by Lynne Graham
The third week Katie had started wearing skirts, and Alexandros had accused her of flirting with the gardener, who had been old enough to be her father. In the ensuing argument, during which Katie had threatened to resign, Alexandros had called her a tease and hauled her into his arms and kissed her. He’d kept on kissing her all the way upstairs to his bed. That reckless conflagration of passion had plunged them into an affair without any boundaries whatsoever. Nothing they had shared had been discussed or decided in the weeks that followed.
Lying sleepless in her beautiful bedroom in Alexandros’s fabulous country house, Katie came back to the present with an even stronger conviction that she had to protect herself from being hurt a second time. She had lunched with the twins, taken them out for a long walk that afternoon, and dined alone. She could not forget how she had once sunk without trace in the intensity of her feelings for Alexandros. Holding nothing back, she had closed her eyes to every warning sign and just revelled in adoring him. She had never loved like that before, had in truth never even grasped what temptation was until she had succumbed to it without the smallest struggle. Although a healthy number of young men had shown interest in Katie at university, they had almost all left her physically cold. The only one who hadn’t had bruised her heart and her ego by swiftly bedding someone else when she’d proved to be too much of a challenge. Now she wondered fearfully if she was the sort of misguided female who only really fell for the guys who wanted her least…
The next morning, Alexandros surveyed the single sheet of paper. He was not surprised by the DNA test results. The 99.9999% result tallied exactly with his gloomiest expectations. He was the father of the two little boys currently occupying the nursery on the top floor.
His private line buzzed. He swept up the receiver, his lean dark face clenching hard when he recognised his grandfather’s unusually low-pitched voice. He breathed in deep. ‘The children are mine,’ he confirmed.
‘How do you feel?’ Pelias Christakis enquired, in an upbeat encouraging tone that disconcerted Alexandros—until he worked out that the older man had to be masking his true reactions out of affection for him.
‘How I feel doesn’t come into it,’ Alexandros responded flatly.
‘It must be fate,’ his grandfather informed him without hesitation. ‘You said you would have no children but…here they are.’
Alexandros gritted his teeth at that untimely reminder, and offered to fly out so that he could break the news to his grandmother. The older man said that he would prefer to perform that task himself. Alexandros salved his guilty conscience with the assurance that he would marry the twins’ mother as soon as it could be arranged.
In answer, Pelias released a heavy sigh.
Katie had just finished bathing Toby and Connor when she received the message that Alexandros was waiting for her in the library. In the act of returning to her bedroom to tidy herself, she froze. Her face was pink, her hair was tumbled and she was clad in jeans and a T-shirt—but did that matter? she asked herself staunchly. She needed to learn to look on Alexandros as simply Toby and Connor’s father, and suppress any more personal sense of connection. In any case, she could fuss the rest of the morning and it would make precious little difference when she had no make-up, no smart clothes and her hair badly needed a trim.
On the way downstairs, her sons left in the care of the nanny, Katie did wonder why Alexandros kept on hauling her into a clinch? Was he just oversexed? At a loss as to how else to relate to her? She focussed on the portrait of the exquisite Ianthe and glanced hurriedly away again, stifling a pang of envy that made her feel ashamed. But there was no comparison between them. Ianthe had been Greek, rich and classically beautiful, and the love of her husband’s life. Katie discovered that she did not even want to look in the direction of that painting, which seemed to stand for everything that she herself was not and made her feel very small, cheap and forgettable.
Alexandros swung round from the window when she entered. Immaculate in a charcoal-grey business suit and a snazzy red and grey striped silk tie, the impact of his lithe bronzed male beauty punched a hole through her defensive shell.
‘You have to be the most invisible guest I believe I’ve ever had,’ he murmured, his attention nailed to her triangular face while he tried to work out how she could look so good without the artifice of cosmetics. ‘I have not laid eyes on you since yesterday.’
Katie shot him a winging glance and swiftly veiled her gaze. But she still saw his image in her mind’s eye, and he took her breath away. The armoured indifference she longed to achieve was still a long way from fruition. ‘It’s a big house.’
‘Before I forget, I want you to authorise the removal of your possessions from the place where you were staying. The items you had stored at your former friend’s apartment should also be collected.’
‘Of course.’ Hurt by that inadvertent reminder of Leanne’s betrayal, Katie paled.
‘Would you like coffee?’ Alexandros enquired, coolly polite once the details of those arrangements had been spelled out.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Take a seat. What I have to say will take some time.’
Katie folded obediently down on to the edge of an antique armchair and studied his desk rather than him.
‘The DNA tests confirm that the boys are mine.’
Her cheeks reddened.
‘No comment?’
‘What do you want me to say? The tests were offensive, but pretty much what I expected from you.’
Alexandros tensed. ‘How…offensive?’
‘You know when Toby and Connor were born, and you know you were the first guy I slept with. I fell pregnant the first week we were together,’ Katie reminded him tightly as she stared into space. ‘Another contender in the paternity corner wasn’t very likely.’
Almost imperceptible colour demarcated his superb cheekbones. ‘I had to be sure. I take nothing at face value.’
‘Especially bad news.’
‘Katie…that kind of comment is counter-productive at this stage. Naturally this development has come as a surprise, but I will adjust to it.’ Alexandros contemplated the rounded swell of her small breasts below the cotton top, and wondered if it was a flesh-coloured bra or skin that he could see beneath.
‘But you don’t need to adjust to anything.’ Uneasily conscious of his masculinity, Katie raked a restive hand through her tousled copper tresses and jerked a thin shoulder in dismissive emphasis. ‘Nothing has to change in your life. I’m not looking for a father for the twins.’
It was a bra, not skin, Alexandros registered in some disappointment when she moved. He emitted a sardonic laugh that struck her as distinctly unamused. ‘Very funny…’
Her green eyes gleamed. ‘I wasn’t trying to be funny. Just fair and honest—’
‘How very considerate of you,’ Alexandros breathed with scarcely leashed impatience, forcing his attention to a level above her head while he questioned the juvenile fascination he had with her skinny little body. ‘But I should not need to state that I fully intend to be a father to my own sons. That is a duty I will not take lightly.’
His unemotional choice of words stung Katie’s pride and stirred her into anger. She was tempted to tell him that as long as Toby and Connor had her love they would all manage very well without his dutiful input. ‘I’m not sure I want you to act as a role model for the twins.’
Alexandros dealt her an icy glance. ‘What reason have you to insult me?’
A mutinous expression on her heart-shaped face, Katie tore her gaze from the shimmering golden challenge of his and dropped her head. She bit back further hasty words, regretting her lack of control over her own tongue. It would be madness to make their relationship a hostile one, she reminded herself ruefully. ‘I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to offend you.’
‘Evidently it has not yet occurred to you that I’m prepared to marry you and provide the perfect role-model for my sons!’ Alexandros spoke with a harsh emphasis t
hat clarified his attitude towards that prospect better than any words could have done.
Shock reverberating through her slight taut figure, Katie blinked and stared fixedly at him. ‘You’re prepared to marry me? At this moment you’re asking me to marry you?’
Alexandros released his breath in an exasperated hiss. ‘What else did you expect from me?’
All of a sudden the reason for his bleak and sardonic mood became clear to Katie. Even though the angry flush in her cheeks had receded, she was if anything more furious with him than ever. A hollow sense of pain settled like a stone inside her. She imagined that when he had proposed to Ianthe, the late lost love of his life, the scenario, the atmosphere and the emotions involved would all have been very different. ‘Well, I didn’t expect your grudging proposal, and I’m not grateful for it either!’ she countered, with a defiant rise in volume. ‘Thankfully, there’s no need for either of us to make such a horrible sacrifice of ourselves.’
‘There is every need. The twins should have two parents.’
Humiliation writhed inside Katie like a wild thing. She wanted to sob with rage and hurt. ‘I don’t even like you…and I certainly wouldn’t want to marry you purely for my children’s sake!’
Alexandros surveyed her with scorching eyes of gold, his stubborn jawline squaring. There she sat, all five-foot-nothing of her, being bloody cheeky, feminine and infuriating. Of course she would marry him! For her to pretend otherwise was nonsense. ‘You don’t feel like that.’
‘Don’t tell me how I feel—’
‘I probably have a better grasp of how you feel than you do. Why are you so angry with me? Here I am, ready and willing to do the decent thing and make you my wife!’ Alexandros threw up lean brown hands in a gesture that encompassed his opinion of the sheer magnificence of that offer.
Loathing leapt up like a core of steel within Katie’s anger. The decent thing? She shook her copper head in vehement refusal. ‘Luckily for both of us, I’m not that desperate, greedy or stupid. We have nothing in common but the twins—’
‘Sex,’ Alexandros slotted in, without a shade of discomfiture. If he was doomed to live with an adolescent preoccupation with her body, marriage would at least provide an ample outlet for it.
Katie was mortified by that bold and earthy reminder of her weakness. ‘We’d need something rather more than that to make a marriage.’
Alexandros dealt her a sincerely enquiring glance. ‘Such as what?’
Katie was momentarily stunned by the obvious fact that Alexandros appeared to rate sex as the most important element of marriage. Acknowledging that she was out of her depth, she decided not to pursue that controversial angle. ‘Look, feeling as I do right now, nothing would persuade me to marry you.’
Alexandros contrived to look exceedingly unimpressed by that declaration. ‘I could persuade you to share my bed again in the space of a minute.’
Katie leapt upright, her fair complexion aflame with chagrined colour, for she really could have done without that mortifying reminder. ‘So…what does that prove?’ she challenged, in defiance of her own embarrassment. ‘That it’s been a long time since there was a man in my life?’
Alexandros frowned. ‘Don’t talk like that…it cheapens you. I don’t like it.’
Katie twisted her head away, fighting for control. He had been the only man, and that awareness rankled. While he had entertained himself with a succession of supermodels her life had fallen apart, destroyed first by pregnancy, then by motherhood and lack of cash. All of a sudden she could no longer silence her strong sense of injustice. ‘I really don’t care what you like. I’m only twenty-three years old. You are so precious about your privacy, your reputation, your life! What about mine?’ she demanded wrathfully.
‘Meaning?’ Alexandros queried, with the weary aspect of a guy forced to humour a hysteric.
‘Do you think this is the life that I wanted or would have chosen? I didn’t want to become a mother at my age. And I don’t feel like getting married either,’ she confessed shakily. ‘I want to go out clubbing again. I want to date. I want my single life back!’
CHAPTER FIVE
HUGELY taken aback by Katie’s startling confession of intent, Alexandros discovered that he had to call on every atom of self-discipline to keep his temper. He was astonished that his proposal had met with a negative response.
Surely she recognised that the twins’ future security and their rights of inheritance could only be safeguarded by their marriage? It was the practical solution, and he was a practical guy. He knew what he owed his children, even if she did not. His family were very conservative, and took certain conventions for granted. His irresponsible father might have flouted those principles, but Alexandros had made it his mission to live within them.
He regarded Katie with smouldering force, an aggressive current that was unfamiliar to him blurring his usually ice-cool thoughts. She wanted her single life back? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Running about with other guys? Sleeping around? If she had hoped to pack in that kind of experience, she should have taken care of it before she’d met him, because now it was out of the question. Of course it was out of the question, when the only male she had ever slept with was him. His level ebony brows pleated while he tried to work out why the suggestion that she might get into another man’s bed should outrage him to such an extent.
Theos mou, she was the mother of his children, and that was reason enough! That put her into a very special, indeed unique category, he reasoned fiercely. She wasn’t entitled to a single life. But perhaps now was not the moment to spell out that inescapable truth, for his legal counsel had already warned him that unmarried fathers had very few rights within the law. For the first time he appreciated that marriage would bring advantages other than sexual. He would gain control over her and his sons.
Registering that she was trembling, and that her eyes were full of stinging tears, Katie walked jerkily over to the window and turned a defensive back on him. She wrapped her arms round herself and fought to get a grip on her flailing emotions. How dared he look so shocked! Did he think no other man would ever look at her? How dared he think that she would marry a guy who was only asking her out of a sense of obligation? Catch her accepting the role of a poor second best to the love of his life! Catch her saddling a reluctant father with children he had no interest in!
‘I don’t feel right staying here. Please find me somewhere else to go as soon as possible,’ Katie muttered uncomfortably, her delicate profile taut. ‘Then we can both get on with our lives.’
Alexandros stilled, anger cooled by an instant warning jab of disquiet. He realised that it was time for the creative thinking at which he excelled in finance. Her hostility and her desire for independence disconcerted him, because he knew it was essential that he keep her on board and engage in dialogue. Perhaps what was required was a breathing spell in a more relaxed environment. ‘I think we can do better than that,’ he asserted smoothly. ‘I have a speech to give in Rome tonight. Why don’t you fly out the day after tomorrow and join me at my home in Italy for a few days?’
Taken utterly by surprise at that suggestion, Katie could not conceal her confusion. ‘I…well—’
‘We need time and space to talk our options over…as friends, if nothing else.’
A faint flush of discomfiture warmed Katie’s cheeks when she discovered that her immediate reaction to that suggestion of friendship was one of recoil. She did not want Alexandros as a friend, yet she knew that she ought to be relieved by that sensible offer. Her every instinct was now at war. She was even irked by the speed with which he had abandoned his talk of marrying her, and could not credit how contrary she was being.
‘You’d love the sunshine,’ Alexandros remarked casually. ‘The twins would enjoy it too.’
‘Yes…all right.’ Katie was reluctantly impressed by that angle, immediately gripped by the fear that only a cruel mother would deny Toby and Connor such a treat.
‘Would you mind if I spent some time with the children now?’ Alexandros knew to quit while he was ahead. But he was remembering again: Katie rushing outdoors in Ireland to rejoice in a pitiful patch of wintry sunlight, telling him cheerfully about the excitement of her one and only trip abroad. He had been touched by her happy recollection of a childhood which had struck him as wretchedly impoverished.
‘Of course not…’
His formality set her at a distance. As she accompanied him upstairs, he asked if the provisions made for the twins were acceptable.
‘More than acceptable.’ Katie raised a speaking brow, because the nanny was experienced and the nursery was full of designer baby equipment and toys.
‘The nanny is, of course, only temporary. My staff are already drawing up a shortlist of more permanent options. You may make the final selection,’ he advised. ‘I’ve also made financial arrangements to cover your needs and that of the children in the short term—’
Katie stiffened. ‘My needs? But you only have to worry about Toby and Connor’s.’
‘If my sons are to live in comfort, so must you. To do so, you will require adequate funding,’ Alexandros countered. ‘You’ll have to accept a personal allowance from me above and beyond the children’s expenses.’
‘I couldn’t possibly—’
‘I can’t see that you have a choice. Obviously you’ve gone without many things, but there is no longer any need for such self-sacrifice. You need clothes.’