The Sarantos Secret Baby

He analyzed her affront for a long moment. Then a slight smile tugged at his lips. “Two more things corrected, then. On my side and yours. So you had him early. Why?”

She cocked her head, trying to even out her breathing, which kept going haywire at the unexpected reactions he continued hitting her with. “Why do women have premature babies?”

“I’m sure each does for a reason. What was yours?”

“I had a condition called placenta previa.” His gaze sharpened, inviting her to elaborate. “The placenta was too low and started bleeding. A week later, I went into premature labor.”

“Was it painful, the…condition? The labor?”

“The condition, no, just painless bleeding. The labor was only bad in the last couple hours. Turned out I was in labor all day and dismissed the contractions, since it was too early.”

His gaze filled with too many things to decipher.

“I wish I could have been there.” Her heart lurched. Another silence stretched. Then that smile again softened the storms of his eyes. “But I’m here now.”

That made her go mute, then babble. The one thing that had any context was when she offered him breakfast. He only dealt her another surprise, showing her that he was as ingenious in the kitchen as he was in the boardroom and bedroom.

After they’d taken their trays back to the sitting room and he set about wiping his plate clean, he looked at her. “So how do you usually spend your weekends?”

She swallowed a mouthful of the delicious smoked salmon and vegetable crepe he’d made. “How do you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t have weekends.”

“Figures. But then neither did I, before Alex.”

“Did you work all through your pregnancy?”

“Yes.”

That made him raise his eyes from his plate. “You didn’t eat enough. You are thinner than you used to be.”

“You don’t approve?”

His eyes slid down her body, leaving her in no doubt how much he did approve and gasping with a sudden flare of the arousal he always had simmering inside her before he said, “Only that you’re not taking as good care of yourself as you should.”

She tore her gaze away from his, busied herself with swallowing without choking on the cocktail of explosive reactions he incited inside her. “I had a lot on my mind, and since I had Alex, far more to worry about and do.”

“What do you worry about?” His question was deceptively casual, but she felt the intensity of interest vibrating in it.

“Everything. That’s what being a mother is all about, it seems.”

“Tell me.”

His simple yet imperative demand made her realize how acutely she’d wanted to share these details. But there’d been no one to share them with. Now he was here. And he wanted, seemed to even need, to share. Floodgates opened inside her.

“I constantly worry about things that never crossed my mind before, or things I never thought were worrisome in the least. I invent worries, and each can become an obsession. When I left Alex to go back to work, I’d work myself up with imaginary scenarios, and if Eleni didn’t pick up after the first two rings, I was tearing down to my car. The first time she didn’t answer I drove like a maniac out of the building, left my car when I got caught in a traffic jam and ran here.”

He was sitting at the edge of her plush sofa by now. “Why didn’t she answer?”

“She was giving Alex a bath and he makes quite a racket. She didn’t think to check her phone afterward for missed calls. Since the…episode, she says she keeps her phone with her even if she’s in the shower in her own home.”

His compressed lips twitched. “I would have done something drastic, too.”

Conversation flowed after that. About every momentous and inconsequential thing that had happened once she’d discovered her pregnancy. Aristedes seemed insatiable in his need to know everything. And when there were silences, they were not tense and uncomfortable. They were companionable, content, communicative.

She couldn’t credit it. She’d never expected rapport to flow between them. But it did. And that was the part between them. What passed between Alex and Aristedes shook her even more. Alex was beside himself with delight to have him around. While Aristedes stunned her with his eagerness for Alex, with his handling of him with such instinctive insight and sensitivity, such patience, firmness and affection.

The day flowed. They puttered around the house doing whatever she and Alex did always alone, together. Aristedes brought new dimensions to their activities, turned playing with Alex, giving him a bath, dressing him, feeding him, putting him down for his nap into far more fun, not to mention more efficient endeavors.

She let him treat her to a leisurely and delicious lunch like he had breakfast, then after Alex woke up from his afternoon nap ravenous again, they fed him and she served tea.

Two hours before what she’d told Aristedes was Alex’s bedtime, he suddenly stood up, said he had to go do something. Alex made a tearful, vocal protest when he realized Aristedes was leaving, but Aristedes soothed him, promising he’d be right back. Alex seemed to understand, to believe him, and got reengaged in crawling around, exploring the condo under her supervision.

After the first half hour passed, she began to think Aristedes wouldn’t return.

Maybe he’d put up with as much mundane normality as he could stomach for this lifetime, had decided he’d forgo being anything to either her or Alex, would call to tell her some business emergency had cropped up or something.

After an hour passed, she was certain he wouldn’t come back.

Then her doorbell rang.

She flew, hating herself for her uncontrollable eagerness, her dread of opening the door to find someone else there.

Her legs almost buckled when she found it was Aristedes.

This time he had flowers and two gift-wrapped boxes with him.

With an intense glance, he handed her the flowers. She took them, her mind spinning, watched him walk up to Alex, who met him with even more enthusiasm than the first time.

Aristedes went down on his haunches beside him and unwrapped the boxes, all the while explaining what he’d gotten him. One box contained an animated activity book. The second had a toy made of colorful, pliable plastic loops.

As Alex began pawing the activity book in captive fascination, Aristedes looked up at her, gesturing at the other toy. “These can be refrigerated for a soothing teether.”

He’d noticed. That Alex was chewing on everything. This was new, since his first teeth had come out with no discomfort. She’d just noticed it herself, had made a note to buy him some teethers. But Aristedes had noticed he had these missing from his toys. And judged what else he’d be interested in that he didn’t have.