by Lynne Graham
‘No, I’ve got this.’ Alfie chuckled as Tor ran the truck along the floor with the appropriate vroom-vroom noises even though his eyes stung like mad as he did it and he cursed himself for being a sentimental fool.
Alfie grinned and patted Tor’s thigh to indicate that he wanted his truck back now that its magic had been demonstrated to his satisfaction. Tor handed it back and hastily backed away, vaulting back upright again.
‘I’m sorry... I’m out of practice. I’ve avoided young children since, well, since Sofia’s death,’ he admitted grittily, determined to be frank because he had evidently been more than frank with this young woman when they first met and for once there was no reason for him to put up a front.
Pixie almost winced because that likelihood hadn’t occurred to her, and she scolded herself for not appreciating that Alfie would resurrect memories that Tor probably preferred to bury. Even so, on another level and one she didn’t want to examine, his sensitivity saddened her because Alfie was his child too. Of course, he wouldn’t accept that until he had the official proof of it.
With a knock on the door the woman who appeared to be the housekeeper appeared and announced that Tor had a visitor downstairs.
‘I’ll send him up when he’s done with me. It’ll be the DNA testing I requested.’
‘My goodness, how did you get it organised this quickly?’ Pixie exclaimed in surprise.
‘To put it simply...money talks,’ Tor replied drily. ‘But I’m afraid we’ll still have to wait twenty-four hours for the results.’
‘Well, I’m not going to be in suspense,’ Pixie pointed out.
‘You haven’t the slightest doubt?’
Pixie reddened and then lifted her head high, her crystal-blue eyes awash with censure.
‘No. You were my first and only, so there isn’t the smallest chance that anyone else could have fathered Alfie.’
His lean, darkly handsome features tightened as though she had struck him, and she might as well have done, Tor acknowledged. He paused at the door and glanced back at her. ‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-two,’ Pixie answered. ‘You asked me the same question the night we met. It’s infuriating. It’s because I’m small and people always assume I’m younger than I am.’
Tor went downstairs to have the swab done for the DNA testing with an inescapable sense of guilt. If that little boy was his child, he had hit on a twenty-one-year-old virgin, left her to struggle through her pregnancy alone, denied all knowledge of her when she’d approached him for support and generally treated her in the most unforgivable manner. The idea that he could have behaved like that shattered him and left him reeling with shock because the whole nightmare situation was making him appreciate that he hadn’t been living in the real world for over six years.
He had been living in the past, seeing the world and the people around him through toxic lenses, believing that he was standing tall and strong in the face of adversity when in fact he was continually backing away from the wounding truth that his wife and his half-brother had betrayed him. He hadn’t come to terms with it, hadn’t dealt with it, hadn’t put it behind him the way he should have done.
And in reacting in that inflexible way, it seemed he might have caused one hell of a lot of damage to an innocent bystander. He breathed in deep and slow as he made those deductions and hoped that the child turned out not to be his, because at that moment the alternative was just too much for him to contemplate.
The DNA test was carried out in minutes and Pixie was left alone with her son. After some energetic play, Alfie went down in the travel cot for a nap. She had put her phone on mute because Jordan had called her repeatedly and she wasn’t in the mood to talk to him and didn’t know what she would say when she did. He had destroyed her trust in him but to a certain extent she understood his frustration with her.
She had leant on her brother when she should’ve been seeking the support of Alfie’s father because her pride had got in the way and that stubborn pride of hers hadn’t done her any favours.
For months, Jordan had been forced to stay home most evenings while she was at work, a considerable sacrifice for a young, single man. Worse still, he was unable to look for other employment because only casual barista work allowed him to choose his hours and mind Alfie for his sister. Her decision to go ahead and have her child had adversely affected Jordan’s life. It was pointless to say that she had never meant to do that when she had still gone ahead and done what she wanted to do, which was to give birth to a child without a partner and depend on her brother’s help.
If she could have gone back and changed things she knew she would have done it all differently, she conceded heavily. She had taxed her brother’s patience for too long, forcing him to act in an effort to make her confront Tor. Yes, dumping Alfie on Tor’s doorstep had been absolutely the wrong way to go about achieving that, but had she gone to a solicitor to claim child support from Tor, Jordan might have been released from the responsibility of having to help her look after her child months ago.
‘Mr Sarantos would like you to come downstairs for a meal,’ Emma told her, sliding into the room on quiet feet. ‘I’ll keep an eye on Alfie.’
Pixie checked the time and suppressed a sigh. Soon she would need to get home to get ready for work. As she came down into the hall the housekeeper was waiting to show her into a formal dining room, where a polished table set with silver cutlery and crystal wine glasses awaited her. Tor strolled forward, all lithe contained power, vibrant energy radiating from his dark golden eyes.
‘I assumed you’d be hungry.’
‘I’ve haven’t got much time before we have to leave,’ Pixie responded uncomfortably.
‘I still want to know what happened that night between us,’ Tor admitted, disconcerting her.
‘But it’s not important now,’ Pixie reasoned stiffly.
‘If you’re telling me the truth and that night led to the conception of my son, it’s very important,’ Tor contradicted as a man in a short white jacket entered and proceeded to pour the wine, mercifully silencing him on that subject.
‘Not for me, thank you,’ Pixie said, refusing the wine while watching the man leave again with wide eyes. ‘You are surrounded by staff here.’
‘I have to concentrate on work. Domestic staff take the irritating small stuff out of my day. How do you feel about leaving Alfie here in Emma’s care tonight?’
Pixie paled. ‘I’d prefer to take him home.’
‘Which would mean your brother taking charge of him again. Give your brother a night off,’ Tor urged.
Her slight shoulders stiffened. She had to talk to Jordan before she could feel that she could trust him again with her child. ‘If I didn’t have to go to work, I wouldn’t agree,’ she muttered ruefully. ‘But just one night, and I’ll have to go home and get Alfie’s things before.’
‘Anything the baby needs can be bought.’
‘Bunny, his toy rabbit, can’t be, and he won’t go down for the night without it. Babies like familiar things around them. It makes them feel secure.’ Pixie sighed. ‘I also need to feed my cat and if Alfie stays, when am I supposed to get him back tomorrow?’
‘I’m expecting you to return here in the morning and stay. A room beside his will be prepared for your use. It would also mean that you’ll be here when the DNA results become available.’
He already had her movements and Alfie’s all worked out on his schedule, but letting him interfere in their lives to that extent disturbed Pixie. On the other hand, Tor contacting the authorities to share his concern about Alfie’s safety in her brother’s custody would cause a firestorm, which would be a great deal worse, she conceded wryly. In truth, with that ‘concerned citizen’ threat of his, Tor Sarantos had trapped her between a rock and a hard place and deprived her of choice.
‘That night...’ Tor said again, shimmering dark g
olden eyes locking to her and making it hard for her to find her voice.
And Pixie gave way but stuck to the bare bones, telling him about their meeting in the kitchen, the cheese toasted sandwich she had given him and the accidental collision he had had with the cupboard door. While she talked, a deliciously cooked meal was served, and she began to eat.
‘Yes... I had a bruise above my eye,’ Tor commented with a frown. ‘I wondered if I’d fallen or got into some sort of altercation.’
‘The taxi didn’t arrive and that was my fault too,’ Pixie explained in a rush. ‘I was only staying there for two weeks and when you asked me for the house number I got it wrong. I only realised that a couple of days afterwards.’
‘These are dry facts,’ Tor remarked, cradling his wine glass elegantly in one lean brown hand as he lounged back in his chair like a king surveying a recalcitrant subject. ‘You’ve stripped everything personal out of this account. Nothing you have yet shared explains how we ended up in bed together.’
‘I should think your imagination could fill in that particular blank,’ Pixie dared.
‘Surprisingly not. That particular night I wouldn’t have been looking for sex with anyone,’ Tor asserted coolly. ‘It was out of character.’
‘Blame the alcohol.’
‘And as you were a virgin, presumably it was out of character for you as well.’
Pixie went red as fire and hated him for throwing that in her teeth. ‘Obviously, I was overwhelmingly attracted to you.’
An entirely spontaneous grin slashed Tor’s wide sensual mouth, chasing the gravity from his startlingly handsome features. ‘OK.’
‘Was that personal enough for you?’ Pixie slammed back at him sharply as she rose from the table, furious that he had embarrassed her and that she had been that honest with him in her response.
As Tor also sprang up, smouldering dark golden eyes collided with hers and she stopped breathing and froze in her retreat to the door. She couldn’t drag her attention from him as he stalked towards her, all lean predatory grace and masculine power.
‘No, in the interests of research I’d like to get a lot more personal,’ Tor confided. ‘I want to kiss you.’
Pixie was knocked off balance entirely by that familiar phrase. ‘You said that that night.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Do it,’ she recalled weakly as he reached for her.
The tip of his tongue licked along the closed seam of her mouth and she shivered violently, wanting more, craving more, outraged by the flood of instant awareness cascading through her treacherous body. She didn’t know what he did to her self-discipline, but it was lethal because with one touch her whole body switched on as though he had pressed a magic button. Her skin felt too tight round her bones, her breath shortened in her throat and her heart began to pound. The light play of his splayed fingers across her spine somehow made her breasts swell and stir inside her bra, letting her feel the straining tautness of her nipples. Her lips parted and he took advantage, delving between to explore the moist interior of her mouth.
The immediate rush of heat and dampness between her thighs took her by storm, prickling, tingling awareness shooting through every nerve ending she possessed. She jerked in helpless response. It was one kiss and her body leapt on it as though it were her first meal after a famine.
He pressed her back against the table and her hands lifted up, her fingers spearing into his springy black hair to hold him fast while his firm lips moved with compelling hunger on hers. The bottom could’ve fallen out of the world at that moment and she wouldn’t have noticed. Her surroundings had fallen away. All she was aware of was him, the hard, demanding bar of his erection against her stomach, the passion of his mouth on hers, the glorious heat and strength of him that close.
Breathing raggedly, Tor dragged his mouth from her and pulled back from her, dark eyes flaring with bright golden intensity and full of new knowledge. ‘Well, I don’t need to ask how it happened, do I? We have explosive chemistry...and I’m remembering things now. The taste of you...and green hair? Diavole...where does green hair come into it? And I said that you reminded me of a forest fairy? Thee mou...spouting nonsense of that calibre, I must’ve been incredibly drunk!’
Pixie reeled back from him, deeply shaken by the passion that had betrayed her in his arms, exposing a vulnerability that mortified her. She didn’t even feel relieved that he was starting to remember stuff, only more mortified and exposed than ever.
‘I had dyed my hair before we met...it stayed sort of pale green until it finally washed out,’ she muttered tightly. ‘And you did compare me to a forest fairy, but only because someone else said I reminded them of a leprechaun with my green hair and I told you that.’
Tor shot her a glance of concealed wonderment because she was on another plane entirely, too naïve to even register how unusual it was to find a sexual connection that strong. He had gone up in flames with her. She was a dynamite charge in a tiny package and all he had wanted to do was spread her out on the table and thrust inside her hard and fast.
The ache of having to deny and control his libido was new to him. Sex had become something Tor snapped his fingers and received with minimal effort. Persuading or coaxing had never been required from him. But no woman had ever aroused him to the extent that Pixie did. Her effect on him, however, certainly explained what must have happened that night and his own unusual recklessness...
But he had recalled enough of his own reactions to be thoroughly disconcerted by what he was both learning and remembering. Best sex I ever had... That was what he had fallen asleep thinking that night, satiated by the glory of her silken, tight depths. He breathed in deep and slow, tamping down those thoughts and forcing himself back to the present.
‘A limo will take you home and bring you back here again. Do you want me to accompany you? At some stage, I will need to speak to your brother,’ Tor imparted, while thinking that within a couple of days he would know everything he needed to know about the siblings because he had told his head of security to have them checked out.
‘Why would you need to speak to Jordan?’
Tor compressed his lips. ‘Because you don’t appear to have sufficient control over him.’
Her face flamed with annoyance because she was in no position to argue after what Jordan had done with Alfie.
‘Look, with Emma here I’ll let Alfie stay here tonight and I’ll come back in the morning as you asked but, to be frank, once the emergency is over, I hope we can all settle back down and get on with our lives,’ Pixie admitted, hoping that if she gave a little, he would too. ‘But I don’t want you to speak to Jordan. I’ll take care of that.’
‘How?’ Tor challenged.
‘I can’t defend what Jordan did this morning when he left Alfie here,’ Pixie conceded. ‘But he’s my half-brother, my only surviving family and he’s been good to both of us when there was nobody else willing to help, so please cut him some slack...’
‘If that baby is my son, it’s going to change your lives,’ Tor retorted in a growling undertone, ignoring her plea on her brother’s behalf. ‘I’d be a liar if I said anything else.’
Pixie set her teeth firmly together on a hasty and ill-judged response to that statement. She saw no reason why he should interfere with her life. She was willing to accept him as a masculine role model in Alfie’s world and hopefully a better one than Jordan had so far proved to be. Presumably, Tor would expect to spend time with Alfie. He would also expect to contribute towards his support, she assumed, but she hoped that that would be as far as his interference went because there was nothing more personal between them than that single night and Alfie’s unintentional conception.
Really? a little voice sniped, unimpressed, deep inside her. What about that kiss? What about that response you gave him? That had gone way beyond masculine role models and child support, that
had been personal and intimate to a level that filled Pixie with guilt and discomfiture. That kiss had smashed through the defensive barriers she had forged and blown her away.
‘Why did you call him Alfie?’
‘I named him after my grandfather. He was a wonderful character. He died when I was six, but I never forgot him.’
Tor accompanied her to the front door, waiting there in silence until a sleek black shiny limousine pulled up outside. ‘I have an appointment now, so I won’t see you before you leave for work. Hopefully, I’ll see you in the morning for breakfast,’ he murmured silkily.
Pixie nodded and went down the steps, wide-eyed as the driver climbed out to open the passenger door of the limousine for her. She got in, sinking into the pearl-grey leather upholstery and scanning the embellishments in front of her, wondering what the various buttons and switches she could see did, but restraining herself from experimenting lest she embarrass herself.
The house was empty when she got back. Jordan had gone out, probably to avoid dealing with her recriminations, she reflected with a wry shake of her head. She rushed around, gathering up her son’s belongings, and changed for work, conscious that she didn’t have much time to waste.
If that baby is my son, it’s going to change your lives.
That declaration had aggravated her. Tor Sarantos could only change what she allowed him to change, she reminded herself bracingly. He didn’t own her; he didn’t own either of them. He couldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to do...
CHAPTER FIVE
ELOISE SAT ACROSS the table in the hospital canteen from Pixie during their break and said, ‘About the only thing your brother got right was when he advised you to take what you can get to make raising Alfie easier. His father should be sharing the responsibility.’
Pixie stiffened and blinked, taken aback by the pretty brunette’s frankly offered opinion. Since the other nurse and her brother had broken up, by mutual agreement both women had avoided discussing Jordan. ‘I never thought you’d say that.’