Читать книгу Satisfaction: The Greek Tycoon's Baby Bargain - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 12

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He had expected the generous allowance he had paid into an account for her to be withdrawn immediately, but he had been wrong.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She had withdrawn no money—not a cent—and the only real news he had received about the pregnancy had been the two images from one of her scans.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.’