Page 15 of The Greek Tycoon's Baby Bargain

Rebecca stood stock-still as a red London bus swept by, the faces on it all blurred as one question kept going round and round in her head. What the hell was she going to do?

There weren’t really a lot of options open to her.

Surreptitiously, her hand crept to her belly. It was bigger, definitely bigger—but no one else had noticed. Not yet. Because Vanessa would surely have leapt on that if she’d thought that Rebecca was carrying Xandros’s baby.

Xandros’s baby. She shivered. Her Greek ex-lover was going to be a father and he didn’t know. No one knew, but soon it would become all too apparent—and then what?

Then what?

She went home and carefully removed her uniform before putting on a summer dress—turning to look at herself from every angle in the mirror which stood in one corner of her tiny bedroom. The dress was filmy—it hinted at the body beneath instead of hugging it. To the uninformed eye, she looked just like a healthy and curvy young woman—with no clue to the new life which was growing within.

Among a clutter of bangles in a half-open drawer she caught a glimpse of something shiny. A stab of pain catching her unawares, she saw the silver and amber earrings which Xandros had given her that last, fateful night.

Had they been intended as a farewell gift? She thought so. In the end it had worked out differently from the way she suspected he must have planned it. Their relationship had ended dramatically—but the fact that it had finished hadn’t come as a complete shock to her, had it?

But now there was a huge and lasting consequence to their liaison and she needed to be as grown-up about it as she had ever been in her life. Because Xandros might not have chosen to create a new life in those circumstances—she certainly wouldn’t have done—but it was a done deal now. This baby existed and didn’t he, as the father, have the right to know about it?

Of course he had a right. Rebecca had adored her own father—how terrible if she had been denied a relationship with him simply because he and her mother had not been together.

Yet deciding to tell him was one thing, actually doing it was another matter—especially after she had her twelve-week scan, when she knew that she really could not delay it for a second longer. A letter seemed so impersonal—and this was most definitely about a person. Several times she picked up the telephone and put it down again. How could you tell a man like Xandros something as momentous as this over the phone?

But it was more than that. A long-distance call could conceal so much, no matter how good the connection. And what if he refused to take her call—what then? Something was driving her on and she wasn’t sure what it was, knowing that she wanted—no, needed—to see his face when she told him. Was it a perverse desire to see the truth in his eyes, no matter how hurtful—would that help free her from her feelings for him once and for all? Or just some need to take some control back in a life which seemed to have run off the rails in so many ways?

Once she’d made her mind up, Rebecca set things in motion very quickly—and somehow it was comforting to have things to occupy her. As if, by concentrating on the logistics of going to see him, it took her mind off the future. She booked her flight to New York, found a hotel and rang her mother.

‘You might as well take a half-empty suitcase,’ her mother said, on a very crackly line from New South Wales. ‘The shopping in New York’s supposed to be terrific value.’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Rebecca, trying to sound ‘normal’. Yet shopping was the last thing she felt like doing—even though she supposed a sensible person might scour the stores for pregnancy clothes. But, inevitably, money was tight. She had signed on with a temp agency, and although they had been providing as many office jobs as she cared to do it didn’t exactly pay her a fortune and she needed to hang onto every penny she could until she was no longer able to work.

Rebecca hadn’t been to America for years—when she’d worked for Evolo she’d done mainly short-haul. But she loved flying and would normally have savoured the experience—had not the significance of her trip made her unable to sleep or to concentrate on any of the films on offer.

Now that she wasn’t being paid for by the airline she discovered there was no such thing as a cheap hotel in the middle of the city and the small room she’d ended up with was clean, but soulless. There were fake flowers in a vase and an enormous TV dominating the limited space. But at least the shower worked and afterwards she felt one hundred per cent better.

She lay down, intending to shut her eyes just for a moment—but when she opened them again she realised that it had been a lot longer than that. The artificial light which was streaming in through the small window showed that she had been asleep for hours and a glance at her watch confirmed it. It was almost ten o’clock at night!

Rebecca’s heart sank. She had been planning to go to Xandros’s place of work and just ask to see him—without giving him time to think up some reason why he shouldn’t. But now she could see that she hadn’t really been thinking straight—or did she really think that a man in Xandros’s position would be instantly accessible to the general public?

At Evolo, she had worked wit

h enough powerful people to know that they were always protected. Whether it was night or whether it was day, she would still need Xandros to give his permission if she wanted to see him. There was no way she would ever have been able to burst in on him, unannounced—not unless she was planning to hang around the entrance to his offices like some tramp waiting for a handout. And how undignified would that be?

Rebecca flinched. Well, there was no way she was going to postpone the inevitable—not for a moment longer. The sooner she had done her duty, then the sooner she could go away.

But it’s ten o’clock at night—what if he’s with another woman?

Then she would just have to face up to it—because that, too would be reality.

Her hair was all rumpled where she’d slept on it while it was damp, but there was no time to redo it. And this wasn’t some kind of beauty contest. Rebecca had very firmly banished from her heart and her mind the idea that Xandros would take one look at her and realise what a fool he’d been. Because life wasn’t like that—and even if it was she had been growing her self-respect in the intervening weeks. And there was no way she wanted a man who treated her like a sexual commodity, the way Xandros had done—even if she had gone along with it at the time.

Applying only a little make-up, she tied her hair back and put on the floaty dress. Then she pulled her phone out and tapped out his number with a trembling finger.

It rang for so long she thought it was going to go straight to messages but at last there was a click, and he said in his distinctive accent, ‘Yes?’

Her name must have come up on the screen because she heard the wariness in his voice and it made her want to weep. If only she could have put the phone down. But she couldn’t. She sucked in a deep breath.

‘Xandros? Hello, it’s me. Rebecca. Am I disturbing you?’

He didn’t answer that. Staring out at the bright glitter of lights on the skyline with narrowed eyes, Xandros thought how to respond to her question in a thousand different ways. He hadn’t expected her to ring him—and he didn’t particularly want her to. But his curiosity was aroused—and he wondered what had made her swallow her pride to get in touch with him. ‘How are you, Rebecca?’

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