CHAPTER NINE
The Greek Tycoon’s Baby Bargain
Sharon Kendrick
To my adorable godchildren:
Lucy Jacob, Judy Jacob, Hannah Minnock,
Lucy Wightwick, Rory Maguire and
Catriona McDavid. With love.
IT WASN’T the first time he had been late—but it was the first time he hadn’t bothered to warn her.
Outside, the rain made the street look as glossy as an old black and white photo but Rebecca’s eyes were fixed at the junction which would give her the first glimpse of his car.
The palms of her hands were cold and clammy and she bit her lip, her head spinning with thoughts she could no longer ignore. Because maybe this was how it all began—the end of a relationship. With the slow, slow drip of inconsideration—rather than the passion of the blazing row.
Her lips curved into a painful smile as she recognised that even calling it a relationship gave it more importance than it deserved. When two people lived on opposite continents and merely snatched at secret moments together—did that really count?
Perhaps affair would be more accurate. An affair which should never have started and which she’d tried her best to resist, but in the end she had been weak—of course she had. For wasn’t that Xandros’s special ability: to make women weak around him? It wasn’t difficult to see why. Given the sheer charisma and powerful persuasion of the Greek billionaire, it was amazing that she had lasted out as long as she had.
Maybe this was what happened when you finally began to fall in love with a man like Alexandros Pavlidis—or Xandros to his friends and lovers. This terrible preoccupation which made all your thinking skewed. Even though you told yourself that you didn’t want to be in love, that it couldn’t possibly be love when all you’d known were some amazing dates and some even more amazing sex.
Yet you could tell yourself something again and again and sometimes almost believe it. And then he would call at the very last minute and she would hear that deep sexy voice, asking her if she’d like to have dinner, and her heart would flip—the world seeming suddenly to be lit by fairy lights. And even though she hated herself for being so available, she would be unable to say no.
The gleam of powerful headlights cut a bright channel through the night and Rebecca saw the shiny black nose of the limousine as it slowly eased its way into view. Hastily, she ducked out of sight as it stopped outside the apartment building. Not the most attractive sight in the world, was it? To be seen staring anxiously out of the window!
She checked the mirror. Her hair was clean and shining—worn loose, just the way Xandros liked it. She was wearing a dress in soft lilac and was slim enough and young enough to carry off the relatively inexpensive outfit and make the most of it. Xandros didn’t like a lot of make-up and neither did she. A slick of lipstick and a curl of mascara—that was all.
But no amount of careful preparation could hide the faint shadows beneath her eyes, or the way that she seemed to have been constantly biting her lip lately, like an exam candidate who hadn’t really understood the question.
The doorbell rang and she pinned a casual smile to her mouth, which died the instant she opened the door to see a tall man in uniform standing on the step, rain dripping from his peaked cap, and it took a moment or two to realise that she was looking at Xandros’s chauffeur.
‘Miss Gibbs?’ he said politely, as if he’d never met her before. As if he hadn’t witnessed Xandros kissing her so passionately on the back seat of the car. Or hadn’t been forced to sit in a car outside her tiny house, waiting for his Greek boss to reappear over an hour later minus his tie, his hair dishevelled, his sensual mouth curved with pleasure.
Rebecca’s cheeks burned with shame at the memory of that particular time. ‘Where’s Xandros?’ she questioned, and then her eyes widened as a thousand horrible possibilities flooded into her mind. ‘He’s okay? I mean—nothing’s happened to him?’
But the chauffeur’s face might have been made of wood. Hard, disapproving wood—as if he was used to dealing with a hundred worried-looking women like Rebecca. ‘Mr Alexandros Pavlidis asked me to convey his apologies, but he is dealing with a conference call. He asked me to bring you to him instead.’
Rebecca swallowed. Bring you to him. Like a convenience, she thought. A package. Something handy, but ultimately disposable. Yes, that was her, all right.
There was a split second while she ran through her options. What was the normal response when your lover sent his chauffeur to collect you and you suspected that was because your novelty value was wearing off and he might be tiring of you? Did you smile gratefully and thank the chauffeur and settle back comfortably in the back of the luxury car, counting your blessings?
Or would you be more respected—and desired—if you politely told the driver that he could go back to his boss with the information that you had changed your mind about dinner, and were staying in? That if he was busy, then surely the best solution was to leave him in peace to get on with his work.
But the lure of Xandros was strong, and so was her fear that a dramatic display of pique might bring about the end sooner than she had anticipated. Sooner than she could cope with.
‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said.
The traffic was heavy and the weather bleak for a Thursday night in April. Rebecca’s hair was whipped around her head by a biting wind as the hotel doorman opened the car door and she stepped out.
Had she been hoping that Xandros might have been standing in the foyer, waiting for her? That she wouldn’t have to make the endless journey across the luxurious carpet on her own, imagining that eyes were on her, wondering who the woman in the cheap dress was? Wasn’t there a part of her which was slightly terrified of being stopped by one of the hotel staff, demanding to know why she was taking the lift up to the penthouse?
But the journey passed without comment and in the mirror-lined lift she had the opportunity to drag a brush through her hair, to compose herself into the right kind of expression.
How did she look the first time he’d seen her—when he had hunted her down like a hungry predator? Surely she could recreate a similar kind of expression now. The kind of air which implied that she had a full and fulfilling life, and she wasn’t particularly fussed about any man—not even if he was a world-famous Greek billionaire.
The
