In an effort to put some space between them, she moved away and looked around. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over London, where clouds made it seem darker, the skyline soaring against them. Despite the grim weather it was enchanting. And completely impractical.
She turned around again, determined, despite the pathetic state of her own flat, not to allow Rico to railroad them. ‘We can’t stay here for long. This place is a recipe for disaster with a toddler.’ She gestured with a hand towards a low glass table. ‘There are sharp edges and corners everywhere. Lola’s far too inquisitive at the moment—she’ll get hurt.’
Rico stood with hands in his pockets, grey eyes narrowed on Gypsy, who could feel a flush rising over her chest and her face. All of a sudden she felt hot, and wanted to take off some layers.
‘I will make sure Lola is protected. Within twenty-four hours this apartment will be child-proofed. You’ll have to come up with more than such a flimsy pretext to deter me, Gypsy.’
Suspicion and a trickling of cold horror gripped her then, and she asked, ‘Those men…what were they delivering?’
Rico ticked off on his fingers. ‘A pram, a cot, a changing table…I told my assistant to make sure all the basics were bought and delivered. You can let me know what’s missing.’
Gypsy’s hands dropped to her sides. ‘But…I just came to talk…for one evening…one night. We are going home tomorrow. I have work to find, and Lola’s in a routine.’ Hysteria was rising. ‘You have no right to presume anything. We don’t need all that for one night, so you’re just going to have to get it taken away again.’
Rico advanced on Gypsy, and she fought not to snatch up Lola, turn and run. He came and stood before her with a look of almost savage intent on his face, in his eyes, and Gypsy knew that this was the moment she’d realised just how formidable he was going to be.
‘That child is my daughter. I have missed fifteen months of her existence—fifteen months of her development and watching her grow. As far as she’s aware she has no father. It doesn’t matter that she might be too young to realise the import of that now, I do. Know this, Gypsy Butler: as of this day, and from now on, I am in her life and your life. And you, with no job and living in a hovel, are in no position to argue with my wishes.’
Conversely, even as his words horrified Gypsy, she felt on more even ground. She knew what she was dealing with now. She asked, ‘Are you threatening me, Rico? Are you saying that if I were to leave with Lola right now, walk out of here, you would bring down the full force of your power on us?’
A muscle jumped in his jaw. His eyes were so dark they looked almost black and not grey. Eventually he said with chilling calm, ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. If you were to walk out of here right now, the only way I would allow it to happen was if you were to leave alone.’ He smiled, and it was feral, ‘But, based on the evidence of how determined you’ve been to keep her from me and all to yourself, I don’t think you’ll be doing that.’
The implication that he would quite happily let her walk away sent something dark to Gypsy’s gut. ‘You’re right. I wouldn’t dream of leaving my daughter behind. As for our situation—yes, we’re vulnerable, and certainly in no position to fight you should you decide that it’s necessary. So of course I’m not stupid enough to encourage your wrath. I know how men like you operate, Rico Christofides. You have no compunction about squashing the opposition just so long as you get whatever it is that takes your fancy at the time. We’ll bow to your wishes for now, as we have little choice, but I don’t doubt that as soon as you’ve seen the reality of setting up home with a small child you’ll be throwing us back to where we came from, so you can get on with your self-absorbed existence and your bid for world domination. And as far as I’m concerned that moment can’t come soon enough.’
Gypsy stopped talking. She was breathing hard. Rico was just looking at her, far too assessingly, and she cursed herself for having said too much. But, as she knew well from experience, it would be utterly futile to fight with someone like him. Better to indulge him, let him play out his father role, and wait for him to get bored. She had no doubt he would—especially with red-haired beauties like the one last night waiting in the wings. At the thought of him sleeping with her something even darker clenched in Gypsy’s gut.
Just then Mrs Wakefield bustled back into the room, with tea and sandwiches, and Lola woke up, struggling out of her makeshift bed. Gypsy rushed to help her off the couch, and automatically lifted her away from the hazardous glass coffee table. Lola slipped out of her hands again, like a wriggling eel, and toddled over to the huge window, fascinated by the staggering view.
She pointed when a bird flew past and exclaimed, ‘Birdy!’
Mrs Wakefield finished putting out the tea and went over to make friends with a clearly delighted Lola. After a few minutes of largely nonsensical but earnest chatter from the toddler, she turned to Gypsy, ‘She’s a sunny one, isn’t she?’
Gypsy smiled wryly, glad of the momentary distraction. ‘Most of the time, yes. But woe betide anyone who gets close when she’s tired or hungry…’
Mrs Wakefield held out a hand, and Lola took it trustingly. ‘Why don’t we go off for a little exploring and let Mum and Mr Christofides have their tea?’
Before Gypsy could protest Lola was happily toddling out of the room with Mrs Wakefield, not a care in the world at leaving her mother behind. And while Gypsy felt proud, because it was a sign of a happy and secure child, she also felt absurdly hurt.
When she turned around Rico was holding out a chair at the larger table for her to sit down, and he said mockingly, ‘Don’t worry. She’s not going to kidnap her or spirit her away.’
Gypsy said nothing, just sat down, still a little shocked at what had spilled out of her mouth only moments before. Clearly she was feeling far too volatile at the moment to be sure of remaining calm and rational. With grim reluctance she finally slipped off her coat, knowing they wouldn’t be returning to her flat any time soon.
Rico poured tea and pushed some sandwiches towards Gypsy. She was avoiding his eyes again, and he was still reeling slightly at her outburst. The fact that she was projecting something deeply embedded within her onto him was obvious. He suspected it was the same thing that had stopped her from automatically telling him about her pregnancy. But what?
His interest piqued, he vowed, among everything else he’d already set in motion, to look into Gypsy Butler’s life for clues. The fact that he knew nothing about the mother of his child did not sit well with him. If he had ever contemplated having a child with anyone, he knew he was the kind of person to have chosen someone based on cool logic and intellect. The mother of his child would not be left to fate and circumstance, the child would not be conceived in a moment of blind passion—His stomach clenched. But that was exactly what had happened…
But, he reassured himself, he had the means to control that. To control her. He watched her eat the sandwiches with relish, and wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten properly. Her baggy shapeless clothes hung off her petite frame, and that slightly plump litheness he remembered so well was gone. Even so, he conceded reluctantly, it did nothing to diminish her appeal or douse his desire.
Abruptly he stood, cup in hand, and went to look out of the window. He didn’t like the way she could rouse him so effortlessly, or the way he cared even for a moment that she’d grown thin. And especially he didn’t like the way he felt inclined to do everything in his power to restore that vivacious health.
He turned to face her and she was looking at him with big wary eyes. Very like the way Lola had been looking at him in the flat. Her hand was clenched around her cup, a tiny crumb at the corner of her mouth. Her wildly curling hair lay around her shoulders, reminding him of that free spirit image she’d projected when he’d first seen her, which had pulled him to her like a magnet. It made him think for an uncomfortable moment that perhaps she was someone who wouldn’t be influenced by his wealth.
; He steeled himself and reminded himself of exactly what she’d done to him. The worst thing possible. Distaste and disgust for the type of woman she was, for the type of mother she was, rose up within him and he welcomed it. On the evidence of her reluctance to inform him about Lola she might not be a gold-digger, but she was something worse. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t hesitate to marry another man and have him bring her daughter up as if she were his own, uncaring of the cataclysmic fall-out that would ensue.
He reacted to the way she was still looking at him, with trepidation mixed with a kind of defiance. ‘You do know that I’ll never forgive you for this, don’t you?’
Chapter Six
‘YOU do know I’ll never forgive you for this, don’t you?’
The words resounded in Gypsy’s head as she lay wide awake in the softest bed imaginable much later that night. It had taken ages to put Lola down after she’d been fed, bathed and changed. The penthouse was far too exciting for her—plus the attention of not only Rico but a clearly besotted Mrs Wakefield, who had been the soul of discretion even though Gypsy had seen her looking assessingly from Lola to Rico.
To see Lola running around the cavernous rooms had made Gypsy’s chest ache, very aware of how cramped their own space was…
Mrs Wakefield had shown Gypsy around the entire apartment, and brought her to an enormous suite where a cot had been set up by the king-sized bed. An impromptu nursery had been made in the dressing room. A huge bathroom completed the suite, and Gypsy had seen from a brief look into Rico’s own rooms, stamped with his masculine touch, that he had an even larger suite.
The housekeeper had told her how to get around the kitchen, and shown her where everything was. Gypsy had been bemused more than shocked to see the fridge and cupboards were already stocked high with an assortment of baby food, and the formula she’d requested. There had even been baby monitors, so that Gypsy could keep one with her as she moved about the apartment in case she didn’t hear Lola wake.
Lola slept nearby now, and Gypsy could hear her baby breaths, light and even. Usually the sound comforted her, but her stomach hadn’t unclenched all evening—or, in truth, since she’d seen Rico just last night. Just last night. It was hard to believe that within the space of twenty-four hours she was ensconced in his apartment. But then, she surmised grimly, she’d feared exactly this kind of autocratic takeover all along.
And yet her conscience niggled her. While he was being just as controlling as her father had been, she couldn’t deny the fact that, unlike her father, Rico was showing nothing but signs of accepting Lola.
He’d come into the kitchen where she’d been making herself some cocoa after putting Lola down for the night and said coolly, ‘I’ve arranged for my doctor to come in the morning. He’ll take swabs from Lola and I, and we’ll have paternity proved within the week.’
Without giving her a chance to say a thing, he’d continued relentlessly, ‘I don’t see any point in your going anywhere until we have the results of the paternity test, so you will remain here for the week. Once it’s established that I’m Lola’s father, the first thing we will see to is amending the birth certificate so that my name is added.’
Utterly remote and cold, he’d inclined his head then, and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me? I have some work to attend to in my study. I trust you know your way around now?’
Gypsy had nodded, intimidated by this ice-cold man. ‘Mrs Wakefield was more than helpful.’
‘Good.’ And without another word he’d strode out of the kitchen.
Gypsy had heard a sound then, on the baby monitor. Straining her ears, she’d just been able to make out that Rico must have gone in to look down on Lola. Her heart had lurched treacherously at realising that. There was silence for a long moment. She’d heard his breath, and then something indistinct that sounded like Spanish.
With a shiver, Gypsy realised that even if his initial acceptance of his own flesh and blood wasn’t mirroring her father’s cold rejection of her the outcome would be the same. Rico was staking his claim, vowing not to let his daughter be taken away from him. Vowing to make Gypsy pay…just as her father had done to her mother—albeit for different reasons.
In Gypsy’s case, once Social Services had been involved, and her father had had no choice but to acknowledge her, he’d made sure that Gypsy had never seen her mother again. It had only been in later years that she’d discovered that her mother had died alone in a mental hospital just a few years after that awful day.
Gypsy had always suspected that nothing much had been wrong with her mother other than a tendency to depression, which could have been exacerbated by her birth and their tough circumstances. She’d been a mournful woman, prone to pessimism, and not very strong. But nothing that a little support mightn’t have helped.
Her father had cut Mary out of Gypsy’s life ruthlessly, and even though he’d had information as to her whereabouts he’d refused to help her at all. He’d let her be sucked into the labyrinthine mental health-care system, eventually to die. After her father’s death Gypsy had found heartbreaking letters from her mother, begging for his help, begging for a chance to see Gypsy again. It had been almost too much to bear…
Gypsy sighed deeply and tried her best not to think of that now. Tried not to think of how it had killed her inside to realise the night she’d met Rico that she had found it so easy to gravitate towards a man of her father’s ilk. Was there something within her that resonated with powerful and ruthless men, despite what her father had done to her and her mother?
She sighed again, and turned over to face where Lola slept so peacefully. Her father was gone. And, while she might be in this untenable situation with Rico now, she was not like her mother. She would not be so easily separated from her daughter. She was infinitely stronger and more resourceful. They would get through this, and she would not let him consume them utterly just because he craved control.
The following morning, early, Rico sat at the breakfast bar in the state-of-the-art kitchen. The Financial Times couldn’t hold his interest. He looked around and grimaced, seeing for the first time exactly what Gypsy had seen yesterday evening. The place was a potential minefield for an innocent toddler. Watching how Lola had gleefully run around last night, having to be plucked from danger every two seconds, had made him sweat. He’d never had to account for a small child before.
His heart clenched at recalling her vibrant energy, and how right it had felt to have her here—how quickly he’d felt that if anyone so much as looked at her the wrong way he’d want to flatten them.
She was beautiful—more beautiful than anything he could have imagined. She was bright, sharp, inquisitive. And, he had to concede grudgingly, all the evidence pointed to the fact that Gypsy was indeed a good mother.
Finding Gypsy in the kitchen making hot chocolate last night had made him feel unaccountably off-centre. Because she’d looked right in that domestic milieu. It had been almost as if he couldn’t remember a time when this penthouse had just been his London pied-à-terre, a place where he invited his mistresses for transitory pleasures. The sense of triumph had disturbed him, making him sound more caustic than he’d intended when he’d outlined his plans for the week.
When he’d gone to look in on Lola as she’d slept, a wave of emotion he’d never felt before had nearly felled him. His hand had shaken as he’d reached out to stroke soft skin—soft as a rose petal. And he had known in that moment, as he’d looked down at her flushed and downy cheeks, at the riot of golden curls around her head and that tiny, fragile and yet so sturdy body, that he was possibly falling in love for the first time.
As for her mother…Rico welcomed the hardness that settled in his chest at just thinking of her. All he felt for Gypsy was a singular irritating desire, which he hated to acknowledge, and the need to seek vengeance. To make her bend to his will. To punish her for keeping their daughter secret from him.
Just then he heard Lola’s cry come from the baby monitor, which Gypsy
had obviously left in the kitchen last night. She cried out again, and the cries became more forceful as she woke up. Rico tensed all over. Silently he cursed Gypsy. Why wasn’t she attending to their daughter? Perhaps something was wrong?
Feeling a very unwelcome sense of panic, Rico was about to stride from the room when he heard Gypsy’s soft, sleep-filled and husky voice. ‘Good morning, sweetheart…’
He heard the rustle of movement but still couldn’t relax; hearing Gypsy’s voice was sending a new kind of tension through his body.
‘Did you sleep well, my love?’
Lola cooed in response, and Rico heard the sound of kisses. Heat flooded his body.
‘I bet you did…you’re my best girl, aren’t you?’
With an abrupt move, Rico shut off the monitor. The problem was she was his girl now too, and the sooner Gypsy came to terms with that the better.
He finished his coffee with one gulp and went to his study to make some calls.
Gypsy was just finishing feeding Lola her breakfast when Rico walked into the kitchen. Immediately her heart thumped hard, and she felt self-conscious in the same baggy jeans and an ancient college T-shirt, with her hair dragged up and held in place with a big clip.
Lola grinned happily at Rico, sending specks of food flying as she waved her spoon around and chattered in baby-speak. Immediately aware of how pristine Rico was in comparison to her, in his dark trousers and white shirt, Gypsy leapt up to get a cloth and wipe the floor.
His voice came curtly. ‘Leave it. Mrs Wakefield will see to it.’
She flushed, but sat back down again. ‘I don’t want to give her any more work to do.’
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 331