When Christakos Meets His Match

by Abby Green

  Her hand went there automatically, as if to protect the child, and Alexio felt incensed at that. He thought of the recent revelation of the existence of his oldest half-brother and how his mother had kept him a dirty secret. After abandoning him. Would Sidonie have kept this child from him?

  Finally he found his voice, and it was accusing. ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’

  * * *

  Sidonie let out a small mirthless laugh and backed away a step. Standing this close to Alexio was hazardous to her mental health and to her libido, which had decided to come out of its ice-like state.

  She’d been dreadfully sick for the first trimester of her pregnancy but thankfully that had stopped and she was finally beginning to feel human again. She did not welcome this resurgence of a desire she had no control over.

  Alexio was looking increasingly explosive as the news sank in and Sidonie felt a twinge of conscience. She recalled her own shock at finding out about the pregnancy, four weeks after she’d come back to Paris and with no sign of her period.

  She crossed her arms tightly. ‘You really think I would come to you with this news after you accused me of being a gold-digger? After you judged and tried me—after you had me investigated like a common criminal?’

  Alexio flushed. ‘Why did you agree with me, then, and let me believe that you set out to seduce me?’

  Sidonie’s arms tightened. ‘I told you the truth, but you weren’t interested in listening. Would you have believed me if I’d insisted on protesting my innocence?’

  Remembering the excoriating feeling of betrayal was acute. Sidonie’s emotions were rising and she knew she was too tired to hide them. She stood back and gestured to the door.

  ‘I’d like you to leave now, please. I have to be up early.’

  Alexio’s eyes widened; his nostrils flared. He looked huge and intimidating, and Sidonie hated the impulse she had to run into his arms and beg him to hold her. She gritted her jaw and avoided his eyes.

  Silkily he said, ‘You expect me to just walk away?’

  Sidonie nodded. ‘Yes, please. We have nothing to discuss. You found me, I’m pregnant—end of story. You have nothing else to do here. Please go.’

  Alexio’s voice was tight with anger. ‘We have plenty to discuss if I am your child’s father. And you still haven’t told me why you didn’t take the money.’

  Sidonie rounded on him again, eyes blazing, two spots of pink in each cheek. ‘I didn’t take your damn money, Christakos, because I wasn’t interested in your money. I wasn’t then and I’m not now.’

  Emotion was getting the better of Sidonie, rising, making her shake.

  ‘I will never forgive you for going behind my back and prying into my life. You had no right to judge me on the basis of something my mother did years ago. She paid that due, I paid that due, and so did my father. I want nothing to do with you and I wish I’d never laid eyes on you.’

  She turned and went to the door, opened it.

  Without looking at Alexio she said, ‘I have to be up in five hours. Get out or I’ll call the police and tell them you’re harassing me.’

  Alexio made some sort of sound—half anger, half frustration. To Sidonie’s everlasting relief, though, he came to the door. She didn’t look at him.

  He said, with deadly precision, ‘This isn’t over, Sidonie. We need to talk.’

  ‘Get out, Alexio.’ Sidonie’s voice had an edge of pleading to it that she hated. But finally he left.

  * * *

  For three days Sidonie had refused to talk to Alexio. She stonewalled him if he was waiting for her to come out of the hotel. She walked in the opposite direction if he was there when she emerged from the café. And at night she was tight-lipped if he offered her a lift for the short distance to the apartment after finishing her shift in the Moroccan restaurant.

  Alexio seethed with frustration. He was getting her message loud and clear. She wanted nothing to do with him. She preferred working herself into a lather doing menial jobs rather than turn to him for help. But Alexio had had enough. He’d already set things in motion. Sidonie was pregnant with his child and that changed everything. As he’d watched her for the past three days the knowledge had sunk in more and more.

  He needed to talk to her, though. And even though she looked half dead with exhaustion Alexio’s body burned for her. Even now, from his car, where he was parked outside the restaurant, he let his gaze rake her up and down, taking in the black skirt, sheer tights and black top. The apron that barely disguised the growing swell of her belly. His baby.

  In the past few days he’d had time for the news of the baby to sink in, and much to his surprise he’d found himself not feeling as trapped as he might have expected. Instead he felt a fledgling sense of excitement, wonder.

  He thought of his nephew Milo and wondered if he’d have a son too—precocious and cute like him. Or a daughter, like Sidonie, with golden hair? When he imagined that he felt a tightening sensation in his chest so strong he had to take deep breaths to ease it.

  She was serving a big table of men now, and she plucked the pen out from where she’d stuck it into the bun on the top of her head. She looked tired and harassed. Pale.

  Alexio saw one of the men put a fleshy hand on her arm and a red mist came over his vision. Before he’d even realised what he was doing he was out of the car and pushing open the door of the small tatty restaurant.

  * * *

  ‘Sir,’ Sidonie gritted out, ‘please take your hand off me.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do. You’re serving me.’

  Sidonie felt a frisson of fear cutting through her hazy exhaustion, but even that didn’t give her enough adrenalin to pull free. Just then a blast of warm evening air hit Sidonie’s back and she looked around automatically to see Alexio, bearing down on her, his face tight with anger, his eyes fixed on where the man still held her.

  Her heart thumped unevenly. For three days he’d dogged her heels and she’d ignored him. She’d seen his car outside and had hated to admit to herself that a part of her liked knowing he was there. She’d told herself stoutly that she hoped he was bored to tears and that she’d irritate him so much that he’d leave and never come back.

  Alexio was right behind her now, and treacherously she wanted to lean back, to sink against him. That kept her rigid, fighting the waves of weariness which seemed to be gathering force.

  His voice came low and threatening over her head.

  ‘Let her go.’

  The heavyset man was drunk and belligerent. He tightened his grip on Sidonie’s arm, making her gasp out loud. Alexio reached around her and prised the man’s fingers off her arm. He drew her back against him, his other hand going around her midriff, where her belly was round.

  It was his touch that did it. It burned like a physical brand. It was too much. Alexio was turning her around now, looking down at her, asking something, but she couldn’t hear it because a white noise was making her head fuzzy.

  As if standing apart from herself, observing, Sidonie saw herself looking utterly fragile and helpless, with Alexio’s hands huge on her arms, and she felt a moment of disgust at herself before everything went black.

  * * *

  Sidonie was in a dark, peaceful place with a soft regular beep-beep sound coming from somewhere nearby. Slowly, though, as her consciousness returned so did her memory, and she remembered looking up into Alexio’s face and seeing him frown.

  Alexio.

  The baby.

  Tante Josephine.

  Sidonie’s eyes opened and she winced at the bright light and the stark whiteness of the room. She went to move her arm and something pulled. She looked down to see a tube coming out of the back of her hand.

  Her head felt slightly woolly. She noticed a movement out of the corner of her eye—someth
ing big—and then Alexio loomed into her vision. Tall and dark. His shirt open at the neck, looking crumpled. Stubble on his jaw.

  The faint beep-beep sound got faster.

  Automatically Sidonie’s free hand went to her midriff, where she felt the comforting swell of her baby. Even so, she looked at Alexio. ‘The baby?’

  He looked grim. ‘The baby is fine.’

  ‘Tante Josephine?’

  ‘Is fine too. She’s been here all night. I sent her home a while ago.’

  ‘All night?’

  ‘You collapsed in the restaurant. I brought you straight to A and E in my car. You’ve been on a drip since you arrived and unconscious for nearly eight hours.’

  ‘Am I okay?’

  Some of the obvious tension left Alexio’s jaw. ‘The doctor said you’re suffering from a mixture of exhaustion and stress and are generally run down.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Alexio started to look grim again, making flutters erupt in Sidonie’s belly.

  ‘You’ve run yourself completely into the ground...’

  Something dangerous welled up inside her at his obvious censure and she looked away, terrified of the way her throat was starting to hurt and of the emotion which wouldn’t go down.

  In a voice that was far too high and tight she said, ‘Thank you for bringing me here. You can go now.’

  Alexio merely walked around the bed until he was in her eyeline again and folded his arms. Succinctly he said, ‘No way.’

  Just then the door opened and Sidonie turned her head to see a doctor and a nurse come in.

  The doctor declared in French, ‘You’re awake! You gave us a bit of a scare, young lady...’

  While he and the nurse did some tests and elaborated on what Alexio had told her Sidonie was busy trying to block out his presence in the room.

  The doctor was soon sitting on the side of the bed and saying, ‘You’re due for your twenty-week scan in a few weeks, but after what’s happened I’d like to do a scan now, just so we can double-check everything is okay.’

  He must have seen something on her face because he said quickly, ‘I’ve no reason not to believe everything is fine, but we’d like to be sure.’

  Within a few minutes Sidonie was being wheeled in her bed to another part of the hospital. Alexio was by her side. She felt panicky. She was about to have a scan with Alexio looking on. She’d never envisaged this happening.

  After they were wheeled into the room it all happened very fast. Sidonie’s belly was bared and they were smoothing cold gel over it. She felt acutely self-conscious all of a sudden—which was crazy considering Alexio had seen more of her naked body than she probably had herself.

  When the doctor put the ultrasound device over her belly a rapid sound filled the room. The baby’s heartbeat. Immediately Sidonie’s focus went to the screen, which was showing a fuzzy grey image. Her heart thumped as emotion climbed upwards again—but this time it was a different kind of emotion.

  After a few minutes the doctor smiled and said, ‘Everything looks absolutely normal. You have a fine, healthy baby, Sidonie—a little small, but developing well.’

  Then he looked at her and at Alexio.

  ‘Would you like to know the sex?’ he asked. ‘It’s quite clear at the moment.’

  Sidonie looked at Alexio, mortified that the doctor had assumed they were together. Even if Alexio was the father.

  Alexio looked inscrutable and then said, ‘It’s up to you.’

  Sidonie wrenched her gaze away from his with more effort than she liked and looked at the doctor again. She said hesitantly, ‘I...I think so.’ And then more firmly, as a sense of excitement took hold, ‘Yes. I’d like to know.’

  The doctor beamed at them. ‘I’m very pleased to tell you you’re having a baby girl.’

  Sidonie felt something joyous erupt in her chest and heard a slightly choked sound coming from beside her. She looked up to see Alexio’s eyes fixed on the screen, and there was an expression on his face that she’d never seen before. A kind of wonder.

  Her belly swooped. She’d never allowed herself to imagine this kind of scenario. She’d expected to have the baby and then see how she felt about informing him, making sure she did it in such a way that he knew she wasn’t telling him in order to get his money.

  The thought of being likened to her grasping mother again had made her feel sick. But now that had all been taken out of her hands and she had the very uncomfortable sensation that Alexio was about to get a lot more prominent in her life.

  Especially when the doctor wiped the gel off her belly, rearranged her clothes and said, ‘We’ll keep you in for one more night to help you get your strength back, and then I’ve been assured that your partner here will be getting you the best care and attention until you’re back on your feet.’

  Sidonie’s head swivelled from Alexio’s determined expression to the doctor’s equally stern-looking face. Her partner. The words sent more flutters into her belly. After three days of being followed, she knew the likelihood of shaking Alexio off when she was feeling weak and vulnerable was extremely unlikely.

  She looked at Alexio and said, ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’

  ‘No,’ he agreed equably.

  And that was that.

  A week later

  ‘You’ve done what?’ Sidonie’s mind was hot with rage and she felt her heart-rate zooming skyward, the flutters increasing in her belly. She even put a hand there unconsciously, barely noticing how Alexio’s eyes dropped to take in the movement. She was too incensed.

  Alexio faced her across the expanse of the beautiful first-floor apartment living room, overlooking the Jardin du Luxembourg. He was dressed in a steel-grey shirt and black trousers and Sidonie didn’t like the way she was so aware of his physicality. The way she became even more aware of it each day as she grew stronger.

  Alexio’s voice was low, deep, ‘I should have known Tante Josephine couldn’t keep it quiet. I asked her not to say anything until you’d had a few more days’ rest. But I didn’t want her to be worried with you out of work.’

  Sidonie struggled to take this in—along with the reminder that Alexio and Tante Josephine seemed to have forged a mutual admiration society.

  Sidonie had been in this apartment, which Alexio was renting, for almost a week now. A week of Alexio being cool and solicitous. The consummate host. Paying for a nurse to come every day to check on Sidonie. Taking her outside to the Jardin du Luxembourg across the road to get some air. He was seemingly unperturbed by her continued campaign of obdurate silence, which was more due to her wish to avoid this reckoning and his probing gaze than to anything else. Her searing anger had been proving hard to hang onto, as if merely being in his presence on a daily basis was wearing away at it.

  Except now it was back, and Sidonie welcomed it.

  Her aunt had just left, to be taken home by Alexio’s driver, but before she’d gone she’d spilled her secret.

  Sidonie had marched straight into Alexio’s office without knocking and declared, ‘We need to talk.’

  He’d looked up from his papers and sat back, arching a brow. ‘Now you’re ready to talk?’

  Before she’d had time to regret her impetuous action Sidonie had turned on her heel and walked into the vast living room, not liking how intimate the office space had felt. She had also been very aware that his assistant, who was there every day, had left. Until now she’d been a master at staying out of Alexio’s way in the spacious apartment.

  Sidonie crossed her arms over her chest and almost winced at how sensitive her breasts were. They had grown bigger. That awareness made her voice curt.

  ‘Answer my question.’

  Alexio looked as immovable as a rock, tall and intimidating. At that very moment Sidonie had a vivid memory of lying nak
ed beneath him, spreading her legs wide to accommodate his body, feeling the bold thrust of his arousal against her slick body. Her legs wobbled alarmingly but she held firm.

  Thankfully Alexio spoke before Sidonie’s wayward memory could take over completely.

  ‘I have paid off all of the debts and ensured that your aunt’s mortgage has been paid in full.’

  The sheer ease with which he’d been able to magic their debts away made her feel disorientated.

  ‘How dare you?’

  Sidonie was trembling. But she was afraid it was more to do with his proximity than her anger.

  Alexio’s eyes narrowed on her. ‘I dare because you are carrying my child and we are now family. Tante Josephine is as much my responsibility as you are—and the baby.’

  Sidonie’s arms grew so tight she could feel her nails digging into her skin. She spoke from a deep well of hurt and rejection at this attempt to muscle into their lives. ‘We are not your responsibility. I never came to you. I want nothing from you. As soon as I’m feeling better I will go and find work again and pay you back what we owe.’

  Alexio’s mouth went into a bitter line. ‘I think you’ve more than proved your point, Sid. You’d prefer to put our child’s health in jeopardy in order to save your pride.’

  A lurch of hurt emotion rose up, strangling Sidonie for a moment. Then his words our child and Sid impacted.

  When she’d gathered herself she said with quiet ferocity, ‘Do not call me that. My name is Sidonie. And the last thing I want to do is put my child in danger. I will keep working because, in case you’ve forgotten, you called me a hustler and I would prefer to work than to be accused of being that again.’

  To her horror, Sidonie’s voice had cracked on the last words and she turned now, facing blindly away from Alexio, breathing harshly, emotion getting the better of her.

  She heard him move behind her and said rawly, ‘Don’t come near me.’

  He stopped. Tears stung at Sidonie’s eyes; her throat ached. She hated him. And she repeated this to herself as she struggled to regain her equilibrium.