CHAPTER FIVE

‘I’LL keep hold of Bas,’ Martha whispered in her ear. ‘He doesn’t like him.’

‘Thanks,’ Rosie said, entering the lounge and shutting the door on the older woman. ‘Well, this is a surprise, Jason. How did you find out where I lived?’

The big blond man grimaced. ‘I’d sooner not say but I had to see you after what happened a couple of weeks ago,’ he told her. ‘All I wanted was the chance to talk to you.’

‘Sit down, Jason. You scared me that night,’ Rosie admitted, taking the chair opposite him.

Jason dropped back into the sofa, which creaked in protest beneath his considerable bulk. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t mean to do that but that guy wading in, interfering in what was none of his business, got to me. I thought you and I could go out some night … maybe see a film or go for a meal, whatever you like.’

Discomfiture at the invitation made Rosie turn pink. ‘That’s not a good idea—’

‘Why not? What’s wrong with me?’ Jason asked with more than a hint of belligerence.

‘I didn’t say there was anything wrong with you,’ Rosie hastened to assure him before deciding that in his particular case honesty probably was the best policy. ‘But it wouldn’t be right for either of us … I’m pregnant, Jason.’

Jason looked stunned. ‘You’re joking me?’

‘No, I’m telling you the truth.’

‘Pregnant?’ he repeated, staring at her as if she’d admitted to leprosy and with something akin to disgust.

Out in the hall she heard a door opening and closing, the low timbre of male voices and Bas bursting into sudden frenzied barks.

‘I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.’ Jason grimaced and got back on his feet again. ‘Well, this has been a waste of my time and no mistake—I don’t want to date a woman expecting some other bloke’s kid!’

Before Rosie could assure him that he really was quite safe from that development, the door behind her opened abruptly and all hell seemed to break loose at the same moment. Bas leapt at Jason, whom he loathed. Alexius, accompanied by the head of his security team, Titos, appeared just as Jason kicked the dog out of his path. Rosie loosed a shriek of horror as Bas flew up in the air and hit the wall before falling in a limp heap by the skirting board.

‘Oh, my Lord, Jason … you’ve killed Bas!’ she sobbed, surging forward.

‘Don’t upset yourself,’ Alexius advised, pulling Rosie back from the dog to take her place, sliding a hand under the tiny still body, grimacing as he noted that one of Bas’s legs was definitely broken, stuck out as it was at an unnatural angle. ‘His heart’s still beating. He’s been knocked out. We’ll get him straight to a vet—’

‘You’re a monster, Jason!’ Rosie exclaimed furiously. ‘First you hurt me, now you’ve attacked Bas—’

‘The dog attacked me first!’ Jason blistered back furiously. ‘And I didn’t mean to hurt you!’

‘Everything was fine until you burst in here,’ Rosie told Alexius in reproach, crouching down beside him and then flying upright again to stalk into the kitchen and snatch up a tray on which she carefully positioned the tiny dog with shaking hands.

‘Call the police,’ Alexius instructed Rosie. ‘You have to make a complaint against Jason this time—’

‘There’s no need for that,’ Jason began.

‘There’s every need,’ Alexius cut in with ruthless bite. ‘You followed her home from work last night … you’re stalking her!’

‘I’m not stalking her. I only followed you to find out where you had moved to,’ Jason told Rosie ruefully. ‘I didn’t do you any harm. I didn’t even come to the door because I knew it was too late to visit—’

Dismayed to realise that Jason had followed her home the night before, Rosie turned dazed eyes to Alexius and muttered anxiously, ‘Let’s get Bas to the vet first. He’s the most important thing here—’

‘No, you are,’ Alexius corrected, shooting Jason a look of bitter animosity.

‘I’m not going to bother her again,’ Jason protested. ‘I didn’t even know she had a bun in the oven.’

Alexius frowned, that phrase not having come to his ears before. As he registered its meaning along with Jason’s expressive shudder, Bas moaned in pain on the tray and Rosie stroked his little domed head with a tender hand while tears flooded her eyes. ‘I can’t bear anything to happen to Bas … he’s all I’ve got left of Beryl!’

Alexius urged her out of the door, draping the jacket Martha passed him round her narrow shoulders. ‘Beryl?’ he queried, watching in consternation as tears spilled down her cheeks.

‘She was my foster mum,’ Rosie told him unevenly as Alexius grasped the tray and urged her into the back of the limousine waiting at the kerb. ‘I moved in with her when I was twelve. It was the only place I was ever happy. She treated me like family. She really loved me—’

‘Do you still see her?’ Alexius prompted, keen to take her thoughts in a more positive direction for Bas was bleeding from the nose and Alexius wanted to distract her: the dog didn’t look good.

Rosie dashed the tears away irritably. ‘She died when I was twenty. She was ill for a long time with breast cancer. I was fifteen when it was first diagnosed and she got all the treatment but it came back the next year and the doctors couldn’t do anything more … it was terminal. One of Beryl’s grown-up children bought Bas as a surprise for her a few months before she died. I thought it was an insane idea to give her a pet when she was so ill, but Bas gave her an interest … He brightened those last months for her, so I couldn’t let him go after she’d passed.’

The tray on her lap, she stroked the limp little animal’s back with her forefinger. ‘How did you know that Jason followed me home last night? How did you know he was visiting me this evening?’

‘When you left yesterday I arranged for one of my security guards to keep a discreet watch on you to ensure your safety. Just as well with Jason around,’ Alexius pronounced grimly.

‘Why the heck would you have done that? You mean someone’s been following me since yesterday?’ Rosie exclaimed in disbelief.

‘That’s how I knew what Jason had been up to and that he had called to see you today,’ Alexius pointed out tautly.

‘Jason was about to leave quietly when you let in Bas and everything went pear-shaped. I don’t need a security guard,’ she said thinly. ‘What am I? A princess or something? I’ve got nothing worth stealing. Where are we going?’

‘A veterinary clinic where Bas will get immediate treatment.’

Rosie stared down at the chihuahua’s still little body, noticed the blood at his nose and her lower lip quivered. ‘I love him so much it’s ridiculous. He’s not very well trained and Jason teased him so much when I lived with Mel that he hates men.’

‘He bit me as well,’ Alexius volunteered.

‘At least you didn’t kick him,’ Rosie muttered.

Alexius surveyed Bas and suppressed a sigh, wondering if that was all he had in his favour. Saving Bas to bite another day was clearly a priority when the mother of his child was so deeply attached to him. His own mother had had several pet dogs and had appeared fond of them, a great deal fonder than she had ever been of her son. He studied Rosie as she sat next to him, slim as a willow wand and without an ounce of surplus weight. He wondered if it was healthy for a pregnant woman to be so thin, tried to picture that tiny body swollen with his child and was startled by the sudden flush of heat that gave him an instant erection. How could that image be a turn-on? he asked himself in disbelief. Any fool could get a woman pregnant, he reasoned. There was nothing remotely special about it, although the process that brought it about had been pure bliss, he recalled in a helpless surge of sensual recall as the limo reached their destination.

Alexius removed the tray from Rosie and carried Bas into the animal clinic. A veterinary nurse in an overall came forward to collect him and then a burly vet emerged to greet them and ask questions.

‘We need to X-ray him and stabilise him first. He’s got concussion and the leg needs to be treated. If we’re lucky, it may not be more serious than that.’

As the vet spoke Bas suffered a seizure that sent convulsions travelling through his little body and made his three working legs paddle in the air. Rosie gasped in alarm and tried to soothe him.

‘I’m afraid that’s not a good sign but there’s nothing you can do to stop it,’ the vet warned her before he directed them to the waiting room and took Bas into the surgery to check him out.

‘This is one of the most highly acclaimed private animal clinics in the UK,’ Alexius assured Rosie. ‘If Bas can be saved, it’ll happen here.’

Rosie stared into space, trying to imagine life without Bas’s lively loving presence and shrinking from it. Thirty minutes later, the nurse appeared and told them that Bas would have to spend the night under observation because he might yet require emergency surgery on his fractured skull.

‘How on earth am I going to pay the bills for all this?’ Rosie whispered in dismay as Alexius vaulted upright, clearly grateful to be freed to leave. ‘This level of emergency treatment and care must cost a fortune.’

‘I’m taking care of it,’ Alexius fielded, reaching down a hand to draw her out of her chair. She was light as feather and so preoccupied by her pet’s plight and prospects that she was wholly divorced from his presence. Being ignored was, he discovered, a novel experience he didn’t much appreciate, particularly when the woman doing the ignoring was dressed in worn jeans, tacky trainers and an overlarge tee with a garish logo on the front. Somehow her complete indifference to her appearance around him added to his growing sense of affront. He gazed down at her, noticing the way the artificial light burnished her hair to silvery fairness … and her nipples caused little dents in the tee. He tensed, remembering the tormentingly sweet taste of those little buds and her wild responsiveness and had to struggle to get his mind back on the conversation.

‘That’s very generous of you but I don’t like being under an obligation,’ Rosie admitted, almost stumbling on the steps outside the clinic until Alexius grabbed her arm to steady her.

‘Agree to meet your grandfather and I’ll write the debt off,’ Alexius responded, stunning silver eyes framed by lush black lashes and strikingly noticeable in his lean bronzed face.

Rosie was sharply disconcerted by the suggestion and stared up at him in disbelief. ‘But that’s blackmail.’

‘That’s me, moraki mou,’ Alexius returned without apology. ‘I’m programmed to make the most of any advantage and if I can do your grandfather a good turn in the process, I will do it.’

Rosie breathed in deep and slow, shaken that he could be quite so unashamed of his ruthless and immoral approach to life. So, his generosity had a price? Was she really surprised by the fact? Alexius Stavroulakis wasn’t the kind of guy to do something for nothing. But the source of her concern was very real, for she was convinced that the bill for treating Bas would run into thousands of pounds and there was no way that she could pay any of it back. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,’ Beryl used to say in warning, and Rosie had always respected that maxim because on a small income if she did not live within her means she risked getting into serious trouble. But how much of a sacrifice would she really be making if she agreed to go to Greece? In the back of her mind she was already coming round to accepting that curiosity alone would have prompted her to meet her grandfather. But in truth, and it was very much a visceral reaction, she did want to meet her father’s father and find out more about the Greek side of her family.

‘I sit my last exam on the fifteenth,’ Rosie conceded tautly. ‘I’ll be free to travel to Greece for a visit after that.’

‘You see, I’m easy to deal with,’ Alexius murmured smoothly, relieved that he had something positive to tell his godfather that would lighten the tiresome restrictions of his convalescence. The news that Rosie was pregnant would be a good deal less welcome to a man of Socrates’s generation and traditional outlook but nothing could be done about that, Alexius reasoned wryly.

‘No, you’re not. You’re devious and cold-blooded and you’re using my affection for Bas as a weapon against me,’ Rosie censured curtly, treating him to a look of condemnation. ‘Don’t expect me to like you for that.’

‘I saved the dog’s life by bringing him here,’ Alexius countered levelly. ‘I have one further request to make …’

‘Go on,’ Rosie encouraged, climbing into the limousine and this time taking account of the opulent leather and fittings with wide, wondering eyes. Was this how he usually travelled? Nothing could have more accurately delineated the gulf between them, she thought uncomfortably.

‘I’d like you to see Dmitri Vakros and have your pregnancy officially confirmed. I also want to be sure that you’re in good health.’

‘I’ve already seen a doctor and been checked over,’ Rosie protested wearily.

‘Do you instinctively argue against everything I suggest?’ Alexius shot back at her in exasperation, marvelling at the amount of feisty distrust and obstinacy etched into her face. She might be tiny but she had the heart of a lion. ‘I’m thinking of your well-being.’

Rosie dragged her eyes from his, her attention straying accidentally to the long powerful thigh so close to her own and up to the fabric cupping the sizeable bulge of his crotch, her colour heightening as she hurriedly lifted her head again. Images of him in bed with her, that lean bronzed body entwined erotically with her own, filled her head in Technicolor and for an instant her mouth ran dry and she could hardly breathe for excitement. Not embarrassment, excitement, she scolded herself furiously, wondering what he had done to her thinking processes. ‘My well-being is really none of your business.’

‘If it’s my baby, it’s my business,’ Alexius contradicted in a roughened undertone.

Rosie bit her soft lower lip to strangle an acid response before it leapt off her tongue. He wasn’t interested in their baby and she knew he wasn’t, so he could only be going through the motions of what he felt was expected from him. But would it be wise to discourage even the most minor display of interest on his part? She might not want a reluctant husband, but if it was possible she did want a father for her baby and including him in the process was an inescapable part of that, no matter how much the necessity warred against her private feelings. He had walked away from her after a one-night stand but she had to learn to live with that, take it on the chin, move on from that humiliation to concentrate on more important things.

‘Rosie …’ Alexius growled. ‘Will you agree to see Dmitri?’

‘If I must,’ Rosie sighed.

‘Surely you can see that I must take responsibility for you now?’

Green eyes glinting, Rosie lifted her chin. ‘It’s been years since I needed anyone to take responsibility for me. I’m not a child. I’m an adult. I can look after myself.’

‘You’ll have to get used to me doing it from now on,’ Alexius imparted with stinging cool.

Her teeth gritted. ‘I’m afraid not. I’m very independent. If I wanted to lean on you I’d have agreed to marry you,’ she pointed out waspishly.

Alexius was gritting his teeth as well, the reminder of her rejection unwelcome. ‘You may still change your mind—’

‘I don’t think so. You’re not the kind of guy I want to marry,’ Rosie told him ruefully.

Eyes glittering with high voltage annoyance, Alexius breathed in deep, wondering why he wasn’t more relieved by her assurance, by the freedom left untouched by her decision. He didn’t want to get married, he had never wanted to get married any more than he had ever wanted a child. Nothing had changed but even as he thought that his attention swerved back to the small figure in the far corner of his limo. Her pale frosted hair shone in the street lights filtering through the windows, accentuating her delicate profile, and renewed desire burned through him like a torch. She was a part of his life now but not a part he had spontaneously chosen and it infuriated him that he should still want her even in such challenging circumstances. He needed a woman in his bed, he needed a woman badly, he told himself grimly. There was no other explanation for his illogical response to her.

‘What sort of a guy do you want to marry?’ Alexius enquired very drily.

Rosie went pink. ‘Someone kind, honest and straightforward.’

Well aware that in her eyes he failed in every one of those categories, his ego dented, Alexius compressed his handsome mouth and made copious excuses for himself. Socrates had put him in the position of not being honest or straightforward when they first met. He had intended to be kind when it came to the dog but, when he had realised he could use the cost of the treatment as a lever to influence events, his more devious ruthless side had surged to the fore. So, he wasn’t perfect, not Mr Sensitive or Mr Caring as she had put it, he recalled grimly. A woman had never criticised him before and she had already done it more than once. Thee mou and he had asked her to marry him? He must have been out of his mind, thinking of long, hot nights in her bed rather than meeting with a constant litany of complaints and critical comments.

Rosie watched Alexius from below her lashes, wondering at the simmering tension revealed by the hard set of his cheekbones and the cast of his strong jaw. He was definitely not in a good mood. But he ought to be grateful that she had turned down his marriage proposal and prevented him from offering himself up as an old-fashioned sacrifice to convention. Some day he would meet a woman whom he really did want to marry. She stiffened at that idea, discovered in astonishment that she was outrageously possessive of the father of her child and didn’t at all relish the concept of him taking up with another woman. That was downright unreasonable, she told herself sternly. The night before she had put his name in a search engine and found a whole cache of images that proved that Alexius Kolovos Stavroulakis was a womaniser of many years’ standing. He had been bedding glamorous models, socialites and stars since he was a teenager and he always moved on quickly again to fresh fields. Seemingly he had never had a single long-lasting relationship with a woman, had not even lived with one, and that told Rosie that she had made the right decision. He was shockingly wealthy and even more shockingly successful in the business world, an unemotional and famously shrewd tycoon, whom few people professed to know well. There was no way she could ever be happy with a guy like that. They were ill suited in every possible way on a level that went beyond wealth, status and education. She could not even begin to imagine the life he had led.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ Alexius murmured flatly as she got out of the limo. ‘Good luck with your exams!’

Rosie turned her head back in surprise and grinned, her smile lighting up her eyes and illuminating her face to quite exquisite effect. Alexius studied her stonily, refusing to admire or appreciate, his every response locked down. ‘Thanks,’ she said breezily.

Martha was waiting to hear about Bas and Rosie brought her up to date, telling her that she would call to ask how the little dog was the next morning. ‘They said they’d phone if anything happened before that,’ she said.

She made supper and could hardly stop yawning. Her GP had warned her that pregnancy would make her feel more tired than usual. Resolving to be up early to study the next day, she fell into bed, involuntarily recalled the night with Alexius and lay in the darkness, feeling the feverish heat in her pelvis tug at her with dissatisfaction. He had taught her to want sex, she decided in disgust. In time she would get over that longing and over him as well. For now she was just a little bit obsessed with him, she acknowledged uneasily.