LITMIR.BIZ

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remembered the way he’d lain there afterwards, with his head cradled on her shoulder as he drifted in and out of a dreamy sleep. And her fingers—her soft fingers—had been stroking his hair. It had felt soothing and strangely intimate. It had kick-started something unknown inside him—something threatening enough to freak him out. He had felt the walls closing in on him—just as they were closing in on him right now.

      He tried to tell himself that maybe he was mistaken—that it couldn’t possibly be what he most feared. But what else could it be? No woman in her situation would turn up like this and be so unflappable when challenged—not unless she had a trump card to play. Not when he’d left her without so much as a kiss or a promise to call her again. Somehow he sensed that Ellie had more pride than to come here begging him to see her again. She’d been strong, hadn’t she? An equal in his arms and out of them, despite the disparity of their individual circumstances.

      He noted the shadows on her face, which suddenly seemed as grey as her eyes, and thought how drained she looked. His mouth tightened and a flare of anger and self-recrimination flooded through him. He was going to have to listen to her. He needed to hear what she had to say. To find out whether what he dreaded was true.

      His mind raced. He thought about taking her to a nearby coffee shop. No. Much too public. Should he take her upstairs to his office? That might be easier. Easier to get rid of her afterwards than if he took her home. And he had no desire to take her home. He just wanted her out of his life. To forget that he’d ever met her. ‘You’d better come up to my office.’

      ‘Okay,’ she said, her voice sounding brittle.

      It felt bizarre to ride up in the elevator in silence but he didn’t want to open any kind of discussion in such a confined space, and she seemed to feel the same. When the doors opened she followed him through the outer office and he looked across at Vasos.

      ‘Hold all my calls,’ he said—catching the flicker of surprise in his assistant’s eyes.

      ‘Yes, boss.’

      Soon they were in his cool suite of offices, which overlooked the city skyline, and he thought how out of place she looked, with her flower-sprigged cotton dress and pale legs. And yet despite a face which was almost bare of make-up and the fact that her hair was hanging down her back in that thick ponytail—there was still something about her which made his body tense with a primitive recognition he didn’t understand. Even though she looked pasty and had obviously lost weight, part of him still wanted to pin her down against that leather couch, which stood in the corner, and to lose himself deep inside her honeyed softness. His mouth flattened.

      ‘Sit down,’ he said.

      ‘There’s no need.’ She hesitated, like a guest who had turned up at the wrong party and wasn’t quite sure how to explain herself to the host. ‘You probably want to know why I’ve turned up like this—’

      ‘I know exactly why.’ Never had it been more of an ordeal to keep his voice steady, but he knew that psychologically it was better to tell than to be told. To remain in control. His words came out calmly, belying the sudden flare of fear deep in his gut. ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’

      She swayed. She actually swayed—reaching out to grab the edge of his desk. And despite his anger, Alek strode across the office and took hold of her shoulders and he could feel his fingers sinking into her soft flesh as he levered her down onto a chair.

      ‘Sit down,’ he repeated.

      Her voice was wobbly. ‘I don’t want to sit down.’

      ‘And I don’t want the responsibility of you passing out on the floor of my office,’ he snapped. But he pulled his hands away from her—as if continuing to touch her might risk him behaving like the biggest of all fools for a second time. He didn’t want the responsibility of her, full stop. He wanted her to be nothing but a fast-fading memory of an interlude he’d rather forget—but that wasn’t going to happen. Not now. Raising his voice, he called for his assistant. ‘Vasos!’

      Vasos appeared at the door immediately—unable to hide his look of surprise as he saw his boss leaning over the woman who was sitting slumped on a chair.

      ‘Get me some water.’ Alek spoke in Greek. ‘Quickly.’

      The assistant returned seconds later with a glass, his eyes still curious. ‘Will there be anything else, boss?’

      ‘Nothing else.’ Alek took the water from him. ‘Just leave us. And hold all my calls.’

      As Vasos closed the door behind him Alek held the glass to her lips. Her eyes were suspicious and her body tense. She reminded him of a stray kitten he’d once brought into the house as a child. The animal had been a flea-ridden bag of bones and Alek had painstakingly brought it back to full and gleaming health. It had been something he’d felt proud of. Something in that cold mausoleum of a house for him to care about. And then his father had discovered it, and...and...

      His throat suddenly felt as if it had nails in it. Why remember something like that now? ‘Drink it,’ he said harshly. ‘It isn’t poison.’

      She raised her eyes to his and the suspicion in them had been replaced by a flicker of defiance.

      ‘But you’d probably like it to be,’ she answered quietly.

      He didn’t answer—he didn’t trust himself to. He blocked out the maelstrom of emotions which seemed to be hovering like dark spectres and waited until a little colour had returned to her cheeks. Then he walked over to his desk and put the glass down, before positioning himself in front of the vast expanse of window, his arms crossed.

      ‘You’d better start explaining,’ he said.

      Ellie stared up at him. The water had restored some of her strength, but one glance at the angry sizzle from his blue eyes was enough to remind her that she was here on a mission. She wasn’t trying to win friends or influence people, or because she hoped for a repeat of the passion which had got her into this situation in the first place. So keep emotion out of it, she told herself fiercely. Keep to the plain and brutal facts and then you can deal with them.

      ‘There isn’t really a lot to explain. I’m having a baby.’

      ‘We used a condom,’ he iced back. ‘You know we did.’

      Stupidly, that made her blush. As if discussing contraception in his place of work was hopelessly inappropriate. But while it might be inappropriate, it was also necessary, she reminded herself grimly. And she was not going to let him intimidate her. It had taken two of them to get into this situation—therefore they both needed to accept responsibility.

      ‘I also know that condoms aren’t one hundred per cent reliable,’ she said.

      ‘So. You’re an expert, are you?’ He looked at her with distaste. ‘Perhaps there are other men to whom you’ve taken this tale of woe. How many more in the running, I wonder—could you tell me my position on the list, just so I know?’

      Ellie clenched her fists as a wave of fury washed over her. She didn’t need this—not in any circumstances but especially not now. She made to rise to her feet, but her legs were stubbornly refusing to obey her brain. And even though at that moment she wanted to run out of there and never return, she knew that flight was an indulgence she simply couldn’t afford.

      ‘There’s nobody else in the running,’ she spat out. ‘Maybe you’re different, but I don’t have sex with more than one person at the same time. So why don’t you keep your unfounded accusations to yourself? I didn’t come here to be your punchbag!’

      ‘No? Then what did you come for?’ The brief savagery of his dark features realigned themselves into a quizzical expression. ‘Is it money you want?’

       ‘Money?’

      ‘That’s what I said.’

      Ellie’s anger intensified but somehow that

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