by Lynne Graham
He stepped gracefully past her. ‘Five minutes of your time.’
‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get dressed,’ she enunciated frigidly.
Coming through the door, he hadn’t even looked at her. Now he did. Golden eyes wandered a most unwelcome path over her in the dim hall light. ‘Why bother?’ he drawled flatly. ‘It wouldn’t bother me if you were stark naked.’
Crimson ran up in a river of colour to her hairline. Her mouth closed tightly. She stalked past him and settled herself down on the sofa without any ceremony. The towel wrapped turban-style round her small head began to fall and with a jerky hand she trailed it off and threw it aside.
A cascade of silver-blonde hair fell in a silky tangle of disarray almost to her waist. He stopped dead in his tracks and dealt her an arrested glance. Sarah searched his suddenly narrowed golden gaze blankly and then looked over her shoulder to see what had attracted his attention. Gina’s floral wallpaper covered by blooms the size of dinner-plates? The cuckoo clock?
She turned back to him irritably. For some reason, he still looked riveted and he very narrowly missed tripping over one of the tiny wine-tables which cluttered the room. He snaked out a speedy hand and restored the rocking article, his perfectly shaped mouth twisting with annoyance.
‘May I sit down?’ He surveyed her expectantly.
‘Suit yourself.’
‘You could offer me a drink,’ he suggested drily.
‘You are not a welcome guest, Mr Terzakis.’
Under her stunned scrutiny, he strolled over to the tray of alcoholic beverages on the sideboard, located the whisky, selected a glass and helped himself. ‘I should warn you that I find it impossible to be even slightly courteous in your vicinity.’
Sarah took refuge in silence but her nerves were singing like a soldier’s on the brink of a battlefield.
He sank down with indolent grace into an armchair opposite and regarded her with utterly unreadable black ice eyes fringed by ridiculously long, luxuriant lashes. ‘Last week, I made several miscalculations,’ he murmured smoothly. ‘It is obvious that you have no intention of giving up Nikos—’
‘Nicky,’ Sarah slotted in shortly.
‘Nicky—how cute.’
But he was saying it, she noted with rich satisfaction.
‘No intention of giving him up...am I correct?’
‘Very rarely, but on this occasion, yes.’ But was that quite true? Sarah had tossed in her bed over several nights, questioning whether she was doing the right thing in utterly rejecting the proposal he had made for Nicky’s future. In material terms certainly the Terzakis family had a great deal to offer Nicky, and the further suggestion of two parents... But then, it was the potential parents that worried Sarah the most.
‘It was perhaps...tactless,’ he selected softly, ‘of me to suggest that my brother and his wife assume responsibility for him.’
Sarah was not acquainted with him in this mood. She frowned. He was purring like a sensuous cat and toeing the line, a line she had frankly not expected him to abandon so easily. ‘Not tactless,’ she said. ‘Brutally insensitive.’
‘The child’s future could be secured in another way,’ Alex proffered. ‘I could adopt him and bring him up as my son.’
Sarah was thrown by the proposal, tossed casually at her without the smallest of preliminaries. The tip of her tongue snaked out to moisten her dry lips. His darkened eyes suddenly flamed into gold, his attention dropping to the surprisingly voluptuous curve of her lower lip and lingering. Faint colour threw his hard cheekbones into prominence. He tautened, shifting slightly in the chair, a tiny muscle pulling tight at the corner of his unsmiling mouth.
There was a thrumming tension in the air. She didn’t know where it had come from but it unsettled her, brought her skin out in goose-flesh. She stiffened, and watched that so expressive mouth of his suddenly slide into the faintest of smiles. It was there and then it was gone as though she had imagined it, leaving her scrutinising him with uneasy suspicion of she knew not what.
What was the matter with him? Had he been drinking? Perhaps that was why he had to help himself to whisky—dire need rather than simple ignorant bad manners. He had nearly fallen, she reminded herself. In addition, he couldn’t seem to hold his concentration.
And he wasn’t the only one, she registered, although she could scarcely be blamed for losing focus on the conversation when he was behaving so oddly. As for his proposal that he adopt Nicky! Barely worth the breath required to answer. No...no...no.
‘You would hand Nicky over to your brother. That’s what you would do.’ She spoke her thoughts out loud.
‘I am a man of my word, a man of honour.’ Night-dark eyes rested on her again. ‘But then I doubt that you believe that. Yet it is imperative that—er—Nicky should be accepted as a Terzakis.’
‘Imperative to whom?’ Sarah demanded.
‘Do you really think that one day that child will be grateful to you for denying him his rightful place in society?’
Sarah paled, bent her head, assailed all over again by doubt and uncertainty which she was determined not to show him.
‘Your determination to deny my nephew what my family could give him is wholly selfish,’ he derided harshly.
Taut and strained, Sarah studied the carpet at her feet. Was it selfish? She was greatly disturbed by the accusation. Didn’t he see that from her side of the fence the Terzakis men were a particularly abhorrent yardstick by which to measure the rest of his family? Damon: weak, cruel and uncaring, as revealed by his treatment of her sister. Alex: ruthless, arrogant and equally cruel and uncaring of those less fortunately placed in the world. She did not seek to retain custody of her nephew out of revenge and respect for Callie’s memory alone. No, indeed...
A child needed more than wealth and status to thrive. A child needed time, understanding and love to grow into a responsible adult. Was it even reasonably possible that Nicky would find those needs fully met by the Terzakis family? Sarah thought not, but she desperately wished she had a crystal ball to see into the future because she was frightened by the fear that she could be making the wrong decision on Nicky’s behalf. And if that was true, she would never forgive herself...and Nicky might never forgive her either, she reflected painfully.
She cleared her throat and lifted her head, sure on one point. ‘I wouldn’t trust you with Nicky. He’s a helpless little baby and you’re a self-centred workaholic shark who would probably dump him in the full-time care of a nanny—’
The long fingers of one lean brown hand flexed. ‘Your insolence astounds me,’ he admitted in a roughened undertone.
Ironically, Sarah had merely been honest. For once she had not sought to offend deliberately. She had simply been truthful. ‘And what would happen when you married?’ she continued doggedly. ‘Nicky would get a stepmother who would very probably resent him and favour her own children over him.’
‘By what right do you dare to pass an opinion on my character?’ he demanded, springing upright with the restive energy of a prowling tiger.
Sarah tensed. One word of criticism and he was on the brink of explosion. ‘And then,’ she added helplessly, ‘there’s your temper—’
‘My temper?’ he repeated with a stark flash of grinding white teeth.
‘You appear to have little control over it,’ she murmured. ‘Children can be very trying. They can test your patience to the utmost.’
‘You know nothing of my temper!’ he intoned, incensed. ‘I am a very disciplined man.’
Sarah elevated a brow. ‘Oh, I expect you’re an absolute pussycat as long as everybody around you is bowing and scraping and you’re getting your own way.’ She rose to her feet, hoping he was on his way out. ‘What you cannot handle is opposition from a mere female...’
A pin-dropping silence stretched. Hooded dark eyes regarded her almost slumbrously. ‘I could handle you with one hand tied behind my back...but you wouldn’t like my methods.’
For so
me reason the full onslaught of that disturbingly intent dark stare made her breath catch in her throat. Something deep in the pit of her stomach tightened almost painfully. Her breasts felt curiously heavy. Time seemed to have slowed down. And then he turned his head away, tautening, and strode over to the door.
‘Nikos is crying,’ he informed her flatly, as though that in itself were an offence.
‘Nikos?’ Blinking in confusion, Sarah had to dredge herself out of the strange spell she had fallen under for a few dismaying seconds. Involuntarily she shook her head. It was tiredness, stress. Little wonder she was feeling odd.
With a stifled sound of raw impatience at the slowness of her response, Alex strode out of the room and up the stairs, but he hung back for a split-second to breathe in a tone of forbidding censure, ‘A baby should never be left to cry.’
CHAPTER THREE
ALEX had already lifted Nicky by the time Sarah reached the bedroom. Her nephew was howling at the top of his lungs, his adorable little face scarlet with misery. Sarah’s heart clenched at the mere sight of him. He looked so pathetic.
‘Let me take him,’ she said, reaching out instinctively for him, eager to proffer all the comfort that any baby could possibly require.
Alex cast her a coldly amused glance. ‘I do know what to do with a baby. How often do you leave him to cry?’
Fury coursed through her. ‘I never leave him to cry!’
‘In my home, he would have instant attention every hour of the day,’ he informed her.
Sarah’s teeth ground together. ‘If you put him down, I’ll go and heat his bottle.’
‘I will remain here with Nikos until you return.’
That totally bloody man! Sarah banged about the kitchen, furious that Alex Terzakis was actually holding Callie’s child in his arms! She refused to recognise the bond of blood between them. Neither brother had any right to such an acknowledgment, she told herself.
All of a sudden she was reliving the past again, hugging her bitterness to her like a warm blanket to ward off the freezing chill of Alex’s presence in the house.
Seven months ago, Damon had gone over to Greece on business. He had known then that Callie was pregnant, had, according to Callie, been absolutely delighted at the news. Callie had naturally suggested that surely it was time for Damon to introduce her to his brother. With that whopping engagement ring on her finger and Damon’s child on the way, hadn’t Callie had every excuse to have expectations of a quick marriage?
Damon had promised to speak to his brother while he was at home. He had returned, pale and hunted-looking, shorn of his usual insouciance. Alex was immovable, he had told Callie. Alex was not even prepared to meet her. Only then had Callie informed Sarah that she was pregnant. She had dragged Damon with her to make that announcement and Sarah had endured an evening of hideous embarrassment.
No doubt she had been terribly naïve but she had not realised before that evening that Callie and Damon were sleeping together. In the same way she had not known that Callie was actually living with Damon in the apartment he had taken in Oxford. Callie had concealed that fact from her, passing off her change of address and phone number as a move to a cheaper flat with other girls.
‘I am not in a position to marry Callie at this moment in time,’ Damon had informed her stiffly.
‘Alex is threatening to cut him off without a penny! Have you ever heard of such melodrama in this day and age?’ Callie had demanded hotly.
Damon had not been able to meet Sarah’s questioning gaze. Finally, when he could no longer bear the silence, he had said almost pleadingly, ‘I cannot defy my brother...at least, not at present.’
And Sarah’s heart had sunk. It had been an excuse and not a good enough one in the circumstances. Callie had become hysterical. Sarah suspected that somehow her kid sister had expected her to be able to wave a magic wand and make everything fine again. But the reality had been that Damon was a grown man. If he did not have the courage to stand up to his tyrannical brother and forge his own path in life until such time as his family came round to accepting his choice of bride, nobody else could give him that courage.
A week later, Damon had taken off for Greece again with very little warning.
‘Did you know that he was going?’ Sarah had asked her sister worriedly.
‘Don’t worry...he’ll be back. He really wants this baby,’ Callie had asserted doggedly, seemingly unconcerned by the suspicions assailing Sarah.
Sarah had gone over and over Damon’s demeanour that evening in her own mind, wondering if it was wickedly cynical of her to suspect that the young Greek was no longer quite so sure of his feelings for her sister. He had not reiterated his once dramatic assurances that he loved Callie. His strain and the alteration in his behaviour had been pronounced. She had not wanted to worry her sister with her fears.
But a fortnight later a suave lawyer had turned up at Damon’s Oxford apartment and served Callie with a notice of eviction. Callie had run home to Sarah, outraged by what had happened but convinced that the eviction could not possibly have had anything to do with Damon. It was, she’d insisted, a stupid misunderstanding with the landlord. She had refused to return to university. Sarah had pleaded with her but Callie had refused to listen to her.
In despair, Sarah had decided that perhaps it was her duty to confront Alex Terzakis and attempt to reason with him. Callie had asked her to do it but Sarah hadn’t wanted to do it. Only her sister’s unblemished faith in Damon had persuaded her. She had been pleasantly surprised when Alex’s very correctly spoken secretary had come back to her within the hour with his agreement. He would meet them the next time he was in London.
She remembered that day in his office. It had been unforgettable. Now that day he had intimidated her. Right from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, her stomach had churned. She had gone in good faith to that meeting, angry and defensive on Callie’s behalf, but so foolishly certain that when he met Callie he would realise that his prejudice against her was unreasonable.
But Alex Terzakis had never actually met Callie. He had let the two of them enter his palatial office and had then fixed his attention solely on Sarah. ‘I think that you and I should talk alone, Miss Hartwell.’
A chill ran over her flesh, remembering that instant. He had been so very clever about it. She had not realised that the room he smoothly showed Callie into was about to be invaded by two nasty lawyers, set on frightening her sister to death. Divide and conquer. He had deliberately separated her from Callie.
And Sarah had been so stupid; she had been relieved by Callie’s removal from the proceedings, believing that she would be able to talk more freely without her sister’s presence and assuming that Callie would be invited back in once the trickiest part of the confrontation was over.
Alex had lounged back in his imposing chair behind his equally imposing desk and murmured silkily, ‘You have my full attention, Miss Hartwell.’
‘I’m here to ask what you find so objectionable about my sister,’ Sarah had framed tightly. ‘And why you refused even to consider meeting her.’
An ebony brow had elevated, a sardonic smile that was incredibly chilling curving his mouth. ‘That you should even ask that question tells me much. I have no desire to meet your sister. I merely want her out of Damon’s life.’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Sarah had persisted.
‘Why should I?’ he had countered with unvarnished insolence. ‘Your sister shared a bed with my brother...that is all.’
‘He asked her to marry him...’
He had shot her a blatant look of ridicule, backed by cold aggression. ‘Pillow-talk...what else? This is not the nineteenth century, Miss Hartwell. Damon is Greek and his blood runs hot. He is also very young—’
‘So is Callie!’ Sarah had gasped in outrage. ‘And she is also pregnant.’
‘I don’t believe that. I don’t think either of you is that stupid,’ he had dismissed without hesitation.
‘I cannot see where you imagine this claim could possibly lead,’ he had interrupted very drily. ‘And I had hoped that you would have the intelligence to know when you are beaten. The bird that lays the golden eggs has flown, Miss Hartwell. He’s back in Greece and he’s staying there. His affair with your sister is finished.’
‘Because you threatened him!’
‘I have never threatened my brother in his life. Damon knows what is expected of him,’ he had asserted grimly, subjecting her to a contemptuous appraisal. ‘And a calculating little bimbo with her eye firmly fixed to his wallet never had any hope of turning Damon from what he knows to be his duty.’
Shocked by his insults, Sarah had burst into speech in defence of her sister’s character and reputation. And Alex Terzakis had thrown back his dark head and laughed scornfully.
‘Your sister, young though she may be, was no virgin. Indeed I understand that she was rather free with her favours long before Damon met her, and not noticeably faithful while he was with her either.’
‘How...dare...you?’ Sarah had leapt to her feet, affronted beyond belief by his attack on Callie’s morals.
‘I’m calling your bluff, Miss Hartwell. If we are to talk of daring, I marvel that you had the impertinence to come here. A word of advice,’ he had purred silkily, indolently amused by her distress. ‘The next time you help your sister to get her claws into a rich Greek, tell her to keep her mouth shut about her previous lovers. Greek men are notoriously backward when it comes to female liberation. They always like to be the first with a woman, or at least to be allowed to pretend they are.’
Dumbstruck by his insolence, she had simply stood there until she’d finally unpeeled her tongue from the roof of her mouth. ‘You foul-mouthed—’
‘And if she wants that wedding-ring, tell her to keep her legs firmly locked together until she gets to the church. Moving in with Damon was her second mistake.’ Glittering golden eyes had dwelt on her shattered face with cruel satisfaction. ‘You can get out now. I’ve said all I want to say.’