understand this.’ Georgie gave a grunt of shock as he began to tear the envelope into pieces with slow, deliberate thoroughness before tossing them up into the air.
She watched in open-mouthed astonishment as the fragments went flying down the beach in several directions, drifting like confetti on the air currents.
‘Have you gone mad?’ She turned her astounded eyes on him. ‘Why make the effort to bring that here personally and then do that?’
‘I never intended…’
‘Never intended what?’ she prompted.
His jaw tightened. ‘We’re not getting divorced.’
She pressed her hands to her head, the dull throb in her temples had turned into a blinding headache. ‘But you came here to…and I want to get divorced!’ she added on a note of escalating misery.
‘Too bad.’
‘You want to get divorced.’ The squally sea breeze suddenly caught her skirt and lifted it. It took her several moments to smooth it back down, and when she looked up she saw something in his eyes that made her sensitive stomach flip.
‘You saw Paul at his surgery.’
Georgie didn’t want to talk about Paul. ‘So that’s how you knew we were here.’
Angolos inclined his dark head.
‘I know some people think strong and silent is attractive, but ask them how they feel about it after they’ve lived with strong and silent for a few weeks. I think you’d find they’d have changed their tune,’ she predicted grimly. ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t just look all brooding and beautiful—say something!’
His only response to her emotional outburst was a raised eyebrow—one of these days she would swing for this man.
‘What would you like me to say?’
‘I give up!’ she declared. She slid an exasperated sideways glance at his lean, saturnine profile. ‘What were you doing discussing me with Paul anyway?’ she demanded crossly. ‘He has no right to discuss me; there’s such a thing as patient confidentiality.’
Angolos dismissed her complaint with an impatient motion of his hand. ‘I’m your husband.’
‘On paper.’ Paper that was even now blowing across the ocean…her divorce would probably end up in Normandy. ‘And even if we were together, that doesn’t give you a right to know my medical details.’
‘He didn’t divulge any private details, medical or otherwise,’ Angolos cut in impatiently. ‘He told me I have a son.’
She dug her toe into the sand and vented an ironic laugh. ‘That was news…?’
‘To me it was.’
‘How can you say that?’
He ignored her exasperated exclamation. ‘Now I know that Nicky is mine, obviously things must change.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Two words I’m not liking there… “must” and “change”.’
‘Don’t be obtuse, Georgette. You know where I’m going with this.’
She shook her head. ‘Not a clue.’
‘Then I’ll spell it out: we will be a family.’
The bad feeling in her stomach coalesced into straightforward panic. ‘I have all the family I need.’ He wasn’t…he just couldn’t be suggesting what she thought he was!
‘A family requires both parents. You and Nicky will come back to Greece with me and we will be a family.’
A hoarse laugh was drawn from Georgie’s aching throat. ‘And to think I used to be intimidated by your vast intellect. You know, mostly I was scared stiff of giving an opinion in case you laughed at me.’
Angolos looked so appalled by this confidence that under less fraught circumstances she might have laughed.
‘But now I know that you may be clever, but you’re also stark staring crazy. Me live with you again…? The only way you’ll get me back to Greece is in a strait-jacket.’
‘You’re speaking emotionally without considering—’
‘I don’t need to consider anything. I recognise insanity when I hear it.’
Until he captured her wrists in his she wasn’t aware that she had been tugging at her own hair. ‘Calm down. You’re overreacting.’
He acknowledged her snarling, ‘shut up!’ with an infuriatingly tolerant smile.
‘Once you’ve thought about it—’ he continued talking across her demand to be let go! ‘—I think you’ll come to appreciate that this is the right thing to do. Sometimes being a parent involves sacrifice.’
He really was incredible. ‘You’re telling me that? Know a lot about being a parent, do you? Gosh, share your wisdom, I’m all ears,’ she begged.
Her sarcasm drew a soft expletive from his lips. ‘You are—’ A dark line appeared across the slashing curve of his cheekbones as he swallowed the rest of his furious retort. ‘You can mock as much as you like.’ The fingers encircling her wrists tightened and then, much to her intense relief, fell away completely.
‘Thanks, but I don’t need your permission.’
‘But,’ he continued as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘it doesn’t alter the fact that a child needs both parents.’
‘I can tell you from personal experience that you can get by perfectly well with one.’
‘You have your stepmother.’
Her brows lifted. ‘And who’s to say that at some future date Nicky won’t have a stepfather…?’
There was a short, stark silence, during which the muscles in Angolos’s brown throat rippled convulsively. Then, capturing her defiant eyes, he smiled and lifted his dark head to an imperious angle. ‘I am to say,’ he responded simply.
The scornful retort died on her lips as she encountered the chilling determination in his unblinking eyes.
‘So now you’re going to vet my boyfriends, are you? I’d be interested in how that works.’
‘This isn’t about you. This is about what is best for our son.’
More absurd than him trying to make her feel guilty and selfish was the fact she actually did! ‘I’ve been doing the best for our son for the past three years. What have you been doing for him? On second thoughts, you staying out of his life probably was the biggest favour you could do him.’
He visibly paled in response to her vitriolic attack, but didn’t attempt to defend himself. ‘I can understand your anger.’
