Page 30 of The Greek Tycoon's Baby Bargain

‘For making all this possible. For giving my sons all this space.’

‘They’re my sons, too,’ he said bitterly. ‘What the hell did you think I would do, Rebecca? Stand back while you brought them up in poverty?’

She wasn’t going to argue that his definition of poverty wasn’t the same as most people’s. ‘I didn’t really give it much thought—how could I have done? I didn’t plan it.’ She paused, waiting for the question which didn’t come, but seeing it unmistakably written in his black eyes. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said fervently. ‘But it’s happened and I want to make the best of it. I want to be the best mother I possibly can—and for me that means being hands-on. I don’t want a nanny.’

‘It’s too much for you to take on,’ he said roughly.

Was he basing his response on the fact that his mother hadn’t been able to cope? But no two women were the same. She shook her head, drawing a deep breath. ‘Let me finish. I’m aware that in many ways I’m very lucky that you can afford to offer me a nanny—but I don’t want some other woman impacting on the way my children are brought up.’

‘You can’t manage on your own in a house this size,’ he persisted stubbornly.

‘You’re right, I can’t.’ She gave him a tentative smile, wishing that she could reach out and touch his face—not in a sexual way, but to ease some of the pain she read etched on his hard, stony features. ‘You’ve seen what I’m like with clutter—so maybe the money would be better spent employing some kind of cleaner or housekeeper, who could keep the place up to your own exacting standards.’

She made him sound like some kind of robot, living in a sterile environment! And yet, her teasing tone made him give a wry smile as he realised that somehow—impossibly—she had got her own way. And it hadn’t even felt like a battle. His smile vanished to be replaced by a thoughtful frown. Was Rebecca simply playing a clever game to reject his offer of a nanny? he wondered.

Was she aware that babies became little more than cute accessories in the world he inhabited? Dressed up in mini versions of the latest fashionable clothes worn by their oh-so-chic mamas. Brought out at parties, or occasionally whisked by at a lunch party to be cooed over and then handed back to some pasty-faced girl who would one day be disregarded and erased from that child’s life. Maybe she thought that the novel would appeal to him—a woman who was actually willing to get her hands dirty.

Or maybe she wanted the boys to become so attached to her that they would be reluctant to have her leave them. Wouldn’t that effectively stymie any attempts to get them to settle with him on the other side of the Atlantic?

Xandros gave a short laugh. What a cynical bastard he had become. ‘Okay, Rebecca,’ he said slowly. ‘Let’s get a housekeeper.’

CHAPTER TEN

THE morning sun bathed the desk with a crimson glow and Xandros put his pencil down, and stretched his arms above his head. He had been working since first light in his big, bare studio and had discovered that he could be extraordinarily productive in the quiet of this early-morning house.

He sat back, pleased with the first-stage drawing of the Parisian concert hall he was designing—which was scheduled to stand on the Left Bank, a new monument for one of the most beautiful cities in the world. His talent for design meant that he had always earned commissions from all over the world—and, of course, this base in London made a perfect base for travelling in Europe. No time-lag, either.

It was funny, really. You never knew how something would actually work out—no matter how carefully you planned it. It was like designing a building. The drawings could be perfect, the construction done exactly as you would wish it to be—yet it was usually the unpredictable which gave the place its character. When you were planning a structure—like the huge research centre he had recently completed in Denver—you could have no idea that the way the midday sun hit its many faceted windows at noon would cause it to be for ever known as The Diamond.

It was a bit like that here—living with Rebecca and his sons. For all that the nature of his work made him see bricks and mortar grow into something beautiful, he had never realised that it could be like that with children, too. That their daily development could be as amazing as one of the tall buildings he’d conceived, which seemed to defy gravity itself. But then, maybe he’d never stopped to think about it before. Why would he? There had never been any plans for him to become a father until the situation had been forced on him.

But now his days had taken on their own routine—of him leaving his work at lunchtimes and taking a walk with Rebecca and the boys. His colleagues back in the States would have been nonplussed to have seen him taking an hour out of the day to stroll around a park with a buggy. Come to think of it—he was pretty baffled by it himself.

The faint sound of a whimper on the floor below meant that one of the babies was waking, and the other would soon follow—and he would go downstairs and make a pot of coffee before the housekeeper arrived. And then he would go and find Rebecca, who would be doing something with one of the babies, wearing an old pair of jeans, with her long hair tied back in a ribbon, looking more beautiful than any woman had a right to look.

But the image they presented to the outside world of a happy couple had no real substance. It was like one of those trompe-l’oeil paintings which tricked the eye into believing that you were looking at a real landscape—when really it was just a clever, two-dimensional painting.

He made coffee, picked up a couple of voice mail messages and went to find her in the nursery, where she was just towelling dry one of the babies. The damp from the bath was making her shirt cling to her breasts. Her beautiful breasts. ‘There’s been another message from that woman,’ he said unevenly.

Rebecca looked up from the baby, thinking how perfect both boys were with their faintly olive-sheened skin so like their father, and the same jet-black hair and matching eyes. So far she could see nothing of herself in either of them. She frowned. ‘Which woman?’

‘The blonde, from next door. The one with the skirts—or, rather, the one without the skirts.’

Rebecca sat back on her heels, telling herself not to react. Ah, yes. That one. She looked down to straighten a corner of the little mat the baby was lying on. Of course Xandros would have noticed the rather inappropriate outfits and long legs of their neighbour and he was free to spend as much time as he liked studying them. The fact that she didn’t like it was neither here nor there. She had elected for separate lives, and that was what she had got. Be careful what you wish for. ‘What does she want this time?’

‘She says she’s left several messages. It’s her drinks party tomorrow night and she wants us to go.’

Rebecca grimaced. ‘You go. I’ll stay here.’

Xandros watched as she deftly put the baby into his little blue suit. Wasn’t it crazy how things changed? He remembered the way he used to telephone her at the last moment to ask her for dinner and she used to drop everything to meet him. The way she used to fit in with his plans, and act as if she didn’t care if he cancelled at the last minute. And hadn’t he looked down on her for it? The way he had scorned all women who made it too easy for him.

But Rebecca certainly wasn’t making it easy for him—not a

ny more—and somewhere along the way he had stopped thinking it might be some clever game she was playing. No, this seemed to be deadly serious. When she had first told him she wanted separate rooms he had assumed that she was just going through the motions. Of maybe punishing him before welcoming him back into her arms and her bed. For how could she resist him, when no woman ever had?

He had even allowed himself to savour the anticipation of the inevitable, because he knew she still wanted him. He could easily read the tell-tale signs of desire, even though she tried her best to hide them from him. But some signals were unconscious. A woman had no control over the instinctive darkening of her eyes when a man she wanted walked into a room. Or the faint parting of her lips as if she wanted him to kiss them.

Yet her manner towards him was rather how he imagined a young but determinedly strict teacher might be. Her attitude polite, but distant. When they were interacting with the twins she was sweet and helpful—why, he had even found himself helping out at bath-time! But somewhere along the way she had erected a kind of invisible barrier around herself—and something was stopping him from attempting to dismantle it.

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