by Lynne Graham
‘Why here? Why this house?’ Tor pressed.
‘Jordan knows you’re Alfie’s father,’ Pixie murmured flatly, focusing on a gold pen lying on the desktop.
‘And how could he possibly know that when I don’t know it?’ Tor enquired very drily. ‘Am I the victim of some silly story you have told your brother about how you got pregnant?’
Pixie compressed her lips and paled. ‘No. I tried to tell you last year at your office, but I bottled out when you didn’t even remember me,’ she admitted plainly, feeling the shame and sting of that moment warming her cheeks afresh. ‘That was a bit too much of a challenge for me.’
His sleek ebony brows had drawn together as he studied her, dark eyes flaming like melted caramel below his outrageous lashes, those beautiful eyes that she had been seduced by that unforgettable night. ‘Let’s get this straight.’ In shock at her simple explanation, Tor regressed a step. ‘You are saying that that baby is mine?’
‘Yes,’ Pixie said simply.
‘I am finding that hard to credit when I don’t remember you. Yes, there is a certain familiarity about your eyes, possibly your face, but that’s all.’
‘So sorry I wasn’t a more memorable event,’ Pixie countered thinly. ‘But facts are facts. You were with me and you got me pregnant.’
‘I never have sex without contraception.’
Pixie flung her head back, anger in her gaze. ‘Well, you did with me and Alfie is the result. Maybe it was wrong of me not to see a solicitor while I was still pregnant and make some sort of formal approach to you but it’s bad enough having to tell you about it, never mind some total stranger! But there it is, that night happened even though we both regret it.’
Tor sprang upright, outraged by the words spilling from her lips. He didn’t sleep around indiscriminately, and he was always careful and responsible when sex was involved. ‘I still find this story almost impossible to credit and think it may be wiser for us to proceed through legal channels...’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Pixie groaned, tipping her head forward and then pushing her hands through her tumbled curls to push the strands off her face again. ‘I’m not being fair to you, am I? If you honestly don’t remember, it’s because you were drunk and grieving...although, in my defence, I have to say that I didn’t realise how drunk you were until afterwards.’
Tor had frozen in place, a darkening expression of consternation tightening his lean, dark features. ‘Drunk? Grieving? I rarely drink to excess.’
‘It was the anniversary of your wife and child’s accident,’ Pixie filled in heavily. ‘You told me that you went out every year on that date and drank while you remembered them.’
With difficulty, Tor forced himself back down stiffly into his chair. Inside he was reeling with shock, but that she knew that much about him literally confirmed his worst fears and struck him like a hammer blow. How much had he told her? All of it or only some of it? He was affronted by his own failure to keep his secrets where they belonged.
‘And it’s probably very rude to say it...but when you’re drunk, you’re a much nicer, more approachable guy,’ Pixie whispered apologetically. ‘If you’d been like you are now, I probably wouldn’t have made love with you, which of course would have been wiser for all of us...although I couldn’t ever give up Alfie, even to make you feel better.’
‘Make me feel better?’ Tor echoed in disbelief. ‘Nothing you have so far told me could make me feel better!’
‘Yes, you’re one of those glass half-empty rather than half-full types, aren’t you?’ Pixie sighed. ‘Look, now we’ve got the embarrassing stuff out of the way, can I please see my son?’
‘I’m afraid it isn’t that straightforward.’
‘Why not?’ Pixie demanded. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Where were you when your brother took your son and left him in the street?’
‘I was in bed.’ Pixie flushed beneath his censorious gaze. ‘I’m a nurse and I’d just come off night shift. I come home, feed and dress Alfie and then I leave him in Jordan’s care while I sleep. I’m usually up by lunchtime. I can get by on very little sleep. And Jordan didn’t leave Alfie in the street.’
‘He did,’ Tor interposed flatly.
‘Yes, but he hung around somewhere nearby to ensure that Alfie was taken into the house before he left. Look, I know that what Jordan did was totally wrong and dangerous and that he shouldn’t have done it. I’m still very angry about it too,’ Pixie declared tautly. ‘But the point is, Jordan has been helping me to look after Alfie and letting us live with him ever since Alfie was born. I owe my brother a lot.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘No, not really, how could you? You can’t understand when you live like this...’ Pixie shifted an expressive, almost scornful hand that encompassed all the opulent designer touches that distinguished the decor even in a home office setting. ‘You and me? We live in very different worlds. In my world it’s a struggle to keep a roof over our heads and pay the bills.’
‘We will deal with all those problems at a more appropriate time,’ Tor cut in. ‘Right now I am more concerned about the child’s present welfare and security.’
‘Alfie’s none of your business,’ Pixie told him curtly, compressing her lips so hard they went white. ‘Do you think I don’t appreciate how you feel about this situation? Do you really think I want anything from a man who would prefer that neither I nor my child even exists? ‘
‘This is all getting very emotional and again it is not the right time for this discussion,’ Tor countered grimly. ‘If your child is also my child, I obviously don’t want to involve the social services in this issue. But neither am I prepared to hand over custody of a baby to someone who may not keep him safe from harm.’
‘How dare you?’ Pixie gasped, leaping up out of her seat in angry disbelief at that condemnation.
‘Whether you like it or not, you have given me the right to interfere. Either I’m acting as a concerned citizen or as a possible father to ensure that the baby is protected. You can see your son but I will not allow you to remove him from this household or take him anywhere near your brother until I am convinced that that is in his best interests,’ Tor completed with harsh conviction.
‘You can’t do that...’ Pixie whispered shakily.
‘Either you accept my conditions, or I contact the authorities, explain what has happened and allow them to make the decisions. If you choose the second option, be aware that neither of us can control events in that scenario,’ Tor warned her.
‘You don’t even believe that Alfie is yours yet,’ she protested tightly. ‘Why are you trying to screw up our lives? Alfie’s a happy child.’
‘I want your permission to carry out DNA testing,’ Tor admitted. ‘I want irrefutable proof of whether or not he is my child.’
‘Of course, you’re not going to take my word for it,’ Pixie remarked stiffly.
Tor was tempted to say that once, without even asking the question, he had blithely assumed that a child was his and had then learnt, very much to his shock, that it was not an assumption any man could afford to make. Now he took nothing for granted and he checked and double-checked everything and trusting anyone had become a serious challenge.
‘Will you agree to the testing?’ he prompted.
Pixie nodded jerkily for she could think of no good reason to avoid the process. He had the right to know to his own satisfaction that Alfie was his son and it would be wrong of her to deny him that validation, wouldn’t it be? Unhappily, however, events were moving far too fast in a direction she had not foreseen.
She had been foolishly naïve when she’d raced to Tor’s home to collect her son, too distraught to appreciate that there would be long-term consequences to such exposure. Tor would not let either of them walk away again until his questions were answered. And evidently, she had misju
dged him that day at his office. He had forgotten her as entirely as though she had never existed and that was an unwelcome truth that could only hurt.
As she watched, he pulled out a phone, selected a number and began speaking to someone in a foreign language. She wondered if it was Greek while she scanned the eloquent movement of a lean brown hand, fingers spreading and then curling as he talked. For such a tall, well-built guy he was very graceful, but all his movements were tense and controlled, hinting at the darkness of his mood.
The night they had met Tor had been so natural, so relaxed and open with her. Sober, however, he was a very different person with his freezing politeness and disciplined reserve. But she could still read him well enough to recognise that her appearance and that of a potential child in his life were a huge surprise and a disaster on his terms. He didn’t want Alfie. He might be talking impressively about needing to ensure that Alfie was safe, but he wasn’t personally interested in her son, excited at the possibility of being his father, or indeed anything positive that she could see.
‘I’ve organised the DNA testing,’ he informed her grimly. ‘Now I want you to sit back down and tell me about the night we met.’
‘No...’ Pixie’s refusal leapt straight to her lips.
‘But obviously I want to know what happened between us!’ Tor slung back at her between gritted teeth.
‘Why should you need to know anything when Alfie’s the evidence?’ Pixie dared, lifting her chin.
‘So, you expect me to just live with this blank space in my memory?’ Tor breathed with incredulous bite.
‘Yes, I’m quite happy to exist in that blank and I don’t see any advantage to raking over an encounter that upsets you so much.’
‘I’m not upset,’ Tor responded icily.
‘Angry, ashamed, whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t matter to me now,’ Pixie told him truthfully, wishing he could bring himself to be a little more honest with her. ‘All I want now is to see my son.’
Tor released his breath in a soundless hiss of frustration. He wasn’t accustomed to dealing with opposition from a woman. Women invariably went out of their way to please and flatter him, keen to attract and retain his interest. But Pixie Miller?
She was more likely to raise her stubborn chin and challenge him with defiant crystal-blue eyes. And he wondered, of course, he wondered if it had been that difference in her that had attracted him to her in the first place. Was he attracted to stronger, more independent women? Certainly, he never had been in the past, had always played safe by choosing quiet, discreet lovers who understood that sex with him didn’t ever lead to anything deeper.
But that he should have slept with another woman that night of all nights? That shook him, but it also filled him with intense curiosity. He might not know her, but he knew himself. Either Pixie had been extraordinarily seductive, or she was something a great deal more special than she was willing to admit or he was able to remember...
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I THINK YOU could at least take your coat off before I take you upstairs to your son,’ Tor told Pixie drily. ‘You won’t be returning home until we sort this out.’
With a stiff little twist of her shoulders, Pixie removed her coat. ‘There’s nothing to sort and I have to be back at work by seven.’
‘Leaving the baby in your brother’s tender care? Not on my watch,’ Tor spelt out curtly, watching her bend to drape the coat over the chair and reveal an awesomely curvy bottom covered in tight denim. Grabbable, squeezable, touchable, every word that occurred to him startled him because he was no longer a sexually libidinous teenager and he didn’t leer at women’s bodies like one either, did he? Well, so much for Pixie Miller not being his type, a little devil piped up in the back of his brain, infuriating him even more as a throbbing pulse at his groin stirred.
She was sexy, very sexy, that was all it was, and her appeal was all the stronger because she didn’t work at it. No, there was nothing remotely inviting or sensual about her presentation of herself, he conceded grudgingly, nothing in her appearance that sought attention. She looked like what she was: a young mother on a restricted income. But that description did not encompass the whole of her or reveal the charm of those tousled golden curls, the clarity of her bright anxious eyes, the soft pink pout of her mouth.
Angrily aware of his burgeoning erection, Tor led the way out of the room and up the sweeping staircase. He hadn’t even looked at the child, hadn’t gone near it. If he was honest with himself for once, that was because he tended to avoid young children and the memories they roused of Sofia.
Now in many ways, though, he was being confronted by his worst nightmare: another child and a relationship with a woman that could not be denied, the sort of bonds he had been resolutely determined to avoid since the death of his wife and daughter.
Of course, her son could not be his! At the very least it was highly unlikely. Had he even had sex with her that night? There was still room for doubt on that score. He had few memories of that anniversary, had already acknowledged that he had behaved irresponsibly by getting dangerously drunk. He had wakened with an aching head in an unfamiliar bedroom, but he had still been fully clothed. That he could have had sex with anyone had not once occurred to him, only that he shouldn’t have been reckless enough to get that intoxicated. As he had left that strange house in haste, someone had been coming downstairs behind him and he hadn’t even turned his head because all he had wanted to do was get home. He had known even at that point that he would not be drowning himself in alcohol for that anniversary ever again. It had been a foolish, juvenile habit he had naturally decided not to repeat.
‘They’re in here...’ Tor thrust open the door.
Pixie surged over the threshold. Standing up, Alfie was holding on to the side of a travel cot and bouncing with his usual irrepressible energy. He was the strangest mix of his parental genes, she thought fondly, because he had inherited her golden curls with his father’s dark eyes and olive skin tone.
‘Mm...mm...mm!’ Alfie burbled excitedly, his sturdy little arms lifting as soon as he saw his mother.
‘I think he’s trying to say Mum,’ the smiling young woman hovering said. ‘Hello, I’m Emma and I’ve been looking after your...son?’
Alfie clawed up the front of Pixie’s body in his desperation to reach her and held on as tight as a clam with his whole body wrapped round her, burying his little face fearfully in her shoulder, still muttering, ‘Mm...mm.’
It was the moment when Pixie would have happily killed her brother for having subjected her child to such a frightening experience. Alfie wasn’t normally clingy, and she had never seen him frightened before because he was one of those unnerving kids who jumped unafraid into unfamiliar situations and left her with her heart in her mouth.
‘Alfie,’ Pixie sighed, hugging him close. ‘Hello, Emma. I’m Pixie and, yes, I’m his mum and this little boy got lost this morning and I was frantic!’ She punctuated those remarks by tickling Alfie under the ribs in an effort to break him free of his anxiety and it worked. Alfie went off into paroxysms of giggles and leant back, the weight of him forcing Pixie to kneel down and brace him on the floor before he toppled both of them.
‘He’s a real little charmer,’ Emma commented. ‘How old is he?’
‘Nine months.’
‘And already getting ready to walk. My goodness, that’ll be a challenge for you,’ Emma chattered. ‘The younger they are, the less sense they have.’
Tor had frozen where he stood as Alfie flung his head back, laughing, and his dancing dark eyes and slanting mischievous grin reminded Tor powerfully of his youngest brother, Kristo, who was only seventeen. Unnerved by that instantaneous sense of familial recognition, he looked hastily away, reminding himself that the child was very unlikely to be related to him. But if he was?
A faint shudder raked through Tor’s tall, powerful fram
e because that would be a game-changer, the ultimate game-changer, forcing him to embrace everything he had turned his back on. Choice would have nothing to do with it.
‘This is Alfie,’ Pixie said simply as she looked up at Tor, so impossibly tall from that angle as she knelt. He looked pale, or as pale as someone as sun bronzed as he was could look, she adjusted uncomfortably.
Alfie settled back on the floor to explore a plastic truck with his fingers and his mouth, his attention unnervingly locked to Tor as if he was sizing him up. Tor wanted to back away. Countless memories of Sofia at the same age were engulfing him but he fought them off and got down on his knees, careless of his suit and his dignity.
‘Shall I leave now, Mr Sarantos?’ the nanny enquired.
‘No, we still need you, but you can take a break while Alfie has his mother here,’ Tor murmured, quite proud of the steadiness of his voice as Emma nodded and left the room.
Alfie settled the truck down on Tor’s thigh and sat back expectantly, big chocolate-coloured eyes unerringly pinned to Tor, almost as though he could sense his discomfiture.
‘Let me,’ Pixie began to intervene awkwardly.
‘No, I’ve got this.’ Alfie chuckled as Tor ran the truck along the floor with the appropriate vroom-vroom noises even though his eyes stung like mad as he did it and he cursed himself for being a sentimental fool.
Alfie grinned and patted Tor’s thigh to indicate that he wanted his truck back now that its magic had been demonstrated to his satisfaction. Tor handed it back and hastily backed away, vaulting back upright again.
‘I’m sorry... I’m out of practice. I’ve avoided young children since, well, since Sofia’s death,’ he admitted grittily, determined to be frank because he had evidently been more than frank with this young woman when they first met and for once there was no reason for him to put up a front.
Pixie almost winced because that likelihood hadn’t occurred to her, and she scolded herself for not appreciating that Alfie would resurrect memories that Tor probably preferred to bury. Even so, on another level and one she didn’t want to examine, his sensitivity saddened her because Alfie was his child too. Of course, he wouldn’t accept that until he had the official proof of it.