LITMIR.BIZ

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Whether she liked those consequences was neither here nor there.

      She would provide him with facts, pure and simple—beyond that she owed him nothing.

      ‘After three days, hopefully,’ she said. ‘Provided that they’re pleased with mine and the boys’ progress, of course.’

      He registered the ways she’d said the boys—like an exclusive little club which he was not permitted to join, and Xandros felt his body prickle its silent objection to her high-handedness. We’ll see about that, he thought grimly.

      He nodded. ‘I will come and collect you,’ he stated.

      ‘But, I don’t need—’

      ‘Yes, you do. I’m not arguing with you, Rebecca—because there is no alternative.’ His implacable words cut through her protest. ‘I will be taking you all home from hospital and that is final.’ His black eyes glittered with sudden, new intent. ‘And now we need to discuss the names of my sons.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘I DO not care what you say!’ Xandros stormed. ‘You cannot possibly stay here—and what is more, I will not let you!’

      Rebecca sighed. If she’d had the energy she might have objected to the condemnatory tone of his voice—just as she might have objected to him standing there, dominating the sitting room of her little flat as he seemed to dominate every place he went.

      Wishing he would go away—because he was so damned…so damned everything. Single-minded, stubborn … and gorgeous. So gorgeous. And she must never forget the power of his sexuality—no matter how many times she told herself that it was no longer relevant to either of them. Because he would use it as a weapon if he needed to, she recognised weakly. He would do anything he needed to do to get his own way.

      In the end she had been pathetically grateful for his insistence that he collect her, Alexius and Andreas from the hospital. In fact, she wondered how on earth she could have managed without him. She literally couldn’t have carried the two babies along with all her hospital stuff and managed even something as simple as opening the front door with a key which had always gone stiffly into the lock, but which had never seemed to matter until now.

      As it was, on several occasions she’d had to bite back tears of frustration—telling herself that her emotions were only see-sawing all over the place because of her fluctuating hormone levels and the fact that she had recently given birth.

      Xandros had organised a car, which she had accepted, and he had also offered to bring along a maternity nurse, which she had refused. That had vexed him, as had so much else—but nothing had irked him quite so much as looking round at her tiny home now that it had acquired two extra small human beings, along with all their assorted paraphernalia. There were giant, ugly plastic bags of nappies—and bottles of baby bath and packets of baby wipes. Why did everything have to be made out of plastic? he had wondered sourly more than once.

      ‘Look at it!’ he raged. ‘You cannot possibly stay here!’

      ‘I don’t have any alternative,’ said Rebecca. ‘Lots of babies are brought home to places like this.’

      ‘Not usually two babies at the same time! How the hell are you going to manage?’ he demanded.

      ‘I’ll manage,’ she said tiredly.

      ‘You had enough difficulty getting back from hospital,’ he pointed out. ‘And you might just about cope with the babies since that is what nature has equipped you to do, as you keep telling me—but what about you? There is very little food in the fridge—and no fresh fruit or vegetables at all! It is outrageous!’

      ‘We can’t all have fleets of servants at our beck and call,’ she said flippantly, in an effort to hide the hurt. ‘Perhaps you’d like to do a quick supermarket shop for me?’

      ‘Oh, I can do better than that,’ he said grimly, sliding the phone from his pocket.

      Within the hour, one of London’s most chi-chi stores had delivered the kind of food which Rebecca could never have afforded, not even at Christmas, and for the first time in years, Xandros found himself unpacking it himself—and using every one of his spatial skills to try to fit most of it into her shoebox of a fridge.

      He heated them both some soup and gave Rebecca some fruit juice while he drank a glass of wine and then watched as she fed the babies again. He cleared their supper away while she changed them—because his macho Greekness rebelled at that. As it was, it had been many years since he had washed dishes—and in a funny kind of way, he enjoyed it.

      But when he walked back into the sitting room, he could see the exhaustion which had made her face paper-pale and the shadows underneath her eyes nearly as violet dark as her eyes—and never had he felt so … ineffective.

      ‘You’re tired,’ he observed.

      ‘Yes, I am. Thank you for all your help, Xandros—and I’ll see you soon.’

      He heard the dismissal in her voice and his mouth twisted into an odd kind of smile. ‘Oh, but it isn’t over yet, agape,’ he said grimly. ‘Because I am not going anywhere.’

      ‘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.

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