The Maid's Best Kept Secret (The Marchetti Dynasty 1)

If it was true.

One minute he’d had his hands full of Maggie, feverish with lust, her curves even more delicious than he remembered, and the next he’d been looking at a baby in her arms.

He was back outside the bedroom door now. He could hear Maggie’s voice, indistinct, making crooning noises.

Nikos looked around. Nothing but an empty corridor and the woman behind this door with a baby who might or might not be his. And what had she said? Something about ‘you know you are’? That made no sense to him at all.

Nikos looked at the end of the corridor, the stairs leading back downstairs. He heard the muted sounds of the party outside—soft jazz playing, laughter, clinking glasses. The soundtrack to so much of his life up till now. Strangely, though, he didn’t feel an urge to escape back to it. He wanted to stay right here and quiz Maggie until what she’d said made sense to him.

Minutes passed and Nikos paced up and down. He felt pressure on his chest. As if someone was sitting on it. Constricting him. He went to loosen his tie but it was already loose.

How long did it take to feed a baby?

When his frustration was about to boil over, Nikos stood outside the door, hand raised, ready to knock. Suddenly it opened and Maggie stood there. Pale. No baby. He looked behind her and could see the shape of the baby in the cot. She’d dimmed the lighting.

She stood back. ‘You’d better come in.’

Maggie wished she felt calmer after the shock of seeing Nikos again...kissing him, him seeing the baby...but she didn’t. She still felt jittery. It had taken her ages to settle Daniel, because he’d obviously sensed her tension.

Nikos walked in. He looked grim. Maggie directed him to another door which led into a small sitting room. She closed the adjoining door to the bedroom and watched as Nikos prowled around the room like a magnificent caged animal. A panther.

He stopped at the bookshelves, his back to her, hair curling over the back of his jacket. He said, ‘You took your books with you.’

She hadn’t expected him to notice. Her gut clenched as she remembered that moment last year. ‘Yes. They come everywhere with me.’

He turned around. ‘Did you leave Kildare House because you were pregnant?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘I told you—it was never a long-term plan.’

Nikos gritted his jaw, making it pop. ‘How did you end up here, then?’

She swallowed. ‘I got to know Nessa Barbier from living in the area. When she heard I was leaving Kildare House she offered me a job here to tide me over...and shortly after I arrived I found out about...about the baby. She insisted I stay. They have a créche here, for the children of their staff. Nessa herself has two children. I worked in the kitchen under the head chef until a few weeks before I gave birth. Then she offered me a deal so I could keep doing some part-time work after the baby was born—they have staff here to mind him. Like this evening...’

Amidst the tension Maggie felt emotional, thinking of how supportive both Nessa and her husband had been. Unlike the man in front of her, who had never contacted her even though—

‘You’re saying the baby is mine?’

‘His name is Daniel, and, yes, he’s yours.’ The insulting assumption that he might be another man’s—that she would have so quickly jumped into bed with another man—hit Maggie anew.

‘I never planned on having children.’ Nikos said.

Why? Maggie pushed the question aside for now. ‘Well, you do have a child.’

‘If you’re so sure he’s my son then why didn’t you tell me before now? The moment you fell pregnant?’

The affront made Maggie’s spine rigid. She had agonised over whether or not to tell him—especially in light of her experiences with her own father—but ultimately she’d decided that she didn’t have the right not to tell him, even if that came with the risk of not knowing how he would respond.

‘I went to your offices in London—I even checked to see if you’d be there. You didn’t leave me a personal number to contact you.’

Nikos frowned. ‘I didn’t see you.’

‘No,’ Maggie said, feeling bitter and humiliated all over again. ‘Because I didn’t get further than your secretary on the top floor.’

‘When was this?’

‘When I was about six months pregnant. Last February.’

Nikos looked as if he was trying to figure something out. ‘What was the secretary’s name?’