But at that, sudden rage filled her, chasing away the shadows of fear.
“I’m a liar?” she said incredulously.
His lip curled scornfully. “You hid your pregnancy and ran away like a thief—”
Holly was past listening as nearly a year of grief and rage exploded from her heart.
“You’re the liar, Stavros. When you wanted me in your bed, you promised the sun and the moon! You asked me to marry you!” Her body shook with pain and anger. “But as soon as you were done, you couldn’t throw me away fast enough on Christmas morning!”
He started to speak, then abruptly cut himself off. He looked away, his jaw clenching. He said in a low voice, “I had a good reason.”
“Yeah, right!” Holly, who’d never lost her temper in her life, truly lost it now. “You’d had your fun and you were done. You didn’t care what it did to me. You’re selfish to the bone. Why would I ever let a man like you near my son?”
“Son?” He slowly turned to her. Then his eyes narrowed. “I want to meet him.”
“No.”
“I’m his father.”
“Father?” She lifted her chin incredulously. “You’re a sperm donor, nothing more. I don’t want anything to do with you. We’re better off without you.” She jabbed her finger toward the door. “Now get out!”
Stavros clawed his hands through his dark, tousled hair. His black eyes looked weary, almost bleak. “You don’t understand. I wasn’t myself last year—”
“You were exactly yourself,” she interrupted coldly. “The lying, coldhearted bastard everyone else claimed you were.” Holly was surprised he’d even bother trying to make excuses. It didn’t seem like his style. But it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let herself get suckered into caring about him ever again. She shook her head. “You’re selfish and cruel. Just like Oliver said—Minos men only care about themselves!”
Abruptly, Stavros turned to face her.
“I was dying, Holly,” he said flatly. “That’s why I sent you away on Christmas morning. I thought I was dying.” He narrowed his eyes. “And now I want to see my son.”
* * *
Stavros wasn’t prepared for the shock he’d felt, seeing her in the doorway of the Alpine chalet.
He was even less prepared for the shock of learning that the rumor was true, and he was a father.
A father. And the baby had to be around two months old. All those months of the pregnancy, and he hadn’t known. He felt dizzy with the revelation.
Dizzy, and angry. But not just at Holly.
So much had happened over the last year. He’d been unusually emotional last Christmas, convinced he’d been about to die. That must have been why he’d acted so foolishly, seducing her with such wild longing, proposing marriage, even begging her to have his child.
It embarrassed him now to remember it. All that rank sentimentality, the desperation he’d felt for love and family and home.
Thank God, he’d recovered from that, along with the cancer. Holly Marlowe was nothing to him now.
Or so he’d thought. But now they had a child together. That meant they’d be linked forever, even after death.
And looking at Holly now, Stavros felt the same punch in the gut that he remembered from last Christmas. If anything, she looked more beautiful, more impossibly desirable.
Her curly red hair tumbled over her shoulders of her soft green tunic, and the angry pant of her breath showed off breasts grown fuller and even more womanly than he remembered. Tight leggings revealed the delicious shape of her hips and backside. Her emerald eyes sparkled with fury as they narrowed in disbelief.
“Dying?” she said incredulously.
“It’s true. Last Christmas I thought I only had months to live.”
He waited for her to react, but her face was stony.
“Didn’t you hear me?” he demanded. She shrugged.