Willow stared out at the night sky and wondered fearfully what the future had in store. She was in a house full of people but had never felt so totally alone in her whole life.
‘I thought you might still be awake.’
She had not heard the door open but she heard the husky-voiced drawl and spun around to stare in disbelief. ‘Get out of my room,’ she snapped as she watched Theo close the door softly behind him and turn the key. Something she should have done herself, she realised only too late. ‘Haven’t you done enough damage for one day, Theo?’ she said bitterly.
‘Be quiet.’ He moved towards her, and it was then that it dawned on her that he was wearing only a short towelling robe that exposed his broad chest and long legs. She was pretty sure that he was naked beneath it, as was she in her skimpy cotton nightshirt…
Her heart lurched and she was furious at herself, at him and at the whole damn world. She saw the lazy sensuality in his dark eyes as he stopped an arm’s reach away, and the sheer gall of the man staggered her. He had already charmed her son, and she was obviously next on his agenda.
She sucked in a furious breath. ‘Don’t you dare tell me to be quiet, you no-good, manipulative swine,’ she threw at him, her eyes flashing blue fire. ‘What kind of lowlife are you that you would use a small boy to blackmail me into coming here? What kind of so-called father would do a thing like that?’ she challenged him, her anger laced with scorn.
Theo had kept an iron control on his emotions for the last twenty-four hours. He had told his mother an abridged version of what had happened and then spent the last hour simply watching his son sleep. Filled with an overwhelming love for the boy, he had realised he would give his life to protect him. On that thought it had struck him that Willow must also feel the same, and how afraid she must be feeling with his threat of court action hanging over her head.
Leaving his son’s room, he had walked past Willow’s and seen the glimmer of light under the door. It had occurred to him to reassure her that he had no intention of taking her to court over the boy and he was sure that they could come to a suitable arrangement that would be beneficial to all three of them.
But looking at her now standing with her back to the window, the slip of cotton she was wearing barely reaching her thighs, her glorious hair tumbling around her shoulders in wanton disarray, the expression on her beautiful face one of angry contempt—he changed his mind. She was looking at him as if he were something she needed to scrape off her shoe. Any finer feelings that had been induced by visiting his son’s bedside were quickly forgotten.
Cold fury glittered in his dark eyes. All arrogant Greek male, he allowed no one to disrespect him, man or woman, and certainly not this woman. She had so cruelly deprived him of his child, and yet she dared to question his ability as a father. What chance had she given him? None.
He wanted to tear her limb from limb. Her full lips that he had tasted not nearly enough were twisted in a contemptuous smile. Angrily he studied her, his eyes raking over her body. The thin white slip she was wearing was almost transparent, moulding her firm high breasts and narrow waist. The fine rounded curves of her hips and the dark shadow of feminine body hair almost visible through the flimsy fabric. Damn it! She was enough to tempt a saint, and he was no saint, as an instant stirring in his groin forcibly reminded him.
It was then that a scenario worthy of his Greek heritage crossed his mind. His dark eyes narrowed with implacable resolve. In that moment he made his decision for the future of his son and this beautiful scornful creature standing before him.
‘What, no response?’ Willow jeered into the lengthening silence. The air between them sizzled with tension and she dragged an angry, if slightly unsteady, breath into her suddenly oxygen-starved lungs. Theo stepped closer, his dark features rigid as he gave her a look of such cynical sexual appraisal she reeled in shock for a breathless, heart-stopping moment. Every self-protective instinct she possessed was urging her to step back, but she refused to be cowed by his intimidating presence.
‘You ask what kind of father?’ he prompted scathingly, his eyes like black ice biting accusingly into hers. ‘The kind that has been deprived of his son for years,’ he hissed with sibilant softness, his hand snaking around her, trapping one arm against him and drawing her closer. ‘The kind whose child is eight years old and does not speak one word of his father’s language.’
She could not deny his words, and the sudden contact with his hard, muscular body sent the blood pounding through her veins and she panicked. She tried to twist from his hold. ‘No,’ she cried but she was too late. His hand slipped right around her waist, and caught her other wrist in his long fingers, melding her to him from chest to thigh. Ignoring her muttered negative, he continued with raw venom.
‘The kind who has had to watch his mother cry tears of joy and regret that her husband never lived to see the boy.’ His free hand came up to burrow under the heavy fall of her hair and twist it around his wrist. He pulled back her head, and she knew she was in deep, deep trouble.
‘You owe me, Willow, eight long years, and now is my time to collect.’
She stared up into his eyes and trembled at the fury that glittered in the inky depths. Willow was also aware of a much more basic emotion that she could not fail to recognise. ‘No, Theo. Let go of me, or I will scream the place down.’ Her voice shook with fear as she said it, and her body responded similarly as the heat of him enveloped her. The familiar scent of him tantalised her nostrils, and the imprint of his warm, hard body against her own sent her pulse rate into overdrive.
‘Scream all you like, the walls are a foot thick,’ he mocked. His face was a taut mask of rigidly controlled anger. ‘You had the first eight years of Stephen’s life, and I am having the next eight—legally.’ He tilted her head further back, his glittering eyes boring down into hers with implacable determination. ‘We will marry, and at sixteen Stephen will be of an age to choose between us. Then we can divorce.’ His dark head bent, and the air caught in her throat as his warm breath brushed her ear. ‘But first, Willow, I am going to make you burn for denying me,’ he threatened in a deep, sexually explicit drawl.
She almost admitted that she already was, so overwhelming were the sensations shooting through her, imprisoned in his powerful hold. But she choked back the words; he was the enemy and she hated him. What sort of man discussed a divorce virtually in the same sentence as mentioning marriage? She wriggled against him and tried to lift her hands to push him away, but to no avail.
‘Don’t bother trying to escape.’ He gave a husky laugh holding her with ease. ‘You want this as much as me, and you can deny it as much as you like but you will never convince me otherwise. I was the man you chose as a teenager to initiate you in the pleasures of sex, and your lovely body remembers me however much you try to forget. And my body remembers you, Willow,’ he confessed softly. ‘Has painfully done so for years.’
Stunned, Willow stared at him and saw the faint flush developing across his high cheekbones. What was he saying? That he remembered her, even missed her? No. That couldn’t be true. She might have had a chance of resisting him if she had not been so confused.
But instead she felt the moist warmth of his tongue trace the delicate whorls of her ear and trail down her throat, where his mouth closed over the madly beating pulse in her neck. ‘No, Theo,’ she choked, and she was stunned again by the incredible hunger that shook her to the depths of her being. Her neck arched helplessly in sensual response to his touch.
‘Yes, say my name.’ His hand at her waist diverted to slip beneath the hem of her slip and glide up over her naked thigh, and she gasped in shock at the intimacy. Then he claimed her mouth with a devastating expertise.
