Книга - The Greek Claims His Shock Heir

The Greek Claims His Shock Heir
LYNNE GRAHAM


The billionaire’s discovered her secret…She’s had his son!Learning of tycoon Eros Nevrakis’s betrayal, personal chef Winnie Mardas walks out of his life, determined never to look back—or reveal the child she’s carrying… A year later she’s shocked when Eros arrives to legitimise his heir! Swept away to his lavish Mediterranean villa, Winnie is overwhelmed by the fire still burning between them. But can she accept her new role as his convenient wife…?







The billionaire’s discovered her secret...

She’s had his son!

After learning of tycoon Eros Nevrakis’s betrayal, personal chef Winnie Mardas walks out of his life, determined to never look back—or reveal the child she’s carrying... A year later, she’s shocked when Eros arrives to legitimize his heir! Swept away to his lavish Mediterranean villa, Winnie is overwhelmed by the fire still burning between them. But can she accept her new role as his convenient wife?

Lose yourself in this dramatic secret baby story!


LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen romance reader since her teens. She is very happily married, to an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog who knocks everything over, a very small terrier who barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.


Also by Lynne Graham (#u3225a8be-6064-54c4-92dd-164051c64e27)

His Queen by Desert Decree

The Greek’s Blackmailed Mistress

The Italian’s Inherited Mistress

Brides for the Taking miniseries

The Desert King’s Blackmailed Bride

The Italian’s One-Night Baby

Sold for the Greek’s Heir

Vows for Billionaires miniseries

The Secret Valtinos Baby

Castiglione’s Pregnant Princess

Da Rocha’s Convenient Heir

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).


The Greek Claims His Shock Heir

Lynne Graham






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-474-08736-0

THE GREEK CLAIMS HIS SHOCK HEIR

© 2019 Lynne Graham

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Cover (#u0cc230da-cbf5-591b-99fb-e1ab2b8a9d15)

Back Cover Text (#u4cc0fa9e-fdce-54ee-a8a6-1624f8fde4fc)

About the Author (#ub56cda62-2c95-5018-8c06-9221e791d265)

Booklist (#u8674f045-89ab-5576-ba1e-520972d90f27)

Title Page (#u94fed59c-c758-5ac4-913c-31f6a73777e8)

Copyright (#ua985bdab-5471-53e4-90d1-acb2fee80ade)

PROLOGUE (#ua70740a3-8380-5448-b799-a43ae43eba32)

CHAPTER ONE (#u09a5d861-662f-55a1-aaca-8097fc86c91c)

CHAPTER TWO (#ue8768502-3fac-5948-8296-bbeab01f3281)

CHAPTER THREE (#uf490e2a3-d3c2-51c7-871d-2c68e56c02ce)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




PROLOGUE (#u3225a8be-6064-54c4-92dd-164051c64e27)


STAMBOULAS FOTAKIS, KNOWN as Bull—but only behind his back, because nobody wanted to offend one of the richest men in the world—studied the new photograph on his desk. It featured his three granddaughters and his great-grandson, none of whom he had even known existed until a few weeks earlier. His competitors would have been shocked by the softness of the older man’s gaze as he looked with pride and satisfaction at his only living relatives. Three beautiful girls and a handsome little boy...

At the same time—and it had to be faced—those three girls’ lives and that little boy’s life were in an almighty mess, Stam acknowledged with bristling annoyance. If only he had known they were out there, orphaned and growing up in state care, he would’ve given them a home and raised them. Sadly, he had not been given that choice and his granddaughters had suffered accordingly. But he didn’t blame them for their chaotic lives, he blamed himself for throwing his youngest son, Cy, out of the family for defying him. Of course, twenty-odd years ago, Stam had been a very different man, he conceded wryly, an impatient, autocratic and inflexible man. Possibly, he had learned a thing or two since then. His late wife had never forgiven him for disowning Cy. In the end, all of them had paid too high a price for Stam’s act of idiocy.

But that was then and this was now, Stam reminded himself, and it was time he sorted out his granddaughters’ lives. He would begin by righting the wrongs done to his new family members. He had the power and the wealth to do that and for that reality he was grateful. He wasn’t seeking revenge, he assured himself assiduously, he would only be doing what was best for his grandchildren. First he would sort out Winnie, tiny dark-eyed Winnie, who bore such a very strong resemblance to Stam’s late wife, an Arabian princess called Azra.

At least Winnie already spoke a little Greek, only a handful of words admittedly, but that was a promising start. Her problems would be the most easily solved, he reasoned, although how he would hold on to his temper and deal civilly with the adulterous cheat who had made Winnie a mistress and Stam’s grandson a bastard, he didn’t yet know, for Eros Nevrakis was an infuriatingly powerful man in his own right.




CHAPTER ONE (#u3225a8be-6064-54c4-92dd-164051c64e27)


‘MR FOTAKIS WILL be free in just a few minutes,’ the PA informed Eros Nevrakis as he stood at the window overlooking the bay while she regarded him with far more appreciation than the magnificent view could ever have roused in her. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his early thirties, and his legendary good looks had not been exaggerated, the young woman conceded admiringly. He had a shock of black glossy curls and brilliant green eyes that more than one appreciative woman had been heard to compare to emeralds.

The view from the small island of Trilis would not be half as impressive as that from Bull Fotakis’s private estate, Eros was thinking with rueful amusement. On this particular morning Eros was in the very best of moods. After all, he had made several offers through intermediaries to buy back Trilis from Stam Fotakis and those offers had been royally ignored. That he had finally been awarded a meeting with the reclusive old curmudgeon was a very healthy hint that Bull was finally willing to sell the island back to Eros.

Trilis, however, was greener and rather less developed than the extensive estate that Fotakis owned outside Athens and maintained as his headquarters, complete with office blocks and employees on-site. Of course, Fotakis had always been a famous workaholic. When Eros’s father had gone bust in the nineties and had been forced into selling his family home, everyone had assumed that Fotakis was planning to build a new base on the private island, only that hadn’t happened. Should he ever contrive to regain ownership of the island, Eros planned to open an upmarket resort on the coast that would generate jobs and rejuvenate the local economy. The old man, however, had done nothing with Trilis but hadn’t seemed interested in selling it either.

So, what had changed? Eros ruminated, irritated that he was unable to answer that question. He preferred to know what motivated his competitors and opponents because ignorance of such revealing details was always risky. Going in blind wasn’t smart, especially when Fotakis was too rich to be tempted by money. Eros turned the question around, considering it shrewdly from another angle. What did he currently have that Fotakis wanted? Eros asked himself then, reckoning that that was likely to be a far more accurate reading of the situation. Bull Fotakis was notoriously crafty and devious.

At the same time, Eros was uncomfortably aware that he would pay just about any price to regain the island of Trilis because it was the sole possession his father had truly regretted losing.

‘It is our family place and if you lose family, you lose everything. I learned that the hard way,’ his father had rasped painfully on his deathbed. ‘Promise me that if you do well in the future, you’ll do everything you can to buy Trilis back. It’s the Nevrakis home and your ancestors and mine are buried there.’

Eros compressed his sensual mouth, shying away from such sentimental recollections from the past. He had learned from his father’s mistakes. A man had to be hard in business and in his private life, not soft, not easily led or seduced. And a man forced to deal with a Greek icon of achievement like Bull Fotakis had to be even tougher.

‘Mr Fotakis will see you now...’

Stam’s gaze was hard when it zeroed in on Eros Nevrakis. A good-looking louse, he conceded grudgingly, exactly the type calculated to turn a young and naive woman’s head. Nevrakis hadn’t told Winnie that he was married. Stam had drilled every relevant fact out of his reluctant granddaughter. He had recognised her shame, gasping in relief that, despite his initial troubling assumptions about her character, her morals were in the right place. Winnie would never have knowingly slept with another woman’s husband. Nevrakis had lied to her, conning her into a demeaning living arrangement before hanging her out to dry without a single regret.

Eros saw a small stocky bearded man with eyes as sharp as tacks set in a weathered face. His hair and his neat little beard were white as snow but there was no suggestion of Santa Claus about him. Eros took a seat and refused refreshment, keen to get down to business once the usual pleasantries had been aired.

‘You want Trilis back,’ Stam remarked, startling Eros with that candid opening and the complete lack of any social chit-chat. ‘But I want something else.’

Eros leant back in his chair, long powerful legs carefully relaxed in pose. ‘I assumed as much,’ he quipped.

‘I believe that you’re divorced now.’

So random did that remark seem that Eros was disconcerted. He blinked, lashes longer than a girl’s, Stam noted in disgust, while wondering simultaneously how he was going to tolerate the lying rat as a grandson-in-law. Unfortunately, little Teddy couldn’t get his father’s name without his mother also getting a wedding ring, so choice didn’t come into it. Stam refused to stand back and allow his sole great-grandchild to remain illegitimate. He knew that was an old-fashioned outlook, but he didn’t care because he hadn’t got to the top of the ladder by bending his principles to suit other people’s and he had no plans to change.

‘I can’t imagine why you would remark on that fact,’ Eros drawled softly. ‘But it is true. I was divorced last year.’

Stam gritted his teeth. ‘Was that because you were thinking of marrying your mistress?’

‘I have no idea where this strange conversation is heading,’ Eros retorted crisply, lifting his strong chin in a challenging move of quiet strength. ‘However, I can tell you that I’ve never had a mistress, but if I did have one, I seriously doubt that I would marry her.’

Stam went rigid with offence until he reminded himself that Nevrakis had no idea that he could be causing offence because he was not aware that Winnie was Stam’s granddaughter and would undoubtedly never have dared to lay a single finger on her had he known that salient fact. He then chose to entertain himself by approaching his goal in a roundabout manner.

‘My granddaughter is a single parent who needs a husband. That is my price for the island of Trilis. If you agree to marry her, no cash need change hands.’

Stunned by that bald assurance, Eros straightened in his seat. ‘You want me to marry your granddaughter?’ he exclaimed, so taken aback by the idea that he could not even hide his consternation. ‘I didn’t know you had one. I’m sure I read somewhere that you had no relatives left alive...’

‘Until recently, I thought that too,’ Stam admitted equably. ‘But then, surprises are the joy of life, don’t you think?’

Still in the dark as to why Bull Fotakis should offer him such a staggering proposition, Eros could only think that he had always hated surprises. Surprises had, after all, marked some of the worst moments of his life since childhood, starting with the one when his father had killed Christmas by dropping in with his youthful girlfriend on his arm to announce that he was divorcing Eros’s mother for making him feel old. Eros might have been only eight years of age at the time, but he had been old enough to feel every ounce of his mother’s agonised pain and humiliation that the man she loved had fallen out of love with her. That experience had given him an inbuilt hatred of broken marriages and divorce, most especially because he could date the origins of his father’s financial downfall from that same moment.

‘I’m not sure I agree,’ Eros sidestepped quietly. ‘I’m certain you could offer your granddaughter to any one of a dozen wealthy, successful men and create an enthusiastic stampede... Why me?’

‘You’re not a fool,’ Stam conceded, his weathered face grim at that grudging acknowledgement because he wasn’t sure he wanted a grandson-in-law strong enough to stand up to him.

‘I hope not,’ Eros said in a calmer tone, but his brain was working at supersonic speed in an effort to work out the mystery of Fotakis’s interest in him as a potential grandson-in-law. ‘A single parent, you said...’ he added, playing for time.

‘Ne... Yes, a handsome little boy, my great-grandson.’ Stam could not hide the possessive note in his voice or the pride because both his sons were dead and the sight of that little boy had softened his tough old heart. ‘He needs a father figure, for who can tell how many years I have left?’

‘You seem hale and hearty to me,’ Eros murmured drily. ‘But you still haven’t explained why you have chosen me for this role.’

‘And you still haven’t explained how much you’re willing to sacrifice to regain that island,’ Stam countered smoothly. ‘But I can assure you that if you fail to marry my granddaughter, I will ensure that you never reclaim Trilis.’

‘Then we would appear to have reached the end of our meeting,’ Eros retorted levelly, vaulting upright with the fluid grace of an athlete. ‘I have no desire to remarry, and while I would like to reclaim Trilis, the loss of my freedom would be too high a price to pay.’

Stam loosed a sardonic laugh. ‘Even if my great-grandson is also...yourson?’

Those two words halted Eros in his tracks. His handsome dark head turned back, an expression of sheer incredulity etched in his lean bronzed features. ‘Impossible!’ he grated. ‘I have no children!’

Stam surveyed him with loathing, as yet unconvinced that Eros was entirely unaware that Winnie had been pregnant when she had left his country house. ‘Two more words: Winnie Mardas... Of course, you may not remember her?’

‘Winnie?’ Eros Nevrakis echoed in raw disbelief. ‘She’s your granddaughter?’

‘Surprise...surprise,’ Stam said meanly.

Eros hovered, his big powerful physique screaming with tension and scantily leashed energy. ‘And you say...she has had my child? My son?’

‘I do,’ Stam confirmed. ‘Of course, you’re fully able to carry out your own DNA testing if you so wish. That’s your business. All I care about is that you marry her without telling her that I interfered. Is that clear?’

Nothing was clear to Eros in that moment. He was in a severe state of shock laced with outrage. Two years back when he had last seen her, Winnie hadn’t told him that she was pregnant, hadn’t even hinted at such a possibility. She had just walked out of his life and never got back in touch. He was instantaneously enraged and equally appalled. A man had a right to know that he was a father, didn’t he? The days when a man was routinely left in ignorance of paternity were long gone. These days a man’s importance in the parenting stakes was supposed to be valued and acknowledged. Eros knew that the first person he would be consulting would be a lawyer.

‘Eros...’ Stam prompted. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Is she here? Is she in Greece?’ Eros demanded wrathfully.

‘Sadly not, she’s still in London living with her sisters. I can give you the address.’

‘Please do.’ Eros’s clipped tone denoted savage impatience.

‘You are not to tell her that I gave you the address,’ Stam warned him as he tossed him a piece of paper already prepared with the relevant details. ‘You do not tell her that you have met me and discussed her personal affairs.’

‘You like to be the ringmaster without the applause?’ Eros said derisively. ‘Not sure I can deliver that.’

For all his seventy-odd years, Stam reared out of his chair like a coiled spring bouncing back into shape. ‘If you let out one word of my role in this mess, I will destroy you!’ he raked back at the younger man in threat. ‘And you know I can do it!’

‘But you don’t know me,’ Eros tossed back with perfect indifference to how Stam Fotakis felt about anything he did. He reckoned that Bull Fotakis could do many things to make business more challenging, but Eros was a billionaire in his own right with equally powerful friends and he was confident that the older man could not destroy him.

Stam dealt him a crushing appraisal in retribution for his disrespect. ‘A married man taking one of his domestic staff to bed? I understand you perfectly. You picked her because she was poor and powerless and unlikely to be indiscreet for fear of dismissal. You made her your mistress and shifted her down to your country house for sleazy weekends. Be assured that I know exactly what kind of a man you are! A cheating, manipulative bastard!’

Eros flung back his handsome head, black curls tumbling back from his brilliant green eyes. ‘And yet you want me to marry Winnie?’

‘I want my great-grandson legitimised,’ Stam ground out with finality. ‘You get your precious island back. I don’t expect you to live with Winnie or stay with her. In fact, I don’t want you to because she could do a hell of a lot better than you as a husband and that little boy will have me as a male role model! He doesn’t need you!’

Vexed way beyond the limit of expressing his explosive emotions, Eros swung on his heel and walked out, his wide shoulders and long back rigid while he mentally rained down the hellfire of revenge on Winnie and her offensive grandfather. How dared they?

How dared they?

Talk and behave as though he were powerless? Dismiss his rights as a father as though they did not exist? Suggest he could have no value as a parent? That, indeed, he would be a negative influence on his own child? They would pay for those slurs, one way or another they would both pay, Eros swore with inner vehemence.

Even worse, the implication that he was the sort of man who preyed on his domestic staff like some shady creep! Winnie had never been his mistress. Eros had never had one and certainly not during his marriage to Tasha. He had been celibate for years and then Winnie had appeared and somehow... His teeth gritted as he thrust the memory away, along with all his other memories of Winnie Mardas. The affair had been a mistake, a very human mistake but still a mistake. He knew that very well. Temptation had led to an error and then ultimately to freedom, he reminded himself, shelving that train of thought for something much more important.

He had a child... He had a son, whose name he didn’t even know! Engaged in frantic mathematical calculations, Eros worked out that his little boy had to be under two years of age, a mere toddler. A faint shard of relief touched him. That wasn’t too late for a child to meet his father for the first time. How much worse would it have been if he had never found out or if the child had been much older and embittered by his father’s long absence from his life?

Yeah, it could have been worse, he jeered at himself for such ruminations. But not much worse... Stam Fotakis threatening him, trying to stampede him into marriage when he had only just escaped an imprudent marriage, his first child estranged from him, the mother of his child equally estranged and her subsequent behaviour were inexcusable. Seriously, how could the situation have been worse?

And the whole chaotic fiasco stemmed from one mistake. Eros’s own mistake, he acknowledged grudgingly. He had naively agreed to marry a young woman he didn’t love and didn’t desire to soothe a dying man’s fears about his daughter’s future. But it had never been a real marriage. He had never shared a bed with Tasha, had never even shared a home with her. Throughout their marriage they had lived entirely separate lives. He had accepted all the restrictions of marriage without receiving any of the benefits. And then Winnie had come into his life and logic, honour and restraint had gone out of the window simultaneously.

* * *

Stam Fotakis surveyed his empty office with bemused eyes. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure how a business meeting had gone. It had been business, purely business, he told himself soothingly. But Nevrakis had gone up like a firework display, far more volatile in nature than Stam’s careful research had led him to expect. He had never seen a man in such a rage, particularly not one renowned for being cooler than ice. Suppose he let that rage out in little Winnie’s direction?

A new fear assailed Stam as he grabbed the phone to speak to his granddaughters’ bodyguards, the security detail the girls didn’t even know they had watching their every move in London. Possibly, security would have to be a little more visible in the near future, Stam reasoned worriedly. Nevrakis had left his office in violent haste...

* * *

‘So,’ Vivi summed up, copper hair as sleek as a swathe of silk framing her vivid face as she looked across the kitchen table at her sisters. ‘Our grandfather is as crazy as a loon. Where does that leave us?’

‘What we do is our choice.’ Winnie threw back her head so that her mass of brunette hair tumbled down her back, enabling her to gather it up and expertly twist it into a ponytail, ready for work. ‘Nobody can force us to do anything.’

‘Agreed, but Grandad is our only option for the money we need,’ Zoe piped up with innate practicality. ‘Nobody else is willing to give us money to save John and Liz’s home. We tried to get a loan and we failed.’

That unwelcome reminder fell like a brick into the tense silence.

Winnie tugged her little boy up onto her lap because he was drooping tiredly by her side. Teddy closed his eyes and relaxed, his little face drowsy below his crown of black curls. Talk was cheap and easy, but reality had just spoken in Zoe’s quiet little voice, Winnie reflected ruefully. In truth, none of the three sisters had an actual choice. In the kindest way possible for a very rich tyrant, Stam Fotakis had spelt out the truth that his assistance would be given and gladly, but that financial help would come at a price they might not be prepared to pay.

And why did they need that financial help?

Their foster parents, John and Liz Brooke, whose care had transformed the sisters’ lives and reunited them as a family group, were in deep financial trouble. When Winnie had learned that John and Liz were within days of having their ramshackle farmhouse repossessed and losing the foster children currently in their care, she had disregarded her long-dead father’s warning and had approached her wealthy grandfather with a begging letter.

Stam Fotakis had cut off their late father, Cy, without a penny when he was barely more than a teenager. Cy had demonstrated his disdain for the family name by legally changing it to his grandmother’s maiden name of Mardas, which, of course, had meant that their grandfather had had no way of tracing either his son or the family he had eventually had.

At twenty-six, Winnie was old enough to remember their parents, who had died in a car crash when she was eight, but Vivi had only the barest recollection of them, and Zoe, a mere toddler at the time, had none at all.

But all three young women were very much aware that the Brooke family had saved them when they’d needed saving, giving them the care and support they had long lacked to rise above the tragic loss of their mum and dad and the disturbing consequences that had followed because they had all had bad experiences in state care. Winnie, extracted from a physically abusive foster home, had arrived with them first, and John and Liz’s caring enquiries and persistence had eventually led to the sisters being reunited within their home.

From that point on all their lives had improved beyond all recognition and gradually a happy, secure normality had enveloped the traumatised siblings. You couldn’t put a price on what John and Liz had done for them, Winnie conceded ruefully, because you couldn’t put a price on love. Without adopting them, John and Liz had become the girls’ forever family, treating them like daughters and encouraging and supporting them every step of the way into adulthood.

‘That’s true.’ Vivi spoke up again with a grimace at the reminder that they had failed to get a loan. ‘And we can only get that money if we agree to marry men hand-picked by our crazy grandad. Obviously getting his granddaughters married off to suitable men is hugely important to him.’

‘He did say they didn’t have to be real marriages...in-name-only stuff is rather different,’ Winnie muttered the reminder ruefully, because in truth she didn’t want to get married either, even if it did only mean a piece of legal paper and a ring on her finger.

When she had first contacted her grandfather, she had had to provide documents to prove her identity but, barely a week later, she and her sisters and her little boy had been flown out on a private jet to Greece for several days. They had been stunned by their grandfather’s wealth and his very big and opulent home and had been well on the road to liking him until he had mentioned his terms for giving them the money to save the roof over John’s and Liz’s heads.

Of the three of them, Winnie had been most shocked by those terms, particularly when it should’ve been obvious to a man who had bitterly lamented their unhappy childhood in foster care that he too owed John and Liz Brooke a moral debt for the care they had taken of his grandchildren. But evidently the concept of giving something for nothing was not one Stam Fotakis was willing to embrace. Yes, he had acknowledged he was delighted to learn of their existence and very grateful that John and Liz had given them such wonderful care...but still he had had to mention terms...

Winnie had immediately scolded herself for her sentimental expectations and unrealistic hopes of her grandfather. He was the same man who had thrown his younger son out of his home for refusing to study business at university and he had never looked back from that hard decision. Not necessarily a kind man, not even necessarily a nice man. He wanted them all married off to what he had referred to as ‘men of substance’ and restored to the society position he saw as their Fotakis birthright. Winnie, however, did suspect that she knew why Stam Fotakis had decided not to simply invite his grandchildren into his home to gift them that birthright as members of his household.

Stam Fotakis was ashamed of his granddaughters’ current status. He had adored her son, Teddy, on sight but had been appalled that Winnie was unmarried. He had been equally shocked by the dreadful scandal in which Vivi had become innocently embroiled. In fact, Stam Fotakis didn’t have a modern laid-back bone in his entire body. He believed women should be safely, decently married before they had children and that their names should only ever appear in a downmarket tabloid newspaper because they were beautifully dressed VIPs.

Winnie grimaced. She had always believed that she too would be married before she had a child but a crueller fate had tripped her up and she was a little wiser now. Falling in love with the wrong man could be a disaster and that was the crux of what had happened to Winnie and her once-fine ideals. Her only consolation was that she had not once suspected that Eros was a married man, and he had most definitely concealed that reality from her. Her wake-up call had come in the shape of a visit from Eros’s wife, Tasha, and she still broke out in a cold sweat just remembering that awful day. It had forced her to grow up fast though, she told herself bracingly, and she had needed that ‘short sharp shock’ treatment to get the strength to walk away from the man she loved.

‘I have to get ready for work.’ Winnie sighed, rising from her seat.

Zoe stood up, as well. ‘Give me Teddy,’ she urged. ‘I’ll put him down for a nap while I make dinner and that’ll allow you to slip out without him noticing.’

Zoe was tiny like Winnie but her hair was golden blonde as their father’s had been. Her grandfather had told Winnie that she bore a close resemblance to her grandmother who had apparently been an Arabian princess. Winnie shook her head over that startling recollection because nothing could have more surely pointed out that her grandfather came from a very different world. Her father, Cy, had never once mentioned his mother’s exalted birth, but he had talked very lovingly about her.

Smiling at her youngest sibling, Winnie recognised how very lucky she was to have sisters who loved and cared for her son as much as she did. She could never have managed without them although the fact that, as a junior chef, she invariably worked evenings and weekends helped in the childcare department. They had also been living in a dump of a flat before they met their grandfather and Winnie had only accepted the older man’s generous offer of new accommodation for her son’s sake. In the space of two weeks, however, that new comfortable terraced home with its four generous bedrooms and extra space, not to mention its smart location, had changed their lives very much for the better. They weren’t paying rent any more either, which meant that surviving on their low salaries was no longer a struggle.

Even so, it didn’t feel safe to be depending even temporarily on the generosity of a grandfather who was very much a mixed bag of traits and tricks. Winnie was painfully aware that Stam Fotakis could decide to turn his back on them as quickly as he had laid down a welcome mat for them. Rich people, she had learned from her experience with Eros Nevrakis, could be unreliable and volatile. It didn’t do to trust them or to expect them to stay the same like more ordinary folk, she recalled sickly.

‘I’m sorry, I’m not in the mood tonight.’ She recalled Eros murmuring in apology, as if it were perfectly normal to push her away when he was usually keen to encourage her affection. That rejection had hurt, it had hurt so much, acting on her like the very first frightening wake-up call to reality.

Her eyes stinging, Winnie compressed her lips and shut down the memory fast. Remembering Eros was a two-edged sword that both wounded and infuriated her. She had been so stupidly naive and trusting, refusing to see or suspect what her grandfather had picked up instantly...that she had not been engaged in a passionate love affair but had instead become a married man’s mistress. And there was nothing remotely romantic or loving or caring about that role, she concluded as she stepped onto the Tube to travel to the restaurant that currently employed her as a pastry chef. She would’ve been rather higher up the career ladder had she not dropped out of her apprenticeship to become Eros Nevrakis’s personal chef, she reflected resentfully. On the other hand, she would never have had Teddy without him and, no matter what her grandfather thought of unmarried mothers, Teddy could never ever be a source of regret.

* * *

Midevening, Vivi was just tucking the little boy into his jammies when a loud knock sounded on the front door. The knocker sounded again before she even reached the hall with Teddy clutched precariously below one arm, because you couldn’t turn your back safely on Teddy for even ten seconds. ‘All right...all right...try being patient,’ she was muttering below her breath as she yanked open the door and gaped.

At least five men stood on the doorstep, all big, all wearing dark suits and earphones. No, the one standing closest wasn’t wearing one of those communication things and he looked madder than fire.

‘Are you okay, Miss Mardas?’ one of the men at the back enquired.

‘Who on earth are you all?’ Vivi whispered, feeling unusually intimidated.

‘Security, Miss Mardas. We work for your grandfather.’

‘I’m not security,’ Eros spelt out impatiently while trying not to squint to get a better look at the little boy anchored sideways below the redhead’s arm. His brain went momentarily blank as he focused on that grinning, lively little face below the splash of black curls. His son, assuming it was his son, looked very much like him, Eros acknowledged, momentarily shocked out of the rage that had powered him all the way from Greece.

‘Why would I need security?’ Vivi whispered.

‘I want to see Winnie,’ Eros grated. ‘I am Eros Nevrakis.’

Vivi froze and immediately awarded him a look of utter loathing. ‘My sister is at work.’

‘I will come in and wait for her, then.’

‘She won’t be home until after midnight, so there’s no point in you waiting,’ Vivi proclaimed with pursed lips.

Eros drew himself up to his full six feet four inches and simply looked through her, unperturbed by her hostile manner. ‘I will return at ten in the morning. Tell her to ensure that she is here then,’ he delivered through clenched white teeth.




CHAPTER TWO (#u3225a8be-6064-54c4-92dd-164051c64e27)


‘NO—NO WAY am I seeing him after all this time,’ Winnie declared wearily after her shift with both her sisters treating her to an anxious appraisal. ‘What on earth does he want?’

‘Do you think he’s found out about Teddy?’ Zoe piped up worriedly.

‘I don’t see how.’

‘Grandad knows him,’ Vivi interposed thoughtfully. ‘I saw the look on his face when you admitted Teddy’s father was Greek and when you finally gave him the guy’s name, he was really, really furious—didn’t you notice?’

‘No, I wasn’t wanting to look at Grandad while I was being forced to tell that particular story,’ Winnie admitted, her face burning at that memory.

‘Well, Nevrakis can’t force you to see him. Go to the park as usual,’ Vivi advised.

‘Don’t you think—with him being Teddy’s father—that that is a bit unwise?’ Zoe murmured, as always the peacemaker.

‘He’s not Teddy’s father. He’s never been here for Teddy or Winnie when they needed him!’ Vivi sharply snapped back at Zoe.

‘It’s just I think...well, you know...er...that fathers have rights,’ Zoe said hesitantly. ‘And maybe if he knows about Teddy and that’s why he’s here, if you don’t play nice, he might start thinking about taking you to court to get permission to see him.’

‘Dear heaven, I hope not!’ Winnie gasped in horror but the more she thought about that risk, the more worrying the situation became. But was it really that likely that Eros would be that interested in a child?

Could Eros already know about Teddy? Could her grandfather have told him? She wouldn’t have trusted Stam Fotakis as far as she could throw him. He had already told her that she should’ve informed Eros that she was pregnant rather than simply walking away from their relationship without an explanation. For walk, substitute run, she thought unhappily, for the discovery that Eros was a married man had devastated Winnie, and after that deception she hadn’t felt she owed Eros the news that she was pregnant. She hadn’t wanted anything more to do with him, hadn’t ever wanted to even see him again...but now he had tracked her down and with Teddy around that was a game changer, wasn’t it?

Clutching her hand, Teddy chattered non-stop all the way to the park. It was toddler chatter in which only one word in ten was recognisable as an actual word. They had to walk slowly too, because Teddy loved to walk. But he had short legs and if she lost patience and put him in the buggy, he would throw a tantrum. ‘Not baby!’ he would scream, mortally offended by such a demeaning mode of transport.

He gave a shout of excitement once he saw the playground, tearing free of his mother’s grasp to race down the path in advance of her. Winnie broke into a run because Teddy’s fearless approach to life often put him at risk. By the time she caught up, he was climbing the steps to the slide. He had been as agile as a little monkey from an early age. He whooped as he went down the slide and she retreated to a concrete bench nearby, relieved to sit down because she was still tired from the night before.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she dug it out.

It was Vivi.

‘Nevrakis is coming to see you at the park,’ her sibling warned her. ‘I tried to put him off but he said he would stay and wait if I didn’t tell him where you were.’

Near panic engulfed Winnie, her jaw dropping at the thought of being cornered by Eros in a public place. But he wasn’t the type to make a scene, she reminded herself doggedly, and she couldn’t avoid him for ever. It was better to be sensible, she told herself bracingly, smoothing down her warm jacket, wishing she had put on a little make-up, telling herself off furiously for even caring how she might look while her nerves rattled about inside her like jumping beans. He had to know about Teddy, had to want to see him because there was no other reason for him to seek her out now. Her mind wanted to take her back to her very first meeting with Eros Nevrakis but she wouldn’t let it because memories would weaken her, tearing away the superficial calm she had learned to keep in place to make her sisters happy.

‘Oh, sure, I’m over him!’ she had taught herself to declare with a laugh for punctuation. ‘I’m not stupid!’

Two men lodged nearby below the trees, suited and smart. Her grandfather’s utterly superfluous bodyguards, whom Vivi had met the night before on the doorstep, Winnie suspected, and she ignored them. She would have to phone her grandfather about that unnecessary extravagance. Why on earth would she and her sisters need guarding when as yet nobody even knew they were related to Stam Fotakis?

In the distance she glimpsed a tall man striding down the path and her heart stuttered as though she’d received a shock, while breathing suddenly became a distinct challenge. Perspiration beaded her short upper lip, heat washing over her as she recalled what an absolute idiot she had been two years earlier...falling for her boss, sleeping with her boss.

Eros paused, all sleek, lithe and sexy elegance in a charcoal-grey suit and overcoat, a red silk scarf bright at his throat as he stood scanning the playground with the raw self-assurance of a highly successful tycoon. Winnie swallowed hard, her hands clenching together, nails biting into her tender palms. She had to force herself to stand upright to catch his attention because she wasn’t going to hide from him and refused to behave as if she feared him.

His brilliant gaze settled on her and she went even stiffer, turning her head away to check on Teddy, standing at the top of the slide shouting for her attention, for if there was one thing Teddy loved it was an audience. He was an irredeemable little extrovert, brimming with vitality. She moved closer to the slide, ignoring Eros to the best of her ability, even as she heard his steps sound behind her.

Teddy zoomed down the slide with a whoop, clambered off at the bottom and raced round to repeat the exercise.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about him?’ Eros breathed, soft and low and deadly.

Disconcertion turned Winnie’s head in his direction and she saw him in profile because his entire attention was studiously welded to her son. That classic bronzed profile made her heart give a sick thud inside her chest and she swallowed hard, close enough to smell the rich aromatic scent of his designer cologne, close enough to be dragged down screaming into the kind of memories she always suppressed, and she took a hasty step backwards, protecting herself from getting too close.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were married?’ Winnie parried quietly.

Eros gritted his even white teeth, incensed by that comeback. He turned to study her as involuntarily entranced by her tiny proportions as he had been the first time he saw her. She was a barely five-feet-tall brunette with delicate curves and a tiny waist, so small and light he could have scooped her up with one powerful hand. Of course, pregnancy could have changed her shape, he conceded, but he was challenged to picture Winnie pregnant and the loose jacket she wore concealed more than it revealed of her figure. The huge chocolate-brown eyes, sultry pink mouth and the lustrous dark mane of her hair, however, were unchanged. He tore his electrified gaze from her, angry enough to spit tacks, and concentrated his attention back on his son.

The little boy was definitely his son and he was of a much sturdier build than his mother. That tumble of black curls and those green eyes, the same green eyes that Eros had inherited from his late mother, unmistakeably marked Teddy out as a Nevrakis. Eros had done his homework and made his own enquiries since that meeting two days earlier with Stam Fotakis. His son was called Teddy. What sort of a name was that? His child had been named after a plush toy, he thought witheringly. But the biggest surprise of all for Eros at that moment was how looking at Teddy made him feel...

As though that little creature had been put on this earth purely for him to protect, he acknowledged in wonderment, watching as Teddy climbed the slide steps at speed and threw himself down it with dangerous enthusiasm and a noisy shout. Impelled by a response that bit too deep to withstand, Eros strode forward and swept the little boy upright again with careful hands. Teddy gave him a startled look and then a huge cheerful smile as Eros gently set him free again.

‘Swing, Mama,’ Teddy demanded, setting off in that direction.

‘He’s bossy like you,’ Winnie said drily.

Eros ignored her. He had a great deal to say to Winnie but none of it could be safely voiced where they could be overheard.

Winnie lifted Teddy into one of the baby swings and gave him a push before standing back.

‘How old is he?’ Eros demanded in a driven undertone.

‘Eighteen months. He’s tall for his age,’ Winnie muttered.

‘And in all that time you didn’t once think of contacting me?’ Eros intoned through clenched teeth of restraint.

‘You were married,’ Winnie reminded him with a lift of her chin.

‘That’s irrelevant,’ Eros countered with ferocious bite. ‘It’s not an excuse.’

‘I’m not making excuses. I don’t regret not telling you,’ Winnie responded, outraged by his lack of guilt.

‘But you will,’ Eros murmured, soft as a cat padding round her on velvet paws of menace. ‘You will learn to regret it.’

A faint chill stiffened Winnie’s already rigid spine but she squared her slight shoulders, rebelling against that sense of threat. Eros couldn’t push her around; he couldn’t do anything to her. Teddy was hers and she didn’t work for Eros any more or indeed depend on him in any way.

Her defiance infuriated Eros. Evidently he had underestimated Winnie when he had deemed her to be a quiet, restful sort of young woman; the type who would never cause waves in his life. He had trusted her as far as he trusted any woman, had believed he knew her inside out, had only registered how mistaken such an assumption could be after she had vanished into thin air. His wide sensual mouth compressed into a grim line.

Winnie glanced at him and her tension zoomed to a new high, her eyes lingering against her will on his lean, powerful length, her breath catching in her throat. With an effort she tore her attention away again but her senses were humming, her heart was pounding, teaching her that she had yet to attain the level of indifference she needed to be safe around him. Instead she was mesmerised by that stormy, striking male beauty of his, the honed, flawless angles of his high cheekbones, the definitive shape of his nose and the unforgettably stunning impact of those jewelled green eyes, once seen, never forgotten. She shifted her feet, fighting off her susceptibility, hating herself for noticing afresh just how gorgeous he was.

‘My only regret is that I ever met you,’ she declared stonily.

‘A little late in the day,’ Eros purred, impervious to the insult. ‘I will take you to my apartment, where we will talk about where we go from here.’

‘No,’ Winnie argued. ‘I’m going home. Teddy needs his nap.’

To Eros’s mind, Teddy looked more as if he was good to go for another few hours as he gripped the swing and kicked up his legs with excitement.

‘We can’t talk with your sisters present,’ Eros countered very drily.

‘My sisters will have left for work.’ Rigid with resentment that he was somehow contriving to force her into a discussion she didn’t want as well as granting him access to her home, Winnie slung him a look of loathing, big brown eyes awash with annoyance.

She hated Eros Nevrakis. She had never hated anyone before but she hated him for a whole host of reasons. But she had to find out what he wanted, had to remember that he was Teddy’s father and should for the present be handled with tact, she reminded herself quellingly. This time running away wasn’t an option because she would only leave a bigger mess behind her. Her soft full lips compressed, she lifted her son out of the swing, ignoring his bitter wail of complaint. He looked up at her with green eyes swimming with tears and her heart clenched as she set him down to walk beside her.

‘We’ll use my limo,’ Eros informed her.

‘No, Teddy and I will walk back. I’ll meet you there,’ Winnie told him without hesitation and she turned on her heel, needing the time alone and the peace to regroup and calm down.

Teddy dragged his heels all the way, tired now and cross, but Winnie barely noticed because all the memories she had buried were flooding her to drowning point.

Fresh from catering college and a variety of jobs in which she’d picked up experience, she had secured a sous chef position in a small family-owned Greek restaurant. When a virus had put the head chef in bed, the responsibility for providing dinner for a large party of Greek businessmen being entertained by Eros had fallen on Winnie’s shoulders. At the end of the meal she had been invited to meet the client, and she could still recall getting into a panic at the prospect and dragging off her chef’s hat and tidying her hair for the sort of public appearance that had never come her way before.

Eros had complimented her with flattering enthusiasm on the meal she had prepared. She had hovered there with bright red cheeks, trying not to gawp at the best-looking man she had ever met, wondering how anyone could have such extraordinarily green eyes, intense as polished tourmalines in that lean, darkly handsome face of his. He had passed her his business card, telling her that he was looking for a personal chef for his London home and that when she was free she should ring him for an interview.

She had been quite happy where she was working, but she didn’t see much of her sisters because she worked such awkward hours and that more than anything had persuaded her to make that phone call. When she had been offered a salary far beyond her current earnings and accommodation in central London to boot, she had accepted, reasoning that working as a billionaire’s private chef would offer her even more exciting opportunities to advance herself. With two sisters who were still students, invariably broke and in need of clothes, the ability to earn a decent wage had been very important back then.

‘So, how did you get into cooking?’ Eros had enquired, strolling informally into the kitchen on her first night while she’d been preparing his evening meal, his every fluid movement attracting her attention, particularly to the fabric defining his long, powerful thighs.

‘My mother was a cook and she started teaching me when I was five,’ Winnie had confided as she’d struggled not to look back in the same direction, perplexed by her random thoughts and embarrassing impulses in his presence. ‘Both my parents were Greek, although my mother’s family had been living here for years when she met my father—’

‘Yet you don’t speak our language,’ Eros had remarked in surprise.

Winnie had tensed, her eyes shadowing. ‘My parents died when I was eight and I’ve forgotten most of the Greek words I knew. I’ve always meant to go to classes but I’m too busy. Some day I’ll take it up again.’

‘So, what are you making me tonight?’ Eros had asked with a lazy smile, his accented drawl smooth as silk in her ears.

‘I put a little menu on the dining table for you.’

‘Cute,’ Eros had commented with lancing amusement.

‘Just tell me what you want and I’ll provide it,’ she had urged, eager to please for he had been paying generously for her services and she’d wanted him to feel that she was worth her salary.

An ebony brow had skated up. ‘Anything?’ he had pressed, laughter sparkling in his spectacular eyes, his wide sensual mouth lifting at the corners.

‘Pretty much anything,’ Winnie had muttered, belatedly grasping the double entendre she had accidentally made, her colour rising accordingly. ‘And if I don’t know how to make it, I can soon find out.’

‘Is your accommodation adequate?’ Eros had prompted.

‘It’s lovely. Your housekeeper was very helpful,’ Winnie had told him cheerfully, even though it had been something of a shock to enter a household where virtually no one had spoken any English and where she’d known she would be a little lonely. There had been few staff because Eros had been the only resident and had frequently been away from home. Only the housekeeper, Karena, had lived in and she had been near retirement age, besides having only a very basic grasp of English.

Karena’s entry into the kitchen that evening had concluded that conversation with Eros, for the housekeeper had usually served the meals, but a couple of nights later when Winnie had noticed how very tired the older woman had looked, she had urged her to return to her flat for the night and leave her to serve the meal. It had been a strategic error to expose herself to greater contact with Eros but at the time she had felt guilty about the fat salary she earned and the reality that she worked much shorter hours than Karena, who had been on duty from dawn to dusk and busy even when Eros had been abroad because she’d overseen the cleaning and maintenance of the house. When Karena had fallen victim to a sprained wrist, that serving arrangement had become permanent with Karena departing to her flat every evening before Eros’s return.

Only a few evenings had passed before Eros had suggested she join him and, although she had demurred in surprise and discomfiture the first time, the second time he had asked she had told herself that it would be rude to refuse again and she had sat down and shared a glass of wine with him. She had asked him about his day and his foreign travels and had listened while he’d talked, sipping her wine, answering the occasional query while becoming maddeningly aware of the intensity of his beautiful eyes on her. Just sitting there she had felt all hot and tingly, flattered by his interest, his apparent desire for her company when he could’ve had so many more glamorous women eagerly filling the same role.

Back then Winnie had been a retiring mixture of naivety and insecurity when men were around. Keen to climb the career ladder, she hadn’t dated much, and as soon as her sisters had begun looking to her as a role model, dating had become even more of a challenge. A couple of unsavoury experiences with men who had wanted much more than she’d wanted to give had kept her a virgin. Working long, unsocial hours hadn’t helped, so the thrill of being in Eros’s company and the sole focus of his attention had rather gone to her head. The first kiss... No, she didn’t want to remember that which loomed large in her memory as her first major mistake. Squashing that untimely recollection, she walked past the opulent vehicle that she assumed was Eros’s limousine and was unlocking the front door of the house when she heard him behind her.

‘An elegant location,’ he remarked, making her jump as she hurriedly crossed the threshold.

‘Yes, thanks to Grandad. The house belongs to him.’ Hurriedly doffing her coat, Winnie hung it up in the alcove and showed him into the lounge. ‘You can wait in here while I feed Teddy and put him down for his nap...’

‘Why did you choose to call him Teddy?’ he queried.

‘Officially it’s Theodore, my father’s middle name,’ she proffered stiffly. ‘But it was too big a name for a baby and he ended up Teddy instead.’

Uninvited, Eros followed her into the kitchen, where she strapped Teddy into his booster seat at the table and whipped between fridge and microwave, warming her son’s lunch while studiously ignoring Eros’s silent presence by the door.

Teddy grasped his spoon and ate, making more of a mess than usual, showing off because a stranger was present.

‘I assume your sisters look after him while you’re at work?’ Eros prompted.

‘Yes...’ Winnie glanced worriedly at him. ‘They’re very good with him.’

‘A father would have been even better.’

Breathing in deep and slow to restrain her temper, Winnie concentrated on cleaning up Teddy and the table, unstrapping him to lift him.

‘Allow me...’ Disconcertingly, Eros stepped right into her path and simply scooped her son out of her hold. ‘Where to now?’

‘Upstairs,’ Winnie said thinly, reluctantly leading the way.

She pushed open the door of Teddy’s room.

‘This is a little girl’s room,’ Eros objected, only slowly lowering her son into his cot, his attention pinned to the pink cartoon mural of princesses on the wall.

‘We haven’t got around to redecorating yet,’ Winnie retorted, sidestepping the truth that the sisters had decided not to go to that trouble and expense when they were unsure how long their grandfather would allow them to make the house their home. Stepping over to the cot, she slipped off her son’s shoes and his sweatshirt and settled him down before tugging the string on the little musical mobile that had been his from birth.

Closing the curtains, she walked back to the door, watching Eros hover by the cot. ‘Why’s the cot in the middle of the room?’ he asked.

‘Because if you put it beside the furniture, Teddy will use it to climb out and I don’t want the hassle of trying to persuade him to stay put in a junior bed. He’s too young to understand.’

‘A nanny would remove much of the burden of childcare,’ Eros commented smoothly. ‘It must be hard for you to work and care adequately for him at the same time.’

‘Not with my sisters around,’ Winnie countered steadily, refusing to rise to the suggestion that she wasn’t doing the best mothering job possible.

Eros strode down the stairs only a step in her wake and she walked into the lounge. ‘I suppose I should offer you coffee,’ she said stiffly.

Eros sent her a winging hard glance. ‘No, thanks. Let’s not procrastinate.’

‘If you must know, I was trying to be polite.’

Eros shrugged a broad shoulder, the edge of his jacket falling back to expose a shirt front pulling taut across his muscular torso, delineating sleek bands of abdominal muscle. As she watched, her mouth ran dry and she looked hastily away, colour warming her cheeks.

‘Why bother?’ Eros incised drily. ‘We’re neither friends nor casual acquaintances.’

‘What do you want from me?’ Winnie fired back at him, anxiety biting through her.

‘Answers,’ Eros framed silkily. ‘And I’ll keep on coming back at you until I get them.’




CHAPTER THREE (#u3225a8be-6064-54c4-92dd-164051c64e27)


‘ANSWERS? WELL, I can give you a question. Why didn’t you tell me that you were a married man?’ Winnie demanded abruptly, infuriated by his refusal to acknowledge that deception.

‘You never asked if I was married,’ Eros pointed out smoothly.

And that fast, Winnie wanted to hit him, hit him so hard she knocked him into the middle of next week. Her small hands curled into tight fists, her cheeks pink with the force of her resentment and the galling knowledge that she couldn’t afford to lose control of her temper. ‘Why would I have asked when ostensibly you were living alone and there was no visible woman in your life?’ she shot back at him. ‘I hadn’t the smallest suspicion that you were already in a relationship!’

‘My marriage is not a subject I’m prepared to discuss with you,’ Eros informed her arrogantly, clenching his strong jawline. ‘I would have been willing to discuss that topic two years ago. But two years on, I don’t believe I owe you that explanation.’

Winnie clenched her teeth together as hard as if she were biting into solid metal. ‘Oh, don’t you, indeed?’ she exclaimed, vexed by that provocative assurance and, if anything, madder than ever.

‘You met Tasha,’ Eros acknowledged curtly. ‘Eventually I did find that out and presumably that is why you chose to suddenly disappear without giving me any explanation.’

‘Don’t say that like it excuses you... Nothing excuses your behaviour!’ Winnie slammed back at him furiously. ‘And I didn’t owe you anything!’

Eros studied her with intent, glittering green eyes. She still had lousy dress sense, he conceded ruefully, invariably choosing to envelop herself in drab colours and very practical clothing, but he knew her ripe body as well as he knew his own and he could see the changes in her lush figure, which even clad in leggings and an all-concealing sweatshirt was visibly fuller at breast and hip. He hardened, momentarily snatched back into hot, sweaty memories of the passion that had once threatened to consume him. His treacherous libido heated up, sending a sensual pulse through his groin and making him bite back a curse at his lack of restraint.

For a while, the sheer novelty of that passion had obsessed him and, having recognised that as a dangerous weakness, he had refused to allow himself to look for her after she vanished out of his life. He could get by fine without sex; he had got by for years and he no longer fell as easily into temptation as he had fallen with her. He was free now, he reminded himself, but that old belief that he had to always stay in control of his physical urges was still ingrained in him. Giving way to those same urges had destroyed his father’s life. Winnie had made him feel dangerously out of control and that, if he was honest with himself, had unnerved him.

‘At the very least, you owed me the knowledge that you were pregnant with my child,’ Eros delivered in harsh condemnation.

‘No, I didn’t!’ Winnie slammed back at him in annoyance. ‘Your deception released me from any such obligation!’

His stunning eyes narrowed, black velvety lashes shading that mesmeric green. ‘There was no deception on my part. For a deception to be contrived, one must deliberately engage in concealment of the truth...and I did not. I didn’t tell you a single lie!’

For several unbearable seconds, Winnie searched her memory for evidence of a lie and her inability to find one merely enraged her more. He was so scheming, so specious in his arguments. ‘But you also knew I hadn’t the faintest suspicion that you were a married man!’ she flung back at him bitterly.

Eros inclined his glossy dark head. ‘Did I? Some women are content to sleep with married men without questioning their status.’

‘Stop playing with words!’ Winnie interrupted, rising up on her toes, pulsing with angry tension. ‘That’s what you’re doing in defiance of the facts! You knew I wasn’t that kind of woman... You knew I wouldn’t willingly get involved with a married man!’

Again, Eros shrugged, the lean, hard angles of his sculpted features set like granite. ‘None of this nonsense is pertinent now,’ he claimed in a dry tone of finality. ‘I will not engage in a slanging match about our past. That ship sailed a long time ago. What is germane now is that you have my son and you didn’t tell me about him. Let’s concentrate on that, rather than on facts we cannot change.’

Winnie tore her gaze from him with difficulty and turned her head away, momentarily at a loss. In one sense he was correct, in that there was nothing to be gained from arguing about what had happened between them two years earlier, but that also meant that he was denying her any justification for having chosen not to inform him of her pregnancy. Her slight shoulders stiffened and her head swung back, dark strands of her lush mane of hair falling across cheeks flushed by angry frustration.

‘How did you become pregnant anyway?’ Eros demanded without warning. ‘I always took precautions.’

At that much-too-intimate question, Winnie practically fried in mortification inside her own burning skin and she walked stiffly over to the window, momentarily turning her back on him. ‘No, there were times when you overlooked that necessity,’ she told him grudgingly, forced to recall early-morning encounters when she had wakened to his hard, thrillingly aroused body pressed to hers and in warm drowsy lust and need had succumbed without either of them thinking of contraception.

‘I don’t remember a single occasion,’ Eros informed her with a raw edge to his dark, deep, accented drawl.

‘Then you must have a very short memory because I remember at least a dozen occasions when contraception was the last thing on your mind. In the shower, in the pool, early mornings when we were both half-asleep.’ Winnie forced out the words like staccato bullets voiced between gritted teeth. ‘In fact, you were downright careless, and I noticed but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I tried to go on the pill to protect myself but by the time I saw a GP, it was too late. I had already conceived.’

‘You should’ve drawn those oversights to my attention,’ Eros delivered curtly, reflecting that if anything should’ve warned him that the affair was out of control, it was exactly that aberrant carelessness on his part that underlined it. He had got too comfortable with her, too involved to be logical and safe. It had been a high-voltage sexual affair and he hadn’t been prepared for it, hadn’t counted the risks or the costs, had simply waded in like a man with an unquenchable thirst and drunk so deep that even his intelligence was compromised.

Winnie twisted back to him in a sudden movement. ‘Oh, really?’ she carolled tartly. ‘So, the fact I fell pregnant is my fault too, is it?’

‘There’s little point in awarding blame this late in the day,’ Eros murmured curtly. ‘What is done is done and we have a child...a child who is, sadly, a stranger to me. That must be remedied immediately.’

Winnie was so rigid that her very muscles ached with the strain. ‘Must it?’

‘Of course, it must be,’ Eros declared, studying her with an incredulity that implied she would have to be witless to expect anything else. ‘Teddy must learn that I am his father and I need to get to know him. I would like to spend time with him tomorrow.’

‘No,’ Winnie cut in without even thinking about it because Teddy had always been hers and he had never been in the care of anyone outside the family.

‘Naturally, I will bring a qualified nanny with me to ensure that Teddy’s basic needs are properly met while he is with me. I have a lot to learn about being a father,’ Eros admitted with a candour that disconcerted her. ‘But given time and experience, I will pick up what I have to know.’

‘I really can’t believe that you’re this interested in Teddy!’ Winnie proclaimed in consternation, watching him pace back and forth in front of her, the lithe grace of his every movement strikingly noticeable and grabbing her attention with its aching familiarity.

A hollow sensation opened inside Winnie, her breath suddenly tripping in her throat. Her nipples were peaking, suddenly tender and tight beneath her clothing. She dragged in a jagged breath as the hot melting sensation of arousal pulsed between her taut thighs. How did he do that to her? How on earth could he still do that to her when she knew he was no longer hers to crave? Never had been hers either, except in her imagination, she reminded herself guiltily, dragging her attention from him to try to focus elsewhere.





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