by Lynne Graham
She had been too ashamed of her behaviour at having slept with another woman’s husband to allow herself to give way to further temptation. Her sin had been unintentional and born out of ignorance, but the guilt of that mistake still sat very heavily on her conscience. Indeed, that wanton fling with Eros had taught her to police her every thought. She had learned not to rush into judgement of others for their mistakes. She had learned that she could be as weak and imperfect as the most foolish of women when she fell in love, all tough lessons she could’ve done without.
She didn’t properly breathe again until Eros had left, leaving her at the mercy of insecurity and stress. Eros had always had the ability to take her by surprise and slash through her calm controlled front with ease, unearthing the much more vulnerable woman she was underneath. That acknowledgement plunged her into the steamy memory of their first kiss.
Eros had been abroad for a couple of weeks and he had walked into the kitchen to greet her, insisting that she join him for a glass of wine again, a familiarity that her sane mind had already been questioning. There was such a thing as getting too friendly and informal with an employer, she had reasoned unhappily, and she had been on the brink of pulling back and making polite excuses. And then Eros had stalked into the kitchen, clearly looking for her, all bristling energy and impatience, and he had smiled at her, that breathtakingly warm smile that literally made her heart beat so fast she felt breathless.
Without further ado, he had snatched her up off her sensible feet as if she were a doll while she was still muttering naively about the special dessert she had prepared. His mouth had plunged down on hers, full of a hot demanding hunger that had set her treacherous body alight. She’d had butterflies in her tummy and had been in a daze with her entire being vibrating from that explosively sensual assault as he had slowly lowered her to the tiles again, her body brushing down against every lean, powerful inch of his. She had been viscerally aware of the hard thrust of desire that not even the most exquisitely tailored suit could conceal.
‘I want you so much,’ Eros had said simply. ‘I missed you. I’ve never missed a woman like this before.’
And it had been the very simplicity of that admission that had seduced her because she had missed him too, missed those quiet, private little moments of peace and tranquillity in his company. Instead of stepping back, instead of exercising good judgement, she had joined him for the wine, even shared that wretched dessert with him, laughing when he’d teased her about her professional pride in her creations. She could’ve told him then that nothing had inspired her with greater pride than his evident interest in her ordinary self. When it was late, when it was past time for her to be retiring for the evening she had reluctantly stood up, and he had stood up as well and reached for her.
‘Stay with me tonight,’ he had urged, and he had kissed her again.
It was the first time she had gone upstairs in that house and she had gone into his palatial bedroom with him, trembling with nerves, questioning her decision every step of the way even while her body had burned with eagerness and wanton impatience to finally know what other women knew. The die had been cast at that moment. She had been a pushover, falling in love and already trustingly investing Eros with far more importance in her life than he’d been investing in her.
Looking back, she believed that Eros had merely been taking advantage of an available woman. It was even possible that the prospect of taking her virginity had turned him on because he had known she was inexperienced, had guessed, reassuring her even as she had anxiously admitted it. Nothing could have prepared her for the passionate excitement that had followed or the deep sense of closeness she’d felt afterwards with him. From that night on, she had been at the mercy of her emotions and common sense hadn’t got a look-in.
* * *
Her sisters returned from work, eager to hear what had happened between her and Eros. Zoe took an optimistic view, deeming it healthy that Teddy’s father and her sister were talking and a positive sign that Eros should be so interested in immediately connecting with his son.
‘But what is his end game?’ Vivi probed with innate suspicion.
‘Presumably what he says...getting to know Teddy, spending time with him,’ Winnie pointed out awkwardly as she darted about her bedroom, getting ready for work. ‘What else can he get out of this?’
‘He strikes me as the sort of guy who always puts himself first,’ Vivi declared with a curled lip. ‘What’s in it for him? There must be more than what we know. All of this is very coincidental. Does he know that Stam Fotakis is our grandfather?’
‘No, it was never discussed. I’ll mention it tomorrow, see how he reacts,’ Winnie said ruefully. ‘How am I going to hand Teddy over to him and some strange nanny tomorrow?’
‘With kid gloves and a brave smile,’ Zoe told her wryly. ‘Let’s hope the nanny is experienced.’
* * *
‘Mama... Mama!’ Teddy wailed pathetically.
That and the shouted ‘Not baby!’ when they tried to persuade him into his buggy were virtually the only words Eros had heard from his son. Oh, and there was the word no, which Teddy was even more partial to employing. He had neither volume control nor a need for privacy when he aired his innermost feelings. Teddy didn’t care how many people were around when he flung himself down on the path and screamed blue murder for his mother. And he didn’t like the nanny, physically fighting her if she tried to lift him, refusing to be distracted when she tried to tempt him out of the scenes he made.
But the advantage of Teddy distrusting the unfortunate nanny was that he clung to his slightly more familiar father as if his life depended on it. More positively, Teddy had loved the monkey enclosure at the zoo, he loved chocolate and he loved playgrounds. He was a smart little boy, energetic but explosive too. He was also so attached to his mother that he was forcing his father to rethink his tentative plans to challenge, should it prove possible, his mother’s full-time custody.
But now Eros could see that there was no way Teddy would be happy, even on a part-time basis, to be deprived of Winnie. Shared custody definitely wasn’t the path to take. Teddy needed Winnie as he needed air to breathe. Winnie was patently the very centre of Teddy’s little world and the bedrock of his security and Eros knew that he would never do anything to hurt or harm his son. When he had even briefly considered his chances of parting mother from child, had he too been guilty of vengeful thinking? Eros asked himself grimly as they headed back early from their day out to reunite Teddy with Winnie. Eros knew that he now had to change his attitude and, for the sake of his son, consider a solution he had never dreamt he would be required to contemplate.
Marriage. Bearing in mind his past experience, just the thought of marriage brought Eros out in a cold sweat. He didn’t want to get married again. In fact, he had promised himself that he would never marry again, reasoning that that was a rational decision when he had neither a family to please nor any desire to reproduce. He hadn’t cared what happened to his business empire after he was gone, had never been vain enough to hope that he might merit a footnote in history. And then he had found out about Teddy and the whole picture of his life, his expectations and goals, had changed radically overnight.
‘You’ll be with Mama soon,’ Eros soothed Teddy as his son let loose a choked sob that warned another distressed outburst was threatening.
‘He’s very attached to her,’ the nanny commented.
‘Too young to be separated from her,’ Eros agreed, wishing he had listened to Winnie instead of arrogantly assuming that she would selfishly do everything she could to come between him and his son.
‘With practice at socialising he would improve. A play group and the company of other children would be good for him,’ the nanny opined.
‘We’ll see.’
Eros was forcing himself to think over Stam Fotakis’s outrageous proposition from a different angle. He could
live without owning the island of Trilis, however he could not live without his son being a regular part of his life. At the same time, if he was to be forced to marry Winnie anyway to gain consistent access to Teddy, why shouldn’t he reclaim Trilis as part of the deal?
Even so, he refused to marry Winnie on the kind of terms that her grandfather had suggested, as a mere prelude to another divorce. If he married her, it would have to be a real marriage and both his wife and his child would naturally live with him. How would Winnie feel about that option?
Did that matter? Did he even care? Eros liked to win and he had no intention of meekly meeting the old man’s unreasonable demands and surrendering his son. By all accounts, Stam Fotakis had been a pretty poor father to his own two sons and Eros did not want him taking charge of Teddy. If there was something in the marriage for Eros, however, sufficient to compensate him for the loss of his freedom, now that was a different matter, he mused thoughtfully. Teddy and Winnie, not to mention the family island in the package, now that was a deal worthy of consideration by any hot-blooded man. He wondered, though, just how much pressure he would have to put on Winnie to achieve that package and then shelved the thought, broodingly reminding himself that she deserved whatever she got for denying him his son...
CHAPTER FOUR
‘HOW DO I LOOK?’ Winnie asked her siblings.
‘Scared,’ Vivi declared bluntly.
Winnie smoothed damp palms down over her ample hips and looked nervously in the mirror. The dress was wine red, purchased for their trip to Greece to meet their grandfather, the stretchy fabric hugging her curves to define every ounce of excess weight. And there was excess, she thought ruefully, because she had yet to lose all the extra pounds she had gained during pregnancy. Her long hours, the high-powered pressure of working in a busy kitchen and the irregular, often snatched meals had all played havoc with her intention to get back down to her original weight. ‘I look fat,’ she said curtly.
‘It’s not a date,’ Vivi pointed out drily.
‘You are not fat,’ Zoe protested. ‘You’re just small and curvy and obviously he likes that.’
‘Doesn’t matter what he likes!’ Vivi interrupted. ‘If he tries to lay a finger on you, scream the place down, Winnie!’
‘Vivi,’ Winnie said gently, her sister’s drama ironically calming her. ‘Eros and I can barely speak to each other politely. He’s hardly likely to make a pass at me. That’s not what this is about.’
‘Well, be careful about what you agree to,’ the redhead warned her. ‘We don’t want to lose Teddy every weekend just because you’re usually working.’
‘I won’t agree to anything tonight. I’ll ask for time to think over any suggestion he makes.’
‘Don’t be late. You have to get up early tomorrow,’ Zoe reminded her.
The sisters were catching the train down to John and Liz’s home for their regular monthly catch-up with their former foster parents. Their grandfather had bought out the couple’s mortgage to ensure that the house wasn’t repossessed but he had refused to sign the property over to John and Liz until his granddaughters had met his terms and married. Winnie suppressed a troubled sigh as she slid her feet into vertiginous sparkly heels borrowed from Zoe and never worn. Zoe loved glitter and sparkle but had to be dragged at gunpoint into social situations.
Winnie thought ruefully about the financial difficulties that had plunged the Brookes into crisis. After John had suffered a stroke, money had been in short supply for years afterwards. John’s plumbing business had failed, leaving the kindly couple deep in debt. Although he had eventually made an excellent physical recovery, they had been unable to meet their mortgage payments and they had fallen behind until eventually they had been facing the loss of their home.
Reminding herself soothingly that that worry was currently at bay, thanks to their grandfather, Winnie left the house and climbed into the taxi waiting outside for her. Eros had phoned her to tell her she would be picked up, his dark, deep voice cool and very much to the point. Why did that make her recall Eros practically purring down the phone as he’d chatted to her when he’d been far from home? In all, she had only known him for a few months. It had been a meaningless fling for him, she told herself impatiently, refusing to idealise what they had once shared. Their affair, as such, had stretched over two months and had encompassed long weekends spent together but Eros had often had to travel abroad.
The taxi dropped her off at a contemporary apartment block and she travelled up in the lift to the penthouse, her mouth dry as a bone as she contemplated seeing Eros again. He was Teddy’s sperm donor, she instructed herself sourly, nothing more.
A manservant ushered her into a large open-plan space tiled in limestone, sparsely furnished and showcasing several modern artworks. Her coat and scarf were taken while she curiously scanned her surroundings, surprised to find Eros occupying such a contemporary setting. His country house had been late Georgian and, like his spacious city town house, traditional in decor. Of course, he was divorced and single again, she reminded herself resolutely, and it was perfectly possible that the historic properties had been more his wife’s style than his.
Yet where had his wife been all those many months while she was working for Eros? In Greece, only seeing him on special occasions? Winnie ground her teeth together, angrily stamping out her curiosity while scolding herself for her lack of discipline in allowing her mind to wander. She could not afford to be woolly-minded, or sentimentally slipping back into the past around a man as shrewd and quick to take advantage as Eros Nevrakis.
‘Would you like a drink before dinner?’ Eros enquired from behind her, forcing her to spin round in surprise, and in doing so she almost overbalanced in the very high heels she had worn in an effort to look taller...and therefore slimmer.
Eros reached out an arm as strong as steel and clamped it to her side to steady her, long fingers biting into the curve of her hip. Of course, he was noticing that there was more value to every pound of her than there had been two years earlier, she mocked herself, knocked off balance by his proximity. Bigger was bigger and couldn’t be concealed.
‘Thanks... Er... I don’t mind if I do,’ she muttered uneasily, stepping back from him in haste.
Eros, already entranced by her back view, was practically mesmerised by the front view. The thin fabric outlined her superb violin curves, enclosing lush full breasts, a still-tiny waist and a glorious rounded bottom. Ne... Yes, there was more of her but it was a voluptuously sexy more that sent lust rocketing through him.
Hugely self-conscious beneath that keen green-eyed appraisal, Winnie pushed her hair back from her brow.
‘You’ve grown your hair,’ Eros remarked.
‘Too busy to go to the hairdresser,’ she parried awkwardly, studying him nervously from below her lashes, afraid to be caught in the act of staring.
For, my goodness, Eros deserved to be stared at. Clad in designer jeans that cupped his lean hips and faithfully outlined every sleek line of his long muscular legs, and a silver-grey shirt that defined the width of his shoulders and the breadth of his powerful torso, he was dazzlingly male. Winnie clutched the glass of wine he gave her, grateful to have something to occupy her hands.
‘Teddy’s a terrific little boy,’ he commented, surprising her with that compliment.
Winnie nodded, managing a smile. ‘I think so too,’ she said inanely and then winced for herself.
‘Obviously we both want what’s best for him and we want to make him happy,’ Eros intoned.
‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions,’ Winnie muttered ruefully. ‘Please don’t overwhelm Teddy. Let him get to know you in his own good time. He’s like most young kids—he doesn’t adapt well to sudden changes in his routine.’
‘That’s a tall order. I spend most of my time in Greece,’ Eros volunteered, glancing at the manservant now lodged in the doorway. ‘I b
elieve our meal is ready.’
‘You used to spend most of your time in London,’ Winnie remarked, settling down at the polished, beautifully set table to look at her exquisitely presented starter without appetite. But then nerves always squashed her hunger, she reflected, even if nerves had never squashed her hunger for him.
It was not an acknowledgement she was keen to make but there it was, the elephant in the room that couldn’t be ignored. Colliding with those black-fringed green eyes of his, she experienced what could only be likened to a sugar rush of excitement. It made her feel like a feckless teenager and a flush of chagrin coloured her face as she firmly focused her attention on her food.
‘My base is in Greece now,’ Eros informed her smoothly. ‘I wouldn’t be able to spend much time with my son here.’
Winnie stiffened, since there was nothing she could do about that problem. ‘That’s unfortunate,’ she said awkwardly.
‘But not an insuperable problem,’ Eros murmured silkily.
‘Good,’ she said hastily, tension lancing through her more sharply than ever as if there was some invisible threat nearby that she had to watch out for.
The threat was Eros, of course it was, all male, all powerful, arrogant Eros, who liked to order his world exactly as he liked it and who would very much dislike anything or anyone who got in his way. ‘Who’s cooking for you now?’ she asked brightly, keen to dial down the intensity of the dialogue with a man who could somehow make the simplest statements sound ominous, making gooseflesh prickle at the back of her neck.
‘I had food sent in tonight from one of my favourite restaurants. I’m not here often enough now to maintain a permanent chef,’ he admitted as the second course arrived and the manservant topped up their wine glasses.