His hand dropped away. She wanted to shiver, as if she’d just been shut out in the cold, and hated herself for being this vulnerable to him.
‘I accept that you cannot leave Suzanna yet,’ he continued while she struggled with her foolish emotions, ‘so I have arranged with Carol and Leon for you to stay here for now.’
At least he wasn’t making her return to Greece with him, Mia noted with relief, although remaining under this roof with his brother so clearly resenting her presence didn’t exactly fill her with joy. Still, she’d lived with worse, she told herself bracingly. And she could spend most of her time with Suzanna—keep herself as scarce around here as possible.
‘The other problem is Suzanna,’ he went on, as if his own train of thought was following the same lines as her own. ‘She is due to be discharged from hospital in a couple of days.’
‘I’ll go with her to my father’s house,’ Mia offered instantly. ‘It seems the best thing all round. I won’t be putting anyone here out.’
Alex was already shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not have you exposed to your father in your condition so I have done a deal with him.’
Mia stiffened instantly. ‘You didn’t tell him you knew the truth about her, did you?’ she asked tensely.
‘Of course not!’ he snapped. ‘What do you take me for—a monster? You think I was blind to the way that child shrivelled up in his presence—the way you did the same thing yourself? You think I enjoy watching any child react to an adult like that?’
Mia lowered her lashes and said nothing—after all, it wasn’t that long ago that he’d enjoyed seeing her cringe from him.
The air grew thick, laden with anger, then he sighed heavily. ‘You cannot bring yourself to trust me even a small amount, can you?’ he muttered. ‘So, what do you suspect I am about to say to you now? That I have sold you into purdah for the duration of your pregnancy?’
‘Why not?’ she shot back. ‘I was in purdah before we came to London. Why not put me back there again?’
‘I have offered to take Suzanna off your father’s hands for the next three weeks until she returns to her school,’ he cut in tightly. ‘Your father has agreed, so long as you both reside at this house and Suzanna is not taken out of the country!’
‘He’s agreed to that?’ Mia couldn’t believe it.
‘He almost bit my damned hand off!’ Alex rasped in disgust. ‘Apparently, his housekeeper is about to take her annual vacation, which meant him having to hunt around for someone who could temporarily take charge of the child. So you being here fitted in very well with his own situation!’
‘Oh,’ she said, disconcerted by the amount of thought he had put into all of this. ‘Thank you,’ she mumbled belatedly.
‘That is not all,’ he continued, all that softness she had glimpsed in him a moment ago well and truly gone. ‘I have my own provisos to add to your father’s. The main one is that you promise me you will come back to Greece the day you take Suzanna back to school. The reason I demand this is because I will not be able to get back to London to collect you myself so I am going to have to take your word for it that you will come back to me.’
‘I’ll come back,’ she promised, frowning because she had never so much as considered doing anything else. They had made a deal, one where she had agreed to give birth to his son on Greek soil. ‘I will drive Suzanna back to school, then catch the next scheduled flight to—’
‘My plane will be waiting for you at an airfield close to Suzanna’s school,’ he interrupted. ‘And you will not drive yourself anywhere while you are here,’ he went on grimly. ‘One of my own drivers will be left at your disposal for the rest of your stay here.’
‘But I have a car!’ she protested. ‘It’s sitting, doing nothing, at my father’s house! It would be nice to drive myself again while I’m here in London!’
‘Not while you keep fainting,’ he said.
‘I do not keep fainting!’ She hotly denied that.
‘But those dizzy spells affect you too readily for you to be safe behind the wheel of a car. I saw the way you barely managed to hold yourself upright in front of your father at lunchtime,’ he added tightly when she opened her mouth to protest yet again. ‘So you agree to my terms or I take you back to Greece with me now. The choice is yours.’
He was, after all, only protecting his investment! ‘Yes, oh, master,’ she said sarcastically.
He had been about to stand up when she’d said that, but now he stilled and Mia felt a frisson of warning shoot down her spine as he turned those dark eyes on her—she recognised the look, recognised it only too well.
‘You know …’ he said, super-light, super-soft, ‘you are in real danger of baiting me once too often, agape mou. And, despite the delicacy of your condition or the fragility of that protective shell you like to hide behind, I am going to retaliate,’ he warned her. ‘And you’re not going to like it because I know your secret.’
‘I d-don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said warily.
‘No?’ he said quizzically—and his dark face was suddenly very close to her face. Her eyelashes began to quiver, and her fingers clutched nervously at the sheet. ‘Well, let us see, shall we?’ he suggested silkily, and his mouth covered her trembling one.
It was like being tossed into a burning furnace—she caught fire that quickly. Her mind caught fire, as well as her body, and she wasn’t even aware of how spectacularly she had done it until he was having to use force to prise her clinging fingers from his nape before he could separate his mouth from her greedily clinging one.
‘Now that …’ he drawled, touching a punctuating fingertip to the pulsing fullness of her lips, ‘is your secret. You may prefer to hate me, but you cannot damned well resist me!’
His words made her want to hit out at him, but he caught the hand before it landed its blow and arrogantly pressed his warm lips to her palm.