would call in the police. She had feared that he would blame her for the inadequate security in the products store, which had made Sally’s thefts all too easy. If she was honest she had also worried about how she would cope without Sally at her elbow. My mistake, she acknowledged painfully. A wrong decision that had cost her more than she could ever have dreamt.
Cristo watched in frustration as Erin made a weak excuse and went off to join Jenny and the twins. It had been right to tell her the truth, he told himself angrily. He was damned if the fact that she was the mother of his children would make him start lying just to please her! Did shooting from the hip mean he had also shot himself in the foot? Almost three years ago, he had not talked to Erin about important issues and this time around he was determined not to repeat that mistake. Blunt speech had to be better than minimal communication and misunderstandings, he decided impatiently.
Shielded by the need to keep the twins occupied for what remained of a journey that entailed a final helicopter flight to the island of Thesos, Erin licked her wounds in private. From the air she had a fantastic view of Cristo’s island. It was bigger than she had imagined and the southern end was heavily forested with pine trees. She spied a cluster of low-rise structures on what appeared to be a building site on the furthest coast and a picturesque little town by the harbour before the helicopter flew level again and began to swoop down over the tree tops to land.
Lorcan was asleep and Cristo hoisted his son out of Erin’s arms and carried him off. They had landed about twenty yards from a magnificent ultra-modern villa surrounded by terraces and balconies to take advantage of the land and sea views.
‘This all looks new,’ Erin remarked.
‘I demolished my parents’ house and had this one designed about three years ago. It made more sense than trying to renovate the old place,’ he commented casually.
Three years ago, while they had still been a couple, Erin had known nothing about his island or the new house he was having built. Not for the first time Erin appreciated that Cristo had shut her out of a large section of his life and she wondered why. Obviously he had never considered her important enough to include her in the Greek half of his existence, which encompassed home and family. And that, whether she liked it or not, hurt, most particularly when he had married a Greek woman within months of dumping Erin.
A short brunette with warm brown eyes was introduced as Androula, the housekeeper. Straight away Androula cooed over the children in their arms and hurried off to show Erin and Jenny to the rooms set aside for their use. Erin was taken aback to discover that Cristo had already had accommodation specially prepared for his son and daughter, each complete with small beds, appropriate decoration and an array of toys. Leaving the capable Jenny to put the drowsy children to bed, Erin explored her own room with its doors opening onto the terrace and superb view through the trees to a white beach and a turquoise sea over which the sun was sinking in a display of fiery splendour.
‘Will you be comfortable here?’
Erin spun to find Cristo behind her, poised between the French windows. ‘How could I fail to be? It’s the height of luxury,’ she said awkwardly.
Cristo searched her shuttered face and breathed almost roughly, ‘I was tough on you on the plane. I was angry that you let that scheming woman make you pay the price for her crimes.’
‘But at least that’s sorted out now. The rooms organised for the children are beautiful,’ she told him stiffly, suppressing the discomfiture she was still feeling. ‘You must have organised that almost as soon as you found out about them.’
Cristo inclined his dark head. ‘Yes, even before I asked you if they could visit Thesos. I still tend to act first and ask later.’
Not even questioning that arrogant assumption of power, Erin turned away and rested her elbows back on the low wall girding the terrace. She had intended to get her revenge on Cristo for what he had done to her in Italy, but it had gradually dawned on her that angering or hurting Cristo would most probably damage his relationship with their children. Their own relationship was irrevocably meshed with the ties and responsibilities of also being parents. And how, in conscience, could she take that risk of weakening those links?
‘You never ever told me that this place existed,’ she said.
‘What would have been the point if I wasn’t planning to bring you here?’ he murmured wryly. ‘When I was with you I wasn’t quite ready to move our affair on to the next stage. I was simply enjoying the place we had reached until it blew up in both our faces. I’m sorry.’
‘No need to apologise.’ Erin fought the just-slapped-in-the-face sensation of humiliation that his piece of plain speaking inspired and wondered why on earth he was suddenly telling her such things. In the past she had loved him and longed for a secure future with him but he had not felt the same. Why did that news still make her feel so gutted? That time was gone and she didn’t love him any longer. She just lusted after him, enjoyed his energising company, respected his business prowess, intelligence and strength of principle. Enumerating that unacceptably long list of his supposed attributes, Erin gritted her teeth together. Why was she doing this to herself? Dwelling on things that no longer had any place between them? She was the mother of his children and that was all.
‘In those days …’ Cristo, engaged in watching the tense muscles in her slender back and the vulnerable piece of pale nape exposed by her bent head, floundered. ‘I wasn’t exactly in touch with my feelings.’
‘I’m not sure you had any … above your belt,’ Erin specified shakily.
‘That is so wrong!’ Cristo growled, lean hands closing forcefully to her shoulders to tug her back round to face him. ‘I was sick to the stomach when I thought you’d gone to bed with another man! It turned my whole life upside down!’
‘Try being pregnant by a man you can’t even get to speak to you on the phone!’ Erin lanced back at him with unconcealed bitterness.
His dark golden eyes shone amber bright at the challenge. ‘I would never have knowingly allowed that to happen. What reason would I have to treat you like some demented stalker? I intend to get the full story out of Amelia when I’m next in Athens where she works now.’
‘I’ll still never forgive you.’
His superb bone structure was taut and he gazed steadily back at her. ‘Was being pregnant so bad?’
‘I had to live on welfare benefits. It was a struggle I’ll never forget,’ Erin admitted truthfully. ‘My home was a damp tenth-floor council flat barely fit for human habitation. It was only when my mother came to see me and realised how I was living that she invited me to go home with her. There was also the not so little matter of me being pregnant and unmarried, which really did upset Mum. She’s an old-fashioned woman and as far as she’s concerned decent girls don’t have babies until they have a ring on their wedding finger. We were estranged for most of my pregnancy.’
His concern was unfeigned. ‘You had no support at all? What about your friend, Elaine? Did she ask you to move out of her apartment?’
‘No, I made that decision—I couldn’t pay my way any more,’ Erin explained ruefully. ‘But Tom and Melissa helped out as best they could.’
‘Melissa?’
‘Now Tom’s wife but at the time they were living together and I couldn’t have had better friends,’ Erin declared. ‘They were very good to me.’
His
