A Baby on the Greek's Doorstep

Pixie frowned. ‘But I give him most of the money to cover it every month.’

‘Check it out for yourself. Your name’s on the mortgage too,’ Eloise reminded her drily. ‘Stop trusting Jordan to take care of the budget because I suspect he’s been pulling the wool over your eyes as well.’

‘You think he’s dishonest. That’s why you dumped him,’ Pixie finally grasped and that new knowledge made her feel grossly uncomfortable. ‘But if he was that kind of cheating, lying person, why would he have looked after me for so long?’

The brunette rolled her eyes ruefully. ‘Everyone’s a mix of good and bad. But you had better believe that your brother dumped your son on his rich father’s doorstep because he decided that there was something in it for him!’

‘I wish you’d told me what you suspected sooner,’ Pixie admitted heavily, having been given a lot to think about. It was an empty wish, but she found herself wishing that her parents were still alive because she would have turned to them for advice. She felt gutted by the suspicion that Jordan might have been up to no good behind her back and that he could not be trusted with money.

‘Jordan and I split up and bad-mouthing him to his sister afterwards struck me as bitchy and unnecessary because I’ve moved on now.’

After that conversation, it was a struggle for Pixie to concentrate on work and when she was leaving the hospital, with her brain buzzing with conjecture, she was dismayed to see Jordan waiting for her outside the door because she still wasn’t ready to deal with him. At the same time, though, she knew it was necessary.

Her brother gave her a sad-eyed sideways glance. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said awkwardly as he walked by her side. ‘But I didn’t have a choice—’

‘There’s always a choice, Jordan!’ Pixie cut in thinly.

‘No, on this occasion there truly wasn’t,’ Jordan told her, dropping down onto a stone bench that overlooked the busy car park. ‘You ignored all my advice. You refused to go to a solicitor and apply for child support.’

‘I know but—’ Pixie deemed it too early in the conversation to admit that she now accepted she had leant too heavily on him for support.

‘The house is about to be repossessed,’ Jordan told her heavily.

Pixie turned bone white. ‘That’s not possible. There would have been letters.’

‘I’ve been hiding the letters. I hoped that I could stop it happening, but I can’t, and I had to force you to deal with Sarantos some way, so that he could be there to look after you and Alfie. I didn’t want you ending up in some homeless shelter because I’ve been stupid!’

Pixie’s knees finally gave way and she sat down beside him, plunged deep into shock by that blunt confession. ‘But I’ve been giving you money towards the payment every month.’

‘It’s all gone. I’m sorry but we’re going to lose the house,’ Jordan muttered heavily.

As he confirmed Eloise’s misgivings, Pixie was reeling in horror and disbelief at such a betrayal of her trust. ‘But how could that happen?’

Her brother sprang up again, refusing to meet her stricken gaze. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said again and he walked away at speed.

Pixie splurged on another taxi to return to Tor’s town house. She was in a state and her exhaustion wasn’t helping. Worry about her brother’s state of mind and the fear of impending homelessness had overloaded her brain. Only a couple of days ago she had been secure and now all of a sudden, and without warning, her life was falling apart. Once again she craved parental support. Jordan had lied to her and could no longer be trusted. In the aftermath of that acknowledgement, walking into the gracious luxury of Tor’s home gave her a surreal feeling and, more than ever, the sense that she did not belong in such a setting.

She went straight upstairs and found Emma bathing Alfie. That reunion got her very damp, but she insisted on taking over because early mornings had always been her fun time with Alfie, and she treasured those moments when he was fresh for the new day and full of energy and nonsense.

She took him downstairs for breakfast, wincing at the formality of the dining room and the prospect of Alfie’s mealtime messiness, but Mrs James, the housekeeper, did at least have a smile for her as a high chair was brought in—complete, she was amused to see, with a protective mat for it to sit on.

Tor, it seemed, was already long gone from the house, which was a relief for Pixie in the mood she was in.

After she and Alfie had both eaten their fill from an array of breakfast dishes that would not have shamed a top-flight hotel, she handed her son back to Emma and retired to the beautiful room next door to them, smothering a yawn.

Nothing would seem so bad after she had had a decent sleep, she soothed herself as she climbed into the wonderfully comfortable bed and set the alarm on her phone. Perhaps some solution would come to her while she slept, she thought hopefully, striving not to stress about the future but knowing in her gut that she did not want to be dependent on Tor.

She could share Alfie with him, but she wanted any other connection between them to be remote and unemotional and most definitely not physical. The last thing she needed was to get attached to a man still in love with his dead wife, even though she had cheated on him. She hoped she had more sense than that, but a hot, sexy Greek like Tor Sarantos played merry hell with a woman’s common sense. She had made a huge mistake once with Tor, but she had no intention of repeating that mistake, she assured herself firmly.

* * *

The results of the DNA testing had been delivered to Tor at his office, but he resisted the urge to rip open the envelope. On another level, he knew he didn’t really need to open the envelope to know that Alfie was his child. That truth had shone out of Pixie when he’d realised that she had no doubts about who had fathered her child, but, even more potently, Tor had felt the family connection the instant he saw Alfie’s smile and was reminded of his little brother. The preliminary file he received on Pixie and her brother, however, posed more of a problem. The contents bothered Tor and while he also appreciated that those same facts would make Pixie more reliant on him for assistance, Tor didn’t really want to be the bearer of such bad news when his relationship with Alfie’s mother was already strained and difficult. On the other hand, he couldn’t see that he had much of a choice on that score.

He went home at lunchtime, needing to be within reach of the child he believed to be his, before the results confirmed it. Telling a flustered Mrs James, taken aback by his sudden appearance, that he didn’t need lunch, only coffee, he strode into his home office. He tore into the envelope then, and breathed in deep before he looked down at the page in his hand.

Ninety-nine point nine per cent likelihood that he was Alfie’s father. Ironically, the shock wave of confirmation left him light-headed and then galvanised him into heading straight upstairs. He glanced down at his immaculate city suit and silk tie and frowned, striding into his bedroom to change.

He was a father, genuinely a father, for the first time. It shook him how much that meant to him. Of course, the first time around he had taken fatherhood for granted. He hadn’t realised that until the night Katerina and Sofia died.

Katerina had put the little girl into the car against his wishes while informing him that he had no right to object because Sofia wasn’t his daughter, but her lover’s. Rage had burned in Tor’s gut like a bushfire. Never again would he allow a woman to put him in so powerless a position, he’d sworn to himself.

He was a father, and fathers had rights...didn’t they? He was an unmarried father, though. That was a different situation. He needed to talk to his legal team to find out exactly where he stood.

But that wasn’t an immediate priority, he told himself impatiently, heading straight off to see his son.

Frustratingly, however, Alfie was sound asleep, his little flushed face tucked up against a battered rabbit soft toy, his bottom in the air. Tor studied the slumbering child intently, wanting to pick him up, wanting to hold him, knowing he could not. Phone the lawyers, his ESP was urging as the recollection of his own family history returned to haunt him.