by Lynne Graham
‘I only drink coffee,’ he said.
She discovered that she was still trembling in the aftermath of that passionate embrace. He was so hot he burned her, teaching her that she was a much more physical person than she had ever imagined. It was not a discovery she was grateful to have made because it made her feel vulnerable and weak in a way she had never been before.
‘Why did you get angry when I said that night was a mistake?’ Rosie asked curiously.
‘It was too good to be a mistake. I very much enjoyed it,’ he told her with unselfconscious cool.
Rosie almost choked on her tasty mouthful of chocolate croissant and remained silent until she had swallowed it in a painful rush. ‘I’ll think about meeting my grandfather when my exams are over,’ she conceded.
Alexius dealt her an assessing glance, noting that her belligerent streak was currently at bay. ‘And will you also think then about marrying me?’
Rosie stiffened and raised her eyes as high as his slightly stubbled chin. It was a very determined, very stubborn chin with a cleft and outrageously male. ‘No, that decision was clear as cut glass and I won’t be revisiting it.’
Alexius released his breath in an exasperated hiss of impatience. ‘Why not?’
‘How can you ask me that when you don’t want to get married in the first place?’ Rosie prompted with raised brows signalling her astonishment at his attitude. ‘Have you ever wanted to get married?’
‘No,’ he conceded.
‘Have you ever wanted a child of your own?’
Alexius frowned at that unfortunate question and hesitated.
‘You promised to tell me the truth from now on,’ Rosie reminded him doggedly.
‘No,’ he admitted curtly. ‘I have never wanted a child.’
‘So, why on earth would I want to marry you?’
Evidently, she lacked the greed gene he was used to igniting in all her sex. ‘Security? Support? A father for the child?’
‘If I married you, you’d be off with another woman in five minutes flat,’ Rosie forecast with a grimace at that humiliating likelihood. ‘You don’t strike me as the sort of guy likely to adapt easily to domesticity and parenthood either, particularly if you didn’t choose either of your own free will.’
Alexius, ludicrously unused to being deemed a potential failure at anything he attempted, gritted his teeth. ‘I might surprise you.’
‘And pigs might fly,’ Rosie remarked only half beneath her breath.
Alexius elevated a fine black brow. ‘Is that a challenge?’
‘No, it’s not,’ Rosie hastened to tell him, keen not to start another row. ‘Can’t we be friends, Alex?’
‘I don’t want to be friends with you,’ Alexius shot back at her as she brushed crumbs from her lap and stood up. ‘Have you eaten enough?’
‘More than enough,’ she insisted, glancing at her watch. ‘I have a class to get to.’
Alexius lifted the phone. ‘I will organise a car.’
‘That’s not necessary.’
‘A car and driver will be at your disposal for the foreseeable future,’ Alexius delivered as she walked to the door.
Rosie spun back, her eyes wide. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. What would I do with a car and a driver?’
‘Use them,’ Alexius responded without an ounce of humour. ‘Give me your phone number …’
‘Isn’t it ironic that you’re asking for it now only because I’m pregnant?’ Rosie tossed at him before she could think better of it, glancing across at him to see that his handsome features clenched hard at that blunt reminder.
‘We still have a lot to discuss, moraki mou.’
Rosie winced. ‘I think I’ve said all I’ve got to say.’
A satiric smile slashed his sculpted mouth. ‘While I have barely begun.’
Rosie wrote her number on a piece of paper and looked back at him. ‘Don’t tell my grandfather I needed time to think about meeting him, just tell him I have exams on,’ she urged suddenly. ‘I don’t want to hurt his feelings.’
‘What about mine?’ Alexius quipped.
‘I don’t think you’re over-endowed in that department,’ Rosie told him frankly. ‘You’re too aggressive and sure of yourself to be sensitive and too selfish to be caring.’
‘I just fed you,’ he shot back in his own defence, disconcerted by her candour. Was that truly how she saw him?
‘You’re probably investing in the fact that I’m carrying the Stavroulakis heir,’ she surmised, suspicion paramount as she gazed back at him, belatedly noticing the strain etched into his face and surprised by it. Did more go on beneath that smooth, sophisticated surface of his than she had supposed? Or was it the horrendous threat of the marriage he had forced himself to offer that had stressed him out? How could he do that? How could he ask her to marry him when he didn’t want to get married and he didn’t want a child? What had made him go against his own nature like that? Was it her grandfather’s likely response to her condition and Alexius’s part in it that he wished to guard against? Was that his main motivation? Marriage as a cover-up, an olive branch?
The Stavroulakis heir, not, by any stretch of imagination, a joke, Alexius mused grimly after he had instructed Titos to put a discreet bodyguard on Rosie. A child, a boy or a girl, he didn’t care which. He had no preferences whatsoever. But if there was a child born, he knew that he would ensure that it enjoyed a very different childhood from the one he had endured as the last Stavroulakis heir. That was his most basic duty towards his own flesh and blood and nothing more complex.
When Rosie stuck her key in the lock the following afternoon after her classes, she was tired and still stuck firmly in a state of mental turmoil. Since the day before she had been whisked everywhere she went by a BMW and a driver, who sat around waiting for her to emerge from every class without complaint. Such a luxury felt weird in her very ordinary life, almost as weird as Alexius Stavroulakis asking her to marry him, disregarding the gulf in their social status, disregarding even the obvious fact that he neither cared for her nor wanted their baby. Why on earth had he done that? she asked herself in frustration. Was he crazy? She might be hugely attracted to him, but to have said yes to such a proposal would surely have been a disastrous mistake, she reflected uncertainly, her head aching from such stressful thoughts. She wanted to give her baby the best possible chance in life but was convinced that so unequal a marriage would never last. Even worse, the fallout from a messy marital breakdown would only cause bad feeling between her and Alexius, which would in turn have an adverse effect on their child. On those grounds, it would be much wiser to build a more distant but civil relationship with Alexius outside the bonds of marriage. A relationship without intimacy or any very deep feelings, she conceded with a regret she could not stifle. But had she not so clearly seen Alexius’s lack of interest or desire for either marriage or parenthood she might have been very tempted to say yes to his proposal.
Martha came downstairs, Bas cradled in her arms. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’
Rosie walked into the lounge and stiffened in dismay when she saw Jason Steele rising from the sofa. Oh, hell, she thought ruefully. She was not in the mood for Jason on top of everything else she had undergone over the past forty-eight hours.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘I’LL keep hold of Bas,’ Martha whispered in her ear. ‘He doesn’t like him.’
‘Thanks,’ Rosie said, entering the lounge and shutting the door on the older woman. ‘Well, this is a surprise, Jason. How did you find out where I lived?’
The big blond man grimaced. ‘I’d sooner not say but I had to see you after what happened a couple of weeks ago,’ he told her. ‘All I wanted was the chance to talk to you.’
‘Sit down, Jason. You scared me that night,’ Rosie admitted, taking the chair opposite him.
Jason dropped back into the sofa, which creaked in protest beneath his considerable bulk. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t mean to do that but that guy wading i
n, interfering in what was none of his business, got to me. I thought you and I could go out some night … maybe see a film or go for a meal, whatever you like.’
Discomfiture at the invitation made Rosie turn pink. ‘That’s not a good idea—’
‘Why not? What’s wrong with me?’ Jason asked with more than a hint of belligerence.
‘I didn’t say there was anything wrong with you,’ Rosie hastened to assure him before deciding that in his particular case honesty probably was the best policy. ‘But it wouldn’t be right for either of us … I’m pregnant, Jason.’
Jason looked stunned. ‘You’re joking me?’
‘No, I’m telling you the truth.’
‘Pregnant?’ he repeated, staring at her as if she’d admitted to leprosy and with something akin to disgust.
Out in the hall she heard a door opening and closing, the low timbre of male voices and Bas bursting into sudden frenzied barks.
‘I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.’ Jason grimaced and got back on his feet again. ‘Well, this has been a waste of my time and no mistake—I don’t want to date a woman expecting some other bloke’s kid!’
Before Rosie could assure him that he really was quite safe from that development, the door behind her opened abruptly and all hell seemed to break loose at the same moment. Bas leapt at Jason, whom he loathed. Alexius, accompanied by the head of his security team, Titos, appeared just as Jason kicked the dog out of his path. Rosie loosed a shriek of horror as Bas flew up in the air and hit the wall before falling in a limp heap by the skirting board.
‘Oh, my Lord, Jason … you’ve killed Bas!’ she sobbed, surging forward.
‘Don’t upset yourself,’ Alexius advised, pulling Rosie back from the dog to take her place, sliding a hand under the tiny still body, grimacing as he noted that one of Bas’s legs was definitely broken, stuck out as it was at an unnatural angle. ‘His heart’s still beating. He’s been knocked out. We’ll get him straight to a vet—’
‘You’re a monster, Jason!’ Rosie exclaimed furiously. ‘First you hurt me, now you’ve attacked Bas—’
‘The dog attacked me first!’ Jason blistered back furiously. ‘And I didn’t mean to hurt you!’
‘Everything was fine until you burst in here,’ Rosie told Alexius in reproach, crouching down beside him and then flying upright again to stalk into the kitchen and snatch up a tray on which she carefully positioned the tiny dog with shaking hands.
‘Call the police,’ Alexius instructed Rosie. ‘You have to make a complaint against Jason this time—’
‘There’s no need for that,’ Jason began.
‘There’s every need,’ Alexius cut in with ruthless bite. ‘You followed her home from work last night … you’re stalking her!’
‘I’m not stalking her. I only followed you to find out where you had moved to,’ Jason told Rosie ruefully. ‘I didn’t do you any harm. I didn’t even come to the door because I knew it was too late to visit—’
Dismayed to realise that Jason had followed her home the night before, Rosie turned dazed eyes to Alexius and muttered anxiously, ‘Let’s get Bas to the vet first. He’s the most important thing here—’
‘No, you are,’ Alexius corrected, shooting Jason a look of bitter animosity.
‘I’m not going to bother her again,’ Jason protested. ‘I didn’t even know she had a bun in the oven.’
Alexius frowned, that phrase not having come to his ears before. As he registered its meaning along with Jason’s expressive shudder, Bas moaned in pain on the tray and Rosie stroked his little domed head with a tender hand while tears flooded her eyes. ‘I can’t bear anything to happen to Bas … he’s all I’ve got left of Beryl!’
Alexius urged her out of the door, draping the jacket Martha passed him round her narrow shoulders. ‘Beryl?’ he queried, watching in consternation as tears spilled down her cheeks.
‘She was my foster mum,’ Rosie told him unevenly as Alexius grasped the tray and urged her into the back of the limousine waiting at the kerb. ‘I moved in with her when I was twelve. It was the only place I was ever happy. She treated me like family. She really loved me—’
‘Do you still see her?’ Alexius prompted, keen to take her thoughts in a more positive direction for Bas was bleeding from the nose and Alexius wanted to distract her: the dog didn’t look good.
Rosie dashed the tears away irritably. ‘She died when I was twenty. She was ill for a long time with breast cancer. I was fifteen when it was first diagnosed and she got all the treatment but it came back the next year and the doctors couldn’t do anything more … it was terminal. One of Beryl’s grown-up children bought Bas as a surprise for her a few months before she died. I thought it was an insane idea to give her a pet when she was so ill, but Bas gave her an interest … He brightened those last months for her, so I couldn’t let him go after she’d passed.’
The tray on her lap, she stroked the limp little animal’s back with her forefinger. ‘How did you know that Jason followed me home last night? How did you know he was visiting me this evening?’
‘When you left yesterday I arranged for one of my security guards to keep a discreet watch on you to ensure your safety. Just as well with Jason around,’ Alexius pronounced grimly.
‘Why the heck would you have done that? You mean someone’s been following me since yesterday?’ Rosie exclaimed in disbelief.
‘That’s how I knew what Jason had been up to and that he had called to see you today,’ Alexius pointed out tautly.
‘Jason was about to leave quietly when you let in Bas and everything went pear-shaped. I don’t need a security guard,’ she said thinly. ‘What am I? A princess or something? I’ve got nothing worth stealing. Where are we going?’
‘A veterinary clinic where Bas will get immediate treatment.’
Rosie stared down at the chihuahua’s still little body, noticed the blood at his nose and her lower lip quivered. ‘I love him so much it’s ridiculous. He’s not very well trained and Jason teased him so much when I lived with Mel that he hates men.’
‘He bit me as well,’ Alexius volunteered.
‘At least you didn’t kick him,’ Rosie muttered.
Alexius surveyed Bas and suppressed a sigh, wondering if that was all he had in his favour. Saving Bas to bite another day was clearly a priority when the mother of his child was so deeply attached to him. His own mother had had several pet dogs and had appeared fond of them, a great deal fonder than she had ever been of her son. He studied Rosie as she sat next to him, slim as a willow wand and without an ounce of surplus weight. He wondered if it was healthy for a pregnant woman to be so thin, tried to picture that tiny body swollen with his child and was startled by the sudden flush of heat that gave him an instant erection. How could that image be a turn-on? he asked himself in disbelief. Any fool could get a woman pregnant, he reasoned. There was nothing remotely special about it, although the process that brought it about had been pure bliss, he recalled in a helpless surge of sensual recall as the limo reached their destination.
Alexius removed the tray from Rosie and carried Bas into the animal clinic. A veterinary nurse in an overall came forward to collect him and then a burly vet emerged to greet them and ask questions.
‘We need to X-ray him and stabilise him first. He’s got concussion and the leg needs to be treated. If we’re lucky, it may not be more serious than that.’
As the vet spoke Bas suffered a seizure that sent convulsions travelling through his little body and made his three working legs paddle in the air. Rosie gasped in alarm and tried to soothe him.
‘I’m afraid that’s not a good sign but there’s nothing you can do to stop it,’ the vet warned her before he directed them to the waiting room and took Bas into the surgery to check him out.
‘This is one of the most highly acclaimed private animal clinics in the UK,’ Alexius assured Rosie. ‘If Bas can be saved, it’ll happen here.’
Rosie stared into space, tr
ying to imagine life without Bas’s lively loving presence and shrinking from it. Thirty minutes later, the nurse appeared and told them that Bas would have to spend the night under observation because he might yet require emergency surgery on his fractured skull.
‘How on earth am I going to pay the bills for all this?’ Rosie whispered in dismay as Alexius vaulted upright, clearly grateful to be freed to leave. ‘This level of emergency treatment and care must cost a fortune.’
‘I’m taking care of it,’ Alexius fielded, reaching down a hand to draw her out of her chair. She was light as feather and so preoccupied by her pet’s plight and prospects that she was wholly divorced from his presence. Being ignored was, he discovered, a novel experience he didn’t much appreciate, particularly when the woman doing the ignoring was dressed in worn jeans, tacky trainers and an overlarge tee with a garish logo on the front. Somehow her complete indifference to her appearance around him added to his growing sense of affront. He gazed down at her, noticing the way the artificial light burnished her hair to silvery fairness … and her nipples caused little dents in the tee. He tensed, remembering the tormentingly sweet taste of those little buds and her wild responsiveness and had to struggle to get his mind back on the conversation.
‘That’s very generous of you but I don’t like being under an obligation,’ Rosie admitted, almost stumbling on the steps outside the clinic until Alexius grabbed her arm to steady her.
‘Agree to meet your grandfather and I’ll write the debt off,’ Alexius responded, stunning silver eyes framed by lush black lashes and strikingly noticeable in his lean bronzed face.
Rosie was sharply disconcerted by the suggestion and stared up at him in disbelief. ‘But that’s blackmail.’
‘That’s me, moraki mou,’ Alexius returned without apology. ‘I’m programmed to make the most of any advantage and if I can do your grandfather a good turn in the process, I will do it.’
Rosie breathed in deep and slow, shaken that he could be quite so unashamed of his ruthless and immoral approach to life. So, his generosity had a price? Was she really surprised by the fact? Alexius Stavroulakis wasn’t the kind of guy to do something for nothing. But the source of her concern was very real, for she was convinced that the bill for treating Bas would run into thousands of pounds and there was no way that she could pay any of it back. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,’ Beryl used to say in warning, and Rosie had always respected that maxim because on a small income if she did not live within her means she risked getting into serious trouble. But how much of a sacrifice would she really be making if she agreed to go to Greece? In the back of her mind she was already coming round to accepting that curiosity alone would have prompted her to meet her grandfather. But in truth, and it was very much a visceral reaction, she did want to meet her father’s father and find out more about the Greek side of her family.