Chapter Ten


DAY NINE: TUESDAY MORNING

Leos phoned Susie at nine-thirty the next morning.

"I won't be in until later. But I've just remembered that I didn't ask you to keep Wednesday evening free —"

"Why?"

"The dinner party. You'll be acting as my hostess," Leos informed her dryly. "Choice doesn't come into it either, Susie. I want you there."

"But I would prefer —"

"In your current capacity, it's a reasonable request. If you want a working relationship, start treating me like your employer."

At that pointed reminder, Susie's cheeks flamed. She was seriously tempted to put her head down and cry. Last night, she had finally faced up to her emotional turmoil. Being around Leos was tearing her apart because she was still in love with him. Learning that Leos wanted her back was almost more than she could handle.

A second chance, an insane little voice had whispered in the back of her mind, shaming and infuriating her — for what could be more impossible in the current circumstances?

Leos Kiriakos had not the faintest idea that she had given birth to his child! They had parted before she realized that she was pregnant. Even worse, that development could be laid almost exclusively at her own door. She had been grieving for her mother and had twice forgotten to take her contraceptive pills. Leos had then swept her off to Paris in the rather touching last-chance belief that a romantic weekend might magically dry her tears and cheer her up. Well, she hadn't cheered up but she had spent the night in his arms. Ben had been conceived in Paris.

Over her lunch hour, she and Ben made a mad dash out to the shops. As always, it was a struggle to steer the buggy through the crowds but Ben adored getting out and about. Back in the Devlin Systems building, Susie headed for the daycare.

By the time she saw Leos standing by the elevators, it was too late to do anything but just attempt to walk on by with a jerky nod of acknowledgement. Ebony brows pleating at the sight of her pushing a buggy, Leos froze in surprise.

Every scrap of color drained from Susie's complexion. Time was moving in slow motion for her. An elevator arrived with a loud pinging noise. Leos was still staring. She saw his hesitation and then he forced her to a standstill by moving forward. "Where did you steal the baby from?"

Her heart felt like it was hammering inside her throat, making it impossible for her to breathe. "The daycare... "

"What daycare?"

"Devlin Systems has a daycare... "

"Has it really?" Leos frowned. "I wonder why I wasn't shown it when I was getting the official tour."

"It's beside the cafeteria. I imagine people thought you might not be interested," Susie whispered shakily.

"So who does the baby belong to?"

Her own lifetime seemed to stretch in the silence which followed.

Susie parted dry lips. "He's... he's mine."

Leos studied her in stunned silence. Then his tawny eyes darkened with incredulous fury. "Thanks for telling me!"

Without another word, he strode into the elevator...

Chapter Eleven


DAY NINE: TUESDAY AFTERNOON

By the time Susie got back up to her office, the phone was ringing.

It was Leos. "I want to see you in my office."

Stiff with strain, Susie breathed in deep. Showdown-time had arrived, she conceded heavily. And if Leos's instantaneous rage on the ground floor was anything to go by, she could only dread what was coming next. Could there have been a worse way for Leos discover that he was a father?

Leos was by the window with a glass in his hand. He swung round, bold, bronzed features grim. "Why didn't you just tell me you had a baby?"

"Leos —"

"Don't you think I had the right to know?"

"Well, it was more a matter —"

"You let me kiss you... you let me think... " Leos compressed his lips, lines of strain girding his hard mouth, and then he tossed back the remainder of the whisky in his glass.

"All right, so you're shocked —"

"What did you expect? I've been chasing you like some stupid kid and you sat back and you let me, knowing I didn't have a clue what you were keeping from me!" Outraged eyes challenged her. "How could I have worked out that you'd had a child since I last saw you? It's little more than a year since we were together —"

Susie was rigid, but her legs were starting to tremble. "I never thought of telling you... it was stupid, I believed I could keep Ben a secret —"

Leos released his breath with a stark hiss. "You had the gall to accuse me of infidelity? And all this time, do you know what I believed? I thought you dumped me because you couldn't allow yourself to be happy even with me while you were grieving —"

"What are you getting at?" Leos seemed to be circling round, rather than centering on, the main issue, which was surely Ben.

" — and all along it was because you'd met someone else! The oldest story in the book, only I refused to see it," Leos ground out.

"I'd met... someone else?" Susie stressed in bewilderment.

"The father of your baby. Where is he? Since you're living in your brother's apartment, I assume the father is long gone!"

As Susie finally understood that Leos believed that she had conceived Ben with some other man, dismay and anger filled her. "You assume —"

"Forget it... I don't want to know the sordid details!" Leos proceeded to pour himself another shot of alcohol. "In fact, I don't even know why I said I wanted to talk to you, because really, what is there left to say?"

"You've already said more than enough!" Susie shot back at him in furious pain.

Leos shot her a sardonic appraisal. "You were too scared to tell me you had had a baby. Admit it —"

"I refuse to continue this conversation!"

"You have my permission to leave."

Susie reached the door. She was shaking like a leaf.

"Thee mou... now you're trying to make me feel guilty. But your silence was inexcusable. You deceived me!"

"Just like you once deceived me! Why should I care about how you feel now?" Susie slammed out.

Chapter Twelve


DAY TEN: WEDNESDAY

At nine the following morning, Susie looked up from her computer monitor, just as Leos came in. In a fluid movement he leaned back against the door to close it.

She had spent the previous evening telling herself that she truly loathed Leos Kiriakos. How could he simply assume that her baby was some other man's? That was the one possibility she had not foreseen. And wasn't it peculiar that Leos had shrugged off being confronted about that blonde? Was that his idea of smart footwork? Just act like the blonde had never happened? Well, her memory was sharp as nails.

So it was unfortunate that no matter how mad and bitter Leos made her, he still took her breath away every time she saw him. Standing there, ruggedly masculine even in a formal business suit, aggressive jawline clenched, stunning eyes screened, Leos exuded a slight but perceptible discomfiture that unexpectedly tugged at her heartstrings.

"If you've got something to say, say it," Susie sighed.

"I suppose a sensitive but self-serving, dishonest guy would have leapt straight on the child and said 'Wow, this is just the cutest baby I ever saw!'"

"Did you even look at Ben?"

"I didn't want to look at him... " A split second after admitting that, Leos gritted even white teeth and spread lean brown hands in frustration. "Scratch that comment —"

"Just sensitively slipped out, did it?" Susie turned back to the computer. "Not into babies, are you?"

"No comment. I'm only here to tell you to go out this morning and buy yourself an evening gown for the dinner party." As she sat there stunned by the concept of Leos paying for anything she wore, he settled a gold credit card down on her dark desk and mentioned the name of an exclusive designer outlet. "It's a legitimate business expense —"

"Is this an order?"

"Yes," Leos confirmed without hesitation. "Appearances are everything in my world. I don't want anybody talking down to you —"

"I am only the hired help, Leos —"

"For how much longer?"

Susie raised shaken eyes to his. "Is that a threat?"

"You should know me better than that." Brilliant tawny-golden eyes flared with exasperation. "Call it like it is, Susie. When I look at you, I ache and you feel the same way —"

Susie quivered with an angry response, but she didn't know whom she was most furious with: herself for her quickened breathing and shameless shivery weakness, or him for making that arrogant claim with such cool. "Did the blonde make you feel like that?"

"Never... "

"Tough... " In the charged silence, Susie tore her anguished gaze from his, shattered by that single word with which he appeared to finally admit his cruel betrayal. "You can't turn the clock back. I could never trust you."

"How good at groveling, are you?" Leos murmured silkily on his way out.

Groveling? Not for all the tea in China, not even for a fresh start with the man she still loved.

But it was time she told him the truth about Ben, Susie conceded with bitter reluctance. Eventually, Ben would ask who his father was and expect answers. How could she allow Leos to continue believing that Ben was another man's son? How had she ever imagined that she could keep quiet forever when it was not just her secret to keep... ?

Chapter Thirteen


DAY TEN: WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

"The wildest rumors are flying around about you and the boss!" Jayne's gaze rested on Susie with speculative heat and then dropped to the exclusive designer dress box parked beside the desk. "Watch your back, because the grapevine is exploding around this building!"

"Really?" Susie was appalled to recognize yet another dimension to her problems, one she couldn't believe it had taken someone else to point out. She also wished she'd had the wit to hide the dress box.

"Leos Kiriakos will be moving on, but you have to work here —"

"What kind of wild rumors?"

Jayne winced. "Well, they range from the two of you supposedly spending almost the whole of Monday afternoon in his office without coming out once... to the outer reaches of credibility —"

"And the outer reaches are?" Susie mumbled.

"Nasty... that your Ben... well, you know he's got that lovely dark coloring —"

"Say no more... " Susie dropped her head to hide her horror at the devastating accuracy of the grapevine.

"The management team thinks you're planning to spy on their every move and report back to the boss. The word is that when you're with Leos Kiriakos, the door is always closed."

It was perfectly true, and not all the norm in meetings between a junior employee and a powerful business tycoon. Suffering agonies of self-blame and already pitched to the emotional heights on the knowledge that she had to tell Leos that Ben was his son, Susie swept up the phone and hit Leos's extension number, as soon as Jayne had departed.

"Leos... I need to talk to you but I don't want to come around to your office —"

"Why?"

"I believe our behavior has caused a lot of gossip —"

"I don't take account of that sort of nonsense." Leos sounded very male and very superior. "Neither should you —"

"Look, we need to talk about Ben —"

"No... I'm not ready for that... I may never be ready for that," Leos spelled out with blunt emphasis.

"You don't understand —"

"I understand perfectly. You and your child are a package deal. I may be insensitive but I'm not stupid." Leos drawled with cutting clarity. "I'll send a car over to pick you up this evening at seven."

Click! He'd ended the conversation. Susie groaned in disbelief. Why was Leos so certain that he could get her back? Was it so obvious to him that she still cared? How dare he tell her that he was still working out whether or not he could face taking her back, now that she had a child?

Fifteen minutes later, during her lunch break, it was a shock for Susie to glance out of the daycare's kitchen from where she was collecting Ben's food, and see Leos in conversation with the daycare supervisor. A fixed smile on his lean strong face, he was scanning the busy room, his attention lingering on every baby within view. Finally he asked a question to his companion.

Susie watched the discomfited supervisor indicate Ben. Leos zeroed in on Ben and just paled, his fabulous bone structure rigid. One minute later, he strode back out again.

Chapter Fourteen


DAY TEN: WEDNESDAY EVENING

Had Leos worked out that Ben was his son? That was all that Susie had thought about since lunchtime. Leos had not only left the daycare, he had left the building, and he had not returned.

At seven, Susie was collected from her apartment by a limo. In the sleek midnight-blue evening gown she had selected earlier that day, she would have felt like a million dollars had her nerves not be strung as tight as piano-wires.

Leos greeted Susie in the magnificent hall of his town house. Spectacular in a well-cut dinner jacket, Leos ran appreciatively dark eyes over her and a brilliant smile slashed his wide, sensual mouth. "I want you to meet my brother and his wife before the other guests arrive."

Susie remembered once seeing a photo of his younger brother, Petros, but right at that moment, Susie would have preferred to speak to Leos alone. But, obviously, it was neither the time nor the place to make a big confession about Ben. She had been foolish to think that Leos might have guessed the truth just by looking at Ben. But she honestly didn't know how she was going to tell Leos she had had his baby.

Leos rested a hand to her taut spine. "You remember that blonde who walked out of my bedroom and shocked you last year?"

Susie froze. "Yes... but what on earth — ?"

"Brigitte had just come out of a clinic here in London after a miscarriage. I moved into a hotel to give Petros and Brigitte the privacy of my apartment until they flew back to Greece." Leos explained. "I believe Petros was in the shower when you arrived —"

"Are you trying to convince me that — ?"

But Susie got no further for they had reached the drawing room, where a very tall blonde was standing beside Petros Kiriakos. Leos was attempting to convince her that the half-naked angry blonde had been Brigitte, his sister-in-law. She refused to believe it... but right there in front of her was the evidence. Brigitte was the woman whom Susie had found in Leos's apartment and she looked rather embarrassed.

"This is a case of my sins coming back to haunt me, Susie." Brigitte gave her a rueful smile of apology. "I was so rude to you that day that I didn't even mention our meeting to Petros, never mind anybody else! It's no excuse, but I was very emotional at the time and you just walking in; well, I lost my temper... totally forgot that it wasn't our apartment —"

"That's fine... I understand. Really, please don't worry about it!" In severe shock at what Leos had confronted her with, Susie passed his sister-in-law a small gaily wrapped parcel with a reassuring smile. "Happy birthday, Brigitte."

Her legs felt like cottonwool sticks. The crowd of chattering guests arriving provided a welcome distraction, but Susie could not have looked at Leos had her life depended on it.

"How good at groveling, are you?" he had asked earlier. How did one grovel when the very ground had been torn from below one's feet? Susie was reeling...