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 asked 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 touch 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.’
She heard his own sharp intake of breath.
When he next spoke, it sounded as if it were coming from between tightly gritted teeth. ‘I was merely trying to think of the best way to proceed—the best way for all our interests.’
‘All your interests, you mean. If I was as shallow and money-grabbing as you keep implying, I would have accepted your offer and you wouldn’t have to face a future explaining to all and sundry that the mother of your child is a chambermaid. You could say the child was conceived by a surrogate.’
His phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw it was Niki.
He sighed and switched it off without answering. His youngest sister was furious with him for abandoning her in Vienna, although there was some debate as to whether ‘abandoning’ was the correct term, considering he’d put her in the best suite of the hotel and sent his plane back to collect her that morning. He was not ready to tell her or any of his family about Tabitha. Not when he was still trying to get to grips with the situation.
It was a situation he knew his family would be delighted about. He also knew what they would expect him to do about it. They would expect him to marry her.
His driver turned onto the long driveway that took them to Giannis’s home. Staring out of the window at the home he loved and had expected to be filled with children long before now, an overwhelming weariness flooded through him, and he bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck.
‘I’ve appointments in Athens to get to. I’ll be back later this evening. We can discuss the situation more then.’
He reached out to touch the honey-blonde hair splaying down her back and over her seat and pulled his hand back with only inches to spare.
He needed some legal advice because the only future he could see now involved marrying this woman who evoked the stickiest desire he’d ever known and a maelstrom of emotions in him. If marriage was the route they needed to take then he needed to get a grip on it all. And fast.
* * *
With the sun already blazing high in the azure sky, Tabitha rolled her jeans up her calves as far she could and put a black vest on. It was the closest thing to beach wear she could create from her limited wardrobe.
Then she walked down the long pebbled steps that led from Giannis’s clifftop house to his private beach. She’d just reached the bottom of them when Giannis’s housekeeper came tearing after her with a bottle of sunscreen and a large bottle of water.
Touched at the thoughtful gesture, and wishing she could thank the kind woman in her language, she kissed her cheek as a means of conveying her gratitude.
Alone with nothing but the clear Aegean Sea, she sank onto the dark volcanic sand and, for the first time in over four years, spent a day doing nothing. No cleaning. No washing. No scrubbing. No ironing. She just sat on the beach with the sun toasting her skin and got lost in her thoughts.
Slowly her fury at Giannis’s offer to effectively buy their baby from her lessened but threads of agitation grew in its place. He wanted to talk more about the ‘situation’ later.
What would happen to her now? What would happen to her baby? She wished desperately that her father were still alive. Just a warm embrace from him would be enough. He’d been such a good man, always wanting the best for his only child. It would have devastated him to see what had become of her. It would have devastated him to learn the wife he’d chosen with such care for his daughter’s sake had been a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’d known Tabitha’s relationship with her stepsisters hadn’t been the loving one he’d envisaged but he’d never dreamed the rot went all the way to the top. If he had, he would never have put his second wife down as a trustee to his estate. He would have better protected Tabitha.
Would Giannis only want the best for their child? He’d implied as much but what did his interpretation of ‘best’ even mean? Did it only mean material things? Or did it include love and affection?
His assertion that she had nothing to offer a child had stung but not as much as his cruel question as to how she could inspire their child.
Giannis looked at her and saw an insignificant nobody.
She wished it didn’t make her heart ache so much to know that that was who she’d become.
But now she needed to become someone. She needed to be the mother her child deserved.
* * *
Giannis took a deep breath before knocking on Tabitha’s door.
A long day had been broken up with a quick chat with his lawyer, who’d confirmed marriage was the most sensible route to take if he wanted any rights over his child. The law in Greece gave unmarried mothers sole custody. He would only have rights to his child if Tabitha consented. He could take her to court. With the legal minds he would employ, he could be reasonably certain of winning, but there were no guarantees in life. Marriage cut out any risks. He would be his child’s legal parent in the eyes of the law and seamlessly solve any future problem regarding custody and maintenance.
Marriage protected him. The sooner he tied Tabitha down the better, before she learned for herself that she held three out of the four aces in the pack. Which meant he needed to go on a charm offensive.
The door opened slowly.
When their eyes met he had a moment where all thoughts flew from his brain.
She looked dishevelled in rolled-up jeans and a black vest top, her pretty feet bare, long honey-blonde hair tumbling messily over her shoulders.
She tucked a lock of it behind her ear, colour rising on her rounded cheekbones.
Damn it, even resembling a grubby urchin she was beautiful.
There was a smudge on her left cheek. He rammed his hand into his pocket to stop himself from reaching out to wipe it clean.
His beautiful liar was the greatest temptation he had ever known. That made her more dangerous than she could understand.
But she was here, in his home, under his roof. If he wanted his rights to the child growing beneath the stomach that looked only a little rounder since their night together to be guaranteed, he needed to marry her. To marry her, he needed her consent.
He cleared his throat. ‘Dinner will be served for us on the terrace in twenty minutes.’
There was not the slightest softening on the beautiful stony face before him. ‘You want to eat with me?’
No. He never wanted to be near her again, never have that astounding beauty in his sight, never have her scent dive into his senses, never hear that fake cut-glass but utterly melodious, husky voice, never have his own fingers itch to reach out and touch the soft skin he so vividly remembered the texture and taste of...
Loins thickening uncomfortably, he gave a sharp nod and stepped back. ‘I’ll meet you out there.’
Then he turned and headed straight to his own room at the other end of his home to the room he’d put her in, far out of the reach of temptation.
Standing under the shower, he knew he had to get a grip. If she did consent to marry him then the temptation that was Tabitha would no longer be a temptation. She would be his wife. She would share his bed. Share his life.
Frustrated and furious with himself for his weakness around her, he punched the wall.
Damn it to hell, how had he got so carried away that he’d failed to put the condom on before thrusting inside her?
But that was the wrong question to ask because all it did was make his already aching loins remember the exquisite pleasure of being bare inside her.