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?’
He heard the note of defiance in her voice and something like victory began to bubble in his veins. At last! It was the taunt he had wanted, the one which at some deep level of his subconscious he’d been praying for. The casting aside of the polite niceties. The green light to do what he most wanted to do.
Like some dark panther, he moved silently towards her, seeing her violet eyes darken and her rose-petal lips part. ‘What do you think I’d like you to do, agape?’
She wasn’t doing much in the way of thinking, not when standing so close that she could detect that lemony, masculine scent of his—and her senses had automatically begun to silently scream their appreciation and their hunger. Too late she saw the danger of his nearness and the spell it cast over her. And he wielded that danger like a weapon, she realised—he was perfectly aware of his own power. Yet crazily, she didn’t resent it—for wasn’t this the first indication that he still found her desirable? And wasn’t that reassuring, even if it was inappropriate? ‘X-Xandros?’ she breathed. ‘Wh-what is this all about?’
‘Oh, Rebecca. Isn’t it a waste of time to ask a question to which you already know the answer?’ he mocked as he pulled her, soft and unresisting, into his arms.
‘Don’t—’
‘Don’t what, agape? Don’t do what your eyes are begging me to do, even if your mind isn’t quite sure you should be letting me?’
His perception was almost as unsettling as his proximity. His warm breath stirred the tiny hairs on her neck as he whispered against it and Rebecca felt herself begin to shiver—hating the accuracy of his words and hating the sudden clamouring need of her body. His hands were holding her firmly by the waist and it seemed like a lifetime since he had touched her like this.
‘Xandros—’
‘What?’
‘Stop it.’
‘But you don’t want me to. Do you?’ The pad of his thumb began to trace a line over the silken surface of her neck and he felt her shiver beneath his touch. ‘Mmm. You smell delicious and you feel delicious.’
‘I smell of baby-milk.’
‘I know you do. And that’s delicious. You’re delicious.’
Was she? Really? Rebecca felt her heart-rate soar. He murmured as if it did not bother him that her body was still thick after having given birth to his children. As if he didn’t care that she hadn’t washed her hair for two days. And his fingers were moving down to touch the softness of her belly with shocking intimacy, making her yearn to have him drift them downwards and bring her to such quick and effortless pleasure, as he had done so many times in the past. She could feel the honeyed rush of desire and the urgent acceleration of her heart. ‘Xandros!’ she breathed.
‘Do you like that?’
She mocked him back with his own words. ‘Isn’t it a waste of time to ask a question to which you already know the answer?’
He laughed, but it was a laugh edged with anger and frustration and other stuff, too—stuff that he did not want to hold up for analysis. ‘Then let’s stop asking questions and let me kiss you instead.’ Turning her face upwards, he stared down at her wide-eyed expression before he brought his lips down onto hers. She tasted of toothpaste and of coffee and she smelt of baby and he didn’t think he had ever known a more unexpectedly powerful aphrodisiac. Because he had never tasted a woman in these circumstances before? Yes, that had to be it.
‘Rebecca,’ he groaned, against her lips. ‘Oh, Rebecca.’
‘Xandros,’ she whispered back, as if they had just been introduced. Her arms clung to his broad shoulders like a tenacious vine and she could feel her body softening and responding—the ache inside her building by the instant.
It was the sweetest kiss she could ever remember—but maybe that was because it had been so long since he had kissed her. Or perhaps because the feminine side of her nature yearned for the perfect celebration to seal the birth of their children. She opened her lips to his and stifled a little moan as she lost herself in the sheer pleasure of it.
He held back as he grazed his mouth against hers as if he were discovering it through touch alone. ‘I want to take you to bed,’ he said unsteadily. ‘But perhaps it is too soon.’
She knew that; she wanted it too. Yet this could not be right, could it? Not on so many levels which had nothing to do with the fact that she had only recently given birth. Warning bells rang loud in her head. Their relationship was over—and Xandros was in the process of calling the shots. Insisting that she move somewhere bigger, which he was going to pay for. And even though she knew that made sense, if she then allowed him to engage in easy sex—wouldn’t that make her look morally corrupt? As if she were selling herself for favours?
Next thing and he’d be employing some hot-shot lawyer to insist that she was morally unfit to bring up his children. She wouldn’t put it past him. Come to think of it—she wouldn’t put anything past him.
More than that, she still had feelings for him—of course she did. Trying to fall out of love with somebody wasn’t like turning off a light switch—it was more like an unpredictable sea and you still got waves of it washing over you when you least expected it. There was a pretty big one threatening to engulf her right now.
Even though her breasts were tingling and the heavy beat of blood had begun to throb shamefully at all her pulse points, Rebecca pushed at the hard wall of his chest, resisting the urge to creep her fingers beneath his shirt and trickle at the whorls of hair with her nails. How much of sexual reaction was habit and conditioning? she wondered hazily. Yet surely the ache in her heart had nothing to do with habit?
‘We must stop this right now, Xandros,’ she said. ‘This is wrong! You know it is!’
Wrong? He had to fight every instinct he possessed to allow her to break the embrace, but Xandros let her pull fractionally away from him, his breathing ragged as he waited for the hard heat of desire to subside.
‘No,’ he negated harshly as he stared down into her darkened eyes—seeing the full flush of desire in her cheeks and the tremble of her lips. ‘That is where you are so very mistaken, my beauty. Of all t
More than anything she wanted to reach up and pull his dark head down towards her and to continue losing herself in another sweet, drugging kiss. But a kiss could fool you. It could make you imagine stuff which wasn’t there and Rebecca couldn’t face any more hurt. Not now—when she had to be strong for her boys. Xandros didn’t love her and there was nothing to be gained from thinking that he ever would.
Afraid to inflame him—or herself—any further, she took a step back, playing for time as she reminded herself of the reality, rather than fantasy. Because soon he would be gone from her life—back to his glitzy tower in New York—and the last thing she needed was to tie herself closer to him emotionally.
‘Yes, the sex was always very good,’ she agreed brutally. ‘I’m sure it always is with you—but that that’s not relevant any more, Xandros.’
‘You don’t think so?’ he taunted silkily.
‘I know so. When our relationship ended—it ended. We can’t just pretend that didn’t happen simply because we still happen to desire one another. It isn’t fair on anyone.’
He stared into the violet-blue eyes, forcing his desire to subside as he registered that she meant it. And yet strangely he had never respected her quite as much as he did right then—with her untidy hair and her defiant expression and her bold statement. When had a woman last taken the facts and looked at them with cool assessment before standing her ground like that—against what they both really wanted and against his wishes?
‘Very well. I will concentrate instead on what needs to be done. You want a garden, and you shall have a garden. I will make sure we have a house by the end of the week,’ he vowed softly.
There was the tiniest of pauses. We. Rebecca was certain it was a slip of the tongue—it had to be. She gave him a nervous smile. ‘And you’ll be going back to the States soon, I expect. You have a business to run.’
Xandros heard the hope in her voice, even though he could see she was doing her best to disguise it. And in that moment, something inside him changed.
Up until now he had not thought beyond the next action—and that had been the need to get her and the babies out of this coop of a place. But Rebecca’s words forced him to look further into a future where two little babies who carried half his genes would be growing up into boys, and then men. And then what? Didn’t he need to stamp his presence on their conscious minds—to bond with them early so that they would know him as their father?
After all, who knew what their mother might do once she realised that he really was not planning to marry her? Who was to say that she wouldn’t grow bored with the daily grind of child-rearing and long for some kind of excitement which would take her away from it—as his own mother had done. And who better to step in, if that should be the case?
But only if they know you.
He gave her a hard, glittering smile. ‘I don’t remember saying anything about going back to the States,’ he said.
Something warned her as surely as if a cold, clammy hand had reached out and grabbed her by the back of the neck. ‘But I thought—’
‘What?’ he enquired, mock-pleasantly. ‘What did you think, Rebecca?’
Don’t let him intimidate you—because if you show weakness, then you really will be lost.
‘Well, your offices are in New York, aren’t they? And you’re a busy man—you certainly can’t afford the time to hang around here.’
‘Can’t I?’ His black eyes bored into her with something approaching amusement. What did she think he was going to do? Pay up for her to live in luxury and then creep away like some kind of patsy? ‘I can do whatever I like, Rebecca—and what I’d like right now is to be close to my children. I want to be there when they wake up in the morning and turn the light out last thing at night.’
It took several seconds for his meaning to sink in, and when it did she felt almost light-headed with fear. ‘You mean…you mean…you’re planning to move in with us?’
He watched the colour drain from her face, saw the violet eyes cloud with apprehension, but he hardened his heart against the expression in them. ‘Of course I am. How could you ever consider otherwise?’ He leaned forward and his eyes were as cold as the black ice which glittered on the roads during the most unforgiving of winter days. ‘Did you really think that I was going to buy you a big house and then be airbrushed from my sons’ lives? Did you really think I was the type of man to pay all the bills and then be sidelined, Rebecca? I’m not quite of the right age to be considered for the role of sugar-daddy.’
She opened her mouth to tell him that he had been the one to insist on a bigger place to live—and now he was holding her to ransom over it. Twisting it round to make her sound like some manipulative gold-digger just out for what she could get! Was he so rich that he hadn’t bothered to check that she hadn’t touched a penny of the money he had been sending her? ‘And what if I told you that I would rather stay in this cramped place than share a palace with you?’
His smile was grim, but the fire of battle was heating his blood. ‘Then you would be opening the floodgates for me to mount a legal challenge for custody of the boys.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Oh, I would, Rebecca—believe me, I would.’
‘You won’t get it!’ she breathed. ‘You know you won’t!’
‘Maybe not sole custody,’ he conceded, ‘since the courts still tend to favour the mother. But there is no reason why I shouldn’t be awarded joint custody. And how would you feel then, Rebecca—if I started taking Andreas and Alexius to New York every other week?’
To her horror, she saw a new light appear in his black eyes—as if this was an option he hadn’t previously considered, one which she had illuminated by challenging him. And he could do it, she recognised painfully. He could forge a life with the twins which might gradually exclude her—because what little boy wouldn’t leap to have the kind of father who could provide the kind of upbringing that Xandros could? What could she offer which could compare?
Fiercely, she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. She could offer them something which they could never get from anyone else—a mother’s love!
Her mind was spinning. She had managed to back herself into a corner—she knew it, and she was pretty sure that he knew it, too. So act calm. Don’t let him know how frightened you are. Put on a brave face and stand up to him—if not for your sake, then for the sake of your boys.
‘Very well,’ she said slowly. ‘If moving in with us is your condition for providing our sons with the space and the comfort they deserve—then so be it.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘But I think you had better hear mine, Xandros.’
‘Ne, I am fascinated to hear what that will be, agape,’ he mocked, tilting his dark head to one side. ‘Or shall I guess? Mmm? Are you going to say that you don’t want me to kiss you as I did just now? Or to touch you or to bring you any number of the countless pleasures we both know could be yours in an instant? Am I right, Rebecca? Yes, I can see that I am—for your face flames just as I have seen it flame so many times when you have cried out in my arms.’
Despite the sensual provocation of his words, Rebecca forced herself not to react to them. ‘That’s right,’ she said calmly. ‘If we live under the same roof, then it must be separately.’
‘Separately,’ he echoed thoughtfully, but his smile was that of the unashamed predator. Did she really think that would satisfy a man of his sexual appetite? And what about her own, come to that? Hadn’t she just demonstrated how much she still wanted him? ‘We’ll see how long you are content to live like that, agape mou,’ he finished softly.
CHAPTER NINE
XANDROS bought a house in Holland Park—an upmarket area of London which Rebecca had only ever passed through on a bus. It was a large four-storey building in a deceptively quiet tree-lined road—with plenty of young families living around.
The sort of house you could easily fall in love with, thought Rebecca wistfully. His house, she reminded herself as they each carried a baby into the oak-lined hallway, where stained glass from the front door spilled bright colours onto the black and white tiled floor.
Within hours of their arriving, a glamorous blonde neighbour named Caroline had arrived, bearing an expensive bottle of champagne, a plate of smoked-salmon sandwiches and an invitation to a drinks party she was having.
‘You will come, won’t you?’ she asked Rebecca, but her eyes and her smile kept flicking to the tall and silent Greek who was leaning on the door-jamb.
Rebecca didn’t really know how to reply. She was aware of Xandros’s dark, brooding face—probably keen to establish that, although they might look like a conventional family, they were anything but. And maybe socialising with the neighbours would require too much in the way of acting skills.
‘We’ll see how we’re fixed,’ said Rebecca diplomatically, recognising that an outright refusal might lead to pressure from their attractive new neighbour—if the determined light in her eyes was anything to go by.
But the house itself was out of this world. It was the kind of place she could never have imagined living in—with its tall, spacious rooms and its sweeping staircase—yet her transition from poky little apartment to turn-of-the-century splendour had been frighteningly effortless.
Xandros had overseen everything—arranging for a designer to fill the house with carefully chosen pieces of furniture, and exquisite drapes to be hung at the floor-to-ceiling windows. There was a wonderful nursery for Alexius and Andreas—with her own bedroom and bathroom next door.
Xandros had put in a whole suite for himself on the top floor—including a big, airy studio with fabulous views overlooking the park. From there he could work, he told her—since these days an architect could work from anywhere. It made her wonder what his plans were—and just how long-term the arrangement was supposed to be.
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