Читать книгу Satisfaction - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 14

‘I DO not care what you say!’ Xandros stormed. ‘You cannot possibly stay here—and what is more, I will not let you!’

Rebecca sighed. If she’d had the energy she might have objected to the condemnatory tone of his voice—just as she might have objected to him standing there, dominating the sitting room of her little flat as he seemed to dominate every place he went.

Wishing he would go away—because he was so damned…so damned everything. Single-minded, stubborn … and gorgeous. So gorgeous. And she must never forget the power of his sexuality—no matter how many times she told herself that it was no longer relevant to either of them. Because he would use it as a weapon if he needed to, she recognised weakly. He would do anything he needed to do to get his own way.

In the end she had been pathetically grateful for his insistence that he collect her, Alexius and Andreas from the hospital. In fact, she wondered how on earth she could have managed without him. She literally couldn’t have carried the two babies along with all her hospital stuff and managed even something as simple as opening the front door with a key which had always gone stiffly into the lock, but which had never seemed to matter until now.

As it was, on several occasions she’d had to bite back tears of frustration—telling herself that her emotions were only see-sawing all over the place because of her fluctuating hormone levels and the fact that she had recently given birth.

Xandros had organised a car, which she had accepted, and he had also offered to bring along a maternity nurse, which she had refused. That had vexed him, as had so much else—but nothing had irked him quite so much as looking round at her tiny home now that it had acquired two extra small human beings, along with all their assorted paraphernalia. There were giant, ugly plastic bags of nappies—and bottles of baby bath and packets of baby wipes. Why did everything have to be made out of plastic? he had wondered sourly more than once.

‘Look at it!’ he raged. ‘You cannot possibly stay here!’

‘I don’t have any alternative,’ said Rebecca. ‘Lots of babies are brought home to places like this.’

‘Not usually two babies at the same time! How the hell are you going to manage?’ he demanded.

‘I’ll manage,’ she said tiredly.

‘You had enough difficulty getting back from hospital,’ he pointed out. ‘And you might just about cope with the babies since that is what nature has equipped you to do, as you keep telling me—but what about you? There is very little food in the fridge—and no fresh fruit or vegetables at all! It is outrageous!’

‘We can’t all have fleets of servants at our beck and call,’ she said flippantly, in an effort to hide the hurt. ‘Perhaps you’d like to do a quick supermarket shop for me?’

‘Oh, I can do better than that,’ he said grimly, sliding the phone from his pocket.

Within the hour, one of London’s most chi-chi stores had delivered the kind of food which Rebecca could never have afforded, not even at Christmas, and for the first time in years, Xandros found himself unpacking it himself—and using every one of his spatial skills to try to fit most of it into her shoebox of a fridge.

He heated them both some soup and gave Rebecca some fruit juice while he drank a glass of wine and then watched as she fed the babies again. He cleared their supper away while she changed them—because his macho Greekness rebelled at that. As it was, it had been many years since he had washed dishes—and in a funny kind of way, he enjoyed it.

But when he walked back into the sitting room, he could see the exhaustion which had made her face paper-pale and the shadows underneath her eyes nearly as violet dark as her eyes—and never had he felt so … ineffective.

‘You’re tired,’ he observed.

‘Yes, I am. Thank you for all your help, Xandros—and I’ll see you soon.’

He heard the dismissal in her voice and his mouth twisted into an odd kind of smile. ‘Oh, but it isn’t over yet, agape,’ he said grimly. ‘Because I am not going anywhere.’

‘Wh-what are you talking about?’

‘I shall sleep on the sofa tonight.’

She stared at him in alarm. ‘But you can’t!’

‘Can’t? Did you really imagine for one second that I would leave you here alone on your first night back at home—with two tiny babies? What if something happens to you? What if you should suddenly get sick?’

His protectiveness made her want to weep with a terrible kind of yearning—as she couldn’t help but imagine how it would feel if his words were inspired by love, rather than paternal duty. But that was selfish, wasn’t it? Her own fiery dreams of love with Xandros lay in ashes—but she must rise above all that and do the best for Alexius and Andreas. They both owed them that.

‘I’ll find you a duvet,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Thank you.’

Xandros could never remember spending such an uncomfortable night—not even when he used to sleep on the beach under the stars, on those balmy nights back in Greece, when the air had been so thick and so warm that it had been impossible to stay inside.

But back then he had been a teenager, his still-growing body adaptable to just about anything. In the intervening years he had become a man used to only the very finest things.

So should he be grateful for this opportunity to remind him of what life could be like for others less fortunate?

By morning, there was no question of gratitude. He had barely slept a wink—woken up by a dust-cart outside the window, which had seemed determined to give him the entire repertoire of its noisy engine, and then by the sound of rain beginning to thunder down.

For a while, he lay staring at his surroundings in a kind of dazed disbelief until he could hear the sound of Rebecca moving around and so he washed and dressed, and made coffee for them both. But the delicious smell of it did little to soothe his frayed nerves—serving only to remind him how this situation could not be allowed to continue.

He heard her footsteps and turned round as she came into the sitting room. She had tied her hair into two thick plaits, which hung down by the sides of her unmade-up face, and she was wearing a simple pair of linen trousers and a pale T-shirt. He thought how ridiculously young she looked, and oddly wholesome, too—and while wholesome was not a word he usually liked or associated with his women, perhaps it was the best to be hoped for under these particular circumstances.

‘How did you sleep?’ she asked, thinking how he seemed to dominate the room with his presence and how unsettling it had been to imagine him sleeping on the other side of the paper-thin walls.

‘How do you think I slept?’ he grated.

‘I did try to warn you—’

‘You are missing the point, Rebecca.’

He was not going to intimidate her in her own home. ‘And what point is that, Xandros?’

‘I told you yesterday—you can’t possibly live like this!’

‘Like what?’

He wanted to tell her not to play dumb with him—but instead he made a sweeping movement with his hand intended to draw attention to the minute size of the accommodation as his mouth flattened into a disapproving line.

As an architect, he had been schooled in aesthetics—but for Xandros the love of beauty had always been instinctive, rather than taught. He knew that taste was a purely subjective matter—but his early life in Greece had made him appreciate space and simplicity. Whereas this…

The clutter of her home was unbelievable—and the early-morning light picked it out with cruel clarity. It wasn’t just the baby stuff—it was all the candles and knick-knacks she had everywhere. Not only was every surface covered with something which to his eyes seemed completely unnecessary—but now there was a double buggy to contend with.

The last time he’d been here he had barely noticed the jostle for space—for he had only been interested in taking her to bed and then getting the hell out of there. But where she lived affected his children.

‘It’s a mess!’ he snapped.

‘Well, it’s my mess!’ she said defiantly.

‘Not necessarily.’

Rebecca stared at him—wondering how she could be so tired when she’d only just got up. They had told her at the hospital that she would get weary, but somehow she had thought that she’d be able to overcome any rogue fatigue through a sheer sense of will and determination. And she had been wrong. She had just fed, bathed and changed her two adorable little black-haired babies and now felt as if she had been wrung out to dry and then rained on all over again.

But Xandros’s words made her eyes narrow with suspicion—because she had come to recognise the menace which underpinned that particularly silky tone of his. Her fatigue suddenly receded into the background. ‘What do you mean?’ she questioned.

He paused to give his statement significance—as he had done at high-powered boardroom meetings all his life. ‘Just that what you choose to do in your life is entirely up to you, agape mou—but when it involves my children, then I surely have some say in the matter? Some influence as to how I think they should be brought up. And where.’

Rebecca swallowed, suddenly nervous as her mind skittered over all the possible replies she might make—knowing that it had to be the right reply when she was dealing with a man like Xandros. If she objected on the grounds that they weren’t together as a couple any more—mightn’t he think she was hinting that she’d like them to be? And yet—did he really have any rights to lay down the law about the twins’ upbringing? Soon he would be gone—back to America and the life he had there. A life which did not include her or the boys, and never would.

‘Do you really think it’s any of your business?’ she questioned.

He felt the sudden stirring of battle-lines being drawn and the adrenalin began to course through his veins. He had expected to feel nothing but impartial interest towards these two children who had sprung from his loins. He had told himself that it was simply curiosity which had compelled him to fly to Britain to see them. But he had been wrong.

During the three nights when she had been with them in hospital his thoughts had run riot in a way which was uncharacteristic—but the one thought which had overridden every other was that he wanted some part of his sons’ lives.

‘I plan to make it my business,’ he said.

Rebecca heard the unmistakable challenge in his voice and something inside her quailed because she didn’t doubt him, not for a moment. Imagine all the resources a man like Xandros could summon up to support any claim he might wish to make. It would need a strong and very rich woman to fight him—and, while she was working on the strength bit, she couldn’t just snap her fingers to put herself on an equal financial footing with the Greek billionaire.

Wouldn’t it be better to try to accommodate his wishes, rather than engaging in some kind of battle which he would be bound to win? He lived in America, for heavens’ sake! Contact with him would be minimal, if she played this carefully. So do it.

‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked cautiously.

He glared at the door which led through to the tiny kitchenette. ‘Well, for a start—this place is much too small.’

Rebecca nodded, knowing she’d sound both stubborn and ignorant if she disagreed—because he was right. ‘And?’

‘And I want you to move somewhere bigger.’

She sighed. She wasn’t stupid. It had taken her about three seconds of being home with the babies to realise that the place simply wouldn’t do—no matter how much she had tried to justify it in her head beforehand. But even if she touched the money which Xandros had been paying into her account—generous as it was—it still wouldn’t go anywhere near a decent deposit on a bigger home. ‘It isn’t as easy as that, Xandros. Property in London is astronomically expensive.’

‘I can afford it.’

‘Yes, I know you can.’ She swallowed. ‘And what if I said that I didn’t want to accept your—’

‘Charity?’ he intercepted sarcastically, his black eyes glittering with growing impatience. ‘But this isn’t about charity—or your misplaced feelings of pride. In fact, this has nothing to do with you, Rebecca—but my desire to ensure that my children don’t grow up with less space than your average battery hen has to contend with!’

She stared at him. ‘How dare you say something as hurtful as that?’

He shrugged, uncaring of her rage, or her hurt. ‘Because it’s the truth. You know it is.’ His mouth hardened with determination. ‘Whereas I am offering you the opportunity to move somewhere more suitable. You can live anywhere you like in this city. Anywhere at all.’

Pride or no pride, Rebecca wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt a shiver of real longing at what he was proposing. He was blazing into her life and offering to rescue them all—and how many people ever got this kind of Cinderella chance to move from scullery to palace in one leap? But at what price?

She lifted her head to meet his gaze full on. ‘And what if I say no?’

His expression was hard and uncompromising. Would she really dare to try to oppose his wishes? Did she know what kind of an adversary she would be taking on? ‘I wouldn’t advise saying no,’ he warned softly.

His stony black gaze bored into her and, for possibly the first time, Rebecca realised what she was up against. Yes, he was enormously rich and that kind of wealth could buy you untold power, but with Xandros it was something much more than wealth.

She saw the steely determination to get exactly what he wanted—fired by some primitive urge to fight for the very best for his children. And could she really condemn him for having their best interests at heart? Could she? Would two increasingly mobile and lively little boys thank her for turning down the offer of a lifetime, simply because their father didn’t love her? Pride was a terrible reason for denying her sons what was rightfully theirs.

‘If … if I did agree—you mean I can choose where to live?’ she questioned uncertainly.

Xandros turned away to look out of the window—as if checking to see whether the rain had stopped, but in reality to hide his small smile of triumph, knowing that he had won.

‘Of course you can choose,’ he murmured.