The Secrets She Carried

‘No,’ Erin fielded without hesitation. ‘My children were very young when I first met Sam.’

‘Why is this like pulling teeth?’ Cristo demanded with ringing impatience.

‘Because you’re going out of your way to avoid the most obvious connection.’ Erin lifted her chin and studied him with cool amethyst eyes, an ocean of calm cocooning her as she moved towards the final bar she had set herself to clear. ‘Lorcan and Nuala are your children and don’t you dare complain about only finding that out now! It’s your fault that I made endless attempts to get in touch with you and failed.’

His stunning dark eyes widened, his beautiful mouth twisting. ‘My children —don’t be ridiculous. How could they possibly be mine?’

‘The traditional way, Cristo. You turned over in bed one night shortly before we broke up and made love to me without using a condom. Of course I can’t be a hundred per cent certain about the exact timing, but certainly that’s when I assume that I conceived,’ she explained curtly.

Beneath his bronzed skin, Cristo had grown pale as if such nit-picking detail added a veracity to her claim that nothing else could have done. ‘You’re saying that I got you pregnant?’

‘There wasn’t anyone else in the picture, in spite of all your misconceptions about Tom’s little brother.’ Erin rose to her feet with determination. ‘You are the father of my children. You can do DNA tests, whatever you like to satisfy yourself. I really don’t care. That side of things is immaterial to me now.’

Cristo poured himself a drink from the built in bar. His hand wasn’t quite steady as he raised the glass to his lips and drank deep. ‘This is inconceivable.’

He wheeled back round to stare at her with cloaked intensity, momentarily stepping outside the dialogue while with every fibre of his being he relived that last sweet taste of her in sunlight as her tongue tangled with his. The burn of that hunger had electrified him. She was a sexual challenge that never waned. That was what she meant to him, a high of satisfaction he craved every time he looked at her. He hated what she was but he wanted to bed her over and over again. That was easier to think about than the fantastic idea that he might have accidentally got her pregnant in the past. Hadn’t he only just emerged from a nightmare in that category? A nightmare that had comprehensively blown his marriage and his family apart? And now, the least likely mother of all was telling him that he was immaterial? He would never let another woman deny him his paternal rights.

‘I’ll take a soda and lime,’ Erin told him pointedly.

Frowning, his black brows drawing together, Cristo turned back to the bar to prepare her drink. His movements were deft and precise. He handed her a tall moisture-beaded glass, turning his arrogant dark head to study her afresh as he did so. He was so deep in shock at the concept of being a father that he felt as if the passage of time had frozen him in his tracks. ‘You said you made endless attempts to get in touch with me.’

‘Your PA finally told me that she had instructions not to put my calls through to you and that I was wasting my time.’

Cristo set his glass down on the bar with a sharp little snap of protest. ‘I never issued any such instruction!’

‘Well, maybe it was the bad fairy who issued it.’ Erin lifted and dropped a slight shoulder, unimpressed by his plea of innocence. All too well did she remember how humiliated she had felt having to make those repeated and clearly unwelcome phone calls. ‘I also sent a couple of letters.’

‘Which I never received.’

Erin ignored that

comeback. ‘You had changed your private cell phone number. I had no choice but to try and contact you through your office. At the last, I even phoned your family home in Athens …’

‘You contacted my … parents?’ Cristo queried with frank incredulity.

‘And your mother refused to pass on a message to you. She said you were getting married and that you wanted nothing more to do with “a woman like me”,’ Erin grimaced as she repeated that lowering description.

‘I don’t believe you. My foster mother is a kind, gentle woman. She would never be so offensive, particularly to a pregnant woman—’

‘Oh, I didn’t get as far as telling her that I was pregnant during our conversation. I could hardly get a word in edgeways once she realised who I was.’

‘She would not have known who you were,’ Cristo countered with conviction. ‘I never once mentioned your existence to my parents.’

Erin tried not to wince. She had often wondered and he had just confirmed her deepest suspicions. While evidently his foster mother had known her son did have a relationship with a woman in London, she had not received that information from him. Evidently, Erin had never been important enough to her lover to warrant being discussed with his family ‘I wrote to your office as well. The letters were returned to me unopened,’ she confided doggedly. ‘That’s when I gave up trying to contact you.’

Cristo drained his glass, set it down, shook his head slightly. ‘You say I’m the father of your children. I cannot accept that.’

Erin shrugged and sank back into her seat. At least he wasn’t shouting at her or calling her a liar … yet. Time might well take care of that oversight. In truth, though, she had never seen him so shaken, for Cristo was strong as steel and given to rolling with the punches that life dealt out. But right now he was in a daze, visibly shattered by her revelation.

‘It’s OK if you can’t accept it. I’ll understand. But at least I’ve finally told you. How you feel about it, whether or not you believe me, isn’t relevant any more.’

Cristo shot her an exasperated look that hinted at the darker, deeper emotions he was maintaining control over beneath his forbidding reserve. ‘How can it not be relevant?’

‘Because it doesn’t matter any longer. When I first fell pregnant, life was tough. I needed your help then and I didn’t get it,’ Erin pointed out ruefully. ‘Now, thanks to my mother’s support, the kids and I are quite self-sufficient as long as I have a reasonable salary to rely on.’

In the strained silence, Cristo poured himself another drink. She watched the muscles work in his strong brown throat and then recalled how only hours earlier she had wanted to eat him alive and she cringed at that reminder of how weak she could be around him. On the other hand, he was a sophisticated man and he had the sexual experience to make her burn—that was all! It would be foolish to punish herself just because she had sunk low enough to enjoy their intimacy on his terms. She was a healthy, warm-blooded woman who had suppressed her natural needs for too long. In the end, if anything, too much self-control had made a victim of her. Of course she had never met a man she wanted as she wanted Cristo, never known a man who, even in the midst of the most emotional scene she had ever endured, could still make her mind wander down undisciplined paths. For there he stood, shocked but unbowed, gorgeous dark eyes smouldering with raw reaction in his even more gorgeous face.

‘If this story of yours is true, why didn’t you tell me the instant I came back into your life?’ he pressed, lifting his proud dark head high, a tiny muscle pulling tight at one corner of his unsmiling mouth.