Читать книгу Modern Romance February Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Maisey Yates - Страница 13

‘ANSWERS? WELL, I can give you a question. Why didn’t you tell me that you were a married man?’ Winnie demanded abruptly, infuriated by his refusal to acknowledge that deception.

‘You never asked if I was married,’ Eros pointed out smoothly.

And that fast, Winnie wanted to hit him, hit him so hard she knocked him into the middle of next week. Her small hands curled into tight fists, her cheeks pink with the force of her resentment and the galling knowledge that she couldn’t afford to lose control of her temper. ‘Why would I have asked when ostensibly you were living alone and there was no visible woman in your life?’ she shot back at him. ‘I hadn’t the smallest suspicion that you were already in a relationship!’

‘My marriage is not a subject I’m prepared to discuss with you,’ Eros informed her arrogantly, clenching his strong jawline. ‘I would have been willing to discuss that topic two years ago. But two years on, I don’t believe I owe you that explanation.’

Winnie clenched her teeth together as hard as if she were biting into solid metal. ‘Oh, don’t you, indeed?’ she exclaimed, vexed by that provocative assurance and, if anything, madder than ever.

‘You met Tasha,’ Eros acknowledged curtly. ‘Eventually I did find that out and presumably that is why you chose to suddenly disappear without giving me any explanation.’

‘Don’t say that like it excuses you... Nothing excuses your behaviour!’ Winnie slammed back at him furiously. ‘And I didn’t owe you anything!’

Eros studied her with intent, glittering green eyes. She still had lousy dress sense, he conceded ruefully, invariably choosing to envelop herself in drab colours and very practical clothing, but he knew her ripe body as well as he knew his own and he could see the changes in her lush figure, which even clad in leggings and an all-concealing sweatshirt was visibly fuller at breast and hip. He hardened, momentarily snatched back into hot, sweaty memories of the passion that had once threatened to consume him. His treacherous libido heated up, sending a sensual pulse through his groin and making him bite back a curse at his lack of restraint.

For a while, the sheer novelty of that passion had obsessed him and, having recognised that as a dangerous weakness, he had refused to allow himself to look for her after she vanished out of his life. He could get by fine without sex; he had got by for years and he no longer fell as easily into temptation as he had fallen with her. He was free now, he reminded himself, but that old belief that he had to always stay in control of his physical urges was still ingrained in him. Giving way to those same urges had destroyed his father’s life. Winnie had made him feel dangerously out of control and that, if he was honest with himself, had unnerved him.

‘At the very least, you owed me the knowledge that you were pregnant with my child,’ Eros delivered in harsh condemnation.

‘No, I didn’t!’ Winnie slammed back at him in annoyance. ‘Your deception released me from any such obligation!’

His stunning eyes narrowed, black velvety lashes shading that mesmeric green. ‘There was no deception on my part. For a deception to be contrived, one must deliberately engage in concealment of the truth...and I did not. I didn’t tell you a single lie!’

For several unbearable seconds, Winnie searched her memory for evidence of a lie and her inability to find one merely enraged her more. He was so scheming, so specious in his arguments. ‘But you also knew I hadn’t the faintest suspicion that you were a married man!’ she flung back at him bitterly.

Eros inclined his glossy dark head. ‘Did I? Some women are content to sleep with married men without questioning their status.’

‘Stop playing with words!’ Winnie interrupted, rising up on her toes, pulsing with angry tension. ‘That’s what you’re doing in defiance of the facts! You knew I wasn’t that kind of woman... You knew I wouldn’t willingly get involved with a married man!’

Again, Eros shrugged, the lean, hard angles of his sculpted features set like granite. ‘None of this nonsense is pertinent now,’ he claimed in a dry tone of finality. ‘I will not engage in a slanging match about our past. That ship sailed a long time ago. What is germane now is that you have my son and you didn’t tell me about him. Let’s concentrate on that, rather than on facts we cannot change.’

Winnie tore her gaze from him with difficulty and turned her head away, momentarily at a loss. In one sense he was correct, in that there was nothing to be gained from arguing about what had happened between them two years earlier, but that also meant that he was denying her any justification for having chosen not to inform him of her pregnancy. Her slight shoulders stiffened and her head swung back, dark strands of her lush mane of hair falling across cheeks flushed by angry frustration.

‘How did you become pregnant anyway?’ Eros demanded without warning. ‘I always took precautions.’

At that much-too-intimate question, Winnie practically fried in mortification inside her own burning skin and she walked stiffly over to the window, momentarily turning her back on him. ‘No, there were times when you overlooked that necessity,’ she told him grudgingly, forced to recall early-morning encounters when she had wakened to his hard, thrillingly aroused body pressed to hers and in warm drowsy lust and need had succumbed without either of them thinking of contraception.

‘I don’t remember a single occasion,’ Eros informed her with a raw edge to his dark, deep, accented drawl.

‘Then you must have a very short memory because I remember at least a dozen occasions when contraception was the last thing on your mind. In the shower, in the pool, early mornings when we were both half-asleep.’ Winnie forced out the words like staccato bullets voiced between gritted teeth. ‘In fact, you were downright careless, and I noticed but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I tried to go on the pill to protect myself but by the time I saw a GP, it was too late. I had already conceived.’

‘You should’ve drawn those oversights to my attention,’ Eros delivered curtly, reflecting that if anything should’ve warned him that the affair was out of control, it was exactly that aberrant carelessness on his part that underlined it. He had got too comfortable with her, too involved to be logical and safe. It had been a high-voltage sexual affair and he hadn’t been prepared for it, hadn’t counted the risks or the costs, had simply waded in like a man with an unquenchable thirst and drunk so deep that even his intelligence was compromised.

Winnie twisted back to him in a sudden movement. ‘Oh, really?’ she carolled tartly. ‘So, the fact I fell pregnant is my fault too, is it?’

‘There’s little point in awarding blame this late in the day,’ Eros murmured curtly. ‘What is done is done and we have a child...a child who is, sadly, a stranger to me. That must be remedied immediately.’

Winnie was so rigid that her very muscles ached with the strain. ‘Must it?’

‘Of course, it must be,’ Eros declared, studying her with an incredulity that implied she would have to be witless to expect anything else. ‘Teddy must learn that I am his father and I need to get to know him. I would like to spend time with him tomorrow.’

‘No,’ Winnie cut in without even thinking about it because Teddy had always been hers and he had never been in the care of anyone outside the family.

‘Naturally, I will bring a qualified nanny with me to ensure that Teddy’s basic needs are properly met while he is with me. I have a lot to learn about being a father,’ Eros admitted with a candour that disconcerted her. ‘But given time and experience, I will pick up what I have to know.’

‘I really can’t believe that you’re this interested in Teddy!’ Winnie proclaimed in consternation, watching him pace back and forth in front of her, the lithe grace of his every movement strikingly noticeable and grabbing her attention with its aching familiarity.

A hollow sensation opened inside Winnie, her breath suddenly tripping in her throat. Her nipples were peaking, suddenly tender and tight beneath her clothing. She dragged in a jagged breath as the hot melting sensation of arousal pulsed between her taut thighs. How did he do that to her? How on earth could he still do that to her when she knew he was no longer hers to crave? Never had been hers either, except in her imagination, she reminded herself guiltily, dragging her attention from him to try to focus elsewhere.

‘Obviously I want to get to know my son and I expect that process to begin immediately,’ Eros spelt out bluntly. ‘I will not accept you putting obstacles in my path.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Winnie sizzled back at him, feeling as though she was under attack on every front.

‘I am being frank. You have denied me my rights as a parent for quite long enough,’ Eros reasoned. ‘The situation must change. I will see Teddy tomorrow and take him out. He will be very well taken care of.’

‘I’ll come too,’ Winnie broke in insistently. ‘You won’t need a nanny.’

‘No,’ Eros countered decisively, his wide sensual lips compressing into a determined line. ‘I would prefer to get to know my son away from your influence.’

‘He’s too young for that yet!’ Winnie argued passionately. ‘He’s never been away from me before.’

‘Then it is time you encouraged him to achieve a little independence.’

‘He’s only a baby!’ Winnie gasped defensively.

‘He will come to no harm in my care. He is my son, my family, indeed the only close family I have left alive,’ Eros pointed out grittily. ‘Obviously he will be looked after to the very best of my ability.’

‘You can’t simply exclude me!’ Winnie said accusingly.

Eros elevated a winged ebony brow in direct challenge. ‘Is that not what you have done to me?’ he pressed silkily. ‘I have been excluded from every aspect of his life since birth but that cannot continue and you have to accept that reality.’

‘I don’t have to accept anything from you!’ Winnie objected vehemently, wondering how they had contrived to travel so swiftly from rehashing old issues to his shattering demand to have full unsupervised access to their son.

And that was the crux of the matter, Winnie registered belatedly. Teddy was their son, not only hers, not only his. It was truly the first time that she had been confronted by the unwelcome truth that she did not have total, unbreakable rights over her own child and that awareness cut through her like a knife blade, giving rise to all sorts of other worries and insecurities. Faster than the speed of light, Eros was interfering, setting down his boundaries and making unapologetic demands. Eros was not the sort of man likely to humbly sit back in the corner and wait until she decided to cede him his rights as a parent.

‘You have to learn to share Teddy,’ Eros intoned without hesitation. ‘But try starting your judgement of me from a fair starting point. Why assume that I won’t look after my son as well as you do?’

‘I didn’t make that assumption,’ Winnie contradicted nervously. ‘I’m just warning you now that, no matter how well you look after him, Teddy will fret away from me and that you’ll find him a handful.’

‘You would like me to have difficulties handling him,’ Eros assumed grimly, shooting her an unimpressed glance. ‘But I do not foresee a problem.’

‘Have you any experience in looking after a child this young?’ Winnie enquired, needled by his insuperable confidence.

‘No. You must know that I am an only child and few of my friends are parents yet,’ Eros admitted grudgingly. ‘But with a trained childcare professional on hand to advise me, I am sure that we will manage.’

‘Teddy’s at an unpredictable age. He throws tantrums,’ Winnie warned him ruefully. ‘He can go from rage to tears in seconds.’

‘Perhaps my son needs more stable and reliable care to thrive,’ Eros murmured silkily, as if tantrums could only be the consequence of inadequate parenting.

In receipt of that covert criticism, Winnie reddened with furious resentment. ‘As you said yourself, you have a lot to learn about children,’ she responded non-committally, however, reluctant to expose her sensitivity to any questioning of her own parenting skills. She wondered if she was a complete shrew to hope that Teddy would lose his rag with Eros and teach him the reality of dealing with a volatile toddler.

‘And tomorrow evening, after I have returned Teddy to your care, we will have dinner together and discuss—like reasonable adults—where to go from here,’ Eros decreed decisively.

Winnie compressed her lips. If Eros wanted access to Teddy, she supposed that they had to discuss arrangements that would be acceptable to both of them. But how would she cope with that when even the prospect of having to part with Teddy for a few hours the next day daunted her? She knew that she would spend the entire time Teddy was away from her worrying about him.

‘We’ll have to dine out some other time,’ she told him and not without a certain satisfaction. ‘I have to work tomorrow evening.’

‘I’m leaving for New York the next day and I will be away for at least a week. A later date will not be convenient for me,’ Eros told her levelly. ‘Get a night off or plead sickness. It’s up to you.’

‘I won’t do that, Eros. I won’t let my employers down.’

‘Do you know where I’m going from here?’ Eros enquired grimly. ‘To consult my lawyer about my legal position with regard to Teddy. You are not in a strong enough position to be difficult, Winnie. We must discuss provisions and soon.’

Her heart-shaped face pulled taut, her big brown eyes suddenly ducking from his as she strove to withstand the conviction that she was being deliberately intimidated and forced in a direction in which she had no desire to go. ‘Are you threatening me?’ she asked curtly, feeling a little like a wayward farm animal being firmly herded down a preset track.

‘No. I’m being honest,’ Eros fielded with harsh emphasis. ‘I am impatient to get to know my son and I would advise you not to stand in the way of that desire. It is natural for a new father to be keen to establish a normal relationship with his child.’

‘But this keen interest of yours is coming at me out of nowhere!’ Winnie protested hotly.

‘Your vengeful attitude ends here and now,’ Eros breathed in a raw undertone.

Winnie flung her head back to look up at him, having until that moment somehow contrived to forget how very tall he was in comparison to her. He was also way too close for comfort, the faint, dangerously familiar scent of his designer cologne flaring her nostrils. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she demanded blankly. ‘Vengeful?’ she questioned with incredulous emphasis on that choice of word.

‘When you found out that I was married, you decided to punish me by withholding all knowledge of my child from me,’ Eros extended with perceptible bitterness, his lean, darkly handsome face sardonic.

‘That’s nonsense!’ Winnie proclaimed in shocked denial. ‘I’m not that sort of person!’

‘You believed that the fact I was a married man was a good enough excuse to exclude me from Teddy’s life. But it wasn’t. That attitude won’t wash with me now. You have to adapt to a new situation.’

‘And what about your situation? How is your wife going to feel about all this?’ Winnie cut across his condemnatory speech to demand helplessly. ‘How is she going to react to Teddy’s existence?’

‘I don’t have a wife any longer. I’ve been divorced for some time,’ Eros informed her grimly. ‘All matters concerning Teddy are between you and I and nobody else.’

Winnie was shocked, having automatically assumed he was still married. From the minute she had discovered that Eros was married, she had suppressed every inappropriate urge to look him up on the Internet and learn, not only about his marriage, but about what he was doing. He belonged to another woman. He was no longer her business, should never have been her business. She had warned herself painfully, fearing that seeking information about him would only fuel her longing for him.

She had been too ashamed of her behaviour at having slept with another woman’s husband to allow herself to give way to further temptation. Her sin had been unintentional and born out of ignorance, but the guilt of that mistake still sat very heavily on her conscience. Indeed, that wanton fling with Eros had taught her to police her every thought. She had learned not to rush into judgement of others for their mistakes. She had learned that she could be as weak and imperfect as the most foolish of women when she fell in love, all tough lessons she could’ve done without.

She didn’t properly breathe again until Eros had left, leaving her at the mercy of insecurity and stress. Eros had always had the ability to take her by surprise and slash through her calm controlled front with ease, unearthing the much more vulnerable woman she was underneath. That acknowledgement plunged her into the steamy memory of their first kiss.

Eros had been abroad for a couple of weeks and he had walked into the kitchen to greet her, insisting that she join him for a glass of wine again, a familiarity that her sane mind had already been questioning. There was such a thing as getting too friendly and informal with an employer, she had reasoned unhappily, and she had been on the brink of pulling back and making polite excuses. And then Eros had stalked into the kitchen, clearly looking for her, all bristling energy and impatience, and he had smiled at her, that breathtakingly warm smile that literally made her heart beat so fast she felt breathless.

Without further ado, he had snatched her up off her sensible feet as if she were a doll while she was still muttering naively about the special dessert she had prepared. His mouth had plunged down on hers, full of a hot demanding hunger that had set her treacherous body alight. She’d had butterflies in her tummy and had been in a daze with her entire being vibrating from that explosively sensual assault as he had slowly lowered her to the tiles again, her body brushing down against every lean, powerful inch of his. She had been viscerally aware of the hard thrust of desire that not even the most exquisitely tailored suit could conceal.

‘I want you so much,’ Eros had said simply. ‘I missed you. I’ve never missed a woman like this before.’

And it had been the very simplicity of that admission that had seduced her because she had missed him too, missed those quiet, private little moments of peace and tranquillity in his company. Instead of stepping back, instead of exercising good judgement, she had joined him for the wine, even shared that wretched dessert with him, laughing when he’d teased her about her professional pride in her creations. She could’ve told him then that nothing had inspired her with greater pride than his evident interest in her ordinary self. When it was late, when it was past time for her to be retiring for the evening she had reluctantly stood up, and he had stood up as well and reached for her.

‘Stay with me tonight,’ he had urged, and he had kissed her again.

It was the first time she had gone upstairs in that house and she had gone into his palatial bedroom with him, trembling with nerves, questioning her decision every step of the way even while her body had burned with eagerness and wanton impatience to finally know what other women knew. The die had been cast at that moment. She had been a pushover, falling in love and already trustingly investing Eros with far more importance in her life than he’d been investing in her.

Looking back, she believed that Eros had merely been taking advantage of an available woman. It was even possible that the prospect of taking her virginity had turned him on because he had known she was inexperienced, had guessed, reassuring her even as she had anxiously admitted it. Nothing could have prepared her for the passionate excitement that had followed or the deep sense of closeness she’d felt afterwards with him. From that night on, she had been at the mercy of her emotions and common sense hadn’t got a look-in.

* * *

Her sisters returned from work, eager to hear what had happened between her and Eros. Zoe took an optimistic view, deeming it healthy that Teddy’s father and her sister were talking and a positive sign that Eros should be so interested in immediately connecting with his son.

‘But what is his end game?’ Vivi probed with innate suspicion.

‘Presumably what he says...getting to know Teddy, spending time with him,’ Winnie pointed out awkwardly as she darted about her bedroom, getting ready for work. ‘What else can he get out of this?’

‘He strikes me as the sort of guy who always puts himself first,’ Vivi declared with a curled lip. ‘What’s in it for him? There must be more than what we know. All of this is very coincidental. Does he know that Stam Fotakis is our grandfather?’

‘No, it was never discussed. I’ll mention it tomorrow, see how he reacts,’ Winnie said ruefully. ‘How am I going to hand Teddy over to him and some strange nanny tomorrow?’

‘With kid gloves and a brave smile,’ Zoe told her wryly. ‘Let’s hope the nanny is experienced.’

* * *

‘Mama... Mama!’ Teddy wailed pathetically.

That and the shouted ‘Not baby!’ when they tried to persuade him into his buggy were virtually the only words Eros had heard from his son. Oh, and there was the word no, which Teddy was even more partial to employing. He had neither volume control nor a need for privacy when he aired his innermost feelings. Teddy didn’t care how many people were around when he flung himself down on the path and screamed blue murder for his mother. And he didn’t like the nanny, physically fighting her if she tried to lift him, refusing to be distracted when she tried to tempt him out of the scenes he made.

But the advantage of Teddy distrusting the unfortunate nanny was that he clung to his slightly more familiar father as if his life depended on it. More positively, Teddy had loved the monkey enclosure at the zoo, he loved chocolate and he loved playgrounds. He was a smart little boy, energetic but explosive too. He was also so attached to his mother that he was forcing his father to rethink his tentative plans to challenge, should it prove possible, his mother’s full-time custody.

But now Eros could see that there was no way Teddy would be happy, even on a part-time basis, to be deprived of Winnie. Shared custody definitely wasn’t the path to take. Teddy needed Winnie as he needed air to breathe. Winnie was patently the very centre of Teddy’s little world and the bedrock of his security and Eros knew that he would never do anything to hurt or harm his son. When he had even briefly considered his chances of parting mother from child, had he too been guilty of vengeful thinking? Eros asked himself grimly as they headed back early from their day out to reunite Teddy with Winnie. Eros knew that he now had to change his attitude and, for the sake of his son, consider a solution he had never dreamt he would be required to contemplate.

Marriage. Bearing in mind his past experience, just the thought of marriage brought Eros out in a cold sweat. He didn’t want to get married again. In fact, he had promised himself that he would never marry again, reasoning that that was a rational decision when he had neither a family to please nor any desire to reproduce. He hadn’t cared what happened to his business empire after he was gone, had never been vain enough to hope that he might merit a footnote in history. And then he had found out about Teddy and the whole picture of his life, his expectations and goals, had changed radically overnight.

‘You’ll be with Mama soon,’ Eros soothed Teddy as his son let loose a choked sob that warned another distressed outburst was threatening.

‘He’s very attached to her,’ the nanny commented.

‘Too young to be separated from her,’ Eros agreed, wishing he had listened to Winnie instead of arrogantly assuming that she would selfishly do everything she could to come between him and his son.

‘With practice at socialising he would improve. A play group and the company of other children would be good for him,’ the nanny opined.

‘We’ll see.’

Eros was forcing himself to think over Stam Fotakis’s outrageous proposition from a different angle. He could live without owning the island of Trilis, however he could not live without his son being a regular part of his life. At the same time, if he was to be forced to marry Winnie anyway to gain consistent access to Teddy, why shouldn’t he reclaim Trilis as part of the deal?

Even so, he refused to marry Winnie on the kind of terms that her grandfather had suggested, as a mere prelude to another divorce. If he married her, it would have to be a real marriage and both his wife and his child would naturally live with him. How would Winnie feel about that option?

Did that matter? Did he even care? Eros liked to win and he had no intention of meekly meeting the old man’s unreasonable demands and surrendering his son. By all accounts, Stam Fotakis had been a pretty poor father to his own two sons and Eros did not want him taking charge of Teddy. If there was something in the marriage for Eros, however, sufficient to compensate him for the loss of his freedom, now that was a different matter, he mused thoughtfully. Teddy and Winnie, not to mention the family island in the package, now that was a deal worthy of consideration by any hot-blooded man. He wondered, though, just how much pressure he would have to put on Winnie to achieve that package and then shelved the thought, broodingly reminding himself that she deserved whatever she got for denying him his son...