A Baby on the Greek's Doorstep

With a knock on the door the woman who appeared to be the housekeeper appeared and announced that Tor had a visitor downstairs.

‘I’ll send him up when he’s done with me. It’ll be the DNA testing I requested.’

‘My goodness, how did you get it organised this quickly?’ Pixie exclaimed in surprise.

‘To put it simply...money talks,’ Tor replied drily. ‘But I’m afraid we’ll still have to wait twenty-four hours for the results.’

‘Well, I’m not going to be in suspense,’ Pixie pointed out.

‘You haven’t the slightest doubt?’

Pixie reddened and then lifted her head high, her crystal-blue eyes awash with censure.

‘No. You were my first and only, so there isn’t the smallest chance that anyone else could have fathered Alfie.’

His lean, darkly handsome features tightened as though she had struck him, and she might as well have done, Tor acknowledged. He paused at the door and glanced back at her. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-two,’ Pixie answered. ‘You asked me the same question the night we met. It’s infuriating. It’s because I’m small and people always assume I’m younger than I am.’

Tor went downstairs to have the swab done for the DNA testing with an inescapable sense of guilt. If that little boy was his child, he had hit on a twenty-one-year-old virgin, left her to struggle through her pregnancy alone, denied all knowledge of her when she’d approached him for support and generally treated her in the most unforgivable manner. The idea that he could have behaved like that shattered him and left him reeling with shock because the whole nightmare situation was making him appreciate that he hadn’t been living in the real world for over six years.

He had been living in the past, seeing the world and the people around him through toxic lenses, believing that he was standing tall and strong in the face of adversity when in fact he was continually backing away from the wounding truth that his wife and his half-brother had betrayed him. He hadn’t come to terms with it, hadn’t dealt with it, hadn’t put it behind him the way he should have done.

And in reacting in that inflexible way, it seemed he might have caused one hell of a lot of damage to an innocent bystander. He breathed in deep and slow as he made those deductions and hoped that the child turned out not to be his, because at that moment the alternative was just too much for him to contemplate.

The DNA test was carried out in minutes and Pixie was left alone with her son. After some energetic play, Alfie went down in the travel cot for a nap. She had put her phone on mute because Jordan had called her repeatedly and she wasn’t in the mood to talk to him and didn’t know what she would say when she did. He had destroyed her trust in him but to a certain extent she understood his frustration with her.

She had leant on her brother when she should’ve been seeking the support of Alfie’s father because her pride had got in the way and that stubborn pride of hers hadn’t done her any favours.

For months, Jordan had been forced to stay home most evenings while she was at work, a considerable sacrifice for a young, single man. Worse still, he was unable to look for other employment because only casual barista work allowed him to choose his hours and mind Alfie for his sister. Her decision to go ahead and have her child had adversely affected Jordan’s life. It was pointless to say that she had never meant to do that when she had still gone ahead and done what she wanted to do, which was to give birth to a child without a partner and depend on her brother’s help.

If she could have gone back and changed things she knew she would have done it all differently, she conceded heavily. She had taxed her brother’s patience for too long, forcing him to act in an effort to make her confront Tor. Yes, dumping Alfie on Tor’s doorstep had been absolutely the wrong way to go about achieving that, but had she gone to a solicitor to claim child support from Tor, Jordan might have been released from the responsibility of having to help her look after her child months ago.

‘Mr Sarantos would like you to come downstairs for a meal,’ Emma told her, sliding into the room on quiet feet. ‘I’ll keep an eye on Alfie.’

Pixie checked the time and suppressed a sigh. Soon she would need to get home to get ready for work. As she came down into the hall the housekeeper was waiting to show her into a formal dining room, where a polished table set with silver cutlery and crystal wine glasses awaited her. Tor strolled forward, all lithe contained power, vibrant energy radiating from his dark golden eyes.

‘I assumed you’d be hungry.’

‘I’ve haven’t got much time before we have to leave,’ Pixie responded uncomfortably.

‘I still want to know what happened that night between us,’ Tor admitted, disconcerting her.

‘But it’s not important now,’ Pixie reasoned stiffly.

‘If you’re telling me the truth and that night led to the conception of my son, it’s very important,’ Tor contradicted as a man in a short white jacket entered and proceeded to pour the wine, mercifully silencing him on that subject.

‘Not for me, thank you,’ Pixie said, refusing the wine while watching the man leave again with wide eyes. ‘You are surrounded by staff here.’

‘I have to concentrate on work. Domestic staff take the irritating small stuff out of my day. How do you feel about leaving Alfie here in Emma’s care tonight?’

Pixie paled. ‘I’d prefer to take him home.’

‘Which would mean your brother taking charge of him again. Give your brother a night off,’ Tor urged.

Her slight shoulders stiffened. She had to talk to Jordan before she could feel that she could trust him again with her child. ‘If I didn’t have to go to work, I wouldn’t agree,’ she muttered ruefully. ‘But just one night, and I’ll have to go home and get Alfie’s things before.’

‘Anything the baby needs can be bought.’

‘Bunny, his toy rabbit, can’t be, and he won’t go down for the night without it. Babies like familiar things around them. It makes them feel secure.’ Pixie sighed. ‘I also need to feed my cat and if Alfie stays, when am I supposed to get him back tomorrow?’

‘I’m expecting you to return here in the morning and stay. A room beside his will be prepared for your use. It would also mean that you’ll be here when the DNA results become available.’

He already had her movements and Alfie’s all worked out on his schedule, but letting him interfere in their lives to that extent disturbed Pixie. On the other hand, Tor contacting the authorities to share his concern about Alfie’s safety in her brother’s custody would cause a firestorm, which would be a great deal worse, she conceded wryly. In truth, with that ‘concerned citizen’ threat of his, Tor Sarantos had trapped her between a rock and a hard place and deprived her of choice.

‘That night...’ Tor said again, shimmering dark golden eyes locking to her and making it hard for her to find her voice.

And Pixie gave way but stuck to the bare bones, telling him about their meeting in the kitchen, the cheese toasted sandwich she had given him and the accidental collision he had had with the cupboard door. While she talked, a deliciously cooked meal was served, and she began to eat.

‘Yes... I had a bruise above my eye,’ Tor commented with a frown. ‘I wondered if I’d fallen or got into some sort of altercation.’

‘The taxi didn’t arrive and that was my fault too,’ Pixie explained in a rush. ‘I was only staying there for two weeks and when you asked me for the house number I got it wrong. I only realised that a couple of days afterwards.’

‘These are dry facts,’ Tor remarked, cradling his wine glass elegantly in one lean brown hand as he lounged back in his chair like a king surveying a recalcitrant subject. ‘You’ve stripped everything personal out of this account. Nothing you have yet shared explains how we ended up in bed together.’

‘I should think your imagination could fill in that particular blank,’ Pixie dared.