Making a fateful decision, uncomfortably aware that she was acting on blind instinct and panic but seeing no other solution, she splashed some water on her face and went to find her boss.
‘Tom, please,’ Gypsy begged, and mentally crossed everything. She hated lying, and especially using her daughter to do it. But she had no choice. Not with the father of her child just through the kitchen doors.
‘I have to get home to Lola. Something has…come up.’
Her boss raked his hand through his short sandy hair. ‘Jeez, Gypsy you really pick your moments—you know we’re short staffed as it is. Can’t it wait for another hour, until we have the main rush over with?’
Gypsy hated herself for this. She shook her head, already taking off her apron as she did so. ‘I’m sorry, Tom. Really sorry—believe me.’
His face tightened and he crossed his arms. Gypsy felt the slither of fear trickle down her spine. ‘So am I, Gypsy. I don’t want to do this to you, but it’s come to this: you’ve been late nearly every day for the past two weeks.’
Gypsy started to protest, saying something about the inflexible hours of her daughter’s minder conflicting with her shift hours, but her boss cut her off.
‘You’re a good worker, but there’s a line of people behind you waiting to get a job here who won’t let me down like this.’
He took a breath, and Gypsy’s foreboding increased. ‘If you leave like this now then I’m afraid you won’t have a job to come back to. It’s that simple.’
A vivid memory surged back of the moment she’d found out that the man who had turned her world upside down was none other than one of the world’s most powerful men, and nausea returned.
The thought of going back out to the dining room and trying to function normally was inconceivable. She’d end up getting fired anyway for spilling someone’s dinner into their lap, she was shaking so much. She looked at Tom and shook her head again sadly, already anticipating the drudge of having to look for another job, silently giving thanks that she had some savings to tide them over for a couple of weeks. ‘I’m sorry, Tom, I have no choice.’
Her boss stood back after a long moment and gestured with his arm. ‘Then I’m sorry too, Gypsy, because you’re leaving me no choice.’
She couldn’t say anything. Her throat was too tight. She gathered up her things and left through the back kitchen door, stepping out into the dark and dank alleyway behind the exclusive restaurant.
Later that night Rico stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of his central London penthouse apartment, hands dug deep into his pockets. His pulse was still racing, and it had nothing to do with the beautiful woman he’d said a curt and sterile goodnight to—much to her obvious disgust—and everything to do with a pretty waitress who had confounded him by doing a disappearing act.
She’d done a disappearing act the first time round, but he only had himself to blame for that. He grimaced; if he hadn’t panicked…It still rankled with him that he’d let her get under his guard so easily. He could remember watching her sleeping, sprawled across the bed, feeling seriously stunned at the depth of his desire, still, and the depth of his response to her.
It was that and the overwhelming feeling of possessiveness which had driven him from the room as if hounds were snapping at this heels. He never felt possessive of women. But this evening, the minute he’d recognised her, it had surged upwards again, as fresh as if no time had passed. And she’d run. And he had no idea why.
He pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket. He’d got her name from the manager of the restaurant, and his men had made short work of tracking her down. He now had Gypsy Butler’s address—for apparently that was her name. He smiled grimly. He would soon find out what exactly he found so compelling about a woman he’d slept with for just one night, and why on earth she’d felt the need to run from him.
The following morning, as Gypsy walked home in drizzly rain from the local budget supermarket, pushing a sleeping Lola in her battered buggy, she was still reeling at what had happened the previous evening.
She’d seen Rico Christofides and she’d lost her job.
The two things she’d been most terrified of happening had happened in quick succession. She defended herself again: she’d had no choice but to leave last night—she’d have been in no fit state to work or deal with Rico Christofides. Her legs felt momentarily weak when she recalled how he’d looked, and how instantaneous his effect on her had been.
He’d been tall and strong and devastatingly powerful. And still as bone-meltingly gorgeous as the first time she’d seen him across that crowded nightclub two years ago.
The night she’d met Rico had been a moment out of time—and most definitely a moment out of character. He’d caught her on the cusp of her new life, when she’d been letting go of a lot of pain. She’d been vulnerable and easy prey to the practised charm of someone like Rico Christofides. But she’d had no clue then just exactly who he was. A world-renowned tycoon and playboy.
Seeing him had made everything she’d ever known pale into insignificance. She knew if he’d been dressed like the other men in the club—in a natty shirt and blazer, pressed chinos—it would have been easy to dismiss him as being like all the rest. But he hadn’t been dressed like that. He’d been dressed in a T-shirt and faded denims which had fit lean hips and powerful legs so lovingly that it had been almost indecent. An air of dangerous sexuality had clung to his devastatingly dark good-looks in a way that had left everyone around him looking anaemic—and awestruck.
But that in itself would have just made him a spectacularly handsome guy; it had been more than that. It had been in the intensity of his gaze across that heaving chaotic club—on her. Dark and mesmerising, stopping Gypsy right where she’d been dancing alone on the dance floor.
The impulse to get out of her tangled head and engage in something physical had called to her as she’d passed the club doors and heard the heavy bass beat just a short while before. It was a primal celebration of the fact that she was finally free of her late father and his corrupt and controlling legacy. When he’d died six months previously she’d felt more emptiness than grief for the man who had never shown her an ounce of genuine affection.
But when the gorgeous stranger had started to come towards her in the club, with singular intent, all tangled thoughts and memories had fled. He’d cleared an effortless path through the thronged crowd—and sanity had returned to Gypsy in a rush of panic. He was too handsome, too dark, too sexy…too much for someone like her. And the way he’d looked at her as he grew ever closer had scared the life out of her.
But, as if rooted to the spot by a magic spell, she hadn’t been able to move, and had just watched, dry-mouthed, as he came to stop right in front of her. Tall and forbidding. No easy sexy smile to make it easier. It was almost as if something elemental had passed between them and this man was claiming her as his. Which had been a ridiculous thing to feel on a banal Friday night in a club in central London.
‘Why have you stopped dancing?’ he’d asked innocuously, his deep voice pitched to carry across the deafening beat, but even so she’d heard the unmistakably subtle accent.
He was foreign. As if his dark looks wouldn’t have told her that anyway. A frisson of awareness had made her tremble all over when she’d noted his steely grey eyes, their colour stark against his olive skin. She’d shaken her head, as if to clear it of this madness, but just then someone had jostled her, heaving her forward and straight into the man’s arms, into hands which held her protectively against his hard body.
Instantaneous heat had exploded throughout Gypsy’s body at the sheer physicality of him. She’d looked up, utterly perplexed, and had sensed real fear…Not fear for her safety, but an irrational fear for her sanity. On a rising wave of panic she’d used her hands to push against his chest and stepped back, answering tightly, ‘I was just leaving, actually…’
His big hands had tightened on her arms—bare because she was wearing a slee
veless vest. Her light jacket was tied about her waist, her bag slung across her chest. ‘You just got here.’
He’d been watching her from the moment she’d arrived. Gypsy had felt weakness pervade her limbs to think of how she’d been dancing: as if no one was watching.
And then he’d said, ‘If you insist on leaving, then I’m coming with you.’
Gypsy had gasped at his cool and arrogant nerve. ‘But you can’t—you don’t even know me.’
His jaw had been hard and implacable. Stern. ‘Then dance with me and I’ll let you go…’ The fact that he hadn’t been cajoling, hadn’t been drunkenly flirting, had imbued his words with something too compelling to resist.
Gypsy’s focus came back to grim and grey reality as she was forced to stop by the traffic lights. She didn’t need to recall the pitifully pathetic attempt she’d put up to resist before agreeing—ostensibly to make him let her go.
But it had had completely the opposite effect. After dancing with her so closely that her body had been dewed with sweat and heat and lust, he’d bent low to whisper against her ear. ‘Do you still want to leave alone?’ To her ongoing shame and mortification, she’d shaken her head, slowly and fatefully, her eyes glued to his in some kind of sick fascination. She’d wanted him with a hunger the like of which she’d never experienced in her life.
She’d let him take her by the hand and lead her out of the club, seeing him as somehow symbolic of the cataclysmic events of the day that had just passed, during which she’d finally let go of everything that had bound her to her father.
She’d allowed herself to be seduced…and then summarily dumped like a piece of trash the following morning. She remembered seeing the curt note he’d left, and how cheap she’d felt—as if all that was missing was a bundle of cash on the dresser.
With an inarticulate sound of disgust at herself to be thinking of this now, the fact that she’d let a man like him—a powerful man just like her father—seduce her, Gypsy strode on across the road once the traffic had stopped. With any luck Rico Christofides would have become distracted by the vision of perfection he’d been dining with last night and forgotten all about her. But he remembered you… She realised that any other woman would be feeling an intensely feminine satisfaction that a man like him hadn’t forgotten her, but she just felt panicky. Why on earth did a man like him remember someone like her?
A familiar sense of despair gripped Gypsy as she turned into her road, full of boarded-up houses and disaffected-looking youths loitering on steps. As much as she’d relished her freedom after her father’s death, and as much as she wouldn’t have minded living somewhere like this if she’d only had herself to worry about, it did bother her that her daughter’s first home was in such a decrepit part of London. Even the nearby children’s playground was vandalised beyond use, with just one pathetic swing left.
She sighed heavily, very aware of the irony that, but for her hot-headedness and determination to dissociate herself from her father, she might have been living in much more upmarket surroundings. But then she knew she could never have lived off her father’s money—and she’d never have dreamed that she’d become pregnant after a one-night stand with a ruthlessly seductive—
Gypsy’s heart stopped stone-cold dead in her chest—and it had nothing to do with the faintly menacing-looking youths crowded around the steps of a nearby house and everything to do with the stunning car they were eyeing up.
The gleaming black luxury vehicle with tinted windows should have belonged to one of the gangsters that had a stranglehold on the area, but Gypsy knew immediately it was a world apart from their cars. The gangsters around here could only wish to own a car like this.
And as she drew closer, and saw the back door swing open, her heart picked up speed, so that it was nearly leaping from her chest as she watched a tall, dark and powerfully built figure uncoil like a panther stretching lazily in the sun.
As if she didn’t already know who it was, he turned to face her. Just feet away, and right outside her front door. No escape.
Rico Christofides.
Chapter Two
GYPSY knew she couldn’t run. The very thought was futile—as evidenced by Rico Christofides’ clear determination to find her. Why was he so intent? All Gypsy had to do was picture the woman from last night and the contrast between them was laughable.
Today she was in her habitual uniform of too baggy jeans bought from a local charity shop, layers of threadbare jumpers to block out the January cold, sneakers, a secondhand parka and a woolly hat pulled down low over her ears and too wild hair. He, on the other hand, looked every inch the successful tycoon, in a long, black and expensive-looking coat, with the hint of a pristine suit underneath.
She saw his slaty grey eyes narrow on her as she approached. No doubt he was regretting his impetuous decision to find her. And then her skin prickled as she saw his gaze drop to the pram she pushed, with a sleeping Lola inside, obscured by the rainshield.
His daughter—oh, God—could he know?
Gypsy immediately reassured herself there was no way he could know. Why would he assume for a second that Lola was his? She just had to take advantage of the undoubted regret he’d already be feeling at seeking her out and get rid of him. As soon as possible—before he could see Lola and guess.
Even if he didn’t guess she knew that once she told him about Lola he’d move heaven and earth to prove that she wasn’t his—which was what she’d seen him do before. And then, when paternity was proved, he’d set out to control his daughter utterly. Exactly as her father had done to her once he’d had no choice but to accept her.
She knew this because Rico came from her father’s world of powerful men who thrived on being ruthless. Men who dominated those around them.
As soon as she’d heard his name she hadn’t been able to believe she hadn’t recognised him. She even recalled overhearing her father speaking bitterly of Rico Christofides on more than one occasion: ‘If you think I’m ruthless then don’t ever cross Rico Christofides. The man is a cold machine. If I could beat him I would, but the bastard wouldn’t rest until he’d resurrected himself from the dead and ruined me in the process. Some fights just aren’t worth it, but I’d give anything to see his arrogance smashed…’
Her father had been obsessive, and the memory of that almost grudging admiration had blasted away any chance that she might have contacted Rico Christofides before today.
The best that Gypsy could hope for was that that day wasn’t going to be today, and that perhaps she could escape with Lola—go somewhere new, away from London—until such time as she could get her wits about her again and decide what was best for them both.
She was glad now of her plain and dowdy appearance. Rico Christofides must already be forming some escape route of his own. She’d help him along, agree with him that he must have the wrong person, and then he’d get back into his luxury car and be off, out of her life, until such time as she invited him back in, when she was ready to deal with him. With that assurance, she steeled herself and walked forward.
Rico watched the woman come towards him. For a second he faltered. Was this her? The woman approaching slowly looked impossibly plain from a distance, bare of any make-up or artifice. Pale. And her body was all but swamped in clothes that looked as if they’d just been dragged out of a skip.
And she had a child. Something which felt suspiciously like disappointment sent his brain reeling, and he clamped down on that emotion hard. A child was a complication. She came closer, and as he lifted his gaze back to her face he was already trying to come up with some excuse for having come all this way to find her, still doubting that it might be her. Perhaps he had been completely mistaken. Perhaps the name was a freak coincidence.
But then she drew closer, and all thoughts of children and complications fled as his body reacted with a helpless lurch of desire. It was her.
Despite her appearance, he could see the intensity of those huge green eyes now, framed wit
h long black lashes, the delicate bone structure, her lush mouth. And her hair, with its irrepressible curls trailing out from under the tatty hat over her shoulders. It reminded him of the moment he’d first set eyes on her in that club. He’d been cursing himself for having gone at all, hating that he’d given in to weak restlessness, and then she’d walked in. Dressed in snug jeans and a vest top, completely at odds with the glitter of the too coiffed women who’d thronged the place. The expression on her face had been intense, as if she was being driven by inner demons, and it had resonated within Rico.
The firm swell of her breasts had been clearly outlined against the thin material of her top, and he’d watched, entranced, as she’d walked straight to the middle of the dance floor and started to dance with completely uninhibited grace. He’d seen plenty more beautiful women in his time, clothed and unclothed, but something about her lithe little figure, with its hint of sensual plumpness, had been more enticing than any gazelle-like beauty he’d ever known. With her tawny curly hair she’d looked wild, and free, and it had called to him on a base level too urgent to ignore…
She’d been exquisite. She was exquisite. Even though he could see at a glance now that she’d lost weight. Relief flooded him in a way that made him very nervous as she came to a standstill where he blocked the path. And along with the relief came irrational anger to find her living in such an obviously dangerous area. The anger surprised him; women didn’t normally arouse feelings of protectiveness within him. He’d noted the local thugs with distaste after he’d knocked and got no answer from her door, and retreated to his car to wait. They’d tried to intimidate him, but after one quelling look they’d recognised the danger within him and maintained a respectful distance.
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