa’s voice was now positively icy. ‘And I’d really like to see you straight away.’
Rebecca stared at the phone—as if her boss were suddenly going to leap out of it and confront her here, in the supposed sanctuary of her own home, instead of demanding she turn up at the airfield hours early. But deep down, hadn’t she been expecting a summons exactly like this?
The wonder of it was that it hadn’t come sooner.
A lot had happened in the weeks since Xandros had walked out of her apartment after making love to her—and left her lying on the floor feeling cheap and used and heartbroken. She had crawled off to bed and sobbed as if her heart were breaking into a thousand pieces.
It had been a few days before she’d discovered that Xandros had stopped flying with Evolo airline—had terminated all his bookings abruptly and dramatically. The first she’d heard were Vanessa’s mutterings of discontent in the office and Rebecca had prayed that her face wouldn’t colour up and give away the fact that there might be a reason for his decision and that she was it.
But it had been a few weeks later that Rebecca made the most terrifying discovery of all. Even now she could scarcely believe it—but the doctor had confirmed it, and now she had to deal with it as best she could.
And how the hell is that going to be?
Grateful for the concealing uniform jacket, Rebecca pinned her already-too-tight work-skirt and slapped on far more make-up than usual as she prepared herself for the inevitable showdown. Didn’t they say that make-up was a mask? And didn’t she need some kind of camouflage to help her hide her true, see-sawing emotions of terror and despair?
Through the glass of her office, Rebecca could see Vanessa talking animatedly into the phone and when she glanced up and saw her a look of utter fury contorted her face. Putting the phone down, she beckoned to Rebecca to come in.
‘Shut the door,’ were her first words.
Rebecca pushed the door to. ‘You wanted to see me,’ she said, noting that Vanessa hadn’t asked her to sit down, and she was left was standing there, like a naughty child who had been sent for by the angry head-teacher. And isn’t that accurate? taunted the now-familiar voice of her guilty conscience. Don’t you deserve everything you’re about to get?
‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Rebecca,’ said Vanessa coldly. ‘You must realise exactly why you’re here.’
How much did the steely blonde know? Rebecca played for time. ‘I think—’
‘No, that’s the bloody problem—you didn’t think, did you? You just let yourself get carried away and broke the cardinal rule of not sleeping with the clients!’
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed into spitting shards and Rebecca thought that there was more to her rage than an employer’s justifiable anger. Hadn’t Xandros himself hinted that Vanessa had once made a pass at him? And hadn’t he said it in the tone of a man for whom such behaviour was an occupational hazard? Rebecca flinched, wondering just who might be coming on to him now.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘What the hell did you think was going to happen?’ Vanessa cut off Rebecca’s apology with a slicing movement of her perfectly manicured hand. ‘Didn’t you realise that people would notice you making cow’s eyes at him, even though you were trying to hide it? Were you stupid enough to think there was some kind of future in it? Did you really think that a man like Alexandros Pavlidis was going to offer you anything other than a quick, convenient screw?’
‘I … I don’t have to listen to this, Vanessa.’
‘Oh, but you do, Rebecca, you most certainly do. You’ve not just lost me one of my most prestigious customers—but all the possible associates he might have brought with him! The least you can do is hear me out!’
‘But there’s nothing left to say, is there?’ asked Rebecca, her heart beating fast, intuition telling her that Vanessa still hadn’t worked out the worst part of the whole situation.
‘There’s plenty to say!’ stormed Vanessa. ‘You’ve made my organisation look unprofessional and you’ve only helped to further ruin the reputation of cabin crew everywhere!’
‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry,’ said Rebecca again. ‘Really I am—but Xandros was so persistent…and I…I …’
But Vanessa’s face went red with rage. ‘Oh, was he? Well, in my experience men are never persistent unless they get the green light from a woman.’ She slammed her pen down on the desk. ‘And let me tell you something else—and that is that you’ll never work in this industry again. I’ll make sure of that. Now get out.’
There was one hazy segment of her mind which made Rebecca wonder if you could be kicked out on the street in this day and age. Until she reminded herself that what she had done would rightly be defined as gross misconduct, which was a sacking offence. And what would she prefer: to walk out of here now and never see anyone from Evolo again—or to work out her notice and really give them something to talk about?
‘I’ll have my uniform sent back,’ she whispered.
‘Dry-cleaned, if you please,’ said Vanessa sharply.
All the way home, Rebecca felt like an alien who had just landed from outer space and was masquerading as a human. As if she didn’t belong—not anywhere. She needed someone to turn to, but who could you turn to at a time like this?
Her widowed mother had remarried and gone to live in Australia. How could she ring her up and say: Mum, I’m going to have a baby with a man I never expect to see again?
She couldn’t possibly tell any of the friends she’d made through work, could she? Vanessa would probably accuse them of fraternising with the enemy and it might put their own jobs on the line. And although her two best girlfriends were always there for her, both were busy with their careers and neither of them lived in London. If they had done, then maybe her terrible news would have all come tumbling out over a cup of coffee—but the truth of it was that she felt oddly ill at ease about telling anyone.
Especially when you haven’t even told the father!
Rebecca shivered. The hot August sun was beating down on her head, but inside she felt as if someone had replaced her blood with ice cubes as the undeniable words rattled round and round in her head.
I’m going to have a baby. That was the reality.
With no man, no job and no prospects. That was reality, too.
Rebecca stood stock-still as a red London bus swept by, the faces on it all blurred as one question kept going round and round in her head. What the hell was she going to do?
There weren’t really a lot of options open to her.
Surreptitiously, her hand crept to her belly. It was bigger, definitely bigger—but no one else had noticed. Not yet. Because Vanessa would surely have leapt on that if she’d thought that Rebecca was carrying Xandros’s baby.
Xandros’s baby. She shivered. Her Greek ex-lover was going to be a father and he didn’t know. No one knew, but soon it would become all too apparent—and then what?
Then what?
She went home and carefully removed her uniform before putting on a summer dress—turning to look at herself from every angle in the mirror which stood in one corner of her tiny bedroom. The dress was filmy—it hinted at the body beneath instead of hugging it. To the uninformed eye, she looked just like a healthy and curvy young woman—with no clue to the new life which was growing within.
Among a clutter of bangles in a half-open drawer she caught a glimpse of something shiny. A stab of pain catching her unawares, she saw the silver and amber earrings which Xandros had given her that last, fateful night.
Had they been intended as a farewell gift? She thought so. In the end it had worked out differently from the way she suspected he must have planned it. Their relationship had ended dramatically—but the fact that it had finished hadn’t come as a complete shock to her, had it?
But now there was a huge and lasting consequence to their liaison and she needed to be as grown-up about it as she had ever been in her life. Because Xandros might not have chosen to create a new life in those circumstances —she certainly wouldn’t have done—but it was a done deal now. This baby existed and didn’t he, as the father, have the right to know about it?
Of course he had a right. Rebecca had adored her own father—how terrible if she had been denied a relationship with him simply because he and her mother had not been together.
Yet deciding to tell him was one thing, actually doing it was another matter—especially after she had her twelve-week scan, when she knew that she really could not delay it for a second longer. A letter seemed so impersonal—and this was most definitely about a person. Several times she picked up the telephone and put it down again. How could you tell a man like Xandros something as momentous as this over the phone?
But it was more than that. A long-distance call could conceal so much, no matter how good the connection. And what if he refused to take her call—what then? Something was driving her on and she wasn’t sure what it was, knowing that she wanted—no, needed—to see his face when she told him. Was it a perverse desire to see the truth in his eyes, no matter how hurtful—would that help free her from her feelings for him once and for all? Or just some need to take some control back in a life which seemed to have run off the rails in so many ways?
Once she’d made her mind up, Rebecca set things in motion very quickly—and somehow it was comforting to have things to occupy her. As if, by concentrating on the logistics of going to see him, it took her mind off the future. She booked her flight to New York, found a hotel and rang her mother.
‘You might as well take a half-empty suitcase,’ her mother said, on a very crackly line from New South Wales. ‘The shopping in New York’s supposed to be terrific value.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Rebecca, trying to sound ‘normal’. Yet shopping was the last thing she felt like doing—even though she supposed a sensible person might scour the stores for pregnancy clothes. But, inevitably, money was tight. She had signed on with a temp agency, and although they had been providing as many office jobs as she cared to do it didn’t exactly pay her a fortune and she needed to hang onto every penny she could until she was no longer able to work.
Rebecca hadn’t been to America for years—when she’d worked for Evolo she’d done mainly short-haul. But she loved flying and would normally have savoured the experience—had not the significance of her trip made her unable to sleep or to concentrate on any of the films on offer.
Now that she wasn’t being paid for by the airline she discovered there was no such thing as a cheap hotel in the middle of the city and the small room she’d ended up with was clean, but soulless. There were fake flowers in a vase and an enormous TV dominating the limited space. But at least the shower worked and afterwards she felt one hundred per cent better.
She lay down, intending to shut her eyes just for a moment—but when she opened them again she realised that it had been a lot longer than that. The artificial light which was streaming in through the small window showed that she had been asleep for hours and a glance at her watch confirmed it. It was almost ten o’clock at night!
Rebecca’s heart sank. She had been planning to go to Xandros’s place of work and just ask to see him—without giving him time to think up some reason why he shouldn’t. But now she could see that she hadn’t really been thinking straight—or did she really think that a man in Xandros’s position would be instantly accessible to the general public?
At Evolo, she had worked with enough powerful people to know that they were always protected. Whether it was night or whether it was day, she would still need Xandros to give his permission if she wanted to see him. There was no way she would ever have been able to burst in on him, unannounced—not unless she was planning to hang around the entrance to his offices like some tramp waiting for a handout. And how undignified would that be?
Rebecca flinched. Well, there was no way she was going to postpone the inevitable—not for a moment longer. The sooner she had done her duty, then the sooner she could go away.
But it’s ten o’clock at night—what if he’s with another woman?
Then she would just have to face up to it—because that, too would be reality.
Her hair was all rumpled where she’d slept on it while it was damp, but there was no time to redo it. And this wasn’t some kind of beauty contest. Rebecca had very firmly banished from her heart and her mind the idea that Xandros would take one look at her and realise what a fool he’d been. Because life wasn’t like that—and even if it was she had been growing her self-respect in the intervening weeks. And there was no way she wanted a man who treated her like a sexual commodity, the way Xandros had done—even if she had gone along with it at the time.
Applying only a little make-up, she tied her hair back and put on the floaty dress. Then she pulled her phone out and tapped out his number with a trembling finger.
It rang for so long she thought it was going to go straight to messages but at last there was a click, and he said in his distinctive accent, ‘Yes?’
Her name must have come up on the screen because she heard the wariness in his voice and it made her want to weep. If only she could have put the phone down. But she couldn’t. She sucked in a deep breath.
‘Xandros? Hello, it’s me. Rebecca. Am I disturbing you?’
He didn’t answer that. Staring out at the bright glitter of lights on the skyline with narrowed eyes, Xandros thought how to respond to her question in a thousand different ways. He hadn’t expected her to ring him—and he didn’t particularly want her to. But his curiosity was aroused—and he wondered what had made her swallow her pride to get in touch with him. ‘How are you, Rebecca?’
That was quite a difficult one to answer. ‘I need to see you.’
Need? A pause. ‘But I’m in New York.’
‘Yes, I know. So am I.’
This time the pause was so long that Rebecca actually thought he might have hung up on her. To her surprise he didn’t demand to know just what she was doing in New York—but maybe that shouldn’t have surprised her. He was many things, but never predictable.
‘Where exactly are you?’ he questioned.
She read out the address from the top of the laminated room-service menu which was lying on the bedside table. ‘Do you know it?’
Did he know it? Ah, the exquisite irony of life! Briefly, Xandros closed his eyes. He remembered staying in that self-same area when he’d first arrived in the city—presumably for the same cost-cutting reasons as her—and thinking how the fabled streets of New York were certainly not paved with gold. He had seen homeless people, and hungry ones, too. He recalled his sense of shock—and his determination, too—that one day he should conquer this great city. Within weeks, he had found himself a job to help support him through college—and had never been back there since. ‘Can you come here?’ he questioned silkily.
‘Where?
‘I’m in the office.’
Rebecca stifled her instinctive sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t cosying up to whoever must have replaced her by now. ‘That’s late,’ she commented.
His mouth hardened. He wanted to tell her that the hours he worked were none of her damned business. Why the hell was she here? Deliberately, he injected his voice with steel. ‘I will send a car for you,’ he said.
And the cool note in his voice reminded Rebecca of another stark reality of the situation. They were ex-lovers. There was no fondness for her in Xandros’s heart. And even less when he discovers what you are about to tell him. ‘No, I’ll take the subway—’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Rebecca,’ he cut in, with an impatient click of his tongue. ‘It’s late and I’ve said I’ll send a car. The driver will ring you when he’s outside.’
Rebecca recognised that there was no sense in arguing with him—and that to do so would be fairly stupid, under the circumstances. Why turn down his offer of safe transport in a strange city at night?
‘Thanks,’ she said, and put the phone down quickly.
And, besides, she was beginning to feel rather peculiar and she couldn’t quite work out whether that was because she was pregnant or slightly jet-lagged or because she hadn’t eaten since early on in the flight.
So eat something!
Her burgeoning body craved food and she had no desire to faint in front of him. Raiding the mini-bar like a guilty teenager, she ate chocolate, some pretzels and a glass of juice and worried how much they would charge her for the pleasure of eating junk. And then her phone began to ring and she felt a little like someone going to face their own trial.
A dark limousine was waiting outside with a uniformed driver holding open the door for her. She sat back on soft leather as the powerful car negotiated the streets—so new to her and yet strangely familiar from years of having seen them on TV programmes—but Rebecca wasn’t really paying attention to them. She was too wrapped up in choosing her words as carefully as possible.
But how did you tell someone who was so definitely in your past that you were carrying part of his future?
The car stopped outside a vast, towering building lit mutedly save for the very top of it, which shone as brightly as a planet. A young woman stood waiting by the entrance, her tumble of dark curls and striking scarlet dress suddenly making Rebecca feel very pale and unexciting. Who was she? she wondered—hating herself for still caring as the brunette opened the car door.
‘Hi. I’m Miriam.’ The woman smiled, her teeth gleaming like a dentistry advertisement. ‘Xandros asked me to come and meet you. He’s upstairs in his office.’
‘Thanks,’ said Rebecca, feeling more than uptight now as a glass lift sped upwards. He hadn’t come to fetch her himself, had he? And how, she wondered, had Xandros explained her sudden appearance to this woman Miriam? Was this his girlfriend—sent down to fetch her so that there could be no possible misunderstandings? Or was she a powerful man’s gatekeeper—would she expect to sit in on what was probably going to be the most difficult conversation of Rebecca’s entire life?
Well, she was going to have to assert herself. She was not going to have an audience while she stumbled to tell him. If he wanted he could tell Miriam later, once Rebecca had gone.
She was taken into a large and very beautiful office, dominated by a giant desk on which lay a few large sheets of drawings in various stages of development, and a pot full of pens and pencils. Apart from that, the room was completely bare of adornment—with no pictures on the walls or trinkets on his desk. At first, Rebecca didn’t see Xandros, but then she sensed rather than heard him behind her and she turned to find him at the far end of the long room, watching her—and she could not help the instinctive shiver of awareness that felt midway between fear and desire.
‘That will be all, Miriam,’ he said.
Well, she didn’t sound like a girlfriend. ‘Is that your secretary?’ asked Rebecca hopefully when the other woman had closed the door behind her.
‘She’s another architect, actually,’ drawled Xandros, noticing her flinch at the unmistakably caustic note in his voice—but what did she expect? He had no idea why she was here today—whether it was all part of some sophisticated game-plan. Was that why she had jumped in and ended the relationship before he’d had a chance to do so? As a kind of emotional one-upmanship—a clumsy effort to try to make him commit to her? But if so, it had backfired spectacularly—and she was just about to find that out.
She had made him feel … what? Trapped and irritated by her growing neediness and her desire to want to read all the secrets of his heart? Yet along with that he had felt oddly out of control, too. Hadn’t it been a relief to be free of her strange, sensual power—even if he had found himself sometimes missing the passion of her embrace? Hadn’t he terminated his contract with the airline because he had no wish for repeated contact with her or the temptation of her continuing allure? Those violet eyes and the silky hair like dark honey, which had trickled through his fingers so sweetly.
‘Won’t you sit down?’
‘Thank you.’ Despite the food she’d taken from the mini-bar Rebecca’s knees were trembling and she sank into a leather chair with relief.
‘You would like a drink? Some water, perhaps?’
She shook her head, feeling as if she were on a job interview—praying that her composure would not leave her at a time when she had never needed it more badly. ‘No, thank you.’
Xandros stared at her, waiting for some kind of explanation for her appearance, but she had bent her head and was studying her clasped fingers intently—as if they were about to reveal something fascinating. And suddenly he was irritated. What the hell was she doing here? ‘So?’
Rebecca looked up, braving herself to meet the expression on his face. How best to say it? The carefully chosen words she had been silently rehearsing on the way over suddenly seemed as inadequate as someone trying to staunch the flow of a burst dam using their finger. There is no ‘good’ way to say this, Rebecca—so just say it.
‘I’m pregnant, Xandros.’
He didn’t move, or react—grateful, if such a word could be used at such a time, for the enigmatic exterior which had never let him down.
Rebecca’s voice wasn’t quite steady as she searched his face. ‘Did you hear me, Xandros? I said—’
‘Ne, I heard you.’ Inexplicably, he found himself thinking of Notus—the great south wind of Greece which brought with it the storms of summer and autumn—and what greater storm than this to have exploded in his life? A baby—by a woman who meant nothing to him? Yet still his face gave nothing away. Meeting her violet-blue eyes with nothing but stony question, he said: ‘Are you certain?’
For one moment she wondered if she should draw his attention to the slight swelling of her belly until she remembered that she had come here because she had felt it was the right thing to do. She was not going to be made to feel the guilty party. He might not have planned this, but neither had she.
‘Yes, I’m certain. I did a test and now the doctor has confirmed that they …’ As his head jerked up she swallowed. ‘Yes, they,’ she whispered, meeting the blazing question in his black eyes. ‘It’s twins. I’m expecting twins, Xandros. Around the middle of January,’ she finished hoarsely.
Twins. The word dropped into his consciousness like a stone falling into water from a great height and Xandros experienced a sensation of anger and pain so strong that it momentarily took his breath away.
Twins.
Hot, unwanted emotions washed over him—trying to take him back to a childhood he had buried and forgotten. A mother who had left him. A father who had never been there. A brother to whom he was joined for ever—whether he liked it or not. A brother he had fought with. Two men who had allowed time to deepen the rift between them.
Xandros scowled, recognising that in a way this was Rebecca’s salvation—nature cleverly ensuring that he wouldn’t question her about the paternity of her unborn. Yet for some reason that question had simply not occurred to him. Because her very neediness during their time together had convinced him that she would not have taken another lover—despite his occasional streak of jealousy? Or just his natural arrogance assuring him that it would be a long time before she would allow another man to touch her as he had touched her?
But the image disturbed him.
Twins.
He stared at her. ‘You are quite sure of this?’
Did he think she was testing him out? Telling herself that it was shock which was making him snap the question out like an interrogator, Rebecca nodded.
‘Yes. Testing procedures are very sophisticated these days. They can do a check between nine and—’
‘That’s enough!’ He silenced her with an automatic raise of his hand, the imperious gesture telling her that he was simply not interested in the detail. That he needed time to think.
Xandros walked over to one of the large windows where the radiance of countless lights illuminated the night sky of New York, his adopted city. During the day, he sometimes went along the corridor to a smaller office where the light was soft and muted—because sometimes he found the urban magnificence of the skyline all too distracting, especially when he was working. But for now he welcomed the distraction from this momentous piece of news.
What the hell did a man do in a situation like this?
Eventually, he turned around. She hadn’t moved and her frame looked curiously fragile within the soft, tooled leather of the chair. Her amazing hair was tied back with a simple piece of ribbon and he thought that she certainly hadn’t gone to town on an outfit designed to impress him. He saw the goose-bumps on her slender arms and supposed that she wasn’t really used to the air-conditioning.
‘Say something!’ said Rebecca urgently, because she could bear his brooding silence no longer.
‘What do you want me to say, agape mou? That we will all live happily ever after and that I will marry you?’ He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Because I have no intention of doing that.’
It hurt, of course it did—she would have had to have been made of wood for it not to have done—but she didn’t react. One thing Rebecca had told herself was that no matter what he threw at her, no matter what the provocation—there was no way she was going to storm out of here.
They would deal with this like adults—or rather she would. So she kept her face as calm as possible instead giving into the temptation of saying: I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth! She even managed a shake of her head and a bland smile. After all, she supposed that he could have denied paternity—and surely that would have been far more insulting than him refusing to marry her?
‘Marriage? Good heavens, no. That’s not why I’m here,’ she said calmly.
‘Really?’ Ebony brows were elevated in thinly veiled disbelief. ‘Then why are you here?’
‘Strange as it may seem, Xandros, it gives me no pleasure to fly all the way over when I’m feeling slightly queasy and then be met with insult and accusation. I’m here because—as the father—I feel you have a right to know about it.’
For the first time he reacted outwardly, swearing softly and emphatically in his native tongue and it was her use of the word father which provoked it—because somehow that made it more real than the disconnected terms of babies and pregnancies. If his hands weren’t his livelihood, he might have smashed his fist against one of the walls. But he lashed out with words instead.
‘Okay, so you’ve told me. Pretty expensive and protracted way of doing so. You came all this way to tell me that? You didn’t think of ringing?’
It would give too much away if she confessed that she’d wanted to see his expression when she told him. He might think she’d been holding out for a remarkable about-turn—as if he would pull her into his arms and tell her he’d missed her, and that having her carrying his babies beneath her heart was like a dream come true.
And hadn’t there been a tiny part of her which hadn’t ruled out that thought—even though it had flown in the face of all logic? That the man who had everything might realise that none of it mattered when compared to these miraculous new lives they’d created? But there could be no mistaking the lack of emotion on his proud and beautiful features. She had wanted an answer to her silent question and it was written there—in stark detail.
Slowly, Rebecca began to rise to her feet, her heart suddenly heavy.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded.
‘Home. Well, back to the hotel. I have done what I came for.’
His black eyes narrowed. ‘But nothing has been decided.’
‘There’s nothing to decide, Xandros. That isn’t why I’m here. You are now in full possession of the facts and my conscience is clear.’
‘Well, mine is not!’ he thundered. He raked his fingers back through his ebony hair. ‘I will pay!’ he announced.
For a moment she completely misinterpreted what he meant and her trembling hand shot out to grab hold of the chair-back. ‘P-pay? What are you talking about?’
He stilled. ‘What do you think? For your upkeep. For the children’s—’ Briefly, the word froze in his throat. ‘For their upkeep, once they are born,’ he continued. ‘And you will need money to support yourself until that happens. I assume you won’t be allowed to fly after a certain point? Isn’t that what usually happens?’
She opened her mouth to tell him that she was not allowed to fly now—that she had lost her job because she had broken the rules—but did she want to come across as some kind of victim? No, she did not. In fact, it was imperative that she didn’t. From now on she needed to be strong and independent—not just for her own sake, but, more importantly, for the sake of her babies. Babies. Rebecca shivered. If the idea of twins had come as a shock to Xandros, it had troubled her even more. He was used to two of everything, while she was a complete novice. How on earth was she going to manage?
‘I didn’t come here to ask you for money,’ she said.
‘Maybe not, but I am a wealthy man—we both know that.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘I want you to take what I am offering. In fact, I insist upon it.’
And as Rebecca looked into his eyes she realised that Xandros needed to give her something concrete—like money. That way he could wash his hands of all responsibility. Because he hadn’t expressed the wish she had secretly prayed for—to want to play some part, no matter how small, in his children’s lives.
She shook her head. ‘You aren’t in any position to insist on anything, Xandros,’ she said.
Fleetingly, he thought it ironic that, with Rebecca in this new and physically vulnerable state, he had never seen her look or sound quite so strong and focussed. But maybe this was what she had wanted all along, despite her protests—something to tie her to him.
‘But this is not a battle of wills, Rebecca,’ he said softly. ‘It is what is known as making the most of a bad situation. You live in that tiny place, which some might consider too small even for one. How the hell do you expect to be able to cope with, not one, but two new babies there—had you thought about that?’
‘What do you think?’ She had thought of little else. This would be a good cue for hysteria, Rebecca thought as she stared at him in disbelief—but she could not allow herself the indulgence of such a useless emotion. She registered the critical way he had dismissed her apartment. To think how hard she’d worked on it—hoping to impress him with her little home—and all the time he had felt nothing but contempt for it! Didn’t he realise that not everyone was as fortunate as he was?
But it was her sheer short-sightedness which troubled her most. That she could have made so bad a judgement about a man. How could she have possibly thought that she loved him—when he had a heart of stone which made a mockery of the hard warmth of his body?
Rubbing her shivery arms with her hands and wishing she’d brought some kind of jacket, she fixed him with a look which told him that, although her self-respect might have taken a bit of a battering, she would repair it as best she could, but without any help from him.
‘I’ll manage somehow,’ she said, her voice low but dignified. ‘I may not be rich, but you can be sure that I’ll love these babies, Xandros. I’ll love them with all my heart—and I don’t want anything from you. Do you understand that?’
His eyes narrowed as they met in a silent clash with hers, but unexpectedly her fervent words pierced him. She had said that she would love them—but he knew only too well that being a mother did not guarantee loving your children. When she realised that he meant what he said about not marrying her—would she still feel the same? Or might she then see adoption as a sensible solution?
‘I understand perfectly,’ he said. ‘But whether you want help or not, you’re getting it. I will pay money into an account for you—what you choose to do with it is up to you. In return, I ask that you keep me informed of your progress during the pregnancy. Is that understood?’
She stared at him. ‘You mean you want to be involved?’
He hardened his heart against her violet eyes. ‘I meant I want a progress report,’ he said, as if he were talking about the construction of one of his own projects. ‘I wish to know when they …’ He swallowed then, despite his determination to feel nothing. ‘I want to know when you give birth. Will you do that for me?’
‘Yes.’ The word was little more than a lost sigh in that great big office space and Rebecca stood up. If she didn’t feel so emotionally and physically vulnerable, she would have left quietly and gone in search of the nearest subway. But she couldn’t face it. ‘I’d like to go now,’ she said, in a low voice. Before she did something unforgivable, like breaking down into a cascade of choking sobs in front of him.
Xandros could see the trembling of her lips. Once he would have kissed that tremble away, but now he could not—for that would dishonour them both. Their relationship was over—they both knew that.
He suspected what she really wanted of him—what was probably expected of him—but he could not give any kind of emotional commitment to these unborn children. Far better to promise nothing than to fail to deliver. And didn’t he come from exactly the right kind of background to walk away from a child? Didn’t abandonment run deep in his veins?
Hidden by the shafts of his powerful thighs, his fists clenched in anger. ‘My driver is waiting,’ he said tightly. ‘I will take you down to him.’
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_b998dd20-aaf9-535e-9a7b-2bed0c0ad44f)
YET for the first time in his life, Alexandros Pavlidis found himself proved wrong.
He had expected—what? That Rebecca would use her pregnancy to gain increased access to his life, in an attempt to make herself a permanent fixture there, no matter how much she had protested otherwise?
Yes, of course he had. Too often in the past women had lied to him or tried to conceal their true motives in their attempts to ensnare him. And didn’t she have a more valid reason than any of her predecessors to want him in her life? Two babies on the way. Two babies which were due to be born in a few short weeks’ time, according to the calendar on his kitchen wall.
Xandros finished knotting his silk tie and stared back at his image in the mirror. His eyes looked shadowed, his hard face unsmiling. In the frantic world beyond his condominium, a snowy New York was rushing to prepare itself for the holiday season, and no city did it better.
The giant Christmas tree at the Rockefeller centre was blazing with coloured lights and the ice-rink was filled with happy skaters. Department store windows were groaning with nostalgic images which had been lifted straight from the pages of children’s books. On Xandros’s mantelpiece, dozens of invitations were stacked like giant playing cards—but he was distracted.
Just what the hell was Rebecca playing at?
He had expected the generous allowance he had paid into an account for her to be withdrawn immediately, but he had been wrong.
He had expected regular updates from her—an attempt to involve him in the pregnancy with an excess of detail. Again, he had been wrong.
She had withdrawn no money—not a cent—and the only real news he had received about the pregnancy had been the two images from one of her scans. They had arrived in a plain brown envelope, marked ‘Private and Confidential’ and Xandros had sat staring at them for a long time.
He was used to studying pictures; that was part of his job—to see something grow from a rough design into something real—but this was something completely outside his experience.
At first his untrained eye could hardly distinguish between the grainy components of the photo, but gradually—like one of those optical illusions which people sent out over the internet—the image became clear. Yet it was still difficult to believe the import of what he was seeing. Were these tiny, tadpole-like shapes really potential human beings?
In spite of his determination not to think of the bigger picture, he felt a sensation which was midway between wonder and pain and, giving into rare impulse, he picked up the phone and dialled her number in England.
Her voice sounded wary. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s me. Xandros.’
Yes, I know it’s you, thought Rebecca and sucked in an unsteady breath. ‘Hello, Xandros.’
It wasn’t the most rapturous welcome in the world. Xandros stared out at the lightening New York sky and his mouth tightened. ‘I called to see how you were doing.’
Give him the facts, Rebecca told herself. Just the facts—that’s all he wants. ‘Oh, the doctors are very pleased with my progress. The pregnancy is going exactly as it should and the babies—’ How bizarre it felt to be saying this—to be discussing these intimate details with a man who felt little more than a stranger. Who was little more than a stranger. ‘The babies are doing fine—so they tell me, looking at the scan. Did you get the pictures I sent you?’
In spite of his determination not to react, Xandros felt his heartbeat increase. When she said ‘babies’ like that—in that soft, English accent—it sounded frighteningly real and yet ridiculously far-away. ‘Yes. Yes, I got them. What are you doing for Christmas?’
She had told herself to expect nothing, but she had absolutely no control over the sudden hopeful lurching of her heart. Did he realise that she was pretty much trapped by size and circumstance? But if she told him the truth—that she was planning to overdose on chocolate and sloppy films—wouldn’t that sound as if she were some poor little victim, desperate for her white knight to come along and scoop her up on his charger. Well, Xandros was certainly no white knight—and she was certainly no victim.
‘Oh, I’m being very lazy,’ she said, injecting as much purring satisfaction into her voice as she could. ‘What about you?’
He thought of all the parties he’d been invited to and the people who would be at them—the über-thin women, so eager to please and to take him to their beds. The Park Avenue matrons so keen to marry off their daughters—his power and Greek virility in exchange for some obscene trust fund. But suddenly Rebecca’s satisfied voice became the main focus in his mind and he felt the first simmerings of annoyance.
Because her response wasn’t what he had been expecting, either. Shouldn’t there have been a wistful little note in her voice—as if she was wishing or hoping that things could have been different between them? As if ideally she would like to have been curled up in front of a holiday fire with him?
‘Oh, the usual festive revelry,’ he said carelessly as he ran his fingertips over one thick, gold-embossed card. ‘More invitations than I can cope with. You know what it’s like.’
She didn’t, of course—but Xandros wasn’t aware of that and nor did he need to know how isolated her life had become. Maybe cocooning herself away as much as possible was nature’s way of ensuring that she got all the rest her tired body was craving.
She had been accepted by the others in her antenatal classes—they were really sweet—even though she was the only single mother in a group of ecstatic couples. They all wanted to fuss round her because she was expecting twins—Rebecca didn’t mind that bit at all—but some protective instinct had made her deflect their curious questions.
Maybe she was wrong, but she found herself unwilling to tell them her story—for wouldn’t it sound as if she’d foolishly reached for the stars and then come crashing down to earth?
I fell in love with a Greek billionaire and after we’d finished I discovered I was pregnant.
Why, even to her own ears she sounded like some kind of gold-digger!
‘Was there anything else you wanted, Xandros? I really have to go.’ Before his clever tongue could cut through the precarious façade she had erected around her emotions and have her bursting into stupid tears.
Fingertip halting on the gleaming but unexpectedly sharp card edge, Xandros narrowed his eyes. ‘You are alone?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You have a man with you, perhaps?’
Rebecca gripped at the receiver. If she weren’t so appalled at his amazing cheek, she might actually laugh aloud at his unmatchable arrogance. ‘I don’t know if you’ve seen a woman in the late stages of a twin pregnancy,’ she snapped. ‘I might even be flattered that you should consider me alluring enough to attract a man in such a condition—if it were any of your business, but it’s not. I’m a free agent, Xandros—you don’t have any rights or any say in what I do. So if that’s all, I’m going to hang up.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘Oh, and don’t worry—I’ll text you and let you know when I go into labour. Goodbye.’
It took a moment for Xandros to realise that she had actually done as she threatened and terminated the conversation! And another for him to process what she’d said to him. She had told him that he had no rights over her. In fact, she had not told him—she had snapped the information out, like a woman who was clearly impatient to get away.
He had never heard her talk that way before. She always used to work around his mood, and, even though it had irritated the hell out of him at the time, he wasn’t certain that he approved of this new, feisty Rebecca either.
And she would ‘text him’ about the birth, would she? Text him? Moodily, he stared at the party invite. Since when was such news relayed in such a casual manner?
He worked late at the office and afterwards went to a dinner—mainly because it was just around the corner on Lexington. It was a beautiful apartment and a beautiful party by anyone’s standards—even those as exacting as Xandros’s. A huge penthouse room was lit by tall candles and scented with waxy white flowers—a stark black Christmas tree decked only in white, glittering baubles.
Everything matched. Nothing out of place. As uncluttered as it was possible to be. It looked like a film-set—or an advertisement for how the rich really lived. And they really did live like this, thought Xandros.
A classical pianist played on a white grand piano and the hostess, who was newly divorced and young enough to consider Xandros a serious bet, was dressed in a shimmering white gown which clung to every sensuous curve of her body.
‘Hello, Alexandros,’ she drawled, in her soft Southern accent. ‘You look so bushed I think I might send you straight to bed.’ Her voice dipped. ‘And if you’re very lucky—I might join you.’
‘Time I was leaving,’ he said brutally.
‘Oh!’ She laid light, fleeting polished fingernails on his suit jacket as he waved away a glass of champagne. Xandros imagined those gleaming nails touching his bare skin and he shuddered in distaste, wondering why he’d come here.
Because you wanted to forget.
Forget what? The fact that he was soon to be a father and nobody knew about it. A fact so bizarre that he was having difficulty believing it himself.
The text came in the middle of his night—though it would have been Rebecca’s morning—the day after Christmas. That strange, flat day following the holiday itself. The text was spare with detail, saying simply: ‘In labour. Will let you know what happens.’
What the hell did she think was going to happen? he wondered.
But after that he couldn’t sleep, pacing the floor of his apartment, trying to settle with a book, a film and then some music—but nothing worked. Obviously, he knew nothing about childbirth except what he’d seen depicted in movies—when the women always seemed to scream and thrash around a lot. Was that dramatic licence, or was Rebecca screaming out in pain right now?
Xandros gritted his teeth because somehow that hurt. And the not knowing anything was the worst feeling he could recall in a long time. He was a man of action—he did not think, he did. So was he going to sit around now and wonder what the hell was going on across the Atlantic—or was he actually going to do something about it?
His bag was packed in seconds, a flight arranged and a car dispatched to take him to JFK for the first flight to London. Xandros never rejoiced in money for money’s sake, but it was at times like this that he recognised the true freedom that his wealth could buy him.
It was a bleak day when he touched down at Heathrow—the sky was heavy and overcast and there was an air of chill which made steam clouds of his breath. He had texted Rebecca right back and asked her which hospital she was going to and she had told him. He guessed she presumed he’d want to send flowers or something. He had not told her he was coming.
Why not?
Because he had not wanted to risk her objecting? Knowing that even a man as macho as he was would have baulked at overriding a woman’s wishes while she was actually in labour?
Or because he had wanted to check out that she’d spoken the truth when she’d implied that there was no man in her life? She might have protested about her physical state but Xandros was enough of a cynic to realise that someone with an eye for the main chance might jump at the opportunity of hooking up with a beautiful woman—especially if there was going to be some super-rich ex-lover in the background, paying her bills.
The message came through when he was almost at the hospital.
Two healthy babies…
And then, infuriatingly—some text missing.
So were they boys, or were they girls? Or were they one of each? Striding in through the glass doors of the maternity unit, he told himself that it didn’t matter what sex they were. Several nurses asked if they could help him—one in particular looking as though she wasn’t talking about directions—and soon he was in the maternity unit, speaking to the nurse in charge.
‘I’m looking for Rebecca Gibbs,’ he stated.
‘And you are?’
Who the hell do you think I am? ‘I’m the babies’ father. Alexandros Pavlidis,’ he bit out. ‘Where is she?’
‘Please follow me, Mr Pavlidis—and I’ll take you to her.’
Rebecca was lying on a bed, feeling as if she were in some kind of drugged daze—though in truth she’d only puffed at a bit of gas and air because that had been all there’d been time for during a labour which had taken her by surprise with its speed and intensity. But now, with the pain and the ordeal part of it over, she was drifting in and out of a strange kind of half-sleep when a familiar accent prickled over her senses and convinced her that she must be dreaming.
‘Rebecca?’
She opened her eyes, screwed them up—as if it might be a trick of the light and the hard, handsome face of her ex-lover weren’t towering over her like some dark, avenging angel.
‘Xandros?’
‘Where are they?’ he demanded.
The midwife made as if to object at his tone, but weakly Rebecca shook her head. She wanted to cry. ‘Over there,’ she whispered.
Slowly, he turned and walked towards two cribs which stood, side by side, an identical swaddled shape in each—a shock of black hair the only contrast against the white hospital blanket. He felt a shiver whispering its way over his skin, his throat growing dry as he stared down at them.
‘What are they?’ he questioned thickly.
For a moment Rebecca didn’t understand him—until she realised that he still didn’t know the sex. She paused, as if recognising the significance of what she was about to tell him—resenting it even as she resented the stupid pride she felt in the answer she was about to give him.
‘Boys,’ she answered. ‘Both boys.’
‘Identical?’
‘Yes, Xandros.’
Xandros closed his eyes as the turbulent reality of what she had just told him rocked him to the very core of his being—for it was every Greek man’s dream to have a son to carry on his name and his genes. But twin boys? Just like him and Kyros. The cell split into two. The same and yet not the same. Never the same. Would any other man understand this strange bond of twinship, which now reached down through another generation?
For a moment he was shaken. More than shaken. He felt the strange thunder of his heart as he stared down at the two ebony heads and a terrible tearing at his heart as if someone had just ripped it open.
‘Would you like to hold your sons, Mr Pavlidis?’ asked the midwife with the bright, forced emotion of someone who had asked that particular question a million times.
Xandros looked up, and for a second his intense black gaze burned into Rebecca with an expression which came as close to helpless as she could ever imagine Xandros looking.
‘You mean, both of them?’
Rebecca actually smiled. ‘Well, why don’t you start with one, and see how you go on?’
Did he begrudge her apparent serenity—or was it simply that he felt as uncertain as some of the novice skaters he’d seen on the Rockefeller ice rink as he tentatively looked down at the tiny bundle, which seemed to be making sucking sounds disproportionate to his tiny size. ‘Why not?’ he questioned, and held his arms out.
The midwife bent down and efficiently scooped one of the babies up, before placing him in Xandros’s arms. ‘Make sure you support his little neck,’ she said, in a friendly, bossy manner.
Xandros nodded, a lump forming in his throat as he cradled the scrap of an infant. How could this be? he wondered. This double miracle which had been created. ‘Oyos,’ said Xandros softly, beginning to cradle him now. ‘My son.’
Rebecca swallowed as she heard the primitive note of ownership in his deep voice—telling herself that her fears were irrational. Shouldn’t she be pleased that he had acknowledged his offspring so openly? Why, she hadn’t expected him to turn up here like this. He hadn’t warned her.
In her more vulnerable state during the pregnancy—during some of the long, restless nights when she couldn’t get comfortable—hadn’t she longed for just such a scenario? Xandros appearing out of the blue—all strong and unashamedly masculine. Xandros sweeping in to take over and transform the situation—as if he were possessed of magical powers and could sprinkle her world with stardust.
But that had been then—when Rebecca was feeling all mixed-up and weary with the weight of impending birth. Something had happened in the interim which seemed to have invested her with the magical powers she had foolishly expected Xandros to bestow upon her.
She had become a mother. She had two tiny babies who were dependent on her. It should have scared the life out of her, but somehow it did the very opposite—it filled her with a kind of strength unlike anything she’d ever felt before. The strength to be able to stand up to a man—even one as dominating as Xandros.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ she questioned.
He looked up from where his lips seemed to have drifted automatically to the silken down of the baby’s head. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’
‘Or to check up on me?’ she questioned astutely.
The midwife frowned, as if interpreting the beginnings of a row. ‘You are supposed to be resting—’
‘Oh, I will ensure she rests,’ Xandros cut in with a soft arrogance. ‘And please—we must no longer keep you from your work. I should like a little time alone with the mother of my sons.’
Rebecca wanted to lash out—to tell him that decisions to rest or not to rest were down to her. And to protest at his rather cold-blooded description of her, which made her sound like little more than an incubator. But she did not want a scene. She could already sense that the midwife was on Xandros’s side—if the slightly awestruck look she was giving him as she left the room was anything to go by. And more than that, she felt weak—physically shattered, as if she had gone ten rounds in a boxing ring and emerged punch-drunk.
She stared at his powerful dark form and realised that she needed to rest. That being strong was one thing—but who could say how long she’d be able to remain like that?
‘Perhaps you’d like to come back later, Xandros?’ she questioned, forcing her voice to sound polite, as if he was nothing to her. Because he is nothing to you. He might be the father of her two new sons, but that did not mean there was anything left between them and she would be a fool to forget that.
He was still staring at their tiny, sleeping forms. ‘Have you thought of names?’ he demanded, as if she hadn’t spoken.
Of course she had thought of names—there had been plenty of thinking times during the long winter evenings when her bump had seemed to defy gravity and made moving around both difficult and uncomfortable. But it was hard enough choosing one name—
let alone two. And there had been no one to bounce ideas off. No one to say, ‘I hate that name’ which was what the giggling couples at the antenatal classes used to say.
And it had been difficult to imagine that the long, unplanned pregnancy would actually result in two little babies—even though every scan had confirmed that to be the case. But your mind could know something and your heart would refuse to accept it. It had felt like tempting fate to think ahead. To try to picture what the reality might be like. The doctors had fussed over her as it was—with a kind of fascinated horror. They had told her to take extra care and then had frowned with concern when she had told them that there was no father on the scene.
Would Xandros have come to her aid if she had told him she needed him during those months? Rebecca didn’t know and neither had she wanted to test it out. She really hadn’t wanted to see him. It would have stirred up unwanted emotions at a time when she had needed to keep all her sanity and her wits about her. And she had made a decision after her trip to New York—when he had made her feel like some inconsequential part of his former life. He had seen her vulnerable too many times in the past—and he would never see her vulnerable again.
‘Perhaps you would like me to draw up a list of names?’ he was asking, as if he had every right to do so.
Too tired after a long labour and taken aback by the unexpected visit, Rebecca was not in the mood for a fight—and, besides, surely they could manage to agree on something they both liked? She liked his name, didn’t she? ‘Yes, why don’t you do that—unless you have any immediate suggestions?’ she said wryly. ‘Like Alexandros I and Alexandros II.’
But it seemed that Xandros was no longer listening. To her astonishment—he was carefully replacing the baby in his crib and then bending down to pick up the second child. Rebecca stared in a kind of dazed disbelief at the contrast it made. How could such a large and powerful man adapt so quickly and skilfully to handling such little newborns? She felt her heart give a little wrench of pain at the thought of all it could have been—and never would.
‘You seem … you seem a remarkably quick learner,’ she said shakily.
‘Ne. All my life I have learned quickly,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact way. Xandros touched a gentle finger to the soft cheek of the infant. Soon he would begin to learn their individual faces and, though other people might claim that they looked exactly the same, he would know differently.
A tell-tale crumpling of the mouth. The way that one nose cast a certain shadow which the other did not, and which only the most discerning eye would notice. When you were born an identical twin, you spent your lifetime searching for differences, rather than similarities. He would know these two babies apart within days.
The baby in his arms began to squawk and, as if by reflex, Rebecca felt the sudden heavy aching in her breasts and she held her arms out. ‘He needs feeding,’ she said awkwardly, her cheeks growing pink—which seemed bizarre under the circumstances. This, after all, was a man who knew her breasts better than anyone—so why was she suddenly feeling as shy as if there were a stranger standing in the room?
Xandros narrowed his eyes and then carefully bent down and handed the infant over to her. And for the first time he really looked at Rebecca as she began to move the nightgown aside and latch the baby onto her breast with fingers which still seemed a little hesitant about this new part of her life.
Her cheeks were all flushed and her honeyed hair had been caught back in a blue ribbon, though silken strands of it were falling down. And she was suckling his child. Had not that same breast borne the imprint of his mouth? Had she not cried out with pleasure when it had done so?
A fierce shaft of something he didn’t recognise rocked him. Was it the shock of seeing her as a mother—the mother of his children—rather than simply as a sexually desirable woman?
His hard mouth twisted as he turned away from the picture-perfect image. Because things were never as they appeared. Never. Didn’t he know that better than anyone?
He walked over to stare at the other infant, who had begun to stir. What if they both wanted feeding at the same time? How the hell would she be able to manage that? He turned back to find Rebecca watching him, her violet-blue eyes dark.
‘You will bottle-feed them, I suppose?’ He spoke with the tone of a man entering unfamiliar territory and for Xandros it was as close as he had ever come to hesitation.
Rebecca shook her head. ‘I’m planning to continue nursing them myself.’
He was surprised, though he did not say so. The wives of his friends and colleagues had mostly abandoned their breast-feeding—mainly because they either had their careers or social lives to return to—but apparently it also did little to enhance the appearance of the breasts. Xandros remembered the genuine shock he’d experienced when a woman had informed him that her breasts had been surgically ‘enhanced’ and that she was therefore unable to feed her child. It had seemed the price she had been willing to pay for keeping a pert figure.
‘You will manage two babies?’ he questioned.
‘Well, nature has equipped me to do that at least,’ she said wryly. ‘Just imagine if I’d had triplets!’
Unbelievably, he found his lips curving into a smile and suddenly he found himself wanting to get away from this uncomfortably intimate scene—and at the same time strangely reluctant to leave. Was that nature—that powerful and ungovernable force—exerting her strong will to pull him towards his sons?
‘When will you be discharged?’ he questioned.
Rebecca delayed answering—but she could hardly lie about it, could she? Or demand to know what business it was of his? She had made it his business when she’d told him about the pregnancy, and that decision—like everything else in life—had its consequences. Whether she liked those consequences was neither here nor there.
She would provide him with facts, pure and simple—beyond that she owed him nothing.
‘After three days, hopefully,’ she said. ‘Provided that they’re pleased with mine and the boys’ progress, of course.’
He registered the ways she’d said the boys—like an exclusive little club which he was not permitted to join, and Xandros felt his body prickle its silent objection to her high-handedness. We’ll see about that, he thought grimly.
He nodded. ‘I will come and collect you,’ he stated.
‘But, I don’t need—’
‘Yes, you do. I’m not arguing with you, Rebecca—because there is no alternative.’ His implacable words cut through her protest. ‘I will be taking you all home from hospital and that is final.’ His black eyes glittered with sudden, new intent. ‘And now we need to discuss the names of my sons.’
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_0b520f8a-5380-5c11-8bef-4cfc69685989)
‘I DO not care what you say!’ Xandros stormed. ‘You cannot possibly stay here—and what is more, I will not let you!’
Rebecca sighed. If she’d had the energy she might have objected to the condemnatory tone of his voice—just as she might have objected to him standing there, dominating the sitting room of her little flat as he seemed to dominate every place he went.
Wishing he would go away—because he was so damned…so damned everything. Single-minded, stubborn … and gorgeous. So gorgeous. And she must never forget the power of his sexuality—no matter how many times she told herself that it was no longer relevant to either of them. Because he would use it as a weapon if he needed to, she recognised weakly. He would do anything he needed to do to get his own way.
In the end she had been pathetically grateful for his insistence that he collect her, Alexius and Andreas from the hospital. In fact, she wondered how on earth she could have managed without him. She literally couldn’t have carried the two babies along with all her hospital stuff and managed even something as simple as opening the front door with a key which had always gone stiffly into the lock, but which had never seemed to matter until now.
As it was, on several occasions she’d had to bite back tears of frustration—telling herself that her emotions were only see-sawing all over the place because of her fluctuating hormone levels and the fact that she had recently given birth.
Xandros had organised a car, which she had accepted, and he had also offered to bring along a maternity nurse, which she had refused. That had vexed him, as had so much else—but nothing had irked him quite so much as looking round at her tiny home now that it had acquired two extra small human beings, along with all their assorted paraphernalia. There were giant, ugly plastic bags of nappies—and bottles of baby bath and packets of baby wipes. Why did everything have to be made out of plastic? he had wondered sourly more than once.
‘Look at it!’ he raged. ‘You cannot possibly stay here!’
‘I don’t have any alternative,’ said Rebecca. ‘Lots of babies are brought home to places like this.’
‘Not usually two babies at the same time! How the hell are you going to manage?’ he demanded.
‘I’ll manage,’ she said tiredly.
‘You had enough difficulty getting back from hospital,’ he pointed out. ‘And you might just about cope with the babies since that is what nature has equipped you to do, as you keep telling me—but what about you? There is very little food in the fridge—and no fresh fruit or vegetables at all! It is outrageous!’
‘We can’t all have fleets of servants at our beck and call,’ she said flippantly, in an effort to hide the hurt. ‘Perhaps you’d like to do a quick supermarket shop for me?’
‘Oh, I can do better than that,’ he said grimly, sliding the phone from his pocket.
Within the hour, one of London’s most chi-chi stores had delivered the kind of food which Rebecca could never have afforded, not even at Christmas, and for the first time in years, Xandros found himself unpacking it himself—and using every one of his spatial skills to try to fit most of it into her shoebox of a fridge.
He heated them both some soup and gave Rebecca some fruit juice while he drank a glass of wine and then watched as she fed the babies again. He cleared their supper away while she changed them—because his macho Greekness rebelled at that. As it was, it had been many years since he had washed dishes—and in a funny kind of way, he enjoyed it.
But when he walked back into the sitting room, he could see the exhaustion which had made her face paper-pale and the shadows underneath her eyes nearly as violet dark as her eyes—and never had he felt so … ineffective.
‘You’re tired,’ he observed.
‘Yes, I am. Thank you for all your help, Xandros—and I’ll see you soon.’
He heard the dismissal in her voice and his mouth twisted into an odd kind of smile. ‘Oh, but it isn’t over yet, agape,’ he said grimly. ‘Because I am not going anywhere.’
‘Wh-what are you talking about?’
‘I shall sleep on the sofa tonight.’
She stared at him in alarm. ‘But you can’t!’
‘Can’t? Did you really imagine for one second that I would leave you here alone on your first night back at home—with two tiny babies? What if something happens to you? What if you should suddenly get sick?’
His protectiveness made her want to weep with a terrible kind of yearning—as she couldn’t help but imagine how it would feel if his words were inspired by love, rather than paternal duty. But that was selfish, wasn’t it? Her own fiery dreams of love with Xandros lay in ashes—but she must rise above all that and do the best for Alexius and Andreas. They both owed them that.
‘I’ll find you a duvet,’ she said awkwardly.
‘Thank you.’
Xandros could never remember spending such an uncomfortable night—not even when he used to sleep on the beach under the stars, on those balmy nights back in Greece, when the air had been so thick and so warm that it had been impossible to stay inside.
But back then he had been a teenager, his still-growing body adaptable to just about anything. In the intervening years he had become a man used to only the very finest things.
So should he be grateful for this opportunity to remind him of what life could be like for others less fortunate?
By morning, there was no question of gratitude. He had barely slept a wink—woken up by a dust-cart outside the window, which had seemed determined to give him the entire repertoire of its noisy engine, and then by the sound of rain beginning to thunder down.
For a while, he lay staring at his surroundings in a kind of dazed disbelief until he could hear the sound of Rebecca moving around and so he washed and dressed, and made coffee for them both. But the delicious smell of it did little to soothe his frayed nerves—serving only to remind him how this situation could not be allowed to continue.
He heard her footsteps and turned round as she came into the sitting room. She had tied her hair into two thick plaits, which hung down by the sides of her unmade-up face, and she was wearing a simple pair of linen trousers and a pale T-shirt. He thought how ridiculously young she looked, and oddly wholesome, too—and while wholesome was not a word he usually liked or associated with his women, perhaps it was the best to be hoped for under these particular circumstances.
‘How did you sleep?’ she asked, thinking how he seemed to dominate the room with his presence and how unsettling it had been to imagine him sleeping on the other side of the paper-thin walls.
‘How do you think I slept?’ he grated.
‘I did try to warn you—’
‘You are missing the point, Rebecca.’
He was not going to intimidate her in her own home. ‘And what point is that, Xandros?’
‘I told you yesterday—you can’t possibly live like this!’
‘Like what?’
He wanted to tell her not to play dumb with him—but instead he made a sweeping movement with his hand intended to draw attention to the minute size of the accommodation as his mouth flattened into a disapproving line.
As an architect, he had been schooled in aesthetics—but for Xandros the love of beauty had always been instinctive, rather than taught. He knew that taste was a purely subjective matter—but his early life in Greece had made him appreciate space and simplicity. Whereas this…
The clutter of her home was unbelievable—and the early-morning light picked it out with cruel clarity. It wasn’t just the baby stuff—it was all the candles and knick-knacks she had everywhere. Not only was every surface covered with something which to his eyes seemed completely unnecessary—but now there was a double buggy to contend with.
The last time he’d been here he had barely noticed the jostle for space—for he had only been interested in taking her to bed and then getting the hell out of there. But where she lived affected his children.
‘It’s a mess!’ he snapped.
‘Well, it’s my mess!’ she said defiantly.
‘Not necessarily.’
Rebecca stared at him—wondering how she could be so tired when she’d only just got up. They had told her at the hospital that she would get weary, but somehow she had thought that she’d be able to overcome any rogue fatigue through a sheer sense of will and determination. And she had been wrong. She had just fed, bathed and changed her two adorable little black-haired babies and now felt as if she had been wrung out to dry and then rained on all over again.
But Xandros’s words made her eyes narrow with suspicion—because she had come to recognise the menace which underpinned that particularly silky tone of his. Her fatigue suddenly receded into the background. ‘What do you mean?’ she questioned.
He paused to give his statement significance—as he had done at high-powered boardroom meetings all his life. ‘Just that what you choose to do in your life is entirely up to you, agape mou—but when it involves my children, then I surely have some say in the matter? Some influence as to how I think they should be brought up. And where.’
Rebecca swallowed, suddenly nervous as her mind skittered over all the possible replies she might make—knowing that it had to be the right reply when she was dealing with a man like Xandros. If she objected on the grounds that they weren’t together as a couple any more—mightn’t he think she was hinting that she’d like them to be? And yet—did he really have any rights to lay down the law about the twins’ upbringing? Soon he would be gone—back to America and the life he had there. A life which did not include her or the boys, and never would.
‘Do you really think it’s any of your business?’ she questioned.
He felt the sudden stirring of battle-lines being drawn and the adrenalin began to course through his veins. He had expected to feel nothing but impartial interest towards these two children who had sprung from his loins. He had told himself that it was simply curiosity which had compelled him to fly to Britain to see them. But he had been wrong.
During the three nights when she had been with them in hospital his thoughts had run riot in a way which was uncharacteristic—but the one thought which had overridden every other was that he wanted some part of his sons’ lives.
‘I plan to make it my business,’ he said.
Rebecca heard the unmistakable challenge in his voice and something inside her quailed because she didn’t doubt him, not for a moment. Imagine all the resources a man like Xandros could summon up to support any claim he might wish to make. It would need a strong and very rich woman to fight him—and, while she was working on the strength bit, she couldn’t just snap her fingers to put herself on an equal financial footing with the Greek billionaire.
Wouldn’t it be better to try to accommodate his wishes, rather than engaging in some kind of battle which he would be bound to win? He lived in America, for heavens’ sake! Contact with him would be minimal, if she played this carefully. So do it.
‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked cautiously.
He glared at the door which led through to the tiny kitchenette. ‘Well, for a start—this place is much too small.’
Rebecca nodded, knowing she’d sound both stubborn and ignorant if she disagreed—because he was right. ‘And?’
‘And I want you to move somewhere bigger.’
She sighed. She wasn’t stupid. It had taken her about three seconds of being home with the babies to realise that the place simply wouldn’t do—no matter how much she had tried to justify it in her head beforehand. But even if she touched the money which Xandros had been paying into her account—generous as it was—it still wouldn’t go anywhere near a decent deposit on a bigger home. ‘It isn’t as easy as that, Xandros. Property in London is astronomically expensive.’
‘I can afford it.’
‘Yes, I know you can.’ She swallowed. ‘And what if I said that I didn’t want to accept your—’
‘Charity?’ he intercepted sarcastically, his black eyes glittering with growing impatience. ‘But this isn’t about charity—or your misplaced feelings of pride. In fact, this has nothing to do with you, Rebecca—but my desire to ensure that my children don’t grow up with less space than your average battery hen has to contend with!’
She stared at him. ‘How dare you say something as hurtful as that?’
He shrugged, uncaring of her rage, or her hurt. ‘Because it’s the truth. You know it is.’ His mouth hardened with determination. ‘Whereas I am offering you the opportunity to move somewhere more suitable. You can live anywhere you like in this city. Anywhere at all.’
Pride or no pride, Rebecca wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt a shiver of real longing at what he was proposing. He was blazing into her life and offering to rescue them all—and how many people ever got this kind of Cinderella chance to move from scullery to palace in one leap? But at what price?
She lifted her head to meet his gaze full on. ‘And what if I say no?’
His expression was hard and uncompromising. Would she really dare to try to oppose his wishes? Did she know what kind of an adversary she would be taking on? ‘I wouldn’t advise saying no,’ he warned softly.
His stony black gaze bored into her and, for possibly the first time, Rebecca realised what she was up against. Yes, he was enormously rich and that kind of wealth could buy you untold power, but with Xandros it was something much more than wealth.
She saw the steely determination to get exactly what he wanted—fired by some primitive urge to fight for the very best for his children. And could she really condemn him for having their best interests at heart? Could she? Would two increasingly mobile and lively little boys thank her for turning down the offer of a lifetime, simply because their father didn’t love her? Pride was a terrible reason for denying her sons what was rightfully theirs.
‘If … if I did agree—you mean I can choose where to live?’ she questioned uncertainly.
Xandros turned away to look out of the window—as if checking to see whether the rain had stopped, but in reality to hide his small smile of triumph, knowing that he had won.
‘Of course you can choose,’ he murmured.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_252a526e-80cf-5cae-8209-0321f42b8ed7)
‘JUST what kind of house do you like, Rebecca?’ Xandros demanded impatiently one morning as he stood in her sitting room, which felt like a sauna and looked like a laundry—there were so many Babygros steaming dry on the radiator. Who would have thought that at this time in his life he would find himself sleeping on a woman’s sofa in such a confined space? Moodily, he stared at all the specifications she had been shown and which she had rejected. ‘Anything specific?’
Rebecca forced herself to concentrate on house details, and not on the moody expression on his dark, rugged face. Choosing a place to live when there were no financial limitations actually made a decision harder, she had discovered. How much easier it would have been to have ruled out most of the market because it was non-affordable. Too much choice, she had come to realise, actually provided its own kind of headache. But anything would be better than having Xandros camped and cramped on her sofa—making her feel the kind of things she definitely knew she shouldn’t be feeling.
‘Well, I don’t want to live in one of those bleak-looking penthouses which resemble some kind of laboratory, that’s for sure.’
Xandros gave a short laugh, wondering what his award-winning colleague who’d designed it would think of her dismissive attitude. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me what you consider important?’ He forced himself to treat her as if she were one of his clients. ‘If you were given an ideal home—what one thing would it have to make it special?’
That was easy. Well, if you discounted the fairy tale … what had she missed most since moving to the capital? ‘A garden,’ she said instantly. ‘That’s all.’
‘That’s all?’ Xandros gave a wry smile. Ironically, what she wanted was more elusive than any award-winning development. Was she being disingenuous or just genuinely innocent of the market? ‘Garden space in London is like gold-dust.’ He nodded. ‘But I know some people I can get onto it. Let me see to that.’
Rebecca pushed her fingers back through her untidy hair, resenting the way he could just snap his fingers and have a whole assortment of people to do all the running for him—but a feeling which was bigger than resentment was gnawing away at her.
Didn’t he realise that all this wasn’t easy? Going through all the motions of choosing a brand-new home, but without all the normal stuff that most new mothers might expect. Like the shared excitement of a couple in love. All she had was Xandros talking about putting his people onto it, in that cold and uncaring manner. Pretty much the same way that he’d dealt with everything else. ‘Fantastic,’ she said, with faint sarcasm.
His eyes narrowed—her attitude like a slap in the face to his macho Greek pride—and he felt the slow burn of anger, and something else too. Something which had been building inside him no matter how much he had tried to tell himself that it was no longer appropriate. ‘Such a truculent approach, agape,’ he murmured. ‘I thought you might at least be a little grateful.’
‘Did you?’ How many more expectations of her would he have? She had let him name the babies and sleep on her sofa and now she was letting him change the very fabric of her life. Where the hell was this all going to end? Rebecca glanced over at him, steeling herself against the sight of him leaning against the window sill—black denim encasing the muscular thrust of his thighs and a dark cashmere sweater clinging lovingly to the hard lines of his torso.
His black hair was ruffled, the ebony eyes were glittering with life and vitality and there was the dark hint of shadow around the strong jaw. This was Xandros at his most casual and sexy—and, heaven help her, but she wanted him. Was it normal for a woman to feel the slow, heavy ache of desire when she’d only recently given birth? Or was that just because he was Xandros? Because she had loved him and tasted the pleasures of his body so many times that maybe he’d spoilt her for any other man.
Gazing at the soft, olive gleam of his skin and remembering what it felt like to have it wrapped around her naked body, it was easy to forget all their turbulent history—even easier to forget that he was only here because he had to be. He’s only here because of the babies, she reminded herself painfully. She told herself that it shouldn’t hurt, but it did, of course it did—and she found herself wanting to hurt him back. To show him that she wasn’t going to act like a starving puppy who was just grateful for any old scrap he happened to throw in her direction.
‘And does my lack of gratitude rile you, Xandros? Would you like me to throw myself slavishly at your feet? Is that what you’d like?’
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/sharon-kendrick/satisfaction-the-greek-tycoon-s-baby-bargain/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Sharon Kendrick
When playboy Alexandros Pavlidis discovers that Rebecca is pregnant with his twins, his first instinct is to pay her off. But Xandros won’t be truly satisfied until Rebecca agrees to marriage – on his terms! Billionaire Kyros Pavlidis wants a warm and willing woman in his bed every night – a wife to satisfy all his needs and Alice is just the woman for the job! Estranged from his wife, billionaire Alexei Christou is angered by Victoria’s sudden demand for a divorce. He agrees to her terms but it will come at a price – his satisfaction! He means to bed his bride again. . .
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
Satisfaction
The Greek Tycoon’s Baby Bargain
The Greek Tycoon’s Convenient Wife
Bought by Her Husband
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#u1b77c83b-f621-5f91-80aa-7692b908610e)
About the Author (#uda739b3f-dcc0-5cf5-aa9d-83cf0008d8b9)
Title Page (#u0f3baf92-954a-5a8e-80f4-c48dd64f9805)
The Greek Tycoon’s Baby Bargain (#u35c1a242-2389-5deb-a07b-e295236503b8)
Dedication (#ud03041f0-9c8c-583a-867e-cff88cabbafd)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_b8b6a716-6015-574d-b908-36651c58698e)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_0e82d2c7-c25d-5942-a11a-62046bc94095)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ff6f49e0-2f3e-5877-b406-b86bd79b1cc4)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_2b55554c-cee8-5709-80d1-0fcdd8e1da8e)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_686e28da-0a7a-52b6-8094-7a49243e924a)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_e57e6e74-524c-5965-8e45-a93690d252ea)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_52e96077-1327-5f21-b5cb-ff5f7a698f39)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_18b8a2f3-7f5b-53e2-bfcc-919c1623edce)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
The Greek Tycoon’s Convenient Wife (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Bought by Her Husband (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
The Greek Tycoon’s Baby Bargain (#u5d5f3c07-2575-5869-a0eb-88779f6f0f46)
Sharon Kendrick
To my adorable godchildren:
Lucy Jacob, Judy Jacob, Hannah Minnock,
Lucy Wightwick, Rory Maguire and
Catriona McDavid. With love.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_27b4e624-3856-56fd-a026-8d455d4cc434)
IT WASN’T the first time he had been late—but it was the first time he hadn’t bothered to warn her.
Outside, the rain made the street look as glossy as an old black and white photo but Rebecca’s eyes were fixed at the junction which would give her the first glimpse of his car.
The palms of her hands were cold and clammy and she bit her lip, her head spinning with thoughts she could no longer ignore. Because maybe this was how it all began—the end of a relationship. With the slow, slow drip of inconsideration—rather than the passion of the blazing row.
Her lips curved into a painful smile as she recognised that even calling it a relationship gave it more importance than it deserved. When two people lived on opposite continents and merely snatched at secret moments together—did that really count?
Perhaps affair would be more accurate. An affair which should never have started and which she’d tried her best to resist, but in the end she had been weak—of course she had. For wasn’t that Xandros’s special ability: to make women weak around him? It wasn’t difficult to see why. Given the sheer charisma and powerful persuasion of the Greek billionaire, it was amazing that she had lasted out as long as she had.
Maybe this was what happened when you finally began to fall in love with a man like Alexandros Pavlidis—or Xandros to his friends and lovers. This terrible preoccupation which made all your thinking skewed. Even though you told yourself that you didn’t want to be in love, that it couldn’t possibly be love when all you’d known were some amazing dates and some even more amazing sex.
Yet you could tell yourself something again and again and sometimes almost believe it. And then he would call at the very last minute and she would hear that deep sexy voice, asking her if she’d like to have dinner, and her heart would flip—the world seeming suddenly to be lit by fairy lights. And even though she hated herself for being so available, she would be unable to say no.
The gleam of powerful headlights cut a bright channel through the night and Rebecca saw the shiny black nose of the limousine as it slowly eased its way into view. Hastily, she ducked out of sight as it stopped outside the apartment building. Not the most attractive sight in the world, was it? To be seen staring anxiously out of the window!
She checked the mirror. Her hair was clean and shining—worn loose, just the way Xandros liked it. She was wearing a dress in soft lilac and was slim enough and young enough to carry off the relatively inexpensive outfit and make the most of it. Xandros didn’t like a lot of make-up and neither did she. A slick of lipstick and a curl of mascara—that was all.
But no amount of careful preparation could hide the faint shadows beneath her eyes, or the way that she seemed to have been constantly biting her lip lately, like an exam candidate who hadn’t really understood the question.
The doorbell rang and she pinned a casual smile to her mouth, which died the instant she opened the door to see a tall man in uniform standing on the step, rain dripping from his peaked cap, and it took a moment or two to realise that she was looking at Xandros’s chauffeur.
‘Miss Gibbs?’ he said politely, as if he’d never met her before. As if he hadn’t witnessed Xandros kissing her so passionately on the back seat of the car. Or hadn’t been forced to sit in a car outside her tiny house, waiting for his Greek boss to reappear over an hour later minus his tie, his hair dishevelled, his sensual mouth curved with pleasure.
Rebecca’s cheeks burned with shame at the memory of that particular time. ‘Where’s Xandros?’ she questioned, and then her eyes widened as a thousand horrible possibilities flooded into her mind. ‘He’s okay? I mean—nothing’s happened to him?’
But the chauffeur’s face might have been made of wood. Hard, disapproving wood—as if he was used to dealing with a hundred worried-looking women like Rebecca. ‘Mr Alexandros Pavlidis asked me to convey his apologies, but he is dealing with a conference call. He asked me to bring you to him instead.’
Rebecca swallowed. Bring you to him. Like a convenience, she thought. A package. Something handy, but ultimately disposable. Yes, that was her, all right.
There was a split second while she ran through her options. What was the normal response when your lover sent his chauffeur to collect you and you suspected that was because your novelty value was wearing off and he might be tiring of you? Did you smile gratefully and thank the chauffeur and settle back comfortably in the back of the luxury car, counting your blessings?
Or would you be more respected—and desired—if you politely told the driver that he could go back to his boss with the information that you had changed your mind about dinner, and were staying in? That if he was busy, then surely the best solution was to leave him in peace to get on with his work.
But the lure of Xandros was strong, and so was her fear that a dramatic display of pique might bring about the end sooner than she had anticipated. Sooner than she could cope with.
‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said.
The traffic was heavy and the weather bleak for a Thursday night in April. Rebecca’s hair was whipped around her head by a biting wind as the hotel doorman opened the car door and she stepped out.
Had she been hoping that Xandros might have been standing in the foyer, waiting for her? That she wouldn’t have to make the endless journey across the luxurious carpet on her own, imagining that eyes were on her, wondering who the woman in the cheap dress was? Wasn’t there a part of her which was slightly terrified of being stopped by one of the hotel staff, demanding to know why she was taking the lift up to the penthouse?
But the journey passed without comment and in the mirror-lined lift she had the opportunity to drag a brush through her hair, to compose herself into the right kind of expression.
How did she look the first time he’d seen her—when he had hunted her down like a hungry predator? Surely she could recreate a similar kind of expression now. The kind of air which implied that she had a full and fulfilling life, and she wasn’t particularly fussed about any man—not even if he was a world-famous Greek billionaire.
The trouble was that things changed. People changed, once a man like Xandros had possessed them. Did he have the power to turn women into his willing slaves—so that he could ultimately despise them for wanting him so badly?
Did he despise her? Had she no pride left where he was concerned?
The lift doors slid open noiselessly and she could hear the sound of his voice coming from the direction of the sitting room. A unique voice, in Rebecca’s experience—low, soft, dangerous, sexy. He was speaking in Greek and then suddenly he switched to English as she began to walk towards its silken resonance, the heels of her boots quiet on the thick carpet.
He was sitting at the vast desk which overlooked London’s Hyde Park, wearing a white silk shirt which contrasted against his deep olive skin. His ebony hair was ruffled and it sparkled with the light from drops of water—as if someone had scattered fine diamonds over his head, though he was clearly just out of the shower.
‘Tell them no,’ he was saying. ‘Tell them …’ And then he must have become aware of her presence for his gaze flicked up from the document he was reading. He studied her for one long, unhurried moment and then the black eyes glittered, and he gave a slow smile, running the tip of his tongue over his lips—like someone starving who had just seen their meal arrive.
‘Tell them that they will have to wait,’ he said softly, and then put the phone down without any kind of conventional goodbye. ‘Rebecca,’ he murmured. ‘Rebecca mou.’
Usually, that deep, sensuous endearment made her tremble, but not tonight. ‘Hello, Xandros,’ she said evenly.
His eyes narrowed. Leaning back in his chair, he continued to study her. ‘Forgive me for not coming to collect you myself—but some business came in which I had to deal with.’
Rebecca eyed the dark arrow of hair revealed by the few shirt buttons which had been left open and she felt the habitual rush of desire which overrode everything else, even sanity. But if she ignored this lapse in plain courtesy, then wasn’t she just giving him permission to treat her any way he saw fit? If it was any other man, would she have said something? Of course she would. But with any other man you wouldn’t care!
‘You could have phoned.’
There was a split second of a pause. ‘I could indeed,’ he agreed steadily and felt the flicker of a pulse at his temple. Be careful, agape mou, he thought. Be very careful.
‘And you’re still not ready.’
His eyes narrowed. Was that a criticism? Of him? Did she not realise that he would not tolerate being judged? That no woman ever had, and no woman ever would? And was she not aware that she was in danger of treading the path of the predictable—the path that so many women before her had taken—and that if she did there could be only one outcome?
Leaning back in his chair just a little, he crossed one long leg over the other, watching the way that her eyes followed the movement as she tried to disguise the hunger in her eyes. Should he take her now? he wondered idly. Could he really be bothered to endure a restaurant dinner of small talk when all he wanted was to lose himself in the sweetness of her body?
‘Indeed I am not,’ he agreed softly, following her gaze to his bare feet and remembering that amazing time when she had … ‘But that is easily remedied,’ he said thickly. ‘I shall go into the bedroom and finish getting dressed right now.’
‘Okay,’ she said uncertainly, something telling her that he was playing a game with her.
‘Or …’ His mouth flickered in the mockery of a smile. ‘Or you could always come over here and say hello to me properly.’
Was that a subtle dig that she hadn’t already done so? Rebecca was aware of some unknown emotion hovering in the air about them—something unspoken and dangerous. Instinct told her that she was playing with fire if she continued to moan about his lateness. And an even stronger instinct made her badly want to kiss him.
Letting her handbag slide to the floor, she crossed the room and went over to him, bending her face to brush a light kiss against his lips. A kiss could wipe everything away, she thought longingly, her hands reaching up to his shoulders. Oh, Xandros.
‘Nice,’ he murmured. ‘Oreos. Do it some more.’
She kissed him again. And then again—only deeper this time and more intently—until he groaned and reached for her so that she let him pull her down onto his lap. ‘Xandros!’ she gasped.
‘Touch me,’ he urged, his mouth against her ear, his nostrils inhaling her light, flowery scent and feeling the silken spill of her hair next to his skin.
‘Wh-where?’
‘Where ever you want, agape mou.’
Oh, the choice was dazzling. Where did she begin? With his face—and all its shadowy contours, its contrasting lines and curves? She let her fingers caress his cheeks, running them along the luminously gold skin as if she were measuring the high angles of his cheekbones until she encountered the rasp of the dark new growth around his jaw.
‘You didn’t shave today,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t you know what they say about men who need to shave a lot?’
‘No. What do they say?’
‘What do you think they say?’ he taunted. ‘They say that he is a real man. Shall I prove it to you?’ Taking her hand, he guided it down to between his legs and Rebecca felt the rush of blood to her cheeks as she felt the unbelievable hardness of him stretching the fabric of his elegant trousers. ‘Ne,’ he groaned. ‘Touch me there. Right there.’
‘Like that?’ she whispered, cupping him in the palm of her hand.
‘Ne. More. Do that some more.’
She drifted her fingers teasingly over the rocky shaft of him, and his soft moan became an impatient imprecation. His ebony eyes were sparking pure passion and fire and his voice was unsteady as he stroked the silken skin above her breasts. ‘I haven’t seen this dress before.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘No. I want to tear it from your body.’
‘Don’t do that, Xandros—it’s new.’
‘Then why don’t you take it off for me?’
Suddenly she felt shy, the doubts which had been assailing her all day coming back like spectres to haunt her. Was this an acceptable way to be treated by a man—to be made to feel insecure with him and then for him to ask you to perform a striptease, while he was still seated at his desk?
‘Shouldn’t we go into the bedroom?’
He gave a short laugh, but he was so hard and so hot for her that he doubted he would be able to make it to the door and this sensual power which she always seemed to exert over him made him want to wrest back control. ‘Isn’t it a little soon in our acquaintance for convention to rear its ugly head?’
Rebecca froze. Acquaintance. What kind of a word was that?
He saw her mouth tremble and he licked the tip of his tongue over it to cease its shiver, his hands slipping around her waist, fingers splaying over its slim indentation. ‘Take it off,’ he urged thickly.
She wanted to say I can’t, but then he might ask her why, and how could she possibly answer that? Telling him that she wanted him to respect her and not just treat her as a sex object might sound like emotional blackmail. Respect had to be earned, not demanded—and, besides, maybe this was the kind of high-octane way in which billionaires conducted their love affairs.
And wasn’t there a part of her which was revelling in her newly discovered ability to thrill him, to make his body rigid with tension, the black eyes opaque with a kind of helpless desire? Wasn’t this the only time she felt that she had any real say in the relationship—in that emotionally and physically fraught time just before a couple had sex?
She stood up and lifted her hands to her hair, scooping it up between her fingers, before letting the whole heavy mass fall around her shoulders, watching his black eyes following the movement almost hypnotically. She knew he loved her hair. He had told her that the first time she’d met him—he’d said it was the colour of the setting sun before the night sky swallowed it up, whole. And when he had said it, he had looked as if he would like to swallow her up whole.
Hadn’t it been his almost poetic way with words which had disarmed her just as much as the dark, good looks and the hard, lean body? The idea that a man could be the embodiment of all that was masculine and yet be unafraid to express himself in the way which would make a woman melt?
But hadn’t that just been part of his well-practised seduction technique? How long had it been since he’d told her that her eyes were like the violet-blue flowers which scrambled in among the arid rocks and bloomed during a Grecian spring? Or that her skin was pure cream, and that was why he liked to lick it?
She shivered. Pride told her she should not strip for him and yet she knew that the evening would start off badly if she started playing games by refusing.
Peeling off her dress with one slow, sweeping movement, she dropped it on the desk, right in the middle of all his papers, daring him to object—wanting him to object. To somehow make this powerful man feel as helpless as she did. ‘I do hope that won’t interfere with your work,’ she said, thinking no such thing at all.
‘Rebecca,’ he said unevenly.
‘Yes, Xandros?’
‘Turn around,’ he said huskily. ‘Turn around and let me feast my eyes on you.’
She made him wait. The only time she could—and then she began to walk to the other side of the desk.
‘Rebecca?’
‘Do you mean like this, Xandros? Do you want to see my bottom?’ Slowly, she turned around and gave a flamboyant little wiggle and heard him laugh, but the laugh was tinged with a small groan as he saw the unbelievably alluring scarlet briefs and the matching bra over which her breasts spilled.
‘Ne. Just like that.’
He loved her bottom, as well as her hair. He had told her that, too, insisting that the pert globes be covered in nothing but lace, wanting to buy her sets of lingerie from one of the most exclusive stores in London—but she had refused. She would not be bought, even though sometimes he made her feel like a possession—just like one of his sleek cars or the fancy apartments he owned.
She began to slide the panties off, but her hands were trembling as she hooked them off over each foot and as she turned around, she crumpled them angrily between her palm and threw them at him.
Catching them effortlessly, Xandros raised his dark brows, and then—very deliberately—he lifted them up to his face and closed his eyes as he breathed in their scent.
Rebecca felt faint. What did he do to her? What power could he wield that could make her feel so utterly abandoned and wanton when she was with him—and yet leave her feeling abandoned in quite a different sense when he wasn’t there?
‘Delicious,’ he murmured. ‘Now the bra. Take it off.’
‘You take it off.’
‘But I can’t reach.’
‘Then move.’
‘Are you ordering me around, agape mou?’
‘You bet I am.’
Laughing softly, he rose to his feet and walked towards her with the slow stealth of the certain predator. And then, without warning, he snaked his arms around her and crushed her into his arms into a kiss of such hard—almost brutal—passion that she lost her balance.
But Xandros had her held firmly in his arms and he continued to kiss her, luxuriating in the softness of her body, enjoying the little cries she was making. For a woman who had made him wait longer than any other—his victory was almost complete.
‘Still want to go to the bedroom?’ he taunted, dragging his mouth away from hers. ‘Or did you have somewhere else in mind?’
She no longer cared, but she was damned if she was going to tell him that. Or to give into him yet again. He wanted her now and he wanted her here and he could damned well wait as he had made her wait for him to turn up tonight.
‘B-bed,’ she managed. Damn him, damn him, damn him! Everything with him was a battle—but this was one she was going to win. She didn’t care if it was conventional to want to go to the bedroom—at least it wouldn’t be insultingly convenient to have him take her there and then on the floor as he had done so many times before.
But he scooped her up in his arms as she had known he would—and all her angry thoughts melted because this bit was her fantasy come true. Her darkly virile lover taking his willing captive off to experience the perfect pleasures of his body. Wasn’t that the stuff of every woman’s secret dream—to be mastered and dominated by such a powerful man?
Rebecca kissed his neck as he carried her down the long corridor of the suite he rented whenever he was in London—which took over the entire top floor of the Park Lane hotel. She remembered the first time she had seen the bedroom—and had been rendered speechless.
Photo-spreads in glossy magazines could easily show luxury—but she’d been unaware that a single room could be so spacious. This one had a bed which was only slightly smaller than her entire bedroom back home—and everything else seemed to be controlled at the push of a button.
There was a giant TV screen and a small fridge, stocked with champagne and fancy chocolates as well as cut-glass bowls of flowers strategically placed to scent the room. There was even a bookcase and a rack which held all the international newspapers. But there was only one thing which she and Xandros did once they crossed the threshold of this room…
Xandros put her down on the bed and began to unbuckle his belt, watching her face as he did so, seeing her eyes darken in anticipation, as they always did. ‘You want me to strip for you now?’ he questioned softly.
‘Yes. I-I insist on it,’ she said unsteadily, but for her it was less of an erotic turn-on than the fact that she wanted to see him vulnerable—or as vulnerable as he was capable of.
But there was nothing remotely vulnerable about watching Xandros take his clothes off. First, he loosened his shirt, button by button—an interminable amount of buttons, or so it seemed to her.
‘Want me to go faster?’ he mocked as he saw her tongue snake out to moisten her parched lips.
Rebecca shook her head as he slipped the garment from his broad, bare shoulders and let it flutter to the floor like the white flag of surrender—except she knew that he didn’t have a surrendering bone in his body.
Rebecca saw him give a mocking wince as he slowly slid the zip of his trousers down and it said much for his self-possession and steely control that still he did not hurry it, despite the very obvious evidence of his arousal.
How could he possibly look both elegant and sexy as he removed his trousers and draped them over the back of a chair? His feet were bare, so all that remained were the silk boxer shorts which gave his body the look of a taut and supremely fit athlete. He kicked them off and for a moment just stood before her—completely naked and thrillingly aroused—his eyes glittering with an irresistible and arrogant challenge. And in that moment there was something so daunting—almost forbiddingly masculine—about him that Rebecca’s heart thumped with something which felt more like fear than desire.
‘Shall I come to you now, agape mou?’ His voice was a caressing tease. ‘Is that what you want?’
She wanted to tell him to promise not to break her heart, and she wanted him more than she could remember wanting anything in her life—more than breath itself. Was he aware of that? Or that sometimes he made her feel emotionally raw—as if he had seared away the top layer of her skin, leaving her cruelly exposed to his analytical eye? And what did that eye see? Someone who lived the way that plenty of other young women did—yet one who was dating a man way out of her league.
‘If you want,’ she answered, as if she couldn’t care less.
He gave a low laugh of delight as he climbed onto the bed beside her. ‘Come here.’
‘No.’
‘Ah, Rebecca. Rebecca mou.’ Reaching out, he pulled her trembling body into the hard heat of his own, his thumb reflectively circling one puckered rose nipple so that it seemed to push insistently against him. ‘You are still angry with me for being late?’
Tell him. Tell him! ‘You could have let me know. I just don’t want to be taken for granted, Xandros. I thought that you—’
His kiss silenced her, but then it was the most effective silencer in the world where women were concerned—and if all she was intending to do was to subject him to the age-old complaint about how a woman wanted to be treated, well … He had heard that grievance more times than he cared to remember.
This was better. Just this. The feel of skin against skin, the growing warmth of their ardour making their bodies closer still—as if they were glued together. In his arms, she was everything he could want from a lover—a little inexperienced, it was true, but he liked that. He had no time for women with lots of different party tricks to try out—for they were little better than hookers. A sense of wonder was fine by him, and, for however long the affair lasted, he would enjoy teaching her everything he knew.
He enjoyed the mental battle he engaged in during sex. He liked to test himself—to bring the woman to the near-height of pleasure over and over again, while denying himself until he could deny it no longer.
‘Oh, Xandros,’ she pleaded, with a frantic little cry of pleasure.
‘Mmm?’
‘Please!’
‘Please, what, agape mou?’
‘Now!’
How eager she was! How quickly she reached her peak! He lifted his dark head from where he had been suckling at her breast and moved over her, his black eyes glittering, before thrusting into her long and hard and deep, with a little groan of pleasure.
Sometimes he liked to watch a woman bloom and flower, but Rebecca was reaching her hands up to his shoulders, pulling him down so that their mouths met, and she groaned with pleasure as she writhed beneath him.
Tangled and gasping, she wrapped her limbs around him like a soft, white octopus, moving her hips in abandon until he felt the control slipping away from him. His orgasm came with a strength and a power which surprised him, but it had been like that with her since the very first time, and he couldn’t quite work out why.
Because she had made him think the unthinkable—that he was actually going to fail to get her into his bed?
Her head lay against the stilling thunder of his heart and he stroked her hair, missing the absence of her warm breath as she turned her head away to stare at the wall, saying nothing.
Ironically, this was when he liked her best—when she was retreating from him, like the tide moving away from the ever-distant shore. Xandros only wanted something when it was beyond his reach. Because once he had possessed it he wanted to move on, as he had been moving on all his restless life.
‘Do you still want to go out for dinner?’ He stretched lazily, and yawned. ‘Or shall we stay here and order something in?’
For a moment, Rebecca didn’t answer. In a way, she was perfectly happy to stay there—for she was as warm and replete as a woman could be. He would order from room service and the food would be wheeled in on a grand linen-covered trolley, with big silver domes concealing the food. And a silent waiter would set their table for them, while they watched him, rather awkwardly.
There would be flowers and fine wines and morsels of food which they would pick at—and, soon enough, they would return to bed. Or make love on the sofa, while watching a film. And Xandros would probably take at least one business call.
The alternative was to get dressed and be whisked off to dinner—and every woman liked a little life outside the private world of the bedroom, no matter how wonderful the fantasy land within it. If theirs was a normal relationship she would have been thrilled to have been seen with him—but it wasn’t. They weren’t supposed to be dating and so they crept around, like thieves in the night. They visited discreet, out-of-the-way restaurants—or they stayed in his hotel room. Sometimes she wondered if anyone would actually believe her if she told them she was seeing the Greek billionaire.
But who could she tell? She had put her job on the line by agreeing to date him in the first place and none of her colleagues knew about it.
She turned her head to look at him, touching the strong curve of his jaw with the tip of her finger, and her heart turned over. Was she being selfish by wanting to go out? He looked so tired. Suddenly, her doubts and her fears melted away and she snuggled closer against his warm body, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders and massaging the silken skin beneath. Was it inbuilt in a woman that she should want to nurture her man?
‘Which would you prefer?’ she questioned softly. ‘To stay here?’
Xandros bit back an instinctive click of impatience. He wanted to tell her not to keep accommodating his needs. But this was inevitably what happened. Women tried to please you and in so doing they submerged their own identity into yours. And then you lost sight of what had attracted you to them in the first place—for you could no longer see it.
‘What I would prefer is to stay right here,’ he said brutally. ‘But I am afraid that if I do that, then I’ll fall asleep and I’ve booked the Pentagram for nine—and you told me how much you’d always wanted to go there. So you had better make your mind up.’
‘Then I guess we’d better go.’ Could his curt response be any better reminder that this particular man didn’t need any nurturing? She moved, her thigh brushing against his as she stretched—wondering if that would be enough to have him pull her back hungrily into his arms, but he didn’t. She gave him a quick smile, but it was one which was edged with nerves. ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’
He lay back against the pillows and watched her move across the room. She was both graceful and beautiful, he thought—but he recognised that something was changing between them. Something as inevitable as the sun rising in the sky each morning. The predictable had reared its ugly head. Xandros couched his words with velvet in an attempt to lessen their blow. ‘Because of course,’ he said softly, ‘this may well be the last chance we get to have dinner for some time.’
Her footsteps halted as Rebecca froze. Carefully composing herself, she slowly turned around, her heart beginning to beat hard beneath her breast as she considered the possible implication of his words—but she prayed that her face gave nothing away. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ he questioned carelessly. ‘I have to fly back to New York tomorrow.’
Don’t react, she told herself. Stay calm. ‘Oh? For very long?’
He could see her face working to conceal her disappointment and he gave a shrug, for his timetable was his own. He would not have disclosed it even if he’d known it, because freedom was as important to Xandros as breathing. ‘It is impossible to predict. A fortnight at least. Maybe longer—depending on the deal.’
‘How absolutely lovely,’ she said, with the bright enthusiasm of a travel agent. ‘I expect the city is beautiful at this time of year.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he agreed. Yet in a perverse kind of way, Xandros was disappointed that she was accepting it so easily. Hadn’t he been anticipating some kind of scene which might have heralded the end? If she had objected or sulked that would have been it. He would have finished it without a second thought, because no woman had the right to question his movements, no matter how much pleasure he brought them in bed or how much they had begun to paint rosy pictures of the possibility of a future together.
But she turned and began to walk out of the bedroom—presumably in search of the clothes she had so delectably removed—and he felt his body stir at the sight of the high, firm curve of her naked bottom. And suddenly Xandros knew that he still hadn’t got her out of his system. His tongue snaked out over bone-dry lips and his words caught her on the threshold of the room. ‘But I will see you when I return, agape mou.’
It was a statement, not a request. Rebecca felt like a mouse who had been played with by a large cat—and then had her fate spared at the very last moment. ‘You might. If you’re lucky,’ she said, in a light, who-cares voice which she thought sounded pretty convincing.
Thank heavens he couldn’t see her face—because surely he would have read her almost dizzy relief that he was coming back. And that he was planning to see her again. Or was he clever enough to guess at her dreadful, aching realisation that one day soon it would all be over and it was going to feel a million times worse than this?
Her hands were trembling by the time she reached the sitting room and began to pick up her clothes, wondering how the hell she had let this happen—to have got herself into something she’d known was hopeless from the very start. And wishing that she could have sustained the strength of character which had attracted him to her in the beginning. In the days when it had been so easy to refuse him.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f712672f-1331-5e44-9790-be10b97b45c3)
THEIR paths should never have crossed, of course. Ordinary, suburban girls like Rebecca weren’t supposed to rub shoulders with jet-setting billionaires like Alexandros Pavlidis.
But Rebecca worked as a flight attendant for a small and highly exclusive private airline which brought her into contact with the kind of people that most mere mortals only read about.
Evolo airline was based close to London and ferried its mega-rich customers around the world for astronomical fees. It paid Rebecca more than any of the bigger airlines would have done, but in return required her to be available at very little notice and, above all, to be discreet.
Rock stars, Hollywood actors, minor royals and just the plain rich frequented the champagne-fuelled flights which had been started by an ambitious blonde pilot named Vanessa Gilmour.
Each time she flew, Vanessa or her male deputy would brief Rebecca on the passenger list and one morning she had seen a name she didn’t recognise. A rather beautiful name.
‘Who’s this?’ she asked, tongue twisting over the words. ‘Alexandros Pavlidis?’
Vanessa pulled a funny kind of face. ‘Don’t you ever read the newspapers?’
‘Sometimes.’ Rebecca pulled her uniform cap down over her smoothed-down hair and smiled. ‘But I prefer books.’
‘He’s an architect,’ explained Vanessa, an impatient wave of her hand dismissing the entire concept of books. ‘Or starchitect as the press like to refer to him. A Greek based in New York—he’s designing a new bank near London Bridge. I met him at a party and persuaded him that Evolo could accommodate his every need. It’s the first time he’s flown with us—and I don’t want it to be the last. So be nice to him, Rebecca—just not too nice.’
Rebecca heard the warning in her employer’s voice—although she didn’t need one. She knew it was forbidden to date any of the customers. ‘What’s he like?’ she checked politely, because as crew they were supposed to know about the passengers’ likes and dislikes.
There was a pause. ‘He’s difficult,’ admitted Vanessa softly. ‘Very difficult.’ And then her eyes sparkled in a way that Rebecca had never seen them do before as her voice dropped into a kind of ecstatic whisper. ‘And absolutely bloody gorgeous.’
If difficult was an understatement, then so was gorgeous, Rebecca decided when she met him later that day. She found herself startled by the man’s overwhelming charisma as well as his astonishing good looks.
If someone had said, ‘Bring me the most delectable man in the world,’ then Alexandros Pavlidis would have been the list-topper. If you wanted tall, dark, ruggedly handsome—with a coldly irresistible air about him—then Pavlidis ticked all the right boxes.
The Greek was terse to the point of rudeness, and he operated at the speed of light—the retinue who were following his tall, black-clad figure into the small departure lounge almost having to run to keep up with his long-legged stride.
And it didn’t escape her notice that every woman who worked in the building found some kind of pretext to try to catch a glimpse of him.
But it wasn’t her job to swoon over customers. Her manner had to remain benignly courteous and respectful. Whatever he asked for, she brought. She did not attempt to engage him in any kind of conversation and her entire dialogue with him was confined to politely answering his requests.
He began to use Evolo regularly for his European trips, since apparently he had sold his own private jet fleet for environmental reasons, and his work took him all over the globe. Rebecca tried not to be so heart-poundingly aware of him, but it wasn’t easy. She couldn’t quash the excitement she always experienced when she saw his name on the passenger list.
And even though she did her best to disguise it a kind of unspoken awareness began to sizzle between the two of them—because nothing could disguise chemistry, no matter how hard you tried. His black eyes would narrow thoughtfully when he saw her, and her heart would leap whenever he dealt her his rare, slow smile.
But she remembered Vanessa’s words about discretion and boundaries and quickly turned away from it. Even if it wasn’t forbidden to date the clients—was she really considering herself the kind of woman that someone like Xandros would date?
Yet her apparent lack of interest seemed to inflame him. He went out of his way to engage her in conversation and surely it would have been discourteous not to have joined in?
‘What are you doing once we land?’ he asked her one dark, starry night as the plane touched down in Madrid.
‘I’m having an early night,’ she answered.
‘Ah!’ His black eyes glittered with sudden understanding, for this would explain her inexplicable resolve not to flirt with him. He felt a slight pang of disappointment, but it was quickly followed by the inevitable rush of challenge—for there was no rival who could not be easily dispatched if Xandros wanted something. ‘And who is the lucky man?’
Rebecca felt colour tinge her cheeks. ‘Mr Pavlidis!’
‘Ne, agape mou, what is it?’
Why did he call her that? Didn’t it mean ‘darling’, or something? ‘Will that be all?’
‘Ochi,’ he said roughly, for he had seen her blush—something which was as rare as the rose-coloured Starlings which sometimes appeared on the Aegean islands. ‘It will not be all. I want you to have dinner with me. In fact, I demand it.’
Maybe if she had agreed to his request then it would have all been over before it began, but Rebecca did something that few women ever did. She said no.
When a man had everything—he wanted what he couldn’t have, and Xandros wanted Rebecca. He wanted her in a way he hadn’t wanted a woman for years and he was forced to pursue her—something which was almost alien to him. Even when he’d first arrived in New York as an unsophisticated eighteen-year-old, women had fallen eagerly into his arms.
‘What harm is there in dinner?’ he mused, the next time they flew together. It was a late winter afternoon as the luxury jet began its descent towards Paris and the early-setting sun was lighting the sky with its fiery blaze. Coal-black eyes mocked her. ‘Do not worry.’ His voice was like silk, embroidered with sardonic thread. ‘You have turned me down enough times to impress me, agape mou. And now that we have established your fine reputation, you can see there is no reason for us not to enjoy one another’s company.’
It sounded unbearably tempting. Rebecca tugged unnecessarily at the neat jacket of her Evolo uniform. ‘But I’m not supposed to mix with the customers, Mr Pavlidis,’ she said.
‘Says who?’
‘Says my boss.’
‘This would be Vanessa?’ he queried, his eyes narrowing.
‘That’s right.’
He nodded, as if satisfying himself of something. Or someone. ‘Vanessa has her own agenda,’ he drawled softly. ‘And I’m not proposing that we ride off into the sunset together,’ he added sarcastically. ‘I just think Paris is not a city to be alone in and that it would be agreeable to have a little company. Mmm? What could be wrong with that?’
His black eyes glittered with enticing question. In her heart, Rebecca knew that he wasn’t being straightforward with her; she suspected he had an address book crammed with the numbers of beautiful and willing women no matter how many cities he visited. But she had held out for so long against her feelings for him and in that moment she felt defenceless against the full onslaught of his charm.
‘Just dinner?’ she verified breathlessly.
‘If that is what you want,’ Xandros returned, his smile careless.
It hadn’t been ‘just’ dinner, of course. For how could you not let a man like Xandros kiss you at the end of it when you had been longing for him to kiss you since the first time you’d set eyes on him? And then? Her battle had been with herself rather than with him. Her sense of what was right and proper vying with her heart and her body’s desires.
She had lost the battle. Of course she had ended up in bed with him. He was a powerful, virile man who would not be satisfied with a chaste kiss at the end of a first date—and for the first time in her life, neither was she.
Rebecca had never felt so physically vulnerable beneath a man’s caresses as she was to Xandros. She hated herself for her easy capitulation that night and yet she couldn’t stop herself. Her hungry body’s need overrode everything else—ruthlessly quelling the voice in her head which demanded to know whether he would respect her after this.
And to Xandros, her only spoken objection was a practical one. ‘No one from work must know,’ she told him urgently as his hand began its inevitable and longed-for journey up her inner thigh.
‘Why should they?’ he breathed, peeling off her panties with a low moan of delight.
‘Because … oh … oh … Xandros! Because people …’ She closed her eyes, and swallowed. ‘They talk,’ she whispered eventually.
‘Then we won’t give them anything to talk about,’ he assured her silkily, his fingers working ruthlessly against her hotly aroused flesh, feeling it yield to him. ‘No one will know a thing. We will keep it secret, ne? Our little secret …’
But weren’t secrets wrong? Wasn’t that making it sound as if he wanted to keep her hidden away—like something furtive, to be ashamed of? Rebecca tried to pull away, but the lure of his embrace was too strong to resist, the gentle caress of his fingertips too tremblingly intense. ‘Xandros?’ she tried, one last time.
‘Ochi,’ he negated fiercely. ‘Say nothing! Do nothing but stay here in my arms when you know that this is what we both want!’ And he kissed her into willing submission.
Yet even at the height of her very first orgasm, Rebecca was aware of a sharp twist of pain in her heart. That her surrender could be her emotional undoing, and that she risked losing everything—the most important thing being her heart. Her life and her future was one in which a man like Xandros would have no place—and yet, having tasted all the pleasures that he gave her, the thought of any future without him already seemed bleak and empty.
If she had known all that right from the beginning, then why hadn’t she stopped? Why give into something which you knew instinctively was doomed on so many levels?
Because human nature wasn’t like that. It made you reach out and grab at the unreachable.
The mists of memory cleared as Rebecca blinked around at her luxurious surroundings. She bent down to pick up one of the shoes she had discarded while she had been stripping off for her hard-bodied Greek lover and sighed. It was pointless going back over what had happened. She could do nothing to change the past—what she could work on was the present.
But the present brought her scant comfort.
She was here, in Xandros’s penthouse suite—about to go out for a meal which she knew that neither of them really wanted. And after that he was off to New York, and she didn’t know when she was going to see him again. So how was she going to play it? Did she have enough acting ability to convince him that she didn’t really care, either way—or would he see right through her?
‘Rebecca?’
The silken, accented Greek voice filtered through the air. By concentrating on finishing fastening her shoes, Rebecca was able to compose herself before straightening up to look at him. His black eyes were set like dark jewels in the backdrop of his gleaming olive skin and her heart turned over with love and longing. If only he didn’t look so heartbreakingly gorgeous. Reaching into her handbag, she took out a hairbrush and began to make great sweeping strokes through hair all tousled from love-making. ‘Yes, Xandros?’ she questioned calmly.
He liked to watch her brush her hair. The first time she had loosened it for him he had told her that it was the colour of Greek honey—which was darker and richer than any honey in the world. ‘The car is waiting downstairs, agape mou.’ His eyes narrowed at her in question. ‘You still want to go and eat?’
What would he say if she told him the truth—that what she really wanted was to know how he felt about her? Whether he was tiring of her—or whether it was a figment of her over-active imagination. But some bone-deep instinct told her that a man like Xandros would ultimately despise a woman who wanted that kind of reassurance. To an independent man that might smack of neediness—and everyone knew how unattractive that was.
‘Eat? I thought you’d never ask,’ she said lightly, turning her head so that her newly brushed hair swung in a scented curtain around her still-flushed cheeks. She even managed to give him a faintly mocking look in return. ‘Somehow I’ve worked up quite an appetite—though can’t for the life of me work out why!’
Xandros gave a barely perceptible nod as he picked up her coat and held it open for her, watching the naturally sinuous movement of her body as she wriggled into it. Her response had held just the right amount of cool distance and yet her apparent composure was strong enough to fan the flames of his desire once more. He found himself wanting to pull her back into his arms again and a nerve flickered at his temple.
This was going to be harder to finish than he had anticipated.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_a2fc19e0-703f-5335-b7bd-ed71c3e305db)
NEXT morning Rebecca awoke to the sound of a shower splashing nearby and Xandros singing something rather tunelessly in Greek. He sounded happy, she thought wistfully—and why wouldn’t he be? She opened her eyes and stared at the chandelier which glittered above the vast bed like a canopy of diamonds.
Over dinner last night, he had described the elegant new apartment block he was building, which incorporated a ‘sky-garden’ at its summit which would bring lush grasses and fragrant shrubs to the defiantly urban part of the city in which it was set. He wanted it to be the first of many—to bring greenery to grey places. He wanted a world which did not push nature out. His deep voice had been passionate and dreamy and Rebecca had found herself swept up by it—torn between admiration and envy. It had been as if he was describing a paradise she would never be part of.
She heard the gushing of the water stop and after a few minutes he walked into the bedroom—completely naked—towelling at his ebony hair with a small towel.
His hard body glowed, the broad shoulders tapering down into narrow hips and then long, hair-roughened legs. He was a man utterly at ease with his nudity—but then who wouldn’t be with a physique like that? He swam every day, no matter where he was in the world. He had told her that it was one thing he had brought with him from his native Greece—the desire to feel the water on his skin and the delicious freedom which came with it.
He looked at her lying amidst the rumpled sheets and his mouth softened briefly into a smile. ‘Kherete,’ he said softly.
‘Hello,’ she murmured back, astonished at how she could still feel almost shy when he looked at her like that—despite the fact that he knew her body more thoroughly than any other man had ever done. ‘I feel so lazy I can’t move.’
‘Seeing you lying there like that makes me want to stay.’
Easy to say. ‘But you can’t.’
‘No.’ He slid on a pair of dark boxers which felt silky next to his skin. ‘Unfortunately I can’t. As soon as I get off the plane, stateside, I have a long list of meetings to attend.’ He looked up and shrugged but his black eyes gleamed with anticipation. ‘There is a big deal nearing completion, new plans to draw up.’
‘And no doubt a stack of invitations to glittering parties from just about every New York society hostess worth her salt.’ She hadn’t meant to say it, but somehow the words seemed to tumble out of their own accord.
There was the fraction of a pause, the faintest elevation of jet-dark brows. ‘That, too,’ he agreed.
Rebecca knew that she was stepping into unfamiliar territory. That Xandros, more than most men, compartmentalised his life—and she was firmly fixed in the English section. But surely showing interest wouldn’t necessarily be interpreted as possessive jealousy? Didn’t dating him give her the rights to know something about his life? ‘And do you go to them?’
‘To parties?’ He shrugged as he reached into the closet for a pure silk shirt in a buttery ivory colour and, slipping it on over his broad shoulders, began to button it. ‘Sometimes—like most people—when I’m not too busy. Why wouldn’t I?’ He pulled on a pair of dark trousers. ‘And what about you, Rebecca—what do you do when your Greek lover is not in town?’
Was it significant that he was asking her this now—when he had never really been interested before? Or was he simply being dutiful and turning the question back on her? Pride made her want to embellish a life which would surely sound very ordinary when judged by his standards. Imagine how he would react if she told him that she spent a lot of her free time thinking about him! Even the supermarket was an unsafe zone, for she often found herself scouring the shelves for the brand of olive oil she knew that his family firm produced back in Greece. Up until now, she’d never found it.
‘Oh, this and that.’ She pushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. ‘I go out to the cinema—sometimes the theatre—’
‘With your girlfriends, of course?’ he cut in, his fingers pausing in the act of zipping up his trousers.
Something in his dismissive tone offended her. Who did he think he was? He offered her nothing, nor promised her anything—did he think she just crawled into a dark box and stayed there when he was out of the country, like some caged animal eagerly panting for his return?
‘Not always. Obviously, I have friends of both sexes.’
Brilliant black eyes were fixed on her and he shot the word out as if it were a bullet. ‘Men?’
There was a pause. Did he imagine these were the Dark Ages? ‘Of course.’
‘Men that you go out with?’
Rebecca sat up in bed, her hair now tumbling down all over her bare breasts. ‘Not go out with!’ she protested. She wanted to say, Not like I go out with you—but that would have sounded false. They didn’t exactly go out, did they? They just got together for some very agreeable sex whenever he happened to be in town. That he bought her dinner or occasionally took her to a show was neither here nor there. ‘Just men whose company I occasionally enjoy. You know.’
His eyes narrowed, fiercely intelligent, hard and, in that one moment, displaying a flash of something which looked almost like cruelty.
‘No, I don’t know. You are not making any sense to me, agape mou. In my experience men and women who go out together have only one real item on their agenda. For that is how nature intended it.’
His silky voice sounded almost … threatening. And primitive. Rebecca frowned, taken aback by the hot storm of accusation which blazed from his eyes. ‘What are you suggesting, Xandros?’ she queried unsteadily. ‘That I have sex with other men while you aren’t here?’
‘Do you?’
First she felt faint, then hurt—and then angry. But it was difficult to maintain your dignity while you were completely naked and Rebecca yanked the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself. As she got out of bed she realised that her hands were shaking and she turned on him.
‘I can’t believe you would even ask a question like that! Implying I’m some kind of…some kind of … tramp!’ Her breath was coming hot and rapid and he regarded her with a narrow-eyed scrutiny before crossing the room, but she waved him away. ‘Just what kind of woman do you normally associate with to make you think something like that?’ she demanded.
None that had as much fire in their eyes as she did at that precise moment, he thought with a mixture of sexual hunger and something much darker which had not reared its ugly head for a long time. With an effort he forced himself back from its brink. For a man who rarely considered himself to be in the wrong, apology did not come easy. ‘It was a clumsy question—I should never have asked it.’
‘No, you shouldn’t.’
He reached out for her and he could see the struggle taking place within her, telling herself not to forgive him too quickly. Until, with a reluctant sigh, she let him lift her hand to his lips and he managed to coax a reluctant softening of her mouth as he kissed each fingertip in turn.
‘Forgive me,’ he murmured, against skin which still carried his scent from their long night of sex. ‘Forgive me, agape mou.’
She wanted to—and yet she wanted to tell him to go to hell. Wavering between desire and despair, Rebecca closed her eyes, wishing she were strong enough to walk away from this sweet torture he inflicted on her. And when she opened them again it was to find his gaze upon her—dark and unremitting and gleaming with erotic promise. When he looked at her that way, she was utterly lost—so did that make her weak, or him strong? Or both? Oh, Xandros.
‘Do you?’ he prompted her.
With an effort, she shrugged, thankful he didn’t have the power to read her thoughts. She might not want to let him go, but she was damned if she was going to lie down on the ground and let him trample all over her. ‘I’ll think about it.’ Her eyes grew serious. ‘But please don’t ever accuse me of something like that again. It’s unjustified and it’s archaic’
Was it? ‘But I am Greek,’ he returned softly. ‘And we Greeks understand that human nature never really changes. I believe that it is impossible for a man and a woman to have real friendship—for how can they, when the hungry presence of sex is for ever in the background? Particularly when the woman happens to look like you, Rebecca.’ His mouth twisted into an odd kind of smile as he forced himself to voice the inevitable climb-down. ‘But I accept that you have no intention of bedding another man.’ And why would she, when Xandros Pavlidis was the finest lover a woman could ever desire in a hundred lifetimes?
He could see her looking as if she wanted something more—and this wearied him because he did not provide emotional security. Ever. Xandros used exactly the same coolly analytical attitude towards relationships as he did towards his work. Affairs ran their course—in the same way as a fever did—and by now he had gone through most of the stages with Rebecca.
He had chased her and seduced her. Revelled in making love to her—over and over and over again. But much more and the relationship would slip into a boring and predictable pattern—and Xandros would not tolerate either. Much better for it to finish on a high. To leave him with exquisite memories, rather than the slow deterioration into apathy.
Yet even though he sensed that his time with her was coming to an end, something inside him relented. A little longer, that was all he wanted. Because somehow—unusually—he had not quite got her out of his system and he needed more time to rid his mind and his body of her sweet temptations. He felt the sweet, hard jerk of desire.
‘I should be back on the tenth,’ he murmured. ‘So why don’t you plan something around that? Something you’d really like—a place you’ve always wanted to visit. Bill it to me.’
Rebecca flinched as one of his phones began to ring, but he didn’t even appear to notice the wounding nature of his words—dropping a brief kiss on the tip of her nose, his mind already occupied with the day ahead.
‘I’ll call you,’ he promised as he clicked one of the buttons to answer it. Soon, he mouthed, beginning to speak rapidly in Greek as she headed for one of the bathrooms.
Rebecca felt distracted all the way home. And hurt—the kind of simmering low-grade hurt which wouldn’t go away. Usually, when Xandros flew out she treated herself to chocolates or bubble bath, or a new book—silly little inexpensive treats which helped lessen the impact of his departure. But today she didn’t feel like buying any. Nor did she feel like an early night, which was the sensible solution after so little sleep—with a flight the next day leaving soon after dawn.
Plan something, he had said.
Bill it to me, he had said. Was he aware of how dismissive those words had been—as if everything in life came with a price-tag? She supposed that maybe for Xandros it did. Did he think that she couldn’t manage to provide an enjoyable time on her rather limited income? It was true that her salary as a stewardess was a mere drop in the ocean compared to his vast wealth—but she knew how to live. You didn’t need vintage wines and costly foods to satisfy your appetite.
Rebecca shut the front door behind her and looked around. Yet she hadn’t exactly welcomed him into her home, had she? Why, Xandros had barely been here apart from a few bouts of snatched passion en route to somewhere else. He had certainly never eaten a meal here or spent the night with her in her—admittedly—rather small bed. But it wasn’t small—it was a normal, double bed. It was just that anything was going to seem minute when compared with what he was used to.
Putting the kettle on to make a cup of coffee, she stared out of the window where the first hint of green buds were softening the sharp edges of the branches. Springtime often brought with it clarity—shining a light after the long darkness of winter—and maybe it was time for her to face facts.
She was falling ever deeper for Xandros, but currently their relationship was all on his terms. She was worried about it ending and yet how could anything so one-sided possibly be sustained?
Surely Xandros got fed-up with everyone always acceding to his whims. An appetite would inevitably become jaded if it was always indulged. Didn’t you need a proper contrast in life to enjoy it to the max?
Plan something, he had said.
Rebecca’s mouth curved into a sudden, spontaneous smile. She most certainly would! Only she wouldn’t dream of billing it to him. He would get a taster of life, Rebecca-style! A little home-cooking and a flavour of the ordinary.
She decided to make him a home-made chicken pie—a favourite choice from her childhood and something he’d be unlikely ever to get in one of the fancy restaurants he frequented. Going down the road to her local wine merchant, she bought a mid-price bottle of red which the wine-merchant said was a real find. Next, she set to giving her apartment the kind of spring-cleaning which it hadn’t seen in longer than she cared to remember.
How satisfying it was to drag out pieces of furniture and to polish and wipe and shine in all the dusty corners. It was liberating—and Rebecca felt as if she were cleaning out all the dark corners of her own mind as she scrubbed and polished.
Xandros hadn’t rung, but she wasn’t going to get into a flap about it. She wasn’t going to be needy and dependent when he was obviously busy. He had said the tenth, and that was what she was planning for.
She washed the linen on the bed—hanging it out on her tiny washing line in between April showers so that it smelt all clean and fresh. But as she ironed it and sniffed it with the enthusiasm of someone appearing in a soap-powder commercial she felt a faint cloud of apprehension skitter into her mind. Just because she was planning to entertain Xandros on her territory, didn’t mean she had to transform herself into some kind of hausfrau, did it?
And besides, Xandros still hadn’t phoned—and once she registered the long gap since they’d spoken she began to fret about it, even though she tried to tell herself not to.
She did that dreadful thing of haunting the telephone—while gazing in dismay at the vases of fresh flowers she’d bought down at the market. What if they’d wilted by the time he turned up? What if all the dust particles she’d cleared away somehow regrouped on every lovingly buffed piece of furniture?
It was that thought which drew her up short and made her realise that, although she was planning to give Xandros a little taste of her life, she was still behaving like a starving dog who was content to be thrown an occasional scrap from its master’s table.
Why was she waiting for him to call her? She knew his number. She shared his bed—why shouldn’t she call him to confirm the arrangements?
Yet despite all the reasoning in the world her hands were still trembling as she dialled his number and her heart was pounding with nerves. How stupid was that? This was a person with whom she had…
There was a sudden click on the line and then an automated voice telling her that her call was being transferred, then more ringing—with the instruction to leave a message. She had nothing prepared. Nothing to say but a stumbled, ‘Oh, hello, Xandros, it’s me. Rebecca. I was just …’
Just what? Just wondering what time to put the chicken pie in the oven? Very enticing.
‘I was just calling to say hi,’ she continued firmly. ‘And perhaps you could give me a ring when you’re free?’ Now she sounded like a dental receptionist asking him to confirm that he was about to keep his appointment.
Then she noticed that there was another number listed for him, and when she tried that, a woman’s voice answered.
Rebecca’s heart pounded painfully in her chest. Who the hell are you? ‘Is … is Xandros there, please?’
‘Not at the moment, I’m afraid,’ came the woman’s cool, transatlantic drawl. ‘May I ask who’s calling?’
I’m his girlfriend, she wanted to shout. ‘Could you just tell him that Rebecca called?’
‘Sure.’
Her phone shrilled into life an hour later and a distracted-sounding Xandros spoke. ‘You rang?’
She wanted to ask who the woman had been. She wanted to ask why he never rang when he said he would. Instead, she said in a way which would afterwards make her cringe, ‘Did I disturb you?’
There was a pause. ‘I was in a meeting.’ One of those meetings with a developer who seemed to think that cutting corners was a necessary part of construction. It had gone on for much too long, and it still wasn’t resolved. ‘What can I do for you, Rebecca?’
Was she imagining the indifference in his voice? Was this why she had always waited for him to ring before? Some instinct protecting her from this haughty coolness which seemed curiously at odds with the hot passion he displayed in bed. He was a man who always liked to be in control by telephoning her; she was taking a little of the control back.
But the reason she was doing this was because she wanted things to move out of the rut they seemed stuck in. To become once more the sparky and animated woman she used to be. ‘I just wanted to check that you’re still arriving on Friday.’
Narrowing his eyes, Xandros glanced down at the diary lying open on his desk. ‘That’s right. Though if this deal isn’t tied up, I may have to take a later flight.’ His voice softened by a fraction as he allowed himself an enticing reminder of just how beautifully she always welcomed him. ‘Why don’t I call you when I land and you can come straight round and say hello, agape? Tell you what, why don’t I warn the hotel—and you can be right there waiting for me?’
Warn the hotel? The husky timbre of his voice left her in no doubt as to how he would like her to greet him. Probably wearing a tight, satin bra and a pair of skimpy panties. She thought of the chicken pie she had laboured over. The apartment which was so clean, it looked as if she were about to start marketing it. And the little vase of lily of the valley which she had rather self-consciously placed next to her bed, which she planned to make up with clean and freshly ironed linen.
‘I’d much rather you came to me actually, Xandros.’
There was another pause. ‘To you?’
‘Yes. I’m cooking you dinner here. At my apartment. Just for a change.’
In New York, Xandros frowned and stifled a sigh. He didn’t want her cooking for him. He wanted her where he always had her—on tap and readily available. Quietly, he began to drum two fingers against the gleaming oak of his desk. ‘What is the point of wasting precious time cooking when there are so many more enjoyable ways of spending it?’ he questioned reasonably.
But Rebecca was determined—she could feel her resolve bubbling to the surface. She was no longer going to be just a compliant sex-object—available whenever and wherever. From now on they were going to be on a more equal footing—because that was how relationships moved forward.
‘Because I want to,’ she said stubbornly.
Oh, do you? ‘Then who am I to object?’ questioned Xandros, with silky carelessness. ‘In that case—I’ll come straight from the airport, and ring you when I’m on my way. How does that sound—satisfied now?’
But Rebecca was not left with anything remotely resembling satisfaction as he finished the call with a note in his voice she couldn’t ever remember hearing before. Instead, a terrible kind of foreboding had begun to make her stomach flutter and she felt as if she had stupidly brought down the curtain on the show, before the last act was properly over.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_614201dd-4f0f-5b8e-95b1-37335c7fb1d1)
XANDROS had been to Rebecca’s house before—but maybe he’d never looked at it properly. When a man was hot with desire it obliterated almost everything else and he had wanted her so badly. She had made him wait for so long that the sex had been dynamite. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her.
And now? His thumb jammed on the doorbell. Of course he still wanted her, but inevitably desire became corrupted. Life and circumstances began to muddy it. More damningly, women always had to try and change what was good—and to reach beyond that. Why did they always want more than you were prepared to give and thus to ruin it for themselves? Xandros felt his mouth thin into a grim line. They hid their duplicity and schemes behind their beautiful smiles and men allowed them to. Why, he would never forget the shock on his father’s face when his mother had announced she was leaving them. How could a man be such a fool not to have seen it coming? How could he and Kyros not have seen it coming?
Her front door flew open. Hair piled up on top of her head and an apron tied around the waist of her short cotton dress—this was Rebecca looking more functional than he had ever seen her. Her smile was bright, but he thought he could detect a wariness in her eyes. Had she recognised that she had pushed him into a corner and realised her folly too late?
But Xandros had played out this scene often enough in the past that he’d become a master of it and knew how best to deal with it. He had his props to hand, just as she had hers. He could hear the sound of music playing and smell something cooking.
‘Hello, Rebecca,’ he said softly.
‘Hello, Xandros.’ She stood there, almost awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do, or say. A fish out of water in her own home. ‘Won’t you come in?’
He gave an odd kind of smile as he walked into the tiny hallway and shut the door behind him. How he hated convention—the stultifying feeling that this kind of situation imposed on him. Trying to ignore the line of shoes which were lined up by the telephone—how cluttered!—he stared down into her violet-blue eyes. ‘No kiss?’ he mused.
She wound her arms up around his neck, her inexplicable nerves and his heady proximity making her tremble—but once his lips crushed down on hers, then all her vague fears were forgotten. How could they be otherwise? The seeking caress of his kiss and the hard contours of his body stirred her into instant longing as she gave herself up to his kiss and with a hungry groan he deepened it.
His hands began to rove experimentally over her body and once again he was taken aback by the intensity of his desire—his body felt like dry timber, her kiss the match which ignited it. He wanted her here, now—instantly. If he could have signed a pact at that moment to say that he wanted to spend the rest of his life inside her body, then he would have signed it willingly. ‘Oh, Rebecca,’ he groaned. ‘What is it that you do to me?’
‘X-Xandros,’ she breathed, because he was splaying his fingers luxuriously over her bottom and bringing her up against the hard cradle of his own desire.
‘Ne, agape mou? What is it that you want? Some of this? Ah, yes—you like that, don’t you? And this? Mmm? This, too?’
His fingers were teasing their way over her belly and he was drifting his mouth against her neck in a way which was making her shiver even more. She knew what he wanted—exactly the same as her—but tonight was going to be different. Tonight she wanted to feel more than just an object in his arms.
She pulled away from him, her cheeks flushed, her heart beating like crazy. ‘There’ll be time for that later—but I don’t want your supper ruined.’
How like a suburban housewife she sounded! But Xandros didn’t react. Didn’t she realise what she sounded like? Didn’t she realize how many times women had spoiled things for themselves through their own, warped ambition? ‘No, indeed—for that would indeed be a crime,’ he said gravely. ‘To ruin my supper.’
Rebecca smiled uneasily. ‘Come on through.’
Xandros walked into the sitting room, which had a dining area at one end, and a door leading into the tiny kitchen. It was smaller than his walk-in closet back in New York and once he had made love to her on that rather curious sofa while his chauffeur waited outside. But tonight the scene was very different and she had clearly gone to a lot of trouble.
Candles glittered everywhere and there was a small pot of flowers placed at the centre of the table, which was laid for dinner—every piece of cutlery and china seeming to be fighting for a little of the limited space. The smell of polish clashed with the heavy smell of something cooking, and Xandros forced a smile.
‘It smells delicious,’ he lied.
‘Does it? I hope you’re hungry.’
He guessed that now would not be a good time to tell her that he had eaten something on the plane. ‘Why don’t we have a drink first?’
‘Yes, of course—sorry, I should have asked. Would wine be all right?’
‘Some wine would be perfect,’ he said evenly, and took the bottle from her and began to open it. ‘Here, let me.’
The glasses were chinking like wind chimes as she put them down in front of them. Would he notice that was because her hands were shaking—and how stupid was that? Xandros was her lover and she was entertaining him for the first time—what was there to be nervous about?
He poured them both a glass and handed one to her. ‘What shall we drink to?’
To us, she wanted to say—but only a fool would have made a toast as inappropriate as that. ‘Let’s drink to happiness.’
He wanted to wince but sipped his wine instead, before putting put his glass down to dig deep inside his pocket to produce a small packet. He held it out towards her.
Wide-eyed, Rebecca stared at it, and then up at him. It looked like … ‘What’s this?’
‘Why not open it and see?’
A present? A present which looked awfully like jewellery? Carefully, she put her drink down and fumbled with the wrapping to reveal a pair of earrings. They were large amber ovals—simple and bright as syrup, set in plain silver—and she stared at them for a moment, her eyes blinking furiously because the gesture was so unexpected.
‘Put them on,’ he said.
They gleamed against her ears and reflected back the colour of her hair. ‘Oh, Xandros—they’re beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘But why have you bought me earrings?’
Something to remember me by. ‘Isn’t a man allowed to buy a woman presents?’ he retorted softly.
‘Well, yes, but …’ A timer starter pinging in the kitchen. ‘Damn!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’d better go and turn the oven off.’
‘Leave it.’
‘I can’t leave it—the pie will burn.’
‘Let it burn.’ He snaked his hands around her waist and brought her up close to him, seeing the violet-blue light from her eyes darken with desire as he began to kiss her.
But for once Rebecca couldn’t relax into it. Was that burning she could smell? After all her hard work? ‘The dinner …’
He said something soft and explicit in Greek as she pulled away from him.
‘Xandros, I must go and check the dinner.’
‘Must you?’
His hand caressed her cheek and for a moment, she hesitated. She knew he wanted her, just as she wanted him—but this had to change. She had spent most of her last few days off making everything perfect for this evening—and just because he had bought her a beautiful present didn’t mean that she should change all her plans and let everything spoil, did it?
‘You’ve taken me out for so many meals that I want to treat you for a change,’ she whispered as she traced his lips with the tip of her finger. ‘I shan’t be long.’
Moodily, Xandros waited while she clattered around with pots and pans. He could hear the sound of some kind of extractor fan sounding like a small aircraft about to take off in her kitchen. By the time she eventually returned and deposited dishes and plates on the table, her face was all warm with steam and tendrils of hair were spilling untidily around her face.
‘It’s a bit burned.’
‘So I see.’
‘Your fault for kissing me.’
‘Fault?’ he echoed faintly.
‘Or mine for letting you.’ But he didn’t smile back.
They dished the meal out in silence and Rebecca couldn’t shake off the terrible sense of impending doom as she gave him a portion of the least cremated part of the pie.
‘So when did you last eat a home-cooked meal?’
He wanted to say never—and wouldn’t that have been the truth? But Xandros had no desire to tell her that and to have to parry the questions which would inevitably follow.
And wasn’t there one tiny part of him which couldn’t fail to be touched by all the trouble she’d gone to tonight? But he steeled his heart against it—because he knew the category of this evening’s entertainment.
It was: See what a perfect home-maker I can be, Xandros.
There were others, of course.
The: Let me ensnare you with my sexual prowess, Xandros.
Or, I’ll make myself so indispensable to your life that you’ll wonder how you ever managed without me, Xandros.
But they were all variations on a theme. All part of the games that women played. Show them a single man with sex appeal and billions in the bank and they seemed to go straight onto some kind of predictable autopilot. Xandros would be the last person to deny his own arrogance and self-assurance—but it was a simple fact that women had been trying to marry him for years.
Was that why Rebecca had produced this touching little scene tonight? Had she decided that a man so used to untold wealth would be captivated by a more humble setting? Didn’t she realise that he had seen it all before—and then some more?
‘Xandros?’ she prompted him, hating the tense and forbidding mask which seemed to have tightened his handsome face. ‘I was asking when you’d last had a home-cooked meal like this?’
He topped up their wineglasses and gave her a bland smile. ‘I don’t remember.’
Rebecca frowned. They never talked about the kind of stuff that other couples talked about. Surely they’d been together long enough now for her to be able to ask him a little more about his past? Because how could they get to know one another better without knowing the basics? ‘What about when you were a little boy?’ she asked, her voice growing gentle—trying to imagine him as a youngster.
‘Was there something specific you wanted to know?’ he questioned coolly.
‘Well, not really specific—I meant more general, really.’ She smiled at him in silent appeal. I’m interested, that’s all—her eyes tried to tell him. ‘You never talk much about your life in Greece, or your brother, for that matter. I can’t even remember his name.’
He felt like pointing out that his brother’s name was irrelevant. ‘His name is Kyros. And there is nothing much to say. You know the facts about my former life.’ His black eyes glittered her a warning. ‘I left when I was eighteen and I have not been back.’
‘But he—Kyros—he’s your twin, isn’t he?’
‘And?’ She was using his brother’s name as if she knew him! As if she ever would! Xandros pushed his plate away and his eyes were cold—for she had persisted when he had made it very clear that he did not wish to pursue the subject.
‘The world seems to have some kind of universal theory about twins which is based on sentiment rather than fact,’ he ground out. ‘The consensus being that there is always some kind of telepathy—some unbreakable bond between them. Well, let me tell you, Rebecca—that much is pure fantasy.’ As were so many of the myths peddled about family lives. That mothers cared and fathers played with their sons.
She was taken aback by the sudden harshness in his voice, as if she had touched on a very raw nerve indeed. Intuition told her to back off, but a far more powerful instinct overrode it. Because what was the point of being with Xandros if all she was allowed to do was operate within the strict emotional boundaries he seemed to want to dictate? Hadn’t that been one of the reasons why she’d organised this wretched dinner in the first place? To burrow beneath his peculiar icy-yet-passionate persona to find the real substance of the man beneath.
‘You sound so bitter, Xandros,’ she ventured quietly. ‘So angry. Won’t you tell me why?’
He flinched as if she had struck him, staring at her. ‘You dare to call me bitter? You dare to speak of what you do not know?’
He was twisting her words, just as he was twisting his mouth into a contemptuous curve of condemnation. ‘It wasn’t meant like that!’ she protested. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be an insult. All I wanted—’
‘I don’t care what you want!’ he bit out. ‘Because what I don’t want is to unburden myself to you, my beauty.’ Black eyes burned into her. ‘That was never part of the deal.’
His words weren’t making sense. ‘The deal?’ she echoed unsteadily. ‘What deal?’
His heart had begun to pound, the blood to beat thickly through his veins. Draining off the last of his wine, he put the empty glass down on the table. ‘My time with you was supposed to be a pleasant interlude—and now suddenly I’m supposed to be baring my soul just because you’ve peeled a few potatoes. If I’d wanted a damned therapy session I could have crossed the road in New York and found a hundred!’ He saw her stricken face and with an effort, he quelled his fury. ‘Listen, Rebecca,’ he said, in as gentle a voice as he’d ever used with her. ‘What we’ve had together has been—’
‘Nothing!’ cut in Rebecca furiously—because she saw where this was heading as clearly as if she were emerging from the darkness into the bright, glaring light of day. He was about to dump her! And along with that revelation came the realisation of just how weak and compliant she’d been all along—always accommodating his needs. It had been Xandros, Xandros, Xandros all the way. She had tiptoed around him, trying to gauge what he wanted and how he felt. She had walked on eggshells and look where it had got her. Suddenly, she felt filled with self-disgust at the way she had behaved.
So if she didn’t like the way she had been treated by the Greek billionaire—then she had only herself to blame. It wasn’t too late for her to seize the tattered remnants of her pride before he did irreversible damage to it. She sucked in a shuddering breath. ‘You know—for all the fancy restaurants and beautiful hotels—it’s really been nothing but sex and small talk! That’s all we’ve ever had between us,’ she bit out tremblingly. ‘And do you know something else, Xandros? I’m glad it’s over. Yes, glad!’
Xandros stilled, his senses on alert. ‘But I haven’t told you that it’s over.’
Rebecca almost laughed out loud at his exquisite arrogance—if it hadn’t already started to hurt so much. ‘No, that’s right. You haven’t. Because I’m telling you. It’s over—maybe it should never have begun. Heaven knows, I did my best to resist you.’
‘But you couldn’t,’ he taunted.
‘No. I couldn’t. You’re very good, Xandros—I’ll admit that. The best, in fact. It would take a stronger woman than me to resist you and the charm you oozed all over me at the time—but which seems to have been in ever-diminishing quantities ever since.’ Her eyes flashed him a challenge. ‘But at least we both know now where we stand—so I think perhaps you’d better go, don’t you?’
He saw the high flush of colour which washed over her cheekbones and the violet-blue fire which sparked from her eyes and in that moment he knew an overwhelming anger at her insolence and interference—coupled with a rush of desire so strong that he felt himself hardening against his will.
‘Yes, I’ll go,’ he said, and God forgive him but he enjoyed the instinctive way she bit her lip at his ready agreement. She would live to regret her impetuosity! And yet he could not resist one parting shot—one more arrogant demonstration of how he could still pull the strings, should he so desire. ‘But before I do—what about a farewell kiss?’ he suggested, his voice one of deceptive silk. ‘For old times’ sake?’
‘N-no.’ But Rebecca’s protest sounded half-hearted and it was too late anyway, for he had caught hold of her and was pulling her into his arms.
One touch and she was lost. Willingly lost. Like a line of fierce flame sweeping down an arid hillside—scorching everything in its touch with instant combustion. She heard his groan as he tightened his embrace and she heard her own echo it. Please make me stop him, she begged herself—but she made no move to stop him.
Afterwards, she would try to justify her actions by telling herself that it was like someone who was just about to go on a long journey without food or drink—and who could blame them for taking part in a banquet if it was offered?
But this was Xandros as she had never seen him before—like a pure-bred stallion, all excitement and fire. And his wild fervour only fuelled her own urgent need. She wanted to drown in his kiss and take him down with her. His hands were on her breasts, moulding them luxuriously against his palms, and then they were smoothing frantically down over her hips and her bottom—and he had begun to ruck her dress up like a man possessed.
And all the while he was kissing her—varying the kiss so that it was in turns hard, and then soft. Cajoling her and tempting her and then inciting her to touch him back—to run her fingers greedily over the hard ridge in his jeans, so that he gave a low, throaty laugh of pleasure.
‘Unzip me,’ he commanded roughly—and to her everlasting shame, she did just that.
Her expensive panties—which were new and had been bought especially for the seduction she had planned for later—were destined to be ripped off and allowed to flutter uselessly to the floor. She couldn’t even in all conscience blame him, could she? Not when she was writhing around—so turned on that she thought she might have urged him to do just that.
There was no finesse about what was taking place now. Xandros was pushing her down against the hard floor and yet her arms were reaching up to try to pull him down on top of her. And he was groaning again, just yanking his jeans down, and she realised that he wasn’t going to bother taking them off but was just going to … going to…
He let out a cry as he thrust into her and it was echoed by her own. She sobbed as he drove in deeper, and then deeper still—deeper than he had ever been—as if he were piercing her soul itself. The wild scream she let out as she bucked beneath him was the heralding of her orgasm—but it also signalled the breaking of her heart. Because the heart didn’t respond to reason and—no matter how many reasons she threw at herself why she shouldn’t—the fact was that she loved him.
She could feel the salty taste of tears welling up at the back of her throat as she tried to imagine a life without Xandros and it was like trying to conjure up a bleak, bare landscape with no sign of light on the horizon.
Afterwards, she lay there for as long as it took for his body to grow still, and then heavy. Hearing his breathing grow more steady, until she was sure that he must have fallen asleep. But then she felt him move.
Moving out of and then away from her and she kept her eyes tight closed to keep the tears at bay—hating herself for wanting him back in her arms, wishing that the whole stupid scene and row had never happened and they could have carried on with the evening as she had planned. Damn it—she couldn’t even remember what the argument had been about.
Silently, Xandros rose to his feet, adjusting his clothes and zipping up his jeans, his heart still pounding madly in his chest. He stared down at Rebecca—her hair had come down and it spilled all over her rosy-flushed neck, shining gold against the rose. A stab of guilt pierced him as he noted the torn and discarded panties on the floor, until he reminded himself that she had wanted that just as much as him. Easily as much.
‘Rebecca?’
She turned her face to the wall and the pain in her heart made her want to curl up like a broken animal. ‘Just go, will you, Xandros?’ she said wearily.
His eyes narrowed, capturing her and the scene in a brief snapshot to file away in his memory one last time. ‘Goodbye, Rebecca,’ he said softly, and shut the door very quietly behind him.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_2948e34e-8795-5e23-8a3f-2ebe3a4b2e2d)
‘WOULD you mind coming in to see me, please, Rebecca?’
Vanessa’s cool voice came down the line and Rebecca gripped the receiver with knuckles which were suddenly snow-white. ‘But my flight isn’t due to leave until this evening,’ she protested.
‘I know that. I have your flight schedule right here in front of me.’ Vanessa’s voice was now positively icy. ‘And I’d really like to see you straight away.’
Rebecca stared at the phone—as if her boss were suddenly going to leap out of it and confront her here, in the supposed sanctuary of her own home, instead of demanding she turn up at the airfield hours early. But deep down, hadn’t she been expecting a summons exactly like this?
The wonder of it was that it hadn’t come sooner.
A lot had happened in the weeks since Xandros had walked out of her apartment after making love to her—and left her lying on the floor feeling cheap and used and heartbroken. She had crawled off to bed and sobbed as if her heart were breaking into a thousand pieces.
It had been a few days before she’d discovered that Xandros had stopped flying with Evolo airline—had terminated all his bookings abruptly and dramatically. The first she’d heard were Vanessa’s mutterings of discontent in the office and Rebecca had prayed that her face wouldn’t colour up and give away the fact that there might be a reason for his decision and that she was it.
But it had been a few weeks later that Rebecca made the most terrifying discovery of all. Even now she could scarcely believe it—but the doctor had confirmed it, and now she had to deal with it as best she could.
And how the hell is that going to be?
Grateful for the concealing uniform jacket, Rebecca pinned her already-too-tight work-skirt and slapped on far more make-up than usual as she prepared herself for the inevitable showdown. Didn’t they say that make-up was a mask? And didn’t she need some kind of camouflage to help her hide her true, see-sawing emotions of terror and despair?
Through the glass of her office, Rebecca could see Vanessa talking animatedly into the phone and when she glanced up and saw her a look of utter fury contorted her face. Putting the phone down, she beckoned to Rebecca to come in.
‘Shut the door,’ were her first words.
Rebecca pushed the door to. ‘You wanted to see me,’ she said, noting that Vanessa hadn’t asked her to sit down, and she was left was standing there, like a naughty child who had been sent for by the angry head-teacher. And isn’t that accurate? taunted the now-familiar voice of her guilty conscience. Don’t you deserve everything you’re about to get?
‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Rebecca,’ said Vanessa coldly. ‘You must realise exactly why you’re here.’
How much did the steely blonde know? Rebecca played for time. ‘I think—’
‘No, that’s the bloody problem—you didn’t think, did you? You just let yourself get carried away and broke the cardinal rule of not sleeping with the clients!’
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed into spitting shards and Rebecca thought that there was more to her rage than an employer’s justifiable anger. Hadn’t Xandros himself hinted that Vanessa had once made a pass at him? And hadn’t he said it in the tone of a man for whom such behaviour was an occupational hazard? Rebecca flinched, wondering just who might be coming on to him now.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘What the hell did you think was going to happen?’ Vanessa cut off Rebecca’s apology with a slicing movement of her perfectly manicured hand. ‘Didn’t you realise that people would notice you making cow’s eyes at him, even though you were trying to hide it? Were you stupid enough to think there was some kind of future in it? Did you really think that a man like Alexandros Pavlidis was going to offer you anything other than a quick, convenient screw?’
‘I … I don’t have to listen to this, Vanessa.’
‘Oh, but you do, Rebecca, you most certainly do. You’ve not just lost me one of my most prestigious customers—but all the possible associates he might have brought with him! The least you can do is hear me out!’
‘But there’s nothing left to say, is there?’ asked Rebecca, her heart beating fast, intuition telling her that Vanessa still hadn’t worked out the worst part of the whole situation.
‘There’s plenty to say!’ stormed Vanessa. ‘You’ve made my organisation look unprofessional and you’ve only helped to further ruin the reputation of cabin crew everywhere!’
‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry,’ said Rebecca again. ‘Really I am—but Xandros was so persistent…and I…I …’
But Vanessa’s face went red with rage. ‘Oh, was he? Well, in my experience men are never persistent unless they get the green light from a woman.’ She slammed her pen down on the desk. ‘And let me tell you something else—and that is that you’ll never work in this industry again. I’ll make sure of that. Now get out.’
There was one hazy segment of her mind which made Rebecca wonder if you could be kicked out on the street in this day and age. Until she reminded herself that what she had done would rightly be defined as gross misconduct, which was a sacking offence. And what would she prefer: to walk out of here now and never see anyone from Evolo again—or to work out her notice and really give them something to talk about?
‘I’ll have my uniform sent back,’ she whispered.
‘Dry-cleaned, if you please,’ said Vanessa sharply.
All the way home, Rebecca felt like an alien who had just landed from outer space and was masquerading as a human. As if she didn’t belong—not anywhere. She needed someone to turn to, but who could you turn to at a time like this?
Her widowed mother had remarried and gone to live in Australia. How could she ring her up and say: Mum, I’m going to have a baby with a man I never expect to see again?
She couldn’t possibly tell any of the friends she’d made through work, could she? Vanessa would probably accuse them of fraternising with the enemy and it might put their own jobs on the line. And although her two best girlfriends were always there for her, both were busy with their careers and neither of them lived in London. If they had done, then maybe her terrible news would have all come tumbling out over a cup of coffee—but the truth of it was that she felt oddly ill at ease about telling anyone.
Especially when you haven’t even told the father!
Rebecca shivered. The hot August sun was beating down on her head, but inside she felt as if someone had replaced her blood with ice cubes as the undeniable words rattled round and round in her head.
I’m going to have a baby. That was the reality.
With no man, no job and no prospects. That was reality, too.
Rebecca stood stock-still as a red London bus swept by, the faces on it all blurred as one question kept going round and round in her head. What the hell was she going to do?
There weren’t really a lot of options open to her.
Surreptitiously, her hand crept to her belly. It was bigger, definitely bigger—but no one else had noticed. Not yet. Because Vanessa would surely have leapt on that if she’d thought that Rebecca was carrying Xandros’s baby.
Xandros’s baby. She shivered. Her Greek ex-lover was going to be a father and he didn’t know. No one knew, but soon it would become all too apparent—and then what?
Then what?
She went home and carefully removed her uniform before putting on a summer dress—turning to look at herself from every angle in the mirror which stood in one corner of her tiny bedroom. The dress was filmy—it hinted at the body beneath instead of hugging it. To the uninformed eye, she looked just like a healthy and curvy young woman—with no clue to the new life which was growing within.
Among a clutter of bangles in a half-open drawer she caught a glimpse of something shiny. A stab of pain catching her unawares, she saw the silver and amber earrings which Xandros had given her that last, fateful night.
Had they been intended as a farewell gift? She thought so. In the end it had worked out differently from the way she suspected he must have planned it. Their relationship had ended dramatically—but the fact that it had finished hadn’t come as a complete shock to her, had it?
But now there was a huge and lasting consequence to their liaison and she needed to be as grown-up about it as she had ever been in her life. Because Xandros might not have chosen to create a new life in those circumstances —she certainly wouldn’t have done—but it was a done deal now. This baby existed and didn’t he, as the father, have the right to know about it?
Of course he had a right. Rebecca had adored her own father—how terrible if she had been denied a relationship with him simply because he and her mother had not been together.
Yet deciding to tell him was one thing, actually doing it was another matter—especially after she had her twelve-week scan, when she knew that she really could not delay it for a second longer. A letter seemed so impersonal—and this was most definitely about a person. Several times she picked up the telephone and put it down again. How could you tell a man like Xandros something as momentous as this over the phone?
But it was more than that. A long-distance call could conceal so much, no matter how good the connection. And what if he refused to take her call—what then? Something was driving her on and she wasn’t sure what it was, knowing that she wanted—no, needed—to see his face when she told him. Was it a perverse desire to see the truth in his eyes, no matter how hurtful—would that help free her from her feelings for him once and for all? Or just some need to take some control back in a life which seemed to have run off the rails in so many ways?
Once she’d made her mind up, Rebecca set things in motion very quickly—and somehow it was comforting to have things to occupy her. As if, by concentrating on the logistics of going to see him, it took her mind off the future. She booked her flight to New York, found a hotel and rang her mother.
‘You might as well take a half-empty suitcase,’ her mother said, on a very crackly line from New South Wales. ‘The shopping in New York’s supposed to be terrific value.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Rebecca, trying to sound ‘normal’. Yet shopping was the last thing she felt like doing—even though she supposed a sensible person might scour the stores for pregnancy clothes. But, inevitably, money was tight. She had signed on with a temp agency, and although they had been providing as many office jobs as she cared to do it didn’t exactly pay her a fortune and she needed to hang onto every penny she could until she was no longer able to work.
Rebecca hadn’t been to America for years—when she’d worked for Evolo she’d done mainly short-haul. But she loved flying and would normally have savoured the experience—had not the significance of her trip made her unable to sleep or to concentrate on any of the films on offer.
Now that she wasn’t being paid for by the airline she discovered there was no such thing as a cheap hotel in the middle of the city and the small room she’d ended up with was clean, but soulless. There were fake flowers in a vase and an enormous TV dominating the limited space. But at least the shower worked and afterwards she felt one hundred per cent better.
She lay down, intending to shut her eyes just for a moment—but when she opened them again she realised that it had been a lot longer than that. The artificial light which was streaming in through the small window showed that she had been asleep for hours and a glance at her watch confirmed it. It was almost ten o’clock at night!
Rebecca’s heart sank. She had been planning to go to Xandros’s place of work and just ask to see him—without giving him time to think up some reason why he shouldn’t. But now she could see that she hadn’t really been thinking straight—or did she really think that a man in Xandros’s position would be instantly accessible to the general public?
At Evolo, she had worked with enough powerful people to know that they were always protected. Whether it was night or whether it was day, she would still need Xandros to give his permission if she wanted to see him. There was no way she would ever have been able to burst in on him, unannounced—not unless she was planning to hang around the entrance to his offices like some tramp waiting for a handout. And how undignified would that be?
Rebecca flinched. Well, there was no way she was going to postpone the inevitable—not for a moment longer. The sooner she had done her duty, then the sooner she could go away.
But it’s ten o’clock at night—what if he’s with another woman?
Then she would just have to face up to it—because that, too would be reality.
Her hair was all rumpled where she’d slept on it while it was damp, but there was no time to redo it. And this wasn’t some kind of beauty contest. Rebecca had very firmly banished from her heart and her mind the idea that Xandros would take one look at her and realise what a fool he’d been. Because life wasn’t like that—and even if it was she had been growing her self-respect in the intervening weeks. And there was no way she wanted a man who treated her like a sexual commodity, the way Xandros had done—even if she had gone along with it at the time.
Applying only a little make-up, she tied her hair back and put on the floaty dress. Then she pulled her phone out and tapped out his number with a trembling finger.
It rang for so long she thought it was going to go straight to messages but at last there was a click, and he said in his distinctive accent, ‘Yes?’
Her name must have come up on the screen because she heard the wariness in his voice and it made her want to weep. If only she could have put the phone down. But she couldn’t. She sucked in a deep breath.
‘Xandros? Hello, it’s me. Rebecca. Am I disturbing you?’
He didn’t answer that. Staring out at the bright glitter of lights on the skyline with narrowed eyes, Xandros thought how to respond to her question in a thousand different ways. He hadn’t expected her to ring him—and he didn’t particularly want her to. But his curiosity was aroused—and he wondered what had made her swallow her pride to get in touch with him. ‘How are you, Rebecca?’
That was quite a difficult one to answer. ‘I need to see you.’
Need? A pause. ‘But I’m in New York.’
‘Yes, I know. So am I.’
This time the pause was so long that Rebecca actually thought he might have hung up on her. To her surprise he didn’t demand to know just what she was doing in New York—but maybe that shouldn’t have surprised her. He was many things, but never predictable.
‘Where exactly are you?’ he questioned.
She read out the address from the top of the laminated room-service menu which was lying on the bedside table. ‘Do you know it?’
Did he know it? Ah, the exquisite irony of life! Briefly, Xandros closed his eyes. He remembered staying in that self-same area when he’d first arrived in the city—presumably for the same cost-cutting reasons as her—and thinking how the fabled streets of New York were certainly not paved with gold. He had seen homeless people, and hungry ones, too. He recalled his sense of shock—and his determination, too—that one day he should conquer this great city. Within weeks, he had found himself a job to help support him through college—and had never been back there since. ‘Can you come here?’ he questioned silkily.
‘Where?
‘I’m in the office.’
Rebecca stifled her instinctive sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t cosying up to whoever must have replaced her by now. ‘That’s late,’ she commented.
His mouth hardened. He wanted to tell her that the hours he worked were none of her damned business. Why the hell was she here? Deliberately, he injected his voice with steel. ‘I will send a car for you,’ he said.
And the cool note in his voice reminded Rebecca of another stark reality of the situation. They were ex-lovers. There was no fondness for her in Xandros’s heart. And even less when he discovers what you are about to tell him. ‘No, I’ll take the subway—’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Rebecca,’ he cut in, with an impatient click of his tongue. ‘It’s late and I’ve said I’ll send a car. The driver will ring you when he’s outside.’
Rebecca recognised that there was no sense in arguing with him—and that to do so would be fairly stupid, under the circumstances. Why turn down his offer of safe transport in a strange city at night?
‘Thanks,’ she said, and put the phone down quickly.
And, besides, she was beginning to feel rather peculiar and she couldn’t quite work out whether that was because she was pregnant or slightly jet-lagged or because she hadn’t eaten since early on in the flight.
So eat something!
Her burgeoning body craved food and she had no desire to faint in front of him. Raiding the mini-bar like a guilty teenager, she ate chocolate, some pretzels and a glass of juice and worried how much they would charge her for the pleasure of eating junk. And then her phone began to ring and she felt a little like someone going to face their own trial.
A dark limousine was waiting outside with a uniformed driver holding open the door for her. She sat back on soft leather as the powerful car negotiated the streets—so new to her and yet strangely familiar from years of having seen them on TV programmes—but Rebecca wasn’t really paying attention to them. She was too wrapped up in choosing her words as carefully as possible.
But how did you tell someone who was so definitely in your past that you were carrying part of his future?
The car stopped outside a vast, towering building lit mutedly save for the very top of it, which shone as brightly as a planet. A young woman stood waiting by the entrance, her tumble of dark curls and striking scarlet dress suddenly making Rebecca feel very pale and unexciting. Who was she? she wondered—hating herself for still caring as the brunette opened the car door.
‘Hi. I’m Miriam.’ The woman smiled, her teeth gleaming like a dentistry advertisement. ‘Xandros asked me to come and meet you. He’s upstairs in his office.’
‘Thanks,’ said Rebecca, feeling more than uptight now as a glass lift sped upwards. He hadn’t come to fetch her himself, had he? And how, she wondered, had Xandros explained her sudden appearance to this woman Miriam? Was this his girlfriend—sent down to fetch her so that there could be no possible misunderstandings? Or was she a powerful man’s gatekeeper—would she expect to sit in on what was probably going to be the most difficult conversation of Rebecca’s entire life?
Well, she was going to have to assert herself. She was not going to have an audience while she stumbled to tell him. If he wanted he could tell Miriam later, once Rebecca had gone.
She was taken into a large and very beautiful office, dominated by a giant desk on which lay a few large sheets of drawings in various stages of development, and a pot full of pens and pencils. Apart from that, the room was completely bare of adornment—with no pictures on the walls or trinkets on his desk. At first, Rebecca didn’t see Xandros, but then she sensed rather than heard him behind her and she turned to find him at the far end of the long room, watching her—and she could not help the instinctive shiver of awareness that felt midway between fear and desire.
‘That will be all, Miriam,’ he said.
Well, she didn’t sound like a girlfriend. ‘Is that your secretary?’ asked Rebecca hopefully when the other woman had closed the door behind her.
‘She’s another architect, actually,’ drawled Xandros, noticing her flinch at the unmistakably caustic note in his voice—but what did she expect? He had no idea why she was here today—whether it was all part of some sophisticated game-plan. Was that why she had jumped in and ended the relationship before he’d had a chance to do so? As a kind of emotional one-upmanship—a clumsy effort to try to make him commit to her? But if so, it had backfired spectacularly—and she was just about to find that out.
She had made him feel … what? Trapped and irritated by her growing neediness and her desire to want to read all the secrets of his heart? Yet along with that he had felt oddly out of control, too. Hadn’t it been a relief to be free of her strange, sensual power—even if he had found himself sometimes missing the passion of her embrace? Hadn’t he terminated his contract with the airline because he had no wish for repeated contact with her or the temptation of her continuing allure? Those violet eyes and the silky hair like dark honey, which had trickled through his fingers so sweetly.
‘Won’t you sit down?’
‘Thank you.’ Despite the food she’d taken from the mini-bar Rebecca’s knees were trembling and she sank into a leather chair with relief.
‘You would like a drink? Some water, perhaps?’
She shook her head, feeling as if she were on a job interview—praying that her composure would not leave her at a time when she had never needed it more badly. ‘No, thank you.’
Xandros stared at her, waiting for some kind of explanation for her appearance, but she had bent her head and was studying her clasped fingers intently—as if they were about to reveal something fascinating. And suddenly he was irritated. What the hell was she doing here? ‘So?’
Rebecca looked up, braving herself to meet the expression on his face. How best to say it? The carefully chosen words she had been silently rehearsing on the way over suddenly seemed as inadequate as someone trying to staunch the flow of a burst dam using their finger. There is no ‘good’ way to say this, Rebecca—so just say it.
‘I’m pregnant, Xandros.’
He didn’t move, or react—grateful, if such a word could be used at such a time, for the enigmatic exterior which had never let him down.
Rebecca’s voice wasn’t quite steady as she searched his face. ‘Did you hear me, Xandros? I said—’
‘Ne, I heard you.’ Inexplicably, he found himself thinking of Notus—the great south wind of Greece which brought with it the storms of summer and autumn—and what greater storm than this to have exploded in his life? A baby—by a woman who meant nothing to him? Yet still his face gave nothing away. Meeting her violet-blue eyes with nothing but stony question, he said: ‘Are you certain?’
For one moment she wondered if she should draw his attention to the slight swelling of her belly until she remembered that she had come here because she had felt it was the right thing to do. She was not going to be made to feel the guilty party. He might not have planned this, but neither had she.
‘Yes, I’m certain. I did a test and now the doctor has confirmed that they …’ As his head jerked up she swallowed. ‘Yes, they,’ she whispered, meeting the blazing question in his black eyes. ‘It’s twins. I’m expecting twins, Xandros. Around the middle of January,’ she finished hoarsely.
Twins. The word dropped into his consciousness like a stone falling into water from a great height and Xandros experienced a sensation of anger and pain so strong that it momentarily took his breath away.
Twins.
Hot, unwanted emotions washed over him—trying to take him back to a childhood he had buried and forgotten. A mother who had left him. A father who had never been there. A brother to whom he was joined for ever—whether he liked it or not. A brother he had fought with. Two men who had allowed time to deepen the rift between them.
Xandros scowled, recognising that in a way this was Rebecca’s salvation—nature cleverly ensuring that he wouldn’t question her about the paternity of her unborn. Yet for some reason that question had simply not occurred to him. Because her very neediness during their time together had convinced him that she would not have taken another lover—despite his occasional streak of jealousy? Or just his natural arrogance assuring him that it would be a long time before she would allow another man to touch her as he had touched her?
But the image disturbed him.
Twins.
He stared at her. ‘You are quite sure of this?’
Did he think she was testing him out? Telling herself that it was shock which was making him snap the question out like an interrogator, Rebecca nodded.
‘Yes. Testing procedures are very sophisticated these days. They can do a check between nine and—’
‘That’s enough!’ He silenced her with an automatic raise of his hand, the imperious gesture telling her that he was simply not interested in the detail. That he needed time to think.
Xandros walked over to one of the large windows where the radiance of countless lights illuminated the night sky of New York, his adopted city. During the day, he sometimes went along the corridor to a smaller office where the light was soft and muted—because sometimes he found the urban magnificence of the skyline all too distracting, especially when he was working. But for now he welcomed the distraction from this momentous piece of news.
What the hell did a man do in a situation like this?
Eventually, he turned around. She hadn’t moved and her frame looked curiously fragile within the soft, tooled leather of the chair. Her amazing hair was tied back with a simple piece of ribbon and he thought that she certainly hadn’t gone to town on an outfit designed to impress him. He saw the goose-bumps on her slender arms and supposed that she wasn’t really used to the air-conditioning.
‘Say something!’ said Rebecca urgently, because she could bear his brooding silence no longer.
‘What do you want me to say, agape mou? That we will all live happily ever after and that I will marry you?’ He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Because I have no intention of doing that.’
It hurt, of course it did—she would have had to have been made of wood for it not to have done—but she didn’t react. One thing Rebecca had told herself was that no matter what he threw at her, no matter what the provocation—there was no way she was going to storm out of here.
They would deal with this like adults—or rather she would. So she kept her face as calm as possible instead giving into the temptation of saying: I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth! She even managed a shake of her head and a bland smile. After all, she supposed that he could have denied paternity—and surely that would have been far more insulting than him refusing to marry her?
‘Marriage? Good heavens, no. That’s not why I’m here,’ she said calmly.
‘Really?’ Ebony brows were elevated in thinly veiled disbelief. ‘Then why are you here?’
‘Strange as it may seem, Xandros, it gives me no pleasure to fly all the way over when I’m feeling slightly queasy and then be met with insult and accusation. I’m here because—as the father—I feel you have a right to know about it.’
For the first time he reacted outwardly, swearing softly and emphatically in his native tongue and it was her use of the word father which provoked it—because somehow that made it more real than the disconnected terms of babies and pregnancies. If his hands weren’t his livelihood, he might have smashed his fist against one of the walls. But he lashed out with words instead.
‘Okay, so you’ve told me. Pretty expensive and protracted way of doing so. You came all this way to tell me that? You didn’t think of ringing?’
It would give too much away if she confessed that she’d wanted to see his expression when she told him. He might think she’d been holding out for a remarkable about-turn—as if he would pull her into his arms and tell her he’d missed her, and that having her carrying his babies beneath her heart was like a dream come true.
And hadn’t there been a tiny part of her which hadn’t ruled out that thought—even though it had flown in the face of all logic? That the man who had everything might realise that none of it mattered when compared to these miraculous new lives they’d created? But there could be no mistaking the lack of emotion on his proud and beautiful features. She had wanted an answer to her silent question and it was written there—in stark detail.
Slowly, Rebecca began to rise to her feet, her heart suddenly heavy.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded.
‘Home. Well, back to the hotel. I have done what I came for.’
His black eyes narrowed. ‘But nothing has been decided.’
‘There’s nothing to decide, Xandros. That isn’t why I’m here. You are now in full possession of the facts and my conscience is clear.’
‘Well, mine is not!’ he thundered. He raked his fingers back through his ebony hair. ‘I will pay!’ he announced.
For a moment she completely misinterpreted what he meant and her trembling hand shot out to grab hold of the chair-back. ‘P-pay? What are you talking about?’
He stilled. ‘What do you think? For your upkeep. For the children’s—’ Briefly, the word froze in his throat. ‘For their upkeep, once they are born,’ he continued. ‘And you will need money to support yourself until that happens. I assume you won’t be allowed to fly after a certain point? Isn’t that what usually happens?’
She opened her mouth to tell him that she was not allowed to fly now—that she had lost her job because she had broken the rules—but did she want to come across as some kind of victim? No, she did not. In fact, it was imperative that she didn’t. From now on she needed to be strong and independent—not just for her own sake, but, more importantly, for the sake of her babies. Babies. Rebecca shivered. If the idea of twins had come as a shock to Xandros, it had troubled her even more. He was used to two of everything, while she was a complete novice. How on earth was she going to manage?
‘I didn’t come here to ask you for money,’ she said.
‘Maybe not, but I am a wealthy man—we both know that.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘I want you to take what I am offering. In fact, I insist upon it.’
And as Rebecca looked into his eyes she realised that Xandros needed to give her something concrete—like money. That way he could wash his hands of all responsibility. Because he hadn’t expressed the wish she had secretly prayed for—to want to play some part, no matter how small, in his children’s lives.
She shook her head. ‘You aren’t in any position to insist on anything, Xandros,’ she said.
Fleetingly, he thought it ironic that, with Rebecca in this new and physically vulnerable state, he had never seen her look or sound quite so strong and focussed. But maybe this was what she had wanted all along, despite her protests—something to tie her to him.
‘But this is not a battle of wills, Rebecca,’ he said softly. ‘It is what is known as making the most of a bad situation. You live in that tiny place, which some might consider too small even for one. How the hell do you expect to be able to cope with, not one, but two new babies there—had you thought about that?’
‘What do you think?’ She had thought of little else. This would be a good cue for hysteria, Rebecca thought as she stared at him in disbelief—but she could not allow herself the indulgence of such a useless emotion. She registered the critical way he had dismissed her apartment. To think how hard she’d worked on it—hoping to impress him with her little home—and all the time he had felt nothing but contempt for it! Didn’t he realise that not everyone was as fortunate as he was?
But it was her sheer short-sightedness which troubled her most. That she could have made so bad a judgement about a man. How could she have possibly thought that she loved him—when he had a heart of stone which made a mockery of the hard warmth of his body?
Rubbing her shivery arms with her hands and wishing she’d brought some kind of jacket, she fixed him with a look which told him that, although her self-respect might have taken a bit of a battering, she would repair it as best she could, but without any help from him.
‘I’ll manage somehow,’ she said, her voice low but dignified. ‘I may not be rich, but you can be sure that I’ll love these babies, Xandros. I’ll love them with all my heart—and I don’t want anything from you. Do you understand that?’
His eyes narrowed as they met in a silent clash with hers, but unexpectedly her fervent words pierced him. She had said that she would love them—but he knew only too well that being a mother did not guarantee loving your children. When she realised that he meant what he said about not marrying her—would she still feel the same? Or might she then see adoption as a sensible solution?
‘I understand perfectly,’ he said. ‘But whether you want help or not, you’re getting it. I will pay money into an account for you—what you choose to do with it is up to you. In return, I ask that you keep me informed of your progress during the pregnancy. Is that understood?’
She stared at him. ‘You mean you want to be involved?’
He hardened his heart against her violet eyes. ‘I meant I want a progress report,’ he said, as if he were talking about the construction of one of his own projects. ‘I wish to know when they …’ He swallowed then, despite his determination to feel nothing. ‘I want to know when you give birth. Will you do that for me?’
‘Yes.’ The word was little more than a lost sigh in that great big office space and Rebecca stood up. If she didn’t feel so emotionally and physically vulnerable, she would have left quietly and gone in search of the nearest subway. But she couldn’t face it. ‘I’d like to go now,’ she said, in a low voice. Before she did something unforgivable, like breaking down into a cascade of choking sobs in front of him.
Xandros could see the trembling of her lips. Once he would have kissed that tremble away, but now he could not—for that would dishonour them both. Their relationship was over—they both knew that.
He suspected what she really wanted of him—what was probably expected of him—but he could not give any kind of emotional commitment to these unborn children. Far better to promise nothing than to fail to deliver. And didn’t he come from exactly the right kind of background to walk away from a child? Didn’t abandonment run deep in his veins?
Hidden by the shafts of his powerful thighs, his fists clenched in anger. ‘My driver is waiting,’ he said tightly. ‘I will take you down to him.’
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_b998dd20-aaf9-535e-9a7b-2bed0c0ad44f)
YET for the first time in his life, Alexandros Pavlidis found himself proved wrong.
He had expected—what? That Rebecca would use her pregnancy to gain increased access to his life, in an attempt to make herself a permanent fixture there, no matter how much she had protested otherwise?
Yes, of course he had. Too often in the past women had lied to him or tried to conceal their true motives in their attempts to ensnare him. And didn’t she have a more valid reason than any of her predecessors to want him in her life? Two babies on the way. Two babies which were due to be born in a few short weeks’ time, according to the calendar on his kitchen wall.
Xandros finished knotting his silk tie and stared back at his image in the mirror. His eyes looked shadowed, his hard face unsmiling. In the frantic world beyond his condominium, a snowy New York was rushing to prepare itself for the holiday season, and no city did it better.
The giant Christmas tree at the Rockefeller centre was blazing with coloured lights and the ice-rink was filled with happy skaters. Department store windows were groaning with nostalgic images which had been lifted straight from the pages of children’s books. On Xandros’s mantelpiece, dozens of invitations were stacked like giant playing cards—but he was distracted.
Just what the hell was Rebecca playing at?
He had expected the generous allowance he had paid into an account for her to be withdrawn immediately, but he had been wrong.
He had expected regular updates from her—an attempt to involve him in the pregnancy with an excess of detail. Again, he had been wrong.
She had withdrawn no money—not a cent—and the only real news he had received about the pregnancy had been the two images from one of her scans. They had arrived in a plain brown envelope, marked ‘Private and Confidential’ and Xandros had sat staring at them for a long time.
He was used to studying pictures; that was part of his job—to see something grow from a rough design into something real—but this was something completely outside his experience.
At first his untrained eye could hardly distinguish between the grainy components of the photo, but gradually—like one of those optical illusions which people sent out over the internet—the image became clear. Yet it was still difficult to believe the import of what he was seeing. Were these tiny, tadpole-like shapes really potential human beings?
In spite of his determination not to think of the bigger picture, he felt a sensation which was midway between wonder and pain and, giving into rare impulse, he picked up the phone and dialled her number in England.
Her voice sounded wary. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s me. Xandros.’
Yes, I know it’s you, thought Rebecca and sucked in an unsteady breath. ‘Hello, Xandros.’
It wasn’t the most rapturous welcome in the world. Xandros stared out at the lightening New York sky and his mouth tightened. ‘I called to see how you were doing.’
Give him the facts, Rebecca told herself. Just the facts—that’s all he wants. ‘Oh, the doctors are very pleased with my progress. The pregnancy is going exactly as it should and the babies—’ How bizarre it felt to be saying this—to be discussing these intimate details with a man who felt little more than a stranger. Who was little more than a stranger. ‘The babies are doing fine—so they tell me, looking at the scan. Did you get the pictures I sent you?’
In spite of his determination not to react, Xandros felt his heartbeat increase. When she said ‘babies’ like that—in that soft, English accent—it sounded frighteningly real and yet ridiculously far-away. ‘Yes. Yes, I got them. What are you doing for Christmas?’
She had told herself to expect nothing, but she had absolutely no control over the sudden hopeful lurching of her heart. Did he realise that she was pretty much trapped by size and circumstance? But if she told him the truth—that she was planning to overdose on chocolate and sloppy films—wouldn’t that sound as if she were some poor little victim, desperate for her white knight to come along and scoop her up on his charger. Well, Xandros was certainly no white knight—and she was certainly no victim.
‘Oh, I’m being very lazy,’ she said, injecting as much purring satisfaction into her voice as she could. ‘What about you?’
He thought of all the parties he’d been invited to and the people who would be at them—the über-thin women, so eager to please and to take him to their beds. The Park Avenue matrons so keen to marry off their daughters—his power and Greek virility in exchange for some obscene trust fund. But suddenly Rebecca’s satisfied voice became the main focus in his mind and he felt the first simmerings of annoyance.
Because her response wasn’t what he had been expecting, either. Shouldn’t there have been a wistful little note in her voice—as if she was wishing or hoping that things could have been different between them? As if ideally she would like to have been curled up in front of a holiday fire with him?
‘Oh, the usual festive revelry,’ he said carelessly as he ran his fingertips over one thick, gold-embossed card. ‘More invitations than I can cope with. You know what it’s like.’
She didn’t, of course—but Xandros wasn’t aware of that and nor did he need to know how isolated her life had become. Maybe cocooning herself away as much as possible was nature’s way of ensuring that she got all the rest her tired body was craving.
She had been accepted by the others in her antenatal classes—they were really sweet—even though she was the only single mother in a group of ecstatic couples. They all wanted to fuss round her because she was expecting twins—Rebecca didn’t mind that bit at all—but some protective instinct had made her deflect their curious questions.
Maybe she was wrong, but she found herself unwilling to tell them her story—for wouldn’t it sound as if she’d foolishly reached for the stars and then come crashing down to earth?
I fell in love with a Greek billionaire and after we’d finished I discovered I was pregnant.
Why, even to her own ears she sounded like some kind of gold-digger!
‘Was there anything else you wanted, Xandros? I really have to go.’ Before his clever tongue could cut through the precarious façade she had erected around her emotions and have her bursting into stupid tears.
Fingertip halting on the gleaming but unexpectedly sharp card edge, Xandros narrowed his eyes. ‘You are alone?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You have a man with you, perhaps?’
Rebecca gripped at the receiver. If she weren’t so appalled at his amazing cheek, she might actually laugh aloud at his unmatchable arrogance. ‘I don’t know if you’ve seen a woman in the late stages of a twin pregnancy,’ she snapped. ‘I might even be flattered that you should consider me alluring enough to attract a man in such a condition—if it were any of your business, but it’s not. I’m a free agent, Xandros—you don’t have any rights or any say in what I do. So if that’s all, I’m going to hang up.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘Oh, and don’t worry—I’ll text you and let you know when I go into labour. Goodbye.’
It took a moment for Xandros to realise that she had actually done as she threatened and terminated the conversation! And another for him to process what she’d said to him. She had told him that he had no rights over her. In fact, she had not told him—she had snapped the information out, like a woman who was clearly impatient to get away.
He had never heard her talk that way before. She always used to work around his mood, and, even though it had irritated the hell out of him at the time, he wasn’t certain that he approved of this new, feisty Rebecca either.
And she would ‘text him’ about the birth, would she? Text him? Moodily, he stared at the party invite. Since when was such news relayed in such a casual manner?
He worked late at the office and afterwards went to a dinner—mainly because it was just around the corner on Lexington. It was a beautiful apartment and a beautiful party by anyone’s standards—even those as exacting as Xandros’s. A huge penthouse room was lit by tall candles and scented with waxy white flowers—a stark black Christmas tree decked only in white, glittering baubles.
Everything matched. Nothing out of place. As uncluttered as it was possible to be. It looked like a film-set—or an advertisement for how the rich really lived. And they really did live like this, thought Xandros.
A classical pianist played on a white grand piano and the hostess, who was newly divorced and young enough to consider Xandros a serious bet, was dressed in a shimmering white gown which clung to every sensuous curve of her body.
‘Hello, Alexandros,’ she drawled, in her soft Southern accent. ‘You look so bushed I think I might send you straight to bed.’ Her voice dipped. ‘And if you’re very lucky—I might join you.’
‘Time I was leaving,’ he said brutally.
‘Oh!’ She laid light, fleeting polished fingernails on his suit jacket as he waved away a glass of champagne. Xandros imagined those gleaming nails touching his bare skin and he shuddered in distaste, wondering why he’d come here.
Because you wanted to forget.
Forget what? The fact that he was soon to be a father and nobody knew about it. A fact so bizarre that he was having difficulty believing it himself.
The text came in the middle of his night—though it would have been Rebecca’s morning—the day after Christmas. That strange, flat day following the holiday itself. The text was spare with detail, saying simply: ‘In labour. Will let you know what happens.’
What the hell did she think was going to happen? he wondered.
But after that he couldn’t sleep, pacing the floor of his apartment, trying to settle with a book, a film and then some music—but nothing worked. Obviously, he knew nothing about childbirth except what he’d seen depicted in movies—when the women always seemed to scream and thrash around a lot. Was that dramatic licence, or was Rebecca screaming out in pain right now?
Xandros gritted his teeth because somehow that hurt. And the not knowing anything was the worst feeling he could recall in a long time. He was a man of action—he did not think, he did. So was he going to sit around now and wonder what the hell was going on across the Atlantic—or was he actually going to do something about it?
His bag was packed in seconds, a flight arranged and a car dispatched to take him to JFK for the first flight to London. Xandros never rejoiced in money for money’s sake, but it was at times like this that he recognised the true freedom that his wealth could buy him.
It was a bleak day when he touched down at Heathrow—the sky was heavy and overcast and there was an air of chill which made steam clouds of his breath. He had texted Rebecca right back and asked her which hospital she was going to and she had told him. He guessed she presumed he’d want to send flowers or something. He had not told her he was coming.
Why not?
Because he had not wanted to risk her objecting? Knowing that even a man as macho as he was would have baulked at overriding a woman’s wishes while she was actually in labour?
Or because he had wanted to check out that she’d spoken the truth when she’d implied that there was no man in her life? She might have protested about her physical state but Xandros was enough of a cynic to realise that someone with an eye for the main chance might jump at the opportunity of hooking up with a beautiful woman—especially if there was going to be some super-rich ex-lover in the background, paying her bills.
The message came through when he was almost at the hospital.
Two healthy babies…
And then, infuriatingly—some text missing.
So were they boys, or were they girls? Or were they one of each? Striding in through the glass doors of the maternity unit, he told himself that it didn’t matter what sex they were. Several nurses asked if they could help him—one in particular looking as though she wasn’t talking about directions—and soon he was in the maternity unit, speaking to the nurse in charge.
‘I’m looking for Rebecca Gibbs,’ he stated.
‘And you are?’
Who the hell do you think I am? ‘I’m the babies’ father. Alexandros Pavlidis,’ he bit out. ‘Where is she?’
‘Please follow me, Mr Pavlidis—and I’ll take you to her.’
Rebecca was lying on a bed, feeling as if she were in some kind of drugged daze—though in truth she’d only puffed at a bit of gas and air because that had been all there’d been time for during a labour which had taken her by surprise with its speed and intensity. But now, with the pain and the ordeal part of it over, she was drifting in and out of a strange kind of half-sleep when a familiar accent prickled over her senses and convinced her that she must be dreaming.
‘Rebecca?’
She opened her eyes, screwed them up—as if it might be a trick of the light and the hard, handsome face of her ex-lover weren’t towering over her like some dark, avenging angel.
‘Xandros?’
‘Where are they?’ he demanded.
The midwife made as if to object at his tone, but weakly Rebecca shook her head. She wanted to cry. ‘Over there,’ she whispered.
Slowly, he turned and walked towards two cribs which stood, side by side, an identical swaddled shape in each—a shock of black hair the only contrast against the white hospital blanket. He felt a shiver whispering its way over his skin, his throat growing dry as he stared down at them.
‘What are they?’ he questioned thickly.
For a moment Rebecca didn’t understand him—until she realised that he still didn’t know the sex. She paused, as if recognising the significance of what she was about to tell him—resenting it even as she resented the stupid pride she felt in the answer she was about to give him.
‘Boys,’ she answered. ‘Both boys.’
‘Identical?’
‘Yes, Xandros.’
Xandros closed his eyes as the turbulent reality of what she had just told him rocked him to the very core of his being—for it was every Greek man’s dream to have a son to carry on his name and his genes. But twin boys? Just like him and Kyros. The cell split into two. The same and yet not the same. Never the same. Would any other man understand this strange bond of twinship, which now reached down through another generation?
For a moment he was shaken. More than shaken. He felt the strange thunder of his heart as he stared down at the two ebony heads and a terrible tearing at his heart as if someone had just ripped it open.
‘Would you like to hold your sons, Mr Pavlidis?’ asked the midwife with the bright, forced emotion of someone who had asked that particular question a million times.
Xandros looked up, and for a second his intense black gaze burned into Rebecca with an expression which came as close to helpless as she could ever imagine Xandros looking.
‘You mean, both of them?’
Rebecca actually smiled. ‘Well, why don’t you start with one, and see how you go on?’
Did he begrudge her apparent serenity—or was it simply that he felt as uncertain as some of the novice skaters he’d seen on the Rockefeller ice rink as he tentatively looked down at the tiny bundle, which seemed to be making sucking sounds disproportionate to his tiny size. ‘Why not?’ he questioned, and held his arms out.
The midwife bent down and efficiently scooped one of the babies up, before placing him in Xandros’s arms. ‘Make sure you support his little neck,’ she said, in a friendly, bossy manner.
Xandros nodded, a lump forming in his throat as he cradled the scrap of an infant. How could this be? he wondered. This double miracle which had been created. ‘Oyos,’ said Xandros softly, beginning to cradle him now. ‘My son.’
Rebecca swallowed as she heard the primitive note of ownership in his deep voice—telling herself that her fears were irrational. Shouldn’t she be pleased that he had acknowledged his offspring so openly? Why, she hadn’t expected him to turn up here like this. He hadn’t warned her.
In her more vulnerable state during the pregnancy—during some of the long, restless nights when she couldn’t get comfortable—hadn’t she longed for just such a scenario? Xandros appearing out of the blue—all strong and unashamedly masculine. Xandros sweeping in to take over and transform the situation—as if he were possessed of magical powers and could sprinkle her world with stardust.
But that had been then—when Rebecca was feeling all mixed-up and weary with the weight of impending birth. Something had happened in the interim which seemed to have invested her with the magical powers she had foolishly expected Xandros to bestow upon her.
She had become a mother. She had two tiny babies who were dependent on her. It should have scared the life out of her, but somehow it did the very opposite—it filled her with a kind of strength unlike anything she’d ever felt before. The strength to be able to stand up to a man—even one as dominating as Xandros.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ she questioned.
He looked up from where his lips seemed to have drifted automatically to the silken down of the baby’s head. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’
‘Or to check up on me?’ she questioned astutely.
The midwife frowned, as if interpreting the beginnings of a row. ‘You are supposed to be resting—’
‘Oh, I will ensure she rests,’ Xandros cut in with a soft arrogance. ‘And please—we must no longer keep you from your work. I should like a little time alone with the mother of my sons.’
Rebecca wanted to lash out—to tell him that decisions to rest or not to rest were down to her. And to protest at his rather cold-blooded description of her, which made her sound like little more than an incubator. But she did not want a scene. She could already sense that the midwife was on Xandros’s side—if the slightly awestruck look she was giving him as she left the room was anything to go by. And more than that, she felt weak—physically shattered, as if she had gone ten rounds in a boxing ring and emerged punch-drunk.
She stared at his powerful dark form and realised that she needed to rest. That being strong was one thing—but who could say how long she’d be able to remain like that?
‘Perhaps you’d like to come back later, Xandros?’ she questioned, forcing her voice to sound polite, as if he was nothing to her. Because he is nothing to you. He might be the father of her two new sons, but that did not mean there was anything left between them and she would be a fool to forget that.
He was still staring at their tiny, sleeping forms. ‘Have you thought of names?’ he demanded, as if she hadn’t spoken.
Of course she had thought of names—there had been plenty of thinking times during the long winter evenings when her bump had seemed to defy gravity and made moving around both difficult and uncomfortable. But it was hard enough choosing one name—
let alone two. And there had been no one to bounce ideas off. No one to say, ‘I hate that name’ which was what the giggling couples at the antenatal classes used to say.
And it had been difficult to imagine that the long, unplanned pregnancy would actually result in two little babies—even though every scan had confirmed that to be the case. But your mind could know something and your heart would refuse to accept it. It had felt like tempting fate to think ahead. To try to picture what the reality might be like. The doctors had fussed over her as it was—with a kind of fascinated horror. They had told her to take extra care and then had frowned with concern when she had told them that there was no father on the scene.
Would Xandros have come to her aid if she had told him she needed him during those months? Rebecca didn’t know and neither had she wanted to test it out. She really hadn’t wanted to see him. It would have stirred up unwanted emotions at a time when she had needed to keep all her sanity and her wits about her. And she had made a decision after her trip to New York—when he had made her feel like some inconsequential part of his former life. He had seen her vulnerable too many times in the past—and he would never see her vulnerable again.
‘Perhaps you would like me to draw up a list of names?’ he was asking, as if he had every right to do so.
Too tired after a long labour and taken aback by the unexpected visit, Rebecca was not in the mood for a fight—and, besides, surely they could manage to agree on something they both liked? She liked his name, didn’t she? ‘Yes, why don’t you do that—unless you have any immediate suggestions?’ she said wryly. ‘Like Alexandros I and Alexandros II.’
But it seemed that Xandros was no longer listening. To her astonishment—he was carefully replacing the baby in his crib and then bending down to pick up the second child. Rebecca stared in a kind of dazed disbelief at the contrast it made. How could such a large and powerful man adapt so quickly and skilfully to handling such little newborns? She felt her heart give a little wrench of pain at the thought of all it could have been—and never would.
‘You seem … you seem a remarkably quick learner,’ she said shakily.
‘Ne. All my life I have learned quickly,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact way. Xandros touched a gentle finger to the soft cheek of the infant. Soon he would begin to learn their individual faces and, though other people might claim that they looked exactly the same, he would know differently.
A tell-tale crumpling of the mouth. The way that one nose cast a certain shadow which the other did not, and which only the most discerning eye would notice. When you were born an identical twin, you spent your lifetime searching for differences, rather than similarities. He would know these two babies apart within days.
The baby in his arms began to squawk and, as if by reflex, Rebecca felt the sudden heavy aching in her breasts and she held her arms out. ‘He needs feeding,’ she said awkwardly, her cheeks growing pink—which seemed bizarre under the circumstances. This, after all, was a man who knew her breasts better than anyone—so why was she suddenly feeling as shy as if there were a stranger standing in the room?
Xandros narrowed his eyes and then carefully bent down and handed the infant over to her. And for the first time he really looked at Rebecca as she began to move the nightgown aside and latch the baby onto her breast with fingers which still seemed a little hesitant about this new part of her life.
Her cheeks were all flushed and her honeyed hair had been caught back in a blue ribbon, though silken strands of it were falling down. And she was suckling his child. Had not that same breast borne the imprint of his mouth? Had she not cried out with pleasure when it had done so?
A fierce shaft of something he didn’t recognise rocked him. Was it the shock of seeing her as a mother—the mother of his children—rather than simply as a sexually desirable woman?
His hard mouth twisted as he turned away from the picture-perfect image. Because things were never as they appeared. Never. Didn’t he know that better than anyone?
He walked over to stare at the other infant, who had begun to stir. What if they both wanted feeding at the same time? How the hell would she be able to manage that? He turned back to find Rebecca watching him, her violet-blue eyes dark.
‘You will bottle-feed them, I suppose?’ He spoke with the tone of a man entering unfamiliar territory and for Xandros it was as close as he had ever come to hesitation.
Rebecca shook her head. ‘I’m planning to continue nursing them myself.’
He was surprised, though he did not say so. The wives of his friends and colleagues had mostly abandoned their breast-feeding—mainly because they either had their careers or social lives to return to—but apparently it also did little to enhance the appearance of the breasts. Xandros remembered the genuine shock he’d experienced when a woman had informed him that her breasts had been surgically ‘enhanced’ and that she was therefore unable to feed her child. It had seemed the price she had been willing to pay for keeping a pert figure.
‘You will manage two babies?’ he questioned.
‘Well, nature has equipped me to do that at least,’ she said wryly. ‘Just imagine if I’d had triplets!’
Unbelievably, he found his lips curving into a smile and suddenly he found himself wanting to get away from this uncomfortably intimate scene—and at the same time strangely reluctant to leave. Was that nature—that powerful and ungovernable force—exerting her strong will to pull him towards his sons?
‘When will you be discharged?’ he questioned.
Rebecca delayed answering—but she could hardly lie about it, could she? Or demand to know what business it was of his? She had made it his business when she’d told him about the pregnancy, and that decision—like everything else in life—had its consequences. Whether she liked those consequences was neither here nor there.
She would provide him with facts, pure and simple—beyond that she owed him nothing.
‘After three days, hopefully,’ she said. ‘Provided that they’re pleased with mine and the boys’ progress, of course.’
He registered the ways she’d said the boys—like an exclusive little club which he was not permitted to join, and Xandros felt his body prickle its silent objection to her high-handedness. We’ll see about that, he thought grimly.
He nodded. ‘I will come and collect you,’ he stated.
‘But, I don’t need—’
‘Yes, you do. I’m not arguing with you, Rebecca—because there is no alternative.’ His implacable words cut through her protest. ‘I will be taking you all home from hospital and that is final.’ His black eyes glittered with sudden, new intent. ‘And now we need to discuss the names of my sons.’
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_0b520f8a-5380-5c11-8bef-4cfc69685989)
‘I DO not care what you say!’ Xandros stormed. ‘You cannot possibly stay here—and what is more, I will not let you!’
Rebecca sighed. If she’d had the energy she might have objected to the condemnatory tone of his voice—just as she might have objected to him standing there, dominating the sitting room of her little flat as he seemed to dominate every place he went.
Wishing he would go away—because he was so damned…so damned everything. Single-minded, stubborn … and gorgeous. So gorgeous. And she must never forget the power of his sexuality—no matter how many times she told herself that it was no longer relevant to either of them. Because he would use it as a weapon if he needed to, she recognised weakly. He would do anything he needed to do to get his own way.
In the end she had been pathetically grateful for his insistence that he collect her, Alexius and Andreas from the hospital. In fact, she wondered how on earth she could have managed without him. She literally couldn’t have carried the two babies along with all her hospital stuff and managed even something as simple as opening the front door with a key which had always gone stiffly into the lock, but which had never seemed to matter until now.
As it was, on several occasions she’d had to bite back tears of frustration—telling herself that her emotions were only see-sawing all over the place because of her fluctuating hormone levels and the fact that she had recently given birth.
Xandros had organised a car, which she had accepted, and he had also offered to bring along a maternity nurse, which she had refused. That had vexed him, as had so much else—but nothing had irked him quite so much as looking round at her tiny home now that it had acquired two extra small human beings, along with all their assorted paraphernalia. There were giant, ugly plastic bags of nappies—and bottles of baby bath and packets of baby wipes. Why did everything have to be made out of plastic? he had wondered sourly more than once.
‘Look at it!’ he raged. ‘You cannot possibly stay here!’
‘I don’t have any alternative,’ said Rebecca. ‘Lots of babies are brought home to places like this.’
‘Not usually two babies at the same time! How the hell are you going to manage?’ he demanded.
‘I’ll manage,’ she said tiredly.
‘You had enough difficulty getting back from hospital,’ he pointed out. ‘And you might just about cope with the babies since that is what nature has equipped you to do, as you keep telling me—but what about you? There is very little food in the fridge—and no fresh fruit or vegetables at all! It is outrageous!’
‘We can’t all have fleets of servants at our beck and call,’ she said flippantly, in an effort to hide the hurt. ‘Perhaps you’d like to do a quick supermarket shop for me?’
‘Oh, I can do better than that,’ he said grimly, sliding the phone from his pocket.
Within the hour, one of London’s most chi-chi stores had delivered the kind of food which Rebecca could never have afforded, not even at Christmas, and for the first time in years, Xandros found himself unpacking it himself—and using every one of his spatial skills to try to fit most of it into her shoebox of a fridge.
He heated them both some soup and gave Rebecca some fruit juice while he drank a glass of wine and then watched as she fed the babies again. He cleared their supper away while she changed them—because his macho Greekness rebelled at that. As it was, it had been many years since he had washed dishes—and in a funny kind of way, he enjoyed it.
But when he walked back into the sitting room, he could see the exhaustion which had made her face paper-pale and the shadows underneath her eyes nearly as violet dark as her eyes—and never had he felt so … ineffective.
‘You’re tired,’ he observed.
‘Yes, I am. Thank you for all your help, Xandros—and I’ll see you soon.’
He heard the dismissal in her voice and his mouth twisted into an odd kind of smile. ‘Oh, but it isn’t over yet, agape,’ he said grimly. ‘Because I am not going anywhere.’
‘Wh-what are you talking about?’
‘I shall sleep on the sofa tonight.’
She stared at him in alarm. ‘But you can’t!’
‘Can’t? Did you really imagine for one second that I would leave you here alone on your first night back at home—with two tiny babies? What if something happens to you? What if you should suddenly get sick?’
His protectiveness made her want to weep with a terrible kind of yearning—as she couldn’t help but imagine how it would feel if his words were inspired by love, rather than paternal duty. But that was selfish, wasn’t it? Her own fiery dreams of love with Xandros lay in ashes—but she must rise above all that and do the best for Alexius and Andreas. They both owed them that.
‘I’ll find you a duvet,’ she said awkwardly.
‘Thank you.’
Xandros could never remember spending such an uncomfortable night—not even when he used to sleep on the beach under the stars, on those balmy nights back in Greece, when the air had been so thick and so warm that it had been impossible to stay inside.
But back then he had been a teenager, his still-growing body adaptable to just about anything. In the intervening years he had become a man used to only the very finest things.
So should he be grateful for this opportunity to remind him of what life could be like for others less fortunate?
By morning, there was no question of gratitude. He had barely slept a wink—woken up by a dust-cart outside the window, which had seemed determined to give him the entire repertoire of its noisy engine, and then by the sound of rain beginning to thunder down.
For a while, he lay staring at his surroundings in a kind of dazed disbelief until he could hear the sound of Rebecca moving around and so he washed and dressed, and made coffee for them both. But the delicious smell of it did little to soothe his frayed nerves—serving only to remind him how this situation could not be allowed to continue.
He heard her footsteps and turned round as she came into the sitting room. She had tied her hair into two thick plaits, which hung down by the sides of her unmade-up face, and she was wearing a simple pair of linen trousers and a pale T-shirt. He thought how ridiculously young she looked, and oddly wholesome, too—and while wholesome was not a word he usually liked or associated with his women, perhaps it was the best to be hoped for under these particular circumstances.
‘How did you sleep?’ she asked, thinking how he seemed to dominate the room with his presence and how unsettling it had been to imagine him sleeping on the other side of the paper-thin walls.
‘How do you think I slept?’ he grated.
‘I did try to warn you—’
‘You are missing the point, Rebecca.’
He was not going to intimidate her in her own home. ‘And what point is that, Xandros?’
‘I told you yesterday—you can’t possibly live like this!’
‘Like what?’
He wanted to tell her not to play dumb with him—but instead he made a sweeping movement with his hand intended to draw attention to the minute size of the accommodation as his mouth flattened into a disapproving line.
As an architect, he had been schooled in aesthetics—but for Xandros the love of beauty had always been instinctive, rather than taught. He knew that taste was a purely subjective matter—but his early life in Greece had made him appreciate space and simplicity. Whereas this…
The clutter of her home was unbelievable—and the early-morning light picked it out with cruel clarity. It wasn’t just the baby stuff—it was all the candles and knick-knacks she had everywhere. Not only was every surface covered with something which to his eyes seemed completely unnecessary—but now there was a double buggy to contend with.
The last time he’d been here he had barely noticed the jostle for space—for he had only been interested in taking her to bed and then getting the hell out of there. But where she lived affected his children.
‘It’s a mess!’ he snapped.
‘Well, it’s my mess!’ she said defiantly.
‘Not necessarily.’
Rebecca stared at him—wondering how she could be so tired when she’d only just got up. They had told her at the hospital that she would get weary, but somehow she had thought that she’d be able to overcome any rogue fatigue through a sheer sense of will and determination. And she had been wrong. She had just fed, bathed and changed her two adorable little black-haired babies and now felt as if she had been wrung out to dry and then rained on all over again.
But Xandros’s words made her eyes narrow with suspicion—because she had come to recognise the menace which underpinned that particularly silky tone of his. Her fatigue suddenly receded into the background. ‘What do you mean?’ she questioned.
He paused to give his statement significance—as he had done at high-powered boardroom meetings all his life. ‘Just that what you choose to do in your life is entirely up to you, agape mou—but when it involves my children, then I surely have some say in the matter? Some influence as to how I think they should be brought up. And where.’
Rebecca swallowed, suddenly nervous as her mind skittered over all the possible replies she might make—knowing that it had to be the right reply when she was dealing with a man like Xandros. If she objected on the grounds that they weren’t together as a couple any more—mightn’t he think she was hinting that she’d like them to be? And yet—did he really have any rights to lay down the law about the twins’ upbringing? Soon he would be gone—back to America and the life he had there. A life which did not include her or the boys, and never would.
‘Do you really think it’s any of your business?’ she questioned.
He felt the sudden stirring of battle-lines being drawn and the adrenalin began to course through his veins. He had expected to feel nothing but impartial interest towards these two children who had sprung from his loins. He had told himself that it was simply curiosity which had compelled him to fly to Britain to see them. But he had been wrong.
During the three nights when she had been with them in hospital his thoughts had run riot in a way which was uncharacteristic—but the one thought which had overridden every other was that he wanted some part of his sons’ lives.
‘I plan to make it my business,’ he said.
Rebecca heard the unmistakable challenge in his voice and something inside her quailed because she didn’t doubt him, not for a moment. Imagine all the resources a man like Xandros could summon up to support any claim he might wish to make. It would need a strong and very rich woman to fight him—and, while she was working on the strength bit, she couldn’t just snap her fingers to put herself on an equal financial footing with the Greek billionaire.
Wouldn’t it be better to try to accommodate his wishes, rather than engaging in some kind of battle which he would be bound to win? He lived in America, for heavens’ sake! Contact with him would be minimal, if she played this carefully. So do it.
‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked cautiously.
He glared at the door which led through to the tiny kitchenette. ‘Well, for a start—this place is much too small.’
Rebecca nodded, knowing she’d sound both stubborn and ignorant if she disagreed—because he was right. ‘And?’
‘And I want you to move somewhere bigger.’
She sighed. She wasn’t stupid. It had taken her about three seconds of being home with the babies to realise that the place simply wouldn’t do—no matter how much she had tried to justify it in her head beforehand. But even if she touched the money which Xandros had been paying into her account—generous as it was—it still wouldn’t go anywhere near a decent deposit on a bigger home. ‘It isn’t as easy as that, Xandros. Property in London is astronomically expensive.’
‘I can afford it.’
‘Yes, I know you can.’ She swallowed. ‘And what if I said that I didn’t want to accept your—’
‘Charity?’ he intercepted sarcastically, his black eyes glittering with growing impatience. ‘But this isn’t about charity—or your misplaced feelings of pride. In fact, this has nothing to do with you, Rebecca—but my desire to ensure that my children don’t grow up with less space than your average battery hen has to contend with!’
She stared at him. ‘How dare you say something as hurtful as that?’
He shrugged, uncaring of her rage, or her hurt. ‘Because it’s the truth. You know it is.’ His mouth hardened with determination. ‘Whereas I am offering you the opportunity to move somewhere more suitable. You can live anywhere you like in this city. Anywhere at all.’
Pride or no pride, Rebecca wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt a shiver of real longing at what he was proposing. He was blazing into her life and offering to rescue them all—and how many people ever got this kind of Cinderella chance to move from scullery to palace in one leap? But at what price?
She lifted her head to meet his gaze full on. ‘And what if I say no?’
His expression was hard and uncompromising. Would she really dare to try to oppose his wishes? Did she know what kind of an adversary she would be taking on? ‘I wouldn’t advise saying no,’ he warned softly.
His stony black gaze bored into her and, for possibly the first time, Rebecca realised what she was up against. Yes, he was enormously rich and that kind of wealth could buy you untold power, but with Xandros it was something much more than wealth.
She saw the steely determination to get exactly what he wanted—fired by some primitive urge to fight for the very best for his children. And could she really condemn him for having their best interests at heart? Could she? Would two increasingly mobile and lively little boys thank her for turning down the offer of a lifetime, simply because their father didn’t love her? Pride was a terrible reason for denying her sons what was rightfully theirs.
‘If … if I did agree—you mean I can choose where to live?’ she questioned uncertainly.
Xandros turned away to look out of the window—as if checking to see whether the rain had stopped, but in reality to hide his small smile of triumph, knowing that he had won.
‘Of course you can choose,’ he murmured.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_252a526e-80cf-5cae-8209-0321f42b8ed7)
‘JUST what kind of house do you like, Rebecca?’ Xandros demanded impatiently one morning as he stood in her sitting room, which felt like a sauna and looked like a laundry—there were so many Babygros steaming dry on the radiator. Who would have thought that at this time in his life he would find himself sleeping on a woman’s sofa in such a confined space? Moodily, he stared at all the specifications she had been shown and which she had rejected. ‘Anything specific?’
Rebecca forced herself to concentrate on house details, and not on the moody expression on his dark, rugged face. Choosing a place to live when there were no financial limitations actually made a decision harder, she had discovered. How much easier it would have been to have ruled out most of the market because it was non-affordable. Too much choice, she had come to realise, actually provided its own kind of headache. But anything would be better than having Xandros camped and cramped on her sofa—making her feel the kind of things she definitely knew she shouldn’t be feeling.
‘Well, I don’t want to live in one of those bleak-looking penthouses which resemble some kind of laboratory, that’s for sure.’
Xandros gave a short laugh, wondering what his award-winning colleague who’d designed it would think of her dismissive attitude. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me what you consider important?’ He forced himself to treat her as if she were one of his clients. ‘If you were given an ideal home—what one thing would it have to make it special?’
That was easy. Well, if you discounted the fairy tale … what had she missed most since moving to the capital? ‘A garden,’ she said instantly. ‘That’s all.’
‘That’s all?’ Xandros gave a wry smile. Ironically, what she wanted was more elusive than any award-winning development. Was she being disingenuous or just genuinely innocent of the market? ‘Garden space in London is like gold-dust.’ He nodded. ‘But I know some people I can get onto it. Let me see to that.’
Rebecca pushed her fingers back through her untidy hair, resenting the way he could just snap his fingers and have a whole assortment of people to do all the running for him—but a feeling which was bigger than resentment was gnawing away at her.
Didn’t he realise that all this wasn’t easy? Going through all the motions of choosing a brand-new home, but without all the normal stuff that most new mothers might expect. Like the shared excitement of a couple in love. All she had was Xandros talking about putting his people onto it, in that cold and uncaring manner. Pretty much the same way that he’d dealt with everything else. ‘Fantastic,’ she said, with faint sarcasm.
His eyes narrowed—her attitude like a slap in the face to his macho Greek pride—and he felt the slow burn of anger, and something else too. Something which had been building inside him no matter how much he had tried to tell himself that it was no longer appropriate. ‘Such a truculent approach, agape,’ he murmured. ‘I thought you might at least be a little grateful.’
‘Did you?’ How many more expectations of her would he have? She had let him name the babies and sleep on her sofa and now she was letting him change the very fabric of her life. Where the hell was this all going to end? Rebecca glanced over at him, steeling herself against the sight of him leaning against the window sill—black denim encasing the muscular thrust of his thighs and a dark cashmere sweater clinging lovingly to the hard lines of his torso.
His black hair was ruffled, the ebony eyes were glittering with life and vitality and there was the dark hint of shadow around the strong jaw. This was Xandros at his most casual and sexy—and, heaven help her, but she wanted him. Was it normal for a woman to feel the slow, heavy ache of desire when she’d only recently given birth? Or was that just because he was Xandros? Because she had loved him and tasted the pleasures of his body so many times that maybe he’d spoilt her for any other man.
Gazing at the soft, olive gleam of his skin and remembering what it felt like to have it wrapped around her naked body, it was easy to forget all their turbulent history—even easier to forget that he was only here because he had to be. He’s only here because of the babies, she reminded herself painfully. She told herself that it shouldn’t hurt, but it did, of course it did—and she found herself wanting to hurt him back. To show him that she wasn’t going to act like a starving puppy who was just grateful for any old scrap he happened to throw in her direction.
‘And does my lack of gratitude rile you, Xandros? Would you like me to throw myself slavishly at your feet? Is that what you’d like?’
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/sharon-kendrick/satisfaction-the-greek-tycoon-s-baby-bargain/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Sharon Kendrick
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: When playboy Alexandros Pavlidis discovers that Rebecca is pregnant with his twins, his first instinct is to pay her off. But Xandros won’t be truly satisfied until Rebecca agrees to marriage – on his terms! Billionaire Kyros Pavlidis wants a warm and willing woman in his bed every night – a wife to satisfy all his needs and Alice is just the woman for the job! Estranged from his wife, billionaire Alexei Christou is angered by Victoria’s sudden demand for a divorce. He agrees to her terms but it will come at a price – his satisfaction! He means to bed his bride again. . .