She flung her head back, green eyes very bright. ‘This is not what it looks like,’ she whispered shakily.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘IT WAS taken by a telephoto lens. The paparazzo must’ve been in a boat,’ Alexei grated between clenched teeth, and then he swept the newspaper off the bed again in an angry gesture of repudiation. ‘What the hell is going on between you and Marios? Is he the father of your baby?’
‘No, he is not. We’re friends, nothing more. All that happened between us was a rather emotional conversation. Damon was telling me why his marriage had ended.’
‘Exchanging sob stories, were you? Getting all touchy-feely?’ Alexei glowered at her unimpressed, his lean dark features hard with angry denunciation. ‘I don’t believe you. Damon was your first love and you’ve always had a thing for him. I can well understand too why you would want to conceal your child’s identity on Speros after Damon chose to reconcile with his estranged wife last year.’
At that crack, Billie turned very pale, for it struck her as terrifying that it could take only one piece of misinformation to provide a foundation for a seemingly convincing case against her. ‘I’ve never been intimate with Damon. He is not the father of my child,’ she intoned afresh, desperate to make Alexei listen to her.
Alexei swore only half under his breath. ‘Na pas sto dialo! Go to hell,’ he told her roughly. ‘I’m leaving. In a couple of days the DNA results will be available and I refuse to see you again until then.’
In consternation, Billie watched him stride towards the door. ‘Where are you going?’
‘London. I’ll see you at Hazlehurst in forty-eight hours,’ he spelt out grimly.
He didn’t even have to pack, Billie acknowledged limply, because Alexei kept capsule wardrobes all over the world at the properties he used the most. He was walking out on her again. After a night that had filled her with a crazy burst of hope for the future, he was leaving and she was devastated by that development.
It was the work of an instant to run to the door and shout furiously down the corridor after him, ‘You’re a total coward, Alexei Drakos!’
She knew that hurling that accusation at a proud Greek male was like waving a red flag in front of a maddened bull and, sure enough, her tall, muscular husband wheeled straight round in his tracks to throw her an outraged look of incredulity from fierce golden eyes.
‘I mean it…every word!’ she flung in provocative addition, only belatedly becoming conscious that she was stark naked, and closing the door hurriedly to seek something to wear.
And true to the arrogant Drakos tradition of fearless confrontation, Alexei powered back down the corridor again and thrust the bedroom door back open so violently that it crashed back against the wall. Halfway into his discarded shirt, Billie faltered. She had never seen him so irate, his eyes blazing above the patrician cheekbones showing prominent and pale beneath his bronzed skin, his lean hands clenched into fists. ‘How dare you accuse me of such behaviour?’
‘Because you’ve been running away ever since I told you the truth about our child. You left the yacht on our wedding night and you’re leaving me now, walking out all over again,’ she condemned bitterly. ‘How does that solve anything? Last night you wouldn’t even talk. You won’t discuss anything with me!’
‘What the hell is there to discuss?’ Alexei raked back at her in a lion’s roar of intimidation that made her tremble, his powerful stance as aggressive as it was dogmatic. ‘You’ve told me nothing but stupid stories that a child could tear apart.’
‘Those were not stupid stories!’
Alexei came several steps closer. ‘You’ve lied and lied and lied again to me,’ he derided. ‘Why do you think I would want to listen to more of the same?’
‘I had to lie…I didn’t know what else to do,’ she shot back at him shrilly. ‘Why does everything have to be about you? What do you think it was like for me when you took up with Calisto and told me you were thinking about marrying her?’
Alexei stretched out his arms and then dropped them again in a volatile gesture of frustration and impatience. ‘I’m not listening to this nonsense again. Nothing you have told me justifies your behaviour. You’ve got nothing left to say. Lies are lies, no matter what the circumstances. I won’t live with them or forgive them.’
White with anger, he studied her standing there in his half-buttoned shirt, her tangle of colourful red hair spread round her shoulders. He dealt her a bitter look of cynicism. ‘We’re over, we’ve got to be. Sizzling sex isn’t enough to keep me with you,’ he delivered with harsh emphasis, and this time when he turned to leave she said nothing and she made no attempt to bring him back.
That evening after Billie had tucked Nicky up for the night in her own home, she found herself engaged in a bitter debate with her mother.
‘Your marriage is already over bar the shouting,’ Lauren told her daughter sourly.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ Billie reasoned. ‘Once Alexei realises that Nicky is his son…’
‘He’s not like his father who was desperate for an heir,’ the older woman pointed out bluntly. ‘You’re so naïve, Billie. Men aren’t driven to be fathers the same way women are driven to be mothers. It’s different for them, so wise up. Alexei has already told you that the marriage is over and in my opinion the discovery that he has a kid isn’t going to change that.’
‘You’re such a pessimist,’ Hilary scolded her sister from the lamp-lit corner where she had been trying to read a book.
‘Billie has to look out for her own interests now,’ Lauren argued forcefully. ‘Alexei consulted his lawyers when he organised that DNA test. Billie should see a good divorce lawyer while she’s in the UK. Hilary, stop looking at me like I just took an axe to Santa Claus! Alexei is a Drakos—let’s face it, her marriage was always going to end in tears. His father only finally settled down because he was getting too old to stray and you can’t hope for that with a guy who’s only thirty-one.’
Billie breathed in deep. In truth she was finding her mother’s ominous predictions more than she could comfortably cope with just at that moment. She offered to make some supper and went out to the kitchen, for she had already learned that the only way to keep a grip on her worries was to physically do something. Idleness while she had nothing but anxious thoughts whirling inside her head had become a torment. Much as she loved Nicky, she missed the buzz of working.
She was taking Nicky to Hazlehurst with her and had already arranged for Anatalya’s daughter, Kasma, to travel with her and help her look after her son. After all, unlike Alexei, Billie already knew the results of the DNA test and she was convinced that she and Alexei would have a lot to talk about. She was praying that Alexei would find himself more interested in being a parent than her sceptical mother had forecast. A child could bring them together again, couldn’t it? Unfortunately she remembered reading somewhere that a child only made matters worse in a failing relationship and she could only hope that Nicky would have a more positive effect on their marriage. Surely Alexei would not divorce her for being the mother of his only child?
The following day while she was engaged in packing for their trip to England, Anatalya brought her a letter, addressed to her as Alexei’s wife but heavily marked private and confidential. Opening the missive, she sank down on the bed to read it after her eyes flew wide on the first shocking sentence, ‘I believe it is possible that I may be your father…’