‘Can’t I?’
Tabby’s pulse had quickened until it felt as if it were beating in the foot of her throat, obstructing her ability to breathe and speak. Frustrated rage lay behind her choked silence as she stared across the table at him, her small face taut and pale. He was pulling strings as if she were a puppet. And wasn’t she exactly that?
A chill settled over her rage, safely enclosing it. He was willing to help her to adopt Amber and she was stuck with his outdated idealistic attitude whether she liked it or not. Yes, she could walk away from him but if she did so she would also be walking away from the child she loved. And that, Tabby reflected hollowly, she could not do.
Amber had tugged at Tabby’s heartstrings from the day she was born and Sonia was too weak, having suffered her first stroke within hours of the birth, even to hold her daughter. Consequently, for as long as Tabby needed Acheron’s support she would have to conform to his expectations. Facing and accepting that ugly frightening truth had to be one of the most humbling experiences Tabby had ever known because it ran contrary to every tenet she had lived by since adulthood. The threat of no longer being in full charge of her life genuinely terrified Tabby.
‘You seem to have lost your appetite,’ Ash remarked, watching her move the food around her plate without lifting anything to her ripe pink mouth.
It was a steak cooked rare, not the way she liked it. But then she had coped with the menu being written in pretentious French simply by making the exact same menu choices as he had.
‘You killed my appetite,’ Tabby countered thinly.
A forbidding look flitted across his chiselled features. ‘If restarting your business means that much to you, you should give up your desire to adopt a child, who will need much more of your time than you could give her as an independent businesswoman.’
Well, that certainly put his point of view across, Tabby conceded ruefully, sipping her water, ignoring the full wineglass beside it. She never touched alcohol, didn’t trust the effect it might have on her, feared it might even awaken a craving she might find hard to control. She couldn’t argue with Acheron Dimitrakos because setting up her business again would demand a great deal of her time. She compressed her lips, reasonably certain she could’ve coped without short-changing Amber but questioning for the first time whether or not that would have been fair to the child she loved. After all, she had personally never enjoyed the luxury of being a full-time mother and perhaps it would be more sensible to give that lifestyle a shot rather than dismissing it out of hand.
‘Are we on the same page?’ Acheron Dimitrakos asked impatiently over the cheese and crackers.
Mouth full at last of something she wanted to eat, Tabby nodded while trying not to imagine what it would feel like to be financially dependent on a man for the first time in her life.
As they emerged from the restaurant, Acheron banded an arm round her stiff spine, and she blinked in bewilderment at the daunting acknowledgement that they were literally surrounded by photographers. ‘Smile,’ he instructed her flatly.
And, hating it, she did as she was told.
‘What was that all about?’ she demanded once they were driving away.
‘Public proof of our relationship,’ Acheron supplied drily. ‘There’ll be an announcement of our engagement in The Times tomorrow.’
What relationship? Tabby thought with wry amusement. He said jump, she said how high? That was not a relationship, it was a dictatorship, but possibly he didn’t know the difference.
* * *
The plaintive cry roused Acheron from a sound sleep. He listened for a while but the noise continued. After a moment, he rolled out of bed with a curse on his lips and reached the bedroom door, before groaning out loud and stalking back to rummage through a drawer and extract a pair of jeans. He hated having guests. He hated any interruption to his usual routine. But Tabby was a better option than a real wife, he reminded himself with satisfaction, and a good deal less likely to develop ambitious ideas about hanging on to her privileged position.
He pushed open the door of the nursery and saw the baby in the cot. It was kicking its arms and legs in furious activity, its little face screwed up as it loosed a wail that would have wakened the dead. Only, apparently, not her wannabe adoptive mother. Ash hovered by the cot, his wide, sensual mouth on a downward curve. The baby sat up in a flash and looked expectant, even lifted its arms as if she expected him to haul her to freedom. It looked far too lively for a baby supposed to be sleeping.
‘No more crying,’ Ash decreed firmly. ‘I don’t like crying.’
The baby’s arms lowered, its rosebud mouth jutting out in a pout while its bright brown eyes studied him uncertainly.
‘You see, crying gets you nowhere,’ Ash explained helpfully.
Another heartbroken sob emanated from the baby. She looked incredibly sad and lonely, and Ash stifled a groan.
‘Aren’t you going to lift her? She needs comforting,’ Tabby murmured from the doorway, studying the little tableau of inflexible male and needy baby. It was infuriating to register that she couldn’t take her eyes off him when he was wearing only a pair of jeans. He had a six-pack that could have rivalled a top athlete’s and his lean, muscular bronzed chest was state-of-the-art perfection, showcasing a male body that could have played a starring role in any female fantasy.
‘Why would I lift her?’ Ash enquired with a raised brow, flashing her a glance and noticing in that one brief look that she was wearing a pale nightdress that revealed more than it concealed of her tiny body while she stood with her back turned to the light in the corridor. He glimpsed delicate little pink nipples and a pale shadowy vee between her thighs, and his body reacted with instantaneous arousal.
‘Because if you expect our adoption application to impress the powers-that-be, you need to be confident that you can handle Amber.’
‘I will be perfectly confident if the situation demands that of me, but at this hour of the day it would be very unwise to remove her from the cot,’ he declared. ‘She’s there for the whole night. It’s two in the morning, in case you haven’t noticed. Why raise her hopes by lifting her?’
Amber released another howl and, gripped by frustration, Tabby marched over to the cot, swept up the little girl and settled her without ceremony into Ash’s arms. ‘If she has a nightmare she needs comforting. She needs to know someone is there for her and a little cuddle usually soothes her.’
Amber was as shocked as Acheron to find herself in his arms. Wide brown eyes anxiously observed him. ‘Cuddle?’ Ash almost whispered the word in appalled disbelief. ‘You actually expect me to cuddle her?’
WITH A GASP of irritation, Tabby removed Amber from his awkward hold and pressed her close. ‘Skin-to-skin contact is important,’ she demonstrated, kissing Amber’s hot brow.
‘I’m not doing the kissing stuff either,’ Acheron breathed witheringly.
‘Then smooth her hair, rub her back, make her feel secure in other ways,’ Tabby advised ruefully. ‘Stop being so resistant to my suggestions.’
‘And
