Mills & Boon is proud to present three super novels in one collection by an author we know you love and have made an international bestseller

Enjoy these three books by rising star

Abby GREEN

Keeping Her Close

Contains

In Christofides’ Keeping The Call of the Desert The Legend of de Marco

Keeping Her Close
In Christofides’ Keeping
The Call of the Desert
The Legend of de Marco
Abby Green

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABBY GREEN deferred doing a social anthropology degree to work freelance as an assistant director in the film and television industry—which is a social study in itself! Since then it’s been early starts, long hours, mucky fields, ugly car parks and wet-weather gear—especially working in Ireland. She has no bona fide qualifications, but could probably help negotiate a peace agreement between two warring countries after years of dealing with recalcitrant actors. Since discovering a guide to writing romance one day, she decided to capitalise on her long-time love for Mills & Boon® romances and attempt to follow in the footsteps of such authors as Kate Walker and Penny Jordan.

She’s enjoying the excuse to be paid to sit inside, away from the elements. She lives in Dublin and hopes that you will enjoy her stories. You can e-mail her at abbygreen3@yahoo.co.uk.

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In Christofides’ Keeping

This is for Lindi Loo and Lola, my two favourite girls

Chapter One

RICO CHRISTOFIDES stifled his irritation and tried to rein in his wandering attention. What was wrong with him? He was in one of the most exclusive restaurants in London, dining with one of the most beautiful women in the world. But it was as if someone had turned the sound down and all he could hear was the steady thump-thump of his heart.

He saw Elena gesticulating and speaking with a little too much animation, her eyes glittering a little too brightly as she tossed her luxurious mane of red hair over one shoulder, leaving the other one bare. It was meant to entice but it didn’t.

He knew all the moves. He’d seen countless women perform them for years, and he’d enjoyed them. But right now he felt no more desire for this woman than he would for an inanimate wooden object. He regretted the impulse he’d acted on to call her up once he’d known he’d be in London for a few days.

Curiously, he was being enticed by a tantalising memory. He’d glanced fleetingly at one of the waitresses as they’d walked in and in an instant something about the way she moved had registered on his brain, throwing him back in time—two years back in time, to be precise. He’d found himself thinking of the one woman who hadn’t been like all the others. The one woman who had managed to smash through the high wall of defences he kept rigid around himself and his emotions.

For just one night.

His fist clenched on his thigh under the table. It had to be just because he was back in London for the first time since that night. He forced himself to smile tightly in answer to something Elena had said, which seemed to require that response, and to his relief he could see that she was off again, clearly loving the sound of her voice more than she cared if he was listening or not.

The night he’d met her—Gypsy…if that even was her name—they’d just come out of the club and he’d been about to tell her his name. She’d put a hand over his mouth, saying fervently, ‘I don’t want to know who you are…tonight isn’t about that.’

Scepticism hadn’t been far away. Either she knew damn well who he was, as he’d been splashed all over the tabloids for days before that night, or else…But Rico had found himself pausing as he’d looked down at her. She’d looked so lovely and young and fresh…and untainted. And for that moment, for the first time in his life, he’d pushed aside cynicism and suspicion—his constant companions—and said, ‘OK, then, temptress…what about just first names?’

Before she could say anything and still believing deep down and with not a little arrogance that she had to know who he was, he’d held out his hand and said with a flourish, ‘Rico…at your service.’

She’d placed her small soft hand in his and hesitated for a long moment before saying huskily, ‘I’m Gypsy.’

A made-up name. It had to be. He’d chuckled, and he could remember even now how alien it had felt to allow that emotion to rise up. ‘Fair enough. Play your silly game if you want…Right now I’m interested in a lot more than your name…’

Someone laughed raucously at a nearby table, jerking Rico out of the memory, but even so a hot spiral of desire ran through him and he had a sudden memory flash of hearts beating in unison, sweat-slicked skin, her sleek body around his in an embrace so velvet hot and tight that he’d fought just to keep control. And then her muscles had started to spasm around him, she’d given a fractured breathy moan, and he’d lost it in a way that he’d never lost it before or since.

‘Rico, darling…’ Elena was pouting at him, lips too blood-red. ‘You’re miles away. Please tell me you’re not thinking of boring work.’

Rico stifled a cynical grimace. It was that very boring work, and all the many millions he’d made in the process, that had women like Elena hovering around him in droves, waiting for little more than a crooked finger to signal his interest. Even so, the acknowledgement couldn’t stop him from shifting uncomfortably in his seat, very disturbed by the fact that he was being turned on not by the woman opposite him, but by a ghost from the past. Because that ghost was the one woman who hadn’t fallen at his feet in sycophantic ecstasy when he’d singled her out.

On the contrary: she’d tried to walk away from him. And then the following morning she had walked away from him. But not before he’d left her on the bed, like a callow, unsophisticated youth. Regret burned him, and Rico didn’t do regret.

He forced another tight smile and reached across for Elena’s far too available hand. She practically purred when he took it. He opened his mouth to offer some platitude as a waitress walked past their table, and he frowned when his body inexplicably reacted—tightening almost as if it sensed something his brain hadn’t yet registered. He looked up; it was the waitress he’d noticed on the way in. The waitress who had sparked a veritable torrent of memories.

Was he going completely insane? An evocative scent lingered on the air in her wake. He tried to sound casual, and not as if he was afraid he was going crazy. He looked back to his date. ‘What scent are you wearing?’

Elena’s lips curled seductively as she offered Rico her wrist to smell. ‘Poison…do you like?’

He bent his head, but even before he smelt the distinctive perfume he knew it was all wrong. Nausea clenched his belly. He looked up again, as if drawn helplessly, to see the back of the waitress. She was taking an order at a nearby table. That evocative scent reminded him of—Abruptly Elena pulled her hand from his with a barely disguised huffy sigh and stood from the table, smoothing a hand over one artfully cocked hip sheathed in silk.

‘I’m going to go and powder my nose. Hopefully by the time I get back you won’t be so distracted.’

Rico disregarded the reproach in her voice and didn’t watch her walk away. He was transfixed now by the slim back of the petite waitress just a few feet away. She had a neatly shaped figure—firm buttocks, defined by the close-fitting black skirt which hid her legs to the knee, and slender but shapely calves and tiny ankles. Feet in low-heeled black shoes. So far so unremarkable.

His gaze travelled back up, past the plain white shirt, with just a hint of the bra underneath, taking in her hair, which looked a dark honey-brown but which he guessed might be lighter in daylight. It was densely curled, tied back into a tight bun, but he could already imagine the wild corkscrew curls that would burst free. Almost exactly like—He shook his head again, cursing softly. Why was that memory so hauntingly vivid tonight?

The woman turned slightly then, before stopping to respond to something the man at the table was saying, and it was enough to give Rico a proper glimpse of her profile. A small straight nose, determined chin, and a lush mouth with the slightest hint of an overbite—which he remembered thinking an adorable imperfection in a world obsessed with perfection. Certainty slammed into him on the heels of that thought—it had to be her. He wasn’t going crazy.

His breath stopped. Everything went into slow motion as she finally turned and faced him directly. She was looking down at her notepad, scribbling something, juggling the big menus under her arm as she walked closer, and before he knew what he was doing, with something that felt horrifyingly exultant rushing through him, Rico stood and grasped the woman’s arm, stopping her in her tracks.

Gypsy didn’t know what was happening at first. All she knew was that someone had a tight grip on her arm. She looked up with a retort on her lips—and fell into steely grey eyes.

And stopped breathing, stopped functioning.

She blinked. Words died in her mouth. It couldn’t be him. She was dreaming—or it was a nightmare. She was certainly tired enough to be sleep-walking. But she could feel the colour draining from her face, the peripheral noise fading into the background.

She was looking into exactly the same colour eyes as—There her mind shut down. It was him. The man who had haunted her dreams for nearly two years. Rico Christofides. Half-Greek, half-Argentinian, billionaire entrepreneur, a legend of his own making.

‘It is you.’ He spoke her thoughts out loud in his deep voice, and sent Gypsy’s brain into a tailspin. Very distantly she was aware of a voice screaming at her to run, get away. Escape.

She shook her head, but it felt as if she was under water. Was she still standing? All she was aware of was the dark depths of those deep-set stormy grey eyes, boring into her all the way to her soul, his hand tight on her arm. Midnight-black hair, slightly crooked nose, dark brows, defined jaw…It was all so familiar to her—except her dreams hadn’t done him justice. He was so tall, towering over her, his shoulders so broad that she couldn’t see anything but him.

Absurdly through the shock came the hurt—again—that he’d wasted little time in walking away from her the next morning. Leaving just an abrupt note which had read: The room is paid for. R.

A pointed cough sounded nearby. He didn’t move, and Gypsy couldn’t look away. Her carefully constructed world was crumbling into pieces around her.

‘Rico? Is something wrong with our order?’

A voice. A female voice. Confirming what Gypsy didn’t want to know by saying his name out loud. She registered dimly that it must be the stunning red-haired woman she’d walked past and noticed just minutes before. She couldn’t believe now that she’d passed him so blithely, with no hint of warning.

But he ignored the woman and said again faintly, ‘It’s you.’

Gypsy managed to shake her head and at the same time somehow miraculously extricate her arm from his long-fingered grasp. She prayed that she could speak and say something that made sense. Something that would get her out of this situation and away from him. After all, it had been one night—mere hours—how could someone like him possibly remember her? After the way he’d left, why would he want to remember her? How could this awful fiery awareness be snaking through her veins?

‘I’m sorry. You must be confusing me with someone else.’

Gypsy left him standing there and went straight to the staff bathroom, seriously afraid that she might be sick. Taking deep breaths over the sink, she felt clammy and sweaty. And all that was going through her mind was the imperative need to run, get away.

Ever since she’d found out that she was pregnant after their cataclysmic night together she’d known that some day she would have to tell Rico Christofides that he had a daughter. A fifteen-month-old daughter, with exactly the same colour eyes as her father. Gypsy felt nauseous again, but willed it down.

She could remember her terror at the prospect of becoming a mother, along with her instantly deep and abiding connection with the tiny baby growing within her. And with that had come the intense desire to protect her child. She’d seen how Rico Christofides dealt with women who dared to name him as the father of their child, and had had no desire to expose herself to that public humiliation. Even if she’d been certain that she could prove paternity.

Pregnant, and feeling extremely nervous and vulnerable at the daunting prospect of how Rico Christofides might react to the news, Gypsy had taken the difficult decision to have Lola on her own. She’d wanted to be in a strong and solvent position when she contacted him. Working as a waitress, albeit in an upmarket restaurant, was not the ideal situation for her to be in when dealing with someone as powerful as him.

Panic surged again. Gypsy didn’t even see her own white face in the mirror. If she didn’t get out of there now, Rico Christofides couldn’t fail to recall the woman who had acted completely out of character and who, on a tide of desire so intense that she still woke sometimes at night aching, had succumbed to his masterful seduction and indulged in a one-night stand.

Making a fateful decision, uncomfortably aware that she was acting on blind instinct and panic but seeing no other solution, she splashed some water on her face and went to find her boss.

‘Tom, please,’ Gypsy begged, and mentally crossed everything. She hated lying, and especially using her daughter to do it. But she had no choice. Not with the father of her child just through the kitchen doors.

‘I have to get home to Lola. Something has…come up.’

Her boss raked his hand through his short sandy hair. ‘Jeez, Gypsy you really pick your moments—you know we’re short staffed as it is. Can’t it wait for another hour, until we have the main rush over with?’

Gypsy hated herself for this. She shook her head, already taking off her apron as she did so. ‘I’m sorry, Tom. Really sorry—believe me.’

His face tightened and he crossed his arms. Gypsy felt the slither of fear trickle down her spine. ‘So am I, Gypsy. I don’t want to do this to you, but it’s come to this: you’ve been late nearly every day for the past two weeks.’

Gypsy started to protest, saying something about the inflexible hours of her daughter’s minder conflicting with her shift hours, but her boss cut her off.

‘You’re a good worker, but there’s a line of people behind you waiting to get a job here who won’t let me down like this.’

He took a breath, and Gypsy’s foreboding increased. ‘If you leave like this now then I’m afraid you won’t have a job to come back to. It’s that simple.’

A vivid memory surged back of the moment she’d found out that the man who had turned her world upside down was none other than one of the world’s most powerful men, and nausea returned.

The thought of going back out to the dining room and trying to function normally was inconceivable. She’d end up getting fired anyway for spilling someone’s dinner into their lap, she was shaking so much. She looked at Tom and shook her head again sadly, already anticipating the drudge of having to look for another job, silently giving thanks that she had some savings to tide them over for a couple of weeks. ‘I’m sorry, Tom, I have no choice.’

Her boss stood back after a long moment and gestured with his arm. ‘Then I’m sorry too, Gypsy, because you’re leaving me no choice.’

She couldn’t say anything. Her throat was too tight. She gathered up her things and left through the back kitchen door, stepping out into the dark and dank alleyway behind the exclusive restaurant.

Later that night Rico stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of his central London penthouse apartment, hands dug deep into his pockets. His pulse was still racing, and it had nothing to do with the beautiful woman he’d said a curt and sterile goodnight to—much to her obvious disgust—and everything to do with a pretty waitress who had confounded him by doing a disappearing act.

She’d done a disappearing act the first time round, but he only had himself to blame for that. He grimaced; if he hadn’t panicked…It still rankled with him that he’d let her get under his guard so easily. He could remember watching her sleeping, sprawled across the bed, feeling seriously stunned at the depth of his desire, still, and the depth of his response to her.

It was that and the overwhelming feeling of possessiveness which had driven him from the room as if hounds were snapping at this heels. He never felt possessive of women. But this evening, the minute he’d recognised her, it had surged upwards again, as fresh as if no time had passed. And she’d run. And he had no idea why.

He pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket. He’d got her name from the manager of the restaurant, and his men had made short work of tracking her down. He now had Gypsy Butler’s address—for apparently that was her name. He smiled grimly. He would soon find out what exactly he found so compelling about a woman he’d slept with for just one night, and why on earth she’d felt the need to run from him.

The following morning, as Gypsy walked home in drizzly rain from the local budget supermarket, pushing a sleeping Lola in her battered buggy, she was still reeling at what had happened the previous evening.

She’d seen Rico Christofides and she’d lost her job.

The two things she’d been most terrified of happening had happened in quick succession. She defended herself again: she’d had no choice but to leave last night—she’d have been in no fit state to work or deal with Rico Christofides. Her legs felt momentarily weak when she recalled how he’d looked, and how instantaneous his effect on her had been.

He’d been tall and strong and devastatingly powerful. And still as bone-meltingly gorgeous as the first time she’d seen him across that crowded nightclub two years ago.

The night she’d met Rico had been a moment out of time—and most definitely a moment out of character. He’d caught her on the cusp of her new life, when she’d been letting go of a lot of pain. She’d been vulnerable and easy prey to the practised charm of someone like Rico Christofides. But she’d had no clue then just exactly who he was. A world-renowned tycoon and playboy.

Seeing him had made everything she’d ever known pale into insignificance. She knew if he’d been dressed like the other men in the club—in a natty shirt and blazer, pressed chinos—it would have been easy to dismiss him as being like all the rest. But he hadn’t been dressed like that. He’d been dressed in a T-shirt and faded denims which had fit lean hips and powerful legs so lovingly that it had been almost indecent. An air of dangerous sexuality had clung to his devastatingly dark good-looks in a way that had left everyone around him looking anaemic—and awestruck.

But that in itself would have just made him a spectacularly handsome guy; it had been more than that. It had been in the intensity of his gaze across that heaving chaotic club—on her. Dark and mesmerising, stopping Gypsy right where she’d been dancing alone on the dance floor.

The impulse to get out of her tangled head and engage in something physical had called to her as she’d passed the club doors and heard the heavy bass beat just a short while before. It was a primal celebration of the fact that she was finally free of her late father and his corrupt and controlling legacy. When he’d died six months previously she’d felt more emptiness than grief for the man who had never shown her an ounce of genuine affection.

But when the gorgeous stranger had started to come towards her in the club, with singular intent, all tangled thoughts and memories had fled. He’d cleared an effortless path through the thronged crowd—and sanity had returned to Gypsy in a rush of panic. He was too handsome, too dark, too sexy…too much for someone like her. And the way he’d looked at her as he grew ever closer had scared the life out of her.

But, as if rooted to the spot by a magic spell, she hadn’t been able to move, and had just watched, dry-mouthed, as he came to stop right in front of her. Tall and forbidding. No easy sexy smile to make it easier. It was almost as if something elemental had passed between them and this man was claiming her as his. Which had been a ridiculous thing to feel on a banal Friday night in a club in central London.

‘Why have you stopped dancing?’ he’d asked innocuously, his deep voice pitched to carry across the deafening beat, but even so she’d heard the unmistakably subtle accent.

He was foreign. As if his dark looks wouldn’t have told her that anyway. A frisson of awareness had made her tremble all over when she’d noted his steely grey eyes, their colour stark against his olive skin. She’d shaken her head, as if to clear it of this madness, but just then someone had jostled her, heaving her forward and straight into the man’s arms, into hands which held her protectively against his hard body.

Instantaneous heat had exploded throughout Gypsy’s body at the sheer physicality of him. She’d looked up, utterly perplexed, and had sensed real fear…Not fear for her safety, but an irrational fear for her sanity. On a rising wave of panic she’d used her hands to push against his chest and stepped back, answering tightly, ‘I was just leaving, actually…’

His big hands had tightened on her arms—bare because she was wearing a sleeveless vest. Her light jacket was tied about her waist, her bag slung across her chest. ‘You just got here.’

He’d been watching her from the moment she’d arrived. Gypsy had felt weakness pervade her limbs to think of how she’d been dancing: as if no one was watching.

And then he’d said, ‘If you insist on leaving, then I’m coming with you.’

Gypsy had gasped at his cool and arrogant nerve. ‘But you can’t—you don’t even know me.’

His jaw had been hard and implacable. Stern. ‘Then dance with me and I’ll let you go…’ The fact that he hadn’t been cajoling, hadn’t been drunkenly flirting, had imbued his words with something too compelling to resist.

Gypsy’s focus came back to grim and grey reality as she was forced to stop by the traffic lights. She didn’t need to recall the pitifully pathetic attempt she’d put up to resist before agreeing—ostensibly to make him let her go.

But it had had completely the opposite effect. After dancing with her so closely that her body had been dewed with sweat and heat and lust, he’d bent low to whisper against her ear. ‘Do you still want to leave alone?’ To her ongoing shame and mortification, she’d shaken her head, slowly and fatefully, her eyes glued to his in some kind of sick fascination. She’d wanted him with a hunger the like of which she’d never experienced in her life.

She’d let him take her by the hand and lead her out of the club, seeing him as somehow symbolic of the cataclysmic events of the day that had just passed, during which she’d finally let go of everything that had bound her to her father.

She’d allowed herself to be seduced…and then summarily dumped like a piece of trash the following morning. She remembered seeing the curt note he’d left, and how cheap she’d felt—as if all that was missing was a bundle of cash on the dresser.

With an inarticulate sound of disgust at herself to be thinking of this now, the fact that she’d let a man like him—a powerful man just like her father—seduce her, Gypsy strode on across the road once the traffic had stopped. With any luck Rico Christofides would have become distracted by the vision of perfection he’d been dining with last night and forgotten all about her. But he remembered you… She realised that any other woman would be feeling an intensely feminine satisfaction that a man like him hadn’t forgotten her, but she just felt panicky. Why on earth did a man like him remember someone like her?

A familiar sense of despair gripped Gypsy as she turned into her road, full of boarded-up houses and disaffected-looking youths loitering on steps. As much as she’d relished her freedom after her father’s death, and as much as she wouldn’t have minded living somewhere like this if she’d only had herself to worry about, it did bother her that her daughter’s first home was in such a decrepit part of London. Even the nearby children’s playground was vandalised beyond use, with just one pathetic swing left.

She sighed heavily, very aware of the irony that, but for her hot-headedness and determination to dissociate herself from her father, she might have been living in much more upmarket surroundings. But then she knew she could never have lived off her father’s money—and she’d never have dreamed that she’d become pregnant after a one-night stand with a ruthlessly seductive—

Gypsy’s heart stopped stone-cold dead in her chest—and it had nothing to do with the faintly menacing-looking youths crowded around the steps of a nearby house and everything to do with the stunning car they were eyeing up.

The gleaming black luxury vehicle with tinted windows should have belonged to one of the gangsters that had a stranglehold on the area, but Gypsy knew immediately it was a world apart from their cars. The gangsters around here could only wish to own a car like this.

And as she drew closer, and saw the back door swing open, her heart picked up speed, so that it was nearly leaping from her chest as she watched a tall, dark and powerfully built figure uncoil like a panther stretching lazily in the sun.

As if she didn’t already know who it was, he turned to face her. Just feet away, and right outside her front door. No escape.

Rico Christofides.

Chapter Two

GYPSY knew she couldn’t run. The very thought was futile—as evidenced by Rico Christofides’ clear determination to find her. Why was he so intent? All Gypsy had to do was picture the woman from last night and the contrast between them was laughable.

Today she was in her habitual uniform of too baggy jeans bought from a local charity shop, layers of threadbare jumpers to block out the January cold, sneakers, a secondhand parka and a woolly hat pulled down low over her ears and too wild hair. He, on the other hand, looked every inch the successful tycoon, in a long, black and expensive-looking coat, with the hint of a pristine suit underneath.

She saw his slaty grey eyes narrow on her as she approached. No doubt he was regretting his impetuous decision to find her. And then her skin prickled as she saw his gaze drop to the pram she pushed, with a sleeping Lola inside, obscured by the rainshield.

His daughter—oh, God—could he know?

Gypsy immediately reassured herself there was no way he could know. Why would he assume for a second that Lola was his? She just had to take advantage of the undoubted regret he’d already be feeling at seeking her out and get rid of him. As soon as possible—before he could see Lola and guess.

Even if he didn’t guess she knew that once she told him about Lola he’d move heaven and earth to prove that she wasn’t his—which was what she’d seen him do before. And then, when paternity was proved, he’d set out to control his daughter utterly. Exactly as her father had done to her once he’d had no choice but to accept her.

She knew this because Rico came from her father’s world of powerful men who thrived on being ruthless. Men who dominated those around them.

As soon as she’d heard his name she hadn’t been able to believe she hadn’t recognised him. She even recalled overhearing her father speaking bitterly of Rico Christofides on more than one occasion: ‘If you think I’m ruthless then don’t ever cross Rico Christofides. The man is a cold machine. If I could beat him I would, but the bastard wouldn’t rest until he’d resurrected himself from the dead and ruined me in the process. Some fights just aren’t worth it, but I’d give anything to see his arrogance smashed…’

Her father had been obsessive, and the memory of that almost grudging admiration had blasted away any chance that she might have contacted Rico Christofides before today.

The best that Gypsy could hope for was that that day wasn’t going to be today, and that perhaps she could escape with Lola—go somewhere new, away from London—until such time as she could get her wits about her again and decide what was best for them both.

She was glad now of her plain and dowdy appearance. Rico Christofides must already be forming some escape route of his own. She’d help him along, agree with him that he must have the wrong person, and then he’d get back into his luxury car and be off, out of her life, until such time as she invited him back in, when she was ready to deal with him. With that assurance, she steeled herself and walked forward.

Rico watched the woman come towards him. For a second he faltered. Was this her? The woman approaching slowly looked impossibly plain from a distance, bare of any make-up or artifice. Pale. And her body was all but swamped in clothes that looked as if they’d just been dragged out of a skip.

And she had a child. Something which felt suspiciously like disappointment sent his brain reeling, and he clamped down on that emotion hard. A child was a complication. She came closer, and as he lifted his gaze back to her face he was already trying to come up with some excuse for having come all this way to find her, still doubting that it might be her. Perhaps he had been completely mistaken. Perhaps the name was a freak coincidence.

But then she drew closer, and all thoughts of children and complications fled as his body reacted with a helpless lurch of desire. It was her.

Despite her appearance, he could see the intensity of those huge green eyes now, framed with long black lashes, the delicate bone structure, her lush mouth. And her hair, with its irrepressible curls trailing out from under the tatty hat over her shoulders. It reminded him of the moment he’d first set eyes on her in that club. He’d been cursing himself for having gone at all, hating that he’d given in to weak restlessness, and then she’d walked in. Dressed in snug jeans and a vest top, completely at odds with the glitter of the too coiffed women who’d thronged the place. The expression on her face had been intense, as if she was being driven by inner demons, and it had resonated within Rico.

The firm swell of her breasts had been clearly outlined against the thin material of her top, and he’d watched, entranced, as she’d walked straight to the middle of the dance floor and started to dance with completely uninhibited grace. He’d seen plenty more beautiful women in his time, clothed and unclothed, but something about her lithe little figure, with its hint of sensual plumpness, had been more enticing than any gazelle-like beauty he’d ever known. With her tawny curly hair she’d looked wild, and free, and it had called to him on a base level too urgent to ignore…

She’d been exquisite. She was exquisite. Even though he could see at a glance now that she’d lost weight. Relief flooded him in a way that made him very nervous as she came to a standstill where he blocked the path. And along with the relief came irrational anger to find her living in such an obviously dangerous area. The anger surprised him; women didn’t normally arouse feelings of protectiveness within him. He’d noted the local thugs with distaste after he’d knocked and got no answer from her door, and retreated to his car to wait. They’d tried to intimidate him, but after one quelling look they’d recognised the danger within him and maintained a respectful distance.

Right at that moment he’d completely forgotten that he’d just considered making his excuses and leaving. That was now the last thing on his mind.

Gypsy decided to pretend that she didn’t know who he was, that she hadn’t just seen him again last night. It was cowardly, she knew, but she was counting on him wanting to make his escape from someone who looked like a bag lady.

‘Excuse me—you’re blocking my way.’

He didn’t move aside. Those penetrating grey eyes were fixed on her with unnerving intensity, and Gypsy could feel a flush of response rise up through her body as it reacted with dismaying helplessness to his proximity. As it was she was battling to keep back the images that threatened to burst free. Images of sweat-slicked bodies moving in desperate tandem, straining to reach the pinnacle…

‘Why did you run last night?’

His deep voice cut through those disturbing images. Her lie fell out with an ease that would have had her horrorstruck in any normal circumstance. ‘My daughter…I had to get home to my daughter.’ And then she cursed herself. She hadn’t denied that she’d run.

At that moment the rain started to fall more heavily, scattering the local teens around them. Rico Christofides gestured to her door, which was up a few steps. ‘Let me help you with the pram.’

Panic rose. Gypsy protested, not wanting him anywhere near her place or Lola. ‘No, really, I can manage…’ But even as she spoke Rico Christofides took hold of the pram and lifted it bodily against him, as if it weighed no more than a bag of sugar. She had to let go or it would have become a tug of war. The irony that Lola could become an object of a tug of war was not lost on Gypsy at that moment.

The rain was teeming down now, flattening his black hair against his skull. Gypsy could feel drops of water falling down her back. When he gestured with his head, she had no choice but to precede him up the steps to the front door. In the manoeuvring that was done to open the door and get Lola inside, with Rico Christofides hanging onto the buggy relentlessly, he was in her tiny one-bedroomed apartment before she knew what was happening or could stop it.

He placed the buggy back down in the pitiful excuse for a sitting room with a gentleness that momentarily disarmed Gypsy. She was a little stunned. With a brusque economy of movement he shut the main front door and came back to shut her ground-floor apartment door. Now he was looking around, and asked, ‘Have you got a towel?’

‘A towel?’ Gypsy repeated stupidly, knowing on some level that she was going into shock.

‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘A towel…You’re soaked through and so am I.’

‘A towel,’ she repeated again, and then, as if jolted by a stun gun, she came out of her shocked inertia. ‘A towel—of course.’ Get the towel, let him dry off and he’ll be gone.

Gypsy walked on stiff legs to the tiny bedroom she shared with Lola and opened the cupboard to take out a towel. Coming back, she handed it to Rico Christofides, trying not to notice how huge he appeared to be in the small room.

Immediately he frowned and handed the towel back to her. ‘You first—you’re soaked. Surely you have more than one?’

Gypsy looked at it stupidly, and then gabbled, ‘Of course.’ She gestured jerkily. ‘You take that one. I’ll get another.’ She tried not to let the mounting impatience she felt be heard in her voice. Why wouldn’t he just leave?

Coming back to the sitting room, she saw him drying his hair roughly with big hands. He’d taken off his coat to drape it over a threadbare chair, and his impeccable suit was moulded to his strong frame, making her throat dry at recalling the body underneath.

He turned to face her, taking his hands down, leaving his short hair sexily dishevelled. He glowed with vitality and health, making Gypsy feel pale and wan.

He frowned down at her. ‘You should take off your coat and hat…’ He looked around. ‘Do you have a heater in here?’

Reluctantly she pulled off her hat and started to undo her coat, knowing he was right; the last thing she needed was to get ill. She shook her head when those grey eyes settled on her again, expecting an answer, and flushed when they dropped imperceptibly to take in her shabby clothes as her coat slid off. She was very aware of her hair, which now curled in wild abandon around her shoulders, and could just imagine how frizzy it would be from the rain. She wanted to pull it back and tie it up. And she hated that he was making her aware of herself like that.

‘Our heater broke this morning. The storage heating will come on in a couple of hours.’

Rico Christofides looked comically shocked. ‘You’ve no heat? But you have a child—it’s freezing outside.’

Gypsy flushed with a mother’s guilt. ‘This is the first day it’s been broken. We’ll manage until we can get a replacement…’ She trailed off, suddenly thinking of the fact that now she was out of work her meagre savings wouldn’t be stretching to cover a new heater. As if she could explain she’d lost her job because of him. How irresponsible was she?

She looked at Rico Christofides and recognised his wide-legged stance with dismay. He wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. With extreme reluctance she finally said, ‘Can I get you tea or coffee?’

His eyes narrowed on her once again. The barest hint of a smile tipped up one corner of his wickedly sensual mouth as he recognised her capitulation. ‘I’d love a coffee, please. Black, no sugar.’

Stark, with no sweetener—just like him, Gypsy thought churlishly as she went into the kitchen to put on the kettle. All she could hope for now was that Lola wouldn’t wake up and Rico Christofides would satisfy whatever bizarre lingering curiosity he had about her and leave. Soon.

Rico looked around the bare apartment as Gypsy moved about the kitchen and he suppressed a shudder of distaste. Without her presence right in front of him his brain seemed to clear slightly. Once again he questioned his sanity in pursuing her here, especially when his eyes fell on the battered-looking buggy which sat just feet away against the wall. His sane impulse was to come up with some plausible excuse—even just ask her why she seemed to be determined to pretend she didn’t know him—but a greater overriding impulse was urging him to stay. Even if there was a child in the picture.

He could only make out the fact that her daughter was quite small, so therefore she must have had her since she’d been with him. And even though Rico knew he had no right to feel a surge of anger at that, he did.

Even just watching her pull off that damned unflattering hat and coat had scrambled his brain and made him almost forget the presence of the child. The quick movement of her small hands had reminded him of how they’d felt on him, stroking along the most sensitive part of his anatomy until he’d had to beg her to stop…He frowned. Why was she so intent on denying she knew him? And that night? Even if he had left the way he had, he knew it had been as cataclysmic for her too. The shocked look of awe on her face just after she’d exploded around him had told him that.

With no false pride he knew he was a good lover, but what he’d experienced that night with Gypsy had gone beyond anything he’d ever known before. Or since. It had shaken him out of his complacency. Was that why he needed to see her again? To recapture that moment? To see if it had been his imagination or something…more? He balked at that. He never wanted anything more with any woman. But that night with Gypsy had touched him on a level that had left him feeling an ache of dissatisfaction, and it had only grown since then, pervading everything around him and tainting the few liaisons he’d had with women in the interim.

He knew seeing her last night had thrown the fact that he’d been trying to recapture that fleeting transcendence he’d experienced with her into sharp relief. With that thought reverberating through his mind he heard Gypsy re-enter the room. He turned to face her and took the coffee she held out. She was avoiding his eyes.

Gypsy escaped Rico’s gaze and occupied herself by going to peek in at Lola who, to her relief, was still sleeping peacefully, her cheeks pink and her rosebud mouth in a little moue. Long black lashes rested against plump baby cheeks. Gypsy’s heart swelled, as it did every time she looked at her daughter, and at that moment she felt an overwhelming surge of guilt at knowing she was denying Lola’s father knowledge of her when he stood only feet away.

She quashed it down, telling herself that she was doing it for good reasons, and straightened up, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. To her surprise she saw that Rico Christofides had taken a saucepan from the kitchen and was placing it in the corner of the room where, to her dismay, she saw that he’d spotted a leak.

As he straightened up again she said, more caustically than she’d intended, ‘Look, what is it you want from me?’ The rogue thought that he could be there because after seeing her again he’d been overcome with lust set her mind spinning, before she realised how unlikely that had to be.

Rico Christofides calmly sat down on the two-seater sofa and indicated for Gypsy to sit down too. With a barely disguised huff, which was really more fear than impatience, she took the chair opposite the sofa. He took a lazy sip of coffee before putting the cup down on the chipped table.

‘I’d like to know why you seem to be so determined to pretend we’ve never met, when in fact we’re intimately acquainted.’

Gypsy blushed to the roots of her hair at the way he said intimately. Tightly, she answered, knowing it was futile to keep pretending otherwise. ‘I am well aware of the fact that we’ve met before, but I’ve no desire to become reacquainted.’

He regarded her for an uncomfortably long moment and then said, ‘You may not believe this, but I regretted leaving you the way I did that morning.’

A spasm of emotion made Gypsy clamp her lips together. She didn’t doubt this was just a smooth move—he most likely hadn’t given her a second thought. Perhaps he’d seen her last night and assumed she might be as easy to seduce again. ‘Well, I don’t. And you’re forgetting that you left your kindly informative note.’

His face tightened. ‘Contrary to what you might have thought after that night, I’m not in the habit of picking women up in clubs and booking into the nearest hotel for a night of anonymous sex.’

Gypsy burned inside, but shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Look, what do I know or care? It’s not something I gave much thought to.’

He sent a pointed look towards Lola’s pram, and said ascerbically, ‘Clearly I can see that perhaps one-night stands are a habit for you.’

Gypsy gasped in affront and sat up straight, hands clenched on her lap, ‘How dare you? I’d never had a one-night stand in my life before I met you.’

He arched a brow. ‘And yet,’ he drawled easily, ‘you were remarkably eager to throw yourself into the experience that night, Gypsy Butler.’

Gypsy’s heart stopped. He knew her full name—of course he did; he’d found her. He’d be able to track her down no matter where she went now. They must have given it to him at the restaurant.

He asked now, ‘So, that really is your name?’

Gypsy nodded, wanting him gone more than ever now, not liking the way he was making her feel so trapped, and said distractedly, ‘My mother had an obsession with Gypsy Rose Lee, hence the name.’ She left out the fact that for a good portion of her life she hadn’t been called by her birth name at all. As far as she was concerned that part of her life had ended when her father had died.

Forcing her mind away from those memories she said, harshly but quietly, mindful of Lola, ‘Look, what is it you want? I’m busy.’

He cast her a scathing glance. ‘Busy trying to get away from me, for some reason.’ His eyes narrowed on her, and she felt like a tiny piece of prey in front of a predator, with no escape in sight. ‘And at high cost—especially when I happen to know that your disappearing act last night lost you your job…’

Gypsy held in a gasp but said shakily, ‘How do you know that?’

His shoulder moved minutely, ‘The waiters were remarkably indiscreet and loud.’ Taking her by surprise, Rico Christofides asked then, as if it had just occurred to him, ‘Where is your child’s father?’

Sitting in front of me, she thought hysterically, and schooled her features, hitching up her chin in an unconscious gesture of defiance. ‘We’re alone.’

‘You have no other family?’

Gypsy shook her head, and tried to ignore the feeling of vulnerability his words provoked. Rico Christofides was grim. ‘Which proves my point, don’t you think? You slept with me and at least one other man soon after—for I can’t imagine that you had left a small baby in the care of a stranger while you were with me that night.’

Gypsy shook her head, aghast at the thought of leaving Lola like that while she went off to spend the night with someone. ‘Of course I didn’t. I would never have done something like that.’

Rico Christofides looked almost smug. She’d proved his point for him, albeit erroneously, because of course she hadn’t slept with anyone else since him. With panic galvanising her movements, making them jerky, Gypsy stood up with clenched fists at her sides. ‘Look, Mr Christofides, you’re really not welcome here. I’d like you to leave.’

It was only at his sharply drawn together brows and the way his head snapped up that Gypsy ran over what she’d just said and realised with sick horror its import.

He rose slowly and looked down at her, frowning, and Gypsy felt the horror spread through her when he said, ‘You know who I am. So you did know who I was that night?’

She shook her head, feeling sick, the possible future implications of her knowledge too much to consider right now. ‘No…no, I didn’t. It was only the next morning…when I saw you on the news…’

It had been just after she’d read his note and realised he’d gone. She’d seen the TV in the corner of the room, on a news channel and on mute. He’d obviously been watching it before he’d left that morning. To her utter surprise she’d seen him, clean-shaven and pristine in a suit, looking almost like a different person, walking down the steps of an official building surrounded by photographers and an important-looking entourage. Gypsy had raised the sound and watched with mounting horror as she’d discovered exactly who Rico was.

‘And yet you never contacted me once you knew…you still left…’ He said this almost musingly, as if trying to work her out. Gypsy knew that in his world women who wouldn’t take advantage of a one-night stand with a man like him would be few and far between.

She nodded her head vigorously. ‘Yes, I left.’ And then, far more defensively than she liked, ‘I got the hint that morning when I woke and you were long gone, leaving a note which made me feel like a call girl, and to be perfectly honest I have no interest in discussing this any further. I’d like you to leave now. Please.’

At that moment, to Gypsy’s utter horror and a spiking of panic, a cry came from the pram—which turned into a familiar wail as Lola woke from her nap and demanded attention.

Chapter Three

SO SHE was upset with how he’d left her. Rico forced his mind from that intriguing nugget of information. He could see that she was torn between wanting to go to her child and wanting him gone, and then she blurted out, over the ever increasing wails, ‘Look, now is really not a good time. Please leave us alone.’

Please leave us alone.

Something about those words, the way she said us, the hunted look about her face, made Rico dig his heels in. There was some bigger reason she wanted him gone. She felt threatened. That much was crystal-clear.

And, to his utter surprise, the child’s piercing wails were not making him want to run in the opposite direction, fast. Gypsy’s words, her whole demeanour was intriguing him, and he hadn’t found much intriguing at all lately. He wanted answers to her behaviour, wanted to know why she wanted him gone so badly, and her crying baby wasn’t about to deter him.

That realisation shocked him slightly, as his only experience with kids to date was his four-year-old niece and her baby brother. While they amused him—especially his precocious niece—his younger half-brother’s besottedness had left him perplexed. He just didn’t really get the whole kids thing. And certainly had no intention of having any himself any time soon—not after the childhood he and his brother had endured…But that path led to dark memories he wasn’t prepared to contemplate now.

With a brusqueness brought on by those thoughts Rico bit out, ‘Shouldn’t you see to your child?’

With obvious dismay at his intractability, Gypsy went over to the pram and pulled back the cover. Immediately the child stopped crying, just a few snuffles now as Gypsy cooed at her and leant in to pick her up.

In that moment Gypsy’s plea to please leave us alone resonated in his head. Rico’s skin tightened over his bones imperceptibly. He was aware that he’d tensed and stopped breathing. As if he had some prescience of something about to occur, something momentous. Which was crazy…

Gypsy lifted out the solidly warm weight of her still sleepy daughter, unable, despite everything, to keep an instinctive smile off her face. Lola was a happy little girl—rarely grouchy, invariably even-tempered and smiley—which was impossible not to respond to. Gypsy might have castigated herself for her behaviour that night, but she’d never for one second regretted Lola, or contemplated not having her.

Gypsy automatically started to take off Lola’s outdoor jacket, as she would be warm after her nap, and tried valiantly to ignore the fact that Rico Christofides would now be looking upon his own flesh and blood for the first time. Pushing that scary thought away, she thought surely now he’d balk at the reality of a toddler and leave them alone?

A child demanding attention was hardly conducive to discussing a one-night stand? Surely he’d see that she wasn’t in the market for that again? But even at that thought her lower belly clenched with desire, as if in denial.

Lola’s coat was off, and she sat up in Gypsy’s arms, more awake now. Having spied Rico Christofides she looked at him shyly, leaning into her mother more, sticking her thumb in her mouth—a habit she’d developed as Gypsy had tried to abstain from using pacifiers.

With the utmost reluctance Gypsy followed her daughter’s gaze, knowing what Rico Christofides would be looking at: a delicately built toddler, with wide slategrey eyes ringed with long dark lashes, slightly darker than pale skin, and a shoulder-length mop of golden corkscrew curls which habitually refused to be tamed. She was adorable. People stopped Gypsy on the street all the time to exclaim over Lola.

At that moment Lola took her thumb out of her mouth and looked at Gypsy, while pointing at Rico Christofides, and said something unintelligible with all the confidence of having uttered a coherent word.

She gave a determined wriggle that Gypsy knew better than to resist, and she had no choice but to put Lola down on her feet and watch as she toddled, still a little unsteady after her nap, over to Rico Christofides, to look up, clearly certain she’d get a warm response. When he just stared down at her, with a slightly shell-shocked expression, Gypsy felt foreboding surround her like a thick ominous fog.

Lola looked from Rico back to Gypsy and then, uncertain because of his lack of response, she came back and held her arms out to Gypsy, who picked her up again and held her close.

‘What did you say her name was?’ asked Rico after an interminable moment of tense silence, and Gypsy nearly closed her eyes in despair. He knew. He’d have to be blind not to know. They had exactly the same uniquely grey eyes, and now that Gypsy had seen him again she could see they shared the same determined chin…and forehead. She was his feminine miniature—a stunning biological example of nature stamping the father’s mark on his child so that there could be no doubt she was his.

‘Lola,’ Gypsy replied faintly.

As if forcing himself to ask the question, not having taken his eyes off Lola yet, he asked hoarsely, ‘How old is she?’

Gypsy did close her eyes now—just for a second. The weight of fate and inevitability weighed her down. She was to be given no reprieve, and even if she did try to bluff her way out of this now, and run, she’d have to change her identity to evade Rico Christofides. An impossibility, considering her already precarious circumstances.

‘Fifteen months…’

‘I didn’t hear you,’ he said quickly, curtly.

Gypsy winced at the harsh tone of his voice, and said again, with fatality sinking into her bones along with a numbness which had to be shock, ‘Fifteen months.’

For the first time his gaze met hers, and she could see what was burning in those increasingly stormy grey depths. Stark suspicion, realisation, shock, horror…all tangled up.

‘But,’ he said carefully, too carefully, ‘that’s impossible. Because if she’s fifteen months old then, unless you slept with someone else directly after me, that would make her…mine. And as you haven’t contacted me then I can only assume that she isn’t mine.’

Gypsy’s breath became more shallow. She tightened her hold on Lola, who was beginning to pick up on the tension. That sense of guilt surged back; she couldn’t deny him this, no matter who he was. She looked directly at Rico Christofides and swallowed. ‘I didn’t sleep with anyone else. I haven’t been with anyone else…since you.’ It killed her, but she had to say it. ‘And I wasn’t with anyone just before…you.’ She didn’t think it worth mentioning now that she’d only had one previous lover, in college.

Again too carefully, Rico Christofides said slowly, ‘So what you’re saying is that your daughter is mine? This little girl is my daughter?’

Gypsy nodded jerkily, going hot and cold in an instant. A clammy sweat broke out over her skin, making it prickle. And at that moment, with impeccable timing, clearly bored with the lack of attention, Lola started to squirm and whinge.

Gypsy seized on the distraction. ‘She’s hungry. I need to feed her.’ And she fled like a coward into the kitchen, where she put Lola into her highchair and started chattering to her saying nonsensical things. She knew she was in shock, close to hysteria—and acutely aware of the man just feet away, who now had the power to rip their lives apart.

Rico wasn’t sure if he was still standing. He’d never been so thoroughly shocked, taken by surprise, blindsided in his entire life. All of the control he took for granted had just crumbled around him like a flimsy façade, and he saw how precarious it had really been since he’d taken control of his life at the tender age of sixteen.

He knew anger was there, but couldn’t feel it quite yet. He was numbed. And all he could think about was how it had been just those four words which had made him stop: please leave us alone. All he could think about was what it had been like to look into that little girl’s eyes for the first time and feel as though he’d missed a step, even though he hadn’t even been moving.

When she’d toddled over to look up at him with such innocent guile his heart had jolted once, hard, and he’d felt as if he was falling from a great height into an abyss. An abyss of grey eyes exactly the same unique shade as his own, which he’d inherited from his own father. Right now, the most curious sensation flooded him—as if an elusive piece of himself was slotting into place, something he hadn’t even been aware was missing from his life.

It was too much. Acting on blind instinct, he crashed out of Gypsy’s apartment, through the main door and to his car, where his driver jumped out. Gasping, Rico yanked open the car door and reached inside for what he was looking for. He realised belatedly that it was still raining as he pulled out a bottle of whisky and unscrewed the top, holding it by the neck before taking a deep gulp of the amber liquid.

His driver quickly ducked back into the car, clearly sensing his boss’s volatility and his need to be unobserved. With his hand clenched around the bottle, clarity slowly returned to Rico and he welcomed it. This woman had betrayed him in the most heinous way. The worst way possible.

He’d believed that his own biological father had turned his back on him, but in fact he hadn’t. His mother and his stepfather had seen to it that he had believed it, though.

And here was Gypsy Butler, repeating history, blithely bringing up his own daughter—his flesh and blood—clearly with no intention of ever letting him know. She’d tried to get him to leave!

He’d vowed at the age of sixteen that he would never be vulnerable or powerless again. That vow had become his life’s code when he’d finally found his father and learnt just how terribly they’d both been lied to—for years. Since then, for him trust had become just a word with useless meaning.

The flimsy chance which had led him to choose that restaurant last night made him shudder in horror; at how close he’d come to never knowing of his own daughter’s existence. He looked back towards the still open front door and took in the shabby excuse for a house. Resolve solidified in his chest, and he threw the bottle of whisky back into the car.

He knew that his life was about to change for ever, and damned if he wasn’t going to change their lives too. There was a deep primal beat within him now not to let Gypsy or his daughter out of his sight again. The fierce and immediate possessiveness he felt, and the need to punish Gypsy for her actions, were raging like a fire within him.

Gypsy was shaking all over, and had to consciously try to calm herself as she finished feeding Lola and listened out for Rico’s car taking off. The speed with which he’d left the apartment had in equal measure sent a wave of relief and a wave of anger through her. While it was her worst nightmare to be in this situation, how could he reject his daughter so summarily?

She felt a surge of protectiveness for Lola, and cursed Rico Christofides while acknowledging that she’d expected this to be one of his possible reactions. Straight denial and rejection—just as her father had done with her initially.

She told herself that this was a good thing; she’d salved her conscience by telling Rico Christofides, and Gypsy knew that in the long run they’d both be better off. At least she could tell her daughter as she grew up who her father was, and that it just hadn’t worked out between them. Guilt hit her again when she thought of how her daughter might perceive the disparity in their circumstances, but Gypsy reassured herself that—as she knew well—the fact that Rico Christofides was a multibillionaire did not a father make.

Her own life had been changed for ever when her ill and penniless mother had begged her father to take Gypsy in. He’d been the owner of the company where Mary Butler had been a menial cleaner. An impossibly rich man who had taken advantage of his position and taken her to bed, with all sorts of promises, only to drop her and fire her as soon as she’d told him she was pregnant. Unable to get another job or make rent payments, she’d soon become homeless.

Gypsy had spent her first few months in a women’s refuge, where her mother had gone after she’d given birth at Christmas time. Slowly her mother had built up her life again, finding more menial work and eventually getting them both a council flat in a rough part of London.

Gypsy had known from a very young age that her mother wasn’t coping, and she’d learnt to watch out for the signs so that she could take care of her. Of them both. Until she’d got home from school one day and found her mother passed out on the couch, with an empty bottle of pills on the floor.

The emergency services had managed to save her—just. And the only thing that had stopped them from putting six-year-old Gypsy straight into foster care had been her mother’s assurance that she would send her to live with her father. And so Gypsy had eventually gone to live with the father who had never wanted her, and she’d never seen her mother again. She’d only found out later that her father had comprehensively shut her mother out of Gypsy’s life.

Forcing her mind away from sad memories, she strained to listen out for the car and still couldn’t hear anything. What was he doing? She made sure that Lola had a firm grip of the plastic cup she was drinking from and stood up, heart thumping. The door to the apartment was still open, and she crept over to close it.

With one hand on the door, she heard heavy steps. He was coming back. Panic made her clumsy as she tried to shut the door completely, but it was too late. A hand and foot prevented her from closing it, and as she jumped backwards in shock at how quickly he’d moved she heard a laconic drawl, edged with steel.

‘You didn’t think it would be so easy to get rid of me, did you?’

Chapter Four

SHE watched, dry-mouthed as Rico Christofides stepped back into the room, closing the door with incongruous softness behind him, angry grey eyes narrowed intently on her, face impossibly grim. Rain clung in iridescent water droplets to his hair and jacket. She had an awful feeling of déjà-vu—the same feeling she’d had that day when she’d found her mother unconscious. Everything was about to change and she was powerless to stop it.

The anger she’d felt moments ago at thinking of him rejecting Lola dissipated under a much more potent threat. Just as her father had belatedly and reluctantly swept in and taken over when she’d been six, now Rico Christofides was about to do the same. This was the other reaction she’d expected and feared.

She fought through her fear and bit out through numb lips, ‘I don’t want you here, Mr Christofides. I never intended you to find out—’

He uttered a curt laugh. ‘Clearly you never intended me to find out. How serendipitous, then, that I just happened to choose that restaurant last night, out of the many thousands in London.’

His sensual mouth firmed, and he looked angry enough to throttle Gypsy, but she felt no sense of danger.

‘Believe me, it makes my blood run cold to think how close I came to never knowing about this.’

Gypsy heard herself say, as though from a long way away, ‘You didn’t let me finish. I didn’t intend you to find out like this. I was going to tell you…at some stage.’

He arched an imperious brow, derision all over his handsome face, ‘When? When she turned ten? Or perhaps sixteen? When she was a fully grown person who’d built up a lifetime of resentment for the father who’d abandoned her?’ His voice became blistering, his accent thickened. ‘Undoubtedly that’s what you’d planned, no? Feed her lies and tell her that her father hadn’t wanted to know her? Couldn’t be bothered to stick around?’

Gypsy shook her head. She was feeling nauseous at the condemnation in his tone. ‘No, I…I hadn’t planned that at all. I was going to tell her—and you—I promise.’

It sounded so flimsy to her ears now. The fact was she’d just proved him right; she’d planned on keeping this from him indefinitely and it made Rico’s eyes narrow even more. Gypsy could see the effort it was taking for him not to reach out and shake her. Or perhaps even worse. For the first time she did feel fear, and stepped back.

He noted the move with disgust. ‘Don’t worry, you and your promises are so far beneath my contempt right now I wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole. If you were a man, however…’ He didn’t need to finish that sentence.

Gypsy bit back the impulse to explain that she’d wanted to use her degree, set up as a practising child psychologist and be solvent before she went looking for him to deliver the news. She’d known how defenceless she would be to someone like him unless she could stand on her own two feet and demonstrate that she was successfully independent. And this situation was proving exactly how right she’d been to be scared.

Yet even now she was impossibly aware of him physically. The way his suit clung to his powerful frame, the way his hands on his hips drew the eye to their leanness. Hips which she could remember running her hands over as he’d thrust into her so deeply that sometimes she still woke from dreams that were disturbingly real…

Half dizzy with shock, and a surge of very unwelcome lust, Gypsy sank down helplessly into the chair behind her. Rico Christofides just looked at her, without an atom of sympathy or concern, even though she could feel her blood draining southwards and knew she must have gone white. She was scared to stand in case she fainted. But she drew on the inner strength which had got her through years of dealing with her domineering father and stood again, albeit shakily.

At that moment a plaintive cry came from the kitchen, and they both turned to see Lola looking from one to the other with huge grey eyes and an ominously quivering lip. Gypsy could see that she was picking up on her distress, and moved to take her up and hold her.

With Lola securely on her hip, she looked back to Rico Christofides, slightly shocked to see a stricken look on his face. She steeled herself and said, ‘Look, please leave us be. You know now—you know where we are. I don’t want anything from you. We don’t need anything from you.’

He dragged his eyes from Lola to her, and Gypsy felt the cold sting of his condemnation like a whip against her skin. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s just not good enough—because I want something from you. My daughter. And, until such time as she can speak for herself, I’ll determine what she needs.’

His effortlessly autocratic tone made chills run up and down Gypsy’s spine. It reminded her so much of her father. She instinctively pulled Lola closer. ‘I’m her mother. Anything to do with her welfare is my decision. I chose to have her on my own. I’m a single mother.’

His eyes speared her then, and she saw a suspicious light. ‘You must have deliberately led people to believe that I’d refused to come forward to acknowledge my own daughter. Am I even mentioned on the birth certificate?’

Gypsy blanched and recalled how she’d lied about knowing his identity when asked in the hospital. She’d reassured herself that if she hadn’t seen the news that morning she wouldn’t necessarily have realised who he was. All of this behaviour; the lying was so unlike her.

She shook her head quickly and visibly flinched when he made a move towards her. For a second she thought he’d rip Lola out of her arms and take her away. Lola started to make sounds of distress.

Rico stopped dead still and said, his face pale with anger, ‘Damn you to hell, Gypsy Butler. How dare you refuse to name me as her father. You knew who I was.’

Gypsy was trying not to shake, and to pacify Lola at the same time, keeping her voice carefully calm. ‘I was protecting her, protecting us.’

As if aware of his daughter’s distress too, he surprised Gypsy by lowering his voice. But that didn’t make it any less angry. ‘From what? You had no right to take that decision.’

Gypsy couldn’t speak. How could she explain to this man that once she’d found out she was pregnant she’d known for sure that he could not be told until she was ready to deal with him?

He was waiting for her response, for her justification. She blurted out, ‘I saw you on the news that morning.’

He frowned.

Gypsy went on, ‘I saw you come out of court after you’d reduced that woman to a wreck—and all because she tried to prove that her baby was yours.’

Rico slashed a hand through the air and said curtly, ‘You know nothing of that case. I was making an example of her so that no other woman would be inclined to think they could take advantage of me in such a way.’

Gypsy hitched up her chin. ‘So how can you blame me for not running to tell you of my pregnancy? You made it clear when you left that morning that you didn’t want to see me again, and then I saw how you dealt with a woman who claimed to be the mother of your child.’

Rico bit back the urge to tell Gypsy that he’d regretted his hasty departure; he’d phoned the hotel straight after the court case was concluded, hoping against hope that she mightn’t have left. But she had. And he was not about to reveal that weakness now…especially not now.

Gypsy watched as Rico’s face became even more implacable and hard. She conveniently left out her myriad other reasons for not telling him. The memory of that woman’s humiliation in the face of Rico’s cold and very public displeasure was still etched on her brain.

His voice was utterly icy when he spoke. ‘The difference in this case is that I know we slept together. I’d only ever met that woman socially before, and because I rejected her advances and she had some paltry circumstantial evidence to suggest we might have been intimate she tried to prove that her baby was mine. I insisted on a paternity test and a public court to prove my case.’

Gypsy shivered inwardly. He was as ruthless as her father had said. ‘But you ruined that woman’s reputation, dragging her through the courts.’

His face was stony. ‘She brought it all on herself. She was convinced I wouldn’t want to risk the publicity to prove I wasn’t the father. I gave her an opportunity to avoid it and she refused, believing I’d be an easy target and pay her off to keep her quiet. Within weeks of the court case she’d admitted who the real father was and was forced to make do with his meagre million euro fortune. Believe me, she does not merit your sympathy.’

Gypsy wondered now at the woman’s sense of delusion. Anyone could see that Rico Christofides was not a man who would bow to pressure. She tried not to let his explanation sway her, but deep down she had to admit she was surprised. Even so, she asked, ‘And yet you believe that Lola might be yours?’

Rico’s eyes went to Gypsy’s, and something that flared in their depths made her go hot in the face. ‘Apart from the fact that you’ve told me she is, I can be fairly certain that she’s mine because the protection I used that night split. When you assured me you’d be safe, I believed you.’

His words fell into the vacuum they’d caused. To Gypsy’s horror, all she could remember was that moment when he’d held back from sliding into her to put on protection. Even that had caused her to entreat him desperately, ‘Please, Rico…don’t stop now. Please.’ If anything, she was probably to blame for the protection failing because she’d rushed him. And then she had promised him she’d be safe, fully believing that she had no cause to worry. But she hadn’t taken into account how erratic her cycle had grown in the months after her father’s death…

He continued, cutting through her shameful memory, ‘You dare to ask me this after you ran from me last night, knowing I was the father of your child? You ask me this when looking at her is like looking into a mirror for me?’ His mouth twisted. ‘But don’t worry. I’m not so naïve that I won’t get a paternity test done just to make sure. Your insistence that you want nothing from me only leads me to believe that you do.’ He laughed harshly. ‘You can hardly expect me to believe that I managed to impregnate the one woman in the world who wants not a cent of my fortune?’

He didn’t allow her to interject.

‘Perhaps you intended coming after me when she was old enough and skinny enough from malnutrition that your story would pluck at the heartstrings of the public with maximum effect? Or perhaps you just relish the twisted power of knowing you’re denying your own daughter her paternal heritage? You’ll do what you can to bleed me dry even while keeping me away from her?’

Gypsy clutched Lola even closer, and in an unconscious move shielded her daughter as much as she could from Rico. She felt fierce as she gave a scathing look around the pathetic flat. ‘Do you really think that I would choose to bring up my daughter in this just so that I could hatch some cunning extortion plan? Or that I revel in the fact that we’re dependent on dodgy storage heating? I am a good mother, and despite our challenging circumstances Lola has wanted for nothing. She is well fed, looked after and loved. She is an extremely happy and secure child.’

Rico looked at Gypsy. Her huge green eyes were luminous, and he realised that the sky had darkened outside. The rain was a torrential downpour now, and he could hear the insistent drip-drip of the leak in the corner and feel the damp in the air.

He could not understand this woman. This whole situation. He was certain he was Lola’s father—he felt it in his bones in a way he couldn’t explain and didn’t want to articulate to this woman. So why hadn’t she fleeced him from the moment she’d found out she was pregnant? Especially as she’d known who he was. None of this made sense to him.

He asked again, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Gypsy looked away. He saw her bite her lip. Finally she looked back, and he saw trepidation in her eyes, and something that looked suspiciously like fear. ‘Because I wanted to protect my daughter and do what was best for her.’

Rico shook his head, uncomprehending. His brain was quick, faster than most, but right now it felt as if treacle had been poured into it.

‘What on earth are you afraid of?’

And Gypsy just said simply, ‘This.’

‘You’re not making sense, woman. How can your present situation be better than what I could have offered?’

At that moment Rico had a vivid insight into how it might have been. The shock of finding out that Gypsy was pregnant, but then coming to terms with it. He would never have had to wonder about her. He would have had her in his bed all this time, to sate himself until he was done with her. A curious sense of loss assailed him.

They could have worked out some mutual arrangement with Lola…But even as he thought that, he knew he wouldn’t be happy with a mutual arrangement. Things had escalated way beyond that now. Gypsy owed him. He’d missed out on fifteen months of his daughter’s life. His daughter looked at him as if he was a stranger because he was.

He fought not to be distracted by remembering the illicit thrill which had run through him to hear Gypsy’s admission that she hadn’t slept with anyone else since him—that he’d been her only one-night stand. She’d been slightly gauche and innocent that night, and she’d been so tight around him—almost like a virgin. At that memory a wave of desire engulfed him.

Gypsy’s chin came up and Rico drew on all his control, fought the impulse he had to stride forward and plunder her soft mouth, caress the delicate bones of her jaw.

‘There are plenty of people surviving on a lot less than I. Money isn’t everything, and I didn’t relish the prospect of being hauled through the courts and the tabloids to prove your paternity. It was my decision to have Lola, therefore she’s my responsibility.’

Rico fought back the barrage of questions. He sensed that there was a lot more to it than that. But right now he needed to get them out of this godforsaken place. He would have plenty of time to question Gypsy later. She was proving to be an enigma of monumental proportions, but he had no doubt that despite what she said she had an agenda. Every woman did.

Chapter Five

GYPSY hoped Rico would just take her explanation and leave it at that. She didn’t like the look on his face now, though, it was far too determined. And Lola was being far too quiet.

Gypsy turned her head to see that she was just looking at Rico, with big, watchful eyes, thumb in her mouth. Mrs Murphy, Lola’s minder, had commented plenty of times that Lola was an ‘old soul’.

And then Rico said, ‘Get your things together. You’re coming with me.’

Gypsy’s head whipped around so fast she nearly got whiplash. ‘What?’

‘You heard me.’ Steel ran through his voice. ‘I want you to get whatever you need and pack it up. We’re leaving this place now.’

Gypsy shook her head, panic trickling through her even as the prospect of being whisked away from this flat held undeniable appeal. With anyone but him.

‘I’m not going anywhere with you. We’re not going anywhere.’

Rico folded his arms. ‘Why? Because you’ve got work to go to later?’ He clicked his fingers then, as if remembering something. ‘Oh, but that’s not right, is it? You walked away from your job last night. Not a very responsible thing to do if you’re a single parent, is it?’

Gypsy blanched. She’d forgotten for a moment.

And then, as if thinking of something, Rico asked abruptly, ‘Who was minding Lola last night?’

Immediately Gypsy was defensive. Her hackles rose—he was already sounding far too proprietorial. ‘Mrs Murphy from down the road. She’s a retired qualified childminder who looks after Lola in the evenings for some extra cash.’

He bristled. ‘You leave my daughter with a stranger in this armpit of a street?’

Gypsy bristled right back. ‘She’s not a stranger, she’s a lovely woman, and Lola has always been perfectly safe with her.’ Gypsy’s conscience struck her then. She knew that if she’d had a choice she wouldn’t have been leaving Lola with anyone. ‘And,’ she added hurriedly, ‘Mrs Murphy comes here to mind her, as Lola is usually already down for the night when I go to work.’

‘When you used to go to work,’ Rico amended. He slashed a hand in the air, ‘Here or there, it doesn’t matter. This street is a minefield of drug abuse and gangs. I won’t have you here for one more night.’

Shaking inside, because her worst fears were manifesting themselves, Gypsy said, ‘You can’t just come in here and turn us upside down like this.’

‘Oh?’ Rico sneered. ‘Because you have such a lovely set-up here and such a perfect routine?’ His voice rang with determination. ‘This place is not fit for a dog, much less a small child. You are coming with me and you will stay with me tonight.’

Right then Lola reached up to touch Gypsy’s face, and she could feel how cold her small hands were. Guilt rushed through her. The storage heating still hadn’t come on, and Gypsy knew that even when it did its heat output was not great. Without the supplementary heater things would be bleak, and far colder than usual. It was freezing, it was damp, and she was horribly aware of the leak in the corner—and the fact that Lola had just got over a bad cold.

Rico Christofides couldn’t have picked a worse moment to confront her. Or a better one, she realised bitterly.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Rico asked sharply, his eyes on Lola, who Gypsy could feel getting heavier in her arms.

Weariness struck Gypsy. ‘She’s tired. She didn’t sleep well last night, and she only got a small sleep in the buggy just now.’

Something even more determined crossed Rico’s face then. ‘I will carry you both out of here bodily if that’s what it takes, Gypsy, don’t think I won’t. We have to talk. You owe me this. And I refuse to stay here a moment longer.’

To her utter shame, Gypsy could feel the fight leaving her. She couldn’t in all conscience deny him the chance to talk things over. ‘Where are you proposing to take us?’

‘To my apartment in town. It’s infinitely more comfortable there. I have a housekeeper who can keep an eye on Lola while we talk.’

Feeling as though she was being carried aloft on white water rapids, with the utmost reluctance, Gypsy finally said, ‘OK—fine. We’ll come with you.’

And then things moved with scary swiftness. Gypsy put a drowsy Lola into her buggy while she got together a bag of essentials. She balked at Rico’s assertion that they wouldn’t spend another night here, and resolved to make him see he couldn’t just waltz in and change their lives, but she packed a small suitcase just in case, knowing well that with a small child she couldn’t afford not to be practical.

Finally she was ready, and saw Rico had his coat on again and stood in a wide-legged stance, waiting. He’d asked her about a car seat for Lola, and she’d explained that the buggy seat doubled as one. She’d heard him on his mobile phone, barking out what sounded like orders in Greek. Now he just watched her with cold eyes. So unlike the seductive man who had danced with her in that club that night—not that his effect on her was any less now.

She pushed aside the memory ruthlessly. Her hands were full with bags, and she looked to Lola’s pram.

Before she’d articulated anything he moved and said, ‘I’ll take her. You lock up.’

And before Gypsy could protest or say a word she watched as Rico detached the seat from the buggy frame, as if he’d been doing it all his life, and then lifted the seat up with an ease Gypsy envied. Seeing him cradling the seat with Lola in it made something primal and treacherous rush through her. She wanted to snatch her daughter back from him, and yet her eyes pricked ominously. Gypsy forced the tears aside, knowing that to show any emotion to Rico Christofides would show him weakness—and she couldn’t afford to be weak.

Once the flat door and main door had been closed and locked, Rico let Gypsy go to the car first in the teeming rain, accompanied by the solicitous driver, who held an umbrella over her head. He put her bags in the boot, before helping her into the car. When she was settled, Rico strode forward, Lola protected by his coat. Once at the car, he handed her in to Gypsy, who was all fingers and thumbs securing the seat belt around the chair. Lola was bone-dry and contentedly sucking her thumb—which made Gypsy feel peculiar inside.

As the car slowly pulled away from the kerb she remembered something. ‘The buggy!’

Rico all but ignored her, officiously making sure that her own seat belt was fastened. Gypsy wanted to slap his hands away when she felt them brush against her thigh, hating the shiver of heat that went through her lower body. He was far too close, as she’d had to move to the middle of the back seat to accommodate Lola’s chair. His musky and uniquely masculine scent wound around her, threatening to make all sorts of memories flood back. It was humiliating in the extreme when he clearly didn’t feel the same way, at all.

And who could blame him? Gypsy thought wearily, knowing that she looked not far removed from a homeless person. The only smart clothes she owned were her work clothes, and they were useless now…

He finished and straightened up, and said grimly, ‘That pram is the least of your worries. By the time we get to my apartment there will be a new one waiting.’

Gypsy tried not to let the quiet warm luxury of the car seduce her. ‘You can’t just do this, you know…just because you’re her father.’

He turned a blistering grey gaze on Gypsy, and she tried not to quail beneath it. The space in the back of the car was claustrophobic. ‘The moment you decided to leave me out of the equation was the moment you started stacking the odds against yourself. I have just as much right to my daughter as you, and now that I know of her existence I will move heaven and earth to ensure that she grows up knowing me.’

He turned away to look out of the window, his profile austere, jaw clenched.

Gypsy closed her mouth firmly. She knew that there was no point in remonstrating further right now. Men like Rico Christofides and her father switched off when they weren’t hearing what they wanted or expected to hear.

Gypsy turned her head too, her stomach in knots, aghast at how easy it was to just stare at him. She looked out of her own window as London slid past in bleak greyness. She just hoped and prayed that when he saw the reality of living with a toddler even for a few hours he’d be all but paying them to go home.

Before long they were in the much more salubrious area of Mayfair. Clean streets, expensive cars, and even more expensive-looking people. It had stopped raining, almost as if they’d left the black cloud behind over Gypsy’s dismal street. Distaste curdled her insides; her father had had an apartment here, where he’d housed his various mistresses.

Rico’s car drew to a smooth halt outside a sleek building with an awning over the pavement. A doorman rushed to the car to open the door for them. Gypsy got out and extricated Lola, who had fallen asleep during the journey. She stood on the pavement with Lola in her arms, blinking, feeling a little as though she’d been transported to another planet, and half hoping that she might wake up in a minute and see that this had all been a bad dream.

With not a word, and barely a glance, Rico took Gypsy’s bags and led the way into the building and into a lift, where he pressed a button that said P. She grimaced to herself. The penthouse—of course.

When they emerged from the lift into a plush corridor an apartment door stood open, and Gypsy could see an ample-figured middle-aged woman taking delivery of a myriad assortment of boxes, directing the men to somewhere inside the apartment and saying, ‘We need it all set up as soon as possible, please.’ Then she saw Rico and broke off with a smile. ‘Mr Christofides—you’re back already! As you can see it’s all just arrived. The men won’t be two ticks getting it put together, and then I’ll make sure it’s set up to your satisfaction.’

Rico brought Gypsy from behind him, his hand on her back, making her feel as if she wanted to arch into it. She stood stiffly, Lola heavy in her arms.

‘Gypsy, this is Mrs Wakefield—my housekeeper.’

The warmth in his voice made Gypsy suck in a breath. It reminded her too much of how he’d seduced her so easily. She avoided looking at him and smiled tightly at the openly curious woman, who now looked to Lola.

‘Ah, what an absolute cherub. Now, you must be tired and famished. I thought she might be sleeping after the car journey, so I’ve got a little makeshift bed set up in the sitting room if you want to take her through and lie her down.’

More than a little stunned, Gypsy meekly followed the motherly woman through a gleamingly modern reception area to a huge open-plan room decorated in dark greys and muted tones. A bachelor pad if ever there was one.

Mrs Wakefield showed Gypsy where to lie Lola down, and she even had a cashmere blanket to put over her. She confirmed Gypsy’s suspicions when she said chattily, ‘I have five girls myself, but they’re all grown up now. They grow so fast—mark my words, you won’t even see the time fly by before she’s turning your heart in your chest with boyfriends and wanting to go out all night.’

Gypsy made some trite comment, but she was very aware of Rico, who had followed them in and was standing silently by. She could feel his censorious gaze. No doubt his housekeeper’s words were reminding him of how much he’d missed already.

With a promise to return soon, with some tea and sandwiches, she left them alone in the huge room. Gypsy fussed over Lola for a moment, wanting to avoid looking anywhere near Rico.

He asked then, ‘Is it normal for her to sleep like this?’

Gypsy finally stood up and crossed her arms. His question unsettled her, making her defensive. ‘She’s just catching up. And she normally has a nap in the afternoon anyway.’

Rico’s jaw was tight. ‘How would I know this?’

Gypsy just looked at him, quashing the dart of guilt, and watched as he took off his coat with jerky movements, before flinging it down over the back of a chair. He started to pace, and Gypsy felt that weariness snake over her again. She hadn’t realised how tired she was. But she was exhausted.

In an effort to put some space between them, she moved away and looked around. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over London, where clouds made it seem darker, the skyline soaring against them. Despite the grim weather it was enchanting. And completely impractical.

She turned around again, determined, despite the pathetic state of her own flat, not to allow Rico to railroad them. ‘We can’t stay here for long. This place is a recipe for disaster with a toddler.’ She gestured with a hand towards a low glass table. ‘There are sharp edges and corners everywhere. Lola’s far too inquisitive at the moment—she’ll get hurt.’

Rico stood with hands in his pockets, grey eyes narrowed on Gypsy, who could feel a flush rising over her chest and her face. All of a sudden she felt hot, and wanted to take off some layers.

‘I will make sure Lola is protected. Within twenty-four hours this apartment will be child-proofed. You’ll have to come up with more than such a flimsy pretext to deter me, Gypsy.’

Suspicion and a trickling of cold horror gripped her then, and she asked, ‘Those men…what were they delivering?’

Rico ticked off on his fingers. ‘A pram, a cot, a changing table…I told my assistant to make sure all the basics were bought and delivered. You can let me know what’s missing.’

Gypsy’s hands dropped to her sides. ‘But…I just came to talk…for one evening…one night. We are going home tomorrow. I have work to find, and Lola’s in a routine.’ Hysteria was rising. ‘You have no right to presume anything. We don’t need all that for one night, so you’re just going to have to get it taken away again.’

Rico advanced on Gypsy, and she fought not to snatch up Lola, turn and run. He came and stood before her with a look of almost savage intent on his face, in his eyes, and Gypsy knew that this was the moment she’d realised just how formidable he was going to be.

‘That child is my daughter. I have missed fifteen months of her existence—fifteen months of her development and watching her grow. As far as she’s aware she has no father. It doesn’t matter that she might be too young to realise the import of that now, I do. Know this, Gypsy Butler: as of this day, and from now on, I am in her life and your life. And you, with no job and living in a hovel, are in no position to argue with my wishes.’

Conversely, even as his words horrified Gypsy, she felt on more even ground. She knew what she was dealing with now. She asked, ‘Are you threatening me, Rico? Are you saying that if I were to leave with Lola right now, walk out of here, you would bring down the full force of your power on us?’

A muscle jumped in his jaw. His eyes were so dark they looked almost black and not grey. Eventually he said with chilling calm, ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. If you were to walk out of here right now, the only way I would allow it to happen was if you were to leave alone.’ He smiled, and it was feral, ‘But, based on the evidence of how determined you’ve been to keep her from me and all to yourself, I don’t think you’ll be doing that.’

The implication that he would quite happily let her walk away sent something dark to Gypsy’s gut. ‘You’re right. I wouldn’t dream of leaving my daughter behind. As for our situation—yes, we’re vulnerable, and certainly in no position to fight you should you decide that it’s necessary. So of course I’m not stupid enough to encourage your wrath. I know how men like you operate, Rico Christofides. You have no compunction about squashing the opposition just so long as you get whatever it is that takes your fancy at the time. We’ll bow to your wishes for now, as we have little choice, but I don’t doubt that as soon as you’ve seen the reality of setting up home with a small child you’ll be throwing us back to where we came from, so you can get on with your self-absorbed existence and your bid for world domination. And as far as I’m concerned that moment can’t come soon enough.’

Gypsy stopped talking. She was breathing hard. Rico was just looking at her, far too assessingly, and she cursed herself for having said too much. But, as she knew well from experience, it would be utterly futile to fight with someone like him. Better to indulge him, let him play out his father role, and wait for him to get bored. She had no doubt he would—especially with red-haired beauties like the one last night waiting in the wings. At the thought of him sleeping with her something even darker clenched in Gypsy’s gut.

Just then Mrs Wakefield bustled back into the room, with tea and sandwiches, and Lola woke up, struggling out of her makeshift bed. Gypsy rushed to help her off the couch, and automatically lifted her away from the hazardous glass coffee table. Lola slipped out of her hands again, like a wriggling eel, and toddled over to the huge window, fascinated by the staggering view.

She pointed when a bird flew past and exclaimed, ‘Birdy!’

Mrs Wakefield finished putting out the tea and went over to make friends with a clearly delighted Lola. After a few minutes of largely nonsensical but earnest chatter from the toddler, she turned to Gypsy, ‘She’s a sunny one, isn’t she?’

Gypsy smiled wryly, glad of the momentary distraction. ‘Most of the time, yes. But woe betide anyone who gets close when she’s tired or hungry…’

Mrs Wakefield held out a hand, and Lola took it trustingly. ‘Why don’t we go off for a little exploring and let Mum and Mr Christofides have their tea?’

Before Gypsy could protest Lola was happily toddling out of the room with Mrs Wakefield, not a care in the world at leaving her mother behind. And while Gypsy felt proud, because it was a sign of a happy and secure child, she also felt absurdly hurt.

When she turned around Rico was holding out a chair at the larger table for her to sit down, and he said mockingly, ‘Don’t worry. She’s not going to kidnap her or spirit her away.’

Gypsy said nothing, just sat down, still a little shocked at what had spilled out of her mouth only moments before. Clearly she was feeling far too volatile at the moment to be sure of remaining calm and rational. With grim reluctance she finally slipped off her coat, knowing they wouldn’t be returning to her flat any time soon.

Rico poured tea and pushed some sandwiches towards Gypsy. She was avoiding his eyes again, and he was still reeling slightly at her outburst. The fact that she was projecting something deeply embedded within her onto him was obvious. He suspected it was the same thing that had stopped her from automatically telling him about her pregnancy. But what?

His interest piqued, he vowed, among everything else he’d already set in motion, to look into Gypsy Butler’s life for clues. The fact that he knew nothing about the mother of his child did not sit well with him. If he had ever contemplated having a child with anyone, he knew he was the kind of person to have chosen someone based on cool logic and intellect. The mother of his child would not be left to fate and circumstance, the child would not be conceived in a moment of blind passion—His stomach clenched. But that was exactly what had happened…

But, he reassured himself, he had the means to control that. To control her. He watched her eat the sandwiches with relish, and wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten properly. Her baggy shapeless clothes hung off her petite frame, and that slightly plump litheness he remembered so well was gone. Even so, he conceded reluctantly, it did nothing to diminish her appeal or douse his desire.

Abruptly he stood, cup in hand, and went to look out of the window. He didn’t like the way she could rouse him so effortlessly, or the way he cared even for a moment that she’d grown thin. And especially he didn’t like the way he felt inclined to do everything in his power to restore that vivacious health.

He turned to face her and she was looking at him with big wary eyes. Very like the way Lola had been looking at him in the flat. Her hand was clenched around her cup, a tiny crumb at the corner of her mouth. Her wildly curling hair lay around her shoulders, reminding him of that free spirit image she’d projected when he’d first seen her, which had pulled him to her like a magnet. It made him think for an uncomfortable moment that perhaps she was someone who wouldn’t be influenced by his wealth.

He steeled himself and reminded himself of exactly what she’d done to him. The worst thing possible. Distaste and disgust for the type of woman she was, for the type of mother she was, rose up within him and he welcomed it. On the evidence of her reluctance to inform him about Lola she might not be a gold-digger, but she was something worse. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t hesitate to marry another man and have him bring her daughter up as if she were his own, uncaring of the cataclysmic fall-out that would ensue.

He reacted to the way she was still looking at him, with trepidation mixed with a kind of defiance. ‘You do know that I’ll never forgive you for this, don’t you?’

Chapter Six

‘YOU do know I’ll never forgive you for this, don’t you?’

The words resounded in Gypsy’s head as she lay wide awake in the softest bed imaginable much later that night. It had taken ages to put Lola down after she’d been fed, bathed and changed. The penthouse was far too exciting for her—plus the attention of not only Rico but a clearly besotted Mrs Wakefield, who had been the soul of discretion even though Gypsy had seen her looking assessingly from Lola to Rico.

To see Lola running around the cavernous rooms had made Gypsy’s chest ache, very aware of how cramped their own space was…

Mrs Wakefield had shown Gypsy around the entire apartment, and brought her to an enormous suite where a cot had been set up by the king-sized bed. An impromptu nursery had been made in the dressing room. A huge bathroom completed the suite, and Gypsy had seen from a brief look into Rico’s own rooms, stamped with his masculine touch, that he had an even larger suite.

The housekeeper had told her how to get around the kitchen, and shown her where everything was. Gypsy had been bemused more than shocked to see the fridge and cupboards were already stocked high with an assortment of baby food, and the formula she’d requested. There had even been baby monitors, so that Gypsy could keep one with her as she moved about the apartment in case she didn’t hear Lola wake.

Lola slept nearby now, and Gypsy could hear her baby breaths, light and even. Usually the sound comforted her, but her stomach hadn’t unclenched all evening—or, in truth, since she’d seen Rico just last night. Just last night. It was hard to believe that within the space of twenty-four hours she was ensconced in his apartment. But then, she surmised grimly, she’d feared exactly this kind of autocratic takeover all along.

And yet her conscience niggled her. While he was being just as controlling as her father had been, she couldn’t deny the fact that, unlike her father, Rico was showing nothing but signs of accepting Lola.

He’d come into the kitchen where she’d been making herself some cocoa after putting Lola down for the night and said coolly, ‘I’ve arranged for my doctor to come in the morning. He’ll take swabs from Lola and I, and we’ll have paternity proved within the week.’

Without giving her a chance to say a thing, he’d continued relentlessly, ‘I don’t see any point in your going anywhere until we have the results of the paternity test, so you will remain here for the week. Once it’s established that I’m Lola’s father, the first thing we will see to is amending the birth certificate so that my name is added.’

Utterly remote and cold, he’d inclined his head then, and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me? I have some work to attend to in my study. I trust you know your way around now?’

Gypsy had nodded, intimidated by this ice-cold man. ‘Mrs Wakefield was more than helpful.’

‘Good.’ And without another word he’d strode out of the kitchen.

Gypsy had heard a sound then, on the baby monitor. Straining her ears, she’d just been able to make out that Rico must have gone in to look down on Lola. Her heart had lurched treacherously at realising that. There was silence for a long moment. She’d heard his breath, and then something indistinct that sounded like Spanish.

With a shiver, Gypsy realised that even if his initial acceptance of his own flesh and blood wasn’t mirroring her father’s cold rejection of her the outcome would be the same. Rico was staking his claim, vowing not to let his daughter be taken away from him. Vowing to make Gypsy pay…just as her father had done to her mother—albeit for different reasons.

In Gypsy’s case, once Social Services had been involved, and her father had had no choice but to acknowledge her, he’d made sure that Gypsy had never seen her mother again. It had only been in later years that she’d discovered that her mother had died alone in a mental hospital just a few years after that awful day.

Gypsy had always suspected that nothing much had been wrong with her mother other than a tendency to depression, which could have been exacerbated by her birth and their tough circumstances. She’d been a mournful woman, prone to pessimism, and not very strong. But nothing that a little support mightn’t have helped.

Her father had cut Mary out of Gypsy’s life ruthlessly, and even though he’d had information as to her whereabouts he’d refused to help her at all. He’d let her be sucked into the labyrinthine mental health-care system, eventually to die. After her father’s death Gypsy had found heartbreaking letters from her mother, begging for his help, begging for a chance to see Gypsy again. It had been almost too much to bear…

Gypsy sighed deeply and tried her best not to think of that now. Tried not to think of how it had killed her inside to realise the night she’d met Rico that she had found it so easy to gravitate towards a man of her father’s ilk. Was there something within her that resonated with powerful and ruthless men, despite what her father had done to her and her mother?

She sighed again, and turned over to face where Lola slept so peacefully. Her father was gone. And, while she might be in this untenable situation with Rico now, she was not like her mother. She would not be so easily separated from her daughter. She was infinitely stronger and more resourceful. They would get through this, and she would not let him consume them utterly just because he craved control.

The following morning, early, Rico sat at the breakfast bar in the state-of-the-art kitchen. The Financial Times couldn’t hold his interest. He looked around and grimaced, seeing for the first time exactly what Gypsy had seen yesterday evening. The place was a potential minefield for an innocent toddler. Watching how Lola had gleefully run around last night, having to be plucked from danger every two seconds, had made him sweat. He’d never had to account for a small child before.

His heart clenched at recalling her vibrant energy, and how right it had felt to have her here—how quickly he’d felt that if anyone so much as looked at her the wrong way he’d want to flatten them.

She was beautiful—more beautiful than anything he could have imagined. She was bright, sharp, inquisitive. And, he had to concede grudgingly, all the evidence pointed to the fact that Gypsy was indeed a good mother.

Finding Gypsy in the kitchen making hot chocolate last night had made him feel unaccountably off-centre. Because she’d looked right in that domestic milieu. It had been almost as if he couldn’t remember a time when this penthouse had just been his London pied-à-terre, a place where he invited his mistresses for transitory pleasures. The sense of triumph had disturbed him, making him sound more caustic than he’d intended when he’d outlined his plans for the week.

When he’d gone to look in on Lola as she’d slept, a wave of emotion he’d never felt before had nearly felled him. His hand had shaken as he’d reached out to stroke soft skin—soft as a rose petal. And he had known in that moment, as he’d looked down at her flushed and downy cheeks, at the riot of golden curls around her head and that tiny, fragile and yet so sturdy body, that he was possibly falling in love for the first time.

As for her mother…Rico welcomed the hardness that settled in his chest at just thinking of her. All he felt for Gypsy was a singular irritating desire, which he hated to acknowledge, and the need to seek vengeance. To make her bend to his will. To punish her for keeping their daughter secret from him.

Just then he heard Lola’s cry come from the baby monitor, which Gypsy had obviously left in the kitchen last night. She cried out again, and the cries became more forceful as she woke up. Rico tensed all over. Silently he cursed Gypsy. Why wasn’t she attending to their daughter? Perhaps something was wrong?

Feeling a very unwelcome sense of panic, Rico was about to stride from the room when he heard Gypsy’s soft, sleep-filled and husky voice. ‘Good morning, sweetheart…’

He heard the rustle of movement but still couldn’t relax; hearing Gypsy’s voice was sending a new kind of tension through his body.

‘Did you sleep well, my love?’

Lola cooed in response, and Rico heard the sound of kisses. Heat flooded his body.

‘I bet you did…you’re my best girl, aren’t you?’

With an abrupt move, Rico shut off the monitor. The problem was she was his girl now too, and the sooner Gypsy came to terms with that the better.

He finished his coffee with one gulp and went to his study to make some calls.

Gypsy was just finishing feeding Lola her breakfast when Rico walked into the kitchen. Immediately her heart thumped hard, and she felt self-conscious in the same baggy jeans and an ancient college T-shirt, with her hair dragged up and held in place with a big clip.

Lola grinned happily at Rico, sending specks of food flying as she waved her spoon around and chattered in baby-speak. Immediately aware of how pristine Rico was in comparison to her, in his dark trousers and white shirt, Gypsy leapt up to get a cloth and wipe the floor.

His voice came curtly. ‘Leave it. Mrs Wakefield will see to it.’

She flushed, but sat back down again. ‘I don’t want to give her any more work to do.’

Rico smiled tightly. ‘While your concern is commendable, Mrs Wakefield has a veritable army of cleaners under her, so don’t worry about it.’

He leaned back against the fridge and looked with such indulgence at Lola that Gypsy found it hard to breathe. Then his expression changed visibly to something much cooler as he looked at her. ‘I trust you slept well?’

She nodded, watching as Lola grabbed her cup. She was getting to that age when she was determined to do everything herself. ‘Yes. Very well. I’m lucky that Lola has always been a pretty good sleeper, and she was tired last night.’

‘You look tired,’ he said abruptly, and when Gypsy glanced up she could see his face flush, as if he was angry with himself for noticing.

She shrugged, feeling even more self-conscious and haggard. ‘I’ve been working hard…’ She amended it, ‘Was working hard.’

He obviously noticed her T-shirt and asked now, ‘You went to London University?’

Gypsy busied herself cleaning Lola, who squirmed to get away. She hated having to tell him anything, but nodded and said, ‘I studied psychology, and specialised in child psychology.’

‘When did you graduate?’

‘Two years ago.’ Just weeks before she’d met Rico in that club. Not that she was going to mention that now.

Rico finally walked over to the coffee machine, and with his intense regard off her for a moment Gypsy could breathe again. She cast his broad back a quick glance. ‘I’ll need to go out today to get some things for Lola. I need nappies and some other supplies.’

Rico turned around and leaned back easily against the counter, coffee cup in hand. ‘I’ve taken the day off work. My doctor will be here in about an hour to take the swabs and then we can go out together. We can get what you need, and there’s a park near here where Lola can play for a bit. We’ll have to stay out of the apartment anyway, as people are coming in to child-proof it.’

Surprise washed through Gypsy at the speed with which Rico was adapting his world to accommodate Lola—and also, she had to admit, the fact that he wasn’t already gone to work, having left behind an impersonal note, or indeed no note. On the contrary, he was taking a day off. She couldn’t remember one instance when her own father, or her vacuous stepmother, had taken a day off for her. Not even on school sports days. Not even on the day when she’d come to her father’s home to move in. His cold housekeeper had brought her to a room and told her to stay there until dinnertime.

Feeling unaccountably threatened, and vulnerable from the memory, Gypsy said churlishly, ‘Afraid that if you turn your back we’ll be gone?’

Rico’s eyes flashed, but he took a lazy sip of coffee and drawled, ‘Let’s just say that trust is certainly an issue.’

She couldn’t say anything in response. She didn’t want to let him know how much he was surprising her. ‘We’ll be ready after I’ve washed and changed Lola.’

Rico put down his coffee cup then, and for a second Gypsy could have sworn that something intensely vulnerable flashed across his face. But it was gone before she could be sure.

‘Good,’ he said curtly, and watched as Gypsy’s jaw tightened in response.

She lifted Lola up to take her out of her seat. Rico had to school his features. For a second an impulse had risen up out of nowhere to offer to help with Lola. It had come out of a desire to get to know her better, to know her routine, watch what Gypsy did with her. Rico forced himself to remember that if he hadn’t seen Gypsy in the restaurant he’d still be unaware of the fact that he was a father.

Gypsy walked into the bedroom later that day, exhausted, and succumbed for a moment to sit on the bed. She felt upside down and inside out. After the genial and twinkly-eyed doctor had been and gone that morning, having taken swabs from Lola and Rico, Rico had changed into jeans and a thick jumper and they’d gone out, wrapped up against the cold. Clearly he didn’t trust them to be further than ten feet away from him.

They’d gone to the local shops, where Gypsy had bought what she needed, insisting on paying, much to Rico’s obvious chagrin. He’d looked ridiculously out of place in the local pharmacy. And then they’d gone to a local park, where Rico had largely ignored her and focused on Lola, who had basked happily in this new friend’s attention. Now, after holding herself so tightly for hours, and being so excruciatingly aware of Rico’s physicality, Gypsy’s defences were extremely shaky.

Rico’s unquestioning certainty that Lola was his still stunned Gypsy. And the fact that Lola was out in the living room right now, playing happily with Rico, made Gypsy feel very funny.

Gathering her energy again, she went to the nursery to get a bib for Lola’s dinnertime. When she opened the door she gasped out loud, belatedly remembering Rico’s scathing looks at her flimsy nondescript clothes that morning. She’d heard him making sporadic calls on his phone during the day but hadn’t thought much of it till now…

In shock, she took in what had to be thousands of pounds worth of clothes for her and Lola, hanging up or put away in drawers. The temporary nursery had been moved to a little ante-room off the bathroom, and was kitted out with even more accessories.

A potent memory of her father made her vision blur with anger. At the age of thirteen she’d been mesmerised when she’d seen the profusion of beautiful clothes he’d bought for her—until she’d realised to her shame and horror that they were all either too big or too small. And that he’d bought them specifically for her to wear socially, at his side, not out of any genuine paternal affection. He’d forced her to wear them, reading her acute embarrassment as ungrateful thanks. He’d had no comprehension of a daughter on the threshold of puberty, with a rapidly developing body.

And now Rico had taken a decision to do more or less the same thing. At no point during the day had he even asked her opinion. Or suggested that they go shopping together. Not that she would have complied, she knew grimly, but it would have been nice to be consulted. He was buying them—throwing money at the problem.

Gypsy gathered up some of the baby clothes, with their ostentatious designer labels, and stalked into the living room, where Rico was standing at the window with Lola held high, pointing things out. He looked around, those grey eyes glowing, only to rapidly cool as he took in Gypsy’s stiff stance.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ She held the clothes out stiffly, some falling to the ground.

Rico’s eyes flashed as he turned to face her. ‘You’re both in dire need of new wardrobes. I can provide that.’

‘I’ve already told you,’ Gypsy spat, ‘we don’t need you, or your money. To spend money on clothes this expensive is pure extravagance. There’s enough in there to clothe an entire village of babies, not just one. As it is, Lola’s growing so fast that she’ll have outgrown most of them before she can even wear them.’

Rico’s face tightened, a muscle moving in his jaw, and Gypsy felt like a complete bitch. Because she had the strangest sensation that she’d just hurt him.

‘I will provide for my daughter. That is non-negotiable. And while you are with me, under my roof, you will not go outside the door looking like a bag lady.’

‘God forbid,’ Gypsy muttered caustically, somehow relieved that Rico was retaliating, ‘that we should embarrass the great Rico Christofides.’ She put down the rest of the clothes and held her hands out for Lola, who squirmed to get to Gypsy. ‘It’s time for her dinner now.’

After an interminable moment full of crackling tension Rico finally handed her over, and bit out, ‘I’ll be in my study for the rest of the evening. If you’re so concerned about the excess of clothes, take out what you think she won’t need and I’ll have them sent back.’

And then he walked out, and Gypsy inexplicably felt like a complete heel.

A couple of hours later she sat by Lola’s cot, watching her fight against sleep, her eyes getting heavier and heavier. And Gypsy was still fighting that feeling of guilt. Because Rico was all at once confirming every one of her worst suspicions and yet confounding them at the same time. The image of Lola in his arms earlier was still clear, and she knew she’d been a coward in not acknowledging how it had made her feel—knew too that her knee-jerk reaction to the clothes had come from somewhere that had much more to do with painful memory than the present situation.

In his study at the same moment, Rico looked impossibly grim as he picked up his phone. When someone answered, he bit out tersely, ‘Gypsy Butler. I want you to find out everything you can about her. Money is no object.’

When he put the phone down Rico took another gulp of whisky from the bulbous glass and passed a weary hand over his face. Women caused not a ripple in his life: they were there, they were willing, and he always chose the most beautiful and experienced. Until that night, when everything he’d thought he knew had blown up in his face…

No woman, ever, had made him want to simultaneously throttle her and kiss her. His mouth curled up in a feral smile. Kissing Gypsy certainly would help assuage the near-constant ache in his groin, but he could well imagine the resistance she would undoubtedly put up. She tensed whenever he came near her, but he could see the signs of attraction. It hummed between them like a current of electricity.

Domination of this woman was rapidly becoming his life’s obsession, and sensual domination over her rebellious nature was going to be sweet indeed. For the first time since he could remember work was taking a back seat in his life. Going shopping was something he hadn’t indulged in in a long time. It had reminded him uncomfortably of the night when he’d met Gypsy in the club, and he had ducked into an all-night pharmacy to get protection, like an out-of-control teenager.

He’d felt uncomfortably exposed when she’d pointed out his impulsive gesture to spoil his daughter. How could he explain to Gypsy that he wanted the chance to lavish everything on Lola that he’d been denied up till now? He’d felt exposed and weak; no one had made him feel like that in a long time and he didn’t welcome it.

Perhaps when he’d had Gypsy again he would be able to see clearly how best to slot her into his life. She had to want something, despite her apparent moralistic outrage at his wealth; she’d made a big song and dance earlier, insisting on paying for everything—Rico couldn’t remember the last time a woman had insisted on paying for anything—but once he knew what it was Gypsy wanted, what her weakness was, he would manipulate her to his ends. The most important thing for now was to ensure that he bound both Gypsy and Lola to him as tightly as he could. They weren’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

The following evening Gypsy fumed and seethed. She paced along the huge window in the living room and glared at the view. The apartment was quiet. Mrs Wakefield had gone home and Lola was asleep.

When they’d woken that morning Gypsy had found a note from Rico.

I’ll be at the office all day. Call me if you need anything.

He’d listed a number. Gypsy had breathed a sigh of relief, but had momentarily felt an uncomfortable spiking of something suspiciously like disappointment.

It had been later, when she’d been in the hallway, putting the last of the bags full of new clothes she’d decided she and Lola didn’t need—which was most of them—that she’d noticed the tabloid newspapers.

Mrs Wakefield had confided to her that they were her weakness, and that Rico got them delivered each day for her. Something had caught her eye, and she’d opened the top one out to see a grainy picture of Rico, herself and Lola in the park the day before.

Rico had Lola in his arms, and Gypsy stood to one side smiling. She couldn’t even remember that she had been smiling, and it felt like a treachery to see it now. The headline screamed out: Tycoon Rico’s secret family!

In horror, Gypsy had thrown the paper down. With anger boiling upwards she’d tried to call him, but hadn’t been able to get past the clipped secretary who’d said officiously, ‘I’m terribly sorry but Mr Christofides cannot be disturbed at the moment if it’s not urgent. I’ll pass on a message?’

Gypsy had bitten out, ‘Tell Mr Christofides that his secret family would like to talk to him.’

He’d planned it—she knew he must have planned it. To make sure that it was out there in the public domain that he had a child. So that they wouldn’t be able to make a move without being followed.

Sure enough, when Gypsy had rung down to the doorman he’d sounded bewildered and confirmed that, yes, there suddenly seemed to be hundreds of photographers outside the door. To think that she had been surprised by Rico’s apparent willingness to spend time with them.

The apartment door opened at that moment and Gypsy turned round, hands clenched into fists at her sides. With her heart thumping she waited, and watched as Rico’s powerful frame appeared in the doorway. He was tugging at his tie and looked tired. She quashed the concern.

‘Thank you for calling me back today.’ Sarcasm dripped from her voice.

His eyes burned a dark grey, no expression on his face. ‘I got the message.’

Gypsy was starting to shake at his non-response. ‘Do you know that if I hadn’t seen the tabloids and had gone out with Lola we would have been ambushed by the hundreds of photographers outside? As it was we couldn’t leave all day, and to keep a toddler cooped up in an apartment—even one as large as this—is not a pleasurable experience.’

He walked further into the room and pulled off his tie, flicking it down onto a sofa while his large hand went to open the top button of his shirt. Gypsy wanted to back away, but couldn’t as the window was already at her back.

‘I heard about the tabloids getting pictures. There were bodyguards waiting outside. You would have been protected.’

Gypsy threw up her hands. ‘Oh, I’m sorry—is that something I’m just meant to know by osmosis? And what good would bodyguards have been with a hundred paparazzi snapping pictures of me and my child?’

He came closer, and Gypsy could see the glorious olive tone of his skin, that stunning bone structure, and the slightly crooked nose which hinted at a past which contained violence. Despite his urbane exterior, a sense of barely leashed danger oozed out of him.

His mouth was grim. ‘I didn’t call you back because I was involved in intricate negotiations and could not break away.’

Gypsy smiled bitterly. ‘Oh, I’m sure you were. Nothing is as important as negotiations, or making your next million.’

His eyes flashed at that, but he just said, ‘I knew you and Lola were safe. If I’d thought for a second you were calling about something serious—’

Gypsy gasped. ‘That was serious! Our safety was compromised, and we were forced to stay inside like fugitives. Not to mention the fact that our faces are all over the tabloids and everyone is wondering who this secret family is.’

Horror trickled through Gypsy at the thought of people digging and finding out about her history. She had a very real fear that if Rico found out who her father had been, and what she had done when he’d died, he would hold it against her—use the information to make her seem like a weak mother. And if he ever found out about her mother’s mental instability…

Fear galvanised her as she squared up to Rico. ‘I’m leaving in the morning. Taking Lola with me, back to our flat. Your plans are not going to work. I have rights as Lola’s mother. I’ve given you a chance to see her, but I will not let our lives be turned upside down like this.’

Gypsy went to stalk past Rico, but he caught her arm in a bruising grip.

She looked up and tried not to be aware of how tall he was. ‘Let me go.’

His mouth was a grim line. ‘You’re not going anywhere, Gypsy. We don’t have the test results back yet, and that mob outside will follow you and hound you until they know every last detail of your life.’

He articulated her fears exactly. Bitterness blinded her. ‘Which is exactly what you planned, isn’t it? You expect me to believe that you didn’t know about the pictures? Tell me—is one of those filthy editors your friend? Can you feed him stories when you want? Manipulate things to suit you? Manipulate us?’

It had been one of her father’s favoured modus operandi—the manipulation of the media.

‘No.’ Rico sounded incensed, insulted. A muscle clenched in his jaw. ‘Of course not. The paparazzi are always on my trail. I’ll admit I was aware of them lurking yesterday—and, yes, I’ll admit that the thought of some pictures turning up didn’t bother me too much. But I didn’t anticipate this level of interest.’

His hand was still on her arm, making Gypsy feel all sorts of sensations, making her forget why she was so angry. He was so close—too close. She tried to pull away but his hold increased. She felt desperation rise.

‘Let me go, Rico. You had no right to expose us like that, and you didn’t mind the thought of pictures turning up because you had to realise that it would constrain our movements. No wonder you went back to work today. I’m taking Lola tomorrow, and we’ll leave London if we have to.’

Rico whirled her so fast that Gypsy lost her balance and only stayed standing because he gripped both her arms. He stared down at her and she was mesmerised by his eyes. He shook his head, and his harsh hold on her arms inexplicably gentled, even though he was silently telling her of his refusal to let her go. His eyes roved her face, and Gypsy’s mouth tingled betrayingly where his eyes rested on it for a long moment.

To her utter chagrin and horror she couldn’t remember exactly why she and Lola had to get away so badly. She was back in time, staring up at Rico for the first time and thinking that he had to be looking at someone else—he couldn’t be looking at her like that.

His hands drew her closer, and Gypsy felt her feet moving against some dim and distant will she was trying to impose.

Rico was finding it hard to remember what they’d been talking about. He was forgetting the tinge of guilt he’d felt at Gypsy’s accusation. While he certainly hadn’t intended for them to be hounded by the press, he had seen the advantage in allowing it to become public knowledge that he had a daughter. But now, as he looked down into Gypsy’s deep green eyes, all that faded.

His voice was rough and deep. The words felt as if they were being pulled out of him. ‘Dammit, I still want you. I couldn’t forget about you, no matter how hard I tried. That’s why I came after you.’

Gypsy fought the clamour of her pulse, threatening to suck her under. Everything she’d been angry about was disappearing under a wave of need so strong it was making her shake. She fought not to give in to Rico’s pull, and said scathingly, ‘You were thinking of me even as you slept with that woman the other night?’

He smiled, and it was pure danger, ‘Jealous, Gypsy? Because if you are then surely that means you haven’t been able to forget about me either.’

‘Damn you to hell, Rico,’ Gypsy said shakily. Too many nights when she’d woken aching for this man’s touch were mocking her now.

‘Well, if I’m going to hell then you’re coming with me.’

He pulled her right into him, and her T-shirt and jeans were no barrier against his long, lean, hardening body. A tremor of pure arousal shot through her as his head descended. For a split second Gypsy tried to articulate something negative, but their breaths were mingling, and then his mouth was slanting over hers with expert precision and she was lost…

She was back in time, on the street outside that club, after putting her hand over Rico’s mouth because she didn’t want to know his name, because she didn’t want any kind of reality to intrude on the moment. And he’d pulled her into him and kissed her for the first time.

The kiss then, as now, had been the culmination of an intense build-up. His mouth was hard and firm, and yet soft enough to make her melt and yearn and lean into him even more. Tacitly telling him of her approval, of her desire. Rico groaned deep in his throat and deepened the kiss, plundering Gypsy’s mouth, finding her tongue and stroking along it with erotic mastery. His hands had moved down to clasp her hips, fingers digging into her waist. Her hands clung to broad shoulders. She could feel her hair loosen from its topknot and fall down over her shoulders.

Between her legs she was burning up, the ache she’d been feeling for two years growing more acute with each passing second, with the tantalising promise of fulfilment. As if reading her mind, Rico pulled her even closer, his big hands spreading around her buttocks to lift her against him slightly, so that she could feel his arousal more fully.

And all the while their mouths clung, and a desperation was building in the kiss, as if they’d both suddenly realised the depth of the passion they’d been missing for two years. Gypsy strained higher, her hands going to Rico’s head, where her fingers tangled in silky strands, keeping his head against hers. Not allowing him to escape…

With another guttural moan, Rico impatiently found and pushed up Gypsy’s T-shirt, smoothed his hand up over her waist and belly to cup her breast. With a gasp she couldn’t hold back she tore her mouth away from Rico’s and looked up—dazed, dizzy.

At that moment a little squeak came from the baby monitor. They both tensed and froze. The red mist of arousal cleared from Gypsy’s brain and the present moment came back. She was plastered to Rico’s front, all over him like a clinging vine. And his hand cupped her lace-covered breast intimately.

No other sound came from the monitor, but Gypsy used the impetus to push roughly away from Rico, who stood there looking dishevelled and utterly gorgeous, cheeks flushed, eyes so dark they looked black in the dim lighting. More buttons on his shirt had been opened. Horror gripped her. Had she done that?

She backed away and hit the window, was glad of the support. She felt as though she might just slide down it and land in a heap of sprawled limbs. ‘I don’t know…’ she began shakily ‘…that was…’

‘That,’ Rico said grimly, sounding utterly composed, ‘was something we will return to—without interruption.’

Gypsy shook her head, and quivered as Rico strode forward and caged her in, putting his hands either side of her head on the thick glass.

‘We’ve just proved that this desire has not died. If I were to seduce you right here and now I could have your legs around my waist and take you right against this window.’

The carnality of his words made Gypsy blush brick-red, even as the image in her mind strangled any denial she might make. She just shook her head again—pathetically.

Rico brought a finger to her cheek and trailed it slowly and sensuously down over her jaw, and lower, to the V of her T-shirt which rested just above her cleavage. His eyes met hers. ‘You won’t be going anywhere, Gypsy. Not until I say so.’ A chill entered his voice. ‘And if you do, I’ll find you. So you see, no matter where you go, I’ll simply bring you back. You and Lola are mine now, and I always claim what’s mine.’

At that moment the monitor sprang to life again, and Gypsy jumped. A plaintive wail sounded. ‘Mama…’

‘I hate you, Rico.’

He smiled, and it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I hate you too, Gypsy. But conveniently enough our desire seems to exist in spite of our mutual antipathy.’

Gypsy finally managed to bring her hands up to knock Rico’s down, and on extremely wobbly legs, feeling perilously close to tears, she left the room to tend to Lola.

Chapter Seven

RICO sat heavily on the couch once Gypsy had left. In truth his legs felt profoundly unsteady. His heart was racing and, despite the coolness he’d just projected, the taste of Gypsy, the feel of her, the scent of her, had all acted like the most powerful aphrodisiac. If they’d not been interrupted by Lola just now, he wouldn’t have been far from freeing himself from his confining clothes, pulling off her jeans and surging up and into her moist heat against the window he’d just taunted her with. He burned with a need he’d only felt once before—the night he’d met her.

He reeled at realising how quickly passion had blazed—literally within minutes of arriving in the door from work. But something about the way she’d told him that she intended to leave had unleashed a wave of possessiveness and desire inside him so strong that it still astounded him.

Through the baby monitor he heard Lola’s cries abate, and Gypsy saying in a voice that sounded suspiciously husky, ‘What is it, sweetie? You woke up?’

Even at that Rico tensed all over again, and cursed volubly. And then the monitor went suddenly silent, as if Gypsy had realised he might hear them and had turned it off, and he had to restrain himself from going down to the room and demanding irrationally that she put it back on.

That Friday morning Gypsy got the call which meant the inevitable end of life and freedom as she and Lola had known it. In a curt voice Rico wasted no time in informing her that he had the paternity test results and they were positive.

You could have saved your precious money, Gypsy wanted to hurl at him but didn’t. She merely listened to him tell her that he’d be home soon to talk to her, and put down the phone.

While Mrs Wakefield gave Lola some lunch, Gypsy paced the floor of the living room. Every nerve in her body was coiled tight, and had been ever since that kiss three nights ago. Since then she’d done everything possible to avoid being alone with Rico—much to his evident and mocking amusement. His steel-grey eyes followed her with heavy-lidded intent whenever they were together—which hadn’t been that often, as he’d been working till late most days, confirming for her that he would fall into a predictable pattern of work. Even that hadn’t induced feelings of recrimination, only something suspiciously like disappointment.

Her motivation had changed from an intense desire to get away from Rico and his autocracy to the treacherous desire for her own self-protection. She was already so vulnerable to him, and now she was even more vulnerable. Because clearly her mind had absolutely no control over her body. And her body wanted Rico so badly that she dreamt of it when she slept and craved it when she was awake.

She hated that she could be so weak, that even knowing Rico was intent on controlling them she could still desire him so badly.

Just then she heard the unmistakable sound of his return, and went to see him standing at the door of the kitchen, taking in the sight of Lola happily chirruping away with Mrs Wakefield, causing a circle of destruction around her highchair. He had a look on his face that made Gypsy’s heart twist, and then he said, sounding suspiciously gruff, ‘Mrs Wakefield, I’d like to introduce you to my daughter—Lola.’

Mrs Wakefield smiled affectionately. ‘Well, I could have told you that the minute I saw her. She’s the image of you.’

As if just becoming aware of Gypsy’s presence Rico turned his head, and all that warmth was gone in a flash. She shivered. He hated her. He really hated her now that he had incontrovertible proof that he was Lola’s father.

He turned back to Mrs Wakefield and asked, ‘Would you mind taking Lola for a walk when you’ve finished here? I have some things to discuss with Gypsy.’

The older woman said yes easily, and Rico looked back to Gypsy and said curtly, ‘My study—now.’

Feeling like rebelliously stamping her foot and saying no, Gypsy took a deep quivery breath and followed his tall, broad figure down the hall and into the study. It was dark and book-lined, with all sorts of modern technology humming silently.

Rico turned and watched Gypsy enter the room, shutting the door behind her. Feeling acutely aware of her effect on him, and not liking it one bit, he sat on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms.

She looked at him with that familiar wary defiance, and a part of him felt the need to soothe, to protect and comfort. She looked incredibly young and innocent—her face clear of make-up, her hair pulled up high into a ponytail of crazy corkscrew curls that he wanted to loosen over her shoulders. But he quickly quashed the impulse.

This was what desire did to you. It clouded the ability to think straight. To see what was real. And what was real was this: Gypsy was not innocent. She might not be mercenary in a monetary sense, although the jury was still out on that, but she was mercenary in a far worse way as far as Rico was concerned. She would have quite happily kept Lola from him—perhaps for ever. And it was clear that she was not going to give him any straight answers. She trusted him about as much as he trusted her—that much he suspected they would agree on.

Bitter, futile anger rose again in acknowledgement of what he’d missed out on, but Rico pushed it down. He had to be cool, controlled. Stake his claim and leave Gypsy in no doubt as to who held the power between them.

He saw her hitch her chin up imperceptibly. ‘You wanted to talk?’

He inclined his head slightly. ‘As I told you earlier, I now have proof that I’m Lola’s father.’

Gypsy crossed her arms across her chest, inadvertently pushing her breasts forward. Rico kept his gaze lifted with an effort, and shifted irritably on the desk.

‘And…?’ Gypsy asked, with all the hauteur of a queen.

Rico bit back a reluctant smile. He had to hand it to her for bravado. No one stood up to him the way she did. And he admired that, even if he didn’t like admitting it.

‘And that means that I am now going to exercise my rights as her father to care for her, provide for her and protect her—as befitting my heir.’

Gypsy’s generous mouth tightened. ‘You can do that all you want. Just let us get on with our lives and we can work out some custody arrangement.’

Rico sneered. ‘You think I am going to allow you to return to that hovel of a flat with my daughter?’ He dismissed the very notion with a slashing hand, making Gypsy flinch slightly. Perversely that made him contrite, and angry for feeling it. ‘I am not interested in custody arrangements. And I am certainly not interested in being forced to stay in the UK so that I can drive into that ghetto twice a month to see my daughter for a few measly hours.’

Gypsy’s arms fell, her hands clenched into fists by her sides. ‘We’ll take you to court. You can’t do this.’

He arched a mocking brow. ‘You’ll take me to court with what? Your leftover tips from the restaurant? Believe me, Gypsy, any court you drag me to will be packed to the rafters with my own people. The best that money can buy. Do you honestly think that any judge will look favourably on a mother who wilfully cut the father of her child out of their lives for no apparent good reason? What judge will deny me my right to have access to Lola when they hear how you took it upon yourself to make her solely yours?’

He saw how she paled in the dim light, how she swayed for a moment, and with a silent curse he nearly got up to steady her. He saw her visibly compose herself. He could almost hear her brain whirring.

He decided to go for the jugular. ‘You have no job. You have no prospects, despite the degree you say you have. To work you’re going to need childcare, better childcare than a pensioner down the road, and to afford childcare you need to work. It’s a catch-22.’

White-lipped, her green eyes huge in her face, Gypsy bit out, ‘So tell me what it is you want.’

Rico relished the moment before speaking. He had Gypsy exactly where he wanted her. ‘What I want is the fifteen months you owe me. You and Lola living with me for fifteen months, so that I don’t miss out on another day of her development.’

This time Gypsy did sway, and Rico got to her just in time to lead her over to a chair and sit her down. In seconds he was back, with brandy in a glass. She waved it away, saying distractedly, ‘Don’t drink…’

He put the glass down, but stood over her and restrained himself from hauling her up and shaking her. She was acting—she had to be. This apparent vulnerability couldn’t be real. And what on earth was wrong with the prospect of fifteen months living in the lap of luxury?

She looked up then, a hopeful light in her eyes. ‘Fifteen months…and then you’ll let us go?’

Rage bubbled inside Rico’s gut. How delusional was she? And why did her eagerness to get away from him cause a spike in his gut? ‘Not as such…But I am willing, after fifteen months are up, to help set you up in employment, help you find somewhere to live…help you get back on your feet. Providing, of course, that I have full and unimpeded access to Lola and a say in her future.’

Her mouth tightened again, and he could see her hands in fists on her lap.

‘And in the meantime you plan on dragging us around the world with you? What kind of a life is that for a small child? She needs a routine, Rico, not a billionaire playboy father. Or are you planning to leave us in a sterile apartment like this one and visit whenever the mood strikes?’

Gypsy looked up at Rico and felt as if her neck might snap. She was so tense. His words were whirling sickeningly in her head, and along with them his obviously smug sense of satisfaction at having got her exactly where he wanted her. She needed space. She had to digest this—even though she knew with fatal certainty that what he said was true: she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in court, and had no means to get there. And, she had to acknowledge heavily, she only had herself to blame. If she hadn’t taken the decision to keep Lola a secret who knew how things might have developed?

He answered her now, coldly. ‘On the contrary. My main base is in Greece. I live between Athens and the island of Zakynthos. Most of my business is conducted there. This is actually my first visit back to London in…two years.’

The way he said the words, as if he was remembering that night, made the air crackle between them. Feeling claustrophobic, Gypsy blurted out before she could censor her words, ‘You’re not going to…to demand that we get married…?’

Rico looked down at her. He was far too close. He arched one brow. ‘Is that what you’d like, Gypsy? Is that what you’re holding out for? Nothing less than matrimony?’

Before she could say that it was the last thing in the world she wanted he continued. ‘Curiously, I have no desire to marry someone who believes that she has the divine right to play God with a child’s life. Any wife I choose will understand the concept of honesty and trust.’

Standing up, because the feeling of claustrophobia was getting worse, and not liking they way he’d said he had no desire to marry her had impacted her somewhere very secret she bit out, ‘Men like you don’t even know the meaning of trust or honesty. And if I had to go back in time I’d make the same decision all over again.’

Gypsy expected Rico to move back to give her space. But he didn’t. He brought his hands up to her arms and held her. Gypsy tried to pull away but his hold tightened.

Her words had hit a nerve. His eyes flashed, his jaw tightened. ‘I’m not finished. I haven’t told you the other thing I want.’

Gypsy’s whole body was tensed against the inevitable effect of Rico’s proximity. They were practically touching. All she’d have to do was take a deep breath and her breasts would push against his chest. Anger at realising that, and wanting it, made her lash out. ‘What? Haven’t you asked for enough? What more can I give you?’

He looked at her for a long moment, his steel-grey gaze intent, focused. And then he said, with devastating simplicity, ‘You.’

His words sank in, slowly, and with it came an awful trickling of heat through her veins and into her belly. She started to struggle in his arms. ‘No…no…I won’t have it. I don’t want you.’

But Rico just kept on holding her and said, ‘Stop lying to yourself, Gypsy.’

He brought his hands up to her face, fingers around the back of her head, holding it. His thumbs were warm on her jaw. To her utter horror she could hear her breaths coming, hard and shallow. She put her hands over his, as if she could pull them down, and entreated with everything she had, all her secret vulnerabilities where this man was concerned, ‘Rico…please don’t do this.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t not do this.’

And with his big hands cupping her face and head, crowding her utterly, he lowered his head to hers and took her lips in a kiss of soul-destroying and surprising sweetness. As if all the tension and animosity between them was an illusion. If he’d been hard and forceful it would have been easier to remember to fight, but this…this was something else entirely.

Gypsy emitted a sound that was somewhere between a moan of capitulation and frustration. Rico urged her even closer, and she could feel him taking out her hairband and letting her hair fall, combing through it and twining long strands around his fingers. Her treacherous hands dropped.

And meanwhile his mouth was on hers, getting hotter and harder, opening her to him. He stroked his tongue along hers, enticing her to explore. And Gypsy felt her legs weaken.

In mere seconds the world shifted, and Gypsy found herself straddling Rico’s lap on the chair, facing him, her legs either side of his powerful thighs. His hands were still on her head, allowing no quarter as he brought her face back to his and set about undoing every one of her defences. With a moan Gypsy had to place her hands on his chest, to stop herself falling forward completely, but that action transmitted the heavy beat of Rico’s heart right through to her bones.

His hands came down to her waist, searching for and finding the bare skin between her jeans and top, stroking sensuously. Gypsy was aware that she was arching her back, but couldn’t stop it. She was in another world where time and reality didn’t exist. And, weakly, she resisted reality.

When Rico started to pull her T-shirt up, after only a moment of hesitation Gypsy lifted her arms and let him pull it off. Rico sat up straighter, and a new urgency infused the desire-laden air around them as he pulled her into him and pressed kisses against her neck and throat, down to the valley between her breasts.

Gypsy clutched his head, trembling all over, aching to get closer, and as if Rico heard her silent plea he shifted them subtly, so that the apex of her thighs came into direct contact with his burgeoning arousal.

She gasped and pulled back, and in that moment she realised that Rico had somehow undone her bra and was pulling it down her arms, baring her rosy-tipped breasts to his gaze.

‘So beautiful…’ he breathed. ‘I’ve never forgotten this…I’ve dreamt of this…’

Something about his words melted Gypsy inside, and with her hands spread on his shoulders all she could do was suck in a breath of pure pleasure as he cupped one breast and then brought her forward to his mouth, so that he could lick teasingly around the aureole before flicking his tongue against the hard nub.

The bare skin of her shoulders was incredibly sensitised by her hair, and before Gypsy knew what she was doing she was blindly tearing off Rico’s tie and opening the buttons of his shirt with feverish hands, all while his mouth was wickedly bringing her closer and closer to the edge of delicious sensation.

Finally, with his shirt open, Gypsy spread her hands across his broad chest with its smattering of hair, revelling in his innate strength. Rico broke away from her breast and, heavy-lidded, Gypsy looked down, her eyes roving over the stark planes of his gorgeous face, marvelling that he desired her like this. A burgeoning feeling of something awfully like tenderness rushed through her, disorientating her for a moment. It unsettled her, because she’d felt it the night they’d slept together, and finding him gone in the morning, leaving nothing but that note, had been like a slap in the face.

But he didn’t give her time to dwell on that, to allow it to filter through and break the moment. Bringing her close again, he caught her mouth and kissed her until she was dizzy. One of his hands moved down over her soft belly to flick open her jeans, and she gasped openmouthed into his kiss. His other hand came around and slid down between her jeans and her bottom, caressing the flesh, moving her in even closer, so she could feel how hard he was. In that moment he thrust upwards, and even though their clothes acted as a barrier the sheer memory of his potent size and strength made stars explode behind Gypsy’s eyes.

Instinctively her hips moved, seeking more friction. He was relentless, kissing her, his hot mouth moving down, finding a breast and suckling. One hand kneaded her bottom, pulling her closer, and his other hand delved under the opening of her jeans to the apex of her legs, underneath her pants, where one finger found the moist centre of her desire and rubbed, back and forth, as he rhythmically thrust against her.

Almost sobbing, because on some level Gypsy knew that he was only displaying his control over her, showing her how weak she was, she couldn’t save herself from the ultimate surrender. With a cry, she felt her body tense and peak, before falling down into spasms of pleasure so intense that her hands dug into Rico’s shoulders as if he was her anchor in the storm.

To her absolute horror, as sanity came back in slow doses, she could feel her body still clenching spasmodically. She was half naked, in his study, and had just been brought to orgasm for the first time in two years with little more than heavy petting.

On roiling waves of shock and horror Gypsy pulled Rico’s hands away and scrambled up. Her jeans were undone, half off. Her breasts throbbed, her body ached—and Rico sat there, sprawled in sexy abandon, with his shirt open and his hair dishevelled.

She saw her T-shirt and whipped it up, pulling it on with shaking hands, not caring if it was back to front or inside out. Or where her bra was. With a strangled cry of something she couldn’t even articulate she fled from the study.

All she heard behind her was a dark, knowing chuckle.

Fleeing straight to her bedroom, Gypsy locked herself in the bathroom, turned the shower onto steaming, stripped and got in. Only once she was under the powerful spray did she give in to tears of humiliation and anger. Rico had proved his point. He held all the power—over her situation, over Lola, and—possibly worst of all—over her. Because if she couldn’t remain immune to Rico how could she protect herself or Lola, when inevitably he would lose interest in being a father and reject them both?

When she felt composed and had changed into a poloneck top and fresh jeans, Gypsy wound her damp hair up and stuck a clip in it. Taking a deep breath, she went back out to the living room—where, to her dismay, she saw Rico standing looking out of the window. No sign of Mrs Wakefield or Lola yet.

Rico turned to face her, hands in his pockets, and Gypsy cursed the fact that he hadn’t gone back to work—knowing that it was hypocritical of her, because if he had she’d have found fault with that too. Looking as cool as a cucumber, and not as if he’d just made love to her within an inch of her life on a chair in his study, Rico held out a piece of paper to Gypsy.

She had to go closer to get it, and all but snatched it out of his hand. She glanced at him before reading it. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a press release.’

Gypsy read the print.

After a break in relations, Rico Christofides and Gypsy Butler would like to announce their joyful reunion, together with their daughter Lola.

She looked up from the paper and felt shaky all over. ‘Is this really necessary?’

He nodded curtly. ‘Absolutely. They will dig and dig until they know who you are, who Lola is, and what her relationship to me is. We give them that, and a staged photo, and they’ll leave us alone…’

Gypsy could feel her blood drain southwards, and was barely aware of Rico’s narrowed look. ‘They won’t dig if we give them this?’

His look was far too assessing, and Gypsy tried to hide her fear of people finding out about her past, terrified that Rico would use the knowledge in some way to strengthen his position. He shook his head. ‘No, they’ll still hound us to a certain extent, but it won’t have the same intensity…’

Gypsy handed him back the paper. ‘OK, then, go ahead with it.’

Rico said smoothly, ‘I already have.’

Gypsy’s eyes clashed with his. ‘Of course. How could I forget? You act and then ask later.’

Rico shrugged nonchalantly. ‘I know what I want and I go after it. Now,’ he said crisply, and looked at his watch, ‘my driver is downstairs, waiting to take you to your flat, where you will pack up the rest of your things. Bring back only what you can carry. I’ll have my assistant box everything else up and ship it to my home in Athens.’

‘But what about the flat?’

Rico’s lip curled. ‘My assistant will look after informing the landlord. No doubt it’ll soon be snapped up by the next unfortunate individual who has to live there.’

Gypsy bit back words of protest, knowing they were futile. ‘Then what?’

‘Then…’ Rico came close to Gypsy, but she backed away, not liking the way butterflies took off in her belly. ‘Tomorrow we travel to Buenos Aires for my nephew’s christening, which is in a few days. I’m to be his godfather. I also have some business to attend to while we’re there.’

Intrigued despite herself, Gypsy asked, ‘You have a nephew?’

‘He’s my younger half-brother’s son.’ Almost accusingly he said, ‘Lola has cousins: four-year-old Beatriz and six-month-old Luis. My brother Rafael and his wife Isobel are looking forward to meeting you and Lola.’

Gypsy felt a little overwhelmed to suddenly discover that he had family—that he was going to be a godfather and that Lola had cousins. It made her feel a curious wrenching inside. Family. Lola might never have known. It was something Gypsy had always longed for—a brother or sister, even cousins. But both her parents had been only children, and she’d been her father’s only child.

In something of a daze, she let Rico guide her out to the hall. She put on her coat and went down to the car. All the way to her flat, and as she packed up her paltry belongings, Gypsy was still in a bit of a daze. Finally she looked around and heaved a sigh. The flat looked even worse now that she’d been living in Rico’s penthouse for a week. Even she couldn’t stomach the thought of bringing Lola back here…

She looked down and made sure she had her most important possession: an old box full of mementos of her mother—photos, and those letters she’d found in her father’s study after he’d died. She didn’t care about anything else.

She sat down heavily on a chair for a moment, feeling emotion welling within her, but she stayed dry-eyed and just felt inexplicably sad and fearful that despite everything she was destined to watch as Lola received the same treatment she’d got from her own father.

And yet Gypsy had to acknowledge the utter shock Rico must have felt to find out about Lola. But from that first moment he’d taken it on board and assumed Lola was his. At no point had he rejected her, or ignored her until he’d got the results of the paternity test back. She had to admit grudgingly, for the second time in the space of a few days, that in spite of his autocratic takeover of their lives he hadn’t been acting exactly as she’d feared.

Gypsy had borne little physical resemblance to her father, and he too had insisted on a DNA test once he’d been forced to take her in—even though he’d known of her existence. With the proof that she was his, he’d just looked at her, shaken his head, and said, ‘It’d be easier to look at you if you at least took after the Bastions…but there’s nothing. You’re all your poor, stupid, mad Irish mother—and with that hair you look just like the gypsies she named you after…’

Gypsy blinked back the memory, her focus returning to the room. In a way, she thought, at least Lola did resemble Rico. That must be why it was easier for him to bond with her.

With a last desultory look around, she stood up, picking up the bags. Making sure she had the box, she left the flat for the last time. On her way back to the penthouse, the prospect of facing Rico and the future he’d outlined for them made the emotions clamouring in her chest feel much more ambiguous than she liked to admit.

The following day, after they’d arrived at a private airfield and been shown onto a plush private plane, Gypsy thought back to that morning. In a hive of activity, while getting ready for the trip to Argentina, Rico had reminded her of completing the necessary paperwork to have him added to Lola’s birth certificate.

Then he’d curtly informed her, ‘The paparazzi are outside waiting. They know they’re going to get a shot of us leaving, so I’d appreciate it if you could bring yourself to wear some of the clothes I bought for you. Also, in Buenos Aires there are a couple of functions I have to attend—not to mention the christening…’

In other words, Gypsy had surmised as she’d packed angrily, leaving behind her own shabby clothes, she’d better dress the part from now on. And he was also informing her that he expected her to be at his side in public…

She turned to him now on the plane, as she held Lola on her lap as they took off, but he was engrossed in some paperwork, giving her his slightly crooked profile, which only made him look more dangerous.

Stifling a sigh, Gypsy looked out of the window as England dropped away below them and felt as though a net was tightening around her, slowly but surely.

A couple of hours into the flight, after Lola had exhausted the length and breadth of the plane, and had been fed and changed, she was asleep on one of the reclined seats near Gypsy, the seat belt tied securely over her blanket, thumb stuck firmly in her mouth.

Gypsy looked from Lola to Rico, and flushed when she caught him staring at her. She blurted out what had been on her mind earlier. ‘Are you suggesting that we appear in public together…like some sort of…couple?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve released a press statement to the effect that we are…together, so, yes, I am going to make full use of you by my side. I need a companion in public, and of late have not had anyone to fulfil that role.’

Gypsy’s heart beat fast, and to counteract it she said waspishly, ‘The redhead wasn’t fit for public duty?’

Rico smiled, and it made him look years younger, more carefree…Lord, thought Gypsy, remembering when he’d smiled at her like that the night they met.

‘You’re inordinately interested in this redhead.’

Gypsy snorted inelegantly, but couldn’t look away. Had he slept with her? She hated that she wanted to know, and that she cared. She balled her hands into fists, nails scoring her palms.

‘I’m not interested in the slightest,’ she lied. ‘I would just like to know what the public perception of my role is likely to be if I’m to be seen by your side.’

‘I’d say it’s likely to be that you are the mother of my child, who is also sharing my bed. And if it’s any consolation I didn’t sleep with the redhead that night; seeing you again rendered me all but impotent.’

Gypsy flushed and struggled to control her wayward response to hearing that admission. She asserted hotly, ‘I will not be sharing your bed.’

He shrugged, and released her from his gaze to look back to his work, then said, ‘We both know if I started kissing you I could have you on the bed in the back of this cabin within minutes…But with respect to our daughter I’ll desist from making my point here and now.’

Gypsy choked back something rude…but couldn’t for the life of her stop her mind from imagining Rico coming over to her seat, trapping her with his arms and bending down to kiss her, before lifting her up and carrying her to the back of the plane…to that bed…where all she could imagine was a tangle of limbs, olive skin contrasting with pale skin…

What was wrong with her? Gypsy opened her belt and got up to go to the bathroom. Only once she was locked inside, and after splashing cold water on her face, did her pulse finally return to something close to normal. She looked at her face in the mirror, eyes huge. She was terrified that sleeping with Rico would crumble her precious defences…he already had so much control—too much control. If he had her, then he would have it all.

She’d been too young to fight against her father’s control, and he’d tried to wipe away every last trace of who she really was. She couldn’t forget that. She had to fight Rico for her own preservation and Lola’s. She had to.

Gypsy woke to a gentle prodding, and opened her eyes to see Lola’s big grey ones staring up at her, alongside Rico’s. He was squatting by her side, holding her. She was awake in an instant, her back protesting as she’d fallen asleep sitting up.

Lola smiled at her, small teeth flashing, ‘Mama…fly!’

Gypsy smiled tightly, hiding her momentary sense of disorientation at knowing that Rico had obviously taken care of Lola when she’d woken, and had been watching her sleeping. Lola was picking up more and more words every day now, generally repeating back any words said to her. Gypsy automatically went to reach for her, but Rico took her over to sit on his lap. Gypsy saw that his paperwork was put away.

He glanced at her and said, ‘We’re landing shortly. Buckle up.’

And just like that he was settling a completely contented Lola in his arms, and securing the seat belt around them. It made her think again of how at ease he’d been with Lola from day one. And he was growing in confidence around her, having no apparent qualms about picking her up or playing with her. He’d shielded her from the glare of the paprazzi cameras as they’d left the penthouse that morning, cocooning her within his arms. This side of Rico was one she hadn’t anticipated, and while she still didn’t doubt it was temporary, while the novelty lasted it unsettled her more than she liked to admit.

She couldn’t help asking curiously, ‘Have you always wanted children?’

Rico sent her a quick look, his hands huge around Lola, making something ache in Gypsy’s chest. She qualified. ‘That is…you seem very comfortable with Lola…’

Rico felt his daughter’s plump and solid little body curved into him so trustingly, and knew without a moment’s hesitation that he would lay his life down for her. Gypsy was looking at him with those huge eyes, her hair tumbled around her shoulders in glorious abandon. Her question unsettled him. He’d never thought about having children—had never wanted to have children. How could he explain that the concept of fatherhood had always mystified him, having had no good experience to call on?

But the day he’d seen Lola for the first time he’d suddenly known instinctively what it was. And as he’d come to terms with it, he had been able to feel so much more of his father’s pain and loss. And also to hate his stepfather even more for his cruel treatment. And…a hardness settled in his chest…he could also hate Gypsy a little bit more for denying him this basic right.

But he couldn’t articulate this to the woman who sat across from him, the woman he’d found himself staring at while she slept, looking so innocent. It had taken all his restraint and control not to pick her up out of her seat and carry her down to the bedroom to slake his lust. He hated wanting her so badly. He wanted to be able to control his desire. He wanted to be immune to her charms, unmoved by her wild beauty which called to him as strongly now as when he’d first seen her.

He schooled his features, afraid she might see something of the turmoil within him. ‘Whether I wanted children or not is no longer a relevant question. I have Lola, and the reason I’m comfortable with her is because she is mine, my flesh and blood, and I will do everything in my power to protect her.’

Chapter Eight

THE fervour of Rico’s words still rang in Gypsy’s head as they sped along the wide Buenos Aires boulevards to Rico’s brother’s home, where they were going to be guests. A trickle of sweat dropped between her breasts even though the car was air-conditioned. It had been like walking into a baking oven, stepping off the plane into the bright Argentinian sunshine just a short while before.

Rico had warned Gypsy how hot it was likely to be, but even in light linen trousers and a shirt she was still hot. Luckily there had been some summer dresses and light clothes amongst Lola’s new wardrobe, and now she was all decked out in a gorgeous polka dot dress, complete with sandals and matching pants.

Sitting in a baby seat, she looked out at the view with big eyes, turning to smile winningly at Gypsy every now and then, or to point and exclaim intermittently, ‘Car!’ or, ‘Woof! Woof!’ when she saw a dog.

Rico was sitting in the front, alongside the driver, conversing in Spanish. He looked back at Lola indulgently when she pointed out the umpteenth car. ‘Very good, mi nenita…’

Gypsy had to swallow an inexplicable lump, and looked out of her own window. She wondered if there would come a time when Rico might look at her without that censorious, unforgiving light in his eyes, and despaired that she even wanted that.

She could see that they were in a more residential area now, with huge houses just visible behind tall trees and flowering bushes. The car slowed, and a set of ornate black gates opened to reveal a long drive which led to a huge open courtyard and a stunning house.

On the steps Gypsy could see a beautiful slim woman with short dark hair holding a chubby black-haired baby, and beside her a tall dark man who bore a striking resemblance to Rico. It had to be Rafael—his half-brother. And between their legs danced a small dark-haired girl in worn shorts and a T-shirt, bare feet. The sight comforted Gypsy, who hadn’t really known what to expect.

They got out. Gypsy was all fingers and thumbs on Lola’s straps, but finally managed to extricate her. She went shy at the sight of so many new faces and leant into Gypsy, her thumb in her mouth.

Rico was by her side then, a hand on her back, and Gypsy felt slightly comforted. They walked forward, and any trepidation fled at the huge smile on Rafael’s wife’s face as she walked forward to meet them, embracing Gypsy warmly, and then Rico.

‘It’s so lovely to meet you, Gypsy. And Lola—isn’t she a sweetie?’ Gypsy was surprised to hear that Isobel sounded quite English, and also looked more English than Argentinian.

Gypsy was aware of the two brothers greeting each other warmly, but with a certain reserve she couldn’t put her finger on. She smiled at Rafael in greeting, and could see that up close there were distinct similarities. But where Rico’s eyes were that cold steel-grey, Rafael’s were dark brown. And he didn’t have the air of suppressed danger that seemed to surround Rico like a cloak of darkness.

The introductions were quick and chaotic. Beatriz their four-year-old daughter, was adorable, with big chocolate-brown eyes, and clearly excited to meet her new cousin.

Rico surprised Gypsy by picking Beatriz up and making her squeal with delight, before saying, ‘Once Lola is settled in you can get to know her…’

Beatriz smiled and said, ‘OK, Uncle Rico.’

In a flurry of being ushered inside, where a homely housekeeper appeared, wiping her hands on an apron, and more introductions, Gypsy deduced that Rafael and Isobel were blissfully happy. It oozed from every cell of their beings and throughout the house as Isobel led Gypsy on a whirlwind tour.

Standing at a bedroom door some minutes later, Isobel apologised, saying with a grimace, ‘I’m sorry—you must be absolutely exhausted. I know how arduous the flight can be from England; I went to school there, near my father’s family. But here I am chattering on when all you probably want to do is wash and rest.’

Isobel was cradling her smiley baby easily, and Gypsy felt in that moment that they could be good friends. She’d never had a close female friend before. She smiled shyly, feeling a sudden weariness wash over her. ‘To be honest, it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind…but I’m very happy to meet you too—and your children are gorgeous.’

Isobel grimaced again, but smiled. ‘Most of the time, as I’m sure you well know.’

Gypsy shared a complicit smile and appreciated Isobel’s lack of questions when she and Rafael had to have dozens. Just then Rico appeared, and Isobel gestured to the huge luxuriously furnished room through the open door. ‘I hope this will be suitable for you both, and Lola. I’ve set up a cot for Lola in the room off the dressing room, so she’s close by. I’ve also left baby monitors in there if you want them at night. If you need anything else just shout. Someone will bring your bags up shortly, but get some rest in the meantime. We’ll eat at about eight, after the children are in bed.’

Rico’s voice rumbled through Gypsy. ‘Thank you, Isobel, we’ll see you later.’

With a little wave Isobel walked quickly down the corridor. Gypsy and Rico still stood at the bedroom door. With a hand on her back he propelled her inside. Gypsy clutched Lola to her like a lifeline as she realised something very scary on investigating the rooms. One bedroom, one bathroom, one dressing room and one smaller room, where a cot and changing table had been set up.

She whirled to face Rico. ‘This room is surely for me and Lola. Where’s your room?’

He crossed his arms. ‘Right here.’

Gypsy backed away and shook her head. Rico had changed on the plane, into a pair of faded denims and a dark polo shirt, and he was all too devastating to her equilibrium like this. ‘No way. We are not sharing a bed. Obviously Isobel has assumed we’re a…a couple. I’ll have to let her know.’

Gypsy walked purposefully forward, but Rico stopped her with his arm. Lola, the little traitor, squirmed out of Gypsy’s arms towards Rico, and she had to let her go when he reached for her. Looking far too smug, he said, ‘You will do no such thing. She’s gone to a lot of trouble to set this room up, and would be mortified to think that you’re not happy with the arrangement.’

He shrugged insouciantly. ‘All we have to do is share a king-sized bed. You can put pillows down the centre, if you like. Or is it that you’re just afraid that you won’t be able to help yourself from ripping my clothes off?’

Gypsy balled her hands into fists and felt another trickle of sweat go down the small of her back. ‘You’re just playing with me. You can’t seriously expect me to believe that there aren’t a dozen more bedrooms here that you could use.’

‘It’s not up for debate, Gypsy. Now, you can go and bother Isobel with this tiny problem, when she’s got her hands full with her kids and organising the christening in two days, or you can just let it go and be an adult about it.’

Once again Gypsy felt like stamping her foot. What was it about this man that made her regress to a mental age of fifteen? But steel resolve straightened her spine. ‘Fine. If that’s the way you want it, I will have no problem keeping my hands off you. But know this, Rico Christofides, if you so much as breathe near me I will scream this place down.’

Rico smiled a shark’s smile. ‘You might scream, but it won’t be to keep me away from you.’

Gypsy flushed, remembering how abandoned she’d been the night they’d slept together. And the other day in the study. No self-control whatsoever. Mortified, and burning up inside with humiliation but determined not to let him see it, she held out her hands for Lola, who just looked at her, quite content in Rico’s arms. ‘I should feed her now. She’ll be hungry.’

Rico said easily, ‘Why don’t I feed her and let you wash and rest? I’ll bring her back up when she’s ready to go down for the evening. Beatriz is probably driving her parents crazy wanting to see her again anyway.’

And just like that he took responsibility for her daughter. Feeling thoroughly disgruntled and at odds with everything, her emotions see-sawing wildly, Gypsy could only watch as Rico walked out with Lola high in his arms, chattering away happily.

Still muttering to herself, Gypsy had a brief shower, and when she emerged in a voluminous fluffy robe, feeling half-human again, there was a smiling girl putting away their clothes. Their clothes: hers and Rico’s. That curious ache settled in her chest again, and Gypsy stuttered her thanks as the girl melted away discreetly.

The bed looked both terrifying and more inviting than anything she’d ever seen and, feeling as if surely she could snatch ten minutes of a nap, Gypsy lay down.

She woke much later, when dusk had fallen outside, to the familiar sound of Lola’s cry. Instantly she was awake, and saw Rico come into the room with an obviously cranky Lola in his arms. When she saw Gypsy she started to wail even louder. For the first time since she’d met him again Rico didn’t look his assured self. He actually looked worried.

Gypsy pulled her robe tight around her, wishing she had taken the time to dress, and took Lola, whose wails decreased almost immediately.

Rico said tightly, ‘I’m not sure what’s wrong with her. She ate some lunch and played with Beatriz, and then suddenly she started crying…’

Gypsy knew it would be all too easy to make Rico feel bad, but that knowledge didn’t sit well. She couldn’t do it. She looked at him, trying not to notice how gorgeous he seemed in the dim light of the room, in the intimacy of this situation like any domestic couple with their child.

Smiling wryly, she said, ‘Welcome to cranky and tired Lola. She can go from upbeat and happy to heartbroken in an instant. It’s been a lot for her to take in today, that’s all. She just needs to wind down and get to bed…I’ll get her a bottle and put her down.’

Rico surprised her by saying he’d get the bottle, and while he was gone Gypsy bathed Lola and changed her for the night. She couldn’t help sensing his relief at knowing that he hadn’t been at fault for upsetting Lola and that she was OK.

When he came back Gypsy was rocking Lola back and forth. She took the bottle from Rico and, after testing it, gave it to Lola, who was already falling asleep after a few greedy gulps. Rico stood with a shoulder against the doorjamb, watching them, and Gypsy felt huge relief at escaping from his intense scrutiny when she put Lola down and those long-lashed eyes closed in exhaustion.

She came out of the small room and pulled the door partway closed behind her, making sure to leave the baby monitor on in the room.

Rico said, ‘I’ll have a shower and see you downstairs, if you like. Dinner will be ready soon.’

Gypsy nodded, and as soon as she heard the shower going raced out of the robe and into a plain black dress and slingback heels, tying her hair back at her nape to tame it as much as she could. Escaping downstairs before Rico might emerge with just a towel around his waist seemed like the most important thing in the world.

She’d taken the second baby monitor with her, and as she approached the reception area a maid appeared as if from thin air and showed Gypsy into the main drawing room. Gypsy blushed to the roots of her hair when she saw Isobel sitting on Rafael’s lap, their heads close together, his arms about her waist, her arms around his neck.

Isobel jumped up the minute she saw her, an impish grin on her face. ‘I’m sorry, Gypsy, we didn’t see you…Would you like an aperitif?’

Rafael stood too, and greeted Gypsy so urbanely that he defused her embarrassment. By the time Rico appeared, in a snowy-white shirt and black trousers, Gypsy was explaining to Rafael and Isobel about her name. As soon as Rico came and stood near her, though, her voice dried up in her throat at imagining sharing a bed with him that night.

The housekeeper appeared and called them through for dinner, which was served in a wood-panelled dining room.

Gypsy sat back after the dessert and patted her belly, trying to ignore Rico’s steely gaze across the table. She looked at Isobel. ‘That was too delicious for words…’

Isobel smiled. She was sitting directly opposite Gypsy, to Rafael’s right, with Rico beside her at the head of the table. ‘It’s nice that it’s just us this evening. I understand that you’re going to a function tomorrow night and that’s lucky for you as you’ll get to avoid the arrival of our other guests and the ensuing mayhem of preparations for the christening.’

Instinctively Gypsy leant forward. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

Isobel waved a hand. ‘Not at all. It’s all in hand. Believe me, it’s just lovely that you’re here.’ She sent a mischievous look to Rico. ‘According to Rico, we should never have believed that he might one day appear with a ready-made family.’ She continued. ‘What was it you said on our wedding day? Something about not offering a return invitation any time soon?’

Rico looked steadily at Gypsy and she was caught by his gaze, unable to read it or escape it. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and then he drawled, ‘Well…since I can’t remember issuing a proposal, I’d say what I said then still holds firm…’

Gypsy was only vaguely aware of Rafael’s sharp intake of breath, and the discreet look between him and Isobel. Gypsy burned inside with humiliation, which was made worse because she knew his statement shouldn’t bother her—especially not after he’d succinctly outlined his requirements for a wife. But before she could come back with some witty rejoinder, to show how he hadn’t affected her even when he had, the door opened and Rafael and Isobel’s nanny came in.

She said something to Isobel, who stood up, apologising. ‘It’s Luis. He won’t settle. Please excuse me?’

Wanting desperately to escape, Gypsy half stood and said, ‘I should check on Lola.’ But to her dismay Isobel waved her back down. ‘Don’t be silly. Have your coffee and I’ll check on her for you.’

Feeling sick inside, Gypsy sat back down and couldn’t meet Rico’s eye. Thankfully Rafael seemed happy to cover the gap in conversation, and Gypsy let the talk flow over her. She hated that she felt so hurt by Rico’s comment. He’d all but stated that he wouldn’t be marrying Gypsy if she was the last woman on earth, even if she was the mother of his child. And she didn’t even want to marry him! He was welcome to the tall, sleek, blonde heiress-type he’d undoubtedly go for. Or the sultry red-head—even if he said he hadn’t slept with her.

After what she deemed an appropriate amount of time she excused herself, saying to Rafael, ‘The jet lag is catching up with me. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed.’

Praying that Rico wouldn’t follow her, she breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Rafael continue the conversation. She all but ran up the stairs, and practically bumped into Isobel, who was coming back down.

Isobel touched Gypsy’s arm and asked gently, ‘Are you OK?’

Gypsy nodded. She felt like bursting into tears, but held it back.

Isobel bit her lip and said, ‘I didn’t mean to say anything to cause tension between you and Rico. I’m so sorry…I saw the way he was with you, and I guess I just assumed…’

She looked so mournful that Gypsy blocked out her pathetic need to know what Isobel meant by I saw the way he was with you and shook her head. ‘No, it’s not you at all. Believe me. It’s just…things aren’t exactly how they seem with me and Rico…we’re not…together.’

Isobel groaned. ‘And I put you two in the same room. I am so sorry. Look, I’ll move Rico—’

‘No!’ Gypsy said forcibly, anticipating Rico’s retribution, and forced herself to say calmly, ‘Don’t—really. It’s fine, honestly. Our relationship is not to be a cause of concern to you.’

Isobel took Gypsy’s arm and walked her back down the corridor towards the bedrooms. ‘If it’s any consolation, I think I might know a little of what you’re going through…’ she confided.

Gypsy frowned. ‘But you and Rafael seem so…’ She trailed off, remembering intruding on their intimate moment.

Isobel smiled ruefully. ‘Oh, we are now. But, believe me, it wasn’t always like that.’ She shook her head, ‘Considering their background, and the damage their father—’ She stopped and clarified. ‘That is the damage Rafael’s father, Rico’s stepfather, did to them both, it’s easy to see where they get their drive and arrogance. And Rico had it so much worse than Rafael, because he was someone else’s son. Rafael doesn’t even know what happened between Rico and his biological father when he left at sixteen to go and find him in Greece.’

Reeling inwardly at this information, Gypsy repeated, ‘He left at sixteen?’

Isobel nodded. ‘After a beating that nearly put him in a hospital. If he hadn’t turned on his stepfather that day and fought back, who knows what might have happened? As it was, he saved Rafael from years of further abuse…’ Isobel turned to Gypsy at the door of the bedroom. ‘Look, if there’s any way I can make this more comfortable for you, let me know.’

Gypsy forced a smile. ‘I will. And thank you.’

Isobel hugged Gypsy impulsively before walking away.

When Gypsy had let herself into the bedroom she stood with her back to the door for a long moment while silent tears slid down her cheeks. The other woman’s easy affection had pushed her over the edge of her control.

She wiped at the tears that wouldn’t seem to stop and told herself angrily that she wasn’t crying at the thought of a proud sixteen-year-old being beaten so badly that he’d left home. She’d already begun to suspect that Rico was a much more complex person than her father. Hearing that intriguing snippet about his and Rafael’s childhood made her want to know more, and that was dangerous. Along with the ever-increasing proof that when it came to his daughter he was proving to be nothing like her own father.

He was making Gypsy pay, yes, just as her father had done to her mother—but not because she’d asked him to acknowledge Lola, but because she hadn’t.

And while his words tonight should have comforted her, telling her of his intention that they would never formalise their relationship just for the sake of their daughter or because he might gain more control over them, they had done anything but. The words had scored through her like a serrated knife.

Suddenly anticipating Rico striding into the room, Gypsy hurriedly dressed in her nightclothes and got into bed, hugging one side. She put a pillow in the centre as a warning to Rico, but she had no doubt after that comment downstairs that he’d be as likely to try and seduce her as he would be to give Lola up.

Rico came into the room and saw the slight shape under the covers in the bed. A small bedside light threw out a dim glow, and Rico walked over to look down on Gypsy where she lay sleeping. He cursed softly when he saw the unmistakable sign of tear-tracks on her cheeks, feeling his chest tighten. He did not welcome the unbidden emotion where this woman was concerned.

Dammit. He’d just had to endure the worst look of reproach from Isobel, and Rafael’s clear disapproval. He hadn’t told them, however, that he had regretted the words as soon as they’d come out of his mouth. He’d wanted to snatch them back as soon as he’d seen the colour leach from Gypsy’s face and her eyes grow bruised. It had been a cheap shot designed to hurt, and it had.

Rico was disconcerted by this need to hurt Gypsy, because it hinted at a desire to force her to push him away. When really he knew he didn’t have to make much of an effort there. He was surprised she hadn’t hit him the other day, after he’d seduced her in his study and all but exploded like an inexperienced teenager in his pants. What had started out as an exercise in domination over her had turned rapidly into something completely out of his control.

Gypsy hated him, but perversely that thought didn’t give him the same satisfaction it might have a few days ago. His mouth thinned. He had done something or he represented something that she despised. It was becoming more and more clear that something lay behind her reasoning for not getting in touch with him when she’d found out about her pregnancy.

She kept making comments about men like you, or I know how you operate, and it was beginning to seriously get on his nerves. And yet she’d had an opportunity earlier to make the most of his discomfiture when he hadn’t known how to deal with Lola’s bad behaviour, but she hadn’t. She’d been generous and had put him at ease, assuring him it wasn’t his fault.

And he’d repaid her by making a snide comment.

He was used to people looking for a weakness and exploiting it, and she hadn’t done that. She was full of shadows and secrets which he was only now beginning to unravel. She didn’t trust him, she didn’t want his money, and she fought her attraction to him as if her life depended on it. And he wanted to know why. Right at that moment, despite the most urgent desire he’d ever felt for a woman burning him up inside, he felt the need to proceed cautiously, suddenly wary of what further vulnerabilities intimacy might bring.

‘I owe you an apology.’

Gypsy’s hand tightened around her coffee cup. It was just her and Rico in the bright and airy breakfast room. When she’d woken this morning she’d been inordinately relieved to find Rico’s side of the bed empty. He’d already taken Lola downstairs to eat with Beatriz, Isobel and Luis, and Isobel had insisted on taking Lola off to play with Beatriz.

So now it was just the two of them, and she had to have misheard. She looked at him warily. ‘Apology?’

He nodded once, curtly, the lines of his cleanshaven face stark. ‘What I said last night was unforgivably rude. You are the mother of my child and deserve more respect.’

If Gypsy hadn’t already been sitting down she would have fallen. She got the distinct impression that those words had cost him dearly. She might be the mother of his child but he still despised her for what she had done. But then her heart thumped—was he saying that he would marry her? She went hot all over, and clammy at the same time.

As if Rico could see the direction of her thoughts he said mockingly, ‘While I don’t envisage such a union between us, I had no right to say it so baldly. Suffice to say, I still don’t relish the thought of marrying a woman who thinks nothing of keeping the father out of his child’s life.’

Gypsy’s chin hitched up. So he was apologising not for what he’d said, but how he’d said it. Fresh hurt lanced her, mocking her attempt to deny it. ‘I didn’t think nothing of it. I had my reasons and they were good ones.’

Rico leant forward, suddenly threatening. ‘Yes, about those reasons…You’ve not been entirely forthcoming in that area. You’re determined to believe the worst of me—that’s been clear since the moment we met again—and you’ve obviously thought the worst since you knew who I was. That’s why you never contacted me, isn’t it? While I find it hard to believe, I’m willing to bet that you slept with me that night because you truly did think I was just some anonymous person, and not one of the wealthiest men in the world.’ He said this with no arrogance, just stated the fact.

Gypsy’s skin tightened across her bones and she confirmed his suspicion, saying faintly, ‘I didn’t know anything about you till I saw you on the news that morning…’

Her brain whirred sickeningly. He was issuing a direct challenge and skirting far too close to the truth. He couldn’t know about her father; he couldn’t know the dramatic step she’d taken after he had died. If he shared the antipathy her father had felt for him, he’d use that for sure. And he couldn’t know about her mother’s mental instability. He wouldn’t understand—few people would—and he would use all that information to make her appear an unfit mother.

She was aware on some level that this fear was coming from a visceral place, not necessarily rational, but she couldn’t control it. She didn’t see herself ever being able to trust Rico. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d trusted anyone.

How could she, when her formative experiences had been learnt so painfully at the hands of someone who hadn’t even been as powerful?

She reiterated. ‘As I told you before, I had no desire to be dragged through the courts, and your departure that morning had left me in no doubt as to how reluctant you were to see me again.’

He seemed to consider saying something for a long time, and eventually he said roughly, ‘I told you the day I came to your flat that I regretted leaving you the way I did.’

Gypsy swallowed. She’d dismissed his words as an easy platitude at the time, but now they skated over her skin and made little tremors race up and down.

His mouth tightened into a thin line. ‘I rang the hotel…most likely just after you would have seen me on the news…but you’d already left…’

Gypsy stopped breathing. She had the vaguest recollection of a phone ringing as she’d walked away from the room, but she had assumed it was coming from somewhere else. That had been him? To say what? That he wanted to see her again? But even as she thought that, and her heart clenched treacherously, she realised that she’d known who he was by then…so she would still have run, disgusted at having let herself be seduced so easily by someone like him. She’d still been raw after her father’s death—especially as she’d just found out the extent of his cruelty to her mother.

Gypsy tore her eyes from his and looked down, feeling very wobbly inside. ‘You say that you rang. Whether you did or not is a moot point now.’

‘Clearly.’

Rico’s voice was harsh enough to have Gypsy’s eyes meet his, and something in those grey depths made her breath hitch.

And then, moving abruptly, Rico put down his napkin and stood up. ‘I have to go into my office here today. The event we’re going to tonight is black tie—it’s for a charity I’m patron of. Be ready to go out at seven p.m.’

Gypsy watched as Rico strode powerfully from the room, and when he’d gone the absence of his intense energy made her sag like a lead balloon. She’d been to dozens of society charity events, as her father had been patron of many—but only to enhance his ego, avail himself of tax benefits, and occasionally to dip into the funds for himself.

He’d never got caught. He’d been too good at creating smoke and mirrors so people didn’t ask questions or looked the other way. But Gypsy had known, though she’d always been too terrified of the potential punishment if she did something as audacious as call the police. But nevertheless her father had managed to punish her for her knowledge.

Once again she was being hurtled back in time. With effort she forced her mind away. She’d never wanted to be party to something like this again, and here she was, right in the middle of it. She let familiar cynicism wash over her as she thought of the prospect of the evening to come, but knew it was a weak attempt to avoid the thought of going out on Rico’s arm in public.

She couldn’t even drum up the disgust she’d expected to feel at the thought of seeing Rico posture and preen purely to raise his profile. She had an uncomfortable presentiment that he would confound her expectations again.

That evening Gypsy sat beside Rico at the head table, in a thronged and glittering ballroom in one of Buenos Aires’ best hotels. She was incensed that her distaste for this milieu was being constantly diminished because she was so distracted by how gorgeous Rico looked in a classic black-tie tuxedo.

Isobel was minding Lola, and had kindly helped Gypsy to get ready earlier. She’d endeared herself to Gypsy even more when she’d confided with feeling that she and Rafael had a pact that they’d only go to charity events if and when it was absolutely necessary, and only if Rafael could promise that he would try to extort as much money as possible out of the assembled Buenos Aires elite. After they’d given over their own generous donation, of course.

Gypsy had been happy with her appearance once Isobel had left. Her hair was straightened and twisted into a classic chignon, and her plain dark green silk dress, sleeveless and with a cowl neckline, fell to the floor. She looked the part—the part she’d been trained well to play by her own father when it had suited him to act out the role of devoted parent, which had only ever lasted as long as they’d been on public display.

When Rico had come into the bedroom earlier and asked, with a horrified glance at her head, ‘What have you done to your hair?’ Gypsy had felt like a gauche teenager again—acutely self-conscious and aware that she just didn’t have the right look for this world.

Defensively she’d touched her hair and said, ‘Isobel straightened it for me. It’s tidier like this…I thought for the dinner—’

But he’d just said curtly, ‘Come on, we’ll be late,’ and strode out of the room, making Gypsy want to slam and lock the door behind him.

Now she looked resolutely away from Rico, and tried not to let the fact that his powerful thigh was brushing against hers intermittently bother her. But she couldn’t pretend to herself that she wasn’t affected, and squirmed inwardly at the thought of Rico knowing.

Suddenly a hush descended on the room as a compère got up and signalled to the crowd. She heard Rico sigh deeply beside her and snuck a look. His face was expressionless, but his jaw was tight, and she knew in that instant that he too hated this. Reeling at that information, she watched dumbly as he got up with fluid athletic grace after being introduced, and walked to the podium with thunderous adoring applause resounding around the room.

Up until that point Gypsy hadn’t taken much notice of what the charity in question was, but now she recognised it as one of her father’s own pet projects. One that he’d taken funds from. Her face burned with mortification at the realisation, and also at the weak fear that had led her to keep quiet about it when she’d been younger.

Rico was talking now, and Gypsy became quickly mesmerised by the simple articulacy of his words and his obvious genuine passion for the cause. A few people shifted uncomfortably around her; clearly they’d just expected him to get up and smile and say nothing of any consequence. But Rico was not going anywhere yet.

He knew his subject well. He was listing facts and figures that made her feel dizzy, and he was not afraid of mentioning the unpalatable stuff that people at an event like this preferred not to hear. To her knowledge he hadn’t even brought a piece of paper, but with simple eloquence he put it to the crowd to put their money where their mouths were and started an impromptu bidding session—the prize being a new car of the winner’s choice, from him. She could see exactly what he’d done; he’d embarrassed them into action, and now they couldn’t bid fast enough.

The woman to Gypsy’s left, who had been introduced as the co-ordinator of the charity, shook her head and smiled conspiratorially. ‘I don’t know where we’d be without him. He consistently shakes people out of their complacency and inertia. If only everyone could be as dedicated. There are far too many poseurs and charlatans standing in as concerned philanthropists.’

Gypsy swallowed painfully.

Finally he was finished—once an obscene amount of money had been bid. Everyone started to stand up and move about. Rico was coming back down to the table and, to Gypsy’s surprise, with singular intent he grabbed her arm and said succinctly, ‘OK I’ve had enough. Let’s get out of here.’

Gypsy trailed after him, seeing the way people approached him but then stood back as if intimidated by his grimness. She almost felt sorry for them. ‘Don’t you want to stay? Talk to people?’

He glanced back at her. ‘Not unless they want to pay for my time and donate more money. Do you want to stay?’

Gypsy all but shuddered and shook her head eagerly. ‘No.’

A questioning gleam lit his eyes for a second, but then it was gone, and he led the way until they were back in the car and driving away. Rico was already opening his bow-tie with a grimace, and the top button of his shirt. Gypsy was transfixed by his hand, those long fingers…

Suddenly his hand stopped moving, and with a panicky feeling in her gut Gypsy met speculative grey ones. He quirked a small smile. ‘If you keep looking at me like that I’m going to do something about it. I meant what I said in London. I want you, and I intend to have you, Gypsy. On my bed, underneath me…’

Her face flaming now, Gypsy hissed, ‘Stop that right now.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s going to happen, Gypsy. We might not trust each other, or even like each other very much, but that’s beside the point. I won’t force you, though. You’ll admit you want me too before we sleep together. I’m prepared to wait…for now. But I’ll warn you I’m not a patient man.’

Gypsy tried to look away but couldn’t. She felt hot inside at his obvious intent, and extremely susceptible having witnessed Rico at that charity event—having seen his clear distaste for the whole scene and his obvious determination to beat the cynics at their own game.

Right now she felt very confused, because the man she’d just seen working a jaded crowd to his advantage was someone she very possibly wanted to like her. Feeling very shaky inside, she mustered up a futile and rebellious, ‘Don’t hold your breath…’

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