He clicked on the résumé first. His brow creased as he scanned the sparse information. It contained her full name, Tabitha Louisa Brigstock, her date of birth—her twenty-third birthday was approaching—and her employment history. There were no educational qualifications listed. She’d spent four years working as a cleaner and evening waitress at a hotel in Northamptonshire which he’d never heard of. The owner of the hotel was named as a referee. The other referee was a name he recognised—his current Head of Housekeeping, Rachel.
He brought Rachel’s file up and found that she’d started working here when he’d first turned it into a hotel. Her previous employment had been at Tabitha’s old hotel. Tabitha’s employment in Vienna had coincided with Rachel’s promotion. He deduced that Rachel had been the one to encourage Tabitha’s move from England to Vienna.
He then clicked on Tabitha’s contract which had been signed six months ago. She was contracted to work thirty-five hours a week as a chambermaid at a subsidised rate to account for her living in the staff quarters.
On the file listing all the shifts she’d undertaken, his eyes widened to see she worked an average of seventy-hour weeks, often covering evening housekeeping shifts and occasionally filling in at the hotel bar and restaurant. She obviously grabbed any overtime she could get.
He thought back to when he’d touched her fingers and had been surprised to find them hard and worn.
Her fingers should have been a warning sign that she wasn’t who she claimed to be, he thought ruefully, smothering the ache coursing through him to imagine the long, back-breaking days Tabitha spent working herself into exhaustion. He had never encountered a woman in his social circle whose hands weren’t looked after with the same zeal as her face.
On a whim, he typed her name into a search engine. No immediate matching results came up.
A knock on his office door took his attention away from any further Internet search.
He cleared his throat, his heart suddenly setting off at a canter. ‘Come in.’
The door opened and, as expected, Tabitha appeared.
Her honey-blonde hair loose and impossibly long, much longer than he remembered, she’d changed out of her work uniform into a pair of slim-fitting jeans and a T-shirt that must once have been black but was so worn it had faded to a dark grey.
For some reason his heart wrenched to see it.
It was like looking at a beautiful butterfly with its old, faded cocoon still attached to it.
She carried an oversized sports bag, its strap hooked over her shoulder. Like her T-shirt, the bag was obviously well worn.
‘You’re still here, then,’ she said lightly, pushing the door shut with her bottom. Only the tremor in her voice showed her nonchalance was nothing but a façade. ‘I thought you might have run off.’
‘Running off is your department.’
She winced and dropped her gaze to the floor. It was a long few moments before she lifted her head to look at him. ‘I never apologised for that, did I? I’m sorry. I panicked. I was going to be late for work and I didn’t know what I could say to explain myself without giving myself away.’
A boulder had lodged itself in Giannis’s throat. He couldn’t speak for it.
She didn’t seem to expect a response, putting her bag on the sofa on which she’d sat earlier when she’d told him she was pregnant.
She unzipped it and pulled a black item out.
He didn’t notice her hands were shaking until she carried the item to him and placed it on his desk.
It was his shirt from the ball.
‘I need to apologise for taking this. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I never meant to keep it.’
Curiosity got the better of him. ‘Why did you take it?’
‘It was easier to put on and escape in than my ball gown.’
‘Did you escape through the bedroom window?’
She gave a sheepish nod. ‘I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for not giving it back. I couldn’t think how to without giving myself away.’
He leaned forward to take the shirt. Then he got to his feet and, without any ceremony, dropped it in the waste bin. ‘Are you packed?’
Her eyes darted from the bin back to him. ‘Yes.’
‘Where’s the rest of your stuff?’
She patted the bag. ‘It’s all in here.’
‘Everything?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve given my work uniforms back.’
A whole life enclosed in one oversized sports bag?
For some reason, his heart made that wrenching feeling again, although why that should be he didn’t know, not when Tabitha didn’t seem to think there was anything strange in having all her worldly possessions contained in one bag.
Not his concern, he told himself sternly. She was not his concern.
The only thing that should concern him was the child she purported to carry.
He would know in the morning if the child was his.
CHAPTER SIX
TABITHA LOWERED HERSELF into the biggest bath she’d ever bathed in and closed her eyes as the warmth of the foamy water enveloped her.
It was hard to believe that only eight hours ago she’d knocked on Giannis’s office door, sick with apprehension.
Everything that had passed since then had gone at warp speed. Their confrontation. His ultimatum. Packing her belongings. The silent journey in the back of the chauffeured car to the airport. The flight from Vienna to Santorini in Giannis’s private plane, Giannis studiously working on his laptop, Tabitha dozing but not sleeping—she’d been too overwrought to sleep. The chauffeured drive from the private airfield they’d landed in to his home... One continuous blur with no time to get her bearings and no privacy to think.
She had privacy now, though.
Giannis had left her at the entrance of his breathtakingly beautiful home saying his housekeeper, Zoe, would show her to her designated room and provide her with anything she needed. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since.
She’d walked through the vast, cavernous rooms of his clifftop home with its thick, white walls feeling like she’d slipped through the looking glass.
One minute she’d been in the beautiful city of Vienna, speaking a language she’d learned at school and in which she’d become able to converse fluently, the next on what could be the most beautiful island in the whole of Europe. The sun had begun its descent when they’d arrived, the sky a glorious deep orange shining enough light to showcase the pristine white homes they’d driven past, the architecture like nowhere she’d been before.
The looking-glass feeling had continued when she’d tried to speak to Zoe, who’d taken her straight to her room. The housekeeper didn’t speak a word of English. Greek was not a language on the Beddingdales curriculum so Tabitha had been stuck. Her stomach had kept rumbling but she’d been too shy and feeling too out of place to find the kitchen and communicate her hunger.
The room she’d been given was lovely, though, dual aspect windows giving her a fabulous view of the Aegean Sea now glinting under the stars of the moonless night sky. Her en suite bathroom had been stocked with all the toiletries a woman could need, a soft white robe hanging on its door.
She was tying the sash of the robe around her waist after she’d got out of the bath and dried herself when she heard a knock on the bedroom door.
Hurrying through the bedroom to open it, her heart leapt into her throat to find Giannis standing there.
From the dampness of his hair and the fresh, spicy scents seeping off him, he’d showered or bathed recently too. He’d also changed out of his business suit, his muscular body wrapped in a pair of casual tan chinos and a short-sleeved khaki shirt unbuttoned at the throat.
His eyes flickered over her robed form, a pulse in them that hardened to stone when he met her gaze.
‘Are you going to bed?’ he ask
ed stiffly.
Suddenly feeling as naked as she was beneath the robe, she pulled the sash tighter, painfully aware of the heat engulfing her face. ‘No, I’ve just had a bath.’
There was the slightest flare of his nostrils before his jaw tightened. ‘Are you hungry?’
Her stomach rumbled loudly in answer.
It was the most mortifying sound she’d ever heard and her cheeks flamed brighter for it.
‘Dinner will be brought to you in five minutes.’
‘I have to eat in my room?’ What was she? A prisoner?
‘I’ve spoken to the obstetrician,’ he said, ignoring her question. ‘He’s flying to the island first thing to meet us at his clinic here. We’ll leave at eight. Do you need a wake-up call?’
‘I’ll set the alarm clock on my phone.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.’
And as suddenly as he’d appeared, he left, heading off down the wide corridor and disappearing from sight.
* * *
Giannis got into the back of his car, his head swimming.
He could still hear the baby’s fledgling heartbeat ringing in his ears.
Neither he nor Tabitha had exchanged a single word since the obstetrician had confirmed the pregnancy. And confirmed the conception date to a narrow period which coincided exactly with the date of the ball.
As much as he would like to think Tabitha was the sort of woman who could lose her virginity to a man one day and sleep with another the next, he just could not see it.
His gut had been right. He was going to be a father.
Resting his head back against the soft leather upholstery, he closed his eyes.
‘Are you okay?’
Tabitha’s softly spoken words soaked through him.
He jerked a nod.
He’d hoped for a different outcome. He’d hoped the visit would result in him driving Tabitha back to the airport and never having to see her again.
But he could not deny that the confirmation had delivered a bolt of pure joy inside him. There had been a moment when he’d had to fist his hands to stop himself from leaning over to kiss her.
Every moment with her was a fight against himself not to touch her.
The spell she’d woven over him a month ago still lived in his blood. He’d felt it on the flight from Vienna when he’d worked diligently on his laptop but found his attention wrapped solely in the woman reclining on the seat opposite him, sleeping. He’d felt it on the drive to his home, felt it sharpen at the shine in her eyes when she’d seen his home, then felt it burst through his veins when she’d opened her bedroom door, wearing nothing but a robe and a cloud of her divine scent.
The evening meal he’d planned to share with her...
A snap judgement had decided for him that it would be better if she ate alone.
Merely sharing the same air as her did things to him that could not be explained by any degree of logic.
His desire for Tabitha was like a sickness and he had to treat it as such. To touch her and make love to her again would only drag him further into her duplicitous web.
And now that delectable temptation would be under his nose for the next eight months. If he didn’t take drastic action she would be a permanent part of his life, this woman in whose web he’d foolishly allowed himself to be caught.
‘Name your price,’ he said heavily.
‘My price for what?’
‘For me to have sole custody of our child. Name it. Cash. Property. Whatever you want.’
She was silent for the longest time.
His heart thudded as he awaited her response.
When she finally answered there was an iciness to her tone he had never heard from her before. ‘That is the most offensive thing I have ever heard.’
‘Why? You are not in a position to raise a child. You have nothing. I can give our child everything it desires and the best education money can buy.’
‘Are you saying that being poor disqualifies me from being a good parent?’
‘You cannot tell me that you want a child,’ he said roughly, ignoring her question. Of course he didn’t believe that. He remembered the old Basinas family gardener who’d had three children he’d doted on. They’d lived hand to mouth in a tiny home but they’d been the happiest kids he’d known, secure and loved. He’d loved playing with them when he’d been a child and still kept in touch with them as an adult.
He also knew plenty of rich people who were lousy parents and whose children were spoilt brats.
None of this was the issue. The issue was Tabitha, this duplicitous temptress, who even now had every cell in his body singing for her. ‘You’re young, single, you have no home, no money...’
‘That last issue can easily be resolved by child support from you, which I will be legally entitled to. I’m young but I’m not a child—’
‘What can you inspire a child to be?’ he interrupted, knowing even as the words came out that they were cruel, but unable to stop them, the determination to talk Tabitha out of his life far stronger than decency and compassion. ‘I’ve seen your résumé—what qualifications do you have? I assume you have none, seeing as you did not list them. Or do I have that wrong?’
‘What do qualifications have to do with raising a child?’ she hissed indignantly. ‘Children need one thing only—love. To say only the best educated and those with a disposable income are the only people capable of raising a child well is unspeakably snobbish and cruel.’
‘Anyone can love a child,’ he conceded. ‘But, if it came to a choice between love and a roof over their head, every child would choose the roof.’
‘Twaddle. I lost my mum when I was a little girl. If you’d asked me then if I would prefer to live in a big, swanky house or have my mother I would have chosen my mother every time. I would have happily lived in a cardboard box if it had meant having her with me.
‘And,’ she continued before her words about her mother could really penetrate and before he could get a word in, ‘I take umbrage with your assertion that anyone can love a child. There are people on this earth—rich people, poor people—who shouldn’t be allowed within a thousand miles of one. I will not give you custody of our child, not now or ever, and if you ever make such a suggestion again you will never see me or our child again.’
If they hadn’t been in the back of a moving car, Tabitha would have stormed off.
She resisted the urge to kick the seat opposite her and resisted the even stronger temptation to kick Giannis.
Instead, she twisted so her back was to him and looked out of the window at the passing scenery, breathing hard to regulate the tumultuous emotions rippling through her.
Her heart ached to think of the generous lover under whose spell she had fallen for one magical night. He had been warm.
This man was cold.
This man hated her.
He hated her so much that he’d made her dine in her room alone rather than share his evening dinner or breakfast with her. He hated her so much that rather than allow the sound of their baby’s heartbeat to bond them together as parents, if not allies, he had stabbed her heart with his cruel offer to pay for her to abandon the life growing inside her.
What would he have done if she’d said yes—locked her away while the baby incubated inside her as if she were livestock?
Nausea cramped in her stomach and she put a protective hand to it.
Give up her child? She would rather die.
They had made this life together but the truth was Giannis didn’t think she was good enough to be a mother to his child. She’d been good enough to sleep with when he’d assumed she was wealthy but now he knew the truth of her circumstances he wanted nothing to do with her. He didn’t want to touch her, didn’t want to look at her.
She didn’t want him to tou
ch her, she told herself defiantly. If he was so shallow that he judged a person’s worth on their income and job title then he could go stick his head up his backside.
She heard him shift in his seat and caught a whiff of his cologne.
Her heart ballooned as fresh awareness raced through her, moving too fast for her to take any kind of control over it and squash it back in a box where it belonged.
Pressing her forehead to the window, she stared miserably at the pristine white homes they were driving past.
She didn’t want his touch. She didn’t.
This sick awareness of him was not her choice and how she could still feel it was beyond reason. Even now, sitting here, despising him and despising his cold cruelty, her senses were alert to his closeness. She’d lain on the obstetrician’s medical bed and rolled her T-shirt up over her belly, had the sonographer place the cold gel onto her skin and, until the moment the tiny blob that was her growing child had appeared on the screen, had been consumed with Giannis’s presence. When the first sound of a heartbeat had rung out in the small consulting room, their eyes had met for the only time since leaving his home that morning, and for one beautiful moment she’d experienced a connection with him that had filled her with so many emotions she’d wanted to throw her arms around him, press her head to his chest and hear his heartbeat too.
All her hopes that they could find an agreement to be amicable co-parents had evaporated.
A prickle on the back of her neck told her Giannis was looking at her.
A moment later his deep voice cut through the silence. ‘If you ever threaten to take my child away from me again, I will sue you for full custody. And I will win.’
His cold words almost knocked the air from her lungs.
Inhaling deeply, she clenched her hands into fists. ‘Don’t treat me and my child like a commodity and I won’t have to make that threat. Oh, and I wasn’t threatening you—I was promising. Take me to court. See how a judge reacts to you throwing your money around to buy a baby.’
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