A shudder shifted through her at the whole failed debacle of dating, but that didn’t explain why now, so close to Santos Anastakos, she felt heat building inside her blood, warming her from the inside out.
The sooner she could get this over and done with, the better. She had to plead Cameron’s case and then leave—she never had to see Santos again after that.
She geared herself up to start speaking, to say what she’d come to say, but Santos spoke first, his eyes roaming her face quite freely, his gaze curious now, speculative in a way that did nothing to help her overheating blood.
‘How old are you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
His expression shifted; for a moment she saw scepticism there, perhaps even disapproval. ‘You look too young to be a teacher.’
She ran her finger around the edge of the Scotch glass, feeling the indents in its shape. ‘I’ve been at Elesmore for a little over three years.’
She brushed aside his disbelief. It wasn’t necessary to tell him that she’d graduated with her first degree—physics—at the age of eleven, completed her second degree by thirteen and a postgraduate doctorate by fifteen, before doing an about-turn and deciding she wanted to become a teacher. He didn’t need to know that she’d graduated from her education degree at sixteen and had spent a few years travelling and consulting for various space agencies before finally accepting a position in a small local comprehensive on the basis they wouldn’t advertise who she was.
Anonymity and a lack of pressure had been her goal—normality after a lifetime of being pushed through one hoop to another.
‘Which makes you...?’ he prompted, taking another sip of his Scotch. His throat shifted as he swallowed and she found her gaze focussed on his skin there, covered by a hint of stubble, dark and thick. It would feel bristly if she reached up and ran her fingers across it.
She startled at the thought and wrenched her eyes to the view of the stables just visible in the mirror.
‘My age isn’t relevant,’ she murmured, her fingers tightly gripping the Scotch glass. She was nervous! Amelia hadn’t expected that but sitting in this man’s office now, surrounded by proof of his business acumen and success, it was impossible not to recognise how dynamic and powerful he was—imposingly so. That was why she felt as though a kaleidoscope of butterflies had been let loose in her belly.
‘Fine, then, let’s discuss what is relevant,’ he responded with a hint of something in his voice—something cold and unwelcoming, as though she were wasting his time and he wanted her gone.
‘Mr Larcombe told me you’re planning to pull Cameron out of Elesmore. That not only are you looking to remove him from the school he’s been at since he was three years old, you’re also intending to move him to Greece once the term ends.’
Silence fell, a silence that was thick and unpleasant, but Amelia resolutely didn’t interrupt it, and several beats passed, each heavy with the words she’d flung at him; each filled with nothing but the sound of her thudding heart.
‘And...?’ The word was drawled by his lips, lips that were wide and chiselled, harsh and compelling; lips that drew her attention far more than she was comfortable with.
‘And? Is it true?’
‘Do you imagine the school headmaster lied to you?’ His question was teasing, gently sarcastic in nature. It wasn’t intended to be rude, she thought, but that didn’t stop it from having an immediate effect on her.
Heat began to bloom in her cheeks. She wasn’t used to being treated like an imbecile. She glared at him forcefully, her expression clearly showing how unimpressed she was, but she forced a brittle smile into place, remembering the old adage that you caught more bees with honey. ‘I hoped he’d made a mistake somehow.’
‘He didn’t.’ Santos shifted a little, inadvertently brushing her knee with his. It was like being jolted with a thousand volts of electricity. She stared at him in surprise, a reaction she was nowhere near experienced enough to conceal, and saw speculation move over his features. She blinked her eyes closed, before turning them towards the view once more, but it wasn’t quite enough. He’d seen her reaction and was now wondering at the reason for it.
Great.
She was literally the opposite of the sophisticated beauty in the room down the hallway. Where Maria was stunning and expensive-looking, Amelia felt dowdy, dull and quite utterly out of her depth even having a conversation with a man like this. For goodness’ sake, his knee had touched her knee and she was permitting that to turn her stomach into a tangle of knots! Preposterous.
‘When the school year finishes, Cameron will move to Agrios Nisi with me.’ He spoke as though he hadn’t even realised they’d touched—his bloodstream wasn’t running with the force of a thousand wild stallions.
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s where I live. And I am apparently his father.’
She ignored the last remark. ‘But what is there for him on Agrios Nisi?’ The words were delivered with uncharacteristic fire, but Amelia couldn’t help it. Ever since the headmaster had relayed the plans to Amelia, her head had been swimming with disapproval, and her heart with a sense of panic and pain. It wasn’t right to drag Cameron away from everything and everyone he knew. The little boy deserved better than that, especially now. She knew, better than anyone, what it was like to be sent from pillar to post—and by your parents!
‘Apart from miles of pristine coastline and a chance to have the kind of childhood any boy would kill for?’
A small noise of ridicule escaped her lips before she could stop it. ‘What he needs, Mr Anastakos, is to be here—especially now.’ She drew in a breath, trying to calm her racing heart and pounding pulse without much success. ‘He’s lost so much already this year. To take him away from the friends who adore him—and the faculty who also adore him,’ she finished ineptly, her throat thick with the pain of how much Cameron had come to mean to her, ‘Will be to inflict further trauma on a little boy who’s already suffered considerably. I understand things weren’t necessarily amicable between you and Cynthia but that hardly seems like a reason to punish Cameron. He deserves you to act in his best interests and keeping him here, in England, at Elesmore, is the very least you can do.’
‘My relationship with Cameron’s mother is none of your business.’
Amelia’s eyes narrowed. ‘No, but how you treat Cameron is, very much so.’
‘As for Cynthia,’ he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘It was neither amicable or otherwise. The truth of the mater is, we barely knew each other.’
Amelia blinked at this sterile description of the woman with whom he’d made a child and shook her head. ‘Be that as it may, you clearly knew each other well enough to become parents, and now you’re all Cameron has left. He deserves more than this.’
The silence that fell now was punctuated only by the sound of her own breathing. Santos stared at her from eyes that were almost oceanic in colour, his tanned skin slightly flushed along the hard ridges of his cheekbones. It was a face prone to sternness anyway, all symmetrical and sharp, as though a sculptor had been obliged to turn granite into humanity with only a blade as a tool, leaving no room for nuance and undulation, only harsh edges and finality. But now, like this? There was such obvious anger and rejection on his face that Amelia almost regretted coming here.
Almost, but not quite.
Cameron deserved to have someone fight on his behalf. At six, he was too young to realise how the adults in his life had failed him, but Amelia recognised the behaviours and, while she wouldn’t ordinarily think of interfering, this was different. Cameron was different.
She refused to fail him.
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU THINK I’M wrong to take him away?’ Santos straightened, drawing himself to his full six-and-a-half feet, looking down on the slight schoolteacher with a sense of rumbling fury. It wasn’t entirely h
er fault. He’d carried this anger for weeks now—since learning that a woman he’d spent two nights with seven years ago had borne him a child and failed to mention even a hint of the boy’s existence. He’d been denied any chance to know his own son, any chance to prepare for this, until Cynthia had died and both Cameron and Santos had been thrust well and truly into the deep end.
‘Yes.’ Her eyes didn’t quite meet his. It was a frustrating habit she’d shown ever since he’d drawn the door inward to reveal her on the doorstep. One minute she was the personification of timidity and the next she was burning with passion and wild accusations, practically threatening to call child welfare, or whomever looked after inadequate parents in this country.
At least she wasn’t attempting to obfuscate now. ‘And you think you have any right coming here to lecture me about the choices I make for my son?’
Her eyes glanced in his direction, landing briefly on his squared jaw before skittering back to the window. His fingers tingled with an urge to reach for her chin and pull it towards him, to draw her stubborn, runaway gaze to his even when she refused to hold it.
‘When they’re so obviously contrary to his best interests? Yes, sir, I do.’
A muscle ticked at the base of his jaw; he felt it tapping against his flesh and sought to control his emotions before he spoke. ‘He is my son. I can do whatever the hell I’d like.’
‘Even if that’s going to hurt him?’ She responded with fierceness now and something leaped inside his chest, interest and curiosity combined in one arrow of emotion.
‘His mother’s death hurt him,’ Santos inserted quietly, the words devoid of emotion. ‘His mother’s choice to keep him a secret from me hurt him—and me—in untold ways. I am only doing what I would have insisted on six years ago, if Cynthia had bothered to inform me of her pregnancy.’
‘I’m not interested in that,’ the teacher responded, compressing her lips with a primness he found strangely tantalising. If it was true, she was unlike just about anyone in his life had been since Cameron’s existence had been revealed. Everyone wanted to know about his secret child. ‘However,’ she conceded after a moment, ‘I appreciate his pain isn’t of your causing.’
‘That’s generous of you.’ He took another sip of his Scotch and placed the cup on the edge of his desk, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at her distractedly.
‘Yet.’
She was the definition of dull. So very English, just like Cynthia had been, with that clipped accent and cool disposition. But, where Cynthia had been strikingly attractive and flirtatious, Amelia Ashford looked as though she’d rather be dragged over hot coals than spend another minute in his office. Except...
Yes, except for when their knees had brushed. She’d startled and made a soft noise, almost a moan, her lips parting and her eyes showing surprise. Was it possible that this woman was far less icy than her surface demeanour might suggest?
‘If things had been different, perhaps you would have raised him in Greece, but there’s no sense losing ourselves in the hypothetical. Cameron is English. He’s lived here all his life, never even travelling abroad. His whole world has changed so much since the accident. He was very close to Cynthia; she adored him and every day without her is a struggle for him.’ Emotion coloured the last sentence, the threat of tears obvious in her softly voiced observation. ‘Perhaps in time, when the shock has lessened and he knows you better, uprooting him wouldn’t be such a monumental ask. But right now? I honestly think you’ll worsen his grief tenfold. It’s not fair, Mr Anastakos.’
‘Fair?’ He couldn’t help himself. Despite the fact he could see the logic in what she was saying, disbelief fired through him, making him want to contradict her. ‘You think having a small child dropped on my lap—a child I had no earthly idea existed six weeks ago—and expecting to know what is right or wrong for him is fair?’
‘No,’ she conceded quietly. ‘Nothing about this situation is fair but you’re the only one who can make a difference for Cameron. Right now, he needs all of us to pull together and help him. You can’t take him away from everything he knows—everyone who knows him. He deserves better than that.’
‘My son is an Anastakos. We have lived and died on Agrios Nisi for generations and he will be no different.’
Fire shifted through her eyes once more. Wide and brown, they landed on him with a strength that surprised him. ‘Perhaps, but all I’m asking is that you give him time. What harm could come from leaving things as they are for another year? Let him take some solace from the school friends he’s known since nursery, from the parents of his friends who know and adore him, from the teachers who—’
‘Yes, care for him,’ Santos interrupted, wondering why her impassioned plea was so irritating to him. ‘You said that.’ He didn’t move his body by a degree, staying exactly as he was, his gaze heavy on her face. ‘You care for my son?’
A hint of colour shifted beneath her olive complexion. ‘I care for all my pupils.’
‘And so you do this often, then? Go into their houses and accuse their parents of being selfish and wrong?’
Her cheeks darkened in colour as she stood, her throat moving as she swallowed convulsively. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you in some way.’ The words were haughty. ‘I would never forgive myself if I didn’t ask you to reconsider. Cameron deserves that of me.’
She stood directly opposite him, toe to toe, though she was at least a foot shorter, so her head had to tilt in order for her eyes to meet his. ‘He deserves more than this.’
Her words rang with accusation, making a mockery of her earlier apology, and something snaked through him, something born of masculine pride and ancient, primaeval impulses.
Her judgement was tightening around his chest and he felt a desire to unsettle her easy blame, to rail at her accusation and make her understand that this last month and a half had been a type of hell on earth for Santos as well. Having a child? It was something he’d always, always sworn he wouldn’t do—a mistake he had never intended to replicate. He had a half-brother who could carry on the family name. Santos was free to remain single and alone, just the way he liked it. Having Cameron foisted upon him out of the blue—the product of a two-night affair with a woman he’d long since almost forgotten about—was like a stick of dynamite exploding in his face.
‘Tell me, Amelia Ashford.’ He couldn’t help the mockery that curled through her name. ‘What makes you an authority on this? Do you have children?’
Her cheeks were now the colour of the sky beyond the window, a vibrant peach, her eyes darker than the sun-ripened olives that grew wild over the southern side of Agrios Nisi.
‘No.’ She opened her mouth, no doubt to add further clarity to this, but Santos wasn’t interested. He pressed a finger to her lips, intending only to silence her, but the moment his flesh connected with her mouth something tightened deep in his abdomen, hardening in his groin, insisting on being acknowledged.
Her eyes were saucer-wide, her lips parting on what he presumed to be an involuntary sigh. Her breath was warm as it wrapped around his finger, making it a temptation that was almost impossible to ignore. He wanted to sink his fingertip into her mouth, to see her full, pink lips wrap around it while those huge eyes of hers bored into his.
Christos, what was happening? She was hardly his type and, more than that, she’d arrived in his home purely with the intention of berating and insulting him. Perhaps that was it—the challenge in her words made him want to answer in a completely different way, to pull her body to his and drop his mouth, claiming hers, dominating her and answering her questions and accusations all at once...
‘No?’ He moved his finger, but didn’t drop it away completely. Instead, he drew it sideways, along her cheek, before padding his thumb over her lower lip, cupping the side of her face in his palm and holding her beneath him, forcing her eyes to meet his after all.
>
She swallowed hard; he felt the movement of her jaw. ‘I don’t have children. But I do know Cameron.’
The words were husky and thick, desire making them more stilted than her previous verbal lashings.
His lips twisted in silent acknowledgement of that; he was no longer interested in discussing his surprise love child with this woman. He moved his body forward almost imperceptibly, closing the small distance between them just sufficiently to feel the softness of her surprisingly generous breasts against his chest.
‘I—’
‘Yes, Amelia?’ What the hell was he doing? Playing with fire, that was what. She was his son’s teacher and she’d come to him with perfectly legitimate concerns. While Santos Anastakos might have earned himself the moniker of billionaire playboy in the tabloids and on gossip blogs, he always knew where to draw the line. He’d never once become involved with a member of his staff, nor had he become involved in affairs—he didn’t do messy, complicated, emotional. This woman didn’t exactly work for him but nor was this straightforward. She’d come to him with concerns about his son and he was turning that into a sensual game of cat and mouse, enjoying the way she was sparring with him even when he resented the hell out of her accusations. This wasn’t a date; it wasn’t just a random encounter in a hotel bar. She was his child’s schoolteacher, so why was he suddenly overcome with an urge to make love to her, right here and now?
Hell, he had Maria waiting for him in the other room, and there was very little doubt in Santos’s mind as to how she wanted their evening together to end. If he wanted sex, then it was there at his disposal, but this wasn’t about the slaking of a physical need. There was something about this particular woman that was drawing him in, making him want her with an urgency he hadn’t felt in a very long time, if ever.
Hired by the Impossible Greek Page 2
