‘You’re telling me!’ Tabby scoffed in agreement, although his comment had surprised her. What had he truly intended when he had said that she should move into his apartment? A weird platonic relationship and nothing more? It was strange how wounding that suspicion was, she acknowledged. Somewhere in the turmoil of her buzzing thoughts, it seemed, it had proved oddly comforting to be able to believe that Aristide still saw her as desirable even though she was now pregnant and looking less than her best.
Instinct told Aristide to back off but there were other question marks darkening his horizon like storm clouds. He genuinely did not want the mother of his unborn twins to be financially dependent on Tore Renzetti. And yet, that was what would happen if Tabby became reliant on her newly rich sister. But those would be his children, nobody else’s, and Aristide could not abide the concept of anyone else taking care of what was most definitelyhis. He needed to lure Tabby fully across to his side of the fencebeforethose kids were born. And there was only one stratagem likely to lead to that conclusion. Just as Tabby had once condemned a pregnancy entrapment as an old-fashioned trick, Aristide’s solution was an equally dated stratagem.
‘I still want you to move into my apartment. It’s not even as if I’m always there. I travel a lot. I own properties in other places. If you don’t want to live in my apartment, let me buy you a house in your own name to give you and my children basic security,’ he breathed in a raw undertone.
Tabby’s head was banging with the sheer tension they had both unleashed inside the limousine. She lifted both hands in a desperate silencing motion. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree with all of this, Aristide,’ she muttered awkwardly. ‘Please don’t think that I’m not grateful for your willingness to be so generous. But the truth is, I don’t need you right now inanyway! I may be young but I’m not stupid. I’m single and educated and I already have a roof over my head and employment. I appreciated the specialist visit today for the sake of my pregnancy and health. Thank you for organising that for me but anythingmore—’
A hand closed over hers as the limo drew back up outside the bakery. ‘Tabby…you’re not listening to me—’
Tabby snatched her hand free. ‘No, because I don’tneedto listen to you. I don’tneedcontact with you either until the twins are born. And, you know, when you start laying down the law in that so bossy style of yours, I’m freakin’ grateful I don’t have to listen to a word you say!’
‘You’re being unreasonable,’ he snapped back at her.
‘And you’re being impulsive and not thinking facts through,’ Tabby condemned, by now standing on the pavement and looking down into the car to answer him back. ‘We’re nothing to each other, ships that were meant to pass and then wrecked on each other instead,’ she fumbled, conscious they could be overheard now for the first time and lowering her voice.
‘But I wantmore,’ Aristide bit out with wrathful emphasis.
‘Aristide…’ Tabby dealt him a pained appraisal. ‘You’ve got women raining all round you—’
An ebony brow hitched.‘Raining?’
‘It’s a stupid song reference… OK? But it fits your lifestyle,’ she argued. ‘Twinswon’tand neither would I, so don’t try to suck me into some situation that can only become messy. Do us both a favour. Forget my name, my number and my condition and get on with your own freedom-loving life!’
‘Are you trying to say that you won’t even accept mekeepingmy own children?’ Aristide growled as he swung out of the car, once more in attack-force mode, lean bronzed face taut and clenched hard. He infuriated her by following her to the street door of the upstairs apartment and her teeth grated together. She wanted someone to call him off, deal with him for her before she exploded on him with rage. Unfortunately, Aristide Romanos had probably been born refusing to take polite hints.
He was so stubborn and strong-willed that he made her want to tear her hair out and scream. If he didn’t hear what he wanted to hear, he kept on at her. He had no off switch, no concept of personal space or restraint. In every way, Aristide was anathema to her and yet, for some strange reason, she still understood his frustration with her, his inability to realise where she was coming from. She reckoned that he had never met with a brick-wall rejection from a woman before. Without a doubt, he was hugely popular with women. Her online snooping had revealed that as fact. Aristide had itall. The looks, the wealth, the charm…when he sought to use it.
‘Isn’t that my choice?’
‘No, it’s not. Men have legal rights over their children too—’
‘But we’re not married!’ Tabby objected, surprise at his contention flickering through her.
‘We don’t have to be in today’s world.’ Aristide smiled down at her with sudden amusement. ‘You didn’t know that?’
‘How would I know it? I don’t have kids or married friends or even friends who have children. There’s only my sister, who is adopting,’ she conceded uncertainly.
‘I will want shared custody rights,’ Aristide told her almost conversationally.
Tabby swallowed hard on that enervating warning. All of a sudden he was making parenting with him a challenge she had not expected to have to meet and she was blaming herself for not consulting the law beforehand.
‘Pushing me away won’t get rid of me,’ Aristide warned her.
‘Could we talk tomorrow or the next day?’ Tabby’s courage had petered out the longer he talked because he was so poised, so assured of his rights and legal status, while she knew nothing. ‘I have to work both days but my evenings are free.’
‘As you like,’ Aristide conceded, although he was not in the mood to give way on any point she had raised, but he did see that giving both of them a breathing space could be a good idea. ‘Where, the day after tomorrow?’
‘Perhaps we could meet at your apartment?’ Tabby suggested, keen not to entertain him upstairs again. ‘If you give me your address, I’ll meet you there at…?’
‘Eight,’ Aristide decreed.
And that was that. Aristide strode back to his vehicle and she breathed in deep and tried to go on with her working day without dwelling on the shocks that had come her way.
Twins,twobabies instead of one. Her heartbeat quickened and her insides softened as she remembered the little flashing dots and dark shapes onscreen. And the sheer surprise of learning that Aristide Romanos evidently intended to play the committed father. No, she hadn’t expected that, no, she hadn’t expected that ambition at all from a male like him. Naturally, that discovery made her less hostile towards him. Nobody knew better than Tabby what a resentful, angry didn’t-want-to-be-a-father felt like.
A couple of days later, Violet made a brief visit, Tore and her having suffered a temporary falling-out. Tore Renzetti arrived hotfoot in her wake, clutching a magnificent bouquet, and Tabby left them to mend fences in privacy. Her sister had fallen for the guy and, seemingly, he was all in too. That relieved much of Tabby’s guilt on her twin’s behalf. The business marriage that Tabby had dreaded had worked out beautifully, it seemed, for Violet.
That evening, clad in the same dress she had worn to their dinner date, Tabby arrived at Aristide’s apartment. The garment was loose and comfortable and that was sufficient for her at present when every other decent outfit seemed to be getting too tight round the waist or across the bust. For the first time in her life, she had breasts that were large enough to be noticeable.
