Page 24 of The Greek Tycoon's Baby Bargain

‘Wh-what are you talking about?’

‘I shall sleep on the sofa tonight.’

She stared at him in alarm. ‘But you can’t!’

‘Can’t? Did you really imagine for one second that I would leave you here alone on your first night back at home—with two tiny babies? What if something happens to you? What if you should suddenly get sick?’

His protectiveness made her want to weep with a terrible kind of yearning—as she couldn’t help but imagine how it would feel if his words were inspired by love, rather than paternal duty. But that was selfish, wasn’t it? Her own fiery dreams of love with Xandros lay in ashes—but she must rise above all that and do the best for Alexius and Andreas. They both owed them that.

‘I’ll find you a duvet,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Thank you.’

Xandros could never remember spending such an uncomfortable night—not even when he used to sleep on the beach under the stars, on those balmy nights back in Greece, when the air had been so thick and so warm that it had been impossible to stay inside.

But back then he had been a teenager, his still-growing body adaptable to just about anything. In the intervening years he had become a man used to only the very finest things.

So should he be grateful for this opportunity to remind him of what life could be like for others less fortunate?

By morning, there was no question of gratitude. He had barely slept a wink—woken up by a dust-cart outside the window, which had seemed determined to give him the entire repertoire of its noisy engine, and then by the sound of rain beginning to thunder down.

For a while, he lay staring at his surroundings in a kind of dazed disbelief until he could hear the sound of Rebecca moving around and so he washed and dressed, and made coffee for them both. But the delicious smell of it did little to soothe his frayed nerves—serving only to remind him how this situation could not be allowed to continue.

He heard her footsteps and turned round as she came into the sitting room. She had tied her hair into two thick plaits, which hung down by the sides of her unmade-up face, and she was wearing a simple pair of linen trousers and a pale T-shirt. He thought how ridiculously young she looked, and oddly wholesome, too—and while wholesome was not a word he usually liked or associated with his women, perhaps it was the best to be hoped for under these particular circumstances.

‘How did you sleep?’ she asked, thinking how he seemed to dominate the room with his presence and how unsettling it had been to imagine him sleeping on the other side of the paper-thin walls.

‘How do you think I slept?’ he grated.

‘I did try to warn you—’

‘You are missing the point, Rebecca.’

He was not going to

intimidate her in her own home. ‘And what point is that, Xandros?’

‘I told you yesterday—you can’t possibly live like this!’

‘Like what?’

He wanted to tell her not to play dumb with him—but instead he made a sweeping movement with his hand intended to draw attention to the minute size of the accommodation as his mouth flattened into a disapproving line.

As an architect, he had been schooled in aesthetics—but for Xandros the love of beauty had always been instinctive, rather than taught. He knew that taste was a purely subjective matter—but his early life in Greece had made him appreciate space and simplicity. Whereas this…

The clutter of her home was unbelievable—and the early-morning light picked it out with cruel clarity. It wasn’t just the baby stuff—it was all the candles and knick-knacks she had everywhere. Not only was every surface covered with something which to his eyes seemed completely unnecessary—but now there was a double buggy to contend with.

The last time he’d been here he had barely noticed the jostle for space—for he had only been interested in taking her to bed and then getting the hell out of there. But where she lived affected his children.

‘It’s a mess!’ he snapped.

‘Well, it’s my mess!’ she said defiantly.

‘Not necessarily.’

Rebecca stared at him—wondering how she could be so tired when she’d only just got up. They had told her at the hospital that she would get weary, but somehow she had thought that she’d be able to overcome any rogue fatigue through a sheer sense of will and determination. And she had been wrong. She had just fed, bathed and changed her two adorable little black-haired babies and now felt as if she had been wrung out to dry and then rained on all over again.

But Xandros’s words made her eyes narrow with suspicion—because she had come to recognise the menace which underpinned that particularly silky tone of his. Her fatigue suddenly receded into the background. ‘What do you mean?’ she questioned.

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