enough to touch her shoulders and it had a wave in it he’d never seen before. He liked it better than the tight, sleek bun. She looked younger and more carefree.
Sexy.
Not to say she wasn’t looking professional and confident at the same time. Her suit was tailored and chic, the scarf at her throat familiar. A deliberately distancing touch, he wondered, since it was not Makricosta colors?
Are you going to tie me up with it?
Do you want me to?
She’d run her fingers through his hair and he’d almost died. Hell, he’d been so needy it was demoralizing.
She smoothed her hands down her jacket, the navy and ice-yellow smart and flattering on her slender figure. Her big, round sunglasses stayed firmly in place as she waited by the open door of the car, not approaching.
He motioned her to come into the interior of the helicopter. After a brief hesitation, she walked forward.
“Mr. Makricosta—”
He paused with one foot on the step and looked back at her, his ghostly reflection in her lenses a picture of one shielded face confronting another.
“Theo,” he corrected, tempted to stand here until she said it, which was inane. If he’d had one plan when—if he ever saw her again, it was that he’d pretend they’d never slept together. Unfortunately, he kept hearing her whispery gasps of his name, lightly accented, in his dreams and wanted to know if he remembered it right.
“Would you please tell me what is going on?” A hitch of panic entered her tone as he let her question launch him up the steps and into the helicopter. She followed, protesting, “I can’t go anywhere. I have commitments. Work and....”
She didn’t finish, making him wonder what other commitments, but he didn’t press her. “You got my text. You know I need a room. Somewhere no one will expect me to hole up. When I said this was an emergency—”
He indicated the two babies. He’d had the white leather seats outfitted with child harnesses so he could transport his siblings and their children, but the babies looked ridiculously tiny in the first-class armchairs.
“You have kids?” she screeched, standing taller in the low-ceilinged inner lounge of the Eurocopter.
Androu jerked awake and began to wail. Evie broke down into renewed tears.
“Nice going,” he shot at Jaya.
She stared at Androu, seeming to go yellow beneath her natural mocha tone. “How old is he?” she hissed.
“They’re not mine,” he ground out, resisting a weird guilt attack even though he’d taken pains—and it had been painful—to ignore her messages and reinforce to her that she didn’t have any claim on him. “Help me get them into the car.” He handed her Androu and turned to unstrap Evie.
She took the boy into her arms like a natural, which he’d known she would be, even though her lips were so pale and frozen he wondered if she’d ever smile again.
It wasn’t in her to take out her feelings on a child, though. The first time he’d seen her, a blond German boy’s pale hand clutched in hers, he’d recognized her strong maternal instinct and liked her for it. Today she soothed Androu as she carried him outside where the change of scenery calmed him.
Evie remained stiff in his arms, inconsolable. They slid into the limo like bank robbers after a heist and the driver pulled away.
“You might have told me so I could have had proper car seats installed. This is dangerous, Theo.”
Damn. His name sounded better than he remembered and made him hunger to hear it against his ear.
“So?” she prompted. “Who are they?”
“Can he be trusted?” he asked in a murmur, nodding at the driver. “Because I couldn’t risk a phone call that might have been heard over the radio. I was texting one-handed—” He was interrupted by Jaya’s sudden query to Evie.
“Pyaari beti, do you have to use the potty?”
Evie’s distressed face nodded vigorously.
For the second time today, Theo’s mind blanked with panic. She was on his knee!
“Oscar—” Jaya turned to say, but the driver was ahead of her, already slowing outside the terminal building.
“Wait—” Theo said as Jaya plunked Androu onto the cushion beside her and scooped up Evie.
“There’s no waiting at her age. What is she, two?” She was out the door as the limo halted, the little girl wrapped onto her hip like a monkey.
Theo clenched his teeth and did the math on discoverability. He didn’t dare let himself calculate the odds on Jaya stealing the toddler. He made himself believe he knew her better, even though he didn’t. Not really. Not when he’d treated her the way he had.
Sleeping with Jaya had been wrong.
He wasn’t a man who got anything wrong. Mistakes were a luxury he had never been able to afford.
Something about Jaya eroded his discipline, however. Two years ago, he’d started allowing himself to fantasize about an employee. Then he’d begun finding reasons to stay an extra day in Bali, to review reports he could generate himself. He’d rationalized a one-night affair and taken her to bed knowing it was not just unwise and bordering on unethical, it was downright stupid. She was sweet and generous, not the worldly, here-for-a-good-time kind of woman who would forget him as quickly as he forgot her.
God, he wished he could forget her.
The best he’d managed was not to return her tentative few calls. It had been a cruel-to-be-kind favor in her best interest. Not that he expected her to see it that way, but he had warned her they had no future. Surely she wouldn’t hold a grudge when he’d been honest about that much?
Skipping his gaze between Androu, who was turning himself and scooting backward off the opposite seat, and the terminal doors that remained closed and reflected the black windows of the limo, he evaluated how much of a chance he was taking letting Jaya whisk Evie into public.
This airstrip catered to private aircraft belonging to celebrities and Europe’s high society, which meant most people would have very little interest in anyone but themselves. It was a tempting place for paparazzi to hang around looking for the shot of their career, though. Evie’s parents were scrupulous about keeping her out of the limelight. Dressed in her hotel uniform, Jaya would be dismissed as a flight attendant or a nanny. Since Evie’s almond eyes and black pigtails didn’t match either her adoptive father’s blond hair or her mother’s green eyes, the chances of anyone recognizing her were narrow.
It was still an interminable wait as Androu rocked his still learning feet across the short expanse to clutch at Theo’s knee. “Mama,” he said.
Oh, hell. Theo stared into innocent eyes that could have belonged to his little brother, Demitri, at that age. “I know, buddy,” he said, even though he didn’t know a damned thing except that Adara had done this surrogate parenting at a far younger age than he was, so he had to
