LITMIR.BIZ

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now? Maybe if Aristo had been a different kind of man she would have caved, but she knew that no matter how insistent he was now about wanting to get to know their son, it was only a matter of time before he lost interest—like her own father had. But George would not grow up as she had, feeling as though he was at the bottom of his father’s agenda.

      ‘Our son is not some chess piece you can move about on a board to suit you, Aristo. He’s a person with feelings and needs—’

      He cut her off. ‘Yes, he is, and he needs to see me—his father.’

      Folding her arms, Teddie glared at him, anger leaping over her skin in pulses. ‘He needs consistency and security—not somebody offering him trips on a speedboat and then disappearing for days.’

      He shook his head dismissively. ‘I’m standing right here, Teddie.’

      ‘For how long?’ she countered. ‘A day? A week? I mean, when exactly is your next business trip?’

      His jaw tightened. ‘That is irrelevant.’

      ‘No, it’s not. I’m being realistic about your limitations.’

      Looking away, she clenched her fists. And her limitations. Her life might be bereft of romance and passion, but it was peaceful. The thought of having Aristo flitting in and out of her and George’s life was just too unbearable to contemplate.

      ‘I have rights, Teddie,’ he said quietly, and something in his voice pulled her gaze back to his face. ‘I’m guessing you can live with ignoring that fact—you’ve managed it for four years. But George has rights too, and I’m wondering what’s going to happen when he realises that he has a father—a father you kept at arm’s length. Can you live with that?’

      Teddie stared at him, her heart pounding, hating him for finding the weakness in her argument.

      ‘Fine,’ she snapped, her hands balling into fists. ‘You can see him.’ But it was absolutely, definitely not going to be in her apartment. ‘I suggest we find somewhere neutral.’

      ‘Neutral—that’s an interesting euphemism.’

      He suddenly sounded amused, and she felt her pulse accelerate as she realised that his anger seemed to have faded and he was now watching her intently in a way that made her breathing come to a sudden, swift stop.

      ‘If you’re trying to find a place where you and I will feel “neutral” about one another, then I think you might need a bigger planet. Maybe a different solar system.’

      She swallowed. His words were reverberating inside her head, bumping into memories so explicit and uncensored that she had to curl her fingers into her palms to stop her hands shaking.

      ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said hoarsely, trying her hardest not to notice the way her stomach was clenching.

      She felt heat break out over her skin as he took a step towards her.

      ‘Yes, you do, Teddie. I’m talking about sex. And about how, despite all this, you still want me and I still want you.’

      An ache like hunger, only more insistent, shot through her and she stared at him, her green eyes widening in shock at the bluntness of his statement.

      He raised an eyebrow. ‘What? Are you going to lie about that too?’ He shook his head dismissively. ‘Then you’re a coward as well as a liar.’

      ‘I’m not a coward,’ she snapped. ‘I just don’t happen to agree with your unnecessary and rather crude remark.’

      His dark eyes locked onto hers and she knew that this time her lie might as well be written in block capitals across her forehead.

      ‘Yes, you do. You’re just scared that you feel this way. Scared that you want me.’

      Teddie breathed out shakily. He was close now—close enough for her to see the tiny flecks of grey and gold in the inky pools of his eyes. Close enough that she could smell his clean, masculine scent. So close that she could not just see the curves of muscle beneath his sweater but reach out and touch them—

      ‘You’re so arrogant.’

      He took another step closer and lifted his hand. Her pulse fluttered as he traced the curve of her jaw with his thumb.

      ‘And you’re so beautiful, but neither of those statements changes the facts.’

      She could feel his gaze seeking hers and, looking up, she saw that his eyes were shimmering with an emotion she recognised and understood—because she was feeling it too.

      ‘Like it or not, we still burn for one another, and I know you feel it too. There’s a connection between us.’

      She stared at him, hypnotised not just by the truth of his words but by the slow, steady pulse of heat in her blood. And then, in a split second of clarity, she saw herself, saw his hand capturing her face, saw where it was heading, and was instantly maddened by his audacity and ashamed of her weakness.

      Jerking her head away from his hand, she lifted her chin. ‘You’re wrong, Aristo. It’s all in your head. It’s not real,’ she lied again.

      He stared at her, his gaze taking in her flushed cheeks and the pulse beating at the base of her throat. ‘Not real?’ he softly. ‘It looks pretty real from where I’m standing.’

      Her whole body throbbing, she breathed out unsteadily. ‘That’s magic for you, Aristo. It plays tricks with the senses…makes you believe in the impossible. And you and I are impossible.’ Fixing her green eyes on her ex-husband’s breathtakingly handsome face, she gave him a small, tight smile. ‘You being George’s father changes nothing between us.’

      His expression was unreadable, but as his dark, knowing gaze locked with hers she knew that she wasn’t fooling either of them, and his next comment reinforced that fact.

      ‘You’re right, it doesn’t,’ he said into the tense silence. ‘So perhaps from now on we can both stop playing games.’

      He took a step backwards, his satisfied expression making her heart thump against her chest.

      ‘I’ll call you, but if in the meantime you want me desperately…’

      Eyes gleaming, he reached into his jacket and held out a small white card. ‘That’s my number.’

      ‘Well, I won’t be calling it,’ she snapped. ‘As the chances of me wanting you “desperately” are less than zero.’

      He smiled. ‘Of course they are.’

      She wanted to throw his remark back in his face, to claim that he was reading the signals all wrong, but before she had the chance to think of a suitably withering response he turned and strolled out of the room with the same swagger with which he’d entered it.

      Heart pounding, she waited until she was sure that he’d left the building before darting across the room to close and bolt the door. Only, like the stable door, it was too late, she thought as she sank down onto her sofa with legs that were still unsteady. She’d not only let him back into her home, but into her life.

       CHAPTER THREE

      WALKING INTO HIS APARTMENT, Aristo stared blankly across the gleaming modern interior, a stream of disconnected, equally frustrating thoughts jamming his brain. He’d barely registered the hour-long drive home from Teddie’s apartment. Instead he’d been preoccupied by that simmering undercurrent of attraction between them.

      They’d both been so angry, and yet even beneath the fury he had felt it, strumming and intensifying like the vibrating rails beneath an express train.

      Of course he’d known it was there since this morning—from that moment when he’d turned around in the

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