Pregnant by the Greek Tycoon (4 page)

BOOK: Pregnant by the Greek Tycoon
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She lay passively in his arms as he carried her across the sand dunes to where his car was parked in a quiet lane. The place was totally deserted as he dumped her in the front seat.

‘Are you kidnapping me?’ There was no alarm in her voice, just a lazy curiosity.

‘No, I’m warming you up,’ he said, switching on the engine and turning up the heater full blast.

‘Maybe I should take off my wet things…?’

The only wet thing she was wearing was a black swimsuit with a zip up the front. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t,’ he said, trying hard not to think about that strategically placed zip.
One tug…

‘I don’t think I should have got in a car with a stranger,’ she observed absently as he draped a jacket that had been in the back seat over her shoulders.

‘You didn’t get in. I put you in.’

‘So you did. I’m warmer.’ She leaned back in the deeply upholstered seat with a sigh. ‘You know, I don’t think I’m quite myself,’ she confided.

That makes two of us. ‘You nearly drowned.’

Her eyes, which had been closing, suddenly flickered open. Tawny eyes scanned his face. ‘You kissed me.’ She pressed a hand to her soft lips. ‘I liked it.’

Beside her he didn’t dare move; he didn’t trust himself to speak. The ferocious tension in his body was so extreme that he remembered the bones in his face aching.

‘I noticed,’ he admitted.

She lifted a hand and ran a finger down his lean cheek. ‘Are you going to do it again?’

‘You’re in shock.’

‘I’m something, but not that. I think you saved my life. How can I repay you?’

He caught hold of her wrist and dragged her hand from his face. ‘Well, you can cut that out, for a start.’

She flinched visibly at the cutting response. After a second’s hurt incomprehension, a tide of mortified colour washed over her face.


Theos!
Don’t look at me like that,’ he pleaded throatily.

She bit her lip and fixed her eyes on her hands, which lay clenched in her lap.

‘I’m s…sorry,’ she stuttered. ‘I really don’t know what came over me.’

‘The same thing that came over me. Where do you live? I’ll take you home.’ And after that he was going to drive away in the opposite direction.

He didn’t do virgins.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘CAN we have the ball back, mister?’

The request dragged Angolos back from a time he mostly succeeded in blanking from his mind.

To his way of thinking, no useful purpose could be served from preserving the memory of a time when he had allowed himself to be humiliated and deceived, except possibly to learn a lesson. He would never trust a woman again.

Had it amused Georgette to see him oblivious to her affair? Had she laughed with her lover as they had planned to pass the child off as his…?

A muscle clenched in Angolos’s lean cheek as he pulled a hand across his brow to wipe off the moisture that clung to his tanned skin. It had started raining and he hadn’t noticed; neither had he noticed until now that he was within a hundred yards of the gate that led to the garden of the Kemp house, a slightly battered timber cottage with a tin roof. Bending, he picked up the ball that lay at his feet and threw it back to the family playing a game of beach cricket.

‘Good throw,’ somebody acknowledged cheerily before they returned to their game.

Angolos headed for the gate. It creaked on the rusty hinges as he pushed it open. His lips curled in distaste as his hand rested on the peeling paintwork. At one time he had found the shabby chic of the Kemp home, so totally unlike what he was accustomed to, charming. Now he just found it, well…shabby.

The family he had never found charming and the feeling was mutual. Her relatives had come across as a bunch of xenophobic idiots who had been appalled at the idea of one of their number marrying a foreigner. Later, when Georgette had confided that her mother had run off with a Greek waiter, her family’s attitude had been more understandable.

His critical glance skimmed the semi-screened area. The cottage and garden looked the same as he remembered; the only thing that hadn’t been here four years ago was the clutter of children’s toys. Angolos’s dark eyes were drawn against his will to the evidence of childish occupation…the tricycle, the plastic toy cars, the bucket of shells gathered from the beach.

His classical profile tautened as he averted his gaze and strode purposefully to the door. There was absolutely no point prolonging this.

The door was opened before he had an opportunity to announce his arrival. His raised hand fell to his side as he looked at the woman framed in the open doorway. She was, he judged, somewhere in her mid-fifties, her grey-streaked dark hair was cut in a short modern crop, she had intelligent blue eyes and an interesting rather than attractive face.

She was a stranger to Angolos.

‘Hello, I’m—’

‘Good gracious, you’re Nicky’s father.’

Angolos was so surprised by her automatic assumption that his response was uncharacteristically unguarded. ‘No, I’m not anyone’s father,’ he ejaculated bitterly.

‘Nonsense, of course you are,’ she dismissed, dealing him an amused look.

Angolos was taken aback by this response. ‘I will not argue the point with you.’

The woman scanned his face, then threw back her head and laughed, not intimidated by the hauteur in his manner.

Angolos liked that.

In his position there were too many people ready to say what he wanted to hear. They had been saying what he wanted to hear since the day he’d stepped into his dead father’s shoes at the age of twenty-two. He valued people who could look him in the eyes and say, ‘You’re wrong.’

‘Well, that would be rather pointless, wouldn’t it?’

‘It would?’

‘Most definitely,’ came the robust response. ‘You want to see Nicky…of course you do,’ she added before he had an opportunity to respond. ‘May I be frank?’

‘Can I stop you?’ he wondered.

The dry intonation brought a fleeting smile to the woman’s lips. ‘This puts me in an awkward position…’ she confided. ‘I have no idea what agreement you have…visiting rights and so forth? Actually I didn’t think you saw him at all.’ She studied the tall man’s face. ‘I can see you don’t want to discuss your personal business with a nosy old woman.’

‘I can assure you I have not come to kidnap the boy.’

‘I’m glad to hear it, but under the circumstances it might be better if you came back when Georgie is home.’

‘But the child is here?’ Angolos probed and saw the older woman’s expression become guarded. ‘The thing is, Mrs…?’

‘My name is Ruth Simmons.
Miss.

‘Miss Simmons, I’m rather pushed for time.’

The woman eyed him with patent disapproval. ‘After all these years?’

Angolos supposed he ought to have expected this. Georgette had obviously decided to paint herself as the injured party and him as the unnatural father. His broad shoulders lifted in an infinitesimal shrug. Did she plan to poison this child’s mind in a similar manner…poor kid?

‘When do you expect Georgette to return?’

Ruth Simmons looked uncertainly at the remote and quite sensationally handsome face of Nicky’s father and her brow puckered.

‘I really couldn’t say.’ Was this the sort of man who would turn his back on his own child? He didn’t seem the type…Of course, you could never tell, but the Greeks she had met were very family orientated.

‘Couldn’t or won’t…?’ He lifted one long-fingered hand in an unconsciously elegant gesture. ‘No matter.’ He consulted his watch. ‘I will return at a more convenient moment.’ And then again maybe I won’t… After all, the entire exercise was totally pointless. Better to get in his car and drive back to London.

The tall man’s mechanical smile did not reach his eyes; Ruth noticed all the same that it was effortlessly charming. In the flesh this man was even more startlingly good-looking. If I were twenty years younger…? The self-mocking smile that curved her lips vanished as a loud bang followed by an even louder wail emerged from the living room.

‘What now?’ she cried, hurrying inside.

Angolos stepped through the open door.

A few moments later, with the crying child cradled in her arms, Ruth viewed the damage. It could have been worse. Still, it was a pity that her friend was fond of the hideous ornate Victorian bust that was now lying in fragments on the floor. The overturned chair was a clue as to how the three-year-old had managed to reach the shelf where it had been displayed.

‘Did you fall, Nicky?’ Her matter-of-fact tone and manner had a soothing effect upon the crying child, who stopped to catch his breath. ‘Poor you,’ she said, rubbing the obvious bruise that was developing on the child’s forehead. ‘Did you hurt yourself anywhere else, sweetheart?’

Nicky shook his head. ‘Granny will be cross…’

‘No, I’m sure she won’t.’

‘She will,’ the child, whose tears had subsided, retorted positively. ‘Who are you?’ he asked, poking a chubby hand in the direction of the stranger.

‘Gracious!’ Ruth exclaimed, realising for the first time that the tall Greek had followed her into the room. He was standing there frozen. The only flicker of movement in his body was supplied by his stunning eyes, which were trained on the child in her arms.

Without replying, he continued to draw air into his lungs through clenched teeth, like a man who had forgotten how to breathe. As he squatted, bringing his face level with the toddler, she saw that his gloriously golden skin had acquired a greyish tinge. She saw his lips move; nothing came out.

‘Gracious!’ she added once more and with feeling. The physical similarity between father and son was truly startling… Nicky began to cry again.

‘Nicky…your name is Nicky?’ The tearful boy nodded his head.

Georgie walked in through the open door weighed down by supermarket carrier bags filled with groceries. A car, she reflected wistfully, would make life a lot easier, but her budget didn’t run to such luxuries.

‘Big boys don’t cry, Nicky.’

She froze, the blood draining from her face. It was a voice Georgie would never,
could
never, forget.

It was a voice she heard in her dreams and her nightmares.

She stood there oblivious to the eggs that had broken when she’d dropped her bags and were now running stickily over the carpet.

This isn’t happening.

Her first instinct was to run as fast and as far away as possible. She subdued her selfish reflex…she couldn’t run and leave Nicky. Anyway, running would have been futile if Angolos wanted her. A shudder slid down her spine. When Angolos wanted something he was totally focused and implacable.

Only Angolos didn’t want her; he had made that perfectly clear.

Her heart was hammering in her chest and her feet felt as though they had lead weights attached as she moved towards the living-room door. Her head was spinning but one question amongst the many that chased one another around in her mind was uppermost.

Why had Angolos turned up now?

‘I’m not a big boy. I’m lit…ul. Go away!’

Georgie heard the childish treble and her shoulders straightened. Leave him alone, she wanted to yell as she rushed impetuously forward.

She might prefer to walk into a lion’s den than voluntarily enter a room that held her husband, but, as she had learnt within two seconds of his birth, for Nicky she would do the unthinkable. Her own needs and desires would always be secondary to her son’s best interests…it was being a mother.

As she stepped through the door she almost collided with Ruth, who had offered to look after Nicky while she caught the last post and picked up some groceries and while her mother was staying with Robert. The woman barely seemed to register her presence.

Georgie’s eyes moved past her and gasped. Having enough volts to light up a county pass through her body could not have felt more shocking than looking at father and son.

‘Oh, my!’ she whispered.
His hair still curled on his neck the same way.

She had never denied to herself the startling resemblance between Nicky and his father but now seeing them side by side it was impossible for anyone to ignore. The sight of the long, lean figure balanced on his heels in front of the child wiped every thought from her head… She felt desire clutch low in her belly.

She grimaced in self-disgust. It appalled her and, yes,
scared
her that, even after all this time and everything he had done to her, she still only had to look at him to be reduced to a screaming mass of hormones.

Georgie took a deep sustaining breath and lifted her chin. ‘Come here, Nicky,’ she said quietly.

She was aware that Angolos’s attention had slewed towards her. The hand she stretched towards her son had a perceptible tremor, but she studiously ignored him and kept her eyes trained on Nicky’s tear-stained face.

It was only a moment before the child responded, but during that moment she had to fight back the impulse that urged her to rush over and physically tear him away from the man whose hands lay on his shoulders. Her clenched hands relaxed as Nicky aimed himself at her like a small but determined heat-seeking missile.

Angolos rose to his feet in time to see Georgie bend forward, her softly waving hair spilling across her face. She pushed the silky hank impatiently behind her ear.

‘What have you been doing, darling?’ Her attention on the child, Georgie didn’t see the spasm of something close to pain that contorted her estranged husband’s dark, autocratic features as he watched them.

‘He had a slight accident. It was my fault…I only left him for a moment,’ Ruth interjected.

‘With Nicky a moment is all it takes,’ Georgie responded as she hugged her son to her. ‘Isn’t it, champ?’ she said, brushing the curly dark hair from his brow as she straightened up with the child’s body pressed close to her own. She saw the bruise and sighed. ‘In the wars, I see.’

She knew that pretending Angolos wasn’t there wasn’t exactly a long-term solution to her present predicament, but it was the only one she could think of. Angolos, all six feet four of him, was there barely a metre away from her, looking even more devastatingly attractive than she remembered… Her brain just refused to deal with the reality of the situation.

The muscles in her face ached as she forced a tense smile. ‘Now, why don’t you go with Auntie Ruth?’ She caught the eye of the older woman, who gave an understanding grimace.

‘I’m really sorry about this, Georgie.’ Her soft apology was accompanied by a sideways look towards the tall man who was silently watching.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Georgie said, handing over her burden. ‘This will only take a minute,’ she promised, staying one step ahead of her rising panic by sheer force of will alone.

A silent sigh of relief passed through her body as they left the room.

‘Do you always reward him for misbehaving?’ Angolos’s eyes were flat and icy as they scanned her face.

Georgie waited until she judged the child was out of earshot before responding and opened her eyes. ‘What would you do—beat him?’

Her sneering suggestion made his face tauten with anger. ‘Children need to know what the boundaries are. It makes them feel secure.’

‘Hearing you throw around terms like security in connection with Nicky…’ She swallowed back the anger that made her want to scream at him and hammer her fists against his chest. Her voice dropped to a low, scornful whisper. ‘You lost any right you might have had to criticise the way I bring up
my
child when you effectively disowned him.’

Angolos’s head reared as though she had struck him. ‘I would never knowingly disown my son.’ His low, uneven voice throbbed with sincerity. His mesmeric eyes locked onto hers.

‘I stand corrected. You
accidentally
disowned him, which makes it all right, then.’ She went to the door and yanked it open. ‘You were just passing, I suppose, so feel free to carry on doing just that.’

‘You want me to leave?’

Georgie, her expression stony, fixed her eyes on the wall directly ahead. ‘The only thing I want more is for you to be kidnapped by aliens, but I’m realistic, I’ll settle for the former.’

He dragged his long fingers through his hair. The sheer familiarity of the gesture made her ache.

‘We need to talk.’

She turned her head; he was incredible…really incredible! Did he really think she was going to let him waltz in here and mess up her life for a second time?

BOOK: Pregnant by the Greek Tycoon
2.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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