She had been too ashamed of her behaviour at having slept with another woman’s husband to allow herself to give way to further temptation. Her sin had been unintentional and born out of ignorance, but the guilt of that mistake still sat very heavily on her conscience. Indeed, that wanton fling with Eros had taught her to police her every thought. She had learned not to rush into judgement of others for their mistakes. She had learned that she could be as weak and imperfect as the most foolish of women when she fell in love, all tough lessons she could’ve done without.
She didn’t properly breathe again until Eros had left, leaving her at the mercy of insecurity and stress. Eros had always had the ability to take her by surprise and slash through her calm controlled front with ease, unearthing the much more vulnerable woman she was underneath. That acknowledgement plunged her into the steamy memory of their first kiss.
Eros had been abroad for a couple of weeks and he had walked into the kitchen to greet her, insisting that she join him for a glass of wine again, a familiarity that her sane mind had already been questioning. There was such a thing as getting too friendly and informal with an employer, she had reasoned unhappily, and she had been on the brink of pulling back and making polite excuses. And then Eros had stalked into the kitchen, clearly looking for her, all bristling energy and impatience, and he had smiled at her, that breathtakingly warm smile that literally made her heart beat so fast she felt breathless.
Without further ado, he had snatched her up off her sensible feet as if she were a doll while she was still muttering naively about the special dessert she had prepared. His mouth had plunged down on hers, full of a hot demanding hunger that had set her treacherous body alight. She’d had butterflies in her tummy and had been in a daze with her entire being vibrating from that explosively sensual assault as he had slowly lowered her to the tiles again, her body brushing down against every lean, powerful inch of his. She had been viscerally aware of the hard thrust of desire that not even the most exquisitely tailored suit could conceal.
‘I want you so much,’ Eros had said simply. ‘I missed you. I’ve never missed a woman like this before.’
And it had been the very simplicity of that admission that had seduced her because she had missed him too, missed those quiet, private little moments of peace and tranquillity in his company. Instead of stepping back, instead of exercising good judgement, she had joined him for the wine, even shared that wretched dessert with him, laughing when he’d teased her about her professional pride in her creations. She could’ve told him then that nothing had inspired her with greater pride than his evident interest in her ordinary self. When it was late, when it was past time for her to be retiring for the evening she had reluctantly stood up, and he had stood up as well and reached for her.
‘Stay with me tonight,’ he had urged, and he had kissed her again.
It was the first time she had gone upstairs in that house and she had gone into his palatial bedroom with him, trembling with nerves, questioning her decision every step of the way even while her body had burned with eagerness and wanton impatience to finally know what other women knew. The die had been cast at that moment. She had been a pushover, falling in love and already trustingly investing Eros with far more importance in her life than he’d been investing in her.
Looking back, she believed that Eros had merely been taking advantage of an available woman. It was even possible that the prospect of taking her virginity had turned him on because he had known she was inexperienced, had guessed, reassuring her even as she had anxiously admitted it. Nothing could have prepared her for the passionate excitement that had followed or the deep sense of closeness she’d felt afterwards with him. From that night on, she had been at the mercy of her emotions and common sense hadn’t got a look-in.
* * *
Her sisters returned from work, eager to hear what had happened between her and Eros. Zoe took an optimistic view, deeming it healthy that Teddy’s father and her sister were talking and a positive sign that Eros should be so interested in immediately connecting with his son.
‘But what is his end game?’ Vivi probed with innate suspicion.
‘Presumably what he says...getting to know Teddy, spending time with him,’ Winnie pointed out awkwardly as she darted about her bedroom, getting ready for work. ‘What else can he get out of this?’
‘He strikes me as the sort of guy who always puts himself first,’ Vivi declared with a curled lip. ‘What’s in it for him? There must be more than what we know. All of this is very coincidental. Does he know that Stam Fotakis is our grandfather?’
‘No, it was never discussed. I’ll mention it tomorrow, see how he reacts,’ Winnie said ruefully. ‘How am I going to hand Teddy over to him and some strange nanny tomorrow?’
‘With kid gloves and a brave smile,’ Zoe told her wryly. ‘Let’s hope the nanny is experienced.’
* * *
‘Mama... Mama!’ Teddy wailed pathetically.
That and the shouted ‘Not baby!’ when they tried to persuade him into his buggy were virtually the only words Eros had heard from his son. Oh, and there was the word no, which Teddy was even more partial to employing. He had neither volume control nor a need for privacy when he aired his innermost feelings. Teddy didn’t care how many people were around when he flung himself down on the path and screamed blue murder for his mother. And he didn’t like the nanny, physically fighting her if she tried to lift him, refusing to be distracted when she tried to tempt him out of the scenes he made.
But the advantage of Teddy distrusting the unfortunate nanny was that he clung to his slightly more familiar father as if his life depended on it. More positively, Teddy had loved the monkey enclosure at the zoo, he loved chocolate and he loved playgrounds. He was a smart little boy, energetic but explosive too. He was also so attached to his mother that he was forcing his father to rethink his tentative plans to challenge, should it prove possible, his mother’s full-time custody.
But now Eros could see that there was no way Teddy would be happy, even on a part-time basis, to be deprived of Winnie. Shared custody definitely wasn’t the path to take. Teddy needed Winnie as he needed air to breathe. Winnie was patently the very centre of Teddy’s little world and the bedrock of his security and Eros knew that he would never do anything to hurt or harm his son. When he had even briefly considered his chances of parting mother from child, had he too been guilty of vengeful thinking? Eros asked himself grimly as they headed back early from their day out to reunite Teddy with Winnie. Eros knew that he now had to change his attitude and, for the sake of his son, consider a solution he had never dreamt he would be required to contemplate.
Marriage. Bearing in mind his past experience, just the thought of marriage brought Eros out in a cold sweat. He didn’t want to get married again. In fact, he had promised himself that he would never marry again, reasoning that that was a rational decision when he had neither a family to please nor any desire to reproduce. He hadn’t cared what happened to his business empire after he was gone, had never been vain enough to hope that he might merit a footnote in history. And then he had found out about Teddy and the whole picture of his life, his expectations and goals, had changed radically overnight.
‘You’ll be with Mama soon,’ Eros soothed Teddy as his son let loose a choked sob that warned another distressed outburst was threatening.
‘He’s very attached to her,’ the nanny commented.
‘Too young to be separated from her,’ Eros agreed, wishing he had listened to Winnie instead of arrogantly assuming that she would selfishly do everything she could to come between him and his son.
‘With practice at socialising he would improve. A play group and the company of other children would be good for him,’ the nanny opined.
‘We’ll see.’
Eros was forcing himself to think over Stam Fotakis’s outrageous proposition from a different angle. He could
live without owning the island of Trilis, however he could not live without his son being a regular part of his life. At the same time, if he was to be forced to marry Winnie anyway to gain consistent access to Teddy, why shouldn’t he reclaim Trilis as part of the deal?
Even so, he refused to marry Winnie on the kind of terms that her grandfather had suggested, as a mere prelude to another divorce. If he married her, it would have to be a real marriage and both his wife and his child would naturally live with him. How would Winnie feel about that option?
Did that matter? Did he even care? Eros liked to win and he had no intention of meekly meeting the old man’s unreasonable demands and surrendering his son. By all accounts, Stam Fotakis had been a pretty poor father to his own two sons and Eros did not want him taking charge of Teddy. If there was something in the marriage for Eros, however, sufficient to compensate him for the loss of his freedom, now that was a different matter, he mused thoughtfully. Teddy and Winnie, not to mention the family island in the package, now that was a deal worthy of consideration by any hot-blooded man. He wondered, though, just how much pressure he would have to put on Winnie to achieve that package and then shelved the thought, broodingly reminding himself that she deserved whatever she got for denying him his son...