reach to come quickly to their aid. Instead their next-door neighbour, Tamsin, a young woman with kids of her own, had come to the hospital to collect Lorcan so that her mother could stay on there and wait for Nuala to come out of surgery.
They were walking through the airport when Cristo closed a hand to Erin’s wrist and said curtly. ‘We have to talk about this.’
‘Talking isn’t what you brought me here for,’ Erin countered tartly. ‘I appreciate that you feel shortchanged but right now there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Cristo said glacially, frustration brightening his black diamond gaze to brilliance in his lean, strong face. ‘I’ll get you back to Oxford as quick as I can but you have to tell me what’s going on.’
Erin nodded agreement and bit her lip. ‘Once we’re airborne.’
Tell him—he made it sound so simple. She thought of those phone calls she had made, desperate to tell him, desperate for his support in a hostile world. When she’d realised she was pregnant she had reached out in panic, not thinking about what she would have to say or how he would react. Those kinds of fears would have been luxuries when she was struggling just to survive. Now she was older, wiser, aware she was about to open a can of worms with a blunt knife and make a mess. But why not? Why shouldn’t Cristo know that he was a father? How he reacted no longer mattered: she already had a job, a roof over her head. She didn’t need him any more.
Ensconced in the cream-leather-upholstered luxury of Cristo’s private jet, Erin struggled to regain her composure but she was too worried about Nuala and her mother. Deidre Turner didn’t deal well with the unexpected and suffered from panic attacks. How could she have left her mother with the burden of the twins for the weekend when the older woman had already looked after them all week long? Her mother would have been tired, tested by the daily challenge of caring for two lively toddlers, who didn’t always do as they were told, a combination that was an accident waiting to happen.
Cristo released his seat belt and stood up, six feet four inches of well-groomed male, in a dark business suit that made the most of his lean, powerful physique. Shrewd dark golden eyes below sooty lashes welded to her, he dealt her an expectant look.
‘I have children now,’ Erin declared baldly, breaking the tense silence. ‘Twins of two and a bit, a boy and a girl—’
Unsurprisingly, Cristo was stunned. ‘Children?’ he repeated the plural designation in a tone of astonishment. ‘How could you possibly have children?’
‘THE usual way. I fell pregnant. I became a mother eight months later,’ Erin told him flatly.
‘Twins?’ Cristo bit out a sardonic laugh to punctuate the word.
‘Yes, born a little early. And my daughter, Nuala, got hurt in a playground accident this morning. She broke her arm and she has to have surgery on it. That’s why I have to get home asap,’ Erin completed in the same strained tone.
‘And you didn’t feel that you could mention the little fact that you’re a mother before this point?’ Cristo derided grimly.
Erin studied the carpet. ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested.’
‘I’m more interested in finding out who the father of your twins might be,’ Cristo admitted, his stubborn jaw line clenching hard. ‘Is it Morton?’
‘No,’ Erin fielded without hesitation. ‘My children were very young when I first met Sam.’
‘Why is this like pulling teeth?’ Cristo demanded with ringing impatience.
‘Because you’re going out of your way to avoid the most obvious connection.’ Erin lifted her chin and studied him with cool amethyst eyes, an ocean of calm cocooning her as she moved towards the final bar she had set herself to clear. ‘Lorcan and Nuala are your children and don’t you dare complain about only finding that out now! It’s your fault that I made endless attempts to get in touch with you and failed.’
His stunning dark eyes widened, his beautiful mouth twisting. ‘My children —don’t be ridiculous. How could they possibly be mine?’
‘The traditional way, Cristo. You turned over in bed one night shortly before we broke up and made love to me without using a condom. Of course I can’t be a hundred per cent certain about the exact timing, but certainly that’s when I assume that I conceived,’ she explained curtly.
Beneath his bronzed skin, Cristo had grown pale as if such nit-picking detail added a veracity to her claim that nothing else could have done. ‘You’re saying that I got you pregnant?’
‘There wasn’t anyone else in the picture, in spite of all your misconceptions about Tom’s little brother.’ Erin rose to her feet with determination. ‘You are the father of my children. You can do DNA tests, whatever you like to satisfy yourself. I really don’t care. That side of things is immaterial to me now.’
Cristo poured himself a drink from the built in bar. His hand wasn’t quite steady as he raised the glass to his lips and drank deep. ‘This is inconceivable.’
He wheeled back round to stare at her with cloaked intensity, momentarily stepping outside the dialogue while with every fibre of his being he relived that last sweet taste of her in sunlight as her tongue tangled with his. The burn of that hunger had electrified him. She was a sexual challenge that never waned. That was what she meant to him, a high of satisfaction he craved every time he looked at her. He hated what she was but he wanted to bed her over and over again. That was easier to think about than the fantastic idea that he might have accidentally got her pregnant in the past. Hadn’t he only just emerged from a nightmare in that category? A nightmare that had comprehensively blown his marriage and his family apart? And now, the least likely mother of all was telling him that he was immaterial? He would never let another woman deny him his paternal rights.
‘I’ll take a soda and lime,’ Erin told him pointedly.
Frowning, his black brows drawing together, Cristo turned back to the bar to prepare her drink. His movements were deft and precise. He handed her a tall moisture-beaded glass, turning his arrogant dark head to study her afresh as he did so. He was so deep in shock at the concept of being a father that he felt as if the passage of time had frozen him in his tracks. ‘You said you made endless attempts to get in touch with me.’
‘Your PA finally told me that she had instructions not to put my calls through to you and that I was wasting my time.’
Cristo set his glass down on the bar with a sharp little snap of protest. ‘I never issued any such instruction!’
‘Well, maybe it was the bad fairy who issued it.’ Erin lifted and dropped a slight shoulder, unimpressed by his plea of innocence. All too well did she remember how humiliated she had felt having to make those repeated and clearly unwelcome phone calls. ‘I also sent a couple of letters.’
‘Which I never received.’
Erin ignored that comeback. ‘You had changed your private cell phone number. I had no choice but to try and contact you through your office. At the last, I even phoned your family home in Athens …’
