A Baby on the Greek's Doorstep

Isla already had Alfie tucked in his crib when she entered the nursery.

The nanny was going home to stay with her own family for a few days and while Pixie loved and relied on having help with her son, she was, conversely, looking guiltily forward to having him all to herself again for a few days. Wishing the other woman a happy break, she went into the master bedroom, stiffening into immobility a few steps in when she glimpsed Tor poised by the tall windows.

‘I have something I need to tell you,’ he breathed as he swung round.

And Pixie wanted to run, didn’t want any more stress, any more bad news. She was full to the brim and overflowing with insecurity, regret and worry as it was.

‘This is important. Perhaps you should sit down,’ Tor told her tautly. ‘I may not be great in the empathy stakes, but I do know that we need to clear the air.’

And he was right, of course, he was, Pixie conceded, sinking down on the foot of the bed and folding hers arms defensively on her lap while watching him like a hawk to try and read his mood. But all she could read was his tension because his beautiful eyes were screened and narrowed in concentration. His uneasiness screamed at her because not since their very first meeting had she seen Tor look less than confident.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I finally worked some things out and it’s changed the way I see everything,’ he volunteered almost harshly. ‘Try not to interrupt me. I’m not good at talking about this sort of stuff and I don’t want to lose the thread of what I need to explain...’

‘You’re scaring me,’ she whispered and then she clamped a guilty hand to her lips because she realised she had said that out loud even though she didn’t intend to do so. ‘Sorry.’

And for a split second his wide charismatic smile flashed across his serious features and her heart jumped inside her before steadying again, because nothing could be that serious if he could still smile like that. ‘There’s nothing to be scared of.’

Pixie nodded rather than speak again.

But the silence stretched way beyond her expectations as Tor paced with the controlled but restive aspect of a man who would rather be anywhere than where he was at that moment. His lean, impossibly handsome face went tight. ‘I feel ashamed even saying it, but I can see now that Katerina and I didn’t love each other the way we thought we did when we married, but that she had the misfortune of finding that out long before I did...’

Pixie was transfixed because whatever she had been expecting, it had not been that admission. She had always believed that Katerina had been his childhood sweetheart, his first deep love, his everything.

‘There was no great passion between us. I didn’t think that mattered. I assumed that being friends, getting on well, the similarity between our backgrounds and even our parents being so close was more than enough to make a really good marriage.’ Tor shifted a pained lean brown hand. ‘I was only twenty but considered mature beyond my years because I wanted to settle down and marry young. I thought I knew it all on the basis of very little experience. My parents tried to stop me, but I wouldn’t listen to them either. I believed that what I felt for Katerina was love, but I can see now that it was more of a friendship, familiarity, admiration, loyalty, many decent things but not necessarily what a husband and wife need to stay together. I can only assume that it was the same for her and that when she met Devon, she quickly realised the difference.’

‘Presumably, Devon wasn’t initially prepared to leave his wife for her, or their affair wouldn’t have lasted so long,’ Pixie murmured uncertainly.

Tor shrugged. ‘Who knows? But being able to finally see that different picture has made those events easier for me to accept. I think I felt so guilty about Katerina for so many years because in my brain somewhere, I knew I didn’t love her the way she deserved to be loved.’

‘But it was mutual, so you can’t take on all the blame for that,’ Pixie interposed soothingly, worried by his continuing tension. ‘It’s a very positive thing for you to be able to take a less judgemental view.’

‘The guilt made it impossible for me to let go of the past. I felt responsible. I did care for her, but I shouldn’t have argued with her that night.’

‘No, stop it,’ Pixie urged anxiously. ‘No more blaming, no wishing you could change it all when you can’t. Katerina made her choices as well and she chose to lie about everything. She chose not to tell you beforehand that she had fallen for another man or about Sofia. She drove off late at night in an emotional state of mind and that was the fatal decision which caused the accident.’

‘I agree with you,’ Tor admitted, startling her. ‘It would never have happened as it did if she had not lied. I would have let her go, with great misgivings, but I would never have tried to keep her with me when she was unhappy and Sofia’s paternity would have settled that. Be warned though...’ Dark golden eyes locked to her hard and fast and her mouth ran dry. ‘I would lock you up in a tower and lock myself in with you. I wouldn’t be reasonable or compassionate or responsible. I would be possessive and enraged and jealous as hell!’

Pixie flushed and tilted her head back to look at him, blond curls tumbling back from her cheeks. ‘And why would I get the tough treatment? Not that I’m thinking of straying,’ she hastened to add.

Tor laughed half under his breath. ‘The reason I finally understood that I didn’t love Katerina was because I know what love feels like now. I’ve never been in love before, but it knocked me for six. For weeks since you came back into my life, I’ve been acting oddly because I didn’t understand how I felt about you. So, while I was telling you that I couldn’t fall in love again, I was actually falling in love for the first time, with you.’ He grimaced. ‘No prizes for my failure to recognise that happening. I’m not the introspective type. I don’t analyse feelings, I just react, which is why I’ve been all over the place...emotionally speaking,’ he completed with a harsh edge of discomfiture in his voice.

Pixie blinked, so shocked she wasn’t quite sure what to say. He was telling her he loved her, a little voice screamed inside her head.

‘I thought telling you would fix things!’ Tor bit out in frustration. ‘You love me... I love you. Isn’t that enough?’

Pixie glided up out of paralysis like a woman in a dream because she was still telling herself off inside her head. He might not have known what he was feeling but she felt that she should have recognised in his desire to constantly be with her, to constantly touch her and connect, that he was feeling far more for her than a man merely striving to be an attentive partner. ‘I’ve been blind,’ she whispered. ‘I was so envious of what I believed you must’ve felt for Katerina. It made me irrational. And yet I loved you anyway. I was always just wanting more.’

‘Nothing wrong with wanting more.’ Tor closed strong arms round her, dragging her close with the fierceness of his hold. ‘But at the end of the day I just want you any damned way I can have you and it’s much more powerful than anything I ever felt in my life before. I can’t stand seeing you hurt or upset or unhappy,’ he confided, crushing her soft parted lips under his with a revealing hunger that shot through her like a re-energising drug.

Clothes were discarded in a heap. His mouth still hungrily ravishing hers, he tugged her down onto the bed and drove into her hard and fast. The wild excitement engulfed her but there was a softer, more satisfying edge to it now because she knew he loved her. She felt safe, secure, happy, no longer sentenced to crave what she had believed she couldn’t have because that had decimated her pride. Completion came in a climax of physical pleasure that shot through her in an electrifying high-voltage charge.

Afterwards, Tor cradled her close. ‘I’ll never forgive myself for not remembering you that day in my office.’

‘No negative thoughts,’ Pixie urged, fingers tracing his wide sensual mouth in reproach. ‘We can’t change the way we started out.’