impish dark eyes, Lorcan was a dead ringer for every photograph Cristo had ever seen of himself at the same age. His stare darkened in intensity, shock reverberating through his big powerful length as he made that final step towards accepting what he was seeing as fact: he was a father.
‘I’m going to count to five, Lorcan,’ Erin warned, her tension level rising. ‘One … two …’
Lorcan performed a handstand and grinned with delight at Cristo from upside down. ‘Daddy do this?’ he asked expectantly.
‘Don’t!’ Erin gasped as Cristo bent down.
But, mercifully, Cristo had not been about to perform a handstand. He had merely bent to lift his son off the coffee table and turn him the right side up while Lorcan shrieked with excitement. ‘Hello, Lorcan,’ Cristo murmured evenly. ‘Calm down.’
Unfortunately Lorcan was in no mood to calm down. When Cristo returned him to the floor, Lorcan began to scramble over every piece of furniture in the room at high speed while loudly urging Cristo to watch what he could do. Erin almost groaned out loud as Nuala bounded from her side to try and join in the ruckus. Cristo snatched his daughter out of harm’s way. ‘Show Lorcan your arm,’ he instructed her.
Nuala showed off her cast, small mouth pouting. ‘Hurts,’ she informed her brother, who moved closer to inspect the injured arm.
Erin crouched down. ‘And we have to be very careful with Nuala’s sore arm,’ she told her son.
Lorcan touched the cast enviously. ‘Want it,’ he said.
‘You should take them out to the park to let off some steam,’ Deidre Turner suggested, beaming at Cristo, who was returning the cushions Lorcan had knocked off the sofa. ‘Oh, never mind about that—I’m used to tidying up every five minutes!’
Erin swallowed a yawn. ‘The park? That’s a good idea. I’ll just go and get changed first.’
Hurtling upstairs to her small bedroom, Erin could not quite come to grips with the knowledge that Cristo was in her home. It felt like some crazy dream but there was something horribly realistic about the fact that both her children were acting up like mad and revealing their every wild and wonderful fault. What did Cristo really think about them? How did he really feel? And why did she care about that side of things? After all, naturally he wanted to see both children to satisfy his curiosity, but she doubted that his interest went much deeper than that. Respecting the cool temperature of a typical English spring, Erin donned straight-leg jeans, knee-length boots and a blue cable knit sweater. She brushed her hair, let it fall round her shoulders and made use of a little blusher and mascara before she felt presentable. Presentable enough for what? For Cristo? Shame engulfed her like a blanket. Why was she so predictable? Why was she always worrying about what Cristo thought of her? Only last month she had seen Cristo in a gossip column squiring a beautiful model with hair like gold silk and the glorious shape of a Miss World! Cristo specialised in superstar women with the kind of looks that stopped traffic. His ex-wife, Lisandra, was an utterly ravishing brunette. Erin had never been in that class and had often wondered if that was why he had lost interest in her.
But now she knew different, she reminded herself wretchedly as she went downstairs. Now she knew that Cristo had dumped her because he believed she was a total slut who had gone behind his back and slept with another man. Was it better to know that or worse?
A twin apiece, they walked a hundred yards to the park. Cristo had sent his limo driver off to locate and buy car seats for the children. Lorcan took exaggerated big steps as he concentrated on stepping only on the lines between the flagstones. Nuala hummed a nursery rhyme and pulled handfuls of leaves off the shrubs they passed until Cristo told his daughter to, ‘Stop it!’
Without hesitation, Nuala threw herself down on the pavement and began to kick and scream.
‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ Erin hissed in frustration. ‘She’s tired and cross and her arm’s hurting her. Of course she’s not in a good mood.’
‘You can’t let her vandalise people’s gardens,’ Cristo replied drily and he bent down and picked Nuala up. Her daughter squirmed violently, flailed her fists and screamed full throttle.
Cristo took a couple of fists in the face before he restored order. ‘No,’ he said again.
‘Yes!’ Nuala shrieked back at him, unleashing the full tempest of her toddler temper.
Erin was trying not to cringe and cave in to her daughter’s every demand as she saw faces appearing at windows overlooking the street.
‘Want slide,’ Lorcan whinged, tugging at his mother’s jacket. ‘Want swings.’
‘So, this is what it feels like to be a parent,’ Cristo commented, flexing his bruised jaw with a slight grimace, his stunning eyes pure black diamond brilliance as if on some weird level he was actually enjoying the challenge.
‘They’re a handful sometimes … not all the time,’ Erin stressed, walking on, keen to reach the park where noisy childish outbursts commanded less attention.
Lower lip thrust out, Nuala told Cristo, ‘Want down.’
‘Say please,’ Cristo traded.
‘No!’ Nuala roared.
‘Then I’ll carry you the rest of the way like a baby.’
Nuala lost her head again and screamed while her brother chanted delightedly, ‘Nuala’s a baby!’ as he walked by his mother’s side.
Silence fell only as they reached the gates of the park.
‘Please,’ Nuala framed as if every syllable hurt.
Cristo lowered his daughter slowly back onto her own feet.
‘I hate you!’ Nuala launched at him furiously, snatching her hand free of his and grabbing her mother’s free hand in place of it. ‘I don’t want a daddy!’
As Cristo parted his lips to respond Erin cut in, ‘Just ignore it … please.’
Once she sat down on the mercifully free bench in her accustomed spot, Erin murmured, ‘The best way to handle the twins is with distraction and compromise. Going toe to toe with them simply provokes a tantrum.’
‘Thanks for the heads-up. I’m going to need it. I believe I used to throw tantrums,’ Cristo confided. ‘According to my foster mother, I too was a challenging child.’
‘Tell me something I couldn’t have guessed.’ Erin laughed, abstractedly watching the breeze ruffle his cropped hair into half curls, so very similar to his son’s. As she met his spectacular amber and honey coloured eyes framed by sooty lashes, it was as if a hand grabbed her heart and squeezed and possibly that was the moment that she understood that she would never be entirely free of Cristo Donakis. That was not simply because she had given birth to children who had inherited his explosive personality. It was because she enjoyed his forceful character, his strength of purpose and persistence and the very fact he could sit on an old bench in a slightly overgrown and rundown park and seem entirely at home there in spite of his hand-stitched shoes, gold cufflinks and a superbly well-cut suit that still looked a million dollars even after he had sat up all night in it. He might be arrogant but he was hugely adaptable, resourceful and willing to learn from his mistakes.
