Another Man's Baby
Judith McWilliams
HOW FAR WOULD SHE GO… ?The mission: Ginny Alton had agreed to impersonate her cousin and travel halfway around the world with a newborn in order to have the child meet his paternal grandfather. The complication: Everyone believed she was the child's mother! The man: Philip Lysander knew Ginny was lying about something, so in order to protect his family, he told everyone he was the baby's father.Ginny suddenly found herself hopelessly attracted to the one man who could destroy her carefully constructed charade. But how could she deny herself the intensity of Philip's lovemaking when their time together was so short? Especially when he was about to discover the truth?
“This Conversation Is Getting Us Nowhere. My Business Is With Damon’s Grandfather. Please Take Me To Him.” (#u2d87df17-911e-5888-948f-c362300aa93f)Letter to Reader (#u40523be8-aa59-5e24-b047-cc03ed4e2a35)Title Page (#ud4cae299-7a8c-5d09-a83f-b6b3f124ad7e)About the Author (#uddcf4a04-dd56-5da6-9a99-47782c0cd161)Prologue (#ueaba5266-f17b-54c7-89b2-f423a4394a36)Chapter One (#u35d4edd6-6b7d-5923-9c6d-25be7bc36c5d)Chapter Two (#ub57f3001-cf2e-5c2b-8732-44e1b86c5381)Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“This Conversation Is Getting Us Nowhere. My Business Is With Damon’s Grandfather. Please Take Me To Him.”
“Not until you agree to my proposal,” Philip said.
“What proposal?” Ginny snapped. “So far, all I’ve heard is you pontificating about things you know nothing about.”
“Damon’s grandfather Jason and I have discussed this, and we’ve agreed that we will say that you’ve brought the boy to see me.”
“You!” Ginny’s eyes widened as a powerful flood of tangled emotions twisted through her. Pretend that she had been Philip Lysander’s lover? That she had lain against his naked body? That he had kissed her and... Ginny swallowed against the sudden dryness in her mouth.
“That way, people will assume that the boy—”
“Damon,” Ginny corrected. “His name is Damon.”
“—is mine.”
Dear Reader,
This month: strong and sexy heroes!
First, the Tallchiefs—that intriguing, legendary family—are back, and this time it’s Birk Tallchief who meets his match in Cait London’s MAN OF THE MONTH, The Groom Candidate. Birk’s been pining for Lacey MacCandliss for years, but once he gets her, there’s nothing but trouble of the most romantic kind. Don’t miss this delightful story from one of Desire’s most beloved writers.
Next, nobody creates a strong, sexy hero quite like Sara Orwig, and in her latest, Babes in Arms, she brings us Colin Whitefeather, a tough and tender man you’ll never forget. And in Judith McWilliams’s Another Man’s Baby we meet Philip Lysander, a Greek tycoon who will do anything to save his family...even pretend to be a child’s father.
Peggy Moreland’s delightful miniseries, TROUBLE IN TEXAS, continues with Lone Star Kind of Man. The man in question is rugged rogue cowboy Cody Fipes. In Big Sky Drifter, by Doreen Owens Malek, a wild Wyoming man named Cal Winston tames a lonely woman. And in Cathie Linz’s Husband Needed, bachelor Jack Elliott surprises himself when he offers to trade his single days for married nights.
In Silhouette Desire you’ll always find the most irresistible men around! So enjoy!
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
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Another Man’s Baby
Judith McWilliams
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JUDITH MCWILLIAMS
began to enjoy romances while in search of the proverbial “happily ever afters.” But she always found herself rewriting the endings, and eventually the beginnings, of the books she read. Then her husband finally suggested that she write novels of her own, and she’s been doing so ever since. An ex-teacher with four children, Judith has traveled the country extensively with her husband and has been greatly influenced by those experiences. But while not tending the garden or caring for family, Judith does what she enjoys most—writing. She has also written under the name Charlotte Hines.
Prologue
“What happened? Why aren’t you at work? It’s two o’clock.”
Reluctantly, Ginny Alton turned as the whiny sound of her next-door neighbor’s voice accosted her.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Rolle,” Ginny said, shifting her heavy bag of groceries from one slim hip to the other.
“Not so far it hasn’t been.” Mrs. Rolle’s voice took on a peevish note that Ginny very much feared was a prelude to a recital of her problems, real and imaginary. Normally, Ginny listened patiently to the elderly woman’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of complaints because she felt sorry for her, but today she simply didn’t have the time.
“That’s too bad,” Ginny murmured as she inched closer to her apartment door. “But I really can’t stop to talk. My cousin is waiting for the baby’s formula.” She knocked softly on the door, not wanting to wake up Damon if he were sleeping.
“Has Beth given you cancer, too? Is that why you’re not at work?” Mrs. Rolle’s face took on an avid expression that chilled Ginny.
“Leukemia is not contagious.” Ginny knocked again, a little harder this time, mentally urging Beth to hurry before she said something very rude.
“Ha! What do doctors know? Why, when they took out my gall bladder—”
Ginny ignored the oft-repeated story as she fished her key out of the pocket of her well-worn jeans. Why hadn’t Beth answered? she wondered uneasily. She wasn’t strong enough to leave the apartment by herself. Could she have had a delayed reaction to yesterday’s chemotherapy treatment? Could she have fainted?
An escalating sense of urgency filled Ginny as she unlocked the door and shoved it open. Dropping the groceries just inside, she closed the door behind her, not even hearing Mrs. Rolle’s outraged gasp.
Fearfully, Ginny glanced around her spacious living room, but it was empty. As was the small kitchen with its minuscule dining area. Ginny was about to check the bedroom Beth shared with her son when the muffled sound of sobbing raised the hair on the back of her neck.
Ginny hurried down the hall toward the heartbroken sound. It was coming from her own bedroom. Ginny silently pushed the door open and found Beth sitting in the middle of her bed crying in a hopeless fashion that tore at Ginny’s heart.
“Hey, it’s not that bad, kiddo.” Ginny made a determined effort to sound positive. “You know the doctor says that by this time next year you’ll be back in the classroom with your kindergartners. Although why he would want to threaten you with that...”
Beth didn’t smile as Ginny had hoped. She merely sobbed all the harder. As if... A cold slither of fear trickled through Ginny. Could the hospital have called with bad news while she had been out doing their grocery shopping?
“Beth, tell me what happened.” Ginny fought to keep her panic out of her voice. Beth was hard-pressed to deal with her own fears. She certainly couldn’t deal with Ginny’s, too.
Beth looked up, and her bleak, lost expression made Ginny want to sit down and cry with her.
“He...he said I was lying. He said...” Her voice dissolved into tears.
“He who?”
Beth fumbled behind her and picked up a crumpled sheet of paper that she waved at Ginny. “Creon’s father. He said that I’m lying. That Damon couldn’t be Creon’s son. That Creon would never have had an affair with me. That I’m only saying it now because Creon’s dead and can’t defend himself. He said...that Creon would never have been capable of loving someone like me,” Beth finished on a rush.
Ginny clenched her teeth to keep from blurting out just what she thought that jerk Creon had been capable of. It would only upset Beth further because she was totally blind where Creon was concerned. Even after he had deserted her to return to his native Greece, Beth had believed that he really loved her and would eventually return and marry her and that they and their child would live happily ever after. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she had continued to believe it right up until Creon had managed to get himself killed in a speedboat accident six months ago.
“Let me see that.” Ginny took the letter out of Beth’s hot fingers and quickly scanned it. Her sense of anger grew with every word she read.
“Damon is his grandson. Why won’t Mr. Papas admit it?” Beth’s lower lip quivered piteously. “All I’m asking him to do is to provide for his education.
“Normally, I wouldn’t even care about his school fees, but if I die...” Beth’s voice faltered.
“You aren’t going to die!” Ginny said emphatically, as if the very force of her denial could make it so. “The doctor says you have every chance of making a complete recovery.”
“But there’s still a chance that I won’t get better,” Beth persisted. “And if I don’t, I won’t be here to tell Damon about his father and how much he loved me and how glad he was when he found out I was pregnant and how he wanted to marry me, but he couldn’t until his father got over his heart attack.” Beth gulped back more tears.
Ginny shoved her fingers through her shoulder-length blond hair in frustration. It seemed as if the sicker Beth got, the more important it became to her to force Jason Papas to acknowledge his grandson. It preyed on Beth’s mind, using up precious emotional energy that she needed to fight the cancer threatening her life.
Ginny looked back down at the letter, frowning when she realized that this was only the first page.
“Where’s the rest of this?” she asked Beth.
Beth peered around and found the second sheet on the floor beside the bed. Picking it up, she handed it to Ginny.
Ginny’s deep blue eyes darkened incredulously as she read it. “After calling you an opportunistic liar, he wants you and Damon to fly to Greece and discuss the matter with him!”
Beth nodded. “There was a pair of plane tickets included. Funny, isn’t it? I can’t even walk to the corner store, and I’m supposed to fly to Greece with a four-month-old baby. I guess I should have told him about my being sick, but I didn’t want it to seem as if... And now I can’t...” Beth paused and her eyes suddenly focused on Ginny. “But you can,” she said slowly.
“Me! Why would I want to see this—” Ginny gestured impotently with the letter “—this parody of a human being?”
“Ginny, listen.” Beth grabbed hold of Ginny’s long slender fingers and held on to them as if they were a lifeline. “You could go, pretending to be me. Damon would be perfectly happy with you, and you’re very good with him. And I never used my first name when I wrote to Creon’s father.” Beth rushed on when Ginny opened her mouth. “All Jason Papas knows me by is Miss Alton. And you’re Miss Alton, too. I wouldn’t ask you, but I’m so worried about Damon’s future if I should...”
“Beth, I swear to you. I’ll take care of Damon, no matter what happens,” Ginny vowed.
“Yes, but what about when you marry? Will your husband want to spend money on your dead cousin’s orphan?”
“You always did have an overactive imagination,” Ginny said dryly. “I’m not even dating anyone, let alone considering marriage to a miser.”
“Wait till you fall in love,” Beth said sadly. “You won’t even notice that he’s cheap.”
Like you never noticed that Creon Papas was an immature jerk, Ginny thought on a wave of guilt. If she hadn’t brought him to the apartment, Beth would never have met him and never had an affair with him and never had been left holding a baby. Literally.
Ginny absently chewed on her lower lip as she tried to rationally consider Beth’s idea. She didn’t like it, but she had to admit that Beth was right about one thing. It was feasible. Since the investment firm where Ginny worked was allowing her to work at home while Beth was undergoing chemotherapy, she was free to go to Greece.
Not only that, but mentally she was far better equipped to deal with a tyrant like Jason Papas than the shy, retiring Beth was. Jason Papas wouldn’t be able to browbeat her. One thing her career as an financial analyst had taught her was how to stand up to male chauvinists and petty bullies. And much as she disliked lying about who and what she was, she liked the alternative of Beth brooding about the situation even less.
And it wasn’t as if she were going to personally gain anything by impersonating Beth, Ginny rationalized. All Beth wanted from the very wealthy Jason Papas was for him to provide for his grandson’s education.
That and to acknowledge that Damon had a right to the Papas family’s support. An acknowledgment that Ginny suspected was far more important to Beth than the money.
Ginny let her breath out on a long, shuddering sigh. Despite her doubts about the wisdom of the impersonation, she couldn’t see any way to refuse Beth’s request. Beth needed to forge some kind of relationship with Creon’s family. Needed it to relieve her mind so that she could concentrate on getting better.
“All right, I’ll do it,” Ginny said, and then shivered as her words seemed to hang ominously in the air like a portent of disaster to come.
One
Ginny looked around the airport lounge where Jason Papas’s letter had told Beth she’d be met. It was deserted. Ginny sighed. Of course Jason Papas hadn’t bothered to show up. It was entirely in keeping with the rest of her trip. A disaster from start to finish. If there was anything worse than taking a long plane trip with a four-month-old baby, she didn’t want to find out about it.
Being extremely careful not to wake the now-sleeping Damon, Ginny set his car seat down on the floor. To her relief, he didn’t stir.
Wearily she sank down in a seat and checked her watch. Ten-fifteen. Only thirty-five minutes past the time her flight had been scheduled to arrive. Not very late for a flight that had originated in New York.
Where was Jason Papas? Ginny wondered, as annoyance began to nudge aside her tiredness. Damon needed to be changed and fed and put into a proper bed. And she needed a shower. Ginny glanced in distaste at her rumpled blue linen suit with its varied collection of baby stains garnered in the course of the long trip.
Could leaving her cooling her heels here at the airport be a deliberate tactic on Jason Papas’s part? A tactic designed to impress on her the fact that he didn’t think neither she nor Damon was important enough to be met on time?
It was certainly possible. In fact, if Jason Papas was anything like his obnoxious son then it was probable. But while those kinds of tactics would have reduced the gentle Beth to a dithering mass of uncertainty, they only made Ginny mad. And more determined than ever to stand up to the old tyrant.
Absently, Ginny brushed back a strand of hair that had escaped from her chignon. She’d wait another fifteen minutes on the off chance that Jason Papas’s delay had been caused by traffic, and then she’d leave a message for him at the airline desk and check into a hotel.
Feeling slightly better now that she’d decided on a plan of action, Ginny leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Within seconds she was asleep.
Philip Lysander pushed back the sleeve of his gray suit jacket and looked down at the thin gold watch on his wrist. He’d kept this Alton woman and the bastard she was trying to trick a sick old man into acknowledging waiting forty minutes now. Long enough to drive home the fact to her that the family considered her entirely insignificant. It was now time to pick her up.
Draining the remainder of his whiskey, Philip set the empty glass back down on the table and left the airport’s bar.
It took him five minutes to locate the lounge where Jason had told him the Alton woman would be waiting. Philip had absolutely no doubt that she would be there. Anyone brazen enough to try to pull off the fraud she was attempting wouldn’t back out at the last minute.
Despite having his opinion confirmed, Philip took no satisfaction from the sight of the woman sitting on the far side of the lounge with a car seat at her feet. He headed toward her, relishing the prospect of telling her that she wasn’t going to get away with her lie. That he knew her for what she was and would never allow her to harm his family.
His lips tightened when he realized that she was asleep. It seemed the final insult to him that she should be blissfully unaware of the fact that he’d kept her waiting.
Philip’s eyes widened in surprise as he got close enough to get a good look at the woman. Instead of the cheap, overblown opportunist that he’d been expecting, she looked...elegant, he finally settled on. Her dark blond hair was the exact shade of the lemon blossom honey his mother used to pour on his breakfast toast when he’d been a child. It even looked like honey, sleek and smooth. Unconsciously his fingers twitched with the urge to stroke her hair and see if it were as silky as it looked.
His gaze wandered lower, down over her face, and his mouth dried under the impact of her beauty. And she was beautiful, Philip reluctantly conceded. Not only did she have classically perfect features, but a flawless complexion, as well. His eyes lingered on the pale rose flush on her cheekbones before dropping down to the soft lusciousness of her full mouth. He swallowed uneasily as an unexpected urge to press his own mouth to hers slammed through him.
He wrenched his gaze away from the lure of her lips with effort, focusing instead on the slight swell of her breasts beneath the severely cut blue suit she was wearing. He frowned at her outfit. It didn’t fit her delectable body. Someone as feminine as she looked should be wearing something soft and clinging and...
He pulled his imagination up short. What was the matter with him? he wondered uneasily. He wasn’t some immature boy to be thrown off balance by the sight of a woman’s body, no matter how beautiful it was. Especially not when he knew that the character behind the beautiful facade was rotten to the core. His features hardened. He couldn’t afford to forget for a moment what she was really like.
Ginny stirred uneasily as a prickly sensation danced over her skin. Confused, she half opened her eyes and checked Damon. He was still sleeping. A soft smile curved her lips at his peaceful expression. She started to yawn and then stopped as she caught sight of a pair of gray-covered legs standing slightly behind Damon’s car seat.
Dreamily, her eyes followed the pants upward over a powerful pair of masculine thighs, up over a flat stomach to a broad chest. Approvingly, she noted the impressive breadth of his shoulders, but she wasn’t so sure about the hard thrust of his jaw. He looked very determined. Ginny watched his long tanned fingers clench spasmodically. His fingers should be wrapped around a spear, she thought whimsically. And instead of a suit, he should be wearing one of those short white skirt things the ancient Spartan warriors wore. No, even better, he should be an athlete. Her stomach twisted in instinctive response to the sudden image she had of him naked. His bare skin was gleaming with the oil that the athletes rubbed on it and...
An icy sensation suddenly ripped through her languid daydreams as her eyes collided with his coal black ones. They seemed to smolder with suppressed emotion. An impression heightened by his tightly compressed lips.
Ginny slowly straightened up, trying not to let him see just how disoriented she was. She’d only found him fascinating because she was so tired, she assured herself. Tired and half-asleep. Under normal circumstances this was not a man who would appeal to her, not for a second. As she quite obviously didn’t appeal to him. She watched the imperious way he was regarding her. As if she were a bad smell that he intended to eliminate as soon as possible.
He couldn’t possibly be Jason Papas. He was far too young. So it stood to reason that he was an emissary of Jason Papas sent to pick her and Damon up like a stray package that had to be dealt with.
Ginny was unable to entirely suppress her feeling of unease as the man’s features hardened even further, reminding her of a painting she’d once seen of a judge at the Salem witch trials. He looked absolutely merciless. But she didn’t want mercy, she bolstered her sagging courage. She wanted justice. Justice for Damon and poor Beth. And this man, no matter who he was, wasn’t going to stop her!
Ginny squared her shoulders and returned his glare, waiting for him to break the brittle silence that stretched between them.
Finally, just when she was starting to feel limp with the strain, he did.
“You won’t get away with it!” His intriguingly accented voice was rasped seductively over her nerve endings.
“And what precisely is ‘it’? For that matter, who are your?”
“I’m here to pick you up.” His voice held a sneer that seemed to insinuate all kinds of things.
Ginny ignored it and simply stared at him, waiting for him to answer her question. Experience had taught her that it was fatal to try to placate men like him. They had to be met with determination.
“Well! Have you nothing to say?”
“I’m still waiting for you to tell me who you are,” she managed a level tone despite the butterflies holding a convention in her stomach. “Or isn’t your command of the English language sufficient to have understood my question?”
Ginny felt a brief flair of satisfaction as his tanned cheeks darkened at her gibe.
“I have a degree in economics from Oxford, and I spend most of my time in London!” he snapped.
“Lovely.” Ginny gave him a bland smile. “But that still doesn’t tell me who you are.”
“Philip Lysander, Creon’s brother-in-law. He was married to my sister, Lydia.”
“Brother-in-law!” Ginny stared blankly at him as a dizzying wave of horror washed over her. Creon had been married! He was even worse than she’d thought, and she hadn’t thought all that much of him in the first place.
Philip’s smile chilled her. “Creon may be dead and unable to defend himself from your lies, but he has family who will.”
And so did Beth, Ginny thought grimly. As Creon’s precious family would find out.
“All right, Philip Lysander, Creon’s brother-in-law. How about if you do what you were sent to do and take me to Jason Papas.”
“Not until we reach an agreement.”
Ginny eyed him warily. “About what?”
“I don’t want my sister hurt.”
Ginny felt a spurt of sympathy for the unknown Lydia, but she determinedly banished it. Philip’s sister had him and her father-in-law and heaven only knew how many other relatives to help her cope with the situation. Poor Beth only had her to depend on, and Ginny had no intention of failing her.
“You want Jason Papas to sacrifice his grandson so that your sister won’t have to face the type of man she married?”
“The boy isn’t Creon’s son, and you know it!”
Ginny sighed, suddenly feeling tired to the point of numbness. “This conversation is getting us nowhere. My business is with Damon’s grandfather. Please take me to him.”
“Not until you agree to my proposal.”
“What proposal?” she snapped. “So far all I’ve heard is you pontificating about things you know nothing about.”
“Jason and I have discussed this, and we’ve agreed that we will say that you’ve brought the boy to Greece to see me.”
“You!” Ginny’s eyes widened as a powerful flood of tangled emotions twisted through her. Pretend that she had been Philip Lysander’s lover? That she had lain against his naked body? That he had kissed her and... Ginny swallowed against the sudden dryness in her mouth.
“That way people will assume that the boy—”
“Damon,” Ginny corrected. “His name is Damon.”
Philip ignored her. “...is mine, and Lydia will be protected from gossip.”
“No!” Ginny’s instinctive denial seemed to echo around them. She didn’t want to be close to this man. To even pretend to be close. He made her feel very unlike herself, and until she was absolutely certain that her unusual reaction to him was caused by tiredness and worry about Damon and Beth, she didn’t want to risk further exposure to him.
“No,” she repeated in a level tone of voice.
“Then I won’t take you to see Jason.” Philip gave her a smug look that made her want to smack him—hard—and that worried her almost as much as her body’s strange response to him. She was not a violent person. She had nothing but contempt for people who thought that violence was an acceptable form of self-expression.
But thinking about hitting him was not the same thing as doing it, she rationalized. Thinking about it was nothing more than a safety valve for explosive feelings.
Making a valiant attempt to block Philip out of her mind, Ginny stared down at the floor at her feet and tried to think. Despite her best efforts back in New York, she had been unable to locate Jason Papas’s home address. Even Beth had had to send her letter to his company’s headquarters here in Athens. And while she could visit his company, she very much doubted that his employees would be willing to tell her, without his consent, where to find him.
So if she refused to go along with Philip’s charade, then her chances of locating Jason weren’t good. And her trip to Greece would have been a waste of time. Ginny winced at the thought of having to go back to Beth and tell her that she hadn’t even been able to speak to Jason.
Having come so far, she couldn’t fail Beth now. And it wasn’t as if she were some young, naive fool to be overawed by a sophisticated man of the world like Philip Lysander obviously was. She was a highly intelligent, experienced, professional woman of thirty-two. She could cope with him. Even if her weird reaction to him didn’t fade after a good night’s sleep, she could still cope.
“Very well.” Ginny got to her feet. “I will allow the masquerade to stand, but I refuse to tell a direct lie to anyone about who Damon’s father is.”
Philip gave her a scathing look. “Spare me the claim to ethics.”
“I’d just as soon spare you, period! Having anything to do with you wasn’t my idea.”
To Ginny’s shock, Philip suddenly grabbed her and yanked her up against him. She hit his chest with a thump. It was like hitting a wall—hard, with no give whatsoever. Ginny took a deep breath to ask him just what he thought he was doing, but it proved to be a mistake. Her lungs were immediately inundated with the subtle scent of a men’s cologne that made her think of soldiers and horses and...
“Stop it,” she muttered, not sure if she was talking to her own wayward body or to him. Both of them ignored her.
His arms tightened around her, molding her slender frame to his hard curves and making her excruciatingly aware of the basic differences between their bodies.
Ginny looked up at him, and he quickly took advantage of her movement to capture her mouth. His lips were warm and pliable as they pressed against hers. His tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip, and Ginny shivered violently at the sensation.
The urge to open her mouth was overwhelming, but it was the very intensity of her reaction that set off alarm bells deep in her mind. Shoving her hands between them, she tried to push him back, but he didn’t budge. She tried to wiggle out of his arms, but the sharp prickles of pleasure that tore through her as her breasts scraped across his chest distracted her, and he took advantage of her hesitation to bind her even closer to him.
Ginny could see lights flickering behind her closed eyelids as if her exploding emotions were finding a physical release. Lights that... Flashbulbs! She suddenly identified the lights. Someone was taking pictures.
Her eyes shot open, and she found herself staring into Philip’s gleaming black eyes. Wrenching her gaze away, she saw a thin man with a large, professional-looking camera hurrying away from them.
“Who was that, and why did you kiss me?” she demanded, operating under the old adage that a good offense is the best defense.
“One of the paparazzi who hang around the airport and take pictures they hope to sell to the scandal sheets.”
And he’d kissed her to give added weight to the lie that he was her lover and Damon’s father, Ginny realized in dismay. What had she gotten herself into?
Suddenly realizing that she was still pressed up against Philip’s warm body, Ginny hastily stepped back and stumbled over her purse, which was sitting on the floor.
Philip grabbed her, steadying her for a moment against his hard frame. It was long enough for her body to react with a growing sense of urgency.
Desperately, Ginny tore herself out of his grip.
“I’m tired after that long flight.” She muttered the first excuse that came to mind.
“Next time, pick a victim a little closer to home!” Philip snapped as he bent to pick up Damon’s car seat.
As he lifted it, the blanket that had been partially obscuring the child’s face fell back, and an uneasy feeling washed over Philip as he got his first clear look at the child. The boy had the same inky black hair and dark complexion that Creon had had. As he did himself, Philip reminded himself. There were millions of men with dark hair and dark complexions in Greece. That didn’t prove anything.
“Come on,” he flung at Ginny as he headed toward the doors.
“What about my luggage?” Ginny hurried to match his long stride. “And don’t swing that car seat around.” Her voice sharpened. “I don’t want Damon to wake up.”
“I had a porter fetch your luggage and put it in my car.”
So she’d been right. He had deliberately left her waiting, Ginny thought in annoyance.
Knowing that nothing she could say about his unconscionable behavior would bother him, she wisely said nothing, contenting herself with glaring at his broad back as he marched out the door.
She wasn’t the least bit surprised to find his car parked in a no-parking zone. Nor was she surprised to find that no one had done anything about it. Philip was clearly the type of man it wasn’t safe to cross. But someone should have done so long ago, she thought grimly. He’d have developed into a much nicer person if he’d been thwarted occasionally.
Well, it was never too late for him to learn and, while it wasn’t a job Ginny would have normally chosen, she was fast coming to the conclusion that she would be doing her fellow man a distinct service if she were to teach Philip that the whole world didn’t dance to his piping.
Ginny surreptitiously watched Philip while she carefully buckled Damon’s car seat into the back seat of his black Mercedes. He was sitting in the driver’s seat looking at something on the console between the two front seats. There was an absorbed expression on his lean face that bespoke total concentration.
Was he married? Ginny wondered as she studied the slight frown between his dark eyebrows. A sudden urge to smooth the worry line away gripped her and, shaken by the impulse, she turned back to Damon. She didn’t understand her almost compulsive physical attraction to Philip. She was far more aware of him than she had ever been of any male, and that was on the basis of a half hour’s acquaintance. Even, Ted whom she’d seriously considered marrying a few years ago, hadn’t affected her like this. But why? The question reverberated through her tired mind, demanding an answer.
Probably because of the intense emotions behind their meeting, she rationalized. And when she added to that the fact that she was exhausted, it was no wonder that she was acting out of character. With any luck at all, she’d be back to normal by morning and she’d be able to see Philip as nothing more than the ruggedly handsome, gorgeously built, smugly self-righteous man he was. Till then, she’d simply have to be careful not to do or say anything to let him guess just what she was feeling, because one thing she’d bet her last dollar on was that Philip was a man who would ruthlessly exploit any advantage he could get.
Dropping a gentle kiss on Damon’s petal-soft cheek, Ginny got into the front seat.
“Buckle your seat belt,” Philip ordered.
Ginny blinked and reached for the ends of the belt. She really was tired, she thought ruefully, to have forgotten something that basic.
“A miracle,” Philip muttered as he pulled away from the curb. “She actually did as she was told without an argument.”
Ginny ignored the comment. She had the disheartening feeling that she was going to be ignoring a lot of things in the next few days.
“Where does Damon’s grandfather live?” she asked as Philip wound his way through the brilliantly lit streets of Athens.
“I have no idea,” he shot back, “but Jason Papas lives in Glifadha, but we aren’t going there tonight.”
Ginny froze as, for one mad second, images of being driven into the hinterlands and abandoned filled her mind. No, she assured herself. Creon might have been selfish enough to have tried that type of intimidation, but she didn’t think that was Philip’s style.
“Then where are we going?” Ginny was pleased at the evenness of her tone.
“My apartment.” He accelerated around a slow-moving tourist bus and then turned left in front of a speeding taxi.
Ginny gasped and cast a worried look over her shoulder at Damon. He was still sleeping peacefully. “I can see why you want your passengers to wear seat belts,” she muttered. “You have a death wish.”
Philip gave her a quick grin that sent an unexpected rush of pleasure through her. For one moment, he had looked young and carefree and someone she...
Stop it! Ginny hastily pulled her imagination up short because that was all it was. Imagination. She absolutely couldn’t fall into the trap of assuming Philip had the qualities she wanted him to have.
“Let me guess.” she said dryly. “You have an etching you want to show me?”
Philip looked confused. “The only etchings I have are four by da Vinci, and they’re in my London house.”
Ginny stared at him, mentally revising her estimation of his wealth upward by quite a few million. Da Vincis were not cheap and for him to own four...
“Are you an art lover, besides a blackmailer?” he asked.
Ginny determinedly ignored the slur. Hopefully, if she refused to respond to his provocation, he’d lose interest in baiting her. “Sorry, I forgot you were a foreigner and wouldn’t know that ‘looking at etchings’ is an American expression.”
“I am not a foreigner. I am Greek, this is Greece. Therefore, you are the foreigner.”
“Great,” she muttered. “Just what I need. A literalist.”
“And what does inviting someone to see your etching mean?” he persisted.
Ginny stared into his face, watching the way the light from a pink neon restaurant sign engulfed him in a colorful glow. Could he really not have run across the expression before? But it didn’t really matter because if she refused to answer him, he’d realize that she found discussing sex with him unsettling. And no doubt use the information to torment her at some future date. Her only viable option at this point would be to act nonchalant. Or at least try.
“It means that a man is asking a woman to his apartment in the hopes of convincing her to have sex with him,” she finally said.
“Have sex?” He shot her a quick, calculating glance that made her very leery. “And would you have sex with me, Ginny Alton? Would you let me kiss you the way a lover kisses a woman? Would you let me strip that sterile-looking suit off you? Would you let me take your breasts in my hands and explore their texture? Would you let me kiss your breasts and suckle—”
“Stop it!” Ginny choked out, giving up trying to ignore him. Philip was treating her as he would a woman that he’d picked up for one purpose and one purpose only, and she wasn’t going to allow it.
He momentarily took his eyes off the road to glance at her flushed face. He could almost believe she was embarrassed, but that made no sense. His words hadn’t been all that explicit. Certainly not explicit enough to make a blackmailer with an illegitimate child blush. So why had she? He didn’t know but he fully intended to find out. By the time he was through with Ginny Alton she wouldn’t have a secret left.
“Or...or I’ll tell your wife,” Ginny finally threatened.
He chuckled. “I have no wife. You could always threaten to tell my mother, not that you’re likely to meet her. I try to protect her from the seamier side of life.”
Ginny ignored the insult as well as the strange spurt of pleasure she felt at his bachelor state. Instead, she turned her head and stared out the car window at the quiet, residential neighborhood he was driving through. Closing her eyes, she tried to employ one of the relaxation techniques she’d learned to use when her clients were being more exasperating than usual.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever will be, she doggedly repeated to herself. But instead of evoking a feeling of peace as it was supposed to, all she could think about was how perfectly it appeared to describe Philip’s flat refusal to even consider the truth of what she was saying. But why wouldn’t he consider it? she wondered. Granted, he wanted to protect his sister, but hiding the truth from her wasn’t much protection.
For that matter, why hadn’t he stopped his sister from marrying Creon in the first place? It had only taken her one date to realize that Creon was bad news. Philip should have been able to figure it out, too.
Maybe because Philip didn’t see anything wrong with a man carrying on affairs on the side as long as his wife didn’t find out about it? She found the idea depressing.
“You get the boy.”
Ginny looked around, realizing that Philip had parked the car in front of a tall, ultramodern apartment building. It looked expensive, exclusive and totally unwelcoming. As if it were nothing more than a stage prop. She wouldn’t want to live there. But then she wasn’t being asked to, she reminded herself as she scrambled out of the car.
Ginny bumped Damon’s car seat against the front seat as she was pulling it out of the car. The jolt woke the baby, and he glared at her, for one eerie moment looking exactly like Philip.
“Don’t do that, love.” She gave him a kiss.
Damon was not soothed. He opened his small mouth and emitted a bellow that could be heard for a block in either direction.
“Ah, he must be a boy with lungs like that.” The doorman nodded approvingly at Damon as he opened the lobby door for them. Ginny ignored the man.
“Don’t cry, sweet’n. Just as soon as we get inside, I’ll give you a bottle.”
Damon stuck out his lower lip as if considering whether or not to accept her offer.
Philip handed the doorman his car keys. “Have someone bring the luggage in the trunk.” He started toward the bank of elevators.
Ginny trailed after Philip, trying to ignore the speculative stares she was getting from the people in the lobby. She breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator doors finally opened, but her relief didn’t last long. A young woman wearing five-inch heels and a superbly cut, slinky black sheath dress hurried into the elevator after them.
“Why, Philip, I didn’t know you were back in Greece. Who’s this?” The woman gestured toward Ginny.
To Ginny’s shock, Philip put his arm around her waist and pulled her up against his hard side. She could feel him pressing into her hip and the heat from his body was crowding her, forcing her out of her comfort zones. But she wasn’t the only one disconcerted by Philip’s actions, Ginny realized, when she saw the incredulous look on the woman’s face.
“This is Ginny Alton.” Philip’s voice deepened as if with a hint of some deeply held emotion. “Ginny, this is Thera Spirios, an old friend of my sister Clytie.”
“Not Clytie, Philip. Sophie.” The woman’s features sharpened in annoyance. “Clytie is years older than me.”
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Ginny lied.
The woman nodded impatiently at Ginny and turned back to Philip. “You are coming to the reception at the French embassy this evening, aren’t you, Philip?”
“No.” Philip gave Ginny a smoldering look that implied he intended to spend his evening making love to her. Even though Ginny knew the look was strictly for show, it still sent an involuntary shiver of anticipation through her.
Why couldn’t Philip have been more like Creon? she thought in dismay. She had had no trouble resisting that philanderer. Why was Philip different?
“Who’s that?” Thera peered closer at Damon who reacted to the unfriendly face by shrieking.
To Ginny’s relief, the elevator doors slid open before Philip could answer Thera. Not waiting for him, Ginny hurried through them into the spacious hallway beyond.
Philip paused a moment to say something to Thera that Ginny couldn’t quite catch. But whatever it was, it didn’t sit well with the woman. Her face turned an unbecoming shade of red, and her thin lips twisted as she stared in impotent frustration as Philip walked out of the elevator.
A discarded girlfriend? Ginny wondered, but had better sense than to ask. Instead, she jiggled the wailing Damon as she waited for Philip to unlock his apartment door.
Ginny followed Philip inside, looking around curiously. The apartment was expensively decorated and very spacious, but it was also strangely impersonal. It looked more like a luxury hotel suite than a private home.
Damon’s howls increased, and Ginny set his car seat down and struggled to unbuckle his squirming body.
“You’re doing that wrong.” Philip brushed her fingers away and deftly unfastened the buckles.
“Fine. Since you know so much, you can take care of him while I heat his bottle.”
Rather to her surprise, he didn’t refuse. Instead, he picked Damon up, holding him out in front of him as if he were a live grenade that might explode at any minute.
“Don’t hold him like that,” Ginny ordered as she rummaged through Damon’s diaper bag for a bottle of formula. “Babies need to feel secure. Where’s the kitchen?”
“Through there.” He nodded toward the right with his head as he gingerly put Damon on his shoulder. “He squishes!” Philip’s eyes widened in horror.
Ginny gave him a limpid smile. “So change him. There’s plenty of diapers in the bag.”
Grateful that Damon was too young to understand the meaning of some of the words Philip was muttering, Ginny headed toward the kitchen.
It didn’t take her long to heat the bottle. She was testing the warmth of the formula on her wrist when she heard Philip bellow. It was immediately followed by Damon’s shriek.
For a moment, she was tempted to leave Philip to solve whatever mess he’d managed to get himself into. Or that Damon had managed to create. But she finally decided that poor Damon had had to put up with enough today.
Ginny followed the sound of Damon’s crying to a large bedroom that was dominated by a huge bed. She gulped as her skin began to tingle. Grimly she tried to squash the unwanted reaction, but it simply burrowed deeper into her chest, raising all sorts of longings. She felt rattled and uncertain—like an adolescent who’d unexpectedly found herself alone in a bedroom with a boy, and she didn’t like the feeling one bit.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was curt with the effort she was making to control her emotions.
Philip raised his head and gave her an agonized look. “The boy...” He gestured from the baby to his chest.
Ginny frowned and then grinned as she suddenly realized what must have happened. When Philip had taken Damon’s wet diaper off, the baby had reacted to the room’s air-conditioning by urinating. All over the front of Philip. Her lips twitched at the thought of the ultrasophisticated Philip being caught unawares. She tried to swallow her laughter, but a giggle escaped.
“I’m sorry,” she choked out with far more politeness than sincerity. “But you...” She completely lost her attempts to control her mirth.
The warm, happy sound of her laughter rolled over Philip’s annoyance, vanquishing it. Intrigued, Philip watched the way her soft lips quirked at the corners. He wanted to take her in his arms and press his mouth against her quivering lips. To absorb her laughter into his own body.
If this was the side of her personality that she’d shown to Creon, it was no wonder that he’d... No! Philip emphatically banished the traitorous thought.
“You finish the boy. I’m going to take a shower.” He stalked toward his bathroom, angry at himself for even considering that she might be telling the truth. Creon wouldn’t have done such a despicable thing to Lydia, and he was dishonoring Creon’s memory by even considering the idea.
Philip’s abrupt exit successfully stilled Ginny’s mirth, and she hurried over to the bed before Damon rolled over and fell off.
“Poor little angel,” she murmured soothingly as she deftly diapered him. “Don’t you worry. I don’t hold it against you. Come on, love. Let’s get some food into your tummy and then you can go to sleep.”
Picking Damon up, she went back to the living room and, sitting down on the very comfortable sofa, popped the nipple into Damon’s mouth. He began to gulp the formula down as if he were in imminent danger of starvation.
Damon polished off his bottle in record time, and Ginny was trying to coax a burp out of him when the phone suddenly rang. She glanced from the phone on the end table to the hallway that led to Philip’s bedroom. Was he still in the shower? Would he want her to answer it?
But even if she did answer it, the person calling might not speak English.
“Should I answer it?” Ginny asked Damon, who wrinkled his button nose and then emitted a huge burp. She chuckled and kissed his downy head. “My sentiments exactly. We’ll...”
She turned at the muffled sound of footsteps on the thick carpeting behind her.
Two
Ginny tensed as she watched Philip stride across the living room. He was wearing a short, white towel wrapped around his lean waist, and nothing else. She stared at his broad chest in fascination. It was covered with a thick pelt of dark hair that intrigued her. She wanted to run her hands over it and see what it felt like. To find out if it were soft and silky or crisp and abrasive.
Mesmerized, Ginny watched the supple movement of the muscles beneath his tautly stretched skin as he picked up the phone. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Anywhere. Her eyes drifted lower, down over his flat hips and strong legs. Her mouth dried as she watched water droplets trickle down his legs. Slowly, enticingly, the drops caressed his flesh as they meandered downward. She wanted to follow their path. To trace over it with her fingertips and then with her lips.
Philip gestured emphatically as he responded to something his caller had said, and Ginny shivered as Philip’s towel momentarily parted, giving her a tantalizing glimpse of his masculinity. Her eyelids felt heavy, and a tightness was wrapping itself around her chest, making it difficult to take a deep breath.
This was crazy! She made a valiant effort to regain control of her wayward responses. How could she be sitting here all but drooling over a man that she barely knew, and what little she did know she didn’t like? It made no sense.
Ginny tried closing her eyes to shut out the temptation, but it didn’t help. She found Philip’s powerful body clearly imprinted on the back of her eyelids.
Flustered, she opened her eyes and tried concentrating on Damon, but it didn’t help. All she could think about was how closely the color of Damon’s hair matched Philip’s.
It’s only a mindless chemical reaction, she assured herself. Purely physical. The kind of thing that writers had been immortalizing in song and legend since time immemorial. And the very ferocity of her attraction guaranteed that it would quickly consume itself and burn out. A seed of doubt floated through her mind, but she refused to allow it to take root. She was a competent, modern woman who was more than capable of handling an unwanted sexual attraction, starting right now. She would look at him and see nothing but a superb physical specimen.
Ginny slowly raised her head and looked at Philip. Only a superb physical... Her determination wavered as he raised his hand and the muscles in his chest rippled. She found herself wondering what it would feel like if he were to hold her close to his chest. Close enough to feel the movement of those muscles. Close enough...
“No, I don’t think the boy is Creon’s.”
Philip’s curt words ripped through the sensual fog that had entrapped her, and her arms tightened protectively around Damon’s defenseless little body. Grimly, Ginny bit back a furious retort. Yelling at him wouldn’t help Beth. It would only make Philip feel justified in his pigheaded opinion. Besides, what Philip Lysander thought wasn’t all that important in the final analysis, she reminded herself. It was what Jason Papas thought that counted.
“We’ll be there tomorrow morning, Jason.” Philip hung up the phone and turned to Ginny, frowning when he noticed how rigidly she was holding herself in the chair. She looked brittle enough to break, and there was a deep flush on her pale cheeks.
“Umm...” he began, not sure what he wanted to say.
“What?” Ginny clipped the word out, her eyes focused on a point beyond his left shoulder.
Was she embarrassed? he wondered. Embarrassed because he had so easily seen through her lies? Or angry that he had?
He watched as she leaned over the boy and the light from the lamp created golden sparkles in her hair. How could she look like a Botticelli Madonna and yet have had an affair with another woman’s husband?
Philip watched the graceful movement of her hand and she swept back a tendril of hair that had escaped her chignon. What would it feel like to have her hair brush across his skin? He clenched his teeth as he felt himself reacting to the thought. The urge to touch her again was fast reaching a compulsion. A compulsion that worried him. He knew her to be a fraud, preying on a sick old man, so how could he be attracted to her?
“No one is ever going to believe that you’re supposed to be my lover,” he snapped, irritated at the way she refused to look at him. As if he were the one who was doing something wrong.
Ginny cautiously looked up and then wished she hadn’t when her eyes landed on the slight swell visible beneath his towel. Determinedly, she dragged her gaze upward to his face.
“Might I remind you that pretending we are lovers was your bright idea, not mine,” she said. “No one who knows me would believe it.”
“Why not?”
“Because the men I date are all calm, reasonable men who examine the facts before they leap to conclusions.”
“They sound like bloodless bores!”
Ginny frowned at him, refusing to admit even to herself that some of them had been just the faintest bit stultifying.
“They are men of high principles.” She retreated into platitudes.
“You’re trying to tell me that your dates have all been men of high principles, and yet you claim that a married man is your son’s father?” he asked scathingly.
“Be—” Ginny hastily caught herself and rushed on. “I didn’t know he was married. He certainly never said so.”
“He wore a wedding ring.”
“Not in New York he didn’t! And all that’s immaterial.” Ginny tried to redirect the conversation. She most emphatically didn’t want to discuss her love life—such as it was—with Philip. She was edgy enough.
“It isn’t immaterial that no one will believe that we are lovers.”
“You could take out a newspaper ad!”
“Lovers should be comfortable around each other,” he persisted.
Ginny grimaced. She didn’t think she’d ever feel comfortable around him.
“We can start the process by you touching me.” Philip walked over to where she was sitting, stopping scant inches from her.
She could smell the faint cedary fragrance of the soap he’d just used. It reminded her of Christmas and the anticipation that she always felt. As if something wondrous were about to happen. An anticipation much like that which gripped her now.
Touch him? Ginny considered his command. Where? Her eyes lingered on the contrast between his snowy white towel and the dark tone of his skin. Unconsciously, she rubbed the fingers of her free hand over her skirt to try to stop the tingling sensation that danced over them.
Touching him was definitely not a good idea, her mind decided even while her fingers curled in anticipation. But what could it hurt? Ginny tried to rationalize her growing need. In fact, it might help to speed up the time when her fascination with him would fade. And it wasn’t as if she could do more than touch him. Not while she was cradling a sleeping baby.
Giving in to the temptation, Ginny reached out and poked his thigh with a fingertip. There was no give. He was solid muscle.
“Oh, for the...” Philip grabbed her hand and pressed it flat against his bare thigh.
Heat from his body flowed into her receptive flesh, loosening her inhibitions. Tentatively she moved her hand slightly, shivering as the hair on his leg scraped abrasively over her palm. To her mingled dismay and relief, Philip suddenly stepped back.
“It’s a start,” he muttered, and it seemed to Ginny that his voice was deeper.
Could he have been affected by her touch? Was that why he’d retreated? It was an intriguing thought, but not a relevant one, Ginny told herself. It didn’t matter what Philip felt because she couldn’t allow anything to develop between them. Beth was counting on her to get Jason Papas to acknowledge Damon’s right to the family’s financial support, and she couldn’t do that if she were to become emotionally involved with what appeared to be the main opposition to the idea.
“There’s a nursery at the end of the hall off the kitchen that my sisters use when they stay at the apartment,” Philip said. “The boy can sleep there. Your luggage is in the bedroom beside it.”
Without another word, he turned and left the room. A minute later she heard the sound of his bedroom door slam shut.
“And a good-night to you, too,” Ginny muttered as she got to her feet, being careful not to jar the sleeping baby. Things would be better after a good night’s sleep, she told herself as she went to find the nursery. At least she had the comfort of knowing that they couldn’t get much worse!
Absently, Philip pulled his towel off and dropped it on the thick plush carpet. Her continued insistence that Creon was the boy’s father annoyed him, but didn’t really surprise him. Having come this far, she would hardly be likely to change her story simply because he told her he knew that she was lying. She was probably thinking that she would have better luck at convincing a lonely old man that the boy was his grandson.
Philip shoved his fingers through his damp hair in frustration. He knew she was lying. She had to be. Creon couldn’t have had an affair with another woman because Lydia would have said something about it. She would have asked his advice about what to do, and she hadn’t. She’d never said a word against Creon.
He paused as he suddenly realized something. Lydia had never discussed Creon with him. She mentioned Jason occasionally, and she was always talking about her daughters, but he couldn’t ever remember her saying anything about Creon. A trickle of unease oozed through him. Was there some significance to her silence?
He didn’t know, and there was no way he could ask her without revealing what he was trying to hide. And he couldn’t risk that. Lydia had always been the most sensitive of his sisters. The most vulnerable. Creon’s death had hit her very hard. She’d lost weight she couldn’t afford to lose, and her always reserved personality had become almost withdrawn. If she were to find out that a beautiful woman had suddenly appeared, claiming to have had Creon’s son, it could push her so deeply into her shell she might never be able to climb out. A feeling of desperation gripped him.
He had to protect Lydia. But could he? For the moment, Ginny Alton was willing to go along with the charade that the boy was his, but how long her cooperation would last was anyone’s guess.
Philip dressed as he considered his limited options. He needed a lever to use against her, but what? Maybe the fact that Creon hadn’t been seeing her while he’d been in New York? It wasn’t much, but if he could find out how Creon had spent his time when he’d been in New York last year, perhaps it would convince Ginny that her claim wouldn’t stand up to an investigation.
Philip picked up the phone and dialed the number of his company’s New York office. His manager wouldn’t be there at this time of night, but he could leave a message on Essing’s voice mail telling him what he wanted him to do. With luck he’d have a report by tomorrow.
In the meantime, he’d simply have to keep as close to Ginny as he could to make sure she didn’t do or say anything to upset Lydia. He’d stay very close. Philip felt a surge of anticipation that made him vaguely uneasy. Since he couldn’t explain it, he ignored it and went to his study to go over the latest developments in the labor problems at one of his Athens’ factories.
The following day dawned clear and sunny, unlike Ginny’s mood. To her dismay, even though she was now well rested, her first view of Philip over the breakfast table was enough to convince her that a good night’s sleep hadn’t changed anything. He still had a very unsettling effect on her central nervous system. Even the fact that he was casually dressed in tan slacks and a powder blue knit shirt didn’t help.
Sitting down across from Philip, she gave Damon his bottle. That meant that the only thing she could do was to simply wait her compulsion out.
“Don’t you ever feed the boy any real food?”
Ginny looked up to see Philip frowning at Damon’s bottle.
“Damon. His name is Damon. And this is real food if you happen to be four months old.”
“He needs solid food,” Philip insisted. “Some cereal like this.” He held up a spoonful of the oatmeal he was eating.
Ginny fixed him with the gimlet stare she used on irrational clients who wanted to plunge into the stock market with no plan of action. “He has already shown signs of some nasty allergies, so if you even come near him with that stuff, I’ll...”
Philip looked at her ferocious expression and was hard-pressed not to laugh. She looked like an angry lioness about to defend her lone cub from mortal danger. A flicker of tenderness unexpectedly curled through him. She really was a good mother. It was too bad she hadn’t been as careful about who she went to bed with. Her lover couldn’t have been much of a man to have gotten her pregnant and then deserted her.
“You’ll what?” he asked curiously, when she didn’t finish her sentence.
“You’ll see.” Ginny promised darkly, having no idea what kind of threat might work on him. Probably none, she conceded. Philip Lysander appeared to be a man who was used to having his every whim catered to. Much as Creon had been.
To her surprise, his lips suddenly tightened. “If you repeat one word of your lies about Creon to Lydia, I’ll make you rue the day you were born.”
“And here I was afraid to descend to clichés,” she scoffed.
“I mean it! As far as Lydia is concerned, the boy is mine.” His voice was cold enough to freeze water.
What would it be like to have someone love you so much that they would be willing to go to such extremes to protect your peace of mind? Ginny wondered. The men she’d dated over the years had all treated her as the competent professional she was. They had respected her enough to allow her to solve her own problems. Which was what she wanted, she assured herself. She was strong enough to fight her own battles. She glanced down at Damon who was devouring his breakfast.
“I’ll be in the study making a few phone calls,” Philip said coldly as he got up from the table. “As soon as the boy is finished, we’ll leave for Jason’s.”
Ginny watched until he disappeared into his study. “I wonder what his blood pressure is?” she murmured to Damon. “At least, he doesn’t hold anything in.”
Would he make love with the same intensity? It didn’t matter how he made love. She throttled her curiosity. Philip Lysander’s love life had nothing to do with her. Determinedly, Ginny focused her attention on Damon, trying to use her love for him to drive out her fascination with Philip. It was a dismal failure.
The trip from Athens to Glifadha took an hour and a half. An interminable hour and a half. Between her agitation at being cooped up in a closed car with Philip, her nervousness over the upcoming interview with Jason Papas and the fact that Damon cried for most of the trip, Ginny was a bundle of nerves by the time Philip pulled up in front of Jason’s rambling white villa.
Ginny quickly climbed out of the car, unbuckled Damon from his car seat and cradled his hot, sweaty little body against her shoulder.
“Come on.” Philip grabbed her arm and hurried her inside.
Ginny quietly followed him through the huge house because she wasn’t sure that he’d let go of her, and she didn’t want to get into an undignified scuffle with Philip under Jason Papas’s nose.
Philip finally stopped in the open doorway of a large study.
“Is that the child?”
Ginny looked in the direction of the harsh voice to find a gaunt old man, who had to be Jason Papas, standing by the window eyeing her with distaste. Unconsciously, her chin lifted, and she stared back at him with equal distaste. If Jason hadn’t raised Creon to believe that he had a right to take what he wanted from whomever he wanted it, then poor Beth would never have been put in this situation.
“Yes,” Philip answered when Ginny remained silent.
“Bring him here,” Jason ordered Ginny.
Ginny walked to within a few feet of Jason and shifted Damon slightly so that his face was no longer hidden against her neck. She watched as Jason inched closer to the child as if drawn against his will. It was impossible for her to tell what the old man thought because other than the glitter in his eyes, which could have been anything from anger to happiness, his features were blank.
Unfortunately, Damon was not so reticent about expressing an opinion. He took one look at his grandfather and let out a howl.
Using Damon’s reaction as an excuse, Ginny retreated. “Damon doesn’t like strangers,” she said coolly.
“And you claim he’s my grandson?” Jason sneered.
“I don’t claim it. I know it.”
“You’re pretty enough to tempt a man to forget his marriage vows,” Jason said, and Ginny didn’t make the mistake of reading a compliment into his words. “But my son would never sully his honor with the likes of you. The truth is—”
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you over the head!” Ginny decided that it was time to firmly establish a few ground rules. Such as the fact that she would not allow herself to be verbally abused. “You can blather on about Creon’s so-called honor till the day you die, but it won’t change the facts one iota. And I’ll give you another news flash. I did not fly halfway across the world to serve as a verbal punching bag for your prejudices.”
Jason glared at her. “So what are you going to do? Leave? If you do, you’ll never see a drachma of my money.”
“That will be for the courts to decide,” Ginny retorted. She didn’t know if Beth would take her quest for recognition of Damon that far, but it wouldn’t hurt Jason to believe it.
“The courts!” A deep flush burned high on his thin cheekbones. “You actually dare to threaten me?”
“No,” Ginny said flatly. “I’m not threatening anything. I’m telling you. Damon is entitled to his father’s support, and if it takes a lawsuit to obtain it...” She allowed her voice to trail away.
“Why, you immoral slut!” Jason’s lips compressed as if he’d just bitten down on something very bitter.
“That’s enough! Both of you.” To Ginny’s surprise, Philip intervened. “This is getting us nowhere, Jason. I’ll show Ginny the nursery, and we can discuss this later.”
The only thing Ginny wanted to discuss at that precise moment was the quickest way to return to New York. But the memory of Beth’s desperate face stilled the words in her throat. Beth was counting on her.
Ginny tensed as Philip took her arm and hustled her away from Jason. And there was another reason why she wasn’t quite ready to leave, she admitted honestly. If she were to leave Greece now, she would probably never see Philip Lysander again, and if she didn’t see him again she couldn’t find out why he exerted such an unprecedented pull on her emotions. Somehow she needed to find out the reason for her attraction. She needed a rational explanation so that she could go back to being comfortable with herself.
“Jason isn’t normally so...” Philip gestured impotently.
“You mean no one normally gives the old tyrant any opposition!” Ginny said dryly. “Having met the father, I suddenly understand why Creon was such a self-centered, self-absorbed twit.”
Philip glanced at her. “If you felt that way, why did you have an affair with him?”
Ginny bit her tongue in annoyance at her hasty words. The more she became involved with the Papas family, the harder it was for her to remember that she was the one who had supposedly loved Creon.
“He could be very charming when things were going his way,” she finally said. “It’s only when his duplicity caught up with him in the form of Damon that he showed his true colors.”
Philip frowned as he suddenly remembered something his mother had said a few years ago about the way Jason indulged Creon’s every wish.
“Philip.” A soft, hesitant voice called to them from a small sitting room as they passed the open archway.
Ginny stopped, forcing Philip to, also. A petite, dark-haired woman somewhere in her thirties was standing across the room. She started toward them, a warm smile on her face. A shard of some dark emotion ripped through Ginny as Philip’s lips curved in a loving smile. A smile that was reflected in his dark eyes.
He enveloped the woman in a bear hug and swung her around in a circle. Setting her down on her feet and keeping a protective arm around her shoulders, he turned her toward Ginny. “Lydia, this is Ginny Alton and her son, Damon. Ginny, this is my sister Lydia.”
Philip’s dark eyes held an unspoken warning as he stared at Ginny.
“Hello,” Ginny said, telling herself that the relief she felt at discovering this was his sister was only because the situation didn’t need the complication of a jealous girlfriend of Philip’s in the house.
“Good morning.” Lydia gave Ginny an uncertain smile as if not sure how to greet her.
Which made two of them who weren’t comfortable with the situation, Ginny thought wryly.
Lydia’s smile widened, becoming more natural, as Damon gave a gurgle and waved a fist at her. “What a darling little boy. You must be very proud of him. My husband always wanted a boy, but I never...” Lydia sighed. “He was so disappointed when our last daughter was born.”
Ginny stared at Lydia in horrified disbelief. Daughter! Last daughter! Creon not only had a wife tucked away in Greece while he was seducing Beth, but he had children!
“Umm, Ginny...” Philip began, not liking the glint in Ginny’s eye.
Ginny ignored him. “How many daughters do you have, Lydia?”
“Three,” Lydia said. “Maria is three, Ianthe is two, and little Jasmine is just five months old.”
One month older than Damon! Impotent fury poured through Ginny. If she could have somehow gotten her hands on Creon, she would have cheerfully throttled him.
“Damon looks very Greek,” Lydia observed with a sideways glance at Philip.
Philip winced at the accusation he could see in Lydia’s eyes. He didn’t want his sister to think that he was the kind of heedless, selfish man who would get a woman pregnant and allow his child to be born a bastard. But the alternative was to tell her what Ginny was claiming, and that was unthinkable.
Telling himself that once he had pried the real name of Damon’s father out of Ginny he would tell Lydia the truth, he took a deep breath and forced out the lie. “I think he looks a lot like me.”
As if on cue, Damon emitted an angry howl.
Ginny gave Philip a limpid smile. “He certainly acts like you.”
“Poor little thing,” Lydia sympathized. “He sounds very unhappy.”
“He needs to be changed, some food and a nap—in that order,” Ginny said.
“If you’d feed him something with a little bulk to it, he wouldn’t always be hungry,” Philip muttered.
Lydia ignored him. “I will take you to the nursery. It should have everything you need.”
Ginny followed Lydia, feeling as if she’d done nothing but trail along behind people since she’d arrived in Greece. Unable to resist the impulse, she glanced over her shoulder at Philip. He hadn’t moved. He was still standing there, although with the window at his back, she couldn’t tell if he were watching them or not. He was simply a large, dark form looming in the middle of the room.
Like Nemesis. Her own personal Nemesis. Ginny resisted the childish impulse to stick out her tongue at him.
Lydia glanced from Ginny back to Philip and said, “You must love him very much.”
“My feelings for your brother are very strong,” Ginny said with absolute sincerity.
Lydia patted Ginny’s arm comfortingly. “Do not worry. He will do his duty by you. I will call the family.”
“The family?” Ginny said weakly, not liking the sound of that. This scenario needed less players, not more.
Lydia nodded emphatically. “Mama and my sisters. They will talk to Philip.”
He had mentioned sisters when he’d explained the nursery in his apartment, Ginny remembered. At the time she’d been too tired to wonder about it. “How many sisters do you have?”
“Five. We are all older than Philip.”
“I can imagine that he would have been enough to deter your parents from trying again.”
Lydia looked at Ginny uncertainly as if not sure how she was supposed to respond. Finally, she gave an unsteady gurgle of laughter—as if laughing weren’t something she did very often. As it probably wasn’t, Ginny thought. Having been married to a man like Creon would have squelched even a confirmed optimist’s sense of humor.
“Please don’t call the family, Lydia.”
“But Philip must do his duty toward you,” Lydia protested.
“I most emphatically don’t want a man to ‘do his duty toward me.’” Ginny wrinkled her nose in distaste at the idea.
Lydia sighed. “Yes, duty is cold comfort. But if you do not want to marry Philip then why did you come to Greece?”
Ginny felt like screaming in frustration. How could such a simple thing like going to see Damon’s grandfather have evolved into such a complicated tangle of lies?
For once, Ginny was relieved when Damon started to cry, because Lydia seemed to forget her question.
“Come. The nursery is this way. I will introduce you to Nanny who looks after Jasmine. Miss Welbourne is the older girls’ governess, but she and they are spending a few weeks in Paris with my mother.”
Ginny felt anger bubble through her. Lydia had a nanny and a governess and, undoubtedly, a staff of servants to run this palatial villa, while poor Beth had had to move in with Ginny because she couldn’t afford to keep her own apartment while she wasn’t teaching. Ginny glanced over at Lydia’s sad face and her anger deepened, becoming all the stronger because she didn’t have anyone to vent it on. None of this mess was Lydia’s fault. In a way, she was as much Creon’s victim as Beth was.
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