She weighed next to nothing, he thought as he held her against his chest while he mounted the stairs. ‘Why are you so slim? Have you been dieting? Wouldn’t it be sensible to eat well so that you can feed the baby?’
Her eyes flashed silver with temper. ‘Suddenly you are an expert on childcare? Have you ever tried to prepare and eat proper meals with one hand at the same time as holding a baby who cries whenever you lay him in his cot? Being a new parent is hard work, and being a single parent is even harder. But you wouldn’t know about that because you weren’t around to help when Loukas had colic and didn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time.’
‘You should have called me after he was born,’ Andreas said tersely. His conscience pricked uncomfortably that Isla had struggled to cope on her own. But dammit, he had tried to find her after she’d told him she was pregnant.
‘Why would I have called you so that you could insult me again?’ She gave a bitter laugh that sounded more like a sob. ‘I was too tired and sick to fight with you then. My friend Jess from the village in Suffolk where I used to live came and took me and Loukas back to stay with her on her farm. I don’t know what I would have done without her kindness.’
Andreas’s body clenched when Isla shifted in his arms and her breasts brushed against his chest. He felt the hard points of her nipples through his shirt and when he glanced at her face he saw a telltale pink stain run along her cheekbones. Damn this woman and the effect that her sensuality had on him, he thought grimly as he strode into her bedroom and through to the en suite bathroom. He placed her on a stool and opened the door of the shower cubicle.
‘The quickest way to warm up is to have a hot shower. If you stand on your good leg and hold onto the towel rail, I’ll help you take your jeans off.’
‘I can manage. I’d rather die than let you undress me.’
He rested his gaze on her flushed face, and said sardonically, ‘We both know that’s a lie.’ He hoped she did not notice that his fingers were unsteady as he fumbled with the button on her jeans.
‘I’ll do it.’ She slapped his hands away and ran the zip down. But when she gingerly stood up she gave a gasp of pain and didn’t stop him when he eased her jeans over her hips and pulled them down her legs.
The sight of her tiny black knickers evoked a throb of desire in Andreas’s groin, and it tested his willpower to resist the urge to press his mouth against the lace panel between her legs. If there was a hell, he was surely destined to burn in its eternal fires, he thought grimly. Isla sat back down on the stool and he carefully tugged her jeans over her swollen ankle.
‘Now your T-shirt.’
She shook her head. ‘If you help me into the shower, I’ll finish getting undressed in there. Will you go and get Loukas? He’s probably awake by now.’
The baby had kicked off his blanket and he waved his chubby arms and legs in the air when he saw Andreas. He had heard other people speak of their hearts melting and now he discovered that it could really happen.
‘Hello,’ he said softly as he picked Loukas up and the baby snuggled into his neck. Andreas remembered the list Isla had recited of things that a father should do for his child. ‘I am your Papa and I will read you bedtime stories and teach you to play football and take care of you when you are scared,’ he told Loukas. He breathed in his evocative baby scent, as sweet as vanilla. When he held him against his shoulder, he felt the softness of the baby’s downy dark hair against his chin. His son—but was he?
Doubt crept into Andreas’s mind. Sadie’s lies when she’d accused him of being her baby’s father had driven a wedge deeper between him and his own father. ‘You have brought shame on the Karelis family,’ Stelios had told him. ‘You were a fool not to get a paternity test done before your girlfriend sold a damaging story to the newspapers.’
He would not be a fool for a second time. A short while ago a helicopter had delivered a DNA testing kit to the island. Andreas laid Loukas back in the pram and pushed him into the study where he’d left the test kit. It was a simple, painless procedure to take a mouth swab from the baby and from himself. The samples would be collected and analysed and the result would confirm the truth of Loukas’s parentage. Andreas felt a flash of guilt for doing the test without Isla’s knowledge, but he had to know for certain that this baby who was making inroads on his heart was his son and heir.
Isla was sitting on the edge of the bed when he carried Loukas into her room. She had wrapped a towel around her and the idea that she was naked beneath it had a predictable effect on Andreas’s libido. ‘I don’t have anything to wear because I packed all my clothes thinking I was leaving Louloudi with Dinos and Toula. My suitcase is still downstairs in the hall.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Andreas walked down the corridor to his own room and took a shirt from the wardrobe. ‘You can wear this for now and I’ll bring your case up later,’ he said, handing her the shirt.
‘Thank you.’ She glared at him when he stood in front of her. ‘Turn around while I put it on.’
Obediently, Andreas turned his back on her and was confronted with the view in the mirror of her naked, slender body as she unwrapped the towel. His mouth ran dry and he ignored the voice of his conscience that said he should close his eyes. He’d never professed to be a saint! Isla’s hair fell damply around her shoulders and beads of moisture glistened on her breasts. He wanted to put his mouth there and taste her peachy perfection before trailing his lips lower to the cluster of gold curls between her legs. He gave a silent groan of disappointment when Isla slipped the shirt on and fastened the buttons. Andreas had almost forgotten the baby in his arms until Loukas gave a whimper.
‘He’s hungry,’ Isla said. ‘He usually has a bottle at this time but I haven’t made up his formula milk. Give him to me and I’ll feed him myself.’
He carefully placed the baby in Isla’s arms and could not assimilate the feelings that poured through him as he watched his son feeding from his mother’s breast. The two of them had had four months in which to form a bond, but Andreas had known his son for a few hours and he felt as though he was intruding on the special relationship that existed between a mother and her child. Every mother but his own, he thought, his mouth twisting. His mother had made it clear that she didn’t love him and he’d assumed it was his fault, some failing on his part that made him unlovable.
He walked over to the window and moodily watched the rain lash the glass. For the first time in his life he did not know how to proceed. He was determined to keep his son with him but it was patently obvious that Loukas needed to be with his mother. Somehow he was going to have to persuade Isla that from now on her life would be in Greece, Andreas brooded.
‘Why were you so adamant that I couldn’t be expecting your child when I told you I was pregnant?’
He exhaled heavily. ‘It seemed so improbable.’ He considered telling Isla what had happened with Sadie. But he’d felt such an idiot when details of his private life had been headline news and the rumour mill had gone mad on social media. The fact that the story was untrue hadn’t seemed to matter to the tabloid editors who fed like voracious sharks on the scandal.
‘I didn’t really believe I was having a baby until my first scan when I saw a tiny heartbeat. I have some pictures of Loukas on my phone, taken when he was a few days old in the neonatal unit.’ Isla glared at Andreas when he turned away from the window. ‘You stole my phone and Loukas’s passport out of my bag. Can I have them back?’
‘I have locked his passport in the safe,’ he told her unapologetically. He took her phone out of his pocket and walked over to the bed to return it to her.
Isla touched the keypad and handed the phone to him. ‘Because Loukas was preterm he was placed in an incubator at first, but when I was well enough, a nurse took me to see him and I was able to hold him.’
Scrolling through the pictures, Andreas felt a tightness in his throat when he sa
w how tiny Loukas had been, lying in a plastic incubator and wearing only a nappy, with wires attached to his skinny little body. There was a picture of Isla cradling him in her arms. She looked pale and scared, and guilt clawed in Andreas’s gut as he remembered her accusation that he’d failed Loukas. The truth was that he had failed both of them.
‘You said that you have been staying with a friend in England since Loukas was born. Don’t you think it would be better for him if you had a home where he could grow up?’
‘Of course it would. I have been looking for a place, but my job is in London and properties in the city are so expensive.’
He frowned. ‘Who looks after him when you are at work?’
‘I’m on maternity leave and not due to go back to the museum until Loukas is six months old.’
‘What will you do with him then?’
She looked down at the baby and sighed. ‘I suppose he will go to a nursery. I was able to finish my PhD while I was pregnant and I’ve been offered a full-time position at the British Museum as an assistant curator.’
‘Is that what you want, to leave Loukas all day long while you go to work?’
‘It’s not ideal. I wish I could spend his first year with him, but I’ll have to work full-time hours and earn a decent salary so that I can give Loukas a good standard of living.’ Isla bit her lip. ‘I meant it when I said I don’t want the half-share of Louloudi which was left to me in Stelios’s will. The island belongs to you and your family.’
‘Loukas is my family.’ Andreas’s eyes narrowed. ‘I have told you that my son will grow up in Greece. My apartment in Athens is not an ideal place for a child but I inherited the house where I lived as a boy. It is undergoing refurbishments and will be Loukas’s home.’
Isla’s face had turned almost as white as the pillows. ‘Are you threatening to take my baby away from me? You denied he was yours, but now you are demanding that he will live in Greece with you.’
His jaw clenched. She looked so damned vulnerable and he hated that he was responsible for the fear in her eyes. ‘I meant that you and Loukas will both move to Greece and we will all live together as a family. It will allow you to be a full-time mother to him for as long as you like, and there will be no need for you to get a job unless you want to return to your career in the future.’
The baby had finished his feed. Andreas watched Isla expertly hold Loukas against her shoulder while she pulled the shirt over her breast. She was so beautiful. Motherhood had made her softer somehow and even more desirable. He wanted his son, he reminded himself. That was the only reason why he was prepared to sacrifice his freedom. Isla had disappeared once, and he would not risk her taking Loukas away from him again.
She looked puzzled. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re asking me to live with you?’
‘I’m asking you to marry me,’ Andreas told her coolly. He ignored her shocked gasp. ‘And I will take care of both of you.’
CHAPTER TEN
‘YOU DON’T WANT to marry me,’ Isla said flatly. She had no illusions that Andreas’s proposal had been in any way romantic. But she was quickly discovering that his acceptance of his son had changed things irrevocably. She was glad that he wanted to play a part in Loukas’s life but a loveless marriage was her idea of hell.
He did not deny it. ‘I am determined to be fully involved with Loukas and it makes sense for us to marry so that we can provide him with the stability of growing up with both his parents.’
‘We don’t have to marry to do that. We can live independent lives and still be good parents.’
‘How would that work, exactly? I have to live in Greece to run Karelis Corp. Would Loukas live in England with you one week and with me in Greece the next? It seems to me that he would spend much of his life on an aeroplane, being passed between us like a parcel. Does it sound ideal to you?’
‘No, of course not.’ She chewed her bottom lip. ‘I suppose I could move to Athens and look for a job, and you could see him whenever you wanted.’
Andreas shook his head. ‘I am not going to be a remote figure like my father was when I was growing up. I’m already planning to cut down my working hours, and I will be there for Loukas every night to read to him and kiss him goodnight.’
Isla felt a lump in her throat. Hearing Andreas state his intention to be a hands-on father to Loukas touched her deeply. More than anything in the world she wanted her baby to have what she had never had—a daddy. Andreas had promised to love his son, to protect him and care for him. To her shame she even felt the tiniest bit jealous that Andreas would give those things freely to the baby but not to her. If she married him, he would tolerate her because she was the mother of his child, but he wouldn’t love her. It was a shock to realise how much that hurt.
‘It’s a crazy idea,’ she muttered. ‘We don’t even like one another.’
‘We don’t actually know each other very well.’ For some reason Andreas was staring at her hair, which had dried in loose curls after her shower. ‘Sexual chemistry drew us together,’ he said bluntly. For the next month we both have to stay on Louloudi, and I suggest we call a truce. For our son’s sake we should try to establish a cordial relationship. I don’t want Loukas to grow up thinking that his parents hate each other, and I’m sure you don’t want that either.’
She bit her lip. ‘I don’t hate you, but I won’t marry you.’
‘I am a very wealthy man. Think of the life I can give him, and you.’
‘I don’t care about money,’ she said fiercely, remembering how Andreas had once accused her of being a gold-digger.
He nodded. ‘I believe you. But this isn’t about you or me. We need to do what is best for Loukas.’
Isla leaned her head against the pillows. Her ankle was throbbing and she felt mentally and physically exhausted. The storm was still raging outside and it was almost dark. Andreas switched on the lamps and crossed to the window to close the blinds. While she had showered he’d changed out of his wet clothes and he looked powerfully masculine in black jeans and a polo shirt. A little voice inside her head asked her why she didn’t simply accept his marriage proposal and allow him to take away all her worries about how she would manage to be a working single mother.
Her eyes felt heavy and she forced them open. Loukas needed his nappy changed and a clean sleepsuit before she put him in his cot for the night. She gave a start when Andreas lifted the baby out of her arms.
‘Does he sleep in there at night?’ he asked, glancing at the travel cot.
‘Yes, Toula uses the cot when her baby granddaughter comes to stay and she lent it to me for Loukas.’
‘Tomorrow I will order nursery furniture and everything else he needs. But for tonight I’ll put the cot in my dressing room and you can spend the night in my room with me.’
Her heart lurched. ‘I will not.’
‘You can’t walk while your ankle is painful,’ he reminded her patiently, ‘and you certainly can’t risk carrying Loukas. The obvious solution is for you and him to move into my suite so that I can help take care of him.’
‘I appreciate that I’ll need help until my stupid ankle is better,’ Isla muttered, ‘but we don’t have to share a bed.’
‘Are you worried that I will be unable to control my sexual urges if we are in the same bed?’ Andreas’s blue eyes darkened with anger. ‘You have been trying to hide how much pain you’re in but you are as white as a ghost. I am not so crass as to try to take advantage of you when you are at your most vulnerable.’
Now she felt guilty! Isla sighed heavily. ‘All right, I suppose it makes sense,’ she muttered. ‘But only for tonight.’ She looked at Andreas. He was cradling Loukas in his arms and the tender expression on his face as he stared at the baby tugged on her heartstrings. For the first time she really believed that Andreas intended to be a devoted father to his son, and in her opinion that was worth more than
all the money in the world. He had said that they must do the best for Loukas. But how could a marriage between two people who mistrusted each other possibly work?
He turned his head towards her and their eyes met and held. If only Andreas wasn’t the most beautiful man she had ever seen, Isla thought with a sigh. But the sense of connection she felt with him was in her imagination, she told herself. When he had made love to her a year ago she’d felt that they belonged together, but he had discarded her and made her feel that she was just another blonde who had briefly shared his bed.
With a sigh she concentrated on practical matters. ‘Loukas needs a nappy change. Can you manage to do it?’ She fully expected him to refuse to volunteer for such a mundane task, but he nodded.
‘I’m sure I’ll learn. I meant it when I said I want to be fully involved with him, and that includes changing his nappy.’ Andreas smiled at her obvious surprise. ‘Once Loukas has settled, I’ll go and make dinner.’
Her brows lifted. ‘I hadn’t got you down as the domesticated type.’
‘Careful, moro mou,’ he said softly, ‘or I will demand you return my shirt immediately.’ The glitter in his eyes sent a frisson of sexual hunger through Isla. Her breasts felt heavy and when she glanced down she was embarrassed to see her nipples jutting beneath the shirt he had lent her.
‘I’m curious,’ she mumbled. ‘Did your mother teach you to cook?’
‘Theos, no!’ His smile faded. ‘My mother had an army of servants to run around her and I doubt she ever set foot inside a kitchen. She wasn’t interested in anything except her ill-health and her unhappiness, for which she blamed me.’
‘Why did she blame you?’
‘She suffered a stroke after I was born, brought on by a long and difficult labour. My mother never fully recovered, physically or mentally, from the trauma. When I was a small boy I had no idea why she seemed to detest me, but when I was older she never missed an opportunity to tell me that all her problems were my fault.’
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