a tourist.’ Before she had an opportunity to respond to his dismissive comment he added thickly, ‘And anyway, I prefer to look at you. You look particularly glowing this evening.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes.’ His long fingers closed around her wrist. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself today. Have you missed me?’
Only every other second. ‘I’ve been pretty busy, actually.’ She had taken his recent hints about being more self-reliant to heart.
She didn’t want to become a clingy wife. It had helped that Alan had come over and had been staying in the nearby village with his friend.
Georgie willingly responded to the gentle tug on her arm and fell in a happy heap beside him. She flipped over onto her tummy and, with her chin propped in her hands, smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. ‘Alan went home today.’
‘How sad.’
‘Don’t be mean about him,’ she begged.
‘Mean…?’
‘Well, you’re—’ She gasped as he turned her wrist over and pressed his lips to the pale-skinned inner aspect; she shivered as all the fine hairs on her body stood on end.
‘Have I ever told you that you’re the most beautiful man that ever drew breath?’
‘Not recently.’
His husky velvet voice sent a shiver along her hopelessly sensitive nerve endings. ‘I suppose I have been a bit moody lately,’ she admitted. When he realised why, she hoped he would forgive her recent crankiness and mood swings. ‘I didn’t know why myself until today.’
‘Are you going to let me in on the secret?’
‘Soon,’ she promised as with her best enigmatic smile she hitched up her long skirts to her waist and straddled his body.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m just doing,’ she told him primly, ‘what any dutiful wife would.’ She frowned as she concentrated on slipping the remaining buttons of his shirt. Within seconds she had exposed all of his lean, hard torso. She ran her fingertips over the silky, hair-roughened surface and felt his stomach muscles contract. His skin was like oiled silk. She gave a voluptuous sigh of pleasure.
His hands tightened possessively over the smooth, bare skin of her thighs. ‘What has brought this on?’
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘Oh, I like it. I’m just wondering why you should decide to take the initiative tonight…’
Did that mean he found her unadventurous and boring in bed? The thought took the edge off her pleasure and dented her newly discovered confidence.
‘Tonight’s special.’
‘I think you’ll remember it.’
Georgie, rehearsing what she was going to say in her head, barely registered his cryptic response. ‘Angolos, I’ve got something to tell you.’ She leaned forward, her eyes glowing with anticipation, her cheeks gently flushed. With a grunt of irritation she pinned the strands of her hair that brushed his face behind one ear. ‘Sorry.’
‘I like your hair on my skin. It feels…’ He closed his eyes and muttered something angry in Greek under his breath.
‘I think what I’ve got to say will cheer you up.’
Considering what had followed, that was probably the silliest comment she had ever made, Georgie reflected grimly.
‘You’re going to be a father, Angolos. I’m going to have a baby.’
His eyes stayed closed—she began to think he’d not heard her—then, dark, deep and impenetrable, they flickered open.
‘Pregnant?’
She nodded, and experienced the first stirrings of fear. Something was badly wrong, but she had no idea what… Perhaps he felt it was too soon, which didn’t make sense because he was the one who had just shrugged when she had mentioned precautions…
‘I know we weren’t trying…and we didn’t discuss it, but I thought you might be happy. You are happy?’
‘Happy? I’m bloody delirious,’ he contended grimly. ‘Can’t you tell, yineka mou?’
‘I d…don’t understand…’ she stuttered.
Angolos rounded a corner in the lane and stopped. He could see her sitting on the wall, oblivious for the moment to his presence. He took the opportunity to study her undetected.
With her hair tied back in a pony-tail and her face innocent of make-up she looked more like a teenager than the mother of a child—his child. The idea still seemed strange to him. Strange as in bordering on miraculous, though he didn’t expect Georgie to share his sense of wonder.
‘You were far away.’
Georgie jumped at the sound of his voice. ‘You’re late.’
He didn’t react to her shrill, accusatory tone. ‘Have you come to a decision?’
‘I have.’ She had thought long and hard; she had thought until her brain felt as if it would explode.
One dark brow lifted. The casual observer, looking at his face, would have said her reply was in no way important to Angolos. But Georgie was not a casual observer; she knew that Angolos cared very badly about her reply.
‘And…?’ The muscle in his tense jaw continued to click steadily as he held her eyes.
Not into playing games, she replied immediately. ‘I agree that I have no right to deny Nicky his heritage. I can protect him now, but I won’t be able to always. I’ll just have to teach him to look after himself. I think you’d be good at that, Angolos. So I will come to Greece with you, on trial basis.’
She saw the muscles of his shoulders relax. ‘Thank you for that, Georgette. For my part I swear that I will do my best not to disappoint you.’
The palpable sincerity in his voice brought an emotional lump to her throat. ‘I don’t think you would, but you didn’t let me finish. There are conditions.’
‘Whatever you say,’ he said immediately.
‘Don’t you think you ought to hear what they are first?’ she asked him.
‘Bring on your demands. It doesn’t matter what they are. I will do anything it takes to develop a relationship with my son.’
‘I understand that.’
One dark brow arched in sardonic enquiry as he scanned her face. ‘But you have your doubts? You don’t think it will work out?’
This drew a reluctant laugh from her. ‘Only a couple of thousand.’ Her expression sobered as she lifted her face to his; she could
