The Greek Boss's Demand (12 page)

He changed down a gear and manoeuvred the sports car to a halt, suddenly annoyed with the direction both his car and his thoughts were now taking.

It was late. The moon slanted low in the sky and the stars winked down at him knowingly. He looked at them—the answer was out there, somewhere. Just like those stars that looked as if he could reach out a hand and take his pick—the answer was there, almost within his grasp but not quite.

He dropped his head and rolled his neck, trying to ease the tension in his shoulders. The drive was supposed to relax him, help him unwind, but it wasn't working. He turned the key in the ignition, heard the powerful purr of the engine and threw the car into first.

Soon he'd be home, back in Greece and with his son. He was wasting his time even thinking about anything else.

 

Alex was kneeling on the floor, attempting to pack the remaining piles of gear in Jason's bedroom. It wasn't all going to fit. She'd have to rearrange it or leave some things behind.

The passport had arrived early in the week. She'd lifted the unmistakable envelope from the mailbox and felt the bands around her heart tighten. The last barrier to Jason leaving was gone. The last barrier to Nick leaving was gone.

They would both be gone the day after tomorrow.

It was impossible not to think about it. Not to wonder how her life could go on without Jason's presence, not to wonder how she could go on alone.

She had three months until her first visit. Nick had at least conceded she could do that, but it was going to be the longest three months of her life.

She heard a car pull up in front. ‘He's here!' yelled Jason. But Alex didn't need to be told. She knew it was him, could feel his presence in the prickle of the
hairs of her neck and the sudden alertness of every cell in her body.

The front door opened and she heard Jason greeting his father in their now familiar Greek, crashing into his arms. She was going to miss her boy and the way he did everything at top speed and at full volume. Life was about to get one whole lot quieter, that was for sure.

And then they were there, at the doorway. Nick was casually dressed in black jeans and an open-necked white shirt that only accentuated his olive skin and dark features. She swallowed, as always affected by the impact of his sheer presence, and tucked a strand of hair back behind her ears.

‘Hi,' she managed.

He swung a brand-new suitcase into the room. ‘I wondered if you needed this? Jason seems to have a lot of gear.'

‘He does,' she responded. ‘I'm a bit overwhelmed by how much there is. Thanks.'

‘And she hasn't even started packing her own stuff yet, have you, Mum?'

Nick frowned and flashed her a questioning look. She shook her head at Nick and flashed Jason a smile. ‘Don't worry. What time is Matt's dad picking you up for your playover?'

‘He's late already.' He cocked an ear as a car horn tooted. ‘Oh, hang on.' He disappeared down the hallway and was back in a second. ‘Gotta go—see you later, guys.'

He dashed for the front door, with Alex following him out to talk to Matt's father about what time they'd be back. And then they were gone and Alex turned back into the house.

Nick was waiting for her, angled against the doorframe with his hands and legs crossed. He didn't look happy.

‘Thanks for the suitcase,' she offered, trying to work out how she was going to get by without touching him. ‘I was wondering how I was going to fit everything in.'

‘Avoiding the truth again?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘When were you thinking of telling him?'

Alex's mind hit onto his wavelength. ‘Oh, I thought I would tomorrow.'

‘You're sure about that? You weren't planning on telling him you wouldn't be coming just before he was about to get on the plane with me?'

‘Now what are you talking about?'

‘Maybe you were hoping to create a scene at the airport—
Boy ripped from mother's loving arms by foreign father
? Is that what you had in mind? The local press would love that.'

‘Forget it, Nick. If I'd wanted to stop you leaving then I never would have signed his passport application.'

‘Unless you want me to be embarrassed.'

‘You're crazy,' she said, and pushed past him, not even trying to avoid touching him she was so angry.

He lashed out and grabbed her arm. ‘Am I? You seem to have a singular ability to avoid telling the truth until it slaps you in the face. Why wouldn't you tell him, unless you were planning to embarrass me? Why leave it so late? Unless avoiding the truth really has become habit-forming for you?'

Using all the fury she felt, she yanked her arm out of his grip.

‘Why wouldn't I tell him? He's my son—'

‘And mine!'

‘Yes! But he's a child, not a possession. And I know him. Yes, I could have told him a week ago—but why would I tell him he's being sent to Greece with a father he's never known and all by himself? Why do that to him before he's had a chance to get to know that person?'

‘We get on fine.'

‘I know. I think you have the makings of an excellent relationship. But any relationship takes time to develop and that's why I waited. Even when I tell him it's probably going to come as a shock that I won't be on that plane. He's spent the last eight years of his life with me and he's known you for—what? Ten days? Yes, he's going on a wonderful adventure with someone he's grown to like. But he's going to feel less secure than if I'm with him.'

‘When is he returning?'

She looked up cautiously, feeling her eyes narrow. ‘Why?'

‘Because you are incapable of telling the truth. I will tell him myself.'

‘Oh, and which version of the truth will you tell him?'

‘The only one. There is only one truth here, and that is that he is coming to Greece with me—alone.'

‘And will you tell him that he is going to be looked after by a nanny, a stranger, because you will be too busy to spend time with him? Will you tell him that when I suggested I should come along you refused me? And if—no, in fact
when
he wants me to come, can you imagine how learning that will make him feel? Will you tell him everything, or just the part you want him to know?'

Something harsh like a snarl erupted from deep inside him, and he closed the space between them and grabbed her arms.

‘Now suddenly I'm to believe you're the expert on what constitutes truth?'

‘No. I never claimed to be an expert. I'm simply saying that sometimes the truth is not so easy to define. Sometimes there's more than one truth. Sometimes there's a different take on truth.'

‘I know what you're saying, but you don't get out of keeping my son a secret that easily. Your version of the truth is no better than a lie.'

‘I never lied to you. I didn't think your family was ready to hear the truth back then. Maybe it was a bad call, and it made revealing the truth later on that much harder, but it was my call.'

‘Just like that woman claiming Stavros was her child's father. That was her call. That was a bad call too.'

She looked at him, saw the anger and pain mixed in his eyes and realised just how much his family's tragedies had affected him. He wielded the scars like shields.

‘I didn't kill Stavros, Nick. When are you going to stop blaming me? When are you going to stop punishing me for it?'

H
E LET
her go as quickly as he had grabbed hold of her, wheeling away. ‘That doesn't make sense.'

‘Doesn't it?' She shook her head and rubbed her arms where he had branded her. ‘I'm on your side, Nick. What that woman did to Stavros was beyond belief. She lied to Stavros for one reason—she wanted your family's money.'

‘But you said you wanted their marriage to succeed.'

‘Of course I wanted that—in the beginning. I was pregnant myself by that stage. I thought that if Stavros, the heir, could have a successful marriage on such a foundation as an unexpected baby, then there was hope for our relationship—for you and me and for our baby. I had no idea she was lying. And I saw what her betrayal did to your family. I saw it in your letters. I felt it in your words.

‘The worse things got with Stavros, the harder it was for me to tell you. You hated her. Hated her for tricking him into marriage. Hated her for cheating her way into the family on the basis of a suspect pregnancy.

‘You talk of speaking the truth. Of course I wanted to share the news of my pregnancy with you—but
would you yourself have been prepared to announce another unexpected pregnancy in such an atmosphere? In a family already divided and pained with mistrust, savage emotion and ultimately tragedy? I doubt it. The Nick I knew then would have wanted to save his family any more pain.'

She stopped, as much to allow her to catch her breath as to see if her words were getting through, and she realised she'd made herself sound far too noble.

‘Besides, I was a coward.' He looked up sharply, but she bade him to remain silent while she finished. ‘I was scared of your family's reaction. Scared they'd hate me for what had happened. Scared they'd brand me a liar and a gold-digger and forbid me from ever having anything to do with you again.'

She exhaled on a sigh, shrugging.

‘So I took the easy route. I kept Jason my secret, because I knew he was yours and I had loved our time on Crete and I would always have Jason to remind me of those days.'

He stared at her, dark eyes direct and purposeful, ‘You're no coward, Alexandra. I have never met a stronger woman.'

She brushed off his comment. ‘Hardly strong. I became more of a coward as Jason grew. I wanted you to know about him but I was so scared you'd take him away from me.' She looked up at him through damp lashes. ‘And I was right to be scared.'

‘But you're letting him go.'

She nodded reluctantly. ‘I don't want to. But it's time. It's only fair you get to share in our child. We both had a hand in making him after all.'

Silence fell in the room as both remained motionless for a time. Finally Nick expelled one long breath and moved across the room to face her, reaching out one hand to her face. ‘You see what I mean? I've never met a woman with such inner strength.'

Without thinking her face leant into his warm hand automatically and she accepted the caress.

‘Single-handedly you've raised our son, struggling through the years. And now you're going to hand him over.'

A lump formed at the back of her throat that swallowing wouldn't budge. Another day his words would have been an accusation. Today they sounded like something approaching respect. Something had changed, something that suddenly gave her the hope and the courage to continue.

‘I was wrong,' she started, her voice faltering. ‘I believed I was right not to tell you, but it just made things so much more complicated later on. I'm so sorry, Nick—' She dipped her head as tears threatened to fall, and he wound his arms around her and pulled her into his chest.

He stroked her back while his other hand brushed her cheek, feeling the hint of dampness clinging to her soft skin and her harsh, choppy breath puff in short staccato bursts against his skin.

But she didn't burst into tears, as he'd expected
when he'd brought her to his chest, and he could feel the control she was exerting over herself in every ragged breath. No matter what Alexandra herself thought, she was strong. He was tearing her apart inside with his plans to take Jason back to Greece, and yet still she was holding together.

Even though she was right.

He shoved that thought aside. There was no point thinking of the past. Instead he should concentrate on the future, with his son, back in Greece. Though even that thought didn't give him the rush of warmth he was seeking.

Stavros was gone. Jason would have no uncle to welcome him, no
nonna
or
poppo
to spoil their only grandchild.

If they would have spoiled him.

How would they have reacted? To suddenly discover a long-lost grandchild who'd been living half a world away—surely he could have convinced them?

Just as Stavros hadn't?

So what? Stavros had been lied to. Stavros had believed the woman. He hadn't been able to convince their parents.

Would they have believed Jason was Nick's son? It wasn't as if he was a baby any more, where there might have been doubt, surely they would have seen the resemblance.

The emotions of that time came swirling back—the acrimony, the accusations, the harsh words—all of
them ugly, only his brother's faith and insistence a bright, though ill-founded light.

And the implicit logic in her words struck home.

They hadn't believed that other child was Stavros's. Why would they have believed Jason was Nick's?

Suddenly the harsh-edged plate that had been lurching inside him cut loose, clattering away and finally clearing his view of history, revealing the truth of her words.

His parents would have been devastated. A replay of the tragedy of their first son's death would have destroyed them. They would never have allowed Alexandra into the family in the wake of what had transpired. She would never have stood a chance.

Even if Nick had believed her.

His gut squeezed even as he sucked in a breath.

There should be no question he would have believed her. He had loved her then. How could he not have believed her?

Though in the atmosphere of that time…

He looked down at the woman in his arms, felt her warm breath through the fine weave of his shirt, absorbed the press of her breasts into his chest and breathed in her fresh woman's scent. He dipped his head, kissing the top of her head.

‘It's no wonder you acted as you did,' he said softly. ‘You have no need to apologise.'

He felt her reaction like a twitch to start with. She stirred in his arms, lifting her head a fraction, stretch
ing her arms and unfurling from his chest like a butterfly making its first tentative moves out of the chrysalis.

Slowly she turned her face up to meet his. She sniffed back one last gulp of air, blinked her questioning eyes clear of moisture and stared up at him.

‘Do you mean that?' she asked, almost as if she was afraid she'd misunderstood.

Even with her hair mussed from their contact, the salty tracks on her cheeks evidence of her tears and her lips slightly parted, she'd never looked more beautiful. So strong and yet so vulnerable.

A base primal need to take this woman, to possess her and claim her for ever, overwhelmed him, and a deep, guttural groan that said all of those things welled up from inside—only to be cut off when his lips meshed with hers.

Gently, tenderly, his mouth moved over hers, answering her question the best way he could, trying to obliterate the pain of these last years, attempting to ease all the hurt and anguish she'd suffered at the hands of his family.

Tentatively at first her mouth started to move under his, responding with a gentle pressure of her own until on a sigh her lips parted, welcoming him inside.

Any sense of time was lost as he accepted her invitation, her taste in his mouth fuelling his passion, increasing the intensity of both what he was experiencing and what he was giving. And now he wasn't
just trying to ease her pain. Now he was seeking his own absolution.

As if aware of his needs, she kissed his mouth, his lips, his face and eyes, her lips simultaneously soothing yet inflaming wherever they made contact. Her body pressed against his in a way that left no doubt as to where her skin dipped and curved, the sweet concave arc of her waist and the delicious flare of her hips. His hands traced the lines, sculpting her to him as he pressed her even closer.

She would be in no doubt as to his arousal. It was there, pushing out to her even as she seemed to press into its bulge. Her hands scrabbled with his shirt, freeing the fabric from his jeans so that her hands could roam the skin of his back, holding him so firmly he could feel the press of her nails into his skin.

He groaned with the pleasure and the pain and the frustration of the barrier of their clothes. Now his need had grown into something far more insistent, something far more carnal, and skin was what he too needed. The highly charged encounter of skin against skin.

His hands traced behind her, down the slinky fabric of her tiered skirt. Bunching the fabric in his thumbs, he drew the sides of the skirt up, sliding his hands up the backs of her legs as they rose. She gasped in his mouth, shifting her weight so that her legs parted slightly, allowing him access to direct his touch between her legs, up to where they met, her stretch lace
panties the only remaining barrier. Her
damp
stretch lace panties. He groaned.

She was fire in his hands, liquid fire, setting him alight with her touch and her taste and her smell, setting his senses reeling and his internal thermostat out of orbit. And she was as aroused as he was. Knowing that threatened to send him off the scale.

Her hands dropped, her fingers inside his belt tugging, insistent.

He took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look up at him. ‘Jason?' he asked.

‘He'll be gone hours,' she replied, her breath choppy, her eyes dilated and almost luminous in their intensity.

He kissed her then, knowing she'd just answered his unspoken question in the affirmative as her hands continued to scrabble with his belt, forcing their way in to work at the buckle. He leaned over, to give her more room. He ached to be freed, and every time her hands brushed over him, even through the stout denim, her movements drove him crazy.

Now he had better access behind her. His hand slid under the fabric of her panties and he held the goosebumped flesh of one round cheek of her bottom in one hand. She quivered against him, and hurried her actions. Then his buckle was gone and she worked at the zip, easing the catch over the distended fabric.

He slid his hand down, into the cleft between her legs, into the moist, hot place there. When he slid first
one and then two fingers inside her she moaned, her back arching as her breath came fast and urgent.

Almost frantically she pulled aside his jeans and put one palm to the semi-released hardness beneath as the other eased the band of his underwear over. And then he was freed and it was his turn to gasp, her hands searing his skin and inflaming his senses.

Suddenly it wasn't enough for his fingers to be there; he needed to be inside her—all of him. He wrenched down her panties and lifted her skirt away, so that he could feel the spring of her curls against the base of his erection as it pressed into her belly. And he moved her back, bracing her against the wall.

She wound her arms around his neck tightly for support as he lifted her, wrapping her legs around him. One hand braced on the wall, with the other he found her, ready for him, and he placed the tip at her opening.

She cried out something, the words indiscernible, but they spoke to him of her need, her desires, her passion, and he knew that his own matched all of those. He entered her with one long thrust that had her throw back her head against the wall, her eyes wide, her mouth open in shock and delight.

He pulled back, waited on the brink, and thrust again, deeper this time, beads of sweat stinging his eyes and compounding the pain-ecstasy mix. Then faster. She bucked her hips against him, as much as she could in her position, matching every thrust with a tilt of her hips to welcome him, to guide him deeper
inside her, into that place where the past would be eradicated, where hurt and blame would be wiped away for ever.

Again and again he withdrew, only to slam into her. Each time the need inside him was building, a hot and urgent thing, unavoidable, unstoppable. She peaked under his onslaught and cried out, the tremors inside her clenching him tightly and forcing his own climax, pumping in his own shattering release.

They huddled together as their shaking subsided, their bodies humming, their breath recovering, her legs finally sliding down to the ground. Her knees buckled and he steadied her, nuzzled the area just below her ear. She tasted salty and warm, the damp tendrils of her hair tickling his nose.

She stood there, her back still pressed against the wall, her arms around his neck, feeling her heartbeat calm as his breath steadied against her hair. She'd thought last week's lovemaking could not be bettered, but this time she was shattered, mentally and physically. And still she wanted him again.

Even as some sense of normality returned to her body, the hunger was there, the need to be close to him, to enclose him in her body.

He'd said she was strong. How wrong could he be? She was lost in his arms, knowing the pleasures to be found there. There was no earthly way she could deny herself those sensations.

Not when she loved him. And he must feel something for her, surely? He'd said she didn't have to
apologise, but they hadn't taken the time for him to explain. Were his views softening towards her? Maybe now he would take the opportunity to expand on his words. Maybe now that they had satisfied their physical selves there would be time to talk.

As if sensing her mood, he sighed sharply, his breath a warm blast against her neck, but then he raised his head and pounded one solid fist into the wall. She flinched at the sudden action, at the dull boom just above her head.