The third in an hour, and no less vicious simply because it was quietly voiced.
Alyse looked at the tiny prick of blood the latest needle stab had wrought, and raised her eyes heavenward in mute supplication.
Just this one garment, and she’d pack it all away for the evening, she pleaded in a silent deal with her favourite saint. Although it would prove less vexing if she cast aside hand-finishing for the evening and relaxed in front of the television with a reviving cup of coffee. Yet tonight she needed to immerse herself totally in her work in an attempt to alleviate the build-up of nervous tension.
Specialising in exquisitely embroidered babywear sold under her own label, Alyse, she had by dint of hard work, she reflected, changed a successful hobby into a thriving business. Now there was a boutique in a modern upmarket shopping centre catering for babies and young children’s clothes featuring her own exclusive label among several imported lines.
Five minutes later Alyse breathed a sigh of relief as the tiny garment was completed. Stretching her arms high, she flexed her shoulders in a bid to ease the knot of muscular tension.
Georg’s wakening cry sounded loud in the stillness of the house, and she quickly heated his bottle, fed him, then settled him down for the night.
In the hallway she momentarily caught sight of her mirrored reflection, and paused, aware that it was hardly surprising that the combination of grief and lack of appetite had reduced her petite form to positive slenderness. There were dark smudges beneath solemn blue eyes, and the angles of her facial bone-structure appeared delicate and more clearly defined.
Minutes later she sank into a chair in the lounge nursing a mug of hot coffee, longing not for the first time for someone in whom she could confide.
If her parents were still alive, it might be different, she brooded, but both had died within months of each other only a year after she had finished school, and she had been too busy establishing a niche in the workforce as well as guiding Antonia through a vulnerable puberty to enjoy too close an empathy with friends.
The sudden peal of the doorbell shattered the quietness of the room, and she hurried quickly to answer it, vaguely apprehensive yet partly curious as to who could possibly be calling at this time of the evening.
Checking that the safety chain was in place, she queried cautiously, ‘Who is it?’
‘Aleksi Stefanos.’
Stefanos. The name seemed etched in her brain with the clarity of diamond-engraved marble, and she closed her eyes in a purely reflex action as undisguised anger replaced initial shock.
‘How did you get my address?’ she wanted to know.
‘The telephone directory.’ His voice held an infinite degree of cynicism.
‘How dare you come here?’ Alyse demanded, trying her best to ignore the prickle of fear steadily creating havoc with her nervous system.
‘Surely eight-thirty isn’t unacceptably late?’ his drawling voice enquired through the thick wood-panelled door, and she drew in a deep angry breath, then released it slowly.
‘I have absolutely nothing to say to you.’
‘May I remind you that I have every right to visit my nephew?’
For some inexplicable reason his dry mocking tones sent an icy chill feathering the length of her spine. Damn him! Who did he think he was, for heaven’s sake?
‘Georg is asleep, Mr Stefanos.’
Her curt dismissing revelation was greeted with ominous silence, and she unconsciously held her breath, willing him to go away.
‘Asleep or awake, Miss Anderson, it makes little difference.’
Alyse closed her eyes and released her breath in one drawn-out sigh of frustration. Without doubt, Aleksi Stefanos possessed sufficient steel-willed determination to be incredibly persistent. If she refused to let him see Georg tonight, he’d insist on a suitable time tomorrow. Either way, he would eventually succeed in his objective.
Without releasing the safety chain, she opened the door a fraction, noticing idly that he had exchanged his formal suit for light grey trousers and a sweater in fine dark wool. Even from within the protection of her home, he presented a disturbing factor she could only view with disfavour.
‘Will you give me your word that you won’t try to abduct Georg?’ she asked him.
His eyes flared, then became hard and implacable, his facial muscles reassembling over sculptured bone to present a mask of silent anger.
‘It isn’t in my interests to resort to abduction,’ he warned inflexibly. ‘Perhaps you should be reminded that your failure to co-operate will be taken into consideration and assuredly used against you.’
The temptation to tell him precisely what he could do with his legal advisers was almost impossible to ignore, but common sense reared its logical head just in time, and Alyse released the safety chain, then stood back to permit him entry.
‘Thank you.’
His cynicism was not lost on her, and it took considerable effort to remain civil. ‘Georg’s room is at the rear of the house.’
Without even glancing at him, she led the way, aware that he followed close behind her. She didn’t consciously hurry, but her footsteps were quick, and consequently she felt slightly breathless when she reached the end of the hallway.
Carefully she opened the door, swinging it wide so the shaft of light illuminated the room. Large and airy, it had been converted to a nursery months before Georg’s birth, the fresh white paint with its water-colour murals on each wall the perfect foil for various items of nursery furniture, and a number of colourful mobiles hung suspended from the ceiling.
Fiercely protective, Alyse glanced towards the man opposite for any sign that he might disturb her charge, and saw there was no visible change in his expression.
What had she expected? A softening of that hard exterior? Instead there was a curious bleakness, a sense of purpose that Alyse found distinctly chilling.
Almost as if Georg sensed he was the object of a silent battle, he stirred, moving his arms as he wriggled on to his back, his tiny legs kicking at the blanket until, with a faint murmur, he settled again.
Alyse wanted to cry out that Georg was hers, and nothing, no one, was going to take him away from her.
Perhaps some of her resolve showed in her expressive features, for she glimpsed a muscle tighten at the edge of Aleksi Stefanos’s powerful jaw an instant before he moved back from the cot, and she followed him from the room, carefully closing the door behind her.
It appeared he was in no hurry to leave, for he entered the lounge without asking, and stood, a hand thrust into each trouser pocket.
‘Perhaps we could talk?’ he suggested, subjecting her to an analytical scrutiny which in no way enhanced her temper.
‘I was under the impression we covered just about everything this morning.’
Chillingly bleak eyes riveted hers, trapping her in his gaze, and Alyse was
