A Baby on the Greek's Doorstep

His elder brother, Sevastiano, had grown up outside Tor’s family circle because his Italian mother, Francesca, had changed her mind about marrying Tor’s father to marry another man instead. Tor’s father, Hallas, had moved heaven and earth to try to gain access to the child he had known Francesca was already carrying, but he had failed because a child born within marriage was deemed to be the husband’s child and DNA testing had been in its infancy back then. Without evidence that there was a blood tie, the law and an antagonistic stepfather had excluded Hallas from his son’s life. That sobering story in mind, Tor phoned his lawyers and, from them, he learned facts that startled him. In the UK, an unmarried father had virtually no rights. He had no right to either custody or even visitation with his child without the mother’s consent.

* * *

Pixie was emerging from the en suite bathroom wrapped in a capacious towel when a knock sounded on the bedroom door. She had slept like a log but the instant she wakened her mind began seething with anxiety again. If the house was to be repossessed, where was she going to live? How was she going to manage to work without Jordan to rely on for childcare? Checking the towel was secure, she opened the door a crack.

‘It’s Tor...can we talk?’

‘Right now?’ Pixie muttered doubtfully, stepping back a few feet without actually meaning him to take that retreat as an invitation.

Tor strode in without skipping a beat. ‘Give me five minutes,’ he urged.

His gorgeous black-lashed dark eyes locked to her, golden as heated honey, and she froze, scanning his appearance in faded jeans and a black top with almost hungry eagerness. He looked so good in denim he stole her breath from her lungs, the jeans showcasing lean hips and long powerful thighs. She dredged her attention from him again with pink spattering her cheeks and said uneasily, ‘I need to get dressed.’

‘You’re pretty much covered from head to toe,’ he pointed out gently.

It was true. The large towel stretched from above her breasts to her feet and she sank down on the side of the bed and endeavoured to relax and behave less awkwardly around him.

‘I got the DNA results,’ he volunteered. ‘And as you said, Alfie’s my son.’

‘So?’ Pixie prompted.

‘We have a lot to talk about.’

‘I suppose we have...that is if you’re planning to play an active part in his life,’ Pixie responded.

‘So far I may not have made much of a showing in the father stakes, but I plan to change that,’ Tor swore with impressive resolve.

‘I believe that would benefit Alfie,’ Pixie commented quietly.

‘I hope that it will benefit both of you,’ Tor countered with assurance, his attention welded to her because she was so tiny and dainty in the towel, her curls damp from the shower, bare pink toes peeping out from beneath it. Impossibly pretty, incredibly cute and sexy. All of a sudden, this tiny blonde was becoming the most fascinating woman he had come across in years. It was because she was Alfie’s mother, he reasoned with himself, nothing at all to do with the fact that he wanted to rip the towel off her and spread her across the bed. That was just lust, normal, natural lust. It didn’t relate to anything more complex.

Colouring at the tenor of his appraisal, Pixie shifted uneasily. ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean...obviously we can learn to be civil to each other,’ she murmured. ‘It’s probably a blessing that we were never in an actual relationship. We’ve got none of the baggage that can go with that scenario. That’s a healthy start.’

Tor didn’t agree at all. He didn’t want to be reminded that they had never been in a relationship. Nor did he want to be held at arm’s length like a stranger.

‘I’d like to have my name put on Alfie’s birth certificate, but I understand you have to fill in forms and go to court to achieve that.’

‘Then you already know more than I do,’ Pixie admitted, stiffening a little at that reference to going to court, nervous of that legal step without even knowing why. ‘I only know that when I registered his birth I couldn’t put your name on the certificate without you being there and agreeing to it.’

‘We’ll look into it.’

‘Look, can I get dressed now?’ Pixie pressed. ‘I’ll come downstairs straight away.’

Tor departed, thinking about the contents of that file and the brother she semi-idolised for his supposed sacrifice in becoming her guardian. What he had to tell her would hurt, but he could not conceal the truth from her when her safety and his son’s could be at risk.

Pixie got dressed, pulling on ankle boots, a flouncy skirt and a long loose sweater. She was off work for a few days and she liked to make the most of her downtime, usually commencing her break with a trip to the park with Alfie and a fancy coffee somewhere. But she didn’t have the money to cover fancy coffees any longer, she reminded herself, feeling guilty about the taxis she had employed in recent days. Now she had to carefully conserve what money she had because she had to be prepared to find somewhere else to live. And there and then, the whole towering pack of cards on which her life and security were built began to topple, she acknowledged with a sinking in the pit of her stomach. Her salary was good, but it wouldn’t stretch to cover both rent and childcare.

Tor awaited her in the opulent drawing room, which had oil paintings on the walls and sumptuous contemporary seating. A tray sat on the tiered coffee table. ‘We’ll serve ourselves,’ he told the housekeeper smoothly.

Tor scanned the outfit Pixie wore, which was eclectic to say the very least, his gaze lingering on her slender, shapely legs and then whipping up to her flushed face beneath the curls she had haphazardly caught up in a knot on top of her head, the hairstyle accentuating her brilliant blue eyes. Natural, artless, everything he had never looked for in a woman, everything he had never guessed he would find appealing.

Pixie dished out the coffee, remembering that he took his black and sweet and handing it to him. She sank down into the depths of a capacious sofa, one knee neatly hooked over the other, her legs slanted to one side while tension thrummed through her, making her small body rigid while she wondered what he wanted to say and what demands he might try to make of her. His name on the birth certificate? She saw no reason to object to that.

‘As soon as I realised that you were saying that I was the father of your child yesterday I asked my head of security to have your background investigated—’

‘Investigated?’ Pixie repeated, cutting in, her dismay unhidden.

‘I’m sorry if that annoys you, but I needed to know more about you. It’s standard in my life to take that sort of precaution,’ Tor proffered unapologetically.

Pixie forced an uneasy little smile. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘No, but unfortunately your brother did,’ Tor revealed ruefully.

‘If you’re about to tell me that the house is about to be repossessed because of Jordan’s debts, I already know. He came to see me after I finished work at the hospital today. It was a major shock because I wasn’t aware that there was even a problem. He had hidden that from me.’

‘His web of deception goes much deeper than that, I’m afraid,’ Tor told her reluctantly.

Fully focused on his tall, powerful figure by the fireplace, Pixie sat forward with a frown. ‘What do you mean?’

‘When your parents passed away, your mother’s house was left entirely to you.’

‘No, the house was left to both Jordan and me,’ Pixie corrected.

‘Obviously, it was in your brother’s interests to make you believe that, but that house, which originally belonged to your mother’s parents, was left solely to you. In fact, so keen was your mother to ensure that the house went to you only that s

he wrote her will soon after she married Jordan’s father, in the event that they should have any children. Social services were aware that the house belonged to you but at the time that Jordan applied to become your guardian he was decently employed and would have seemed to be a fine upstanding citizen, capable of taking care of his little half-sister...’

Her brow furrowed in growing surprise. ‘Jordan didn’t get a share of the house too?’

‘No. But by taking on caring for you he gained access to a free roof over his head and as soon as you were old enough he got you to sign documents which enabled him to take out a large loan against the house.’

Pixie frowned. ‘The bathroom and kitchen were badly in need of an update. We both had to sign for the loan.’

‘I suspect he gave you forged documents. You were young, inexperienced. I doubt that it took much effort for him to fool you, and at the same time he got you to put him on the mortgage, which enabled him to do a great deal behind your back.’

Pixie blinked rapidly. What he was telling her was much worse than anything she could have dreamt up because he was suggesting that her brother had defrauded her, had taken advantage of her ignorance and used her to try to steal her inheritance. ‘The loan was honest. There was nothing questionable about it,’ she argued tightly, seeking a strand of comforting truth to cling to in her turmoil. ‘The work needed to be done and there was no other way of paying for it.’

‘But Jordan pocketed most of the loan and, I imagine, spent only a small part of it on home improvements. From what I understand that’s when the gambling started. He bet, he lost, he borrowed more and more money from various sleazy sources, and he sank deeper and deeper into debt. He’s a gambling addict.’

‘Then he needs professional help,’ she whispered painfully, appalled that Jordan could have sunk so low without her even noticing and wondering what could possibly be done to cure him of such an addiction. She was gutted and she felt horribly alone, for he was her only relative. Yet in her heart her fondness for Jordan still lingered deep down, even though the man he was now wasn’t the man he had been a few years earlier.