CHAPTER NINE

WHEN are you going to tell Alexius? was the question running on a constant loop inside Rosie’s head. Tell him that she was leaving tomorrow? Her grandfather had already arranged transport for her and set the date of the promised party for the weekend.

It wasn’t even as though her departure could be much of a surprise to Alexius, she reasoned ruefully, because the one week she had conceded at the start had stretched languorously into two weeks. Only the onset of Socrates’s regular phone calls had persuaded her to finally set a date. He was her grandfather, a man she liked and respected, and she knew very well that he was only thinking about her well-being. Letting the precious days trickle through her fingers like a dream she was frantically struggling to hold on to against all the odds wasn’t adult behaviour, she told herself urgently. She was pregnant; she couldn’t afford to drift for ever. She had to make a new life for the sake of her child and her grandfather was offering her the first stepping stone towards that sensible objective. She had stayed with Alexius because she had hoped against hope that he would show feelings for her that went beyond what they shared in bed.

Sadly, it hadn’t happened. Nor had he mentioned the marriage idea since the day he told her that he was withdrawing that offer, which implied that he had come round to her point of view and accepted that marriage wasn’t for him. His silence was deeply ironic at a time when Rosie was revising her convictions and beginning to believe that a good marriage could possibly be built on something other than mutual devotion. Alexius was so good to her: no man had ever treated Rosie so well and when it was happening on a daily basis she knew it was worthy of note.

They had explored the island together, bathed off idyllic deserted beaches and eaten out at the homely taverna in the dusty little village down by the harbour, where the local fishermen wandered up to chat to Alexius with a lack of concern for his exalted tycoon status that she knew he relished. He had no need of bodyguards on the island, which was why he so enjoyed his freedom there. He had even taken her out fishing, but that had been a calamity as the motion of the boat and the smell of the fish had made her unrelentingly sick. To console her for her weakness he had flown her to Rhodes the next day, amused when she was less interested in the shops than in touring the medieval walled city and learning its chequered history, but even so he had still contrived to buy her a spectacular diamond pendant at an exclusive jeweller’s that had proved the source of their only row during their time together.

‘I’ll give you whatever I want!’ Alexius had retorted angrily, refusing to compromise when she told him she was uncomfortable accepting such an expensive gift. ‘You’re sleeping in my bed, you’re expecting my baby—why do you expect me to treat you like a casual acquaintance? And what’s your problem anyway? Everything you’re wearing right down to the panties I’m looking forward to ripping off you later was bought by me!’

That unwelcome truth had landed like a concrete brick on Rosie’s proud head, crushing her, embarrassing her, infuriating her for, predictably, Alexius was never slow to deliver the ultimate verbal strike in a clash of personalities. But he had apologised, she reminded herself in consolation, even when she hadn’t expected him to apologise for only pointing out the truth.

‘Don’t make my money a barrier between us,’ he had urged that night in bed while he held her close, after an explosive bout of passionate make-up sex. ‘Don’t deny me the pleasure of buying things for you. I don’t like rejection.’

She was so happy with him, she acknowledged painfully, but she absolutely knew that returning to Athens to move in with her grandfather would translate as a rejection in Alexius’s judgemental eyes. He was very much an all-or-nothing personality. Even so, it wasn’t as if Alexius had asked her to live with him: if he had asked she would have said yes. But the point was that he hadn’t asked. Their stay on the island appeared to be more like a little break from routine on his terms and yet it had meant so much more to her.

Rosie folded another top and laid it in the suitcase with a sigh. He hadn’t asked her to fall in love with him. In fact, had he known he would undoubtedly have told her not to bother doing so. She remembered that Bas’s lead and his toys were downstairs and went to fetch them. As usual Alexius had spent the morning working in his home office and she had not seen him since breakfast. She was digging out a squeaky toy from below a table when he appeared.

‘I’ve done enough for one day, moraki mou,’ he mused, lounging in the doorway, black hair tousled, bronzed muscular torso on show below an open shirt worn with swimming trunks. Even dressed that casually, he exuded a throbbing, energising aura of power and temperament, a slight smile curving his beautifully moulded lips. As she looked her mouth went dry, her breath hitched in her throat and her heart lurched: he looked so gorgeous she could never believe that he could be hers in any lasting way. She always had the uneasy feeling that she was reaching for a guy light years out of her reach.

‘What are you doing scrabbling about the floor like that?’ he enquired levelly.

‘Finding Bas’s toys,’ she muttered, rising upright again to gaze back at him with wide green eyes of appreciation. Oh, how much more appreciative she would be tomorrow when she left the island, she conceded painfully, and Alexius would no longer be available. The prospect depressed her.

‘Tell the staff to find them,’ Alexius urged with the careless ease of a male who never did anything pedestrian that could be done by an employee. He focused his talents and time on business and on being a breathtakingly inventive and exciting lover.

At that risqué thought, her breasts tingled beneath her simple sundress, the bodice a little tight since pregnancy had swelled her flat chest to acceptable curves for the first time in her life. That new fullness of flesh there amused her, for it was only a temporary effect, but the reality that she was losing her waist and could no longer suck her slightly protruding stomach in did not amuse her at all. The body that Alexius swore he adored was changing and there was nothing she could do to stop that from happening. Soon Alexius might not even want to rip her panties off any more because she was losing her figure. Wasn’t it better to leave before his desire waned when at least that way she could conserve her pride? After all, pride was all a girl had left when she loved a man who didn’t feel the same way.

Alexius sensed her edginess and noticed the way her eyes dropped from his. He had known there was something amiss for the past forty-eight hours but had said nothing, holding back as was his wont from the lifelong awareness that that was the best way to hang on to power in any relationship. But something or someone had definitely robbed Rosie of her ever-present delight in life. She had a tremendous capacity for joy and more inclination to admire, appreciate and value the little things of life than he had ever met with in any other person, Alexius reflected with unabated wonderment. A beautiful sunset, a delicious meal or even a lame joke from an old fisherman could inspire her to smiles and laughter: she was cheerful, easy to please, and she had finally learned to accept his limits. She was the perfect lover.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ Alexius asked abruptly, surprising himself with that leading question, but her nervousness nagged at him like a sore tooth. And not for nothing had Alexius devoured whole a thoroughly depressing book entitled Pregnancy Disasters. He knew exactly what danger signs to look out for and silently checked her every day for any suspicious symptom or visible and dangerous alteration.

Rosie smiled, determined not to spoil their last day together. ‘Of course I am.’

Alexius trailed long fingers through the tumbled fall of her hair across her shoulders, enjoying the familiar scent of her herbal shampoo. A cascade of images gripped him: Rosie grinning with enthusiasm with her hair blowing wildly back from her face on the boat, enjoying herself before the sickness bug took over; Rosie studying him in the morning as though he were the eighth wonder of the world; Rosie looking at him at all times of day as though he were the eighth wonder of the world, he repeated mentally as he met her dreamy green eyes full-on. He didn’t trade in dreams: when would she realise that? But he was content with what they had, wanted to stop the clock right there and then as she shifted into his arms without any prompting and offered her succulent mouth up to his.

He was a great kisser and he kissed her breathless, driving his hunger through her until it became a piercingly sweet arrow of need that provoked moisture between her legs. Hot and damp, she squirmed against him, sighing with pleasure as she felt the hard prod of his arousal against her. He clamped his arms round her and lifted her and she laughed. Bas danced round their feet, begging for attention on their passage to the stairs because he couldn’t climb them with his cast and he knew it.

‘Bad timing, Bas,’ Alexius pronounced raggedly, one hand already prying her slender thighs apart below her dress to discover that she was as eager for him as he was for her. He had never had that with a woman before, that instant sexual connection no matter when or how he touched her, no matter what time of day it was, no matter what mood she was in … It was a priceless quality for a highly sexed male to find in a partner.

He cannoned into her door because he was still kissing her and Rosie giggled as he stumbled and almost fell into her bedroom. She framed his cheeks with adoring hands and collided with stunning silvery eyes that mesmerised her. ‘I love your eyes … Did I ever tell you that?’

‘Maybe once or twice.’ Colour scored his high cheekbones and then he espied the suitcase lying open on the bed and he dumped her down beside it. ‘What the hell’s this?’ he demanded with staggering abruptness.

Rosie snatched in a startled breath. ‘I was going to tell you over dinner. Socrates is sending a helicopter to pick me up tomorrow morning.’

Alexius’s face was hard as granite. ‘And when will you be coming back?’

Rosie slid upright. Her shoes had fallen off downstairs and she hastily smoothed down the skirt of her dress, which had rucked up round her waist. ‘I’m going to stay with him, Alexius … like I promised I would.’

Alexius froze into an iceberg in front of her, silver eyes darkening, hardening. ‘So, you’re walking out on me.’

Dismay filled Rosie. ‘No, that’s not how it is. You know it’s not. He’s organised a party for me on Saturday night … won’t you be coming to that?’

‘This is the first I’d heard of it. When will you be back here?’

Rosie breathed in slow and deep. ‘We can’t go on this way indefinitely,’ she muttered awkwardly, desperate to find and use the right words while knowing she didn’t have them in her vocabulary.

‘Why not?’ Alexius grated harshly.

‘Because I have to make plans and I need to take this opportunity to get to know Socrates. I’ve never had a relative interested in me before—it means a great deal to me, but he’s not a young man any more, Alexius. Who knows how long he’ll be there for me to be with him?’ she appealed, her green eyes deeply troubled. ‘Don’t make it difficult for me to do what my conscience tells me I have to do.’

‘I have no intention of doing so, but if you walk out of this house, it’s over between us. I’ll support you and my child but I’ll move on with my life without you.’

‘I know you’re annoyed with me, I know I should’ve discussed this with you first, but you’re not being fair!’ Rosie cried, panic taking hold of her in a great dizzy surge that made her tummy roil as if she were back in the boat on the sea again. ‘You can still see me in Athens—’

‘And sleep with you? I don’t think so,’ Alexius derided. ‘Once Socrates has you under his roof, you’ll be reinvented as a vestal virgin.’

‘A pregnant vestal virgin?’ Rosie scorned with a jerky little laugh, horribly hurt that he had mentioned nothing but a need for her body. ‘Is that a joke? You don’t really mean that it’s over between us, do you?’

‘I do,’ Alexius confirmed with icy restraint, the strong bones of his darkly handsome face set in uncompromising lines of resolve. ‘I very rarely say things I don’t mean, Rosie. If you leave without my permission, we’re done for all time.’

‘I think, at least I hope, you mean agreement rather than permission,’ Rosie interrupted sickly. ‘Because I don’t need your permission for anything.’

Alexius shot her a glittering glance of smouldering hostility. ‘You’re right. You don’t.’

And with that somehow sobering concession for she would have preferred an argument, Alexius strode back out of the room. Rosie sank down on the edge of the bed like a sleepwalker suddenly waking up to find herself in a strange place. A very strange place indeed, she adjusted shakily, anguish threatening to consume her alive. He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean it. They could not be over when only minutes earlier he had been ready to make love to her. He couldn’t simply switch off like that … Could he?

Over. She tasted the concept and retreated from it again with a shudder. He was angry; he wouldn’t stay angry for ever. Her heart still told her that she owed Socrates her attention but her heart was also ready to split right down the middle at the challenging prospect of Alexius dumping her cold. He was acting like a bully. He was too used to always getting what he wanted. He was behaving badly, using emotional blackmail to hit her where it hurt, she thought with pained resentment. And if she was weak, his cruelty would work, but she was not weak. She had to fight him, stick to her guns. He would come round; he had to come round. She loved him, she loved him even when he was acting like an absolute four-letter word and lashing out at her. But she should have prepared the ground better, talked over her plans with him, not issued a blunt announcement when he was least in the mood to hear it. The sight of her half-packed suitcase had been a red rag to a bull.

Over—what if he truly meant it? Well, if he did, he was no loss, Rosie reasoned wretchedly, tears pushing past her squeezed-closed eyes as she struggled to hold them back. She was not about to cry and grieve over a guy who issued ultimatums as if she were one of his humble employees! She was strong, she could get by without him, enjoy life without him. She might feel as if she couldn’t but such a belief was melodramatic nonsense.