LITMIR.BIZ

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means are irrelevant,’ he snapped. ‘Just accept that I did. Now, where were we?’

      Her heart sinking, she stared at him, knowing that she was trapped. ‘Leo goes to a local school and he’s doing very well, but...’

      He bit out the words like bullets. ‘But what?’

      She tried to keep the fear from her voice. The fear that she wasn’t doing the best for the golden child who had inherited so many of his father’s qualities.

      ‘He’s good at sport and there just aren’t the facilities where we live. The nearest park is a good bus ride away and Tara and I are often too busy working in the café to take him. You remember Tara? She’s my sister.’

      ‘I remember,’ he said tightly.

      She drew in a deep breath, hoping to see some softening or understanding on the granite features, but there was none. And suddenly she wanted him to understand that there were reasons why she’d agreed to the marriage today. Good reasons. ‘Chico comes from a rich family in Brazil and wants to stay in England. He offered me a large sum of money to marry him, so that he could get a work permit. I was planning on using the money to resettle. To...to take Leo to the countryside and live somewhere with a garden. Somewhere he could kick a ball around and get plenty of fresh air and exercise. I...I want him to have that kind of life.’

      Still his face showed no sign of reaction as he walked over to the large fireplace and pressed a bell recessed into the wall beside it. Moments later, a young woman appeared—a beautiful, cool blonde. Of course she was blonde. Every woman in the Russian’s life, bar Erin, was fair—sporting every shade in the spectrum from spun gold to moonbeam pale, because Dimitri needed blondes in the same way other men needed to breathe. Her flaxen hair was cut into a soft bob and her high cheekbones marked her out as Slavic, so it came as no surprise when Dimitri spoke to her in Russian. She glanced briefly over at Erin and nodded, before turning on her high-heeled shoes and leaving the room again.

      Still Dimitri said nothing and in a way his silence was far more intimidating than if he’d continued to subject her to a barrage of angry questions. Would she ever be able to convince him that she’d tried to act in everyone’s best interests?

      Erin was surprised when the blonde returned a few minutes later, carrying a pair of jeans and a cashmere sweater over her arm. She walked across the room and, placing them on the table in front of her, she smiled.

      ‘I think they will fit you,’ she said, her cut-glass English accent seeming to contradict the fluent Russian she’d used moments before. ‘But I have a belt you can use if the jeans are too big.’

      ‘Spasiba, Sofia,’ growled Dimitri, watching as the blonde left the room with that same confident wiggle.

      Erin stared at the clothes. ‘What are these for?’

      ‘What do they look like they’re for? Sofia is lending you some of her own clothes,’ he said. ‘Put them on. I’m taking you home and I want as few people as possible seeing you. A woman leaving my apartment wearing a wedding dress would be bound to get the press excited, and I make a point of steering clear of the newspapers these days.’

      Erin narrowed her eyes. Was that why he hadn’t featured in any of his famous post-nightclub shots with a half-clothed woman in tow recently? Was he getting better at hiding his seedy lifestyle?

      She felt like refusing his autocratic demand to wear someone else’s clothes but she was cold now and she was starting to shiver. Maybe it was reaction. ‘Okay, I’ll put the jeans on,’ she said, from between chattering teeth. ‘But I don’t need you to take me home afterwards. I’m perfectly capable of catching the bus.’

      ‘I don’t think you quite understand the situation, Erin,’ he said coldly. ‘Unless you are trying to be coy, thinking I might take pity on you and let you go. Because that’s not going to happen. So let me spell it out for you, so that you get the message loud and clear.’ His eyes glittered like early-morning sun on ice. ‘I am taking you home so that I can meet my son.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘YOU CAN’T,’ SAID Erin fervently as the limousine gathered speed, and she turned to look at Dimitri, who was sitting like some granite-faced sentry in the back seat beside her. Sofia’s designer jeans were indeed too big but the baby-blue sweater hugged her nicely and now she was warmer she felt more in control. She made one last attempt to appeal to the Russian’s better nature, even if deep in her heart she knew he didn’t have one. ‘You can’t just turn up out of the blue and introduce yourself to a six-year-old boy and tell him you’re his long-lost father.’

      ‘Just watch me,’ he said grimly.

      Erin heard the harsh note in his voice and was reminded of his fierce reputation. Not that he had minded. He always maintained that a fierce reputation kept fools at a distance and for a long time she had been flattered by that statement and its implication. Because she had been one of the few people he’d allowed to get close to him—and hadn’t that made her think she meant more to him than she actually did? Oh, the foolish longings of a rich man’s secretary!

      ‘Think about it, Dimitri,’ she said quietly.

      ‘What do you think I’ve been doing?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve done nothing but think about it since I was first shown a photograph of the boy.’

      ‘And when was that?’

      ‘Seven days ago,’ he snapped.

      She nodded, determined not to let him sweep her aside with the force of his anger, knowing she had to fight her little boy’s corner here. For his sake. For all their sakes. ‘Leo doesn’t know you—’

      ‘And whose fault is that?’

      A wave of remorse washed over her and suddenly her decision didn’t seem quite so clear-cut. Because Dimitri did seem different. The clear-eyed man in the pristine suit was light years away from the stubble-jawed and hungover man who used to arrive at the office demanding strong coffee. ‘Mine,’ she admitted. ‘But I did it with the best intentions.’

      ‘I don’t care about your intentions, Erin,’ he said, his voice dipping. ‘I just care about what is mine. And this child is my flesh and blood, too, not just yours.’

      His unashamed possessiveness sent a ripple of alarm through her and Erin recognised that once a piece of information was out there, you couldn’t get it back. And you couldn’t control the outcome, either. Dimitri was here and—judging from the grim expression on his face—he was here to stay.

      ‘If you really care about him,’ she said, ‘then you must take it slowly. Imagine how it would feel if you suddenly exploded into his life without warning.’

      ‘You should have considered that before, shouldn’t you?’

      The car drew up in front of a set of red traffic lights and a man on a bike raced past them, using the inside lane. Erin listened to the blare of horns which greeted the cyclist’s action as she thought how best to get Dimitri to see sense. He liked facts, didn’t he? Hard, cold facts. So present them to him.

      She sucked in a deep breath. ‘You always used to say you had no desire to be a father.’

      ‘Given the choice,’ came his flat response. ‘Which I haven’t been.’

      ‘And what if that’s still true? You might meet him and wish you never had. It might reinforce all the worst things you ever thought about fatherhood. And if that were the case, wouldn’t it be hard for you to walk away and even harder for him to pretend that the meeting had never happened?’

      Dimitri’s lips tightened as her words struck an unwanted chord, thinking how well she knew him—better perhaps than anyone else. What if he met the child, but could not meet the boy’s expectations? What if the boy wanted love from

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