A Baby on the Greek's Doorstep

Thankfully, however, Pixie was now able to work and contribute to the household bills, but the larger she got, the harder she was finding it to work a twelve-hour shift. Her exhaustion had been another factor that had persuaded her that she needed help and that she had to approach Tor for it even if it was the very last thing she wanted to do.

After all, it wasn’t as though she had even been a one-night stand who had fallen inconveniently pregnant. Tor hadn’t sought her out, hadn’t personally selected her from any crowd of available women, he had simply kissed her and ended up having sex with her because he had fallen asleep in the wrong kitchen. Proximity had been their downfall and every step of the way she had encouraged him with her willingness. She should have said no, she should have called a halt but, controlled by that crazy excitement, she had been greedy, immature and selfish.

Pixie was still convinced that Tor would not have chosen to have sex with her had he been in full control of himself. But alcohol, grief and a nasty blow to the head had made him vulnerable and she, who should have known better, had urged him on.

Even worse, she didn’t want to be another problem in his life. She didn’t want to upset him. But once she’d realised that false pride was keeping her from reaching out for the assistance she needed, she had finally seen common sense. Unhappily, getting a personal meeting with Tor was probably as easy as getting to have tea with the Queen.

‘Miss Miller, I’ve called Security to show you the way out,’ the receptionist informed her with a fixed, unnatural smile. ‘There’s no point in you sitting here waiting when Mr Sarantos is unavailable.’

And that was when Pixie appreciated that by following the rules she had got as close to Tor as she was ever likely to get. As soon as the receptionist returned to her desk, Pixie rose and began walking down the wide corridor that led to the imposing double doors, behind which she had estimated lay Tor’s office.

A shout hastened her steps. ‘Hey! You can’t go in there! Security... Security!’ The receptionist was screeching at the top of her voice.

Pixie thrust down the door handle and stalked right in. Tor swung round with a phone gripped in one hand. Impossibly elegant and tall, he wore a dark pinstriped suit teamed with a white shirt and a snazzy red tie. He looked indescribably sophisticated and intimidating, not remotely like the man who had sat at the kitchen island and eaten a cheese toasted sandwich with every evidence of normal enjoyment.

‘What is the meaning of this interruption?’ Tor demanded imperiously, studying her with frowning intensity.

And Pixie held her breath and waited...and waited...for recognition to colour that cool, distant stare. It didn’t happen, and that absence of recognition flustered her even more.

‘Don’t you remember me, Tor?’ she murmured almost pleadingly, cringing inwardly from that note in her own voice.

‘I don’t know who you are. How could I remember you?’ he enquired cuttingly, his attention lowering to the prominent swell of her abdomen, his wide sensual mouth tightening when he registered that she was pregnant.

‘That night you were with me last year,’ she whispered uncertainly, tears involuntarily stinging her eyes at having to voice that lowering reminder. ‘I came to tell you that I’m pregnant.’

Derision hardened his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘I’ve never seen you before and if you want to make fanciful allegations of that nature, I suggest you approach my lawyers in the usual fashion.’

‘Sorry about this, sir. She wouldn’t listen to reason!’ the receptionist snapped, a hand closing over Pixie’s forearm to prevent her from moving deeper into the office. ‘Security are on their way.’

Pixie had never felt so humiliated in her life.

I don’t know who you are... I’ve never seen you before.

Perhaps it had been naïve of her not to expect that sort of rejection. Perhaps it had been ridiculously optimistic, even vain, for her to expect Tor Sarantos to remember her after a casual sexual encounter. To be strictly fair though, she supposed her appearance had changed since her green hair had faded and eventually washed out entirely.

Even so, she just hadn’t been prepared for him to look through her as if she didn’t exist, and then perceptibly wince when the tears her pregnancy hormones couldn’t hold back flooded down her cheeks and a noisy sob was wrenched from her.

An older man began easing her back out of the office again and by then she was crying so hard, she could hardly see to walk. And what a terrible irony it was for her to hear Tor intervene loudly with the words, ‘Be careful with her...she’s pregnant!’ As if he were the only person who might have noticed the vast swell of her once-flat stomach.

‘Well?’ Jordan had demanded expectantly, when he’d come home from his barista job that evening. ‘What did he say?’

And for the first time she had told her brother a little more of the truth of how very fleeting her intimacy with Tor had been. Jordan had simply shrugged and said that such facts were irrelevant and that the father of her child still had obligations to meet.

‘Not until the baby is born,’ Pixie had protested, cutting through Jordan’s insistence that she needed a solicitor to fight for her rights.

Jordan generally got aggressive and argumentative in difficult situations but that wasn’t Pixie’s way. It took her weeks to get over that distressing encounter in Tor’s office, when he had denied all knowledge of her. She had wondered if Tor was telling the truth, or if indeed he remembered her perfectly well but just didn’t want to be bothered or embarrassed or reminded of what had happened between them that night. And that wounding suspicion had cut her to the quick.

Admittedly, she wasn’t a beauty like the women she had seen him with in the media. She wasn’t a socialite, a model or an actress who swanned around in designer clothing and posed for photos. She was a very ordinary young woman. A handful of small, unexpected events and coincidences had put her on intimate terms with Tor and resulted in her ending up in bed with him.

He had been special to her, but she hadn’t been special to him. They had both walked away afterwards, both of them probably feeling the same: that it shouldn’t have happened. So, it didn’t really matter whether Tor genuinely didn’t remember her, she told herself, or whether he was simply pretending not to remember her. At the end of it, his distaste and derision that day in his office stayed with her and understandably coloured her attitude to him. After that experience, she was pretty convinced that even though she was pregnant by him, Tor would prefer not to know, and her conscience quietened. She decided that she didn’t need his help and that she didn’t want his financial assistance either, no matter what arguments her aggrieved brother put up!

Present day

Pixie wakened and revelled in the quietness of the house, smothering a yawn as she sat up and wondered if Jordan had taken Alfie out to the park.

She smiled as she thought of her son. He was nine months old, big and strong for his age, hitting every developmental target ahead of time and already trying to walk.

Coco slunk up the stairs to greet her with delighted purrs and she petted the cat with a warm smile. Steph had begun leaving Coco with Pixie whenever she went abroad, and weeks would pass before she finally reappeared to collect the little animal again. In the end, she had asked if Pixie would like to keep the Siamese because she was finding pet ownership too much of a tie.

Pixie crossed the landing to the bathroom and went for a quick shower before dressing. Everything she did was done by rote because she had been working night shifts since Alfie was born. In the morning she came home, fed and dressed her son and then went immediately to bed while Jordan took charge of Alfie for a few hours.

Working nights as a nurse, combined with Jordan’s freedom to choose his shifts as a barista, meant that she didn’t have to pay for childcare. Considering the amount of debt that her brother seemed to have acquired since he had lost his in

surance job, that was fortunate. Clad in cropped jeans and a long-sleeved cotton top in raspberry pink and white stripes, she descended the creaking narrow staircase.

The terraced house was small, but she had managed to squeeze a cot into her bedroom and there was a little backyard she was currently cleaning up to serve as a play area for Alfie once he became more mobile. She was taken aback to find her brother sitting at the tiny breakfast bar with a beer.

‘Where’s Alfie?’ she asked. ‘And why are you drinking at this time of day?’

Jordan shot her a defiant look. ‘I’ve sorted things out for you,’ he said, compressing his lips.

As she took after her mother in looks, Jordan took after their father. He was tall with dark hair and a beard and spectacles, which gave him a slightly nerdy look.

‘What things?’ she questioned with a frown as she glanced into the cramped lounge, expecting to see her son playing on the floor with his toys. The room, however, was empty and the toy box sat untouched by the wall.

‘Your situation, the mess you made having that child...against all my advice!’ her brother complained loudly.

‘Jordan...where’s Alfie?’ Pixie exclaimed, cutting across his words.

And then he told her, and she couldn’t believe her ears, was already snatching up her coat and her bag in sheer panic at the danger he had put her son in. ‘Were you out of your mind?’ she demanded in disbelief.