Page 12 of Modern Romance Collection May 2024 Books 1-4

Ashling had pulled herself up and was standing in her cot, crying. She stopped as soon as Erin appeared, giving a gummy smile with glimpses of her newly formed teeth—undoubtedly the cause of her distress.

Erin went in and picked her up. Her cheeks were hot—a classic sign of teething pain. She’d almost forgotten about Ajax, so she was startled when she turned around and he was in the doorway.

Ashling saw him and went still in Erin’s arms.

He was looking at the baby, his face like stone. Then he stepped back from the doorway so Erin could come out. She had no choice. She went into the sitting room.

Ajax looked at Ashling again. And then, after a long moment, at Erin. ‘You said you weren’t with anyone.’

‘I’m not.’ She clutched Ashling to her like a shield.

He looked at the baby again. ‘Who...? What?’

Reaction was starting to set into Erin’s body. She felt herself trembling. ‘Her name is Ashling.’

Ajax was transfixed. The resemblance between father and daughter was almost laughable as they studied one another. Olive skin...dark hair.

He dragged his gaze away from the baby to look at Erin. He said, ‘She’s mine.’

It was emphatic. But even though Erin knew this was her opportunity to admit that he was right, she heard herself blurting out, ‘How can you be so sure?’

Ajax was grim. ‘Because she’s the image of my son.’

CHAPTER TWO

AJAXWASHOLDINGon to the edge of the kitchen island as if that could help anchor him in the midst of the storm surging around him. Belatedly he saw baby paraphernalia that he hadn’t noticed the first time around. A bottle steriliser, teething rings, toys. A high chair. They mocked him now.

Erin had taken the baby back into the bedroom to try and put her down again.

A baby. His baby.

He knew she was his as he knew his own name. She was the image of Theo at that age. Theo, his deceased son.

Ajax had spent so many of the recent years trying to block out the past, but now it was hurtling back with all the devastation of a bomb going off inside his brain.

His ill-fated marriage had been to a woman who had never been meant for him because she’d been promised in marriage to his older brother. It had been an arranged, strategic marriage, between two of Greece’s most notable families, so when his brother had died tragically Ajax had taken his brother’s place.

Sofia, his wife, had already been pregnant on the wedding day, and for appearances’ sake Ajax had agreed that the baby would be named as his.

In fact he’d been his nephew. But Ajax had loved that boy as if he was his own son, and Theo had known only Ajax as his father. A small, sturdy boy, with a mop of dark curly hair and bright mischievous eyes, he would grab Ajax’s hand with his own little pudgy one, ‘Papa, come see!’ and he’d drag Ajax off to look at a snail or a frog in a pond, or the latest toy he was obsessed with.

The devastation of Theo’s loss was suddenly acute all over again, making a lie of the cliché that time healed all wounds. Time would never heal that wound.

Ajax had grieved for his wife too, even though there’d been little love lost between them. Her death, and Theo’s, had thrown into sharp focus how they’d been treated like commodities by their families. Coming from one of Greece’s oldest and dynastic families, marrying a woman purely for duty’s sake had always been Ajax’s destiny—he’d never been under any illusions that love existed after witnessing his parents’ loveless marriage and lack of loving parenting—but the reality of the cold and hollow experience of his marriage had only confirmed his cynical world view, and that he wanted no part of such a charade again.

Hence his all-out conquest of the family business, so that he would be the one calling the shots.

Ajax heard a noise from behind him and steeled himself. This visit to indulge his curiosity and his lingering lust for Erin Murphy had morphed into something else entirely. Something unwelcome and life changing. He had a child. A daughter. When he’d vowed after Theo’s death never even to contemplate having another child. Yet it had happened. And Ajax couldn’t process the full magnitude of that right now.

He turned around. Erin was gently closing the door to the small bedroom.

Even now, in spite of this bombshell, he couldn’t stop his gaze from roving over her body, or stop his response. It made his blood volcanic, a mix of shock, anger and desire.

He looked at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about my daughter?’

Ajax’s stark question landed in Erin’s gut like a cold, heavy stone. It had been a shock to hear him mention his son. It was no secret, the awful car accident that had taken his wife and son’s lives some years ago, but he never spoke of them publicly and he and Erin had certainly never delved into such personal territory during their brief affair.

She couldn’t speak for a moment, but then she said weakly, ‘I did try...a few times...’

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