The third week Katie had started wearing skirts, and Alexandros had accused her of flirting with the gardener, who had been old enough to be her father. In the ensuing argument, during which Katie had threatened to resign, Alexandros had called her a tease and hauled her into his arms and kissed her. He’d kept on kissing her all the way upstairs to his bed. That reckless conflagration of passion had plunged them into an affair without any boundaries whatsoever. Nothing they had shared had been discussed or decided in the weeks that followed.
Lying sleepless in her beautiful bedroom in Alexandros’s fabulous country house, Katie came back to the present with an even stronger conviction that she had to protect herself from being hurt a second time. She had lunched with the twins, taken them out for a long walk that afternoon, and dined alone. She could not forget how she had once sunk without trace in the intensity of her feelings for Alexandros. Holding nothing back, she had closed her eyes to every warning sign and just revelled in adoring him. She had never loved like that before, had in truth never even grasped what temptation was until she had succumbed to it without the smallest struggle. Although a healthy number of young men had shown interest in Katie at university, they had almost all left her physically cold. The only one who hadn’t had bruised her heart and her ego by swiftly bedding someone else when she’d proved to be too much of a challenge. Now she wondered fearfully if she was the sort of misguided female who only really fell for the guys who wanted her least…
The next morning, Alexandros surveyed the single sheet of paper. He was not surprised by the DNA test results. The 99.9999% result tallied exactly with his gloomiest expectations. He was the father of the two little boys currently occupying the nursery on the top floor.
His private line buzzed. He swept up the receiver, his lean dark face clenching hard when he recognised his grandfather’s unusually low-pitched voice. He breathed in deep. ‘The children are mine,’ he confirmed.
‘How do you feel?’ Pelias Christakis enquired, in an upbeat encouraging tone that disconcerted Alexandros—until he worked out that the older man had to be masking his true reactions out of affection for him.
‘How I feel doesn’t come into it,’ Alexandros responded flatly.
‘It must be fate,’ his grandfather informed him without hesitation. ‘You said you would have no children but…here they are.’
Alexandros gritted his teeth at that untimely reminder, and offered to fly out so that he could break the news to his grandmother. The older man said that he would prefer to perform that task himself. Alexandros salved his guilty conscience with the assurance that he would marry the twins’ mother as soon as it could be arranged.
In answer, Pelias released a heavy sigh.
Katie had just finished bathing Toby and Connor when she received the message that Alexandros was waiting for her in the library. In the act of returning to her bedroom to tidy herself, she froze. Her face was pink, her hair was tumbled and she was clad in jeans and a T-shirt—but did that matter? she asked herself staunchly. She needed to learn to look on Alexandros as simply Toby and Connor’s father, and suppress any more personal sense of connection. In any case, she could fuss the rest of the morning and it would make precious little difference when she had no make-up, no smart clothes and her hair badly needed a trim.
On the way downstairs, her sons left in the care of the nanny, Katie did wonder why Alexandros kept on hauling her into a clinch? Was he just oversexed? At a loss as to how else to relate to her? She focussed on the portrait of the exquisite Ianthe and glanced hurriedly away again, stifling a pang of envy that made her feel ashamed. But there was no comparison between them. Ianthe had been Greek, rich and classically beautiful, and the love of her husband’s life. Katie discovered that she did not even want to look in the direction of that painting, which seemed to stand for everything that she herself was not and made her feel very small, cheap and forgettable.
Alexandros swung round from the window when she entered. Immaculate in a charcoal-grey business suit and a snazzy red and grey striped silk tie, the impact of his lithe bronzed male beauty punched a hole through her defensive shell.
‘You have to be the most invisible guest I believe I’ve ever had,’ he murmured, his attention nailed to her triangular face while he tried to work out how she could look so good without the artifice of cosmetics. ‘I have not laid eyes on you since yesterday.’
Katie shot him a winging glance and swiftly veiled her gaze. But she still saw his image in her mind’s eye, and he took her breath away. The armoured indifference she longed to achieve was still a long way from fruition. ‘It’s a big house.’
‘Before I forget, I want you to authorise the removal of your possessions from the place where you were staying. The items you had stored at your former friend’s apartment should also be collected.’
‘Of course.’ Hurt by that inadvertent reminder of Leanne’s betrayal, Katie paled.
‘Would you like coffee?’ Alexandros enquired, coolly polite once the details of those arrangements had been spelled out.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Take a seat. What I have to say will take some time.’
Katie folded obediently down on to the edge of an antique armchair and studied his desk rather than him.
‘The DNA tests confirm that the boys are mine.’
Her cheeks reddened.
‘No comment?’
‘What do you want me to say? The tests were offensive, but pretty much what I expected from you.’
Alexandros tensed. ‘How…offensive?’
‘You know when Toby and Connor were born, and you know you were the first guy I slept with. I fell pregnant the first week we were together,’ Katie reminded him tightly as she stared into space. ‘Another contender in the paternity corner wasn’t very likely.’
Almost imperceptible colour demarcated his superb cheekbones. ‘I had to be sure. I take nothing at face value.’
‘Especially bad news.’
‘Katie…that kind of comment is counter-productive at this stage. Naturally this development has come as a surprise, but I will adjust to it.’ Alexandros contemplated the rounded swell of her small breasts below the cotton top, and wondered if it was a flesh-coloured bra or skin that he could see beneath.
‘But you don’t need to adjust to anything.’ Uneasily conscious of his masculinity, Katie raked a restive hand through her tousled copper tresses and jerked a thin shoulder in dismissive emphasis. ‘Nothing has to change in your life. I’m not looking for a father for the twins.’
It was a bra, not skin, Alexandros registered in some disappointment when she moved. He emitted a sardonic laugh that struck her as distinctly unamused. ‘Very funny…’
Her green eyes gleamed. ‘I wasn’t trying to be funny. Just fair and honest—’
‘How very considerate of you,’ Alexandros breathed with scarcely leashed impatience, forcing his attention to a level above her head while he questioned the juvenile fascination he had with her skinny little body. ‘But I should not need to state that I fully intend to be a father to my own sons. That is a duty I will not take lightly.’
His unemotional choice of words stung Katie’s pride and stirred her into anger. She was tempted to tell him that as long as Toby and Connor had her love they would all manage very well without his dutiful input. ‘I’m not sure I want you to act as a role model for the twins.’
Alexandros dealt her an icy glance. ‘What reason have you to insult me?’
A mutinous expression on her heart-shaped face, Katie tore her gaze from the shimmering golden challenge of his and dropped her head. She bit back further hasty words, regretting her lack of control over her own tongue. It would be madness to make their relationship a hostile one, she reminded herself ruefully. ‘I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to offend you.’
‘Evidently it has not yet occurred to you that I’m prepared to marry you and provide the perfect role-model for my sons!’ Alexandros spoke with a harsh emphasis t
hat clarified his attitude towards that prospect better than any words could have done.
Shock reverberating through her slight taut figure, Katie blinked and stared fixedly at him. ‘You’re prepared to marry me? At this moment you’re asking me to marry you?’
Alexandros released his breath in an exasperated hiss. ‘What else did you expect from me?’
All of a sudden the reason for his bleak and sardonic mood became clear to Katie. Even though the angry flush in her cheeks had receded, she was if anything more furious with him than ever. A hollow sense of pain settled like a stone inside her. She imagined that when he had proposed to Ianthe, the late lost love of his life, the scenario, the atmosphere and the emotions involved would all have been very different. ‘Well, I didn’t expect your grudging proposal, and I’m not grateful for it either!’ she countered, with a defiant rise in volume. ‘Thankfully, there’s no need for either of us to make such a horrible sacrifice of ourselves.’